Progress Photo

100 rows done and another 100 to go before there is a stitch pattern change.



I'm managing about 20 rows per day.

Turbulent Indigo

It may not be an elaborate lace shawl, but I've finally gotten around to knitting a bit of lace with my handspun yarn.


I'm calling it Turbulent Indigo after the Joni Mitchell song of the same name. The color and the patterning had me singing the song the whole time I knit.



Turbulent Indigo
Pattern: My Own - I will offer it as a Freebie soon on my blog.
Yarn: Spun from 4 oz. Knitterly Things, Vesper Roving, 100% BFL. I never got around to measuring the WPI on this, but it is roughly a sport weight yarn.
Needles: US 7
Finished Measurements: 5.5x64"
Notes: I knit this from end to end to allow the yarn to form vertical stripes.

More photos can be found on my blog.

YIPPEE! I'm a part of the group!

Hello everyone,

I am excited to be a part of your group. I have been inspired by so many of your projects. Now I better get busy and start spinning so that I have something to work on! Thanks for including me! I'm new on the blog scene and I'm learning more every day. Instead of telling you my background, I will refer you to the entry of "Starting With Socks" on my blog.

Keep up the great work!

Happy spinning and knitting,

Lee aka BAAbins
my blog

First post here

This is my first post here, as well as my first project using my own hand painted and hand spun on my spindle yarn. I love the way it is knitting up, and am making something very simple. It is going to be a bolero jacket, with simple stitched sleeves. I made one using sari silk yarn before and I love it!Here is a picture of the progress. I am using size 8 circ needles(just to support the weight) and the roving to begin with was a plain wool roving, so very soft. I dyed it using kool aide and beet juice left over from pickling beets. My dig camera is weird, so the color is off. The true color is so much softer pinks and greens and purples than the pic is showing, not strong or hard looking at all. I hope to be finished with this, and my clapotis before the secret stole kal starts on the 5th...

Niki

http://homesteadinyarning.blogspot.com/

Starting Over

I've changed my mind, and my pattern choice. With the MS3 ripped I've started reusing the handspun "Black Rainbow Glitter" on the Honeybee Stole. After a bit of a rocky start, once, twice, third time is the charm. I'm up to row 28 now.



The red at the top (from this perspective) is just my provisional cast on. The green blips at the bottom are snippets of plastic straw I use for stitch markers. I'm adding beads to the edges of the stole, but they aren't visible in this photo.

Thanks Kaylen, for the use of your flannel "burp cloth". It makes a great lap cloth so that I can see the black stitches a little better. It works great when I'm spinning black too.

Kimono Cardigan Wrap Progress

Here is an update on the Kimono Cardigan Wrap (KAL). This is the completed back panel, the largest part of the project. Handspun alpaca and merino blended yarn, also stripped dyed. You can see at the very top where I added more dye to the bath of the third skien because alpaca is stubborn in obsorbing dye...so it will have a darker collar. Neato!

Halfway there...

Sorry no photos...I keep forgetting to take pictures until it's nighttime and then the light is yucky.

I've finished the first skein of yarn and have now joined the 2nd skein....I'm on something like #12 of 15 repeats of the main body of the Wing of the Moth shawl....I'm looking forward to seeing how the more variegated yarn knits up - I've noticed small bits of variegation in the first skein, but they are definitely much smaller than the 2nd skein of yarn that I had spun. A reminder of what the skeins look like here. So far, I'm really pleased with the knitting, and the shawl feels so soft - with all that angora in it, I can tell it's going to be very warm. Too bad it's still well over 90 degrees F where I live!

Does this Clash with 1970?

Okay...tell me honestly...is this clashing?! It's trippin me out man!

This is some of my handspun, hand-dyed, Targee yarn for the latest in the Mystery Shawl KAL. I hope, as the shawl gets bigger, that the colors will tend to puddle together instead of stripe. EEP! It's oober soft and warm!

Hello to all, and thanks for letting me contribute. This is my current handspun project. I am using some nice Jacob fleece that I purchased, washed, flicked and spun from the locks. It is a fingering weight yarn. The shawl is from www.die-wollust.de. A german site but the pattern is in English. I love this wool, it was so easy to spin. I have heard that Jacob wool is coarse, and it is, but this is a soft coarse. I really like the color variations in it. From black to almost white, and all shades of grey in between. The photo looks more taupe, but it's really grey.

Swallowtail Finished

I finally finished my third handspun shawl, but second completed. It is a lovely pattern.

I am currently planning another shawl with my laceweight handspun. More details on Swallowtail on the blog.

It's been awhile!

Wow, I so need to subscribe to the feed to this here blog so I can keep up with all the fiber artist going-ons here! I love all the yarns and projects that have been posted!
Here is a bit of an update on my spinnings:
I acquired way too much raw fleece at the local sheep and wool festival (wisconsin). All in all, 22 pounds worth!! My final decision? Only buy fleece at the festival because the poor closet is literally bursting with bags of fleece now!


The close up brown fleece is from a Border Leicester lamb named Lenny from a local farmer. I am spinning lace-weight from his fleece to for the Secret of the Stole KAL which starts in October. Below that is my first swatch with beads you can hardly see. I want to use bright green, gold lined, seed beads instead so they will pop out from the design. Now my only problem is finding them locally!! I just cannot justify buying beads online when shipping is more than the cost of the beads!








That is all for now I think. I am also making yarn for the fall Mystery Shawl and clue #1 was released yesterday. I just need to ply and set the twist then I can get going on that one.

Argosy Scarf, FO and Forest Canopy Started

Finished an Argosy Scarf in handspun corriedale

Details:
Yarn: Handspun Corriedale pencil roving, from Crown Mountain Farm, color: Inspiration

Needles: US3 / 3.25mm

Pattern: Argosy Scarf from Knitty

Gauge: ~5 stitches/inch after blocking

Completed: September 15, 2007

Finished Size: 6 ½” x 64”

Mods:
I added an extra increase to make the scarf wider since my fingering weight yarn is a little lighter than the pattern’s DK or sport weight. But, I didn’t knit as many repeats as I didn’t want a six-foot scarf. I blocked it fairly strongly to open the lace.

Working now on spinning some laceweight merino/tencel for a larger stole. And I'm knitting up a Forest Canopy Shawl with some BFL from Sakina Needles.

Finally something worth posting...

After getting used to my new wheel, I've been busily spinning and last night I plyed for the first time on my wheel. Here it is on the bobbin and a strand to show the thinness.
After I wound it off the bobbin I wrapped it around a box since I don't have anything else. There were 170 wraps, and it's about 50 inches around one wrap. So based on calculations I have a 22gram skein of 234 yards! Way more than I thought I would get. I still have 64 grams to spin as well. So I think I'll get another...600 something yards? That seems like a ton for less than 4 ounces of roving, I was expecting to get maybe 400 tops out of all of it. That's not counting the yardage I got from my spindle and spindolyn before the wheel came along. I'm so excited!

Dogwood Miters

Just this weekend I finished a shawl that I have been working on since May! I turned this Corriedale yarn

Into this shawl

More info on my Blog

At Nupps End

I am now at the "nupps" portion of my Swallowtail. I've hit many walls while knitting, mostly not paying attention to how much I am knitting and thinking I knit less. After ripping back, I am now at the second chart of nupps, and looking foward to finishing.

Shetland Triangle is next, once I am done with Swallowtail. More info on Swallowtail's progression on my blog.

Done!

I realise now that I should have posted more pictures of my progress, but the endless spinning seemed so monotonous... and things happened quite quickly when 'The End' was in sight!

Here's the finished shawl:
That's the Wool Peddler's Shawl from Folk Shawls, in 2-ply alpaca/silk that was my very first handspun project (I started spinning for it at the end of March and finished 600m at the end of June). I originally planned to use it for Jamieson's Diamond Lace Shawl, but worried that the acres of stockinette would show my uneven spinning to perfection. I tried the Flower Basket shawl, but the yarn just wasn't happy with the stitch pattern. I don't know a better way to explain it; the decreases were really bulky and even the stockinette seemed wonky. But it's worked nicely in the lace edging here. Very strange. I've learned such a lot about spinning from knitting this! And about fibre, too. The unblocked shawl was relatively bulky and and elastic, but even gently blocking stretched the inelastic alpaca/silk flat to produce an open fabric with a very elegant drape. Finished size is c. 150cm wide by 79cm deep.

Here's a closer view of it during blocking:
I can see flaws in it. I know where a couple of knitting mistakes can be found if I look hard; I knew the stuff I spun at the beginning was relatively uneven, so WHY didn't I think to start with that so the unevenness was eaten by the garter stitch section? But I still get that "That's too good to be my work!" feeling when I look at it, which won't be for long: it's a birthday gift for my mother. I've started spinning some Crown Mountain Farms superwash for socks for me :-)

One Skein Down

263 yards done! Merino/ Merino;silk blend plied together. I was going to keep it only the lichen green, but with only 2 ounces, plying it with white merino seemed to be the only way to make it stretch.

Finishing this skein is bittersweet. I'm finished 263 yards..but I have 587 left. I'm not even sure if I'll have enough to finish it. Oh well..back to the fiber store. :D. My real challenge will be to JUST get what I need!

You can go to my blog for my pictures.

Chugging along

I'd be done with my Fourth-Generation shawl (spring 07 Spin Off) by now if it wasn't for the fact that I'd have to keep spinning more yarn!



I'll be at least 8oz over the estimated requirement for the shawl. My best guess is that she mentions in the pattern she knit a smaller shawl shown then it is actually written for. I'm happy I have a whole bag of fleece to work with. I don't want to think about what would have happened if I had ordered roving per the specifications!

Back to the wheel- one more big skein should do it!

1/2 of a New Yarn

While I am still knitting on the Swallowtail shawl, I am also spinning up some silk from The Silkworker. The silk top is called Chocolatier. I am spinning it fine and will double ply for a laceweight.

This top spins up so soft and is super silky. I've never spun a silk so soft and lovely. I will be starting Bobbin #2 this weekend. I have a couple of patterns in mind to knit up with this yarn, but it will all depend on how much yardage I will get from the 2 ounces. As always, more info on the blog.