Sunday, September 02, 2012

Sunday, September

September, when did that happen, it was only a a few days ago that August was beginning, and now we are in September. Today there isn't much to show, a new spinning project, and a mending project. There has been knitting, a few rounds knit and frogged on my pi shawl. The frogging was the price I paid for leaving it un-attended and then forgetting if the row I marked on the chart was the one I had just done, or the one I was to start with.

Plied singles
Here is the spinning, plied singles from a sock blend, pencil roving in Forest Mist by Vintage Purls. 75% super wash merino and 25% nylon. I spun the singles as fine as I could and with this pencil roving that feels very fine indeed.

Singles
Here is the centre pull ball of singles, I am plying two ply, one end from the centre and one from the outside. So far I spent all of last night plying, and only managed half the singles. Tonight I finally finished the second half. There are two reasons the plying took so long, first I will then ply this again on to itself, to make a four ply cabled yarn, and second - which I hope to be true, that I spun the singles fine enough that I might even approach something like a four ply sock yarn. That was one of my goals when I took up spinning, to spin sock weight yearn. Maybe I might be close with this fibre?

Mending
And mending, these socks, probably knit way back in 2008, and worn a lot since. Oddly the cuff has died, and the toes and socks are looking thick and intact, and just one cuff has died. I can't remember the yarn, either Regia or opal, I suspect Regia, but it has worn well. I do remember taking considerable time to get just the right gauge and stitch count so the printed yarn would work up into the pattern. As for the mend, seems the socks are toe up, with a fairly standard chain cast off at the cuff. My plan is to frog the cast off back past the wear and tear, find a suitable scrap of sock yarn, pick up the stitches and rework the cuff and cast off. The scraps from this sock are long gone, used up in my fish blanket.

So Sunday night there, time to go and knit .... or rather frog then knit the top of the socks. I thought mending was supposed to be a chore, but I am looking forward to seeing how the mend goes.

Na Stella

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