11/24/08: Cherry Cordial is Now Spun

I thought I was going to ply the cherry to the brown, but decided it ruined the prettiness. So I did the colors separately and will knit something using both colors that hopefully stays pretty looking.

10/24/08: Monster Mash

Here is a pic of the giant spindle I love from rhinebeck. I am spinning up 4 ounces of merino in the Monster Mash colorway from my Spunky Club Fiber. See my hand for scale. I should have taken the photo with one of my midi's really but am too lazy now :)

I am loving the fun october colors :)

05/23/08: Back to Spinning!

Using the fun tiny spindle I got at Maryland still. This is some December 07 Spunky Club shetland fluff in the Good Morning colorway. I love sitting outside and spinning in the sun :)

08/27/07: Yay! I Get to Order a Wheel!

The hubby said that for my birthday present I can order meself a wheel! So excited, yay! I am such a fiber nerd :)

08/09/07: Tulip Spinning

So I have still been spinning once in awhile. Here is my Spunky Club fiber, Tulip.

I am thinking this shall stay a single ply. i split this into thirds and so have only one more third to go!

07/05/07: Spunky Single

Finished spinning the spunky batt.

06/27/07: Still Spinning Spunky

Ok so I have no wheel :( But that isn't stopping me from spinning spunky altogether.



This is a pretty batt Amy sent me after a little snafu with my club order. She is just lovely. Thank you! Such great service. So I am using a drop spindle and it was just so nice outside I decided to spin poolside for a bit this past weekend.



Am also loving cotton dresses this summer you see. Got this little number at target, love it!

05/30/07: Navajo'd Strawberries

Finished plying the purty pink and green Spunky. Just in time since her next batch should be arriving any day now.





I am thinking this will be a pair of gloves someday. Won't be knitting them til it gets colder out though :)

05/22/07: Strawberry Fields Forever!

So I didn't think I would be spinning for awhile but technically I still have the wheel while the sister is out of town. So I got to start on the latest Spunky Club fiber, 4oz. of Corriedale she calls Strawberry Fields. Joy!

05/17/07: Oh Yeah and Finished a Bit More Spinning

As I try to use up the stash in my sock knitting fever seems I forgot to post about some spinning I finished up a little bit ago.

It started out all fluffy and pretty:



And then became this:



Here is a close up:



This is more spunky club fluff naturally. It is the "Walkabout" colorway. Love pink and brown, and blue and brown. So pink, blue, and brown is even better!

04/22/07: Cocktails Anyone?

Yarn cocktails that is. So I have definitely been adding to the stash, and without buying a thing! I still have some more yarn in the works with hopes that I finish it before the wheel moves on later this week, but if not I will get it done on a tv night visit later.

First we have some 3-ply sock yarn I made to knit socks for the hubby. I used the Down in Flames Spunky sock spinning kit. And man it seems to have a lot of yardage! So perhaps I will get matching footies out of it too. But this was fun because I spun the yellow/orange, red, and black fluff separatly and triple plied it so it is mostly the same throughout but with little changes in the yellow orange strand and the red strand changes to pinkish sometimes, but the black is steady. Should be interesting to see how it knits up. The little skein is the nylon plied with what was left to knit the heels and toes.



Next up is the Finn. This is Spunky's November selection called "Pie in the Sky" I really love this colorway and it is a pretty wooly yarn. Not sure yet what I will use it for but it will be something warm.



I just did a 2-ply for this one.



And below is some of Spunky's Berry Pickin' BFL. Navajo Plied. This came out super soft and airy, a fun pair of gloves perhaps? I think it might be more of a DK weight yarn.



Then I spun up the March Spunky Club fiber, Dandelion, superwash merino. This I did 2-ply and am thinking some sort of cheery shawl may come out of it.



Ok that is it for now. I guess it is a good the the wheel will be going, now I might actually knit some of this up :)

P.S. Can you tell how much I love Spunky's fiber? Maybe it is cause she is an Amy too!

03/20/07: Navajo Plied Sock Yarn

So I got this loverly fiber from the Spunky Fiber Club for February, and decided to navajo ply it this time. So it is a little thicker than most of my sock yarn but not too bulky. It has a lot of spring to it cause I did spin it twice just as I did for the candy stripe socks. I tend to under spin single plies on the wheel I guess, and over spin with a hand spindle so spinning twice makes my yarn stronger.



Anywho I love how the colors match the landscape around here (well it matched before this past weekend's snow anyway).



Like that curly craziness there? Well that happened when I was plying in the same direction I spun the yarn, oops! Luckily I just took it and spun it the other direction to fix it and all is well again. This yarn is well on it's way to being a pair of socks. I just have to reknit one of the toes. Fun!

02/16/07: Spinning then Knitting a Lot Lately

I am really enjoying spinning with merino fluff at the moment. Have a few projects running at the same time because of it and yup they all seem to be purple. (with the exception of teh candy cane fluff previously posted)

I showed this before fluff pic back in december and now finally here is how it spun up. (no, it is not all done. yes, I started knitting with it anyway.) I thought it was going to be a hat/scarf/glove set and then once I started knitting the hat, and saw how nice and even it was coming along I decided to see if I can squeeze a raglan sweater out of it. So I am knitting in the round and am a good way to the armholes at this point (I am further along than the photo is showing). This is looking all heathery and came out surprisingly even.



Next up is some more merino but in a lighter shade.



This time I decided it must be my hat/scarf/glove set. So far I have the hat done and started a glove. I plan to knit a contrasting garter stitched flower for the hat or something cause I decided I want to pair this yarn with my all time best hand spun yarn ever, the darker purple skein.





Yeah this purple merino is very balances and even in thickness. Some how it just came out very clean so I am knitting a garter stitch scarf out of it. Keeping it simple so the yarn shines through. I am very excited that I am getting better at making useable yarn!

02/15/07: Gift Spinning

You may recall some spinny gifts I made up for Christmas of 2005. Well I ended up spinning it up myself for one person who doesn't spin so often but at least she will get to knit with it. It was merino fluff from Spunky Eclectic that I kool aid dyed green and then plied it with undyed merino. Looked a lot more contrasty before the spinning, but I knew I had a weak dye bath anyway so kind of expected it. I really love merino fluff so squishy and soft in the end.



I am also working on some of the red I also had from that gift batch saved for meself. It seems to be a little stronger in color. We shall see once I get it all plied how it really looks in the end. I am also trying a new thing where I spun the single, and then spun it again to see if it makes it more sproingy in the end. Definitely time consuming this way though.



Yeah I am still kind of stuck in candy cane colors over here! Yup, candy cane and purple seem to be all over the place here right now. You will be seeing more purple soon.

12/18/06: Color!

I found a loverly rainbow fluff at Rhinebeck this year and spun it up right quick. Color really pushes me on for some reason. I used the drop spindle for this to make it last longer, and I think I might still have a bit left to go but I started knitting with it anyway. I was trying to make little gloves but the size keeps coming out wrong so I have nothing to show for it. Here is the yarn at least.



I also got a much darker merino to spin up. Still have several ounces to go on this one, been using the wheel since there is a lot. I do love how spongy merino comes out. This is destined to also be gloves, but I think I have enough to also get a hat and scarf out of it. I only have a before photo for you today, but the first hank I spun up surprised me with how subtle the red and blue came out. It really made the overall yarn look a deep purplish which is very good with me.

07/07/06: Still Spinnin'

I recently spun up some pretty purplish merino on the sister's wheel. Still have a tid bit left to go but it came out a very nice dk ish weight. I was also able to get it a bit less overspun this time around which makes a very soft yarn. The bowl in the photo is something I made back in college when I took a pottery class one summer.



I have also been slowly playing on the drop spindles. Here is a nice jewel toned BFL I got at Rhinebeck last year. Stil have a ways to go to finish this one up. And it looks like it wants to be a single ply in the end.



And in old news but to give you a little knitting content, I finished the bright blue handspun and even finished knitting the turtleneck shrug using the yarn. It was a close finish as I used up every little bit of yarn I made. Even though one sleeve weighs a bit more than the other I am pretty happy with it. It looks cuter on but a pile on the steps photo is all I can muster in this heat.

05/23/06: Oh How I Love to Spin

Here are two of my most recent spins.

A loverly merino in the Rocket Pops colorway from Spunky Eclectic. This was so quick and smooshy to spin, very fun. And I love how it came out. Am leaning towards a mini sweater of sorts with this yarn, although a bright scarf could be fun as well.



Then I also have been spinning this wool blend in a flaming colorway. This one will most likely end up as socks at some point in the distant future.

04/09/06: Fiber Ice Cream

I have finally finished spinning up all the neopolitan fluff I got from Spunky Eclectic. That is 1 pound of the neopolitan and 1 pound of plain old vanilla. Thank goodness the sister got a wheel otherwise I would never be able to spin that much! Not sure when I am going to try and invent a sweater to knit this into but I am looking forward to it as I have already knitted some swatches just to see what the knit fabric looks like and it seems like lots of fun to come.