House Guests

I try not to let so much time pass between blog posts.... I do remember last year around this time I had a craft-break, while I'm not letting that happen, something has to give when we have nice long days... and house guests.

I started a pair of socks just to try some techniques, not so much to fit someone... it might also be one sock instead of a pair... we'll see.


and finally, my wonderful prize from SSAL. I'm already working on the silk hankies and almost done with them.

I'm also trying to figure out what I want to do with the beautifully dyed purple and green merino...

We took our house guests to the quadrangle, where there are 4 museums (and a library). We got to see the bubble guy... very cool :)

...and since I do have company for a couple more days I must spend the time convincing them to buy wool producing animals for their land in missouri... blogging will be later, after that is accomplished.

Winners and Not So Winning FO

First things first: The contest is over, I drew twice (cuz it was so much fun!) using a tiny random number program my husband slapped together for me (no, it didn't make him the winner every time). The winners are:

My sister Carmen (blogless)

and

Ina

It was fun to hear from people, and I'm now on my way through the next 100 posts, keep commenting! :)



No new knitting today, just your daily dose of older projects...

My first sweater (red heart - dark blue with bright bits - cables in front):


And another early sweater (red heart - green, garter stripes):


I think by this point I had forsaken red heart and moved on to woolease, one for my then boyfriend (now husband):


..and one for me, with zipper :)



I don't really ever wear the red heart ones (unless I'm sick and mucky and cold), but we both still wear the woolease ones every once in a while.

For SSAL #2, I had some silk I wanted to sample... I've never spun 100% silk before, wow was that different. #2 was focused on andean plying, and following her directions it worked! (for those who don't spin, andean plying is a way of plying together a small amount by wrapping it a certain way on your hand so it doesn't tangle as you ply using both ends.)

I have a bunch more of that silk, now I just have to decide what I want to do with it, now that I know the feel it has to it.

Spinning and more spinning

I have been spinning. and spinning. and spinning. I think it's because i'm still trying to decide if i like the pooling on the pirate sock, or if i should rip back and do it with 4 less stitches. While I ponder that you can see the pretty fiber.



That's some angora (done spinning) and the blue superwash colonial wool. I got the wool from Ashabee's Creations etsy shop. I split the 4 oz I had, and ended up spinning just over 2 oz. I then winded up a 2 ply ball, I did this before spinning them together because they kept curling up and I wanted to make sure they would play nicely together. I am now spinning that ball... maybe yarn pictures within the next day or two, and then I just need to pick a pattern. (This is moving fast because I have given it priority - trying to finish it by the end of June - and then maybe one for me - this one is not - by the end of the summer?)


I also decided to do the latest Sunday-Spin-a-Long exercise. The goal was to create some crinkly homespun yarn. I did up a 30 yard sample. Some of the time it just looks uneven, but at least some of the time I feel like I got it. I understood. and it worked.


You start with two ply of yarn - one thin, one thick... I think I want to try it again, as I was having a hard time getting thick yarn, and I can tell it turned out much better when the yarn was consistently thick for a while.



While plying I played with different tensions - it seemed to work best when I held the thick yarn lightly, and the thin yarn a bit tighter. The part that helped the most in her tutorial was that we didn't want to hold it taut and smooth while plying.



Like I said, trying to relearn to spin thicker didn't work so well with this project, but I got the taste of it, and once I'm done plying for the shawl, I think I want to try again!



...but it is pretty and was lots of fun to try!