Goodies in the Mail

Isn't that scrumptious? These heavenly Shetland samples arrived in the mail the other day from Sharon. It's exciting because three of them, the white, brown, and light fawn are from her own Shetlands. The gray is from Sharon's neighbor Mim (who recently started her own blog). I am very pleased to have these additions for my Shetland Sampler Cardigan.

The light fawn comes from Sharon's Nevada State Fair Reserve Grand Champion. That will give my cardigan a little more brag factor, don't you think? The fact is, with the all the lovely samples from blogging friends, this cardigan will be really special to me.

At the moment, these are nestled in a basket where I can admire and pet them while I finish spinning samples of various preparations with the Polwarth. But I should be able to start spinning them soon.

© April 2008 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

A Contemplation On Knitting Sleeves

By Leigh

My Shetland Sampler Cardigan is coming along nicely. I finished spinning the lovely sample from Tina....

.... and have already incorporated some into the body of the sweater. Here is my progress so far:

Since I'm going to add the ribbing last, the bottom of the sweater rolls up quite a bit, so I have to pin it flat to photograph it. It's 8 and 1/2 inches in length, so it's hard to lay it out in a single layer. Pretty soon I'll have to lay it out as a tube and pin the whole thing down in order to take a photo.

As I've been knitting, I've been thinking about the sleeves. There are two ways I could approach them. Since I'm going to steek the sleeve openings, I could wait until the body is completely finished, and then just pick up around the sleeve opening and knit them down to the cuff in the round. The advantage to this is that I would be sure that the sleeve would fit the opening (something I haven't always managed in the past.) Also, I wouldn't have to sew them in later. If I knit them in the round, then I could the jogless two color rounds that Peg Arnoldussen mentions in Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters.

On the other hand, if I knit them as flat pieces apart from the body, I could knit them simultaneously and keep track of which Shetland color I'm using for each row, so they would be the same. Also, I wouldn't have to wait until the entire body of the sweater was done to begin. That way I wouldn't have to worry about running out of a particular Shetland color. The main problem here would be that my gauge wouldn't be the same knitting back and forth. That might change the size of the pattern a bit.

So perhaps I could knit the sleeves in the round as separate pieces and sew to the body? That would keep my gauge the same. But if I want to knit them at the same time, I will need to get another 16 inch size US2 circular needle. Or maybe I could use double pointed needles. I have lots of number 2's. The idea of knitting both sleeves at the same time comforts my fear of running out of any particular color before I get both sleeves done.

One thing's for certain, I will need to knit from the wrist up, otherwise the pattern will be upside down and that won't do! So that means picking up stitches around the arm hole and knitting down is out.

For me, I've made pretty good progress so far. I'm usually a pretty slow knitter, but I'm enjoying this so much that it's easy to pick up and hard to put down. I doubt I'll be finished before our summer heat wave hits, but I'll at least have made good progress by then.

© 10 April 2008 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related Posts:
Ready to Start Those Sleeves - Discovering Siamese Sleeves
Starting the Sleeves - Sleeve Increase Calculator
Shetland Sleeve Update - A look at checkerboard steeks in progress.
Siamese Sleeves Done!
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Off the Loom

The heavier weft multiple tabby weave sample is off the loom. I put part of it, a smaller piece, through a wash and dry cycle, and left the rest of it unwashed for the time being.

Here it is unwashed:


Here it is after washing and pressing:

The width in the reed was 19 inches (380 ends at 20 epi)
The width before washing was 17.25 inches.
The width after washing is 15.5 inches.

It is 100% mercerized cotton. You may recall that the warp is 8/2s and the weft a sport weight knitting yarn.

Visually there isn't a humongous amount of difference between the unwashed sample and the washed, except when noting the treadling pattern. I think the biggest difference (besides the shrinkage) is how much softer the washed sample is. It is a little wrinklier too.

Because of the heavier weft, it is actually a fairly heavy fabric. Not something I would use for a dishcloth or a blouse. It would probably be good for placemats or a table runner, but I'm thinking upholstery, specifically a pillow front(?) If I decide to do that, I don't think I want to wash the larger piece. I'll just use it as is. My reasoning is that few throw pillows are required to survive a washer and dryer. Nor do they ever seem to be dried cleaned. At least I never have!

Weaving this has reminded me a little of the Fibonacci overlays I did in Summer & Winter. And that has gotten the mental wheels turning. Hopefully I have some fun experimenting ahead.

© 2008 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Related Posts:
Multiple Tabby Weaves
Multiple Tabby Weave With Heavier Weft

MTW With Heavier Weft

Dr. Bateman's book, Multiple Tabby Weaves, has about 18 drafts with anywhere between three and six variations for each one. Rather than try to work my way through all of them, I thought that I would rather simply apply some of his ideas for exploring multiple tabby weaves.

For this next experiment, I tied on the new warp, so I could use the same threading and tie-up as I did for my first samples....

... but I used different treadling and a heavier weft.

This sample uses mercerized cottons for both warp and weft. The warp is 8/2 in two shades of brown. The weft is a light, cool green sportweight knitting yarn.

From a distance, it almost has textured looking horizontal stripes, which don't actually exist, as you can see in the close-up below (courtesy of my new Canon PowerShot SD 1000 digital camera which I absolutely love!)

The treadling sequence is confusing to explain (for me). The different tabby blocks are created with different pairs of treadles, 1 & 2, 3 & 4, and 5 & 6. I'm changing treadling in a sequence of 6 shots, 8 shots, 16 shots, and reverse. You can probably see it in the overall pattern better than I can explain it!

Interestingly, the selvedges are behaving themselves much more nicely with the heavier weft. I'm also using floating selvedges this time, so that might be a factor also. Anyway, it's still a one shuttle weave and so going quickly. Dr. Bateman also wove many MTW samples using an overshot technique with both pattern and tabby wefts. So that is on my list to try too.

© 2008 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Related Posts:
Multiple Tabby Weaves
Off The Loom - How these samples turned out

Black Weft MTW

I had a little bit of multi-color warp left from first multiple tabby weave sampler, so I wove off the rest with a black 8/2 cotton weft.

I like the almost three dimensional look, but now I wish I had woven some with white weft too. Just to see what it would have looked like. I may try that in the future sometime, before I move on from multiple tabby weaves, but at the moment I have other ideas I want to experiment with. One of the ways I amuse myself while I weave is to wonder how it would look if I changed something; weft color; warp color, treadling, tie-up, something.

The finished piece is about 15 by 43 inches, so I'm not sure what to do with it. Yet.

© 2008 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Related Posts:
Multiple Tabby Weaves - the basics
Rainbow Warp Revisited - how it looked with white weft