FO: Chickadee Cowl

This past Sunday, I picked up my handspun Briar Rose BFL, and wound it up to cast on for the March/April project, the Chickadee Cowl.

Approximately 30 hours later, I was done. Wow. Fabulous, instant gratification, assisted by the fun of knitting with handspun, and a totally addictive combination of pattern stitch and color progression.

Pattern: Chickadee Cowl by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: BFL handspun singles, dyed by Chris at Briar Rose Fibers for the Ply By Night SAL/KAL group on Ravelry.
Needles: 16 inch US size 10.5/6.5 mm circulars.
Gauge: totally off from the pattern, which called for 13 stitches/4 inches. Mine was about 20 stitches/4 inches. Thankfully, it stretches enough to fit over my big head, so anyone who might get it as a present should be ok.

The yarn is lovely and soft, and has a phenomenal sheen. I will definitely be getting more fiber from Chris in the future, since it was so fun to spin and knits up so beautifully.

FF: Keeping my sanity

As you may have gathered, things around here have been getting a wee bit out of hand in the last little while. What with the packing and house leasing and travel arrangements being dealt with, my energy for anything even remotely strenuous knitting-wise has been below minimal. Maybe even into negative number territory. So I've been consoling recharging my batteries with simple things; garter stitch and spinning a cubic buttload of singles.

This is 1 lb of Corriedale I dyed at Yarn School last fall that has been calling out to me for a while now. It was the first thing I jumped on in the Dye Lab, and my first experimentation with the color wheel. Adrian's suggestion was to pick 2-3 colors that were on one side of the color wheel, and one from the opposite side for contrast. I went with Violet, Purple and Brilliant Blue, with Pumpkin Orange as my contrast. I was pretty pleased with how it came out, and the singles are lovely.

dark stormy day photography is a pain in the butt

I'm spinning long draw from the fold, not worrying too much about wpi, just trying to keep things moving along. I've filled five bobbins already and am on to number 6 - I may have to start winding on to TP rolls pretty soon, since I think this is my last bobbin. My goal is to finish up the last of the fiber before the wheel gets packed up this weekend. I may or may not make it, and if I do, it will be because I was up too late trying to finish it up! I hope to have enough for a sweater for moi out of this stuff, but we'll see - I have very poor skills at calibrating yardage vs. FO.

Don't be surprised by a fair bit of radio silence for the next little while. We'll be diassembled/in transit for most of the next three weeks. I'll be able to pop in a bit for the next couple of weeks, but there probably will not be much knitting or spinning to report on, just packing and moving and plane rides with small children. Oh Joy.

FF: A blend

About a year ago, one Thursday evening, I ventured out of my home-bound knitting realm and joined a group of people I didn't know in public to knit. It was the first of many, many Thursday nights spent out of my house ingesting wool fumes with other like-minded fiberholics, and is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I am typically prone to inertia (not to mention being somewhat introverted), and leaving my house after dark doesn't happen often unless IM and I are headed out on a hot date. But all that changed last spring, and now I chomp at the bit every Thursday until I can get out the door.

In the last month or so I've been exerting my powers to convert some of these lovely folks over to the spinning side of things. I've been thinking about handspun giftees for everyone for a while, but felt it my duty to see if I could entice anyone else over to the dark side. There was one spinner already, and I managed to get another convert, but some others have been vehemently against any spinning-type things at all. Hopefully they'll come around soon...

This week I've been working on the last of my handspun giftees for The Ladies (most of whom are grouped over there under a ridiculous jumble of letters). In almost two years of spinning, I've done lots of pure fibers - Romney, merino, BFL, Corriedale - but not so many blends, and certainly never one with three different fibers in it.

Fiber: alpaca/merino/silk (65%/20%/15%) from Little Barn.
Spun/plied: 9.25:1 (I finally checked the actual ratios on my wheel).

I found this vendor by searching for CVM roving (California Variegated Mutant), and ended up leaving their site with 24 oz of fiber; the CVM, a tweedy wool blend, and this gorgeous green stuff. It was described on the website as a turquoise color, but it is really really green. Kelly green, leprachaun green, bright green. Not exactly a green that I do a lot of, but still gorgeous stuff.

I spun up the singles really quickly - I managed 2 oz in one night even! - and then plied together with a fair amount of twist. This is intended for someone who likes more of the blue colors, and since I'm in such a frenzy to use up some of my dyes, I tried overdying this with some blue to get more of a teal color.

It's lovely soft stuff, and I hope there's enough here for a lacy scarf or something like that. I'll update with final specs once it's dry.

And just to whet your appetites ladies, here's a mosaic (with original fiber and final yarn): any predictions on who's getting what?

A perfect day

Yesterday was a really, really good day. Despite the fact that some small wretch shifted the time on my clock so I woke up at 7:00 am, and leaped out of bed swearing because my clock said 8:00 and the neighborhood garage sale was starting in an hour and I had to unload more stuff, get change, and finish pricing everything. And Boo, the blame rests squarely on your small shoulders.

In any event, post-garage sale, Ironman and the girls picked me up, we went and got sandwiches and went to the local Audubon Bird Sanctuary for a picnic. We saw snapping turtles, snakes, bullfrogs and minnows. The girls threw bread to the fish and the turtles. It was a gorgeous day.

Boo fell asleep on the way home, so we poured her into bed and Ironman took a nap too. Dev and I watched a Peter Rabbit video, and then dyed half a pound of merino in some lovely colors (Jacquard Acid Hot Fuchsia, Violet and Turquoise - yowza!).

Last night, I spun up the second half of 4 oz of alpaca/merino/silk blend (65%//20%/15%) and it was like spinning air. Tonight I'll ply it and give it a bath (and consider overdyeing it, since I've got a bunch of dyes to use up).

I've also got 4 oz of undyed sock yarn that I might dye in ridiculous colors for these socks (it's the year of playing to my not-so-inner science geek I guess). Life is good.

FF: Spinning bulky singles

Last week, I posted about my infatuation with the animal that produced this,

My infatuation has now expanded dramatically, since I have transformed 4 oz of crimpy gorgeousness into this.

I really wanted some bulky singles from this fiber, but my default spin when I'm not actively trying to do something in particular is about 28-30 wpi. So this one took a bit more thought.

First step was to strip the top lengthwise. I figured the less drafting I had to do the better, since then I wouldn't have the opportunity to get too thin.

Then it was sitting in front of the wheel (7:1 ratio), don't draft too much, don't pinch out the air, don't smooth! Phew.

The singles ended up puffy and fluffy and squooshy,

and fairly unbalanced, not surprisingly.

A fulling finish later, skeins were balanced and lovely. I was expecting a dramatic shift in the wpi from pre-bath to post-bath, but it didn't change as much as I thought it would. Went from about 10-11 wpi to 8-11 (I guess I drafted a bit too much in some sections, hunh?).

So now it sits on my countertop, beautifying my house and waiting for me to finish one or two other projects before I cast on for the cowl.

This stuff is impossible to photograph well - the colors are so subtle that they tend to get lost. 

Maybe I'll figure it out eventually...

Final specs:
Fiber: Briar Rose Fibers BFL, colorway "Ply by Night"
Spun at 7:1, Lendrum ST
No plying!
Finished hot/cold/hot/cold/hot/cold water with some agitation
Final wpi: 8-11 (bulky weight), ~230 yds/4.5 oz. I love the yardage from not plying. Plenty for the cowl and maybe something else!

And a funny video for anyone interested. Do you think PETA would approve?