Crosspatch Creations Totally Tubular Spinning Kit: 4 ounces of fiber divided up into 12 little batts--a joy to spin. I used long draw for it all and I heart long draw. Combed fiber + long draw = a fluffy, fuzzy woolen-spun yarn. I don't know how many yards, but I think I'll make something lovely for my mother out of it for Christmas. (I think that's my urge with all my handspun because my darling mom is so appreciative of handspun. Love her.)
I spent the past month gradually spinning up my November subscription to to the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. This is superwash Corriedale wool in a colorway called "Toxic". And in a cosmic turn of events, I hurt my back again last Tuesday--So I spent the following 3 days lying down and swatching crochet patterns out of a Reader's Digest knitting and crochet stitch pattern book that my children gave me for my birthday. (It's not Barbara Walker, but it's okay.)
Spun on my Schact Matchless using long draw!!! (I love long draw.) It's dreadfully underspun and SO fuzzy. It was a bit of a fight to spin because it was a barely-blended batt and the chunks of silk, mohair, wool, and soy silk didn't always want to get along while drafting.
It's March. The snow is melting, crocus are popping, the days are lengthening--I love spring. What else do I love? I love books. I love new books. I love this book. And I'm in it: my Meathead hats, my brown slipper socks, and an afghan square.[excited giggle] It's a beautiful book with sweet patterns, and lovely discourses on knitting communities. Writing and most of the patterns are from Larissa "Stitch Marker" Brown and Martin Brown, two very nice, deep-thinking people. Knitting + Philosophy = Love. (And did I mention the Entomology Mittens and Hat (scroll down a little) in there by Adrian" Hello Yarn" Bazilia? Aaaaaaaadriaaaaan... I think I love you...)
I've had this Falkland wool in the colorway "Ravelry" from Spunky Eclectic on my Schacht wheel since Halloween. I was finally able to finish up enough this past weekend to merit plying. This is just under 2 ounces of fingering weight 2-ply. I have about 2 ounces left, but my SpinnerADD got the best of me and I started on something else...
The lighter skein is plyed with a batt that I carded at Yarn School from random floor fiber. It was a rusty-orangey-red color and though I love the resulting color of the skein, it is rough stuff. I spun the second half of the Pie while talking with my kids about book orders (very exciting stuff at chez Wallis) and it is SO overspun. This is a prime example of how spinning tightly will cut your yardage. The two skeins are the same weight, but the light one has about 1/3 less yardage.
Lastly, we have some yarn that I dyed for the Holiday KAL-CAL as a prize. I had so much fun dyeing this yarn. I have over-dyed things in the past simply because I didn't like the first go-round of dye. This batch, however, I overdyed on purpose. First I did a cool version of rainbow colors on the yarn, then I overdyed it with blue and I really liked the watercolor effect of it. I hope the prize recipient liked it too! (The bauble is a little bracelet that I made to match the yarn. And I printed up those yarn labels and everything. Woo. :)
Let's start out with a cute picture, shall we? Here's our Pretty Princess PeeWee, applying her lip gloss. She calls it her "diptick". 
I've been working on that magazine sweater. Want to see the swatch? I think that would be legal, don't you? I have figured that if I could manage to knit 40 stitches per minute (that would be SPM) in the reverse stockinette sections and 20 SPM in the charted areas, I could knit it in 22 hours. I have 19 to go. I finally got the right yarn about a week and a half ago, swatched and started writing out the pattern. Yesterday I actually began knitting the thing. It has made my hair go grayer. I figure there's a learning curve to this process of submitting, writing, and knitting a pattern for a magazine and I'm at that first really steep part. I'm not quite sure if I want to keep climbing. Maybe I'll just go back down the trail and sit on a rock.
In order to restore my equilibrium and relieve the tension caused by worrying about my SPM, I spent yesterday afternoon focusing on RPM. Me loves spinning. I finished up this Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club wool, 4 ounces of Blue-Faced Leicester called "Tulip". 
I cast on for this hat after finishing the Tulip spinning. It's Kuryon, number 215. My LYS got some new Kuryon colors in last week, so I went in to get a couple balls for my Lizard Ridge afghan, and ended up getting maybe a few extra of this color. It was calling to me, "Valerie, hold me, love me, knit me!" It might just get turned upside down and become a collar for a sweater. And I could carry the cables down the sleeves. Yeah.
Anyway, I could sit (and have sat) for an embarassingly long time, hitting the "Again!" button and asking for new numbers to be generated, just for the fun of seeing what will pop up. So when I selected the prize winners last time, I had to say, "I'm picking, I'm picking, okay NOW I'm picking!" Please don't let this distress you as to whether the choice is truly random. We are assured by the Random Number Generator website that each number is truely random--like atmospheric noise, they say--and not just produced from a mathematical formula. (Speaking of randomness, and to confuse you, I have a random picture of yarn to spice up the story. This is Hello Yarn Fiber Club's May selection, 5 ounces of Blue-Faced Leicester wool, called "Cricket". I got 297 yards of worsted weight 2-ply yarn out of it. I think it's the most beautiful, gentle, sublime mix of colors I have ever seen in wool. It's softly spun and very fluffy. I can't wait to knit it.)
Tonight, to choose the winner of the froggy and sock yarn, I said, "I'm picking, I'm picking, okay N--aaaarh!" Because the power went out just as I was going to get the final number. Grrrr. It's just as well. Now I can go into it fresh and just say that the first number is the one (won!). I can play around with more numbers later... (Another random picture of yarn: Boberly is knitting a hat out of one of the new colors of Noro Silk Garden. I'm not sure of the color number, but there's some very bright pink in there! Doesn't it make a pretty flower? She saw this yarn at the LYS on Saturday and asked if I'd teach her to knit a hat. She's only done flat knitting up until now. I think she's quite impressed with herself, and she's smitten with the Silk Garden. I know I am.)
I have an idea. (We're back to knitting content now.) I've been petting this 5 oz. of Blue-Faced Leicester wool (color: Cricket) from the Hello Yarn fiber club. I LURVE it. It is everything I love about wool and color in one tidy package. I want to make something for me that I will use on a daily basis--so as to maximize the time I get to spend with it. I have decided that mittens are the answer. 
I've been waiting for the right moment to knit Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens, and I thought that maybe this was it--but then I decided that the colors I love in this wool might mute and blend too much for my liking if I spun it that fine. So I started looking for stranded pattern ideas with thicker yarn. 
I was cleaning out my closet and found this sweater. (Hahaha, I had you going there, huh?! I wasn't really cleaning, per se, this sweater actually fell off my shelf when I was trying to stuff something else in next to it. Cleaning. That's funny.) The patterns are kinda Bohus-y, don't you think? 
My most heart-felt gratitude goes out to all who contribued to our virtual Alex's Lemonade Stand. Your generosity and kind comments warm my heart. God bless you! Our real-life lemonade stand on June 9th was great fun for all, especially my kids. The lemonade sales of the day combined with the donations to our virtual stand bring our total amount raised for childhood cancer research to $1369.07! (The 7 cents were donated by a little friend of my middle son who emptied out his piggy bank for the occasion, bless his heart.) We blasted right past the goal of $1000. Thank you very, very much. 
Just before leaving for the lake, I finished plying 4 ounces of superwash merino that I dyed with easter egg dye. After pulling the fiber out of its steam bath to set the dye, I wasn’t sure that I liked it. Then, while spinning it, I was still wondering if I’d again wasted some perfectly good white fiber by making it look like red dryer lint. After plying it and winding it up into a hank, I finally decided that I like it! It’s just so different from what I had in my head when I started the process. I didn't squeeze enough of the initial soaking water out of the fiber before applying the dye, so the colors intermingled much more than I intended. I learned a lot about dying fiber and I’m anxious to do some different colors now that I’ve finished up the spinning of this batch. I’m not sure what I’ll knit with it. I could do socks, or some lace or...or... It's probably a sportweight, but I'm not sure that it's spun tightly enough for socks.
Earlier this afternoon, I started spinning my May Spunky Eclectic club fiber (wonderful long-staple, crimpy Coopworth wool in a colorway called "Nightshade") that has been patiently waiting in my fiber basket. When it arrived back in May, I was not very excited about the dark colors. I was in a very springy mood and wanted to be spinning buttercups and rainbows. I guess I had enough bright sunshine this past week, because the deep, mysterious colors of Nightshade kept me entranced (and the Backyardigans kept PeeWee entranced) for almost 2 hours of spinning! Can you believe I got to spend that much time on it? I know, I'm a slacker with the boobtube-as-babysitter, but she played hard at the lake all week. I loved the pictures on the Spunky club blog of this fiber spun as a single, so I decided to do that, too. Adrian of Hello Yarn also had a handy link to information on spinning low-twist singles, and that was a great help.
PeeWee is playing at her little friend's house and Leela (That's not her real name--that's what PeeWee calls her. I'm torn about the whole "using my kids' real names" issue. I think I'm going to go the Precious Nickname route. In fact, I think I'll make sure there are double E's in eeach namee. So we'll have Bebee, Joee, Tedee, Leela, and PeeWee. End of aside.) is off to kindergarten. My plans? I'm going to practice my mad housekeeping skills...in a minute. Firstly, though, Way Too Many Pictures of My Spinning:
We started with 4 ounces of 21 micron merino top called Darling, dyed by the fabulous Adrian of Hello Yarn. I was in a bit of a hurry spinning it, because I'm an eager, impatient beginner, AND I was trying to get it done in time to knit a birthday scarf for my mother. She bought a new red coat this winter, and I know it's spring, but her birthday is in 1 week and I really want to make something for her. Back to Darling... So I didn't spin it as fine as it could, or possibly should be spun, but it is luscious, bouncy, and soooooft. I tended to err on the side of looseness in spinning it and so it's very fluffy. It's probably a heavy worsted weight. I think my mommy will like it.
Must go scrub toilets. Then I'll get started on the scarf. Any suggestions for pattern? I considering linen stitch--I'll have to swatch and see. (Swatchency, isn't that just north of Trenton?)
It's not all spinning around here. I do still knit. See? I've been working on this baby sweater meant for my PeeWee. I have knit, frogged, and reknit this left front 7 times. I've finally solved my little cable pattern problems and I think I may finish it in time for Kristen's new baby to wear in another year. Yes, you heard me, Kristen has a darling little baby boy! Yay!!!!
Now that I've confessed all, I can talk about my sock. My first real sock! I started out with the 2x2 rib sock that's in Cat Bordhi's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. I don't like knitting ribbing in the round very much, so after 1-1/2 inches, I changed to stockinette in the back and a leafy rib in the front. After knitting the heel, I switched to 2x2 rib on the instep and stockinette on the sole. It's a little slouchy around the ankle--I should have kept the 2x2 rib on the back of the leg. And I wish I'd continued the leafy rib on the instep. I love it anyway. I'm going to knit the second one the same way, much as it pains me to not make the needed improvement on the ankle. I took a gazillion pictures of it with my foot angled every which way. I discovered that there is no flattering way to capture an image of my, um, shapely ankle. I broke it on a skateboard when I was 12. Yeah, it has nothing to do with any subcutaneous adipose tissue. The invisible-high-heel look was my favorite, although it accentuates the baggy ankle.
I finally plied the Elfin Snow Forest merino roving from Nettie and Tuddie. It's just a regular two-ply. (I had thought about doing chained singles--Navajo plying-- but I decided I couldn't wait until I had someone to properly show me how to do it. This little video clip on the Joy of Handspinning website is helpful, but I want to see someone do it in person.) I LURVE IT! If it hadn't been wet last night (to set the twist), I'd have slept with it. 
It has some strange, nubbly areas and you can see that my spinning is still quite uneven, though getting finer. I'm thinking of knitting an Argosy scarf out of it, though it might be a little bulky for that. 
Knitting. It has been slow going with one stitch forward and 3 stitches back. I’ve been doing some of the frogging myself, and I’ve had some help from tiny friends. Look.
Spinning. I bought some kinda garishly dyed roving a week ago, a little rough but with a nice long staple length, for some serious practice on my wheel spinning. I’m amazed at how the colors change as the fiber is spun. I started out thinking that this roving was a little ugly, and know I really like it! I’m excited to see what the plied yarn looks like—maybe I’ll try doing chained singles (aka Navajo plying) with it and then use it for a Fake Isle hat. That would be cool. The beautiful Elfin Snow Forest roving is buried underneath the purple/teal/lime-green on the bobbin, patiently waiting to by plied. I’m avoiding plying it because I’m afraid that I didn’t put enough twist in the singles and they’re going to come apart when plied. I’ve got to suck it in and just do it. I don’t think the honeymoon with spinning is going to end any time soon. I love it more and more every time I sit at the wheel. I’m so anxious to get my own lovely Schacht. Come soon to me, my darling matchless one!
Elfin Snow Forest merino roving (3.39 oz) from NettieandTuddy.
Wait--Wait!!! Was that spinning wheel? Why yes, it was. One of the ladies at spinning night on Friday took pity on me and brought me one of her 7 (seven!) spinning wheels to tide me over until mine arrives. How nice is that? Very nice. 
Aged Cardona from Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin. This is a fantastic cheese. It's an aged goat cheese, firm but not crumbly, nutty and sweet and just right. It's pleasantly sharp and has those great crystals that I've noticed in other favorite aged cheeses (most notably Parmigiano Reggiano) yet it feels nice and smooth on the tongue.
Okay, on with the show. Here's my Sweet Pea chart and yarn (please see the previous post for more detail on this lovely yarn). Aren't those colors beautiful? Yes--sublime, indeed. I cast on to knit it in one piece to the sleeves and knit about 1 1/2 inches, but then decided that I didn't like the way the cast-on row looked. I had done the "proper" thing of following the long-tail cast on with a wrong side row and it just looked smushy. It was also rolling to the knit side severely, even though I'm starting out with a 1x3 (interspersed with a vine rib that's 1x2x1) rib on the bottom. So I pulled it out and changed my first row to a right side row and, yes, I now have little purl bumps on the bottom of the right side, but I like it. I also decided to knit it in pieces (back and fronts) and I'm feeling a greater sense of accomplishment since my rows are now only 74 stitches wide instead of 153. I don't mind seaming that much and now I can make adjustments to the size of the fronts if it turns out that my calculations were off on how much the vine rib contracts. I'll get a shot of the back piece tomorrow. I've actually got about 7 inches of it done--amazing with all of the rip-and-redo action going on around here.
This past Friday was spinner's night at the shop where I took my spinning class. Just look what a nice spinning wheel can help a person turn out! Shall we have an extreme close-up? Yes, I think so. That's some natural brown Corriedale-cross wool spun on a Schacht Matchless double-treadle wheel. It's wound on a toilet paper roll and can you see the difference between what I'm doing now and what I was doing three weeks ago? I want a spinning wheel with every fiber (heh) of my being. I need it. I neeeeeeeed it. I've been researching wheels and I've about come to the conclusion that a Lendrum would be perfect for me. I've tried out every kind of wheel I can get my hands (an feet) on, but I haven't found anyone locally who has a Lendrum to let me give it a test drive. I still think that it would be a good choice. My spinning teacher likes Lendrums (if only she carried them at her store!) and I have found that I like the same things in a spinning wheel that she does. If only I could get myself to stop buying yarn and save some money for a wheel. Hmmm. I have a birthday coming up...
I call this "Aborted Sock Attempt with Toad".
Guess what? I'm taking a spinning class!!!!!!!! I'm so excited that I'm overdoing it with the exclamation points again!!!!!! We'll learn how to take the wool all the way from fleece to yarn. I came home from my first class with a pound of greasy fleecy and I've been soaking/washing it out in my bathtub. The water that drained off from the first cold soak was downright disgusting. I soaked and drained it 5 times and there were still mats of mud on the tips of the fleece that were not budging. I don't know if I was supposed to do it or not, but I got irritated at the mats and snipped them off. After I did that, the fleece started to look reasonable, so I finally stopped soaking it and it is now hovering on a sweater rack, trying to dry. PeeWee and Middle Sister are feeling very proprietary because they helped drain the tub and swish out the crap each time we changed the soaking water. Next week: carding! I'm all giddy.
