Yes, I Have Been Slacking

I haven’t blogged in SOME TIME….wow, too long, really.

My beautiful daughter had her beautiful baby!! He’s the most beautiful boy in the world…of course, I am a little bit biased…just a little 🙂 She says I must ‘blog’ him, so here is a picture of cuteness itself….

So, perfect, right? I’m one proud grandma, though that’s something to get used to — I’m so NOT used to being a grandma!

Certainly the excitement of new babies explains my blogging-slacking behaviour, doesn’t it?

I’ve done some spinning, some knitting and some beautiful fleece purchasing – all since I’ve been on the blog last and some of which I’d like to share here since I’m really thrilled with some of the results 🙂 I’ve been on a bit of a yarn/fleece diet this year, and trying to use up the fleeces and fibre I already have rather than buying more. IF you could see the yarn closet you’d definitely agree that the diet is necessary. It’s that or we have to expand the yarn closet, lol, or trade it perhaps with the children – their room would really make a good storage! 😉

I spun some navy and royal blue superwash merino fibre which I had bought last year at the Black Lamb (www.theblacklamb.ca), from Laurie, who is wonderful. I plied it (two plies – I’m a lazy spinner with two bobbins) and knit it up into the Gooseberry Cardigan pattern. I’m more than happy with this sweater – it’s comfy, it’s soft, it’s quite possibly my new favorite all time sweater!

Not the best picture and I can’t believe it BUT, it seems I forgot (?) to take pictures of the spun wool or the spinning itself. I must be losing my grandmother mind!

Bonus! Found a picture of the spun yarn…

I made a little crocheted top – the Avalon Top by Doris Chan. Love how it turned out too….

I also made a little pair of socks, from my handspun superwash merino sock yarn…three ply this time….

I prefer ankle socks so when I made up this design, they seemed the way to go!

Seems like forever and like I’ve got too much to say for one day. Instead of jumbling it all together we’ll have to finish this up tomorrow – when I’ll show the new alpaca fleeces I just washed and the beautiful shetlands I’m processing!!!

Have a great day! 🙂

Back To My Spinning Wheel…

I’m hoping to spin enough 2 ply yarn for a light weight sweater 🙂 It feels good to be working with fibre and using my wheel again, after so many months of focusing on other things!

Since finances SUCK this year for us, I’m using mostly stash yarns and fibre in all my projects. I am out of sweater-lots of wool so if I want to knit anything bigger than socks I will have to spin first!

I have lots of bits of superwash merino in different colours and am going to combine them to spin up some yarn for knitting. It means combining colours and is a surprise every time. I made this a couple days ago – it’s a mixture of three or four blue shades, 2 ply, approximately 260 metres. I’m thinking socks for the baby boy, or a little sweater, perhaps 🙂

Another project I’m working my way through is combing through the leftovers from last years fleeces. I have about a pillowcase full of jacob wool and another partial case full of rambouillet. Some of it is ‘second combings’ since I HATE throwing out anything and there is a lot of saveable wool left over from combing in the first place.

Happy Spinning!

I’ve Cast On For The Mitts…

Two beautiful cakes of handspun 🙂 I’m hoping this works out like I think it will. I made the darker colour in a thick/thin, on purpose, hoping that it will add interesting texture. The other has some thick spots, lol, which are just the nature of me spinning…I’m the farthest thing from technically correct that there is! I just spin 🙂

I’ve finally cast on for the Winter Twilight Mitts! I am using my new harmony fixed circular in size 2.5 mm…I bought it for the Autumn Rose but never needed it…I’m using it as the fourth dpn since somehow? I only had three.

Today is ‘dentist day’ for me…a consultation to see what all needs done. Which BY FAR beats the toothache I had – so badly – recently. The dressing they applied has held and there hasn’t been any pain so I’m really hoping this means that they can fill this tooth rather than pull/rootcanal it. I don’t mind either proceedure really, and I’ve had both, but the COST of a root canal is outrageous and I’d rather we don’t have to afford that right now. I miss our dental benefits!

Knitting is so much less stressful!

Shadows — All Spun Up!

I’m calling it ‘Shadows Handspun’.

This is the yarn I was spinning for the trees in the Winter Twilight Mitts pattern. I used blue and black superwash merino. The first ply in blue only, the second using both colours in my ‘fake hand paint’ method. I was so unsure as I spun it but I love it now! 🙂

I have 440 metres!

Ah, AND, LOL, I made a drastic mistake when I calculated the yardage on the Violet Rose — I left out a whole hundred wraps!

(see the little ‘116’? I don’t know how but I counted that as ’16’)

So, it is really 645 metres, not 520.

The yarn is soaking at the moment…can’t wait to get it dried and ready to knit!

Perfect…

I’ve had a skein of two ply handspun sitting on the bobbin for a while. I was originally planning to use it to make a cabled sock yarn – it was a technique I hadn’t tried yet (and still haven’t, for that matter!).

However….

Now I’ve found the perfect pattern for it! It’s the Winter Twilight Mitts pattern by Laura Rintala, available as a free download on the Knitting Daily website.

I wish you could see the shine…the yarn has a really nice sheen to it and it’s so soft!

The yarn is superwash merino spun from mill ends bought at my favorite shop, The Black Lamb in Port Hope, Ontario. I spun the skein in my ‘fake hand paint’ way using various colours. There are 520 metres (yay me) on the skein, so more than enough.

I’m planning to spin some black superwash – maybe mix in some dark gray – for the main colour.

I’m excited 🙂 It’ll be good to get back to the wheel too! I polished her up this morning in anticipation of our upcoming time together…she’s so much prettier when she’s not all dusty.