December Crafting Update and January Goals
Jan. 1st, 2024 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeI'm not doing a year end review but if you're interested in what I worked on in the past year, this tag has all my monthly posts
December goals
Essential Fiber Corriedale cross, 4 ounce braid that I spun as singles, then chain plyed to preserve color. It's such good purples.
Frabjous Fibers, Blue faced Leicester, 4 ounce braid. I think this is a grey roving over dyed with colors to make these beautiful deep but muted shades of green and purple. But maybe not. Chain plyed. Both braids spun and chain plyed on my eel wheel 6. I would spin on the couch with the foot rest up and the wheel on the footrest and I would alternate between spinning and solo video games until everyone else woke up. It was lovely. I realized it probably would be fine to spin in my bed, so that's what I've started doing as long as I'm using pretty clean combed top.
Mittens! I used Tin Can Knits, World's Simplest Mittens pattern for all three and modified the fingerless ones. Two pairs for my sister, one fingerless, one full mitten. These two were knitted from reinforced merino that I spun up in November. Don't ask why the color is so bad in the one photo.
Then I knitted a pair for my sister-not-yet-in-law using the same pattern but different yarn. This was a 70% mohair, 30% corriedale wool yarn that my mom gave me for Christmas last year. It was sport weight, so I held it double to get any sort of thick yarn out of it, because I knit so slowly that I needed it to be thicker to get these done. I used the DK size for this, but made mods to the thumb gusset increases because they would get too big. I don't know how that worked but sure. Bad color but I forgot to take a photo in good lighting before I wrapped them. The color pooling was interesting because the yarns were in the same dye batch and had color repeats in the same places but were just slightly off sometimes. The mittens look very cool.
Weaving project came off the loom and I hemstitched it and since it was superwash wool, tossed it in the washer on delicate. It worked great! I'm super happy with how this came out and I'll either keep it as cloth yardage for making something or give it away as a wrap. I didn't do the tassels before washing so they're all poofy and weird but oh well. This is handspun, a pound that I spun and chain plyed to preserve color repeats. I used it as warp and weft and the color repeats formed the almost plaid look it has. Originally I was thinking blanket but probably not using it for that. The color is just a tad bit more purple than in this photo.
Jacket! The pattern is Wildwood from Helen's Closet and this is the muslin. womp womp. It was so hard but I'm very pleased with how it turned out and the new things I learned from making it. It took a ton of fabric since it was quilted and needed an inner and outer fabric. I don't know if I'll make this exact thing again, but I want to make the vest version with my handspun since I think I'll wear that a bunch. Technically I need to put buttons on this but eh, that'll happen eventually and I can wear it without them. Sewing! New and wild things to try.
January goals
December goals
- spin alpaca, skein, wash and label yarns - spun alpaca, getting close to the end, I did skein, wash and label the yarns I had sitting around. I also spun the other 6 oz of merino just as plain singles (no picture), and then spun 8 ounces of dyed braids in like, six days over christmas which is bonkers fast and then chain plyed them in the last two days. Also finished a spindle spinning project, will update in January when I ply
- knit mittens for gift - my god I've never knit do fast in my life although it helps to have thick yarn or to hold the yarn doubled. three pairs of mittens knitted, two out of the reinforced merino, one pair full, one pair fingerless and one pair out of yarn held double
- crochet mittens - nope
- tablet weave gift - nope
- finish weaving current project and maybe warp on new project - finished weaving it fast and finished it! warping on new project didn't happen since it was a 7 yard warp and my warping board only fit 4.5 yards. I made new sections for the board to be longer
- mohair garment in a year - currently combing fleece - did a lot of combing in December
- 100 days of spindle spinning - starting Dec 1st, based on instagram - this is going great! I finished one spindle stick and am halfway on a second, only missed one day
- work on quilted jacket - done!
- wash a fleece? - lol no
Essential Fiber Corriedale cross, 4 ounce braid that I spun as singles, then chain plyed to preserve color. It's such good purples.
Frabjous Fibers, Blue faced Leicester, 4 ounce braid. I think this is a grey roving over dyed with colors to make these beautiful deep but muted shades of green and purple. But maybe not. Chain plyed. Both braids spun and chain plyed on my eel wheel 6. I would spin on the couch with the foot rest up and the wheel on the footrest and I would alternate between spinning and solo video games until everyone else woke up. It was lovely. I realized it probably would be fine to spin in my bed, so that's what I've started doing as long as I'm using pretty clean combed top.
Mittens! I used Tin Can Knits, World's Simplest Mittens pattern for all three and modified the fingerless ones. Two pairs for my sister, one fingerless, one full mitten. These two were knitted from reinforced merino that I spun up in November. Don't ask why the color is so bad in the one photo.
Then I knitted a pair for my sister-not-yet-in-law using the same pattern but different yarn. This was a 70% mohair, 30% corriedale wool yarn that my mom gave me for Christmas last year. It was sport weight, so I held it double to get any sort of thick yarn out of it, because I knit so slowly that I needed it to be thicker to get these done. I used the DK size for this, but made mods to the thumb gusset increases because they would get too big. I don't know how that worked but sure. Bad color but I forgot to take a photo in good lighting before I wrapped them. The color pooling was interesting because the yarns were in the same dye batch and had color repeats in the same places but were just slightly off sometimes. The mittens look very cool.
Weaving project came off the loom and I hemstitched it and since it was superwash wool, tossed it in the washer on delicate. It worked great! I'm super happy with how this came out and I'll either keep it as cloth yardage for making something or give it away as a wrap. I didn't do the tassels before washing so they're all poofy and weird but oh well. This is handspun, a pound that I spun and chain plyed to preserve color repeats. I used it as warp and weft and the color repeats formed the almost plaid look it has. Originally I was thinking blanket but probably not using it for that. The color is just a tad bit more purple than in this photo.
Jacket! The pattern is Wildwood from Helen's Closet and this is the muslin. womp womp. It was so hard but I'm very pleased with how it turned out and the new things I learned from making it. It took a ton of fabric since it was quilted and needed an inner and outer fabric. I don't know if I'll make this exact thing again, but I want to make the vest version with my handspun since I think I'll wear that a bunch. Technically I need to put buttons on this but eh, that'll happen eventually and I can wear it without them. Sewing! New and wild things to try.
January goals
- finish alpaca, skein, wash and label new yarns, ply Masham on spindles
- finish combing mohair fleece (stretch goal but might happen)
- crochet mittens
- get weaving project on the loom
- work on tablet weaving project
- continue 100 days of spindle spinning
- wash a fleece?
- buy more fabric for muslins and find another project to start
