sweetgeorgia

The man they call Jayne…

Here’s the finished Jayne hat!

I used 10.5 US (6.5 mm) needles for the hat and definitely got 3 sts per in for gauge. I loosely followed one of the Firefly hat patterns and cast on 64 stitches. It’s a BIG hat with a circumference of about 21-22″ around. I think this is too big and if I was really really OCD, I might actually rip the hat and re-knit it at 56 or 60 stitches. But I won’t. I also thought about felting it just slightly or trying to block it a teeny bit smaller, but I’m still unsure about that action. I don’t want it to end up being a thick felted fabric. Ugh.

This hat was super fast to knit — I had already cast on before we sat down for the Firefly marathon, but I think I finished it around the fifth episode.

__Kaylee:__ _I think it’s the sweetest hat ever._

Wild and Wooly

…that is, spinning “fat and hairy”… The yarn for the Jayne hat is spun up!

Usually when I spin, everything feels so _precious_. The need to make everything smooth, fine, even and _perfect_ is overwhelming. So everything about spinning woolen yarns — unsupported long draw, fibres that are _perpendicular_ — it’s the exact opposite of my nature. But spinning for this Jayne hat, I just relaxed and spun thicker singles, ignoring the slubs if they happened. It was cathartic.

The orange yarn was made by carding bits of yellow and red together and I think it worked quite nicely. Nothing is perfectly even either in colour or grist. It’s all so very rustic… I plied these using the homely centre-pull ball method and set it in hot water with some lavendar-scented Eucalan. The skeins bloomed beautifully into chunky, wooly and _ta da,_ perfectly balanced yarns.

And of course, I did some dyeing and spinning this weekend, so the [Sweet Shop](http://sweetgeorgia.etsy.com) is updated! There are handpainted sock yarns (including some in that blue/gold colourway) and also some handspun yarns. [Take a look »](http://sweetgeorgia.etsy.com)

Not quite ready for their closeups

The Manly Sweater (after a year of working on it, off and on) is done! But it’s still drying. I am gifting it to the DH for our anniversary, but again, _it’s still drying_. It was easy to knit, but I think the armholes are too small…

Look what else is drying… dyed Soy Silk! This stuff is weird. It looks like silk and acts like silk, but is kind of “crunchy” like cotton. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will spin!

And here’s more fibre that’s drying…

That’s Border Leicester roving that I bought in Salt Spring this summer. It’s soft, but not _soft like merino!_ soft. So I’m making…

… a Jayne Cobb hat! If you’ve seen Joss Whedon’s Firefly, you’ll know this is the hat that Jayne receives in the mail, handknit by his mom. I’m going to card (blending the red and yellow to make orange!) and spin up the yarn this weekend and knit it up next weekend when my friends and I get together for a Firefly marathon. All this is prep for the Serenity movie that comes out on September 30. If you want to make one too, this lovely gal has [written a pattern for it here...](http://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/jayne_cobb_hat/index.html)