A whole lot more spindling

Another weekend, another post. Seems I only update my blog at the weekends at the moment, but that's ok because I've also been taking photos this weekend. Oh and I've also been sanding my fingers, which hurt and is making typing difficult, but it's all in a good cause as I've been making whorls for resin spindles!

So, this past week I have been mostly spinning, packing things and taking them to the post office, and then doing more spinning. You probably don't want to know the details of the packing part (it's boring, really), but the spinning bit's interesting.

Here's my most recent FO, some spindled yarn.

It's a navajo-plied blend of English wool top, which started out looking like this...

Originally I named to colourway 'Meh', as it was the result of me plonking down a bunch of leftover dyes on some leftover fibre and I wasn't sure it would turn out well. But I'm very pleased with the yarn. It ended up being 210 metres long, and about 12wpi (my yarn gauge said 14, but I think I squooshed up the yarn too tightly). It was lots of fun to spin, the wool drafted really easily and made for some great mindless tv spinning. The Navajo plying wasn't accompanied by tv though, as I went really slowly and carefully to avoid tangling the yarn. It's not the softest of yarns, but that doesn't matter as I'm planning to make a bag from it, so not-so-soft is good.

And here's another thing I made this week, a phone cosy:

I'd made a bunch of batts for the shop from leftover scraps of fibre. It seemed rude not to test one of them out, so I spun some yarn (on a spindle of course!)...

Then I improvised a pattern and knitted it up into the phone cosy above. It only took around 15 metres of yarn, so I still have around 10-15 metres left, enough to make another one as a gift. My phone is now happy and toasty-warm as the yarn's very soft. If only I could make clothes for myself so quickly!

I've also been spinning some lovely alpaca fibre from Spindlefrog, on a new Butterflygirl Designs spindle which arrived with me this week... or was it last week, I can't recall. Anyway, it's a lovely spindle, and the fibre is wonderful, the colours are just gorgeous.

I'm spinning a heavy laceweight yarn with it, with the intention that it'll eventually become a lacy knitted shawl or scarf.

And finally, here's my most recently started project. It's some more spindling, this time for the Quarterly Challenge organised by the Spindlers Group on Ravelry. I'm using one of my resin spindles to spin this superwash merino top (from Violetgreen Yarns)...

Into some fine singles that will eventually become navajo plied sock yarn...

Can you tell I'm a fan of navajo plying at the moment?! The challenge is to spin 200 or more yards of yarn by the end of November, I'm hoping that I have enough fibre to make 200 yards. I think I will, as I have over 100grams of it, just need to make sure I spin it thinly enough!

Ravelympics - First Event Completed

I mentioned a while back that I'd entered the Ravelympics didn't I? For those who aren't in the know, the Ravelympics is an event hosted by Ravelry (my favourite site ever), where participants aim to complete one, or more, knitting or spinning projects during the Beijing Olympics. I've entered two projects into the 'Handspun Heptathlon', a Morning Surf Scarf, knitted from some handspun yarn I made during the Tour de Fleece, and I'm spinning some merino/silk laceweight yarn on my drop spindle.

Last night I finished the Morning Surf Scarf, finished blocking it this morning and here it is!

Isn't it being nicely modelled by the tree? Fortunately, this will be the one and only time the tree gets to wear it, as I'm keeping this for myself, for neck-warmy goodness in the autumn.

I can thoroughly recommend the pattern, it was really quick to knit and my 225 metres of precious handspun yarn went a long way, the scarf's 140cm long and 20cm wide.

Now my other project is not nearly as close to being finished. But I guess I have set myself quite a challenge. I want to turn this 100gram merino/silk roving, which I dyed in 'wild rose' colours...

...into a two-ply laceweight yarn, spun on a feather-weight lace spindle. I'm doing ok, I'm about halfway through it at the moment. This was the spindle shortly before I wound the singles off and started another lot.

I've got two weeks left to finish spinning and plying, so I've got plenty of time to get it finished before then. Unfortunately, I'm rapidly getting bored with spinning laceweight. It's fiddly and the colours of the roving are too pale to keep me interested. I'm sure it will make a lovely yarn, but I need to keep myself motivated to finish somehow. Perhaps the right knitting pattern would encourage me. I reckon I'll end up with 200-300 metres of the yarn, maybe a bit more, and I'd like to make a lacy scarf or shawlette with it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Ravelry Progress Bars?

How did they get there? Some geek with too much time on their hands must have put them in. Or maybe it was me, with a big lot of cutting and pasting from the techie discussion threads on Ravelry (it's easy cos they explain there exactly how to do it). They look pretty good though. Have I said before how much I love Ravelry?

By the way, those treefrog socks are actually finished now - I just haven't got around to taking photos of them. Be assured I'll post pics here too - I don't want to discriminate against any Ravelry-less readers.

And the Wicked sweater may actually be completed by the end of this weekend, as I've finally finished the first sleeve and have made good progress on the second. The body's a bit short still, but it looks as though I'll have plenty of yarn left to add to that once I've done the sleeves. I still love the handspun yarn I'm using for it - the more I work with it, the more the angora fibre in it blooms, it's going to be so cuddly soft to wear. Which means I'll have to go around hugging people to demonstrate :)

Yay, a blog!

My first post, hurrah! I thought since I've been spending so much time setting up my projects on Ravelry, it's about time I have a blog to journal my crafty progress.

I'm currently knitting an alpaca cardigan with yarn that my brother brought me back from his epic journey to Peru. It's a skinny four ply baby alpaca yarn, which is taking ages to knit up, but it's so soft and huggable that I'll forgive it for being so skinny. Actually, the alpaca-ey softness keeps calling to me, and I can't keep away from the stuff, so in a little over a week I've finished the back of the cardigan, and half of the left front. Being a left-handed knitter, who is often confused by written patterns, I might be knitting the right front. I guess I'll find out when I've finished it...

This is the completed back:


And here's the left (or right) front, in progress:


The squiggly blue bits are ruffles, they took ages to cast on, there were something like 450 stitches for the back. And when I'd almost finished casting on for the back my circular Boye interchangeable needle came undone and I lost about half of the stitches. But that's another story. Suffice it to say I yelled a lot that day. Current progress is, however, good.