Knitting binge

I’ve been doing a lot of knitting of baby garments, and this post is full of them.
First I have a baby earflap hat that I knit using some small lengths of yarn that I spun as experiments.

Next is a pair of elf style booties from flint knits, knit with Knit Picks Wool of the Andes.

And finally I’m in the middle of a sweater. I’m knitting this with two of my handspun yarns, and striping with groups of four rows.

I’m really happy with how it is coming out and can’t wait to finish it. This is my first sweater. I wanted to make one for myself, but adult sized sweaters seem so overwhelming. Baby sweaters seem much more managable, and I’m happy I get to make one now.

Silk noil experiment

I have had a bag of silk noil around since I first started spinning. I generally use it to mix in with other fibers to give a little texture, or additional color depth. I decided I wanted to do a little experimenting with it in other ways, so I core spun some around a cotton crochet thread core. I started with small fluffs of the silk noil.

Then I carded it up into small rolags with a couple of cat brushes that I only use for fiber preparation. After that I spun it around the cotton core.

Then I dyed it a variagated green by putting the whole skein into a crock pot full of green dye and pulling a few inches out every 20 minutes or so. One end was fairly light green, and the other end darker, but not as dark as I would have liked. Here it is in a ball:

I’m currently knitting it alongside some Knitpicks Worsted Wool of the Andes in Coal using

getting back to spinning

Late last year I packed up all of my spinning supplies and fibers in hopes that we would soon be moving. Well, months and months later, we finally have started moving. So, this means I can start spinning again soon, yay!! I did spin up some of those fibers from homestead, but I don’t have the pictures right now, because of the moving. As soon as things calm down a bit I’ll get those up too.

more fibers!

I received a box of animal friendly fibers from http://www.homesteadwoolandgiftfarm.com today. I can’t wait to spin them up. I plan on dyeing some of those coopworth locks in bright colors to blend with the alpaca once it is washed.

There is one pound of unwashed suri alpaca, 4 ounces of a mix of merino cross that has been dyed green, and 8 ounces of washed coopworth wool some of which is still in locks! On the left of the bag of alpaca is a small amount of alpaca that I washed to show what color it will be once it is cleaned.

Unfortunately this weekend has been very busy, and will be busy tomorrow too (husband’s grandfather’s 80th birthday), so I might not get to actually make anything for a few days 😦

my attempt at rocking the 80s

I was born in the 80s, so I feel a bit of nostalgia when I think about crazy and clashing neon colors. This yarn was my attempt of capturing that clash and trying to make it work. I started out with the pink and green fibers that I dyed last week. They were superwash merino and tussah silk. I began by splitting the roving in half, so that I could make a two ply yarn, then spun each half on separate bobbins. I spun the roving in long stripes of color, but I did not have even amounts of each. I had about three times as much green as I did pink.

Then I plied the two together for clashy greatness.

The result was approximately 170 yards of neon 80s inspired yarn weighing in just under three ounces.