First, our beach walk today. It didn't happen. This was not our fault. We tried valiantly to get to the beach after eating our bagels, but there was a marathon being run up the 101, which runs parallel to the beach--you can see the ocean for most of it. Therefore, no cars were allowed on or over the road, and foot traffic seemed highly discouraged too. We would've been run over:
The beach is literally one block to the right of the photo.So, we watched the crazy people running for a bit, and entertained ourselves by watching this little guy.
He was SO. CUTE.He really seemed happy to be there. Plus, he had pantaloons. Completely painfully adorable.
On the fiber front, I got loads done. Ok, it was almost all on the same project, and some of this yarn is from last weekend. But that's beside the point!
I've been calling this the Scarf of Doom. I'm making it for an old friend to go with an anime character costume (I think it's anime...). It's not so bad, except that it's 8 feet of seed stitch, because I wanted it to be easy and reversible.
doooooooooooooom!As you can see, I'm nearly done. Well, relatively nearly done. It still needs 10" fringes on either end once I finish the knitting. I sped up the knitting ever so slightly by knitting into the back loop for every knit stitch because that doesn't require me to change the position of my needle from purling. The yarn is Knitpicks Palette (fingering weight) held triple on US9s so I could do the fades required to match the character's scarf. I think they came out pretty well, though I do wish I had the ability/space/know-how/equipment to have dyed it.
Remember this yarn from last week?
still no measurements because I still haven't set the twist!
Though the fuzzy yarn I spun the black merino with has been discontinued, I found a store in NJ with relatively good stock, and bought them out of this color and also got some in HOT pinks and lovely leafy greens. I think they'll look marvelous!
I also spun this yarn last weekend, as I figured why not do both of the black merino singles at the same time?
the commercial yarn for this one was MUCH longer, hence the size disparity
I don't know how I feel about the bright colors, but Big Man loves this one. If it sells, maybe I'll get some more of this yarn. I haven't set the twist on this one either (surprised?), so no specs right now.
After knitting on the Scarf of Doom till 6PM last night, I decided I'd do some spinning. Of course I didn't do any of the spinning I need to do. But I still spun!
Despite the terrible photo, the colors are quite true.
Please excuse the crappiness of the photo. The sun came out for a single shot today, and it was the Scarf of Doom that felt its rays. The roving was BFL in colorway Artemis from Ginny over at Fat Cat Knits. It was spun thin and Navajo plied to about 9-11 wraps per inch. I believe that's aran-ish weight?
This was the first time I've spun with BFL, and man was I surprised at the staple length! It's probably twice that of the merino I usually use, and while I definitely enjoyed it, it gave me fits till I got used to it! I have some more of Ginny's BFL in Patina and I'm definitely looking forward to spinning it!
Finally, I used the BFL as a sort of practice to see how even I could spin. The answer is not as even as I'd like. I want to spin these rovings
from Fat Cat Knits, merino, L to R:
Janine, Sept monthly club, Blueberry Pie, Sept monthly club, and Janine
solid roving is commercially dyed merino, color lilac
into yarn for this shawl (sorry for the huge picture)
picture borrowed from Flickr, cause I'm too lazy to go get my copy of Spin-Off to scan
I don't know yet how the yarns will be arranged. I thought I would do them in random rows, but I really like the striping in the example shawl. Each of the individual rovings shown in the photo are 4oz, and I have 16oz of the lilac. I plan to spin each 4oz roving all at once because I seem to have bad luck with loss of sproinginess (technical term: energy, I think) when I let singles sit for any length of time (even just a week). I did the 4oz BFL last night in just a couple of hours, and I hope the merino will be as quick. Of course, I won't necessarily be getting to this project anytime in the next month! But I'll keep you posted as I do work on it.
Not as exciting, but just before writing this entry I sorted alllllllll my receipts and sales for last year (they were just in a box or on Etsy!), and am ready for the accountant. Aren't you proud of me, my accountant Seester? That said, I've been at this doggone computer for approximately 10 hours now, and I'm going to go knit!
Remember this yarn from last week?
still no measurements because I still haven't set the twist!Though the fuzzy yarn I spun the black merino with has been discontinued, I found a store in NJ with relatively good stock, and bought them out of this color and also got some in HOT pinks and lovely leafy greens. I think they'll look marvelous!
I also spun this yarn last weekend, as I figured why not do both of the black merino singles at the same time?
the commercial yarn for this one was MUCH longer, hence the size disparityI don't know how I feel about the bright colors, but Big Man loves this one. If it sells, maybe I'll get some more of this yarn. I haven't set the twist on this one either (surprised?), so no specs right now.
After knitting on the Scarf of Doom till 6PM last night, I decided I'd do some spinning. Of course I didn't do any of the spinning I need to do. But I still spun!
Despite the terrible photo, the colors are quite true.Please excuse the crappiness of the photo. The sun came out for a single shot today, and it was the Scarf of Doom that felt its rays. The roving was BFL in colorway Artemis from Ginny over at Fat Cat Knits. It was spun thin and Navajo plied to about 9-11 wraps per inch. I believe that's aran-ish weight?
This was the first time I've spun with BFL, and man was I surprised at the staple length! It's probably twice that of the merino I usually use, and while I definitely enjoyed it, it gave me fits till I got used to it! I have some more of Ginny's BFL in Patina and I'm definitely looking forward to spinning it!
Finally, I used the BFL as a sort of practice to see how even I could spin. The answer is not as even as I'd like. I want to spin these rovings
from Fat Cat Knits, merino, L to R:Janine, Sept monthly club, Blueberry Pie, Sept monthly club, and Janine
solid roving is commercially dyed merino, color lilac
into yarn for this shawl (sorry for the huge picture)
picture borrowed from Flickr, cause I'm too lazy to go get my copy of Spin-Off to scanI don't know yet how the yarns will be arranged. I thought I would do them in random rows, but I really like the striping in the example shawl. Each of the individual rovings shown in the photo are 4oz, and I have 16oz of the lilac. I plan to spin each 4oz roving all at once because I seem to have bad luck with loss of sproinginess (technical term: energy, I think) when I let singles sit for any length of time (even just a week). I did the 4oz BFL last night in just a couple of hours, and I hope the merino will be as quick. Of course, I won't necessarily be getting to this project anytime in the next month! But I'll keep you posted as I do work on it.
Not as exciting, but just before writing this entry I sorted alllllllll my receipts and sales for last year (they were just in a box or on Etsy!), and am ready for the accountant. Aren't you proud of me, my accountant Seester? That said, I've been at this doggone computer for approximately 10 hours now, and I'm going to go knit!
1 comment:
I love the BFL yarn you spun. It's lovely. I've been eyeing that shawl, too. The article calls for a bulky singles yarn and I can't seem to spin either one. Unless I concentrate constantly on my treadle speed, I end up putting too much twist in for it to stay a singles. Any advice?
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