It was way too hot to do much of anything outside or horse related this weekend so I holed up in my craft room. We’re lucky to have air conditioning that does a decent job of cooling the downstairs if you’re not going in/out or cooking too much.

I did a little spinning. It took me a few minutes to get back into the flow as it’s been a long time since I picked up a spindle.

Then, a little sorting through old magazines and pattern books. These were my Grandma Honey’s. It’s been quite interesting to flip through them – there are a number of baby patterns that are just as cute as any you’d find in a Debbie Bliss book today. The adult patterns though? Not so much. There are a few classic sweater patterns that I’m going to keep, but most of the patterns are big boxy, shapeless things. Or really tacky 70′s style.

(1) Here’s a couple of sweaters I liked that would only need basic alterations like shortening the length and adding waist shaping. (2) An example of the baby cuteness. (3) What the ??

Followed by a little machine sewing and some hand finishing. I feel like it’s a dirty word, but I’ve been mulling over Christmas gift ideas. However, before I start anything new I have several half a dozen a dozen (*sigh*) sewing projects that I need to finish up.

I also did some knitting on Vinca. Which I’m not going to show you because it’s the same as last time except for being 1 repeat longer.

When I finished up all those other bits of fiber a couple weeks ago there was one that I didn’t get to. There was no particular reason for not finishing it too, but I didn’t want to let it languish too long.

And now that it’s done? This may be my favorite handspun so far! The colors are fun and, comparatively, I think I put more plying twist in this than other recent handspun which seems to be a good thing in the finished yarn.

My whole purpose of spinning these little bits of fiber has been to practice and improve. I really don’t have too much to say about how this one was spun as I don’t remember what I was thinking when I did most of it – we’ll just say this one was more practice for muscle memory and development of feel.

Fiber: random bits taken from my pound of Wooly Cupcakes
Yarn: approximately 90 yards, looks like sport weight
Spindle: Bosworth Mini
Notes: This fiber had quite a range of color from purple to white to green. Because I wanted to mix the colors in the final yarn, I went with a 2-ply. Because I had not divided the fiber at the beginning, I only had one single which prompted me to take a 2nd try at plying from a single ball. I wound the yarn off the spindle with my skein winder, then made 2-ply by taking the single from the outside and inside of the ball. It worked. I survived. But I won’t do it again. The potential for tangling and frustration is too great. The better solution would be to get a good scale and divide the fiber beforehand. Failing that, dividing the single by weight and making 2 plying balls would work fine too.

The one thing I will do again though, is wind directly from my spindle onto the skein winder. This worked pretty darn well.

After finishing the sample yarns that were on my spindles and on holders, I immediately started something new. What you see here is all of the red and mostly red fiber from my pound of Wooly Cupcakes. The resulting yarn is about 125 yards.

Fiber: random bits taken from my pound of Wooly Cupcakes
Yarn: approximately 125 yards.
Spindle: Schacht Hi-Lo 1.1 oz
Notes: This was my return to spinning after a few months of not doing anything with my spindles. I went back to my comfort zone of the Schacht Hi-Lo and I kept the singles about 3 times fatter than the ones I had so much trouble plying on the last go round.

I also tried something new – I wound the singles first onto a TP roll, then I used my ballwinder to make a plying ball. Then I made the 2 ply on my Schacht Hi-Lo. My first thought was, “making this plying ball is kind of a pain, what’s it really going to do?”. Then when plying, “okay, it works, whatever”, but by the time I was done I hadn’t had any tangling issues and no breakage. Now the extra time to make the plying ball was seeming more worthwhile!

The other thing that was really clear to me is that having a good lazy kate setup is essential. A lot of my annoyance in trying to make the plying ball was due to improvising something to hold the TP rolls. Not that a lazy kate needs to be fancy, it just needs to do the job.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been spinning for a few months now. That was partly because I had spun some fine singles that I couldn’t ply. They wouldn’t balance in a 2-ply, they’d break when I tried to ply. I couldn’t figure it out. So I set them aside for a week. Then I tried again and still couldn’t figure it out.

A couple months went by. I wanted to spin, but didn’t find time. Finally this weekend (starting Friday night) I picked up my spindles with determination.

First up was this bit of green/teal/blue blend that was on my Bossie Featherweight. I hadn’t divided the fiber when I started so I had the one single. Last time I attempted a plying bracelet it was a disaster so I quickly decided I’d Navajo ply this. Quick, easy, painless.

Next up, the dark green single (shown in the top of the above photo) that was so uncooperative as a 2-ply. Since 2-ply didn’t work, why not Navajo ply this too? It worked and I think I only had a ply break on me one time. Will the yarn be balanced? I doubt it, but if nothing else it’s a learning experience.

These next two photos below are of the same single, just wildly colored.

Can you guess? Yep, I Navajo plied this one too. I don’t entirely know what went wrong with my fine singles that wouldn’t ply. I’m guessing they were under-twisted. The good thing is, all of the fibers you see here are from my batch of Wooly Cupcakes from the Wool Peddler. The sole purpose of these cupcakes is for me to practice and experiment.

With the three little samples of yarn above, I freed up two TP holders of singles and one of my spindles. Continuing with this thread I jumped right onto a mix of red fibers that I pulled from my pound of Wooly Cupcakes and started spinning some new singles! This time I did divide the fiber into 2 batches because I want to attempt 2-ply again.

Last week when I saw that Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino was on sale I couldn’t resist. AND I had $50 I received as a birthday gift from DH’s parents. Here are the 3 colorways I chose with a photo of the top and bottom of each.

This is Layla:

This is We are the Champions:

And this is Sultans of Swing:

Ever since I heard about and saw photos of Crown Mountains hand spun Sock Hop yarn I’ve loved their colorways. This superwash merino is the same as what the Sock Hop is spun from.

I don’t know yet how I’ll attempt to spin up my fiber. I’m not really at a point yet where I’m good at shooting for a certain weight before I start, but if you are curious about how Teyani spins up Sock Hop she wrote a post about it on her blog, The Intrepid Fiber Wizard.

Though I’m tempted to start one of these right away, I think I’ll work through more of my cupcakes for practice first.

Did you all notice how I skipped right over Work in Progress Wednesday last week? I feel like I’m not getting hardly any knitting or spinning done these days. It’s quite frustrating to me. I’m trying to adjust to this new schedule and routine, but I’m just not there yet. And then I go back and look at my WIP post from 2 weeks ago and realize I sound like a broken record.

1. Tryst Vest – umm….maybe next week? (copied from 2 weeks ago)

2. Imitation Ab Fab – Knitting DONE. Weaving in ends underway.

3. SIL: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – failed in my goal to get it officially cast on. I *really* want to get it going this week. (copied from 2 weeks ago)

4. Evergreen Superwash - all spun up as singles. I also spun up a bit of the multicolor superwash too. I plan to 2-ply the solid evergreen with the multicolor, but when I started to ply the other day I couldn’t get a balanced yarn. I may try again tonight.

5. Cutest Baby Hat – Done, but did I get pictures? Nope.

6. Kaaren’s Socks – I’ve had the yarn picked out for weeks now. Finally I cast on and (as usual) once I’m cast on things move right along. Somehow I went a couple of months with no socks on the needles – I’m glad to have them back.

Goal between now and next week: get my WIP list back down to a normal size!

Look what I got on Friday! They are my birthday present that I picked out for myself. DH asked if I wanted a spinning wheel, I said no, but I’d like a couple more spindles.

These are both Bosworth Spindles, fondly referred to as Bossies by their fans. On the left in both of the above photos is a Canarywood Midi that weighs 24 grams (.84 ounces). On the right is a Bubinga Mini that weighs 20 grams (.7 ounces). Both have the standard Birch shaft.

For scale, here are all three of my spindles. The largest is my Schacht Hi-Lo that weighs in at 1.1 ounces. The fiber that’s on my new Bossies is what Sheila used to test spin and what a great idea is this – I just love that upon opening the package I could immediately give them a spin.

But I wasn’t the one who spun it. This is a hank of alpaca/blue faced leicester that was spun by Sheepshape Spinning. It is really lovely – I’ve tried to capture it’s true colors in the photo – sky blue with pale green and lavender.

Go have a look at Sheepshape’s other handspun yarns. They demonstrate exactly why I got so interested in spinning in the first place, there is just something about a handspun 2-ply from the changing colors to the slight changes in thickness that I love.

I won the yarn in a contest that Phat Fiber had back on April 29th. Due to an email snafu I just got the yarn Saturday.

I feel like I haven’t been getting much knitting done. Some of my time last week was spent organizing my craft room. It’s looking pretty good now.

I did go to a World Wide Knitting in Public event on Saturday, but I forgot to take the camera. Turnout seemed good to me – knitters filled the parking lots.

1. Tryst Vest – umm….maybe next week?

2. Imitation Ab Fab – probably halfway complete. At this point I just want to get it done.

3. SIL: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – failed in my goal to get it officially cast on. I *really* want to get it going this week.

4. Evergreen Superwash – this is a bit of fiber from the Wooly Cupcakes I bought from The Wool Peddler. I haven’t yet decided whether I will finish just the green or whether I will mix some of the other superwash fibers with it.

5. Cutest Baby Hat – cute little rainbow hat from Fancy Image Yarns in Shelton, WA. My Mom bought this and asked me to knit it for a gift.

The Sherbet Roving is now a 3 ply yarn. While it was tempting to stay in my comfort zone of drafting singles from top, I wanted to push my boundaries and explore other options. Not that I’ve perfected singles or 2 ply by any means; if I had I think it would be even more difficult to branch out and make mistakes as I try new things.

So…I bought the roving purely because I enjoyed the color, the price was good, and I wanted something to experiment with. When I got home I immediately started spinning it using Tammy Rizzo’s Ply-on-the-Fly technique.

Fiber: 3.6 ounces of roving from Sugar Loaf Wool in colorway Sherbet
Yarn: first skein is about 75 yards, second skein is about 105 yards. I think it’s worsted to heavy worsted, but to be honest, I haven’t checked my WPI yet.
Spindle: Schacht Hi-Lo 1.1 oz
Notes:
With roving my singles tend to be lumpier/bumpier. Sometimes I plucked the little balls of fiber off, but I didn’t worry about them much. If I was going to worry I figure I should use top.

A tighter grip than what I have been using with top was sometimes helpful in smoothly drafting out the fiber. Letting a bit of spin run further into the roving also seemed to be of benefit at times.

3 ply can be quite fun since you get to see yarn forming right away.

After spinning this fiber I’m much more comfortable with starting/stopping, spinning while standing, and even putting spin on my spindle with my feet.