Ishbel is finished and it is Bee-yooo-tee-full!

If I do say so myself! Here is the history of my lovely shawl, the Ishbel. From everything I read, it is the shawl pattern of the year with thousands being knit according to Ravelry!

The BFL fiber started out as roving purchased at Rhinebeck last year from Briar Rose Fibers at the end of my wonderful day there.

I started out spinning on my spindles and then when I purchased my wheel in February, I finished off the rest of the 17 oz of fiber. As you can see from the photo of the drying skeins, there are many many shades of green in the fiber, so I had to be careful which of the spun yarn skeins I put into the project. As it turned out, I ended up using both wheel spun and spindle spun yarn in the shawl, because the colors worked best.

Knitting up the lace had several false starts, but finally I rolled along to the end. While knitting it, you can hardly see the lace pattern and it was hard to believe that it would end up so beautifully!!

Here it is all spread out on the floor, finished, but unblocked:

I don't have blocking wires or blocking boards, so I used the carpet in the spare bedroom with towels and glass headed pins. The stripes on the towels were my guides.

Now the lace was starting to reveal itself and all its beauty, like magic.

Ta Da! The finished shawl. The camera doesn't capture the colors as well as some of the other shots. The photo above is close.

Isn't she pretty! The details: This is the large size of the pattern, knit on size 6 needles. The final dimensions are 63" from tip to tip, and 27" from the top to the bottom point.

oh boy, oh, boy, oh boy.....More fiber to spin!

When I first started spinning over a year ago, it was the pure fascination of it all. I started slowly with a drop spindle and I thought the process was so leisurely that my stash would grow at the same rate as knitted finished objects (FOs)! How could I ever have been so wrong??? Look at me now, with 5 drop spindles and a wheel, lots of handspun yarn and only two handspun FOs to show for a year of spinning. Over the last several months, I have no knitted FOs to show and lots more fiber on hand to spin, as well as many, many skeins of ready to knit yarn. I started this blog at about the same time, and read back to the beginning for this history of a new addiction! Below is just my most recent wheel spinning. I do have lots of spindle spun yarn in my stash box upstairs. It is a little frightening to see how the stash grows, and grows, and grows.

Here are two new fibers I received in the last couple of weeks. This first from Dragonfibers is a blend of Superwash Merino, Bamboo, and Nylon in the Mountain Majesty colorway.

I divided it into thirds lengthwise and rolled each into its own ball.

I have set it up on the wheel, and it is demanding to be spun super-fine for three ply socks. It has such a lovely shimmer. My goal is for striped socks which will probably end up coordinating but not matching.

The second fiber is another purchase from JulieSpins. This one is Merino 64s in the color called Brilliant Hibiscus.

This roving is not superwash and so soft and fluffy/thick that I need to really try to make a heavier weight yarn for a hat/mitts set. This fiber is going into the stash box for now......

I have been a spinning fool, lately, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. At least I have something to show for all that time spent with my new wheel. Believe it or not, this is all from the same 17 oz ball of roving: Briar Rose BFL that I purchased at Rhinebeck last October.You can see that there is a definite difference in the overall results. These are soaked, thwacked, and hung in the closet to dry.

The two skeins with the pink ties, as seen below a little clearer, are spindle spun and navajo plyed on the spindle and lovely, if I do say so myself. The other three were done on the wheel. The 1st and 4th are three ply and so tightly plyed that you can still see the kinking even after its nice hot bath. I hope it settles down after knitting it up. The second skein is my favorite- two ply, but not as tightly spun. A shawl perhaps. Isn't it interesting how different the colors came out after plying, especially the 4th from the left.

Here is another example of how plying can really affect the final yarn achieved. These all came from the same ball of roving from JulieSpins. The greens really are pronounced in the third skein and this is the one I will start with for socks. It was suggested to me at my spinning group that I should have rewound one of the singles to spread the green out, but did I listen?? What do you think????

I think I need to restrict my spinning to one or two days a week. I am bound and determined to have some knitting to show here on the blog and I need to finish some of the UFO's that are lingering.

Or maybe I should rename this blog: Lizzzspins!

On to a New Blogging Year

All through the past several weeks, I have spindling more than knitting and I am getting pretty itchy for a Wheel. A Kromski Sonata wheel to be exact.

This is the exact wheel that my knitting buddy, Stacy, purchased before the holidays and I had a chance to try it out at her home. I am thinking about the same wheel in the Walnut stain for myself to match some woods in my home and after reading many of the review both on the net and in Ravelry. I like this wheel's classic looks without taking up too much room when set up. The best part is that it breaks down and folds into a padded carrying bag so that it can easily travel to spin-ins or nearly anywhere. From what I have read, it can do nearly everything a spinner would want to do: from laceweight to heavy worsted weight. The itch is getting bad, but I am waiting for career enhancement to take place......

So I continue to spindle spin with my three favorite spindles: Golding, Bosworth, and Eichheim. I am almost to the end of the Creatively Dyed Sea Wool fiber from Rhinebeck, and I believe I will have enough for socks after plying the last bits. I am making a regular 3 ply for this yarn, and putting quite a lot of spin into it to make it better wearing socks. Might have to do 2-at-a-time toe up socks, in case I run short. Oh Boy, another technique to learn!

This is all that is left to spin:These are my singles already spun for the second skein:

I don't seem to be making much of a dent in the Briar Rose BFL fiber, also purchased at Rhinebeck in October. One skein is finished of worsted weight, which I used the Navajo ply on the fly technique. For this next skein, I am using the same technique, but spinning finer, so the plyed yarn is much thinner. I should probably be using my wraps per inch tool to determine the actual weight of the yarn, but until I have lots of it finished, I am too lazy. I am winding it onto a TP roll as the spindle gets too heavy and I have about 40 grams in weight done on the TP roll. The skein on the left is the worsted weight which should make a nice hat. Since the roving was over a pound when I purchased it, I better make friends with it. It will be occupying my home for a long time! This is the roving ball still left of 17 oz purchased:

And this is what the scale reads.........

Spinning WIP's

I think it is time to show some of the spindle spinning that I have been doing. What has been taking a lot of my spare time are these two fibers that I bought at the Sheep and Wool festival at Rhinebeck last month.

Here is the Briar Rose fiber which is BFL in lovely shades of green. The purple which is visible in the roving just blends to dull the brightness in some areas and the final result which I am planning to do a regular 3 ply should be nicely variegated in brightness, but not necessarily in different colors. I have been trying to spin a little thicker so the 3-ply is about worsted or heavier weight to use for hats, cowls, or even a vest since I have so much of it (17 oz total).

This is the pretty rose/copper fiber from Creatively Dyed in wool/seacell. It is so soft, but the frustration is that the seacell prevents me from spit-joining when the single breaks during spinning. I think that the wool portion is superwash, which doesn't felt either. The colors are so pretty individually that I decided to Navajo ply the singles instead of regular plying three singles together. It kept the colors more distinct in the final yarn.

After skeining, washing and winding into a ball on my ball winder, I began knitting a neckwarmer that I found on Peaceful Knitter's website. I am using size 8 needles, but the yarn is heavier than regular worsted weight, so I am going to frog it to get closer to her gauge. I will use size 7 needles and reduce the cast on by 2 pattern repeats to see how that does. What I knit, before frogging, is next to the skin soft, so it will be a nice use for this yarn.