Successful Tour!

Today marks the end of the Tour de Fleece. I finished a 2 ply fractal spin today. I'm very happy with it. Its called Bifrost - a polwarth wool by etsy seller Kelpie Fibers. I love how happy this yarn is. I'm not sure what I'll make out of it, but I'm leaning towards mittens.

And here is a group photo of all the yarns spun during the tour. I'm very happy with the lot of them. I didn't spin as much as I would have liked but things like work kept getting in the way. But work I must, if I want to buy fiber to spin that is.

I didn't really set any concrete goals for myself - other than play with the art yarns a bit. I did manage to spin 3 different art yarns. The first one is the beehives that I already blogged about. I also did a whole Loop! bullseye bump as a super coil.

My bobbin wasn't large enough to hold the whole skein so I thread plied the leftovers. I like that one too!

Overall, I'm happy with my yarns. Look for them in upcoming posts as all of them are screaming to be knit or woven right away!

Afflicted

I've been bitten by the bug that seems to have been going around the knitting community. Yes, I'm talking about the Colour Affection Shawl





The yarn harlot blogged about it. Diane of Knitabulls podcast spoke of it. And its been consistantly in the top 20 of Ravelry's 'Hot Right Now' pattern list since ...well, I'm not sure, but I'd be willing to bet since it was written. Veera V is an established pattern writer. This particular shawl has been well over 4 THOUSAND times on Ravelry!!

Well, who am I to resist. I think its the endless possibilities of colour combos that make this such an appealing knit. I started knitting this on my vacation to Niagara Falls. Kev hand wound the yarn for me. I purchased the three skeins of Mad tosh sock from Lettuce Knits in Toronto.






I thoroughly enjoyed knitting this. There is something soothing about garter stitch stripes. I'm not sure that I will keep this shawl for myself however. I did notice one thing about it when I had just about finished it. The colours, the stripes - the shawl looked very similar to my Daybreak. I love wearing shawls in the winter, but I'm not sure that I need two stripey shawls in the nearly identical blue and yellow colours.

Tour de Fleece!

This is the fourth year that I'll be participating in the Tour de Fleece. This annual event has really helped to improve my spinning by leaps and bounds. Its gotten so that I associate summer with spinning now. I just love it!


I started team Newfoundland and Labrador, and I am the captain! Go me! Lol. I'm happy that spinning is really picking up in this province. We have about a dozen or so participants on our team. I'm also spinning for team Loop (my new favorite etsy store!). One of my goals is to spin through some of my Loop stash. I have 5 of her bumps in my stash and they are all bigger than 5 oz. I also want to try a few art yarn techniques.


I tried spinning some coils/beehives. They actually turned out pretty good as I was spinning them, but when they were pulled through the orifice and onto the bobbin, they sort of came apart. I followed the technique as outlined in the book Spin Art.


So I think my problem is that my orifice is too small. Schact sells a bulky flyer for the sidekick wheel with a larger orifice for the purpose of spinning bulkier art yarns. This is something I may have to invest in.


Here is a close up of some of the neater coils. This was so much fun to spin and its definitely something I'll be trying again. I think next time I will try plying it with a handspun single instead of a commercial yarn. I'm not sure that I like the contrasting colours.

Prior to the tour I finished up spinning half of my cupcake fibers sock kit. Here is the resulting skein. My first official three ply! I say first official because I have spun chain plied yarns which is technically a three ply yarn but not really considered a true three ply yarn since all three plies of the chain ply come from the one single ply. Understand? I'm not sure I do, and I'm a spinner. Lol.

I cannot get through a Tour without being inspired by the many spindle spinners over on Ravelry. I'm always amazed at what people can accomplish on such a simple tour. I had to break out my spindles and give it a whirl. Literally. Lol. Here is a photo of Spencer...looking unbelievably worried. He is such a little neurotic guy. I'd love to know what he is thinking sometime.

And the final photo is of my Loop batt that I've spun so far. I'm not sure what I'll do with this one, but right now I'm leaning towards chain plying it to preserve the colours. This one is called 'Kaleidoscope Eyes' and is a repeatable colourway. This means that lots of other people have this exact same colour. The good thing about this is, that its very easy to get inspired by project photos of this stuff knit up on Ravelry. Diane of Knitabulls podcast fame is currently knitting a gorgeous shawlette called Ruby Slippers in this colourway. I'm tempted to do the exact same thing! But who knows when and where inspiration will strike. I do know this.....all of my Loop batts that I've spun up are currently knit up. I think that says something about this fiber. It doesn't languish in the stash at all. It demands to be seen!

Summer Time!

Summer time around here means birthdays! Starting on June 10th with Kev's. Next up was Nat's on the 17th. And today is Cooper's birthday. One year old already. Isn't he awesome!!! It is kind of surreal how fast this past year went. I cannot tell you what a joy this little boy is. I've been around a lot of babies in my time, but I don't know if I've even seen a happier more content little boy. And he even started walking on Kevin's birthday.


It was so nice, we were out in the back yard with the kids. We put Cooper on the ground (He's been standing on his own for quite some time now) and he just walks over to a soccer ball and tries to KICK IT!!!





Here is a photo of the cake that I made for Kevin. Simple enough, but it looks impressive. There are about 10 kit kat bars on the exterior of that cake and 5 packages of smarties in the center. I probably could have done with more smarties on the center, but it was sweet enough as it was. Blair asked for a cake like this for his birthday too. Which isn't too far away - but before Blair's birthday is Morgan's and after Blair's birthday is Aimee's. See.....the endless parade of birthdays.











And speaking of Blair - I wanted to pummel him just a little when he asked the day before Nat's birthday if I would make her a cake. It was too hot in the house to do any baking, so I went and bought a pre-made angel food cake and came up with this!!! It turned out really well - not too much effort at all.























And lest you all think that I've retired my needles for the summer, fear not. I've been knitting. Lots of shawls again.











The first shawl is handspun from one of my Loop batts. I made this for Charlotte - one of the technicians at the store who just recently moved away. Charlotte has always appreciated my work and always oohs and ahhs appropriately over the handspun, so she was deemed worthy of receiving such a gift.











And the final photo is proof that I've jumped on the band wagon that is the Color Affection shawl. I think the appealing part of this shawl is the picking of the three colours. It is so fun to combine all the different colours to see what the shawl will look like. This one is made of madtosh sock. Its my first time knitting with this yarn and I must say that I'm not disappointed. I love the tight twist on this yarn and colours are gorgeous. Not surprising - the yarn would make great socks!

Bursting at the Seams!

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. Kev and I drove to Sherbrooke for Amy's convocation. It's hard to believe that she is finished her degree. Her time in Quebec has been wonderful. I'm going to miss going to Lennoxville/Sherbrooke. I can only imagine how she must be feeling. Here is a photo of the two of us on convocation day. It was such a great day. The weather was great, even the honorary doctorate speakers were awesome. We had such a great time. I am so proud of my daughter - I'm just about bursting at the seams! I had hoped to wear my orchid thief shawlette to the convocation. It would have matched my dress perfectly. But alas, I couldn't pull it together. I had plenty of time to finish it - but knitting lace while driving on a dirt road - not ideal lace knitting conditions! I did finish it when I got home and I couldn't be more pleased. Well, maybe I'd be more pleased if I actually had enough yarn to finish the bind off - but, oh well! I had to bind off in the fingering weight version of the Tanis Fiberarts yarn. I think this is my first full sized, lace weight shawl. It sits so nicely on my shoulders. Here it is on my kitchen table. Its quite large. And of course no vacation would be complete without souvenir yarn. I managed to fit in a quick visit to Lettuce Knit in Toronto where I bought (amongst other things) this gorgeous Tanis Fiber Arts yarn. I just love her colours so much! And I visited a spinning supply shop called the Fiber Garden in Jordan Station which isn't too far from Niagara Falls. I bought some lovely batts (er...amongst other things) while I was there. I can't wait to spin this stuff up!!

Two Wrongs Make a Right

I've never believed that two wrongs make a right. I'm not sure where that expression came from, but it always felt kind of dumb. Until now that is. I just finished (finally) my Rocky Coast Cardigan. And it turned out perfectly! But I think the reason it did so, is because of 'Two Wrongs'. Both 'Wrongs' happened at the beginning of knitting this sweater, and I kind of liked how it looked, so I just went with it. The first wrong was casting on for the wrong size. Initially, I cast on for my bust size and knit several inches. Then I check out the finished objects on Ravelry and found that since this pattern is meant to be worn with several inches of positive ease, you should cast on for a size that is several inches larger than your bust size. Rather than tink back, I decided to keep the cast on as I originally had done, but increase up to the size to give me the easement I wanted. This turned out to be perfect because the other thing that I read about the FOs was that the neckline tended to run large and hence slipped off people's shoulders. The second wrong, was miss crossing my cables. My cables are lined up - snake like - meandering down the length of the garment. I knew I had made a mistake right from the get go, but I kind of liked it and decided to keep going. Since the yarn I chose is sort of self striping these cable lines help to break up the self striping. So, here it is. I love it. The yarn is Cascade Eco Duo - a blend of wool and alpaca. Its a single and its oh so soft and squishy.

I'm sure it'll pill like nobody's business, but I don't really care. I have a good sweater shaver. I predict this sweater will get lots of wear. It is so comfy and the amount of ease is perfect. Its not falling off my shoulders. And I like the little clasp that I've used too.

So, in this case, I think two wrongs did make a right....well, a right sweater in any case. Next up....I've got some Madelinetosh chunky I've been dieing to try!!

Some Good Mail

I got both of these things in the mail recently and I couldn't help but share them. First up, some fiber. I love this so much. This fiber is prepared for spinning socks. I think the seller is brilliant. Its from etsy seller Cupcake Fiber Company. Notice that there are six batts of fiber. 3 plies for each sock for a total of 6 batts. All the weighing work is done for you. See! Brilliant!! And not only that....its superwash BFL so no felting of the socks aaaannnd....there is 12% nylon in the batts for added strength so the socks won't wear out. Genius! I love them so much. I've already started spinning this stuff up and it is great. Batts by nature is a woolen prep, but sock wear better if spun worsted, so I'm spinning worsted. The resulting yarn will not be a true worsted spun yarn because of the fiber prep, but I'm spinning it hard and tight. I'm hoping for some decent yardage since I don't want anklets. I'm aiming for a fingering weight yarn. We'll see. I've never spun yarn for socks before, and I realize a lot of special consideration has to be given to it, due to the hard wearing nature of socks - I think Cupcake Fibers takes care of a lot of it. Plus....its so darned cute!! Go check out her store. She usually has lots of great stuff....sometimes gradients even!

And speaking of gradients....look at this! Its from etsy seller Colorshift Yarns. She does such beautiful work. The change in colour from one skein to the next is very slight and the result is so gradual. I'm crazy about gradations lately. I immediately bought a pattern called Aranami Shawl to showcase this beautiful yarn. But now, I'm worried about yardage. Most FOs on Ravelry have used 500-600 yards and my colorshift set is 480 yards only. So, I'll have to either alter the pattern or come up with more yarn. Not sure what I'll do yet. I'm not casting on until I get something off the needles.