So many hobbies!

New yarn!

Some of the new yarn that came today.  The two skeins on the left are from The Loopy Ewe (Lorna's Laces in the Georgetown colorway) and the two on the right are from Twisted (the left is in the Lizardman colorway, the right is in the Netherfield colorway).  I'm not sure which to use first.  The Lorna's Laces is incredibly soft but I absolutely love the Netherfield.  Decisions, decisions!

At The Spinning Loft Saturday, Beth showed me a great method for plying.  You take your full singles bobbin and using a ball winder, wind it all into a ball making sure you'll be able to find the end when you're done winding.  Then, you attach both ends of the single back onto your bobbin and ply from both ends of the ball.  With this method, you'll never end up with extra single left on one of the two bobbins.  It also lets you ply more often.  I'm not sure Beth, but I think you're now enabling my plying addiction.

In addition to new sock yarn, I also have lots of new fiber.  I'm not allowed to buy any fiber for a while.  At least until I spin up what I have.  I'll have pictures tomorrow.

A busy weekend

I had such a fun, busy weekend and got so much done that I hardly know where to start.  Saturday I picked up some lovely fiber I bought on ebay and then spent the rest of the morning and afternoon at The Spinning Loft.  Beth gave me a lesson in drafting and spinning.  I've been mostly doing it semi-wrong this whole time.  Once she showed me what to do, and I still need lots more practice, I was spinning Shetland roving into lace-weight yarn.  Amazing!  It was such a fun day.  Beth is a great teacher and she and I had fun teasing each other throughout the day.  I can see I'll be spending time at The Spinning Loft whenever I can.

I brought some of my handspun to show Beth and get her opinion.  I've recently found out about the Great Lakes Fiber Show on Memorial weekend in Wooster, Ohio (about 3 hours from my house) and I've decided to enter some of my yarn in their skein contest.  My intent was to enter the alpaca/Merino/silk  yarn I spun last weekend and wanted to know what Beth thought.  She said it was pretty good but when she got to that darned, hairy Border Leicester yarn, she said that that was the skein I should enter in the contest.  She said it was very evenly spun and plied and that it was very nice yarn.  I still can't believe that the best yarn I've spun and plied so far is the yarn I spent the least amount of time on and like the least.  Needless to say, I didn't knit and felt it this weekend and I'll be entering it in the contest.

While I was at The Spinning Loft, I bought a swift and a jumbo ball winder, which allowed me to wind these:

Into these:

Using a swift and ball winder is sooo much easier than looping skeins around your feet and winding the yarn into a ball by hand.  MUCH easier.  I was very tempted to spend a good chunk of the rest of the weekend playing with my new toys and winding all my skeins to balls, but I instead a spun this yarn:

I also worked on my sock.  I'm almost done with the heel with only one wrapped stitch on each end to pick up but I've dropped something.  I'm pretty sure it's the wrapping from a wrapped stitch but I have no idea how to fix it.  I need to visit my LYS for some help in fixing the problem.  When that's done I'll be able to finish the heel and the rest will be a cinch.

Seli is sleeping on my pillow again.

The hairy beast has been tamed!

It is now a respectable, heathered gray 2-ply awaiting my bidding.  What is it destined to become, you might ask?  I'll tell you:  a small pouch/bag to hang from the upright of my wheel to hold important things like an oriface hook, wheel oil (maybe if it's right there in front of me I'll remember that I actually need to use it from time to time), a pair of scissors, etc.  I think I'll knit it top down, with a band of contrasting yarn to make it more interesting, and then felt it in the washer until it's the right size.  (Ooo, I'm going to have to buy my first circular needles!  Woot!)  Gray yarn isn't terribly exciting all by itself and while I mean for the bag to be utilitarian, I'd like it to be attractive, too.   

I'm actually pretty proud of myself.  I don't plan on ever spinning any long, hairy wool again but I'm very glad I finished this lot.  What's funny is this is the first yarn I've spun that I actually have plans for.  I think I have a new project for the weekend.  That and finishing up my first sock.

A light night

This is where I was as of last night.  I had intended to work my first short-row heel tonight but too many too-late nights caught up with me and I crashed when I got home.  After an hour and a half nap I was just too groggy to attempt anything new.  So, instead I read my latest acquisition from Amazon:  In Sheep's Clothing:  A Handspinner's Guide to Wool by Nola and Jane Fournier.  I'd come to the conclusion that there were far too many breeds and wool types out there and I knew next to nothing about them.  It's all well and good to trust what a breeder and fleece-seller is telling you but without any knowledge at all, how do you know that you're not getting fleeced...  (I'm so sorry.  I just HAD to.)  This book goes over most of the breed types available in the U.S., England, Australia and New Zealand.  There's information on cleaning and preparing your fleece for spinning and a section on selecting, sorting and storing your fleece.  I can already tell this will be a book I'll refer to quite a bit.

Okay, yesterday I said I didn't care if people thought I was shallow because I wasn't going to finish spinning the nasty rough wool.  Well, maybe I care a little bit.  Both Georgia and abe-hap suggested I felt whatever I knit.  So with that in mind, I shall finish spinning the hairy wool and if I have enough after plying, I will knit and felt.  Don't forget I only bought 4 oz. of roving so I'm really not going to end up with much finished yarn.  I suppose finishing the spinning would be the adult thing to do.  Darn it!  After reading my new book, it seems the Border Leicester I bought was on the coarse end of what's possible from that breed.  In addition to calling myself a hedonist, I would also like to suggest the word "Sybarite." 

Say "No" to coarse wool!

I am a hedonist.  I confess this freely and without remorse.  This photo shows about an ounce of Border Leicester single, spun from the 4 oz. I bought from The Yarn Tree a few weeks ago.  Since I'd never spun a long staple wool before, I bought it for fun and decided that tonight would be the night to be adventurous.  Merino this is not!  It is the coarsest wool I have ever tried to spin and I'm not enjoying it.  I've spun what I did it because, well, I bought it.  I should do something with it.  Right?   Even if I were to finish the 4 oz. (which I'm not), I have no idea what I'd do with it.  It's far too coarse to make into a sweater.  Even with a shirt under it, it would be so picky it would drive me nuts.  (I did confess I was a hedonist, didn't I?)  I really like the soft gray color and it was very easy to spin, but it's so rough, I really can't stand to spin any more.  Call me shallow.  I care not!  Fortunately, I ordered 14 oz. of some nice, soft Targhee roving, again from The Yarn Tree, with a micron count of 22 to 27.  It'll be like spinning a cloud.  I can't wait!

White yarn

This is the yarn I spun on Saturday.  Rita and I had another spinning day and I spun up the alpaca/Merino/tussah silk blend I bought a month or so ago from The Yarn Tree.  It was an interested blend to spin.  It pre-drafted easily but I found it more difficult to spin an even single with this blend than with any other fiber I've tried.  It also shed silk horribly.  The right leg of the black pants I was wearing was covered with white fibers.  I spun it with a tight twist and ply in an effort to prevent more shedding.  The resulting yarn isn't as soft as I was hoping it would be.  All in all I'm not excited about it and I probably won't try this particular blend again.

A great discovery

I learned Saturday, at my second knitting class, just why I've been knitting so blasted tightly on my sock.  I've been doing it wrong.  For nearly three months, I've been knitting wrong.  For a knit stitch, instead of wrapping the yarn counter clockwise around the needle, I've been wrapping it clockwise.   I have three months of muscle memory to unlearn.  Damn.   Well, I knitted on my sock today, correctly, and I'll be darned if my stitches weren't comfortably loose.  Sock knitting before wasn't exactly enjoyable because I was constantly fighting to shove the stitches down the needle.  It was going to take me forever to knit just one sock.  Not now...

In addition to my class and knitting on my sock, I worked on stitch markers this weekend.  I'd never done wire wrapping before, so I dragged out a copy of Bead & Button magazine and using their "basics" directions, taught myself how to create a loop and then wrap the wire.  I think they turned out pretty well.

A bit of progress

I added a bit over an inch to my sock today.  I'm finding it much more comfortable dealing with all those needles.  I just wish I could knit a little looser.   Sometimes my stitches are so tight, it's difficult to move them down the needle.  I don't have this problem knitting with regular needles.  Knitting on socks, with a needle getting in the way with practically every stitch, there's much less room to move around and I end up knitting on the tips of the needles and not moving the stitch down to the wider part.  Consequently, I have tight little stitches all bunched up at the end of the needle and it's a strain to shove them down to make room for the next stitch.  I've tried loosening up and it works for the first half of the stitches but by the time I get to the end they're tight and crowded.  I'm hoping if I just keep trying to work loose, eventually I'll have comfortable tension all the time.

While internet window shopping today, I saw some very nice polymer clay stitch markers.  The only problem was they wanted nearly $30 for five markers.  Since I'd much rather buy wool or yarn for that much money, I decided to make some myself.  Having done bead embroidery in my very recent past, I have ALOT of beads laying around.  All I need are some headpins (a quick trip to Jo-Ann's tomorrow after work) and I expect I'll have a set of five markers in under an hour for much, much less than thirty bucks.  Of course, knowing me, I'll have to pick up a few "necessary" beads while I'm there.  They are on sale after all.

The third toe

Oh, my, I love this yarn.  I'm a bit amazed that it is what it is because of what I did to it.  I started with plain white roving and ended up with something I'm proud to say I made.  How cool it that!?  Do you think professional artists still get jazzed when they create something beautiful? 

So, this is toe #3.  The nice folks at Knit a Round helped me figure out how to pick up stitches from the provisional cast on.  I just hope I can remember when I eventually start sock #2.  I have discovered I'm a VERY tight knitter, at least on socks.  I'm currently getting 8 stitches to the inch using sport weight yarn on size 3 needles.  I wish I could figure out how to knit a little looser.  Knitting that tight is really a pain.  Regardless, this yarn is knitting into a nice, soft fabric.  Good thing I bought more...

Jewel yarn

Tomorrow is going to be a caffeine filled day.  I finished spinning and plying tonight, looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly midnight.  It was worth it, though.  The yarn turned out as beautiful as I'd hoped it would.  Tomorrow I'll skein it which will show it off better than being wound on a bobbin.  Tomorrow, however, is a sock knitting day.  Until then, another lamb picture...