I am spinning and getting ready for more spinning. I managed a bare 2 rounds of the Shetland blanket since the last post, and possbily a few rounds of the sock d... and the rest of the time went on spinning. I tried to knit more, two nights I took the blanket out and tried to work it ... but those nights I wasn't up to lace knitting. The pattern didn't seem to line up, things didn't seem to align with the yarn overs of the previous round. All of that left me with a sense that perhaps I wasn't ready to chart my own lace edges and I should have just left it be. Then last night I took the blanket up and again tried 'one last time' to work the third pattern round of the chart ... and success! That time it worked just fine while I watched Top Gear but when Ultimate Force started, a series Bear likes and I don't mind, - it was a particularly brutal episode that forced me to retreat to something more mindless to do with my hands. I told you knitting was my excuse to watch trash tv - and some of you didn't believe me, but it is true.
So the blanket with two more rounds than the last time you saw it looks like this, pretty much the same as before but with more holes - see
So I had to find something to do with my hands that involved less thinking, less focus - and preparing fibre seemed a good way to go. I had 116g of fibre from a 'scrappy swap', I was invited to join but wasn't quite sure what one was. I'm still not sure, but it was fun, one sends away 100g or so of fibre, and in return one gets back 100g made up from a wee bit of all the sent in fibre. So I had 116g of odds and ends of all sorts of fibre. Mmmmmm, Morag spun hers and plied it with her scrappy swap fibre from the first swap and ended up with yarn that was beautiful-ugly. Because the fibre was all so different I thought it best to diz it to an even thickness before spinning. I'm glad I did - now I have a basket full of smooth pencil roving all ready to spin.
And then there was Monday nights spinning, Monday night is Spin night in town, a group of us take turns to host spinning and we spin, and chat, and swap fibre and fibre stories and catch up on gossip. Monday I plied my Targhee from a Verb For Keeping Warm. It looked good when I plied it, but when I set it it puffed up and is now probably one of the most elastic yarns I've ever spun. Targhee is not a fibre type commonly available locally but it is one I will look out for.
You can tell that I'm still a beginner by the thick and thin plies in the photos .. but oddly the yarn girth (wpi) seems fairly consistent. Work is quietly frantic, as we hurdle towards the end of year show .. lots to do and lots that can't be done until the day/night of the show. Fingers crossed, break a leg and all that?
Take care, Na Stella
So the blanket with two more rounds than the last time you saw it looks like this, pretty much the same as before but with more holes - see
So I had to find something to do with my hands that involved less thinking, less focus - and preparing fibre seemed a good way to go. I had 116g of fibre from a 'scrappy swap', I was invited to join but wasn't quite sure what one was. I'm still not sure, but it was fun, one sends away 100g or so of fibre, and in return one gets back 100g made up from a wee bit of all the sent in fibre. So I had 116g of odds and ends of all sorts of fibre. Mmmmmm, Morag spun hers and plied it with her scrappy swap fibre from the first swap and ended up with yarn that was beautiful-ugly. Because the fibre was all so different I thought it best to diz it to an even thickness before spinning. I'm glad I did - now I have a basket full of smooth pencil roving all ready to spin.
And then there was Monday nights spinning, Monday night is Spin night in town, a group of us take turns to host spinning and we spin, and chat, and swap fibre and fibre stories and catch up on gossip. Monday I plied my Targhee from a Verb For Keeping Warm. It looked good when I plied it, but when I set it it puffed up and is now probably one of the most elastic yarns I've ever spun. Targhee is not a fibre type commonly available locally but it is one I will look out for.
You can tell that I'm still a beginner by the thick and thin plies in the photos .. but oddly the yarn girth (wpi) seems fairly consistent. Work is quietly frantic, as we hurdle towards the end of year show .. lots to do and lots that can't be done until the day/night of the show. Fingers crossed, break a leg and all that?
Take care, Na Stella
1 comment:
Break a leg! It'll all go well in the end (which isn't to say there won't be some hairy moments in the meantime, but that's what knitting is for, right?) :) The spinning looks absolutely wonderful; I've been meaning to get some Targhee from her to try (her Wensleydale was gorgeous, even though I ruined it, alas), but haven't gotten a chance to get a color I love. I can't wait to see how your little bits spin up together!
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