What's On My Wheel? February Lady

Sometimes you need a really huge project to totally take over your life inspire you to new heights, right? Forget hats and socks... it's time for me to knit an entire sweater. And not only shall I knit my own sweater but I have decided to also dye and spin my own yarn for the entire sweater. Crazy, right? But I'm going to do it.

The sweater or rather, cardigan, I'm knitting is February Lady. It's a beautiful cardigan, adapted from one of Elizabeth Zimmerman's baby sweaters. It's got everything I want in a cardi - it's beautiful, the pattern is free, and it doesn't look tooo difficult. I think. I'm definitely going to regret saying that in a month when I'm fighting with the pretty lacy repeats, just you wait and see.

I'm using a mix of Norweigan wool and a surprisingly soft Romney. These are both more rugged fibers so the cardigan may be a bit itchy but it'll wear well. The spinning is done worsted style, from combed top, using a short forward draw technique. This will produce a strong wool with very little bloom that'll have great stitch definition.

I took 8 ounces and dyed it a fairly consistent dark blue and another 8 ounces dyed in a variegated lighter blue. After a great deal of thought, squinting at my blues, I decided a dark brown would warm would tie the blues together and give the sweater a balance. While most of my wardrobe is blue and black lately I've found myself adding some brown. I'm fairly set in my ways but brown feels a bit warmer and cozier than black. Or maybe black is just really hard to dye - who can say?

The darker blue

The lighter blue.

All that's left now is the brown. I don't actually have brown dye, I only have the primary colours right now - red, yellow, blue - so all my work is a combination of colours and doing the heat and acid right. Or, uh, wrong. Usually wrong. I got to work with my dyes and had moderate success.

On the far left is the first braid I tried and it's 2 ounces I think, maybe four. It turned out very well so I tried it again with 6 ounces. That didn't turn out nearly as well - I think I didn't use enough vinegar so you can see the red bound very well but the green didn't do nearly so well. Except! All that washes out quite well in spinning and what I'm left with is a somewhat variegated but generally warm brown.

I'm about 4 ounces into that spinning so I should be able to ply this coming week - exciting! I'm not sure what kind of yardage I'll get. If I don't get enough (say 1400 yards? I should lose some weight, it's much easier to clothe a smaller person) then I'm thinking I can do the neckline, button band, and cuffs in a solid brown because I definitely can't dye more of those blues. If this happens I'll probably use a much softer wool, like my merino, so it'll be softer and less pricky against the more delicate parts of my skin.

I'm dragging more people into my February Lady spin and knit challenge because craziness loves company. So far my guild member Tricia and my lovely and talented stepmother are joining in. Tricia has a sweaters worth of corriedale she spun undyed when she first started spinning and she's been trying to decide what to do with it, so this project is perfect for her.

Jackie has decided she'll spin something that I dye for her, which is a bit intimidating. It's all very well for me to look terrible, but not Jackie! I have 5 lbs of Corriedale roving though... I think she looks lovely in green. So maybe one batch with bits of a warm, golden yellow mixed with green, one set in an emerald green, and one strand in brown? Then her sweater will be similar to mine, but in greens instead of blues.

Stay tuned! This will be an exciting (but suuuuper sloooow) project.