I have been knitting on and off since I was a kid. A while ago I picked up a Turkish drop spindle from Knitpicks to try my hand at spinning my own yarn. This week I completed my first batch. It was generally lumpy with thick and thin parts and lots of joins. I plied it myself by plying both ends from the center pull ball from the Turkish drop spindle to create a 2 ply handspun yarn. This process actually gave the yarn much more stability and consistency in terms of its thickness and I am actually pretty pleased with how it looks now.

So much so that I have started my 2nd yarn, using a bat of Purple People Eater (purple is my favorite color). My plan is to spin this yarn as thin as I can and try to create something in a sport or dk weight, for shawl knitting (lace weight would be too ambitious).

I have to say I never thought I'd become a spinner but I have to say it is both enjoyable and relaxing,and has a useful output. I can see myself easily creating far more handspun yarn than I'll ever have time to knit, so knitter friends you may be getting some handspun sometime soon!

Not much going on around here with Spring break in full swing.  Yesterday I spent most of the day working on a family history project - a book to be self published. 

Today I am starting the Heath Vest for J.  He's really excited to get this sweater but wants to watch me make it so he can wear it "tomorrow".  I keep trying to tell him that it will take much longer than 1 day but it's not getting through!  Here's the Heath Vest for those of you that are interested.
The pattern is my first try at Intarsia but it also called for a provision cast on - something else I haven't done before.  It is available through Knitpicks.com but you can also buy a kit that comes with all the yarn in the colorway shown above (which is what I purchased) for $14.99 here!!!! I thought it was an amazing deal so that's what we have.  The pattern comes in 4 kids sizes (starting at 24" chest) as well as adult sizes.

So far I've only done the provisional cast one - I want to read up on Intarsia a little before starting it. 
In my search for information/help on provisional cast on's I wanted to share the following youtube videos which were really helpful.

Making the provisional cast on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3J-sUx_whE
Removing the provisional cast on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNFXO8MH2z0

Enjoy!

Loving how my Berry & Bramble cardigan is coming along!  I started this pattern early January (I think?) and have ripped out sections several times as I wasn't "getting" the pattern.  Now I'm moving along nicely and have almost finished the main body piece.  I just have to figure out how to do a 3 needle cast off to join the shoulders, then I can start the edge trim which is ribbed.

Here's mine:

And here's what it's supposed to look like:


The only thing is that I wish I'd picked another color.  After reaching my ripe old age! I found out that actually I am not an "Autumn", I am actually a "Winter". Duh!  So instead of wearing leafy, earthy tones, I'm supposed to be wearing clear, jewel tones (ruby red, emerald green, purple, brilliant blue, as well as pure black, white and grey).  The only brown I'm supposed to wear is dark chocolate. Oooops!

Despite having the flu for the past few days I have not only managed to completed the second sleeve of the Hexacomb Cardigan, but also the neck band and 1 1/2 button bands.

I don't actually have any buttons for it otherwise I would have completed the whole project. Instead I have stopped on the row where you make the button holes (3 rows + BO from the end). I'll have to nip out tomorrow to buy the buttons and sew them on before aligning the holes and sewing the sleeves onto the body. Then I'll post some photos.

I was pretty exciting about finishing the body of this cardigan and working on the sleeves. However, along the way, something odd happened with the pattern. Basically the pattern called for 7 rows of garter stitch, followed by 6 repeats of 10 rows (an increase row with 9 st st rows) for a total of 67 rows. At the gauge specified (4"=28 rows, 1"=7 rows) this should have meant that the length would be 9 1/2 inches before doing the armhole shaping.

Instead, the pattern said to carry on straight until the whole piece measured 8". Hey, wait a minute 8" was several rows ago. What was going on? I posted to Ravelry.com and it was suggested to just start the armhole shaping at this point which I did and completed the sleeve. But it turned way too long and was tight because the increases were done too high up the sleeve.

So I am frogging it and reknitting at the same time. I have decided to reduce the 10 row repeat to just 8 rows, this will give me the same amount of stitches overall, with increases occurring earlier (making the sleeve wider sooner) and reducing the sleeve by 12 rows (approximately 1 1/2 inches). I am hoping this will do the trick and will post once the sleeves (or at least one of them is inset).

I already posted about my latest knitting project the Hexacomb Cardigan from Spring 2008 Interweave Knits. Well here is a photo of my progress so far.

DSC_4487, originally uploaded by Marina Garrison.

The bottom section is knitted on a circular needle, so the two fronts and back are done at the same time (no seam) up until the armhole. At that point the work is divided into three section (two fronts, and back) and knitted separately.

From the photo you can see that the fronts are complete so now I am working on the back section. After that the arms and neck/front edges need to be completed. I've got plenty of yarn remaining as you can see.

I finished the back of Ivy and have started on the left front. Apparently this pattern gets a bit complicated at this point so we'll see how it goes.

My Austermann step socks haven't progressed at all as I stepped on one of the wooden needles and broke it in two about 1 inch from the end. However, after a visit to Walmart and some Elmers wood glue later, it is now repaired and seems to be quite strong so I'll try it out today/tomorrow and see if I can't make some progress.

I also organized a new yarn stash drawer with my yarns. I've been weighing them and itemizing them on Ravelry.com. Some are up for purchase/trade if you are interested.