We had this large mushroom pop up inside our fence. Rather than risk the dogs getting sick, I took my picture and threw it out into the back woods. It was quite heavy for a mushroom. I showed the picture to my eldest, who responded: “Aren’t those edible?” Hm. I looked it up and puffball mushrooms can be edible, but don’t mix them up with earthball mushrooms, which are not edible. One of the ways to tell is to cut it open. Did I do that before I threw it into the woods? Nope, of course not.
Photo description: palm sized round mushroom with a rough white surface.
We’ve had a nice wet Spring. I think I’ll take a knife with me when I go back out into the woods.
I have finished a new fiber page for my spinning book! I mounted all my samples from hand spinning soybean top (top is the description of the fiber preparation, involves combing, and produces parallel fibers) on prepped black card stock. I would definitely use this fiber again, it is very strong, yet so soft.
Photo description: Soybean top fiber page. Clockwise from top left: original card from Hearthside Fibers reading “Soybean Top Developed in the USA in the 1930s by Henry Ford Used in Ford car upholstery pre-1940”, single spun, 2-ply, and 4 ply yarn samples, woven swatch, nålbinding swatch, crochet swatch, knit swatch, combed fiber.Photo description: same page with swatches flipped up to show the writing underneath: plain weave on Clover mini loom, nålbinding Dalarna O/U O:U O, crochet 1.75mm hook, Stiockinet size 2 needle knit.
As a comparison to yesterday’s throwback post, here is my latest pair of socks finished. These are women’s size 5 socks knitted from fingering weight variegated super-wash merino wool and nylon yarn. I knitted them at the same time with two circular needles, which I much prefer over double pointed needles. They were knitted toe-up, which I also prefer, except for binding off. I tore out and reknit the top of one sock three times trying to get a stretchy bind-off. I ended up with a tubular bind-off, which is like a Kitchener grafting stitch, and goes well with 1×1 ribbing. I don’t care for the heel construction on these; I didn’t grasp the way to pick up stitches that were wrapped on the short rows. The good news is that there are dozens of different ways to do heels.
Photo description: two blue and yellow variegated knit socks, the right one laid flat showing the top of the foot and ankle, the left folded to show the bottom of the foot and heel.
My youngest reports that they are quite comfy. I do think hand knit socks are worth the effort for this reason.
My current endeavors are not my first foray into knitting socks, as proven here in a picture from November of 2003. I was knitting with thicker wool, and sewed tooled leather to the soles to make a slipper. Tooling leather isn’t the ideal slipper sole, it is thick and stiff. Now I would use suede or a finished supple leather, something to reduce the chance of slipping while walking more than the simple tooling I tried here. I do like how neat my stitches are, though, and worsted weight yarn knits up much quicker than sock weight yarn!
Photo description: cream colored wool slipper socks with a lightly tooled leather sole whipped stitched with leather lacing.
I made four example swatches from my spun soybean fiber: knitting, crochet, weaving, and nålbinding.
Photo description: swatches before blocking, clockwise from top right: stockinette knitting, plain weave, nålbinding Dalarna stitch, and crocheted lace round
The knitting swatch tells the most about the yarn, the obvious skew is because my singles have more twist than my ply. This bias does not have a significant impact on the other swatches. The nålbinding has several small knots because I could not get the fiber to felt together. I used a 1.75mm hook for the crocheted coaster, which was on the small side because the stitching is dense and stiff. The soy yarn is incredibly strong; I can’t break a single strand with my hands, but it is also incredibly soft even with the amount of twist I put in the single. There is good reason that it also carries the name vegetable cashmere. It also blocks well. It was very easy to shape when wet, and kept that shape when dry.
Photo description: same swatches after blocking
I was able to square up the knitting, and give the woven swatch some more twist in the fringe. The nålbinding swatch stitches opened up, but the crochet didn’t have much change, probably due to the density of the stitches.
The next step is to mount the swatches in my fiber book.
Critters and Craft 