Well, May vanished in a hurry, didn’t it? I have been crafting but not finishing many things – partly because the day-job has been busy. I’ll catch you up in another post, but today, let’s talk about an interesting conundrum.

I found a stash of yarn at the thrift store this week. It’s kind of a puzzle when this happens. The first thing I want to do – if I like the yarn and bring it home – is try to figure out what project the de-stasher had in mind when the yarn was originally acquired. In some instances, that’s easy; in others, not so much. Ravelry is such an awesome resource for that. You can use the Advanced Search to specify the yardage you have, the weight of the yarn, even the name of the yarn, then sort through the results.

Last winter, for example, I found a stash of Briggs & Little worsted, with the old label. No colour names or numbers, just dye lots. I think this weight would be called Regal now. (That’s a link to B&L’s website.) Briggs & Little is located in the Maritimes and the oldest yarn mill in Canada. I really like how sturdy their yarn is and particularly like the heathered colourways.

This stash was nine skeins when I found it: 1 red, 1 grey, 1 cream, 1 light blue, 1 navy and 4 medium blue.

I think this last one might be Quoddy Blue. It has a lovely heather look to it. (As does the grey.) Someone likely planned an icelandic or fair isle sweater, so I had some fun looking at options on Ravelry. (There are lots.) The skeins are over 200m each, so this is a lot of yarn.

The mister likes blue, so I found this pattern called Skald (that’s a Ravelry link) which I think will work out. (Here’s the designer website, but it’s in Swedish.) There might not be enough of one colour to do the lice. We’ll see.

My inclination is to leave out the red, but it might make a nice pop if used as an accent. Hmm. That one’s waiting for me to finish up one of my projects on the needles.

This week’s thrift store find was eight skeins of AllHemp3. (That’s a Ravelry link.)

Seven shown here because one is balled up already. 🙂 This is a fingering weight 100% hemp yarn, from LanaKnits, which is located in BC. It’s black – the colourway is called Licorice. Here’s the page on the LanaKnits site for AllHemp3.

I’ve never knit with hemp before – I made a string bag of a hemp-cotton blend from Patons called Hempster, but that’s it (and that’s my Ravelry project page) – so I scooped it up.

My Ravelry search came up with this pattern, Flaming June from Knitting 2012 (that’s a Ravelry link – here’s the one on Knitty), as a likely candidate spurring the initial stash. The designer is Cheryl Niamath, who designed the Fetching fingerless gloves that I’ve knit a bunch of times. (That’s another free pattern from Knitty.)

Eight skeins is enough for the main colour in the middle sizes, in which case there would have been two or three skeins in a contrasting or coordinating colour, too. Someone might have grabbed those for string bags earlier. For a teeny size, eight skeins might be enough for the whole sweater.

I read the pattern and learned that hemp grows in blocking. My first swatch on the recommended needles had perfect gauge, but wasn’t blocked yet. I went down to a 3mm, which resulted in a much tighter fabric, then washed and blocked it. The hemp was interesting to knit, similar to cotton in that it has no boing at all, but even stiffer.

The hemp softened nicely when washed and this swatch now has perfect gauge. I read the project notes on Ravelry from others who had made this sweater and it seems that many of them found that the sweater grew a lot in length after blocking, when they wore it.

I’m between sizes and already know the sleeves as written will be too long either way. My inclination is to make the smaller size of those two. From the notes on Ravelry, I should maybe go down another size again. Hmm. I also know I need to watch the width of the shoulders, because mine are narrow.

One variable is the effect of weight upon the finished garment. My sweater coat knit following that Kaffe Fassett pattern gets longer all the time – just the weight of the garment pulls it down, making it grow. (I actually took a repeat off the bottom of that coat after it was done, because it had gotten too long for me. I was caught once in a drizzle, which just made it worse.)

The other wrinkle is the tightness of the knitting. The looser the stitches, the more likely the garment is to stretch in wearing. Only one person who specified their needle on Rav was using a small one (2.75mm in that case, while I’m using a 3mm) – most were using 3.75mm or so. Are they tighter knitters than me? Did they wash and block their swatches? It’s hard to be sure.

So, I’m going to knit a sleeve first as a big gauge swatch, maybe even wash and block it to see what happens before knitting the body of the sweater. It’s a weird plan, but I’m hoping it will save me frogging the whole thing and knitting it again.

I may have to buy another skein or two of the Allhemp3, but at least it’s still available. I don’t want a second colour, and with any luck, the black dye lots will be close, if I do have to add more to finish the project.

One thing about making a discovery like this at the thrift store is that it’s a good way to play with a new yarn or fibre.

Have you ever knit with hemp?