How The West Was Spun

Spinning Friday - FatCatKnits - Falkland

I signed up for Ginny's Greek Mythology fiber club to finish out the year.  The first package, which was actually the September club fibers, was the pretty combination of Gaia and Uranus, on Falkland wool. 

All of Ginny's fiber clubs at FatCatKnits are done with two colorways, each with 2.5 oz of that month's base.  (She also gives you a choice of 2 bases for each month, and the clubs run for 4 months.  You can also opt in for double helpings - or more.)

I have spun up the 2.5 oz of Gaia - that's the pretty yellow and green colorway on the left in the picture.  I got a nice 2-ply fingering weight of 196 yards for the skein. 

I have just started spinning singles for the Uranus colorway, but the plan is to match the grist and then I'm thinking of maybe a 2-color small shawl of some sort, if I've got enough yardage to do that.

All for now.....

Spinning Friday - 2IBH - Finn - Cries of Witchcraft

A brand-new skein of yummy handspun to share with y'all today. 

This is Finn (one of my favorite bases) from 2IBH.  The colorway is "Cries of Witchcraft".  I decided to dig in stash and find something to use for their Oct-Dec SAL/KAL, and I love these moody purple-blues. 

I spun this up after splitting the roving lengthwise into 6 mostly even strips. I then spun those and then plied the singles up into a 2-ply yarn.  I wound up with 210 yards/4 oz for the final finished skein.

The plan is to eventually knit this up into a Norie hat as the knit part of the KAL.  That'll hopefully go on the needles sometime later this month.

All for now..... 

Spinning Friday: Funky Carolina - Falkland - Golly Molly

A bit more handspun to show you this Friday.

The fiber is from deep stash - a Funky Carolina club roving.  The original braid, which is Falkland wool, colorway "Golly Molly" looked like: 

I split the braid lengthwise into 9 pieces to break up the colors, and then spun it into a 2-ply, worsted weight yarn with 214 yards/4 oz that looks like: 

I don't have a specific pattern in mind for this yet, but I think the colors would be well suited to something like a linen-stitch cowl or something else fairly simple, but is is super squishy and would be awfully nice as a next-to-skin accessory.  

All for now......

Spinning Friday: FatCatKnits Mixed BFL

A little finished-yarn eye candy for this first Friday in October.

This was the mixed BFL fiber from the November 2011 FatCatKnits Mixed Blessings Club.  The original fiber came in two 2.5-oz braids, one of which was natural mixed BFL and the other was a long color-run handpainted rainbox colorway on mixed BFL.

I spun these up using a semi-worsted method, to keep them nice and smooth.  While I spun the natural colored wool just as-is, I split the colored roving into 4 almost-equal pieces, and then spun each of those onto 2 bobbins.  I then plied those together.  I didn't have the 3rd and 4th quarters quite exactly divided, so I wound up breaking off some of the singles as I plied from one bobbin to be sure the colors stayed matched up and the stripes in the yarn would be long and pretty clear.

(The natural colored skein has poofed up a bit - I had washed it already, but not the colored one.)

I wound up with two skeins: The natural wool is 2.5 oz and 240 yards of fingering weight.  The striped version is a little bit lighter, somewhere between 2.3 and 2.4 oz because of the singles I jettisoned and is 210 yards of fingering weight. 

I haven't decided on a pattern use for these skeins yet.  I may wind up working up something on my own, although there are a lot of great colorwork mittens out there calling my name right now too - so stay posted.

All for now......

Spinning Friday: 2IBH Falkland - Hyacinth Girl

An actual spinning post on an actual Spinning Friday!

This pretty soft braid of Falkland wool from the 2IBH spring 2012 club:

Got spun up (finally!) into a 2-ply worsted weight yarn with 219 yards/4 oz.  It's lovely and squishy and plump!

No immediate plans for it, but it does finish up the last braid I had started during the TdF 2012.  Out of the group of braids I had selected, I spun up 4, traded 1 to a friend who was looking for one of the colorways (hey - it counts as gone from stash!) and have 3 left.  Not great, but better than I had been doing!

Have a wonderful weekend - all for now.....

WIP Wednesday: July 18, 2012

SPINNING PROJECTS: 

I have finished up the singles of that pretty Hyacinth Girl Falkland roving.  I have hopes to get it plied up this week, but I'll be the first to admit that my spinning time is pretty slim right now with a large wholesale order I'm trying to get dyed.  Fingers crossed that I'll be able to sneak in some time for that this week!

DESIGNING/KNITTING PROJECTS:

You saw from Monday, I'm down to "just" the final sweater for the fall collection. I'm moving along on the first sleeve and I'm just about halfway up that.  My hope and goal is to finish the sleeve up this week.

I've also started what I hope is a quick and easy scarf project, a Dr. Who-Ish scarf.  Not quite as long as the original, but fun and stripey that will be available as a kit with my DK BFL yarn in the shop for the holidays.  That's my backup project for car knitting and standing in line at the USPS.

All for now.....

Spinning Friday: Some Tour Progress

A bit more progress - I've been spinning up a pretty braid in pale pastels: Hyacinth Girl on Falkland.

The original braid was from 2IBH and it was part of their Gardens club.

I'm about 3 oz into the 4 oz braid of singles right now.  I always forget how much I like Falkland.  It's similar to Polwarth in that it's soft, but not as soft as merino, and easier to spin.   It's a great mid-grade yarn that would work for a ton of different types of projects.

Hoping to get a bit of time this weekend to at least finish up the singles!

All for now.....

Spinning Friday: 2IBH SW Merino - Month of May

I have an actual finished skein to show y'all today!  This is the first finished skein for the Tour de Fleece 2012.

The original roving was a SW merino from 2IBH.  The colorway is "Month of May".  This was a gradient colorway, meaning it had long bands of very distinct colors moving from one end to the other, and I knew I wanted to spin this up for socks and maintain the color stripes in it.

With that in mind, I split the 4 oz braid of roving in half lengthwise and checked that I had equal 2-oz halves using my postal scale.  I then split each of those 2 oz into 7 (completely arbitrarily) long, skinny strips.

From here, I spun the skinny roving strips into very fine singles.  Once that was done, I chain-plied the singles to maintain the colors in separate sections.  My plan is to knit this up into simple, basic socks.  My final yardage for the 4 oz was 432 yards, so it'll easily translate to any basic sock pattern.

Next on the wheel is a braid of BFL - more on that next week!

All for now....

Spinning Friday: Polwarth Colorwork kit

I pushed along a little this week, so I could clear off the wheel before the Tour de Fleece started on the 30th.

I finished spinning up all the singles of the turquoise blue Polwarth (and you might remember already had the chestnut brown finished up earlier this week).  I was able to get everything plied, and wound up with this:

The Details:
Hand-dyed Polwarth roving, a 2-ply yarn, fingering-weight.  The turquoise blue is 4 oz, with 440 yards.  The chestnut brown is 2 oz, with 208 yards.  This colorway pack will be available as a kit (and an included pattern) later on this fall via the Ennea magazine.  (I'll be sure to post a heads' up when the kits are available, if you have a hankering to spin and knit something with this.)

And now... on to the Tour!  All for now......

Spinning Friday: 2IBH - BFL - Thunder and Lightning

This was a fun spin.  The base fiber is from Two If By Hand.  It's BFL, and dyed in the "Thunder and Lightning" colorway, but this is a gradient version of it (meaning instead of short bands of dye color application, the colors run in longer sections from one end of the braid to the other, with each color only used once).

The original roving looked like:

I decided I wanted to keep this as a singles yarn, to preserve the long color runs, but I also decided that when I get around to using it, I wanted to knit a small top-down shawl, probably semi-circular, or possible half-hexagonal.  Either way, the rows in that type of shawl construction start out short, and then get progressively longer as you reach the hem.  So..... I decided I would like the bands of striping to stay relatively equal as I knit down the shawl.

With that in mind, I split the roving lengthwise into the equivalent of 6 long pieces, and then spun 1/6, 2/6 and 3/6 (holding the 2 and 3 strips together, and matching up the color bands), so that the yarn would have varying lengths of color blocks from short to long.  I wound up with 508 yards of laceweight singles from the 4-oz braid.

I have no idea if this will actually knit up in the fashion I've envisioned, but either way, it'll be fun to see how the color progression works.

All for now....