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!

Buttons and Bunnies

WOW, what a productive weekend....

First off, we have the button I got at the event last week:


...and while I'm on the topic of buttons, I have some more to add to my sidebar.

SP10
This one is actually almost done, but I thought this button was cute, and I didn't have one yet.

And this one:
Spun Stitches KAL
I just joined today, I'll have to post there, but the goal is to spin yarn and make it into a shawl.


I signed up for this swap - sounded fun, and I believe it's still open if you want to join!
Virtual Vacation Swap

And this last one isn't something you officially join, she's putting up different spinning techniques and giving us 2 weeks to play around with each one, I might not do my spinning on sunday, but I'd like to try out each of the different exercises.
Sunday Spin-a-Long

As far as projects go, I have also been spinning some soft white angora on my spindolyn.


After an Enterprise-disc evening or two, I am almost done with the whole 2 oz I had in that bag. A tiny little bit left and then...


...I will spin up this on the wheel and ply the two together.


I have plans for making a shawl with this yarn, depending on how it comes out. This is the yarn I'm trying to spin for the spun stitches KAL.


That's right - I can spin on the wheel because the sock yarn is done!


Isn't it pretty?


As I took the last picture my 3 year old wanted her hand in there too.


So I ended up with 550(ish) yards of two ply. I haven't taken the wpi yet, but it definitely feels like sock yarn - much more than the three ply did. So now I will make socks, and something to go with them...



And last, I have an almost finished project... I followed the pattern I bought for a felted rabbit. I used US 10 1/2 needles and some ella rae yarn from my LYS. After knitting and sewing:


After washing (felting) and stuffing it looks like this:


I just need to sew on some eyes (perhaps just simple eyes with the pink yarn?) and then make a little brown pompom and sew it on for the tail. It just has to finish drying first. Last night my sweet husband was helping to clean the girls room and found an old baby shower present. This is a little bunny that someone gave me for my oldest...


Of course, as a perfect gift for me, she didn't give me just the bunny, she gave me the debbie bliss book that the pattern was in. This was the beginning of my stuffed animal baby gift knitting.

I've been thinking about what things I would like, since my SP10 spoiler asked if there were any other yarns on my secret wishlist. While there are many small dyers and etsy shops that I watch, and many big names that I have yet to try, I don't have anything up at the top of the "buy next" list. I just love different color combinations and the feel of different yarns. Unfortunately I think my next purchases (a couple months from now since I just finished fiber festival season?) will be a yarn meter so I don't have to count while I'm using my swift, and a really good digital scale... I will want to get the new Charmed Knits book along with the new Harry Potter book (oops, i should probably pre-order that soon), but I don't know when that will be. ...and I'm also looking forward to the new Romantic Hand Knits book that comes out this summer.

So there's the generic answer, specific to my spoiler, I've loved everything I've gotten, so I'm sure I'll love whatever you send!

The Harlot at the Calvin

Before I show you the event, I have to say, there was plenty to see in Northampton (as always). The building next to the Calvin used to be a bank I would say... My sweet husband pointed out this on the side of the building:



After taking that picture I snapped one of the line... we showed up about 20 minutes before they opened the doors. Sweet husband and I actually walked to a toy store down the road and looked around while my mom and sister held our spots in line.



We were very close to the front though. After us, the line snaked around the corner and down between the buildings (this was not the longest line of the evening though).


Since I was with my family I tried to curb the blogger-picture-snapping. I did receive a Ravelry button (still in the bag I brought, so no picture) from someone who I assume was Jessica. Webs had handed out bags that had several flyers, a ball of debbie bliss cashmerino aran (mine was red), and pair of US 8 straight needles. They wanted us to knit up a 7 inch square for Warm Up America. I thought this was interesting on so many levels...

No one thought we would have a hard time knowing how big 7 inches was
No one handed out a pattern
No one even said about how many we should cast on

...and that's because we were in a room full of knitters - if you had a question, or needed a tape measure, you just asked the person next to you.

I also thought it was amusing - since our hands were busy with our knitting there was a lot less clapping then there would have been otherwise.

I didn't want to fiddle with gauge, so I knit my square from corner to corner (increasing a stitch every row until one side was 7 inches and then decrease a stitch every row) and did a seed row instead of plain knitting. My square wasn't quite square... It was going fine until Stephanie came out and then I started laughing and the gauge shifted and... yeah. I stretched it a bit and it reverted to almost square... I enjoyed a little conversation with the woman sitting next to me - blogless Sharon from Brattleboro, VT if I remember correctly (comment if you found your way here!) I was enjoying myself a lot, as was everyone I brought with me - I did remember to snap a picture or two though....



I enjoyed the speech, and the questions, and the answers... I laughed muchly. After the speech was over, I walked to the back and found Robyn (my SP10 hostess who traveled down from Canada). She snapped a picture of us. I think I look a little off, but then again, I had just laughed for most of an hour.... It was very cool to meet up with her and her group - very cute little one there!

At that point we walked back to the car and drove to Webs. Now that was the long line. Through the store and into the warehouse and halfway down the aisle is where we joined it, and many others kept walking past us to go to the end of the line. Kathy and Steve (all their staff really) did a great job - getting fans set up and bringing us cups of water - even reminding us that they had pre-signed books waiting at the front if we wanted to give up. We were joking in line that they had put all the nice yarn along the path of the line and along the path to the restroom... and the yarn kept getting softer as we got closer to getting back inside the store. I enjoyed chatting with others and then watching Robyn try to acclimate herself to the size of Webs and try to find something in there - has anyone found anything in there without *asking* someone? Finally we made it up to the table. My mom and sister went first, getting the last copy of At Knit's End in the whole store (well, there were still audio books left) and a copy of Casts Off of course. My mother, who had finished two squares for Warm Up America, had broken out her netting. As she signed their books Stephanie commented on it and I had to nudge my mom and suggest she leave a card with all her internet info on it. She dug it out and left one.

I then blinded Stephanie with my flash:



After which she kindly created a sock sculpture with our socks:



Yes, that's the Yarn Pirate that I had received that afternoon from my SP10 Pal and had wound it up before leaving home, and then started my toe-up sock in the car on the drive up. It's a bit small in the picture, but it's pretty :)

While at Webs I also picked up a copy of the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket. They used it as a KAL on their pod cast and have a copy of just that pattern available (rather than buying a whole book) plus their tips and helps.

We then fled back to our homes, and recovered. I look forward to reading both the Yarn Harlot blog and the Webs blog. I think we all had a great time!

Better late than never

Before I reconstruct the Yarn Harlot event post, I needed to finish this post and put it up. It's a bit past the contest date, but I figured I would post this anyway...

As part of SP10 my group was asked to post all of our WIP. I have pictures of all my recent ones (not my two big UFOs).



I am so close to being done spinning this fiber. I made a 3-ply (navajo ply) yarn of the other half, but I think I will only 2-ply this half - and a half should be plenty for a pair of socks (and use the 3-ply for something else). I will probably finish this and ply it sometime this weekend - I hope!



These four are my other WIP. I am spinning some angora on my spindolyn (which I will ply with some roving I haven't spun yet, but I have picked out). I am working on the lace scarf - I will keep working on that - slowly... I figure I will keep working until the yarn runs out, which will be a while. I am working on the yarn pirate socks - just my normal plain pattern, although i've been thinking of trying a different heel (wendy's new heel pattern). I might need to rip it back just to the increases and do a few less though, I'm trying to decide if I like how the color is pooling (diagonal stripe) or not. ...and then I'm working on the felted bunny. I am done knitting. I just need to sew it up, wash it, stuff it, let it dry, add eyes, and re-stuff. and then it will be good to go!

Just a note: my two big UFOs are not spinning or knitting related - one is a strip quilt, and the other is a big cross stitch. (and then of course I have projects planned that I haven't actually started yet, so they don't count)

Ooops

I was getting a post ready while writing a shopping list for tomorrow morning - and then my laptop had issues... Blogger had saved a draft, but an old one, with just pictures, few text and links... I'll reconstruct tomorrow - probably late in the day. Sorry! Pictures of the event in Northampton with the Yarn Harlot will be coming....