Coral

The mohair tube scarf is done.

 

I decided to go with the coral colour and make the join a coral-like ruffle. I need to give it a soak. My knitting in the round is reasonably even, but there are still some irregularities to smooth out.

Now What?

This morning I cast off the mohair tube scarf.

Now I just need to decide how to finish off the join. Keep it simple? or Embellish it to make a feature?

While I'm thinking about that I'll be casting on another take-along project. I think that will be another knit in the round project--they're so easy to pack and carry, but maybe not another tube. Watch this space .  .  .

More Mohair

I'm still stitching away at the mohair tube scarf. It's become my take-along project because it's easy to just knit a bit at a time, anytime. The only hold-up is sorting the double-pointed needles when I pull the whole thing out of my knitting bag, but I'm getting better at that. It is growing gradually.

I guess I'm about two-thirds of the way there. I haven't yet decided how I'll finish it. The original plan was to graft or stitch the ends together to make a loop. Then it could be worn as one long loop or doubled over. As I've been knitting, I've been wondering about making a feature of the join, maybe with some beading. Then again I really like the subtle colour changes in the yarn and a feature might distract from that. I don't have to decide yet, so I'll just keep knitting away at it.

Stitch by Stitch

I'm continuing to knit the mohair tubular scarf. Here's where I'm up to this morning.

It's a simple knit: around and around; one stitch at a time. Every stitch is the same--and yet every stitch is different. That's the fascination for me. I love the steady repetition and the subtle colour changes.

 . . . by the way, this is knit on 3.5 mm needles, so on my screen at least the pic is bigger than life size.

Tube Scarf

I've been working away at the mohair tubular scarf in various odd bits of time.

I've just finished re-knitting the yarn that I'd ripped out from my previous attempt. Thankfully it held up quite well to all the handling. 

Another Re-think

I didn't have a particular project in mind when I spun up this mohair yarn. It was just a case of making the most of the characteristics of the fibre. I knew I wanted to keep the design simple. What could be simpler than a garter stitch scarf? I tried that. The result was disappointing. Yesterday I pulled out what I'd done and had another go.

What about stocking stitch?

All very well, but the inevitable curling of the edges would be a problem.

OK, if it's going to curl anyway, what about knitting a tube?

No, it's not another pair of wristies. I'm going to try a tubular scarf. At this stage I'm thinking I'll join the ends so it can be looped around  one or more times. The smooth outer texture of the knitting shows up the lustre and halo of the mohair beautifully and the subtle colour variations should be a feature. I'll see how it goes. 

Yarn yarn

I wouldn't like to give the impression that my entire life is now devoted to the pursuit of crochet flowers, so here's something else I've been working on. It's a kid mohair yarn. I featured the spinning process a couple of weeks ago.

This macro shot shows it in all its lovely fluffiness. Given the incredibly cold weather we've been having lately, I could knit it up sooner rather than later. I think I'll keep it simple. There's not a lot of point working with fancy stitch patterns when the yarn itself has so much to say. Besides, my other current knitting project is lace. How simple is simple? Maybe even a plain garter stitch. I'll see how it looks when I cast it on.

Reprise

I've been meaning to re-purpose this mohair for a while. It randomly made its way to the top of the pile this morning. A few minutes of tugging and winding were enough for me. The ultra-hairiness of the yarn is both the attraction and the difficulty, but it does make a fun photo: If I can get it back into a ball ready to work on, I'm thinking it might become a cushion cover.

And One More

I had double pointed needles on my wish list when I went to the Craft and Quilt show on the weekend. It would have made sense to look for them the week before at Bendigo, but that was my play it by ear visit and I went without a list. The dpn's I found were bamboo--that's a good thing. I'm enjoying the extra bit of grip they provide. And they came in a set of five, rather than four. I'm surprised at how much easier I'm finding it knitting with this set. Stitches distributed over an even number of needles just seems to make more sense to me and despite having one more pointy stick in my hands, I'm actually finding it less of a juggle.

There's just a tiny bit of this mohair left, so these wristies will be just a little more than woolly bracelets. I found the blueberry pudding set almost too warm when I wore it on the weekend.

Ready to Wear

I started knitting this cowl last week and now it's ready to wear:
Very simple--stocking stitch all the way, which when I'm knitting in the round means just a plain knit stitch over and over and over. The way it drapes around the neck means that you can see a great deal of the reverse as well. It's soft and warm. I'm looking forward to wearing it.

Apologies for the pic being on my delapidated manequin. I did try taking it on my --delapidated:)--self, but I had to use the flash which on my not-so clean mirrors resulted in all sorts of smoky, blurred effects, but no decent view of the actual cowl.

Now today I have more rinsing to do; dyes to use up and a great need of a general tidy up. I'm tempted to cast on something else to take the place of the purple cowl in its simplicity and warm fuzziness, but I really should do some more swatches for my folio first. Hmmm, I think I'll make a coffee while I wrestle with my conscience on that point.

Fairy Floss

Not pink, but it's light and airy and it flowed onto my bobbin oh so smoothly:It's mohair and wool, carded on my hand carders and now spun up. The spinning was as sweet as its namesake, except for the last two rolags, which somehow didn't behave the way I wanted them to, but overall it was a happy spinning experience. And that's one more of my Folio skeins spun.

Fleece, Fleece and More Fleece

Uh Oh! I think it's multiplying! The fleece, that is. This is a pic of a corner of my table:The rest of the table has other things on it: paperwork, dyed tops, tools of various kinds and even a little bit of free space.

This pile is the small bags of fleece I've bought for my Certificate Spinning course. We've been learning different spinning techniques in each class. Each technique is best done with a different fleece type. Starting next class we're going to be looking at different fibres--that means fibres other than wool. So I've got two different types of alpaca and some mohair as well.

My first challenge is to keep it all straight in my head. I'm learning to identify the different fleece types, but for now I'm also making sure that I label each bag. My next challenge is to wash it all. The wool needs to be scoured to get rid of the lanolin as well as any dirt--and you can see there's a lot of dirt in some of the fleeces. The alpaca is best washed with shampoo or wool wash, since it doesn't have any grease, but it has lots of dust in it. And I need to be absolutely brutal with the mohair--apparently the dishwashing detergent I use for my wool won't budge the "greasy goat" residue that is in this fibre. It may be a luxury fibre after it's prepared, but until then I've been told to wash it in "handy andy" or "white king"--stuff I'd normally associate with cleaning the bathroom!

So, today while I get on with the damask weaving, I'll be doing some washing.