A Little Slice of Spring

I took yesterday's oh-so-snowy opportunity to finish spinning up January's HelloYarn Club Fiber:(See, with the snow I can get some okay pictures!)

This is 4 ounces of Verdant - a lovely Merino/Mohair blend. It was a joy to spin! I split the roving into 8 equal weight thin strips in the hopes of spinning consistently enough to maintain solid colorways when plied. Well, I mostly failed at that, but I'm super pleased with how the whole thing came out. This is about 390 yards! I have no idea how I managed to get such super yardage out of it.
I am in love with it! It's so spring, it's so fresh, it's so plush. Now what to do with it?

Progress! Well, A Start

There you have it, kids! I cast-on for the HelloYarn/Spunky Eclectic handspun sweater explosion. And then.....I couldn't stop knitting. This stuff is so soft! I'm knitting this up on US3s. I used a provisional cast on so that I could easily knit those live stitches up with row 6 or so of the body, in order to get a nice tidy hem edge - hem edge done with Jamiesons. I switched to the handspun, which I am working in 1 x 1 rows - it's blending beautifully!

When I swatched for this I worked it in 2 x 2 rows of alternating colors, but it seemed a little bit too stripey for my liking - I would rather have VERY DISTINCT stripes than the semi-stripes these 2 together were giving me. It's a rather loose gauge, but it has a wonderful hand to it. I started some shaping decreases, which will go for a bit. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the top - crewneck, V-neck, etc. But I have plenty of time before I get there.

Meanwhile, I'll be teaching this week - Non-Adhesive Bookbinding. Anyone need a handbound blank book? I'll have about 8 teaching models by the end of the week. This teaching, of course, is cutting into my knitting time - I don't want to put this sweater down!

I'm Spinning As Fast As I Can! Soon, Knitting.

I finally finished spinning up the "Harvest" colorway from Spunky Eclectic, and I am now well on my way to swatching for a simple pullover. This will use the previously spun-up "Bog" colorway from HelloYarn, and for insurance I'm using a bit of Jamieson's Double Knit Shetland that was given to me. Care to take a look?



Here they are basking on some of the remaining snow - FINALLY some pictures with natural sunlight! I'm loving how these colors work together, and I'm hoping that knit-up they will look just as wonderful together. I've been in need of a basic pull-over for sometime, and I need to take on a good mindless big project - this seems ideal. I'll be following the directions from Elizabeth Zimmermann to make it up as I go along.

I also received my January club installment from Spunky Eclectic - lovely Icelandic wool that I promptly spun-up! Also basking in the sun:



This will probably be a part of my cousin's Glittens - I'll have to combine it with something else - I'm not sure what yet. It seems it'll be incredibly strong and wear well as glittens - strong, warm, TOUGH. Love it.

So there is some knitting on the horizon! After all, it's almost February ;)

Spinning and...thinking about Knitting.

I've been thinking a lot about knitting, and spinning as well. Reading, researching, investigating. It is January after all - my traditional non-knitting month. I'll think of it as....planning for the future. I've been making lots of lists, and considering what I'd like to accomplish with my stash-busting. All the while making more stash:



This is some HelloYarn fiber (not club stuff) in the "Bog" colorway. I had 8 ounces, which, when spun up, game about 650 yards or so. I haven't washed it yet to set the twist, but the whole batch was perfectly balanced right off the bobbins. I'm making my way through some "Harvest" colorway roving (Spunky Eclectic) in the hopes of working up a striped sweater of some sort - just a simple lazing around pullover, I think, in soft autumnal oranges, browns, ochres, greys, greens. I'm about halfway through that bunch, and hope to be done this weekend.

I haven't *only* been CREATING stash - I've been busting through it like nobody's business. I quick-like-a-bunny completed that handspun Baby Surprise Jacket:



Doesn't look a bit finished there, does it? It's pretty magical, I gotta tell ya. With just a couple of origami folds you end up with this:



I ran out of the handspun with pretty much just the button bands and bottom rows to finish up. I went to the stash and found a bundle of perfectly matching red Wool/Cotton, and it was *justenough* to complete the sweater! I most highly recommend that everryone make one of these - so fast, super fun, super easy. I've got some cute little green buttons to tack on to this, but my interest in sewing on buttons is pretty minimal (see also: Ireland sweater, Amanda's China Sweater, numerous bags, laptop case, etc etc). I'll get to it soon enough. At least in this case I actually HAVE the ideal buttons.

BSJ!

While I've picked up a new lace project (Muir), I always enjoy having something mindless on the needles:While I originally had some glittens planned for this wool, I opted instead to cast on for a Baby Surprise Jacket. I've wanted to make one of these for ages - they just look like so much fun! And this yarn is a lot of fun, as well. This is about 264 yards of Superwash Corriedale, in the colorway "Party Dress" from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club (December). It is navajo-plied in order to maintain the color transitions, and the final product is similar in feel to, say, Cascade 220. I'm quite pleased with it. And I think it will look AMAZING as a BSJ.

That's on US6s, by the way. Straight Single-Point needles! Why? They were the closest and easiest to get to. :)

Trying to Git Things Done

Back to the wheel I go:

This here is my December selection from the HelloYarn Fiber Club. It's 2 oz. of Soy silk/Wool blend, and man-oh-man was it awesome to spin. It wanted to be laceweight, so I let that happen. I decided to keep it as a single-ply, which yielded me about 600 yards. It is ohsofine, and lovely yo touch, and divine to look at. I had been concerned about it not balancing as a single, but the set seemed to resolve any issues in that arena. Lovely!

As for the knitting. WELL. I started up Muir - and by start, I'm talkin' 3 rows - and I'm looking for something mindless. It being January (the month I don't really knit), it's tough getting my knitting mojo back, but I really really want/need to. So for now, I'm re-evaluating some of the UFOs that are clogging up my life, and making DECISIONS.
• The Ugliest Sweater in the World? I'll be frogging that. It appears that it won't have a decent ease to it, so away it goes.
• Fair Isle vest? Still want to do it, though I am re-evaluating where I placed the increases on the original go-round, so I may rip back a bit. Not sure yet....
• Blue Assymetrical Zippy Cardi? Definitely going to complete this - I just need to relocate the pattern :)
• I've got a Kidsilk Haze lace scarf on those awesome kid needles - also need to get the pattern for that one.

Things seem to be fairly under control, no? Until I actually come up with a dedicated plan, a plan involving completing these above items, and knitting things that I am going to WANT to knit in their entirety, I think I'll stick to spinning for a bit. After all, I need to get through a RAW fiber stash, as well.

Desert/Dessert

I'm trying to kick it into high-gear holiday crafting mode, but I seem to be failing. I continue to knit primarily for myself, or I'm working on non-specific-person crafts, which is fine and good and all, but gives me nothing under the tree. I present to you a little something I am working on, that, um, well...yeah, I think it will speak for itself:


That's some Claudia Hand-Painted yarn in the Desert Dusk colorway. I picked it up over Thanksgiving weekend, when I visited a yarn shop on my (seemingly eternal!) quest for 5" metal US1 dpns (I failed.....anyone got any ideas here?). This yarn is lovely to work with and boy is it sproingy. It will most certainly be a treat for someone's feet. Oh, and that HelloYarn footwear from last week? Well, the first one has reached completion - I'll cast-on for the second one later this week most likely.

Meanwhile.......I received my November Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club selection yesterday. This is Pie For Everyone! - a delicious and wonderful to spin bundle of Falkland Wool:
This stuff is pretty darn soft. It spun up real quick-like, and after plying 2 bobbins worth, I've ended up with something in the realm of 246 yards. It's a.....sport? DK? weight. I didn't give it too much twist in the plying and it came out perfectly balanced.

Any ideas on what to do with this? Might make cute mittens, or perhaps a BSJ?

A Rather Large Wheel On Which to Spin Fiber, and 2 Cats In Costumery

Here's the glamour shot that yesterday's bobbin is a part of - this is a Country Craftsman wheel that I snagged from craigslist. The wheel itself was crafted in Littleton, Massachusetts - it is a reproduction of a wheel from the 1700s. This particular wheel was only ever used for display purposes, and is in WONDERFUL shape! All I needed was a piece of string!

This wheel differs a fair amount from my other one (Ashford Traditional, for those not paying attention). First of, this is double-drive - see how the string goes around the big wheel twice?The large wheel controls both the whorl and the bobbin (on my Scotch tension wheel, the drive-band controls the flyer). The flyer here is tucked into little hard leather "hooks". Also, this has the giant crazy flax distaff - that big thing sticking up in the front. The overall size - well, the top of the big wheel reaches my waist, and the footprint is much larger as well. The whole thing is held together with little wooden pegs. I've only got one bobbin - I'm either going to see about having a few constructed or find some online. While construction has stopped on new wheels, the bobbin and whorl assemblies are still available.

That blue stuff on the wheel? That's some mystery fleece from Amy - I just grabbed a little something to take for a test drive. I can tell that it will take a little bit of getting used to how this puppy wants to spin, along with the double drive business. I've become very in tune with the tensions and nuances and speeds that I can take my Ashford , and what results I can comfortably achieve - with this new wheel, there will definitely be a bit of trial and error as I get used to how it works. Don't worry - I'll keep you updated.

Oh, and here we are Halloween! Mingo The Cat will be rockin' it "Three Amigos"-style:
I don't know what The Mayor kitty will be wearing - her glamourous cape from last year?



Which brings me to this question about Halloween:
Last year, The Mayor was on the front porch helping to give candy to strangers. She was wearing this cape. A gaggle of young girls came a hopping up the stairs, and after oohing and aahing over how cute she was, one of them asked "What's she supposed to be?"

It's a CAT wearing a CAPE - is that not enough?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??

Tomorrow! A sock report - I've opted to rip back a bit of sock #1 (of the SocksThatRock experiment) and then throw on some ribbing. I am currently in 2x2 ribbing boredom, so I will try my darnedest to git some progress on that. So close, but so far. THEN! Well, I haven't really thought about what come after that........

Viva La Rhinebeck!

Well, what can I say? It was all that and more. After a rainy journey out Friday afternoon, the weather (thankfully!) cleared up for the Rhinebeck Wooly festivities. I was a bit overwhelmed at the actual fair and ended up not taking many pictures while there - but everyone else did. Cruise around online if you need to see fair pics. Instead, I'd like to share this lovely view with you:

This was the most lovely setting - well, about 40 minutes north of Rhinebeck proper - and it truly is so beautiful and peaceful to take in. We stayed with my cousin, who has the fortune of waking up to this beauty every day. This section of the Hudson River Valley used to play a prominent role in the whale shipping industry, and the region is rich in history and folklore (the main bridge across the river up there is the Rip Van Winkle; it is said that the mountains form his sleeping profile). It's all just so lovely.

But you're really here for the fair, aren't you? Headed down first thing on Saturday with wool and cheese on the mind. This being my first year spinning, I had a new plan of attack . I was very focussed on finding fibers I have not tried spinning yet - after all, this was the ideal opportunity to get a little of this and a little of that. Oh, and in many cases, I could MEET the animals the fibers came from! I also had 2 other specific projects in mind* , and managed to leave with......well, a decent haul. As I was saying while there "I am here to get a year's worth of fiber" and then next year I can go back and do it all again.
I would love to tell you all about these things, but I took very very very bad notes. Here is a mini-inventory, and things that I am sure of: the orange-green-brown bundle at the very top was hand-delivered to me by Amy, the bright pink/red in front of that and to the left is a silk cap (very stringy/sticky), the red to the right of that is alpaca, the 3 in the middle are alpaca (as well as the lavendar), the yarn to the right is Socks that Rock (primarily because....what's the big deal? why does everyone love this? I need to see for myself if it is ALL THAT), and I can't remember what is on the bottom.














Don't these all look so soft and dreamy? There are some wool bundles in there - after all, the roving is the gift that keeps on giving. It's TWICE the entertainment for your buck! Not only do I get to spin it up, but then there is knitting as well. What a bahgain.

Aside from the softness of, well, EVERYTHING, I also managed to meet a gazillion people and make it over to blogger meetup. I'm not going to do links here, but it was great to talk to (I apologize for leaving anyone out!) Lyssa, Boogie, HelloYarn, YarnaGoGo (all the way from CA!), BrainyLady and Veronik, Jess and Casey, AnnieKnits, and about 56290385609 more great knitters. It was really interesting to see patterns that I recognize walk by, on a REAL person, as well as yarn. I was sporting my Branching Out scarf.........too hot for anything bulkier.

On Sunday we went to visit Reggie at Howard Hall Farms - he and Nora have been working on restoring this house the REAL way for a few years now, and the fun has just begun! Reggie gave us a tour of the place, and the chance to see what has been done so far, what needs to be done, and some history on the building while we nibbled on cider donuts. Here's an example of a lovely Japanese joint redistributing a lot of the load on the top floor, and a bit of the detail (and the thickness of the stone walls!) that they are working to preserve:














Along with checking out this amazing restoration, they kindly provided me with an entire FLEECE from one of their sheep! I'm debating how to go about the processing. So now my car smells like a barn.

Oh, and we got cheese OF COURSE.

I'll leave you all with this picture of Amy enjoying her new favorite color:
*more on this to come.

Block Party!

So many things to report! Max headed over this past Saturday for some Moth KAL action and knit-aide, and a mini-spinning lesson. I crawled around on the front lawn with my bum in the wind:


....blocking Simone's lovely Gothic Leaf Shawl. The neighbors have no idea what to think at this point. The shawl, well, it's just lovely! It blocked out evenly and the cashmere plushed up even more.

I was bound and determined to get some spinning time in this weekend, as I had back-burnered all other tasks while working on the shawl. So I picked up one of my bundles of Citrus merino from HelloYarn and got to work! I have (so far - I have 2 bundles, this is the first) about 350 yards or so of the plumpest softest yarn ever. Here it is on top of the rest of the unspun stuff:

Quite thirsty-making, no?

So now it is back to the Moth! Max has completed her first section of repeats - I have some major catching-up to do. I'm already thinking about how and where I can perform X-TREME blocking - she'll be quite large when done, and those baords just won't handle it.

I Make Lace, I Spin, I Block Lace, I Spin More.

Ah, so much to report! First off, a lovely time knitting this past Saturday, where I worked a bit on Wing O' The Moth with Max before setting mine aside for a wee bit. Simone has asked me to knit a shawl for her for her wedding, so I figured best get started on that.


This picture does it absolutely NO justice - the yarn is stunning (Jade Sapphire's Mongolian Cashmere 2-ply) and the pattern (Sivia Harding's Gothic Leaf Stole) is simple enough to memorize and work through. I'm barreling through this (Simone gave me the yarn and needles on Saturday afternoon, here it is Monday and I have 1/3 of it complete).

For some bizarre reason, the warm weather of last week had me spinning a whole bunch. I managed to make it through my August Fiber Club acquisitions:


This is about 170 yards of Lincoln fiber, 2-ply, kind of coarse, maybe sport weight? I'm not good at that part. This is the August selection from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber of the Month Club.



This is Mollusc, the August selection from the HelloYarn Fiber Club. This spun up to about 260 yards of fingering weight.

I've been enjoying these fiber clubs - I'm trying out fibers I don't think I normally would have picked up, as well as learning more about the different breeds. Also, trying out different spinning techniques. Though I find I continue to spin to yarn weight that I prefer to knit with.

My last item today is this poor picture of the completed hanami Shawl, blocking:


I'm happy with how this came out - the yarn was stunning to work with, the pattern was easy enough to follow. I worked the first half of these charts upside-down, then flipped at the mid-point - I wanted to have the leaf pattern on both ends. This went fairly quickly, and I would consider doing it again, though I think I would make it a wee bit wider.

Next up: more pictures of Simone's shawl, some talk about socks, perhaps some UFOs.....

And Some Said It Would Not Happen -

Goblin Socks! TWO OF THEM!
With a lovely little picot edge.I'm thrilled with how they turned out - I had split the yarn cake into 2 equal weight balls and knit them toe-up until I ran out of yarn. They're super squishy-comfortable. Not too much pooling, but some amazing stripery going on there, no?

I was inspired enough by these socks to start up another pair- using my awesome Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club "Celebration" handspun:(These also, believe it or not, are DONE. Like, a PAIR OF THEM. I just need to take some pictures of them.)

And..........more handspinning! This is the lovely "Granite" colorway from Hello Yarn. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, and I still have another bundle of it left to spin up! I did this 2-ply, and managed to get around 417 yards of a (semi-consistent) fingering weight yarn. The colors are just lovely all together-like. I can't wait to knit this up into something, but what? Any ideas? I should hopefully end up with just over twice this much.In the world of lace, well....I'll admit that I have not made much more progress on Hanami. I'm just shy of being halfway through it; perhaps I'll pick it up again this evening. I'm loving the Lacey Lamb yarn - and I had the opportunity to meet the woman behind Jade Sapphire, the importers of Lacey Lamb! She was thrilled to speak with a Lacey Lamb "consumer", and I was able to see a few more colorways that I was not aware of. Man oh man, I cannot say enough good things about that yarn - it is such a treat to work with - buttery soft, saturated colors, just stunning and wonderful in every way. But enough about that - let me show you my Wing O' The Moth!
I cast-on for this shortly after Max did about a week and a half ago. I've completed one pattern repeat (seems easy enough to get it stuck in the brain) and have since set it down. As this IS supposed to be for a knit-along, and the along-ing part has hit some traffic, I don't feel so guilty having not looked at this since I did that one repeat. Let me make a bit more progress on Hanami, then I promise I'll get back to this, okay? Unless, of course, you feel ready to dive back in, Max!

More to come! I just need to take some pictures to get back up to speed. Stay tuned for: Venus the sheep, in which I tackle wool straight form the shearing stage; more lace (of course); more spinning (naturally); my gallery of unfinished/abandoned projects; some quilting (I'll admit that I am posting on that largely to get a cheerleading squad together in order to complete them); and rainbows.