Steek experiment

So this is not supposed to be a knitting blog but anyway, here's a steeking experiment.  I am doing slash pockets with a steek in the middle for the toddigan.  

Other changes; my gauge has tightened up so I went up a needle size.  I might need to go up one more.

fjyfmkuk ut k!!!!  Handmade stuff can be really annoying.  Also, dark things are hard to photograph.

Bagged Cold Mountain

Just a footnote to the cold mountain shawl.  I bagged and mailed it last week.  I just had to get some kind of shawl pin for it and there it is.  My mom loves it!  Says it made her want to get her hair done because she feels dressed down with this shawl.  I felt exactly the same and yet it is not the fanciest shawl out there and its colors are fairly low key but yes, it is somehow classy.

I gotta love ziplock bags.  I was able to suck the air out of this 1 gallon one.

Swatch

Knit, washed and blocked, as per recommendations.  I don't want to mess this up.

Toddigan Yarn Skein One

Spun, plied and washed yesterday.  Now I need to ball it up and do a swatch.

Once I do that I can estimate how much more I need to spin.  I hope that I won't need more than 4 skeins but I have a feeling I will need more.

Bad Language

I know, that's bad language.  I just think that there should be more LOLALPACAs out there.  This is a photo I took last summer when visiting a suri farm in Ohio.  This cria was born a few week premature and was a little shaky.  I think she ended up OK but her mom looks mad at me for even looking at her baby.

Since I've become active on Ravelry

I tend to document a lot of my thoughts on projects there when perhaps I should be doing so here.  So I will try to do that for an idea I have for a cardigan for Todd.

I have a lot of decisions to make and a lot of things to figure out.  I am developing theories about alpaca and how I can use it more effectively.  It really does act differently from wool, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  One thing to consider is drape.  Many people mix in a bit of wool to make it maintain some springiness.  Is that really needed?  Maybe the structure of the garment just needs to be different.

I have an alpaca sweater that has had 2 different hemlines.  It is a rather fitted sweater, intentionally tailored to my body with a decent amount of success.  I have come to the conclusion that a ribbed hemline might not be best for alpaca so I changed it to a split welt.  That lets it hang freely.  I should complete that tonight.
Maybe alpaca is better if it is more tailored as it doesn't spring like wool does.  This might make it harder to work with but the results might be more satisfying.  I have a feeling that I might end up being happy with the sweater I finish tonight.

Anyway, my sweater inspiration is the urban aran cardigan which is a variation of the urban aran.  I have yet to buy the pattern.  I actually want to turn it into  hybrid sweater, OK, if you aren't on ravelry that link won't work.  If you are really interested in knitting you must join ravelry.  There.  I said it.  I think I want to steek it and I also want to change the direction of the side thing and turn put in some slash pockets.  Yup, that'd be pretty sweet.  I also want to change it to a finer gauge.  This is alpaca after all.

OK, soo I re-edit this post to think how much fiber do I actually need?  If it were chunky weight it could be  3 pounds.  Somebody said alpaca can be heavier than you think.  I mean, it's hard for me to reckon exactly what I need.  I am going to try to card more than I need and spin and hopefully I will not have a repeat of what happened with my shawl.  I had to spin a LOT more than I thought I would.

I have however chosen a fleece and a bit of dyed fleece to card.  I want it to be 75% natural black and 25% dyed blue and green.  I need to get a better idea of what I need before I spin anything.  This really is tricky.

We have a winner!

Hi, I have a winner, Al Hoff.

I have inserted this random photo of a cria that kissed me.  No, I do not have any fleece from her but I did get some from this small farm in southwestern Pennsylvania.

I will be contacting Al Hoff for guidance in making this yarn.

I will try to document this process in detail.

Many thanks to the other contestants!