#Future Yarn

[derekcanada]

One of my past dye experiments

[tj-crochets]

I've got another thing to add to my list of top five funniest things doctors have said to me: My latest test results came back, and I now have a document saying I have, and I quote, "unremarkable hands"

[crabbarts]

(WIP) This has to be one of the most enjoyable projects I've made in awhile! I've never knit a polo before, and this is my first time working a button-up collar.

The pattern is the Winona Polo by Emily Y Chen and I'm using stash Holst Supersoft yarn.

[justworm]

just pulled this shawl off the blocking mat!

super in love with it, the only thing i would change is that it’s a little smaller than i hoped. i think i should have used one needle size larger. for some reason i have trouble trusting that looser gauges will look right even though i love them when blocked and finished lmao

also this thing had like. a billion ends to weave in because each of those little points created 2 ends so it was a bit of a slog however i think the end result is worth it!

pattern link here!

[writer-by-the-sea]

Stardew Valley inspired yarn

As someone who crochets (poorly) I felt that I needed to share this.

I came across this seller and am now obsessed with their colored yarns. Their shop name is Nerdy Knits Yarn, here is their website (leading directly to their Stardew Valley inspired yarns.)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

PLEASE MORE BUTTERFLY HOWDY CONTENT HES SO FUCKING SILLY

OKAY HERE'S A COMIC SHENANIGANS THING

[strawberrum]

thinking about how I had a few folks at my last market suggest to me (kindly and with good intentions) that I make and sell some versions of the hand knit cardigan I was wearing because people would "totally pay $300 for that!"

I appreciated the sentiment, but people don't understand what goes into handmade clothes! I don't use a knitting machine. Every stitch in that garment is created by hand on needles, and the sleeves were brioche. Even using inexpensive acrylic yarn for the whole project, and accounting for the HUGE sleeve stitches (saving me time making the sleeves)—the material cost was $55 and the labor was well beyond that.

Let's conservatively estimate the cardigan took me 30 hours to create. Currently, when pressed to put a dollar amount to my time, I use the living wage as a baseline and then go up from there $1/hour for every year I have been actively practicing that particular skill. In the case of knitting that would be 11 years, and the current living wage in my area is approximately $23/hour. Setting aside the fact that this is calculated based on a 40 hour work week and I don't believe that is ethical or sustainable, we'll just leave it at $34/hour. That would make labor alone $1,020.

This brings the "production cost" to $1,075.

Items are not sold at production cost because that would leave your profit margin at 0%. This is not sustainable because it costs money to run a business (think things like paying for computer repairs, buying tools, the tablecloth you use at markets, paying for a website, etc.). Realistically to cover business costs and still come out with a 7% "net" profit margin, which is just a number pulled from averages in the clothing retail business...

... I'd have to sell that cardigan for $1,350.

So yeah! Something to think about when you see the price of clothes that are handmade. :o)

[msyinyangkitty]

Update on the moondrop hat I've been working on. It's going good so far. I'm using a 5mm size yarn.

I still need to make and sew on more stars. Also got white somewhat fluffy yarn for the rim of the hat.

Biggest lesson I've learned so far while experimenting, if you're going to sew in stars. Make sure the yarn you use for the stars, is the same size yarn that you use for the hat. Or else the star will look weird.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

want knit cashmere……………

[journeyman-tier-fibercraft]

The Swatchening has begun. It's funny that you can visibly see me getting better at knitting cables from the first cable swatch I knit (top left) to the one I just finished this morning (bottom right).

This acrylic yarn isn't the best for really dramatic cables like the top left one (the Nautical Twisted-Rope Cable from "A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns" by Barbara G. Walker, pg. 181) but looks quite good in the bottom right pattern (Telescope Lattice from the same book, pg. 201).

What's really interesting is the difference in gauge of these swatches. The Nautical Twisted-Rope Cable is 49 stitches but about as wide as the stockinette swatch directly below it which is only 30 stitches wide. The actual gauge for the Nautical Twisted-Rope Cable is about 7 stitches to an inch, the stockinette and double seed stitch cables are 5 stitches to an inch, and the Telescope Lattice is closer to 6 stitches to an inch. Note that these are all unblocked gauges but I don't expect this acrylic yarn to change significantly unless I heat block it which I cannot do right now.

I think I'm going to swatch the main front cable/ribbing together and if that goes well, I'll knit a whole front panel of the cardigan using 6st/inch stitch count. I should also come up with a plan for the sleeves... That's a problem for future me.

[trashpandacraft]

i mentioned the other day that we seem to have acquired some spinning wheels, and when i get my hands on a new wheel, i like to sit down and try spinning a few different ways on it to see what it feels like. thought that someone might be interested in a visual overview of how fibre prep/drafting style changes your yarn.

so that's my bobbin, and there's woolen on the left, worsted on the right, and semi-woolen in the middle.

one and two are both true woolen yarns—i made a rolag on some hand cards, and spun it long draw. one is a little chunky, and would probably be a light worsted weight after being plied. it's super soft and squishy, and a little irregular. (the bobbin collapse you're seeing isn't due to the yarn, but to a little criminal who thought he'd stick his claws into it while i wasn't paying attention.)

two is laceweight, or would be after it was plied. i'm not sure why you'd want to do this other than seeing what a new wheel is capable of—putting in enough twist to keep such a fine yarn together loses a lot of the squishy loftiness that you see in thicker woolen yarns. it's squishier than other laceweight, but also more fragile.

three and four are semi-woolen, and were spun long draw with commercially prepared top. three would probably be fingering weight when plied; four would be laceweight. this is sort of my default spinning style, and what i spin the most of—commercial top is readily available, and i love long draw. i love having twist all up in my drafting zone.

finally, five and six are worsted, or as close as you can get without combing your own fleece. commercial top, spun short forward draw. five plied up would probably be a light fingering, and six (again, plied) ranges from laceweight (on the left) to cobweb (on the far right).

one of the interesting things to me about this is the way that you can see the fuzziness of the yarn just fall away as we move closer to worsted. it's especially clear on top of the bobbin, right under the brackets—that little halo of fuzziness just disappears as you move to the right, and the yarn gets shinier (tho that part's more obvious in person). the worsted yarn is firmer and smoother in the hand, and much sturdier than the equivalent weight of woolen—i had to really back off the tension for the woolen laceweight, but the much-finer worsted lace was happy enough at the same tension as the thicker worsted was.

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! Weird question time again! What's the verb for punching a punching bag that is more general so it can include things like kicks and elbow strikes? Using the punching bag sounds weird but I am struggling to come up with another verb for it

[zahlibeth]

hey i made socks!

got bored. still didn't want to sort that chevron blanket out. thought it might be a challenge. it was actually kind of easy? took me about a month, including several days of leaving them in a corner because i was too scared of learning how heels work and didn't have the resilience to cope with it going wrong

yarn: symfonie terra in summer romance and jasmine (75% wool, 25% polyamide) pattern: stockwell by jo torr, £5 on ravelry

love the toes-up design, it's sooo easy for the heel turn, no picking up stitches anywhere which is good because i detest that. also loved doing them two-at-a-time because i would 100% have fallen victim to second sock syndrome and would not have actually completed both. i thought this was going to be more complicated than it was, you can just treat the whole thing like one magic loop AND i didn't knit the socks together at any point like i feared

on the downside, the cuff was an entire pain because it's folded over and the pattern suggests you thread a spare cable needle into the purl bumps so that you know where to attach it back to. but with two at a time i had to keep going under the second cable and keep my yarn in the correct places and it was a whole nightmare. waste yarn next time, or a different cuff, or something! they're also a teeny bit short for my feet, (started the gusset a couple rows early, totally my fault) and a little thick for my trainers compared to my usual socks.

next version: might size up the needle a little (and adjust the stitch count accordingly) to get a thinner fabric, might try a ribbed section in the middle for more arch support, will make them a touch longer, and then will likely do a different kind of cuff - perhaps a rolled cuff? likely to keep the same pattern though because it's solid

pattern notes: reasonably clear! the bits that I was scared of turned out to make sense once i got to the right point. i did mentally rewrite some bits for how my brain works - she has a tendency to write out each row where i like to think algorithmically and generalise, but that's easily solved and now i have my own notes for next time

overall roaring success, i've been wearing these all day and they're super comfy and still look great (i was so worried about walking on all my nice stitches!). delightful

[marnz]

every autumn I enter a state of mind where I need to be knitting something cozy while listening or watching something spooky. this always manifests in me knitting a giant project while watching teen wolf and quickly descending into madness. Once spring arrives I wake up from my sterek fugue and try to shake off it, asking friends to please give me my rabies shot next September to avoid this happening again. But it cannot be avoided. Recently I have been watching one or two seasons a year, truly stretching it out, and I do NOT know what will happen once I finish 6b and, god forbid, the movie. What will I do? Who will I become?

[softpine]

yo my wrist grew extra fucking bone due to repeated trauma bc of crochet 😭😭😭 be careful out there

the human body was constructed with popsicle sticks and glitter glue it's not our fault if everything we love and value in this world causes it to break down before the age of 30 :(

[gardenvarietycrafts]

Day 7

I finished the first sleeve! Only one more to go. I have short arms, so I did have to make some changes to the pattern to make all the decreases fit in the sleeve, and I have some ideas for next time to make it fit me better, but so far I'm happy with it! Hoping to finish the second sleeve tomorrow but I don't know if I will be able to based on how long the first sleeve took me.

I've also used about 2 less balls of yarn than expected. The first sleeve only took one ball of yarn, so I'm anticipating the second to take the same, bringing my total to 7 balls of yarn (approximately 1400 yds) vs the 9 balls I expected (a little less than 1800 yds). I'm not sure if the pattern just gave a lot of wiggle room or if not, where I used that much less yarn, but I have about 1000 yds of this yarn left over, since I usually buy a little extra just in case, and used less than expected. If you have any ideas for what to make with what's left, let me know!