Fun Lion sweater

This lion sweater was fun to make. I knitted Perendale wool 4 ply wool, 2 strands together that I had dyed a deep blue and a yellow gold. For the mane I used handspun superwash Polwarth. The tail and face were embroidered after the knitting. I used a photo of a lion sweater in Ravelry to draw the design.

Felted skirt

 I thought a wrap around skirt would enable me to pick up the triangle motif from the top. I made a paper pattern and enlarged it by a third so I could lay out the merino fibre. I prefelted it slightly, dried it, and cut out the areas for the triangles of colour. I carefully positioned the triangles which had been prefelted by hand, no water. On the inside I put fibre across the "seams" to hold the triangles in place.








More prefelting followed. This time I rolled the skirt thoroughly. Once dry I used leftover yarn from the jumper to hand stitch a running stitch in the triangles.

Finally I fulled the skirt until it reached the size I wanted. I also rolled a long cord to thread through the waist which I had strengthened with 5 rows of machine stitching. It looked fine to me on my dressmaker's dummy.









My work was accepted for the exhibition. Unfortunately I couldn't go but a friend took some photos. The skirt was exhibited back to front and those sleeves on the jumper looked too big and flappy. I realised I hadn't actually tried on the jumper. When I got it back I unpicked the sleeves and with the help of Tasha of bygumbygolly.com I knitted seamless set-in sleeves using wonderful short rows. Thank you Tasha. As soon as I get the second sleeve done I'll add a photo.

Short row top with 16+ colours

My design involved a panel front and back knitted using short rows. I used steps of 7 stitches in a 42 stitch row and alternated 2 balls of wool. One ball starting a triangle beginning on the right, the second a triangle on the left. I discovered that it took about 3g to make a triangle. I was pleased the way the colours merged as I knitted from one colour to another in the ball. I made the back panel longer than the front one and curved the neckline.

The next step was to pick up stitches along the edge of the front panel, cast on some for the neck, then pick up stitches along the edge of the back panel (206 sts). I knitted in garter stitch until the work measured 21 cm. I left the armhole stitches on a needle and to shape the bottom of the armhole decreased 1 st every right side row until 64 stitches remained. A 3 needle bindoff joined the sides together. I was determined this would be a no seams garment.

For the sleeves I worked out a garter and stocking stitch relief pattern that was similar to the triangle shapes on the panels.

By now I had decided to enter the top in the Creative Fibres Experience show in Hamilton. What it needed was a skirt to complement it.

Knitted scarf from samples

Sitting at my wheel surrounded by my favourite spinning books I taught myself to spin these yarns. It was a case of read one, have a go, reread, have another go and read the other and so on. The books were Spin Art by Jacey Boggs and The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson.

I knitted the samples into a short scarf which has become much longer with wearing and tugging.

Bullions

Stacks

Beehives

Bullion loops

  

Lacy curtain from waste yarn

If you've ever wondered what to do with scraps of handspun yarn here's one solution. This technique was taught by Tracey White. I decided to use it to make a lacy curtain. Below you can see masses of handspun experimental yarn that have been dangled onto a sheet of plastic. It helps if some of the yarn is spun as a single with very little twist.

Here is a closeup.

These two photos are after felting.

The result is quite lovely and a great use for waste yarn.

Nasty neps and nits

I'm gradually spinning up the 16+ colours but I'm having multitudinous probems with neps. Every few draws I have to stop and remove those pesky little concentrations of short fibres. From the 33g of fibre I've spun today  I've removed 3g of neps. I've also let many more go through the spinning wheel. It makes the spinning arduous instead of a pleasure.

Nasty neps

Close up of a nep

3 g of neps from 33g of fibre spun

I contacted New Zealand spinning guru Pat Old and asked for help tracking down the cause. Possibilities were:

• Over dyeing in the microwave which would make the fibres brittle and more prone to breaking. I tested the strength of the undyed and dyed fibre but they seemed identical.
• Short fibres in the undyed fibre which could form neps in the carding process. I checked the length of the fibre and they all appeared long.

By this time I was wondering if it was my carding technique. I'd done the carding with one hand - the other was out of action - so maybe I wasn't as careful as I should have been. I tried carding some undyed fibre carefully. There were no neps of short fibres before carding but after there were plenty. I looked again at the length of the fibres and discovered there were short fibres amongst the long fibres. In my determination to master handpainting roving and dyeing in the microwave I'd completely forgotted to check the fibre quality. I'd assumed Ashford's merino sliver would be ok. However this is sold for felting as well as spinning so it wasn't surprising that it had a mix of fibres of varying length.

Lovely gradations of colour

During the spinning I've let many neps into the single. There are far too many to attempt to remove. I'm just hoping they don't bite me on the bum and cause endless nits on my knitted garment. Next time I shall test the fibre using combs. If there are short fibres they will be caught on the combs.

The good news is I love the colours and effect of short rows in the knitting. The triangles are knitted with alternating balls.

Smaller jacket

From the leftover Perendale yarn I'd dyed for my Noro jacket I made this sweet one for the youngest grandchild.