knitting with my handspun

Last year when I started spinning again I really didn’t expect how happy it would make me. I’m still struggling with my spinning, I’m still not content with what I get but then I started spinning a bit more than ten minutes twice a week, and I started knitting with my own yarn. And it’s making the most amazing difference.

And now that I’ve actually sat down to write about it I find that I can’t really describe it. The yarn isn’t that much more beautiful, and it still is uneven and looks very – handmade. But somehow I’m enjoying every stitch. This handmade yarn has much more personality.

I felt the same way about the first thing I ever made out of my own yarn, which is why I called it the “happy hat”. But now I have made three small shawls out of yarn that I spun and I enjoyed knitting them in just the same way. Even though the orange merino/silk-blend was supposed to become an Aeolian. And I didn’t manage to spin it fine enough, so it became an Ishbel instead. I seem to be on an Ysolda-spree right now. I have two of her sweaters in the making, and have just finished two of her shawlettes.

So, here’s the evolution to shawls:

merino/silk-blend hand-dyed by the “wool dragon”, the pattern is Ishbel by Ysolda

Blue-Faced Leicester multi from the “wool sheep“, the pattern is Gail (aka Nightsong)

This has been quite hard to photograph. When it was blocking my husband said, “This looks like the perfect latte.”

And this is some Corriedale, again from “das Wollschaf“, made into a Damson, another Ysolda-design. The Corriedale isn’t as soft as I would have loved it (I have since learned that that’s the nature of Corriedale). I was in such a hurry to make this that I didn’t even take a picture of the yarn or the finished shawl, the picture was taken by my father.

You might ask yourself what do I need so many shawls for? Well, the orange one is mine (and I use it often) but the Gail is for a friend of mine who lost her father this year, and the Damson for one of my aunts who found out she had breast cancer a couple of months ago. Don’t worry, she’s doing fine and on the mend again.

And the next thing I’ll make is for me again. Finally I managed to spin enough yardage for Aeolian. It’s Blue-faced Leister again (so soft, and marvelous to spin), hand-dyed by Spinning Martha, and I really love the yarn, even if it’s a bit too thick and uneven: