It’s been so long! I apologize for the extra week it took to get this here but the computer we have suddenly died last Sunday (of course) and we only just got it working again. I have been up to quite a lot in that time though so it will be an extra long post. I have made progress on several projects and started a few new ones as well.

Socks

First project to update on is the socks! I have one finished pair of socks that are definitely not exactly the same but I don’t care because I love them and they are close enough! I also found a book about toe-up socks at the library and found a pattern I absolutely had to try. And I had a lot of yarn still in the ball so I decided to make up a pair of them as well. A note here on how knitting socks works for those who don’t knit. There are many ways to make socks. The most common two ways I have come across are toe-up and top-down. The difference is where you start from. Either the toe or the top cuff. The first pair I made was top-down and the new pair is toe-up. I have likes and dislikes about each method. But they both make usable socks and are great in their own ways.

Flax Project

Next up is the plant fiber to finished item project. This one has had several developments. First off the brown flax has been spun, plied, and the twist has been set. Switching to the wheel made a world of difference and made it so much easier and enjoyable to spin the flax. Taking the singles off the bobbin and putting it through the ball winder into a center pull ball was fun because it held its shape when it was removed from the ball winder. So there was a perfect little hole in the middle of the ball that didn’t ever collapse in on itself.

Then came plying the singles. I did a two-ply yarn for it to make it a smidge thicker. I managed to just barely fit all of it on one bobbin after it was plied. I then had to set the twist which was a different process for flax than it is for wool. Setting the twist for flax involved boiling it. The article I read also suggested hitting it with a mallet to further soften the linen yarn. I couldn’t find a mallet so I just very very aggressively thwacked the finished yarn. Thwacking is hitting the yarn against a hard surface. I used significantly more force with the linen yarn than I ever do with my woolen yarns. I then dried it and skeined it to count my yardage. I got about 368 yards from the four ounces which is pretty good. I then went looking for a pattern for a crop top because I thought it would make a nice summer garment. And calculated the yardage for the pattern and realized I might need more yarn. So I ordered four more ounces of flax. But they were out of the brown. So I bought rust colored flax. I then made the first part of the crop top pattern and realized I probably would have been fine…oops… But I am now attached to the idea of the added color so progress is paused until I can spin the rust flax.

Festival Wool

Next project is the spinning of the wool I got from the yarn and fiber festival in Boston. It is a 75% Shetland 25% Alpaca blended batt. It was a dream to spin. I LOVED spinning it. It even had just a touch of lanolin left in so it felt amazing while spinning it. The batt was chosen because it is reminiscent of marble and I wanted to keep that vibe but didn’t want to micro mange the colors. I ended up just spinning it as I came and doing a triple ply yarn with it because the singles ended up way thinner than I was expecting.

I weighed out the batt into three as equal as I could get portions to spin onto three separate bobbins. One of these sections got some cat help. Well… the singles were spun onto one bobbin that then had the singles transferred to a temporary bobbin (toilet paper roll) for plying and to refill the bobbin. I did a relatively even job at weighing and spinning because I was left with only really small amounts on two of the bobbins. These were just bracelet plied (wound off the bobbin onto my wrist then two plied).

More Wool

The next project is less of a new project and more of a future project but I am so excited to have bought these and to experiment with them. A friend of mine recently learned that she has a love of scouring wool and has started a wool scouring business called CoastalWoolWashing and I had to buy some of her scoured wool. Not only to support her but also because I really wanted to try some of the breeds that were available through her shop. When my floof mail arrived it was squished into the mailbox which I found hilarious. I got 6 ounces of Border Leicester, 3 ounces of Corriedale, and 4 ounces of Tunis that is slightly yolk stained which made it a really pretty buttery color. Then she also added an ounce of CVMxWensleydale as a gift which was really sweet and I have no words for. I am not sure what I will make from these wools but they will be so much fun to play with and I can’t wait.

Moving Spaces

Last project for the past few weeks is switching the office space and the craft room. Ben has been working from home and him using a corner of the bedroom as an office has not really been working out so we decided to change it. The craft room made sense to move into the bedroom since I am perpetually dragging items from the craft room into the bedroom to work anyway. And so the process of moving all the things has begun and organizing them…again… This project is still ongoing and has mostly been just moving furniture around at this point. But I did find this fun book while going through a hidden bookshelf. It is written in phonographic amanuensis which is a type of shorthand. I also started needle felting my wool scraps and waste from combing and carding. I also found a knit pattern that I am dying to make.

Sorry the end got away from me a bit. But it was lovely having you join the adventure.

Lost of Love,

The McMullins