The Curse Lives

If you know my spinning, you know that I like to spin fine yarns; my default yarn (or the yarn I spin if I don't pay attention and just let my hands do their thing) is a three-ply fingering weight. And that's what I set out to spin in this latest project, and I achieve that, yet I had the same outcome I always seem to have when I spin BFL: low yardage. I was hoping the silk content in this fiber would help some, but my 110 g yielded only 280 yards.

Now don't get me wrong -- I am completely in love with this yarn! I love the colors and I'm very happy with how it spun up. I'm just disappointed there isn't more of it.

I edited these photos a bit, but I still can't quite get the color right. In real life, they're less Christmas-y and the greens are more pine-y. The luster on the yarn is pretty amazing, too. And it's another bag of fiber converted into yarn, so that makes me happy. (This one didn't even make it into the larger stash -- I started spinning it almost as soon as it arrived!)

I haven't started another project yet, but I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time. My next club shipment is due to arrive in the mail tomorrow, so that might just have to jump on the wheel.

Meanwhile, Rainbow and I did a little stash enhancement today at Indie Knit and Spin:

Would you believe that none of the yarn in this photo is for me? Rainbow wanted to pick out yarn for another Little Boxy sweater and selected the three greenish skeins from Ex Libris Fibers. She also picked out the blue/green skein on the far right from Fully Spun, probably for a new slouchy hat. The blue/purple skein second from the right is worsted from Rita Mae Yarns that she won in the raffle (the second time in a row she's won a raffle prize, by the way) and is destined to be a new squishy cowl. Finally, we picked out a couple of bars of soap and a bottle of wool wash from Dusty Tree. I'm not sure that buying yarn to make things for someone else in the house really counts as not adding to the stash, but I feel okay about these purchases. And it's always fun to spend an afternoon with my girl enjoying all things wooly.

Savoring the Spin

I spent last week mostly working on (nearly) instant-gratification spins -- basically yarns that are thicker than my default. I finished up the second of those on Friday night, some dyed Corriedale from the Ross Farm that had been marinating in my stash for about a year.

Photo gloom brought to you by an unexpected thunderstorm

I actually finished plying this skein on Friday night and skeined and washed it yesterday morning, but it still had a bit too much plying twist in it after it was dry. This morning, I wound it into a center-pull ball and then ran it quickly back through my wheel to remove a bit of that excess twist. I skeined and soaked it again, and it's now hanging to dry in my shower.

In the meantime, I have returned to my usual ways with the project that's on my Lendrum in the form of singles for a three-ply fingering weight. The fiber is Targhee (one of my favorites) from Gwen Erin Natural Fibers that I bought at Indie Knit and Spin last year. I'm a bit more than halfway done, I think.

I had originally intended to spin this for my booth at Indie Knit and Spin next week, but I'm enjoying it so much, I might just have to keep it for myself!

Before I let you go, here's your reminder that if you're a fan of my handspun, you can come squish it in person and take some of it home with you next Saturday! Indie Knit and Spin will be held at the Wilkins School Community Building in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh next Saturday, November 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There's no entrance fee, and there's a fantastic lineup of vendors. Hope to see you there!

Finishing, Starting, and Planning Ahead

Yesterday was Indie Knit & Spin and it was a lot of fun, albeit an exhausting day. I did sell a number of skeins of handspun as well as several patterns, so I think it was a successful day. I still have most of the original pile of handspun, far more than I will likely ever knit, so I'm contemplating what to do with it. I may just mark it for sale on Ravelry, or perhaps I will open an Etsy shop. If you have any thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them!

I did not buy very much yesterday, mainly because I was manning the booth on my own for much of the day. I did come home with two new things. First, a new Doctor Who-themed project bag from StarKnits:

Outside fabric

Inside fabric with pocket

I also picked out this 4 oz. braid of Targhee from Gwen Erin Natural Fibers:

Targhee is one of my favorite fibers to spin, so I'm looking forward to getting to this one.

But let's get back to actual finished spinning. This was finished up last week but not in time for my Sunday post, and it took almost all week to get a picture (this time of year makes it very difficult to get decent photos of anything during the week). This is my finished 80% superwash merino/20% trilobal nylon sparkle from FatCatKnits in two colorways, Sam and Dean. This was the first shipment in the current installment of the FCK fiber club, the theme for which is Famous Couples. Sam and Dean are the brothers who are the main characters in the TV show Supernatural. I decided to spin up each color on its own and then do a combined chain ply. To do this, I held both strands of yarn together and alternated which strand I pulled the next loop from as I plied. This did some really interesting things to the colors in the finished yarn.

The finished skein looks to be about DK weight and roughly 284 yards. I must admit that I was not a huge fan of the colors in the fiber, but I'm intrigued by how they mixed when plied. I'm really curious to see how this will knit up.

The finished yarn is not as soft as it could be, giving the merino content. I think this is due to the sparkle, which I found a bit bothersome as I was spinning. The last time I had sparkle in fiber from Ginny, it seemed to be much finer and very well blended. This sparkle was long pieces that stuck out, and I found myself pulling them out altogether at times. You can see some of them poking out in the photo above. I'm sure they'll be less of an issue when the yarn is knit and washed a few times.

Meanwhile, I am planning ahead. I really wanted to start something new last night, so I pulled out my Southern Cross Fibre October shipment, Corriedale in a very autumnal colorway called Splendour. I split the top into four long strips and am spinning them in order for another one of my pseudo-self-striping sock yarns.

I'm also hoping to spend some time later today getting started on another spinning project for the natural (undyed) fiber spinalong that Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works and the 90% Knitting podcast is hosting. I am somewhat ashamed to say that I've had some fiber from Louet North America that I was sent to review probably a year ago and I'd just about forgotten about it, so I am ready to start spinning it. I have 8 oz. of this beautiful gray Gotland that I'm going to spin into a two ply.

When I pulled it out, I also discovered a spinning project I'd started long ago and forgotten, another bit of review fiber -- 2 oz. of camel/tussah silk that I started spinning on my Bosworth mini.

This one won't count toward the spinalong as it was started before today, but I think if I spend a few minutes a day on it, I can finish it up rather quickly.

It's a Sickness

I have a confession to make: I can't stop knitting mittens. They are the perfect thing for instant-gratification knitting, and after all the thin yarn I've been using lately, using worsted feels like I hardly have to put any effort in at all.

I cast on for another pair of Waiting for Winter Mittens on Tuesday night, and even considering that I didn't have as much knitting time as normal the last two nights due to spending some of the evening doing preparations for the festival this weekend, I already have one mitten done and a good start on the second.

I'm using the skein of Spud & Chloe Sweater leftover from Rainbow's sweater for these. It was untouched, so I could have returned it to the shop, but I liked the feel of the fabric after it had been washed so much that I thought it would be wonderfully suited to being a pair of mittens. My LYS is gathering some mittens knit for its mitt-along to send to Laura Nelkin's drive to collect warm winter items for Syrian refugees in Europe. The last day they're collecting stuff is this Sunday, so I'm feeling a bit of pressure (though I doubt I'll have much trouble finishing a second mitten before then).

Meanwhile, I pulled a neglected project out to work on during my lunch breaks this week. Remember the sparkly handspun brioche cowl that I started for my mom way back at the beginning of October?

Trust me when I say that it looks much better in actual daylight, a resource that has been very limited around here lately (if the sun does come out, it's usually when I'm at work). When I do actually sit down and work on this, it grows fairly quickly; the challenge is finding the time. I am looking forward to the long weekend over Thanksgiving to churn it out.

Forgive me if I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this, but I do want to mention just one more time that Indie Knit & Spin is this Saturday. If you are within an easy driving distance, I'd really encourage you to come -- it's a great little show. There aren't a ton of vendors, but the vendors that are there are really great, and I like that it's a show with a lot of selection much not so much that it's overwhelming. I'll be sharing a booth with my friend Amy, and we'll have pattern samples for you to see and patterns to purchase (in addition to my mound of handspun).

Preparations

I spent a great deal of time this weekend getting a lot of handspun ready for Indie Knit & Spin next weekend. I had previously pulled all the handspun out that I was planning to put on sale, but I needed to measure and tag all of it. Some of it needed to be reskeined and much of it had to be remeasured, so it wasn't a quick job. I finally finished the last skeins today. And in case you'd like a preview, here you go:

That's more than 70 skeins of handspun, ranging from laceweight to super bulky and from less than 100 yards to close to 700. There's some undyed fiber and plenty of dyed fiber, with many different wool types represented.

Meanwhile, seeing as I'm hoping to get a lot of the above yarn out of the house, it was only appropriate that I spent a good part of the weekend spinning up some yarn to replace it. I finished the second bobbin of my FatCatKnits club fiber (superwash merino/sparkle) Friday night, even staying up a little late to finish.

I decided to try a new method of plying with my two bobbins. I chain plied all the singles but while holding both strands, effectively getting a four-ply yarn. To vary the colors, I alternated which bobbin I pulled the new loop from. The results were a bit unusual but not uninteresting. I finished rather late in the afternoon, so there was very little natural light to take a photo of the finished yarn, but I think you can get the idea.

The yarn has been skeined and washed and is now hanging to dry. It looks to be about sportweight and fairly well balanced; I'm hoping to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 yards. I don't know that I'll do this type of plying again, but it was certainly a fun experiment!

Having a Gold Experience

Even though I'm supposed to be working on a pattern sample, last night I gave in to the siren call of the Dream in Color Classy and cast on for my Wood Hollow Mittens. I'm knitting these as part of the mitt-along for my LYS.

I didn't make a ton of progress, but I am nearly finished with the thumb increases. These will be a nice change of pace when I need a break from sample knitting, and I'm going to need them before too long (can you believe it's almost November?). Thus far I have been managing with fingerless mitts in the morning, but there have been a couple of times that I've needed to shove my hands in my pockets for extra warmth. I'm not exactly looking forward to mitten weather, but having a new pair to wear when it is time will be a positive side to it.

Speaking of fingerless mitts, I did finish up the second Hermia Mitt the other evening and blocked both mitts and the hat last night. It never ceases to amaze me how a simple soak in some water and a bit of patting into shape can really transform knitting. These were in such bad shape before, but there were some uneven stitches here and there, and now they generally look more polished. I'm hoping to get a photo shoot in sometime this weekend so that I can start putting all the pieces together to publish both patterns in my Ravelry shop.

I am very much looking forward to the weekend; it's been a long week, and I could use some downtime. I have a bunch of prep to do for Indie Knit & Spin, which is coming up in only two weeks. I have almost everything ready to go, including hard copies of nearly all my patterns to put into my portfolio, but the big chunk of work that's left to do is labeling all the handspun skeins that I'm bringing to sell. I'll admit I surprised myself by how much there is when I pulled all the skeins out. I bought a big plastic bin at Target last week to put them in (for easy transport), and at the moment it's overflowing. Many of the skeins are in individual plastic bags, so I'm hoping once I pull them all out and get them a bit more organized, they'll fit. This isn't a difficult task but it is taking some time, especially because I need to remeasure some of the older skeins due to the fact that I've changed to a more accurate way of measuring yardage since then. My hope is that I can get a decent amount done this weekend and next, and maybe I can do a few skeins here and there during the week. I will post some previews as the event gets closer!