There is a strange story connected to this fibre. The day it arrived in the mailbox, my son had a rather bizarre experience with one of his friends. This friend said some very unexpected things. It all worked out well in the end; I discussed with his parents and it was more a case of copying stupidly some mean children rather than being mean himself. It made me nevertheless live some tense moments; so when the package arrived, I just took the fibre, tore it apart and started spinning a big, fat, unorganized single while muttering about incomprehension and strange things. The yarn then got rudely n-plied and skeined away to be used or not. That was therapeutic spinning! The merino’s softness comforted me a lot, and the bright colours eased the dark thoughts.

Luckily this episode did not claim the whole 10 oz, so I can happily work on the rest now. I pulled the different colours apart and will spin them separately. I started with the pink one (that’s what I got the least of). I wanted to try a real 3-ply; so I span the whole fibre, weighed it, and (tried) to get three equal centre pull balls. Somewhere on the road my digital balance lost its balance, and there was quite a lot left over of one ball. So the pink is 3-ply and n-ply…

Will turn to the predrafted blue now!

The resulting 3-ply is a little bit overspun, but this will be set after a good bath, I think. The yarn is not extremely soft, but it passed the neck-test nevertheless.

Then I started to spin the second batch. After drafting, I began at ratio 11, but the single had difficulties to take the fibre in; I had to help a lot. As I had heard of wool having a “sense”, as there are scales, and they open in one direction and close in the other, I finished by spinning from the other end. And, indeed, in went more smoothly.

Family life resumes now, as I have to pick up my daughter from her flute lesson.

As in the beginning, I still like to not let too much theory influence my way of spinning, so I just get the wheel out, try to remember what worked and what went terribly wrong the previous times and start. There is a certain pertinence in making errors and then finding a way to avoid them. When there is such a wide field of possibilities, too much choice can kill the choice…

Today’s fibre is North Ronaldsay. I purchased it from Spunky Eclectic, a source for a variety of fibres. Additionally, I re-subscribed to her fibre club after a hiatus of about two years. I like the broad panel of wool I discovered this way. South African Fine is one of those happing findings.

When opening the ball of North Ronaldsay roving, the fibre seemed somehow flat, without bounce. I got 2 oz and began spinning right away.

To start, I predrafted to become acquainted with my new precious. Then I set my wheel on ratio 8, but very soon changed to ratio 11. Woolen spun, drafted occasionally when the fibre did not take enough in by itself.

Drafting:

One oz spun up:

It is amazing how much space this woolen spun roving takes up. With 1 oz my bobbin is 2/3 full, as for top prepared fibres this nearly equals the volume for 2 oz. The fibre, a natural colour, is slightly crimp, rather soft. Even the long guard hairs do not feel harsh.

The singles will be n-plied, I’d like to make some fingerless mittens from them.

With mittens made from this book.

Furthermore I wove a scarf with the same yarn:

My mother loves to wear matching colours with her husband, so a second Christmas gift was easily found.

The yarn used is Mirasol Nuna, a silk/ wool/ bamboo blend. What a beautiful drape it has! I purchased this yarn some years ago, and never found a pattern I wanted to try with it. But after having used it for these two accessories, I’m so much in love with it, that I ordered more of it in a grey colourway.

The yardage is fabulous (175m for 50g), the knitted fabric is very soft, shiny and drapes like a gentle breeze. It blocks great, there is not much pinning needed. The yarn bleeded a bit while soaking, though.

When being woven, it behaved very differently from pure wool yarn. The sides drew much more in, even still on the weaving frame. Beating is very easy, as the strings don’t stick to each other at all. It held well enough though to be sewn without hem stitching (I took the scarf directly from the weaving frame to the sewing machine).

A pleasure to work with!

It is the first time I used techniques that I learned when taking the “Perfect Sweater” class with Ysolda this summer. It got me a garment that is well fitting in the back, around the shoulders and has the perfect length. So much joy!

When discussing with Ysolda, I told her about my problems with armscythes that are too narrow and what I did until now to prevent this. Well, it seems that lengthening the armhole is not necesserily a good idea; I should rather widen the underarm. Furthermore she told me it could be helpful for me to chose my garment in function of the shoulder measurements, as I have rather broad ones. She said that a good fit at the shoulders really made a sweater keep in shape. That had me thinking about the shoulder type I prefer. And I realised, that raglan shoulders are perfect for me, and that i really don’t like round yokes.

This is Bibi, a very nice design I knit with Noro Matsuri. My shoulders are angular, and a rond yoke makes them poke out, which is not very flattering. Additionally, this results in sleeves which are distorted, again an effect I’m not very keen of.

This, on the other hand, shows those shoulders very nicely off:

There will be much more raglan in the future!

This was a bit challenging at the beginning as I could not make out a pattern. While knitting lace, I look at the stitches on the row below as an orientation, and usually you knit the same pattern in the same stitches. At the beginning, I really could not make out the slightest rhythm. But once the first ten rows knit, it quickly got easier. I’m cruising along now, still quite at the beginning (row 57 of  190). The shawl is going to be beautiful, with leaf-like designs and structuring purl rows. Love it already!

I use Mirasol Nuna, a silk, wool, bamboo blend. It’s so, so soft and a bit shiny, and has a very nice stitch definition.

For the time being, we live with my parents-in-law, waiting for an appartment for them to be arranged, so that we can take their house full of stairs, hard on ageing knees. We chose this option, as it implies changing schools, and my daughter is in “college” now, so I wanted her to already be with those she will be frequenting later.

That means that we compressed our appartment into two rooms and a cellar. That did not lessen the crowded effect, as you can imagine. Some moments are rather difficult… One has to focus on the future in that case!

I have some things to keep me sane:

A new club from FatCatKnits, Mixed Fibre Blessings:

September BFL

Once spun, it became this beauty:

For skeins 2-ply, one with both plies from the blue roving, two skeins with one ply from the green and one from the blue roving, and one skein with two green plies. One of these plies was finished with a bit of dark teal merino roving, as I wanted to finish the other bobbin completely.

I started to knit at once:

Nomnomnom.