Mixing Things up for a Sweater
words and photos by: Johanna Carter
I always admire those who are able to spin mountains of yarn for a big project, ready to knit a wonderful sweater or cardigan. It is a satisfying feeling when you finish all that work, especially if you started with washing and combing the wool or even raising your own sheep.
Mixing spinning and knitting
The typical way to work through a larger project is to spin all the singles first and ply them in a particular order so you get the yarn even throughout the whole project. I don’t have so many bobbins, but my bigger problem is that I am quite impatient and want to get on with knitting once I have an idea. And normally, my brain is full of ideas for fibre work and the limit is the time, as I am a musician and teacher. I can’t sit at the spinning wheel for a long time if I’m not on holiday, so during the school year I mostly knit, and during the holidays I can dye, spin, use my drum carder, and do lots of fibre work. The only time I was able to produce bigger quantities of yarn before I knitted them up was during the Tour de Fleece in the two years during the pandemic, when we did not go on holiday at the beginning of July.
A highly photogenic collection of naturally dyed fibres.
I like to finish knitting one big project like a sweater or cardigan before I start the next one, or at least until I can’t carry it in my bag easily anymore, so I have an excuse to begin the next one. Sometimes it is good to have a second project on the go – I call it mindless knitting, where I don’t have to look very much – which I can keep my hands busy during Zoom or other meetings, which helps me listen.
Mixing colours and fibres
Usually I dye my yarn with plants which I collect in the woods or get from garden flowers. I also use cochineal and indigo, which I buy, to get lots of different colours. I really love the greens and blues I get from dyeing with indigo. I have lots of dyed wool, and all those colours give me inspiration for further projects.
Beautiful greens and blues dyed by the author using indigo and other natural dyes.
Blending the wool on the drum carder I can get even more shades. I like to blend with fibres like silk, alpaca, or plant fibres, and I love sari silk, to get those little bits of colour in my yarn.
Fibres of different types and colours are blended on a drum carder for elegant results.
When I have an idea for the next sweater, I start carding, and then I can begin to spin. Once I have spun enough yarn – say, for one day – I cast on and start knitting, usually top down, so I don’t have to decide too much in advance about length and width.
An idea for the author’s next sweater in the gathering stages.
When I spin on my wheel, I have to sit at home, but while spinning I can read a book or talk to others during online meetings. I also like to spin on my spindles, and that works on a walk, or a museum visit. I take them on holiday as they don’t need much space, and when I spin for a lace shawl, I don’t even need much wool either. At home there are spindles all over the place; I can spin when I am waiting for the kettle to boil, when the computer is slow, when I am cooking. Like that I can make good use of a short time and the yarn still grows.
Knitting as soon as the yarn is spun helps the author complete sweater projects in a timely manner.
I can take my knitting almost everywhere, which is why I don’t want to wait to get started until I have spun all the yarn for a whole sweater. I knit at home, on the bus or train. The only thing I have to make sure of is to be one step ahead with the yarn.
I love to knit Fair Isle sweaters. My favourite method is to use only one bobbin, which I don’t even fill, because I need smaller quantities of lots of colours. Then I wind a ply ball and ply it on itself. For that I put my thumb through the ball, so I can tension the two singles with my fingers and they don’t get tangled, as long as my thumb (or a cardboard roll or a pencil) stays in the middle. I don’t have any leftovers from plying, and it is quick when I suddenly need more yarn.
Several charming sweaters dyed, spun, and knit by the author.
I have never had problems with the yarn not being consistent enough throughout a project. I just know what yarn I want and my fingers seem to remember what to do. I am sure it is good advice to have a little card tied to the spinning wheel with a bit of the singles you are aiming for, so you can check and make sure you are spinning a consistent yarn.
Mixing breeds
There are so many different breeds, but some of my favourites are Shetland, BFL, and Jämtland – a Swedish breed. After dyeing them, I often forget what I have used, so when I do a new project it often turns out that I have used different breeds and fibres just to get the right colour. For the Fair Isle knitting I want to juggle lots of colours, which is more important to me than making a sweater out of only one breed.
Recently I made a pullover for my husband using about 12 different breeds and colours, even mixing short and long draw. For me it was a breed experiment and a way to use up lots of smaller quantities of wool I had in my stash. For that sweater I used combed top without blending.
Mixing in knitting during the spinning process is a wonderful way for a spinner to avoid being overwhelmed during a sweater project.
My feeling is that some people don’t dare to start spinning for a bigger project because they get overwhelmed by the quantity they have to spin and then all the knitting there is to do, especially when you want to spin the yarn entirely on spindles. Mixing the spinning and knitting for the same project is more interesting; you get more variety and more freedom to choose what you want to do next as long as you don’t run out of yarn. It breaks the project down into smaller, less daunting parts. The only thing you might want to plan is to have enough fibre at the start, but even that is not necessary, there is always a sheep growing more wool.
Did I tell you we have a new copy editor?
I know I told you we were on the lookout for a new copy editor, but did I tell you we hired one? Her name is Karen Robinson (and I can totally put that online because you’ll see it on the masthead soon enough), and I couldn’t be happier.
It wasn’t an easy decision. Not at all. Within 48 hours of putting up the call for a copy editor we got over 200 applications. As they came in, I broke them into 3 groups (so they’d be easier to manage) and replied with the test packet. The test packet included our just-barely-there style sheet (the thing with all the specific-to-PLY rules that we try to follow), one article in 2 stages — edited by me (what they’d get if they had the job), and the final, print version (so they could see what their job would entail), and another article edited by me that they had to copy-edit.
Within 3 days almost everyone had returned articles and I sat down to read. And I sat some more. And then I sat some more. It was a lot of sitting and reading. Some I could dismiss right away – not that they weren’t good – but just not the level of editing I was looking for (some too deep, some too shallow). Some went into my maybe pile and a few went into my yes pile. My plan was to go through the yes pile again first and if I didn’t find somebody, to reach into the maybe pile. I can tell you that my maybe pile was about 25 and my yes pile was about 25.
That meant more sitting.
I never had to reach back into the maybe pile because the yes pile was full of amazing editors, most of which are more qualified to do my job than I am. There were 6 that copy-edited the style sheet. There were 3 that copy-edited my entire email. There were 2 that copy-edited the finalized article that had already gone to print! It was a little intimidating, honestly. I liked them all. Finally, I narrowed it down to 5.
Our of those 5, I couldn’t choose. I felt like I’d just be closing my eyes, spinning, and pointing, so I sent all 5 to Kitten. I may be the one that reorganizes and restructures but he’s the one with the close eye and quick brain for editing. I told him to choose which one he’d like to work with and while he said all 5 were good, Karen was his top pick.
And so it’s Karen. And Karen rocks!
You’ll see her handy work in the next issue (the Leicester issue). She’s going to make us so much better!
Give her a little welcome, won’t ya?
The Winter Issue
The Winter issue is on the way! A few people will be getting it this week but with the holiday mail, it may be stalled. I know I say this every time but this may be my favorite issue so far. It’s definitely one of my favorite covers! Golding spindle with Greenwood Fiberworks fiber!
You may have noticed that I don’t write for every issue (I mean actual articles, I always write copy). Sometimes I just find so many people that have so much to say and I’d rather give them a platform to say it, and sometimes, I just don’t have as many smart things to say as the people that propose articles. I did, however, write for the worsted issue. I wrote twice!
Books Are My Thing
I have a thing about books. I was the kid who had Christmas lists that were 80% books. If I don’t read every day something is very wrong. I married a book person; we have book children; I’ve worked in books for 25 years. I like books, I think they are important to us as humans.
I use books to learn about spinning, sure I talk to other spinners and take every class I can afford, but my first stop is always books. I have a special spot in my heart and on my shelves for older, out of print books. There is a lot of deep knowledge in that pile up there. The folks that wrote those books didn’t have all of the resources at their fingertips like we do now. No internet, not a lot of commercially processed fiber. They had other nearby spinners, shepherds, and they learned by lots of trial and error. They also read books. It didn’t hurt that there was a spinning boom in the 1970s into the early 1980s and lots of books were published.
Craft publishing used to be different too, not everything had to be quick and easy and appeal to the widest variety of crafters. Most of the out of print spinning books I have are more technical, or at least the ones I refer to frequently are more technical. I like to learn the technical when I’m researching something, then I simplify it for my spinning, writing, and teaching.
Here are 3 of my favorites. These are the ones I have a little panic over if I can’t find them.
Mabel Ross and Allen Fannin, don’t ask me to lend them to you. In fact they have a special hiding place. If you want technical spinning information read Mabel Ross, you will learn to count and measure and control your yarn to a very specific degree. I struggle with Mabel, her teaching and writing are hard for my brain to wrap around, but I won’t give up. There is too much to learn there. Allen Fannin’s was one of the first books that showed super close up photos of yarn and fiber and he has a succinct way of explaining spinning. He is just one of those authors that speak to me.
Here are 2 books that make me smile
I didn’t know either of these books existed until I ran across them. I will buy and read anything by Paula Simmons, she has an excellent and straight forward way of explaining things. The other was put out by Straw into Gold, a legendary spinning store in the 1970s. It is, as the title suggests, 101 questions for spinners, but they don’t mention on the cover who the spinners answering the questions. Just Susan Druding, Bette Hochberg, and Alden Amos, plus a few more.
I have more than 100 books on spinning and I’m stopping reading and learning any time soon
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