Monday, December 15, 2008

Corespun Redux

Tomorrow is my Physiology finals and after rewriting all my notes which amounted to 16 pages, I'm ready to tackle studying for the rest of the day. Of course, after all that typing and reviewing, I had to take a break and show you what I've been up to.

To be honest, in my Dayquil- and Nyquil-induced haze for the past four days, I forgot all about my finals but I am pretty confident that I'll do okay.

First off, last night, I discovered the Brioche stitch (I hate doing the rib stitch and so this is a lifesaver!) and I whipped this one up out of some leftover blue bulky yarn I've been storing for years - got it done in less than two hours!

It is so cozy and warm that if only I hadn't lost the band,I would be ordering another one to make it a bit longer. But for now, with the addition of three black buttons from my stash, I'll have to settle for an ultra-snug Comfy Blue Neck Warmer:


Then there were the two skeins of corespun yarn that I had spun up, drying away in the corner. Today I tried to discern the difference between the two - one was spun on the drop spindle and the other on my Fricke wheel - and except for some stiffness in the spindle-spun skein, you can't tell one from the other.


Sugar and Spice. 59 yards corespun on a drop spindle


Sugar and Spice. 55 yards corespun on the wheel

Right now, my challenge will be to knit something up with the spindle-spun skein and see how it will knit up. Will it be stiff and unwieldy since I used some bulky acrylic yarn from my stash as the core instead of some soft crochet yarn that I usually use? Well, only time will tell - more precisely, after the final exams are over. I'll have to knit something up with the 59 yards (which is plenty for a variety of projects - I have a bag in mind though) and see.

I have seen a few knitted from corespun projects on the web worth mentioning:

Yarnzombie's Karamazov Hat

Atomheart's Power Beanie

One Hour Corespun Hat

Crazy Tea Cozy

Well, I guess there's so much more out there as far as knitted projects for corespun yarns. I have seen the Lalana corespun or tailspun yarns that make such wonderful scarves, and Ozark Handspun is especially amazing!

I recently gifted one of my spindle-corespun yarns to my friend Tsuya and I can't wait to see what she makes out of it! If you have any knitted projects made from your corespun, let me know. I'd love to see it!

Before I leave you to return to my regularly scheduled programming called "Cramming for the finals", let me leave you with one more eye-candy of Sugar and Spice!

2 comments:

Bee said...

Nice! The Sugar and Spice corespun is so pretty! Art yarns are so pretty but I dare not try them. LOL. Not yet, anyway.

Liz said...

hehehe...the one I spun on the drop spindle is like rope (the one from the wheel is a lot softer)! I am trying to make a bag with it right now, but definitely need to use some very thin core yarn instead of bulky acrylic next time I corespin :)
Hope you're enjoying your new drop spindle!!!!