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I’ve gotten in a decent amount of spinning in the past few weeks…
This one’s for Jenn, who’s been waiting so patiently:
(please excuse the crappy photo. I can’t seem to take a decent photo to save my life these days…maybe my eight year old 2MP camera has something to do with it…that, or I’ve simply lost my mojo.)
And this one just went up in the shop:
Not much new on the knitting front…I finished these mittens for my wee-est one:
(I’m really fond of that photo, because you can see my little handspun-hanknit-socked toe in the corner. Sigh. Those are my favorite socks in the whole world.)
…I’m also writing a new pattern, I think — well, I’m knitting something and taking lots of notes. So I can’t really post about it until I decide if I want to submit it somewhere, or just let it out into the wild. 😉
Like many I’m sure, I didn’t want to admit that Ravelry was going to mean blog neglect. But it is what it is. I’ve been dyeing and spinning and knitting and adding things to the shop, in case you were wondering. 😉 Oh yeah, and getting ready for the holidays. We like to be done with as much as we can before Advent actually begins — I highly recommend it, if you celebrate Christmas and get troubled by the stress of it all.What’s new…merino from HPY:
I spun this for a Christmas gift — who knows if the recipient is lurking, so that’s all I’m gonna say about that. The merino roving from HPY is amazing — you would think it would be hard to work with because it comes to you soooo compacted, but it’s a dream to spin. This hat was made from another colorway:
Ever since I spun the single I had been going back and forth about plying it…I finally did and wow, what a difference. One of my favorite yarns ever.
Now, normally, I get a wee bit irritated when people say, you should sell that! in reference to my many creative pursuits. Actually I only get irritated when non-crafty people say it. Crafty people get it, therefore they don’t usually say things like that, and when they do, I take it as a compliment. Did that make any sense?
Last fall during my spinning frenzy, Robin wondered aloud if I’d end up spinning yarn and selling it. I think I responded with a hmmm, that’s interesting, while thinking, that would be okay, but what I’d really like to do is dye fiber and sell it. I loved all that spinning, but I had soooo much fun doing all the dyeing, too. And as a biz venture it would stand to be a little more profitable, i.e. I just might break even if I tried really hard.
And during all the dyeing, my DH and I talked about colorways, and how people name them, and I said, well, I really suck at that part, and if I ever were to dye and sell, I’d have to name my colorways after Over the Rhine* songs.
Long story short, I’ve decided to go for it, and the first e-mail I shot off after my wee business loan was funded was to Linford and Karin, asking their permission to name my colorways after their songs. They graciously gave it, and I’m so flippin’ excited. (As is the DH, who said, you’re going to let me help with the colors, right? Is he a keeper, or what?)
So! Coming in September: a wee fiber shop on etsy! I can’t devote a ton of time to it over the next two weeks (aforementioned huge project…sigh) but I am dyeing here and there and getting quite excited about it all. If nothing else, I’ll have the hugest stash of OtR-nspired spinning fiber EVER.
(squee)
* favorite band ever. I’ve been listening to them for 16 years now, and they never fail to inspire me. If you’ve never heard of them, do yourself a favor: click on the record player. (I’m on a Roll is my fave this afternoon…)
but I can’t get over how gorgeous this yarn is.
Superwash merino, dyed by Crown Mountain Farms (colorway: It Takes Two) and spun by moi. 8 oz., 525 yards.
Very little knitting and spinning, I’m sad to report. I did finish the body of my raglan this afternoon:
Even though I’ve tried it on approximately 456897 times, I still have a great fear that the fit will be wonky. I think I’ll do the collar next, then decide whether I want it to have short or long sleeves.
Every day it breaks my heart to look over and see this…
…knowing that I will have zero time to work on it. So beautiful. All pre-drafted and everything, waiting for me to spin. Sigh.
Leave the box out, or stuff it in a bin and hope that your DH (who was aware of the purchase, but would perhaps be startled by the sheer volume) wouldn’t stumble across it?
More details and pics after the jump…
I just ordered an embarrassing amount of superwash merino from CMF, so I thought I ought to get to work on some that I already have. That’s Brown Eyed Girl — got it for Christmas.
Also in the works:
I really have to finish these. Soon. Too many little projects going…and I’m itching to start something big. Sweater? Hempathy or Baby Pima? Or should I start the aran Christmas tree skirt? It’s only May 9 and I feel as though I may have missed the weather window on that one. Too bad we only get one week of spring around here…
Some blue yarn…
I spun this a few weeks ago (and finished plying last weekend) for the lovely Lisa P., who left our office for greener pastures last week. 😉 Really, she took a very cool and important job elsewhere, and while we miss her a lot, we’re so happy for her.
I learned that Lisa was also a knitter in a roundabout sort of way — one of my job responsibilities is to sort through web filter alerts, 99.9% of which are ads or dumb keyword things. One day I noticed that a bunch of knitting things were being blocked — Knitty’s hardc0re, for one —Â and I couldn’t resist looking up the IP to see who was trying to access it. And it was Lisa! A longtime knitter! Who knew!
While we just might be able to lure your replacement into knitting, Lisa, no one can truly fill your shoes. Hope you enjoy the yarn…you know, as soon as you give me my Denises back. 😉
Wow, I can’t even believe how long it’s been since I last posted here.
I haven’t been knitting that much…but I did finish my socks!
(CO 40 sts on US2 needles. 3×1 rib all the way. Classic heel flap/gusset construction. All from handspun…this used to be a ball of fluff, folks, and now it’s socks!)
So here it is, my first “real” 3-ply (as in, from three separate bobbins):
(Don’t mind the VM. That Cormo was straight from the farm…*swoon*)
The second photo shows the color better, at least it does on my monitor. The first two plies are HPY merino — a dream to spin as always — in a lovely sage-ish green. After they were spun up, I thought, hm, I would like to do a 3-ply but if I Navajo ply it, I will lose waaay too much yardage. So I decided to use some of the extra Cormo I had in my stash for the third ply. Since the yarn is going to be hand-wash-only anyway, I might as well use something really wonderful, no?
If it dries in time, it will be on the needles when I go here on Tuesday night. Woo!!
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