I’m knitting the Lovely Lace Skirt in allhemp6 Licorice.

Cute, huh? The lovely Wendy knit it in Pumpkin and inspired me. I couldn’t picture it not sagging in the ‘tocks area. According to Wendy and the designer, though, this skirt wears really well. And I was super curious about knitting with hemp.

I love the idea of a knitted fabric that feels good in both warm and cold weather. Especially something that would be comfortable to wear in summer. I just bake in the summer. My body temp is such that I always feel hot, hot, hot. After July 1st, I am unable to bear the feel of sleeves on my arms and anything other than shorts or skirts on my legs. So the idea of a skirt that was cute, and I could actually wear all year round is very appealing.

I’ve been knitting socks in buttery soft yarn for so many months now…allhemp6 was an unpleasant (at first) change. There is no give or bounce or stretch to this yarn at all. The pattern suggests 3.0 mm needles. That seemed very small with what felt like a bulky and stiff yarn to me. I knit a swatch. As difficult as it was to get used to this yarn, I really liked the fabric it was producing. I gave my swatch a soak in water and some hair conditioner and laid it out to dry. That really softened up the fabric and the gauge was right on, so I cast on. 216 stitches and 4 rounds of garter st later, I thought my hands were going to fall off. I developed a dry, cracked, sore spot on my middle finger where the yarn runs over as I throw stitches. I was feeling kinda miserable about the project.

An aside to describe an aspect of my knitting personality/principles/practices: I’m cheap, so I absolutely have to use all the yarn I buy. This yarn/pattern cost over $50. That’s a reasonable price, but fuck if I’m gonna quit knitting it because of some paltry bleeding on my hands. It’s black, the blood won’t show, right?

I sent an email to kPixie and to the allhemp6 people asking for advice. I asked if it would work to soak the skanks in hair conditioner or fabric softener and let them dry before winding up for knitting. kPixie wrote back to say she puts hers in dryer and that softens it up. allhemp6 wrote back to say soaking in a softener would work fine and also to try beating the yarn agains a rock while it was wet. I’m far to lazy for that so I combined both advices. I hogtied a skank, soaked it in water with a lot of fabric softener, then put it in the dryer. It felt much, much better after that. I also started putting lotion on my hands before picking up the project. I’ve never been a “put the lotion on your skin” girl before, but it was advice from allhemp6, and I was willing to try anything.

As I’m writing this I hear the first cicada of the season outside!

Holy shit. I have to go. I need to actually get some work done before I go see my therapist this afternoon. I guess I’ll leave the rest of the hemp skirt story for another post. Don’t worry. I’m sure it will have a happy ending!!