Just a quick one today. I spent my afternoon spinning some soft, shiny, slippery, beautiful bamboo into lace weight singles. I have about an ounce of fiber that I bought in Marshfield (from punkjordane.etsy.com who was a vendor there). I love bamboo and I need to spin more of it, I’ve decided. This weekend I’ll spin the rest of this fiber and ply it. I don’t think I have anything I need to do this weekend so I should have quite a bit of spinning time. I finished my three ply yarn, too, but it’s rainy and dark here and I can’t get any of my pictures to come out so I’ll wait until next week to show it.
Have a good weekend! I’m seriously thinking about buying a new wheel…
Categories: Spinning
Tagged: Spinning, Tour de Fleece 2009
I did not do nearly as much spinning as I want to today. I finished all my singles (I really need more bobbins) and I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to start plying. I seriously doubt that this is going to be enough yarn for socks but it has been fun to spin and (I think) it’s going to be really pretty yarn (it was pretty roving, too) so that makes up for it. I’ve had a little bit of a hard time keeping my singles as thin as I want them, my biggest compliant about my wheel is that it’s hard to spin very thin yarn on it. My wheel is a Babe Spinnrock and is bobbin driven, there just isn’t too much I can do to make adjustments to how it spins so I constantly have to adjust what I am doing to change the diameter of my yarn. I have managed to spin everything from a nice, thin lace weight to a huge super gigantic bulky, but it takes some work. I like my wheel.
Look at that, it’s knitting! I spin in the afternoons and knit in the evening lately so I’ve made a ton of progress on Cold Mountain, that’s over half of the stole that I’ve knit so far. This has been a great pattern for TV or computer knitting, I have to pay attention to what’s going on but not so much that I can’t do something else at the same time.
I forgot, again, to take some pictures of my woven bag. I’ll do that next week.
Categories: Knitting · Spinning
Tagged: Cold Mountain, Knitting, Spinning, Tour de Fleece 2009
I didn’t have a chance to blog about my spinning yesterday so you get double today. Yesterday I spun up the very last of my Rambouillet/Lama mix, the same fiber I used to spin the yarn for my mom’s Fair Isle Jazz scarf. I spun this into a thick and thin two ply heavy worsted yarn and got about 170yds. I wish I had a mountain of this roving, it’s so light and soft easy to spin. I just want to wrap myself up in it and roll around, it’s that good. The vendor that I bought it from was at the fiber fair again this year but I didn’t see any of this wool or I would have bought every bit of it.
Today I dug through a box of roving and found a braid of superwash wool that I dyed last summer (I think). I’m planning a three ply yarn, hopefully fingering weight and, hopefully, enough for a pair of socks, though its not looking like I’ll have enough. I spun one and a half bobbins of singles today and I’ll finish the rest and start plying, if I have time, tomorrow.
I’ve been so busy thinking about spinning that I keep forgetting to photograph my knitting. I’ve knit a little over half of Cold Mountain and I don’t even think I’ve mentioned it. I also finished my woven houndstooth bag and folded it up, laid it on my desk, and haven’t given it a second thought until today. Guess I have some things to catch up on, I’ll get to that tomorrow.
Categories: Spinning
Tagged: Spinning, Tour de Fleece 2009
It’s Tour de Fleece time again (link goes to the Ravelry group), so I’m finally doing some spinning. I spun up this skein of yarn over the weekend and did another matching skein today. The roving was Louet Northern Lights in Cactus Flower and I bought it at the Fiber Fair back in May. I ended up with a little over 250yds of mostly bulky weight singles. I had planned on knitting a felting a bag for my mom but I don’t know if I’ll have enough yarn, so I think I’ll have to find another yarn to go with it.
I think tomorrow I’ll start some sock yarn, maybe. I have two braids of superwash roving that I had been thinking about selling, I really like one of them, though, so I think I’ll keep it for myself and possibly sell the other. I have two fleeces that need washed, one is my llama, it’s just a little dusty, so it will be easy, the other is quite a bit dirtier and has been sitting in a box under the spare bed for a while, so I think it’s going to be a little bit of a pain to clean. The Tour seems like a good excuse to just get them clean. I have so much fiber right now and I really just want to make a small dent in it before I order some more (I want some merino/bamboo or merino/tencel to play with). I just need to make a dent in the small mountain of fiber that’s taken up residence in the middle of my bedroom floor (it’s outgrown the closet).
Categories: Spinning
Tagged: Spinning, Tour de Fleece 2009
It’s been a while since I knit any socks and these were perfect after a little break. I love the yarn, it’s a merino/bamboo/nylon that I bought at the fiber fair in May and it is so soft and so smooth and the color is beautiful. The socks fit great, too. The yarn and the little bit of lace keep them from being hot and the ribbing and cables help them stay up better. They were fun to knit with all the cables, ribbing, and lace, something was always happening and that kept it interesting.
The details:
- Pattern: Vilai from Sock Innovation
by Cookie A. 
- Yarn: I lost the label for it but the yarn is from a dyer in Arkansas.
- Needles: US1/2.25mm Knit Picks classic circular, magic loop style
- Time to make: Started on June 8, finished the 26 of June.
- Modifications: none.
- More on Ravelry.
Now I just need to order some more sock yarn so I can knit another pair from this book, the hard part will be deciding which pair to make next.
Today I’m washing the rest of my Shetland fleece. It was finally cool enough that I could get outside and sort through the rest of the fleece and the humidity is low enough that it might dry some time this week. I’ve also been cooking some stuffed tomatoes and taking care of my sore (I have plantar fasciitis) left foot, there’s a whole separate post there. I’ve been trying to stay off my feet as much as I can so I’m finishing up my houndstooth bag (I think I’ll finish it tonight) and casting on a new project. I have more to post about but I think I’ll spread it out through the week. Now I’ve got to check on the fleece!
Categories: Knitting
Tagged: FO, Knitting, Sock Innovation, Vilai
