New socks

FINALLY

I managed to finish a pair of socks – that doesn’t happen often.

 

Mainly because handknitting is getting harder to do, especially knitting with 5 dpn needles as I have always done. I am now trying with circular needles, one or two at the time, easier but still very slow.

Anyway, this yarn is the leftover from some handdyed grey merino that Karen gave me in a dyed fiber swap, I spun it and navajo plied it, the main part was used on a cardigan that (also) needs some altering, I will show you pictures when done.

I devided the yarn in two equal amount and started knitting toe up, looking forward to the day I could put warm cosy handspun socks on my freezing feet.

But alas…

Doh!

Took a couple of days of grumping to redo that. Hrmpf.

 

Another problem was the cast off edge on the rib – I tried a new method, a variation of back stitch cast off from ”Knitter’s Handbook” by Montse Stanley , but it looks awful and is not really elastic.

 

Now that is redone with my usual back-stitch cast off method (adapted from machine knitting), and that just works, looks nice too!

So now off to start the next pair, while I still remember what NOT to do!

Found a link with a drawing of the method here: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2179134540102033689ulqLXx

Wool combing

Lately I  have seen some interesting stuff on wool combing – Ingrid in Sweden has some on it on her blog, and later that day I was told of some wonderful instruction videos on YouTube.com, made by Amanda Hannaford.

So I thought I’d better show my own wool combs, that I made a few years ago:

I made them like this, to have a combination between a traditional comb and a hackle. One is always handheld, the other is always stationary. Tines are made from 4 mm stainless steel, tapered, polished, sharped and slightly curved. They are glued into the predrilled holes in the wood, the back is covered with other pieces of wood.

In the cup is my combing oil, that I brush onto the tines for every top I make, half baby oil, half water.

I haven’t tried heating the tines up when working them, will do next time.

I’ll have to make more pictures of how I use them, so keep an eye on this channel!