Up and Spinning

Despite everything, I have been able to get my spinning wheel put back together, and I've even spun the orange long wool blend that I got at Trumpet Hill.

It was great fiber for a re-introduction. Everything spun so nicely, at least compared to how I had been spinning before the move. I'm still getting a bit of a "thick 'n thin" look in places, but overall, I got over 200 yards of 2-ply that is mostly a fingering weight out of 4 ounces. I figure that is plenty to make some mittens for my four year old this winter so I'm happy. Now I just need to finish a project or two so I can have time to knit (house drama will hopefully be over by the end of next week, then it's just back to cleaning and organizing, "pre-school" for the Little One, and trying to find a part-time job so I can continue to afford the nice yarns!)

I know I planned on plying with the Merino Nube, but man is that stuff tricky. I just can't get the right amount of twist, it either just falls apart from too little or seems to be going well and then snaps. It's going to take more time and patience than I have right now.

Last Fiber Festival Installment- At least for spinning

That's right. I've spun it all. Ok really I had it all finished before the move, but there are only so many hours in the day (speaking of which sorry for the silence on Thursday, we've had some move-in drama).

It's not a great picture as I took it on my phone, but I did it! And I have just over 400 yards of lace weight singles to work with. Once again, now I must find the right project...oh boy.

It is a very interesting colorway. There is a great deal of black as well as some muddled browns, but then there are streaks of these great jewel tones in teal, orange, pink, blue, and purple.

Any ideas for patterns, I'd love to hear them!

New House= New Craft Space

So we moved back to New York after a year in Virginia and moved back into our three bedroom raised ranch house, so it's not exactly new, but it has double the square footage that our apartment in VA had, so that means I get my own crafting space.

I'm going to be moving into the third bedroom with a cutting table, sewing desk, and my spinning wheel. This does leave room for our current futon (and hopefully a sleeper sofa eventually).

It's going to be a while until I can get fully moved into it because my husband's computer is in there currently and has to get moved downstairs first, and that's a whole different conversation.

BUT we are moving in the right direction. My husband put up a shelf with all my crafting books and some of my handspun yarn. :)

The fiber will not be staying there, but I got caught up in the moment and had to put it somewhere. I've got knitting/spinning on the left, quilting on the right, and a mix of magazines in the black holder in the middle.

There will be another shelf on the other side of the room, with a peg board in the middle to hang yarn cakes on, as seen on Pinterest.

It's going to be a process, a long one, but we're on the way. :)

The Stash is Growing, and WIPs are increasing...

So I still haven't gotten my wheel up and spinning yet, but thanks to my M-I-L and my own shopping, I have two pounds of new fiber! She got me 8 ounces of white alpaca, 4 ounces of Malabrigo nube, and a full pound of BFL! I also got 4 ounces of bright orange Corridale mix fiber from the LYS. So far the plan is to ply the orange and nube together and make some mittens for the little one.

:-D

I've started the Kaleidoscope pattern. I'm only about 12 rows in, but things are going well.

I am also working on the Abalorio shawl from Malabrigo Book 4. I'm not using Malabrigo lace yarn, and well, not all lace is the same. I am using Cascade Alpaca Paints Lace instead, and the gauge is, well, loose to say the least. It's not a huge deal, and still looks nice, but it does make for a less recognizable pattern. It is also looking pretty small. I am only about half-way through and working on 200+ stitches, so we'll see how it comes out.

Withdrawls

We got into our new house last Tuesday. The movers emptied the boxes wherever  there was space. I have been spending the bulk of my time sorting through all of our things to see what we do and don't need, putting things away, and reorganizing the things we are keeping (for the record, the DH has sold a spare mattress box springs set, a spare set of snow tires from a car we traded in two years ago, various baby things, various kitchen things, replaced a broken toilet seat, put up some curtains, attempted to hang a shelf - he would be done with that, but one of the bracket screws overlapped with a screw in the stud so he has so fiddling to do there, and went back to work on Monday). Not to mention taking care of the little one. Needless to say that there has not been much time or energy for knitting, and (tear) my wheel is still in its box from the move.

I have been able to start a new pair of socks. These are for me this time, imagine that. I had gotten some Patons Stretch Sock a long time ago, but it was packed in Virginia and came out in New York, so now that I have it, and know how to knit socks, I'm working on a pair.

And I did make it to one of the two LYS's here in the Capital Area, Trumpet Hill. Wow! It's a tiny, but it has some great things and GREAT prices. I got 4 ounces of locally grown and dyed fiber for $9, can you believe that! And it wasn't even the least expensive fiber there, though the other fiber was much courser and I still have plenty of Cotswald and Jacob left to knit.

I did make it through the beautifully dyed wool/tencel blend from the fiber festival before we moved, so those updates will be coming soon. And I do intend to check out the other LYS soon. Hopefully I will have more to say next week, and more time to say it...

Handspun Hat

I finished it. Here is a finished item from hand processed, hand spun, hand dyed yarn.

Well this hat has sure been a process. The hardest part by far was figuring out a pattern and more specifically a gauge for the final hat.

I started with just the Raspberry Lemonaide and was having issues even with size four needles. I figured there wasn't a ton of use for this brightly colored yarn outside this project so I finally decided to just ply it all together, figuring that the worst case scenario would be that I would have to un-ply it. But once I had it at a heavier weight, that is a 4-ply yarn, things worked out much better.

I do need to watch my over-spinning as the yarn was quite stiff and there were several times that I held the yarn and let the hat untwist in the air to release some of the tension. Perhaps if I had finished the yarn first that may have helped the situation. Although, I do like the slant of the stitches. It gives it a look of intent instead of just a stockinette stitch hat with a short rib boarder and interesting colors.

It was a fun experience, and now one of the items from my list on September 28th is done...too bad I've started about three more since then.

Post Festival- Alpaca Batt

 In for installment two of Fiber Festival Recap. Today I'm going to talk about the Alpaca/Faux Cashmere/Angelina batt I got.

It's 0.7 ounces of fiber. I wanted to try spinning a batt and liked the colors and amount of this choice. I got a small batt because I didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of something I didn't like spinning from.

I started by unwrapping it and pulling off a section, but that left me with a lot of shedding Angelina and having to connect sections of fiber more than I wanted to. So about half way through the batt, I just started spinning from the entire batt. It wasn't really any different, I just had more in my lap.

I spun the whole batt as one single and then made a center-pull ball to ply it back on itself. I really need a ball winder, because every time I do my own center pull balls, I end up with a bunch of knots (but a swift is on my to buy list first).

I think I got between 50 and 75 yards of two ply that I have been knitting into a phone cozy on size 1 needles.


Phone Cozy
Materials
50 Yards of sock weight yarn
Size 1 dpns
1 markers
darning needle

Body
Use Judy's Magic Cast on to cast on enough stitches to span the width of your phone and placing markers at ends. (My Samsung Glide took about 25-30)
Knit 3 rows.
Knit 1 and increase 1 tbl, K to end of needle, K until last 2 stitches, Knit front and back, K 1, repeat on other needles
Knit length of your phone.
Cast off front half of stitches.
Continue st st across remaining stitches, ssk first stitch on all RS rows until three stitches remain.
Continue in I-cord for 5-6 inches.
Bind off these stitches.

Flower "Button"
Cast on 40 stitches.
Work in st st for 4-6 rows ending on a WS row.
K2tog to end (20 stitches).
P2tog to end (10 stitches).
K2tog to end (5 stitches).
 Cut a long tail. Using darning needle, thread tail through the remaining 5 stitches and pull tight. This will curl your flower into a spiral.
Use rest of tail to sew flower onto desired location of cozy.

Weave in ends.
Block if desired.


Wrap I-cord around flower to secure cozy.