When is a hook not a hook?

I've been trying hard to get back into crochet and my star blanket has been seeing a fair bit of work. A potential disaster has actually been the making of it. It turns out that losing the old fashioned Aero hook I was using was actually the best thing I could have done because when I was last in Purl City Yarns I came across Clover ergonomic hooks. They're the only kind that Purl City do, and at the time I was sceptical to say the least, but I needed a hook and they weren't particularly dear so I thought I'd take the risk. Well I'm hooked (groan). Who knew that the shape of the handle and the angle of the hook bit itself could make such a difference? It turns out there's a whole spectrum of angles/lengths and handle styles, with a useful guide here. Some of the hooks in the guide are only really available in the US, but the general principles apply to ones available here. The limiting factor for my crocheting had always been cramp in my hands but I'm delighted to report that I haven't had to stop because my hand hurt once since using this hook. This means that the blanket is know very much lap-sized which has come in handy recently on cold knit nights in the Oakwood where there is very little heating.

This, among several other reasons is why we have been looking for a new venue for Knit1Sip2 and I'm so excited to tell you that we've found one. The group is moving to The Craft Barn in Hadfield from 10th April. We'll be there from 8-10pm and it's £2 to cover the room hire; we've had some tea and coffee donated so they'll be free until supplies run out! I shall be blogging more about upcoming workshops that I'm doing there too, so watch this space.

L'Adder

I'm thrilled to say I've got a pattern in the new Issue 32 of Knit Now. All the patterns in this one use 100% British wool and I'm so delighted to be included in such wonderful company. My design is L'Adder, a pair of fingerless mitts in Blacker Yarns  Romney Guernsey 5-ply. It's a traditional gansey weight yarn and is worsted spun - this means that the fibres are really locked in together and results in a very hardwearing yarn.
The sample was photographed on the wintry Cumbrian coast by Dan Walmsley and I think he's captured the essence of the design perfectly. Hard-working hands clad in hard-working yarn with more than a nod to our maritime past. I chose to use a stitch pattern known as Snake and Ladder which was used in Cornish and Isles of Scilly ganseys. The name was the obvious pun! Working gansey patterns on a smaller scale is great fun and good practice before you embark on a full-blown garment.
The magazine is in the shops now (WH Smith and the major supermarkets seem to be the best bet) or you can buy both print and digital editions at moremags.com. There's also a really super supplement to the print issue this time - a guide to those 'beyond the basics' techniques you keep seeing in mags but aren't really sure how to do.

Resurrection and Ravellenics

Since giving up the regular desk job and taking up freelance work I've got out of the habit of blogging because sitting at the computer has meant work, work and more work. This is a very good thing for me but not so good for developing a readership and blog presence. (Let's face it I was never really in the habit in the first place but it's high time that changed.)
So to kick things off I'm going to write about my entry in the Winter Ravellenics. Knitters (and crocheters, spinners and other fibrey folk) challenge themselves to do something a bit different for the duration of the sporting games and plot their progress on Ravelry. There are even medals, but not quite yet because of the sheer volume of entrants this year.
I had recently come by a lucky find in the New Year sales - eight balls of lovely Wendy Roam in a pale greenish blue colour. This, I felt, would make an ideal cardigan. Light, neutral enough to go with most of my clothes and the nylon content would ensure durability. The only slight issue was that it's 4-ply and so a cardigan for me takes a rather eye-watering 1500m or so.
This got me wondering whether it would actually be possible to knit this in just over two weeks. Friends said it was 'barking' and 'impossible' and so of course I had to do it.
I cast on during the opening ceremony, having 'trained' by swatching beforehand and things went well. The pattern I chose was Tivoli by Cecily Glowik MacDonald which is worked in one piece top down, with the sleeves worked down from the armholes afterwards. This meant in theory I could work on straight needles for much of the knit which are much faster for me than a circular worked flat. The only problem being whether all the stitches would fit on.

It turned out that they did (just) and all went off speedily. I did slow down towards the end and I took the precaution of putting the body on hold while I knitted the sleeves and then returning to the body to maximise the length I could finish in the time. Since I'm quite tall I added about 3 inches to the body length but I didn't do any other modifications. With hindsight and more time I think I'd have knit a smaller size with some bust darts as although it fits beautifully on the bust it's a little big at the neck.
The buttons I chose are small clear plastic that look just like ice - a lovely reminder of the Winter Games. I've loved seeing what others have entered, there have been a lot of rainbow projects this time around. The virtual medal procedures are apparently chugging along so with any luck I'll have one soon (assuming I filled in all the forms properly!)

Or when sounded like 'a'...

So...recently on Twitter someone was asking about the pronunciation of a word we knitters, spinners and dyers use all the time. Skein. Seems obvious but people aren't sure, or at least my Twitter feed wasn't. Like vein or like seen?

The Oxford dictionary [1] gives us:

skein Pronunciation: /skeɪn/

Definition of skein: noun

• 1a length of thread or yarn, loosely coiled and knotted.
• an element that forms part of a complex or complicated whole: he weaves together the skeins of philosophy, ecology, folklore, and history

• 2a flock of wild geese or swans in flight, typically in a V-shaped formation

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly au fait with the special letters used for pronunciation, so some other online dictionaries handily give us audio files to help (what did we do before t'internet?) and every single one I checked pronouced it skein to rhyme with vein. 

There is clearly a difference of opinion among woolly types. Recently I've heard several knitters and also several influential people within the industry mispronouncing it. How has this come about? One theory put to me was the overwhelming need to rhyme the name of the popular (and entirely wonderful) yarn dyer Skein Queen but can that be the only reason? Is it that people do their shopping/chatting about wool online rather than face to face and so never hear it spoken? Is it a word that the under 40s will have met at school? I'm not convinced that the changes in formal English tuition and decreased uptake of foreign languages have been a good thing. 

Looking at the Oxford Dictionary entry again, we see the origin of the word described:  

Origin:
Middle English: shortening of Old French escaigne, of unknown origin

Those of us who studied French can take a stab at the 'ai' diphthong and come up with something far closer to 'ei' as in 'vein' than 'ee' as in 'seen'. For me, this settles the matter. It's skein. Sk-ay-n.

Those of us who had the benefit of a wonderful, enthusiastic and entirely traditional English teacher would also have the benefit of a lovely rhyme originally intended to help with spelling, but also illustrative here:

'i' before 'e', except after 'c'...

or when sounded like 'a' as in neighbour and weigh"

I'll share another gem of hers; never fail in the spelling of necessary if you remember this maxim:

Never eat cakes eat salad sandwiches and remain young.

I still miss the late Miss Grugeon, who was actually an American. I don't know, but I strongly suspect she may have also been a knitter. Please, for the repose of Miss Grugeon's soul, pronounce it correctly and spread the word among the misinformed.

 
[1] "skein". Oxford Dictionaries. April 2010. Oxford Dictionaries. April 2010. Oxford University Press. 02 September 2012 .

Washday...

So... a few people have been asking me about preparing fleece, and how I do it. There's loads written about this subject and there's loads of ways of doing it, but here's mine. I recently came by a whole Texel fleece via a friend who got it at The Threshing Barn down in Leek. It was a nice fleece, clean and tidy without loads of straw (or worse) in it, but very very greasy. 

 It's a good idea to spread out a new fleece and inspect it as soon as you get it, then you can decide how to store it before you get round to preparation. Air and dryness are critical, paper or net bags inside a loose open cardboard box is how I keep mine. In the shed, I should add, because raw fleece can be a bit pongy. I like the smell of sheep but it's not to everyone's taste!

 This shows a few individual locks in the state they would have been the day the sheep was shorn. Not exactly snow white, and the tips are quite matted up. This time, I decided to use rain water for an initial soak since this Summer has brought a plentiful supply so far. We collect ours in two big butts from the shed roof. Two soaks overnight with rinses in between and the water was still filthy. The fleece was improving, but I decided to get a bit more aggressive. Some people use a fermented method, i.e. leaving the fleece in the first water for several days and using natural bacteria to break down the lanolin and yicky stuff. I'm tempted to try this when I've got a fleece I'm not too bothered about, but for this one I stuck to my usual method but on a much grander scale.

 Up to now I've washed bits of fleece in an old tray, wrapping the locks in an old pillow case, adding lots of hot water and a bit of detergent and leaving it to soak for a short while, then rinsing in hot water. Thermal shock and agitation are the causes of felting, so as long as the fibre is allowed to get hot and stay hot without being stirred, rubbed or wrung, it'll be fine in very hot water. You need to use ultra hot water if you want to dissolve the lanolin and spin non-greasy fleece, so hot that you have to wear gloves. Actually it's a good idea to wear gloves anyway because sheep-dip isn't particularly healthy for humans and there might be residues in the fleece.

Sorry about these two rubbishy pictures, they're from just before the old camera died but you get the idea. The two-colour fleece is exactly how it would have been on its owner, a Jacob. I'm knitting some of that fleece up into a pair of stripey (stripy?) socks at the moment. Who needs dyeing when there are such funky sheep around?




So, using two big garden trugs and pouring the old water down the outside grid, I could get to grips with the whole Texel fleece in one go. Lots and lots of hot water, and about half a teaspoon of Fairy Liquid (other detergents are available but I actually do think this one works best) and a hot soak. I put the second trug over the top to make a lid to keep the heat in, and the curious cat out.

After three goes like that, the fleece was substantially cleaner and I rigged up a drying system in the ginnel using an old cot cat-net.

It took forever to dry, and in the end I resorted to splitting it into net storage bags and arranging them around the house to dry. At the moment I've carded about a fifth of it and have started spinning some. It's still very greasy but that's actually making it lovely to spin. The plan will be to hot-wash the skeins before knitting it up. I'm tempted to dye some as well, since there's so much of it, but I've got to be good and get the next couple of patterns released to Ravelry before I do. Here's a sneaky peek at one...

Woolly goings on...

So what's been happening? 

K1S2 goes from strength to strength; we had a special event to celebrate Wool Week kindly hosted by The Smithy Studios. There was much knitting, tea drinking and sheepy cake munching.

We are making little sheep to go on our Festival Christmas tree - cute or what?

Speaking of cute, the swift and ball winder were out the other day when the children came home. Audience seats were obtained and the show began. 

I can see a great future ahead for my two little handle-turners. Someone (and I can't remember who) once told me that it wasn't slavery if the children were your own!

Kirsty's knitting lessons are continuing, she has completed her first project and is now working on a matching hat. Slow and steady but that's what wins the race sometimes. At this rate she'll soon be joining in the workshops I'm teaching - 'Lace Knitting' and 'First Steps in Socks' at The Smithy - get in touch if you fancy coming along. 

Scramble!

"I met a friend today...she's got too much yarn...if you want to have a look in the boot of my car..." 

We didn't need to be asked twice. Within a matter of seconds, the contents of the boot were transferred to the pub and were being examined enthusiastically by K1S2ers.

Some of it was labelled, more was not and there were several cones of similar seeming yarn but in different colourways. We resorted to basic science to investigate...

Research Question 1: Is the blue yarn the same fibre content as the red yarn?

Research Question 2: Are the blue and red yarns cotton or acrylic.

Investigative strategy: Visual and physical examination followed by burn test.

Apparatus: Source of ignition and associated safety equipment. (The researchers gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Jo behind the bar.)

Method: Following detailed inspection and handling of the yarn samples by an expert panel, a burn test was performed against a known standard (white yarn pictured, 100% cotton.)

Results: The red and blue yarns were very similar in appearance but both were more lustrous and more difficult to break by hand than the white yarn sample. Both the red and blue yarns burned rapidly (a shade too rapidly, resulting in minor burns to the Lead Scientist) whereas the white yarn burned more slowly. On extinguishing the flames by means of rapid exhalation, the white yarn was observed to smoulder whereas the other two yarns were extinguished immediately. 

Inferences: The red and blue yarns are likely to be the same fibre content. This is likely to include man-made fibres. 

Conclusion: The red and blue yarns are suitable to be included in the same project and could safely be re-homed to a single knitter. 

Identification of random yarn would be a fun topic for a future workshop!