sweetgeorgia

So handspun it hurts

Use your handspun. It’s the only way you can determine if your spinning is any good. I read that somewhere and it’s stuck in the back of my mind all the time now.

Last May, I bought 1/2 lb of [Ashland Bay merino roving](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2005/05/roving_roving_roving/) from Penelope Fibre. It sat in the stash for a few weeks because I was intimidated by it and worried that I might ruin it. I sucked up the courage to start [spinning it laceweight](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2005/06/new_projects/). Finally, in January, I finished all the spinning and started knitting the [Lotus Blossom Shawl](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/01/light_at_the_end_of_the_tunnel/).

This is my real first, large-scale handspun and handknit project… and here it is off the needles:

####Lotus Blossom Shawl
* Pattern: from [Fiddlesticks Knitting](http://www.fiddlesticksknitting.com/LotusLarge.html), designed by Dorothy Siemens
* Yarn: Handspun Laceweight Merino (I have about half of my spinning leftover! So I must have used about 100 g)
* Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm Addi Turbos
* Changes: I used a smaller needle size just because I didn’t have any other needles handy, so I had to knit chart 2 twice to give the shawl extra length
* Finished Measurements: 70″ x 35″ (definitely smaller than the pattern specs, just slightly bigger than my blocking board).

What are things that people always say about spinning laceweight… the singles need lots of twist to hold the finer diameter, take _all_ the tension off so that you can get lots of twist in, blah blah blah. This handspun is irregular in grist because I spun it over such a long period of time, was still getting a hang of spinning fine and also because I switched wheels part way through! But in some places, I think the yarn had so much twist that it became wirey and dense. If I were to do it again, I would spin it all a little softer.

This leads me to sampling. What a good idea. It’s like knitting a gauge swatch (which we _always_ do, right?!). How does the fabric feel knit at that tension with those needles. How about going up a needle size, going down a size? Is the fabric too dense? Too drapey? When your knitting with commercial yarns, the yarn itself is taken out of the equation — it’s your job to just pick the most appropriate needle size for that yarn (ok, I’m oversimplifying). But when you are _making_ the yarn, you need to look at how _your_ yarn works up as fabric and if it is appropriate — will it be hardwearing? Will it pill or fuzz? All those variables are under your control now. So, spin a little bit, knit a little bit. See if you like it.

That’s what I’ve done with this new project:

There’s about 2 oz of Cashmere/Silk 50/50 top that I bought from Deep Color Studio this past November… Again, nervous about spinning it up and ruining it. So I tore off a little piece and spun it up laceweight using my new highspeed bobbins and whorl (I’m using 19.5:1 for spinning singles “from the fold” and 17.5:1 for plying). I washed the yarn and have started knitting it up in Evelyn Clark’s “Trellis Scarf” pattern from the Spring IK magazine. I figured if I liked it, I could keep going. If I didn’t like it, I could just go back and modify how I’m spinning it. As it turns out, I like it.

Japanese Merino

After finishing spinning all the hand-dyed polwarth, I decided to practice spinning thin singles with the merino I bought in Japan. I have to remind myself that this merino roving was picked up in the “felting” section of the craft store and that really, it’s meant for felting projects — maybe that’s why it feels so weird.

Observation No. 1: The end of the fibre was CUT. All the fibre I’ve seen so far has been natural looking with organic, torn ends. This was weird. It was hard to start spinning this since it was such a blunt end.

Observation No. 2: It’s so slippery. I lost my spinning a few times at the very beginning because the fibres were so slippery! But this could be because it’s merino. Merino has a shorter staple than the stuff I’ve been working with (Polwarth, Corriedale) so maybe that’s all.

Observation No. 3: It’s so soft and smooth… it feels like plastic. I know things in Japan are perfectly manufactured, packaged and merchandised… but this feels like it’s been so processed that it’s no longer a natural, organic product.

It’s pretty like gingham when it’s spun up and I think I’ll be making socks with these — merino socks to be lightly worn, and never on hardwood floors!