Welcome to I’ll Knit (& Spin!) If I want To! I asked y’all to send in some of your questions (from everything from fiber arts, to designing and on!) so I could put together a little video for y’all every Friday doing my best to answer your questions!
1. I recently finished the Nurtured Sweater. I used a Malabrigo superwash yarn and took that into account when knitting the sweater. After blocking, the fit is great except the sleeves grew six inches in length. I thought easy fix until I remembered the sleeves were knitted starting with the cuff and then knitted in with the yoke. I am not deconstructing the sweater to fix the sleeves. Is there another solution?
2. How in the world do you spin thicker? I started and continue to spin like lace weight! So thin that is sometimes easily breaks. I can't spin thicker on my support spindle and I don't get it!
3. Hi! I am planning to spin for a Nightshift as well as an Attune shawl. (Yes, I totally missed the moment during last year's Attune SAL!) I know 2-ply yarns are good for colorwork and lace, while 3-plys are good for cables and texture -- so what yarn structure would you recommend for textured mosaic knits like the Shift series, and for brioche? I know the Shift patterns have used both 2-ply (DITW) and 3-ply (Dream State) and figured I'd go right to the source with this question. Thank you :D!
4. Hi Andrea. I love brioche but have discovered a consistency problem when I knit brioche flat (for the Feel Good Shawl). Knitting flat causes my knit stitches on the right side to change size on alternate rows: larger when they’ve been created from the purl (wrong) side, smaller when created on the knit (right) side. It’s a bit like rowing out, though I’ve never had an issue with rowing out in my stockinette. Could it be more to do with the yarnover which seems to me to be longer when purled than when knit, therefore creating a looser stitch between? Am I doing something wrong? What do you think, and can you suggest ways to overcome? (Unsure if it makes a difference but I’m a Portuguese style knitter.) Love your channel!
5. I have a question about gauge for bottom up sweaters. I rarely can get perfect stitch AND row gauge. Typically, I focus on matching stitch gauge rather than row gauge when I'm knitting top down, because of row gauge is off I can just knit to my desired yoke depth and length. However, knitting bottom up has been a problem for me because if my row gauge is too small, the yoke of the sweater is too shallow. If I knit according to the pattern for the yoke when my row gauge is off, I don't know how much extra depth to add to the yoke until I'm finished with the sweater, and I don't want to rip out the whole home to add an inch of knitting at the bottom of the yoke. Should I prioritize row gauge for bottom up sweaters? Any tips for making gauge work on a bottom up sweater where I don't have the option to "knit to desired yoke depth before splitting for sleeves"?
6. Hi Andrea. I love your weekly videos. Because of you I’m learning to spin on an espinner and supported spindles. You have a lot to answer for! My question is please, how do you join your spindle spins so that they are continuous? Do you spit slice when you ply? I love the mega skeins you produce and wondered how you do it. Thank you
