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The other dy I finished spinning the orange sparkly fiber I got at the Uniquities Fiber Festival. It was a super fun, fast spin, and I am thrilled with the resulting yarn.
Fiber: Avalon Farms Targee/Mohair/Glitz in Avebury Circle, 4 oz.
Yardage: 208 yards
Weight: DKish
I spun the singles on my .9 oz KnotMyDayJob spindle and plied with my big ass maple spindle. It’s my plying spindle. I currently only have three usable spindles (those two and my supported; my Schatt Hi-Lo had a bit of an accident) which seems like not enough, but then I don’t usually do more than one spinning project at once (though I am working on support spindling some merino which I started after I started the Avalon Farms).
I have basically no idea what I’m going to make with this yarn. I love it and it’s super squooshy and springy but it’s not the softest. My singles were a bit overspun and I wouldn’t want the yarn next to my neck. I’m thinking hat for right now, but maybe not. Maybe it’ll just be pretty and sit in my stash. : )
So remember how I bought that supported spindle from the Uniquities Fiber Market? I have been practicing my butt off and I’ve finally got the hang of it. It took a couple weeks and some serious frustration, but I’ve found the key: a loose prep and fiber that’s not boring. I spun up this batt the other day:
It was only about 1.5 oz so it took practically no time at all. Plus I stopped caring about evenness, which was pretty impossible considering the yarn/neps/bits content. I two-plied it and got this:
It’s only about 50 yards of a dk-ish weight. Not sure I’ll ever knit it into anything (maybe a little stuffy). It’s kind of the ugliest yarn ever, but as my first supported spindle skein, it’s not bad.
Having finished that, I spun up some leftover BFL I had hanging about:
This one required a ton of predrafting because the fiber was so compacted, but it came out pretty nice. I navajo plied it. Not sure of the yardage but it’s a tiny tiny little skein. Mostly just decoration I think.
I then started a new supported spindle project:
The fiber is the other half of a four oz braid I got somewhere online a while back. It’s merino in the color way “Storm Front Coming”. I bought it from LakeHouse Loft on Artfire I think. It’s pretty compacted from being smooshed in my stash, but it’s spinning up pretty evenly. So yay.
A note on the spindle bowl: I was previously using a tiny tea cup. When I was in the Outer Banks, I went to a store called Michael’s, where they sell all manner of fossils, shells, geodes, stones, etc. They had a bunch of stone mortar and pestle sets and I was going to get one to use as a spindle bowl. On the last day, I spotted one that had been marked down for its missing pestle. Perfect. So I got an amazing spindle bowl for $5. It’s stone, so it’s good and solid and won’t tip over. WHOOT.
When I click on the Yarns tab on Ravelry now, it tells me there are a whopping 13 yarn stores near me, which is many more than the 2 I was getting in Virginia Beach (even though there were about 4). There are tons of yarn stores in Northern Virginia, as far away as Bethesda, MD and as close as Vienna, which is the city I’m living in now. The store in Vienna, Uniquities, held a fiber market on Saturday at the Vienna Community Center and I couldn’t not go.
The focus was definitely on spinning, though there was a lot of yarn too. The list of vendors that were there is listed here. I bought… many things. Because, apparently, to hell with my budget/unemployment. Anyway.
From Dancing Leaf Farm, I purchased this GORG Fairy Batt:
It’s 2 oz, wool/glitz/mohair/tencel/bamboo and I love it. I’ve never spun from a batt before and this was super affordable ($12). Also pretty!
From Solitude Wool I bought this art batt:
It’s about 1.5 oz ish and it was $4. FOUR DOLLARS. Yeah.
From Mt. Airy Farm, I bought an oz. of dyed mohair locks. PRETTY.
It’s sort of a darker purple than what appears on my monitor. But love. Will have to spin up some art yarn.
From Avalon Springs Farm 4oz of Targee/Mohair/Glitz:
Not my usual colors at all, but it’s so happy! Also, it’s sparkly! I love it. I already started spinning it as you can see.
Finally, I purchased a Tibetan supported spindle from Spanish Peacock:
That is a terrible photo because it’s been rainy and gloomy, but yeah. I’m practicing on some left over BFL. I think I sort of have the hang of it, though I end up spinning straight up off the tip rather than 45 degrees. Also it falls over a lot, but I did just start like, three days ago. So yeah.
I have lots of things OTN and The Event Formerly Known as the Ravelympics (TEFKA Ravalympics) starts in just a few days. There will be more on that when it actually gets started.
I finished spinning the Romney I’d been working on. It was a fun, quick spin. The original roving looked like this:
And with my heavy spindle (I really only have two; I should get some more mid-weight ones) I turned it into this:
Aww yeah. Here’s some specs:
Fiber: Romney
Weight: Sportish
Yardage: 176 yards
Ply: Two plies
I have honestly no idea what I’ll make with it.
I love it though. It’s very well balanced after a soak and a good thwack. The good thing about the warm weather is that when I wash yarn and leave it outside to dry it’s done in a couple hours.
I like spinning. Must do more spinning.
I currently have three projects in the works plus another small one for Etsy. First up, the vanilla socks:
I’m doing an afterthought heel which is why they look oddly long.
Next is a Bigger on the Inside shawl from the most recent Knitty:
It’s a recycled wool/angora blend that I had dyed through WWFY. I love it.
And finally….
OMG. Spinning. I know. If you’ve just started following the blog… any time in the last year, then you probably didn’t know I did that. BUT I DO. I was watching the Knit Girllls podcast and felt the urge to spin. I got out some Romney I got from an OWS swap a while ago. I’ve missed spinning. I really love it. Because I clearly don’t have enough yarn as it is.
In unrelated fandom news, I’ve finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy and am going to see the movie this afternoon. If you’d like to hear my thoughts, hop on over to Twitter.
I know what you’re thinking. “I didn’t know Brinn was spinning anything. Does she even do that any more?” I know. It appears that yes, I do in fact do that anymore. And the reason I didn’t mention it was because there was no time. On Saturday afternoon I spent some time by myself and decided I wanted to do some spinning. And not the thin solid colored singles I have on my smallest spindle. No. Big singles. To make big yarn. Or at least biggish yarn.
I wanted color. I pulled out this fiber, 4 oz of corriedale from Lakehouse Loft (on Artfire):
I grabbed my giant spindle.
I spun quickly, not paying attention to thickness or evenness. I just spun, figuring I’d ply it eventually. I spun for hours. I spun for like four hours. Then I took a brief break. Then I spun some more. I spun and spun. I went to bed. I woke up, ate lunch, and spun some more.
And then I plied because I finished the singles in less then two days of more or less continuous spinning. I plied and plied. My shoulder was hurting and my boyfriend was off at a choir concert I didn’t go to (he tells me not to; it’s a class requirement for him anyway, and anyway I am Not a Fan of choir) but I watched several episodes of series E of QI and kept plying.
And then it was plied. I skeined it up, threw it in a bath with a little wool wash, and smacked it on the table a little. Then I hung it over a chair under a vent to dry.
On Monday, I took pictures.
I spun four ounces of yarn to roughly worsted weight in two days. I made a two-ply yarn of about 140 yards in less than 12 hours. On my spindle. On my enormous spindle.
I think that’s quite an accomplishment.
So several months ago, I bought this merino fiber:
Pretty. I spun about half of it into this:
Also pretty. : ) My first attempt at thick and thin, and let me tell you, it’s not as easy as you’d think. Spinning a single is hard enough (balance enough twist to keep it together with not overtwisting it) but also once you get used to spinning thin, it’s difficult to get back to spinning thick. Plus I always had the nagging feeling that it was too dense (so I wasn’t getting enough yardage for my dollar) so I had to deal with that also.
I really love how it came out though. There’s not a lot of yardage (only about 60 yards) and the thickest bits are still only around worsted weight and I can’t imagine it’s very sturdy. It’s hella soft though, guys. It’s like a kitten. I love it.
PS: Don’t forget about the contest! Open until Friday! There’s not a lot of entries, so odds are good!
I finished spinning this a bit ago, but KnitCroBlo week delayed my posting it. Look: pretty handspun!
Fiber: 4oz. Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino in “In the Skies” purchased from a Ravelry destash
Weight: Sport to worsted-ish
Ply: 3 ply/navajo plied
Yardage: 174 yards
Spindle: A maple one I bought off Etsy. Half was plied on my Schacht Hi-Low
Soo…. I’m completely in love with this yarn. It’s soft and squishy and wonderful. I didn’t get as much yardage as I had hoped, but that’s alright. I’ll have enough for the project I’m intending to do with it (eventually), which is to knit it into the yoke (and hem) of a round yoked pullover. I’m thinking it’ll be super cute. Plus the colors: I love the colors.
I have four more ounces of this fiber, which I’m highly thrilled about. If you’re a spinner and you’ve never used CMF, ohmigod, GET SOME. It’s so soft and light and smooth. It drafts like butter and the colors are amazing. I got mine in a Ravelry destash, and I’m always trawling the ISO/Destash board on Ravelry for more (I’d order from CMF directly, but the shipping is really high–like $10 to ship 8oz).
Yes. Love this stuff.
Soo, remember how I was resisting the urge to Navajo ply everything?
Well….
CMF SW Merino, clearly not being cable plied as intended.
So remember when I posted the Shetland from Spunky Eclectic I’d spun and I told you how much I liked navajo plying. Well… I like it a lot. So much so that I’ve since navajo plied all the extra singles I have from other plying projects and the singles I spun when I was learning and never plied because I had yet to figure out how long it took to spin anything on a spindle and I wanted to stretch the yardage because I only had so much fiber.
Anyway, I plied what I had lying around (don’t worry; I haven’t been spinning long, so it isn’t much):
Originally a messy lace/fingering weight single, now a messy light sport to bulky (mostly around dk/worsted) weight chain ply. Roughly 68 yards. Domestic wool top that I dyed with kool aid back in the summer (In the Clay Pits).
Originally Kool Blue, also Kool Aid dyed. 20 squishy yards of rough rough bulky wool. It was one of my first spinning attempts, so the single is all rough and gross, resulting in a yarn that is rough and gross. Probably I won’t knit anything with it but instead look at the pretty pretty skein.
Left over singles from A Splash of Citrus, navajo plied into 9 yards of rough, squishy goodness. Also an early spinning attempt, so quite rough. But squishy. Something else I will probably only ever look at. But it is kinda pretty. Yellow and springy.
So now I’m resisting the urge to navajo ply everything I spin. The spinning I’m currently working on, some CMF superwash merino, is going to be cable plied into what will hopefully be around worsted weight so I can use it in a sweater yoke. Although once I finish that, I might look into navajo plying some corriedale I have… Hmm….
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 