Wednesday, April 09, 2008
It just might be Mud Season
It is downright frightening how easily I lose my notes on club fibers.
Fiber: 100% Merino (I think… but I lost the note)
Colorway: Mud Season (I think… but I lost the note)
Yardage/Weight: 175 yards/55 g and 148 y/57g
Roving From: Spunky Eclectic’s Fiber Club (April 2008)
Notes: My kingdom for the ability to not lose notes! Also, this is the first yarn spun on my new Ashford Traveler!
1. Mud Season (roving), 2. Mud Season (on the bobbin), 3. Mud Season (1), 4. Mud Season (2)
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Sea Hag
Fiber: many/mixture
Colorway: Sea Hag
Yardage/Weight: 121 yards/about 4 oz.
Roving From: Art Clubs CUCKOO FOR CUCKOOBATTS (February 2008)
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Festival
Fiber: Black & Blue Faced Leicester
Colorway: Festival
Yardage/Weight: 228 yards/about 4 oz.
Roving From: bought at Uncommon Threads
1. Gale’s Art "Festival" (4), 2. Gale’s Art "Festival" (3), 3. Gale’s Art "Festival" (2), 4. Gale’s Art "Festival" (1)
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Kate now has a sister-cousin
Introducing my new wheel, an Ashford Traveler:
She doesn’t have a name yet, I have to work with her a bit, first.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Velvet Rope
From this....
to this…
Fiber: 100% Blue Faced Leicester (Superwash)
Colorway: Velvet Rope
Yardage/Weight: 330 yards/about 8 oz. (3-ply)
Roving From: Black Bunny Fibers Fiber Club (February 2008)
Notes: This was even more fun to spin than the last one; but I may have been initially partial to it as BFL is about my favorite fiber to spin. As I expected, this was easy to draft, and as soft as clouds. At first I set out to get something the same weight as Emerald City, thinking that combining the red and green into something together might be very Christmas-ish later this year. But even with a 3-ply it was too thin to match up, and honestly I found myself dreaming about another Faux Fair Isle sweater as I was spinning (but what color do do the body of the sweater? For some reason the red kept telling me it wants to be paired with a white, but… that is just a recipe for me to spill coffee on myself. I should not be allowed to have white clothes). Anyway; I got about 300 yards of the 3-ply, but due to my inability to judge correctly, I also wound up with a small 30-yard skein of 2-ply. Whoops! Haha on me!
I really enjoyed spinning this; I found that I had to force myself to keep spinning some other merino/silk that I need to get off the bobbins so that I could have a free bobbin to ply back onto. I hate to crow or make other spinners jealous, but will anyway for those of you not in the BBF Fiber club...? You are really going to want to keep an eye on Carol’s blog to see when she’s going to open it up for more people.
Mostly I just want to fondle this yarn for a while… but I am certain that as the weather cools down to fall that you’ll be seeing this again. After all, I’ll need a sweater for New York Sheep and Wool, right?!
Think Spring
Fiber: 100% South African Fine
Colorway: Think Spring
Yardage/Weight: 246 yards/96 g.
Roving From: Spunky Eclectic’s Fiber Club (March 2008)
Notes: Even though I am not normally a pastels girl, this was so lovely! I just want to keep petting it!
Monday, March 17, 2008
BFL under the radar
For some reason when I finished this a few weeks ago, I forgot to blog about it…
More tri-colored Blue-Faced Leicester (goes with this). Both skeins are up for sale in the shop.
Friday, March 07, 2008
I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little yarn, too!
Fiber: Mostly merino, with some mohair bits
Colorway: Wicked Witch (ah, the Oz themes are running wild this year, which brings me joy!)
Yardage/Weight: 132 yards/67 oz.
Roving From: Art Clubs CUCKOO FOR CUCKOOBATTS (January 2008)
Notes: It’s been so busy that even though I pulled this open from the mail and loved it, I didn’t have time to spin it until now… when I spun the whole thing in practically one sitting because it was so freaking wonderful! Also, I would consider selling my soul to get more of this colorway, so that I could selfishly make a pair of socks to match my high-tops (why am I all about the matchy-matchy with these shoes?). I would settle for even one more, and find a different yarn to make heels and toes with. Do you hear me, universe? One broken and bitter soul, going cheap, for sweet sweet fiber!
1. Wicked Witch (in progress), 2. Wicked Witch (on the bobbin), 3. Oh, TELL ME this does not match!
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Emerald City has been spun
Fiber: 90% Delaine Merino/10% Mohair
Colorway: Emerald City
Yardage/Weight: 486 yards/8 oz.
Roving From: Black Bunny Fibers fiber club
Notes: (previously blogged here) I spent a lot of time looking at this yarn before spinning it, trying to decide how I wanted the colors to line up. The more I looked at it, the more I thought that it would be better to let the colors do whatever they wanted, because trying to “force” it into a particular look was going to involve so much work that it would really detract from the original dye job. So I divided it in half (two four-ounce lengths), and started spinning. In spinning, I found the fiber to be incredibly fun and spongy, and this led to an uneven single (much like my first yarn, only thinner) and while the end result looks pretty even overall, I can’t help but wonder if spinning it a different tension might have led me to a more uniform thickness...? Ah, hindsight! My favorite thing about this particular fiber is that it was from a small farm, and was processed by a small company, and the low impact of the process left some bits of hay in the fiber here and there. If you are one of those spinners who doesn’t like to be reminded that what you’re doing was once attached to a living animal, then why are you spinning?!?!?!?! then this type of fiber might not be right for you. But me? So up my alley. I do miss a few aspects of farm life, and little reminders like that are one of them. So. What am I going to do with this...? Absolutely no idea yet! Sometimes when I’m spinning, the yarn tells me what it wants to be ("I want to be a hat!” or “I want to be a gift for Jacquie!") ... (shut up, your yarn doesn’t talk to you!?) ... but this yarn was very quiet, meaning the moment isn’t quite right to decide what it’s for. Even though I was kind of thinking “Baby Surprise Jacket”. And I do know someone who just had a baby. But does the kid really need a jacket in spring/summer...?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
My new favorite color?
Fiber: Superwash Merino
Colorway: Candy Corn
Yardage/Weight: 212 yards/109g
Roving From: a booth at Rhinebeck
Notes: I was going to put this up for sale in the shop, but… I really like it, and might wind up keeping it. I haven’t decided yet. Or, someone that I really, really like might get it as a gift!
1. Candy Corn (1), 2. Candy Corn (2)
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Follow the yellow brick road!
Way back in November, when we were driving to South Bend—hey, wait a second, did I tell you guys about how I succumbed to Google Reader? Because I’m a dork who reads about six gabillion blogs, and can never keep track of them and never had time to go to them all and blah blah blah? Yeah, I think I mentioned that back in October or November. Anyway, one of the blogs I had added to my reader was Go Knit In Your Hat, the goddess behind Black Bunny Fibers. Anyhoo (this is going somewhere! For reals!), thanks to Google Reader, I read one morning during our South Bend trip that she was going to do a club. You know I was emailing before I had even finished one lukewarm cup of horrid hotel “coffee” (and trust me, those are not unnecessary quotations).
The club was limited, so needless to say I was on top of the world to be one of the people able to do it!
And the first offering appeared in the mail about a week ago and check this out…
Maylin’s BFL
Fiber: Blue-Faced Leicester
Colorway: Maylin’s
Yardage/Weight: 132 yards/81 grams
Roving From: Maylin (she dyed it)
Notes: How happy is this?!
Snow squall
Fiber: Icelandic Wool
Colorway: Snow Squall
Yardage/Weight: 130 yards/98 grams
Roving From: The Spunky Club
Notes: This is the first fiber that my cats have absolutely gone bananas over! I noticed when I got the fiber that it smelled lovely and sheepy-- apparently the cats thought so as well because they kept trying to roll in it while I was spinning. Silly cats, they no can has sheepburger! Anyway. I have no idea what I’m going to do with this yet, other than keep it around and sniff it now and then!
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Tri-color BFL
Fiber: Blue-Faced Leicester
Colorway: Tri-color
Yardage/Weight: 240 yards/123 grams
Roving From: a booth at Rhinebeck
Notes: Don’t know what I’m going to do with this yet; I only spun half of what was in the bag I bought, so there’s at least this much (roughly, give or take a gram) still to go. I haven’t decided if I’ll gift this away, use it, or sell it in the shop.
When spinning goes bad. Very, very bad.
This was corn fiber.
I have not yet spun anything this difficult, anything this ready to fall apart while plying, anything this hateful.
2 oz. of untouched purple corn fiber that I have not yet spun (nor do I have plans to), free to good home. First come, first tortured.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Iced Spruce
Fiber: Wool/Mohair/Silk blends
Colorway: Iced Spruce (the December colorway from the Batt of the Month club)
Yardage/Weight: 190 yards/approx 5 ounces
Roving From: Art Club
Notes: This came as one green batt and four nests (purple, blue, gray, and green). I spun most of the batt as one single, and then I pulled all the other colors into about three-inch long pieces. From those, I pulled each color randomly from a basket at my side, and spun them all (randomly) into a single, which I then plied with the green. I would totally do that again-- I love how this turned out!
Edited to add: I forgot to mention (bad me, no donut!) that a subscription to the above-mentioned Art Club was what my friend Jacquie got me for Christmas-- I haven’t really blogged about it because I wanted to get one for someone else whose birthday was about the same time (and it’s totally something she would have gone out and gotten for herself). There’s someone else I want to get it for but that’s later in the year and I’m hoping that if she reads this, she forgets about it by then. Hee hee hee. Thanks, Jacquie!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Off the wheel and onto the sales floor
Handspun pr0n in the extended, for the fiber-files…
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Pie for Everyone
Fiber: 100% Falkland (wool)
Colorway: Pie for Everyone
Yardage/Weight: 222 yards/90 grams
Roving From: Spunky Eclectic’s Fiber of the Month (Nov. 2007)
Notes: Future gift!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Oh my my, oh hell yes; honey put on that party dress
Fiber: 100% Superwash Corriedale
Colorway: Party Dress
Yardage/Weight: 218 yards/4 oz
Roving From: Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club
Notes: Future gift for 2008!
