My Bald Little Pony

Just finished:

This is from Gnome Garden, bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool from Cloverhill Farms several years ago (not sure of the exact year on this one). It's merino and bamboo in lovely pinks and purples with lot of sparkle. I have a little over three ounces of it. (And another 3 ounces or so in blues). It is perhaps a little more pink than in the photo, but it's pretty all the same. It ended up being about 310 yards at around 18 wraps per inch. So, it's about a fingering weight. I think it might make a nice hat and small scarf or cowl.


This is what it looked like:

As I was spinning it, the sparkles got everywhere. My husband's comment was that it looked like someone took clippers to My Little Pony. (Hence, the post title.)

Currently on the spindles:


This is a gorgeous blue silk that I've been spindling off and on for a while. I had two braids of the silk, each about 1 oz. I'm finally on the second braid and will continue to take it along with me whenever I have to wait somewhere. I think I may end up plying it with other colors and weaving with it. I got a new book recently called Spin to Weave by Sara Lamb. It is a lovely book with lots of advice about spinning yarns specifically for weaving. She has a beautiful scarf from silk. Several beautiful scarves from silk, actually. But for the one I'm talking about, she spun silk singles from various colors and used three plies. She plied the colors in different proportions - e.g., 3 plies of blue, 2 plies of blue and one of burgundy, etc. She uses these plies for the warp, packing in the warp and using a thin weft to create a warp-faced weave. The scarf shifts gradually shifts colors from blue/purple to burgundy to gold. It is truly beautiful and something I may end up doing.

I also have some fiber coming from Etsy. I'll post it when I get it.

Lovely Spun Corriedale

This is some lovely fibery goodness that I've finally spun up. Apparently, I purchased this lovely Corriedale way back in 2007 at the Maryland Sheep and Wool. It's beautiful with black, reds and purples. It's probably been on the wheel for a couple of years. Anyway, I finally decided to finish spinning it up and plied it. I ended up with two decent sized skeins, one of the skeins is more of a laceweight and one more of a light fingering.

(Click for larger picture)

It's not as shiny as in the picture. It's hard getting a decent picture with reds and purples on a sunny day, even harder when it's been raining for days! It really is a rich mix of cool reds and warmer purples with a bit of black.

Things I learned from this project, if you let a spinning project languish for this long, chances are that your spinning won't match the spinning you did a while ago. I also learned that it is possible to go back and add more twist to the ply before you finish the yarn. I did this with the laceweight skein. I had finished spinning it a while ago and it looked sort of weedy in places, but after spinning it again (by putting the skein on a swift and spinning it on to the wheel), it added enough twist to look better. Still looks a bit weedy though.

I do like the look of the fingering weight better in the skein. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but the two skeins likely will not be used in the same project. Maybe as a weft on a weaving project, but more likely a knitted hat and matching scarf if there's enough.

I have some more interesting stuff in the works. So more later.

Spinning

I finally got some spinning done. I've been working on a Grafton batt (just scroll down to "C" for "Corriedale") I got a couple of years ago at the Maryland Sheep and Wool (only two more months until this year's!). So, I got around to plying some of it. There's a dime there to show how thin. (You can click on the picture to make bigger.)

It's definitely a laceweight and had turned out very dark pink with hints of black and purple. What I've done here is about 320 yards of laceweight and I have lots more left to spin. I should definitely have enough for at least a triangular shawl when it's all spun and plied.

I finally finished warping for my scarf, but I'm being to think the darn thing's cursed. You may remember I've already had a warp thread break on me. Well, I finally finished warping and started weaving on it this weekend. About an inch into it, I thought it looked a little funny in one area. I realized one of the warp threads wasn't going up and down. Okay, why not? My scarf is supposed to be worked on four shafts and the threading goes shaft 1, 2, 3, 4. Well, in this one area, I ended up somehow threading it 1, 2, 4, 5. So, of course, shaft 5 wasn't supposed to be used, so it wasn't going up and down and the 4 was supposed to be on 3. *Sigh* I think know how to fix it without having to rethread the whole darn thing. It's just frustrating because I'd doubled-checked that I had threaded everything correctly. Darned perfectionist streak.

WIP Monday

I've finally reached the edging of the Cap Shawl. I'm now about 10% done with the edging.

Keep in mind there are 738 stitches on the last round of the shawl and edging has to be attached to each stitch and there is a row of edging between each attached stitch row. I could look at it and say, "Wow, I'm over 80% of the way done with the shawl." Yes, I am the type of person that sees the glass as half empty, why do you ask?

Someone asked me last night at the Sit 'n' Knit exactly how many shawls had I done and I was trying to count up in my head and my fingers. I ended up estimating 15. The Cap Shawl will, in fact, be my fifteenth shawl (counting shawlettes). And yes, I wear them all (except for the four I've given to family). And yes, I will be making more.

I've also been doing a bit of spinning.

I really wish I could capture this yarn properly. It is predominately purples, with black and hints of bright red/pink and it will be a 2-ply laceweight when I'm done and will probably make a lovely shawl of some sort. I just have to see how much I'll have when done. I have maybe a third of the first bobbin done though. But I've been trying to spin for a few minutes every day while there's good light.

Regia Silk Skirt

Here's the skirt:

It fits perfectly. You can click on the picture for a bigger picture of the detail.
Specs:
Pattern: A-Line Skirt from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2006
Yarn: Regia Silk (purchased from The Loopy Ewe); the pattern called for Koigu, but I got dead-on gauge using Regia Silk and I thought it would make a lighter skirt that Koigu. It doesn't pull down weight-wise or anything. I love it. I would recommend 2 balls of cream Regia though just to be on the safe side because I had about 3 yards leftover and I didn't do the stem stitch embroidery along the striping. Of the pink, I used 4 balls and I think I just started the 5th. I made the smallest size.
Needles: Size 3
Modifications: Other than the yarn substitution, none.

This is actually the first pattern I've done from Vogue Knitting and I'm very pleased with the results.

A few of you commented on how pretty the purple/red/black corriedale batt is and I have to be honest. It called to me so much that I had to start spinning it on Tuesday. Yes, I know I have way too many spinning/knitting projects as it is, but really how can one resist?