DesigKnit

When work is endless (and isn’t it always?), it is nice to occasionally have some finishes on the crafting front to make up for it. This weekend, I unexpectedly had quite a few of them. I’ve had a couple of larger projects tottering slowly along in the background, and suddenly got to that point where a small push would send them racing to the finish line.

I wove about 16″ of plain weave fabric, and sewed up my new phone purse.

I wish the strap were just a couple of inches longer, but otherwise this came out just about perfect. I have plans for several more of these in the future, mostly to play with other designs, but also to coordinate with different outfits.

I spent a couple of hours grafting and knitting an inch of ribbing, and now Branden’s sweater is a few rows (and a good blocking/end weaving) from done:

These always drag on forever in the sleeves, and then somehow I’m shocked when it’s suddenly the end. I do believe I like the stripes after all.

Fortunately, I have something else to keep me busy, now that that’s finished. The embroidered shetland sweater is still moving along nicely:

It’s still small enough to be train knitting, so it’s still getting somewhere. The nice thing about knitting in a fine gauge is that it will stay small enough to be train knitting just that much longer, too.

I pulled out the drum carder the other day, fully intending to card up some more of the brown wool that I bought at Rhinebeck last year, in preparation for whatever project comes out of the garter stitch swatch that I am still pondering over. Somewhere between the carder and the wool I got distracted, though, and ended up carding up some of this instead:

I make no defense of my attention span at the moment. I’m lucky if I can hold a thought long enough to put a sentence together, so don’t have much resistance to the “ooh, shiny” syndrome. The fiber is the dyed top that I bought as seconds from Briar Rose Fibers at Rhinebeck. Most of them were pretty sticky for spinning (hence the seconds), but the fibers themselves weren’t felted together. Nothing that a little carding wouldn’t cure.

And cure it did. I split the fibers up according to color, and then carded like colors into groups. I had 5 batts (about 3.5 oz each) in no time flat, all beautifully fluffy and ready for spinning.

The first batt is already on its way to becoming yarn.

I have no idea what this will become in the end, but I needed a little color after working with the natural yarns, and this is a nice break. I’m spinning it fine, so there should be plenty of yardage to go around in the end.

And, now that that short burst of progress is done, I will retire quietly back into my endless stockinette knitting (with audiobooks), and hopefully there will be something else interesting to show soon. It does feel good to finish something once in a while, though!