The big news this week from the knitting front is that I managed to finish the hooded scarf by completely improvising the pattern and what’s more it is exactly what I had in mind. I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. I wanted a close-fitting hood that would keep me warm and wasn’t going to fall off. In addition, I don’t like the square hoods that create a pointy bump on the back of the head – instead I wanted a rounded fit that fit the head more like a hat or like wrapping a large scarf around the head, which is what I normally do in the winter. Fortunately, I managed to get it to do exactly that and had the cable meet up in the middle on both sides of the head all the way to the top. Can’t wait to wear it this winter!
Here are two photos:
Hooded scarf
Back of hood
- CVM fleece
The main problem I had is that I really didn’t know much about fine wools. I tend to spin lots of romney/alpaca or shetland wool blends and not a lot of merino, etc. My first challenge was to wash the wool. I used soap and hot water and washed it three times with rinses in between. However, it still felt sticky. I decided maybe that was the best I was going to get, and put it in a storage container for a few months. Then this month, I received the latest issue of Spin-Off Magazine, and they had a whole article about CVM, including advice on how to wash it. The author recommended Kookaburra wool scour. I decided to try it because I haven’t been having good success with regular dish soap and had a couple fleeces that were dirty even after a number of washes. It worked pretty well after two washes – now the wool doesn’t feel tacky anymore, although it still feels a bit greasy to the touch.
My first challege overcome, I was inspired by the article to blend the wool with some suri alpaca that I’ve had sitting around for a while and to dye it. I thought that reds, yellows and greens would look good with the brown/gray fleece. My hunch worked out and the three colors I selected look really beautiful together and have a deep, autumnal feel.
Dyed CVM
Once I had the fleece dyed, I proceeded to try to put it through my drum carder. This is when I ran into my final and largest challenge. The wool was breaking apart and creating clumps within the roving, making it very difficult to spin. At first I panicked, thinking that there was something wrong with the fleece. However, upon doing some research and experimentation, I figured out that I was doing two things wrong:
1) I was not keeping the locks aligned in the same direction when I was putting them through the drum carder
2) I was not opening the locks properly and removing the matted material from the tips with a flick carder
Once I started doing these two things, I got a beautiful, easy to spin roving without any problems.
Here is a photo of the roving with clumps in it. You can see that the fibers are not aligned in any one direction but are all jumbled in all different directions:
Cvm unaligned roving
And here’s a photo of the roving with all the fibers parallel to each other:
CVM aligned roving
Now that I’ve figured this out, I can plan for my next project in the lovely colors above 
Kathy said,
June 29, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Wow, what an awesome post. I’ve learned a lot from reading.
And “Mutants”— what an endearing name, actually.
It certainly takes an adventurous spirit and tons of talent to start with a ‘foreign’ fleece and end up with your beautifully dyed yarn! So gorgeous!
Beautiful work on your hooded scarf, too. I don’t see any short rows! How did you do that?
forestgnome said,
July 1, 2009 at 5:47 am
Hi Kathy,
Haven’t been to a spin-in in a while, but I hope to see you soon in person!
Glad you like my ramblings. There aren’t any short rows on the scarf. What I did was make the full scarf, and then made careful measurements of my head size for the hood. I picked up 14″ across the middle of the scarf and had a cable repeat on either edge of the hood with about 16 sts in plain stockinette between them. Then I knit in that pattern until the hood was 8″ in length. At 8″ I joined the whole thing into a circle and started reducing one stitch on either end of the stockinette while continuing to knit both cable patterns. At approximately 10″ in length, I was down to just the cable patterns. Then I started carefully trying on the hood every row until the cable patterns met in the middle of my head exactly. As soon as that happened, I bound off and the cable patterns met in the middle. Presto!
Maida said,
June 29, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Loving the hooded scarf and how it fits you too. The colors are gorgeous. However, it would only be for mild days here in NY. Wool is just not warm enough when the windy weather gets severe. I move on to sheepskin.