sock porn for knitting voyeurs.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

unoriginal hat and new original colorways

Spinning's slowed down quite a bit in the wake of travel and holiday/secret knitting, but since I haven't written for a while it seems there's a lot to catch up on!

I didn't even have a chance to share the roving on etsy friday for this one, so I get to (for once!) share a walkthru of roving to FO :)

I have a tiny crush on orange, and when Krista introduced her "harvest" colorway I couldn't just stop at harvest yarn :) (Her "bitter orange" is my new fav colorway though... I didn't buy that one, I swear!)

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Corriedale by PigeonroofStudios.etsy.com -- "harvest" 3.5oz

As pretty as this is, I had no idea what to make... socks were out since I have no desire to handwash any new knits, probably not quite enough for a scarf (though, you'd be surprised how far 4 oz can go!)... I did have a deep love for the hugeness of Stephanie's new "unoriginal hat," despite my 100% failrate on knitting them for myself, and I attempted to spin a yarn to mimic Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Leticia to break that streak.

Leticia is a handspun yarn, bulky and thick and thin-- 80 yd per 3.5oz. I've never seen it in person and online it looks more thick than thin, so I aimed for a thickish side single that wouldn't be too weird/variable when knit up into cabling. I ended up with about 95 yd for my 3.5oz, so thinner than BMFA's going by the numbers. A very fast spinning project-- completed in one nite!

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In addition to ending up with slightly thinner yarn, I also had no appropriate 7mm needles called for by the pattern so I decided to change the cable up a little bit to account for all of that and my truly oversized head. A simple change-- I increased each cable's "leg" by 1 stitch; so the 4 st right twist cable became a 6 st, and instead of 2 sts for each leg of the other I made three. Odd to describe, easy to see:

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Unoriginal Hat by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Handspun corriedale, dyed by pigeonroofstudios.etsy.com
Started: Dec 2007
Finished: Dec 2007
US 10 (6.0mm) dpns, 5

Like everyone else has said, a fast, fun hat. I was surprised that I used ALL of the yarn... this is a heavy, dense, WARM hat. Awesome for the local weather, and despite being slightly loose (esp. from being worn daily), it doesn't look bad. Maybe a little too ostentatious colorwise on my (giant) head... attracting more attention when I should be toning it down, but it's grown on me. I'm also glad to have made yet another project out of only 4 oz of roving; it makes me look at my fiber stash in a new and less daunted way-- I may be able to work thru it all eventually ;)

Speaking of fiber, I'm going to be listing several types today in my zero.etsy.com store: 80/10/10 superwash merino/cashmere/nylon, 70/30 superwash merino/seacell, and one 100% superwash merino. I dyed some old colorways...

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"Fermina Daza"-- 80/10/10 sw merino-cashmere-nylon

...as well as some new ones...

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"Skin Storm"-- 80/10/10 sw merino-cashmere-nylon

I received an ipod touch over the holidays so of course the first things to be added were the (few) cd's of Morrissey and The Smiths that I held onto (easier to misplace a cd than a record; who knew I'd give up my turntable?!)... so there are a few colorways named for moz b-sides scattered in the update as well :)

I did pair the seacell and the cashmere blends together for a few batches...

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"Mercutio"-- 2 oz of each

...I'm keeping this one to spin as singles and ply together. Can't wait to see how *that* turns out :) I also have several "mixtape" scrap bags to list-- bags of more than 4 oz of one fiber type in several short color runs and in different widths (for a good price!); fun for stripey skeins or blending/carding or whatever your heart calls for.

Enough with the shilling... they'll be listed about 12pm pacstandard later today in my etsy shop! :)

Have fun, be back (etsy) friday!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

holy moley aija! that spun up into the most beautiful hat! And i'm not just saying that cause orange and baby shit yellows and browns are my favorite color combos. :D
It makes me slightly jealous that you can spin fluff and then knit up something to wear. totally jealous.

and LOVE the morrissey titles. I swear someone has to name something hairdresser on fire soon!

errs said...

Great hat! I love how great it looks.

mary said...

Great hat in great colors and great handspun yarn! I just finished my unoriginal hat last night with BMFA Leticia in Fire on the Mountain. I knit it originally on size 10.5s and the hat was too small so I had to frog and reknit. I agree that it's big and warm. I too am of the large dome head family.

adrienne said...

Oh man, I love the Fermina Daza roving! Too bad I missed the update :(
Your hat looks awesome! I totally need a cozy hat for the winter, but can't decide on a pattern.

Brittany said...

LOVE the hat!!! And I can't believe I missed out on all the roving already!

Unknown said...

I love the Fermina Daza colorway!

lexa said...

Love the hat! It's still so neat to me how different the roving looks after its been spun. Sometimes it doesn't even look like the same thing at all. Must be interesting when you're spinning it to see what you'll actually end up with.

Have a nice weekend!

JenniferB said...

Wow, that had is impressive. As are all the blankets in your last post. So productive are you! Congratulations on the great work and happy new year.

Anonymous said...

What a gorgeous hat! I would have no idea that is how it would have turned out the way it looked in the skein! =) Such a lovely choice you made.

Stacey said...

what a great hat!!! i love bulky dense hats!! and orange - you know me and the orange love!

Krista McCurdy said...

dude, the hat looks amazing!

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