A Portfolio Scarf

After much inner debate, I chose this Portfolio Scarf by Erika Flory to knit with my hand spun merino yarn.  The pattern calls for a sport weight yarn and my yarn is a light fingering weight, but with this pattern, I think I can just continue adding garter stitch and lace stitch sections until it is the size I want.  The yarn is knitting up nicely, I think.  The color repeats look good and the texture is soft and pleasant to touch.  I'm happy!

Hand dyed and handspun Merino

Hello Everyone.  After a nearly three year break, I'm hoping to resume posting to this blog.  I would plead that I have been in graduate school these past two and a half years, but that's no excuse... my daughter, who is also in graduate school, has been very prolific in her fiber arts work and in her blog posting.  Just take a look at Will Knit for Math.  She has been encouraging me and so here it is.  I have been taking a handspinning class on Thursday nights and this is the project I just finished.  The fiber is a merino top that I hand dyed at the Yarn School I attended in Kansas three years ago. 

After spinning very fine single ply, I plied it using Navajo chain ply method.  The result is still pretty fine.  I got three hanks for a total of 640 yards at 216 grams /  7.5 oz.  So that's roughly 300 yds/100 gms.  That would seem to be sport weight, but it gets 16 wraps per inch and looks more like fingering weight.

I washed the yarn carefully in very warm water using my normal laundry soap.  I was surprised to see how much dye came out of the yarn with washing and rinsing.

First rinse

Second rinse

Third rinse

Then I "whacked" each hank on a towel on the floor while still wet to set the twist. 

The still wet yarn, up close, after whacking.

I hung the three hanks to dry, using slight weight to prevent twist.  The two larger hanks were actually pretty straight, but it seems there was a little over twist in the smallest hank.

One of the large hanks up close

I plan to knit a scarf or shawl with this yarn. I am looking at patterns, trying to find one that will show the variegated blues, greens and browns well and that will hopefully use most or all of the yarn.