Yarns from the Lake

The Library

In 1940, my mom was a preschooler and her sister Kati was 2 years older. She told me that they walked by themselves from their house to the library and back in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, one mile each way. Kati was a prolific reader. When she found out you could check out multiple books at one time, they went back the next day with a wagon. After checking out (and reading) a few wagon loads of books, the librarian changed the rule to limit how many you could check out at one time.

In 1906 a library building was completed in Fergus Falls using plans by local architect Vernon A Wright, and a $15,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie. My family is distantly connected to the Wright family by marriage. My great-great-great Grandfather Charles Clement’s second wife was Elsie Johnson Wright, the widowed sister-in-law of Vernon’s father, George B Wright. George is considered by some to be the founder of Fergus Falls.

Andrew Carnegie contributed almost $1 million towards construction of libraries in Minnesota in the early 1900’s. Following is a photo I found on the internet of the library in Fergus Falls as it would have looked in 1940.

In 1961, a horrible addition was built on to the front and sides in a completely different contemporary style. Later the library moved to a different location, and the original building was repurposed for office space. The following photo is what the building looks like today from the front.

The building currently houses the local newspaper, a law firm, an insurance agency, and a school of dance. I drive by there regularly and cringe every time. Who thought this was a good look? The next photos show the building from the side and back. The semi rotunda was not part of the original library, but at least the materials used are similar.

I went inside to see what it looks like and take a few photos. It was fun to see that some of the original interior features have been preserved.

In 1966 the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) was passed by the United States Government which created the National Register of Historic Places. Buildings on the historic register cannot be remodeled or added on to in a way inconsistent with the original design. This prevents remodels and additions that ruin the original look, as in the Fergus Falls library.

The house where my mom and aunt lived in 1940 is on the National Historic Register. It was built in 1882 by C.C. Clement, my 3rd great grandfather mentioned above. They always called it “the Big House”. We have a photo of the house taken around 1922, with a group of people in front that include my grandfather James Eriksson at about age 12, his father Leonard Eriksson, and Leonard’s parents visiting from Sweden.

The following photo of the C.C. Clement house taken from the Wikipedia article shows more like what it looks like today. There is a big park across the street. It always made for a great view, until last summer when a new community swimming pool was built there. Now the view from the house is the parking lot for the pool.

Around the corner from the C.C. Clement house is the C.J. Wright House, also built in 1882 and also on the historic register. C.J. Wright was the nephew of George B. Wright. The photo is from the Wikipedia article.

There is a drawing of the neighborhood from my mom’s memories of 1940 in her memoir “The Red Cottage“. The Big House/C.C. Clement House is in the upper left. Cousin Elsie’s House in the upper right of the drawing is the C.J. Wright house. Cousin Elsie was Elsie Wright Brown, the granddaughter of Elsie Johnson Wright, Charles Clement’s second wife. The big park where the swimming pool was recently built is off to the left on the other side of Burlington Street.

The neighborhood in 1940 from my mom’s memoir

There is another building in Fergus Falls on the historic register, built between 1888 and 1906, that was originally an “insane asylum” (using a term from that time). It was later a Regional Treatment Center and State Hospital. It is referred to by all these names, as well as the Kirkbride building, after Thomas S. Kirkbride, a 19th Century mental health physician. The following photo of me in front of the Kirkbride building was taken several years ago when Wayne and I went for a bike ride in Fergus Falls. It only shows a small portion of the whole building.

The following paragraph is from an article about Mr. Kirkbride, which you can get to from the green link over his name.

“Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride was an influential advocate of an asylum system based on the tenets of Moral Treatment. In his annual reports as the superintendent of the Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane and in his published treatise on asylum design and function, Dr. Kirkbride promoted a set of detailed principles that influenced the construction and operation of many American asylums built during this period. Seen by Kirkbride as active participants in therapy, the asylum buildings and their surroundings were a central component of his concept of treatment known as the Kirkbride Plan”.

There are other Kirkbride buildings around the country, including one in Traverse City, Michigan near where my niece and cousin live. That building has been repurposed into office and retail space. Fergus Falls does not have the same demographics, and at least one attempt to redevelop the property has failed.

The complex consists of an administration building in the middle, with huge wings fanning out and back on each side. When I was in town running errands, I drove by to get some photos.

It is difficult to get a normal photograph of the entire back since it is so wide. I took a panoramic photo.

Pano photo of the back of the Kirkbride building

We watched the TV series “Vienna Blood” on PBS. It is about a young physician in Vienna in the early 1900’s who works at the local “insane asylum”. He solves crimes with a police detective, using psychoanalysis he is learning from his contemporary Sigmund Freud. The scenes in the asylum seem to me what it would have been like in the Kirkbride building at that time.

There are outdoor concerts at the back of the Kirkbride building now. We went to see the tribute band “Forever Simon and Garfunkel”. It was a a fun concert, a beautiful evening and a great use of the space.

Concert at the back of the Kirkbride building

In addition to food trucks, there was a table sponsored by the Friends of the Kirkbride, a 501c3 non profit. The group is “dedicated to the saving, preservation & rehabilitation of the former Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center in MN” (from their Facebook page).

I just read in this article about a new effort to repurpose the building. I don’t know what will happen, but I hope they do not tear this place down. If I win the lottery or inherit billions of dollars from a mysterious benefactor, I will donate money to remove the awful addition on the old library building and restore the Kirkbride building.

If I could time travel (and then come back to today), I would want to go to 1940 and get a peek at what all these buildings and neighborhoods looked like before all the changes that have happened since then.

Toolara Cardigan

I found a sweater pattern that would be good for practicing with my flat machine machine. The instructions are for the specific machine I have, the Silver Reed LK150. It looked cozy and practical. I thought this would be “easy” because it was all knitted on the machine, with no hand knitted parts as on the colorwork sweater I made last winter. The only hand work would be the side seams joined with mattress stitch.

I planned to use the same yarn as the other sweater I made using the knitting machine, but in a different color. I liked that yarn a lot, and I had already figured out the gauge and machine settings to use. The pockets are cute, but that was too much fuss for my purpose this time. I ordered the yarn online in a color called “Acorn”. The color turned out to be more gray than I expected.

It was easy enough to figure out adjustments for the stitch count, using the gauge from the other sweater. It turned out to be more challenging than I expected to adjust the pattern for rows per inch.

The pattern had a schematic chart with measurements in centimeters. There is one back section, two fronts, and two sleeves. I copied that out by hand, and figured out the number of stitches and rows based on my own gauge in stitches/cm and rows/cm. I kept getting confused between pattern gauge and my gauge, the stitch and row gauge, and between inches and centimeters, but eventually I was comfortable with my calculations.

Determining the number of rows to get a certain length for the sleeve or main body is straightforward, but the short row shaping on the shoulders was tricky. I figured it out after first making various mistakes. In retrospect, it might have been easier to use a different yarn that gave me the same gauge as the pattern. But oh well, once I had it converted the rest was straight forward.

The following photo is the back section hanging from the machine. It is very stretched out. The blue yarn at the bottom is two “cast on rags” used to cast the project yarn on to and hold weights.

I was knitting along with everything going smoothly until the cone of yarn ran out in the middle of a row. BAD. Knitting without any yarn causes the stitches to drop off the needles. I noticed pretty quickly and only dropped about eight stitches. I was able to get the carriage off (not easy in the middle of a row) and restore the stitches manually back to what it was at the beginning of the row.

After finishing the back section in one day, I started on the two front panels. I ran out of yarn again on the first front panel, dropping off almost an entire row. I rehung that row and continued on. Not a disaster, but took up some time.

The second front panel went smoothly without any dropping of stitches, but when it was done I realized I had put the rolled collar extension on the wrong side. Oops.

Oh No! I knit the rolled color extension on the wrong side

I was able to unravel the incorrect rows and reknit them on the other side, so that they mirrored the opposite front panel. The purple at the top is waste yarn to hold live stitches that will be used later for joining the fronts to the back.

Fronts fixed so the rolled collar extensions mirror each other

The next step was joining the rolled collar extensions on the two front pieces at the back of the neck. I wet blocked the two front sections first. The only other time I wet blocked a sweater it was a disaster, but I decided to go for it. I found some instructions in a School of Sweet Georgia class called Fundamentals to Finishing Knits. I had bought the blocking mats last winter, but not used them yet. It felt like I had to really squish the panels to fit in the target measurements, based on my gauge and stitches. It looked better after it was dry.

The pattern included instructions for hanging the rolled collar extension on the machine, knitting them together, and then binding it off. That would work, but leave a lumpy seam. Instead I used the kitchener stitch I use to graft the toe of circular sock machine socks. It worked beautifully and make a smooth join.

Joining the rolled collar extensions using kitchener stitch

The next step was joining the fronts to the back at the shoulders on the machine. That involved first “hanging” the stitches from the shoulders across the machine, and then hanging the stitches across the top of the back on top of the stitches from the front. Once both the front and back shoulder stitches were on the machine, I knit a row using the largest stitch size, according to the instructions. The stitch size turned out to be too loose. When I showed my friend this photo, she said it looked like a piece of modern art.

Sweater in progress OR piece of modern art?

Seam joining back to fronts was too loose

I tightened up the joining row manually, starting in the middle and pulling each stitch tighter.

Manually tightening up the seam joining the back to fronts

The seam looked better after tightening up the stitches. The sleeves were made by hanging stitches from the side, and then knitting on rows with decreases to made it narrower as you got down to the cuff. In the following photo near the bottom, you can see a ridge where the sleeve stitches start. The stitches hanging on the machine needles are the cuff ready to be cast off. As always, it looks unnaturally stretched out. My laptop is open to a School of Sweet Georgia machine knitting class showing how to do the castoff.

I finished the machine knitting before we left on a short trip to the Twin Cities for a wedding. This project is not very portable, but I planned to work on joining the side seams by hand while away from home. Good thing this was a car trip, not an airplane trip. For a project bag I used a tote I got from my niece, with the logo from their business in the Traverse City area of Michigan, Falling Waters Lodge. It is a fun and unique hotel. Check it out if you are in the area.

Using my Falling Waters Lodge tote for a project bag

We had my sister’s house to ourselves for the weekend, while she and her husband and friends were at the cabin. I spread the sweater out on the carpet there to take a photo, before starting the first side seam join.

Following is what it looks like when the fronts are folded over the back.

I got one side seam done, and about half of the other side joined over the weekend.

After we got back home I finished the rest of the side seam, and wove in many, many ends. My sister Betsy and our friend Mary Lou were still at the cabin, so I modeled the sweater for them. I found the closure in a box of stuff that came with my purchase of The Yarn Shop inventory in 2018. The following photos are curtesy of Betsy and Mary Lou. I still needed to do some blocking, especially on the sleeves.

It seemed very big, and not the color I had in mind. But looking at the photo on the pattern, the style is intended to be loose and comfy, not fitted. This is a watching TV sweater, not a going out sweater.

Another look is putting the closure closer to the bottom rather than near the neck.

After more blocking using my steam iron, I measured the gauge and final dimensions. Amazingly, they were all close to the original targets.

Even with all the mistakes I made and parts I had to do over, knitting this sweater on the machine was way faster than it would have been by hand. I achieved my goal of practicing with and feeling more comfortable using the knitting machine. I may end up giving this sweater away to my daughter or niece, or someone else who wears this color and fills the sweater up better than me.

My next knitting machine project is going to be another colorwork sweater. I have other things to work on first, including a weaving project and finishing some other hand knitting projects already in progress.

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.