Rip, rip, rip

Based on the idea behind Lynnell’s new business, Rebound Yarn Rescue, I dragged my dear husband off to Value Village to find a sweater worth ripping and reknitting. We found a size large lambswool/angora blend baby pink sweater in a light worsted weight yarn that shows some promise. I have ripped most of it out, skeined it, and kettle-dyed it a variegated cerulean blue. The swatch I knitted up shows real promise. Pictures to come.

The shame of Tencel

Spinning Blue-Faced Leicester together with Tencel is more difficult than anticipated. First, the Tencel does not draft smoothly while the Leicester does, resulting in far more slubs than I'd care to admit. Secondly, I'm trying to spin a two-ply bulky yarn, which requires giant, hurking singles the likes of which I haven't spun since I switched from a hand spindle to a spinning wheel. For comparison, here is about my average single, waiting to be Navajo-plied into a self-striping sock yarn:


Here, on the other hand, is the Leicester:


I figure I'm spinning about 8 WPI at the moment, plus slubs. The Leicester is so plump and bouncy that I hate to ply the life out of it later, so I'm sticking with my two-ply bulky, though it causes me such anguish. Here was the beautiful newly-dyed wool before I started trying to blend it with the Tencel:


Here are the little pre-drafted cheeses, waiting to be spun:


Poor little cheeses...they don't know what's in store for them. Oh well. To clear my mind of their tragic destiny, I'm going to pause on this project and spin up the hand-dyed silk that came today from E-bay. More pics to come.

Tiny, tiny needles

Crayons sock #1 is finished, and the toe is completed on # 2. I can hardly believe that I’ve knitted one object at this gauge (I’m knitting on Bryspun size 2’s), much less willingly cast on another. I still refuse to knit large objects on anything smaller than 6’s, though. All those Faire Isle sweaters that trip so beautifully off of other people’s Size 3 Addi Turbos will, alas, never grace my closet.

Speaking of Addi Turbos, I bought my first pair on Saturday at the Weaving Works in Seattle. It was their annual Mothers’ day sale, and I was shopping for my mother. For her, I bought 8 oz. of natural wool/rayon boucle, then rainbow-dyed it silver, Nile green, and sky blue. It came out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself. For myself, I dyed my 18 oz. of Blue-Faced Leicester roving in greys, blues, violets, and greens of varying strengths to blend with some hand-dyed purple/green/gold tussah sliver I got off E-bay last week, and some dark gray Tencel I bought in a spinning/knitting store in Snohomish. Since I have no carder or combs, it’s going to have to be blended completely through careful pre-drafting. I’ll tell you how it goes, but I must admit I’m dubious.

Tonight I’m going to try to figure out how to put some pictures in this thing so it’s more interesting, and I’m going to try to put myself on some web-rings so I get some traffic going. I don’t even want to think about putting a counter up. It’s way too depressing.

First day

Well, I'm finally giving in and creating a knitting/spinning/fiberarts blog. Why? Because I'm weak, and can't bear the thought of not being in on the party. We'll see how long it lasts. I theorize that if I can figure out enough HTML to post pictures and such the way I like them, I'll keep doing this. If not, it will linger in cyberspace, unupdated and unsought, just like most of the weblogs out there. Kind of like the 5+ knitting projects I have on the needles right now. Hmmm...do I really have more than 5 projects on the needles? I should go knit something...