Handspun!!!

This past Sunday Loopy Yarns held a spin in. It was great. They had a table of free fiber, two drum carders, and snacks. I made a crazy batt of stuff from the free table, and I carded up my alpaca fleece. And I spun like crazy. Look at all this yarn!

This is Peanut, partway through being plied up. Not sure how many yards of Peanut I've got. I plied it further and will wait until it's dry to try to figure it out.

This is the crazy skein made from all kinds of stuff from the free fiber table, about 30 yards. It has some merino, some tencel, several colors of angelina (the sparkle), some mohair (I think), and some mystery wool. Pretty random and pretty awesome.

This is a merino/tencel skein, about 140 yards. I bought the roving from Miss. Babs at Stitches last fall.

This is the skein of mostly alpaca, about 75 yards. Sandy's dad brought me a bunch of alpaca that I had no way to card. Luckily Loopy had those drum carders out. I threw in some dark brown wool, some purple wool, and some angelina (the sparkle).

The alpaca on the wheel.

Yay! So much fun.

Hat and more of the Mittens

I have decided that I need a hat that won't clash with my Bohus Mittens.
I started playing with excel, and have cast on for a Bohus inspired hat.


Knitting close up.
It will never be as delicate, or look as blended, as the true Bohus. This yarn is heavier (though still fine at 7 stitches to the inch) and doesn't contain any angora.



The yarn, the chart, the knitting.

I'm reworking my charted ideas as I go. Some things that looked great on paper just don't seem right in yarn. I was going to try a tam type of hat, but then I decided that I shouldn't mix colorwork and major shaping in my frist color design. So it's slated to be a basic beanie style hat, with colorwork going around the side, one color ribbing, one color top.


And, a mitten update.


Close up of pretty cuffs attatched to mitten hand.



Left hand progress, hand is done, thumb is almost done.



The two in-progress mittens together. Phase one is almost complete, just a little knitting to go on the left thumb. Next I knit the flip top part of each hand. Then I'll work on the lining.

Then I can wear them.

Beauty Shots

The hand painted sock yarn that I took with me to knit a wrap while on vacation.  

The two colors of tweed yarn that I bought at This Is Knit in Dublin.  

The roving and drop spindle from the Handweavers Studio in London.  

Silk top also from Handweavers Studio.  

Eggplant colored wenslydale wool from I Knit in Waterloo.  

Hand painted roving, also from I Knit.  

Silk lace weight (yes it's from Habu, but I never see Habu here in Chicago), also from I Knit.  

Lovely soft merino cashmere blend that I bought at Loop in Islington.  

And lambswool, also from Loop, that I have now seen all over Chicago!  Oh well.  

One of my yarn buying goals was to try for things that I can't get here in the states.  

New Favorite Yarn

I ordered this blue green yarn from an online shop.  It is super soft, very cushy.  I made everyone pet it.  

I think I'm going to use it for a gift though, so I hunted online and in real life for more.  

I bought this at Jo-Ann Fabrics, and I'm going to order some in a pale pink from e-bay.  Yum.  

Aeolian Shawl for Me!

All lumpy, as yet un-blocked.  

First go round of blocking.  Center of each flower pinned out.  

Each flower with five points pinned out.  The shawl gets stretched further and further as I work my way around and around.  

Flower close up.  

Socks!

An adaptation of Barbara Walker's Northern Lights stitch pattern.  

Theses socks are for my enormous feet.