Project Portfolio: Quaker Yarn Stretcher

This was my first time making the beautiful Quaker Yarn Stretcher. When it comes to practical use, it isn't my first choice of shawl. The wierd slanting shape doesn't lay right nor wrap in a proper manner around your shoulders. But it is intended to be a kerchief I believe, and as such it would probably work fine. I had a good deal of handspun yarn in the stash so I clubbed it all together and just knit until I ran out! In the end it made a delightful, if somewhat odd, shawl. I meant to do a mini photo shoot and model all my newest knits down in the orchard this autumn. But the time flew, the leaves fell, and now everything is sodden and grey down under the apple trees. Maybe I will still get a photo or two in before the snows come. But don't hold your breath; winter looks to be just as busy as summer and fall were. If I can just blog every once in awhile I shall feel quite accomplished indeed! Meanwhile, be on the lookout for new puni sets in the shop. I've managed to squeeze some carding sessions in between work hours and on my days off. An update will be happening soon! 

Project Portfolio :: My fourth Age of Brass & Steam Kerchief.

After I finished my previously shown shawl, but while the Age of Brass and Steam Sal/Kal was still going on, I decided to start another shawl with the same pattern. My sister was wanting a shawl and the Age of Brass seemed the perfect fit. This is the fourth one I have knit and it fairly flew off of the needles. The yarn I used was all various handspun skeins that I spun over the last year or so. I believe the majority of it was spindle-spun; I can't remember about the last section though...that may have been done on my wheel. I obviously need to keep a more detailed spinning journal!

 Instead of doing the standard bind-off I opted for a few more rows of garter stitch and then did a picot bind-off. It made for a tidy edge and the picot gave it a nice feminine flair. I've always been a fan of picots, other then the fact that they eat up a lot of yardage. But it's worth the yard and time in the end. 

The shawl blocked out beautifully.  I just wet it, squeezed out the water, and laid it flat to dry on a towel. When cold weather hits blocking knit items does become rather tedious. It sometimes takes days for things to dry and this little shawl was no exception. It always amazes me how blocking works miracles on a project. This particular pattern is very forgiving when it comes to blocking. A lot or a little, it always turns out splendid. 

Project Portfolio :: The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief

On Instagram recently there was an 'Age of Brass & Steam' Spin-along, Knit-along that I participated in. It actually landed at a timely point in my summer/autumn transition. I wasn't quite in the mood to do Autumn or Christmas knitting but this sal/kal gave me the push to get going. Now I'm excited to begin Christmas projects and I am  working on my third shawl since mid-September. But back to the Age of Brass.
Since it was a spin-along the first question to decide was what fiber to spin for it. I rummaged through my stash and pulled out an assortment of Autumn colors to card into punis. The fiber content of this shawl ended up being various blends of Merino/Corriedale/Dorset/Fine wool/BFL. I had about 7.2 ounces total after carding all the different blends. They were each spun individually,  some on my wheel and some on the spindle. Then I Navajo plied them at the end. The resulting yarns were heavy-worsted to bulky weight in thickness.
The Age of Brass is a super quick knit. It is free on Ravelry, and would make a great first-time shawl project for a beginning knitter. I am very pleased with how this one turned out. It was my third time making this particular pattern so I knew what to expect from it and tweaked the pattern accordingly for my yarn needs.
The Saturday after I finished it I blocked it aggressively in hopes of wearing it that  Sunday. It didn't dry in time, and I have yet to wear it out and about. But maybe it will get it's first airing tomorrow while I'm running errands. We'll see.
Until next time, my friends! Take care.

Heading off on Holiday.

One of the most delightful things ever to see is a pile of handknits. And its even better if they are handspun as well. Of my stack the top four are handspun, the middle two of those four were dyed by me. What is this pile you say?
Well, it is some of the knits I collected together for my trip.
Weather is such a fickle thing. And being in the Wild, surrounded by woods and water, one day you may need a light & airy shawl, the next you could be bundled up from toes to nose & braving a blizzard.
So into my trusty Thirty-one cinch sack these all went.
And while I can not say that I used all of them, I did use most.
When it comes to knits & weather I hold by, "Its always better to be safe then sorry".
What about you? Lots of knits or very few? Over-packer or under-packer? I'd love to hear from you!

Holiday Knitting.

Tiny knits are in progress! This is for my sweet little niece who will be making her appearance very soon.
It was a quick knit, though I did have some trouble at the beginning and had to restart it. But I began again yesterday and  just finished it this evening. We are on Holiday so between hiking and spending time together there has been plenty of time to knit. I still have to gift this, that is if I make it back from Holiday in time to attend the shower! After that I can show the reveal of the whole project, from start to finish.

Tata for now, my friends!

Knitting :: Cowl For A Friend

Last November I spun and knit this cowl in a matter of days. The fact that it was on drop spindle is what amazes me for bulky weights on a spindle are not my forte. I should say Single bulky weight. But it turned out very nicely and I do believe my friend was quite pleased with her cowl. It was a birthday present and since I spun and knit it quickly I did not keep proper notes and write down the pattern like I should have.*Ehem. Cough.

One of these days I will spin up more bulky yarn and write out the pattern for all of you. I'll keep you posted if/when that happens.

January Fiber Updates

 Hello my friends! It is good to be back here in blogland with you. I will admit I have been spending more time on Instagram then on my blog. Probably because the camera on my phone is nicer then my point-and-shoot. And it is fairly instant, far less work then editing photos and doing up a blog post. But I am determined to be a little more regular on here, as time allows, and not neglect my poor blog and my wonderful followers. 
 First up are shop updates. 
I am keeping fairly busy with my shop. Things slowed down around Christmas but are picking back up within the last week. Spindle sales are on the rise and that is a blessing. I get so excited every time I sell a spindle. Actually I still get so excited every time I have any sort of sale. Each one is a blessing and an answer to prayer.
Newest in my shop right now are my Marbled Puni Collections! 
I am working on carefully carding up unique fiber blends on my hand cards and selling them in small amounts. These are similar to batts, but are already split up into sections as you can spin straight from a puni. They will make beautiful heathered yarns and depending on the content, will be lightly textured.
If you haven't seen them yet please do stop by and check them out!
** Concerning Punis, I will be doing a special post about what makes a puni, and the difference between punis and rolags. Stay tuned!

 In my own personal non-business-related Fibery dealings, this is a little of what I have been working on. Bright and early New Year's day, (yes, I mean about 12:30am!) I dumped out my container of woolly odds and ends left over from other carding projects. I wanted to see if I could make some order out of the chaos and maybe card them into rolags/punis. Yes, I know I could use them for felting or stuffing, but they seemed to pretty to use for anything other then spinning. I lashed them neatly onto my hand cards as shown above, then away I carded.

 As you can see they turned out beautifully! They have some short,, blobby spots. And I had to deal with a few more noily sections then I usually do, but overall I loved them. Since I was using scraps they ended up being a mixture of merino wool, angora, silk, bamboo, llama, and sari silk threads. 
 This was my project basket on New Year's Day. Although I ended up just working on my scrappy punis and never did get to spin on my Christmas yarn. I carded, spun, and plied all of my scraps on January 1st, in between the general chatter, food, games and time spent with my wonderful family. 

 Here is the resulting yarn, my first handspun of the year 2013!I am not sure on the WPI of the yardage, I will have to measure it again.

 As for my Happy Christmas yarn, it spun up fairly quickly. I dithered back and forth on how I should ply it. Two ply to blend the colors more? Navajo ply for longer color repeats? Normally I don't have trouble deciding what to do with my plying but I wanted this to be perfect so it sat as a single for a little while. Two different people advised that I do two-ply. So that is what i ended up going with.

And I absolutely LOVE the way the colors ended up! It is a very unique yarn, and some of the colors are not "me" at all. But as a whole I love it and I am already designing a shawl pattern with it. This was only 180 yards of fingering weight yarn. I have already knit almost all of it and I am plying the second skein for it. Depending on how the shawl turns out I may turn it into a pdf for sale on Ravelry. I'll be sharing pictures with you soon!
What about you? What projects have been keeping you busy in your spare time thus far in the New Year? I would love to hear all about them!

This Week's Projects

This week I started a new and quick spinning project. I carded together two of my colorways, "CHESTNUT" and then a small blue and green braid from one of my samplers. I also added a little bit of angora to the mix. The resulting yarn is a heavy worsted, almost bulky in parts. I have a gift in mind for it. We'll see. I only carded about half of it. So this is roughly two ounces.  I love carding together special combinations of fiber to spin. They always come out so unique and beautiful.

I'm also doing some crocheting. I ordered this yarn during Knit Picks Cyber Monday sale for a gift I am making. I haven't done any crocheting in quite awhile. I can certainly tell because after only two evenings of steady crocheting this past weekend, my wrist was cracking constantly while I was crocheting! However this pattern goes fairly fast so I am hoping it is done soon. I prefer to knit.
Speaking of gift-making, Christmas is fast approaching!  I still feel like I have so much to do! How about you? Are you working on any projects for your friends and loved ones?

Inside Out:: One

Inspired by House Wren Studio, I have decided to do an "Inside Out" post every now and then. Mine may contain several pictures, not just the usual two. It seemed like a fun and inspiring idea that should help me blog more spontaneously, and might even occasionally get me out of a blogging rut; though that's certainly not to say I am in a rut every time I decide to do one! 

Inside:: My projects for today. I mainly worked on my rug hooking. That is to say, of the projects shown the rug hooking is what I concentrated on. I did not spend the whole day rug hooking however! Though I will be the first to admit, I am very slow at it. It is not one of those projects that I can just work on anytime. It doesn't work very well for watching a dvd, I have to always be looking at what I am doing and I miss half the movie. I haven't tried working on it in the car. Lately anyways I have been the driver, not the passenger, on many of the longer trips. But I DO work on it occasionally. And it makes teeny bits of progress each time. One of these days it will be finished and framed. And I DO greatly enjoy working on it. Though there are times when I wish I had chosen a kit with 1/4 width wool strips instead of 1/8 inch........

Outside:: The ladies were all in a huddle, fluffing out their "cowls" (as we like to call them), against the chilly breeze. Alas, they have ceased laying for the winter. I'm already missing the daily fresh eggs.

Spinning For A Pumpkin Sweater

I know I was planning on showing you fair isle today. And I know I had no intention of starting a new spinning project, after all Christmas is fast approaching. But we "happened" to be at a fiber mill today. And I just "happened" to spot this gorgeous pumpkin colored roving. And I did it. I bought a whole pound and a half for a sweater. Gulp. I did not plan on that. But there you have it. 
And you know what? I am very happy with my purchase. It was an excellent price, I LOVE the color, and I have been longing to spin and knit a sweater. So the sweater is now in the very beginning stages. I must say its very fun  to spin this roving, but I am sure by the time I get to the bottom of the bag I will be just a wee bit tired of it. No matter, it will be gorgeous. And I'm looking forward to wearing it!
It's our last night on Holiday. I need to hustle to bed, morning comes early when you have to be packed and out by 10am!

Knitting On Holiday

 This week we are on our autumn family holiday. I haven't done a whole lot of knitting as of yet. But last night I pulled out all these skeins and started winding them while watching Sherlock: The Riechenbach Fall. I got them all wound and today I cast on for Gayle Bunn's "Fair Isle Tam". I have been admiring this tam for a while now, dithering back and forth over which colors I could use, and slowly spinning up small amounts of fingering here and there as time allowed. I finally just decided to dive in, sometimes I over-think a project, trying to get it to be just so, and either it doesn't get started at all because I want it to be perfect, or I start second guessing my decisions. So I decided just to wind it all up and start knitting. I have a pretty good idea of what I want. I know the design will not be as defined as shown in the picture because I'm not using solids.

Nevertheless, I think it will be gorgeous. I love knitting with handspun yarn, and it has been quite awhile since I worked on a fair isle project. Winter is just around the corner and I am nowhere near ready for it. My handknit collection is woefully short of where I had hoped for it to be by this time. Of course many unexpected things arose late summer and early fall. The last of which was my Grandma moving in with us. It was quite sudden, and we only had a few weeks to decide where we were all going to be, then clean, sort pack and switch the whole house around. Grandma moved in this past weekend but I already had a previous commitment Thursday through Monday, so I had to be moved out of my old room and into the new by Wednesday. It was lots of hurry and flurry, and I was so glad to be done with my room and out on the road, driving the three hours to our friends home on Thursday afternoon. It was nice just to sit still for a bit!
We arrived back home on Monday, packed up and headed off on holiday. It has been a slow, quiet, restful week thus far. Despite the chilly weather and rain we are really enjoying ourselves, especially the slower pace and lack of pressing duties. This holiday arrived at the perfect time for us. Lord willing we will go home recharged and ready to get back into the swing of autumn busyness. 
I'll hopefully be back soon with some knitting to show you!

In Snapshots: My Week Thus Far

~Early Sunday morning milking. I enjoy the cool quiet, the warmth of the cow, the sound of milk streaming into the metal pail, it is a lovely way to start the day.

~Fresh, foamy milk. Steel-toed boots to protect my toes, getting accidentally stepped on by a cow hurts!

~One of my cousin's new French Angora bunnies! Isn't she darling?

~Sunlight through the trees. It always makes me so happy.

~Handspun Painter's Palette yarn. Spun with Turquoise Owl Fibers roving from my shop, by my cousin.

~A spot of morning tea

~Knitting my Seaweed Stole and browsing through the most recent copy of Spin Off. 

~Picking a colander-full of fresh grape tomatoes.

~Chicken scratch.

~Bright pink Yarrow in the garden.

~Spinning a beautiful blend of 70%Polworth Wool/26% Alpaca/4% Silk.

Have a beautiful day!

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