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.
Spinning for Lace: A Test
Words and Photos by Barbara Bundick
My favorite default yarn is, to put it mildly, frog hair. I spin fine. Lucky for me, I also love to knit lace. The 2 go together quite handily.
I’ve heard a number of old wives’ tales about the best yarn for lace knitting. First, 2-ply yarn is supposedly better than 3-ply yarn. The 2 strands in a 2-ply yarn push against each other. The yarn, by its own wont, keeps lace holes open and, dare I say it, lacy. A 3-ply yarn, on the other hand, is rounder than a 2-ply yarn, providing for better stitch definition. The old wives will tell you, “Knit lace with a 2-ply yarn. Knit cables or stockinette with a 3-ply yarn.”
The make-up of the yarn also matters, even when everything is wool, such as which of the 2 major methods of prepping wool is used. Combing aligns all the fibers so they’re neatly parallel, while carding mixes all the fibers up higgledy-piggledy. Combed fiber is sleek. Carded fiber will keep you warm in winter.
Then there’s the wool. To grossly oversimplify, wool comes in at least 3 varieties: fine, medium, and long. Fine wools, such as Merino, are naturally short stapled, with very tight crimp, and average around 20 microns in diameter. Longwools average closer to 33 microns, with a staple length that can be as long as a foot. A classic longwool staple is lustrous and wavy. Medium wools fall neatly in between.
Setting up the Experiment
So what makes the best yarn for lace knitting? I put the old wives’ tales to the test by preparing 12 samples. I started with 3 wools: Merino, the classic fine wool; Montadale, a medium wool developed in the U.S.; and Cotswold, a traditional longwool and the basis for the British wool trade. I combed some of each and carded some of each and spun 4 yarns from each: a 2-ply combed, a 3-ply combed, a 2-ply carded, and a 3-ply carded. I knit each yarn into a lace swatch – and voilà! I could figure out if the old wives were right.
I immediately encountered a problem. I used Merino and Montadale from fleeces I’d purchased. I knew the fiber was sound and would spin well. However, I was not happy with the Cotswold I received. Perhaps because it was lambswool, it did not have the luster and curl I had fantasized. The fiber was matte white with a light yellowish tinge. Fortunately, the Cotswold spun better than I expected, so I suspect my ultimate results are reasonably reliable. However, the next time I encounter the kind of longwool locks that I first envisioned, I may repeat the longwool part of the test.
Prepping and Spinning
Combing and carding went about as expected. The Merino, a greasy fleece to begin with, did not wash fully clean. The trace of residual lanolin made no difference in the combing. In carding, though, it did tend to hold the rolag together tightly, almost as though I’d made a puni. All residual grease washed out when I washed the yarn. The Montadale, ever obliging, and the Cotswold, with a little grumbling, all combed and carded without difficulty.
Yes, I handcarded Cotswold, even though the staples were over 3 inches long. Longwools can be carded, albeit carefully. They sometimes even benefit from the extra air. I once tried spinning some combed Gotland locks, but the fiber kept trying to felt in my hands. I carded the Gotland, adding air, and the fiber became spinnable. While combing remains the preferred method of preparing longwools, carding is worth a try.
I spun all my yarn on a top whorl drop spindle because, heck, I love spindles. My spindle spinning is neither pure worsted nor pure woolen, but a mix of each. My finished combed yarns, therefore, did not have all the sleekness of a pure worsted draft – just most of it. The carded yarns didn’t inhale as much air as they would have if I had spun standard woolen. The difference between the preparations still showed in the yarns and the final swatches.
The combed Cotswold taught me a valuable lesson. It wanted, insisted really, on being drafted from the butt end. Wool has scales that point towards the tip. When you spin from the tip, you’re pulling against the scales. When you spin from the butt, the scales remain closed. The Cotswold drafted sleek as silk when I spun it from the butt end. When I spun it from the tip, it balked. The Merino and the Montadale were also happier spun from the butt end. Lesson learned. (Hint: If you’re not sure which end is which, rub the combed fiber between your thumb and your first finger. Your fingers will naturally move towards the tip end. Start drafting at the other end.)
Knitting
Yarns plied, it was time to knit. The yarns were close enough in wraps per inch that I decided to knit them all on the same pair of US size 3 needles. I chose a traditional lace pattern called the Spider Stitch, which is based on a 6-stitch repeat over 4 rows:
Row 1: K1, k2tog, *yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1, k2tog*; repeat between asterisks, then finish with ssk, k1.
Rows 2 and 4: Purl.
Row 3: K2tog, yo, *k3, yo, slip2-k1-psso, yo*; repeat between asterisks, then finish with k3, yo, ssk.
Results
The results both proved and disproved the old wives’ tales. Some differences were obvious and to be expected. The 3-ply yarns were thicker than the 2-ply yarns. The carded yarns were fuzzier than the combed ones.
I will happily challenge the old wives, however, about the superiority of a 2-ply yarn for lace. I could see no evidence that the lace holes in any of the 2-ply swatches were larger or rounder than the holes in the corresponding 3-ply swatch. The 3-ply yarns, however, did have slightly better stitch definition. Thus, the key benefit of knitting lace with a 2-ply yarn is the fineness of the yarn. If your goal is to pull your shawl through a wedding ring, why crowd the ring with an extra ply? The carded yarns were also slightly thicker than the combed yarns. Because carding adds air, carded yarns puff when they’re washed. The puffing, especially with the carded Montadale, somewhat obscured the laciness of the lace.
If your goal is elegance, use a combed yarn. If your goal is warmth, however, a 3-ply carded medium wool is well worth considering. Of the 3 wools, the Merino, in its combed, 2-ply form, produced the finest, softest lace. I could knit a wedding ring shawl with that stuff.
The Montadale, even combed, has a natural fuzziness and bounce that keeps it out of wedding ring territory. But a soft warm wrap? Pull out the Montadale. While I was disappointed with the Cotswold in general, the 2-ply combed yarn did knit into a showy lace.
The fiber was a bit scratchy, with no elasticity. It would not work for next-to-the-skin wear. A 2-ply combed longwool scarf, however, would be just the thing for dressing up a winter coat.
All wools and all prep methods and all yarns have their uses, even for lace. If there’s any lesson I learned from this experiment, it’s don’t spin and knit to please the old wives. Experiment, and then do as you please.
Barbara Bundick has been knitting for 50 years and spinning for 20. She is a graduate of the Olds College Master Spinner Program. She lives in northern Illinois with her husband, one daughter, her daughter’s two cats, and more wheels, spindles, knitting needles, and stash than are worth mentioning.
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