Summer's End

Today marks the close of my LYS's summer contest, so yesterday I took in my last two entries for the spinning portion. It still remains to be seen whether my effort was enough to capture the title, but I'm very pleased with my entries, and that includes these last two.

First up, Chameleon Colorworks merino/tencel in the colorway Support the Girls. I had started this on my Jenkins Turkish spindle earlier in the summer but never made much progress on it, so I took the spindle parts out and fed what had been spun onto a bobbin of my miniSpinner until I reached the unspun fiber and finished the rest from there. This ended up as roughly 672 yards of heavy laceweight.

I'd spun this particular blend before (not long after I started spinning) and found it difficult to work with at the time, so I'm happy to say that I had a much better time with it this time around. It is a slippery blend, though, so I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner, but the finished yarn does have an amazing shine.

The colors more or less matched up when I plied, which was completely unplanned and unintended, so this yarn will self-stripe to a certain extent when it's knit up.

The last yarn was finished at the last minute, and at the end there I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. This is Masham from Crown Mountain Farms from last year's fiber club (it was the last bundle of fiber from last year that was unspun), and I spun the singles on my Bosworth Midi spindle. I was committed to doing the singles for both plies on the spindle, and that's the reason I wasn't sure I was going to finish in time. But I managed to finish up the second half on Thursday while I was home with Rainbow (her daycare was closed for the day). In the interest of saving time -- and going easy on my wrists -- I opted to ply on my miniSpinner, which took all of a couple of hours on Friday night.

The finished two-ply yarn is fingering and about 375 yards. The colorway, Siddhartha, was much more vibrant before it was spun but seems to have toned down some in the process of being spun.

The fiber reminded me a little of Wensleydale in that the staple length was long and the fiber was wavy, rather than crimpy. It's not the softest yarn, but it is much less wiry than the Wensleydale I've spun and it has a slight halo that is rather lovely.

So, that's the end of the spinning for the summer, but don't think that means the wheels (and spindles) are going away until next summer. I'm going to be spending less time spinning and more time knitting now, but the spinning bug hasn't left me yet and there's still a lot of stash to spin up, so stay tuned!

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.

Down to Earth, Part I

Those of you who know my spinning know that my favorite dyer is Kristin at All Spun Up. When I first discovered her Etsy store, very few people knew about her, so it was relatively easy to get my hands on some of her hand-dyed fiber. Of course, once handspun from her fiber started showing up on Ravelry, it wasn't long before she became incredibly popular -- to the point where if you didn't pounce the minute she posted an update to the store, you couldn't get any of her fiber.

Thankfully, Kristin has been doing regular spinalongs. She posts ahead of time what the fiber blend will be (though the colorway is a mystery), and if you want to participate, you post in a thread on her Ravelry group so she has an idea of how much fiber to dye. The listing is then up for a couple of days, and as long as you check within 24-48 hours of the listing, chances are good that you can get some of this much-coveted fiber.

For this May/June, the fiber blend was merino/silk (an 80%/20% blend), so I signed up for a double dose of 8 ounces. The dye job did not disappoint -- she calls this particular colorway Down to Earth.

For now, I started with half of the fiber and spun a very thin single (I'm not sure I realized just how thin it was), then chain plied it to keep the colors distinct.

I am completely thrilled with how this turned out. As I was spinning it, it made me think of a seascape -- the pale blue of the water, the white of the sea foam, the brown of the sand and pieces of driftwood, and the gray of a cloudy sky. And of course there is nothing like the experience of spinning this fiber blend; it is just luscious going through your fingers, and the resulting yarn is soft, silky, and light.

This skein also marks my first entry into my LYS' Summer of Socks and Lace contest. I was aiming for fingering weight, but at more than 600 yards for my 4 ounces, it's on the light side of that.

I have no idea what this will grow up to be, but in the meantime, I will be very happy just wearing it wrapped around my neck! I still have another 4 ounces to play with, so perhaps I'll have a matching skein for this in the near future.

Brief Hibernation

I worked on my Essential Cardigan sleeves over the weekend and got about halfway through the increase section, but I've but them aside for the time being to work on some charity knitting.

If you're on Ravelry and hang out in the Remrants board/group, then you know the sad story of a Raveler who recently lost her husband to cancer. They're both young and they'd been married only a short time -- a sad story all around. A number of Ravelers wanted to do something special for her, so there are several projects going to shower her with knitted (and crocheted) love. I'm knitting up a couple of blanket squares. The organizers asked that all yarn to be used for the squares be washable, so I'm using some Cotton Supreme leftover from the most recent Shedir (I'd bought two skeins to be on the safe side but used only part of one). The theme of the squares is to be "love," so I'm going with the obvious and using a heart motif. This particular square is based on a dishcloth pattern I found through Ravelry.

I'm planning a different heart pattern for the second square, which I hope to have finished up by the end of the weekend. I generally don't like knitting squares -- too much like swatching! -- but I'm finding this little project to be a good break from the monotony of my sweater sleeves.

Otherwise, I'm still working on the pair of handspun socks and have just a few more inches of foot to knit on the second sock before I can start the toe.

I've also been spinning a fair amount, because my LYS's Summer of Socks and Lace contest officially kicked off earlier this week and this year there's a spinning component. Specifically, the winner of the spinning competition will be the person who spins the most lace and sock yarn by weight, and yarns spun from fiber purchased at the shop count for weight and a half. I made a few acquisitions when I was there a couple of weeks ago and put them away so I wouldn't be tempted, but now it's time to get them out!