Yikes!

I've been busy since my last post. To summarize:

• Projects were finished, both in knitting and spinning, but photos were not taken and Ravelry was not updated


• Stash was added to, but mostly reduced


• Books were read


• Movies were watched


• A house was left to become very, very untidy


• Work was at times overwhelming


• Another spinning wheel followed me home

I'll try to elaborate soon. I'd like to get my Ravelry projects updated, which means uploading to Flickr, which means tracking down FOs and taking pictures.

Sometimes it's nice to just create and not worry about the documentation, but that comes back to bite you in the butt later - like when you want to knit another of those or spin that way again or dye some more of this. My butt has definitely got a few teeth marks right now.

Tour de Fleece 2009: Stage 21

Another successful Tour de Fleece has come and gone. I kicked butt on my goal of stashbusting this year. Here are the fruits of my labor:



On the left, two bobbins. The really packed one has 6 different fibers, all of which I had in small quantities. This bobbin is for practice with chain-plying.

The other bobbin contains a singles from one of my Phat Fiber boxes (February, I think). This is my test bobbin for making a Peruvian plying ball. I'm pretty excited about this technique because it uses up the entire singles and there's no waste. With my new sliding hook flyer, I can pack a lot more on one bobbin. I might even be able to fit a whole 4-ounce braid on a single bobbin if I use collars. Then make a center-pull ball, free up the bobbin for another project, set the ball in the basket for plying later...genius.

Next is the yarn I made from the January/February All Spun Up spinalong fiber. I absolutely love it. That was my first roving with alpaca and boy oh boy did I enjoy the alpaca content. It made the roving so smooth to draft that I whipped through this UFO in record time. I even wondered why I set it aside in the first place, it was that delightful. The end result is 220 yards of my best work to date, nice and even and beautiful worsted-weight yarn.

The remaining skeins are from the Lorna's Laces Wool Top I bought last year. The colorway is "Ashburn." I started this project after the Tour last year and have been working on it in between other things since then. I ended up with about 620 yards, but the thickness of the yarn varies between fingering (some of my later spinning/plying) to worsted (some of my early effort). I will probably never knit this - at least not anytime soon - because I'm so tired of the colors. It's nice to keep around, though, because it shows in one project my progress from novice to advanced beginner.

Moving on, I started a BFL roving last night that was dyed by Kitchen Sink Dyeworks. It's a lovely combination of light grey, bright yellowy green, and pale blue. It's the closest thing to yellow I had in my stash!

Tour de France KAL/CAL 2009: Stages 17-18

Stupid orange stripe that just won't end!

Tour de Fleece 2009: Stages 16-18

I've been knocking out my stash of small amounts. So far I've spun up a sample from Enchanted Knoll, the remains of my Sakina Needles "Blood Orange" BFL, two batts from Susan (both lovely blues) and the white roving that came in a learn-to-spin kit from the class I took at ReBelle. I'm still working on the orange from that kit, and then I have one of the bigger samples from an old Phat Fiber box. I'm just starting the next bit after I run out, so the bobbin has 5 different colors/fibers on it now.

The plan is to practice chain-plying and make a crazy yarn out of this thing. I might stop when I get to the Phat Fiber sample, since it's a pretty large one, and begin that on its own bobbin. I'd like to try plying it from the inside and the outside of a center-pull ball. I got that idea from Abby's Yarn. Abby Franquemont is my spinning hero, and I'm so excited to be taking a class from her at The Woolery in September!

Tour de France KAL/CAL 2009: Stage 16

Still chugging along on the orange stripe. I'm using the second ball of orange now, so I'm on the downhill side of this color.

Tour de France KAL/CAL 2009: Stage 15

I did about 6 or 8 rounds of orange tonight while I listened to more Sookie Stackhouse. I'm steadily plodding along.

Tour de Fleece 2009: Stage 15

I finished the Ashburn! I finished the Ashburn! I finished the Ashburn!

Here's the last bit of it:



I chain-plied the leftover singles to make the little ball of yarn.

Here's the whole pile of Ashburn: