Neglected Knits
While the Tour de Fleece is great for spinning output, the knits get relegated to just a little progress at lunchtimes. I've been working on two projects.
Aria Delicato scarf
I tried making this scarf once before and abandoned it. This time seems to be working better. I added a horizontal repeat and picked Nightfall yarn from FibroFibers. The yarn shades from orange to dark chocolate brown/black across the length. 30 repeats in I've gone from solid orange, to orange with black speckles, to black with orange speckles. I think I have enough yarn to do another 15 to 20 repeats, which should get me into the solid black yarn.
The pattern is an 8 row repeat, and it's simple enough to memorise. The changing yarn colour is keeping this interesting but I hope it doesn't drown out the pattern.
Hemp facecloth
I got some 100% hemp laceweight in 2007 when I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool. Knitting the yarn doubled gets it to light fingering weight thickness. The facecloth is a 10 inch square knit on US1.5 needles, 70st wide with a 5st garter border. Hemp fibre is supposed to be antibacterial, which seems a good quality for a facecloth.
I really didn't like this when I started but it's growing on me as it gets bigger. There's some drape, the fabric is dense, and I'm very curious what will happen when it goes through the washer. I hope it'll get softer as the hemp is quite rough. The yarn comes from a dyer who stopped selling yarn several years ago, but Hemp For Knitting sells a fingering weight 100% hemp yarn that is probably similar.