For the Love of Shetland

I intended to post this last night, but we were out for dinner to celebrate my parents' anniversary and got home later than I'd anticipated, which meant that a certain toddler got to bed late and there were a bunch of things to do before I could go to bed.

In any case, I do have another yarn to show you, though this one might be called boring relative to some of the handspun you've seen here in recent weeks.

A month or two ago, while perusing the spinning corner of my LYS, I came across an 8 oz. bag of beautiful moorit-colored Shetland top from Louet. At $12.50 for 8 oz., it was too good a deal to pass up, especially because I'd been wanting to try Shetland again (my previous experience with it wasn't all that wonderful, and as so many people seem to rave about this breed, I figured it was worth another go). The first batch I'd spun was a little on the scratchy side, but I suspect that had something to do with the dye. This fiber was a natural color, and while it certainly wasn't the softest fiber ever, it was a much more pleasurable spin.

I opted to spin a traditional three ply and aimed for my usual fingering weight. This was my first time plying such a large amount on my miniSpinner, and I was pleased as punch that by the time one bobbin ran out of singles, I still had a little bit of space left of the bobbin. This monster skein is almost 550 yards. I was hoping for a little more than that, but I guess I didn't spin my singles as thin as I thought I was.

The leftovers on the other two bobbins were paltry enough that it wasn't worth trying to divide them up and do all sorts of crazy splicing, so I chain plied one bobbin's worth until it ran out and then spliced in the rest. The resulting skein-lette is about 22.5 yards.

The finished yarn isn't super soft, but it's not really scratchy either. I'm thinking that it will be good for a cozy shawl or a set of accessories, or maybe I'll keep it and spin up some other fiber to combine it with for a garment. Regardless, it was a fun spin, and I definitely see why so many people love Shetland now.

The Baby List

There's roughly a week and a half left in the summer contest at my LYS, so I am still spending my evenings spinning and trying to get as much done as possible by then. A little bit of knitting has been creeping in from time to time, however. The past couple of Saturdays when I've gone to Natural Stitches (as I do most Saturday afternoons), I've been working on the Rainbow Chain Carriage Blanket that I'm knitting for a baby due in December. I'm following Courtney's mods, however, and making much wider color stripes with only three colors (three shades of blue, to be exact).

The mother-to-be requested a blue blanket, so I'm thinking this will fit the bill. I'm using Berocco Vintage (again copying Courtney's blanket), a 50% acrylic/40% wool/10% nylon blend, in Mochi, Dark Denim, Bilberry, and Misty. I am planning for 18 stripes total at the point but may add more if it needs more length. The knitting is a bit fussy because I have three skeins attached at any given time (one for right border, one for the stripe in the middle, and one for the left border), so I'm spending a fair amount of time detangling and rearranging skeins as I go, but it's going to be really stunning when it's done. I started it now figuring that I can do a stripe or two at a time at a leisurely pace and still have it done in time for the baby's arrival.

Really, baby knitting is mostly what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the year. I balled up a skein of STR Mediumweight on Monday night in preparation for casting on for a Baby Surprise Jacket for one of my coworkers. She is not finding out the sex of the baby, so I though it this was a fairly gender-neutral colorway (it's Muddy Autumn Rainbow from the sock club two years ago).

I'm planning on knitting up this BSJ pretty much exactly like I did Rainbow's, with I-cord edging and button loops. I know that it fit Rainbow as a newborn (although it was a tad large on her for going home from the hospital), and as this baby is due December 10, he/she should be able to get good wear out of it during those first few months.

I have a list of other baby projects in my head as well for the coming months -- a sweater for the other December baby (perhaps in handspun), a blanket and sweater for a little girl coming in January, and something for a baby due in March (though I'm waiting until the parents find out the sex). I'm still using my lunch break knitting to work on design stuff, and at some point I'm going to have to get back to my Essential Cardigan and finish it. I guess my hiatus from knitting (in favor of spinning) is officially over!

The Unbearable Lightness of Romney

I finished another yarn late last week that qualifies for the summer contest. This was the July shipment for the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club (so I'm only a little behind!), Romney in a gorgeous colorway called the Unbearable Lightness of Being. I was so excited to spin it that I neglected to snap a picture of the fiber before I started spinning, but it reminded me very much of chocolate covered cherries. I spun up the two bobbins of singles on my Lendrum (surprisingly quickly, I might add) and plied on my miniSpinner.

The resulting yarn is light fingering weight and about 394 yards.

It's very pretty, but it's not as soft as I was hoping it would be. I'm wondering if it's something about the dye that makes it a little rough, because my Romney fleece is much softer, though of course it could vary by sheep.

I now have two weeks left to spin for the contest and have two projects in progress that I'm determined to finish. First, 8 oz. of beautiful moorit (that's the name for the light milk chocolatey color) Shetland top from Louet that I bought at the store and is destined to be a three ply. I'm on the third and final bobbin of singles now and am hoping to have it finished up by tomorrow night so I can start plying on Tuesday.

I'm also trying to finish a spindle project -- Masham top from last year's CMF fiber club on my Bosworth.

What you see here is the first half of the fiber. I was hoping to get all 2 oz. on the spindle at once, but my cop started falling about on me and I had to wind off. I'm going to focus on my winding a little more on the second half and attempt to get it all in one cop. This'll be plied on the wheel, though, because my wrists just can't stand the idea of using that giant plying spindle again!

Finished Stuff Friday

It's Friday, I haven't blogged in a while, and I haven't been doing much that's blog-worthy or inspiring, so I thought I'd take a page from Jenn's book and at least show you something that is finished. It's a mitten.

It still needs to be blocked (it just came off the needles last night), but this is the second in a pair. The pattern, of course, is my own; this sample is done in the medium size without the picot hem. I used Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift for these, though I still have to weigh the remains to see how much yardage I used. It's definitely more rustic and fuzzy than the Knit Picks I used for the pattern sample, but this yarn is kind of like velcro in that it really sticks to itself, so I know these are going to felt up nicely with wear. The reason I can't show you a complete set is that the other mitten is now a shop sample at Natural Stitches, which is also now carrying the pattern! So if you're local, you can stop by to fondle the other mitten if you'd like.

The mitten knitting has been done primarily during my lunch hour at work because my evenings have been filled with mad spinning to try to get as much done before the contest ends as I possibly can. I'll save the spinning update until Sunday, though.

This afternoon, however, I got to leave work early because of a power outage, so I'm going to spend a couple of hours working on a sample/prototype for a new design. Here's a peek:

Happy weekend!

Finishing Spree

I've gotten a little crazy with my spinning lately. Time is running out on my LYS' summer contest, though, so I've been keeping my wheels busy. For tonight's post, I play catch up.

All Spun Up Polwarth in Goldfish Wearing a Tutu, chain plied, light fingering weight, 576 yards

Crown Mountain Farms Lincoln in Magic Carpet, two-ply fingering weight, 275 yards

Yarn Hollow merino/bamboo/nylon in Eggplant, two-ply fingering weight*

Leftovers scrappy skein -- leftover singles from previous spins, chain plied, fingering weight*

*Both of these skeins were dropped off to be judged for the contest before I had a chance to record my yardage, though the merino/bamboo/nylon was somewhere in the 500s and the scrappy skein was somewhere in the 300s.

A Bit of Lace

There's only a little more than three weeks left in my LYS' summer contest, so most of my evening leisure time has been spent at one wheel or another trying to get as much spun up as I can. Last week, however, I took some time off to do a little knitting. I've been working on small projects as usual during my lunch breaks at work, but it's been some time since I worked on a big-ish project at home (yes, my Essential Cardigan is still hibernating!). I wasn't necessarily looking for a project to do; rather, one kind of came to me.

Having used the Free Pattern Testers group to test my mitten pattern, I've peeked in from time to time to see the other patterns in testing. About a week and a half ago, I happened to catch a test for a small shawl before it filled up (I've found that the lace patterns test to fill pretty quickly). The pattern was written for one skein of sock yarn, so I knew it wouldn't be a huge time commitment and promptly signed up. I cast on for it on a Friday night (the week before last) with a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Happy Forest that was wound and waiting in my stash. Before I knew it, I had a shawl:

Obviously I did a poor job of photographing it because I cut off the right edge, but I really like how this turned out. The slightly crescent shape is achieved though six increases on every two rows (four on the right side, two on the wrong side) through the stockinette section. Then, when you get to the lace, you increase with yarnovers just twice on each right side row. I think what's notable about this shawl is that all the increases before the lace border are m1s, so there are no holes along the top edge or along the center spine.

The lace itself was pretty straightforward, though I made a couple of errors (just some extra yarnovers) that had me scratching my head a couple of times. Fortunately, all were easy to fix and no frogging was needed.

It may sound silly, but I think what I liked best about this shawl was how easy it was to block! I put two pins in the center point and two at each of the end points (more for stability than anything else) and then one in each point along the border. I didn't have to get out my blocking wires, and even though I did repin the points a couple of times -- it's not in my obsessive, perfectionist nature to not repin! -- the entire process took less than 10 minutes.

The pattern is not yet available, but I can fully recommend it, so keep an eye out for it!

TdF Wrap-up

I skipped my Spinning Sunday post last week because the last of my Tour de Fleece yarns were at my LYS, waiting to be judged for the summer spinning contest. They're now back in my stash, so I can show them to you.

The first was spun from a set of three mystery batts -- I say "mystery" because their contents were unknown. They came to be from a friend who got them from another friend, so there was really no way of finding out what fibers were in them. I suspect wool of some sort (not a particularly soft wool, either) and something like firestar or angelina, because they had a little sparkle to them. They were not particularly fun to spin, as they were sticky (lanolin, perhaps?) and neppy. I had about 3.25 ounces when I started, though I lost a little of that weight from all the nepps I pulled out while spinning. In spite of this experience, I quite like the finished yarn.

It's a three-ply fingering weight, roughly 189 yards, and has just a slight touch of iridescence to it from whatever the sparkly substance was. The stickiness also seems to have washed out, though the finished yarn isn't really all that soft. This is definitely going into the stash to marinate until I figure out what to make with it.

The other yarn is one I'm very proud of. It stared out as 4 oz. of mixed Corriedale from Gale's Art that I bought at MDSW -- mainly because it was inexpensive and I wanted something that was nice but not too nice to break in my Bosworth spindle. I ended up spinning all 4 oz. on that spindle and then plied it on that gigantic Louet beginner's spindle. Toward the end there was so much on the plying spindle and it was getting so heavy and unwieldy, I had to wind the rest of the yarn off the plying ball and onto a TP roll so I could ply the rest from the other end with the Bosworth. I did manage to get it all plied in one skein, though. (The small skein you see in front here is extra singles from half of the fiber that I wound into a center-pull ball and plied from both ends.)

I had completed my first official spindle-spun yarn earlier in the TdF, but this is officially my first 4 oz. skein -- all spun and plied on a spindle. It is a two-ply fingering weight and rougly 329 yards, with an additional 15.5 yards in the small skein. This skein taught me that I really enjoy spinning singles on a spindle, but plying? Not so much. I think from this point forward, unless I'm working with really small amounts, all of plying is going to be done on one wheel or the other.

Pattern Release: Eidetic Mittens

You've had some peeks at the design from my previous blog posts, but I am so excited to share the final pattern with you today. Presenting the Eidetic Mittens:

These colorwork mittens are knit using two contrasting colors of fingering weight yarn (the sample you see here used Knit Picks Palette in Peapod and Ash). The pattern is the same on both sides of the mitten, meaning that the two mittens are interchangeable -- no figuring out which is the left and which is the right on a cold day! The cuff is a 2x1 corrugated ribbing and features an option for a picot edging.

The thumb on these mittens is gusseted, meaning that stitches are added gradually at the side of the hand. I personally find this kind of thumb much more comfortable to wear, as, anatomically speaking, that's where the thumb is on my hand. Once the necessary number of stitches have been added, the thumb stitches are put on waste yarn until the hand has been completed, and the thumb is then finished to fit the wearer's hand.






The standard size is achieved through a gauge of 10 stitches per inch in the stranded colorwork pattern and results in a mitten that is roughly a 7.5 inch circumference. It's very easy to size these up, however, as all you need to do is use a slightly larger needle to change the gauge. No recalculating of numbers necessary!

The pattern is now for sale on Ravelry. I hope you enjoy it!

Starting in Style

I mentioned recently that there's a bit of a baby boom going on here (we found out about yet another baby on the way over the weekend!), so baby knitting has officially commenced. I've got a while before the others arrive, but the first of the group is expected later this month by my coworker and we're having a shower for her at the office tomorrow. I needed a quick but cute knit, as the mama-to-be is pretty stylish and is a knitter herself, so I did a search on Ravelry for some baby patterns that I hadn't knit yet. I found this one, which looked perfect to me for a summer baby.

Pattern: Abigail Sweater by Kay Squared (free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Worsted (60% Pima cotton, 40% Modal) in Watermelon, just under three skeins
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm circs
Started/Completed: July 14/July 24, 2011

If this sweater looks familiar, it's probably because it's a variation on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Sweater on Two Needles (aka February Baby Sweater). The changes are in the yoke, which incorporates top-down raglan shaping, and the scooped neckline, which is achieved through casting on stitches at the beginning of several rows. The gull lace is the same, so if you've knit the EZ sweater or its cousin, the February Lady Sweater, you'll be very familiar with it. The pattern ends the sleeves at the end of the garter stitch, but I can see how this could easily be turned into a long-sleeved sweater. For my purposes, though, I didn't think it was necessary.

The pattern is a free download on Ravelry and was only a page long (like EZ's patterns, it is pithy), which made it very convenient to carry around, as I was working on this sweater mostly during my lunch break at work. I wouldn't recommend it to a true beginner, as it's a bit difficult to follow in a couple areas if you haven't worked the EZ original before, though I suspect some spacing in between directions might help in this respect. As you can see, it results in a really cute interpretation of the classic FBS that I think it just perfect for an August baby.

To finish it off, I kept the last bound-off stitch live and put that loop on a crochet hook. Then I did a row of single crochet up one button band, around the neck, and down the other button band, incorporating the two button loops with crochet chains. I did a row of single crochet around the armholes as well, as the underarm areas were a little sloppy.

This yarn had been in my stash for years, so it was nice to get it out again. I was reminded of the frustration I've had with the sport weight version of it -- it sheds. I had to put together several pieces of Scotch tape (what I had on hand in my office) to make a poor man's lint roller after each knitting session because I was covered in deep pink fuzz. That said, the yarn is soft and silky and, of course, machine washable, so I am not disappointed in it. I have seven skeins, or about 525 yards, leftover that will likely eventually become something for Rainbow. I'll just have to remember to have my lint roller on hand then!

On Design, Part III

Up to this point, we've covered the idea, converting the idea into a chart, and swatching. All that remained on this particular pattern was to knit it to make sure that it worked as a whole.

Because I was intending to offer this pattern on Ravelry, it was important to me to have someone else review the pattern and knit from it to make sure that the instructions were clear and that, combined with the charts, they would result in a mitten that looked like the one in my head. Because I had designed this mitten and knew what should be done from one step to another, my knitting of the sample from the pattern was not going to cut it (not to mention that I was too close to the pattern to see any errors).

Luckily, one of the many wonderful resources on Ravelry is the free pattern testing groups. There are two that I know of, the Testing Pool and the Free Pattern Testers. Of the two, the latter is definitely the more stringent, with very specific requirements and steps to take and very active moderators who ensure that both testers and designers stay on top of things. I know that some designers don't care for FPT because the rules are so strict, but because I am busy and don't always have time to chase people down, I chose it for my test because I knew it would ensure that I had a positive experience (i.e., no testers disappearing on me or not completing the test on time). Testers in this group are only allowed to sign up for a certain number of projects at once and they're required to check in with the designer weekly on their progress.

I had three test knitters for my design, each one knitting one of the three sizes. Because both mittens are identical, I only required them to knit one mitten, though one person is doing both at the same time. I am still waiting to hear from that last tester (she was on vacation for about a week and a half), but the other two have finished and have given me great feedback. They were able to catch a minor typo in the numbering of the chart rows and also suggest a change in a direction that was a little unclear.

If you're designing something and want to have some test knitting done, I highly recommend going to one or both of these Ravelry groups. On the flip side, if you're interested in knitting not-yet-available patterns, consider signing up to be a tester. You'll not only get a sneak peek at a new pattern, but you'll get the final pattern from the designer at the end as a thank-you.

I am hoping to pull together the final pattern for my mittens this weekend (a proper photo shoot of the sample is needed), so watch this space for the announcement of the pattern release! In the meantime, here's a little preview.

A Yellow Jersey?

The Tour de Fleece, like the Tour de France, officially concludes today, though it remains to be seen whether I will be able to wear my yellow jersey at day's end. I did complete another yarn, one that marks a new skill in my spinning, and by coincidence, it is rather yellow.

It stared as roving (yes, really roving!) from Crown Mountain Farms. This was the June fiber club shipment, Perendale in a retina-searing colorway called the Fifth Element. Because it was roving rather than the usual combed top, I decided that it was a perfect opportunity for me to work on my long draw. I split the fiber in half to do a two ply and got to work. The second bobbin was definitely better than the first -- while it was still a little uneven, I was much more comfortable with the technique. The resulting yarn is certainly very light and airy.

The yardage wasn't as good as I was hoping for (only about 325 yards), but I'm pleased with the yarn. I don't think I'm a long draw master just yet, but it no longer scares/frustrates me. Now I have a good reason to get out my handcards and make some rolags.

Tonight, in order to really get my yellow jersey, I need to finish plying up my Gale's Art Corriedale from MDSW.

That gigantic spindle is the 2+ oz. Louet beginner's spindle I got when I first got interested in spinning about 3 1/2 years ago, and it hasn't seen much use since then. I pulled it out again because I thought it'd be big enough to hold the full 4 oz. skein, but we'll see if that can be done. I don't have much less to do, but it is getting harder and harder to spin as the cop grows. Assuming I do get all the yarn on, that'll be more than 6 oz. in total on it at once! I have a newfound respect for spinners who do everything on spindles. I think that from here on out, I may ply only small amounts on a spindle but ply everything else on the wheel -- if only for the sake of my wrists.

Baby Boom

While most of the crafty activity around here this week has been of the spinning variety, a bit of knitting has been happening and a to-knit list has been growing.

The reason? There are a lot of babies on the way. Two of my coworkers are pregnant, and one is due next month with a girl, so I really had to get my needles going for that one. Because she will be a summer baby, I decided to go with something light. I found the Abigail Sweater on Ravelry. It's a free pattern that's very reminiscent of Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Baby Sweater; knit from the top down, it has a garter raglan top and a gull lace bottom. It's also seamless and fast, which is is a must for any last-minute knit in my book.

I'm using some Knit Picks Shine Worsted that has been in my stash for years; I originally intended to use it to make myself another Sizzle, but clearly if I haven't done it by now, I'm probably not ever going to. The color is bright and cheerful and definitely girly, so I think this is a good use for it. It looks like I'll use about three skeins total, leaving me plenty to make something for Rainbow.

The other coworker is due in December (right around Rainbow's birthday!) and she isn't finding out the sex, so I am thinking Baby Surprise Jacket in a gender-neutral shade of sock yarn (one of the many skeins of STR in my stash, perhaps?). I've got a while until that needs to be done, though, so I won't be casting on just yet and will keep my eyes open for other pattern ideas in the meantime.

Finally, some friends of ours are expecting their first in late January, and that kid is going to get spoiled rotten with knitting, but as they are going to be finding out the sex, I am waiting to hear before I make definite knitting plans.

The Tour de Fleece wraps up this Saturday, so I am trying to finish up the skeins in progress by then. Once we're through this horrible heat wave (today's heat index was supposed to go up to 107!), I think it's time to pull out my Essential Cardigan again and finish up the button band. There's really so little left to knit on it that it shouldn't take me more than a few nights to do, and I think it'd be really nice to go into fall with a new sweater to wear.

The Poof

Today's spinning is the most recent yarn off my miniSpinner, a beautiful 4 oz. of Mountain Colors Targhee that started its life looking like this:

I split this top for a fractal spin. The idea of a fractal yarn is that the color repeat is the same in all the plies, but the rate at which the colors change is different in each ply. Because I was going for a two-ply yarn, I split the whole top lengthwise in half and then split one of the halves in half again. The resulting yarn, then, would have one ply that would go through the color repeat once and one ply that would go through it twice. As a result, the colors would sometimes coincide and sometimes barberpole -- a nice effect, in my opinion.

I spun the singles very fine and plied over the course of two spinning sessions. When I wound the yarn onto my niddy noddy, it looked to be a heavy laceweight. Then I gave it its bath and some magic happened. It fluffed up into a squishy, bouncy fingering weight -- in short, it went "poof!"

I love how this yarn turned out, and at 555 yards for my 4 oz., I should have plenty to knit a shawl or wrap with it.

On Design, Part II

When last we talked about the design process, we were still in the sketching and charting phase. Now a sketch and a chart may look fine, but as I'm sure we've all discovered when fiddling with our knitting to try to get it to come out a certain way, something on paper doesn't always translate well to something in yarn, particularly when you're dealing with a graphic pattern. The next step, then, was to swatch.

I pulled out some leftover Knit Picks Palette from the stash and a printout of the graph and got to work. For this particular swatch, I decided it would be best to do it in the round and using the full stitch count. While a faux in-the-round swatch worked okay for my Ivy League Vest, for a mitten, it wouldn't take much more time to do an abbreviated version of the whole thing. Also, because the motif is the same throughout, I didn't need to knit an entire mitten to get an idea of whether it would work -- I really only needed one repeat of the motif and the top portion to make sure the decreases worked with the motif. Because I wanted a visual of the whole mitten, I included a few rows of my planned cuff as well. This is what I ended up with:

I was pleased with this result, both in the appearance of the motif and in the gauge and feel of the finished fabric, so that meant I was able to move on to the next phase: writing the pattern.

To be honest, writing out the pattern was really the most difficult part of this process. Having worked on a pattern with essentially the same chart and setup before, I was familiar with what I needed to do to get the finished project I wanted. Making those steps clear to someone else -- especially to someone who may never before have knit a mitten like this -- is another story. I tried to be as specific as possible without feeling like I was doing too much hand-holding in the hopes that the pattern would be accessible to knitters of all experience levels. Whether that was the case would be seen in the test knitting phase -- which we'll talk about next time.

High-Fiber Cupcakes

Lots of spinning going on, as you would expect, but no new yarns since the last post. I'm working on three spinning projects simultaneously -- one on the Lendrum, one on the miniSpinner, and one on the Bosworth -- so they're all making slow but steady progress. I predict they'll all turn into finished yarns at about the same time.

Instead, I have a little eye candy for you, and this is specifically at the request of Jenn, who, as a new spinner, is just discovering the temptation that is pretty fiber.

I've been trying to be good about buying fiber because I already have so much stashed (and I get an additional 4 oz. every month through the fiber club), but because it is the Tour de Fleece and I've been good about getting through the fiber and practicing certain spinning skills, I decided to treat myself. An ad on Ravelry caught my eye a couple of months ago and I'd put it in my favorites so I could find it again. I have to admit that the packaging of this fiber is totally what did me in.

The Cupcake Fiber Company specializes in fiber batts specifically intended for socks. (For those of you unfamiliar with this particular prep, a batt is a sheet of fiber that has been prepped on a drum carder.) The batts come packaged in what looks like a bakery box, with each batt artistically folded and rolled to look like a pastry instead of something that came off a sheep.

The package come with six batts that are each an ounce, so that you can spin up two skeins of three-ply sock yarn without having to worry about measuring and weighing the fiber ahead of time, and a couple of tags are even included so you can label the yarn when it's done. Clever, don't you think? The price was pretty reasonable considering the amount of work it takes to card fiber well, and shipping was free.

The batts I picked are a superwash merino/nylon blend, which should be perfect for socks. The colorway is called Bluest Berry -- quite an accurate name, in my opinion. It is an intense, almost glowing purple-y blue. I am planning on putting this next in line in the spinning queue, though I still have to decide if I'm going to spin it on the wheel or a spindle. Decisions, decisions!

Let the Tour Begin

This is the time of year when I usually don't get much knitting done, and so far, this year's Tour de Fleece is proving to be very much the norm. Since it began on Saturday, I've knit only a little bit and having been spending the vast majority of my time spinning. I've been sure to give both wheels and my spindles a workout, and that variety has kept me from getting bored of any one thing.

I began in earnest on Saturday afternoon, while waiting for Rainbow to fall asleep for her nap so I could head over to my LYS, as I do almost every Saturday. We're now, for the most part, putting her down in her crib and then leaving the room to let her fall asleep on her own, so I was listening to her talk to herself, which was really cute. In the span of about 20 or so minutes, I started the June shipment from the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club -- Perendale in a shockingly bright colorway called the Fifth Element.

I'm spinning this using a modified/supported long draw; the fiber prep is actually roving, rather than top, for a change. I'm having a few issues as I get used to a spinning style that I don't usually use, but one of my spinning goals for the year was to work on my long draw, so I feel good about the effort. I'm hoping that this will result in a lighter, loftier yarn than what I usually spin.

Once Rainbow was asleep, I packed up my miniSpinner and headed over to Natural Stitches, where I started in on some stunning Mountain Colors Targhee top that I'd picked up there several weeks ago. I split the top for a two-ply fractal yarn, meaning that I split it in half lengthwise and then split one of the halves in half again. This means I'll be following the color sequence for both plies, but one ply will have much shorter color repeats than the other and will go through the sequence twice rather than once. This has been really fun to spin on the miniSpinner because the WooLee Winder creates layers of colors as I spin, so I can watch each color in the sequence overtake and cover up the previous color. One bobbin is complete and the second will be started shortly.

Finally, there's a yarn that is, despite its plain appearance, quite an accomplishment for me as a spinner. Two years ago, back when voting was still allowed in the TdF, I was lucky enough to win a couple prizes. One of those was a beautiful spindle with a glass whorl. Last year during the Tour, I decided that I should really get my spindling skills up to par, so I pulled it out along with some undyed mixed BFL and got going. I was a lot more successful on this attempt, but alas, after the Tour ended, the spindle sat for a long time. Earlier this year I had some renewed interest in spindling again and pulled it out to spin a second cop, and yesterday I plied the two.

This meager skein represents my first spindle-spun yarn -- and by that I mean that I spun the singles and plied them on a spindle. (I'm not counting my first attempts at spinning as a finished yarn, though they're probably still somewhere in my stash in a small tangle.) I'm very proud of this yarn, and not least because it was a yearlong process to finish it. I discovered that what really makes me enjoy spindle spinning is a good spindle; specifically I like a spindle with a notch, which the glass whorl spindle does not have. Because my yarn kept slipping, I kept getting frustrated with that particular spindle, and that's why I kept putting it down.

Spinning is likely to continue at a high rate of activity for a few more weeks, so bear with me if you're not here for the spinning stuff. There is some knitting to come, as I have some baby gifts to knit!

Clearing the Bobbins

Without planning for it or intending to do it, I somehow managed to finish up two spinning projects just before the start of the Tour de Fleece (which officially started yesterday).

First, on my miniSpinner, I finished up another four ounces of Frabjous Fibers Merino/Sparkle. This was a commission of sorts for a friend who works at my LYS. She's not a spinner but was lusting after the fiber, so she asked me to spin it for her.

This colorway is called Purple People Eater, and I was strongly tempted to keep the fiber for myself. But a deal is a deal, so this is going to a good home very shortly.

On Thursday (or was it Friday?) night, I finally finished up the Crown Mountain Farms Columbia top that had been on my Lendrum for a while. The plying especially took some time; the yarn was so fluffy that it nearly filled my bobbin when I still had about a third of the singles left. It took me about an hour, but I managed to get the rest plied by plying about a foot of yarn at a time and then manually winding it on by turning the bobbin. In the end, the bobbin was so packed that it was touching the arms of the flyer on both sides from one end to the other.

I'm still not wild about this colorway, though it did tone down and turn out more autumnal and less 1970s after plying. I'm still a little behind on the fiber club (this was the May shipment; I'm working on June right now and am expecting July to come this week), but I am making good progress.

Interesting and somewhat surprising fact: When both of these yarns were dry and I measured yardage, I discovered that they were exactly the same length -- 355 yards. I'm not sure how that coincidence happened, but it's pretty amazing. Perhaps I should have played 355 in the lottery that day!

Waiting for Saturday

I've been quiet here for several days because I've been busy with a number of things, the main one being a frequently cranky toddler (we are trying to wean her off her pacifier, and she is not very happy about it).

Knitting has been sporadic, though I did manage to finish a cute baby hat for the service knitting.

It's been a while since I knit this pattern (you may remember that I made Rainbow one that she wore all her first winter), and I had forgotten how fast it goes! I'm using some Cascade 220 Superwash that I found in the orphan bin at my LYS and some scraps of Dream in Color Classy leftover from my FLS. This little hat used a shockingly small amount of the purple yarn, so I should be able to get quite a few hats out of this one skein. I need to make one more to complete my total number of pledged projects, which I think I can reasonably do over the weekend.

My main activity this week has been clearing off the bobbins of my Lendrum in anticipation of the start of the Tour de Fleece this Saturday. I've been plying the singles of my CMF Eye of the Tiger, and the resulting yarn is turning out to be extremely poofy even before finishing. Case in point: take a look at this packed bobbin:

I still have a fair amount of singles left to ply, and that's after I've been manually turning the bobbin to get more yarn to wind on (the bobbin is so full that the yarn is actually touching the sliding yarn guide, so the yarn won't wind on on its own). I really hate to have a big skein and a tiny skein, so I may continue with the manual thing for a little longer to get as much plied into one skein as I can. The rest will probably go on my leftovers bobbin, which is almost full now.

Have a great holiday weekend, if you're celebrating! Next post: the TdF begins!

Sparkle Sparkle!

As promised, here is the green sparkly yarn that I finished a couple of weeks ago.

The fiber was Frabjous Fibers Merino Sparkle, a 65% merino/35% nylon sparkle blend. This particular colorway was called Balsam. This yarn is what made me fall in love with my Hansen miniSpinner. I had used it twice to ply some previously spun singles before, but this is the first yarn that was spun entirely on it. I spun the first bobbin of singles on one day, spun the second bobbin on another, and plied them on the third. All told, I think this yarn took four days from start to finish, and I'm pretty sure that's a new record for me (not counting the uber-bulky skein I spun up in the first two days after I got my Lendrum).

This ended up a little heavier than I was intending -- I was going for a fingering weight and this is more of a sport weight -- but I love it anyway. The sparkle is subtle, and it's not at all showing in these pictures; when the light catches the skein at a certain angle, it almost glows.

While my miniSpinner and I still have some getting acquainted to do (it doesn't put as much plying twist in as I usually like, for instance, though the yarns I've plied on it seem to come off balanced), I predict that this is the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship.

On Design: Part I

First things first: A surprise was waiting for me when I got home yesterday. I took about 30 seconds to open the box before I had to run to pick Rainbow up at daycare, but later in the evening I was able to bury my hand in the fiber and enjoy.

In case you're wondering, yes, this is the fleece I bought at MDSW, a 5 lb. white Romney. I have yet to pull the fiber out of the box and weight it to see how much I lost in cleaning and carding, but the shipping label says that the whole box was 5 lbs. 9 oz., and I can't imagine that a cardboard box can be all that heavy. The fiber itself turned out beautifully -- creamy white, just a few traces of VM that will be easy to pick out, and fairly soft. I am looking forward to getting to know this fleece, but I think I am going to hold off on spinning anything more than a small sample until later in the summer. I'd like to spin for another sweater, and for that I need to focus just on that one spinning project. I'm reserving this summer for spinning all sorts of stuff in my stash.

I have not touched my Essential Cardigan in almost a week, and the knitting I've been doing has been for a service project or a design I'm working on. Because I lack any good projects to show you, I thought I'd start a series of posts on some of the designing I've been doing. I've been awaiting word on one design that I submitted for publication (and I may have a while yet to wait), but there's another pattern I've been working on that I'm planning to put up on Ravelry for download, so I can share it with you.

This particular pattern is for a pair of mittens. It all started with a motif that occurred to me as I was trying to fall asleep one night, which seems to be when design ideas come to me!. Partly because of this, I have a little pad of paper on my nightstand, so I was able to jot down a quick sketch of what I was thinking; it looked something like this:

From there, it was a matter of creating a chart to see how I could get this motif to fit into a mitten shape. I have a set template in Microsoft Excel I've been working with that gives me a mitten shape and size I like, so I plopped the motif into the chart and played with it to get it to fit to my satisfaction. I've already designed and knit some mittens from this chart template, so I know that the stitch counts work, but I had to make sure that this motif had a repeat that would fit well. Luckily, it did, so that was one obstacle down.