Life is in the Details

Early Summer Recap

Family, friends, crafting, gardening, and just enjoying the outdoors.  It's been great so far!

New Shawl

I finished this shawl this morning.  It's my first handspun shawl and I know for sure it will not be my last.  The yarn is spun from Hello Yarn fiber in two different club colorways that I was lucky enough to get from destashes on Ravelry.  It is a two ply yarn of Maldives and Patchwork.  My first time mixing colors and I was so happy with how it turned out.

This was how the yarn looked before it was knit up.

The yarn was a fingering weight and I ended up with approximately 800-ish yards from 8 0z of fiber.  I decided to do a simple shawl pattern to really show off the handspun.  I found this Simple But Not Boring Shawl (the elongated version)  and it was perfect!

I adjusted the pattern to account for the thinner yarn, so it took a bit longer to knit than I originally thought it would.  I did some project notes on my Ravelry page.  Basically I had to make the shawl with twice as many stitches as the worsted weight in the pattern. The last rows of the ruffle that went up to 600+ stitches each were killer! But so worth it in the end! I'm so happy with the results and can't wait to knit more handspun!

A Summer of Handspun

I'm honestly pretty shocked when I look back to see how much handspun I have made over the course of this Summer. I was rather obsessed at first, and while the spindle made my whole body ache, with my new wheel, I could spin all day! Which is exactly what I did!

Back in June when I ordered the Majacraft Rose from Twist, I was told it would take about three weeks to be delivered from New Zealand where they are made.  But the store owner offered me one of their rental wheels to use in the meantime. I think she probably realized I would be calling daily to find out the status of my order, without something to distract me! So I brought home an Ashford Traveler wheel and played with that for what turned out to be about a month in the interim.

First, I spun the second half of the Wool Gatherings Rainbow colored BFL fiber that I had started on my spindle, and I plied it into a two ply yarn.  I can't really comment on the thickness of this one since it varied from probably a sport weight to a bulky.  I still don't quite have the consistency down, and back then it was even worse!  But it looks pretty...

Next up, I was able to acquire some Hello Yarn BFL fiber, in the Norway colorway. Hello Yarn is up there with Wollmeise in the really hard to get category.  Actually all things being equal I think it's harder to get. I loved how this one came out, although it was a bit overspun, and I may have made it not as soft as it could have been, but it will make some good mittens.  Patriotic for both Norway and the USA! Too bad mittens are not needed on the 4th of July.

The wheel was so much easier than the spindle almost right away. And so much faster! I needed more fiber to keep up! So I joined a SAL (Spin a Long) on Ravelry, in the All Spun Up fiber group and began working on some new fiber, All Spun Up Polwarth in Koi Pond! The SAL fibers were all named after fish. I still have some Goldfish in a Tutu and A Seussish Fish to still spin.  Yes, half the joy of spinning are the awesome names and colors given to the fiber.   This was my first time spinning something other than BFL and I really loved the Polwarth. It's also much softer! I navajo plied this yarn which is why the colors on this one are more separate, it will stripe more clearly when knitting it.

 

I had been hoping with the Koi Pond I would get enough for socks, I kept trying to spin thinner, since sock yarn is generally what I knit.  But it is not easy to get yarn so thin on a spinning wheel and this ended up being more of a dk weight (twice the thickness of sock yarn), so I tried again...

Meet my future sock yarn, Hello Yarn's targhee fiber in the Garland colorway. The Targhee felt like something from space. It's so bouncy and stretchy you would swear it's not a natural material. But apparently there are bouncy and stretchy sheep around that produce this fun stuff! 

Maybe the Targhee sheep are the ones from the Sleepy's commercials? Hmm...

 

Thanks for the fiber guys! It made some really great yarn!

 

And with this yarn, I made some really great socks! I'll post about them another day, I haven't taken pictures of them all finished.  The yarn was a little thick still for socks, but workable, and the socks are SOOO comfortable. Everyone needs a little Serta Sheep in their step!

With the completion of these awesome socks, my Rose arrived! And I didn't waste any time starting a new project.  I have some mad love for the Hello Yarn fiber and caught an unscheduled update the week before my wheel arrived.  It was meant to be of course, so I had to buy it! My previously obtained Hello Yarn fiber was bought from people who were destashing on Ravelry. 

But Swampy arrived, and it was love at first site, and I could think of nothing better to christen my new wheel. It's Romney fiber which I had played with in my spinning class, so I had a little experience with it and it produced this lovely yarn.

 

Which may still be my favorite I've made to this day.  I finished the yarn, and immediate cast on some fingerless mittens (didn't have enough for the fingers- hee hee).  I love these, I've been sitting in my air conditioning wearing them until my hands get too hot.

 

See what I mean when I say I went a little crazy with the yarn, and I'm not even done yet.  Well, almost done with this post as I have no pictures of my last few skeins of yarn I've made.  So while I'm sure that you'd all love to see 2 or 3 (or 10) more pictures of my yarn, if you've even read this far in the post, I will have to disappoint you.  (Do I hear cheering??)

So finally, a few weeks ago, I made this yarn from Pigeonroof Studios.  I think it was Superwash BFL? I'm not sure, the color was called Lazy Daizy. I finished this one, but didn't get pictures of the plied skein, so here's an in progress picture...

I didn't love spinning it. It seemed pilly to me and difficult.  Maybe it's the superwash coating, it was the first time I've spun that.  I've heard others say they don't love spinning superwash. I have spun other Pigeonroof and it has always been lovely, so I'm thinking it's the superwash.

So that's all for now. I know it seems like all I did this Summer was make yarn, but I also fit in some knitting, sewing and GASP even some scrapbooking! Okay well only one layout, but I am feeling the itch again for scrapping.  I'll try to catch up with those posts soon. 

Today we're waiting on Hurricane Earl, he's suppose to arrive around 1:00. Hopefully my fence will stay in one piece this time. Batten down the hatches fellow coastal people!

June

Well the Summer started off as I last posted with me learning to spin! (Yarn that is.) I had bought a student spindle, made the sad little skein of yarn that I posted back in May, and then realized I needed a different spindle because the student spindle did not spin. Puzzling, I know.

So I did some research and discovered a Golding Spindle, the Tsunami! Sure sounded like it would spin!  And it certainly did, that spindle spins like the wind! During a Tsunami! Well okay, I don't know about hurricane force winds, but it's a good spinner. Right away I started spinning a Blue Face Leicester/ Silk blend from Pigeonroof Studios called Wildflowers.

And this spindle was much easier to use. It did spin, and for a few days I thought this would work out fine. I finished up my Wildflowers yarn and started spinning some different BFL, from Wool Gatherings, in a rainbow colorway.

 

So up until now, I have been spinning about 6 or 7 hours a day, okay, maybe 8, and I'm thinking this is fine right? Wrong. Apparently spinning with a spindle requires muscles, specifically large portions of shoulder muscles and my body started to feel like I was run over by a truck. This was not good.  My new hobby, which I was loving with so much passion, was making me unable to lift my left arm! I guess I could have said who cares, I'm right handed anyway, but it did hurt and Advil didn't do much.  So I started to formulate a plan.

I have not been working, so money is tight, but I do have a rather large stash of yarn that was sitting idly by watching me spin yarn from fleece.  But I realized that I need a wheel! You know, NEED, like I need sustenance, and I need water. Well this is how I saw it at the time anyway, I'm a pretty passionate crafter. I began figuring out which of my beloved yarn lovelies I was willing to part with and began researching spinning wheels.  My mom is still chuckling every time I mention that I'm spinning yarn, I think she sometimes wonders how her uncrafty self could give birth to someone who would not only knit, but spin the yarn!! Not that my mother isn't creative, she definitely is, but she channels that creativity to other non-crafty ventures. 

While researching, I  learned that in order to really get a feel for spinning wheels I should go try them to see which I prefer, this is a relatively personal decision and while one person may rave about a wheel, another might dislike it immensely. So I found a store in South Jersey that was offering a class for three Saturdays and was reasonably priced, and I headed to Woolbearers in Mount Holly for these classes, also hoping they would have lots of wheels to try. 

The classes were very good. I learned a lot.  We were given the opportunity to use the spindle, and the wheel and produced yarn on both.  The teacher was very knowledgeable. But they did not have lots of wheels to try, and none of the Majacraft wheels that I'd been leaning toward based on other people's recommendations from Ravelry. So while I highly recommend the classes there, I need to also recommend another store Twist, in New Hope, PA when you need to try out a few different wheels.

Twist had at least 10 different wheels when I went, and I tried out all the upright (Castle-style) wheels, as they fit better in my house and I narrowed it down to the Majacraft Suzie Pro.  But there was one I still had not tried, and luckily for me an employee at Twist had that wheel and could bring it in the following Saturday for me to try out! It was the Majacraft Rose, and when I used it, well they say when you know, you know, and I knew! I wish relationships were this easy! 

So I sold a whole bunch of yarn to buy a whole bunch of spinning wheel and I even had some leftover paypal money for fiber! Gotta love paypal money!

So here she is, my beautiful Rose, yet to be named.  Apparently it's a thing with spinners that they name their wheel.  So far, 'My Wheel' seems to be popular for me. Without further adieu...

 

  

So that's my wheel, tomorrow I will show you all the yarn that she's made since then!

Coming Soon...

What I did on my Summer Vacation! I need to get some photos together to show all my Summer projects. While this Summer vacation was forced time off, I did try to make the most of it craft-wise. I'm not sure when I'll have this opportunity again, hopefully not next Summer!

I'll be uploading projects over the next couple weeks.

First Handspun

Voila, my first handspun yarn!  Spun on a student spindle, which I would not recommend at all, it will now be retired after one skein.  After working on this yarn for a couple days I ordered a far better Golding spindle that seems to be working much better.  It's their version of a student spindle, but the original one was only $7.  In the case of a spindle, you get what you pay for.

The yarn is made from Pigeonroof Studios  Blue faced Leicester roving in the Blissful Colorway.  It came out with lots of super thick spots and then some super thin spots which closely resemble thread.  But I love it and I need to figure out something to make with it, because I'm just so proud to have made it myself!! But then with 60 yards, it might be hard to be able to make anything.  Maybe an ipod cozy!

In other news, I'm still knitting away.  I just finished a colorwork sock, the first of the pair, in my favorite, Wollmeise.  Before that I did some self striping goth socks which came out pretty cute.  I have yet to take pictures of any of it, but hopefully soon. 

Nothing new on the job front, but I heard on the news today that jobs are starting to come back.  Good sign!