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.