I snagged this photo from Ali's facebook page. It is the only shot of ME spinning! Doesn't my hair look great???

I finished the fiber

that I am spinning in this shot.

I now know why it is called Caribbean! Look at the wash water after I soaked in Eucalan to set the twist.

What I ended up with is about 240 yards of fingering weight, navajo plyed.

Now to plan a project with this! The fun part!

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.

Alpaca!

I am starting to get more comfortable with the new computer and I think I will survive. Whew. There are some fun new features like the photo gallery which is taking some time to get used to, but I like it. Having the clock and calendar on the desktop is great, but the stock quotes is so depressing that I may remove it. Trying to hold tight in that area and not sell is a challenge, but since I will be working till I am 80, I guess I can hold out for recovery.

I finished Chun-soon's Odessa hat. Actually, I finished it twice........ The first time it was not nearly long enough, so I frogged back the decrease section at the top, added more length and finished it again. I think she will be happy. I am glad it is over, since I knit the equivalent of 2 hats, with all the errors and frogging. The free pattern is available through Ravelry, but was originally published by the now defunct Magknits. This is the link to the designers website: Grumperina.

Since it is the end of the month and I want to enter the September challenge in the Spindler's Group of Ravelry, I have been frantically working on my Merino fiber. The challenge allows any amount of finished yarn, so I am going to stop today, wash it and then have it ready by Tuesday. I had less than 4 oz to start with, and I don't have much fiber left, but I will end up with a large skein and a mini-skein once I finish it all.

Yesterday, I went to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds for Alpaca on the Rocks, an all alpaca show for breeders and crafts people. It was such a last minute decision to go, that I didn't have my camera with me...RATS! Those alpacas were so photogenic. I haven't been working on my February Lady Sweater lately, because of my fear of running out of yarn, so I took my swatch with me to try to match the color and weight at this show. SUCCESS!!!!

I walked all the aisles with my swatch, and even enlisted unsuspecting fair goers to help me determine the best match. Luckily, the original yarn was natural and not dyed, so I only had to search through the white samples. Even then, there was quite a bit of variation in the samples.

I had not yet tried to spin alpaca fiber and this was the perfect opportunity to pick up some local fiber that was very inexpensive.

The first one is dyed by Yvonne Reimer of Carrot 'N Diamond Alpacas of Colorado Springs. It is only a couple of ounces and will be a nice accent to add to a project. Yvonne doesn't knit or spin (they send the fiber out for that) but she dyes beautiful variegations of yarn and fibers. Her specialty, however, is wet felting of the fiber and her creations of bowls, slippers, hats and especially the wine bottle holders were terrific. Another interesting item was her felted soap. The bar of soap is totally enclosed in felted alpaca and as it is used it continues to felt growing smaller and smaller until you are only left with a small felted ball of alpaca.

This one is 4 ounces of natural alpaca from two different animals from Cheryl Keydel at Ancient Treasures Alpaca Ranch. She has a ranch with about 20 alpacas in Arvada and has lots more of this fiber and if you would like some, contact her.. But save some for me, in case I need more. She told me that the two contributors of their fleece for my fiber are Frostie and Tia Alyst....awwwww.

I so enjoyed talking to the breeders and fiber people. I was able to watch several wheel spinners and talk at length about the craft that I am growing addicted to. This is such a small show that there were no crowds and I got my fill of petting both the animals and the fiber. I wish I could convey the softness through these photographs, but you will have to take my word for it. I will leave the animals to the breeders and enjoy the fiber in my home.

To my Jewish Friends and Family: L'Shana Tovah. A Sweet Year, A Healthy New Year to you all.

New Friends and Projects

For the last week we have been lucky to have Amanda home for the weekend, as well as a couple of her friends, newly returned from their road trip and Alaska adventure. Chun-soon Li is Amanda's friend from NYC and is quite the character. She is fun, sassy, and always makes a personal statement with her presence.

Kate is quieter, intense, warm and a country girl at heart. Amanda met Kate in NYC when she was dating her cousin, but she has resettled in Casper WY temporarily. The two friends stayed for several days longer than Amanda, and they added a cheerful element to our otherwise quiet home. Buried in her computer most of the time, Chun-Soon gave me some incentive to improve my paltry skills and the confidence to know that it is possible. I should have taken a photo of Chun-Soon at the computer, but here is Kate.

Earlier this year I made another Odessa Hat by Grumperina for Amanda, who informed me that Chun-soon was always borrowing her hat. I started one for her while she was here and one would think that on the fourth go round of making the same pattern, I wouldn't have any trouble at all. Of course, I was off a stitch in the first beaded row and had to tink back a couple of rows, fudge a stitch, then continue. Now that the pattern is set, it is going much more smoothly. I am using the same yarn and needle sizes as my last hat.

It should be done soon and I will either mail it or take it to NY when I go in October.

I have been working on Monkey Socks by Cookie A. I have been using one of my "Europe" sock yarns- Regia. I am surprised how fast they are knitting up and it has been a most enjoyable project. I converted the pattern to Magic Loop, so it is not exact, but this pattern was easy to adapt as the pattern repeat is 16 for a 64 stitch total count.

I am on the gusset section of the second sock and should finish this pair pretty soon. I think this pair is going to CT for my friend Marion.

I have slowed down on the February Lady sweater, since I am so afraid of running out of yarn. I think I will definitely e-mail the ranch to see when they might have some more, and if not till next year, I may take the swatch of the yarn to Rhinebeck to see how I can possibly match it up.

I finished the second skein of the Louet Northern Lights, Thunderstorm, and it is not the same gauge as the first skein. This time I got about 200 yards and just over 56 grams. I am approaching sock weight, but I don't think the yarn is dense enough to wear well. Maybe the third skein will be the charm and I will have enough of one gauge for a pair of socks, shawl, or fingerless mitts. Gift giving season is approaching and my mind is churning with ideas.

I began spinning a new project. Last week, Stacy and I went to Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder to survey their spinning supplies, and I bought some merino roving in a soft multi-color grey. I hadn't yet tried merino, but it was so soft and irristable. I spun a small batch and did ok with it.

Then I decided to try Tammy Rizzo's Navajo Plying on the Fly. On this blog site there are written directions as well as a video demonstrating the technique. It seems quite fiddly at first, but then I got the hang of it and did quite well. What I ended up with is a three ply yarn on the spindle. I haven't yet measured it, but it seems at least worsted weight or maybe a little bulkier. My intention is to enter this into the Ravelry spindler challenge, either for the September group which has a theme of "Rock" or maybe if I get enough yardage (I need at least 200) then into the quarterly challenge whose theme is calming and variegated solid colors.

It will make a soft, lovely hat, maybe for Kate. If only Alison liked wool......it would be for her.