2016 The Year of Knitting with Hand spun yarn

It all started  with a day dreaming session, while looking at my Ravelry queue.  On a whim, I sorted it by the tag Handspun.  I was pleased to see lots of patterns I had tagged as possibly working well with hand spun.  The aha moment was when my brain said, how about knitting one a month and talking about it on the podcasts.  Thus, this year's podcast theme was born.

As usual it has taken me three times the amount of time I thought it would to just get three projects done.  And even longer to get it posted on the blog.  

January's project flew along, about three weeks start to finish.  It was a hat knit from a yarn that had three colors of Jacob in it, spun to stripe the colors.  The pattern is found in Homespun, Handknit and is by Sue Jones.  It fit perfectly.  There's more details on Yarnspinnerstales podcast episode 132.

The next project took two months.  Maybe that's because it was a pair of fingerless mitts.  The pattern is Te Ara Fingerless Mitts by Rachel C. The yarn was a mystery yarn.  It was in my Handspun, and I am sure I spun it, but I left no information with the skein, nor could I find anything in any post or blog.  I loved the color though, and how the mitts look and feel.  All the details are on the podcast episode 133.

The third project also took two months.  No article of clothing for me this time, but a teapot cozy!  I used four colors of small skeins of yarn, I called them odd balls.  Some were natural wool color and some were dyed.  All were 2 ply, 11-12 WPI and 60 yards or less.  The pattern is called Kensington Steeked Pot, by Gemma Pickford-Waugh. It is knit as a rectangle, sewn on the two edges, leaving an opening for the handle.  The a spot is picked for the spout opening, crocheted around like a big buttonhole opening, and cut between the crochet.  The cozy is open on the bottom and is slid over the pot from the top.  A ribbon laced through knit eyelets closes the top.  I have it sitting on my buffet, and I smile whenever I see it, I think it is cute as can be.  I talk about knitting this at the end of episode 134.

Knitting will be set aside until August, as I plan to spin through the Tour de Fleece.  Then the plan is to start a large shawl project with hand spun alpaca.