Not Mittens

The yarn I spun and thought I would use for mittens transformed into another shawl during the Knitterain KAL this fall.

5yo got these pictures for me. You can see the beads in the black. All in all, I'm happy to have used my lovely Peruvian Blues handspun yarn (fibre by Sericin Silkworks) for this Siuslaw shawl.  The black is buttery-soft alpaca I'd spun to pair with the blues. In retrospect, it was too thin for mittens - yeah, that's it.

preblocking

I was actually considering using my other Sericin Silkworks fibre - almost all spun - to pair with the blues for a brighter shawl, but discovered that even as a 3-ply, it was much too fine in comparison to the blues.  I am still working on my plying ball and had to take a break due to this horridness:

Can you see how the singles on the far left had fallen off it's holder 5 too many times? It's a mess! Slowly but surely I'm winding on and I know it will be all worth it!

Still slowly finishing my Proud As a Peacock mystery crochet-a-long.  Darn beaded edge.  Let's not even talk about knitting on the non-beaded edging of my Tread Softly shawl.

I did whip up this Cyclades vest for my eldest using handspun I bought in a destash.

She picked out the button, she'll have you know.

I also whipped up this destashing scarf:

And this little buttoned cowl in my own handspun (fibre from Wellington Fibres) as part of the KAL build up to the (first annual?) Manitoba Fibre Festival in Winnipeg. Kiddo and I had fun making all sorts of buttons earlier that week to finish this project.

At the festival I bought

this to knit for the kindergarten teacher (a half-haruni),

and these to spin.

I've got plans inspired by Trafalgar True...

That's what's new in my fibre world.
However, I really should knit mittens...

purples

Purples are notoriously difficult to photograph. As I was trying to capture the fuschia camel-silk among my newly flowered morning glories, I was frustrated by the colours I was getting on my camera. I've yet to install the full user guide to learn more about my camera - but it is primarily a PnS, so I don't expect miracles. There is a function to filter colours, and applying the different filters resulted in interesting perspectives on the complex colours within the flowers and the fibre.

Lazy Spinning Completed

It seems only yesterday I had the small length of fibre remaining. (It was 2 days ago)

The 'easy' part is done - all the fibre for my Laziest Dragon is spun.
Now to finish the knitting and the designing (exactly how to join the pieces).

Is this photo too suggestive?

Off the spindle (Large TTT Turkish)

Waiting to be knit

I fully pictured the next stage of knitting in my head the other night while desperately waiting for children to fall asleep - just before I fell asleep.

I am also inspired to spin more. Of something. Even though I know I should decide on the project first because I do have lovely gatherings of fibre that I wanted to "plan" for.  I could work on the Suri, but that requires combing too and I was rather hoping to train my 5yo to do that.
I should eventually finish spinning the BFL for my Earth blanket thingy [rav link]- but ever since a spindle and fibre for the project disappeared from my belongings I haven't had the heart... Plus, I'm rather out of love with the project. Maybe I should frog again and start over with two different projects. Hats perhaps. Except, now that I look at it on Rav I'd really like to finish it. Maybe it will be one of those never-ending projects that eventually grows to a decent blanket size... maybe. Assuming I work on it.

I may whip up my Crimson Ashland Bay Colonial top [rav link] for mittens. That's a great idea. And while I'm at it, I should finish planning to knit that other handspun I made for mittens... because before I know it, cold winds will be upon us.

Busy Hands

Despite having a busy summer of family events and house guests, I've managed to squeeze in some knitting, spinning and a new mystery crochet-a-long (for August).

I whipped up this tea mug cozy for my SIL's birthday to accompany the lovely mug (not shown) we picked up at Ten Thousand Villages. The mug has an insert and lid for brewing loose leaf tea, so of course it needs a cozy.  I had just enough hand-dyed, handspun to make this bulky cozy. My daughter picked out a button from her collection.

Meanwhile, I've finished up both bottom halves of the Lazy Dragon shawl and was reminded several times that I should count before cutting... despite my best efforts, this designing project is not so lazy. However, someone who is not testing as they go will find it much lazier.
I'm still working on the spinning of the second half of fibre.

Don't be fooled by the neatly-placed yarn. That's just the top layer. It's all messy-winding underneath. I wanted a comparison for myself because I was yearning for that perfect-look around my spindle again.  However, I've decided I much prefer the speed of messy-winding over the visual appeal of the above, which is much slower to wind.

For some reason, probably having to do with "because I can" - which is a common theme - I started spinning some suri alpaca from my stash.  I got this a long time ago in a destash. It is clean but not prepared, and I've never had tools to prep it.  The other day I picked up a small, fine dog comb and decided to comb individual locks.

bag of suri - silky goodness

tuft of suri - see the matted base

combing leftovers from many locks

combed lock

spun fibre

 Like my Lazy Dragon BFL, I've decided to spin this from the fold (of the lock).  In part I want to practice my technique and I've also read (and can feel) that suri is very slippery to spin. I find spinning from the fold gives a better grip to the fibre.

While I await my Lazy Dragon spinning to finish knitting the shawl (excuses, excuses), and while I avoid my Tread Softly shawl (despite having finally taken it out of hibernation and have it all ready to start the edge), I'm working on the August mystery CAL with Lily Go.

choosing beads...

 Soon this hand-dyed merino will be Proud as a Peacock - after not being so happy as another mystery KAL this summer.  I won't give any spoiler photos yet on this WIP.

Progress

Progress continues on the Lazy Dragon.  The first quarter is spun and knit. The second quarter is spun and being knit (top photo). The remaining half is being spun (second photo).

Progress has also begun on my Tread Softly shawl.  Yes, after all this time I pulled it out of storage. I prepared my start for the knit on edging. Cut my working yarn from the main body... and then realized I still had 2 more rounds to knit!
Took a deep breath. Picked up the working yarn. Proceeded to add those two rounds.
NOW I'm ready to work the knit on edging and only a couple of extra ends to weave in later...

Yep, that's how it looks right now. ;)
I'm saving better photos for the final reveal.

And to illustrate that I'm not simply starting new projects...

...there is a completed baby blanket (washed and blocked) as well as a wee baby hat (modeled on a doll).

Lazy Dragon begins

Two spinning projects on the go evidently wasn't enough for me because I had to start a third. (There's a fourth hibernating.)  I'm spinning up this peachy coloured BFL from On The Round on Etsy (in my stash for a little while) to make a new design that won't leave my head.  It's a Lazy Dragon shawl intended to make maximum use of a braid of fibre. However, being a lazy dragon, it must take minimal effort (for a spinning knitter).

Showing off the gradient

with a dragom

Here is how I've begun.
Step 1) photograph roving braid with a dragon. (non-essential step; potentially too much extra work for a lazy dragon)
Step 2) unbraid the roving until you have a crazy long length that requires you to stand on a chair as it drapes over your neck.
Step 3) find the mid point of the roving and pull apart into 2 still-long lengths
Last step could be avoided with two braids for a larger project.

One half with the darker end and pinky middle

Second half with the yellowish end and pinky middle

Step 4) Split one of the halves length-wise and try to make those halves equal.
I chose to split the darker half for the bottom of my shawl (where the design begins).

roughly equal length-wise halves

Step 5) grab the end and pull off a small chunk. Fluff it width-wise and prepare to spin it from the fold to maximize fluffiness of the yarn.

Fluffy tuft

Fluffy tuft folded in half and waiting to be spun.
I later made smaller tufts by pinching from the tip. Those were easier to work with.

Step 6) Start spinning from the fold. I'm going for a singles sport weight, so I started with a sport yarn leader. This project will be knit from the singles, so I'm making sure the yarn will hold up. Now is definitely not the time to have light twist, but neither to I want to over twist it and lose the fluffiness. That's why I chose BFL - it doesn't need a gross amount of twist to hold together.

Spinning on a medium sized Turkish spindle from Thomas Creations/ThreadsThruTime

Started spinning on July 1. Finished the first oz of singles the next day. My fastest yet.

Step 7) (again, optional) photograph finished 'turtle' of yarn

Pretty ounce of yarn on the spindle

underside of the yarn to see colours

some Thomas Creations / TTT spindle pron

Having completed the first section of yarn, it's time to start knitting. After swatching on different yarn, I went back to a familiar stitch that does wonderful things to handspun singles and provides glorious texture and depth to a knit project.

Step 8) Start knitting from the Turkish ball of yarn.  This is an essential step.  There's no rewinding for a Lazy Dragon.  No skeining or setting the twist. You must knit straight from the spun ball. If you spin with a different tool, I suppose you may have to rewind it. Or go get a turkish spindle.

underside of knitting to keep some things secret!

Spinning Diverse Fibres

I suppose it's official now. I'm a spinning fanatic.
In case my (non-fibre-y) friends and family didn't already think me strange enough, I started spinning my dog's fur.
Having completed 2/3 of my camel silk (above- isn't that lovely stuff?), I decided my support spindle needed a break from all that fine lace and the bag of dog hair stashed under the sink needed a reason-to-be.
With the help of a leader yarn (my first time using/needing one; I usually hand twist the start of a yarn) I started spinning Darla's fur.  This is all undercoat tufts that I pluck from her, so there is very minimal tough guard hairs in the blend.

 

I have no brushes/carders to process the fibre, so I'm spinning from the cloud/fluff. The staple length is quite short (especially compared with the BFL I started spinning yesterday), but the high speed of the spindle and the lack of any weight pulling down is working to whip this up.  Because of the leader yarn I started with, the single is being S-spun.  I'm keeping the yarn relatively fine at about a sport weight single - which is 'thick' for me.  I'll be 2-plying this dog yarn and then knitting up a wee doggy.  It's essentially 'art yarn' to me. Too itchy/fluffy/sheddy and too warm to be of any practical use.  One day I might consider blending it with wool, but this first play with dog yarn - chiengora - is just for fun.