In the Groove

I’ve finally got back into my crafting groove!

After the honeymoon, I started a new baby sweater (I linked it in a recent post). I’m part way through my second one now, only the sleeves and button bands to go.



Pattern: Garter Yoke Baby Cardi by Jennifer Hoel
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Ecobaby Fairtrade (2 balls of 14005 – sea blue)
Needles: 3.5mm
Modifications: None!
Verdict: I like this little baby cardi. It’s a quick enough knit and is suitable for either sex of baby. I would consider knitting on the button band as it’s worked for future cardis, but for the first two I’ve done it as written.



Since then I have also been working on my honeymoon shawl. I’m pretty pleased with how that has turned out too.



Pattern: Elise Shawl by Evan Plevinski
Yarn: Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball (1 ball of cranberry)
Hook: 6mm
Modifications: Instead of the 11 repeats suggested I did 16 repeats of the two pattern rows. I also used a larger hook (5.5mm was recommended). Finally, at the point instead of a picot to make the point have a twin point rather than the single point
Verdict: I really enjoyed working on this; in fact it’s really won me over to crochet! I’ve done small things in the past (bags and slippers) but this is so pretty and was so simple. It also had the benefit of being good aeroplane work, as it’s not permitted to take knitting needles on flights out of the UK.






I’ve also been doing a spot of spinning. This was fluffy BFL fibre that I picked up from Grace and Jacob a short while ago.



I was totally drawn to the colours, so vibrant and pretty. I wasn’t sure about such discrete stripes, so I decided to go for another attempt at fractal spinning.



There were some patches where the dye hadn’t penetrated the whole way through the fibre, which gave me some interesting pale patches. At first I was cross about this, but now that its spun I quite like the effect!

Here’s the yarn now that it’s finished. It was spun, plied, washed, whacked, spun in the washer and then hung in my garage.



Fiber: Grace and Jacob BFL Superwash
Colourway: Summer Pudding
Spun using: Ashford Traveller, highest ratio
Spin direction: Z (wheel turning anticlockwise, spin to the left)
Plying type/direction: 2ply, S (wheel turning clockwise, spin to the right)
Yarn Stats: ~100g / 426yds (wpi tbc, approx. laceweight)
Verdict: This was quite fun to spin, and when I got into the swing of things it took very little time (almost all of it was spun in one weekend!). I wasn’t sure about the pale patches until it was plied and they actually look quite nice, though we’ll see how it knits up. It was quite easy to spin too, the BFL is nice and grippy.

So, lots done.
It's woolfest on Friday/Saturday, so I'm going to Cumbria! Woo! I'm taking the second baby cardi, the sweater-that-didn't-make-it-on-honeymoon and maybe my socks, so I'll have choice of what to knit!
Anyway, my husband wants his tea, so I'll be off for now.