Alpacadelphia Knitting Podcast - Episode 3: Tiny Knits, Shawls and Farm Yarn

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hello and welcome to our pack adelphia episode number three if you are a returning viewer thank you so much for coming back and if you are just tuning in thank you so much for being here I hope you feel incredibly welcomed and this podcast is all about knitting spinning and any general correcting so I hope you enjoy today I am drinking my water just trying to stay hydrated as the temperatures start to go up here in Pennsylvania so I'm just gonna get started because I have quite a bit to show you guys it has been about six weeks since I last podcast it so I have gotten quite a bit since my last episode so I hope you guys enjoy during this little chat I hope you are working on something that brings you joy whether it's knitting crochet maybe embroidery I know a couple people in my last podcast they commented about watching my podcast while they were making masks so if your doing anything that brings you joy or the world joy please keep going with it alright so let's jump in alright so we're going to talk about my works in progress first now I just have one thing that I'm working on right now everything else like sweaters spinning for sweaters I have put on hold especially since the temperature has definitely gone up quite a bit and I'm not really a big fan with working with wool in the heat so all those sweaters I put on hold until I feel comfortable working on them again alright so what I'm working on right now is just a little summer top this is just a freehand pattern that I'm doing myself it's something that I wanted to do since last year I'm not gonna sell this pattern I just wanted to make more tops for the summer a definite e so what I'm doing is just a really thin lace weight tank top now my goal for this is to my gosh losing my words just like in teaching um so my goal for this yarn that I wanted was a hand-spun look so I wanted those really thin bits and those nibby kind of looking bumps now I don't know if my camera's gonna pick this up but you might be able to see the nubby bumps I'm here too and this is such a gorgeous yarn that I'm working with and it's the concept by katya currents and their Polynesian base and this is a linen cotton and viscose blend and it does have that hand-spun look and has like this shiny thread I think you can see it here that is plied with a single that's just beautiful and I do a little swatch measured the swatch and did a little bit of math so I can't I cast it on as much as my math came out to be and yeah I just really hope that it comes out well if I have to rip back if it's like too big too small I'm not going to mind if I have to rip back a bit this is working out pretty quickly and my goal I want it to be a v-neck with little straps connecting the front and the back panel together but right now I'm just knitting in the round and it looks really small right now but I don't have a big enough cable yet so all the stitches are kind of smushed together and this is a little bee like honeycomb little stitch marker Sukie that just brings me a little bit joy when I'm knitting each round Mick oh it's another round with another cute little honeycomb um but yeah so that's my knitting top for the summer very excited to see how that turns out and hopefully it does but if it doesn't a will I can just fix it again you know after I rip out so totally fine with it alright so sorry if you see me looking down I have quite a bit of notes I want to talk talk about so if you see me looking down I'm looking at my notes right I'm not trying to ignore you alright so that's everything that I'm working on and let's start talking about finished objects so the first finished object that I want to talk about today is the test net that I was working on for Colleen Kindersley of Kalinka nurse Lee design and I'm probably saying her name wrong so Colleen I'm so sorry but this is the touch of lace shawl that she just put out yesterday and it's garter and a lace edging border and just a preface I have two cats so blocking any knitwear or craft that is worked with yarn is extremely hard the blocking mats are all over the floor the pins are in them and I have two kittens and they love jumping on it so I don't think I Bluff this well so if you see kind of how it curls up a bit it should be laying flat like this so over the summer I think at my parents house I'm definitely gonna give this a severe blocking just to open up the lace pattern again so that'll be nice um but let's just talk about the yarn I'm it this out of stress knits yarn in her favorite base and it's the Dahlia colorway and every time I watch her podcast and she talks about this colorway my heart just explodes I love this color I was never really drawn to like the dark pink purpley colors but man heard I work is just stunning and beautiful and it just made working on this Testament so much more special and then it already was so let's just talk a little bit about this design so there are miles and miles and miles of mindless garter so this was definitely the project to work on especially during lockdown I'm so very easy to work on and then after those miles of garter II just come to the lace now to be honest it took me three times to work on this lace I don't know what I was doing wrong I don't think I was in the right head space to work on lace when I finished this a couple weeks ago so the first two times I was trying to read through the written instructions and you know not being in the right headspace you know not being able to focus I got the lace wrong all the yarn-overs you know the openings were all over the place and it did not look like a pattern so I ripped it out the first time tried it again and I just ripped out to where I needed to and so I tried it a second time doing the lace written instructions and I was doing the same thing I don't know what was happening there was nothing wrong with the written instructions it was just me I really wasn't ant I would really wasn't focusing but then I laid the project down for a couple days cleared my head and did a little bit of reading sat down again after a bit of time and really jumped in and tackled the lace which I was really happy about and this time I did not look at the written instructions I think the written instructions for me during crazy time is no bueno it's not good so I was looking at the chart the chart gives you a visualization of where to put the lace stitches you know the yarn overs and third time is the charm and it worked and I'm super excited about this I can't wait to wear it and I really recommend this this project especially during a time like this maybe if you're in a state that is still under lockdown like I am in Pennsylvania my part of the state of Pennsylvania at least this is great - garter a little bit of thinking at the end and just a simple garter border at the end this pattern is really good for beginner knitters and if you are interested in this shawl pattern you can find it on Ravelry and she has clean generously designs on Ravelry and it's the touch of lace shawl pattern alright the next thing that I just finished recently actually two little finished objects and if you follow me on Instagram you might have seen a post about it but I finished two little kittens and this is the tiny window cat pattern and I'm sorry I'm blanking on the creator's name but I will put it down in the description box below and I made this out of knit picks palette yarn and orange one is for Lukey and my little brown Heather one is for Thor and Thor's just a little bit smaller I think my cage was a little bit tighter on this one and I just used us zero needles and here is the yarn so here's the brown one and the orange one and the pattern calls for I think sport or DK weight yarn but she does say that you can knit it in fingering as well right so so these little guys are very quick to knit up I use the magic loop method the pattern calls for double points but you can easily substitute Magic Loop for the double points so these took me not long at all I think it was about an hour for the body that includes the the the head and the ears and then another 15 or 20 minutes to do the tail once you're done the Bonnie what you do is start to make the bottom and then you you can stuff it before you close the seam and I used alpaca fiber that I got at one alpaca farm down in Cape May County and I think this alpaca was a little bit elderly so when alpacas get older their fiber starts their fleece starts to get coarser alright and that that happens to anyone especially you know adults all right we start like our hair becomes thinner maybe we start losing it I'm sorry if this offends anyone but you know it's just what happens when we get older and the same thing applies to alpacas so what I like to do if I ever get a fleece that is a little bit coarser I will either spin the yarn up that could be used for like a weaving or a rug or I use it for filling and this is what I did for my cute little kittens my little mini kittens and I really have to keep these away from Thor and Loki they will destroy these little guys so I kind of have to keep them hidden away I like to keep them in my knitting basket so when I'm reaching for my project I see these two little heads speaking out and it just makes me happy so this is the tiny windowsill cat pattern you can find it on Ravelry it is free and you can use any fiber that you would like whether it's fingering sport DK just remember the Thayer of the yarn the smaller the cat you're gonna get this is my little tiny project that gave me joy it was very excited to work on this next page of notes here we go alright so what we're gonna be doing is moving on to spinning now now the yarn that I finished I do not have with me anymore which is nice and it's my hand spun Jakob fool that I was working on in my first two my first two podcast so this yarn I started on March 27th and I finally finished it on May 6 of 2020 and it was a custom order and this lady ordered 2500 yards of weight for which is worsted or Aran weight yarn so pretty thick thicker than I'm definitely used to doing and it was made out of Jacob wool from Blue Moon alpacas and what I wanted to do and I ordered four pounds of that I think I ordered two to begin with just because I did not know how much a pound was gonna give me once I did those two I was able to order two more so I got four pounds from Blue Moon alpacas and once I was done finishing it I really wanted to create a book that will help me to remember it because I don't know about you but I love to make a lot and sometimes you know I won't remember that I made something so what I decided to do was to make a crafting journal and this one I started in May 2020 now once the crafting journal is fill it up I'm gonna put the nd all right so put the month and then the year I do not know how long it will take me to fill this up I'm very excited to do it I think it's good for any crafter to do it it kind of makes like a portfolio of all that the work that they've done so on my first page I have my hand spun Jacob and I'm sorry if this is being a little reflective but it says Jacob hands bun and I just put a little picture the finished yarn what it looks like a piece of the roving there is wait here and I'll know if you can see it but I just give a couple notes to help me remember ordered four pounds and just some yarn facts so this lady ordered 2500 and I ended up with two thousand five hundred and twelve which was good and the wraps per inch was about ten to eleven and that fits right in the good spot for a worsted yarn so I was very happy about that and here's a picture of two of the skenes so these four pounds I ended up with 16 schemes that was anywhere from 160 yards to 190 depending on you know how thinly or thickly I spun the yarn so I was really excited about that and so that's my first page of my crafty journal and my second page I only did half a page and this was for the shot that I tested said the touch of lace shawl and I used my polaroid camera to get this and my washi tape and then just a couple of X where did I get the yarn I know how much yarn did I use things like that and when I started and when I finished I think this might be backwards that's okay on at the bottom of the speech I am definitely gonna put my cute little kittens and I think that'll be sweet to add to this um so yeah so if your crafter you're interested in this definitely you know invest in a little journal you print some pictures out if you have a printer or if you go to a little little shop that prints pictures you can certainly do that but it's nice free to look on especially in the future and see so it's a nice little keepsake alright back to my notes alright so the second thing that I just recently finished were two bags of roving from one of my favorite alpaca farms down in Cape May County so there's two that I visit both of them I love it's just such a treat to go to especially if you go down the shore in Cape May County um so I go to Wildwood in New Jersey and on the way to Wildwood on the road there is Jersey Shore alpacas and I stopped there before with my friend and it happened to be national a Pecha farm day so it was quite crowded but it was a lot of fun a lot of activities to do with the alpacas and they also have their own little gift shop so way back when I think it was back in September when I list visit 'add I purchased two rovings and I spun this one up now this is fingering and this is the fleece from Annabelle and her son General Patton and they milled both the fleeces together and I was able to spin it up so this gave me 400 yards and 110 grams so and here are the pictures of Annabelle and her son how cute is that very adorable and they are still living happily on the phone during this lockdown okay so the second fleece said I got was from an alpaca named Oliver this is just a lovely chocolatey brown fleece and this is also spun using a fingering or spun into a fingering weight and this gave me 334 yards or 110 grams and here is a goofy little picture of Oliver I can tell that he loves eating because he has hey not only in his mouth but it's in his hair but very cute these two are actually in my Etsy store now a couple weeks ago I reached out to the owner of Jersey Shore alpacas seeing if she had any roofing left and she actually had one more of the rovings that I purchased back in September so I purchased them received them in the mail and two days ago or three days ago I started spinning them up and I started with the Annabelle and I wanted to change things up a bit and ever since spinning the 2500 yards of Aran weight I really enjoyed spinning a thicker yarn so this is a two-ply Erin's fun weight and I actually got two schemes of it and one is just a little bit smaller I don't know how many yards I didn't count them yet but I'm guessing both of these will probably end up to be 160 yards that's my guess from experience doing 16 16 so that's Annabelle's very beautiful and here is the chocolaty goodness I just love this scheme and it's fun the same way but I think these two just pair so well together like see how the chocolate comes out just beautiful so these I'm okay with parting with these these are to die for very soft but these will be listed on my Etsy store quite soon I don't know when but I will definitely let you know within the next week or so but this will be beautiful for like a hat like a color work hat alright so that is all the spinning that I finished and I just want to talk about what I want to do next for spinning and this is kind of like a selfish project that I want to work on and let me show you the picture of what I want this yarn to be intended now I talked about this book before and it's the knits fat winter by Emily Foden she lives up in Canada she dyes her own yarn and just creates these beautiful patterns with it and I and well I had to put it on hold but I'm spinning and knitting a sweater well one of her sweaters the soirée sweater which is that one that one I have put on hold for the time being being I don't know when I'm gonna spin up the rest of the yarn and actually get started on it but hopefully in in the summer or early autumn I'll get back to that but she also has a sock pattern which is the snow chute shoe sock and they're just gorgeous there's another picture of them and I just thought these stocks would be beautiful using hand spun wool so I was looking online about two months ago for some hand-painted roofing that may give me a striping effect and I purchased some thin wool from three letters farm and it is the woodsman colorway and I love anything lumberjack so I just absolutely love these colors and so I'm going to take a little bit out from the plastic and just to show you some of the colors there's oranges Burgundy's Browns greens oh gosh there's a lot of this see if I can show you right so this is hand-painted by three would respond and the goal for this is to achieve stripes now sometimes I do the barber pulling which is with a two ply but I really want to have definite stripes so what I'm gonna do is rip the roving section by section so I'm gonna like this will be a section alright I'll just break it off this will be its own section this will be its own and so on and then what I'm gonna do is just spin all of this and then I'll do it at random and I'm gonna put all of this four ounces that i received onto one bobbin and then I'm going to chain ply it which I've never done before until yesterday now I don't have it's actually on the floor because my my cats were playing with the practice chain ply that I did now the beginning of the practice was really bad I was not understanding how to change I was watching so many YouTube videos and it just wasn't working out and I was kind of getting a little frustrated by it something just clicked and it started working and it started flying how it should look and I can't remember what I was doing right so I have to practice a little bit more and so the practice little ball of yarn is on the floor just completely strewn about because the cat's got into it and I was just like fine I don't I don't want to think about how ugly that yarnís but the goal is to practice just a little bit more get the hang and get comfortable with a technique that I like then I can use this once only once I'm comfortable so for the next couple of days I want to keep practicing and obviously I want to try knitting with trying to see how it looks because I might not like how a chain fly looks knitted up that I'm definitely gonna check it out and I definitely want to do a chain fly for this and I'll put this back in the bag better okay so since I have quite a few followers that are new and I don't know if you've noticed but I have quite a bit and I really was not expecting this many people at all and I'm very humbled but I'm very grateful that you are coming along and in and enjoying what I'm working on and really what I'm putting out on YouTube so I am extremely grateful so what I wanted to do is do a little giveaway and this little giveaway is kind of really close to my heart and what I wanted to do is gift a one of you with one of my hands spun yarns and this is 50% alpaca from an alpaca named Marco and he lives on a farm in Mannheim Pennsylvania which is located in Lancaster and I haven't been to this farm in quite a while but I hope within the next couple of months if you know the outside world starts getting a little bit better I hope to go visit again because it's it's very relaxing out there so this is 50% alpaca and 50% quarry double and it's 170 yards and it is a sport to DK wait and with that I would love to give the winner these beautiful honeycomb dupes focusing these beautiful stitch markers and they're in the shape of the honeycomb and one of them has a cute little bee so if you are the winner you will receive hints one wall and these little stitch markers so if you would like to participate in the giveaway in the comments down below just let me know what projects you're working on and whether it's knitting spinning you know crocheting crafting anything and it could be outside of the fiber world I love to hear what you guys are up to to have a little bit of a chat and just to inspire everyone so for me the project that I'm working on outside of anything fiber is working on our little patio outside so our apartment we are thankfully we thankfully have a little patio space for us to go outside on and I've just been filling it with all these types of plants and the plants have definitely been giving me a sense of grounding and you know a sense of care and the only thing is our patio is facing the east so we only get morning Sun for about three to four hours so not not a lot as much as I would have liked but I've just been filling it with a bunch of shade loving plants like ferns hostas in pots so the goal is to hopefully keep those plants and big enough containers so that when we do move out to a house I'll be able to plant those but hopes are high I don't know if those survived I really hope they do but that's just a little project that I've been working on and something that's been bringing joy to my life so in the comments below if you want to join in on the little giveaway just let me know what you're working on or is our project in mind that you would like to work on I'd love to hear from you and I will pick a winner for this little giveaway during my next podcast all right so be on the lookout I don't know when the next podcast will be but it'll probably within the next few weeks or a next month so that's when I will take the winner so I hope you enjoy the rest of your day you find some time to knit or spin crocheting just anything that brings you joy or maybe working on your project so I will leave you for now have a wonderful time all right I will see you very soon bye [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Alpacadelphia

Views: 2,820

Keywords: knitting, spinning, handspun, yarn, wool, alpacas, farm, craft, crafting

Id: vrpO4zuQK28

Length: 41min 46sec (2506 seconds)

Published: Thu May 21 2020