winding yarn outside

Late cold fronts have brought rain and cool weather to our part of Texas. We spent several lovely afternoons outside, under the two big junipers next to the house.

Yarn winding operations were moved to Ella’s small tree house. The ball winder and the umbrella swift fit perfectly on the step just below the platform. Here’s my able assistant, Ella, winding a skein of Brooks Farm Yarns’s Duet. It’s a lovely merino and mohair blend, destined to be a crochet project.

Brooks Farm Yarns's Duet

I also swatched a sample of the rug I plan to knit from Earth Arts’s natural-dyed churro wool. This is a mosaic or dotty knitting pattern that I’ve used in the past for color swatching.

dotty knit rug swatch, up close

The various colors have slightly different weights and yardages, so I started by weighing each color. After knitting half of the motif, I weighed each ball of yarn again. Using the before and after weights, I could figure out how much of each color it took to knit half a motif. Double that for a whole motif. Then divide the original weight by the amount needed for one motif to find out how many motifs I could actually knit with the yarn at hand.

Now I have a plan! The goal: finish the rug in time to enter it into the Taos Wool Festival Home Accessories Contest. Wish me luck!

dotty knit rug, with i-cord border