This is the rainbow yarn I’ve been spinning. I REALLY like how it came out. I need to spin more singles yarn (especially since plying is not my favorite part of spinning. ) Enjoy!

I finally finished the cashmere/tussah silk handspun yarn! It was a challenge (not as easy as wool) but I made it work.

(in progress photos can be found HERE)

I am still considering using this in the stripe study shawl as the contrasting color.

It took me a bit to find a way to spin this yarn that I wanted – which was more of a supported long draw than worsted. Here’s a very basic description of how I did it.

I pulled off a bit of the fiber and drafted it out sideways.

I folded that in half.

Then, from the tips, rolled into rolags(ish) and spun from the end. (I don’t really consider them to be rolags ’cause I didn’t card the fiber.)

I had just enough tension on my wheel to pull the fiber out gently and I pulled my fiber hand back slowly, matching the speed that the twist entered the drafting zone. I used my other had to control the speed & pull from my wheel.

I learned a lot from from spinning this yarn and got something very soft and pretty in the end. Soooo worth it!

*tap tap tap* Is this thing on? Anybody out there?

Yes, I’m still alive and breathing. I’m attempting to make some changes in my RL and unfortunately, blogging seems to be a casualty in this case. I am sad about that, but there’s only so much energy and time a person has.

So blogging for the next little while will be a bit sporadic. But I’m knitting up a storm and my spinning wheel is even getting a little attention these days. Hope you’ll hang in there with me. I miss sharing my fiber adventures with you.

I finished my shawl! I call it the ‘Monet Shawl’ ’cause the colors in the barber pole yarn remind me of impressionistic art. It looks different from far away than it does close up. (you can see the fiber and yarn in THIS POST)

Started: March 13 2011 – Completed: April 28 2011

Lately, I’ve been a little stressed and a little overwhelmed… so I decided that I needed a little comfort. That, of course, meant knitting.

So I pulled out some handspun, wound it up and started knitting a very basic triangular shawl. No specific pattern but lots of mindless stockinette with lots of color. The color of the shawl reminds me of an impressionistic painting so I’m calling it my ‘Monet Shawl’.

Here’s are some photos of fiber, yarn and just a small peek at the beginning of the shawl. Enjoy!

I got a preowned Canon 10D Digital SLR from KEH.com.

I really like it. My little Sony Cybershot P-72 serves me well but I was getting less and less happy about the minimal control I had over the settings for the pictures (and as a result, taking fewer photos) so I broke down and bought a ‘new’ one.

So, of course, I had to pull out some stash to take pictures.

But this one is my fave, I think.

I finished my yarn on the last day of the tour! (It was very much a coincidence ’cause I didn’t know when the end of tour was – I just wanted to spin!)

I ended up with a very nice squishy yarn. Non-superwash merino. I am a little disappointed that the blue dye bled in the finishing wash, coloring the natural end of the of the yarn, but I’ll get over it. I suppose it was inevitable but still a little bit of a bummer.

This is the first yarn that I kinda designed. I think that’s cool. I call it ‘Gradient Blues’. There’s one thing that I know for sure – it’s gonna be used for something for me.

I think the photos speak for themselves so enjoy!