Raspy!

Guess you can all figure out how this sweater turned out as I'm already posting about it! *grin* When I returned from the hairdresser the dryer cycle had just ended and when I pulled it out I was super excited. The sweater actually did fit!

Pattern : Raspy by Kim Hargreaves

Yarn : Rowan Denim

Needles : 4mm

Modifications : made the sleeves longer

Started : no idea, years ago!

Finished : July 30, 2010

IntSweMoDo2010 sweater #3

I don't like the shaping of the sleeves, I think I would have done them more straight to the bottom, but over all this is a perfect sweater to throw over around the house and the lounge in (thinking about doing that today as it's cloudy and rather cold outside). I think this sweater will get softer with wearing and washing, so I imagine it'll only get better.

If you look up close you can see that the seaming is far from good. Nothing matched up, not even the sleeves. Might be me of course, either my sewing or the knitting, 'cause especially with the sleeves there shouldn't be a problem in matching them. I don't mind the sewing (I love cross stitch and I love this) but somehow I never manage to get it done nicely. More practice maybe? I don't know, but it only makes me more in favour of seamless knitting. :D I'll do some cross stitch if I want to sew!

I also took pictures of some of the shawls and scarfs I knitted, but I'm going to safe those for a later post. Might be tomorrow. I'm aiming for a post a week in the future, but it might not be only about knitting and spinning. I really want to pick up on some of my older "loves" again as well so there might be some art on here as well. I don't imagine I have many readers, but if anyone doesn't want to see any art (only knitting and spinning) you can comment.

Back at home

After a 2 weeks holiday on Cabo Verde we returned home to (rainy) Belgium on Wednesday. It's good to be back home. The holiday was relaxing and I found my knitting mojo again, so it was rather great. Of course, now it's almost back to work (normally I'm back to work on Monday but someone is ditching me and so I have to work tomorrow ... happy happy, really not at all, I hate it when people do this!).

Of course now it's all about doing laundry (all done now), ironing and cleaning the house. But, I didn't do anything this morning as I wanted to finish my Raspy, finally! That sweater has been on the needles for years! It's in the washer now, and I'm so nervous it'll turn out horrible and I'll have to turn it into raggs or something! The sewing was horrible and well, I'm just totally scared and nervous! More of that in the next post.

Of course I ended early in my Tour de Fleece reports. I got less done then I had intended, but I'll wrap it up and keep the knitting I did for a next post!

Wheel spinning, I did ply all the Myrtle up :

The plied yarn is still on the bobbins so I have no clue about yardage. It did turn out ok, though it's quite a fussy yarn which is a bit dissapointing.

I planned on spinning 2 yarns on my wheel but didn't get much further with the second one then this :

This is Eric, Southern Cross Fibers polwarth (limited edition). I have 8oz of it and plan a 3 ply yarn. So this is one third predrafted. Let's see when I find the time to start spinning it!

I took my spindles and some fiber on holiday, and for the first time ever I actually got something spun up on my spindles! Not the amount that I had planned, but I did get some spun up :

This was already on my spindle when we left. It's an alpaca/silk/merino blend I bought in the US last year. It's 2oz total (I don't know the other stuff, it's upstairs in the yarn room and I'm to lazy to go over there to look it up! :D). As you can see I had some problems getting the first cop off my spindle. I use ButterflyGirl Design spindles and they are lovely, but the beautifully crafted shafts apperently keep the yarn from sliding off nicely. So the second time I wrapped a piece of paper around it and it came off perfectly! I'm going to ply these on my wheel, and I hope to have enough yardage for a scarf or small shawl, and I'm hoping for laceweight. We'll see.

I just managed to get this on. It's Hello Yarn Frosted Forest (Club yarn from way back!) which is Soy Silk/Wool. This will be a 2ply as well, And I'll try to match up the colours a bit but I'm not going to worry to much about it!

I also had my Turkish spindle with me and I managed to spin up one of the 2 Abby-batts I had with me. Fist, the batt :

These batts are really small, but when you unroll them they are quite a bit of fiber and you can split them in 3 perfect colours. So this is the spun up stuff :

As you can see I had to wind off the green. I dropped my spindle a few times while spinning and it was stuck in place to badly I had to wind off the yarn first, and then I still had a hard time getting it loose again. I plan on spinning singles from the second batt as well and then ply them so I have 3 nice little skeins of yarn.

I didn't start the second batt but started some other fiber on the Turkish spindle :

It's 100% Tussah Silk died by Spunky Eclectic. I have 2oz. I wanted to try a 2ply laceweight and the idea was to spin the singles, ply them and get started on a shawl whil on holiday, but I didn't get that far. I did get one little cop done :

And the second one is well on it's way. I'll ply it on my wheel then, but I might just get all teh singles spun first, we'll see (I might try plying 2 cops to see how it turns out though, I'm so nervous about this!).

Actually, I'm quite happy about the spinning I got done and I'm totally in love with both my Turkish spindle and my other spindles! Now I'm thinking about getting me a regular bottom whorl spindle, but I'll see. August and September are usually quite expensive months for me so I might just have to wait. Maybe a Christmas present for myself!

More soon, with all the shawls/scarfs I knit and hopefully a succesfull Raspy!

TdF - day 3

Yes, I know, today is day 4 of the TdF, but I get most of my spinning done late in the evening and so I get my progress shots done the next morning. So this is the report of yesterdays spinning.

I got some more spinning done on the Myrtle singles, but the bobbin is looking just the same (more yarn on it, yes, but I don't think it'll even show on a picture!). I think I have about 3oz done now and I plan on getting the rest done hopefully today and tomorrow so I can get some more spinning done on my wheel before leaving.

I did get part 1 out of 6 done of the Abby batt :

I could easily split the batt in 3 parts, one pink, one purple and one green. I have 2 of these batts (I'll try to take a picture tomorrow of the complete one) and I think they are about 1oz each. I could get all the pink of one batt on my tiny Turkish spindle. Hope I can do the same with the 2 other colours. I tried to weigh the small pink cob but I was to lazy to get out my small scale, and my big one sais it's 10gr but I'm no sure that's right! :D We'll see. I'm looking forward to plying this to see what yardage I have.

To make this post a bit more interesting, here is something I recently finished knitting :

Pattern : Azzu's Shawl by Emma Fassio (free pattern - ravelry link)

Yarn : Sheepaints Meribam sock yarn

Needles : 4mm

I am totally in love with this type of shawls and I think it's a super alternative for all the beautifull handdyed sock yarn that I don't want to hide in shoes! Plus these shawls are perfect to wear on a Summer evening. I wanted 20 to take with me on holiday, but I'll be happy with a few! :D I'll probably take some sock yarn and patterns with me to knit over there, this shawl was super fast to knit!

I'm now knitting this pattern in a 100% silk yarn. I hope it'll turn out just as nice!

Off to do some spinning! :D

Tour de Fleece

This year I'm taking part again in the Tour de Fleece. 2 years ago I loved doing it as I could take my wheel with me to France and I got quite a bit done. Last year we were in the US most of the time and there was no time at all to spin. This year we are leaving on our holiday halfway the TdF but we are going to an All In formula so I can take my spindles and there'll be time to spin! I'm quite excited about the holiday and quite excited about my spindle!

But, before I go further, the idea is to try to post here daily about the TdF and the spinning I get done. I joined the Monkey Farts team over on Ravelry which is basically a joined efford by Boogie from Spunky Eclectic and David from Southern Cross Fibre (I only recently joined his Fiber Club and I'm totally in love!). There's a little bit chaos about posting daily progress, and as I need to get into posting here more often (and to just make it all very simple for my tired brain) I will try to post my progress here daily, and then I can link in all the forums to this post!

So, I have very little goals for this TdF then spin as much as possible. On my wheel while I'm still at home, and then on spindles while on holiday. Of course I started of with quite a busy weekend and the weekend to come will be extremely busy as well (with no spinning time at all) so I need to get some done during this week!

I started spinning Myrtle on my wheel, which is a Spunky Club fiber. It's 100% dark BFL and I have 8oz. I still love spinning BFL and the colours on this dark fiber are great! I'm just spinning as fine as I can while it's still comfortable! It's going to be a 2 ply.

On the spindle I started an Abby Batt (from Abby Franquemont), no idea about fiber content or weight! We'll see what I end up with.

As you can see I'm spinning on my recently bought mini Turkish Spindle. It's truly tiny (only 0,6oz) and I'm totally in love with this little thing! I spun the fiber that came with it but didn't find the time to photograph it (tried last night but it was already to dark outside to capture the brown/red fiber properly). The yarn I spun was so thin! It was a true laceweight 2ply. It was amazing and so easy to spin. So that's why I couldn't wait to get something new on there and spin it as fine as possible. I remembered these batts and just picked them up and started spinning. Oh, and added bonus, I spun on my Turkish spindle in the car!!

So this is the poor spinning of the weekend. Saturday I had actually planned to spin in the morning (it was my birthday so I had planned a morning of spinning and relaxing!) before we left for a weekend with friends. But I was so sick that morning that I could hardly sit up! So almost no spinning. Luckily I got better by the late afternoon so I could still enjoy the drinks and snacks we had planned with our friends. Sunday was spent doing very little in the sun with those friends, and in the evening I cooked and cleaned the house a little. So not much spinning that weekend.

But all the spinning I get done is more then I got done in the past few weeks! :D And there is some knitting to show but I'll try to do that tomorrow. I'll also try to take some better pictures today to show you tomorrow. Have to get a few more hours of work done before going home and spinning! :D