Longer Than I Thought

In the Bag

I pulled out my Soay Cardi this last week and frogged the sleeves. I have set it aside and will probably pick it up closer to spring. It won't take long to knit the sleeves and it is a spring/summer cardi. I feel better that I got it ready to begin knitting on again. I also frogged a worsted weight shawl that I have tried to knit twice and didn't work. I will have to wash the yarn to smooth it out and then find a new project for it. 

Nanner Nanner Socks are coming along nicely. I have started the increases for the heel gusset. The picture probably doesn't look much different but I have put about an inch on them since the last picture. 

I mistakenly said the yarn for my Mr. Greenjeans  sweater was a faux Fair Isle. Silly me, its a Tapestry, its even called Worsted Tapestry! Anyhow, I've changed the name to Tapestry Greenjeans Sweater on Ravelry. I've made some nice progress on it. I'm past where I put the sleeves on holders and am knitting down the body. Its a very soft, squishy yarn and its working very nicely. I believe it will be an awesome, comfortable cardi. 

I've started a new project. Its called 2013 Weather Scarf. Its taken from the blog 400 Square Foot Living by Kristen Cooper. There are many variations and you can see some of them on Ravelry in the My Year in Temperatures Scarf KAL. Colleen, Ashley and I have split skeins of Plymouth Yarn Encore in 11 colors. We are using 10° increments beginning at 0°. I am using the daily high temp, ideally using my own thermometer at the house. If I can't use that then I'm using Wunderground or Weatherbug temps. I am planning to knit one row for each day and to knit every day. 

Out for a Spin

I finished spinning the all of the Bamboo/Alpaca I discussed last time. I have 2 bobbins of singles to ply and I'm saving that for tomorrow at spin group. I'm being very cautiously optimistic about tomorrow. If all goes as planned I will be meeting with a young lady after spin group and sell her my Spinoultions Bee wheel. I have my Ashford Joy which is really my favorite wheel and I really don't feel I have space for two wheels. Even though both are small travel wheels. I would really like a Woolee Winder for my Joy and by selling the Bee, which is not being used, I can purchase one. I am also going to be watching for a great price on a 24" or 32" rigid heddle loom. I'll be adding a segment for weaving as I go along. I'm leaning towards the Kromski Harp loom because it has a built in warping board on the back. So I hope it all works out. Here is a pic of my singles... I forgot to take a pic before packing the wheel in the travel case to go to spinning tomorrow. I will ply them together and then I think I'll try dyeing them with the Kool-Aid ice cubes and see how it comes out. 

I also made use of the loan of a drum carder to card some fiber. I had washed some alpaca back during the Tour d' Fleece but never got it carded to spin. At spin group last week we celebrated ROC day and a few people brought drum carders. At the last minute I pulled out this alpaca, some wool locks and some dyed mohair locks I've had for a long time. This is my resulting batts. I ended up with 5 batts and 11.65 oz total. I'm looking forward to spinning this.

Mindless Nattering

I'm really not sure why I didn't get a blog post done earlier this week. I guess my posting dates will change somewhat depending on what my work schedule. Anywhere from a week to 10 days will probably be typical. I'm also starting to plan my garden,,,, this very warm weather (near 70° today) is making me want to plant. But I will resist, since I'm very sure that we will have much more cold! 

Thats it for now, thanks for joining me on my fiber journey. Remember to make the most of everything you have. Its not the quantity its the quality. 

Booby Sock Update

Time for an update on my Booby Socks! I have knitted all the leg and have turned the heel. In these pictures I have picked up gusset stitches on one side of one sock. It should go pretty quickly now. I really love them and think I will be wearing them often.

I also had a great time on Saturday at the Song and Dance Ranch Fiber Gab. We had a demonstration on hand carding and I took home some wonderful alpaca fiber. I have spun nearly a full bobbin and still have tons left! I hope to make a pair of socks from it. I have some brown and some white alpaca to wash so I'll get it done and ready to spin also. That way I can use the white for the toes and heels and if the other brown is different color I can put some stripes in.

On Sunday we had our gift exchange at the North Texas Weavers and Spinners Guild meeting. We had wonderful fellowship, food and gift giving. The violence from gift theiving was kept to a minimum with only a couple of thefts. I chose my gift based on the packaging. It was in a wine tube and I had been reading about how they make good spindle carriers for your drop spindle. Since I want to start using my drop spindle again I thought that was a good gift to choose. In the container was this lovely hat knitted by Laura Easterling. It was a great meeting, I always have such a good time.

In case I don't post again before, Merry Christmas to all my friends and family and a Happy, Happy New Year. I for one am really looking forward to the new year, may it be a happy one! I love you all, thanks for your never ending support.

Autumn Prairie Roving into Yarn!

A couple of months ago I saw this roving on Etsy at Laughing Rat Studios and fell in love with the depth of colors and the vibrancy of them. When it came in the mail and I opened the package I literally gasp out loud. The colors were even more lovely than on the computer. I knew I wanted to try to spin thin enough to have enough yarn for socks so I set out to spin very thin and I managed to get pretty thin. Then due to the hand painted dye I decided to learn to

Navajo Ply which makes a triple ply yarn out of one single. It allows you to keep color changes together. For the most part I did pretty well with the color changes and don't have too much that is barber poled. Overall I'm very happy with the resulting yarn. I'll let you know how the socks turn out!

Sock Update

Ok, I've been working on 2 sock projects as you know. My brother's socks that will be done in time for Christmas are coming along nicely. I just have about 5 miles of foot to knit and then finish the toes..... Well, maybe not 5 miles, thats a bit unfair. Its not that he has large feet, its just that mine are so small that it makes his seem huge!. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the progress. Its hard to see the heel turn so I took a close up.
Looking good huh? I may just have enough yarn left over to make a short scarf also. Not sure yet but if so it will be one where you have a slit in it to tuck one end through.

Ok, now mine are coming along nicely too. I am knitting mine toe up since I'm using left over yarn from Katie's pedicure socks. I've turned the heel and am knitting up the leg. I think I will end up with about 3" in the leg which on me is plenty long enough. I don't really like tall socks anyway.

My next projects are going to be felted Christmas stockings for Dax and Katie. I'm thinking of trying some needle felting with some white roving after the stockings are felted to put names on it. I've never done this before but have always wanted to try. Should be interesting. I also have yarn for an afgan for Katie as well as socks for Seth and Dakota. I also have several spinning projects going. I've finished spinning and plying some of my mohair as well as the hand painted roving I got for socks. I'll post pictures of those projects when they are washed and dried.

Lazy Kate

No, I'm not talking about my daughter (sorry Katie) I'm talking about my new Lazy Katie that Anthony made for me today. We only had to purchase the pegs and dowel. Other than that we used scrap lumber that we had here.

I had 3 bobbins of mohair I had spun and wanted to ply them together. My Lazy Kate on my spinning wheel has a built in Lazy Kate but it only holds 2 bobbins. I was going to make something temporary but after showing Anthony on line what I needed he put it together for me.
The secret of this is the tension string. It works like the Scotch tension on my spinning wheel. It allows the plying head to pull the yarn as it plies.

I'm getting a lovely tweedy looking yarn. I'm hoping to have enough to knit a shrug for Katie. 100% mohair is a bit scratchy close to the skin but I'm thinking this over a shirt will be ok. I think the yarn is beautiful and my Lazy Kate is perfect!

A Fine Day Out

I had such a good time today. I went to The Song and Dance Ranch, home of Howling Wolf Herbs today where I met Regina Dale and a whole bunch of really nice women. It was her monthly Fiber Gab. Regina and her husband, Tony have a lovely ranch in Bartonville and she raises several fiber animals such as sheep, alpaca and goats. She has a wonderful shop where she sells her aromatherapy products. I forgot to get my camera out of my bag (I did remember to take it) so I don't have any pictures to post but I'll try to get some next month. Check out her website and see some of her wonderful stuff. She has weaving looms, a sock knitting machine, several spinning wheels as well as a lovely collection of beautiful drop spindles. We spent our time spinning, knitting and chatting. I'm really looking forward to next month's Fiber Gab.

Katie's Hat Part 2

I only got 2 pictures of Katie with her new hat and it includes the boys with their hats I made them from the indigo dyed blue yarn.

I'm making them more hats with some yarn from Michaels that looks like camo.

I also made myself a hat from the multicolored yarn.

Katie's Hat Finished!

Those of you who follow my blog will remember I posted pictures of a mohair/wool yarn I was working on for Katie's hat. Well, I have finished her hat and wanted to post pictures of it. I'm very pleased with it. Its a lovely shape and color and the mohair adds really nice texture.


I've taken pictures of it on the glass head we have. I'll be giving it to her next month when we are in Shreveport and will take pictures of her with it on and post those also.
The yarn was a bit harder to knit with due to the "stickyness" of the mohair so I switched from my usual Continental method of knitting (working yarn held in the left hand) to English method (working yarn held in the right hand) and that went much faster. I tried the hat on after finishing it and wore it for a few minutes in the house and BOY is it WARM! It should be great for this winter.

Mohair Fiber/Shipshewana Wool

After getting back from Indiana I had the chance to vist a local Angora goat farm Mea Stone owns Stony Woods Farm in Keller, TX. Mea spent most of a Saturday with me showing me her goats and showing me how to process the fiber. I was able to purchase some lovely fiber from her. She was kind enough to label each bag with the name of the goat and then made sure I had met each goat so I could remember them as I spun and knit the fiber. I admit I was a little hesitant with the first batch but I had that lovely gray wool from Shipshewana and I wanted to make a great hat for my daughter, Katie. Katie had picked out a hat pattern in the yarn shop in Shipshewana for me to make.
This is just some of the lovely fiber I got from Mea. I'll have enough to keep me busy through the rest of the year I imagine.

Bags of mohair. Most of it needs washing and processing. She did inclulde 2 bags of fiber that is already processed and ready to spin. The first batch I tried was some very dark gray/black fiber from a goat named Lizzie. I picked it, washed it, dried it and then carded the locks into rolags to spin from.
Then I started spinning the rolags. I alternated between carding and spinning until it was all spun up.
I also spun the gray wool I had purchased in Shipshewana along with some gray Corridale wool I had purchased on the internet. It was gray but had some brown in it. It made for really lovely color variation.
After I had spun all the wool and the mohair I began to ply the singles together.

After plying I wound it off the bobbins into skeins using a niddy noddy and then washed it to set the twist. After washing and pressing out the water with a towel I hung the skeins on a hanger in the utility room to dry. I have about 6 oz. of yarn to make Katie's hat. The green roving I bought in Shipshewana also spun up like a dream. It was lovely and thin. Not sure what to do with it yet. Maybe try some fingerless gloves. I'm thinking I would like some for knitting in the winter.

A close up of the yarn, it had those bits of yellow and purple in the roving and look really nice in the yarn. Its very soft also.

More Handspun Yarn and Dyeing

This is the white roving I ordered from Sheep Shed Studio back in May. I ordered it with the specific purpose of practicing with some dyeing.This is the result of one dye experiment. I used Kool Aid to handpaint the roving before spinning. I forgot to take pictures of what the roving looked like but you can see a tutorial here of the process using acid dyes. The site I found the details of Kool Aid instead of acid dyes is here. I found this using Google to search for Kool Aid Dyeing with roving. After dyeing the roving I spun it up getting singles that were variegated. I used 10 colors of dye ranging from light yellow (lemonade) to dark purple (grape). Because I had folded the roving each roving length spun up light to dark to light. When I plied the singles I made no effort to match colors up at all. My goal was to have as much multi color as possible. I'm going to use this yarn in part to make a scarf and hat for my step daughter Rachel. I'll post pics of them when they are done. This is more of the white roving dyed with Indigo dye. My spinning guild, North Texas Hand-Spinner and Weavers Guild had a demonstration of indigo dyeing done by Laura Easterling and her husband at our May meeting. The process is fascinating and certainly a lesson in chemistry. Before I try more than Kool Aid dyeing at home I need an outdoor set up. One the most amazing things about indigo dyeing is that the dye must be exposed to air to oxidize and get the final color. Extra care has to be taken with the dye pot not to introduce air (oxygen) to the liquid when putting items in or taking out. As you pull the yarn out and squeeze the liquid out at the surface of the dye pot the color begins to show. Laura instructed us to take the dyed objects out to an empty part of the parking lot and swing it around in the air to fully aerate the yarn and develop all the colors. The two skeins are an example of 1 dip in the dye pot and 2 dips in the dye pot. This lovely dark pink color came from Black Cherry Kool Aid in a traditional on the stove dye pot method. This is about 5 oz of fiber and I used 6 packages of kool aid. An interesting thing about Kool Aid dyeing (not sure if this applies to other types of dyes) is that you leave the fiber in until all the dye is exhausted or absorbed. After 20 minutes of the fiber being in the pot the water was completely clear. Some Kool Aid colors apparently leave a milky white liquid instead of clear but all the color is gone. I still have some Berry Blast and Black Cherry Kool Aid packets. Who knows what I will come up with next.

New Spinning Wheel!!!!

Ok, I realize that its been a few months since I got the wheel but I got it! For those of you who saw my earlier post the dark wheel was borrowed (thanks Emily). Now I have my own. I got my new Sonata in May and then ordered the Jumbo Flyer about 2 weeks later. I absolutely love my wheel. I feel as though I have been working my way through various crafts until I found the one I'm supposed to be doing. Not that I don't love working with fabric while sewing and quilting and yarn in knitting and crocheting and my jewelry making, but spinning feels like it completes me. I was born about 150 years too late I think! Anyway, my new wheel is here and my next few posts will be of the yarn I have spun on it.

If you remember from my previous posts I was working on the pound of brown tones roving from Sheep Shed Studio. I finished that and ordered some white roving to experiment with dyeing. Here is my brown tones. It spun up like a brown tweed. I have now ordered some more hoping to get enough to knit a cardigan for this winter. Stay tuned for more yarn. I also have to tell you about my visit to Stony Woods Farms in Keller, TX where I met Mea Stone and her lovely goats, and dogs, and donkey and llama, ducks, chickens and.... oh yeah, her husband too.

My how time flies......

I can't believe its been so long since I've posted. Especially since the last post I joined a spinning guild called the North Texas Spinners who meet the 2nd Sunday in Denton, TX. They are a great bunch of women (and the husbands are nice too :)). I really had a good time. I took my fiber from my previous post and showed them what I had done so far. Linda had me sit down at her spinning wheel to try it out and I spun up the black and white fiber that Carol Lee from Sheep Shed Studio sent me as a sample along with the brown. Here is a picture of that after I spun it and plied 2 singles together. I had such a great time spinning with her wheel and really hated to leave it. I was talking to the women about their wheels and looking at the various types when I started talking to Emily. I said I was really interested in the Kromski wheels. She said she had a Sonata that she wasn't using and if I wanted to I could borrow it! WOW!!!! My mind went into overdrive. Not one to procrastinate :), 2 days later I went up to Emily's house for a lesson. The Sonata is one of the wheels I was most interested in as it folds for travel. It even comes with a padded travel bag. As I had said, I had spun the black and white roving on Linda's wheel and then Emily showed me how to ply it using both ends of a center pull ball. Its really lovely. I think I will just keep it at a reminder of what I first spun. Then I started spinning the brown and white roving on the Sonata. I did try out one of her other wheels (can't remember what its called right now) but I really loved spinning on the Sonata. I took it home and started spinning. I've nearly spun up the brown and its making a lovely tweed looking yarn. Here is a picture of the single plied from both ends of a center pull ball from the drop spindle in the previous post. I just love the wheel. I have 2 skeins of brown and white ready to set the twist and am just waiting on the rest before doing it. I'm going to order white roving next and spin some up for the next meeting in May because we are going to be dying with indigo at that meeting. It should be great. Hope you enjoy my spinning adventures. I'll keep you posted.