The End of the Tour

Well, I hung in there better than I expected, but in the end I wasn’t able to keep up with Tour de Fleece this year. Between a busy workweek, a lot of reading to do and another short trip, I didn’t have extra time for spinning during this last week. But I was still thinking about creating!

I have a plan in mind for my next spinning session with the hand-dyed Mystery Wool. I want to take random chunks of color and spin them a bit thicker for what I hope will become a fun yarn with splotches of color. Another idea is to spin mostly the undyed gray wool, but intersperse small bits of color for some fun variety.

While I attended a wedding on Saturday, I sat behind my aunt who was wearing a lacy white crocheted shrug over her dress. I found myself mentally deconstructing the piece, which is always a fun exercise. I was surprised to notice that at the edges of each piece of crochet, some knitting stitches had been added to make a more solid fabric at the seams, presumably for ease of seaming as well as for seam strength and to hold the garment’s shape better. The final trim was then crocheted onto the bound off knit stitches along all of the outer edges. While this construction makes perfect sense, it’s the first time I can recall seeing it and I’ll definitely file it away mentally for future projects.

At another aunt’s house after the wedding, I had the chance to see some of her projects; she likes to knit and crochet afghans as gifts. She’s currently knitting a baby afghan that calls for a “w2s” stitch. I hadn’t heard of that specific stitch before, although I’ve knit wrapped stitches in the past. It’s not difficult and the result is quite pretty! Here is a video tutorial (not by me) that describes the process:

What new-to-you techniques have you learned about recently?