When I was still pregnant with Padon my Aunt Barbara came to visit and gave me three little bags of fiber - one natural, one purple, and one red, a book on spinning and knitting natural fibers, and a little story book about a lamb who tries to dye himself with berries. It was a super sweet gift as she was giving me something for a hobby that I absolutely adore! Padon was born and the fiber didn't get carded and washed; it just seemed to get lost in my stash. I didn't forget about it, though, it was just that there wasn't really enough there to make a complete sweater and the quality of fiber wasn't one that you would typically put against a baby's skin. Finally in 2009 I got my act together and carded and spun the purple and the red, and at the fall Spin In, at Weaving Works, purchased a pound of Merino/Tussah blend (delicious!) called Daffodil and picked out the most adorable hooded sweater pattern. It took me almost another year (it is freak'n hard to spin with little kids around) to finish spinning the Daffodil and to get the sweater knit.
I had heard that a pound of fiber equaled a whole sweater but, what does that really mean? If you were to spin a chunky weight yarn then you most certainly won't have the same amount of yarn that you would if you were to spin a fingering weight. I typically spin what is referred to as worsted weight and it turned out for a size 24 mn sweater that allotted enough yarn to knit the sweater body, one sleeve, hood and all of the other sleeve except for half the cuff. What the!? it was significant enough that were I to bind off the cuff and say "eh, just wear it!" you would be able to tell that the sweater sleeves were lopsided. Knowing I needed to make a trip to Weaving Works or my friend's yarn shop, I opted instead to embroider the sweater, as-is, with the red and purple from my Aunt, and a bit of hand spun green that I had gotten in 2005 in a silent auction. It turned out great!
Walter knew of my estimated fiber to yarnage debacle and in a feat of great heroism attempted to find the fiber for me. First he grabbed the sweater forgetting that the soft fluff of the fabric had been hand spun by me and attempted to find another skein of yarn at Weaving Works. The gal that was trying to help him became significantly less helpful when she learned that I had probably not bought the yarn from them, but would have been immensely helpful if she had bothered to really look at the sweater and put two and two together; there for asking - "um does your wife spin?" To which the resolution would have been "oh! we totally have this fiber against that back wall in that plastic tote!" Instead she sent Walter sadly on his merry way, in a blind search for my friend, Claudia's, yarn shop; he didn't find it. Walter came home silently defeated but through some round about questions was able to get out of me that the sweater was hand spun by me and that Claudia's shop, Main Street Yarn, was in Bothell. He again snuck off to find the elusive fiber and went to Claudia's shop to find that they were sold out of the Daffodil (it rocks!) but that they would order him some more. He looked through their fiber curio cases and picked out two ounces of a really nice sea blue merino/tussah blend and one ounce of cashmere/tussah blend. I love the thought of what his face did when the cashmere/tussah rang up in the register. Both fibers are hard to process and so you pay for the hard work to create this scrumptiously soft fiber. Later I found that that price was $10.50 an ounce. Thank goodness he only got one ounce. He came home proud of his purchase, albeit disappointed that it didn't include the Daffodil and presented me with this incredibly heart felt Mother's Day present.
A couple months later I had picked up the Daffodil from Claudia's shop, spun it, and finished knitting the sweater. What a feat! I was dying to share pictures of the sweater with my aunt and to let her know that I had finally finished but I needed buttons and it was another month before I had made the trek to JoAnn Fabric and found the most perfect Dragonfly buttons.
I put the sweater on Sophia, on a warm, early September day, while she was wearing a tank top, and at first she kept grabbing at the sleeve, saying "Off, off. Stuck!" but in the end, started smiling and laughing at me finding it funny that she was making it difficult to take a picture. I was struggling to take a picture of her without Padon in the back ground and was able to snap a couple good ones before he still managed to get himself in the shot and I screamed way too loud at him in the back yard; ruining the moment for everyone. With the nice shots that I did get I have sent an email to my Aunt Barbara and I think she will be touched at the how nice the sweater looks and that I thought of her. She did ask me about the fiber once before and I sadly had told her that I had not spun it yet. I think she thought then, that maybe it wouldn't happen. I'm so glad that I get to show her that it did, and that I was able to make a special keepsake for Sophia to pass onto her children, if she has any.
No comments:
Post a Comment