Singles Ready!

The 2nd skein of yarn is now finished to join the first :) I now have 6.8 ounces of yarn, approximately 950 yards with which I plan to cast on for the Wing o the Moth. You can just see the sparkle of angelina fiber in the photo - it's terribly difficult to capture, I'm hoping I manage to capture it in the finished work. The difference you see in the yarns is due to the fact that the smaller skein is spun from a carded batt, while the larger skein was spun from the exact same fibers handblended at the wheel.

Forest Canopy Shawl Spun and Begun

My first goal was rather ambitious for a fairly new spinner so I have changed my mind and picked an easier, more doable project. I am a member of Amy's Spunky Club and have enjoyed her fiber choices over the last few months. In July the selection was a coopworth wool she called Nightshade. I spun it in a single, my first attempt at singles, and did a fairly god job of it! I predrafted the roving and put only enough twist in to hold it together. The single looked great but needed some 'finishing'. In an effort to see how it would knit up I made a small swatch and was very pleased with the fabric.


The singles sat on the bobbin for a few days and then on the niddy noddy for a few days more in an effort to relax the twist a bit. A friend suggested I steam it while on the niddy noddy so it would relax more quickly and I did just that. You can read a bit about my day of finishing several handspun yarns here. The finished singles were more beautiful than I imagined and I decided the yarn would make a lovely shawl.

The shawl is Susan Lawrence's Forest Canopy. Susan designed it for a beginning lace knitter and while my skills are more intermediate it's a fun and easy shawl to knit. I think it will be beautiful and I'll come back with pictures once I'm finished.


I love the way the colors change in the pattern already!

Margene

2/3rds there!

Handblended Arizona Sycamore
Originally uploaded by WoodlandSprite

I finally "finished" spinning that big bowl of fiber - skeined it off to check the yardage, and I have 608 yards - I need 900-1000 yards for the Wing o the Moth, which is what this fiber has been clamoring to be turned into. I am planning on knitting it with singles - It should be interesting seeing how the color variation plays out - this batch of singles was handblended without tools, the next batch of singles (which, I hope will get me to where I need to be yardage-wise!) will be spun from one of my blended batts off my carder...When I first measured the yardage, I thought of knitting the first set of motifs of the shawl with a complementary colored handdyed commercial yarn, but figured that would just look odd. So I'll be spending more time spinning - I'm planning on using this more variegated hand blended yarn on the outer portion of the shawl....

Sparkle!

I carded up a bunch of dyed Shetland and added glitz to it. I am spinning this up to knit another shawl for my Mum. It took me a week to fill the bobbin up with singles on my Louet S51 DT! Look at the ball of singles I have now!

Shameless self plug: I am participating in Blogathon 2007 and my chosen charity to blog for is the Raptor Education Group, INC (REGI) .
To see details about how blogathon works or to sponsor my blog in my efforts, click the "Support this Blog" button. Blogathon starts July 28th so hurry and sponsor me today!