The shop update today is monumental.

*Click to shop.*

There are shawl kits, spindle kits, handspun and hand-dyed yarns galore, plus lots of hand-dyed spinning fibers.

I’ve switched a couple of base yarns for the better. The Tough Sock’s been switched to an equally soft, but more tightly spun yarn with a lot more yardage and the Fat Sock has been switched back to an old favorite that’s soft and very squishy that doesn’t come in a dye hank full of knots- always a plus. It also costs a little bit less, so you get more sock bang for your buck.

Knitting:

I’m glad the figure 8 cast on tutorial was helpful. I’ve got a couple more little tutorials up my sleeve, plus lots of personal knitting and spinning to show. Tomorrow!

Since my Top Down Bonnet uses the elusive Figure 8 cast on, I’ve been getting a lot of mail asking about it. It is kind of confusing; I didn’t understand it myself for a long time. It’s like magic, though, and once you get it, you’ll be a very happy little knitter. I’ve taken what I hope are very clear photos and will explain how I do this seamless cast on below, and I’ll link to it from the pattern page so that if you need it, you’ll know where to find it. Each photo is clickable for a popup enlargement for serious detail.

*When a pattern calls for 40 sts. to be cast on, you’ll have 20 sts. on each needle.*

Here we go. First, get your dpns and some yarn. You’ll need 3 needles to start. Hold 2 next to each other in your left hand and catch the tail of yarn with your left thumb on the front of the bottom needle, as shown below. In one motion, bring the yarn front to back between the needles, *up and over from behind the top needle, down the front of the top needle and between the needles again, from front to back, around the bottom needle, back to front, up, then then between the needles, front to back*. Now you’ve got 2 sts. on the needles. Repeat between *s to cast on more sts. The photo below shows 6 sts. on the needles.

In the photo below, I’ve got all the stitches I want on the needles. Notice that the last cast on stitch leaves the ball end of the yarn going between the needles from front to back, with the last loop over the bottom needle.

Grab the ball end of yarn and start to knit. You’ll see that the cast on stitches on the top needle present themselves properly for knitting: the right hand side is in front of the needle. Knit this row through the front of the loop as usual.

When done with the first row, you’ll see that things have loosened up considerably on the bottom row.

Flip your knitting around 180 degrees so that the ball end of yarn is on the right hand side and those loose stitches are facing up for knitting. Leave that yarn tail hanging in front of the bottom needle as shown.

I like to tighten up those loose stitches now, so that that center row of stitches perfectly matches the surrounding rows in tension. Start from the left and give each stitch a good yank with your needle tip, just like if you were tightening your shoelaces from the bottom up. Work your way across to the tail end, which is the last strand you pull.

Now you can knit across this row, but since the stitches in this row will present themselves with the right hand side of the stitch behind the needle, you’ll need to knit these through the back of the loop to straighten them out. This is the only row you’ll need to worry about this on.

Tada! You can now split these stitches between 3 or 4 needles as you usually would when knitting in the round. You can allow that yarn tail that was hanging out in the front to fall behind the needles now.

ETA: Kelly Sue, that lust-object of mine, made a Flickr group for Hello Yarn. Go add your photos of projects made from my yarn and patterns!

Some details:

*sheep-approved*

The Facts:

Yarn: about 3 oz. of superwash Merino two ply from Spincycle Yarns and about 11 oz. of handspun natural brown 2 ply mystery wool, both DK-ish weight
Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Seamless Yoke Sweater, as found in Knitting Without Tears, with waist shaping added
Wave Chart: Here you go.
Needles: Size 7 Addi Turbo for magic loop
Gauge: 4.75 sts. per inch
Size: 42″ bust (2″ of ease)
Started: Not including planning, about Sept. 20, 2006
Finished: October 19, 2006

Thoughts:

I’m sorry about not posting many progress reports on this, Monica! Most of it was done on the plane to and from Kansas. It was excellent plane knitting. Kept my lap warm and entertained my neighbors, as it looks like you’re a bat out of hell when you’re knitting stockinette in the round.

This was a simple pleasure to knit. All the fun is in the yarn. The colors in the blue yarn entertained me without pause, and the brown woolly stuff was a total tactile pleasure. It’s not baby soft and it’s not harsh. It’s just right.

The pattern is is about as clean as they come. Cast on in blue, knit a row, then switch to brown and knit in tubes up to the armpits, join together, and decrease to the neck. I decreased pairs of stitches at each side for the waist, then increased at the same rate, resulting in the same stitch count as the beginning. After all the ends were woven in, I went back and picked up from the back of the cast-on edges for the hems in blue, switching back to brown for the final rows. I then tacked down each individual stitch to the inside of the sweater. This took an hour for the body hem, mainly due to the fact that the brown wool sticks to itself like crazy, but it’s so stretchy and lovely and without ribbing that it’s totally worth it.

Since I was hemming it at 11 pm the night before I headed off to Rhinebeck, it wasn’t wet blocked, but ironed through a wet cloth. The blue yarn (not mine!) bled and ruined one of my nice tea towels (that’ll teach me for grabbing the one on top of the pile without thinking). I am so, so glad that the rest of the sweater wasn’t a pale color, as it could have been stained. I’d have thrown the iron through a window. The dye didn’t stain the clothing I wore under the sweater, thankfully.

Now I’ve got 2 more similar handspun sweaters brewing in my head. It’s too comfy and toasty not to want a few more!

First, though, Fugl. I cast on in Cascade Eco Wool last night. For a moss stitch bottom band, it’s looking nice.