Worms of wool

I have acquired some pre-yarn:

Wool.

This is what my friend with the farm got back after sending her raw wool out to be cleaned and processed.  She anticipated receiving yarn back, but this is loose roving.  You can't tell from the picture, but that bag is about 3 feet tall and the ropes of roving are about 2" in diameter, not at all like yarn that's labeled "roving".  We got out some gigunda crochet hooks and knitting needles to see what we could do with it as is, and technically you can crochet it, but it's not optimal (see below).  We could felt it, or braid it, but really it needs to be spun into yarn.  It's soft and doesn't feel itchy, at least.

I tried to knit it, but pulling on it causes it to come apart and I couldn't even cast on.  I tried to twist it before using, by attaching it to a big stick and wrapping the twisted part around the stick, but that's tiring.  I did manage to crochet the start of a hat, but it was thick and used up the twisted stuff too soon. So I tried to crochet with the roving as is, and did manage to make a hat that covered my ears, but it was stiff and about an inch thick and weighed half a pound (like 2 whole skeins of yarn):

The untwisted hat (like a bucket to wear) is on the left, the twisted one on the right, and the unconcerned cat on the far right for scale.

So I found a spinner (ex-husband's wife's sister, how's that for links?) and will send her some to work on.  When I get the yarn back we'll see what we can do with it.

And there's this: the Biohazard socks!

For the fundraiser.  So far they're fun.  See you at the next Yarnworks.

Fraternal twins

The Latvian socks from the Vogue pattern book are finally finished.  The first one took 3 weeks of off and on work, working out the mistakes in the published pattern and getting used to the stitch pattern.  The second one went quicker (1 week!) because I was more familiar with the pattern, and I made a point of holding the first sock up against it to make sure I was starting the heel in the right place so that they would match.  And yet I didn't.  It was only after I wove in all the ends and held them together that I realized that, although there are the same number of total pattern repeats, one of them has a shorter leg and longer foot than the other.

It's not obvious at first glance, but when you hold them together you can see it.  So all I need to do is find someone with one foot longer than the other to give them to.  Grrrr.  They're still going to go into the silent auction, but I feel like I need to explain their disability.  And there's no way I'm making this pattern again.  Sigh.

So to take the taste of that pattern out of my brain I started the Evenstar hat, and found mistakes in the pattern, mostly in the form of omissions, but also calling for much smaller needles than plausible to get the hat in the picture, so after 12 rows I pulled it out and started over with size 7 needles instead of size 3, and plenty of notations on the pattern.  Much better now.  I ordered some faceless foam heads from eBay for blocking and displaying hats, because patterns like this and the Lauren hat need blocking, and doing it flat won't do the cables justice.

I also started a rainbow scarf with clouds, using odds and ends from my stash.  There are a number of similar patterns out there, and I'm not actually doing it the way this pattern says to.  They use 2 rows of single crochet for each stripe, and I'm using 1 row of double crochet - faster, and more flexible.  But I don't have a lot of green yarn at home, so I may have to actually buy some next time I cruise past Joann.  Part of the reason for this is to make something quick after all of these long-term projects (like the still uncompleted sweater), but also to see whether my thumb is up to gripping the crochet hook, which it is.  It's still not 100%, but getting there.

In September, Yarnworks will have the library display cases - what are you going to display?