I’m not feeling very inventive with post titles this week.

So, I spun the batt yesterday and plied it, and washed it, and today, I knit some of it.

I’m not in love with the colors, but I was working with what I had, I didn’t dye the silk. But I’m happy with the overall product. I like the feel of it. I like the drape it has, I like the effect of the blended fibers. I think I want to see more of the wool in there, so I’ve blended another batt with half the silk that the last one had. We’ll see how that one turns out.

So, I put Clark down for a nap and almost went to bed myself, as I think I’m fighting a cold or something that hasn’t fully hit yet… but I decided to go downstairs and play with fiber a little bit.

Oh. my.

So, I’ve been wanting to make a sweater for myself, and originally, I was planning to dye the white fleece I bought, but then the dark gray fleece has been seducing me, and I thought I’d blend it with a little bit of black alpaca for a gorgeous, charcoal color. So, I’m down in my basement kitchen and I have a couple pounds of dyed silk noil that was given to me a year ago, and I picked out some multi-colored blues…

And the only thing hindering my joy is that I can’t accurately capture the colors with my camera, and I don’t have the patience to mess with exposure compensation to try. All you can see is the blue silk, but the charcoal wool blend is stunning.

There may be too much silk, I’ll continue to play around with it, but it’s beautiful, it feels amazing, and I’m giddy.

I’d barely started spinning and was so excited, I had to stop and show you. But now I’m going to get off the computer and get back to my wheel.

I think I’m going to make it.

As I intended, yesterday was spent spinning, for the most part. I’m sorry to say that it got a little sloppy in the afternoon, when the kids got home from school and my attention was divided between helping Veronica write a paper on Martin Luther King Jr. and my singles, but once it’s knit into Clark’s sweater, no one is going to know.

I carded the remaining two batts, spun 7 of them, plied and washed one skein,

and this morning, I plied half of a second.

(The half skein is on the right, remaining single on the left).

All that’s left is to spin two batts and ply them onto the partial skein.

Then I’m done.

Whew!

Clark and I watched two of his cousins for a couple hours yesterday afternoon, and they all played super sweetly in the living room while I spun.

I couldn’t believe it worked out that nice.

It’s so weird to see Clark play with boys. He’s always been the tagalong baby with my girls, so to have it just be him, and boys… I haven’t done boys yet. It’s always been girls and my baby. It’s taking some getting used to, but it’s incredibly cute.

Here’s a picture of the yarn I bought in Portland. If you’re as tired of seeing undyed brown around here as I am, it should be a treat.

I didn’t end up taking many pictures of Portland at all. Towards the end of the day, I thought about all the pictures I should have taken, like yarn shop signs, the garter stitch coat in one of the shops that was super cool, the entire wall of Koigu, the super cute store owner with the heavy, eastern european accent, etc. But I didn’t. Here’s what I’ve got-

Katie and I on the train on the way down to Portland from Seattle.

Although we walked all over downtown for hours and hours, we did hop on a streetcar for a few blocks.

After lunching at a psychedelic teahouse and hitting the three yarn shops on the “tour”, one of them twice, we went to the infamous Powell’s Book Store. I was going to link it but the website is pretty lame, and why exactly they have a naked chick on their home page is beyond me.

Supposedly, they’re the largest independent bookstore in the world. Or something. I don’t know. It was huge. I knit on a bench in the art gallery upstairs while Katie shopped for books, and I missed Nate terribly, knowing that he would have loved it. Then Katie found me and knit a little herself.

We ate chicken enchiladas at Cha Cha Cha (how cool is that?) before heading back to the train station for the ride home.

The tower says “GO BY TRAIN“.

And that was it. I bought some sock yarn and completely delicious silk mohair laceweight that isn’t too fuzzy. Something that I’ve found to be quite unusual.

It was a great time.

Clark got a much needed haircut this morning. He looked a little wary ’til I held the buzzing clippers to his head, then he grinned and was quite enthusiastic.

For awhile.

But I had to finish anyway, and by the end, he wouldn’t look at me.

Also this morning, I knit Liv’s watchband. Finally. I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I cleaned the kitchen and in the process, uncovered the watch parts and needles I’d set out to do it. I’d decided to keep it simple and make it stretch over her hand, as opposed to reincorporating the buckle.

I was going to do an interesting stitch pattern but there were so few stitches, it ended up looking better in plain ol’ garter stitch.

Last night, I nearly finished carding batts for Clark’s sweater. I carded 7, have one in process, and one more to do after that. I have one skein completed, at about 240 yards.

There’s a lot of single still on the bobbins, but I think I’m going to fill them up again before plying another skein. I hope to get much of it done today, because the rest of the week is going to be busy at the girls’ school.

I’ve been doing a lot, and therefore have lots to talk about, but my brain isn’t working right. I can’t focus and formulate anything comprehensive. So I’ll show a couple of pictures and ramble a bit.

Since I happened upon that little spinning guild meeting years ago and decided then and there that spinning on a wheel was something that I simply HAD to do in my life, I’ve been romanced by and in awe of the idea of making a completed, functional item from raw fleece. Now, 5 or so years later, I’m finally doing it.

As I mentioned last Monday, I want to make a sweater for Clark. Well, now I’ve sampled, swatched, and decided on a blend and weight…

…which is basically going to be in between those two. The one on the right is a two ply of 1/3 alpaca, 2/3 wool knit on size 5 needles. The one on the left is a 3 ply 1/5 alpaca, 4/5 wool knit on size 6. Indecision and varying opinions from the outside have resulted in a 2 ply yarn that is 1/4 alpaca, 3/4 wool by weight. I’m well into the spinning right now, and have carded over half. I’ve learned that while carding does remove some vm (vegetable matter, or bits of grass and hay, etc), it doesn’t remove enough to make it worth using the parts of the alpaca that are particularly dirty. (It’s been washed, so it’s CLEAN dirt/hay/grass/whatever).

That was annoying, but I learned quickly, and didn’t ruin anything.

So, I have about a week and a half to finish the yarn before the dye party, and I’m planning to journal the progress for posterity.

Here is weighed and measured, cleaned fiber for one batt.

That picture isn’t completely legit, as I’ve hand fluffed the wool to get it ready to card. But we’re close.

And here are some batts, which you’ve seen already, but humor me.

Oh! The softness. The fluffiness.

And here we are with I think 4 of the required 15 batts spun into a single.

And that’s as far as I’ve got. Hopefully, you’ll see some plied yarn in the next few days.

I’m shocked as to how quickly the spinning is going, which has a little voice in the back of my head FREAKING out that I’ve messed up my math and have 3 times more to do than I think I do. At least.

I haven’t touched the socks, so they look the same as they did the last time you saw them.

And I had more to say than I thought I did. Cool.

1, 2, 3, count!

So yesterday, I went down into my newly usable basement kitchen to card some batts to take to spinning group.

I carded 3 romney/alpaca batts, but only ended up spinning one, as it wasn’t spinning up as soft as I wanted it to, meaning I need to add more alpaca.

(That’s about 7 ounces of washed alpaca fluff that is remarkably similar in color to my countertop).

Since you saw the basement kitchen last, I’ve added more shelves

and a corkboard to pin various project notes and color inspirations to, along with a few pieces of the girls’ artwork.

(That piece on the bottom right is a 3 dimensional depiction of the life of a silkworm that Abby made in class last year. It’s really, really cool, and theme appropriate)!

I navajo plied the batt spun last night to get it off of my bobbin, and surprisingly, it still made a very nice yarn. Good to know. I’ve washed it and it’s drying now.

And this is interesting… Here are two skeins of yarn made with the same wool, and different colors of alpaca, one black and one that reddish tan color.

The black skein is extremely soft and amazing, and that’s what I’m trying to recreate, this time, measuring and recording fiber amounts.

This morning, I carded a new batt that I’m trying to spin,

but Clark is enjoying holding on to my whorl while it’s spinning, and plucking my driveband like a bass ’til it falls off. And laughing. So the spinning will resume at nap time. Stinker.

I have some sock progress. I’m finished with one gusset, and almost done with the second.

And after taking all of these pictures this morning, I noticed a very large smudge on my lens, which would explain why they all look a little overexposed and fuzzy, but I couldn’t bring myself to take them all again.

Lame.

I’ve started teasing my romney locks in preparation for carding, and it is taking an extremely long time. I need to fluff this…

into this.

I’ve spent the past couple of evenings working on it, and have only done 4 1/2 ounces. There has to be a better way. I want to get to carding and spinning it.

On the socks, I’ve finished turning both heels and am ready to pick up and knit the gussets.

Now I’m off to return a dress and hopefully make it to playgroup before helping out in Veronica’s class at school just after lunch. My stomach is acting up, it’s cold and gray outside, and I just want to stay home.

…happiness and cheer.
If only we
could only see
such spirit through the year.”

I’m heading out with the boy soon to go Christmas shopping with my Mother-in-law. It should be a good time, but Clark is a little under the weather, and he’s going to miss his nap, so I’m a little worried.

Over the weekend, I finished up a small skein of 3-ply attempted sock weight yarn with my red batts.

I’m amazed it’s still red. A ton of color came off on my fingers while I spun it, and when I washed it, the water was completely red, and the rinse was completely red, and I kept rinsing it ’til it came clean. And the yarn is still red!

It’s not as soft as I was hoping for. The batts are incredibly soft, but the corriedale roving was pretty felted, and the yarn has that same, stick-to-itself quality that the roving had before carding. I bought the roving a year ago and at the time, I didn’t know what to look for. I know better now, but it’s still not a waste. The colors are lovely, and I’m confident I’ll be able to do good things with it.

So, I was originally thinking socks, but I only have 200 yards from three batts. I could spin some more 3 ply for regular socks, or I could make ankle socks (which I do need for some of my shoes), or I was thinking about making a lacy cap with it like Hayden’s. Hers is yummy, and I want it.

What to do, what to do… and there’s the rest of it, still. I have a total of 2 pounds of the roving and silk to card and spin in red, lime green and teal. A few pairs of socks and a scarf? Something like that. It was only after I spun the 3 ply that I looked at my Koigu and realized it’s only 2 ply.

Abby was sick-ish this weekend, so she stayed home from various activities and played on my spinning wheel.

She didn’t like the romney roving I let them use over the summer, so I gave her some Merino top and made sure she knew it would be more difficult. She’s doing really well.

There are so many other things I’d like to talk about, but they’re Christmas gift related, and I can’t.

Off to shop.

Today is Nate’s and my 14 year wedding anniversary. I’m so excited to see the years tick by and add up. It’s very rewarding. I wanted to post a wedding picture, but I don’t have easy access to a scanner anymore, and we weren’t taking digital pictures 14 years ago.

“in my day, we didn’t have no fancy-schmancy di-gi-tal cameras”

So you get a pretty picture of the roses Nate brought me this morning instead.

I love you, babe. More than I can even say.

I’ve been playing with my anniversary present and making batts. I finished the red portion of the roving I’ve been blending,

(that’s most of them) and I’ve started on the green.

The picture doesn’t accurately capture the color at all. It’s a bright, lime-type green, and it’s gorgeous. The third color is teal, and the three look fantastic together. I didn’t have enough teal silk to get a matched blend, so I had to divide up the green silk between the green and teal wool, and add some yellow silk to the green wool to maintain a 25% silk to wool ratio. It’s very, very pretty, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I still only had to card the fibers three times to get a very well blended batt.

I’ve spun one red batt so far, and it’s nice. There are only a few little nups, and I think that’s because the dyed roving is a bit felted. Nate is fascinated by the carder, and plays with it a lot. It cracks me up. He says he doesn’t want to card fiber though, he just turns the drum and pokes around in the needles.

On Saturday, Abby sang with the 5th and 6th graders in a holiday concert.

I couldn’t get a decent picture to save my life, but I tried.

Abby’s in the middle, wearing glasses and a purple Hayden Hat. It was literally freezing outside, and I took great satisfaction in bundling everyone up in hats, scarves, gloves, legwarmers, and sweaters, most of which I’d knit myself. We were all plenty warm.

Nate and I are dropping off the boy this afternoon and going to lunch. I can’t wait.