Transcript for
Episode 97:
When Handspun Attacks!
Finding the perfect match between that handspun yarn you're so proud of and the perfect way to use it is complicated, and it takes practice. That's why, within the framework of Pillars of Skillful Spinning™, I think of working with handspun as a metapillar. To do it really well requires understanding of a bunch of other pillars: drafting, plying, fiber, fiber prep, and in some cases color management. And even now, after spinning and knitting with handspun for 15 years, I still sometimes screw it up. In this episode, I'm going to share three mistakes I have made repeatedly when using my handspun.
Hello there darling Sheepspotter! Welcome to episode 97 of The Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love.
I want to start by saying that the title of this episode is, of course, a shout-out to The Knitmore Girls' segment, "When Knitting Attacks." So, hi Jasmin. Hi Gigi! And that it might be more accurate to say that I've been the one doing the attacking by making infelicitous choices. The poor yarn's just doing what I tell it to. It's been completely blameless is all the cases I'm about to describe. My hope is that I can help you avoid similar, ahem, situations.
Mistake 1: Matching a busy, multicolored yarn with an equally busy stitch pattern. Will I ever learn? I've been guilty of this many time, but I think the most serious offense was my Stitch Sampler Shawl. I'll put a link to the Ravelry page for this project. The Stitch Sampler Shawl is, as the name would suggest, a stitch sampler. And for reasons that are now opaque to me I decided to pair it with a Rambouillet yarn from Three Waters Farms in a colorway called Birds in the Holly. And the result is that you can't really see the stitch pattern and you can't really see the yarn. There's just too much going on visually. Rather than supporting each other, the stitch pattern and the yarn are working against each other.
This is why I like to look at other handspun projects when I'm selecting a pattern (for more on how to do this on Ravelry, see the previous episode). As I said in that episode, I know make a point of looking at how the yarn and the stitch pattern are interacting. Since I started doing this more intentionally, I've made some projects in which the stitch pattern and the yarn have worked together really well. My favorite recent example is my "Three-Cubed" Shawl. (I'll put a picture in the show notes.) I made this with a three-ply yarn in which each of the plies is spun from a different colorway, also from Three Water's farm (cubed = three plies, three colorways, three waters). I used Rachel Smith Anderson's Garter-Vanilla Shawl Recipe (which is a great pattern, FYI). In this triangular shawl, the stitch pattern and the yarn colors work together really beautiful. They enhance each other rather than competing with each other for attention.
Mistake #2: Ignoring yarn structure. In my early spinning days, I became pretty obsessed with triangular shawls and I made three different handspun shawls using Laura Chau's Simple but Effective Shawl pattern. What can I say? I enjoy repetition. I find it soothing. Anyway, I all three cases, I elected to put some eyelets in some of the rows. Just to liven things up. Which would have been great, if I hadn't, again, in all three cases, used a three ply yarn. Three-ply yarns do not show eyelets well. If you want the holes in lace to really show, for the love of all that's holy, use a two-ply! I knew this, and I didn't do it. And then I did it again. And again. What was I thinking? I can't remember. Good news is that it only took me three tries to learn this lesson, and I haven't done it since.
For certain kinds of fabric, especially lace and cables, it really is worth spending a moment thinking about whether the yarn you want to use is going to produce the best results. For lace, go with a two-ply. For cables, go with three-plies and up.
Mistake #3: Wrong fiber for intended use. This, too, is something I do over and over again, and I think I still haven't fully learned my lesson on this one. Here's the thing: there are very few fibers I can comfortably wear around my neck. More particularly, there are very few wools I can wear around my neck. Which is a bummer, because I love wool. In fact, I love wool so much that I can't seem to get through my head the fact that I CANNOT WEAR MOST WOOLS AROUND MY NECK.
I think that I'm secretly a little ashamed of this fact about me, like it's a character flaw or something. Like I should have a tougher neck. And because I haven't embraced my sensitive neck situation, I keep knitting up finewools into things to wear around my neck, and they keep being prickly, and I then don't wear them. So I switched to cashmere, which is usually fine, and very warm, which is another plus, but I've now discovered that there are some cashmeres I can't wear around my neck. There's even some qiviut that doesn't work for me. My mudroom closet is packed with scarves and cowls I never wear because they're too scratchy for me and I can't bear to part with them.
If there's a larger lesson here, besides my being extremely stubborn, its to know yourself. And then actually act on that knowledge. Try the yarn around your neck for an hour before you knit it into a cowl. If you know you don't really like the depth of the armholes on that vest, maybe don't knit that pattern. If you never do anywhere dressy, and using what you make is important to you, maybe don't spend months on a beaded shawl. Knit for the preferences, the life, and the body you actually have, rather than for the ones you (secretly) wish you had.
I've learned a ton from every single one of these projects, and even though I've been characterizing them as ones in which I made "mistakes," I haven't ripped out any of them. They all still exist in their finished, if somewhat problematic state. I make a lot of yarn, and I actually don't mind using some of it to learn stuff.
You can share your stories of handspun projects that have gone awry and I would love to hear them. As always, there's a post in The Flock, Sheepspot’s free online community for inquisitive hand spinners, dedicated to comments on and discussion of this episode if you'd like. I'll link to that thread in the show notes, which you can find at sheepspot.com/podcast/episode97.
That's it for me this time. I'll be back next time with another episode, and a new theme for the month of May: drafting. While you're waiting for that fun to start, go ahead and spin something! You know it will do you good.