Planning Projects As You Go For A Spinner

Cjkoho Designs, BFL and my cowl in progress.

I’m sure you all know by now that knitting my handspun is one of my favorite things. I like to design my projects and I like to design my projects as I knit, especially smaller projects. How does that work if I’m spinning the yarn I’m knitting? What if I run out of yarn or what if I change my mind in the middle of knitting, my design becomes something different and I know I don’t have enough yarn?

All of those things happen to me, a lot. You know what? I don’t sweat it. For me it’s the trade off for not having to be exact. I don’t know exactly what I’m knitting, I have a good idea, but it always evolves. Also I like to spin ish yarn, not exacting down to the micron.

Right now I’m working on a projects and patterns for a class I’m premiering at the  Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat, Yarnitecture 2: Spinning for a Specific Project. I will present my students (waving!) with three patterns and they can choose which one(s) to work through the sampling process and as much of the spinning process we can do in a day. One pattern has color manipulation, one is lace and one is cabled.

I’m finishing up the cabled project right now and it keeps evolving. It’s a cowl and I have about 4.5 inches knit from 3 ounces of fiber. I spun 4 ounces of fiber and I want the cowl to be at least 8″ tall, maybe 9″. I won’t know until I get there. You see what’s going to happen? I’m going to run out of yarn. Did I stress? Nope. I contacted the dyer (CJkohoDesigns – she’s in town) and she had more. Will it match exactly? Nope, but it will be close enough. If she didn’t have more fiber or if I had bought the fiber at a festival 10 years ago with no hope of more, I still wouldn’t have stressed. I would have ripped it out and rethought the cowl.

Some things aren’t worth stressing over. Plus for me it’s like a puzzle, a challenge, what happens next? I love that. It’s at the heart of fiber arts for me, the puzzling and unpuzzling.

Do you plan on the fly for spinning projects or do you plan everything exactly?