Good mail

Yesterday was one of the first real wintery days we've had - rainy, chilly, grey and windy. Let's hear it for London winters! But I arrived home with two whiny children in tow to find a very large package waiting for me. Inside the package was a metric buttload of pretty fiber.

First there was a pound of this:

HYFC Timber Romney, September 2010. I was so taken with the photos of this fiber online that I ordered four more bags before mine even arrived. I have visions of handspun garter stitch sweater in my head.

Then there was October's fiber club:

HYFC Burrows Rambouillet, October 2010 offering. This fiber is so gorgeous, and it reminds me of the sea on a stormy fall day. Greys, pale green, pale blue, dark grey, brown. It is stunning. I still haven't spun up my first Rambouillet, which was also a fiber club installment. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this but it is incredibly soft and cushy, even in top form.

Then there was the big deal - my Shelburne Falls Hat was randomly selected for a prize in the 4! Oz! Challenge spin/knit-along this fall, and my prize came in this big bag.

One bump each from Adrian, Amy and David. Let's take a closer look...

First up is Corriedale in the colorway Twenty Ten from Spunky Eclectic.

Lots of oranges and pink, with some darker blue and brown thrown in. Totally not colors I would have picked out for myself, but totally amazing.

Next is Happy Dance Shetland from Hello Yarn.

Happy Dance indeed! I love shetland, and I can't wait to spin up these gorgeous colors. Dev might even go for this yarn - she can not get enough pink. Still (as an aside, I know she's my daughter because I distinctly remember her arrival, and I'm pretty sure they didn't switch her at the hospital, but where did this pink thing come from? Or is it just a little girl thing? Will it pass eventually? Please?).

Last, but certainly not least is the Southern Cross Fibre offering: Cairns Polwarth.

I'm not sure where to begin except to say that David could not have picked a colorway I would adore more if he'd known me from birth (the colors are much better in the first picture of all three). And Polwarth! Excuse me while I go have a little lie down until the blood returns to my brain.

I want to thank all of the people involved in the whole Challenge - the dyers for doing what they do so well, and the moderators Stacie and Maryse for organizing the whole thing. It was such a fun experience to spin with a design in mind and actually see it through to the finished project. I can't wait for next year!

Handspun patterns

The 4! Oz! Challenge! ends tomorrow, and I'm happy to say that I finished my patterns and got them submitted before the last day (a miracle in and of itself, seeing as how I am the Queen Procrastination). Here they are*:

Lisbon Cloche**, superwash merino in "Thunderstorm" from Spunky Eclectic

download now

Shelburne Falls Beret, Targhee in "Garland" from Hello Yarn

download now

This was a really interesting process for me. Usually I spin without much of an end product in mind (although the TdF did change that a bit). For these, I had four days in between trips in August to spin up the yarn, and I knew two things: 1) I was going to chain ply both colorways to keep the colors intact, and 2) I was going to knit hats, but I didn't want them to be really obviously stripey.

For the SE merino, I ended up spinning a really fast, thick single. When it was plied up, the yarn ranged from 6-10 wpi and was super squooshy. I used a slipped stitch pattern (same as in an eye of partridge heel flap) to break up the striping, but since the colors didn't contrast very much, that was sufficient.

For the Targhee, which I spun second, I was a bit rushed - the final yarn was a wee bit overplied. But...there wasn't a lot I could do about that while on vacation, so I soldiered on. Since the colors in that skein were much more contrasting, I needed to take "extreme" measures to try and break up the striping. The stitch pattern I chose has two rounds of slipping the same stitch, which is then crossed over two stitches on the third round. I'm really pleased with how it came out.

The patterns include details about spinning the yarn and a whackload of specs (i.e. singles wpi/tpi, plied wpi/tpi, twist angle, etc). Both hats are knit from the top down, starting with i-cord in waste yarn, and can easily be adjusted in size as you go (patterns are written for only one size). Enjoy***!

* Please excuse the goofy pictures, but it's really hard to take pictures of your own head without looking like an idiot.
** Named for the towns in which the respective dyers (Amy of Spunky Eclectic and Adrian of Hello Yarn) are located.
*** If you knit up one of these in a commercial yarn, please let me know how it works out and I'll add that to the Ravelry pattern pages. Thanks!

Summertime, and the blogging is absent

Sorry about my unplanned hiatus. I've spent the last two weeks in the US with family, and the last two days trying to shake the jetlag before I get on yet another plane (this time for work). But I do have lots of finished objets to share with you.

First off: I did manage to spin up my yarn in those few days at home between trips. I ended up with 96 yds of bulky/superbulky superwash merino,

and about 175 yds of somewhat overplied Targhee.

About 91 yards of the merino became this,

and 170 yards of the Targhee became this,

which still needs the ribbing redone on smaller needles so it doesn't fall off quite so easily. The patterns are written and off to my wonderful test knitters, and I hope to have them available for release soon. Along with some better pictures!

I also managed to finish 99.9% of the mind-numbing stockinette on the Aran Necklace camisole. And then I ran out of yarn. Thankfully I was in the hidden section of the hem, and I had some DK weight random cotton lying around.

Last night's bout of jet lag-induced insomnia meant that this baby has it's hem sewn down and is blocked and drying on the guest bed as we speak. Hooray! Of course, autumn has arrived here in the UK (unlike in New England where it was ludicrously hot) (ok, it wasn't Texas hot, but it was hotter then England!), and it's not likely that it will be warm enough to wear on it's own, but that's ok. Especially since the armholes dip down below bra line on the side. Hmmm...

Finally, I finished my first pair of socks in a couple of months. I kind of lost my sock mojo at the start of the summer holidays in July, but 7 hour plane rides do allow for some concentrated sock time. I can only show part of these, since they're a design that I'm submitting, but they were great fun to knit. I liked the yarn alot too - Cherry Tree Hill Supersock merino. I think the colorway was "Blueberry Hill", which I liked. US 1.5/2.5 mm needles, 8.5 stitches per inch.

I wrote this up and sent it off to Sock Madness for next year, so the picture is deliberately obscured. Just in case you thought I was doing some drunken knitware photography.

So, two weeks vacation and no blogging means three completed original designs, and one summer tank I can't wear until next June. But there's a lot going on this fall - the iKnit Weekender is in a couple of weeks, and yesterday on my bike ride I hatched out a great and completely insane plan to knit sweaters for six people in my family (including me to be fair), four handspun, one cabled, one colorwork, by next March. Methinks that any Christmas knitting to be gifted has already been knit this year...

My Challenge challenge

I'm participating in the 4! Ounce! Challenge! on Ravelry. This is a spin/design/create-along, in which spinners make a yarn, design a project, and then release the pattern on Ravelry. The motivation behind this event was every spinner's common problem: I saw some really pretty handdyed top, and bought 4 ounces, and spun this yarn - now what do I do with it? The idea is to end up with a bunch of patterns that are suitable for four ounces of handspun.

The Challenge occurs over the months of August and September, and prizes will be awarded to a few of the lucky folks who design and release patterns. My personal Challenge within the Challenge is this: spinning up 8 ounces in August while being on vacation away from my wheel for three out of four weeks. This translate to: spin, ply and finish 8 ounces of fiber in five days. Packing wet yarn at the final moment on Friday is not allowed.

I've started with some superwash merino top from Spunky Eclectic, colorway "Thunderstorm". This one is getting spun long draw from the top, slightly thicker singles then my usual, and will be chain plied.

So far (one viewing of Aladdin) I've gotten through a bit more then half of the braid. I'm hoping to finish up the singles tonight, and then I'll let them rest for a day while I spin the other bump. If nothing else, I think the Tour de Fleece made me a faster spinner. Thankfully!