Silk

It took some time, but I finished the ounce of silk, plied 3 strands together into 176m (193yds) of lovely lace yarn and now need a project. There's another 58m of silk thread single that I plan to embroider with.

Lace Yarn

3 ply and single ply

3 ply

Single/thread

I've moved on to a silk and camel blend. Another gift of Sericin Silk roving from KW Knitter's Fair. The colourway is "a dance with fuschia".  This is another fine yarn I will 3-ply.  I decided to play with my support spindle for this project and I am loving it.  It's much easier working with the camel/silk than it was when I first tried this spindle with alpaca.

Impromptu Spin

What do you do when your silk spinning project falls from a book case into the potty that you have just lifted your baby from after her big morning wake-up pee? (Don't you just love babies with a dry diaper in the morning? I digress.)

All dry now. This will be mini-ball no. 4 to ply.

After you rinse the spindle and yarn and fibre and set it aside to dry, you start a new project, right?

That's what I did a couple days ago and I think it's my quickest spinning project yet.

My friend gifted me two lovely batts [Rav link] from Sericin Silkworks. 46g of merino, alpaca, silk and yak down.  I decided to play with my homemade top-whorl suspended spindle again.  Finished the first batt of singles in a day. Finished the next batt the following day and started plying.  With baby-chasing and other activities I needed a third to finish plying the 120m of fingering weight yarn.

Tasty new yarn for breakfast.  Sportin' the just-out-of-bed-with-twins look. Chic.

Skeined the yarn around two Bumbos this morning (day 4). Soaked in Euclan. Now it's drying.

Back to the dry silk - the never-ending ounce of thread...

Spindles

This is my modest spindle collection (not including my simple stick).
On the left are five turkish spindles.  The top is the knit picks version - my first.  The pretty ones are all from Thomas Creations / Threads Thru Time.
The tiny 0.6oz is an orange dymondwood.
The medium 1.3 oz spindle below has a shaft of Argentine Osage Orange and a whorl of Quina (sounds fancy-schmancy).
The large 1.3oz spindle beside it has a walnut shaft and Ambrosia Maple whorl.
The large cobalt blue dymondwood is 1.9oz. (I used to have a matching medium spindle in this wood and it bothers me tremendously that it was lost/stolen.)
On the top right is a homemade top-whorl spindle.
Below it is my supported spindle by Thomas C. Forrester. The woods are Umbuya and maple. It weighs 0.83 oz.
That strange device in the middle is a rakestraw spinner made in Ontario. (Cambridge I believe.)

As you can see, I need to start more spinning projects. I don't know why I have empty spindles.  I am currently working my way through that ounce of silk... it just keeps going.

There is another finished ball missing here.

Silk from SDSpin on etsy

LYS sale

I had a few xmas dollars to spend.
Wolseley Wools was having a great annual sale.
Wish I had more to spend (and a source of income).
This will keep me happy for a while. Days at least :P

 Sweet Georgia BFL in pomegranate. nom. 8oz to spin

Noro Nadeshiko (with angora, wool and silk) was 50% off.

This was the best colour capture photo, but was part of another picture focused behind the yarn.

Now that I have a new camera, I'll snap those spindle photos and such.  The camera is a point and shoot, so they won't be terribly fancy pics.  With twin infants, we don't have space/arms to carry a larger camera right now.

Yule Knits

With three kiddos to knit for each Yule now, I'm going to have to start earlier if I ever plan to make something larger than a wee stuffy.
This year the girls each received a Flower Power Elephant in Koigu (orphans) I picked up before moving.

Correction, Little Lucy's elephant on top in the last photo was knit with hand-dyed Berroco Ultra Alpaca fine created for a baby blanket in 2011.  Abi's is the blue-pink elephant and she picked out the yarn last spring.  Claire's has the not-matching pink ears and feet because I used the leftovers from her alien/monster stuffy and only had enough for the body.

The pattern is simple and adorable, although I made the legs a few stitches wider for better support. I suspect if I'd used a heavier yarn (knit tightly) I wouldn't have needed to adjust the legs.

For Robin, I saved myself the trouble of knitting socks by buying a hand-knit pair at a craft sale. As I told my mom who asked if they were a good price, "I could buy the yarn for that price..."  Actually, I probably couldn't buy the yarn I would have bought - hand-dyed from Etsy or some such - for that price (less than $20).  They're a nice warm wool (blend?) and will keep him cozy while ice skating with the girls and curling.

Christmas knits will be another post as soon as I have my new camera.  It's nothing fancy, but an upgrade from our old digital P&S.

Spintastic - Start to Turkish

I love spinning.  It has me wrapped around its little spindle.
One day I shall have a wheel.
In the meantime, I am quite content with my small collection of spinning tools.

After my very first home-made spindle,

this is what PhD-dissertation-induced 2am boredom can get you if you have a few office supplies on hand and a bag of fibre to stare at

I borrowed a few spindles from a friend and decided I liked the Turkish style spindles best (of suspended spindles), although I did have fun with a lovely top whorl as my first serious foray into spinning. (Thanks again to Lofty Fibres J for getting me started.)

I was so PROUD of my first "real" spinning.

Rigged this up for plying.

Not too shabby for my first attempts

I bought a Knit Picks spindle first - an inexpensive investment - and some delicious BFL from Etsy.
(My very first fibre above was white Romni I picked up at Romni Wools in Toronto to stuff a wool teddy bear.)

Single ply

project in stages (FO was frogged and is a different UFO now)

Or maybe this Lofty Fibres was my first spinning-fibre purchase.  It seems like forever ago.  They were roughly from the same "era" of my spinning... back when I only had one spindle.

hahaha
times have changed.

The majority of my spindles are now from Threads Thru Time / Thomas Creations on Etsy.  I have purchased 2 mediums, 1 tiny, and 2 large Turkish spindles.  (Alas, one medium disappeared.)  I love them. They're so much prettier than my KP spindle.  They spin wonderfully.
However, in looking for posts about spinning angora I found these beauties by Jeri Brock and I need one.

Plying on a large blue

comparing my large and tiny and plying from both ends of my single ply

tiny spindle of silk - current project

large spindle of alpaca - current project

One of the wonderful things about using my Turkish spindles is being able to spin while still taking care of babies.  They also love watching the spinning.

Baby asleep in a wrap as I spin

That's enough spindle pictures for one post. Next time I'll feature my non-Turkish spindles.  (Note to self, get some decent photos of other spindles...)

needle felting

Once upon a time I didn't like knitting.  Then one day I loved it.
Once upon a I didn't have a yarn stash. (Mer and Heather are chuckling.) Then we went yarn-store-hopping. And there were regular excursions to Shall We Knit just to get out of the house with kiddo.
Once upon a time I didn't spin.  Then I was bored late one night and built a spindle from a CD, highlighter and paper clip to spin the fibre I'd bought years earlier to stuff a bear.
Once upon a time I didn't poke at fibre with a needle...

then

Priscilla the Eco Fairy needed wings for her new sleeper-sleeve-tube dress.  So kiddo and I mozied out to the big box craft store with two 50% off coupons and picked up a couple needle felting tools.  Priscilla's wings were my very first project.

 Next I a formed some fibre into a heart and added kiddo's initial for fun.

I needed more things to play with... I cut up a small (accidentally) felted soaker and cut a tree to decorate.  But all my fibre was too dark. I needed something bright.

This variegated sock yarn leftover was the perfect solution and now I have another way to make use of yarn ends.

I also have this package of mini fibre balls to play with. (Thanks Chris).