Tis The Season...

...for frantic finishing of knitting and spinning WIPs.

OFF MY NEEDLES:

The blue socks I started on Aug 9th out of Schachenmayr Regia Racing Color were finished on Dec 2nd.  They are a men's size 9 with nine inch legs, and are my eighth pair of socks this year.

ON MY NEEDLES:

On my needles are the usual assortment of socks in progress and holiday gifts.   Also, have a few gauge swatches going for the three or four sweaters I have planned to knit for Project Sweater Chest.   I'll be casting on for the BFL Delight and Pagoda sweaters when I get back home in a few weeks.   

ON MY WHEELS/SPINDLES:

Back in August I revisited my Promise spinning which I first started in summer of 2012.  I'm spinning this from the fold and will chain ply.  Promise is a 50/50 blend of SoySilk and Wool from Tempted.  My August/September spinning on this was done on my Barebones spindle.  However, the bulk of spinning was done the end of November on my wheel, but it hasn't been plied yet. 

OFF MY WHEELS/SPINDLES:

I spun approximately half of a four ounce braid of superwash BFL in the Maple colorway for the Howarts at Ravelry Deputy Headmistress Interhouse Unity challenge back in August.   The fiber is from Sweet Georgia and I used my Barebones spindle.   

 I spun and plied the second half on my Sidekick wheel Oct 28-Nov 4th.  I finished with about 306 yards of 2ply yarn that looks like this:

The BFL Delight yarn I started spinning during Spinzilla in October I finished in November.  Total yardage of 2ply yarn is 2,537, which I'm hoping will be enough for a sweater.  All the fiber for this yarn is  Bluefaced Leister from either Crown Mountain Farms (white plus the Novalis and Bacchus colorways) or Miss Babs (Dark Secrets colorway). 

 

Tour de Fleece 2014

The first week of the Tour de Fleece I finished spinning the remainder of my Phat Batts, this:

And spun it into four skeins of worsted weight, thick and thin, chain ply yarn totaling about   426 yards.

My second project, spinning sock yarn from some lovely gray Finn/Lincoln cross fleece I hand combed is a traditional worsted spun 3ply with two singles strands spun clockwise and one counterclockwise, and plied counterclockwise. I've never spun this kind of yarn before so I was eager to see what happens.  I ended up with about 299 yds of 3ply which isn't enough for a full pair of socks but would work if I use a different yarn for the legs.

It probably should have more plying twist to be a good sock yarn. I may add that later on.

My third project was to finish plying the 2x2 cabled yarn I was making from the Rambouillet/Montedale cross fleece. I thought I'd finished it several months ago but found some extra bobbins tucked in a corner.  The end result is about 61 yds worth of worsted weight yarn.

Brought To Me By: Crafting accomplished with the following audio/video accompaniment:  
  Audiobooks:. Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas; The Vampire King by Heather Killough-Walden; Curtains For Three by Rex Stout;           
  DVDs etc:   Murder She Wrote; The Big Bang Theory; Witches of East End; Moonlight;              
  Pod/VideoCasts:  The Knit Girllls; Two Tangled Skeins; Twinset Designs; Yarnspinners Tales; Knitmore Girls;                                    

Batting Practice

I have two boxes of Phat Fiber fiber samples that have been sitting around for some time now. I'd originally planned to spin each of them up and chain ply then use for an afghan or something similar and modular. I spun one up the other day and it came out fine, but frankly, I was bored.

So there I was staring at two boxes of all different kinds of fiber and assorted colorways and wondering what I should do with them. Should I even bother spinning them or just give them away like I had the other box? Then Wallace (Wally for short), my little drum carder, spoke up. "Use me! Use me!" He said, so I did.

Paying absolutely no attention to what the fiber content of the sample was and only choosing by the colors, I gleefully fed them to Wally. Some I pulled apart, others I ran through as is. This was FUN! When I made a half dozen or so batts, I started spinning.

I never thought to take a picture of those first batts before I spun them, but this is what they looked like spun up (or at least the last two batts which are all you can see):

I did think to take a picture of some of the rest of the batts I made before I spun them:

I spun however the fiber flowed easiest, but mostly either from the end or from the fold. I'd say most of the singles are pretty close to semi-woolen rather than semi-worsted (woolen or semi-woolen is my default style). Slubs, etc. were left in to give the singles some additional texture and color pops. It was interesting watching how changing my style of spinning (from the end to from the fold for example) changed how the colors blended or didn't blend.

My finished skein (pre-twist set):

I have enough batts carded up to make another skein. I'm saving them for Tour de Fleece spinning this weekend. Once the second skein is done, I will set the twist for both and see what total yardage I have. I'm guessing the set yarn will come out around a DK weight, or maybe worsted. There are so many different fibers (like Merino, BFL, Romney, Icelandic, Llama, Alpaca, camel, silk, tencel, bamboo, glittery stuff, etc) that I'm not sure if or how much the yarn will poof up after I wash it.

My only regret, if you could even call it that, with how I carded the batts is that I had no idea whose fiber was whose. And there were some fiber samples that spun really well and I wish I knew who made them so I could get more. But oh well, its not as if I have nothing good to spin here.

Oddments of Progress

The four ounces of Rise of the Phoenix colorway BFL top from Crown Mountain Farm that I started while on vacation is done. There's about 400 yds of chain plied yarn (1,200 yds of singles) with a wpi range of 15-18. It was spindle spun and plied. This yarn is a different weight than the pattern calls for, but I will be casting on for a Rivendell cowl with this yarn shortly.



Stash Dash 2013, sponsored by The Knit Girllls, ended in early August, and for the first time I surpassed the goal. This year's goal was to knit, crochet or spin 4k of yarn, that's 4,375 yds. I finished with a total of 4,641 yds worked. Yay Me!

I've been piecing together the Hexipuff Baby Blanket as I've been finishing the hexipuffs. It's really beginning to look like a blanket. See:



2013 Stash Reduction Goals update: the prognosis isn't good for the 40lb stashdown at all. Then again I knew when I set that goal that it was pretty unlikely I'd actually meet it. I think it was more an incentive thing than anything else. P.S. Incentive-wise, it ain't working. It also doesn't help that i keep buying more yarn! On the other hand, there's better progress in meeting my Yardage Goals of 17,000 yds spinning; 13,000 yds knitting. I'm at over 11,000 for spinning and over 5,000 for knitting/crocheting. KnitMeter is my friend.

I signed up for Spinzilla in October on the Knit Girllls team. It's basically a race to see how much you can spin in a week. I've been prepping fiber in preparation for an intensive spinning marathon, and will hopefully have a full fleece ready to spin plus I have lots of commercially prepared fiber too.

Tour de Fleece - Finale

 
  
 
 

Well, another TdF is over, and as usual the extreme heat made it very difficult to spin. However, I did manage to get two more projects done.

Tour de Fleece: Day 19
 

This is the finished Polwarth/Silk blend from Two Sisters Stringworks:

The skein on the right was spun and plied during the Tour; the other two were done beforehand. Spindle spun worsted and either spindle or wheel plied (chain ply) these three skeins total approximately 360 yds of 3ply, 1,080 yds of singles (112 grams/3.95 ounces). TdF spinning portion was 204 yds.

Tour de Fleece: Day 22

I plied the last skein Saturday morning (July 20) of the RDC (Ramboulliet, Dorset, Corriedale) cross fleece. There are five skeins wheel spun/plied during the Tour added to the previous eight skeins. This is a traditional 3ply yarn from either hand combed & hand carded rolags or hand drum carded batts, woolen spun then plied on my wheel (Hansen mSpinner). I'm estimating 726 yds of woolen spun 3ply yarn (2,178 yds singles) for the five skeins, which I will confirm after skeins are dry.

I didn't get to the blue-green braid at all, but that's okay. I'm not really feeling it right now so it's going back in the stash bin. Maybe it will float back up for next year's Tour de Fleece.

Tour de Fleece 1st week

 
  

 

The Corriedale Ewe I plied on Day 1 has dried, and it shrunk a bit.  Instead of the 200-220 yds I was estimating, I got 179 yds of traditional 3ply (537 yds singles) from five ounces of drum carded fleece. Average wpi is 16.  

  
 

The ten mini-batts of the Rambouillet/Dorset/Corriedale fleece I drum carded on Day 1 have been spun. I still have lots more to drum card so this is ongoing.

I'm spindle spinning the Polwarth/silk blend from Two Sisters Stringworks. This is what I spun for Day 2. The spindle is now twice as full and ready to be moved to a bobbin. I've got about two ounces, more or less, left to spin. I'm hoping to get to that this weekend.

This is today's (Day 8's) progress: Abstract Fiber "Chocolate Rainbow" alpaca/silk, 190 yds 3ply yarn (570 yds singles). Picture taken before twist set (it's drying now). Spun worsted/semi-worsted and chain/Navajo plied.

 
 

 

FOs: Off My Needles/Wheel

 
 
Off My Needles/Hooks:

I finished my first Hitchhiker Shawl (design by Martina Behm) on Christmas evening.  It wasn't a gift so that's ok.  This is a really easy pattern to memorize making it great travel or Craft Night Group knitting.  And it works well with handspun yarn.
  
I ran out of my handspun at 34 points, so it's more of a Shawlette (or odd-shaped scarf) than a true Shawl.  I'll probably use it as a scarf.   I'd like to try this pattern again with sufficient handspun yardage to make 42 points.


 
  
    
 
Off My Spindles/Wheel:
 
 
  This lovely skein is approximately 690 yds of fingering weight worsted spun and Navajo/chain ply yarn.  It was spun on both spindles and my wheel from my first Loop Bullseye batt in the Seafoam gradient colorway.
 

 
 

Brought To Me By: Crafting accomplished with the following audio/video accompaniment:  
  Audiobooks:    Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie;  Soulless by Gail Carriger;    
  DVDs etc:   Castle S4; Moonlight;    
  Pod/VideoCasts:   Round The Twist; Cast On;      

 

TdF Days 4-7

This isn't blogging every day, I know. Me bad. Its not that I have nothing to say, it's just that I'm not so good at coordinating words and especially pictures on a daily basis. So I'm going to play catch-up now and try again for daily posting tomorrow.

Day 4 I spun some more cotton on the spindle and I think I was finally getting the hang of it. At least I only dropped the spindle a few times. No new picture, so look at the previous post's picture and imagine a cop twice as big.

Day 5 I got the urge to ply. Instead of spinning up more cotton, I chain (Navajo) plied what I'd spun up of the Promise fiber. You'll possibly remember that's the pink, blue and lavender stuff. It's a small skein of probably fingering weight yarn (twist hasn't been set yet so it might bloom a little) See:



Days 6 and 7 (yesterday & today) I spun and plied, a lot actually. Of course none of it was what I was supposed to spin for TdF, but it's spinning so I'm counting it. Yesterday I tried organizing my WIPs baskets and came across two braids of handdyed Cheviot fiber that said 'spin me'. So I did. I spun the first braid yesterday and chain plied it today. The fiber is from Two Sisters Stringworks, and while the Cheviot was a little coarse feeling, the fiber braid itself was lovely to work with. Sometimes hand dyeing can slightly felt wool fiber making it difficult to work with. Not the case with this fiber. It drafted easily without any pre-drafting, and the colors are lovely. I think it will be a DK weight yarn after the twist is set, and at least 130 yds of 3ply, probably more.



I also plied up another 3ply skein of the pre-washed half of Mo today. Mo is the Finn/Dorset/Targhee cross fleece I've been processing; half is raw wool and half pre-washed by the seller. No pics of this yet. All my Mo skeins (except one) need a bath first before they're camera ready and I can get a final yardage count. I'm keeping one skein unwashed so I have something to aim for when I spin up the second half.

Brought To Me By:
Audiobooks: Embrace the Night by Karen Chance; Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie; 
DVDs etc: Dr Who season 4, Rosemary & Thyme season 2

Mid-January On & Offs

On/Off My Needles

Cast on another pr of socks - this time trying Magic Loop - vanilla sock for me in  Cables & Lace Lizard Toes  "Gluttony" colorway, a really nice rich blue.



Still working on the Shetland Pi shawl, BBS for SFS, and socks for mom and me.

No finished knitting, possibly because...




On My Spindle

Spinning another bump of the Merino/Bamboo/Silk blend from Crown Mtn Farms, this time for Queenknit.  I'm spinning semi-worsted from the fold (it's really slippery and that gives me better control) at about 40wpi which with a two-ply should give me a fingering weight yarn.

Cheviot sample for the Spindoctors Wool Breed Challenge. Spinning woolen, 3ply.

Chain plying the Purple Rain colorway of Falkland also from CMF, as well as finishing spinning the final third of the 8oz bump.  This is also for the Wool Breeds Challenge.

Spinning cotton on drop spindle, or rather learning to spin cotton on spindle.  I tried the tahkli but we didn't get along very well, so I switched to my 1oz Golding (ok, technically it's .95oz, but really).  I can get really good spin speed on that spindle which is why it's currently in use on the Cheviot sample (woolen spinning).  I'm planning on using the cotton I spin to tie skeins, until I get good enough to use as yarn.

Romney - continuing to comb the fleece and spin.   First sample skein for the Challenge is done.  Settled on spinning semi-woolen (woolen spun from combed prep), three-ply.  The comb waste isn't too bad so I'm carding that, picking out the bad bits, and also spinning that woolen. 



And yes, that's Miss Ginger to the right, giving me her 'why you taking picture of dat ting, take picture of me, I'm cuter' pose.  And when I didn't, she snagged the skein and tried to pull it out of my hand, or maybe just bring it closer so she's in frame - dumb she ain't.    ; )


Off My Spindle
Dorset Horn sample for the Challenge (see previous post) - 72 yards of two ply, semi-woolen spun.  I saved a sample of unset singles as well as a piece of the original roving.   I have a two ounce sample of raw Dorset Horn fleece to wash and prep, and I wanted something to compare it to.  I don't think I'm going to touch the raw fleece samples I have (10 of them) until the Spring, though.

Corriedale from Fleece.  I know I started carding this before the Wool Breeds Challenge started and I think I started spinning before too, so I'm withdrawing this from the Challenge.  But anyway, it's done.  From six ounces of pre-washed fleece I got about 268 yards of three-ply with wpi in the 10-13wpi range.  It came out much nicer than I expected given how bumpy and neppy the carded prep was.