Saturday, February 16, 2008

I have finished my jumper!

I have finally finished spinning the wool for my jumper and knitting my jumper. About two and a half years ago I bought a bag of cream carded wool from the Nundle Woollen Mill to spin and combine with other wools and be the basis of a jumper. Because it is such a long time ago I really can't remember when I actually started this project, so I will say it took me approximately two years. I also wove my tea towels in between, so I wasn't concentrating on my jumper full time. Plus I started full time work about eight months ago, so that slowed things down somewhat.

I plied the cream wool from Nundle with some beige carded wool for the tunic and sleeves and plied the cream wool with brown alpaca fleece for the bands (just so I could practice spinning alpaca), and then knitted the solid cream near the top, where it would be softer for my neck. I was spinning as I went and had started knitting before I had spun all the yarn I needed. Then when I went back to spinning I was spinning the yarn too thick (and had to 'waste' two balls of yarn), so I learnt a valuable lesson in how to spin using a sample of finished yarn as a guide. And at one stage I thought I was going to run out of white carded fleece. So next time I will spin most or all of the yarn before I start knitting (maybe).

The good news is that the jumper fits me and it is cosy and warm. So bring on that cold weather, I'm ready.

(I forgot to mention that the pattern is Design 6 from Cleckheaton No. 098. I have also knitted Design 2 in alpaca for myself and Design 1 in acrylic for my ex-husband in the years previous to starting this jumper. $4.95 well spent on a pattern book!)

(Edit: I don't know how news worthy this is, but our divorce was final on 16 February. It went through the court on 15 January and is final a month after.)