Lacy Ribbons

Pattern: Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronik Avery, spring 2008 Knitty
Yarn: J. Knits Superwash Me Sock (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon), colorway Mississippi, one skein
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) Knit Picks circs
Started/Completed: October 15/October 25
Dimensions: approximately 6 1/2" by 90"
Mods: cast on 44 stitches rather than 53
Recipient: my mother

I'm thrilled with how this turned out. The lace repeat was easy to memorize after two or three repeats, and after that, the rest of the scarf prettty much flew off the needles.

I reduced the stitch count in part because I was only using one skein of yarn, but also because this scarf struck me as more of an accessory than an article for warmth. I ended up with only a few yards leftover but a nice length. I did not block very aggressively, however, only just enough to open up the lace and straighten the edges a bit.

I'm really quite enamored of this pattern now and think I may eventually need to knit one for myself. I think it might look very nice in my merino/alpaca handspun.

I have a few more small things to knit, but now the majority of my holiday knitting is complete!

Dashing

Cross another holiday gift off the list.

Pattern: Dashing by Cheryl Niamath, spring 2007 Knitty
Yarn: Karabella Aurora 8 (100% merino), color 1362, two skeins
Needles: US 7 (4.5 mm) dpns
Started/Completed: October 20/October 23
Recipient: my mother-in-law
Mods: shortened by a few rows between third cable cross and thumb and in hand

These were a quick, satisfying knit. I had to wait until several days after they were completed to do a proper photo shoot, but they knit up in just a handful of evening knitting sessions.

The yarn was a delight. It had been sitting in the stash for quite some time, waiting for the right project. When I asked The Mister for guidance on color choice for his mother, he suggested a neutral shade, so this Aurora 8 fit the bill perfectly. I omitted a few rows here and there in part because I was nervous about running out of yarn (probably wouldn't have been a problem in the end) but also because my mother-in-law has small-ish hands, like me, and I didn't want the mitts to be too long. I tried them on as I went, and as you can see, they're a perfect fit on me. The Mister says she'll love them, so I'm happy. Just a little steam blocking is left and they're ready to go.

I finished some other holiday knitting this weekend, but you'll have to wait until at least tomorrow to see it; it's still drying. Trust me, it's worth it. I'm thrilled.

The Squoosh Factor

The first of the Dashing mitts is done, and I have to say that if I hadn't already planned these as a gift, I'd be very tempted to keep them. This yarn is so unbelievable squooshy!

The second mitt is about two-thirds done and should be finished up tonight. (I think two hours of Nathan Fillion kept me from finishing it last night. I kept getting distracted -- can you blame me?)

Next!

Thank you for your compliments on the blanket. I'm planning on presenting it to Amelia's mother on Wednesday, as a present for her six-month birthday. I have no doubt that it will be well received, as today I got some adorable pictures e-mailed to me of Amelia wearing the sweater I knit her. (It's still a tad big on her, but she was smiling!)

Now that the blanket is done, I'm through with all the non-holiday obligatory knitting and am turning my attention full time to "Chrismakkah" gifts. First is a Lace Ribbon Scarf for my mother in J Knits Superwash Me Sock, one of two skeins I picked up at 30% off at Natural Stitches. It's knitting up very quickly, and I have to say that this is one scarf that I've actually found fun to knit. Eventually I think I might knit myself one, maybe in my merino/alpaca handspun.

It's amazing how hard this color is to capture on camera, probably because it looks different depending on the light. It can go from a deep royal blue, as it appears here, to a really vibrant purple. It looked purple through the lens as I took this picture, but you can see how blue it turned out.

Tonight I'm casting on for a pair of Dashing (Dashings?) for my mother-in-law. I'm using some very old stash yarn -- Karabella Aurora 8. I bought it at Pittsburgh Knit & Bead when it was closing; I don't remember exactly how long ago that was, but I know it was when I was still living in my apartment and just starting to build a stash. It's so old I never even catalogued it on Ravelry! Fortunately it's still in pristine condition and will make some nice squishy mitts.

Stitched with Love

Miles of garter stitch, a seemingly never-ending edging, and two days to dry, but the blanket is done.

Pattern: improvised log cabin-style blanket in garter stitch with applied i-cord edging
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (80% superwash wool, 20% nylon), in colorways (from center out) Bittersweet, Jay Pond, Cool, Georgetown, Grape, Mint, Uptown, Purple Iris, and Mixed Berries, with Bittersweet for edging; all partial skeins
Needles: 32" US 2 (2.75 mm) Knit Picks circular
Dimensions: approximately 27" x 27"
Started/Completed: September 16/October 15
Recipient: Amelia

I knit this blanket after a request from Amelia's mother, a coworker of mine. Amelia has a very rare condition having to do with her liver. Because of her condition, she is likely to wind up in the hospital from time to time and may even require a liver transplant one day. In her six months of life, she's already had one surgery and spent time in the NICU. Her mother lamented the fact that she looked so small and cold in the hospital, and at that moment I knew a wool blanket was in order.

I decided to use sock yarn because I knew it would be perfect for a blanket that would be warm but not too heavy. It also needed to be in a superwash yarn so it could be cleaned easily. I chose the Shepherd Sock mostly because I had a lot of scraps left as well as a lone skein of one color; Jen very generously donated two skeins she had that became the two outer stripes.

I purposefully kept the size of the blanket small. It will be just enough to cover Amelia now, and my hope is that, as she gets older, it will be more of a comfort object than a covering.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out, and I'm hoping that all the positive thoughts I put into it as I was knitting provide some comfort to Millie and her parents.

In the Navy

I think I may have married a saint. The Mister humored me by modeling a wool sweater in 70+ degree heat. I think he deserves to get a sweater next, don't you? (And yes, that is a squirrel trap in the background. We haven't caught any more since Sunday, but they've managed to get in and steal the peanut butter sandwiches without getting trapped.)

Pattern: Seamless Raglan from Knitting without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmermann, 40" chest
Yarn: Cascade 220 (100% wool), color 8393, five skeins*
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) 32" and 24" Addi Turbo circs and dpns
Started/Completed: September 13/October 10
Recipient: my father, for his birthday

There's not much commentary I can give on this sweater; like all EZ designs, it's simple and straightforward and results in a completely wearable garment. I stuck with a simple 2x2 rib for the hem, cuffs, and collar and blocked firmly so that they wouldn't hug the body too tightly. My father in particular is not fond of collars that are too close to the neck -- he used to talk about the sweaters my aunt made him years ago, sweaters that had collars so tight that he couldn't get them past his ears when he tried to put them on! -- so I made a real effort to keep the collar loose. It's maybe a little too loose, but I preferred to err on that side than risk it being too tight.

The Mister especially liked the raglan shaping, so he'll likely be getting one of these in the future. I happen to like the look of the Seamless Hybrid a little better, but this is a lot less finicky to knit. With a little shaping, I think this would do very nicely as a woman's sweater, too; it certainly doesn't have the look of football player shoulder pads that saddle shoulder sweaters can create.

(The Mister really just wanted you to look at the sweater and not him in this photo. Well, that and he was also pretending to be shy.)

*One note on the yarn usage: I had to break into my sixth skein of yarn to finish the collar, but after I wove in my beginning ends and snipped off the tails, I think the excess was probably equal to the amount I used in that last skein. I spit spliced every time I joined a new skein, so I really maximized my yarn use. Plus, did I mention that my dad kind of has long arms? Those extra couple of inches on each sleeve would certainly be enough to finish a sweater for a similarly sized man, such as my husband.

Productivity

Tonight we're playing a game. It's called "Who Had the Most Productive Weekend?" Let's compare the stats.

This weekend, I:

• Made two dinners
• Made a batch of Amy's peppermint brownies
• Finished and blocked a sweater
• Cleaned the bathroom
• Cleaned the kitchen
• Did four loads of laundry
• Went grocery shopping
• Spent several hours spinning
• Updated my Ravelry stash
• Picked out photos for our wedding album

The Mister? Well, he caught a squirrel. Two of them, actually. This is only the first one.

He also released both of them. I think he might have a future in pest control if he keeps this up.

Of course, what we did is nothing compared to Jen, who gave birth to twins Saturday morning! I think it would be really great if, once she's home and back online, she opened her e-mail to a bunch of congratulatory messages. So why not pop over to her blog and leave her a comment? I'm sure she'll appreciate it. Thanks!

Hi There!

I bet you thought I'd fallen of the face of the earth, didn't you? I didn't, but it has been a crazy week. I have a fiber-heavy post ahead to make up for my absence, though.

I had a lovely surprise waiting for me at home yesterday evening: Both my Knit Picks order and my All Spun Up over had arrived! I was really shocked at how quickly the former got to me; according to the tracking, the box spent only 32 minutes in Leetsdale. I gotta say, I'm a little disappointed in the yarn fans at the distribution center. They're really starting to let go of my yarn more easily.

But enough about the postal service. I know you want to see what I got. Let's start with the fiber, shall we?

First there was this 60% merino/40% bamboo that I wish you could pet through the screen. Incredibly, it's actually softer that pure merino. I've seen how this spins up and I can wait to try it. Before I can do that, however, I'm working on the spinalong fiber:

This is 100% merino, and the colors really make me think of fall. I'm going for a three ply with this, using my fast flyer again.

Now, onto Knit Picks. Remember the debate we had about the colors for my Ivy League Vest? I still wasn't decided, and I think it was because I really wanted shades of brown and blue and the heathers weren't doing it for me. I looked at the pattern again and discovered that the colors used were actually two shades of three different colors. I had to wait a bit due to some shades being out of stock, but here's what I've decided on:

Palette in Twig and Bark (browns), Blue and Navy (blues), and Mist and Fog (grays). The Blue, Navy, and Fog are new. What do you think?

I also got some Wool of the Andes in Fern, Avocado, and Grass (left to right) for the felted Christmas trees from the new Mason-Dixon book.

In addition to some Essential Kettle Dyed to make some socks for The Mister (I know you can guess the color, so I didn't bother posting a picture), I finally decided to get this because of the holiday book sale:

I think it will be good for ways to use all the extra Palette I have sitting around, don't you?

Finally, take a guess what I finished last night! It's in its bath right and will need to dry, so expect some finished shots in a day or two.

It's a Series of Tubes

Thanks to some very diligent knitting time (and two rather interesting movies to watch), I managed to finish the second sleeve of my father's sweater and join it, the other sleeve, and the body on one needle. After some very long plain rounds, I've now started into the raglan decrease rounds. I think it's very reasonable to think I can finish this up by the end of the weekend, don't you?

As to the title of this post, if it didn't make you laugh, then you obviously haven't seen this. Watch it -- you'll enjoy it, I promise.

Spin, Spun, Span*

After days of waiting, this morning the sun finally came out and stayed out for an extended period of time. So, I immediately grabbed my camera and my latest handspun for its photo shoot.

I'm quite happy with how this yarn turned out. I split the fiber into halves to get a random color effect. I also used my fast flyer for the first time on this yarn, although I used the standard flyer to ply.

The fiber, if you recall, was shades of gray with the slightest hint of purple. That, combined with the alpaca content of the fiber, gives a delightfully tweedy look to the finished yarn that I just love.

See that pretty halo? This will look so nice as something lacy, though what I haven't decided just yet.

The specs:
Fiber: 70% superwash merino/30% alpaca from All Spun Up
Yarn: two ply, heavy laceweight/light fingering weight, approximately 444 yards
Spinning: spun on my Lendrum: singles spun on fast flyer, lowest ratio; plied on standard flyer, highest ratio


*The Mister's suggestion for the title of this post.

Monkey Arms

I said it last night and I'll say it again: My father has monkey arms. Here's the first sleeve of my father's sweater, currently measuring up to 18 inches. And I still have two more inches left to knit. Yup, monkey arms.

Fortunately, the sleeves are a pretty quick knit, especially in comparison to the body. About half of this sleeve was completed last night at Hurricane Knitting and I should be able to finish up those last couple inches while watching the debate tonight.

We had a small group last night, but I was glad for the good company. I was also not pressured at all into making a purchase.

(Sorry for the flash glare. I was hoping the overhead lights might be a reasonable substitute for natural light. Seems I was wrong.)

I'm excited about this book. I'm thinking that the felted Christmas trees might be a good alternative to coming up with another idea for an ornament. We're supposedly doing a "green Christmas" this year with our friends (you remember, right? our friends who have their Jewish friends over for Christmas every year?), so I'm planning a bunch of knit dishcloths, Swiffer covers, etc. as gifts.

I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to this weekend. We have plans to get together with some friends Saturday night, but other than that, our schedule is free. I'm hoping to get in a lot of knitting time and maybe see some fireworks. What do you have planned?

Movin' Right Along

The blanket is continuing to grow, one long garter stitch row at a time. I moved on to the skein of Uptown yesterday.

The next two colors are compliments of Jen, who found two orphan skeins in her stash and very graciously offered them to me.

After the completion of the last stripe (the light green), the blanket measured about 17 inches across. I'm hoping that this remaining yarn will be enough to get me to at least two feet of width. My goal is to finish this in time to give to Amelia for her six-month birthday at the end of October.

My first priority for gift knitting, however, is my father's sweater. I finished the body and started sleeve #1 over the weekend; I thought I'd spare you another photo of dark stockinette tubes, so use your imagination if you need a visual. I've got exactly two weeks from tomorrow to finish up, so the Hurricane Knitters will be seeing lots of navy tomorrow night (Waterworks Barnes & Noble, starting at 7 p.m. tomorrow).

P.S. The yarn is finished and hanging to dry. Approximately 444 yards -- less than I'd like, but I'm still pleased with the result. Photos to come once the yarn is dry and the lighting is good.

Shades of Gray

It took four hours and 45 minutes, but I finished plying the merino/alpaca. I started with a couple of hours this morning and finished up late this afternoon and this evening, unfortunately after the sun had gone down, hence these flash photos. (Is anyone else as depressed as I that it's now dark at 7 p.m.?)

I used up all but the tiniest bit of singles left on one bobbin, and toward the end I was having to move the slider every 30 seconds or so to fit just a little more on the already-full bobbin. Even The Mister noticed how full it was, saying, "That's one full spindle!" when I announced I was finally done. (Okay, so he used the wrong word, but I give him full credit for using spinning terminology!)

I sat at the wheel so long plying this that I got a bit of a cramp in my back, so I'm going to let the yarn rest on the bobbin until tomorrow, when I'll get out my niddy-noddy and find out just how much I have. This yarn is heavy laceweight/light fingering weight, for the most part, and considering just how crammed full of yarn the bobbin is, I'm thinking I've got some good yardage here. Make your guess now!

A Pick-me-up

Ever have one of those weeks that get away from you? I've just had one of those weeks. After three very crazy days at work, I woke up Thursday to a lovely surprise: a migraine. It had the wonderful good sense to come on right after I'd finished getting dressed and drying my hair. At least I hadn't yet left for work, so all I had to do at that point was call in sick, take some medicine, get back into my pajamas, and crawl back into bed.

By midday I was feeling somewhat back to normal, or at least normal enough to knit. I couldn't handle anything more complex than garter stitch, though (my vision was still too fuzzy to be able to read a chart), so I put some more rows on the blanket.

[Insert obligatory blanket progress shot here.]

I'd forgotten that I had some of this leftover light green in the scrap bag; the full skein of Uptown comes next.

Later in the day, I got a nice surprise that helped me feel better -- my September sock club shipment! This color isn't exactly something I'd choose on my own, but it looks like a nice fall colorway to me, and I like the pattern that came with it.

I've made some progress on other projects, too. I finished clue 3 of MS4 on Thursday night, before the release of the next clue. I know I'm going to have to knit all the clues again for the second half of the stole when I'm done, but so far I'm keeping up with the weekly clues, and that makes me happy! I'm also only about two inches away from being done with the body of my dad's sweater, with about 2 1/2 weeks to go. The sleeves are pretty fast, and once I get all the pieces onto one needle, it should be smooth sailing.

I'm hoping that I'll have some spinning content for you tomorrow, too. I finished up the second half of the merino/alpaca singles this morning, so I'm letting them rest on the bobbin tonight and will ply tomorrow.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Approaching Blankie-ness

Several of you have asked questions about the baby blanket I'm knitting, so I thought I'd answer them all at once.

Here's the blanket as of this afternoon, halfway through the fourth color.

I'm following the basic log cabin "rules" for this blanket, but I'm sort of making it up as I go along. The one rule I'm following is that I keep each of the four stripes of each color consistent in width. For example, on the section I'm working on now, each side has six garter ridges. The width/number of garter ridges isn't determined by any special formula or pattern, I'm just judging how much yarn I have in each color and planning accordingly! So far it's working out, but you can tell that my current color isn't as abundant as others.

It's been fun to use these scraps and remember the socks I knit with each colorway of yarn. First there was my Hederas and my mom's Pomatomus socks; the two most recent colors came from socks I knit for my mother-in-law and my own Pomatomus socks.

I have more of the pink yarn in the middle square that I'm planning on using for the edging, but I'm quickly running out of scraps, assuming I keep the entire blanket in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. I have one more color (purple, left over from these socks) to use after my current color and then it will be a matter of digging through the stash. I do have a lone skein of LLSS that I may sacrifice for this blanket. It would certainly work with the color scheme, don't you think?

To the Victor Go the Spoils

It's been quite a day for stash enhancement, and unexpected stash enhancement at that.

First, I stopped by Natural Stitches this morning to pick up my prize for participating in the Summer of Socks contest. My reward for those thousands of yards of sock knitting was a set of some really stunning stitch markers, handmade by Martha herself, and a sample of eucalyptus-scented Eucalan.

As long as I was there, I had to look around -- especially because the layout of the store had changed a bit and I needed to reorient myself. I discovered that the spinning fiber section had recently been enhanced, and this jumped right into my arms.

This is Chameleon Colorworks merino/tencel in the colorway Ophelia. This will be a new blend for me to spin, and I'm thinking the shine of the tencel would make this ideal for a lace yarn.

I also found another skein of the J Knits superwash sock yarn on sale and snatched it up to make my mother a Lace Ribbon Scarf for her holiday gift. (I'd been thinking that it was the perfect yarn and color for her, but I didn't want to give up my skein to do it, so this was a perfect solution.)

Next, I headed over to Knit One, where they were having a sale and fashion show in honor of their third anniversary. I decided to enter my Shetland Triangle in the contest on a whim, just for fun. (The only requirement was that the garment you entered had to be knit with yarn purchased there. I went one better and spun the yarn from fiber I bought there.) As I was milling around, waiting for things to begin, I did some browsing and found some basic wool yarn to use for a felted bag I've been thinking about designing. This is plain old Ella Rae Classic, in a lovely chocolate brown.

Much to my surprise, I came in third place in the popular vote! My prize was this pretty skein of Noro Kureyon sock yarn, along with a bottle of wool wash.

I wasn't planning on necessarily buying this yarn again, but for free, I'll take it!

And now I must go and knit some of the yarn I already have so I can get to the new stuff!

The Run Down

Run down of WIPs, that is. It's been a while since I've shown you what's on the needles, and as no one of them is particularly exciting at the moment, this is all I've got to blog about.

First, there's the Blue Tube -- my father's birthday sweater. I'm several inches into the body and, as you can see, quickly approaching the end of the first skein of yarn. I'm doing the body first because it'll take the longest.

Next up, and considerably more exciting, is my Mystery Stole. You can see the interesting interplay of lace and beads going on here (and I swear it doens't look so much like camouflage in real life; I think picking the brownish carpet as a background was not the right choice).

I'm really enjoying working with this yarn. It has a really tight twist (you all know how much I love a yarn with tight twist!), so somehow that makes it feel more substantial than "normal" laceweight. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the second clue, so I'll be trying my best to finish up this clue tonight before the next one is released tomorrow.

Taking the place of my lunchtime sock knitting is the sock yarn blanket, which, for nothing but garter stitch, has been surprisingly exciting. Maybe it's the fact that I'm using up a good portion of my sock yarn scraps. (By the way, you might recognize the yarn from my Hederas and my mother's Pomatomus socks. Yes, I did have leftovers that are more than two years old!)

Finally, although I don't have a picture (because it wouldn't be much to look at at this point), I'm still spinning. I'm working on the first bobbin of singles of some All Spun Up merino/alpaca, hoping for a two-ply laceweight. It's a dark gray with touches of deep purple -- not exactly an optimal shade for photographing.

What projects are you working on now that fall is on its way?

Tantalizing

You've probably all been wondering if I stopped knitting socks, haven't you? Well fear not, because I finished another pair.

Pattern: Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks from New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi
Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multy (75% wool, 25% nylon), color 324, one skein (with just a little bit leftover!)
Needles: two 12" US 1 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: September 2/September 16
Mods: used same needle size throughout, knitting more loosely for cuff; substituted my usual toe

These socks are worked cuff down. The architecture (Sky Sock) involves increasing across the top of the foot opposite the heel, between the ankle and what you'd traditionally call the instep. The heel is then turned and a heel flap, so to speak, is worked on the bottom of the heel. I managed to inadvertently screw up both heels in different ways, so I had to fudge the end of the heel to make sure I had the right number of stitches for the sole. I honestly can't tell which mistake was on which sock, so I'm not worrying about it at this point.

This was the second time I worked with this yarn, and overall I enjoyed the experience. It's not the softest of sock yarns, but it's sturdy and knits up into a nice fabric. I was pleasantly surprised by how well this variegated colorway behaved -- no noticeable pooling or flashing in sight. I particularly like how it works with the linen stitch patterning.

This may shock some of you, but now that these are off the needles, I have no immediate plans to cast on for another pair of socks. Yes, I know. But don't worry, I'm going to be knitting with some sock yarn so that I won't go into sock withdrawal! One of my friends from work asked me to knit a blanket for her baby daughter, a very sweet little girl who has an unfortunate medical condition that will likely cause her to wind up in the hospital from time to time. My friend mentioned how much a brightly colored blanket would help cheer things up (and keep her warm) in such a situation, so I couldn't say no to her request. I'm using some of my many sock yarn scraps to do a log cabin-style blanket that I think should knit up pretty quickly.

Tonight, however, I'm turning my attention back to my father's sweater, which I cast on over the weekend. I now have less than a month to get it done, so be prepared to see a fair amount of navy stockinette tubes in the next few weeks!

Those of you who'd like to can see it in person tomorrow night at Barnes & Noble at the Waterworks, starting at 7 p.m.

Worth It

The yarn is done. I'm pretty sure that it took me at least a month to spin, if not more, but the yarn I got is exactly what I wanted. So let's review:

It started out as approximately 8.5 ounces of Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino, colorway San Francisco. The fiber was incredibly soft and incredibly well prepared. I did nothing before I started to spin but split it roughly into thirds. No fluffing or predrafting was required, and it drafted beautifully at the wheel. I don't think I noticed any substantial VM and there was a minimal number of nepps.

Although I spun the singles on my regular head/bobbins, I wanted to get all of the plied yarn in one skein; considering my singles nearly filled up each bobbin on their own, there was no way I was going to get a three ply into one skein without using my jumbo plying head. The jumbo head is something I use very rarely, because it's much more difficult to treadle. In this case, however, there really wasn't an alternative for the results I wanted, so I made do, getting a good workout at first, and I discovered that it got much easier to treadle as the bobbin filled up.

And fill up it did! Here's what it looked like when I finished the last of the plying yesterday morning (as you can tell, we didn't have much in the way of sunshine yesterday, hence the flash photo).

I washed and thwacked the resulting skein yesterday afternoon, and although it's still a little damp, I couldn't resist taking it outside for a photo shoot.

I'm going to wait until it's completely dry before I measure WPI (using my handy new tool that came in the Knit Picks box), but I'm pretty confident it's in the fingering weight range.

I was really curious to see how this would turn out, because I didn't do any sort of planning in terms of colors or striping. As it turned out, there were some areas where shades or one color or another matched up, so I'm guessing I'll get some sort of subtle striping effect when I knit this up.

Most exciting to me is the yardage. My estimate, even accounting for shrinkage in the finishing process, is that I have about 625 yards. That's probably enough to get a pair of knee socks out of this one skein!

I had a little bit of leftover singles on two of the bobbins, but it really wasn't enough to try to wind some off onto the third bobbin and try to continue the three ply. I tried Navajo plying from the bobbin that had more on it, but the singles kept breaking, so I gave up and wound the singles around a hardback book and made miniskeins to finish.

These may be too delicate to actually knit, but they're a good addition to my collection of miniskeins to squish.

Finally, before I started on my next batch of fiber, I spun a small amount of yarn as a surprise for Jen. This is natural/undyed BFL mix with some combed Stella hair. Doesn't it have a lovely halo?

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Although I don't think Robert Frost was referring to treadling on a spinning wheel when he wrote that.

Yes, I'm still plying. Here's what the bobbin -- the jumbo bobbin, mind you -- looked like earlier this evening.

It looks like a decent amount of yarn until you look at how much is left on the bobbins of singles.

I put in about another hour of plying after taking these shots, and it finally looks like I've made a dent. I've set tomorrow as my deadline for finishing; we're having a big group over for a cookout on Saturday, so the wheel has to go upstairs and out of the way before then.

The good news is that, as the bobbin fills up, it's getting a little easier to treadle. Still, it's noticeably harder than with the regular head, so I can't sit at the wheel as long as usual. The only consolation to all this plying taking so long is that I'm bound to have a big honking skein of sock yarn when I'm done!

No more spinning for tonight for me. Tonight, it's all about the Mystery Stole (4, that is). I'm going to try to finish up the rest of the first clue before the next one comes out tomorrow.