Still knitting!

Hey, gang.

Yes, I know, I missed my weekly post again. I've been having trouble with the whole blogging thing, lately. I clearly need to be more interesting. :) Still, I have made a little bit of progress, so why not share, right?

My spinning has slowed down. I don't know. Too many other things to get done, I guess. I am still spinning, and still faster than with the Wee Peggy, but not at blazing speed. It'll even out, I'm sure. Until then:

Still plying the Fiber Fancy romney in the Sea Beginnings colorway. I do all of my plying on my heavy duty Ashford Student spindle, like so:

The FLUFF Rambouillet in Ripe Eggplant is still on the bobbin, but I'm winding that off into a plying ball, like this:

And I'm currently spinning some Fat Cat Knits variegated BFL in the Old Rose colorway:

As far as knitting goes, both my Spectra:

and my Boneyard are coming along. With the Boneyard, you can see how my gradient/striped yarn transitioned. Pretty, no?

And that's what's in the works at the moment. What's on your needles and/or wheel? :)

All the news that's fit...

Another week, another update, just at the far end.

So how have you all been doing? What are you all up to? Have you given up knitting for spinning, if you spin? Do your craft moods change with the seasons? Do you even have seasons anymore? :)  Here in NorCal, the weather can't seem to decide between winter and summer. Me, I'm ready for it to make up its mind.

Here's what's happened since the last time I posted:

The Into The Whirled polwarth/silk is finished. 270 yards of heavy fingering/sport weight chain-plied yarn. I loved the fiber. The colors don't make me do backflips, but they're pretty. I haven't decided whether to keep or sell this skein yet.

The Fiber Fancy Romney is all spun up and waiting to be plied. The single has broken on me more than once due to not enough twist. Grr. I have fixed/can fix it, but it's frustrating.

And the next thing on the wheel was some FLUFF Rambouillet in the "Ripe Eggplant" colorway.

Spinning rambouillet is kind of like spinning a fleece blanket. It's lovely, squooshy stuff. We'll see how the spinning finishes up on that.

I also cast on a couple new knitting projects, both by Stephen West. Apparently I really wanted to work on my simple stitch/pretty results work.

The first is a Spectra done with some bare KnitPicks and a superwash wool from the now-defunct Fall Creek Fibers.

And then, a Boneyard Shawl out of some glitter sock yarn that I gradient dyed in my Katherina colorway. So proud of this one. If you like gradient yarns, look out. I think I'm going to start offering my Shakespeare colorways in this format too, on sock and lace.

Isn't this pretty?

See you next week!

Late, but present!

I promised once a week. I missed last week, for which I truly apologize. Here I am now, though. On a Monday no less. Sharing pictures with you. That's pretty cool, doncha think? When last I left you, dear blog visitor, I was showing you the spin to come. Well, that's finished now. That lovely merino from Rogue Adventures turned into this:

4 ounces and 245 yards of sport weight-ish super soft, super sproingy yarn. I have no idea what I'll use it for, but my original plans to put this in my shop have flown out the window. This yarn stays with me.

I then put some polwarth/silk from Into The Whirled on the Wheel. This colorway is called Children of Time:

And it spun up like this:

This is still in singles, waiting to be plied. I'm hoping for better yardage. Merino makes me work for it. Polwarth not so much, and silk makes everything better.

 And then, as I am ramping up my spinning productivity, I immediately put this on the wheel:

This is 4 ounces of Romney, which is a longwool, which makes it feel sort of wirey. I doubt it will be next-to-skin soft, but it does allow me to spin pretty thin, so who knows, maybe it would work for a shawl of some sort. 'tany rate, the colorway is Sea Beginnings, it's from Fiber Fancy and that's where I am.

 How has your yarn adventuring been?

Once a week!

I did say once a week, right? I didn't say which day. *cough* *scuffs foot*

Hi there! I'm back with a weekly posting.

I have been knitting and spinning for the last week. I don't have great gobs of things to share with you, but I did make some progress.

For my 40th birthday (don't ask me how I got that old; I don't know either), I finally broke down and bought myself an electric spinning wheel. I bought a Vespera from Heavenly Handspinning, and though we have had our disagreements, we're getting along pretty well now.

The first yarn I spun was half of  a bundle from a Mixed Blessings club from Fat Cat Knits. It was a panda blend (sw merino, nylon, bamboo) in a colorway I dubbed Como no, cebolla? (*Why not, onion?) We started like this:

And ended up like this: 130 yards of fingering weight, chain plied.

Next up on the spinning queue?

This merino in the Lakes colorway from Rogue Adventures:

In the knitting world, I am still working on the Tradisi shawl from last year. I know. *hangs head* But it's much closer to being finished.

And in dyeing news? Well. This all went in to the shop today:

Newest Fiber - April 12, 2012, a photo by beadskinz on Flickr.

Thanks for swinging by!

Well, hey there.

You know? I haven't been around here much. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry about that.

Slowly but surely, I'm getting my act back together. I keep saying that and it keeps not being true, but this time I mean it.

Basically, I think I overstepped myself. A podcast and upping my productivity and trying to keep up with my knitting -and- spinning -and- attempting to go out and have more of a life than what I could find on my computer?

Too much at once.

So I scaled back (or slacked off). Now it's time to come out of hibernation.

No guarantees that I'll be back to my tri-weekly posting schedule, but I will promise once a week at least, for now.

Starting today!

Ive actually finished a shawl this year. I know, not stunning for some of you super knitters, but I'm pretty impressed with myself.

It's the Elizabeth R from this year's Shakespeare in Lace club. It's a beautiful, golden merino/silk blend fingering weight yarn and 375 yards of pretty.

Not the greatest picture ever, but the color's fairly true.

Shawl #1 of 2012 complete! Go me!