I am on a mission to showcase the overfull shelf of art yarn I now have.  It is hard to come up with a way to show off each yarn because there is usually not much yardage with art yarn.  Not to mention, a gorgeous skein of art yarn can come up looking pretty mundane when knit.  I tend to get somewhere between 100 – 200 yards out of 4 oz with my default weight which is light worsted; 50 to 100 yards for really chunky and as much as 400 yards with a fingering.

As far as the art yarns I make, I generally plan a project with an eye to pairing the art yarn up with something else that can stretch the yardage. Or I will ask the dyer to make enough for whatever I am thinking about. Most of the time, I am not that organized, it is more like OOOH PRETTY SHINY THING IN MAH CART NOW! And then I let it tell me how it wants to be spun and what it wants to be when it grows up. Or it takes a time out in the cabinet until it learns to talk.

I have a half baked idea to sell the art yarn knitted objects and actually do have an Etsy shop which has been up and empty for well over a year, if not longer.  There is also an eclectic art gallery in my wee town that may let me sell something there.  I have a shopping bag getting full of stuff (including the two hats below).  Now if I can just manage to get it advertised before winter comes and goes again.

The yarn for the first hat is made from the most gorgeous bag of locks from HollyEQQ

(Store here)

Which turned into this hat (along with some bulky chain plied bunny). It reminds me of Angelica from Rugrats.

And some funky coiled yarn (colors don’t show well due to incompetent photographer but are the colors of a purple iris) that Insubordiknit patiently taught me how to do.

Which turned into this funky hat that I totally love.

I had knit coils before into a scarf but that time I had doubled the coil over into a U shape which became funky loops.  I wanted a way to display the coils better on the hat though.  When I came to a coil, I pulled it to the front and then slipped four stitches over (which was the length of most of these coils) then pulled the yarn to the back and knit on.

One of my longtime favorite fiber artists, Stephanie Gorin of Loop!, came up with yet another neat idea that she calls “Bulls Eye Bump”.  This is essentially a center pull skein of roving that evolves into fun striping colors.  I liked the idea that it was pretty much pre drafted and ready to spin.  I got a nice summery bulls eye bump and had a vague idea that I would spin it fine enough to get lots of yardage for a self striping shawl, scarf or sweater.  Usually Loop batts are chunky and texturally divine which makes them short on yardage without some fancy dancing.  I forgot to take a before spinning picture so hopefully Steph will forgive me for yoinking her picture.

As I got to spinning this bump, I decided I was not in love with the color scheme nor the less than squishy soft lace weight single that was emerging.  I spun the whole bump onto one very full bobbin and set it aside for about six months .  I finally decided to spin some undyed rambouillet to ply it with and make a tweed like yarn that would be softer, tone the colors down and have lots of yardage.

Here’s where things went awry.  Apparently so much time had gone by since I had spun the first single (not to mention spun at all) that I forgot which direction I went.  This should be a no brainer since I generally always spin singles clockwise on the wheel (S) and ply counter clockwise (z).  Well, I am going to blame the cat (I have no idea why just sounded good) because I spun the first single one way and the second single the opposite.  Normally, plying is one of my favorite things to do because I get to see the yarn born right under my fingers.  This time though, I was seeing a crazy amount of twist and could not figure out why.  My boys and I were watching a movie so my brain was not engaged and I pushed on.

I tried to get it onto the niddy noddy (big ole yarn winder doo hickey), it was a ridiculous fight.  I could not even get it on.  I eventually got mad, threw a tantrum, said some very unacceptable words and piled it onto the floor.  Yah, like that made it all better.  I figured out what happened – basically the s spun single plied normally while the z spun single became a frighteningly over twisted.  What to do, what to do.  I knew I was looking at over 500 yards or so and over 7 oz of fiber not to mention a Loop! Batt that is too precious to waste.  I pictured running two spinning wheels to unply (my husband has no idea how close he came to learning to spin).  Then I took to Ravelry and Twitter to get advice from my fibery friends.  The consensus was to either make art yarn or run it back through the wheel to loosen the twist.  The art yarn idea sounded good.  I thought maybe tryingJacey’s twists would work but I really hated to lose that much yardage so back through the wheel it went TWICE.  Take that bastard yarn.  My kitten Lenny helped out by randomly sticking her paws into the spokes of the wheel repeatedly.  Yep, that hurts each time you try it goof ball.

Second time was a charm though with one single still slightly twisty and the other nearly unplied.  Took it off the wheel and Voila! It was probably the most balanced yarn I have ever done; not a hint of energy and that was even before blocking.  It was the curse words.  Bastard yarns must be taught a lesson.

Still though as crafters, we know when things are fudged up.  I decided I would use it for something for myself.  It was a nice tweedy yarn although I still wasn’t fond of the color scheme.  I cooked up a raglan summer sweater/shrug but had no idea how the yarn would behave on the needles.  The sweater knit up fast and I decided to write the pattern down as a good way to use a middling amount of home spun/art yarn.  That is always a problem for art yarn – what do you do with 100, 200, 300 yards of funky, texturally weird yarn?

I had some undyed white sock yarn to use for the bottom of the sweater/sleeves and button band that would tie the whole thing together.  I knit the home spun until it ran out and then switched to sock yarn.  As I was knitting it I decided that I really did like the colors; that they are very summery.  I went a little crazy with the hem/border though.  I had to buy a size four 60 inch cable needle to get the whole thing on.  I picked up all the neck, side and bottom stitches and knit the border as 1 by 2 ribbing.  Yah, five feet of finger weight on size four needles in 1 by 2 ribbing really, really drags ass.  I knit the raglan increases into the collar thinking that it would make it lay flat when folded down.  I didn’t take into account that only works if it is closed at the neck in a circle.  I also put a rolled hem on the sleeves and border that I did not like.  I ended up ripping back two inches and worked it without the raglan increases but with the corner increases at the bottom.  Off the needles at eleven pm and worn to work at 7 am.

I have already cast a second one on using some long ago spun (without any drama) art yarn in colors that are VERY me.  I will pretty much do the same thing with a few changes in the pattern.