Knitting Again!

Yes, I've picked up my much missed needles again! For this project, I am designing and knitting a hat for my daughter. The yarn is handspun by me alpaca yarn. The original idea was to spin and knit a blanket for her, but then I got a bunch of blankets at a shower (some really nice handmade ones too). I started spinning it before she was born but am just now getting to knitting it. The idea has morphed into a hat, knit from the top down. I like that for the same reason I like toe up socks, you can try it on as you go. I'm thinking an I-cord edge will finish this hat off nicely. I hope I can find time to finish it before it gets cold!

Hand Spun Knit Hat

I've had this yarn (the light green one on the left in the first picture) that I spun from this hand dyed falkland wool top for a while now. It's been waiting for just the right knitting project. I knew I wanted to pair it with another yarn, but it took me a while to decide on some of my hand spun Bluefaced Leicester. The idea is that the solid color yarn will help to better highlight the subtle color changes in the hand dyed yarn.
Here is the hat I'm working on. I'm liking the pattern, which is here. I've been wanting to make one of those tams for a while too, plus its time to knit a hat for myself, because I want a new hat.
The really crazy part is that I knit most of that in one day. I had cast on the day before and knit a few rows. It was a day spent at various airports waiting for our flights and on the flights, but still, that much in one day is a lot of knitting! I wonder how long it will take me to do the rest...

On the Bobbin: Moonlit Sea

I dyed 4 ounces of Superwash Merino roving different shades of blue and green, with the blue at one end and the green at the other. Here is the single after I finished spinning it. I spun the blue part first so the green is on the outside.

So far I've spun just under 2 ounces of it. I navajo plied the single to get a three ply yarn that maintains the same color placement. The yarn gradually changes from blue to green over the skein with no repeats.
Here is the finished yarn!If you'd like to buy it:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32391257

Spinning My Drum Carded Fiber

Remember those first batts I carded on my brand new drum carder? I finished spinning it into yarn!

The carding did the trick because the spinning was smooth. After I got the batts off the carder I pulled them apart into 4 long strips per batt. The drafting was easy and it made for a consistent yarn weight.

I think it looks a bit blue in the pictures, but its a dark purple wool with white mohair and white nylon sparkles.Now I need to expand my fiber stash...

Drum Carder!!!!!!

Earlier this week I was surprised by the fabulous gift of a drum carder! Here it is after I carded my first batt with it! I'm pretty excited about all the new yarn possibilities!

It is a fancy kitty drum carder. I'm really liking it so far! I still need to get a few tools to go with like a burnishing tool and a brush to clean it. I also want to finish the wood.


This is what I used in my first batt, a mix of purple dyed wool and white mohair with some nylon sparkle. This is what I had around here. That purple and white stuff is supposed to be roving, but it is a bit messy. I've hand carded some of it for yarn before.
This is the finished batt. I made 3 of them today and spun them all. I'll post pictures of the finished yarn when its done drying from setting the twist!

On the Bobbin: Stormy Seas

I started with this lovely hand dyed merino top. I was trying to make a really huge skein, but I just had to see what it looked like when I plied it! This is about half of top I have.


It's already off the bobbin, twist set, and hanging to dry.

Spinning Time

This pretty is 80% Merino wool and 20% Silk. I got it from yarn2spin in Greenville Michigan. It was pretty cool to finally go to her shop in person and see all the great stuff in her shop. This top was one of the things I picked up. I'll post pictures of the finished yarn when I'm done!

Candyland Inspired Yarn

I thought I'd tell you a bit about how I made my Candyland Inspired Yarn for the EtsyFAST challenge for June.

First I chose the colors to match the squares on the path of the gameboard: read, purple, yellow, blue, orange, green. I selected equal amounts of each roving and then pulled each one apart in equal pieces.
I spun the single with the colors in the same order and then repeated the colors, after that my bobbin was quite full!

The first picture shows the single on my lazy kate. In the second picture, I've started plying the yarn. I navajo plied the yarn so that my colors would stay together. I wanted solid color stripes for this yarn instead of the plys being different colors for most of the yarn. In navajo plying the spinner makes big crochet chains with the single ply and twists the three strands together into a three ply yarn.

Here's the very bright and colorful finished yarn!

Current Projects

I've been switching gears from dying to spinning and knitting this week. I spun a brand new skein of Blue Faced Leicester Yarn, as well as a mini skein of some wool yarn I had from a while ago (shown hanging to dry on my door to the right). I only had a little sample, so I'm thinking of putting this together with some other hand spun yarn.

The second picture shows some possible yarn combinations. I'm looking at combining it with other small bits of hand spun that I have.

I'm also working on what to knit with it. Since its a small amount of yarn, I'm thinking of making a neckwarmer and adding some lovely handmade buttons that I just bought from ginpins. She makes such great buttons that its sometimes a race to buy them first!

I'm currently knitting up a neckwarmer in a new pattern that I think will work for the hand spun one as well. This neckwarmer is knit with yarn from Yarn2Spin; it is Shepherd's Wool from Stonehedge Fiber Mill in Michigan in 2 shades of green.

I did some spinning

I got my spinning wheel set up finally and worked on an idea I've had for a while. I have 3 different colors of shetland wool. I spun a single alternating between the 3 colors. Then I plied it onto itself and two of the three colors are paired randomly.




I like the way it turned out.




I wanted to post this earlier, as in days ago, but Google and Blogger seemed to be having some dns problems.

Bulky Yarn

I've been spinning a bit more than usual this week, trying to have a few more skeins for the Fall Thing Craft Fair this Saturday. I just finished this skein. It's a bulky one and I plied it on my new bulky flyer. I can fit sooo much on the large bobbin! :)
I took this picture right after I took it off my swift, before I set the twist.

Moonlit Garden Handspun Yarn

For my Moonlit Garden Yarn I started with these:

top left is my handdyed River Garden Roving, top right is some cotton yarn, bottom left is sparkly gold tinsel, and bottom right is shetland roving.


and spun them into this:

My Moonlit Garden Handspun Yarn! Starting with my River Garden handdyed wool roving I spun a thick and thin single. I spun another single with a cotton yarn, white shetland roving and gold sparkle tinsel and I plied those together.

This is an entry in the EtsyFast AugustChallenge.

ETSY FAST'S AUGUST CHALLENGE - CELESTIAL THEME:Fast stands for Fiber Arts Street Team. We work together to promote our fiber art and the Etsy site. Just for fun, we pick a challenge each month for all of us to be involved in. The August Challenge is anything celestial, suggested because we will have both a meteor shower and a total lunar eclipse this month. If you would like to enjoy our submissions Search either "etsyfast" or "augustchallenge".

Newest Yarn Today

I like the look of yarn with beads on it. Here is my newest yarn. I spun beads onto a single and then plyed it so they wouldn't move around. This one will be available in my shop after it dries. (You can see the beads better if you click on the pictures)

Talking About Spinning

This is some Corriedale top that I'm spinning. It's really nice to work with and so pretty. :) There is a picture of a pause in my spinning below. I needed to use my other hand to take the picture. The last picture is of the single collecting on the bobbin. I'm tying to keep the single not too tiny so I'll have around a worsted yarn when done. I think I want to double ply it. I like tripple ply but you don't get as much yarn, plus andean plying worked out well for me last time. Any suggestions about what I should make with it?

Blanket Update

The latest addition to my blanket is a small rectangle knitted on size 8 needles with yarn spun on a drop spindle. The purple is 70% merino and 30% tencel. The white is wool of some kind that I used to test my drop spindle. The drop spindle is fun to use, but I like my wheel more. I did like spinning at the airport while I waited for my flight.

Knitting with Corn

These pictues are of my latest square for the blanket. They are made of hand spun knitted ingeo, knitted with size 2 needles. I was trying out different stitches and some cables with out a cable needle.

The blanket

I'm making a blanket. I'm spinning lots of different kinds of fibers and then knitting them up and putting them together. Last night I added two more sections to my blanket. This is a really fun project and I'll post updates on it as I go.