Material of the Month: Linen

This month, I will be talking about another natural fiber: linen. Unlike with wool, I don't have much experience working with linen. I haven't ever processed raw flax, and I have only really worked with one linen yarn. But, since I am currently finishing up a linen shawl, I thought it would be a good material for December. I guess I will give my first impressions.

First, and most obviously, linen is a plant-based fiber. It is derived from flax:

A field of blooming flax

Flax is a grass. To make it into linen, you take the 3- to 4-foot-tall plants and dry them. After beating them to remove the seeds, you place them in stagnant or slow-moving water to rot away the outer parts of the plant. You then dry them, crush them, scrape them, and comb them, until they are ready to be spun. As I mentioned above, I have never tried any of this. I might try spinning it at some point, but since I'd have to isolate it from my wool (for religious reasons), it might have to wait until I have a larger place.

Linen is rarely used for knitting, and, after making two projects with it, I can see why. It doesn't stretch at all - whatever the tension you put into the stitch, that is what it will stay, and you will hurt your wrists and fingers trying to get the next stitch in. It doesn't grip itself either, so it will easily slip off needles or pull out into a loop on the fabric. It is stiff too - when you fold it, the stitches will often slide past each other, rather than bending.

Pretty much the worst technique you can use with linen is mosaic knitting - or maybe cables. Because  both require that the stitches stretch out to multiple rows, and be larger after you have already set the tension, attempting to do them with linen will kill your hands. With wool, it will stretch easily, then settle back later, giving texture. With linen, you have to fight the yarn to get it to do what you want.

And this is why I know you should avoid mosaic knitting with linen

Ok, so those are the disadvantages of linen. Why would you ever use it?

Well, first off, the stiffness and un-stretchiness can be an asset in crochet, and definitely are in weaving. Although I haven't tried it, I hear that it is a dream to weave with.

Secondly, when spun wet, the yarn is beautiful, smooth, and soft.

Louet Euroflax yarn

The fabric it creates is light and airy, and feels good on the skin. It is smooth and washes easily. And it becomes more supple as it ages and gets washed. There is a reason that tablecloths and sheets are called "linens." It does tend to wrinkle, so it needs frequent ironing, but it makes good, firm, fabric, especially for summer use.

Speaking of summer use, I did almost finish my linen summer shawl today. Something about the pattern of colors reminded me of a snake, so I called it a snakeskin shawl. I was using big needles with a simple pattern, so it knit up in a little over a month.

Even aside from using three colors in the shawl instead of two, I ended up modifying the pattern pretty heavily. It was supposed to be a right-triangle shawl, where you knit from one corner, growing by a stitch every other row, until you are knitting the entire other side of the shawl. But it was getting too wide for me - I wanted something a bit more scarf-like. So I added a SSK decrease to the rows that were supposed to be growing, and turned it into a crescent shawl. I also added a black border at the neck to make it more sturdy.

Ok, one more thing about linen. It is really important to block it, because the stitches need to be evened out and "wrinkled" so that they will stay in the places you put them. So that is what I did today.

Snakeskin shawl, pre-blocking:

Notice how the elongated stitches are not lying flat before wet-blocking

And wet and pinned to a towel for blocking:

The end of the shawl where it "grew" every other row

The end of the shawl where I added the extra SSK

Technique: Stranded Knitting

I haven't started yet, but coming up, I will be doing blue detail work on the shawl with stranded knitting. It's been awhile since I used that particular technique, because I usually prefer my work to look good on both sides (and I hate the way stranded knitting looks on the back). But, this piece of the shawl will be sewed so the back doesn't show. Time to review tips!

While I was home for Thanksgiving, I hunted around for old pieces that I didn't have pictures of so that I could show you all some early attempts. It's always nice to see how far you have come. Actually, both things I found were hats with stranded knitting that was too tight. I made both in high school.

First up, a hat made from a vintage pattern, from before I had any style:

Pattern from Jill C. Weiner: Side view

Back view

I vaguely remember picking the pattern because it was one of the ones that the book listed as "hard" and I wanted to challenge myself. Except for being an ugly pattern, it came out mostly ok, and has improved over time as the yarn stretched. However, at the time, I did not know how to do stranded knitting at all, and the hat has very long floats on the pink squiggly in the middle (as well as being too tight in that section). First tip: be sure to carry the non-working yarn along with you by twisting it with the working yarn every 3 to 4 stitches. This ensures short floats on the back that won't snag so easily.

Ok, second example. In high school, I made a bunch of berets from a basic pattern I had. Once, I decided to make it fancy by adding stranded colorwork of my own design:

A beret of my own design, from high school

Well, the pattern came out ok, and I would do it again -- though that light blue really clashes with the other colors: what was I thinking? However, although I carried the non-working yarn this time, I made it far too tight, and the beret puckers up, and won't lie flat. The shape is really weird. So, second tip: Make your floats twice as loose as you think they should be. Better too loose than too tight. 

Well, getting into college, I tried again. This time, for a Valentine's Day gift swap:

Heart hat

 The knitting is plenty loose, but this time I made a different error: I assumed that knit stitches are square. I drew hearts on graph paper and transferred the pattern faithfully to the hat. But, since the stitches were rectangular, my hearts came out far too wide and ended up looking like bats. So, third tip: if making your own pattern, account for the fact that knit-stitches are rectangular. There are three different ways to account for this. The hardest is to knit a swatch and measure it. Use the number of stitches per inch both horizontally and vertically to see how your pattern will stretch, and compensate. The other options are to buy knitting pattern graph paper at a knitting store, or to use a program like I do now, which automatically stretches the pattern after you have sketched it.

Ok, final example. I really haven't used the technique much, so this is what I have:

A hat made on commission for a co-worker

This one came out looking great, actually (though I made a rolled-brim hat for a guy, for some reason). The only thing was that off was that, because I made the hat in the round, I had to float the red across the entire back of the hat. So, final tip: if you are only putting the pattern on one part of the piece, do flat knitting and do intarsia instead.

Alpaca Festival Report

Festival report time!

Alpaca

This year was my first time going to the Maryland Alpaca and Fleece festival. Maryland Sheep & Wool is much better known, but it is in the spring, and I missed it this year. I needed a bit of a break from the news, so I went with my mother-in-law. It is held in the same place as MD S&W, but it is a tenth the size. There were a few alpacas in pens scattered between the 5 buildings, and a bunch of people selling alpaca clothing, yarn, and fiber. There were also plenty of non-alpaca yarns and fibers.

There were also a ton of adorable alpaca dolls and ornaments

I swore going in that I would avoid buying any alpaca if I could avoid it, because I have 3 lbs of alpaca roving and 4 skeins of yarn already. Shockingly, despite the multitude of temptations, I kept  this, though I never promised not to touch it or rub it against my cheeks.

A lot of the vendors dyed their own yarns. Looking at all of it made me realize how much white fiber I have at home, and inspired me to buy some dyes. Look forward to reports about more fiber coming out of my dye pot in the future.

Braids of hand-dyed BFL and Superwash merino gradient top

Along with the dye (bought from Sheepish Creations) I also got some new unprocessed fiber. First, the good folks at The Spinning Loft talked me into getting a few ounces of  Ryeland wool.

The Spinning Loft had a wonderful selection of fleece and roving from different breeds of sheep

It seems to be a completely different type of wool than I have ever processed before, so I am looking forward to playing around with it. Unfortunately, it currently has an incredibly overpowering smell of licorice. I'm hoping that will go away after I scour the stuff.

A lock of the unwashed ryeland. It seems to be quite corse and kinky, with a short staple.

I am soaking the ryeland fleece now to get out the dirt before scouring.

24 hour cold soak in a bucket before scouring

Finally, I got some raw angora. Spinaway Farm had two angora rabbits in their festival booth:

Not a great picture, but I promise: those are rabbits and not tribbles.

The fiber was incredibly soft. I hear that it is better to blend it with wool or other fibers, or it will be too warm, but I haven't decided what I will blend it with yet. I got 2 ounces in soft gray.

Soft and fluffy angora fiber

Material of the Month: Wool

Today, I am starting a new feature here on the blog: material of the month. Each month, I will try to talk about some of the features and advantages (as well as the downsides) of a different material I have worked with. I guess we'll see how long I can keep it up until I run out of materials.

So, to start: wool.

Wool is a natural fiber (naturally) and has been used since ancient times to make cloth and textiles. Traditionally, wool was a warm but rather rough material, good for outer-wear like sweaters and coats, or hard-wearing textiles like rugs and tapestries.

However, starting with Merino sheep in the 18th Century, breeds with softer wool have been developed that produce wool without that prickly feeling. When the breed was first developed by the Spanish, Merino sheep were highly prized and nearly impossible to get if you weren't royalty - historical novel writers take note: soft wool was not really a thing that average people had access to.

Today, of course, merino wool is quite common, and is usually the only breed that will be identified by name if you are buying wool yarn. It is very soft and squishy, but knitters beware: it lacks the strength of other types of wool, and should be avoided when making socks, pants, rugs, or anything else that will take a lot of wear.

I will try to talk about other specific breeds in later posts, but today we are talking about wool in general.

Unlike cotton or linen, wool has a natural elasticity. First, because the individual fibers will stretch, and second, because most wool is a bit kinky or curly, and that will translate into the yarn. This stretchiness makes it easy to knit or crochet with, and is easy on the wrists.

Two locks of fine wool

Wool also has a natural ability to "grip" other wool, due to its texture at the microscopic level. This ability is most obvious when you felt or full it: the fibers interlock so that they can't be easily separated. But it also comes into play when spinning, as it doesn't take much to make the wool adhere to the leader or to make a join. This also means that, unlike some other fibers (cotton, alpaca) wool fabric will not "grow" over time under its own weight. Instead, changes in temperature and humidity will gradually, lightly felt the wool so that it keeps its shape indefinitely.

I don't really do felting, but here is a lopi hat, lightly fulled in a dryer so that it loses stitch definition.

To summarize: warmth, elasticity, and ability to grip and felt are some of the reasons why wool is the go-to material for knitters and crocheters (I'm ignoring synthetics, for now). It also takes dye very well, and most modern sheep are white, making it particularly easy to get yarn in whatever shade you want. Wool is also pretty inexpensive (at least in the U.S.), rivaled only by acrylic yarns.

All that said, there are some well-known disadvantages to wool as well.  First, as I alluded to above, there is a trade-off between softness and strength. In order for wool to be strong and take a lot of wear, it needs to have thicker fibers, and those tend to be less soft and more prickly. Second, it is hard to wash. That amazing ability to felt means that hot water and agitation will cause your garments to... shrink and felt. You can buy "super-wash" wool that does not have this problem (due to chemical treatments of various kinds) but it will not have that gripping advantage, and won't block very well.

Finally, wool's warmth can be a disadvantage in the summer or in warmer climates. It does wick moisture well though, so you can sweat a lot in wool without it even feeling wet if you wanted to go hiking in wool socks. That wicking can also be a disadvantage though - wet wool can hold a lot of water, making it very heavy to wear in the rain, and it will take forever to dry.

Linen and Woolen

Always exciting to start a new project.

I was looking for something to knit on the train while I spin up some more yarn for the shawl this week, but I was uninspired as to what to make (I didn't want to make for myself, and my family has all of the hats and scarfs that they need). So I posted to Facebook: the first person to respond would get a custom hand-knit item.

A local friend requested a summer shawl, and (after a quick discussion) indicated that she preferred linen to bamboo or cotton. So I am breaking out the linen yarn that I last used on that mosaic hat and making a loose shawl.

The pattern I chose is the Van Goch Shawl by Tall Tree Designs. It looks pretty simple, and I think it will look good in three colors. Crucially, I can pretty much stop when I run out of yarn - no careful measuring required. I don't want any leftovers if I can avoid it, since the linen won't mix well with anything else.

First step was three gauge pieces, done with needles sized 8, 9, and 10 (American). I followed the pattern, minus the parts that make it triangular, to get a sense of how it would look.

Differences are more apparent when they are stretched out a bit

I decided to go with size 9. Unfortunately, I didn't have any circular needles in that size, so I went to my LYS (Second Story Knits in Bethesda, MD). They were only selling interchangeable needles, so I got my first pair (and my second - I didn't have good 8's either). They are fine, but I really am not sure at all that they are worth the extra cost - I rarely find that the length of the cable matters, so I don't see the point of having interchangeables.

The summer shawl is started though, and I am pretty pleased so far. The pattern is easy, and the shape is looking good.

Summer shawl with linen

I have also been getting some spinning done, so I might as well update you all on that as well. I made an Andean plying bracelet from the carded waste wool singles I mentioned last week:

A half-finished Andean plying bracelet, with tools of the craft in the background 

And finished plying off of it. The small finished skein is hanging to dry over my shower-head right now. I'm waiting to see how much it puffs out, but here is a pic from before it was wet-finished:

A nice woolen yarn

There is something to be said for handspun that looks like handspun (without being too uneven, that is).

Three Fiber Preps: Mill Combed, Flicked, and Hand-Carded

Just a quick update this week. I continue to work on the shawl, but I have run into a bit of a snag. I have finished 9 repeats of the the pattern (32 rows each) and I have enough yarn for another repeat. But the shawl is not nearly long enough: It needs another foot or so before it is a wearable length. So I am going back to the spinning wheel, and spin more yarn. I can't do this on the metro though, so I will have to start another portable project soon. Stay posted for more on that when I decide what I am making.

Meanwhile, I have been on a bit of a spinning binge. Once I had dyed the locks I immediately wanted to see what they would look like as yarn. But I wanted to spin it to match the rest of the shawl, so I had to do it on my Ashford wheel (maybe not, but I wasn't risking it). Unfortunately, my Ashford was occupied with the black merino bulky yarn I have been working on (and off) since June.

Aha! Motivation to finish it!

2-Ply Bulky Merino Yarn

The yarn was prepped from some yummy (and surprisingly cheap) merino top (mill-processed) that was being sold by the ounce by Delly's Delights Farm at Maryland Sheep and Wool. This skein came out more even and squishy than the blue one, so I think I actually learned something. It's always nice to have some evidence of improvement.

Once my wheel was clear, I could start on the hand-dyed blue yarn for the shawl detailing. I started by flicking the locks - a few locks of blue with a few undyed.

Dyed and undyed locks for flicking

To flick, I wrapped about half of the lock around my fingers and brushed it with the flick carder. There was a lot of VM, so I had to do a lot of brushing to get it all out (and even so, I missed some). I started with the butt, then did the tips the same way.

Wrapped and ready to flick

After flicking

As you can see, the process really opens up the locks.

I also got a LOT of VM all over my cloth, my pants, and the floor. This sheep was a pet, and wasn't coated - I am pretty sure it liked to roll around in mulch. I wasn't too careful with the washing either, so there was also a lot of waste. It was hard to grip the lock while still getting all of the VM out, and the lock structure wasn't well-preserved.

Because there was so much waste, and it had a lot of pretty serviceable wool in it, I carded and blended the waste into rolags, and am spinning it into some thicker, textured yarn now.

Waste from the flick carding

Rolags carded from the waste wool. I like the periwinkle color, but there is still too much VM.

Well, the flick carding didn't actually blend the colors any, despite my hopes, so the flick carded yarn is "barber-poled" to get a lighter look. I think it will still look good knitted up. It is hanging to dry now.

Hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn from the fleece

The carded prep is making a nice periwinkle yarn though.

Hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn from the fleece

It goes to show, though, how much difference the fiber prep can make to the final yarn.

Dyeing for the first time

Whelp, I did some dyeing. I know I said that it was too messy and I wouldn't do it, but my shawl needed a bit of color, and I was bound and determined to make everything in it from raw fleece. So I bought a small amount of acid dye (enough to dye 4 lbs of wool, the smallest amount they sold) and did a bit of dyeing today. I am currently waiting for it to dry so that I can find out whether or not it felted.

First, I started with a small amount of wool. I scoured 2 oz using dish soap, ammonia, and vinegar (just like I did for the rest of the shawl). The tips were still crusty, but flicking should deal with that when I spin.

Dry leicester wool, ready to dye

I took about an ounce and made sure it would fit in my "dye pot": a mason jar.

Measuring out an ounce of wool

Next, I soaked the wool in warm water for an hour, to make extra sure that all of the soap was out.

Soaking the wool

I mixed a small amount of dye powder with water in the mason jar while the wool soaked. Unfortunately, I didn't have any way of measuring the tiny amount of dye I would need for only an ounce of wool (the directions call for 1/4 ounce of powder per pound of wool). So I guessed the amount. Maybe I should have bought something to measure? I did get a dust mask though - the dye powder can be hazardous!

I filled the mason jar halfway with hot water from the tap before putting in the wool. I didn't want to agitate the wool by filling up the jar with it in there.

Jar filled with dye

After adding two tablespoons of vinegar to set the dye, I cooked the wool in a double boiler for an hour, making sure that the water never got hotter than a simmer. Occasionally, I would turn the wool over with a chopstick.

Cooking the wool and dye

I must have put it the right amount, because the water was almost entirely clear when I pulled the wool out, and the rinsing required was minimal before no more dye came off the wool.

I set it to dry on some newspapers. It's a bit darker than I was going for (though we will see how it looks when it finishes drying) but I can always mix it with the undyed wool for a lighter color. Well, how do you think it looks?

Wet, dyed wool locks

Measuring and Documenting Yarn

Whelp! Another spinning project finished!

I'm calling this "Cotton Candy Confetti Yarn"

I started planning this yarn way back in May 2014, when I first bought the wool at Maryland Sheep and Wool, but I started it on my spindle just this May. I mostly like how it turned out, but the colored bits make it more obvious that the wool had a bit of a golden tint (lovely in the lock, less so when mixed with pink and blue).

I don't have a project in mind for it yet, but I thought I would share some tips on measuring and documenting spinning projects - and mystery items in the stash that have lost their labels.

First, the platform. A lot of people tie samples of their handspun to index cards, or tape them in notebooks. The advantage of this is that you get to look back at your yarn with all five senses if you want (not sure why you would want to taste your yarn, but you could). I use Ravelry to keep track of my projects, because I find that a lot easier, but it would be nice if I could feel the softness or tension of the yarn that I made.

That said, if you don't have a sample with your description, a picture is pretty crucial. I spend a lot of time on my computer adjusting the colors of my photos to try to make it look close to how the yarn actually looks. You may have noticed that I often include a coin in my pictures, to give a sense of scale, as well.

After you have a picture or a sample, the next thing to include in your documentation is your fiber source. If you are dealing with handspun on Ravelry, you can link directly to a fiber page, hopefully with pictures and details on breed or fiber-mix. On a physical sample card, you can include a small sample of the fiber along with the yarn. Be as detailed as you can about what state the fiber was in when you got it (in the grease? mill-carded into roving?) and as much as you know about the animal it came from. If it is mystery fiber, you can always try a burn test, though the results are not that useful for blends.

I unfortunately didn't record much info about the colored locks in the cotton-candy yarn: I know they were a soft longwool or mohair, and I bought them as dyed locks - I don't even know from which booth at MD S&W. But, since that is what I have, that is what I recorded.

Assorted dyed locks - unknown breed

On the other hand, I have recorded both the breed and source for the white fiber. I don't know the name of the individual sheep, or the full parentage, but, since I was not thinking of buying a fleece, it is not so important.

Undyed, washed, Lincoln-Crossbreed locks; from Barnswallow Fibers and Yarns.

After indicating the method of fiber preparation (I spun from picked locks with no further prep by me) and any particular spinning methods used (corespinning, navajo-ply, etc), it is time to measure the yarn.

First, weigh it. I general record in ounces because the fiber is sold that way in the US, but the units don't matter, as long as you indicate which ones you used - 4 ounces is very different from 4 grams.

4.75 ounces of yarn

This weight can be useful later, in checking how much you have used up, and whether you will have enough.

Next, you want the amount of yarn in length. Always check this after you have wet-finished the yarn, as that may shrink it a bit. Stretch out your skein and use measuring tape to get the length of one round, count the rounds, and multiply.

Always re-measure the skein after washing, even if you know the length of your niddy-noddy.

My skein was 55 inches around, and there were 181 wraps, which equals 9,927 inches or 277 yards. Since you have the weight and the length, you can calculate the grist (in yards per pound) but I don't find it a particularly helpful number.

Finally, I calculate the "weight" or width of the yarn, in wraps per inch (WPI). This is not super-accurate, because different people wrap loosely or tightly, but the idea is that you wrap your yarn around a ruler and see how many "wraps" there are to the inch. The yarn shouldn't be stretched, and it shouldn't be packed in too much either.

13 WPI

Unfortunately, I haven't seen a lot of agreement matching WPI to weight. Depending on the source, 13 WPI is either a heavy fingering or DK.

Although I don't, twist angle is another possible measurement - just use a protractor.

When do You Fix It?

Much of the beauty of knitting is in the careful repetition and symmetry of stitches. A project, whether you are working off of a pattern, using a stitch from a dictionary, or are improvising, is usually regular in some way. Even if the person doesn't know the pattern, they may well notice that one part doesn't look the same as the others.

Even worse, because of the repetition, later parts of the pattern rely on there being the right number of stitches. Especially in the round, if you are repeating by 8, and you mess up so that you end up with 55 stitches, it is not going to look right.

Still, many mistakes will be invisible to the average observer. Few people will be staring at your project up close for hours (exception: spinning projects, but it will probably just be you). When do you tink back, frog,  or start over, when do you make a "good enough" fix, and when do you ignore it completely?

I rarely will frog or start over (this explains my vest with the ridiculously large sleeve holes). It is just so frustrating to realize that something is not working out, sometimes you just lie to yourself, and let yourself be lazy. Well, I do at least. Once something is done, I want it to stay done. I don't want to do it a second or third time.

A scarf from 2013 that shouldn't have been finished

But I rarely just let a mistake sit there - except for sizing mistakes, I haven't quite got the hang of that one. There seems to be an extra stitch where there shouldn't be one, but there are no gaping holes in the piece? Just add a decrease as soon as you can and hope you counted right. Find yourself one stitch short? Make one, it probably won't matter. Did an entire repeat of the pattern backwards, offset, or upside-down? Eh, call it a design element and do it that way again after a few repeats.

Heck, the first sweater I ever made (sorry, I don't have a photo) I hadn't knitted in several years. So I wrapped all of my purl stitches backwards and twisted them, and didn't realize that this was wrong until half the sweater was done. Well.... it was just a thicker, warmer sweater than I was planning (and was too small for my brother to wear, so it got donated to charity). It's not a mistake if people don't know the original pattern, it's an original design.

Sometimes, a mistake can just be fixed without too much effort. If you miss a yarn-over in a lace pattern and catch it within a few rows, you can usually, just make one and bring it up, and it will just be a little bit tighter than otherwise - barely noticeable.

But sometimes, you make a mistake in adapting the pattern, and it takes you awhile to notice. Then, you have only two options - start over or change the pattern. In the most recent hat I was making, I cast on 68 stitches. Most of the hat consists of k2 p2 rib, so I figured it didn't matter, as long as it was a repeat of four. Well, it turns out that the decrease for the crown of the hat is an eight stitch repeat. Lesson: always read the whole pattern before starting. But what to do? Just doing the pattern halfway would look odd, because the hat is knit in the round.

Rather than starting over, I wrote a new pattern of decreases. The number of decreases per plain worked stitches was the same, to keep the shape similar, but it was done in a four-stitch repeat, rather than an eight-stitch repeat. It worked out well, and I can't actually tell the difference.

Undyed jacob wool hat for dad

I also misread the pattern for my shawl. I wanted it to be wider that the original pattern called for, so I added additional repeats of the lace pattern - so far, so good. The repeat was 16, so I cast on 160 stitches, and worked it for a full three inches. I wanted squares of a different pattern on the corners, so the first and last repetition were just done in seed stitch. And then, I started to follow the pattern for the edges and my mistake was all too clear - the original pattern had four additional stitches on the edge to keep the piece from curling!

I had seen that there was two stitches of seed stitch on the beginning and end of each row to keep the edges from curling (stockinette will curl, especially when tightly knit; garter and seed stitch will not). What I hadn't noticed was that they were not included in the chart - they were extra.

At this point, I had a choice: start over with four more stitches or adapt the pattern. I couldn't add four more stitches at this point, because it would ruin the rectangular shape of the piece (I think. Maybe it could have worked). Well, of course I chose to just go with it, because I am me, and it has been giving me trouble ever since. Since I can't follow the original pattern, every row I need to figure out what to do with the first few and last few stitches. I have a placeholder to make sure that I don't accidentally add or subtract stitches, but my choices have not been terribly consistent, and the border looks ragged. At least to me.

Ragged, inconsistent edge.

This was supposed to be a rectangular shawl! Maybe it will look better after blocking. Which will be sooner rather than later: the shawl is more than halfway done at this point, assuming I don't decide I need to spin more yarn.

Progress on the shawl as of the beginning of September