A post to distract me

Because today is my due date, with no end in sight.

I've been in heavy 'nesting' phase for the last couple of weeks, it's all crafting all the time around here (when I'm not napping)

***

First this little guy:
This is out first dishwasher, and sometimes we don't empty it as promptly as we should, so there have been many days where either I or Bill has needed to ask the other "are these clean?" So I made a little sign to help us out.



It's kind of silly, but I'm way happier than I should be about it.
Stitched on 16 count Aida, three strands over two holes.
'dirty' is DMC 816
'clean' is DMC 3755

***

Of course I've also been knitting a lot too, sometimes I just lay on the couch and knit all day, (when I'm not dozing off) and of course socks make perfect waiting room knitting at the doctors during my weekly visits.



We had better light conditions today, and I tried putting one on a blocker to stretch it out, but it's still difficult to get a good detail shot of the pattern on the dark yarn.
Trust me, it looks really neat.

***

And lest you think I forgot about the baby (HA!) I finished spinning the yarn for his BSJ last night. Now it just needs to be washed and abused a little, and I can start knitting!



The two darker skeins came out to approximately 168 yards and the yellowier skein came out to about 180 yards. Right now it's roughly light fingering, but I tried to spin it rather softly, so it should bloom quite a bit it the wash, and be all sorts of snuggly and warm!


Next up on the wheel:



Some delightful fluffy Jacob top I got in a swap on ravelry. This is going to be a pair of work mittens for Bill. he wore out his last pair before we moved, and he's reluctant to wear his Squirrel and Oak mittens while cleaning the snow off the car, for fear of ruining them.

Spinning, Rhinebeck, and a very special hat.

The last month or so has been really busy around here, there is only about one more month to go before the baby is due, and I can definitely feel it! We've been in a flurry of baby preparations, doctors visits, ultrasounds, and weekend visits from my parents to buy last minute supplies.

But I've still managed to spin and knit a little, and even to haul myself to Rhinebeck for the NY sheep and wool festival

++++

First the spinning:

You may remember this fiber that I bought at the Southern Adirondack Fiber festival.



Well it's been spinning up nicely into a lovely worsted weight two ply which I plan to make a baby surprise jacket (ravelry link) from for little TW. I wanted it worsted to make a slightly bigger jacket to fit him later on, as he will be born in winter, so by the time a regularly sized jacket would fit him, it would be too warm. But I figure a larger size will fit him slightly longer.



I wasn't quite happy with the amount of plying twist so after this picture was taken I went back and added a little more, and I'm much happier now.

I have two skeins finished now and am working on the last.

++++

Rhinebeck:

Rhinebeck was awesome this year; there were so many places to go and sheep to see.

I even bought my first Abby Bats by Abby Franquemont who is an amazing fiber artist. They are 40% merino, 40% tencel, and 20% BFL, and they are DELICIOUS! I can't wait to start spinning them. I only got about 76 grams, whish isn't much so I think I will spin them up lace weight, and see if I can find some green silk in a matching colour to spin up and ply them with for a shawl.



The rest of the festival was awesome, and so was the afternoon Ravelry meet up even if I was a bit too shy to talk to some of the people I wanted too, unfortunately I completely forgot to take any pictures. Luckily, Bill did take a few, and you can check them out at his flikr stream. (there's even a picture of me with Bob!) please try to ignore how big and squishy I look, pregnancy has not been kind.

Specking of pregnancy, I was SO SORE by the end of the day! I missed so many things that I wanted to see because I was just too tired and sore to keep going. :(

But there is always next year, and we can introduce TW to all the sheep and critters!

++++

And the very special hat:



No I did not knit this hat.

A few weeks ago, we got a package in the mail from Bill's mother, inside was this hat.
No she didn't knit it either.

Bill's Grandmother did.

Many, many years ago, Bill's Grandma Bid knit this hat for one of her nieces who was expecting. Unfortunately the baby never got a chance to wear it (he outgrew it before it was cold enough to wear.) but it was a hand knit, so it was kept. Years go by and Grandma Bid passed away. But when the niece heard that we were expecting she immediately thought of Grandma Bid (I have been told repeatedly that she would love me) and she sent the hat our way.

The hat is so tiny! I hope that it will fit so that TW can wear it at least once. I nearly cried when I read the letter and story.

FO dump

Ok, so um, like I said in my last post I've been busy lately, but I finally have something to show for it all!

First up, the parade of headbands:



Like the last headband, these and just test knits by me while I prefect the pattern. I plan on posting it up on Ravelry sometime this weekend. (a link will be provided here for everybody who wants it)



Then there were fish...



I got a commission order for some catnip fish, and then I was on a roll, so I made a bunch more
Most of these are for sale up in my etsy shop if you are interested.

I also finished up another design I've been working on, the shamrock tam:


This is for a class on stranded colourwork I'll be teaching at the hand weaving museum. Once the class is over I'll be putting this pattern up too.


Speaking of the hand weaving museum, I finished another scarf, this time for myself:


Yarn: knit picks palette, pattern from Hand woven magazines web site.
It was woven relatively loosely (10 epi) and then felted once it was finished.
It's wonderfully warm and squishy, I love it.

And if all that wasn't enough I've also been embroidering:


These are from some sketches of my cat, Esme. I really enjoyed them, and have several more planned. I think once I get everything worked out, I may offer the patterns up as a block a month type thing, but I haven't decided yet.


Now that all the FOs are out of the way, I've also started a pair of socks using some handspun yarn. But I don't have any photos of those yet,.
What I do have is a photo of some lovely Mountain colors barefoot (in evergreen) that Lucia sent me for winning one of her contests.


The picture doesn't do it justice, this yarn is so deep and lovely with dark greens and blues and just a touch of violet. I love it, but Bill has already claimed a pair of socks for himself out of it. (once I finish the socks I have going right now.)

Thanks Lucia!

I'm alive!

I've just been super busy with Christmas stuff.

I finished off the merino/tencel:



(click through for a super huge version that I am currently using as my desktop wallpaper)

30/70 merino/tencel from stony mountain fibers
It came out to about light fingering-ish, 520 yards, 4 oz.

Im planning a pretty lacy scarf, but it will be for me, so it will have to wait until after the Christmas crafting is done.

Example: my mother's mittens.
You may remember I posted a picture of the bats last time
The bats became this:

(this was my desktop for a while as well)

Which became this:

(also makes a nice desktop)

166 yards, worsted-ish, 4 oz.

I've cast on for the mittens. Just a plain old boring mitten pattern, no pictures yet.

I've also been cross stitching up a storm, I have a bunch of ornaments ready for finishing, I just need to get to jo-anns tomorrow to pick up some fabric and ribbon. I'll be posting pictures once they're done.

I've also finished my grandmother's pillowcase, but it needs to be washed and pressed before I can take any good pictures.

Rhinebeck part three: FOs and WIPs

I've been a bit remiss in my blogging duties; objects have been begun and finished with nary a peep from me, let alone a picture. But I intend to fix that today.

Let's start with the spinning first shall we?

You may recognize this as the swamp gas I was spinning for socks a while ago.
I finally got it all spun up and plied. It's just been waiting for me to finish my current sock WIP.



while I was waiting I started anther spindle project: this is the tie dyed flowers roving I dyed up. I only had 3 ounces though, so I spun up one ounce, and plied it with some wooly nylon along with one ounce of undyed singled from the same base roving. I intend to use that for the toes and heels. The other I spun up and plied as normal.

I'm really happy with the way this yarn turned out, and I can't wait to see how it looks knit up!


As for wheel spun, I have this:


4.5 ounces of merino/mohair/alpaca from all strings considered that I talked about yesterday. This stuff was a DREAM to work with. I hope to make a pair of mittens from it. I got over 230 yards of worsted weight, so I should have plenty.



but that's not all, I've also been knitting!

The most recent FO is this hat:

Knit with my own handspun even.
I carded up three bats, one with mostly white, one with about 1/2 & 1/2 and one with mostly blue, and then split them into quarters and spun each little section one after the other to make the yarn. which I totally forgot to take any pictures of, because I was just that excited.



stats:
handspun yarn, worsted weight, less than 100 yards.
Pattern: Asminah's Hat

Mods: I knit ribbing instead of the crochet edging, the original pattern used a flat version of the stitch pattern, and that left a weird unpatterned ridge at the back, so I altered it to work better in the round. This also let me cast on a few more stitches to make a better fit. I ended up knitting three repeats of the lace pattern. And then completely changed the top decreases to look nicer.



Last week a friend of mine from work went into the hospital for surgery. Before she left she jokingly asked me to buy some yarn at Rhinebeck and knit her a sock. (just one) when I saw the little mini sock blocker I knew it had to be, and I got it right away. This is the result.


I mailed it off on Tuesday, and I hope she gets it soon, and that it makes her smile. She's and awesome woman.


Speaking of socks, for the October sock for the SAM kal I was hoping to finish a pair of Coriolis. But so many things have been popping up that I just haven't worked on them enough:



In order to still get my monthly socks in I dug out the single practice socks I made while learning Cat Bordhi's new architectures and knit them mates.
The green are little sky, and the blue are little coriolis.

A good Yarn

As well as some ok yarns and a fo...

A while back I got dome delicious merino roving from sqhuoosh in the "funny" colorway.

I split it in half and spun one half on my little.8 oz golding tsunami. I then chain plied it on my big spindle. It wasn't perfectly even, and it was definitely better towards the end as I got more comfortable with drafting, and with consistency:




(if you click through, you can get the super huge size of this picture, that I'm using as my current desktop)

the other day while I was surfing Ravelry I found this neat pattern that I though would be perfect for this yarn...

beechwood

I reduced the stitch count, because I didn't want it to be all big and floppy, and then only knit 1 3/4 repeats instead of the 2 1/4 that the pattern calls for, beaus I ran out of yarn.

Over all I'm pretty happy with the results. This is the first time I've knit with my handspun, and I'm pretty happy with it. All the flaws that bothered me in the yarn are barely noticeable once knit up.



I saved the other half of the 'funny' to practice on my wheel spinning on Wednesdays.
I was mostly aiming for something similar to my spindle spun while practicing the supported long draw technique. Because this was only my second and third times spinning on a wheel, there is very little consistency, and it is obviously a 'practice' yarn. Although my chain plying on a wheel is definitely improving, I think I would have had a slightly easier time of it had the lazy Kate been in a different position, but that is easily remedied:





after I finished up the funny I still had a lot of time left, so I grabbed some merino top from Ashland bay in 'snapdragon' and worked on spinning from the fold. And then two plied it.

I definitely like the results from spinning from the fold, very soft and squishy, and by the end I was getting better at the consistency.

The resulting yarn is very obviously 'beginner' but I still like it, it is so soft and squishy and warm. Only have about 50 yards of it, so I'm unsure what to do with it.




(again, if you click through you can get an extra huge version of this for your desktop wallpaper.)


and then I saved the best for last:



remember the chocolate alpaca bon-bons?
this is what became of them.

10 grams, 42 yards of the most delicious soft and fine lace weight yarn.

I know it's not a lot, but the fiber had not been washed before hand so it was really dirty, and spinning it was not all that pleasant. But after a good soak in hot soapy water and a little abuse, this has bloomed into an amazingly soft yarn.

Spun on my golding .8 oz tsunami, Navaho 'ply on the fly'

More spinning

I recently learned a new spinning technique called "ply on the fly" essentially you spin a length of singles, then Navajo ply it all at once before winding it onto the spindle. If you are interested there's a video here that shows how to do it.

I really like it because plying this way is (to me) about 10000 times easier than doing it the traditional way of winding the singles into a ball from the spindle and then trying to ply it from there.

When some beautiful grey roving came my way from one of the teachers of my spinning class I saw it as the perfect opportunity to practice my 'ply on the fly' skills.



The original bump of roving was about 3 oz. This skein is only about half of that. I decided to save the rest to practice my wheel spinning tomorrow when I go to the museum for spinning and weaving day. (Every Wednesday, a bunch of ladies get together to weave and spin)


( I love this picture, I made it my new desktop for a while.)

stats:
unlabeled roving from Upper Canada Village it’s very crimpy and there was still a lot of grease left in it, but it spun very easily, and while not amazingly soft, made a nice yarn.

Spun on my big spindle, using "ply on the fly" technique.

Fingering.dk weight, about 48 yards.

My spinning skills are getting much better lately, not only was I trying out a new technique, but this was the most even and most balanced skein I've spun so far.


And while we are on the topic of spinning...

I've wanted a takli or support spindle for a while. Then I found a group on ravely called DIY tools and got inspired:



It's made from a heavy lampwork glass heart, and two metal beads from my beading stash. Glued onto a US #1 DPN.
The hardest part was bending the hook on the end. And then I had to file it down a bit to smooth it out.

It spins pretty well. I'm still getting used to the whole supported spindle thing. But so far so good.



The fiber on it in the picture is Chiengora from the resident fiber dog Cayenne, 'carded' using a pair of dog brushes.

After a while I Navajo plied it up on my golding tsunami, and the resulting yarn is some of the softest and finest I've spun for cayenne's fun yet.

wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'

Saturday I finally got to take the spinning class at the Hand Weaving Museum.

I've been very excited about this for a while. And they did not disappoint.

We started out with several bags full of wool:


Then we picked apart the wool, and fluffed it up:


Then we carded the wool:


My first batt:

I really enjoyed carding, and someday hope to get a drum carder of my own, the possibilities are endless for color combinations and fiber prep.


And the fiber prep it was time to spin:


(we used Louet S10's btw)

I forgot to take any pictures of my yarn on the bobbin. But I can tell you that wheel spinning is very different from spindle spinning. My mantra of the day seemed to be "there are too many parts!" I got treadling down, but it was difficult to get it going in the right direction, the arm never stopped in the right place, and I had to constantly hand start the wheel. And then half the time I would catch the drive band and it would pop off.

And I kept forgetting to stop and change flyer hooks, and I ended up with lumps. Drafting I was ok with, mostly because of my drop spindle experience. But I didn't get as much practice at the long draw technique as I would have liked. Although they all seemed pretty impressed with how thin I was spinning, it wasn't very even and I ended up with a few lumps every now and then.

Another problem I had was that I kept winding on the yarn before enough twist hand gone in. They started us at the lowest ratio, and I think I would have been happier with a little faster speed, so I could have gotten more twist in before letting it on.

After the spinning it was the plying, which is where I discovered my problem of too little twist. My singles kept drifting apart, so I had to send everything back through again, to try and give it more twist.

Because I was spinning so fine I actually used up all my fiber on one bobbin, but I already knew the gist of plying, and I wanted to see how well Navajo plying worked on the wheel. Navajo, or chain plying is my favorite method of plying on the drop spindle, and I was interested to see how it worked on the wheel.

Getting started was a little fiddlier. But I eventually got started. Boy was it difficult! With the spindle, the weight of the spindle pulls everything down, so when you are making your chains it can't kink up very much, and you also can go slower and make a long chain and then ply them together. With the wheel I didn't have enough pull to really keep everything from kinking up, and it was plying as I was making the chains, so it didn't go as evenly as I would have liked. I think turning up the uptake tension may help a little, and perhaps tensioning the lazy Kate next time as well. But I think I'm just going to need A LOT more practice. Which I don't mind! :)


Here's the finished yarn on the niddy-noddy:


And all skeined up:



And finally my two saints of teachers:

Joann and Connie

Now that I've taken the class I can go in whenever I want and use one of the museum's wheels. I definitely plan on getting a lot more practice in. especially before October when I go to Rhinebeck, where I plan to hopefully get myself a wheel all of my own.