All These Things That I've Spun

Apologies for the popropriation, suitable only for fans of The Killers and spinning.

Back in December, I went to The Big Knit Show in Exeter. It was a great day out and I was completely overwhelmed by the wide range of lovely things I wanted to buy. My carefully crafted plan was to walk round the hall twice and plan what to buy before returning with cash. In theory I would then stick to my budget and buy only things that I definitely wanted.

What happened in practice was that I got halfway round the hall and fell in love with a merino/silk blend roving from Sara's Texture Craft. I didn't get a good photo of it but there's a good picture on the site.

I've only been spinning since last summer. In the first few months after learning, I spun pretty much anything I could get my hands on but I haven't actually made anything with what I've spun yet. I have a big bag of multi-coloured (and extremely multi-textured) yarn and only the vaguest idea what to do with them.

I spun the merino/silk blend before Christmas and navajo plied it. Since then it has sat in my knitting bag, begging to be made into something lovely.

It's difficult to be sure exactly how long a hand spun skein is (okay, it's difficult for me to be sure) but I figured it was around 330m, which isn't a lot, so it's been particularly hard to find the right pattern for this. But just before I went to London, I found Maluka on Ravelry, a fabulous free pattern that's extremely economical on yarn (and, fortunately, it has a chart that is clearly legible on a smart phone).

I didn't entirely follow the pattern, I added  a few repeats of the border to be sure I used as much of the yarn as possible. I also finished off with an eyelet row which I'd seen on a number of Ravelry projects.

I stayed up a little too late last night to finish knitting so I could get it blocking as soon as possible. I'm not sure I've ever been more impatient to block something. Because my spinning is so inconsistent there are a lot of areas that are far too tightly spun that have come out a bit hard and they've definitely been improved with the blocking.

The photos aren't great but hopefully it gives an idea of the final result. I'd recommend the pattern to anyone and everyone, I'm sure it looks even better in yarn that hasn't been spun by an incompetent beginner!

I knew there was a reason I bought fifty blocking pins