Ravellenic Games Wrap-Up

I left you with the fiber I was going to spin up, here it is as the finished yarn:

243.8 yards of light fingering weight 2-ply yarn.

I hadn't really looked closely at the label when I got it and didn't realize she had personalized it. Very cool.

I had a drop spindle class scheduled for the Saturday of Acorn War on August 11th, so I pulled out the polworth I had used in my last drop spindle class. Thought it might be more fun if the fiber was something other than white. Divided it up evenly and then a few times through the microwave and some dyed fiber:

Got to enter it into the hand dyed event for the games too. ;-) I had one official student and Nancy bought one of my spindles and added some teaching techniques from me. She looks very familiar and does weaving as well as spinning, so I may have seen her anywhere locally. Don't you just hate when you know you've met someone, but can't remember?

I've been wanting to make these since I found the pattern, Kunigunde. I used my Crocus Corriedale handspun. I didn't make the wrist pattern as long as the pattern called for, but I think they'll still work nicely when worn with a coat and give flirty floats out the cuff. I'm still waiting on the medal for it, but there was a lot of finishers!

I cast on immediately after for the Round Crown Spanish Boneto hat for Brandon. It's a pattern based on some late 1400 to early 1500 paintings. I was a bit concerned because there wasn't a gauge listed and the only one done was for a 22 inch head. Brandon's is almost 25 inches, so a big difference! I went ahead and went with the pattern and found something that work as a form for drying. I decided to use Brandon's straw hat as a form since it does fit his head. It took two times through the machine to get it felted down to the right size. I'm pretty happy with the results as well as Brandon:

He'll have to decide if he wants any cut outs or decorations to it, but its a good solid base.

So while the hat was felting I still had a few hours before the official end, and couldn't just sit there doing nothing, so I looked for a dish cloth pattern that might fit the bill. I stumbled across the Starfish cloth and then found all these odds and ends of cotton and whipped this out:

Even though I haven't gotten the official medals for all the events, I've pulled all of them together into a collage:

It was fun and I think I found my knitting mojo. I didn't get all the things done that I had hoped to do during the event, but I'm happy with all of the ones that I did:

I'm leaning towards doing a colorwork bag that would become largess. Actually a few bags are calling to me. I do need to make one more hat before the end of the year, but have decided to wait until September to work on it. I'd like to get a few things put together for the Unbelted Artisans demo Labor Day weekend.

Ravellenic Games 2012 thus far, part two

I wanted another easy to knit project, so went with a cowl that is doing double duty as a future Christmas gift for a family member. When I queued the project I thought I would use a pretty yarn, but turns out that I wasn't paying attention to the weight and it wouldn't have worked. So I thought about the intended recipient and realized that the just frogged Foliage yarn would work. So pulled out the needles to get started and quickly had this cowl:

Pattern is Malabrigo Cowl. I didn't use Malabrigo obviously.  The designer showed it with a pin, so I'll have to look for one to include with the gift. Personally, having something around my neck like that and slightly scratchy would drive me buggy. Granted, probably works well with a turtleneck, not so much in 80+ temps. ;-)

I had also entered in the handspun yarn category and decided to use something that I can use as Largess or a prize offering for another event, some indigo dyed Falkland from Pico-Accuardi Dyeworks. I had gotten a couple years ago when Rachel and I did a natural dye workshop they were having. They've since split the dyeworks up. There was a ton of indigo flaking out of the top and on to my hands while spinning it. While the fiber was nice and soft, I just wanted to get this spun up as quickly as possible! I managed to get all four ounces spun up in a single in one day! My hands and knees hurt afterward that's for sure. I plied it up the next day and ended up with just short of 300 yards of lace weight yarn:

I thought I would combine some cabling along with some handspun yarn leftovers and so started a fingerless mitt pattern with my camel. I started out with the suggested needle size but wasn't happy with how it looked or felt, so frogged it and went down a needle size. The instructions had you half way through the cable chart stop knitting in the round and start knitting flat for the thumb hole opening. Well I didn't like that idea, so I thought I would add in a thumb gusset. I forgot to check how many stitches I wanted to grow the gusset so did end up with too many in the end, but figured I could do some decreases and make it work. Of course it didn't work, so I frogged back to that starting point, after I had the mitt finished! This should have been my first clue that this project was doomed. ;-) I tried following the written instructions of knitting it flat and had a finished mitt with the thumb hole.

Pattern: Blue King Cabled Mitts

Not as crisp because of the nature of the handspun yarn. I had spun the camel back when I had my loaner Louet S51 and fought to spin it finally on that wheel. It truly was a battle to get it spun. Put before I jumped in and cast on for the second mitt, I must have had alarms going off in my head, I weighed them both. The mitt weighed in at 18grams and the leftover yarn at 13 grams. Sigh. I could have frogged it all and shortened the wrist portion, but I really didn't think that was going to make up the difference to let me come out with two mitts as planned. I still need to frog the mitt, but it is going to happen.

I had been eyeing the Sheep Heid Hat pattern for awhile and saw that it was a popular knit for the Ravellenic Games, but didn't let that stop me from attempting to make my own. I had set aside some handspun yarn samples and after I got the pattern went through all my handspun yarns finding the right ones.

The pattern called for fingering weight and I had lots of lace weight, so I opted to double them and go from there. I ran out of two yarns, my black alpaca and a merino sample that I spun in the grease. It had come as a sample from a SOAR 2009 bag that Cindy got. I ran out of it on the last two rows of the yowes. ;-) I didn't double the grey Gotland lamb or the camel. That hat came out just lovely! It's incredibly soft, well the yarns are soft so I shouldn't be surprised. The Gotland had come out a bit wiry, but is blooming up a bit and I think if I try to full the inside a bit, might soften it more. Why would I full the inside? Just for that reason, its slightly itchy were the Gotland is and trying to soften get rid of the itch. We were still 90+ yesterday when trying to get pics of the hat. I'm looking forward to wearing this next winter.

So I was missing a cable project and the mitts in my queue weren't inspiring me to knit. Looking for something with quick satisfaction at that point to keep me going and I found a couple of cup cozies that had potential.  Grabbed yarn and needles for both and got started.

Pattern: Hugs and Kisses Mug Cozy

I used a Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Shoreline colorway and hadn't really intended to do the crochet picot edging, but figured it would help me with the closing loop to wrap around the button. So found some bright Cascade 229 Heather Yellow. It does fit around my big coffee cup. I might try felting it a tiny bit, but that's for another day. ;-)  The project is entered for cabling and home work (something that you use in the home like coffee cozies, dishcloths, pillows, etc.). I haven't been called up to the podium for it, but since it was posted in the wee hours of the night last night, I'm not surprised.

Towards the end of knitting this though, I noticed that my right wrist was tingling with discomfort. Hmmmm, those muscles hadn't been used for awhile and thus complaining. Instead of pushing on towards getting my next project started, I thought I would do a kind of rest day. Another spinning day.

I had the perfect thing to spin too. More naturally dyed Falkland, this from My Heart Exposed. I had gotten from a Random Number draw in the 2009 Tour de Fleece. It's colorway is called Plumalicious and is part of her 'Fairy Godmother' line. She sent me 115grams of it.

I ended up spinning it all on Monday. I really didn't intend to spin it all up at once. It was just that lovely to spin! I'm going to ply it up this afternoon and will give it a soak and dry and hope to have new pics of the finished yarn by Wednesday.

So I'm all caught up with my Ravellenic pursuits. I hope to get a few more projects done. Are you doing anything for the games?