I finished my fingerless mittens!

I call them ‘Elemental Mitts’ (aka Ele-Mitts). (A woman from my knitting group came up with that and said I could use it! )

They are mine, all mine and I love them! My first completed project using my own handspun!

I still have some yarn left to make something matchy-matchy so stay tuned for that. I’m still deciding what to make.

ttfn!

I took a small break from spinning for a few weeks but with the coming of Tour de Fleece and inspiration from The Hyper Monkey, I decided to start ‘training’ and finally sat down at my wheel to finish my current project.

This was spun from The Painted Tiger’s ‘CMY Party Mix’.

I just wanted a basic barberpole yarn, which worked most of the way except for a couple of sections of green & orange that are more solid.

I call it ‘Rainbow Pastel’. I think I like it!

I recently saw a rainbow arching across the sky. It was after a rainstorm – the sun came out and as I was driving home, I looked to my left and there was a rainbow… almost a full rainbow. Inspired, I went home and started spinning this – 4 oz Superwash Merino dyed by The Painted Tiger.

My goal was the split the top in half and spin so the colors matched up.

Well… that didn’t work out as planned, which is why I ended up with two skeins.

Nonetheless, I like it.

A while back, when I was experimenting with dyeing, I tried to dye some silk. But it didn’t really turn out the way I’d hoped. I’d read that silk doesn’t absorb water as quickly as wool so you need to soak it longer. So I did. The result was that the silk top seemed to disintegrate in the water. Not wanting to waste good fiber, I dyed it anyway, trying a technique that I came up with on the spot. I never really liked the final product so I didn’t take pictures and hid it in my stash.

Last December, when I couldn’t decide what to spin next, I pulled it out. I hadn’t spun silk before and figured it would be an good introduction. Since it was more like roving, I used more of a long draw to spin this fiber.

One thing I’ve learned about spinning (and somehow keep forgetting) is that the ‘ugliest’ of hand dyed fiber can make the prettiest of yarns.

I’m gonna have to try this dyeing technique again.

I finally finished yarn I started for my Ravelympics challenge. I wanted to spin 8 oz of fiber. Unfortunately, work kinda took over my life (don’t you hate when that happens?). Thankfully, that won’t be permanent, but the result was I wasn’t able to complete my challenge but I did finish the singles by the time the Olympics were over and about a week or two later the yarn was finished. So I present ‘Winter Rainbow’ – 8 ounces of Corriedale Cross (not at soft as Corriedale alone), dyed by The Painted Tiger.

As sometimes happens with yarns I make, I don’t always instantly love them – that was the case with this one … but it grew on me. It’s definitely spun a little more evenly than the previous version.

Ok, I’m off to knit the pink shawl. Happy knitting and/or spinning to you!

I finally picked up the Ulmus again.

I wasn’t sure why I put it down, because I really like knitting. But I think it’s because I was getting closer to the edging which has lace in it. So I’ve decided not to do that edging. Not sure what I’ll do yet. Oh well – It’ll be something to look forward to.