Night Vine

HHHH

I finally finished spinning for my HHHH swap pal and the fiber is now on its way.

I bought the fiber from FatCatKnits, entitled ‘Night Vine’ – 4 ounces of Merino…

It went from this…

to this…

to this…

173.33+ yards of chain-plied handspun yarn. I didn’t get a WPI, but it seemed to mostly range from sport to worsted. Ironically, this is the most yardage I’ve gotten so far in my spinning. That would have been the only reason I’d have wanted to keep this fiber. The colors really weren’t my favorites and I’m glad it’s going to someone I hope will enjoy the colors more than I would.

Here’s more photos for you to enjoy!

handspun swap…


I joined the Hush Hush Handspun Hootenanny swap. We got our pals on July 7th. This is my second swap (I did sockapalooza 4 last year) and I’m very excited about this one! :) I’ve heard from the person who is spinning for me, which makes me very happy. Three weeks ago, I bought fiber to spin for my pal, which has several colors my pal likes and two weeks ago, it finally arrived!! It’s called ‘Night Vine’ from FatCatKnits.

I’ve started spinning it and am about half way through! I would have never chosen these colors for myself, but I truly am enjoying spinning this fiber.

Still don’t know whether or chain-ply or 2-ply. Hopefully the fiber will let me know what it wants to be. ;)

And on a completely different topic … I added a wish list to my blog (link is in the header). It’s a small list right now, but I’m sure it’ll grow. :D

frustrated with my knitting…

I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t been happy with anything I’ve been trying to knit lately.

So I’m doin’ other stuff …

Remember this fiber?


This is from the Hello Yarn Fibre Club – Toxic – I think it was the November selection.

Well, it had a bit of an identity crisis so it ended up being this:

Toxic, dyed by Hello Yarn

My first singles yarn! :D

and this:

which was plied with my new spindle:

Isn’t it purty? This was my 2nd choice when I was looking at spindles last year. It’s a Kundert – Cedar whorl, walnut shaft. It weighs 1.2 ounces. I like it and it spins nice, but my kokopelli spindle is still my favorite. Now… which spindle shall I get next. ;)

Stay tuned to see what other stuff I’ve been doin’ :D

taking my life into my own hands…

How did I do that? By spinning! Since the fiber was tucked neatly in thier plastic bags, I thought maybe I would try spinning some singles that had been sitting round.

This is what I got done – superwash merino wool, hand painted by Dave Daniels, Navajo plied.

The spinning was a success. What I forgot to do was wash my hands. So when, for whatever reason, I put my hand to my eye, thus began the itching and so forth. The things we go through so we can play with fiber, hm? :roll:

I also discovered something today. My birthday is the same day as The Yarn Harlot. I think that’s kinda kewl. :)

finally spinning my spindle…

spinning my spindle

I finally started spinning one of the fibers I got from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. This is the November 2007 fiber – Superwash Corriedale Wool Top. It’s called ‘Toxic’. It has a longer staple than merino, which took some getting used to. I’ve read that Merino is harder for beginner’s to spin because of it’s short staple, but I never had issues with Merino. I think this fiber is more of a challenge.

I started out with a goal of spinning singles but part way through, I decided I wanted a 2 or 3-ply. So I put the singles on a tp roll and have started again. (Talk about fiber with an identity crisis. ;) )

I totally had another post in mind when I found all these photos of my camera.

Enjoy! :)

dsc05893.JPG

dsc05890.JPG

dsc05891.JPG

dsc05892.JPG

dsc05893.JPG

dsc05895.JPG

dsc05896.JPG

dsc05898.JPG

dsc05899.JPG

dsc05885.JPG

dsc05894.JPG

dsc05897.JPG

dsc05903.JPG

this year…

Normally I dislike sharing yearly goals, but for some reason, this year is different.


First, I learned last year that joining project specific knit-a-longs is not for me. Invariably, as soon as I join, I no long want to make the item.

So, I’ve decided to participate in a year long gift-a-long, started by the wonderful Marce.

giftalongbutton.jpg

The goal is avoid that last minute stress of gift knitting. Even if I have a goal of knitting one thing a month, I’m still ahead of the game.


I’ve also decided to join Dave in his ‘Spinning My Wheel‘ quest. But I’m gonna call it ‘Spinning My Spindle’.

spinmyspindlebutton02.jpg

At any rate, I’ll be spinning along and trying to keep track of my spinning efforts. But sadly, I’ve hardly spun anything this year. But the year is not over, right?


And I have one more goal for this year. To knit a sweater – something I’ve always wanted to do. I did consider making The Cobblestone Sweater, but now Tiennie has kindly shared her pattern for The Fog Sweater, which I love very much. But that’s a decision for later. First, I’m reading ‘The Sweater Workshop‘ that I got from the library. I’m up to reading about two-color knitting and stranding. I figure, if I can get some comprehension about the different techniques first, when I actually start working on that sampler, it won’t be as scary. At least that’s my hope.


And so as to not to be completely void of photos, here’s a photo of my scarf-in-progress.

dsc05841.JPG

ttfn!
knitting.gif