Trying for a thicker AND looser spin...

The other day at the Fiber Festival, Jenny and I took a break and we were sitting on the lawn, whereupon I was looking in my bag of brought fiber to try spindles with, and discovered I had stuck my trial spin of that fiber in the bag. I showed it to her, and she said she's getting to where she can recognize my spins. She thinks they're unique, but couldn't explain why. Well, that's generally a compliment and I know she meant it as such, but I've been noticing that my spins tend to be TIGHT. The end result makes for a highly compressed yarn which has some disadvantages.

So with this top I wanted to try for a thicker yarn AND one with less spin. I've only been at it since the end of December, but habits die hard! It's still more overspun than I was after. I'm also finding that thick yarn is harder to spin in that invariable variations in the drafting (thickness) really show up! And they're fifty times more noticeable.

Here's what I've wound up with, at least so far. While it's good to wait until the whole top is spun to ply it, I just can't stand not knowing how it's coming out until it's all spun. I also tried a looser ply.

THE FIRST PHOTOS LIE: The yarn looks ever so perfectly consistent in terms of thickness. NOT!

No flash


With flash


This photo isn't in great focus but it shows what I mean by variations in thickness showing up so much more with a thicker yarn. Actually, you kind of really have to look close to see what I mean, the photo makes them look way more consistent than they are. Some of this is heavy worsted WPI, some is fingering or close to it.

2nd pair of FGs - done!

I finally finished the 2nd glove. Damn. This one wasn't a breeze, lol.
There's a mistake in it not far from the cuff where I got off track and did some purls where I should have done knits. There was a hole where you pick up stitches because I only picked up 4, not 5-6 (not unusual to happen). I actually fixed it a whole lot easier than I thought I'd be able to. Another mistake where a purl row was wide enough to where I knew there was something wrong with it, and what looked like a slipped stitch but wasn't, but had a loose place. I have no idea what that was about. But I got all those repaired and secured really nicely though, with no weird tightness in odd places or whatever, and weaved in all the ends (a LOT of those). Plus, along the way, in addition to all that, I had to re-do the thumb start a couple of times, and that ended up pretty perfect. And last but not least, I had bound off one row too soon, because it's never going to be perfectly the same, but it was JUST enough shorter at the fingers so it bugged me. I'd have rather had it one row longer, but not shorter. So I did undo the bind-off, and all I can say is, if you're going to use the Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bind-off, be sure. It was a total bitch to get that undone. It's a great bind-off, but each stitch is actually sewn through twice, once in each direction by the time all's said and done. And the way it's done, those stitches don't show (a good thing) which is NOT a good thing if you're trying to single them out for undoing, one at a time, because they don't show. They're freaking hard to see. But that is a GREAT bind-off!



I'm really happy with these gloves. I think the yarn itself is pretty wonky (unspun parts and also a few knots here and there which TOTALLY pisses me off on a commercial yarn), some thin spots, some thick spots, and with color changes that are sooooo long in the coming that you really do need two skeins to have two matching gloves, because each color doesn't repeat within the same skein. But all that aside, they are going to be nice and warm. I don't think my homespun ones will that much, not as much as these anyway. And they have great bounce-back which is important on something you're going to be stretching but want to fit snug. So I'm happy with them.

It dawns on me that I haven't given hand knit things as gifts yet, I'm too new at it so I'm still learning a lot of stuff, and still in the stage where there are things I want (like another hat or two, another cowl or two) BECAUSE I'm that new at it. But there will come a point where I'm going to want to give some things as gifts, and FGs are just great things.

So anyway, that's my 2nd pair of Fingerless Gloves. The pattern is Maine Morning Mitts (same as the homespun ones). And I FINALLY FIGURED OUT THAT FREAKING PICK UP STITCHES TRICK. GAWD!!! The trick is, you have to pick them up in the opposite direction from what's intuitive AND turn the work opposite what's intuitive. There may be another way (in fact I know there is) but there's just something that I can't figure out about that way.