Fiber Arts Friday: Fiber Celebration, part 5

Now that I have two skeins finished, I can start getting ready to knit the final project... swatching with the intended yarn comes next.

Knowing that the twined stitches are tighter, I started with standard knit and the assumption that US6 would be too big, but close.

This is a nice fabric, but definitely too loose for mittens.  So I need smaller needles.

According to Ravelry, I don't have any US4 or US5 needles, but I have a set of US3.  Now to figure out what they're doing since they are not in my box of available needles and hooks.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Keyboards

Over the last month or so, I've been using several different computers, and therefore different keyboards.

All of these are QWERTY keyboards and all are on PCs, but the Control button, while always in the lower left corner, is not always in the same place.

And just because it's frustrating... All of the photos were taken landscape, they all show as landscape on both my phone and PC, but they import at portrait.  smh

Fiber Arts Friday: Fiber Celebration, part 4

After finishing my technique swatches, I was antsy to start knitting for real.  So I wound off single #6.

Plied it with with singles #1, 4 and 5.

... and finished skein #2.

Current Status:

• 3-5/8 oz, 196.5 yd complete in 2 skeins
• 7/8 oz in singles
• 6-3/8 oz remaining

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Apples, 2018

Our apples have been ready to be processed since August and our tree was especially full this year.  Which is nice given all of the hail we had over the summer.

Normally the apples are not ready until October.... which I think is predicting an early and harsh winter.

We've given a lot of apples away, since I haven't had time for processing.  But I borrowed my neighbor's orchard ladder (now on my to acquire list) over the weekend.  I picked 8 grocery sacks-full, gave a few sacks away and processed several batches.

I started with our favorite applesauce and tried apple pie filling and pickled apples.

I'm super excited about the pickled apples!  I wish I had time to make more.

In the last week we've had our first snow (10/10), first frost (10/12), +60F shorts and flip-flops weather (10/13), and first hard freeze (10/14).  It's back in the 50's-60's for the next several days.

I love this time of year.

Fiber Arts Friday: Still More Pink

It's Fiber Arts Friday, and I'm still making these.  :-/

Time for Reading

One nice thing about travelling for work is that the transit time is well-suited for reading.

I've finished a few books already.

You can see I've been pretty focused on Change Management.

Fiber Arts Friday: Fiber Celebration, part 3

After setting up my plan to finish the Twined Knit (tvåändstickning) Mittens in time to enter the Fiber Celebration next February, I realized that I should do a test knit.

I don't have a pattern to work from... just a technique and set of guidelines.  So I figure I should practice before beginning the final work.

I started with a couple of swatches... a standard knit and a twined knit.

I chose a yarn I don't care too much about.... the Twined technique will unwind standard-spun yarns... so I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't care if the test yarn got ruined while I was learning how to do the technique.

The twined swatch is noticeably thicker than the standard.  Also there are slightly more stitches per inch on the twined swatch.

I think the back is interesting.  You can see the twisting of the strands.  It reminds of color-work, though I haven't done much.

The twined technique uses two strands and recommended knitting with both the inside and outside strand from a center-pull ball.

I did not care for the twisting of the strands.  My sample yarn is a very slippery acrylic, so the cake did not stay together well.  Certainly this is a contributing factor, but I've decided to start knitting the final project using two balls.

While my twined swatch doesn't look great, I feel I have a good handle on the technique.

Next steps are to keep spinning yarn and swatch with the actual yarn to determine needle size.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!