Lalala…

Probably past time for me to post pictures of the things I’ve been spinning. Someone was asking me about the BFL I was spinning at Distaff Day while we were playing at the Whole Nine Yarns last Saturday.

Here’s about 100g of 2-ply BFL in Humbug from Wingham Wool Works. Iris sent this to me ages ago and I absolutely loved spinning it. (Quarter for visual reference.)

Something else Iris sent is some mohair from Fyberspates. I’d begun spinning this on my drop spindle but then transferred it to the wheel. I believe this may have been my first spinning project on the Clemes & Clemes. It’s a bit on the overspun side, even after a long soak, but I didn’t want to ply this. I’ve been working on not putting so much twist into the singles lately.

This is at the very least 300 yards of an angora and merino blend Rebecca had laying around from Twin Ponds Fiber Farm. I did not enjoy spinning this at all as the fiber could have stood to go back through a carder. I only picked out about half the nupps and VM. The water turned an “interesting” shade of yellowish-brown through several rinses. Then I threw some Wilton at it.

This is what I’m currently working on. It’s some luscious combed Handspinner’s Dream from Alpaca with a Twist. I also have this in a natural white. I’ll do a 2-ply and make a scarf for my older sister from the black and a white hat for the younger sister. Of course, I’ve never knit a single thing from my handspun, so I’m not holding my breath that those projects will make it out of my head.

It occurs to me that I’ve never posted shots of my finished Pirates hat. I went wonky on the tension, so the pattern isn’t as clear as it could be, so I’ll distract you with the innards. The pink is also an alpaca yarn whose name currently escapes my mind. Yeah, Iris sent that, too, because she rocks.

I still have to pick up and do the inside band in some absurdly loud color and block it all out. I have no idea who this hat is for, but if it’ll fit over my mop of curls, it’ll fit anyone. Heck, I may keep it.

The husband came home Friday very, very sick. I even called his mother for recommendations on keeping Tylenol in him as I have never dealt with a sick child. I spent the evening and into the early morning doing the wet cloth on the forehead, temperature check, Tylenol routine until the fever broke. Then I stumbled into bed around 4am.

I was planning on going to a holiday party Saturday, but realized almost immediately that it wasn’t going to happen as I didn’t get a chance to wrap a gift, cook a dish or even sleep the night before. I did start my Colorwork Challenge knitting in those slap-happy early morning hours with alpaca yarn left over from other projects. I knit on and off yesterday; it’s going surprisingly fast.

I have every confidence the fabric will smooth out post blocking. I also got started on a pair of Over the Knee Stockings for the little sister. I’m doing a picot hem at the top and will sew in an elastic band to help keep them up. The yarn is a sock weight merino from Malabrigo (before they were Malabrigo and when they did sock yarn) in their Molly Pink colorway that I picked up a couple years ago with the express intent of making stockings for the sister.

Do any of you know where I can get some basic weaving information? I was digging through some things we were storing at the boy’s parents and found this.

My mother bought this back in the day when we were living in Berlin for us girls, around 1988. It’s a little tabletop loom. It’s come apart while sitting in a basement all these years, but I want to glue it back together and give it a whirl. It came with zero instructions. As an aside, I found my first ever knitting attempts in this box. I’ll pull everything out and take some pictures in the next few days. This was the sample attached to the loom when it was purchased.

I’m thinking this may be a good way to use my handspun.

Because the perfect cure to finishing up projects is to immediately start a pile of new ones until you can’t remember all of them, I joined Stranded: The Colorwork Challenge. Hooray for knitalongs with loose rules!

I’m planning to start Adrian’s We Call Them Pirates Hat, which I’ve been meaning to knit for nearly a year now. I’ve even swatched for it. I suppose this will by my third colorwork project, the first being Oberstdorf with a little Pilve thrown in for good measure. I should probably finish Pilve, so that’s also on the schedule. The sister took Oberstdorf into work with her yesterday to show it off to her coworkers (awww!). She reported that they didn’t believe I’d knit it for her and that it must’ve been store bought.

Oh, go over and say hello to a very new blogger with a baby blog over at the Knit Factor. Years of careful grooming have taken her from a crocheter to a full blown knit blogger. She started by saying that she’d never have a stash and would only have yarn on hand for the current project. She mocked my lack of fidelity to a single project. And she poo-poo’d blogging about knitting. Now look at her, stash on hand and a three project at a time limit. She’s coming around on dyeing yarn, but still professes no desire to learn spinning. I figure it’s only a matter of time.

Poke. What are you doing?

I am in fact working on some behind the scenes, Secret Squirrel types of things right now. I’ll let you in on it very soon.