Cashmere and Camel and Lama Oh My! (Color: A Fiber Festival 2008)

For those of you who are not into spinning and fiber, you might just want to pass on this blog posting. The only thing that saved me from utter madness was the fact that I ran out of cash and resisted the urge to break out the credit/debit card. For those of you who are interested, view on :-)

Let's just say that Colour: A Fiber Festival was a lot of fun for me and my sister. Yes indeed! The last three pictures of fiber are my sisters purchases . The orange and orange green roving's were from Girl On The Rocks and I think they are Flame, South African Finn (the orange) and California Poppy also in a Finn (orange/green). The three roving's together are all superwash Merino from Tactile Fiber Arts and the brown/grey roving is polworth from A Verb For Keeping Warm.

At the top of the blog you have a selection of "exotic" fibers that I got to sample/taste which we kept in order with this handy plastic card holder they gave us. You can make notes, keep a sample of the fiber and a sample of the spun yarn. Very neat! Color had classes, some spinning, some knitting and some fiber "tastings" where you could try rare breeds, exotics, etc. Whatever you were interested in. I took the course from Kristine Vejar who was really great. She provided different fibers and we all spun them trying to get yarn to highlight the best characteristics of the fiber. The exotics consisted of cashmere, baby camel and silk tussah, baby alpaca and silk, baby lama and baby alpaca. I did not bring a wheel, I just borrowed a spindle from my sister. Though I have spun all but the cashmere, I did not know that you could get more fluff by spinning from the fold with a larger drafting area to catch the air, that spinning it looser would help maintain the fluff factor and that either long draw or supported long draw would work the best. My singles really came out nicer so I will try to remember this when I go to spin all the stuff I got. It's a small festival that has big potential. there were about 4 vendors. Tactile, Girl, Verb and Pigeonroofstudios. Let me just say, that Pigeonroofstudios sold out of fiber in the first 45 minutes. I was lucky to get anything at all. That said, I did not go begging for fiber!

Now for my haul. The Brown roving is baby alpaca from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The colorful green/pink/yellow stuff is merino from Girl On The Rocks. The two small bundles of roving are two colorways of baby camel and tussah silk from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The "snail" of braided fiber is baby alpaca/merino from pigeonroofstudios. The red/orange roving is Gradient Dyed ie from lighter to darker and is superwash merino from Girl On The Rocks. Below that is BFL that is indigo dyed and then BFL that is Madder Dyed, both from A Verb for Keeping Warm.

Whew!

Knitting Baby Stuff (Lace Down-time)

I'm afraid no pictures of lace for you. I'm currently knitting Baby Stuff for a niece who is "expecting" so I'm in the middle of"lace down-time" with very little lace being done. I've made three more points on the edge of Princess, plied up the Camel/Silk and bought beautiful fiber batts from "Spritely Goods" after seeing her lovely shawl in Spin-Off Magazine. The batt is made of Merino, Alpaca, Angelina and Firestar in a colorway called Palo Verde. It's the first fiber I've ever spun with sparkle in it. I usually don't go for that type of thing but this is really very subtle so I'm interested to see how it comes out. I also could not resist buying yet another Sharon Miller pattern as you can see, even though I have not yet finished any of those projects I've started with her patterns. I'm beginning to get a complex! Still, I can't resist them. I will be back to knitting lace shortly since I have another co-worker about to retire. It so happens she likes to garden. I imagine you know where the International Shawl is going to end up. Tomorrow it's off to "Color: A Fiber Festival". where I hope I will not just loose my mind and buy more fiber. Faint hope I know but I will try. Until I have something better for you all to see, I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Proto Yarn (Fiber Sins)

I know this is not lace, but I swear to you it will be in the future! The moment I tried to cut back on buying yarn, my fiber purchases went ballistic! Consider this display my on-line confessional :-) Top of the list, A lovely 50/50 baby camel and tussah silk from Anzula that I purchased at Yarn Place (colorway-Autumn). I'm in the process of plying it. It's only 4 ounces so maybe some kind of scarf or small shawlette. It's not as orange as the fiber suggests but darker than what is on that bobbin. The next three pictures are of some of my sisters Spindles since there was a request to see some of them. She keeps them standing up in a wooden container like some exotic wooden flower arrangement. She really likes to use them to spin. I'd much rather use a wheel :-) The next two pictures are of Black Bunny Fibers that I had to get because I've never tried spinning either of these. The teal is Finn Roving which is very soft and the blue is Falkland which is a little less soft but still really nice in the hands. I'm going to give in and join her fiber club if I get the chance. It will save me from having to haunt her site for updates! The two little bundles of blue fiber are a purchase I made at article pract. They have started carrying fiber from "a verb for keeping warm". These are polworth in their "Garden Series" colorway. Polworth you say? Did I not have a bad time with Polworth before? The spinning of it was lovely, the knitting, not so much. Still, I want to give it another try. Who knew I could be so Masochistic about spinning? And lastly, I had to have this small coil of Cashmere/Silk from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks that I purchased at Purlescence. It's only 2 ounces but I also purchased a 2 ounce hank of silk dyed in the same colorway to use to ply. I'm going to save this fiber to spin when I have been a very very good girl. Now that you know how bad I've been, I feel a lot better! I guess confession really is good for the soul :-) For those of you who live in the Bay Area, there is a small fiber festival that is scheduled for the end of this month "Color: a Fiber Festival" on Saturday, April 26th. There will be classes in spinning, knitting, fiber "tasting" of different types of fiber and vendors as well. I have a feeling my sister and I will be going there with big bags to carry stuff home in.

I am sorry to say I have not done much knitting in the last week because life sometimes cuts into my knitting time (who knew?) but I have actually started back to knitting the Shetland Tea Shawl which had been in hibernation for ages and I have finished the last flower in the center of the International Shawl (Yippee!) Once I get a chance I will post a few pictures of progress on these.

Last, but not least, you might like to have a listen at a podcast called "Yknit" It's nice to hear a podcast by male knitters (WonderMike & Stephen hizKNITS) and they are a nice addition to my listening line-up that includes David Reidy of "Sticks and String" and Guido of "It's A Purl Man" It's really fun to listen while you spin or knit. Hope you all had a great weekend :-)

Laminiaria Done (My. It really is very ORANGE isn't it?"

Just for the record. Mohair does not stretch much and it does not stretch easily. Brute strength is required and very sturdy pins. That said, it came out pretty nicely and will make a terrific shawl for the office. Why the office you ask? We moved our offices and the room I'm in is quite chilly for some reason. They think the air-conditioner is on all the time or something. In any case this shawl took virtually all of the 4 ounces of yarn I spun and I was fortunate I did not end up running out before the end!

To re-cap. The pattern is Laminiaria from the Spring 2008 Knitty on-line magazine. The fiber is from Black Bunny Fibers in a 50/50 Border Leicester/Mohair Top with a little Cream colored Suri Alpaca to lighten it up a little bit. The colorway is "Carnival" and was spun on the Majacraft Rose for a two ply laceweight yarn. Knit on US 6 needles, I followed the instructions for the smaller shawl because I was using such large needles and knew it would end up pretty good sized anyway.

For those not already aware, I have given away Legends of the Shetland Seas to a co-worker who is going to retire soon. The day after I got it back from the folks at Spin-Off, I gave it, and a copy of the magazine to her. It's her colors and now it will be worn and not put away in a box. Being in the magazine was great. Giving away the shawl was better :-) Good evening and good knitting!

Busted! ("Legends" is in the Spring 2008 Spin-Off Magazine)

Badcatsdesigns busted me first. I guess she got her copy of Spin-Off Magazine earlier than I did :-) Last year just before Thanksgiving I got an e-mail from Amy Clarke Moore asking if I would be willing to have the Legends of the Shetland Seas stole in the gallery of the Spring 2008 magazine. She had seen it on Flicker. I was really surprised since I don't think my spinning is all that terrific. There are many spinners with much better technique than I have. I guess what I lack in spinning skills was made up for with the lace knitting . In any case I agreed, vain thing that I am :-) Amy was really very nice and it gave me the incentive to finish up the stole so I could send it to the nice folks at the magazine. I must say, they took better pictures of it than I did. Back to knitting Laminaria!

Laminaria (Star and Blossom charts)

Just a few pictures of my progress on the Laminaria shawl from Knitty.Com. I'm knitting it on US 6 and there are some very big increases in order to knit the "Blossoms" pattern in this shawl. The first picture is of the "Stars" that happen at the back of the neck of the shawl. I hope the pattern will show once it's blocked because it's very dense in this section. The next few pictures are of the "Blossoms" with a close-up of a single blossom. It looks really different if turn the pictures upside-down which is how you will view them on the finished shawl since the triangle will be pointing down. There was a little learning curve on this type of lace for me and I can't say I enjoy knitting it all that much. It's not holding my attention, truth be told. If I was to knit this again, I would also do a SSSK or mirror image on the Start Chart for the left hand side of the shawl so it would look a little better. The yarn is so busy that I left it alone but if it was a plain yarn I would have made the change. On the plus side, the pattern is well written, clear and I think the designer picked really good combinations for the shawl. I'm just not crazy about having to do all those large increases. As for the other pictures. I know I said I would try to knit from my stash, but I have not been able to resist buying yarn I fear. I guess I will just have to knit a lot faster. Did I mention that I did my taxes and will be getting a refund? And, in all seriousness, I intend to help the economy by spending my share of the stimulus package. That and the fact that, my adult niece is pregnant again and it's time to knit a few baby sweaters. It's a girl this time so a bunch of the Auntie's went yarn shopping on Saturday. I picked up some pretty Claudia Handpaints in fingering weight for the baby sweaters. The tatting shuttle is some kind of Horn and I could not make my hand put it back down once I picked it up. It might even make me do a little bit of tatting :-) The baby sweater yarn is from Commuknittyand the tatting shuttle is from Purlescence Yarns Once I started, I couldn't stop. I picked up several patterns for sweaters and I bought some lace weight yarn as well but will save them for a later post. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and that no else one was attacked by squirrels

Hyrna Finished (A Quick Knit)

Well, Hyrna is done and blocked and it ended up being a very quick knit once all was said and done. You have pictures of my friend, Louise who is wearing it for me, a picture of it unblocked and then a few of it blocked. The color ended up rather nice but it made me really want to knit something bright and colorful. I've been working on the Salmon Queen Doily and knocked off a few rows on the International Shawl, but not enough for me to show you. I have, however, decided to knit a shawl from the Spring '08 Knitty. It's called Laminaria and I wanted to knit it because it has Estonian Lace stitches in it and will be good practice for my International Shawl which will have some Estonian lace in it as well. It also might be a nice quick knit to lighten up my knitting in general. The yarn I'm going to use is another handspun project from Black Bunny Fibers in colorway "Carnival" It's 4 ounces of 50/50 Border Leicester/Mohair Top with a little cream colored Suri Alpaca Top mixed into one of the ply to lighten up the intense color and add a little more softness. I know the lace pattern is not likely to show well with such a colorful yarn, but I just couldn't help myself. I hope you can all bear with me as I go off on a color trip :-) Can you tell I wish it were Summer already? Hope you are all knitting fun things and enjoying yourselves!

Admit Your Mistake And Move On! (Hyrna 2.0)

Just a short post to say that I've cast-on Hyrna a second time using the heavy lace weight yarn I spun from the roving purchased at Stitches West from "Chasing Rainbows" in colorway "Lagoon". I'm knitting on US 4 at the start then went to US 5. It's knitting up much nicer this time and I even understand the instructions for the darned shawl better the second time around now that I've read the notes compiled by Jackie. Anyone considering knitting this shawl should check out her very helpful notes. I know it helped me a lot! I was really not enjoying the previous attempt at Hyrna so maybe it was fate that I dropped that stitch . I'm using my very nice glass needles from Michael and Sheila Ernst so it's now turned from knitting torture to knitting pleasure :-) I have put away the Polworth for awhile and will reconsider what to do with it later. I also have been busy spinning up the Black Bunny fiber in my stash. It's too rough for a scarf but may still make an interesting/sturdy type of a shawl. The socks are more Black Bunny yarn that my sister has knit up into socks for me so I can finally get rid of the socks I've worn holes into :-). Lastly, I'm still spinning very thin singles from my Blue Moon Fiber Arts roving that I got at Stitches West 2007 (takes me a long time to get to it all). I'm on a "reading" and a "spinning" jag so not as much knitting as usual but I can only do those two things for so long before my hands itch to get back to the lace. Now if I could only get that hour back from daylight savings time.....