Socks, loom and electric wheel

Well my socks went forward and then back again. I made this whole pair in the wrong gauge. I knew it was wrong but persisted. And I screwed up the tops. Oh, and the color - I got it for Steelers colors but there was green. It was too much.


Now, it is ripped and overdyed with some old koolaid I wanted to clear out of my dye cabinet. Nice and mottled, as I hoped. I like them now and am ready to reknit.

Lornas's laces Bee Stripe before and after.



I still have the same damn project on the loom, but I am not hating it yet. I made a huge miscalculation when I put on the warp. I used a different method of winding an screwed up so the warp was 4 times longer than I wanted. You think I would have noticed, right? But I was so thrilled to get the (new to me) loom setup that I just slapped that puppy on. So I am weaving and weaving and weaving. It will be very long and narrow.


Lastly, since someone asked me about it, I thought I might show one of my home made electric wheels. I have it set in bobbin winder mode right now, but I can just pop out the stick and pop in the flier. I have a folded loom behind it, and a yarn counter on the table in this rather poor photo, but you can get the gist. I built it on a really thick and heavy spiral staircase step of solid oak that a woodworker in my old neighborhood was discarding. My luck to find it as the solidity helps stability. Anyway, it has always worked so well that I never really prettied it up. It has been used very often since about 1993, I think. It lives in the corner next to my loom and I can change it for plying or spinning pretty fast, but I built another electric wheel for plying exclusively and so this is now one of my winders. Foot pedal. Reverse by twisting the drive band (on a drawer pull). In line with both swift, ball winder and cone holder.

Birthday knitting and dye question

This year I am giving myself a birthday gift. A Pie Are Square shawl from Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann. And since I am Always Cold, I am doing it in Moss Heather Alpaca Cloud from Knitpicks. And for that extra luxury and warmth, I am double stranding it. Even though my birthday is only weeks away, I will be knitting it for a long time and in my favorite color. Just the joy of that soft yarn running through my hands for some time to come is a great gift indeed. I feel so spoiled.

In addition, since there are always multiple projects going on here, we have some Steeler socks for a little extra support for the Black and Gold. I am woefully low in Steeler footwear, but alas, these are for fiberguy. Two mosaics with some strange bits between in a handspun sockweight superwash Merino from the Black Lamb. Very thick. My own Steeler socks come next and I am spinning the gold right now.

My current socks are green and just noodling around with a travelling rib. We dyed this last spring.

And last, for all you dyers out there, a conundrum. I have this color, which I don’t like.

It is DK weight, cabled wool yarn. I would love to hear from anyone, or everyone, about how to overdye this. I mean, what color to use. I know I can go navy, or black. But any other colors you suggest could really help me. I have a couple of pounds of it for a sweater and I just don’t think I can live through the experience in a color I hate, even with a yarn I love. I favor greens but this has a serious teal going on. Anyone ever overdye this color before? As it is winter and I dye outside, I really don’t want to be out there freezing doing dye sampling, so I am trying to save some steps and ask for help. For once.

Seasonal knitting

Is it the season or the deadlines that cause us such a frenzy right now? I bypassed knitting pandemonium this year for health issues yet I am still knitting at breakneck speed, for me at least. This made me ponder about prior years. I tend to take up the needles in a big way each October. I turn out more finished objects during this period than any other, finishing UFOs collected all year long. Not knitting for the holidays has really made me productive.



In reading my old records, I realize, on average, that I can turn out a worsted or sport sweater in the same amount of time as a complex pair of fine socks. That startled me. Shawls equal ½ to 1 sock. Yet, I always have at least 5 pairs running at a time. I think I need to move onto something other than socks. As nice a package as they are for doctor’s offices or other long waits, I could be doing something more. I only own one pair of store bought socks. Fiberguy isn’t much different. He keeps finding socks that were hidden in a corner of the drawer that he hasn’t seen for quite a while.



Yet, we are still obsessed by them. We dye the yarn and ponder over patterns.

When I finally do other patterns, I am always startled by how fast it can go. I must have read and admired the pattern a hundred times for Flower Basket Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark from Fall 2004 of Interweave Knits. Yet, it took three evenings to knit it and I am slooow. That means that I should just cast on when I see one I like. What is the worst that can happen? I often use handspun, so yarn cost is not always a factor. I actually spent more time looking at that darn pattern than knitting it. The lesson? Cast on early and often.

Got dye?

I hate color.


Especially sock yarn.


It was a day of dyeing using other than my normal methods. First the finicky self patterning yarn. I found a yarn I liked and attached it to my warping board, wound off way too much yarn and set it up. Most people would be a bit more fussy at this stage, but I loosely piled, applied, squished and wrapped. Then steamed. I have not wound it off yet. Dye ended up almost perfectly aligned with my markers - isn't it amazing with my loose technique?


And I tried something I really don't recommend in any way from an old dye book. This was to sprinkle dye powder on wet fleece and massage it in. This is dangerous and I was fully protected. The results were pretty splendid though.

Year end tally

I live with a man who understands fiber. He weaves, dyes and actually spun a few times. He learned to crochet from his French Grandmother at a very young age. The day he learned to weave, I knew that 1/2 my stash was his. Kinda like the division that occurs during a divorce without the pain of separation. So between us, we have a LOT of UFO's around the house.

But I don't know if I could list them or even count them. Can you? It would take me hours of valuable knitting time alone to mention those in the living room, let alone the loom room (major fiber storage area) or machine knitting room (formerly painting studio).

I see a lot of people count their ufo's and I think "Pikers". These people don't know what it is like to be swayed by that pure angora, then called by my handgrown colored cotton or my best friend's Rambouillet. I don't think I want to be numbered among the counters who tally for the new year.

Ok, I am fickle. I LOVE fiber - all fiber. I am a fiber slut of the greatest magnitude and I am not ashamed. I spin without a project in mind most often. I swatch for the pleasure of the alpaca running through my fingers and not necessarily for a project. I knit for others, but also for myself and 95% of my socks are handknit. Only 10% use commercial sock yarn and most use handspun at some outrageous gauge. Fiber that leave this house in a project is rarely the color that it came into the house. I don't care if my dye spots. God, I am all that you all don't like about fiber people, right?

The thing is, I don't see why counting all those UFO's matter. I don't see why I can't knit with 8 strands of cashmere yarn or one ply of merino. So many people have fiber rules, and I guess that there are reasons for them. I just don't seem to care. I don't mind pills if I can get loft. For years, silk neps were BAD BAD BAD. Dye them and toss them in with some wool and you have a lovely tweedy yarn. Last year bad, this year good.

I think this all comes from the fact that I haven't stepped foot in a mall for over 5 years and even then it was only to get my driver's license renewed. I don't have a clue about fashion. As a geologist, I was taught to examine life in Geologic Time and fashion doesn't mean anything if you are looking at 10,000 or 10,000,000 years. I am here for the pure sensual pleasure of fiber passing under my fingers and don't mind who knows it.

So if I don't have a roll call for projects finished this year, or last, it is because I am so fickle. But also because I treasure them all so much. My husband's vest is done after 5 years. It was his music vest. 'Here you can see where we were at the John Prine concert'; 'Here is Bob Dylan'; 'This section is where we saw Reeltime Travelers for the first time - I must have liked them a lot - look how my gauge changed'. His music sweater was not due to be done for at least 5 years of concerts and all that great music is in there. It is harder than you think to save a lovely project that long and only for music. To finish it was so sad. I really love my knitting projects and how they fit into and capture our lives. I love to hear the big guy say 'This sock was made from the first Indigo dye class that I had with Judith MacKenzie McCuin", or "I dyed this with a plant that Rita Buchanan pointed out to me". The joy that I learned some technique in a class with Stephenie Gaustad or Alden Amos means so much more than any label from any designer out there today.

I give up a nice neat house for a lovely pile of fiber near me. I relinquish my hopes for order in order to wallow in interesting fiber. If you ever visit - good luck on finding chairs without needles protruding or tables without a spindle. I forever give up all chance to count my ufo's and give to to the fun of fiber.

My new year's wish to you is to do the same.

Eco Cabled Socks

I just finished up a pair of cabled socks loosely modeled on Handknit Holidays' Log Cabin Socks by Anne Woodbury. I added an extra repeat of the cable to the top to make them longer. I used a strange yarn combo for these: Ecological wool in gray and on the foot section only I added white wooly nylon. While I intend to dye these a dark burgundy in the end, I wanted to see if the wooly nylon would take up dye differently than the rest of the yarn. I tossed them into a leftover dyebath that didn't exhaust fully and they picked up color beautifully. I can't see the wooly nylon at all.

The strange thing is that the Eco wool suggested a 10.5 needle and I used #4 double pointed for these. I do knit a little loosely, so a #5 would work for most people. I just love this wool. I thought it might blow up a bit in the washing, but the cables are firm and not a bit floppy. Actually, this makes such a splendid sock yarn that I think I will knit several other pairs in different designs using this yarn. Big skeins and cheap - my favorite combo.