The Artus Shawl… spinning and knitting a handmade wardrobe.

do we call them floats in Mosaic knitting [Music] again [Music] you know what I'll just say this the grocery store going to get mad at me if I complain about the carts not being returned wait what like if I come on the podcast and complain about something or talk about something am I supposed to talk about no people places or things while I'm here honey you've got a big storm coming hello everyone how are you today I hope you're having a really good day so far if you are new here my name is Taylor I come to you from Baltimore City Maryland and here on my YouTube channel I feature content that is generally focused on knitting and spinning in this week's episode of what I call the thread to podcast I'm going to share with you my finished artist Shaw we'll talk about the things I love the things that I don't and I'll give you a little try on um here we have star baby moon child joining us per us and I also have a little bit of hand spinning done which I will review with you and I will talk about my new and upcoming spinning projects so that's that um where should we start it is a very overcast today so I have my ring light I'm a bit brighter than I might normally be I'm currently wearing a prototype to the opulent plunge bra I made it into like a tanky toppy thing I also wanted this Motif to kind of fit the whole cup not the top half of the cup um it's a pattern I have for sale on rivalry if you don't know what I'm talking about that's not why were here um I finished a Shaw I knit this with yarn from my stash do I like it yes do I love it I don't know there's a couple things holding me back from this Shaw being a total love um one thing I do love is the main color here I guess if you want to see my do we call them floats in Mosaic knitting I don't know it looks nice um but the main color I am obsessed with it's from Jill Draper Mak stuff I picked this up at the New York State sheeno Festival last year I think it could have been the year before um but I love this golden green color and all the other Yarns are from my stash I guess I had this in my stash for like a minute um and I guess yeah the other thing though that I'm just like not obsessed with is the overall color scheme doesn't do everything for me if I had the AG I would have repeated this main color in this row here but I didn't so I used an alternative yarn for my stash it's a very similar color and that green has way more blue in it than the main color so it's just has like a little extra Dimension that the original pattern wouldn't have asked for I also did make a mistake um really early on just before the Mosaic I was supposed to repeat the main color before switching to the gray so there would have been like two sort of edges to it and the green would have been reintroduced again just be between the stripes and The Motif and I completely skipped it I was wondering why my Stitch count was off and I just fudged my numbers to get back on track Never realizing it was cuz I forgot two rows um so I just repeated the same mistake when I got to the end so that they would mirror each other and be the same so I'm kind of sad about that I hate when I make mistakes in my knitting but I try to make the best of them um no one would notice but I know that that's there and that that color isn't reintroduced to make it a little bit more like married together it almost looks like I have one thing going on and then all of a sudden without interruption there's just this like one Motif here and um no reintroduction of this color again which I feel like if I were to make this again not a second time but if I were to make it differently cuz I'm not making another one I would have made sure to have enough yardage of the main color and reintroduce it in the middle here I feel like there's not a huge amount of contrast between these two colors as well so that stripe is like very dark when like it could be a pop of bright like I think that this light green here could have been a brighter color something like maybe more yellow than green and it would have like just been a little bit of a starer I'm sorry would have been a starer contrast to the other two colors which I feel like it sort of muddies a little bit I don't hate it I love this Shaw it's very nice I'm going to get a lot of wear out of it um but I do feel like I can only really wear it one way that I like and that is over my shoulder I roll the top just a little bit kind of like so the collar sort of Pops the slightest amount and I kind of just try to keep it in the crook of my elbow because otherwise I feel like it will slide down my back and that's because this shape of this Shaw the way that it's constructed you're increasing on the outer edges at the same rate as the center spine so it's like very much a right triangle to a degree more or less knitting is a bit flexible so you can block it to be off of that but it's very much that and I prefer triangular Shaw shapes in my wardrobe to have a more obtuse angle at the bottom corner um because then the sides are longer and that allows for more weighted fabric on the front side so that it's not heavy along the back and light along the front and wanting to kind of slip down your shoulders so that's just like a personal peeve of mine that's something I've noticed with wearing Shaws and I just I think in the future I will knit Shaws that increase at a greater rate along the two side edges than they do the center back so that's just my personal preference I wonder if you agree again yarn from stash nothing too crazy things I've talked about many times it is a mix of like four different bases I have Gill Drapers I have an Elsa wool fingering weight in the light gray the dark gray is Green Mountain spinnery Lana yarn their tup ply fingering and then Juniper Moon's Patagonia yarn also tup ply fingering and then Brooklyn Tweeds Loft yarn a touly fingering so what how many bases 1 2 3 four five bases all two ply fingering more or less some light some heav um they all kind of feel about the same slightly different twist and different kind of prep ever so slight but they're kind of all a worsted they're all a worsted prep if I'm not mistaken yeah so very much like it um it's very cozy very warm and I feel like it's best worn with something very plain underneath maybe something with texture but nothing with too many um things going on beneath it I think that this little tank top I have stashed in my drawer most of the time is a good fit for this garment so very happy with it I would recommend the pattern for sure I did follow the instructions for the 7 Stitch count iord Edge um which I blocked to be nice and flat I don't dislike it it does tend to roll on occasion and kind of roll up like that which I have to sometimes adjust which is fine it's not the worst annoying thing about a garment it it isn't even doing it right now as I talk about it's tendency to do that so definitely not a deal breaker I do think it's a nice clean edge and a nice finish to um a Shaw and I would do that again I would definitely do that technique at the bottom of a Shaw in the future especially one that's a little bit hangs a little bit longer down the side cuz it won't kind of pull into the crook of my elbow and get pulled up like that I think so that's my artist Shaw I wonder what your thoughts are have you knit the artist Shaw are you happy with it do you have strong preferences for shaww shapes I do like a triangular Shaw that is not asymmetrical I find the asymmetrical Shaws depending on I guess the size really um they tend to slip off my shoulders even more than one of this angle um but like I said my favorite shape is one that increases at the edges an example of this is um a Shaw I designed a while ago it's called the founding Shaw it is very large it's a large Shaw I wanted that Shaw to be big enough for any size person to wrap around their front and tie it around their back um but if you wanted a less dramatic size Shaw you could just knit something of that shape a lot less and it would be long enough in the front that you can do a lot more with it then this one doesn't really um like cross over easily like it's just the arms are too short to like do much with I guess I could like pull it up around my neck maybe but it's not like a it's not an over the- shoulder type of hap situation um it's just a Shaw and I don't know you know there's so many ways to wear a Shaw you can wear a Shaw like a scarf you can do all kinds of things but I like to wear it over my shoulders anyway I finished my sister's skain I have had this yarn fiber I have had this yarn's fiber prepped for many months in the corner of my sun room and it sat there unspun for a very long time I attempted to spin this ske identical to the other and I came close but absolutely for sure my original ske has less twist in the singles and so with more twist in the singles of this yarn it holds less air and his left bouncy and fluffy um a little less of a Halo and I'm afraid that they won't knit up together without some subtle contrast between them so I'm not sure that I'm going to knit these two skains into like a short sleeve Garment of some kind or tank top or anything I think that that slight difference might be best applied in like a Shaw design where you know you're not really noticing like a a division between them I'll probably alternate skains as I merge the two just so that it's not like a sharp line in case it does appear noticeable in the finished fabric but I don't know that I can even get it on camera you might just know what I'm talking about if you're a spinner or familiar with handspun yarn you might know exactly what I mean and I don't really need to elaborate further but whenever I do work this into a Swatch I might Swatch both together and see just what that line is like if it's there um but they're comparable um I measured the yardage this is 350 yard per 104 G and this is exactly 308 yards for 99.5 G so they're very close and I guess that gives me what 658 yards so not a ton of yardage and I'm already starting the next yarn that I think I will use it with and that is from the same Jacob Lamb's fleece so I just started this morning combing it out I have about 30 almost 4 it's like 36 gr right here of fiber and I have 145 G in total that's not true no I have 145 G still yet to comb [Music] [Music] [Music] so I will end up with about 150 g of yarn which means I will have 350 G of fingering weight yarn fingering is weight maybe closer to sport maybe I know whatever but that should be more than enough for a light Shaw should probably weigh this Shaw well this is Mosaic so it's a denser fabric but three and 1 half schemes feels like enough to knit a decent sized Shaw I just haven't decided what design that might be I would like it to have some type of color work which would require more yardage but I might rely on um some kind of stripes or mosaic or something like that so time will tell I have no concept yet except to spin the yarn to knit along with these and I think that'll make I'm not really like a cream girly I don't wear a lot of bright colors so I think that um these together will be something light but also a little more grounded so that's my plan um I'm also I took an inventory I think last week I showed you a little B- roll of all of my fleeces I pulled off my shelf and I took an inventory of and there are a couple fleeces I need to Res scour at least like one in terms of volume like one whole fleece but it's broken up into two halves um and then a small portion of another so I'm going to be focusing on that in the fall and winter when it's more comfortable to have my gas range stove on for you know short but extended periods of time because I do need to get that temperature up above 140 to melt the laneline off the fibers so I will be resc scouring a few fleeces in the coming months and um I think for that reason I won't be buying another fleece at the New York State shaven Wool Festival in October but I will be in the wool Barn the minute it opens at least that's my plan and I will be enabling anyone who is thinking about purchasing a fleece you'll see me shopping for fleeces I will probably have a few in my hands or in Brian's he always holds the fleeces as I shop but I will be very likely pushing them off onto other people um I just love shopping I love shopping for like skin care and cosmetics and yarn but also like more than anything I like shopping for faces um I feel like I do know at this point how to find good ones for hand spinning and it feels like a treasure Trove type of environment where like you're surrounded by Treasures but like you're also seeking the best ones you know kind of like when you're at the thrift store like everything feels like an opportunity for something new but you're like looking for only the best so I kind of can't wait I love shopping for places but I don't need anymore I have so much fiber to spin and I have a lot of diversity in my fiber stash I love spinning fine wools I also hate scouring like dense you know styrofoam microfiber feeling like fine fine walls are so difficult for me to process just on my in my little kitchen on my stove with the tools I have it's just a lot of work to scour that memory foam feel fleece so those I don't really look for very often even though they're like incredible and probably provide some of the most amazing Yarns um I just I don't have time for that at this point now I like something that is with a nice long staple but also more open structure which I feel like you definitely get with cormo fleeces which are very popular and seemingly more and more rare to find for sale um but the Jacob fleeces I feel like are also similar they have more variety in their staple length you might get some shorter staple pieces but they do have a sufficient um length of fiber in my opinion and they're also very soft especially when you find a young a young Lamb's a a lamb or kid or a young sheep's fleece it's always softer the younger they are it seems but anyway really excited to dive back into hand spinning and fiber prep and fleece management um so that's that I forgot what else so yeah those are my plans for the future I've not been knitting very much I put a few rows into my velor which I talked about last week I've just decided to make the executive decision to add some width to the upper section of my velor if you're not familiar this is a very simple construction it's like a tube and then you split the front and the back of the tube and then you join it together and that's your arm holes um there's some ribbing for the top section but I am going to broaden the side just a little bit because I don't think that I chose a size with an appropriate amount of ease for the width of my shoulders to have a nice relaxed drop shoulder aesthetic I'm afraid it's going to fit a little too high on the shoulders um once you know I connect the front and the back and and it's like joined together I'm afraid it's not going to be as wide as I want it to be so I just split for the front like literally just now and oh I don't think I should have worked that Stitch I should have slipped it all way back but I'm going to maintain a main color stitch on the end I'm going to continue in pattern but I will start as of this row increasing um a stitch and then I will do that on the both ends of the front and the back and I think that I need to increase for both the front and the back about 20 stitches so I would like to have an extra 2 in on both off of both shoulders so um if I were to estimate this is about 2 in then that would be 51 stitches so 10 stitches on the right front T Stites on the right left and along the back as well so that would take about I don't know maybe I'll increase every stripe I don't know we're going to figure it out I'm going to figure it out as I go but I'm going to increase um as I work the front and the back so that I can have a wider fit along the top shoulder I think that that's necessary for me to get the same look um without having to knit a larger size I think this weekend is the Wisconsin sheep and wo Festival I think it's just seemed so far away from me that it the thought of even going like totally escapes me but Brian and I are thinking about going to that next year in lie of Rybeck or maybe in addition to probably not I don't know but we thought it might be fun to hop on a plane and just rent a car and stay in a hotel and check out Wisconsin as a state and see what the festival is like I imagine it's the best parts of all the fleeces or all the festivals that I've been lucky to attend but I don't know if you're going or have gone let me know what it's like there if you've been to either Maryland or New York's sheo festivals maybe give me a little uh bit of context in what to expect from Wisconsin um maybe you're seeing this on Sunday and you're near that festival and you are reminded about the potential to go that might be fun so um curious about what your thoughts are on the Wisconsin sheep and wolf Festival that is this weekend I um I need to get my my act together and start working on some of the things I think about and plan to accomplish I've just been wrapped up in living um I had my first porch pirate this week it was very upsetting to me I've not had a package stolen since we moved to this house and Brian reminded me I'm exceptionally lucky for that to be the case but they did steal like a $100 HEPA filter that I have on auto ship every year that I hate to think about having to buy again because it's such an unfund expense like it's something I don't want to pay for but I do for my health and the health of you know our household just because we live in like a really old house with painted over wallpaper that might have crazy chemicals in it or even lead paint like dust and cracks and all that stuff like I just like knowing I have an air filter especially when like the windows are shut we are just trapped inside this 100y old box um I like having an air filter and I feel like it has made a huge difference when we open the windows in the fall in the spring I do notice that I have more sinus issues because of like all the junk coming in um but I digress anyway that got stolen and then I had a $62 Ulta order that I placed during the sale and that was really sad to lose out on I doubt that they will reship my order I I don't know if you have any experience with this very lucky but I'm also very angry to like spend money that I like very carefully budgeted and was very much looking forward to receiving like these items and then for them to just be like taken from some ratchet little brat but I was very angry and then I you know I talk to my dad every day on the phone and I like complained to him and I I I mean it's not there's not very many things that make me angry in my day-to-day life but I was like very upset about this and I was complaining to him about it and [Music] um and that was like the last conversation I've had with him because he the next day in the morning um he coded and they had to resuscitate him and put him on a ventilator and they just took him off of it just now and they're seeing how it goes and then we'll know more information from there I love him so much he he had been such a great dad to me growing up as a kid when my mom had custody of us for a very short time he intervened when it was not a safe or secure place for us and then he was a single father for uh at least a few years and he took care of me and my sister on his own and honestly those are the only memories I have from my childhood anyway I just I love him I miss him I haven't spoken to him in I think a day and a half or 2 days now 2 days and I should think about going back to Florida but I'm kind of waiting to see I'm not on the list for his doctors or nurses to share anything with me over the phone so that's frustrating because he used to answer his phone and now he can't and so I'm very much like at the mercy of my sister letting me know what's going on each day um my mom has told her not to tell me anything that I don't need to be involved and I think that is sick and it disgusts me to think that that is a reasonable response to the situation but that's where I'm at um I feel like I have to tell the internet so that I'm not like imagining it and I just I feel like I have to say it so that I know like it's it's actually really happening like it like this is actually happening this is happening so that's what's happening and um I almost went and adopted a dog today because that's exactly what I need I don't know what I was thinking but I was I was ready to go to the Baltimore City animal shelter and like look at all the dogs and bring one home and just fill that tiny void within myself that I don't fill with drugs or alcohol or shopping at this point because it's just going to get stolen from me um I thought I'd fill it with a dog and then I got I got a bit of perspective thinking about how it would really change so much more than just one extra you know monthly expense it could potentially disturb the lives of I think too many other creatures shiy loves to be a single dog like she spends time with my sister-in-law's uh Border Collie on occasion and she's really not that interested in her she's also not at all her size and a little bit more rambunctious but Shi be even when we picked her up from her foster was with another dog in foster care and was like not interested in that dog at all so I don't think that having a sister or brother would really bring her a lot of Joy um and in her age of 12 years now like she's going into her Golden Era of like gentle calm caless I don't think it's the best idea now that I reflect on it for like 24 hours so I'm glad I did not do that this cat I love her to death but she keeps me up all night long I'm sure that her preventing me from proper REM sleep cycles has decreased my estimated lifespan because I just can't sleep through the night she wakes me up with her claws like digging into my forearm or touching my face I don't know what it is I think um I think maybe she's afraid I won't wake up and so that anxiety like forces her to like make sure that I'm alive still um she was found in an apartment who knows if they died or not so now when I see her sound asleep in the chair in the living room I wake her up so that she knows what it's like because I don't know maybe if she sleeps less during the day she will sleep through the night I'm not so sure but I I try to she's purring right now she doesn't hate this but I try to annoy her as much as she annoys me because she genuinely like is obsessed with me like there is no cat in this household more obsessed with me than she is she just literally cannot live without me um by her side the minute I'm in bed she's on my lap if I'm in a chair she's in the chair she's just like can I get enough of me and I think it's cute but when I'm asleep like please leave me alone that is it for this week's episode of the threaten podcast I want to thank you so much for watching if you made it this far into this week's video let me know with the dog Emoji because you probably heard me ramble about well you definitely heard me ramble about thinking of adopting a dog my dad loves dogs he wants a dog he clearly cannot care for a dog but he like jokes about getting a dog um I wish I could bring my dog to see him because he would love Starship but I don't know if they allow dogs in the ICU so um that's it for this week's episode I want to thank you so much for watching if you haven't found me on social media you can find me on rivalry and Instagram as Taylor e Owen I on Tik talk is Taylor nits I hope you all have a wonderful day a wonderful week and that you take care