A Blanket-A-Long was suggested by listeners and we thought that was a terrific idea. So pull out your yarn stashes and knit or crochet with us. Hear the details and projects updates in the episode. Full transcript available at the end of these show notes.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Subscribe on Android or Subscribe on Google Podcasts
We Want to Hear You!
Give us a call and tell us about your favorite LYS! Go to speakpipe.com/twoewes and leave a message. It will take 90 seconds or less. Or you can use the voice memo app on your phone and email us the audio file. We’ll put your voice feedback on the show!
Marsha’s Projects
Nanny Meier’s Tea Cozy by Amelia Carlsen. I am using Cascade 220 Heather in Red Wine Heather (9489) and green Irelande (2429). I have finished both sides and am ready to sew together and make pompoms.
Meadow Stripe Socks using Patons Kroy Sock in the colorway, Meadow Stripes and Lang Yarns Jawoll Superwash fingering for the heels and toes. Ready to start heel flap on the second sock.
Quick Switch Hat by AbbyeKnits. My son liked the hat so much I cast on another for him using Meeker Street Olives Outerwear DK in the colorway Sage. I finished the hat but I think it is too small.
Phrancko Designs crew neck from Phrancko.com by Frank Jernigan. I’m using my green and brown handspun merino. Finished the ribbing but I’m waiting for Ben to try on the sweater before binding off. Frank says to use the invisible ribbed bind off, but with the warning that it is difficult to frog, so I want to be sure of the length. Started first sleeve
Finished my spinning project with merino roving from The Weaving Works that I bought at a gathering of spinners on Whidbey Island several years ago. I have a one ounce ball of green (Amazon), blue (Cornflower), light blue (Rain), and mauve (Plum). I cast on for a cowl and am using the helix knitting technique with four colors that our listener Rochelle (Reecreates) suggested. Here is a link to the Purl SoHo video.
Found a 2lb bag of Manx Loaghton in my stash. This is a protected breed from the Isle of Man. I am using a woolen spun technique.
Kelly’s Projects
I’m still working on a pair of socks (Ravelry link) in Bob Ross Happy Little Mistakes yarn from Weird Sisters Wool Emporium in Aberdeen. I’m using the stitch pattern from Blueberry Waffle socks.
I started a Garter Squish blanket to use the handspun leftovers from my tossing of the stash. I’m about to the halfway mark and I’m almost done with the natural white Columbia and Oxford that I’m using as the base color. I’m going to have to spin more.
Winter Weave Along
Starts October 15 and goes through the end of March.
Two Ewes’ Hand Dyed Cotton Yarn and Dishcloth Pattern Giveaway
January 13 - February 28
Drop by our Ravelry thread and let us know your favorite dishcloth pattern and you will be entered to win a skein of our hand-dyed cotton and a Two Ewes’ dishcloth instructions. Never made a dishcloth? Tell us if you are a dishcloth newbie.
Stash-Busting Blanket Along
Starts now, ends May 31. There will be prizes.
Full Transcript
Marsha 0:03
Hi, this is Marsha
Kelly 0:04
and this is Kelly.
Marsha 0:05
We are the Two Ewes of to Two Ewes Fiber Adventures. Thanks for stopping by.
Kelly 0:10
You'll hear about knitting, spinning, dyeing, crocheting, and just about anything else we can think of as a way to play with string.
Marsha 0:17
We blog and post show notes at Two Ewes Fiber Adventures dot com.
Kelly 0:22
And we invite you to join our Two Ewes Fiber Adventures group on Ravelry. I'm 1hundredprojects,
Marsha 0:29
and I am betterinmotion.
Kelly 0:31
We are both on Instagram and Ravelry. And we look forward to meeting you there.
Both 0:36
Enjoy the episode.
Marsha 0:42
Hi, Kelly.
Kelly 0:43
Hi, Marsha. How are you?
Marsha 0:45
I'm fine, Happy belated birthday.
Kelly 0:47
Oh, thanks. Yeah, it was it was... I don't know. It's weird to be 60, I have to say.
Marsha 0:54
I'm shocked. Because I've known you. I never thought that... I've known you so long. Then if you're 60. I'm older than you. And I'm shocked that we're this age.
Kelly 1:11
Yes. Yeah. And Betty was like, I can't believe you're 60. I remember going to see you when you were born.
Marsha 1:21
I know. Okay, well, I'm not. I have not known you that long. But I've known you long enough that I still think of us as being sort of in our 20s.
Kelly 1:29
I know. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, the way I think of it is when we actually get together in person, because there's so much time in between that we weren't together, time sort of telescopes. So if you only count, if you only count the amount of time that we've spent in the same, you know, physical space since we met, we probably are still in our 20s.
Marsha 1:52
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's true. Well, anyway, happy birthday. Yeah. Um, and now we'll not talk about turning 60 for the rest of the podcast.
Kelly 2:07
Yeah, it doesn't... I'm not bothered. I'm just kind of, well, like the video of the dogs. How they were perplexed that I was going to work like what? They were just kind of surprised?I'm like, Yeah, how did that happen? I'm kind of confused. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. Feeling good still. Nothing happened. You know, the day I turned 60 my body didn't fall apart or anything. So I'm taking that as a good sign. Went to a winery with some friends. That was fun. We went to Pessagno winery, down the valley, down the Salinas Valley a ways. And it was a nice day. We've been having great, really, really nice weather. If you want to enjoy the weather in Monterey County, October... end of September, October, February. Don't come in the summer. You'll you'll just be able to hear me whining. Even if if you're you know, we don't ever meet in person. You'll hear it because I'll be whining loudly all summer long. [laughing]
Marsha 3:17
Yeah. Well, I will be down there before too long.
Kelly 3:21
Yeah, that's exciting!
Marsha 3:22
So we are... We've talked about this before, I'm pretty sure. But we are going to Stitches West, which I believe Kelly, isn't it the third through the sixth?
Kelly 3:32
Yes. March third through sixth.
Marsha 3:35
And so we're going to that. And we had I had such a lot of discussion about how I'm going to get down there. But I decided I'm going to take the train. So I booked my ticket. So I'm going to... it's overnight on the train, which I'm really looking forward to. And I have a compartment so I'll be isolating. And I'm still worried about the pandemic and masking and I know you can go down to the dining car and take your meals but probably... I called and I can just take my meals in my compartment if I want. So I think it's pretty safe. Yeah, so I'm excited about it.
Kelly 4:07
And they probably have to have air circulation. You know, they probably had to upgrade if they didn't already have good air circulation. Upgrade their air circulation.
Marsha 4:19
Mm hmm.
Kelly 4:20
So well, I think it'll be fun. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to seeing you. I'm looking forward to seeing yarn.
Marsha 4:29
Yes, well, and our friends because... but I was thinking about this Kelly. I hope we can recognize everybody because we will all have masks on.
Kelly 4:38
Yeah, yeah.
Marsha 4:40
We'll have to just... I don't know. Maybe we need signs who we are, I don't know. We'll find ...
Kelly 4:47
Maybe you should take, you know, one of those like white pens-- well my mask isn't black anymore. I'm wearing a blue like a turquoise N 95. Maybe I'll just put Kelly right across it with a black sharpie.
Marsha 5:00
Yeah, yeah, maybe I should do that. So though, because, yeah, we are all masked, you know. And so it's hard sometimes to tell.
Kelly 5:08
It is, yeah. I have, well, I'm, you know, back to teaching, as you know, and all my students are wearing masks. And in, during the pandemic, you know, we were using where the students got really good at using our online platform, we use something called Canvas. And of course, you can upload a profile picture. And so a lot of the students when I first was using it, hardly anyone had a profile picture. But during the pandemic, a lot of the students, you know, learned how to put on their profile pictures. But trying to match... even trying to match up a profile picture with the student and what they look like, actually in the classroom with a mask on is hard, you know, yeah, so, so yeah, I'm not sure I would recognize my students without their masks on. Yeah. You know, so even people that I've known, known for a while, or, you know, met before, I'm not, I'm not sure that I would necessarily recognize them. So we'll have to...
Marsha 6:10
So it's gonna be, Yeah, it's gonna be an interesting challenge. We're gonna have to,
Kelly 6:14
we'll have to recognize each other by our knitwear. Yeah, I was hoping to be able to wear the Sonny Bono jacket.
Marsha 6:22
Oh, yes.
Kelly 6:23
But it might be too warm. I might have missed the window of opportunity for the Sonny Bono jacket this year. I mean, today, it feels like that, because it's so warm today. But it'll get back to being cool
Marsha 6:37
Yeah, and I have a little bit of an issue just in terms of packing, because knitwear is hard to pack? So I don't know. We'll see. We'll find something. Well, should we talk about projects?
Kelly 6:51
Sure. Okay, you have a lot going on. Why don't you go first?
Marsha 6:57
Well, I have a lot of them. And I was, as I was making my notes. I was thinking I have a lot of projects, but I'm kind of frustrated by my projects and having some. Well, I've had some kind of difficulty. Let me go to the notes here. Well, okay, so I still haven't done anything. Okay, let's back up. The Nanny Meyer tea cozy for Brian. As I said, the last episode I have both sides done. I just have to sew it together and make the pom poms for the top. They go on top of the teapot... on top of the tea pot. But I'm not super motivated. You know how you get into a project. And then all you have to do is weave in the ends or something. And so I just have to make myself sit down and sew it together. Yes. And I was motivated to do it last week, because I thought he was coming to dinner on Saturday, but then he wasn't able to come. So then I lost my motivation. So I just have to sit down and finish it and so I can get it off the show notes.
Kelly 7:55
I was gonna say what, what motivates me sometimes is I just want something out of the shownotes. Like, yeah, I look at it. I start the show notes for the next episode. And I see the thing and I think okay, no, I want this deleted. I'm gonna go sit down. I'm gonna get this done.
Marsha 8:11
Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of how I feel about it. So I just need to take care of that. I'm still working on my socks, nothing new to report on there. I'm getting ready to start doing the heel, the heel flap. And then I made I think I talked about this in the last episode that I finished the Quick Switch hat by Abby Knits thatI was doing for Ben out of the Meeker Street Olive Outerwear DK. But it's-- Did I talk about this?
Kelly 8:40
No, I remember, I think you were still knitting on it. I don't think you had finished it.
Marsha 8:44
Okay, so I was down at the beach, and I finished it at the beach. And then I laid it next to mine. And it's about two inches smaller around than the one I made for myself. And you know how yarn... if the label will... this label says it's DK, but I was knitting with it. I guess well, I should say you should really trust your instincts and trust your gut because I'm knitting with it going this doesn't feel the same as the DK I worked with before or maybe this is a true DK and the other yarn that I was using--it was a Madelinetosh-- was not a true DK or vice versa. So I did the same size needles I did not do a gauge swatch, you know,
Kelly 9:23
why would you swatch for a hat? [laughing]
Marsha 9:26
Yeah, really. You should swatch for a hat because it's it's about two inches smaller than mine. And I think it's a little tight. So I finished it but I did not weave in the ends because I want Ben to try it on and I called and we were talking about and he said well, he's kind of excited that it's small, because he's been wearing... all the hats I've made him are way too big. And we were talking about this the last episode--that handspun hat made from my handspun, one of my first projects and it's terrible. It's like a bucket hat. And so he said, you know, it flies off. It's amazing he still has it because he'll be climbing, it'll fall off and he'll go climb down and find it down at the base of the mountain or whatnot. So anyway, he's kind of excited about having a closer fitting hat. So I'm just going to wait and not finish it until he tries it on. But I was kind of, everything's not really working very well.
Kelly 10:26
Yeah.
Marsha 10:26
And then the the Phrankco design sweater I making for Ben. It is coming along, I've knit down to-- the last episode, I think I had knit down to the point where I was going to start the ribbing. I did the ribbing. And then he does a bind off--I think it's the tubular bind off, you know--where you use a needle to sew? Yeah, knitted off
Kelly 10:58
It is basically like Kitchener stitching. Yeah,
Marsha 11:01
Yes. Which looks really nice. And I think that's what I want to do. But he did say if you... it's almost impossible to rip it out. So I want to make sure... I want Ben to try the sweater on before I do. So I just have the bottom edge on waste yarn as I've moved on to the sleeve. And but again, he needs to try it. I need him... I need his body, you know, to try this on before I finish it. So
Kelly 11:32
So last episode, you had mentioned that he was coming. You were leaving on Saturday, but he was going to be there. You thought that night? And maybe he could try it on? Did he try it on at that point?
Marsha 11:47
Well, he he came, but he didn't. Yeah. Because Ben shows up, drops his stuff off. And I'm going off, you know, and so he left and then I think I saw him briefly. And then he left you know, I mean, he went off. He was... I left in the morning and he was working so... And he has not come back now. I don't know this is...it's been two weeks.
Marsha 12:14
Yeah. Since we last recorded.
Marsha 12:15
Yeah. So it's okay. I mean, I'm hoping between now and the time I leave for California, he'll be home so I can finish this, you know, not how I have all these stopping points where I am, you know, and so anyway, but I like the pattern. I like it's a phrankco.com And Frank Jernigan, excellent instructions, pretty clear. And also his video tutorials he has are excellent too. He's a good instructor. And, and then also, I said this before, and I'll just repeat it that how much I enjoy knitting with handspun. Yeah, it's, it's got a roundness and poufiness to it or something, I don't know, that I like. So. Anyway, so that's coming along. And then the last time we talked, I had started spinning a little bag of roving that I got that had four colors in it, each was an ounce. And I finished those. I kept the color separate just did a two ply of each individual color. And now I've cast on. I'm making up a pattern. I'm just doing a cowl, right. So I should back up and say, I want to do stripes, and Rochelle, Recreates on Ravelry, contacted or put in the discussion thread, that Purl Soho had a great video about helix knitting, where you can put stripes in with four colors, and not have to carry the yarn like up one side of your project. So I put the link in the shownotes. That was a great video and I put the link in the show notes if you want. So that's what I'm doing. And I did a swatch and decided to cast on 100 stitches. And then what you do with the helix knitting is you divide those stitches by four. And so then you knit with your first color 25 stitches, pick up the second color, knit 25 stitches, pick up the third color knit 25 stitches, the fourth one unit 25 stitches and then go to your stitch marker, your beginning of row marker, knit another 25 in that same color. And then from that point on then you just keep dropping one other color your knitting when you come to a change. You drop that and your next working yarn is right there. I don't think I'm explaining that very clearly. But it's a... it's great because you don't get jogs. And there's a nice... she has the video. She also has a nice technique that you just have your yarn lined up in a row and the one that you're... the ball of yarn that you're working with is always on the left of the row. And as you finish knitting with that, when you just pick up it, and you move it to the right to the end of the line of yarn, and then knit with that next one, you just keep moving them to the right, like hopping over the balls of yarn to go on the far right side of the ball. So then your yarn never gets tangled.
Kelly 15:29
Theoretically,
Marsha 15:30
theoretically,
Kelly 15:32
if you were to do all of the moving. [laughing]
Marsha 15:36
well, but it's funny if you go and you gather up your project, no matter how careful you are, I've discovered with this little project, and you put it in your project bag. I don't know what happens overnight. But the little elves get in there and they tangle all the... go in the tangle everything up. And so you take about 10 minutes when you pull your project out of the bag, you spend 10 minutes getting your balls all untwisted in a little line. But anyway.
Kelly 16:06
The balls of yarn have a little party in the knitting bag.
Marsha 16:08
They have a party. Yeah. So anyway, I'm so I'm getting along on this. And I, as I say, I'm sort of making up this pattern. I don't have... I just decided I wanted to cowl. And I did, I would say five rows of ribbing in one color. And then I started the stripes. Okay. So I've knit two inches, probably.
Kelly 16:40
Fun. So that's kind of fun.
Marsha 16:41
Yeah, it's fun. It's really good, I think. Yeah, I like it.
Kelly 16:47
And it's knitting with handspun.
Marsha 16:48
Again, it's knitting with handspun. And this is Merino. It's very soft. I'm enjoying it. So I was kind of excited about the spinning. And so I think what happened is... the reason I pulled out that bag with the four colors is I have a guest room that has a big wardrobe. And there were all of the... I was talking about this in the last episode where all of the fiber is it's not the yarn, it's just the fiber. And so I had opened up and I pulled out that little bag, and with it, and I was going to clean the room. Never cleaned the room. So I went back two days ago to clean the room and made the mistake of opening up that wardrobe again, like oh, look at here's this other bag of roving so I pulled it out. I still have not cleaned the room, just so you know. The vacuum cleaner still sitting up there in the room. But I pulled out this bag, and it's a two pound bag of roving, and it's Manx Loaghtan, which is from the Isle of Mann, I was reading. And I have this and it's kind of Carmel colored, I would say. So Kelly, what I decided to do is... I should say about these sheep too. They're interesting, they have horns, and I'll see if I can remember to post a picture of what they look like. Because they they can have multiple sets of horns, but like one set of horns, sticks straight up. And the other set curls down around their face, kind of. They're really interesting looking sheep. So I'll put some pictures in there. And maybe I'll put a link to the Wikipedia article about these sheep. That would be mostly they're a heritage breed. And I was reading here on on Wikipedia that by the 1950s, there were only 43 surviving sheep. And so today there are still fewer than 1500 registered breeding females it says here, but that... So they're raised primarily primarily primarily for their meat, but people do spin their wool. And it does say in this Wikipedia article, taht it's kind of prized for softness. That is not my experience. It's a bit of a... I don't think you'd want to have like a T shirt next to your skin. I don't think you'd want to hat out of it. I think it's, it would be a sweater that you would wear over a flannel shirt or something or maybe a blanket.
Kelly 19:24
A medium to the on the more itchy side of medium wool maybe. Yeah, yeah.
Marsha 19:33
So but I was thinking about you. I was spinning it last night. And I took a picture because do you remember we were talking about woolen spun and how woolen spun has more air in it because of the spinning technique. You kind of hold... the way you described it is you hold the fiber in your left hand, if that's how you spin and you hold it like you're holding a baby bird, you know. And then what you should be holding in your right hand so you don't do any of that pinch and inching method is in your right hand, you should be holding a glass of wine. So that you can't use your right hand.
Kelly 20:13
Yeah.
Marsha 20:14
So I did use my right hand a little bit, but I really tried because I don't typically spin that way. I hold it a little bit tighter. So I was really practicing the other night to do... because I don't... Am I correct that that is woolen spun, where you hold it and so there's a lot of sort of air in the fiber.
Kelly 20:38
Mm hmm.
Marsha 20:38
Okay. So I spun a bobbin of it over two nights.
Kelly 20:43
Nice.
Marsha 20:44
So I don't know what I'll do with it. I, you know, me, I'm always like spinning for a specific project. I decided I'm going to channel you. Not only like holding the fiber like I'm holding a baby bird in my left hand, but I'm also going to spin it just to spin that yarn and not think about what I'm going to make
Kelly 21:01
Exciting!
Marsha 21:02
Then when I do a swatch it'll tell me what it's supposed to be. Right?
Kelly 21:06
Right. Or you might even know before you get all the way done with the spinning. But yeah, something will come to you.
Marsha 21:13
I will say it I don't know if this is... this is kind of nuts when I say this, but when I've been spinning the roving, or excuse me spinning the singles, it feels a bit rough. But then you know how you'll just take the yarn and you'll double it back or triple it, three pieces together and just like, like, ply it together, kind of. It feels softer to me then.
Marsha 21:36
Yeah.
Marsha 21:37
And I think that's nuts. I don't think that that can't be right. Or is it?
Kelly 21:41
I think it is. It's, well, it depends on you know, does soft, mean smooth. Does soft mean not prickly? Does soft mean puffy? Right? It depends on what you mean by soft. So when you double it back on each other, double it back on itself. And and look at that ply it, it sort of gets puffier right, and so that puffiness is giving you some of that soft feeling. So yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ways that something can feel soft. And then when it's and when is tightly spun in the singles it's more, it feels more coarse because everything's kind of tight and close together. And then when you allow... when it's allowed to kind of bloom, it does, it does start to feel to feel softer. That doesn't mean it won't necessarily feel prickly, right? Because that's more a matter of the, the micron count of the wool.
Marsha 22:41
Mm hmm.
Kelly 22:42
And one of the wool judges, I can't remember which one it was. But one of the wool judges was saying that the the sort of prickle factor or the itchiness can also come from... what do I want to say... diversity of the of the micron count. So if the micron count is all one thing, it's going to feel, even if it's a... if you have a higher micron count, but it's all consistent, it's going to feel better to your skin than something that might be a little bit lower of a micron count but inconsistent
Marsha 23:22
Okay,
Kelly 23:23
So that's part of it, too. So once you get done, yeah, you there's no way to know for sure exactly how how, you know, close to the skin, you'll be able to wear it.
Marsha 23:35
Mm hmm.
Kelly 23:35
But, but you're probably not wrong that once you once you ply it, it'll feel a little bit different.
Marsha 23:43
Mm hmm. Because I... as I've been spinning it, I also thought too, well, maybe it's not a sweater. Because there's two pounds. I don't know how much yardage that will be. But, you know, maybe I need a blanket, but I combine it with something that's softer. That would sort of balance out the you know, I don't know.
Kelly 24:04
Yeah, yeah
Marsha 24:05
I was just thinking at this point.
Kelly 24:07
Well, I mean, we've talked a lot about the transformation that happens at every stage. Right? And so that is one of the things that's fun is you just you don't know exactly you know, you have an idea but you don't know exactly.
Marsha 24:19
Yeah. And I kind of wonder... And this may not have anything to do with it either because you know so much more about this than I do, but it also... the the fiber has a bit of an odor to it. Not a bad odor like it's dirty or something but I wonder if once it's washed-- again because it has a bit of a lanolin smell. It's pretty strong lanolin.
Kelly 24:44
Yeah.
Marsha 24:45
And so I'm wondering, when it is washed again as yarn-- because I always wash the yarn after I ply it and you know, give it a good whack on the picnic table. You know, that technique to poof it up and everything And then it'll be washed again probably as a garment or a blanket or something, if that's going to change the, the feel of it as well.
Kelly 25:08
Well, I can, I can give you an example. I spun another... I had to spin, another skein for the blanket that I'm making. And you would think that in all the years of washing fleeces that I would know, not to be skimpy on the, on the water or not to be skimpy with soap, and I would know how to get a fleece clean, right, but yeah, this particular fleece, I'm pretty sure I was in a hurry to get it washed. And so it's still a little sticky, and spinning it, I was spinning it during the cold, you know, during the, the cold time of day and it was really sticky. And so, so I put it, you know, put it in the sun and let it warm up a little bit. And then it was nice, you could, you know, you could even feel the lanolin kind of slipping as you spin it. But the skein of yarn was was gross, I mean, it just had kind of a dead feeling to it, you know, it wasn't the same kind of, you know, that life you feel in a handspun. So I just boiled some water on the stove, poured it into the, you know, the wash pot that I use, put some Dawn in there, put the, you know, some dish soap in there, put the skein in there, let it soak, I think maybe 10 minutes, I didn't want the water to cool off too much. And then I washed it again, just in hot water from the tap. You know, again, soap and hot water from the tap. And then I rinsed it with just the hottest water I could get out of the tap in it. And now it's all puffy and fluffy. And you know it has that that feel to it because it's clean.
Marsha 26:58
Yeah, right.
Kelly 26:59
It was stuck together with with lanolin that didn't get washed out. So I mean, spinning spinning wool that has a little bit of lanolin still left in it is really nice when the weather's warm and the lanolin is soft and slippery. And you know, it makes your hands feel like you've just, you know, lotioned them up really nicely. But spinning it during cold weather when the lanolin is sticky is not fun.
Marsha 27:27
Yeah, yeah.
Kelly 27:29
So that might be part of what you're what you're noticing too. Because didn't you say it is a high lanolin breed?
Marsha 27:38
Yes, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't feel sticky. But it does have a really strong lanolin odor. You know, because most machine made yarn has no lanolin odor at all right?
Kelly 27:52
right.
Marsha 27:53
And this does have a really strong odor. So I think there's still a lot of lanolin in there. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see. I mean, this is, this is why you spin because it does keep changing. You know, really, I can't tell you how I'm... what I... Right now I would say no, I'm not making a sweater out of it. But who knows when it's done? Yeah. Might be fantastic.
Kelly 28:12
plyOnce you ply it and wash and all that stuff.
Marsha 28:15
Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly 28:17
Yeah. You could even overdye some of it if you wanted. Since you have two pounds of it.
Marsha 28:24
Yeah, yeah, I have a lot of options. I was thinking also about you while I was spinning this. Its that two pounds is really too much for a sweater, I will probably have a lot left. Which leads me to your project. So that's all I have to say about my projects other than I'm kind of having some hits and misses on my projects. So but anyway, you have that's a nice segue.
Kelly 28:48
Yeah, that is and you have some projects that are dependent on other people too. And that's throwing some monkey wrenches into your plans along the way. Well, yeah, so I'll take that segue and talk about my leftovers project. The garter squish blanket, I'm knitting on it right now. And this is the first time I've knit on it in over a week.
Marsha 29:15
Okay,
Kelly 29:16
Because I did run out of yarn shortly after we recorded the last episode. I think I maybe got like six more inches and then I had to stop because I was out of the white. So I spun some more of the Oxford. That's the one I was just talking about that was not as clean as it should have been. And it's a fleece that's been hanging around a while too. I mean, I washed it. I wshed it not long after I got it. I think. Maybe not. I can't remember but I think I bought this Oxford fleece in 2018. So you know it's a fleece has been hanging around a while. I think what I did this summer with the Oxford, I can't remember exactly, but I think what I did this summer is I spun three bobbins full and then plied them all off and got like three skeins. And I don't think I got any further than that. Well and I washed and carded the fleece. Or not washed, but carded the fleece. So I do have... I had a bunch of the batts leftover. In fact, they were still packed in the little bag I put them in when I went to Seabrook with you. In September, I had thrown a couple of bobbins in there, I had thrown a couple of things for my spinning wheel, you know, things that I wanted to have for spinning in there and packed it in my in my car. And when I got home and I unpacked I just took it out of the car and dumped it in the garage. So dug that out, and I started spinning. I've now got three bobbins totally full of singles and I started plying them off. So I have this one skein that I just wound up this morning so that I could knit while we talked. And I'm using, along with it I'm using a green... kind of a foresty green color that I used in the Funky Grandpa sweater and I also used in my... I forget the name of it. It's a poncho that has like a turtle neck.
Marsha 31:26
Oh, yes.
Kelly 31:27
It's It's lime green. It's I made it out of Sincere Sheep...
Marsha 31:31
You wore it when you went to the winery with your friends.
Kelly 31:34
I did. What's the name of it? I can't remember.
Marsha 31:38
Everybody was making it.
Kelly 31:40
Yeah. Tracy made one.
Marsha 31:42
Yes, keep talking. I'll look.
Kelly 31:44
So anyway, I wore it to work today. And it's sitting right here. And part of it I used those leftovers in it as well for the color work part of it. So I'm using up the very last and I think I maybe have about maybe four yards of this left before I switch to another color, which is always the fun part. So I, you know, I have work to do after we get done today. But I can... I could very easily see myself moving out to the backyard and ditching Thursday afternoon's work so that I could go through another color.Because it's truly, truly addicting. So did you find it Marsha?
Marsha 32:31
I'm scrolling. I'm getting through all of the Star Wars figures and I'm still scrolling back and back and
Kelly 32:40
well, I will let you let you keep doing that. And I'll go on to say that the only other thing that I'm working on right now is my Weird Sister's Wool Emporium socks. And I have about halfway down the foot of the second sock so those should be done soon.
Marsha 33:00
I found it.
Kelly 33:01
Oh good.
Marsha 33:01
I'm interrupting you. Indigo Frost.
Kelly 33:03
Indigo Frost. Yes.
Marsha 33:05
And Isabel Kramer as the designer.
Kelly 33:09
Yes. One of our faves.
Marsha 33:11
Yes. Yeah.
Kelly 33:12
So yeah, in fact, I got a compliment on it. One of my students commented today that that he liked my shawl. So I Yeah, dug that out. And I felt kind of weird wearing a wool poncho when the the weather says it's, well it says right now it's 82 in Salinas. It wasn't that warm when I left for work. It's still not that warm in the shade here. If I were sitting in the shade, I might still want long sleeves on or something but but anyway. So those are my... those are my two projects. I need to get, you know, get some more plying done, so I get some more of the yarn for the garter squish. So I guess there was spinning project in there too. But that's what I'm working on. Socks. Garter Squish Blanket. Yeah..
Marsha 34:07
Okay. And that's it for projects?
Kelly 34:11
That's it for projects, although I will tell you about a different kind of project that I worked on this week. So okay, you all will maybe remember that Caroline, left me, left us a feedback about her... She was talking about her local yarn store and how it would be really interesting, since we can't travel around to different yarn stores really, very easily right now, that we could talk about them. And I thought that would be really fun and I thought I'd really like to actually hear people's voices. Like actually put them on the show talking about their favorite yarn store local yarn store. So I actually I got an account it's... If you go to this website called Speak pipe.com, forward slash two ewes, and we have the link to it in the show notes. But it's spelled the way you would you would think, speakpipe.com, forward slash two ewes, you can actually leave us a message. It has a 90 second limit, which is actually a lot longer than you think when you start talking and you feel like you have a time limit. But 90 seconds is a lot of time. So you can, you can use the speakpipe.com/twoewes website to leave us a message. Or you can use the Voice Memo app on your phone and just email us the audio file, twoewes@TwoEwesFiberAdventures.com and send us some information about your local yarn shop. We'll put it we'll put it in our our future episodes. Put your voice on the show. I'm excited about that. I think that'd be fun. I had heard about this speakpipe before, but I hadn't done anything about it. So I made myself a little project the other day to get that set up.
Marsha 36:16
Mm hmm. Well, that's exciting. Yeah. I mean, I'm really excited to hear what people have, you know, to hear about shops all over the world, you know. So, yeah, very cool. Yeah.
Kelly 36:29
Oh, I do have one other one other thing. It's not really my project, but I want to talk about it. I think we have time.
Marsha 36:37
Yeah. We'll make time.
Kelly 36:40
So. So Aunt Betty is making a hat. And she bought a kit to make the hat and she's knitting and the pattern calls for like five inches of ribbing. And the whole time she's knitting the ribbing she's complaining because she doesn't like knitting ribbing. And she doesn't think it needs to be five inches. And but she does it and and then the hat is cabled. And so she starts the cables, and then all of a sudden, she's worried that she's gonna run out of yarn.
Marsha 37:14
Mm hmm.
Kelly 37:15
So, she takes a look again at her kit. And the pattern in the kit calls for something like 220 yards. And the skein of yarn that they put in the kit has like 200 yards. So she really is gonna run out of yarn. Yeah, isn't that irritating?
Marsha 37:37
Yeah, so why would they do that?
Kelly 37:39
I don't know. Yeah.
Marsha 37:41
So you need to check these things. If you buy a kit, you need to check it.
Kelly 37:44
Right. Yeah, I mean, you would think that that would be something that would be automatic that the amount of yarn in the skein that they put in the kit would be the right amount of yarn for the pattern.
Marsha 37:54
Yeah.
Kelly 37:55
And I mean it is true. If a designer makes a pattern, let's say for Cascade 220 that has 220 yards in it. And you know, doesn't use it all. The patterns still calls for 220 yards. Right? Because that's the skein. Cuz, you know, it has the... it has that yarn as the required yarn? Do you see what I'm saying?
Marsha 38:22
I see what you're saying. Are you talking about in kits or are you just talking about in general?
Kelly 38:26
In general with a pattern.
Marsha 38:29
See, I don't... Well I don't agree with that. I mean, well maybe I'm... I would think that... Doesn't it tell you how many yards you... if if the pattern calls for Cascade 220 and you want to take make a size medium, it's going to tell you how many skeins to buy, right, right? But doesn't it also tell you how many yards you need so that you can if you want to substitute a different yarn? Yardage so if you say, say you know you had to have this is not probably true, but say you needed 10 balls of Cascade 220. That would be what, over 2000 yards, right? Yeah, you're you're saying that they would have you buy that but you know wouldn't necessarily need that to knit the sweater.
Kelly 39:12
Right. Well and I guess it depends on the pattern because like the the blanket, Faye's Flower Blanket that I made, it told... you know it told you you needed these skeins this many of these skeins and some of those skeins you did not use the whole thing. You wouldn't use the whole thing if you followed the the patterns and you know... design where, you know, the center flower was one color and all the tiles were the same color. But I don't think it tells you exactly how much you use. So you would know how much you would have leftover.
Marsha 39:53
But like if you bought yarn a kit and it would say you know for this hat you need one skein of Cascade 220, it might be that you don't need all 220 yards of that to make the hat, right. But that's what they're going to tell you you need because that's what's in the kit. That's what's in the skein like that the designer designed the pattern for
Kelly 40:14
Yeah. Anyway, I, you know,
Marsha 40:16
yeah, I understand what you're saying. But I...
Kelly 40:18
like it doesn't seem right.
Marsha 40:21
Yeah, it doesn't seem right. I mean, and then if you want to use a different, like, if you really liked that pattern, and you want to make another hat, you need to know how many yards you need.
Kelly 40:31
Mm hmm.
Marsha 40:32
I mean, well, it's... we're beating a dead horse, I think here. But if, if you have a hat in a kin and it says you need a one to one skein of Cascade 220, which is included in the kit, and you really like the pattern, you could just go buy something that had 220 yards, right? And then just figure you'd be you'd probably have some leftover but
Kelly 40:51
Right. And I do think it has to... it depends on the pattern because like for example, I just grabbed a pattern off of Ravelry. It's a preemie hat, the Preemie Trellis Hat by Barb Weatherford. And it's using a certain kind of yarn called Bamboo Pop. And that skein is 267 meters. But it does say quite clearly in the pattern, that it takes 45 to 50 yards to make the hat. It doesn't say just by one skein.
Marsha 41:25
Right,
Kelly 41:26
So so I could be wrong, I could be wrong about what I was thinking.
Marsha 41:30
Well, and the other thing I'm gonna say the other caveat to all of this, to keep in... there's so many factors to keep in mind. Everybody knits differently. So somebody could use more yardage, making the exact same hat, the exact same number of stitches just because of the way that you know, so yeah, so those those those yardages are estimates, right?
Kelly 41:51
And yeah, but that I think makes it even more important that if you're going to sell a kit, it shouldn't be that someone in your shop, knit the hat and had, you know, it said 220 yards in the pattern. Someone in your shop, knit the hat and had 20 yards leftover. And so, Oh, good. Now we can sell a 200 yard skein...
Marsha 42:13
Yeah,
Kelly 42:14
to make that hat because that one person is going to be-- is going to be different. You should at least provide a skein of yarn that has as much that the pattern calls for or more, I guess is my point.
Marsha 42:29
Kelly, you're right.
Kelly 42:32
Thank you [laughing]
Marsha 42:35
Do you feel affirmed?
Kelly 42:36
I feel affirmed. [laughing] but what happened was we... Aunt Betty and I talked about this a few times. What was she going to do? And I said, I will rip it back for you. You like this yarn? It's um, it's, uh... shoot. Shoot. She lives in the northwest. Felicia Lowe. What is the name of her yarn? Oh, Sweet Georgia!
Marsha 43:06
Oh, well, right, right. Yes.
Kelly 43:07
Yeah, very nice yarn, its really excellent yarn. So I said, you know, you like knitting with the yarn. So you know, if you want when you get down, if you run out, keep going, try it, see if it'll work. And then, and then when you run out, I'll rip it back for you. And you can start it with less ribbing. You like the yarn, you like to knit with it. So you just get to knit with it twice. That was not a very popular.
Marsha 43:32
Yes.
Kelly 43:33
That's you know, if that was you, and you know, if you had that situation? It's true. You like to knit you like the yarn, why wouldn't you want to knit it twice, but you don't.
Marsha 43:43
No you don't want to knit it twice. And also like, if if you rip it back, you would just rip back till she had the right amount of... she wouldn't have to do it. She won't have to do the ribbing all over again.
Kelly 43:51
Right? Right. You just rip back to the whatever amount she wants to. And I always do the ripping back for her because she doesn't like... she doesn't like ripping back and she has a difficult time with her hands getting the stitches all back on the needles. So I always did that for her. And I don't you know, that's fine. I don't mind doing it. But so that was kind of an unpleasant option. And then we had another one, we had about five consultations. And then we had another consultation because I said, let me try it on, you know, and so I tried it on and I said I don't think you have that much more to go. The pattern was going to call for her to do like two more repeats of the cable. Like, I don't think you need two more repeats of the cable because I mean that's going to be a really, really tall hat. And she said, well, my gauge is right. You know, she was checking her gauge and her gauge was right. And I said, Well, maybe it's just meant to be a more slouchy hat. But I don't think you need all that height, you know. So she decreased the amount of repeats that she needed to do. And then she started the decreases and she still ran out. So she came, we had another consultation, I don't remember how much yarn she had. But I said, You know what? It's it's tall enough. You could just, you know, I took the needles and scrunched it all together, like, like if you ran the yarn through it and hold it closed. I said, if you pulled it closed right now, it would be deep enough, you know, to fit. And so we decided she was going to try to go around, knit two together, just to make fewer stitches to stitch together. Well, she couldn't get all the way around with knit two together. So she went all around doing knit 3 together.
Marsha 45:43
Oh, knit three together. Yeah, that's hard.
Kelly 45:45
Yeah. So yeah, she was not happy at the end of that. That was difficult. But she did it. And she brings it to me. Now there's about three and a half inches of yarn. Talk about yarn chicken. Oh, my goodness. [laughing] So I took a needle and I took that three and a half inches of yarn, and I cinch that thing up. And I knotted it because I didn't want it to uncinch you know, there's a lot of pressure. I made a couple of knots as I was weaving that, you know, weaving it closed and then weaving that end in. But it actually turned out cute. But still that shouldn't... you shouldn't have to do that with a kit.
Marsha 46:27
No,
Kelly 46:28
you know, so, and and like I said, you know if it was just that your that her gauge was different that'd be one thing. But the pattern actually called for more yarn than was in the skein that they supplied.
Marsha 46:40
Yeah, yeah, that's just... now I'm not knitting anything from a kit. But I know your mom does a lot of patterns from kits... that come in a kit. Has she had this problem?
Kelly 46:51
Not that I've ever heard of. No. Yeah, she she usually buys a kit or two at stitches every year. So yeah, I don't know. I'm curious. Do people have... Do any of you, have any of you had this problem with kits where you really have to watch? Because I wouldn't have even thought of that. You know, double checking. I would just assume that that would have been something that would be taken care of. But yeah, and and she even was willing to buy another skein because she liked the yarn so much. But because it's you know, the the dye lot varies it's hand dyed so so you know, you have you kind of...you should alternate skeins, and probably if she bought a new skein, the top part of the hat would just have been a different color. Slightly different color than the bottom part of the hat. Anyway, but I told her, do not buy another skein of yarn.
Marsha 47:22
Yeah.
Kelly 47:51
Especially since she'd be buying it from the same place that sold her this kit.
Marsha 47:56
Yeah, exactly.
Kelly 48:00
So anyway, but I am curious if anybody else has had that problem. If that's something that you need to watch out for when you when you use a kit, because I haven't ever used a kit either.
Marsha 48:12
No, I haven't either. I mean years ago, this I would buy kits for like, needlepoint or something. And I never had the issue where I ran out of yarn, but I've never bought a knitting kit.
Kelly 48:25
Yeah, me either. So
Marsha 48:31
Well, let's talk... we have some other announcements we need to make about alongs that we have. So let's... so let's just mention the we talked about every every episode, but the winter weave along is underway. And that ends the end of March.
Kelly 48:51
We have a really active discussion thread on the winter weave along. If you're a weaver and you want to join in talking to other weavers we have a nice discussion thread going on for the winter weave along. I can't remember if I have a finished object thread in there, maybe I ought to start. Maybe I ought to go check that and see. I'll make sure we do.
Marsha 49:11
Okay. And then we should mention too, we have the Two Ewes hand dyed cotton yarn and dishcloth pattern giveaway. And that started January 13. And that ends February 28. So that's coming up real quick. And and we have a new along. Yes. Starting by popular demand. It's been demanded. Yes, our listeners have demanded that we start this and so Kelly, do you want to talk about it?
Kelly 49:46
Sure. Let me just mention that the dish cloth giveaway... There's a Ravelry thread that you you should go into and just either tell us that you've never knit a dish cloth before if you're new to making dish cloths or if you do make dish cloths, let us know what your favorite dish cloth pattern is. And we're going to compile, I want to compile that list of favorite patterns, maybe put it into a bundle or something. But anyway, that's how you enter that giveaway if you want to. But yeah, this stash, we're going to have a stash busting blanket along. And actually Marsha and I were laughing. So many of us have already started the blankets that we're actually joining this knit along in progress. We, we just didn't know it was in progress.
Marsha 50:35
So I think that my Garter Squish that I did, where I dyed everything, and then your Garter Squish blanket has sort of inspired people. So a lot of people are doing Garter Squish. Se should say this, you do not have to do the Stephen West Garter Squish pattern. No, you can if you want but you do not have to do it because there's a lot of different Stashbusting blankets out there.
Kelly 50:59
So we got some feedback in email from Carin. And she said that she was listening to our episode in about stash review and leftovers. And she wanted to suggest that her favorite blanket is called the Knit One Below afghan. And it's from a book by Elise Ducote. And the book is called Knit One Below: one stitch many fabrics. It was published back in 2008. And its just this knit one below technique and what, you know, what you can do with it. So there's a blanket pattern in that book, and Marsha and I looked, and we did not see the pattern available by itself. Only available in the book, although you might, your mileage might vary, you might be able to find just the pattern, depending on where you look. But what Carin says is, as long as you have colors you like together, you can combine different weights. She says, "I pick randomly from a bag, knit across the row, leaving fringe strands at each end, then pick another yarn and do the next row. It's surprisingly fun, very forgiving and looks great. Even with a wide variation of colors, fibers and weights. Honestly, there's really no pattern and the hardest part is deciding how many stitches to cast on." So I thought that was very, very interesting.
Marsha 52:22
It reminds me a little bit of... Do you remember I made a scarf a number of years ago called Mini Mania?
Kelly 52:29
Oh, yeah,
Marsha 52:29
You used just sock scraps. And it was the same thing where you cast on, I don't remember now how many stitches. It was a free pattern. It's in my project page, but you cast on how many stitches you wanted for the length of your scarf. And then it was a linen stitch. And and then those ends. So you didn't have any ends to weave in. Because you would just knit across. And then those ends that were hanging off the edge of it, you just knotted those and turned them into the fringe of the scarf. And it was so... I mean you could do a blanket like that.
Kelly 53:06
Yeah.
Marsha 53:06
So that's where it reminds me of that. Our listener is Teaandknittingtoo, Colleen. And she recommended the Sediment Scraps Blanket. And it's it's published in... Oh, the designers Katie Rose Pryal. P-r-y-a-l and published in the Knitting Professors. It's a free pattern on Ravelry. And it is like the Garter Squish, except it's on the diagonal. And that so that would be a really great project for stash busting
Kelly 53:40
Yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll have to make a bundle for this too. Yeah. Stashbusting blanket bundle. I don't think you could say that three times fast. I'm not gonna try.
Marsha 53:56
So, yeah, so this, there'll be prizes. So it's, it's underway. Now, we decided it's going to end May 31. Because that's right about the time that our Summer Spin In starts. So that should give people time, I think too, because just from the discussion in our group, a lot of people are starting something, actually they've done something, they're about to start something. They posted pictures of all of their yarn on the table, you know, and so
Kelly 54:35
Guess where all my yarn is
Marsha 54:37
On the floor of the bedroom, in the guest room still.
Kelly 54:41
Still! I really do have to clean up in here, but...
Marsha 54:46
Well, I don't mind using the room with the yarn there. That's fine.
Kelly 54:49
I'm gonna have to get it cleaned before you come actually, because it's not only got my yarn in it, but I decided at the same time that I was getting all my stash out that I was going to get all my equipment out. And I was gonna organize it and find, you know, throw away stuff I didn't need and all that. So I've got bags full of, you know, hooks and needles and tape measures and stitch markers. And I just went around collecting all the stuff from everywhere. Plus I had those drawers in the in the sunroom that had, you know that I store stuff in. And they had become sort of jumbled over the last couple of years, with things not in the right place. So that's all our spare room too. So I have some cleanup to do before you before you get here, Marsha.
Marsha 55:40
Do you want me to get a motel? Would that be easier?
Kelly 55:42
No. Luckily, I have a four day weekend in February. [laughing]
Marsha 55:45
Or is it good that because there's now like a deadline I'm coming, arriving?
Kelly 55:50
That's right.
Marsha 55:50
Well, we've often joked over the years that projects get done when I'm arriving.
Kelly 55:55
That's right. And, and I have a bad habit of starting things that require a big mess. And then not cleaning up the big mess. So yeah, I do need to get my act together.
Marsha 56:09
Yeah, yeah. I don't mind sharing the room with the stash. I'm fine with that. So I think that's everything that we wanted to talk about, isn't it?
Kelly 56:18
I do too. So yeah. Don't forget to send us your your voice message about your favorite local yarn store.
Marsha 56:30
I as you're talking, I'm just thinking about our Stashbusting blanket along and we will have prizes. We don't know what they are right now. But it did strike me as being kind of funny if we gave yarn. [laughing]
Kelly 56:46
Well, I don't know. If you use it all up. You can have more!
Marsha 56:55
Oh my gosh. Funny. I crack myself up. Okay. Right. Okay, um, so anything else.
Kelly 57:06
Nope, I think that's it.
Marsha 57:07
All right. I will say goodbye and we'll talk in two weeks. Probably, we'll probably record before I leave for California, I imagine.
Kelly 57:14
Okay. Sounds good. All right.
Marsha 57:16
All righty. Bye
Kelly 57:16
All right. Bye bye.
Kelly 57:18
Thank you so much for listening. To subscribe to the podcast visit Two Ewes Fiber Adventures dot com
Marsha 57:25
Join us on our adventures on Ravelry and Instagram. I am betterinmotion and Kelly is 1hundredprojects.
Kelly 57:32
Until next time, we're the Two Ewes
Both 57:36
Doing our part for world fleece
Transcribed by https://otter.ai