Kay so! I have this awesome 100% cashmere sweater of my dad's. It has like two or three moth holes in it, but it's mostly fine, so I took off the sleeve and have unraveled from the shoulder to the armpit, nd it's filled up a whole bobbin with gorgeous laceweight cashmere. Problem is, the yarn tends to break pretty easily. I was thinking of running it through my wheel once to add a little bit more plying twist to it, but I dunno if I should do that or just ply it with itself or what. I'm so excited, though. THis stuff is gorgeous! ANy suggestions? I shall post pics!

My brother insisted on this pattern for his kilt hose. I bought the pattern, I went with him and picked out yarn to match his kilt. The problem is, the yarn is worsted and the pattern calls for fingering weight. On size 0 needles, I can get the right row gauge, but I can't get the right stitch gauge. Instead of being 4 inches, I get 5 inches in 32 stitches. This pattern has several different size possibilities, depending on the measurements of the person's foot, ankle, and calf.

The question: Should I try to follow the pattern for an inch smaller than my brother's measurements, or is that way too risky?

My other option is trying to un-ply the yarn and knit with the individual plies, but that is definitely a tedious task, and if there's a possibility that I can get away with knitting a smaller size with a bigger gauge, I will definitely take the chance.

Basically, I picked up the darkest blue of this yarn that I could find, but it's not QUITE right. It's kind of a slate blue, and I need almost navy-ish. I have some gel food coloring, but I'm not sure what to do with it. I've always been awful with colors. I know that you add the opposite color if you want to dull the brightness, but I'm not sure how to actually darken it. Should I just try a mostly-blue dye bath with some orange added? Should I go out and buy some black food color and try that?

This is the first time I've knitted with my handspun, but my boyfriend's best friend REALLY wanted a beanie to wear while he does poi, and when he saw the stuff I'd made with my wheel, he practically begged me to make it from handspun yarn. I didn't get a picture of one of the yarns, and the project took up less than I expected, but here you go!













The end! I'm quite proud.

Since no one else has started it yet, I'll kick off this Friday with my first decent and even yarn on my new wheel. It's undyed BFL.



This is my first two wheel-spun singles plied on the wheel. It's the same undyed BFL and brown mystery mill ends.



This one's my secondish (I think) yarn, also mystery mill ends. I tried to steam it over a pot of boiling water, but I accidentally scorched it and now it smells like burnt hair (ew!) and has gross little crispy brown fibers all over it.



This one's also BFL. I dyed one batch orange kool-aid, the other one fruit punch kool-aid, and hand-carded them together. It's my first attempt at long draw, and it was a pain in the butt, but I like how it looks. My mom calls it September Sunrise.






And this is my brand-new Kiwi! Love her so much <3





That's all I got this week. I'm excited to see what other people have made; I've got bunches of fiber sitting around and I sure could use some inspiration.

I've finally got a job and, with the paycheck I got last night, I'll have enough money to afford a brand spanking new Ashford Kiwi. Got a couple questions, since I'm not going to be able to really buy it until Monday or so.

Should I spend the extra $105 to have it finished, or should I finish it myself? My concern here is that I'm going to screw it up somehow, but it might also be fun to do. Is it difficult? Will I mess up my wheel if I'm not the best at finishing it? And would it be worth the extra hundred to be able to play with it more quickly?

So excited!

I just got some Susan Bates Silvalume circs and I'm having some problems. Normally I don't have any difficulty sliding stitches from the cable to the needle, but these seem to be giving me a hard time. Does anyone else have this problem? Any recommendations?

Not sure how to describe this one, but I'm knitting a sock toe-up from the same pattern I've used before, and the instructions go something like this:

"Divide half of the stitches onto 2 needles and leave for instep.
Knit the stitches off 1st needle onto 3rd needle.
Purl 23, turn
Knit 22, turn
Purl 21, turn
Continue in this manner, with 1 less stitch at the end of every row until there are 8 stitches

P9, turn
K10, turn
P11, turn
Continue in this manner, having 1 more st at the end of every row to 24 stitches. Place marker at the end of last row

Knit in rounds across all 48 sts until work from marker measures 7 inches."

Now, my problem is that when I began the part where I had 8 stitches and started working one more stitch each round, it stretched the stitches so that it made holes.

A picture of a finished sock with the holes:



I already finished two socks with the holes, but now that I'm making a pair for my mom, I want to know if there's a way to prevent these holes on her pair. (I tried just pulling the stitches tighter, but it didn't really do much.)

Any suggestions?

I made a pair of arm warmers for my friend, and they're a little too loose. I made them from acrylic yarn... He has a washing machine, but not a dryer. Is there any way to make acrylic shrink? :/

Soooo I have this really pretty batt. It is blue on top, black on bottom on one side, and the other side is the opposite. I've attempted multicolored batts before ,but usually one color gets sucked up inside another color and you can't really see the colors at all. Anyone have tips for spinning from a multicolored batt?