Tour de Fleece Update

I fell off that bandwagon.

My wheel is not yet back together (a few technical issues popped up during our move and have yet to be resolved, or, it's broken) and I hurt my shoulder by spinning too much on my drop spindle. So that was that for my first attempt at the Tour de Fleece.

I just attended Sock Summit 2011 where I bought more roving, so I need to fix my wheel and get back to injury free spinning.

I'll keep you posted.

Days Seven and Eight

I posted Thursday's spinning very late at night/early in the morning yesterday. I didn't spin at all yesterday, because we went to Mount Saint Helens.

Today I did yesterday's spinning.

And today's spinning.

The Green Monster and some Spinning

The big greenie is done!!! Two shots of it unblocked, proper blocked shots tomorrow.

A closeup, the lumpy bottom edge will look like lovely leafy lace once it's all sorted.

And a bigger shot, you can see we're still unpacking, please excuse the half empty boxes in the background.

And this year I decided to participate in the Tour De Fleece, where you set a challenging spinning goal and spin every day that the Tour De France rides. My goal is simple, to spin every day. I've been neglecting it.

So here goes, day one. A little bit of roving from Lorna's Laces. I forget the name of the colorway.

Peanut!

Two skeins of Peanut, ready to be knit up into something awesome.

A close up shot of peanut.

Peanut ended up becoming about 100 yards of three ply yarn. I had one thicker single and one skinnier single. I plied the skinnier single back onto itself, but it was all overspun and coiled because I hadn't put enough twist in when I was plying. The thicker single was also coiling up on itself. So I plied the two ply with the single, and voila, it all ended up a pretty calm balanced three ply. Not exactly what I had planned, but it should work out just fine.

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.

A Little More Detail

All cell phone photos, sorry for the crappy quality.

Josh, on the plane.


First sight of Ireland.

First pints, Bulmers.

Saturday morning.

And 5 minutes further down the street.

The Bride! This was very late and we were all quite drunk.

Salamanca, a lovey tapas place where we all met for dinner the day after the wedding.

Trinity College.

My peeps on Grafton Street, no family discount.

Delicious kebabs from Zaytoon's, highly recommended post pub.

Pints at O'Neil's.

The Guinness Storehouse, completely overrated, even when we were in the mood for touristy schlock. I say wikipedia how beer is made (if you aren't already aware) while you grab a pint somewhere else.

Josh, on a bus, whizzing past Christ Church. We did go in, another day.

First sight of London.

Parliament.

Dr. Laura Miller, my cousin, knows how to show a girl a good time.

Mr. Toby Joe, best dog of the trip!

Pigeon wanted in at Tate Modern.

Josh, pretty much how he looked the whole trip. (Camera to face)

Harrods.

Regent Street Apple Store.

Need I say more?

Our last look at Dublin.

My Loot!

Irish yarn purchased in Dublin at This Is Knit.

My new drop spindle, handmade on the Isle of Wight, with a little wool I purchased to play with, from the Handweaver's Studio in London.

Silk for spinning, also from the Handweaver's Studio.

Cashmere Merino blend, so soft, from Loop in Islington.

Lambswool, one of the softest things I've ever touched, also from Loop.

Reddish silk from Habu on a cone, a braid of hand dyed roving, and DK weight Wenslydale in an eggplant color (it just looks black), all from I Knit in Waterloo.

And on our last day Laura taught me how to crochet! She also bought me a wonderful little book, so I practiced all the way home on the plane and was able to complete my very first granny square. Yarn is GGH something or other purchased at Loop solely for the purpose of learning to crochet.   

The whole trip my travel knitting was the Clapotis Wrap knit out of a Cascade hand painted sock yarn. I got this far.

I actually ripped out the entire thing tonight. I had started it a little skinny, hoping to get by with one skein, I realized that that wasn't going to happen, so I bought another skein and am starting over, full sized. Why knit it skinny when I now have enough yarn?

Dirty Sheep!

More Peanut!  I've been spinning up the second batch of washed wool.  You can see that it isn't quite as washed as the first batch.  The new batch is to the right, the first batch is under it, to the left.  It's not too different, enough that I feel like a slacker though.  I'm pretty sure that the rest of the dirt will come out when I wash the finished yarn.  We will see I guess.  

You should see the floor under my wheel!  I pull out the little burs, plant stems, and short bits of wool as I go.  It gets pretty bad by my feel.  I need to sweep.  

Spinning

This, is becoming yarn!

I've started spinning the birthday roving.  It's really beautiful.  This photo looks browner than the real stuff, but there's no accounting for computer monitors.  

I wanted to make this into a lace weight two ply.  It might end up being more of a fingering weight though, which will still serve my purposes very nicely.  

New Hat?

Every year I tell myself that if I knit a really great hat, that I will like wearing it.  I hate wearing hats, I live in Chicago.  I need to wear hats.  It never really works.  

This year I'm going to make a really great hat from my own hand spun.  Maybe that'll do it.     

My hand spun in a little skein.  I have more than 100 yards of an almost lace weight (it's heavier than true lace weight).  

I'm not sure how much lace weight I'll need, I feel like I have enough.  

This is what I'm working on.  Adapting it to be a hat.  

A crazy lace doily!  I love it.  

Here is my sample.  This isn't quite big enough for a hat.  I'll have to add more patterning to the edge.  I'm going for a beret type cap.  I need something bigger and slouchier to fit all my hair inside.  

And the close up shots.