Handspun!
This is some handspun (drop spindle) merino/tencel blend that I got at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last year. I started spinning this blend when I finished the last set. In
July.
There's probably about 250 yards of somewhat worsted weight yarn here. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it, and then I held it up to some alpaca yarn that my SP3 sent me.
Nice, eh? I'm thinking these would be accent colors for a fair isle yoked cardigan. Because I'm a huge fan of the fair isle yoked cardigans. Of course, this means buying more yarn (a lilac worsted - probably cascade 220). I'm on a yarn diet for a while in an attempt to build up my savings, which had been depleted in the past few months that I had a steady, but paltry income. I can splurge on a
Babe Pinkie Wheel (especially if I can get one for less than $100) but that's about it for a while, unless I can start designing some patterns that people want to buy.
Once I finished this, I immediately started spinning some pima cotton (we're not buddies) and some tussah silk that was in a sampler pack of fiber that I got off of ebay a few years ago. And oh my goodness, I love tussah silk! It spins up finer than a lot of wool.
Once I finish that tussah silk I have a ball of sparkly pink wool/mylar roving and this:
Actually, I got two of these at a yarn party that
k8 hosted at the end of February. What I'll make out of the finished yarn, I don't know. But my fair isle bags are the only things I've knit out of my own handspun, and they were felted for their own good.
Devilish...
Patterns: Kittyville Devil HatYarn: Paton's Classic Merino Wool
Needles: size 7 circs & DPNs
Date Started: 3/15/2005
Date Finished: 4/20/2004
This is going off for an auction at work. I actually finished it in a few days... it just took me almost a month to weave in the ends. It's a cute hat, it's just not my style. But for a hell themed benefit? Quite the thing.
Too much fun!
Yesterday I had a lot of fun at my friend Libby's house, destashing her stash and assigning patterns to a lot of the oddballs lying around. It kind of turned into Clean Sweep, though instead of keep, toss & sell, it was keep,
knitswap or use to make charity items.
In the assignment of patterns, I brought every pattern book I ever owned. I found a nice vintage pattern that I forgot I had to turn
icylove into this:
It's from Spinnovations #12, copyright 1997. I want to make the aran hoodie. I may or may not have enough yarn to make the thing, so I might have to lose the hood, but I still think it's adorable. Of course, the drawstring is completely out of the question. The largest size is for 40.5", so I'll just pull in an inch or two for the moss stitch border.
I also got 4 full skeins and two partial skeins of this:
This is probably 1000 yards of fingering weight white wool total. I'm going to dye a nice rose pink and make into a lace shawl. I can't decide if I should RIT dye it or Koolaid dye it. I want a slight mottled effect, but nothing too obvious.
As for the keep, swap or charity destash, we're going to do this to my stash at some point. I am greatly looking forward to it.
Yesterday was actually kind of ridiculously crazy and expensive. Both at the same time. Helped a friend move and got rewarded with pizza. Then I bought this dress that I've been coveting for a month at Hot Topic. Then we went to AC Moore where I picked up this:
Which will make a not
ugly Sitcom Chic. Luckily, I had $12 of credit from returning a whole bunch of Woolease I bought in a moment of idiocy, so that only cost me $8.
I just love that today I have two more projects than I did at the beginning of yesterday, including some dyeing, and a new take on an old recycling project.
While we were looking through all of our pattern books, trying to decide what we should make out of some of Libby's wool, I found instructions from an old hat swap I participated in about two years ago through
a knitting community. You sent in five oddballs of wool, they sent you back five different oddballs and you made a hat for someone else and sent it to them. That's how I came up with
the rainbow stash hat. Who was the hatswap run by?
k8. Who knit my hat? Her friend Paula at
woolarina. ::dies and is ded from the coincidence::
I'm sorry I haven't been updating a lot lately. The problem is that I've been working on two specific projects at the same time, so it's kind of boring. Here's the sleeve so far. Three days later, it's three inches longer! But still a stockinette sleeve! FASCINATING.
Fair Isle Bag
This bag looked exactly like this in August. It just took me a little under six months to add this!
All of the yarn in this bag was handspun by yours truly. It's all from a sampler pack I got off of ebay a few years ago. I didn't realize that different fibers would felt at different rates (gasp!), hence the wonkiness of the shape.
The fair isle charts are from
Wendyknit's fearless Fair Isle. The handles are from Joann's. The lining is cat fabric I bought from
Tipper. This went through about four rounds in the washer and if you look, you can see where I ran out of one kind of blue yarn and subbed in another of a different fiber type that felted at a different rate.
Any questions?
Presenting... Rogue!
I show you this lovely warm sweater just in time for spring. The yarn (handspun from a Hungarian shepherd) is rough and scratchy enough that it won't be comfortable to wear with short sleeves or a tank top. The hood is a little too big. The yarn had too much dye on it and bled on my hands and when I washed it. I tried setting the dye with really hot water and some vinegar, we'll see how that works.
It's not really done - there's still a few ends that need to be woven in and the zipper should really be reset.
Because that doesn't look too good. But all in all, I am very happy with my new sweater!
Are we sharing minds?
Monkeepundit and I seem to be sharing minds. Look, she made
Hello Cthulhu! And
so did I! She is making
Faroese shawl! And
so did I!Strange. Strange.
I love the
new interweave knits. Love it. And I'd love to make the Cable 8 top, the vintage pink cardigan (I LOVE Norah Gaughan's designs) and the bi-color brioche... except... I manage to fall right in the inbetween for most of them. I'm sort of a "normal" bust size (40"), and I always have to modify patterns. Frustration. Booh.
I have 12 different projects to show off... but I'm lazy. So you have to wait. Neiner neiner.
