Spindle Spinning and Sweater Knitting – The Cuttle Corner #28

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Welcome to the twenty-eighth edition of The Cuttle Corner! This week I spent a whole day spindle spinning while volunteering as a historic interpreter, and I’ve nearly finished knitting a sweater.

If you missed last week’s post, you can take a look here.

Now, let’s get cozy!

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What’s Going On

Spring is here, and my garden is coming to life. We haven’t added much to the garden in the past couple of years, but most of what we grow are perennials, so they come back each year.

Image of a rhubarb plant with large leaves.

I am particularly excited for how the rhubarb is looking this year. Rhubarb is one of my favorite flavors, and it grows well in this climate. My plant has taken a few years to settle in and produce enough for cooking, but this year is looking promising.

One of my goals this year is to give some natural wool dying a try. There are several plants in our yard that should produce some sort of color, I just need to get a few supplies for a dying setup.

Image of bluebell flowers in bloom.

Our yard gets covered in bluebells every spring, and I’ve been wondering if they would produce a dye. I’ve looked in a couple places, but so far I haven’t found a trustworthy source that says if they can be used as a dye plant or not. If anyone has any experience with bluebell dying, please let me know!

Using a plant that I don’t even know if it will work or not probably isn’t a great idea for my first attempt at natural dying.

What I’m Working On

Knitting

I’m so close to finishing the Kildalton cardigan I’ve been knitting for months. The last week I’ve worked on the collar of the sweater. I like a large collar on my cardigans, but I think it’s just about big enough to cast off.

Image of a cream-colored cable knit cardigan with the collar still on a pair of circular knitting needles, nearly finished knitting.

Once that’s done, I’ve finished the knitting. I’ll still have to weave in the ends and block the sweater once it’s off the needles, but I’m so excited to have this sweater done!

With my sweater done, I’ll have to find another knitting project to start. It’s not like me to have no knitting in progress. There is still the shawl I haven’t touched in a couple of years, but I’m not quite ready to finish that yet…

Spinning

I had a chance to do some historical interpreter volunteering at Fort Nisqually this week. It was my first opportunity to try out my new corset. This updated corset was so much more comfortable than my old corset, and gave a nicer silhouette. It was definitely worth the work!

I brought some spindle spinning to work on while I was at the fort, so I would have something to show to the visitors. To give a full picture of the yarn spinning process, I brought some fiber (I think it’s alpaca), hand carders, and my Kromski Drop Spindle.

Image of a drop spindle for spinning with two small skeins of light brown yarn, that were spindle spun.

I picked a comfortable spot on the porch of the factor’s house, and spun all day. Several groups of people were curious about what I was working on. It was so much fun getting to share something I love, while getting to learn about new things as well.

Until next time, keep cuttle-ing!

What are you working on? I’d love to hear about your projects in the comments below!

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