Knitting with Handspun

Knitting up my first yarn

This is, I have to admit, the first time I’ve knit with handspun yarn. Well, at least as far as I know. (Is Malabrigo handspun? It might be; I don’t know). I have to say, the experience is quite different from what I expected. Could be, though, because of working with yarn I spun on my own and not exceptionally well, too.

I’m on the fence. This blue stuff isn’t as soft spun up, but I’m also not a good spinner yet. It could be the way I spun it made it no longer soft and squishy. It could be how thin it is spun once it started to almost resemble consistent. It could be what the fiber is made out of. Who knows? I think I’m going to chalk this “meh” experience up to my inexperience rather than to the fact that the yarn is handspun.

I still love the colour. I think it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s perfect TARDIS blue, picked out by a girl who had no idea who the Doctor even was when she first bought this stuff. It also felted up quite nicely when I was into felting my baby bird.

What I’m knitting in that picture above is a sampler of sorts. I decided that as the yarn was so drastically different throughout, I couldn’t really knit a pattern. I cast-on a bunch of stitches and have been knitting garter stitch instead. Call it a crazy scarf, or something. The way the yarn has been wound, the progression of the scarf from one end to another will show my progression of getting slowly better. I thought it’d be interesting to see.

I did order some more roving. I went out to Homestead Heritage in search of roving and found nothing. I was so disappointed, I didn’t even bring home any of the wonderfully soft yarn. I ended up going online to Three Waters Farm on Etsy and ordering plain merino wool. I love knitting with merino, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’m really excited to go at round two on this spinning adventure.

I guess, I’m slowly becoming obsessed with yet another area of the fiber world. One more thing to keep these hands busy!