Happy New Year!

The new year is off to a great start! I have been on vacation for two weeks and have enjoyed every minute of it. The comfort of home, sleeping in, enjoying a hot cup of tea, knitting, reading, obligation free, has been wonderful. I don't want it to end... unfortunately, come Monday, I'll be back to work.

Have you set any goals for 2016? I know the big hype of new year's resolutions usually dies out after the first month or two, but I am hoping to stick to a few goals that I've set for myself. I don't think they're really anything so big that I won't accomplish them, but I have a tendency of focusing on one thing, such as knitting, and then everything else goes on the back burner, such as my spinning or weaving, and all the other hobbies I have. I would like to have an even spread and balance it all out.

So far, I've started the list off with finishing my knitted and woven goods. I don't like weaving in ends, especially if there's more than two. So, usually, if I don't want to immediately wear whatever it is that I've finished, I just put it in the "to finish" basket and come back to it later. Same thing with the woven items. The ends are woven in before it's off the loom, but if it has fringe that I need to twist, that also goes in the "to finish" basket.

Next was to make a list of the items I want to weave. I always have these great ideas, but then when it comes time to start a project, I can't think of anything. So, that's going to change this year, too.

And then there's the list for spinning. Between fiber festivals in Taos, NM, Salida, CO and the local shops, I have acquired a lot of fiber. Ten bins worth and a few really big bags full, too! This all needs to be spun up. I made a small dent in my stash during Tour de Fleece 2015 and also realized that I could spin a lot of fiber in a month. So, I'm going to go through my stash and start planning out what I'm going to spin for the year.

This list of mine is growing and I'm really excited about it... for now!

Snow in the Springtime

We aren't too far into spring here in Colorado, but the weather is always a surprise. From one minute to the next, you never know what's going to happen.

I was so excited when I looked out the window Thursday morning to find snow on the ground. Almost everything was white and the view across the Rocky Mountains was breathtaking. Most people here are tired of the snow by this time of year. They are ready to enjoy the warmth of the new season. I'm different, however. I never tire of the snow and love to wrap myself up in whatever I've knitted to stay nice and warm outside in the cold.

With this cold Thursday morning, I had the chance to wear my fingerless mitts and test them out. Every time I finish a project, I can't wait to wear it, feel the warmth and see if it really serves the purpose (if there is one) that I intended.

In this case, the four inch cuffs that I made on the fingerless mitts served their purpose. I walked outside in the wind with my new mitts and didn't feel a breeze of any kind go up into the sleeves of my coat. It was wonderful! I have never knit with Corriedale before and this fiber is so warm. I'm sure the density of the knitted fabric helped, too, but the Corriedale is such a wonderful fiber. It's soft, extremely warm, and made for a great project.

I'm glad I didn't have to wait until winter to wear them!

Fingerless Mitts

So I finally finished my fingerless mitts! Check them out...













You can see the colors pretty well in these photos. The pinks, blue, and green really stand out, along with the blue.

These colors really pop! I was hoping that they would not run together too much in the drum carder. I ran them through three times.






I managed to keep the cuffs four inches. I totally lucked out! I was worried that I was going to have to make them shorter and have to rip out everything and start over, but I managed to have enough!









So, what do you think?

I know I'm going to make another pair. I have some Polwarth/Silk in my fiber stash that I might spin up.

I am loving this!

Homework

My last class is this week and I'm almost done with my homework. I never thought that I would actually enjoy having homework, but tell me that I have to knit two cuffs (or anything for that matter) by next class, and I'll be on it!

I started cuff #2 last night after winding up the lovely ball of my handspun yesterday. It's looking good! I wasn't knitting as tight as I did the first one, so I had to start adjusting my tension a wee bit so that it will somewhat match. Usually I don't have an issue with my tension, but seeing that I wasn't the happiest person due to the talking back/argumentative teenager in my house, I was off and frustrated and managed to take it out on cuff #1.

According to the pattern that I'm loosely following, the cuff should be a minimum of three inches... I like them longer since my coat has larger sleeves that allow the cold air to flow right up my arm. I purposely made some fancy wrist warmers (initially they were ankle warmers) that tucked up into the sleeves and flared out over my hands to keep the wind from flowing in. They've been wonderful. I'm hoping I'll be able to wear the fingerless mitts without these wrist warmers, hence the extra inch.

So, I have probably an inch and a half done on cuff #2, with two and a half inches left...

Do you think I'll have it finished tonight?

Spin those samples

...and then start your project.

I picked up some fiber from Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins a while back. They started carrying a new line of fiber from a local dyer, MJ Yarns. It's an 80/20 blend of merino/silk and it spun up nicely. The color is called Cerulean Twilight. There are different hues of blues and green along with some hints of purple.

Since this is for a hat, I wanted the yarn to be nice and warm, so I spun it up woolen. It's a close to worsted weight yarn for the hat Karenin by Woolly Wormhead. I already started knitting the hat and it's looking good! I love how the color changes throughout the knitted fabric. The hat is going to be so pretty!

I've also been busy doing my homework for a Spin to Knit class that I am taking. We are learning the step by step process for spinning for a project. The project we're making are some fingerless mitts by Roxana Designs.

The first class was a blast! We practiced spinning woolen, figured out the number of plies we wanted for our mitts and determined the WPI. I decided make mine a two ply.

For colors, I picked out a bright blue, pink, purple, and green. I wanted the blue to be the main color with more pink and purple and then the green as an accent color in the mix. Once I picked them out, I ran them through the drum carder (note that the use of the drum carder was a first for me... I've seen them used in videos and in person at a fiber festival, but never used one). Can you say WOW?! Oh my, this was such a wonderful and exciting first for me! I had the best time running all of those pieces of roving through the drum carder. The blending that took place and just watching all of the colors come together so beautifully was so cool! I didn't think it would be that much fun, but it was such a treat! Now I want a drum carder, well, actually, I need a drum carder.

The end result was a beautiful batt that I spun up, plied, and drooled over during the entire process. The fiber prep made an immense difference when spinning the fiber. The carded fiber was so airy, it practically spun itself.

The first skein has already been knit up into a cuff, waiting to transform into a mitt. The second skein was plied and washed yesterday. I hung it up to dry last night, so it should be ready to go today so I can start knitting the second cuff.
 What do you think of these colors? I really like the way this skein turned out.

I can't wait to finish these fingerless mitts!

Spinning Away

It's been almost a year since I've posted anything... where does the time go? 

I started spinning in October. A friend of mine knew I wanted a spinning wheel and she knew someone who had one. I had no idea what I was getting. They sent me pictures and it had a sticker on the back of a red maple leaf. I Googled "Canadian spinning wheel" and low and behold, I was looking at a Lendrum spinning wheel. I've always seen people spinning on the traditional spinning wheels, not familiar with any of them. Like most people I talk to that are not familiar with spinning wheels, everyone thinks of the giant wheel from Sleeping Beauty and being pricked on the finger... well, that wasn't the case with this beauty. 

I brought it home and placed it in the middle of my living room. My only experience spinning has been on a drop spindle, a supported spindle, and a Navajo spindle. My new adventures in spinning was soon to begin.

I signed up for a beginner spinning class at one of my local yarn shops. That first day of class, when we practiced treadling clockwise, and then counterclockwise, developing a rhythm so serene. The hum of the whorl was so soothing. When the fiber was added to the equation, it got a little tricky... I suddenly felt like I was learning how to drive. 

Do you recall those first days behind the wheel? I learned how to drive a stick shift. My mom had me sit in the car, which was off, and practice shifting from first gear and up, pushing the clutch in and out so I could become familiar with all of the gears. We weren't going anywhere. It was just practice and it felt fine, just like treadling felt fine. Well, then adding the fiber was like putting the car in motion and driving. You feel so uncoordinated. I'm spinning the fiber, drafting it out nicely and then I'm treadling so fast, I'm getting all this twist in my yarn and I don't know what to do. The tension was too loose on the wheel and the yarn wouldn't wind onto the bobbin fast enough, and I am still treadling... and treadling... and then my yarn breaks. I felt out of control! I had the drafting of the fiber down, but I didn't have that spinning rhythm going, not yet anyway. That took some practice, just like driving. 

After sitting at the spinning wheel every night after work, and what seemed like all day and all night on weekends, I finally figured out what I was doing and I was loving it! I found a new love! 

These past few months, I have been busy spinning, knitting, reading, drawing, and enjoying myself. I took a spinning 2 class, which was a great experience. I like to spin a lace weight yarn and this class challenged me so that I could spin thicker yarn. I learned about the scotch tension on my wheel and how sometimes you do want to just shove the fiber into the orifice to make those big and fluffy yarns! Then, since I love to knit anything lace, I also took a spinning fine lace class. I have knit with fine lace yarn, specifically gossamer, and never thought of how it's spun, but there I was, sitting at my wheel, spinning a very fine gossamer yarn. 

Being part of the knitting world, I have met so many wonderful people. All of us seem to be "related" because of that knitting link. I always seem to make a new friend when I am in a yarn shop and now that I am spinning, I have met even more wonderful people. 

So what's are you spinning on your wheel? Is it for a project, or just for fun?

Hello again...

Wow! It's already March and I somehow missed February. How is it that the month went by so fast?

I can say that some of my WIPs turned into some FOs! It's such a joy to actually complete a project. I start so many new projects because it's just so much fun that pretty soon I end up with a full bag of new projects and nothing is complete. Or, I finish them, but I just have to weave in the ends and because I am not a fan of weaving in ends, they sit, waiting to be finished.

One of my favorite things to knit are shawls. I completed two during February, which was amazing, considering how busy I was with work.

February was a wonderful month though. We had a lot of snow, which we haven't had much of the past few years or so. I love waking up in the morning and seeing everything covered in snow. I came home early from work last week due to the snow. I have a long commute and I didn't want to get stuck in traffic, so I boogied out early. When I pulled onto my street, the sun was shining bright and it was snowing. I can't recall any cloud, but I was in such awe by the snow gently falling from the sky. It was coming down so slowly and sparkled as it was falling. It was such a view. It looked like slivers of diamonds falling from the sky. Such a beautiful sight!