Shades of things to come

I've been doing a bunch of dyeing of late, getting up to speed for a shop update in September after school starts, and I found one of the new colorways irresistable.


There was a chill in the air this morning that means autumn might be just around the corner (although given the weather over the past few months, it will be 35 degrees by the end of the next week). Sadly, here in the UK we don't get the same brilliant colors that cover the trees in New England, but this fiber is a pretty close match!

I couldn't help myself - BFL is totally one of my favorite fibers!

Most of the 4 oz became a three-ply, but the leftover singles from two bobbins went together pretty well too.

This was the first non-natural colored spinning I've done in quite a while, and I whizzed through it. The singles were all spun up in one evening (fractal spin: I split the length of top into three equal lengths, then spun one from the entire width, one split in half and one split into quarters). The plying was done the next day (gotta love summer holidays!). I've got about 100 yds of bulky 3-ply that I think is going to become a cowl of some sort. Gotta go crawl through the stitch dictionaries...

FF: The first of the unfinished TdF yarns

Et voila! My second spindle-spun Tour de Fleece yarn is finally finished.

Fiber: Corriedale from Hello Yarn, colorway "Seasick"
Spun/plied: on my Wildcraft spindle
Final stats: total yardage is 170 yds/4 oz (680 ypp), ~7-9 wpi, bulky weight.
Comments: I had two bumps of this Corriedale from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club, and when I needed something to take with me to France, one of these seemed like a good bet.

I split the fiber into three different color groups: yellows, browns (with a bit of yellow) and blues (with a bit of yellow). Then I split each piece of top in half lengthwise and spun up two balls of singles to ply together.

I managed to get through the yellow and half of the brown singles before the Tour ended. Over the last couple of weeks, I've spun up the others. And then there was much plying.

72 yds yellow,

27 yds brown,

and 71 yds blue. I have no idea what this yarn will become though, but I like the colors split up like this.

There's always that other bump to play with I suppose...

Fiber Friday is back: the Tour de Fleece final report

This year's Tour de Fleece was an unparalleled success! I spun up 8 lbs of fiber, including 3 sweater lots and 2000 yds of lace weight!

Ha ha ha ha ha! Actually, I didn't meet my TdF goal in any way, shape, or form. Here's the final output:

I ended up with two finished skeins and a bobbin and a half of singles of the Gotland fleece.

I'm pretty happy with the final yarn - it's definitely a bit "rustic", as you would expect from inexpertly handcard fiber, and it will definitely end up as an outerwear sweater rather then a next-to-skin cuddly sweater, but I like it. My goal for the weekend is to finish up the bobbin that's on the wheel and ply those up and see what my yardage is. Based on these first two skeins, I'm going to need 8 or 9 to get the yardage I need for the sweater. That shouldn't be a problem unless I get super sick of carding.

I didn't even touch the Hebridean rolags - they went missing! I had several weeks of panic because I couldn't find the box they were stored in, and I was convinced Himself had thrown them away in a fit of tidying. However, when unpacking boxes from the move, lo and behold there they were. Phew!

Since we were traveling, and life was a bit nuts with moving, I did a fair bit of spindling in addition to the fleece on the wheel. I just went in to my stash and pulled out some Hello Yarn fiber (because Adrian's genius makes up the bulk of my dyed spinning stash, and so I could post in their threads!) and threw it on the spindle. 


HY Burnished BFL, 2-ply, spun on a variety of spindles, 177 yds/4.4 oz (644 ypp). The colors on this are gorgeous - it really does look like metal. I think this will become a cowl or a hat or something like that. Maybe some simple mitts? Dunno.

I was planning on the BFL lasting through our trip to the Pyrenees, but I finished it before we left. Back to the HY stash for another spindle project.

This is Seasick Corriedale. I've got two bags of this (approximately 8 oz), so I took one bump, split it into the component colors (i.e. yellows, browns, blues), and then split each piece of top in half lengthwise for two singles.

Here you can see the yellow and brown singles in balls ready for plying. I used my Wildcraft spindle for this fiber, and it was a bit tricky - the Corriedale wanted to be spun a bit thicker then is optimal for the weight of the spindle, which meant I had to be really careful about keeping the spindle going in the right direction - but I'm happy with the singles. I think this will end up being an aran or bulky weight 2-ply, once it's washed.

So there you have it: three weeks, about 550 yds of finished yarn, and a whole load of other stuff going on. So be it! At least all that spindling meant I got some good pictures...


So given that my Tour de Fleece was an abject failure a bit underwhelming, my Ravellenic Games goals have to change as well. Now I'm thinking that I'll hope to finish the spinning of the fleece by the Closing Ceremonies. Then I can get to work on the sweater in September. Which works out well, to be fair, cause it's not really the best weather for rustic-heavy sweater knitting.

Ready? Steady? Go!

And we're off!

45 min to spin, 5 hand-carded Gotland rolags on the bobbin. This is going to be some rustic yarn y'all, as I keep coming across undraftable tangles and neps. Clearly my carding techinique needs work! I'm trying to pull out the little bits of second cuts that made it through the sorting/washing/carding process, but it's slow going!

Please to be ignoring the inappropriate sport in the background - I got distracted by Ms. Williams!

Between extremes

My "relaxation knitting"* these days is vacillating between opposite ends of the spectrum. First up is the fiddley-beyond-belief category:

A pair of socks I actually started almost a year ago. I pulled them out of the Works in Progress Bin at the beginning of this month, thought "hunh...", ripped them out completely (I had a toe and about 2 inches of instep done) and started over again. The worst part was trying to start entrelac on US 0/2.0 mm needles with a provisional cast on and splitty yarn. Fun!

Then there's the mindless end of things...


That is the Garter Yoke Cardi by Melissa LeBarre, which I have wanted to do every since I saw Caro's version (Rav link). The yarn is the whack-load of Hello Yarn Romney in Timber that I spun up during the TdF last (hooray for casting on one of my handspun sweater lots!!!), and I am operating under the deluded hope that I can finish it before the Tour de Fleece starts. On Saturday.

Oh well. At least there's always (always!) coffee.


* The "work knitting" being my hat project: 2 of 7 prototypes done, one almost totally tested and one about to go to testers. I am on track**. Woot!


** So far. Famous last words and all that...