A couple of weeks ago I started spinning the yarn for my first “real” project. Yes, I did some handspun that is still sitting in my chest waiting to be made into a felted roving ball holder, and I spun the yarn for Seva’s Lace Shawl… but those were simple. There was no particular guage to maintain, in fact the lumpier it was, the better.
I chose the pattern from the Fall Knitty 2008 - Retrofit by Jesse Loesberg. I like it more than his other pattern (Avast) and the Hero Pullover, both of which I was considering until I noticed some things. Avast has cables. Justin notified me that cables are bad for men. (too bad… I love knitting cables) And the Hero Pullover, well… it has DROP SHOULDERS. I don’t know about you, but I think that drop shoulders make men look slumpy. Unless they are standing like the guy in the picture in the magazine all the time, drop shoulders drop. Further more, men rarely stand like the guy in the picture.
Back to spinning. I began slowly, drafting fiber…
spinning the yarn…
plying the yarn…
until I had a spool…
and a skein of plied yarn.
Then I knit the swatch The nifty thing is about a swatch when you are handspinning (or perhaps the upsetting thing) is that it represents the reality of the yarn. It is like saying: “This sweater, will work with this yarn. There is no going back. I will make this sweater work with this yarn.” So, my guage was a little off, but I decided to go with it. Just go with it, and measure it.
As for the pattern, I am going to modify it. I’m going to adjust the sides to include a waist, Make the zipper a half zipper and make the whole sweater the same beautiful natural sheep colour.
the swatch… Sheep colour looks best in its native vegetation.