Spun silk

Last week the charkha went to the National Spinningday. Unfortunately there was no one who could give me tips on how to use it. I showed other how I use it, which probably isn’t according to the “rules”. I’ve started to spin some silk on it. Fortunately I believe that handspun yarn shouldn’t be perfect. Just look at the Noro yarns, all are irregular and people pay for that stuff. I’m not sure what I’ll use to ply it with. I’ve been thinking about brown alpaca that I have lying around. Maybe I can manage to spin that on the charkha as well.

Last night I might have damaged my hearing just a bit. I went to a performance of Drumcats. It was really cool. I sat next to a couple who enthusiastically clapped along with the music. It was slightly frustrating that the guy clapped out of rhythm. I mean, really now. It’s a percussion show. Here is a taste of what I enjoyed for a little more than an hour. It does sound a whole lot better in the theater.

Stolen

No, not the spindles. I stole the idea of making them. Last Saturday snorrepot (Ravelry link) showed me a spindle that paarsetulp (Ravelry link) made for her. She got the idea for them when she went to the Hema (Dutch store). I passed the store last week and decided to see what had inspired her. At the department of childrens toys I found 4 wooden tops for €1,95. I saw what the attraction was to paarsetulp and walked out of the store holding the little bag with tops. I made the spindles that same night, I had everything at home except for the little hooks. They work amazingly well. I didn’t weigh them, but they’re definitely not heavy.

On the knitting front I finally finished my Moonfleet shawl. It’s still wrapped around Jasmin. It looks really good on her.

The magic of blocking

Finished another project, the Diamond Fantasy Scarf by Sivia Harding. You can make it into a shawl by adding more pattern repeats. Because I didn’t have enough yarn I went with the smaller version. Well, not that small apparently.

This is what it looked like right after I was finished.



And this is what I got after blocking.

New toy

Every once in a while I get on Marktplaats (Dutch selling site) to check out what people want to get rid of. This time I found a charkha, a spinningwheel from India. The last owner brought it to the Netherlands in 1973. It hasn’t seen much use.



This is what I got. No instruction included. Surfing the Net I found plenty of pictures, all of them looking different than this one. I got how the wheels work and I even figured out where the spindle goes. How I got the spindle to work was another story.

Thankfully I have a dad with a technical eye and we got it to work. I sanded, scrubbed, oiled and lubricated any part that moves. And after an intensive search I finally understand it better.



As you can see it works! It doesn’t spin quite as pleasant yet as I’d like. It’s going back to my technical advisor. Too bad I don’t have any cotton to spin (which is spun mostly on these) but the bit of BFL works just fine. As soon as I get the hang of this I’d like to use it to spin silk.

A couple of projects done

I finally finished a couple of things. Two pairs of socks, a shalw and a cowl. The shawl was done in May, I just got around to blocking it and taking a picture. Unfortunately the Internet isn’t really cooperating and the picture will come later. I’ll add to my little list the coming week. After all, it’s already August and there wasn’t really that much on there yet.

I blame my spinning. Since I spend more time making yarn I have less time to knit stuff. Of course it doesn’t help that I keep starting new projects instead of finishing them first.

Maybe a touch too much

This is the view I had from the couch this week.



On the table there is a Baktus, the Moonfleet shawl and a crochet shawl. By the TV there is another shawl, a sock and hidden behind that a spindle. Below the TV is the Swirl shawl and a square in progress for the Wolhemel blanket. The basket you see besides that has no project at this moment. The rest of the projects are upstairs. Waddaya mean, a lot on the needles?

I have started again with my Moonfleet shawl. In October the next KAL is starting for which I signed up without blinking an eye. It might be a good idea to finish this one. It just isn’t going real fast because of all the beads.



But it sure is pretty.

Knitting in Nature 3

This year I went on the same knitting vacation as the last two years. The activities are the same, the workshop differ each year. You’d think I’d know it by now, doing the same thing each year. And yes, I do. The whole experience is still amazing and I had a wonderful vacation yet again.

What does change is the amount of pictures I take. Absolutely none, not one single picture taken by me that whole week. What I can show is something I made for the Tour de Fleece that is happening on Ravelry right now. I had honestly expected that this would take me the full three weeks to do. I guess I really surprised myself here.



100 gram merino/silk (70/30), 18 wpi, 395 meters