Spin, spin, spin like a tornado...

Since returning from our travels abroad, my knitting has fallen by the wayside. This week has been all about the spinning - I think I've spent at least an hour spinning every single day since we got back. Bliss! Here's what I've accomplished:

No, not all of that was done this week. The bobbin on the right was done a while ago, but I finished filling up the bobbin on the left (8 oz of Portuguese Merino in "Silt" from Hello Yarn) and spun up the last bag of Minerals Shetland (also from Hello Yarn) for my massive shawl/blanket KAL. I've very pleased, because now I've finished all the Silt and can start on the squoosh-tastic Targhee in "Parritch" that is A) also from Hello Yarn (I'm sensing a theme here...) and B) the third ply in my 3-ply sweater lot combo spin. Last night I prepped the fiber,

and started the last bobbin.

I can not wait to have this yarn finished and ready to cast on. Given the nature of both merino and Targhee, I suspect this 3-ply is going to come in on the bulkier side of worsted weight, so I'm going to use a big-ish needle to get some good drape. I predict this is going to be the Coziest. Sweater. Ever.

Right, that's it: there is spinning waiting for me. Along with a new goodie that nobody got me for Christmas so I got it for myself...hooray!

FF: Sweater lot

I've been working on a big spinning project off and on for the last couple of weeks. It's my second Hello Yarn Fiber Club combo spin - Silt Portugeuse Merino and Parritch Targhee.


I split the first 8 oz of Silt into 18 pieces (each 4 oz into 3 chunks, then each chunk lengthwise into 3 bits), and finished spinning it up on Wednesday.

I've become more scornful of merino in recent months, but this stuff has a nice wooly feel and grippiness (is that a word? You know what I mean...) that feels very un-merino-like. I suspect it's not going to wear terribly well, since the staple length is still pretty short, but I'm trying to spin the singles with enough twist that the pill factor isn't too horrible. I'll ply on the looser side to keep it from getting too dense. At least that's the plan - we'll see how it actually works out!

The second 8 oz is ready to go. Then on to the Targhee!

Fiber Friday: Wool, meet Literature. Literature, meet Wool.

Because I don't have enough to do already, and because I love Craftlit and pretty much everything Heather Ordover does, a few weeks ago I succumbed to the inevitable and joined the knitalong for Jane's Ubiquitous Shawl, being run concurrently with Heather's presentation on Craftlit of "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte.

Determined not to make this easy on myself, I posted the following in the knitalong thread:

 

posted 17 days ago (Tuesday, October 30)

Ok, I’m in. But, since I can’t do things the easy way, I started spinning for my shawl last night. 2 of 8 oz done, for a two ply. Don’t know how many yards that will be, so there may be further panicked spinning when I run out of yarn!
 

So. I had pawed through the HYFC stash, pulled out some gorgeous Shetland, and started spinning it up for a DK-weight 2-ply because....well...I think I just got carried away by the idea of it? Maybe it was wool fumes - I don't know.

8 oz of this gorgeous fiber,

became 560 yds of this yarn.

A lovely, squooshy, DK-to-worsted weight yarn that is very rapidly becoming Jane's Ubiquitous Shawl.

Sadly, 560 yds is less then half the yardage I need, and I don't have any more fiber in this colorway! I thought about dyeing something else for the border and edging, but then tossed that idea out in favor of trading with my fellow Hello Yarn Fiber Club groupies on Rav. Thanks to their generosity, there are 3 more bags of fiber headed my way, so I should have plenty to finish this off.

I'm thinking if I have leftovers, I might make myself a matchy-matchy hat using the first lace chart. Doesn't this look like it could be a hat? Hmmmm...

Apparently the KAL bug is still ruling my every waking moment because I also seem to have signed up for a glove knitalong. W. T. F?

Jackpot!

On Wednesday, I spent most of the morning waiting for the dishwasher repair man - the extremely helpful time slot they gave me was 7:00 am - 3:00 pm. Once he arrived, deduced the fact that the motor on the dishwasher is broken, and managed to rebook an appointment to fix it for a week and a half from now (making it three weeks I will have been washing dishes by hand - grrrr....), I had pretty much written off the rest of the day as a complete loss.

Royal Mail to the rescue! (And belive me, those are not words that I every thought I'd say!) Not 5 minutes after he left, the doorbell rang - there were two big squooshy packages for me.

Package number 1:

What's inside?

Some undyed fiber from The Wool Gathering: 100 grams of lovely, soft, white Suffolk.

And a kilo of Romney - I have been searching for UK-sourced Romney for months, and am so thrilled to have finally found some! I love the bags the fiber is packed in too: I think I will be ordering from them again, maybe some of their British alpaca...

Package number 2: I must first preface this by saying that I always miss Adrian's updates. But on two occasions now, I've gotten lucky and happened to be over at her site when there were Fiber Club extras on sale. A couple weeks ago I fell off the metaphorical wagon in a major way, and ended up with this arriving at my door.

The September fiber club, Critter on Falkland (yum!),

And another 1.5 lb of fiber: 3 bags of Splendid Romney and 3 bags of Silt Portuguese Merino.



Swoon-tastic. Now my dilemma is how to combine them. I was originally going to spin up the Splendid by itself and knit myself another Romney sweater, but looking at the two of them together makes me think that maybe they want to make little yarn babies?


The other possibility is pairing Silt with my two bags of Minerals Shetland (and who knows what else might jump into the mix? There's a lot of Hello Yarn-dyed fiber in my attic....) and knitting a swoopy wrappy cardigan type thing. Or a Larch like Caro's. Or a Spoked Cardigan like Rose's. So many sweaters, so little time...guess I'd better start spinning!

Sadly, sweater-lot spinning will have to wait until after this weekend, because by the time this posts, I will be happily ensconced BY MYSELF on a train on my way to West Wales for Plug-and-Play Pembrokeshire, round deux. Expect much yarn/swatch/knitters-being-wacky evidence next week. Cheers!

Neglected FOs

OK, school has started, some of the school run bugs have been worked out, and I suddenly have a bunch of hours in my day when I'm not being called upon to feed anyone or read books or mediate in the latest round of she-took-my-toy-she-touched-me-she's-looking-at-me! There are a number of things that I finished up over the summer but never blogged about, which does tend to make me feel like they're not actually really finished.

Up first, Lady Stark's Clapotis.


So named because of the colorway of the fiber.

Yarn: handspun BFL/silk from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club (July 2011 offering), colorway "Night Gathers" (Thank you GRRM!), 460 yds of DK/sport/fingering weight singles (8 oz).
Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm, I think. I forgot to put that little detail into my project page on Ravelry, and I finished the darn thing three months ago, so I have no idea.
Start/finish: 17 May - 3 June 2012.
Comments/mods: this is the second time I've knit this pattern. The first time (also in handspun) I did some mods as recommended by the intarwebs (i.e. knitting the first and last stitch of each stockinette band through the back loop to keep it tighter). I did a similar mod this time around, although only on the right side. I worked the increase section, weight the yarn, worked straight until I had enough (by weight) to work the decrease section, and ended up using every last inch. Mostly I spent my time hypnotized by watching the colors appear...






Is that too many pictures?