Challenge Navajo/chain plying

In order to maintain the beautiful colour separations which come with spinning a handpainted fleece or roving, I always wanted to know how to Navajo/chain ply. Still, as rather a newbie, this is not exactly the first thing you're giving a try at ...



Well, now I felt ready to deal with this challenge - and thanks to YouTube ;-), it wasn't even that difficult!



What you need is a slightly overtwisted single, three times the length you wish your yarn to be, and if you don't want the final yarn to bee too bulky, try spinning the single quite thin.

Set your whorl on big and slow, select a strong uptake, put your single on a lazy kate, make a loop with the single and the leader on your bobbin. Then it's basically just 'finger-crocheting' your single through the loop with your left hand - making real big loops -, while your right hand is pinching the three strands to form the twist.

Sounds more complicated than it actually is - just take a look at that video and I guess it will come perfectly clear!

Another funny little thing which I found at YouTube was an i-cord earphone wrapping tutorial, showing how to knit a colourful i-cord around the cables of your earphones, to prevent them from tangling. Of course I couldn't resist, these are mine:



(German summary: Jetzt habe ich mich ans Navajo/chain-Verzwirnen gewagt - und mit Hilfe des YouTube tutorials, war es gar nicht einmal so schwer. Der große Vorteil ist natürlich, daß die Farbsequenzen vom handgefärbten Vlies oder Kammzug viel besser erhalten bleiben.

Bei YouTube habe ich auch das lustige Einstricken der Kabeln gefunden - jetzt ist kein Kabel mehr vor diesem privaten 'guerilla-knitting' sicher!)

Challenge knitting complicated patterns

Another challenge for me was to dig into new, rounded patchwork knitting à la Horst Schulz - I had tried to understand one of his more intriguing patterns - 'An African Adventure' (here's the free pattern pdF - in English) - a couple of years before, but had failed - and now I gave it a new try - and suddenly it came all clear!

I also found this new book by of on his 'scholars', showing further variations on this adventurous knitting technique: ('Patchworkstricken' by Liane Schommertz - in German).

A funny thing about these patterns is that you only have to deal with one or at the most two colours at the same time, and that you (except for the borders) only hold very few stitches on your needles for every patch, which are even decreased constantly while working.

It's also a splendid opportunity to use up lots of yarns from your stash, awakening the pattern to life without the feeling of producing a 'patchy' look.

So I started two new projects, the first one maybe turning out to become an afghan in the end, with 5 mm needles -



- the second project with 4 mm needles and double 4-ply sockyarn, aimed to result in a sleeveless vest some day (although at the moment, it looks more like a frog to me :-) -



At Ravelry, there is even a 'Horst Schulz Fan Group' where you can find more information on the patterns.

(German summary: Meine neue Herausforderung sind die gerundeten Patchworkformen à la Horst Schulz - so langsam begreife ich endlich das Prinzip und erfreue mich an dieser witzigen Stricktechnik!)