Thought I would capture the moment in pictures. giggle, giggle. Every time I look at this picture, it cracks me up. ..not that my pregnant belly should be funny or anything. 
33 weeks Pregnant and Counting…
New Fiber: Faux Angora
Paradise Fibers sent out a newsletter last month announcing their newest spinning fiber - Faux Angora. It is made from Nylon, and was supposed to mimic angora bunny fiber. Soft as a bunny with no allergies and machine washable? You bet I’m interested!!
When the fiber arrived I just about peed in my pants. It was heavenly. Super, super soft. Just like angora. I couldn’t stop touching it. I dyed some up and started spinning right away.
Here is my roving that I dyed with deep purples, green and pale turquoisy-blue Lanaset Acid dyes. I had to take the photo with the flash on, so the colors aren’t quite so crisp and sparkly.
Dyeing:
Dyeing the fiber was a little bit tricker than the usual wool. It sucked up the color like nobody’s business. I swear the dye had already striked before I even got it to the heat source. So there was a lot of moving and squishing and re-squirting to get the dye evenly without white spots. You also had to be very careful when handling the roving because it would start to pull apart. But the results were gorgeous, and no dye washed out in the final bath.
My only complaints, are 1.) The wet fiber is really slimy feeling. Kinda like playing with a big wad of seaweed in the ocean. 2.) The roving sheds to anything it comes near. I wasn’t smart enough to separate it from my other wool rovings that I was dyeing when I hung them to dry, so there are now tiny nylon fibers all over my other wools. So be careful where you place your fiber.
Spinning:
If you are a new spinner, you will need to take your time because the fiber is very slippery and loose. A little bit of drafting is all it takes. But I found it super easy to spin into a fine yarn. I spun a 2-ply yarn, that was somewhere around a DK/Worsted weight. I really enjoyed spinning it.
Here is my resulting yarn. Didn’t it come out pretty?
The Yarn:
I have to be honest, I was a tiny bit disappointed with the resulting yarn. It felt a bit wirey to me. -Nothing like the original roving when it was loose and fluffy. I blame it on my spinning such a tight yarn. -But then again, had I spun it loosely, I think the shedding would be horrible. I rubbed the skein up again a few items of clothing and was impressed with the minimal shedding. -So we will see.
Knitting:
I decided to knit a pair of children’s mitts for my 1-year-old sister-inlaw, Solara. I used the formula from my favorite book, The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns to knit a swatch on size 3 needles. It was a nice tight knit. –Let me tell you, the fabric is coming out beautiful!! The bloom of the faux angora is just like the real thing. Very amazing. It softened up just like I was hoping for. I still have the thumb of the second mitt to knit, then the ends to weave in, and a few final touches of pom-poms. The final test will be throwing it in the washing machine. (scary!) I’ll post a final pic once I get them complete.
The Verdict:
All in all, I love this fiber. It really does feel just like angora bunny yarn for a fraction of the price and none of the hassle. Everyone needs to give it a try!
Second Sock? What? Where?
I finished my first purple cable sock and have about 3 inches done on the second sock. Woot, woot! I am very proud of myself for actually starting the second one. I have the worst case of second anything syndrome. After I’ve done it once, I’m usually bored and ready to move on. But these socks are keeping me going. Here are some goody shots:
First up, the finished sock. And yes, this photos turned out terribly blurry, but they will do. I love the way the cable show up against the yarn - something that I see get lost all the time with handpainted yarns. But this rainbow dyed yarn from Fearless Fibers is the best. Love it.
And here are two photos showing that I really and truly have begun the second sock.
Maybe I can get these finished before the blistering Arkansas cold is over? Now wouldn’t that be something….
Yarn Rescue Update!
I almost forgot to post that I updated the shop the other day with new Handspun Yarn goodies. Here’s a sample preview:
(click on any photo to be taken to the Handspun Yarn page.)
Yummy! All are family-friendly and potty trained. Go have yourself a gander.
Lace Harmony Guide - Big Disappointment
Anyone else majorally disappointed with this book?
(Harmony Guide: Lace & Eyelets by Interweave Press)
Two major complaints:
- There are no charts!
Who heard of knitting lace without charts? In my opinion, you need both the written out and the charts to knit lace. Sometimes one works better than the other. Seems very lazy of them not to include charts. - The photos really tick me off.
O.k. yes, they are all colorful and glossy and an improvement from the old guides, but…. They are cropped in too close, so you can’t see the edges of the lace, or how it is supposed to look as a row or column of lace. The beauty of the lace stitch gets totally lost. And some will show 2/3 of the stitch, then the other 1/3 is to the side. Sloppy work.
I can’t decide if I want to keep the book, or ship it back. I wish I had had the chance to see the book in person before ordering it online. (Bad me.) But to find out if I like a stitch, I’ll have to knit it up myself. But what would I replace it with? I was really excited about having a lace reference book for designing my own stuff. It is hard to find books with JUST lace. (and 250 stitches to boot!)
I’m curious to see what others think..
A new Year, a new Obsession
I’ve been a very bad blogger and I haven’t updated in a long, long time. I blame it on the holidays. It’s been busy, busy for the past 3 weeks, as I am sure it is for everyone this time of year.
But….now we can get back to the grind. Spinning and knitting! Yay!
So let’s start with my new obsession. FINE spinning.
I usually get frustrated with spinning fine because it takes forever and I usually end up fighting with the fiber and throwing it across the room. Well, I decided to give it another go. And it was great!
So here is the roving. It is Faux Cashmere roving (nylon) that I dyed with Lanaset Dyes in the microwave. Purtee. I’m going to call this fiber Faux Silk from now on. To me, it is not like cashmere at all, but everything like silk. Sue me.
I started by dividing it up into super, super thin strips so I wouldn’t have much drafting to do. I figured that would be a good way to get my hands into the groove. Since the fibers are so fine and long, I found that you have to keep your hands firm on the fiber and never, NEVER let the twist come anywhere near the drafting triangle. (Just like when spinning silk.) If it does, the whole thing will get choked up and it won’t draft at all.
LOOK! Oh my, it’s so fine! Weeeee.
The more I spun, the more confident I got, and was able to start spinning thicker pieces of roving. Still split pretty thin, I’d say like finger width. And much to my utter surprise, I LIKED IT.
So here is my bobbin filling up with singles….
And here it is plied on the bobbin. Doesn’t all the color mixing look nice? I just love how rainbow or handpainted rovings spin up. You never get bored with the color variations.
And the final product. (This pic was taken in natural light, so it is a better representation of the true colors.) I ended up with a fine, sock-weight 2-ply yarn. Yippie! I’m so proud of myself! Since then, I’ve spun one more Faux cashmere and 2 Merino yarns. The Merino did not come out as thin because it likes to pop out of itself when plied and the twist is set. Sneaky.
I’ve got another Merino ready to spin that I will start tonight most likely. It does take a long time to spin fine and 2-ply, but the results are worth it!
It’s Like Crack…
…for knitters and spinners.
Ravelry is what I’m talking about, as if you didn’t already guess that.
And to think I almost missed it.
My computer blew up right before the holidays and my mail program did a weird thing where it re-imported all my mail, including deleted mail. So I had like 200 “new” emails in my box. (I get a lot of spam.) I started going through all the recent crap to try to clean it up a bit. And low and behold, there was my invite from Ravelry from Dec. 9th! Oh my god, how did I miss that??
So I flew on over to the site and hooked myself up. OH MY it is cool. I love it, love it. Finally, one single place, online where I can keep track of what the heck I’m knitting these days and see what everyone else is doing. Lots of inspiration, tons of ways to get yourself in trouble. I am soooo glad my computer decided to play tricks on me or else I might have missed that invite forever and gone boo-hoo, boo-hoo.
Yarn Rescue Update
I did a mini update last night at the store. 4 new handspuns and a butt load of Monster Crochet Hooks. One of these days I’ll be able to update with many, many new handspun yarns. I’ll get there!
But here is the teaser:
Adding these big, fat blobs of wool are my favorite right now. They look and feel so cool. I’m going to have to make some more yarns this way. This yarn also have little bits of ribbon spun in.
More big, slubby blobs.
And my other favorite addition at the moment, silk flowers. They are so fun to add.
Now to some Monsters! First up, some knitting needles.
Next up, a few hooks.
O.K. O.K, that is enough. Click on any of the photos to take you over to my shop. These guys would love to go home with you!
Heel Turned!
I turned the heel of the purple cable sock the other day and now I’m busy knitting up the leg. It fits perfectly! Yay. Adding that extra cable really made a difference.
Here it is flat:
And a foot shot:
And another:
The gusset heel seemed to work, however I’m not sure if it fits where it should. Is the curve part supposed to fall just after the curve of your heel? Or is it supposed to fall right at the center of your heel?
It feels great, and seems to work just like it should. But I was just curious if I should have started the heel a little bit sooner than I did.
Here are the pics:
See, just after my heel. I also think I did something weird on one side. It formed tiny little ridges where I decreased back down. (Or maybe it was where I made my M1) I will have to go back and look closer.
Regardless, I still love it. Much better than the short-row heel, in my opinion, which I don’t like at all for some reason. The gusset heel is tighter and doesn’t leave those horrible tiny holes where you wrapped the stitches.
So knitting up the leg I go!
Better Photos of the Rambling Rose
It was nice and overcast today, perfect for snapping some photos, so I got some better ones of the blocked Rambling Rose Cardigan back.
MUCH better! It is amazing what a little natural light can do for a photo. (see 2 entries below to see how a flash can zap out the stitches.)
And a closeup. Isn’t it purtee?
