Things are getting fuzzy!

Knit Picks Galileo in "Gem" on size 3 (3.25 mm)

Spinning and swatching have taken up my fiber time lately.  I've been working on wooly goodness to put into my Etsy shop as well as spinning more singles for another embellished yarn.  Swatching for some new projects as well.  Sometimes it is nice to start looking into my next few projects when I feel ready to stall out on my current one.  Shipwreck is in that particular spot right now... a little too much time on really fine yarn and fiddly lace has me hungry for some super simple take along type of projects.  That being said, naturally the first thing that grabbed me was the extra-super-duper fiddly cabled cardigan called Tapestry.  I'm nuts - I know.  But the swatch was plain stockinette with garter borders, so it met the need of super easy knitting that I needed just then.  Of course the photo also gives me away - I've cast on for the sweater and I'm a couple rows into it.  Didn't I just frog out a cabled sweater?  Ummmmm..... yes, but I guess I'm ready for more punishment on even finer yarn and smaller needles.  Learning from recent mistakes doesn't always happen in my case evidently.

Combed Romney nests up for sale

Other fiber madness includes this batch of delightful fluff.  This is hand combed Romney that I processed on my English 4 pitch combs.  I mentioned them and discussed the process back in the Wicked post.  It is a very nice way to get lovely spinning fiber out of clean but trashy (with VM) fleece.  Spinning from hand combed top is such a pleasure.  The fiber is arranged in parallel fashion, so the spining is so smooth and wonderful!  I like texture too, but nothing beats combed fiber for a lovely smooth singles when spinning.  This Romney is pretty typical of the breed, long and silky fiber.  Not as harsh as most of the longwools and a terrific fiber on which to learn spinning.  There is also something about spinning the pure, undyed, creamy natural wool.  My passion for color in spinning doesn't often give me the time to do much white, but this fiber may just find a place in the lineup sometime very soon.  This particular batch is listed here in my Etsy shop.  I'm working on more of this fleece in dyed colors as well.  Those will go up in the shop as soon as I'm finished combing them.

Original pair of swatches for Knit, Swirl jacket

Another fun project that I'm still swatching is a jacket from the book Knit, Swirl by Sandra McIver.  I've wanted to do one of these lovely knitted works of art for several years, so I finally bought the book and raided my stash for these swatches.

The rich purple is a mohair that has been in my stash for years, just waiting for the right project to showcase it's beauty.  Being mohair, it isn't next to the skin soft, but it has such a wonderful fluffy halo that it should work well in this jacket.  The one on the bottom is the handspun that has made several appearances in this blog.  It is the Dolly Dorset with Louet Northern Lights in Wild Berry Jam.  These swatches were done on the same needles with the same stitch count and pattern, and they don't match up for size.  Bummer, but that is why I do swatches, to find this kind of thing out before I charge into a project.  I've learned this the hard way... so I do a lot more swatching than I used to.  Since the tags aren't really visable, I'll give the details here.

The mohair swatch is done in Millie Mohair that I've had in my stash since 1992 or so.  I remember buying it back when I lived in Colorado from a shop called the Recycled Lamb.  I believe that they are still in operation - I've encountered them on Ravelry from time to time. 

Back to the swatch: I cast on 24 stitches with the plan of a three stitch garter border and worked it up on size 7 (4.5 mm) needles.  Did four rows of garter stitch and then worked the stockinette center section and finished up with another four rows of garter stitch.  Bound it off and gave it a bath.  Who knew such fine yarn would work up in nearly Aran weight?  The fabric is light and airy, but the fuzz really fills it up!  I also notice that it has a definite tendency to bias which is good to know.  I didn't block it hard because I wanted to know what it wanted to do on its own.  Worked up at four stitches per inch, just a bit too big for the gauge called for in the pattern.

The second swatch is the handspun done up in the same fashion.  But it washed up nice and square - being a three ply yarn really helps it to behave as a more stable yarn construction.  This swatch worked up at just over five stitches per inch. 

New swatch showing the welted construction,
done in two different needle sizes

Tough decisions now... do I switch yarns, or switch needles to make these yarns work together?  The first thing I sampled was to change needle sizes to make the gauge match and it worked pretty well.  But, and here's the big problem, I don't like it as much.  Knitting the mohair on size six (4 mm) needles makes it firmer than I really want and really compresses the fluffy fun that makes the yarn such a treat.  I also find that I'm not as wild about the handspun on the size 8 (5 mm) needles.  A bit too floppy for my taste, and I think the colors just don't really go together as well as I'd hoped.  So, I'm back to the drawing board.  What I'm considering now is a very plain yarn with the mohair so there is less competition between the yarns.  I'm also thinking that I may alternate rows to spread out the fluff a bit.  The welts will still show up well I think, but I'll need to swatch it to be sure.  I'm not wild about the visible purl bumps between the welts, so I may match up the yarn on those rows to help them blend in better.  So, now I'm in search of a new background yarn to use with the mohair.

Welcome to the frog pond... are you hungry?

Discovered this in my inbox this morning and thought it made a certain amount of sense, so I'll share it with you too.  It is a little video (under two minutes) that really made me think about what my own "frogs" are.

http://www.flickspire.com/m/AdvancedLi255/EatThatFrog

So here's my first live frog... a frogging project!  I've decided to "frog" the cabled sweater so it will stop bothering me.  In case you aren't a knitter, "frogging" is where you discover a mistake a few rows back, and "rip-it, rip-it, rip-it" back so it can be re-knit.  Hopefully correctly on the second try.  Some projects take many trips to the frog pond.  I had a sweater that I had completely finished knitting the pieces and frogged it all the way back because I didn't like the fit.  I blogged about that here, just scroll down the page until you see the red-violet sweater.

See how the ribs mis-match the cables... bummer!

So here is the shot of the mistake side of the sweater... I showed you the good side last post.  See how the cables don't line up with the ribbing.  That was making me unhappy, because that is one of the things I really liked about the pattern.  Since I hadn't done cables in a while, I followed the pattern precisely rather than making sure it made sense on the reality of the needles.  When I converted the pattern to knitting in the round the stitch count didn't line up to the pattern anymore - probably because of the stitches not being lost into seamlines of the finished sweater.  In any event, I'll reknit this in the round and watch more carefully to be certain that the ribs line up with the cables.

This is the part that always makes me go "hmmmmm....." because as satisfying as it is to watch a mistake disappear, there is the niggling consternation over how long it takes to knit this amount of yarn versus how quickly it can be made back into just balls of yarn again.  In any event, it is finished now and I can consider how to start again to make the ribbing line up.



Back to being balls of yarn, needles and a pile of markers.

Part of the reason for the error is that I hadn't done cables in such a long time that I didn't really watch where the stitches of the cable were coming up on the pattern over the ribs.  I was too busy counting stitches!  It is going to be a matter of lining up the knit stitches of the cable pattern over the knit stitches of the ribbing.  Sounds easy enough, but there are several charts working at the same time - six different charts in each row.  I've made myself a "cheat sheet" of sorts where I've made photocopies of the charts, which are different sizes, and I keep a colored pencil with me so that I can mark off the rows as I finish them.  Ponderous, I know, but it is a way to keep track that works for me.  There are chart keeping systems out there that use magnets to line up on the papers, but I don't have one of them.  Since I keep my pattern on a clipboard that goes in and out of a project bag, I'm not sure the magnets would stay in place.



Brindle Shetland roving and bobbin of singles in process.

The next thing I've been working on is the Shetland roving I started on the last post.  I've got over half of it finished now.  2.6 ounces of the 4 ounces I started with are now spun into singles.  This is such luscious wool - I'm loving the way it spins up, fine and soft and very different from the commercial Shetland yarn I've encountered in yarn shops.  I spent some time with my Mom today and since she remembers the days when Shetland sweaters were all the rage, I asked her about them.  Wondering if maybe the wool was better back then, like the hand processed roving I'm using now.  She said it was dreadfully scratchy to wear those sweaters, and she had to be sure to wear some kind of firmly woven shirt underneath those stylish sweaters!  What young women go through to be fashionable.... seems that it never changes. 

I take a certain comfort in knowing that as a spinner, I really can do a lot to make my yarn be exactly what I want it to be.  Granted, there are some wools that really are never going to be "next to the skin" soft.  There are many others that can either be blended with other kinds of fiber, or handled more gently in processing that will come very close to being that soft.  Soapbox I'm hauling out now: the medium wools may not be as soft as the finewools, but they are lots more pleasant to spin, more durable, and by buying raw fleeces or roving from local shepherds I get to support small, local farms.  That is so important to me... having had a farm of my own for ten years.  The driving force behind this rare breed spin-a-long is to encourage spinners to at least try some fiber that is new to them.  I can use myself as an example of how surprising the project can be.  I would cheerfully buy more of this kind of roving from this farm.  Shetland sheep have a claim to fame in their colored wool - there are eleven "official" colors and many patterns of markings on these tiny sheep.

The worn heel of my favorite slippers.

Garter stitch patches, about 4 inches square.

Next thing I've been working on is some mending.  I'd prefer to mend than to remake things as much as possible... use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without is something of a mantra for me.  Not a popular idea in current culture, but one that I strive to live.  This particular mending project is a pair of slippers that I knit and felted about a year ago.  I've loved them nearly to death, and now they need patching.  These slippers are from a felting book that I just love.  There are many projects that I want to try, but I've done these twice.  When I do mending, I try to catch spots that are wearing thin before they become holes - which are much harder to fix!  I decided since the rest of the soles of the slippers are in pretty good shape, I'd just patch the heels.  My thinking was that since the stockinette wore out faster on the heels, I'd do the patch in garter stitch to get more yarn into the same amount of space.  I knit up a couple of squares of garter stitch, casting on 20 stitches on size 8 needles and working until the pieces were square.  The next step is to felt the squares.  I'll put them into a "delicates" bag and throw them into a heavy duty wash with low water level and plenty of soap - with a couple pairs of old jeans for company - and beat the fuzz out of them until they become good, firm felt.  Having done some of this kind of felting before, I'm pretty sure they won't be square at the end of the process, but since it will be felted, I could cut them to a specific size if I wanted. 

My favorite, although well worn, slippers.

Here is my project page from Ravelry on these slippers.  And here is a shot of what they look like today.  The soles are in pretty good shape, but the superwash sock yarn tops are still like new.  Superwash wool is amazing stuff!  This is done in Wildfoote from Brown Sheep yarn company.  Still available, but I don't know if this colorway is still part of their line up.  I bought this yarn years ago, and did a stash dive to make these slippers over a year ago.  I've been so impressed by the durability of these slippers and I've made another pair since then so I can always have a pair to wear - they take a couple days to dry after being washed - felt is pretty dense stuff!  The felt does relax a bit with wear, so washing and doing a little massage job on the worn parts tightens the felt a bit, but these are to the point that the felt doesn't have the ability to tighten up enough anymore.

My condo is on a slab foundation, and the thickness of these slipper soles keeps the chill off my feet very well indeed.  I'm off to make felt patches....



Through the Loop...

Finished spinning the Loop bullseye bump.  Let it rest on the bobbin overnight and then chain plied it on my Louet wheel. 

Plied "Goddess" from Loop on the Niddy Noddy

I have a system for chain plying that works well on that wheel.  I put the full bobbin of singles behind my shoulder on a ledge behind my spinning chair.  I draw off the bobbin in a straight line to the orifice of the wheel so I don't have as much snarling of the singles as I work.  To do the chain ply, I tie a loop onto the bobbin leader and put my right hand thumb and forefinger through the loop.  Then I draw a loop of singles through the loop on my right hand with my left hand forefinger and draw it out about 20-24" (I've never measured - oops!) until my left hand reaches a spot on the wall.  Then I bring the loop over to the continuous strand from the bobbin and do a counted number of treadles, in this case 13.  I do this for consistency of my plying twist - and I do count treadles, then stop the flyer and wind on the finished yarn.  Fiddly, yes, but I like the evenness I get in my yarn from all the counting.  It isn't perfect, I don't think handspun is, or at least mine never is perfect.  But I love my yarn, so it works for me.


Full view of the finished yarn on the Niddy Noddy.

This skein's vital statistics are as follows: Loop bullseye bump in the "Goddess" colorway.  I don't think this is one of the repeatable ones.  Fiber content is Merino, bamboo and tussah silk in undisclosed percentages.  At a guess, I'd say about half Merino from the way it spins up.  It became a very nice and soft yarn.  Not much sheen or springiness, probably because of the silk and bamboo.  The skein weight is 4.7 ounces or  132 grams, length is 686 yards and 24 wraps per inch before washing.  It isn't dry yet, but it doesn't seem to have much spring to it, so I don't think there will be much change in this skein as it dries.



Full view of the "Goddess" skein

I washed the skein in hot water with a small squeeze of Dawn Olay Hand Renewal dish liquid in the Lavender scent.  I was really hoping for some color bleed to tone down the bright green, but that didn't happen.  I may still split off the colors later on, but I'm currently considering a round yoke sweater using this yarn for the colorwork portion.  If I break up the colors, I could overdye that green with something else to tone it down - maybe a peacock blue or a darker green, just to knock the intensity down a notch.  Another option would be to plan the colorwork specifically to break up the stitches to small "pops" of the green.  The quilters call that kind of oddball color a "poison color" that is needed to energize the color scheme of a project.  In a colorwork yoke, I'm thinking of doing something floral... maybe iris or violets... or maybe something abstract, I haven't decided. The grist of 24 wraps per inch makes it a fingering weight yarn, so I do have plenty of options.  Many suppliers make a grand array of colors in this yarn weight.

Close up of the "Goddess" skein - color is more accurate in the full skein photo.
 

This seems to be my default yarn.  It is what I naturally seem to spin.  Unless the fiber wants to be something else - but then I have to pay closer attention to maintain some other grist.  But I do make the attempt, especially with the superfine wools I've been sampling lately.  Speaking of that, I'll show you what I've been sampling in the last few weeks.

This particular sample is also from the Loop Fiber Studio and it came in the box along with the Goddess bump as a gift.  It is a sample of Steph's Spontaneous Spinning Clouds.  The fiber is carded but not aligned in a batt or top.  This little bit had white and a pale pink fiber with a smidgen of sparkle fiber that appears to be Angelina.  No fiber notations were made so I can only speculate what might be in this yarn.

It is pretty stuff, a 5 gram sample, and I got 20 yards of chain plied soft yarn with a pale golden glimmer that is quite appealing.  Only enough for a little accent on a knitted piece, but scrumptious enough to be worth it.

Also in progress is some of the Grand Champion Targhee fleece that I purchased at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival last month.  I chose some of the fleece near one edge and did some lock washing on it.  Then I flick carded and spindle spun some of it quite fine.  Chain plied on the spindle - because the Louet pulls too hard to ply a super fine yarn, it breaks the singles.  We have an understanding now, and there is much less frustration.  There are some things a Louet S-10 does marvellously well, but fine yarn isn't one of them.


Grand Champion Targhee fleece, yarn sample

Statistics on this sample are thusly: spindle spun singles clockwise, spindle chain plied counter clockwise.  Before washing, it measured 28 wraps per inch and 13 yards.  After washing the sample is 27 wraps per inch and 12 yards in length. Pretty springy yarn, not quite as much as the super fine Corriedale that I prepared with the same method.  This is a very pleasant yarn, still in the fingering weight range, even though it feels finer. It will be a great pleasure to work through this lovely fleece!

New stash...

Gosh, it has been a while since a yarn grabbed me like this.  I found some really pretty ruffling yarn advertised in a catalog from Mary Maxim.  Most of their things are way to cutesy for my taste, but they had several varieties of this self-ruffling yarn that I wanted to have a look at "in person" to see how they worked.  I went to every craft shop in town, and of course, none of them had any of the types - not even the Red Heart version. Sigh....
So, I went back to the catalog and tried to place an order for the least expensive version - Red Heart Sashay - and it was out of stock!  Bigger sigh...
So, I went for the higher priced version and placed an order.  Hope it arrives soon... it looks so nice in the pictures.
Of course, with all that yarn shopping a few skeins followed me home.  I found this lovely, fuzzy Patons Lace with Sequins in the Amethyst colorway:

Pretty stuff, but as with most sparkly yarns, this one is a bit camera shy.  The sequins are a deep color that shimmers between red, fuschia and violet.  Very pretty indeed!  I'm thinking of a shrug or a vest with this, the balls are lace weight, and with all that glittering, I'll want a smooth knit to show it off to it's best advantage.

I'll swatch it later on, since I seem to have caught the "cast on" bug in the last little while.

Here's the beginning of my next sweater - at least I hope it is, the swatch is feeling a little light and loose and it isn't at gauge yet.  But here's the picture of what I'm planning for the next sweater.

The pattern is from Sunday Knits and is called Tapestry.  Very romantic, lots of cables and lace and knit in the round up to the armsceye.  I especially like the way the buttons are nestled into the cables on the front.  I chose a superwash fingering weight yarn from Knit Picks called Stroll in the colorway Twinkle Heather.  I'll keep going on the swatch and see if I like it better as it grows in size.  There are some people that say superwash wools don't feel good to them.  I really rather like the soft hand that this treatment gives the fiber.  Some wools feel a bit scratchy to me - even Merino sometimes.  I typically wear pure regular wool sweaters over a cotton turtleneck for comfort.  The superwash I can wear in socks on my bare skin without a problem.  For instance, those new slippers I made have both kinds of wool in them, superwash on the tops and feltable wool for the soles.  I find them more comfortable if I wear thin socks inside the slippers.  Doing this should also help improve the wearing life of the slippers as well, so it becomes a win-win situation.  This being said, I've started another pair of slipper socks since I adore the first pair and needed another "easy" knitting project for when I'm somewhere that I can knit on something simple and still be able to pay attention to other things going on... like at church.  So here's a work-in-progress shot of the slippers:

Since it takes two strands held together for the tops, I wound off a small ball of the sock yarn, trying to match up the patterning so there are some coherent stripes on the tops.  I like the effect I'm getting so far.  The match isn't perfect, but with two yarns running together the stripes are softened a bit.  So far, so good.  I'm just starting the top of the foot on the first slipper.  These take me about twenty hours from start to finish.  The yarn is Wisdom Yarns Phoenix in the Hayden colorway.  Superwash wool and nylon blend.  Cast on with size 7 needles and switch to size 4 for the tops.  I'll use my leftover Wool of the Andes Worsted in Fairy Tale for the heels and soles - I had a few balls left from the sweater and they match this yarn pretty nicely.

Next up.... Alpaca!

Frene Creek Farm Blue Face Leicester

Finally done with green and gray for a while, so I wanted some color.  I've had this bobbin of singles done for a while and have been pondering what to ply with it for a stunning yarn.  I'm so pleased with the way the LNL and Dorset turned out that I'm thinking to go in a similar direction with this... only bolder.  Thinking a neon looking barberpole stripe.  So I dug up some black alpaca from my stash and spun up some singles.  It is difficult to get a good picture of a light-eating black fiber, but this is what I got.

It is a pure, rich black. Little to no shine so I thought it would set off the electric blues and violets in the singles nicely. 

Alpaca is not the easiest fiber to spin - it is rather like dog hair.  Not much crimp - compared to wool - and it is somewhat slippery.  It barely holds together in the ball of prepared top.  It drifts apart and misbehaves if drafted too fine.  Seems easiest to handle if spun directly from the prepared mass of fiber rather than pre-drafting like I usually do with wool.



Black alpaca and BFL



But here's the best part - I'm thrilled with this sample skein, only a few yards, but I love the color play and the softness of this yarn!  This shot gives a more accurate color on the alpaca as well.  Deep, rich black and the brilliant blue - pleasing to me, and I'll have enough of it by plying this way to make something fun - like a vest, a shawl or maybe a sweater if I plan it right.  I've got plenty more of the alpaca should I need more yarn to match.

Tidy mind, tidy stitches (K&C Blog Week - Day 3)

Hoooooo boy.  This is the tough topic for me.  In many ways, I'm very organized and in many more I can't begin to claim mastery over my stash. 

A number of ideas leap forward:

-I tend to buy stash in bunches, with long spaces in between.  For instance, my last buy was on my birthday last month.  Had a wonderful time, and didn't plan on buying anything except the green yarn for "Pretty Thing".  My prior buy was a Knit Picks order for yarn to make a Tam and Kilt Hose for a match to a Wallace Tartan kilt.  Before that, a couple fleeces from my favorite shepherd (one of them was a 13 pounder from a Corriedale ram named Jake, the other was a pale silvery blue-gray from a sheep named Sierra, whose fleece I'd bought the year before).  As I look at it, and think about it some, the sequence seems to repeat itself.  I'll buy fleece for a while, then some rovings or top in fun colorways, then yarn.  I love to spin and knit, but I tend to do a little of each, rather than long marathon runs of either one.  Hmmm, hadn't thought of that before.

-My stash includes yarn, of course, as well as roving, top and fleeces in various stages of processing.  If you've been following this blog, you've read about my adventures with the Nasty Romney fleece.  It is, at last, all washed and dyed.  Some left white, just for fun, but I've been picking and starting to spin the stuff.  I can't say that it has been purely wonderful to work with, but I am finding that I enjoy the silky nature of the Romney.  It really wasn't what I had expected, and that is part of the fun of spinning.

-I do tend to work through a fleece, start to finish.  Rather like I've been blogging about with the Nasty Romney and Dolly Dorset in earlier posts.  Instead of leaping from one fleece to another, I notice that I try out a lot of ideas with the fleeces I'm working with at the moment.  I do a lot of swatching and small batches and I really enjoy the process.  This way, I get to find out what I like about the fiber.  Like the Louet Northern Lights top in Wild Berry Jam.  Spun up the singles in January, tried doing a Navajo ply of it and just didn't like the visual overload.  So I backed up, spun some dark gray Dorset and did a two ply, then a three ply sample of that.  Preferred the three ply and made up the rest of the LNL in that configuration.  Incidentally, I have another colorway of the LNL called Violets that I'll probably process in a similar fashion.  Probably with a white wool, since there is a little white in the Violets colorway.

-I've noticed that I like to look at my singles for a while before I charge into plying them into yarns.  Sample a little of this, a little of that.  Find a yarn I like, knit up a small swatch and live with it a while.  If I still like it, I'll spin off the rest and stash the yarn.

-I am also starting to catalog my stash in Ravelry.  Since I didn't know that it existed until recently, this is an ongoing work in progress.  But I'm pleased to have found a system that is workable.  I may develop some kind of scrapbook to show the start to finish nature of fleeces to fabrics.  I do enjoy the process and being able to keep shreds of evidence along the way is a nice little bit of personal history.

-Once I launch a project, I'm pretty organized about keeping the whole package together while it is in process.  I dislike the waste of time when things I need aren't in my working bag.  At the moment my knitting bag has a couple projects in it.  The instruction/pattern sheets are all on a clipboard together.  Swatches and extra balls of yarn are there along with my plastic zipper bag of tools - crochet hooks, needle tips and cables, cable needles, yarn darning needles, gauge measuring tools and such like.  I've got a separate bag that I take to work, single project, idiot-proof stockinette.  I work on it until I get to a part that requires a lot of attention and switch it out for another piece of idiot-proof stockinette.

-I've got a lot of patterns and books, but I don't carry them around with me.  I make a copy of the page I'm working on, and then I feel free to write on it, mark it up and use it to work the piece.  When I'm done, some of those pages go back into the original book - notes about what worked, what didn't and where the pattern had things that didn't seem clear - those things are VERY useful if I ever use that pattern again.

So, overall, I may not be completely organized.  But I'm getting better all the time!

Works in progress - Part Three

Here is the beginning of a lace shawlette that I'm doing as a knit-along with my Mom.  I'm doing the Annis shawlette from Knitty.com, here's the link: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss10/PATTannis.php
Mom's working hers in Malabrigo Sock in one of the purple/blue colorways.  I'm doing mine in handspun from one of my own Corriedale sheep named "Wiggly". I may have to spin some more, since the yarn I'm using is a bit heavier weight than recommended.  I wanted a wrap with some warmth to it.  I've got a full fleece of another Corriedale named "Sierra" that is the same color.  I'm stalled out at the beginning of the row of bobbles.  I don't like to work bobbles, even though they are a very nice accent on this particular shawlette.  I did a swatch of the lace and did the first bobble in the purist way with my knitting needles, decided that it was a sure road to madness and picked up a crochet hook to finish the swatch.  Since then, more pondering, and I am going to use a cable needle to make it easier still to draw the working yarn through the seven strands on these bobbles.

I also worked on my March Stashdown.  Got the batts carded and the green one is spun, plied and washed.  I'll put up pictures of that for next time.

March Stashdown Goal

Ta-daaaaa!  I had an idea (it didn't hurt either...)  For this month, I'm going to do a color gradation study.  I'll do four one-ounce batts in different amounts to test heathering on color tones.  I'll use Dolly for the neutral and the green Nasty Romney for the color. 

Dolly the Dorset

For the first batt, I'll do 100% Green and no Dolly.  Spin it and knit up a swatch to attach.

For the second batt, it will be 75% Green and 25% Dolly.  Spin and swatch.

For the third batt, 50% of each. Spin and swatch.

For the last one, 100% Dolly. Spin and swatch.

Green Nasty Romney

I saw something like this in Deb Menz's book Color in Spinning a long time ago.  My copy is packed away in a box somewhere.  When the weather warms up I'll try to find it and do some more of this kind of testing for myself.  I have a sweater that I just adore that is made up of several heathered yarns, and each color is so much more interesting than a plain, single color yarn.  So I would like to examine some of those possibilities for myself.

Off to the carder...







Spinnable Stash

So here is the great stuff I found at the wool market!  There were several vendors there, all with wonderful things available for sale.  Since I have waaaaaaay too much fleece on hand, I tried to restrain myself.  Did pretty well - but a couple things followed me home anyway.



Corriedale cross dyed rovings

 These pretty pink/red/burgundy rovings from Frene Creek Farm.  My closest shepherd, she's just outside of town which is very handy!  I need to learn how to do this kind of painted roving, but for now, it is nice to be able to pick it up from Frene Creek.  Besides, she has an amazing collection of fleeces.  Some from her own livestock and some from other shepherds and fiber farms.

She's also got the most amazing lotion bars, I've nearly used mine up.  Guess I'll be making a trip out there again soon to replenish my supply.


Superwash BFL and Alpaca and Silk Top

The other batch of goodies I couldn't resist came from a farm that was new to me.  Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm in Harvard, Illinois.  A nice superwash BFL handpainted roving in blues/purples/teal with a touch of white left intact. The colorway is called Lincoln Park. Very nice!  Also an exquisite Alpaca and silk top in a colorway called Eeyore's Brooding, in heathered purples/blues/grays.

I suspect the lotion bar will come in very handy when I start spinning the silk.  Haven't spun silk in years, but I remember it being a little hard to handle since it wants to stick to any rough spot on my hands.

Now I need to pick a Stashdown goal for March... what shall I choose?  I'll let you know next time...

Stash and Stashdown



Probably the fattest bobbin I've ever plied!

 I did it! Completed my Stashdown goal... the LNL and Dolly yarn is spun and skeined!  I did take a picture of the full (and do I mean full!) bobbin.

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. Pleasant to work with and somewhere between fingering weight and DK.  Handspun isn't perfectly consistent, no matter how hard I try.  Perhaps that is part of the beauty of it after all.



Stashdown goal - February


Anyway, here is a picture of all the skeins after they're wound off, including the ones I finished for the original sampling, the small ball is what was left from the knitted swatch.  I'm really glad I sampled this yarn, because originally I was thinking socks.  Now I'm thinking maybe a shawl or cowl as well.  There should be plenty of yarn to do all of that.  I may spin some more Dolly yarn and use the remainder of the Stashdown yarn for accent on a cabled vest that I've had in my head for a while now.  Working out the design now...

As promised, here are the shots of the new stuff I got to add to the stash.  Birthday presents to me, from me.  Kind of neat to be a grown up and to be able to do that.  Found a great sale at one shop and picked up some high end sock yarn to play with.



Goodies from Studio S

There is some pretty Berocco Jasper in the mix too.  Thought it would be a nice accent, I don't often see olive green and purple together, and I find that I rather like this combination.  The green sock yarn is going to become a neck gaiter for my friend Janet using the "Pretty Thing" pattern from the Yarn Harlot's blog http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/

More goodies were found at Needles and Pins (lucky me to have found TWO great yarn shops within a mile of each other).  Interesting that they have such different things, and probably gives me a reason to visit both places - but not too frequently - my budget couldn't handle that!

Needles and Pins stash additions

Found that pretty purple wool and silk blend, and a ball of sock yarn with no apparent match - kind of neat - but it won't be made up into socks, might have a future as a scarf - maybe in entrelac.  That would be fun!

The two small skeins are merino - ahhhhh, such pretty and soft stuff.  I think that is what a cloud must feel like.

Next time, I'll show you the neat stuff I found at the wool show!