HAT!

The weather has finally cooled here - we dipped into the 60's last night and it feels great! Of course, nowhere near as cool as Montana for our vacation 2 weeks ago, where the temps were in the 30's and 40's. Still, cool weather makes it nicer to knit with wool, and I decided I wanted a new hat. A RED hat. So I dug into my extensive fiber stash and came up with some lovely tonal red targhee wool, dyed by Mountain Colors:

I spun it up into a lovely bouncy 2-ply worsted weight yarn:

And knit myself a hat!

I won't get much use out of it here, alas. But anytime we can get away and go back to the mountains, I'm ready!

Tour de Fleece 2013

July is always a blur, spent spinning during every available waking moment. Why? It's the Tour de Fleece,  a fun event that happens every year at the same time as the Tour de France cycling race (22 days). Ravelry hosts the Tour. Spinners challenge themselves personally and on teams, deciding whether they'll try for extreme yardage, extreme fibers, extreme amounts, extreme... well, you get the idea. It's all in fun, and prizes are awarded randomly, so it's not a competition (unless you want it to be).

I usually strive for a high number of skeins finished, and try to spin a variety of fibers from my favorite dyers. This year I started with a bin full of assorted handdyed wool from Southern Cross Fibre, Hello Yarn, Enchanted Knoll Farm, and Spunky Eclectic. The white is cotton.

I had several challenges for myself this year - first year acting as a Moderator in the Tour, attempting to spin as many different skeins as I could in the time I had, spinning skinny cotton on the charkha for a long-term handwoven handspun cotton curtain project, being sidelined by cataract surgery near the end.

But one thing never changes about the Tour for me - it’s FUN! I don’t worry about what others are doing, it’s all about ME ME ME. :) I challenge myself to reach higher and farther, and enjoy every bit.

I finished 12 skeins for the Tour, totaling 39 oz, nearly 2.5 pounds. Here’s their unwashed group yearbook picture.

The center skein is cotton, spun on my charkha: 0.4 oz (11g), 240 yards, 2-ply, 23/2 cotton weight, 9600 ypp (80 wpi).

Total Tour yardage this year: 4,113 yards. Yay!

Retreat Spinning

I was away this weekend at the annual SWIC (Spinners and Weavers of Imperial Calcasieu) Retreat. I love this retreat - we meet for 3 days of spinning and weaving and TALKING and sharing and eating and SHOPPING. It's like a spinner-slumber-party!

I bought some gorgeous red Gulf Coast Native wool from Margrett, and a bunch of stuff from Peggy at Skyloom Weavers: polwarth, panda, natural CVM, shredded blue jeans, and sari silk.

Here's what I spun while I was there:

Pigeonroof Studios, 'Water Lily', chunky thick/thin 2-ply, 120 yards

Pigeonroof Studios, 'Fruit Juice', chunky thick/thin 2-ply, 120 yards

Skyloom Weavers, 'Crayons', worsted wt n-ply, 160 yards

Art at Eagles' Find, 'Forest', worsted wt 2-ply, 190 yards

I also spun 3 full spindles of cotton on the charkha, then plied it into a skein of laceweight (8/2 for the weavers) 2-ply, 300 yards. I'm going to show you that later this weekend - I haven't boiled it yet. It's going in the handspun cotton stash that I'm building up for weaving handspun curtains - a long-term project, but SO satisfying!

Spin, Spin, Spin

I'm always spinning... spinning makes me happy! Here are a few yarns I finished in the past few weeks:

Silk (mulberry/bombyx), in blood red tones - laceweight, 3-ply, 320 yards:

Fun spectrum rainbow colors, superwash merino - n-ply, sportweight, 100 yards:

Multicolor mix, Fruit Salad - 2-ply worsted weight, 220 yards:

Submerge (Southern Cross Fibre Club), shetland sock yarn - 3-ply sockweight, 315 yards:

There's more silk on my wheel right now - spinning silk is like spinning liquid metal. I love it!

Slowly But Surely

The sweater grows:

I've knit 12" of the body so far. The fabric is so light yet warm - my husband has requested a handspun sweater of his own! WOW - he's Mr. Barefeet-And-Shorts-In-The-Wintertime - I'm excited to be able to knit wool for him. His only experience with wool sweaters has been with big bulky uncomfortably HOT sweaters - he was surprised that wool can be made light and airy. I love spinning fingering weight 3-ply, so that's no burden. I'll dig through the extensive stash and see what I can find - his only requirement was "darker tones". Can do!

Handwoven Tencel Twill Scarf

At the end of August, I warped the borrowed Megado loom for some tencel scarves in a fancy twill.

My friend Susan Harvey of "Thrums" shared the draft (which she used for some gorgeous bookmarks) in this blogpost. I really liked the pattern, but discovered that the 153 picks per repeat couldn't be programmed into the mechanical dobby on the loom - it has only 130 dobby bars. Hmmm. So I turned the draft (swapped the treadling with the threading) and tweaked it a bit, and then I only needed 119 bars.

I got it all warped up, and then... I got busy with other things (commission spinning, the rainbow towels, etc.) and the warp languished on the loom.

My friend Jenny (who allowed me to babysit her loom while she was in England for 6 months) has returned home, and would like her loom back, thank you. :) So I got busy weaving, and now the scarves are well in progress. I really like the way they're turning out.

The warp is a variegated tencel in blue/purple/green, and the weft is black. The little yellow flower pin is marking my progress - I measure, then record the progress and move the pin.

The Kitsune/Harvest sweater is progressing nicely as well - I'm halfway through the decrease section of the body:

 Of course, it won't be cold enough to wear it until late November, so I have plenty of time to knit!

Next Sweater

I've been spinning some more sweater yarn. Pleased with the success of the Kraken sweater, I chose some coordinating fibers from my stash of Southern Cross Fibre and Hello Yarn clubs, and spun up a 3-ply fingering weight yarn. I've got 1950 yards of soft lovely sweater potential, in a beautiful fall color blend. All the fiber is polwarth/silk - the two outer bobbins are Hello Yarn "Kitsune", and the middle bobbin is Southern Cross Fibre "Harvest":

I can't wait to get this yarn washed and dried so I can cast on!

Tour de Fleece Roundup

Here's my haul for the Tour. I had lofty plans that were totally derailed by my unexpected love affair with the charkha. :) Still, I did spin quite a bit of yarn, and I'm in love with all of it.

Left to right:

Enchanted Knoll Farm "Pass The Pie, Please" - 6 oz, chain-ply, 310 yards worsted weight
Enchanted Knoll Farm "Treasure Chest" - 4 oz, 2-ply, 220 yards, worsted weight
Southern Cross Fibre "Deep Thoughts" and "Irises" combo, 8 oz, 2-ply, worsted weight
Cotton - 2.5 oz, 2-ply, 800 yards, 10/2 cotton weight (laceweight)
Southern Cross Fibre "Rocky Coast" - 3.9 oz, 2-ply, 150 yards, worsted weight
Hello Yarn "Red Velvet" - 4 oz, chain-ply, 390 yards, sockweight
Hello Yarn "Throwing Stones" on bobbin - 4 oz, yardage unknown


Total: 2370+ yards, 2 pounds.

Tour de Fleece progress

So far so good - I've spun 3 braids of fiber, 4 oz each.

I spun up two different Southern Cross Fibre braids (Irises shetland and Deep Thoughts oatmeal BFL) and plied them together. I really like the result. I got 500 yards of sportweight squishy 2-ply yarn.

And I've spun up a braid of Hello Yarn 'Red Velvet' shetland:

I'll chain-ply it tomorrow.

Having great fun spinning away!

Tour de Fleece 2012

Here we go again - the spinning world gears up to ride along with the cyclists as they push themselves to the limit in the Tour de France. The Tour de FLEECE (Ravelry link) lasts for the same duration as the cycling race - Saturday June 30th through Sunday July 22nd. We spinners challenge ourselves, and race against no one but the calendar and our creativity. We make outrageous plans and try to complete as much as we can before the clock runs out.

My plans are skewed a bit this year by the fact that the Tour coincides with two weaving workshops - Rep Weave this weekend and a Saori workshop next weekend. Still, I'll have mornings and evenings free (and the weekdays in between) and I plan to make the most of them.

I have a big pile of fiber that I'm spinning on commission, and that will continue (I do my commission spinning in the mornings). I'll show you that giant pile of yarns soon, when it's finished. That doesn't count (in my mind, which is the only place that matters) toward my TdF spinning.

Here's the fiber I plan to spin up during the Tour. I dug deep into the Southern Cross Fibre, Hello Yarn, and Enchanted Knoll Farm bins - the teams I'm spinning for this year. I belong to all three clubs, and have squirreled away their fiber lovingly for years. I pulled out some golden oldies - well-marinated and loved colourways whose time has come to shine.

Southern Cross Fibre “Equinox”, australian merino, Club, October 2009

Southern Cross Fibre “Funhouse”, falkland, Club, December 2009

Southern Cross Fibre COMBO:
“Irises”, shetland, Club, June 2009
“Deep Thought”, oatmeal bfl, Club, November 2009

HelloYarn “Patchwork”, merino, Club, August 2009

HelloYarn “Red Velvet”, shetland, Club, March 2008

HelloYarn COMBO:
 “Throwing Stones”, rambouillet, update fibre, August 2010
“Pallid”, rambouillet, Club, November 2009

Enchanted Knoll Farm “Treasure Chest”, Hooves Batt Club September 2008

Enchanted Knoll Farm “Harvest”, Hooves Batt Club October 2008

Enchanted Knoll Farm “Pass The Pie”, Hooves Batt Club November 2009

 

 

Look for some of the resulting SCF and HY skeins to show up in my Etsy shop in August. Not sure of the yarn construction plans of these, though I know the Enchanted Knoll batts will all become sock yarn for me (which I'll then madly knit into socks during the Ravellenics following the TdF.) Wish me luck!

Kraken Sweater, Finished!

We traveled to our favorite place on earth this past week. Yes, Montana, land of big sky and mountains. We visited my friend Sandi at the beginning of the week, and she helped me sew the sleeves and neckband onto my sweater, making it complete. Honestly, it was so much easier than I feared. A simple backstitch did the trick. My first handspun handknit sweater is complete! It's warm and fits so nicely - I love it! We took it up to Glacier National Park and showed it some snow at Logan Pass, on the Going To The Sun road.

 

Now I'm eager to start my next sweater spin! 

Kraken...Vest?

The body of the sweater is done! I love it, and it fits nicely. I finished the fronts and connected them with the back via a 3-needle bind-off, and knit and connected the "neck extensions" (really the back of the collar).

Now I need to knit sleeves!

Kraken Sweater - Growing!

The yarn:

And now, big progress:

There is nothing that I don't love about this sweater. The colors are gorgeous, the feel of the polwarth handspun is delicious, the knitting is easy. If I didn't also spin and weave, I'd probably be finished already, but the sweater has had to share time with my other pursuits.

The pattern is the Bailey Cardigan  (Ravelry link) and is very straightforward and easy to understand. It HAS to be - I needed a simple pattern for my first handknit adult sweater! I've knit children's sweaters before, with chunky yarn, but this one has to fit ME, and be useful for daily wear.

Since I'm knitting it in a light fingering-weight polwarth wool yarn, it will be lightweight, yet warm. I can see wearing it in the fierce air-conditioning of our local NOLA restaurants even in summer, and as daily wear in the winter. It will serve as indoor warmth in Montana, as well - and as a layer under a jacket.

I've used a little more than half the yarn spun - I'm thinking I'll need to spin more for the sleeves. I have a few more ounces of the fiber, no problem! Oh, the joy of being able to spin my own yarn - a dream come true!

Here's the post about the beginning of my sweater.

Beach!

I am not a beach girl myself, being extremely pale and susceptible to lobster-like sunburns, no matter the SPF. But I love to look at beach pictures. Here is a link to Flickr's search and a lovely collection of beach scenes. (I didn't want to swipe someone else's picture and violate their copyright!)

Thinking about upcoming summer, and fun beach opportunities (for others... PALE, remember?) I pulled this lovely handdyed fiber from my stash:

It's domestic wool, from Spunky Eclectic Club July 2010 in her "Retreat" colorway. It spun so nicely and turned out nice and soft. I chain-plied it so it would become a self-striping sock yarn:

 I see the water, sand, rocks...

...everything but the sunburn. Aaaahhhh. :)