Tour de Fleece continued

Well, slowly slowly I spun the rest of the fiber I posted last time. I had some brown and then some brown with white and blue striped through it. I spun them both up, with a bit of difficulty. I had to really predraft it down to about the thickness I wanted for the single itself.


Then I plied the brown and the striped together. It's pretty thick, but I like the end result. I only ended up with about 50 yards, so maybe I can use it for the cuffs of a jacket or sweater. Not much more than that...I'll try to snap a pic of the finished skein that'll be a bit more appealing.



I have some more carded fiber in a nifty purple and some combed merino in a melony/mango-y kind of color. That's up next!

T d' F day 1

I'm off to a slow start on the Tour de Fleece... no surprise there. I got in about a half hour today et voila!



This is some of the fiber left from when I purchased my hand spindle. I'm having some trouble with it because it is very smooth and I can't seem to get the tension right. I think I'll need to do some better predrafting on what's left before I continue with it. Can anyone say "felt me?"

But a wider view to show off my equipment for the Tour (sans flash, and you can see my messy apartment in the background):

My Ashford Traditional, aquired "new in the box" for a pretty good deal via Ebay. The seller did fail to mention that it was actually new in 1983. It really hadn't ever been taken out or assembled, but the pieces were wrapped up in a New Zealand newspaper from Dec 1983! Quite a surprise. But I love it. It's so cute and, well, traditional!. I'm slowly getting the hang of things. I spun enough roving (kindly given to me by a friend with her own sheep) to knit up a shawl that I like to describe as "rustic." I'll have to post a picture soon.

So on with the Tour! Better luck tomorrow...

Abadon all hope, ye who enter here

There will be no lofty promises of daily posting. I just get so horribly jealous of all the other lovely blogs out there in the knit-blogosphere and I can't bear to post myself. The gaping holes in time should be obvious.
But I have so much to show! I just got a spinning wheel and lots of fun fiber from a local shepherdess friend of mine! I want to brag about it!

How about a moderate promise to try? Will that help?

Red and not-so-red scarves

I am proud to announce the completion of both the scarves I knit to donate to the Red Scarf Project this year. I think this is a super idea and hope it continues long into the future so I can have the chance after my holiday extravagance to feel like I'm giving back to someone.

The real red scarf is the Irish Hiking scarf, which if the gallery on the project page is anything to go by was a popular choice for the donations this year. I used Plymouth Encore which is squishy and soft and machine washable. Hooray! And I thought the burgundy was unisex enough. I think it shows the cables (done without a cable needle, also a new trick) very nicely.

The no-so-red scarf is the Arrowhead scarf from the holiday issue of KnitSimple. I thought the simple pattern was fun and deceptively complicated looking, which is always a bonus in a gift item. The grey and white make it a bit more dramatic than in the magazine which uses a light green and a variagated green. Also successfully unisex I think. Enjoy the slightly trippy optical illusional aspects of my photo! I'm trying to master the macro settings on the camera.

Fly, Icarus, Fly!

Finally some pictures, posted through the glory of the bf's new laptop and wireless connection. La-dee-da.

I finished the Icarus maybe two weeks ago. I think I need an action photo to do it justice, so hold on for that. I used less than 1 skein of this lovely slightly varigated blue from handpaintedyarns.com. I was amazed to find not a single knot in it when I would it, too. Very nice. I absolutely recommend their yarns, and very reasonably priced, too.

The obligatory pre-blocking lace item close up. Pimply, no? Granted, the hundreds of stithes were all squished up together on a pretty short #4 circular needle.

This is still pre-blocking, but a wider view. I was, despite the dozens of other blog entries and articles and books I have read on the topic assuring me of this, simply amazed at how much the thing grew when I pinned it out. The blocking pics were not so great, since I used the biggest beach towel I had which happens to also be blue. But I'll try to get a pic on something more flattering to show the finished object.

And of course I must admit that this project definitely gave me the lace bug. As evidenced by the amount of lace weight yarn I have subsequently purchased off of Ebay.

soon my pretties

I spent an inordinate amount of time today playing with posting a percentage bar along the sidebar here because suddenly it seemed very important. My html skills consist mostly of trial and error, so, that may have contributed to the lengthly interlude required.
I want to make a Finished Objects list also, since that would fall within my New Year's Resolution and prompt me to take more pictures. So, I think I'll spend too much time on that also.
Oh yeah, and then maybe I'll take some pics of things I'm actually doing to post as well. The bf is getting a laptop for his birthday, arriving via UPS any day, so that might help me in the long run, cause then I can post from the couch instead of hauling my lazy butt all the way into the study to get on the desktop.
Anyway... hopefully in the next few days a new, picture filled post.

Help! I've logged on to Ebay and I can't get out!

I had this great idea of how I was going to save some money by limiting my fiber budget through the holidays, but somehow I have managed to make at least 4 Ebay purchases in the month of December alone.
And twice I got this wonderful "second chance" offer from a seller to purchase something I didn't even win. Now who can pass that up for goodness sake? It's like a gift, practically.
And each individual purchase seems like such a bargain, and with PayPal I don't even have to physcially touch my credit card each time. It is evil I tell you...EVIL!!!
And for some reason I'm buying all this lace weight yarn. Exhibit A: purple cashmere!!!
Do I have a need for shawls all of a sudden? I was guilt tripped by my mother for not having knitted something for my grandmother for Christmas, so maybe that can be a project for the rest of the winter.
OK. But the blog-o-sphere as my witness: No more Ebay until at least.... umm.... Feb?