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.
Audible: saving my gray matter
I used to be a big reader. I mean BIG. I used to go through several books a week. And then I met knitting. And then, I met spinning. And then even worse, I met PLY Magazine. My reading has dwindled to online help forums that claim to be able to help me with subscription software programs and how to get quickbooks to balance. No more high literature, YA fiction, or trashy vampire novels for me. Up until about 6 months ago, I could feel my brain atrophying, freezing synapses, shedding vocabulary words, breaking connections. Dulling.
And so I signed up for Audible! I don’t know if the breakdown of my gray matter has ceased but I’m far more entertained than I was half a year ago.
The first thing I listened to was the 40-hour whopper, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I loved it and am always amazed by authors that can weave characters and complex storylines together with such patienace and skill. I cheered, literally. I also teared. Signs of a good book.
Since then I’ve listened to Skippy Dies, which I did not love; Goldfinch, which I thought was wonderful; Destiny of the Republic, some non-fiction about the assignation of Garfield, because I really like learning things; A Short History of Nearly Everything, which, if you haven’t read, do it! The kids and I listen to this over and over again and each time I can feel the universe and my brain get bigger!; and the Stephen King novel, 11/22/63, which may be my very favorite. Have you read this? I haven’t read anything by King since I was a teenager, when I spent years wrapping myself in his particular brand of horror, and I’d forgotten what a brilliant write her is. This is a good book. A book I couldn’t turn off. So completely engrossing. If you’ve got 40 hours to spare, read this book!
Right now I’m listening to 3 books. The first is Gone Girl. The second is Inkspell by Funke, I’m listening to this in the mornings when both the older kids are in the car with me but it’s mostly for Olive, who’s almost 8 and loves fantasy. It’s the 2nd in the series and it’s read by Brendon Frasier and though I’ve never been a huge fan of his movies, he’s great reading books! The last book is what Utah and I listen to if we’re in the car alone, it’s Stephen King’s book On Writing. It’s read by King, which I had to get used to, but the words are thoughtful and I think we’re both learning something.
So, what are you reading? Any Audible recommendations for me? I go through them quick so lemme have ‘em!
Craftsy dreams
Did you know I used to make videos? Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement, I guess. I made one video and I had plans to make more. In fact, I had plans to make lots more, not just of me but of other spinners. Grand plans, that is, until I watched my first Craftsy class. I saw right away that they were doing a better job than I could do. They’re the future. I mean, it’s a recorded class, with all the bells and whistles and graphics and easy navigation and perfect sound and wonderful close-ups and different angles but it’s got something that no class on DVD can really have – community. That is, interaction with other students and the instructor. It’s the best of on- and off-line. It’s pretty brilliant and it quickly killed any designs I had on a spinning DVD empire. Killed it dead.
So as you might guess, I was pretty excited when my dream-killer approached me to do a Craftsy class. First I checked out how they treated their instructors and employees. Things like that are important and I’m a firm believer in business-karma. Turns out, pretty darned well. Invariably, everybody I know that did their own Craftsy class had nothing but brilliant things to say about the experience. Everyone I met that works/worked for the company had equally glowing things to say.
The real surprise came when I saw the breakdown of where the money goes. Having worked in different capacities for different companies, I’ve had a bit of experience with royalties and Craftsy is way ahead of anyone I’ve worked with! Sure, you get the standard 12% of net if Craftsy sells your class (via their vast advertising network, emails, or just on the site) but where they really shine is if you, the instructor, sell your own class! Yes, if somebody gets to craftsy via a link the instructor put up, say, like this one, the instructor get 30% of whatever class(es) that person enrolls in, even if they’re not the instructor’s class! It’s generous. It’s really generous. It’s what gets them great instructors.
And so I said yes. I may have squealed it, honestly.
You know what I found out? The other reason they get great instructors is that they treat them amazingly! So well. You never feel lost or alone or like you’re not sure what’s happening. They are a well-oiled craft-class-making machine over there. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the experience. Levi and I spent 4 days there and it was great! We loved it. I’d do another in a heartbeat. I’d do 10 more.
So, if you’re interested in a pretty darned comprehensive drafting class, check out my craftsy debut!
PLY’s lunchtable
In the 2 days since my last blog post (the one about needing to hire 2 copy-editors), my inbox has had more “in” it’s “box” than ever! From stay-at-home moms who love 2 things — kids and spinning, to ex-editors-in-chief, to librarians, to graduate students, to actual professional copy-editors, 210 people expressed interest in working with PLY.
That’s cool.
Really, it makes me feel like if I had to walk into my high school lunchroom now, somebody would make room at a table for me and I wouldn’t grab some french fries and a nuttybar and go sit in the gym doorway with my headphones on like it was a choice I was making.
Of course, I know it’s not really about me. It’s not because I’m cool. It’s because the magazine is wonderful. Everyone that works on it (from the staff to the authors to the advertisers) really loves spinning and wants to spread the word. Still, it maked me feel a little cool. Though that feeling of coolness quickly dispersed when I realized that about half the people emailing are more qualified to do my job than I am!
In fact, many of the names that came through my inbox I want to hire just so they will be my friends. But hiring these 1-2 copy-editors is to make the magazine better, to make things less overwhelming and stressful. I need great copy-editors.
And so today I sat down and emailed the bundle to everyone on the list, which was broken into 3 groups for sanity’s sake. Of course, the first group I sent to got the wrong bundle. By that I mean I sent them the test article and also the test article’s answer sheet (such as it is).
Of course, I fixed it by changing out the test article, and I guess it’s good for them to see how I operate now, all thumbs and double-spaces after my periods (.) — a habit I can’t break. I literally have to do a search and replace after everything I write. Muscle memory, the good and bad. They say you can tell a person’s age from his/her typing. If they put 2 spaces after periods, they’re over 30, if not, younger.
So now I wait. I’m excited to see what comes back! I’m going to read them blind, so I don’t get influenced by pretty names and lots of credentials. I’m going to push down the impulse to be cool and do my job and I can’t wait to have 2 new people working on the magazine, they’re going to make it sooo cool.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!