For someone who does not count knitting in my favorite crafts, I certainly seem to be knitting often. I finished spinning the two-color pink merino wool and am quite pleased with the color distribution. It isn’t nearly as patchy as I thought it would be when I was spinning the singles! I then needed to decide what to do with the two ply yarn. Since I want to get back to spinning, I chose knitting because it is faster than nålbinding and I like the texture better than crochet. It is all well and good to only spin, but how can I improve my spinning if I don’t know how the finished yarn performs?

I found a simple knit lace pattern, since I read two ply is often used for lace. I also learned about a different kind of needle from Prym. These are ergonomically designed with tips that hook the yarn better, triangle shafts so the loops slide better, and they clip together to keep the stitches on the needle between sessions! I do appreciate well designed things!

This pattern is my kind of lace! It repeats every four rows, and there is only one row with increases and decreases, otherwise it is knit or purled all the way across. I had the pattern memorized after three sets, and could recognize where I was in the pattern after three more. And such a lovely dynamic result! I realized that I have seen this ripple pattern somewhere else. My daughter’s dolls were tucked in with a rainbow blanket that my grandmother made that used the same stitch! I’ve always admired the ripple and wondered how it was done. Now I know!

My knitting still can’t be considered speedy, but it will do for a sitting project. I have two other skeins queued up for the next knitting project, and have started a new walking spinning project. We’ll see if I can finish the knit projects before I have more finished yarn!

I had some more of my differently plied yarn, so I knit some swatches. I used different needle sizes for each yarn, but used stockinette for each piece. I was reminded how much faster I am with long straight needles than with circular needles, but my knitting is still slower than my crocheting. I like the knitted fabric, but don’t really care to knit. Ah well.

All the knitted swatches had to be blocked because stockinette stitch is curly. The 2- ply was the softest, but the S plied four-strand had the most balanced stitches (the right and left side of each loop have the same number of twists). Most commercial yarn has an S ply.

For my next alpaca project I want to try a plied yarn. This means spinning the singles thinner and plying three singles together. I am leaning toward knitting, so I an spinning my singles in a Z twist, and plying in S twist. This seems to work best for knitting (it is the way most yarns are machine made). If I were going to nålbind, I would switch the twist order, especially for the York stitch. It really is fascinating the way the twist effects the final product.

Since I am planning to knit, I made up some test swatches with various yarn scraps I had, as well as the new 3-ply alpaca. All the yarn was spindle spun, some with merino wool, some with alpaca, some plied, some singles. I found the the yarn with a Z twist knit up with uneven stitches, resulting in a fabric that doesn’t look balanced. The S twist, however, knits up nicely and the “V” of each stitch is balanced. The US 8 needles were a little small for my chunky 3-ply alpaca, and although the swatch was soft, it was not nearly as sumptuously soft as the swatch knit on US 10 needles. And oh is that last swatch soft; like cuddle on the couch, swatch against the cheek, sucking on your thumb kind of soft. It literally makes people say “oooo” when they hold it.