Yarns from the Lake

Tour de Fleece & Summer Guests

If I talk about spinning with people who are not familiar with wool and fiber craft, I usually have to explain that I do not mean on a bicycle. And when I talk about fiber, I am not talking about food. When I spin, I am using my spinning wheel to transform wool and other animal or plant fibers into yarn.

There is an annual world wide virtual spinning event called Tour de Fleece, coinciding with the Tour de France bicycle race. The first Tour de Fleece started in 2006 with 16 participants. Since then it has grown exponentially to over 10,000 spinners, loosely organized with teams and individuals. Spinners are encouraged to spin every day for 21 days with a personal or group goal. It could be to spin every day for a few minutes, try a new techniques, finish a project, spin a certain number of yards, or whatever you decide. You do not have to be part of a group or sign up anywhere, you can participate individually with your own goals. Following is a link to an article with more information on the event: https://spinoffmagazine.com/tour-de-fleece-coming-ready/

I have been aware of the Tour de Fleece for years. I am often very busy with houseguests and trips in July. We have our annual reunion at the family cabin in July, which requires my time getting things organized and hosting guests. Last year I tried to participate in the Tour de Fleece for the first time, but I was only able to spin for a few days and then I gave up. This year I tried again with a more attainable goal.

Since I got my circular sock machine, I have an ambitious longer term goal of spinning yarn for socks, but it seems impossible as I have never spun anything remotely that thin. Last year I spun this hand dyed four ounce Corriedale batt that I bought at a Fiber Fair in St. Cloud. It came from Greenstone Fiber Arts in Chisago City, Minnesota. I tried to spin it thin.

It seemed to be coming out thinner than past yarns I have spun.

As usual after plying two singles together and washing it, the yarn “bloomed” and became something like DK or worsted weight. In order to have yarn I can use on my sock machine, it has to much much thinner, and preferably with three plies. Not sure what I will do with this.

Most sock yarn is wool with some nylon for strength and durability. There are people who would prefer not to use nylon, being a petroleum based fiber. Alternative natural products include mohair and silk. Sweet Georgia Yarns had a special on a new colorway and fiber blend that is suitable for socks, composed of a blend of wool, mohair and silk. I bought some and will save it for a future time when I “achieve” spinning yarn thin enough for socks.

Last year, toward the goal of spinning sock yarn, I did a School of Sweet Georgia virtual class called “Spinning up a Level”. Meanwhile, Tour de Fleece 2025 started over the 4th of July weekend, a busy time with guests at the cabin that we wanted to hang out with. It was very hot and humid, and our air conditioning was not working. Instead of spinning in the house, I dug out a drop spindle and some fiber to bring over to the cabin. I am not good at spinning with a drop spindle. I have always preferred using a spinning wheel. However, drop spindle spinning is very portable, so gaining proficiency was a good goal to add for the Tour de Fleece. I had a small amount of the following fiber that I used with a drop spindle, and for making samples for the Spinning up a Level class.

Following is a photo of me spinning with the drop spindle at the beach.

I did a little bit of spinning the rest of the weekend, and completed some samples for the Spinning up a Level class,

I was distracted with visitors, the family reunion, and summer activities for the rest of July 2025. Our daughter and her boyfriend visited from California. We did a side trip to Lanesboro, a very cute touristy and artsy town where our niece lives in southern Minnesota. We had a nice visit with her, and got in a bike ride on the Root River trail.

Right after that was the family reunion at the lake which involved time on the water.

My Tour de Fleece participation 2025 was a failure. Skipping ahead to November 2025, I brought my spinning wheel for a weekend at the Nome Schoolhouse . It was a good time to work again on the Spinning up a Level class.

The last page of samples was very intimidating. You were supposed to spin various samples at exact wraps per inch, some with two or three singles plied together. For most of years as a spinner I was happy to get something that was actually yarn, without any thought of getting a particular thickness. I would read articles about someone spinning yarn at a certain wraps per inch and think “what”? This sample card asks for a singles yarn at 60 wraps per inch. Are you kidding me?

Amazingly I made samples that were very thin, even thin enough for socks. There is another class specifically on spinning for socks that I want to do next.

For Tour de Fleece 2026, I tried again with a goal of spinning a little every day, but without trying to do a class or anything complicated. This year was also going to be very busy, but I thought I could manage to spin something a little bit every day on my spinning wheel when at home. I also spun some cotton on a supported drop spindle while we were out of town for a few days. Some rolags I made years ago on my blending board were a good candidate for mindless spinning.

The following are a total of seven ounces of a blend of fibers. About half is wool, the rest is a camel silk blend, angora rabbit, alpaca, a pop of orange merino.

I had worked on spinning these rolags a little in April after we got home from Arizona, before I had the sock machine unpacked or a weaving project set up. After a few days my shins were sore. At first I could not figure out why, and then I realized it was due to treadling the spinning wheel. I guess I had not been using those muscles for months haha.

Tour de Fleece 2026 started over the 4th of July weekend again, when I had some friends visiting. I was able to sneak in about 15 minutes of spinning each day. In addition to hanging out at the cabin, we had fun having our morning coffee at Outstate Brewing in Fergus Falls.

We also drove up to Detroit Lakes to see the giant Trolls by Thomas Dambo, a Danish artist. This art installation includes five very large trolls and a rabbit made out of recycled materials. One is in the city park in Detroit Lakes, the others are scattered around and involve driving to other locations and short hikes to find them.

On this outing we only had time to see two of the trolls. One of them was at a sculpture park that had some cool giant ladies.

After my friends left it was time to prepare for the annual family reunion. I got the house all clean, and about 10 minutes after our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters arrived this is what the living room looked like.

It is all good, we loved having them. I did not take many photos but I did get one of my uncle’s famous pizza on the grill at the reunion.

The weather was good and much time was spent outside. Who needs expensive toys when you can be occupied for a long time putting rocks in a bucket and then taking them out?

I only missed one day of spinning when I totally forgot in midst of the family reunion. By the end of Tour de Fleece I had filled up a bobbin with half of the rolags spun into singles.

There are two “rest” days as part of Tour de Fleece, so if you count the one day I forgot as one of the rest days, I achieved my goal. Later, when I finish the second half of the rolags on another bobbin, I will ply them into a two ply yarn. It won’t be thin enough for socks, but it might work on my flat knitting machine.

The rest of the summer involves more visitors, and one short trip to the Twin Cities for a wedding. I hope to continue spinning as many days as I can, while also completing another weaving project and a flat knitting project. As usual, summer flies by way too fast.

Sock Machine Studies

I have made dozens of pairs of wool socks with my circular sock machine in the last year and a half. I do not need to look at any instructions or notes any more, and usually I do not make any mistakes (knock on wood). Lately I have been cranking socks with some different fibers, and making a few things that are not socks.

Some people do not want wool socks. They may or may not be allergic to wool, or want something for warmer weather. Personally, I wear my wool socks most of the time, except for the hottest days of summer. And although I am sensitive to wool sweaters or pants, even with another layer underneath, I do not have any problem at all wearing wool socks.

I have used a wool and cotton blend sock yarn, but that does not help the people who are actually allergic. I found some sock yarn online that is a cotton and nylon blend, without any wool. Cotton does not have any elasticity, so I was not sure how this yarn would work on the circular sock machine.

It turned out to be a challenge using my swift to wind the skein of cotton sock yarn into a ball. It was a mess.

The skein of cotton sock yarn was a mess

In the middle of winding, I came to a dreaded knot. I do not want to find a knot in the middle of cranking a sock. It is better to cut the yarn than risk not noticing it later.

After cutting the knot out, I started a new ball. The bigger ball will be enough for two shorty socks.

In the background of the cotton yarn photos are a set of three ceramic foxes that my mom made. I love them, and had them on display at our house when we lived in the Twin Cities. There are so many other things she made all over where we are now in my parents house, that I could not find a good place for them. Over cabin work weekend, my sister noticed the foxes in the basement work area, and decided she would like to have them. I was glad to give her a turn, and clear out more stuff from the house. Following is a photo of the foxes on display in front of her fireplace.

I wound the cotton yarn onto a cone for using with the circular sock machine. I looked at other socks made with a similar weight of wool yarn to decide what tension to use. Hand knit or sock machine knit socks have less elasticity than commercial socks. Cotton yarn does not have any elasticity. This was going to be an experiment to see how a cotton CSM sock turned out, and whether I would need to make any adjustments to get sock the same size and fit as a wool sock.

I cranked the sock and knew right away that it was not right. It came out looser and bigger than a wool sock at the same tension setting. I cranked another sock with the tension one notch tighter and that one was closer to the size I expected. I cranked the mate to that sock, grafted the toes shut, and washed them both.

When I wash a pair of wool socks, I squeeze the extra water out with a towel and lay them out flat to dry. It usually takes less than 24 hours for them to air dry, unless we are in Arizona when it only takes a couple of hours. The cotton socks took about two days to get dry.

They turned out a bit shorter than wool socks made with the same number of foot rows. I think of wool as being scratchy and cotton as being soft. However the cotton socks felt very stiff, compared to a pair of hand made wool socks.

I had one skein of Rico Design Alpaca Luxury sock yarn made of 70% alpaca and 30% polyamide (nylon). It is fuzzy and soft. Alpaca is very warm, but also lightweight and breathable. It does not have the tiny scales that cause wool to be scratchy.

The alpaca yarn seemed like a candidate for fishing socks for Wayne, so I changed over to the 72 needle cylinder I use for men’s sized socks. The yarn behaved like regular wool/nylon sock yarn. They fit Wayne perfectly. It is way too hot for wool or alpaca socks right now, but they will be ready for cooler fall weather.

While I had the 72 needle cylinder on the sock machine, I decided to try a style of headband I saw at the last crank-in I went to at Rocking Horse Farm in St. Cloud. Instead of the taco twist, it was gathered up with a button added for interest. I used a looser tension so the tube would come out wider. After taking it off the machine, I grafted the ends of the tube together, gathered it across, and sewed on a button. I like the way this headband turned out, but possibly it is too wide.

My next experiment was making socks using some blue Patons Kroy Socks yarn, which is sold as sock yarn, but is quite a bit thicker than most other sock yarn. I used the 64 needle cylinder with two different tension settings. They were both very dense, not right for a sock. I could have loosened up the tension a lot more, but instead I tried again with the 54 needle cylinder and a different colorway of gray, black and white Patons Kroy sock yarn. I have used this cylinder to make a sock with a smaller circumference. Since the needles are farther apart, it seemed like it could work for thicker yarn.

The first sock was OK but came out a little denser and narrower than what I had in mind. I loosened up the tension two notches and tried again. This time the density and measurements were good. When I was grafting the toes closed on this pair the stitches did not come out even. There should have been exactly the same number of stitches on each side but there were more on one side. I fudged and made it work on the first sock, figuring I made a mistake somewhere at the beginning of the toe. When it happened again on the second sock, I realized there was a different problem. It turned out that my one half markings on the sock machine cylinder were off, so that one side had more than half of the needles.

Sock machine cylinders are commonly marked in several places with nail polish or fabric paint at the 9:00, 6:00, and 3:00 positions, and for placement of heels and toes. I remember when I put the markings on that I might have been trying to make the number of heel and toe stitches come out even. Now with more experience, I know that it is more important to have the 9:00 and 3:00 positions marking exactly half of the needles.

I had put the markings on using 3D fabric paint. I thought they would peel off or come off easily but NO. It took some patience and rubbing alcohol to get the offending half and heel marks off, so I could re-mark them in the correct spots. In retrospect I guess fingernail polish is a better option if you need to remove the marks later.

Most sock yarn comes in 100 gram skeins, the right amount for two socks. The Patons yarn comes in 50 gram skeins. At first you think it is very cheap until you realize you have to buy two skeins, but it still a good deal compared to expensive hand dyed sock yarn. When I had finished both socks, I wondered if I had accidentally bought two different colorways. I checked the labels and they were the same.

I ripped out the first socks I had cranked with blue Patons yarn that were way too dense, and re made them on the 54 cylinder, using the same tension as the black and gray pair. They came out nicely this time, but they feel different than the other Patons pair. The yarn is not as soft.

The labels on the two yarns are a bit different, but the weight, yardage and fiber content are the same. The blue skeins have “FX” after “Kroy Socks”. I could not find any information on the label or online that explained the difference. It may be that the marketing team updated the label, but that does not explain why they feel so different. It is a mystery.

These two yarns feel different but the fiber content is the same

Sock yarn is in the “fingering weight” category, sometimes marked as weight “1” on the label. While the 54 needle cylinder was on the sock machine, I tried cranking some DK weight yarn, which is thicker than sock yarn. I bought this yarn from Northcroft Farm, the sheep farm where I attend Fiber Day twice a year, made at a mill from their sheep. It it 100% wool, a mixture of breeds and without any nylon.

I had to loosen up the tension quite a bit, but it worked. I loosened the tension even more in the middle of cranking the longest tube. I cranked the pieces to assemble a gnome. The cranked “fabric” seemed a little rough, but I think it was just the yarn, rather than the density. The stitches per inch seemed correct for DK yarn.

Instead of gathering the stitches up at the top of the hat, I picked up the stitches with a knitting needle and knitted on a pointy end. I also knitted on a ribbed cuff.

Gnome made with DK weight yarn, displayed in front of ceramic boxes made by my mom

The first gnomes I made were following a pattern exactly. Since then I have become comfortable with making up my own version. I think this gnome turned out cute. I added him to the shelf in the kitchen where my other gnomes live, or at least the ones I have not given away.

I can’t believe summer is half over already. First we were having a drought at the beginning of summer, then we had some big rains, now it is dry again. It is currently very hot and we have to water the lawn. Our small vegetable garden is flourishing. The first produce are some zucchini that are growing several inches per day. The weeds are out of control too. This reminds of me a Gilligan’s Island episode where they grow some ginormous vegetables, but then figure out they are radioactive. Our zucchini and weeds are not radioactive, but they are growing fast and furious.

The longest days of summer when it is still light out at 10:00 pm here are behind us, and the days are getting shorter. And smokier. We have an air quality alert in effect due to wildfires in Canada and the Boundary Waters area in northern Minnesota.

This weekend is the beginning of our annual family reunion at the cabin. We have family coming, so I have been busy cleaning and child proofing. It is a special time, but I have to set aside any expectations of getting any fiber crafting done over the next week.

Machine Knit Hat

My flatbed knitting machine was packed away in the box from the end of December until June. It is way too big to use in our fifth wheel trailer during the winter in Arizona, and I was busy with other projects and activities for several months after we got back home to Minnesota in the spring.

There are several things I want to make on the flat knitting machine, including some sweaters. I had to reacquaint myself with the machine first, so I made a hat using instructions and a pattern from the School of Sweet Georgia.

The hat is knitted flat and then seamed on one side. It involved learning some new machine knitting skills, including reforming stitches for ribbing, and decreasing every other stitch across an entire row. I used leftover yarn from the combination machine/hand knit colorwork sweater I knit in the winter.

I thought I would be able to jump right in and start making the hat, but I ended up having to review some instructions on how to get started with the knitting machine. It did not take long to get comfortable again. I was not concerned about the hat fitting anyone in particular, I just wanted to practice and learn the new skills, so I skipped the swatching part and made the smallest size.

The LK-150 knitting machine does not make purl stitches. More expensive flat knitting machines do have ways to make purl stitches. In order to get purl stitches on the LK-150, you have to knit them first and then undo them and redo them as purl stitches. For the hat, I started by knitting the right number of rows for the ribbed band. To get ready to form purl stitches manually I pulled two needles out of work, alternating with two needles left in place, all the way across.

Getting ready to manually reform stitches from knit to purl stitches

The light purple in the photos is waste yarn used at the beginning, before adding the darker purple project yarn. Normally the waste yarn rows would not have a row of holes. I messed up casting on with the waste yarn and ended up with only every other stitch on the machine, so I added another section of waste yarn on every needle. The following photo has all the needles with stitches that will be changed from knit to purl stitches pulled out.

Ready to start making purl stitches manually for the ribbing

To reform a stitch from knit to purl, the stitch is removed from the needle and unraveled down to the beginning row. Then using a latch hook tool each stitch is reformed into a purl stitch. There is a similar latch hook tool for the circular knitting machine.

Reforming stitches could also be done with a crochet hook, the same way stitches that are accidentally dropped while hand knitting are recreated. Once I got in a rhythm it went pretty fast.

The ribbing and main body rows are complete in the following photo, where you can see the entire machine set up in our nice three season porch. It looks much wider than it ended up as a finished hat.

Ribbing done after manually reforming some of the stitches from knit to purl

This hat has a closed cast on at the beginning, right after a row of rip cord row. When the project is removed from the machine at the end and the waste yarn removed, the edge is finished. Alternatively, there could be live stitches at the beginning which could be put on knitting needles in order to knit ribbing by hand. That is what I did on the sweater project last winter. Honestly I do not know which is faster, but maybe speed is not always the goal.

After completing the ribbing and all the rows for the main body of the hat, there are some decrease rows. Most hats I have knit by hand in the round have gradual decreases for a rounded shape. For the smaller sizes this hat has only three decrease rows with every other stitch knit two together. The larger sizes have four decrease rows. The result is that the crown is bunched up rather than smooth. It is just a different look. Alternatively, a more gradual pattern of decreases would also work using the machine..

To knit two stitches together on the knitting machine, one stitch is moved over to the next needle with a dedicated “transfer” tool, so there are two stitches on one needle, which then leaves a needle with no stitch on it. In this case every other needle is either empty or has two stitches. I did not get a photo with the stitches transferred and every other needle empty. Following are three different transfer tools that can move one, two, or three stitches at a time.

Transfer tools for moving 1, 2, or 3 stitches

Before knitting the next row, all the stitches need to get moved towards the center so there are not any empty needles. This is a bit tedious using the transfer tools, and more so the bigger the hat size. The stitches can only be moved over one position at a time, so the same stitch gets moved multiple times until there are no longer any empty needles.

There is another way to move the stitches to the center needles involving knitting a couple of rows of waste yarn, taking the hat off the machine, and rehanging the hat stitches back on the needles without any empty needles. I tried this for the first decrease row and it worked well. This method has the most benefit when there are a lot of stitches. For the second and third decrease rows, there were only half the number of stitches, and then half of that, so I moved them using the transfer tool.

After the last decrease row there were only 12 stitches left, as shown in the photo below. At this point, the working yarn is cut with a tail long enough to pull through the live stitches and seam the side. After using a darning needle to pull the tail through the live stitches, the project is removed from the machine.

Ready to remove the project from the knitting machine

The color in the photo below is not accurate, but it shows the hat removed from the machine and ready to cinch up the top and graft the side seam using mattress stitch. The row of rip cord that was knitted in between the waste yarn and project yarn can be easily removed which separates the waste yarn off.

Off the machine with waste yarn still attached

Ready for hand finishing after removing waste yarn

The following photo shows the completed hat, before blocking. The color is more accurate than the more blueish photos above.

Flat on the machine, the 82 total stitches stretched out to 20 1/2 inches wide. The final hat ended up being 13 inches in diameter. That is close to the finished circumference according to the pattern, but a little shorter.

I am not sure how much time it took to complete this hat, versus how much time it might have taken to knit it by hand (or if it will fit anyone). I think if I had knit a bigger size, the time savings would be greater. Time is not the only factor and I like knitting hats by hand. I learned new machine knitting skills with this project and got practice with the machine, but probably in the future I would not use the knitting machine for a hat.

The hat is a little big for this doll I bought for my granddaughters at a garage sale, but it matches her outfit. She did not come with any clothes on, but I found the skirt and top in a box of doll clothes I had saved from when my daughter was young. She is sitting in a child size rocking chair from my childhood.

I aspire to knit sweaters completely or partially on the knitting machine. Last winter when I showed my son and daughter-in-law the combination hand and machine knit sweater I made, they were impressed and said they would prefer to have me make them a sweater, rather than socks on the circular sock machine. They are not “makers” or crafters and have no idea how much time and effort is involved. The difference between a pair of socks on the circular sock machine and a sweater is huge.

One sock can be cranked on the CSM in about 20 minutes, assuming everything goes well. A finished ready to wear pair of socks including grafting the toe closed, weaving in ends takes less than an hour and a half. A sweater takes many, many hours, I don’t even know how many, including planning, figuring out what size to make, knitting hand and machine swatches, getting started and then stopping to check fit, making adjustments, probably redoing sections, hand finishing, weaving in ends, etc. Doing part or most of the knitting on the machine reduces the total amount of time, but does not eliminate many of the necessary steps. I do hope to knit sweaters for close family members eventually when I am more comfortable with the machine, but I am not there yet.

My head is full of all the yarn I want to spin, all the things I want to weave on my looms and knit by hand and on the sock machine and knitting machine. There are not enough hours in the day.

Waffle Weave Towels

Waffle Weave is a weave structure that looks like actual waffles with little indents, usually made with a multi shaft loom. It is commonly used for towels because it is especially absorbent. Before I owned a floor loom, I attempted waffle weave towels on my simpler rigid heddle loom using a pickup stick.

The School of Sweet Georgia recently added an online class for Waffle Weave towels on a multi shaft loom. After returning from snowbirding in Arizona and getting my life in order back home, I was ready to try Waffle Weave again with my floor loom and good instructions.

Waffle Weave towels next to an actual waffle

Last summer when we went on a trip to Michigan, I bought a souvenir tea towel with the idea of hand weaving matching dish towels. Picking out color combinations is not my strongest suit, but I know when I see something I like. Choosing colors that a designer selected is a winner.

I spent some time trying to understand the Waffle Weave towels pattern. I wanted to make it a bit wider, which meant figuring how many more warp yarn ends were needed to make the pattern come out right, and what color distribution to use.

Sometimes I am feeling thrifty and want to use yarn I have on hand. This time I chose to order the exact yarn specified in the pattern, in the colors matching the towel from the trip. Picking out yarn online is risky as sometimes the choices are limited and not exactly what you are looking for, or the colors you get do not end up being what you were expecting. In this case the colors of 8/2 cotton I got were pretty close.

Before I started measuring out yarn for the towels, we made a weekend trip to the Twin Cities for dentist appointments. Since we were going to be in “the Cities”, we bought tickets for a matinee performance of the play “Sleuth” at the Guthrie Theater, using a gift certificate our Son and Daughter-in-law had given us for Christmas.

The Weaver’s Guild is located within blocks of the Guthrie Theater in Downtown Minneapolis. At my request we left early for the play so I could buy some yarn at the Weaver’s Guild for future projects. It is nice to see the colors in person and not have to pay for shipping. I liked the cayenne color I had ordered online, but the Weaver’s Guild had a different orangy color that more closely matched the fish on the towel.

After we were back home, and I felt comfortable that my calculations were right for the warp yarn length, as well as the number and order for each color, I measured out the warp yarn.

Threading 392 warp yarns through the reed and heddles is slow, but I do not mind. That translates to about 16 inches wide on the loom with 24 ends per inch.

There was enough warp yarn for four towels. The pattern includes two different versions of the waffle structure, “big waffles” with eight rows, and “baby waffles” with six rows. The four towels were different combinations of colors, and of big and baby waffles. The first towel was all “big waffles”.

The second towel was baby waffles with a different pattern of colors.

The third towel was back to big waffles.

I was having a small problem with a “smile”, where the edge of the weaving formed a sort of smile shape with the edges not packing in as far as the middle. I tried to fix this by playing around with looser or tighter tension on the warp yarn, but it did not go away. I attended a School of Sweet Georgia virtual weaving meet-up where I got some ideas about this problem from the attendees. It was likely due to tension being tighter on the edges, so there was not much to be done at this point in the project. It was not terrible, and I thought maybe it would even itself out later when I washed the towels. I did not get a good photo showing this problem, but you can just barely tell on the following picture.

Towel four was a mix of big and baby waffles. After giving up on trying to fix the smile problem, I focused on getting the selvedges to be as even as possible and not draw in too much.

Each towel had 24 rows of twill weave at the beginning and end for the hem. The waffle weave is bulky, and will shrink up a lot and be narrower than it is on the loom. The twill is flatter and will shrink in a little more than plain weave. After finishing the fourth towel, there was still warp yarn left, so I wove some plain weave rows to see what that would look like. The photo below shows twill weave hem rows after waffle weave rows and before the plain weave section.

Twill rows for hem, between waffle weave rows and plain weave rows

There was an extra warp yarn on each side for a selvedge. For the first time, I hung an S-hook on each selvedge yarn at the back of the loom to keep the tension on that warp yarn from getting too loose. I cannot say this has been a big problem in the past, but I was interested in trying it. Some people even hang additional weight on the S-hooks. When I reached the end of the warp and removed the S-hook, there was a bunch of slack in the selvedge yarns. Interesting.

Slack in the selvedge end after removing the S-hook

I also noticed that the back beam where the warp ends were tied on was actually bent in the middle. I don’t know how this is even possible with a metal bar, but likely it was a factor in my “smile” issue.

After the weaving was removed from the loom, the back beam was straight.

Following is a photo of the entire weaving off the loom.

I used my serger sewing machine to separate the towels, while also finishing the edges so they would not unravel.

Serging the beginning and end of each towel

Next there were tons of ends to weave in, not my favorite thing. It is possible to weave the ends in as you go. Due to my smile problem I did not want to add even more bulk at the sides, so I left most of them hanging as I went. In a few cases when I was alternating colors I carried one color up the side, which reduced the total number of ends to weave in.

The next two photos show the four towels separated, with different combinations of big and baby waffles and colors.

The following photo shows the plain weave section at the very end of the warp.

I usually make fringe to finish the ends of towels. Hemming looks nicer, but it is a lot more work. The pattern said to weave 24 rows of twill pattern for each hem. With a perfectly balanced weave that would make one inch of weaving, since this project was woven with 24 ends per inch.

In my head I was expecting to have about a one half inch finished hem after the end of the waffle weave. Given the cotton shrinks and you have to fold it over twice, that was not possible. I could have done the math to figure this out before I started weaving. I had to either make a very tiny hem, or fold the hem over on top of the waffle weave. For three of the towels I folded the twill hem rows over the waffle weave rows and hand stitched it down. On the fourth towel I tried to make a narrower hem but there was not enough to avoid overlapping on to the waffle weave. If I make waffle weave towels again I will weave more than 24 twill hem rows. The following photos were taken after the towels went through the washing machine and dryer.

After going through the washer and dryer, the towels went from 16″ wide on the loom to about 12″ wide. In addition to the expected shrinkage from the cotton fiber, the waffle weave scrunches up more than a plain or twill weave would. My selvedges were evenish within each color, but not so much in the places where I carried a second color yarn up the side.

The towels got wrinkly in the dryer, and ended up with some crinkles that I could not get out with the iron. Otherwise, I like how they came out.

The next photo shows one of the waffle weave towels I woven on my rigid heddle loom in 2021, next to one of the current towels made on my 4-shaft floor loom. The yarn used for the towel on the left is 8/4 cotton which is twice as thick as the 8/2 cotton yarn for the towel on the right.

I do not remember where I got the instructions, but here is a link to the blog post I wrote about waffle weave towels on the rigid heddle loom.

If you want to try waffle or similar weaves with a pick up stick on a rigid heddle loom, there are a couple of options. The School of Sweet Georgia has a class called “Weaving Lace on a Rigid Heddle Loom”, with warp and weft floats similar to waffle weave. In November 2026 they will be publishing a new rigid heddle pattern for a waffle-like scarf. There is also a pattern for Rigid Heddle Waffle Weave from Kelly Casanova here.

I left the warp yarn waste on my loom for now, with the yarn ends tied so they will not accidentally get pulled out. I may measure out yarn for another set of waffle weave towels and tie the ends on to the leftover ends from this project. That takes time, but less than starting from scratch threading all the ends through the reed and heddles.

Leftover warp yarn ends waiting for another project to get tied on

All in all I am happy with the way these towels turned out. Even having a few imperfections and wrinkles, they are functional towels, they dry hands or dishes, they look nice.

Cabin Work Weekend 2026

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, where many families have a cabin. Going “up to the lake” or “up north” is a common summer activity. My mother’s extended family has a cabin was built in 1923 that has been used and loved by multiple generations. When my mom was growing up, they spent the entire summer at the cabin with a large family and no electricity or running water. Today the cabin is an LLC with nine owners, a modern kitchen, a dishwasher, and wifi.

I love the cabin and am one of the owners. The other owners live farther away, so Wayne does many chores at the cabin. He does most of the mowing, in addition to mowing our own large yarn. I do the bookkeeping and manage the reservations, among other things. We both do a lot.

When one family owns a cabin by themselves they can make all the decisions, but also bear all the cost, and must do or hire out all the work. Going to the cabin for the weekend often ends up being 90% mowing the lawn and doing chores, following by 10% relaxing. Having nine owners spreads out the cost and work, but also involves getting everyone to participate.

We usually have a cabin work weekend to knock off some big projects, and do spring cleaning and yard work. The last couple of years Memorial Weekend has been chosen so that we can work on Saturday and Sunday, and then relax on Monday. Some years more people are able to participate than others. We had a good crowd this year of close to 20 people, including friends who have spent more time at the cabin than some of the LLC members. We had a full house with my sister and her husband, our friends, our niece, and a cousin. Other participants stayed at the cabin, and at second homes near the cabin owned by my cousin and by my uncle.

On Friday of Memorial Weekend my uncle texted me a photo of a new resident in the neighborhood. This guy was photographed around the corner from the cabin property. Later he was seen along the lakeshore north of us, and in the woods next to the road on the north side of the lake.

I am not much of a spring cleaning person, but sorting and purging in our house is an ongoing process. We moved into my parents house in 2019, adding our stuff to their completely furnished home. We have come a long way, but it seems like a never ending process. Things that belonged to my parents need to be reviewed with my sister. Living under the basement stairs is a life size gnome that my mom made years ago. Many people consider it on the creepy side, and Wayne was pressuring me to get rid of it, possibly even throwing it in the trash. That seemed sad and extreme, but I agreed to review it with Betsy and get some feedback during Work Weekend. The reaction was very strong that we were not to get rid of the gnome. He went back under the stairs for now, to be dealt with in the future.

Mr gnome enjoyed a few hours in the kitchen before going back under the stairs

Spring cleaning inside the cabin is one of the work weekend tasks. My cousin, his wife, and their daughter and son-in-law were lodging there, so not as much cleaning was done as a normal year. However Erika vacuumed the mounted deer head! I did not think it had ever been cleaned before, but my cousin told me that last year she vacuumed off spider webs that had probably been there for over 70 years.

One of the big tasks for this year was to replace the flooring and railings of a deck overlooking the lake. A neighbor friend who is a very capable handyman had already removed the original decking and ordered replacement materials, so a team of workers made quick work of completing this project.

The other big task was adding skirting boards around the base of the cabin, to protect the bottom edges from rotting. That project was just barely finished by the end of the weekend.

We all know there are many different variations of every color. Red is no exception. Somehow the red paint color used for the skirting did not match the red on the rest of the cabin. And in fact there were already two different colors of red used. This will be remedied the next time the entire cabin is repainted. The color is supposed to be a very specific shade of red, called Falu or Falun, used on Swedish barns.

Another big task during work weekend was weeding. It is endless. No matter what method is used to try to keep them at bay, rocks, mulch, a layer of plastic, it doesn’t matter, the weeds are back in a matter of weeks.

My assignment for the weekend was to provide lunches for the group, as well as part of the dinner on Saturday, paid for with cabin LLC funds. This involved a trip to Fergus Falls on Friday with stops at three different stores. Unfortunately, I had a fender bender with another driver when we were both trying to back out of the Aldi parking lot. No one was hurt, the damage was minimal, our car is old and still drivable. We will not be making a claim. Later Wayne was able to fix up the bumper and make the dent pop back out using a blow dryer.

Before lunch on Saturday, someone had to go get the picnic tables that had been stored for the winter in the syrup shed.

Lunch consisted of a sandwich bar, chips, veggies, hummus, and fruit.

I made some cookies for the group. My cousin provided brownies that were amazing, and that she is going to be selling as a side gig in the Twin Cities. Check out the Facebook page for Sky Brownies. Or if you live in the area, she will be selling them at her first market at Daytons Bluff Community Center in St. Paul on Friday, June 26th from 3 – 6 PM.

My uncle cooked steak and salmon on the grill for the dinner main course. Providing excellent food for the group is a way to entice people to come to cabin events with the word “work” in them.

There was a bird nest on top of an outside light fixture on the side of the cabin.

The nest was taken down as part of cabin cleaning, but returned when we realized there were four eggs inside!

There is a cupboard at the cabin stuffed with random life jackets. My sister brought two more from her home, so I pulled them all outside to sort and inventory. It was like one of those scenes with more and more things coming out of a Volkswagen Bug. I don’t know how they all fit in the space. The pile in the photo below are rejects that were old and more than needed.

The dock was set up in the water, a challenging task involving hauling it over rocks using rope attached to a truck. Sometimes Wayne ends up doing this at a different time with whatever helper he can rustle up. The swim raft also got put in the water. It was nice that both of these tasks were out of the way and we did not have to bribe friends to come and help later.

Everyone thought the weekend was a success. My niece, who traveled from Michigan, even thought it was more fun than the annual family reunion in July.

After they left, my sister reminded me to pull the seed stalks off the rhubarb plants in our yard. What? It seemed like just a few days earlier there was nothing growing yet. Now there were rhubarb stalks big enough to pick, buried in tons of weeds.

Our friends who had come for work weekend stayed over another night after everyone else went home. Steven and Wayne wanted to take advantage of the excellent fishing conditions. Mary Lou is a knitter and is now learning to weave. She finished an adorable knitted duck, and I started knitting a sheep, both from the Mouche & Friends book. I helped her warp a rigid heddle loom weaving project that she could finish at home. I sold my 15″ Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle loom with all the accessories to Mary Lou, and will be buying myself a wider rigid heddle loom.

We do not have any big plans for this summer. There will be a few short runs to the Twin Cities, the annual family reunion at the cabin in July, and several groups of people coming here to our house and the cabin. I am looking forward to being where we are, and having time to work on my projects in between hosting guests.

Novus Knit Pouch

In December I was looking for knitting projects to work on in Arizona over the winter. The Novus Knit Pouch by Laura Nelkin looked like a fun and portable project involving some new techniques, resulting in a 3-D functional item with no seaming or picking up of stitches.

The pattern called for some cotton and wool blend DK weight yarn. I did not have anything like that on hand, but figured the pattern would work with any type of yarn. I found some thicker worsted weight 100% Ella Rae Classic Wool yarn leftover from another project.

The pattern comes with a detailed very helpful video tutorial explaining each step of the project. From the video I learned that while other types of yarn can work, the key is to have a very dense gauge.

I ended up being busy with other projects during our time in Arizona, but assembled supplies for knitting the pouch in the car on the way back home to Minnesota at the beginning of April. After starting the project I realized that a smaller needle would have been better, but my other needles were buried somewhere under the RV. I went ahead, thinking that if it was too floppy I might be able to felt the pouch to make it more dense.

This pattern uses stitch holder cords, which are slightly stretchy silicone tubes that come in different thicknesses and lengths. I have some stitch holder cords from Twice Sheared Sheep. They come in three thicknesses in a little metal box. Laura Nelkin, the designer of the pouch pattern, has a blog post about ways to use these clever tools, that she refers to as stitch savers.

Silicone stitch savers or holders can be used for temporarily holding stitches while a project is in the works. I have used them to hold stitches taken off the needles when I wanted to try something on or check measurements. That can be done with a piece of waste yarn, but the beauty of the stitch savers is that you can stick a knitting needle tip in the hollow end and slide the stitches directly off of or on to a knitting needle. I also used a stitch saver for doing a provisional cast on, used at the beginning of a tubular cast on for a hat.

For the pouch pattern, the working yarn is wrapped around the stitch saver at the beginning of each row, so you end up with a stitch saver cord running up each side of the knitting. Later when you need to pick up stitches at the end of each row, you just slide the loops from the stitch saver onto the needle. It is very slick. The pattern can be made without stitch savers by picking up the stitches from the end of each row the old fashioned way.

Following is a photo of the pouch in progress, showing the bottom and sides complete, with the stitch savers going up each side. The rectangle section in the middle will be the bottom of the pouch. The triangular shaped sections on each side will be folded up, with most of that forming the sides, and the tips forming the handles. The front and back will be filled in with knitting, connecting the sides together. It is hard to understand how this will happen, you have to trust the pattern.

Ready to start knitting the front and back

I did not have two stitch savers in the same circumference, so there was a thinner one on one side. This was not ideal, but I attempted to wrap less tight around on the side with the thinner cord, and I hoped it would not be a noticeable problem later.

The front and back are made by putting the stitches from the stitch saver on the needle and knitting back and forth with linen stitch, doing a decrease in each corner. While reading the pattern before actually knitting this part, it was hard to understand what is going to happen to fill in the front and back. It is hard to explain here but it works. The front is complete in the next photo.

The following photos are showing two different angles, with the stitches from the stitch saver on the other side transferred to the knitting needle and ready to knit the back of the pouch. Very hard to see what is going on.

And voila in the next photo the back panel is filled in, and the handles are laying across the top.

My pouch was floppier than what I think it is supposed to be. It was hard to get it to stand up for photos.

I thought about options for making the bag less floppy, possibly sewing a lining for the bag. I did not really want to sew a liner, so it seemed like the next best option was felting it. This is scary, because felting can be unpredictable. And once it has felted, you cannot get it back to the original condition. I ran it through the washing machine with a load of laundry on warm, and thankfully, it came out beautifully. The fabric felted enough to give it some body, but still retain the stitch definition of the original knitting. Yay! I put a wadded up towel inside the bag while it was drying.

After running through one load of wash in the washing machine

According to the pattern, with their gauge, the finished pouch measurements are supposed to be 4 1/4″ tall, 5 1/2″ wide, and 4 1/4″ deep. My bag was bigger since I used thicker yarn and probably too big of a needle. Of course I forgot to measure it before felting, which caused it to shrink some. After felting it was close to the size of their bag at 5″ tall, 5 1/2″ wide, and 4 3/4″ deep.

The pattern suggests using a specific set of leather clasps to connect the handles at the top. They are nice and can be purchased here. Since I own a zillion buttons, that seemed like the easiest closure. I checked in several drawers where I have thread stored, looking for the right color to sew the button on. I think the spool of thread for 30 cents in the photo below is left from about 1970, when my mom and my grandma bought the inventory from a stretch and sew store that went out of business. We had entire cases of thread in the basement after that, just like at the fabric store. From that time until today I have rarely had to buy thread.

I fiddled around trying to figure out how to make a button hole after the fact. After a few attempts that I did not like and ripped out, I crocheted a chain stitch loop at end of the handle.

The completed project is shown from different angles in several photos below. For photography purposes, I put some yarn in the pouch that I dyed at Fiber Day last weekend. That will be featured in a future blog post.

I like the way this pouch turned out. It is a cute size and I hope will actually get used for something. I may have to try it again with the recommended yarn, or at least a tighter gauge.

Malabrigo Spin

Three years ago when we were in St. Paul I bought a Malabrigo braid of Merino Wool fiber. Following is a photo I found from October 2023 showing the braid laid out on the floor with some yarn in coordinating colorways. Not sure what I was thinking at that time. Yes, I do like purple.

Malabrigo braid with other assorted yarns

Fiber prepared this way is very densely packed. When I was a new spinner 20 years ago I had little formal instruction in how to spin, especially as it related to the different ways fiber can be prepared. More recently I have learned there is a whole category of instruction called “Fiber Prep”. There are entire classes at the School of Sweet Georgia on this topic.

Trying to spin directly off a tightly packed braid is possible, but the experience will be more pleasant and the results more consistent if it has been through some kind of process to loosen up the fiber. My method has been to peel off narrow strips and then do some pre-drafting (kind of like stretching it out) before spinning. I had heard that another method is to card the fiber. At Fiber Day in the fall of 2024 I tried doing this with the Ellison’s big electric drum carder.

Getting ready to card some of the Malabrigo fiber

I learned quickly that carding this braid was not the right method if one wants to preserve all the pretty colors.

All the colors mixed together turn into a shade of gray.

Following is a photo showing two bobbins of the fiber spun up with all the colors preserved, and part of a third one with the blended gray fiber. I have been working on spinning thinner singles, with the goal of creating yarn that can be used on my flat knitting machine, or even for knitting socks on my circular sock machine. It looked thin enough on the bobbins before plying.

Plying the two colorful singles yarn resulted in a jumble of colors.

I gently washed the plied yarn to set the twist and hung it up to dry.

After washing and drying, the yarn “bloomed”. It was more like worsted weight or even bulky, thicker than I expected it would be. Also, the overall effect was more greenish gray looking than the original braid.

The part of the braid that I had blended on the drum carder looked very grayish when plied. It is nice too, but the original bright colors are lost.

Following is another photo of the more colorful plied yarn in a basket.

I was hoping I could use this yarn for the School of Sweet Georgia Machine Knitting Hats class, but it may be too thick for the LK-150 machine. I will try it, to see what happens. This yarn may end up in a tub with other hand spun yarn that I do not know what to do with from the last 20 years.

Since starting this project, I have worked through a School of Sweet Georgia Spinning up a Level class where I learned more about controlling the thickness of the final yarn. With that knowledge, I hope that my next spin will end up thin enough for one of the knitting machines.

Bunny Odile

My friend knitted an adorable little stuffed animal bear. She got the pattern from the book Mouche & Friends by Cinthia Vallet, which includes instructions for knitting multiple different animals, all starting at the nose and completed without any seaming at the end.

I knit a much simpler version of a stuffed bear, many years ago. I dug it out after our first granddaughter was born, and found that moths had attacked it on the back. I patched it up and put it with the toys to have on hand when she visits.

I wanted to try making one of the cute seamless animals in the Mouche & Friends book, but I was not sure about buying the entire book. It turns out Cinthia has a pattern for a bunny that can be purchased as a single PDF. The Bunny Odile pattern includes instructions for a little dress or sweater, sleep suit, and tiny socks.

This small and portable project seemed like a good activity for the multiple day car ride from Minnesota to Arizona at the end of December, and for working on while we were there. The pattern uses fingering weight yarn, which is what I use for socks. I have a lot of that. I had one skein of Patons Kroy Sock yarn in a natural color that was only enough for one sock, and was a good color for a bunny. This brand of sock yarn is on the thick side. When I tried cranking a sock using this type of yarn, it came out very dense. However it is perfect for a stuffed animal.

When I tried to find the yarn end from the middle of the ball, I got a giant yarn barf. Ugg.

The pattern uses size zero needles, the smaller than I have used before. Casting on at the nose with double pointed needles was fiddly, but once there were some increases it went smoothly. The yarn does not slip on the bamboo needles.

The ears were knitted on to the head by picking up four stitches and then increasing, while the stitches at the neck were on hold. I switched to a magic loop needle in the middle of the first ear, since all those double pointed needles every which way were annoying. After knitting most of the head and part of an ear, the face looked more like a dolphin than a rabbit. I thought (hoped?) that once it was blocked and stuffed, the face would smooth out and not have such a big bump above the nose.

The second ear came out longer than the first ear. Oops. I think I know what happened, but I was not going to fix it.

There are suggestions for stuffing as you go, or waiting until the end so you can block the project first. I decided to soak just the head in water and let it dry, so I could smooth out the bump and stuff the head. I stretched out the shorter ear some while the yarn was wet. Everything looked better after it was dry.

The head looked more like a bunny after it was blocked and stuffed.

The arms were knitted on next, followed by the main part of the body and then the tail.

After completing the body, I soaked it from the neck down so I could put the stuffing in the arms and upper body. The legs were knitted on after that. The last steps were blocking the legs, adding the stuffing, and then closing up the final opening between the legs.

Waiting for the legs to dry before adding stuffing

This project (and all of Cindy’s animals) are designed to have minimal yarn ends, which are woven in as you go. Once the final opening was closed up the project was completely done. I finished the bunny on our last day in Arizona. I took photos of the bunny sitting on the RV sofa and kitchen counter as we prepared for the journey home.

Riding in the car for three days (plus an extra day in Omaha waiting for a storm in Minnesota to be over) was a good time to start knitting a dress for the bunny.

I had some leftover sock yarn for bunny clothes. I neglected to notice that the pattern says how many grams are needed for the dress, and that according to a note on the yarn label documenting how many grams were left, I did not have enough for the dress. It turned out that the bunny clothes are supposed to be knit with size two needles. I did not have any size two needles with me, so I went ahead with size one, and not realizing I was not going to have enough yarn.

I got the yoke and a shorter version of the sleeves done before I determined there was no way I would be able to finish either the dress or the shorter shirt version of the pattern. I considered finishing the skirt part of the dress with some other yarn, possibly the rest of the gray yarn I used for the bunny.

As far as I got with the leftover Supersocke yarn

Later after we got home, I decided to order another skein of the Supersocke 4-fach Highway Color yarn. I would only use a bit of it to finish the dress, and there would be plenty left after that to crank a pair of socks. I took a photo of the bunny with the bear from years ago.

While waiting for the yarn to finish the dress, I started another dress using some other leftover sock yarn that had enough left.

The dress has a fancy pattern that is supposed to be near the hem, as shown in the photo below. I was not sure I liked it or that it was worth the bother, and also I realized that if I followed the instructions exactly the dress would be pretty short. That may have been because I was using size one needles instead of size two.

I ripped out the rows of fancy pattern and continued knitting plain rows, many more than the pattern indicated, until I thought it was long enough. It is snug (due to using smaller needles than recommended) but it fits.

Following is a photo of the bunny with the dress that matches the pair of socks I cranked on my circular sock machine with the same yarn. The socks have faded some.

When the other yarn came I continued knitting the first dress. This yarn is thinner than the blue yarn. I skipped the fancy pattern near the hem on this dress too, as the self striping yarn provides enough interest, and I was too lazy.

This dress is even more snug due to the smaller needles and thinner yarn, but it just barely fits.

This bunny might be a good gift for granddaughter Blair’s third birthday in June. Or maybe given her habit of removing all doll clothes, I will just keep it for myself until she is older.

Arizona 2026

This was our seventh winter snowbirding in Arizona, at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort. We rented for one month the first year, and then two months the second year. By year three we had our 5th wheel trailer, and we have been staying for three months. That first year it felt like a vacation. Over the years with the RV it has felt more like a second home.

Growing up in Minnesota, my family never went anywhere during the winter. My parents never considered snowbirding. My mom was always busy with her activities at home. The idea of several months of “leisure” time was foreign to her. You should be doing something productive.

Being raised that way and by nature, I also have trouble with the idea of many hours of relaxing and recreation. However, I do appreciate getting away from the cold, and being somewhere where you can go outside without worrying about slipping and falling, and do other things like walking, hiking, swimming, and bike riding that we do not do in the winter at home. The free exercise classes a five minute walk away are a no brainer. Many of the things I do at home I do here too, like hand knitting and sock machine knitting.

Each year has been a little different. Wayne’s sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Steve, did not come until March. We spent quite a bit of time with friends we know from home who rented an Airbnb for two months in Mesa, about 20 minutes from us. Two other couples we are close to in Minnesota came to the area on vacation. Our kids visited for an entire week.

The weather was much warmer than average. Our usual experience has been high temperatures in the 60’s in January and February, and up to the 70’s Fahrenheit in March. This year it was in the 70’s in January, and we used the air conditioner in the RV when daytime highs were above 90 degrees Fahrenheit for all of March. There was a stretch of about five or six days with highs above 100. It was too hot for hiking or bike riding, but we used the pool more than other years, and went to two movies. Wayne got up very early for golfing or a bike ride to get some exercise before the heat of the day. There were tons of grasshoppers all over during the hot weather, and reports of people seeing rattle snakes out earlier than normal.

Our friends Mary Lou and Steven have spent part of winter in Florida for the past couple of years. After listening to us talk about Arizona, they decided to try it out this winter. They really enjoyed the mountain views and dry weather, lack of bugs, hiking, and variety of other things to do. They are considering coming back next winter.

We never get tired of taking visitors on the Apache Trail Scenic Drive. I wrote about it in 2024, you can read that post here. We had an adventure with Mary Lou and Steven this year on the Apache Trail, with the intention of seeing the cliff dwellings at Tonto National Monument near Roosevelt Lake and dam. We got a late start due to roads being closed for the Lost Dutchman Marathon, near where we had agreed to leave their car at the Superstition Mountain Museum. As we were going past Tortilla Flat, there happened to be a free parking spot, so we pulled in. This place was a stagecoach stop in the early 1900’s, but is currently a tourist “town” one block long with a permanent population of six. We stopped and had a bite to eat and used the goofy bathroom.

After stopping at several other scenic points, we arrived late in the afternoon at Tonto National Monument, only to find that the trail up to the cliff dwellings was closed for the day. By the time we got all the way back to the Superstition Mountain Museum to get Mary Lou and Steven’s car, it was getting dark out. The gate was closed and locked. Their car was towed. We stopped at a restaurant for a late dinner, only to find a 45 minute wait time. At this point everyone was ready to go back home and eat leftovers for dinner.

We also took some other friends from home, Steve and Sally, on the Apache Trail scenic drive, getting this photo at the Canyon Lake overlook.

With Steve and Sally, at the Canyon Lake Overlook on the Apache Trail

Our friends Kris and Dave visited for a few days. They enjoyed hanging out at the pool at our resort, and we went to an event at the Mesa Arts Center that included artist vendors, music, demonstrations, and a drone light show.

There is a gift shop at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort where residents sell their hand crafted products. There is a good selection of practical, fun and creative items for sale at reasonable prices.

Over the last year I had collected a big bag of socks and accessories I cranked out on my circular sock machine. They were for practice, rather than for anyone in particular. I decided to try selling them at the gift shop at the resort. The items were already made, so minimal effort was involved. There is no sales commission, so there was nothing to loose. I was not sure if wool socks would be in demand in Arizona, however they are perfect for hiking which is a popular activity. Following are photos of some of the socks ready to go on sale at the gift shop.

I had a limited supply of sock yarn to make more socks, so I ordered some Cascade yarn and some Aktiv yarn. Aktiv yarn is popular with crankers who sell many socks because it is good quality, reasonably priced, and comes on big cones. Even with the shipping cost, it came out cheaper on a per sock basis ordering directly from the company in Germany. It also arrived faster than the Cascade yarn. Following is a photo of the Aktiv yarn I bought in a variety of fun but not too wild colorways. I will be set for sock yarn for a long time (although that has never stopped me from buying more yarn haha).

I did not want to crank out dozens of socks in every size and style and yarn option. I did make a limited number of new pairs, and then put up a sign offering to knit custom socks in the specific size, style, and yarn requested.

My socks were displayed in baskets at the gift shop. I had to work in the gift shop once per month, for a total of three times in my case. The whole thing is well organized and runs smoothly with a cash only system.

By the end of the season, I had sold enough socks to pay for the yarn I purchased. One person requested a custom pair of socks. There was still a lot yarn left for future sock making. I felt like it was a successful experiment and I will consider doing it again next season.

In addition to using my circular sock machine in the RV, I worked on some hand knitting projects this year in Arizona. I hand knitted four red resistance hats, plus a preemie size red hat for my friend’s new granddaughter, and a mini red hat ornament. I wrote about the red hats in this post. I finished knitting and posted here about a colorwork sweater.

Wayne’s sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Steve, arrived for the month of March at Gold Canyon Golf and RV Resort. Our kids came for a week at the beginning of March, overlapping with Wayne’s other sister and husband, Yvonne and Gayle, plus some nieces and a fiance. Our son and daughter-in-law, James and Kelsey, rented a large Airbnb in Mesa with a heated swimming pool. Kelsey’s parents and sister stayed with them. Our daughter and her boyfriend, Britta and Isaac, came for part of the week. There was a lot of driving back and forth between Gold Canyon and Mesa.

I went to Goodwill and spent a total of $10 on two dolls, four board books, and a bucket of Duplo to make sure the two granddaughters would have something to play with.

The dolls are around 15″, bigger than they look in the photo. They are both having a bad hair day. The smaller doll did not have any clothes so I made her a sun dress with the sock machine. Blair immediately took the dress off the doll.

I also bought a beach ball and water squirter that both turned out to be popular. The swimming pool at the Airbnb got a lot of use.

The backyard at the Airbnb was a great hang out location for all the various relatives.

Nora liked sucking on a lime, but not a lemon, while at a restaurant.

Some of the cousins went on a hike.

Blair learned how to play foosball.

James and Kelsey got some golf in, but otherwise focused on toddler friendly activities. We took Britta and Isaac to Boyce Thompson Arboretum for a walk around the landscaped areas and an easy hike.

Many cactuses were blooming earlier than usual with the warm weather.

After James and Kelsey went back home, the other young and old adults enjoyed a relaxing day at our resort swimming and playing pickleball.

On Yvonne and Gayle’s last day we went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, before they had to leave for the airport. We happened to run into friends from Minnesota, who own a place in Florence, Arizona, about 30 miles south of Gold Canyon.

I participated in my first ever protest at a No Kings event on March 28. The flagship march and protest were held in my home state of Minnesota, but there were protests all over the country on the same day. We attended an event near Florence with our friends there. There were about 200 people participating, which seemed like a good turnout considering we were in the middle of nowhere. Participants held up signs along a busy road. Many people honked and gave us a thumbs up or waved their support as they drove by. Other people gave us a thumbs down or middle finger up, but it was all peaceful.

It feels more like a second home in Gold Canyon each winter, and I really like small living in the RV. However I had had enough of the extreme hot weather and was ready to go back to Minnesota by the end of March.

Because of the warmer than usual weather, unlike other years, we slept in the RV for two nights on the way home. We used the bedroom and bathroom without opening the slides or having any water, electricity or sewer services. The RV battery was enough to power the lights, and we dumped water from a jug into the toilet when flushing. The first night we stayed in the parking lot at Junkyard on 66 Brewery in Grants, New Mexico, after eating dinner there. The tables were made out of old car parts. We had mixed feelings about staying in this town after our truck broke down there on the way home last year. You can read about that adventure here.

The second night we stayed at a truck stop at a very busy highway intersection on the north side of Oklahoma City. There was a lot of loud truck noise for most of the night. On the third day there were high winds and thunderstorms forecast in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. At one point we hung out at a McDonalds for a couple of hours to wait for the wind to die down, and then stayed west of the storms. We would have driven the last stretch home to West Central Minnesota on Saturday after night three, but there was a winter storm developing there.

In order to not drive into a snowstorm we stayed overnight in Omaha for two nights. This time we used a free night at a Marriott hotel, and then paid for a second night. It was quite nice and a huge step up from the noisy truck stop. Wayne got this screen shot on Saturday from a camera looking out over our driveway.

We drove the last stretch home on Sunday after the storm was over. There was about four or five inches of snow in our yard when we got home, but more importantly a big ridge of snow and dirt at the end of the driveway from the snowplow.

Wayne removed the ridge enough to pull the truck and RV off the road. He did not want to bother shoveling the entire driveway, as he figured the snow would melt soon with warmer weather in a few days. In the meantime, it was cold, the wet snow crusted over, and we could not get out for several days due to hard snow and the RV blocking the way. It was OK, there were plenty of things to do getting things back in order in the house.

I am looking forward to weaving, spinning, and flatbed knitting that I was not able to do in Arizona. Meanwhile, we will be on the road again soon to the Twin Cities for Nora’s first birthday party (assuming we can get out of the driveway!).

Colorwork Sweater

I used to wear sweaters to work all winter in Minnesota. Since I retired, moved to a rural area, went through the pandemic, and have been spending three months of winter in Arizona, I hardly ever wear a sweater (or make up, haha). In cooler weather, I usually wear a sweatshirt or a polar fleece top for maximum comfort

Lately I have been seeing colorwork sweaters all over. I dug out my Norwegian Sweater that I bought in Norway in 1988 to wear on Christmas Eve.

Me on the right end of the bench wearing my Norwegian sweater.

I have knit several sweaters in my life, including two when I was in college. Sweaters are a big project that take time and use a lot of yarn. Of course I like the expensive stuff, so it has not been a regular thing.

The only colorwork experience I have are knitting some Arne & Carlos Christmas balls. At the time, I did not have any instructions on how to do colorwork, other than googling what to do with the floats on the back.

This fall there was a School of Sweet Georgia online class for designing and knitting a colorwork sweater. I was intrigued but not ready to dive in at that time, being a little intimidated and also busy with other projects.

The sweater pattern included for the colorwork class is written for hand knitting from the bottom up, with the body and sleeves completed first, and then joined together on a long circular needle to continue knitting the yoke in the round. I wanted to try making the main body and sleeves on my LK150 flat knitting machine. The pattern is ideal for that, and this project would involve learning new colorwork and machine knitting skills.

I ordered the Sweet Georgia BFL+Silk DK yarn used in the pattern. I had a hard time justifying the cost, given that I hardly wear the sweaters I already have. Whenever I discuss having trouble spending money on expensive yarn or knitting tools, people always remind me how much money Wayne spends on golf. I also have to remind myself that this is the cost of my hobby. It is a learning experience, and not necessarily about how many times I will use the thing I am making.

The Sweet Georgia yarn was on sale, and I decided it could be a Christmas gift to myself. They did not have enough skeins in stock of the color I wanted, but I was able to place the order. Later I found out Sweet Georgia Yarns dyed the additional skeins to fulfil my order, or maybe in any case to refill their stock. When the yarn arrived, I gave the box directly to Wayne without opening it, to wrap up for Christmas. It was hard not to look at it right away! Later I wound one skein into ball so I could knit a swatch.

I decided to try making the sweater with some cheaper yarn before using the Sweet Georgia yarn. The Valley Yarns Worthington Wool/Alpaca/Viscose yarn I bought was not cheap either. It has quite a different feel, but I like both of the yarns.

I made swatches on the knitting machine using different combinations of tension and stitch length settings to see what would result in a gauge closest to the pattern. The color in the following photo is too dark and too blue. The photo above of the ball of yarn is more accurate.

Swatches knit on the machine with different settings

I was not able to match the exact gauge specified in the pattern. I settled on tension and stitch gauge settings that were close. Based on the stitches per inch I was getting, I picked the sweater size in the pattern that resulted in the correct final measurements for me. Knitting the front and back panels went quickly. They were the same size each, approximately a big square.

Knitting the front and back sweater pieces on the machine

The knitting is very stretched out while it is on the machine. The panel for the front of the sweater looked huge. When removed, it takes some time to relax into the natural density. Even after sitting overnight and a steaming, the front panel was 20″ wide instead of 18.75″, and it was an inch shorter than I expected. I considered doing the panel over again the next size down, but I was worried that would be too small.

I had been using my knitting machine in our three season porch. That room is not heated in the winter, and it was freezing in there. My work table in the basement is round which does not work, so I moved it temporarily to our kitchen table. I went ahead and knitted the panels for the back and the two sleeves. The sleeves started at the cuff and had some increases going up to the underarm.

Following is a photo of the four pieces knit on the machine. The taller narrower front piece was steamed some. The back and two sleeves shown below had not been steamed or blocked.

I did not have any more time to spend on this project in December, as I was very busy getting ready for a full house of guests for the Solstice weekend, a trip to the Twin Cities for Christmas a few days after that, and driving to Arizona with our 5th Wheel Trailer at the end of the month. After I finished machine knitting the sweater panels, I put the knitting machine and all the accessories back in the box until spring.

I was worried about what would happen when I hand knitted the ribbing and yoke on to the machine knitted panels. It could look bad if my hand knitting looked a lot different than the machine knitted parts. I had not thought about this before. Should I block the machine knit panels first and then join them together for the hand knitting? Or should I wait for the all the knitting to be complete and then block the entire thing at the same time?

During those last busy days of December, I was able to hand knit a swatch in the evenings while watching TV, when I would not have been doing anything else anyway. I made the swatch with the same number of stitches and rows as the machine knit swatches, using what I thought was a size 4 needle as suggested by the pattern. The gauge seemed too loose and big, so I knit another swatch using a size 3 needle. That one came out closer to the gauge of my machine knit panels.

Later I realized that the reason the first swatch was so much bigger was because it was a size 6 needle, not a size 4 needle. I knit another swatch using a size 4 needle while we were in the car on the way to Arizona.

Knitting a swatch with size four needle in the car

I stressed about the gauge differences between my machine knit panels, my hand knit swatches, how they compared to the gauge expected by the pattern, and when and how to do the blocking. Eventually I felt better after realizing that this was a practice sweater, that did not have to be perfect, and I could do some blocking after it was complete to make small adjustments. Really the only decision was what size needle to use for hand knitting the yoke. Following is a photo of the swatches knit in needle sizes 3, 4, and 6.

Before we left for Arizona, I made time to steam the machine knit panels to get the sides to lay flatter, so I would be at a good stopping point. The next photo shows all four panels looking much better, after more steaming in the laundromat at the RV park in Arizona.

The next step was mattress stitching the sleeve seams together, and mattress stitching the front and back panels together at the side seams. The instructions I found for mattress stitching the baby sweater I made earlier said to go under one stitch at a time on each side. The instructions I found in a School of Sweet Georgia machine knitting hat class said to go under two stitches at a time on each side. I liked that better as it would get done twice as fast.

After seaming the side seams and the sleeves, all the parts were joined on a long circular needle to begin the yoke. It looked very wide and short, but seemed about right compared to one of my sweaters.

The colorwork design of leaves on the pattern is nice, and there are instructions for knitting that exactly as shown. There are also instructions for designing your own colorwork. I wanted to do a different pattern for the colorwork on the yoke of the sweater. I found some ideas on Pinterest including a snowflake looking design that had the same repeat count as the design in the pattern, so it would be easy to substitute.

In the designing your sweater workbook there was a chart to fill in your own pattern.

After joining the body and sleeves there were 10 even rows of knitting followed by one row with some decreases, and then it was time to start the colorwork. I had not had a chance to get white yarn for the snowflake colorwork while we were still in Minnesota. In January, we went to Prescott, Arizona, for a sock machine crank-in that was held at a Fiber Creek LLC, a very big nice yarn shop. I was able to buy the white yarn there.

We also had an early dinner with a couple we know who live in Prescott. It is not a big town, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. While we were eating, an acquaintance of theirs stopped by to say hi. After he left, we were told that he was the nephew of Don Knotts, on his way to do comedy shows on a cruise ship.

I watched another School of Sweet Georgia class on Stranded Colorwork before I started the first colorwork row. Included are instructions for several ways to hold two different yarns so that the floats on the back stay tidy and the tension stays right.

There are tips on how to make sure the knitting does not pucker where the big floats are tacked on the back. I thought I was doing a decent job as I was going along. The knitting was going pretty fast, and soon I was on the last decrease row of the yoke. There are stitch markers to easily mark the pattern repeats. When I got to one section, there should have been nine stitches in between the markers but instead there were 10 stitches. I could have just knitted another two stitches together and problem solved. I like to know where I made the mistake, so I spent some time examining the knitting. I found the mistake about 6 rows down, where I must have forgotten to do one of the decreases on that row. ARGGGHHHH.

Colorwork done, but there was a missed decrease six rows down

I was now thinking that the upper part of the colorwork should be symmetrical with the bottom, with the zig zag pattern repeated above the snowflakes. Also, I was not very happy with the puckering that was obvious where the floats were tacked on the back. I had not done as good a job on that as I thought.

With all of these issues, I made a big decision to rip out all the rows of the snowflakes and try again. It was a bummer to do that, but it is part of learning and I knew I would be happier with the end result.

The following photo shows where I started picking up stitches just below the snowflakes with an extra long circular needle. Doing that allowed me to quickly rip out all the stitches above that point, and then be ready to continue on without dropping any stitches.

The next photo shows all the stitches picked up below the colorwork, with the repeats marked.

Stitches picked up above bottom row of colorwork, in preparation for ripping out knitting above that

One suggestion for successful colorwork is to use a bigger needle size which I had not done the first time, so I tried that on the second try. The next photo shows the sweater after I ripped out the colorwork and redid it with the revised pattern and larger needle size. The zig zag above the snowflakes does not match exactly due to having an odd number of stitches in each repeat instead of an even number.

Colorwork redone with a slightly different pattern

After the colorwork and continuing to the neck are some decrease rows, some short rows on the back, and one inch of ribbing.

When I started knitting the ribbing at the bottom, I thought the sweater was maybe too long. Earlier when it was the pieces off the knitting machine, I thought it was too short. This is a mystery.

I considered finishing the ribbing and wearing the sweater as is for a time, knowing I could rip it back later. After knitting a couple more rows and trying it on again, I decided that I really did not like the long length and went ahead with frogging it back. First I picked up stitches three inches back, where I wanted to restart the ribbing.

Stitched picked up for ripping out the ribbing and three inches of ribbing.

Ripping out the ribbing knit in the round was easy. Frogging the main body of the sweater was not easy. First I had to undo three inches of mattress stitch on each side seam. When starting to rip out the rows of flat knitting done on the knitting machine, I realized that each row was somehow looped so that you could not just rip it out back and forth the way you would if it had been hand knitted. I had to cut the yarn a bunch of times.

Once the extra rows of knitting were removed back to where I had picked up stitches, there were some adjustments needed. I had unintentionally picked up stitches from different rows. In the process of fixing that, I ended up with a bit of a gap on one side where the front and back panels met. I thought it would be ok, but after knitting an inch or so of ribbing, I decided it was not ok. I pulled out the needle and picked up the stitches a row up, got it lined up correctly at the sides, and started the ribbing again, for the third time. Following are photos of the sweater with the ribbing just about done. I worked on the last couple of rows in the car while out and about, and while working in the gift shop at the resort.

Knitting while working in the resort gift shop

As written for hand knitting, the pattern starts at the bottom with a tubular cast on, followed by the ribbing and then the main body. Instead, I added the ribbing on last, after using my knitting machine to make the front and back panels. I used a normal bind off for the neck ribbing, but I was worried that might not be stretchy enough for the bottom. I happened to get a link with instructions for Ruke bind off that is stretchy, works for two by two ribbing, and has a similar look to tubular cast on used in the pattern. I went with that and it worked out well.

Ruke bind off for bottom of sweater and sleeves

I knitted three inches of ribbing and the Ruke bind off at the bottom, and at the end of the sleeves. Following is a photo of the sweater completed, but before blocking.

I finished this wool sweater just in time for the 104 degree Fahrenheit record high temperature for March in Arizona. We had never used the air conditioning in our RV until this year. We are grateful it works. I was planning on having Wayne take a photo of me wearing the sweater in the community building at our resort, where the the lighting is good, the air conditioning is on, and there are nice background options. He did not want to walk over there in the middle of the day in the extreme heat. He said he could get a good photo inside the RV despite the poor lighting, with some editing. Following are the before and after photo taken inside the RV. I am not really a fan of photoshopping in a different background, but it was fun for Wayne to try.

My sister-in-law Marlene took a couple more photos in natural light outside, with more focus on the sweater.

I am very pleased with how the sweater turned out. I will wait until we are back home in April to block it. I had a bad experience blocking a sweater once by getting it completely wet, so I am hesitant to do that. I need to do more research on best methods of blocking for different types of yarn.

I plan on making another combination hand and machine knit sweater with the same pattern, using the more expensive Sweet Georgia yarn. I will probably use the colorwork design of leaves as written in the pattern. In the meantime, for something different, I am knitting a stuffed animal bunny.