How have I not posted this yet



I got a wheel for my birthday!

It's a Kromski Sonata, that comes with its own backpack



Indy is mistrustful, afraid I'd forsake him for my new toy. He has no need to worry. I've spun less than an ounce on it since I got it in October. Not that I don't want to, but I just haven't had the time, I'm focusing on Christmas knitting.

I did spin this



It's thick and thin like crazy, slubby, and overspun in some parts, and very pretty in its own way. Especially after I dyed it



and knitted it into this



It's part of a pound of plain domestic wool I got from Webs, just to practice. I have a bunch of pretty fiber from plenty of sources, but I feel like I wouldn't do it justice if I spun it now.

I do have some plans though, more spinning to come!

Spinning Class Wrap Up

Last month I took a Spinning Class at Hank's Yarn in Gainesville. It was really educational.

I posted about my first weeks progress, the promptly forgot to follow up.

During the first week, I turned this



into this



It's a itty bitty skein of Navajo plied wool. I Navajo plied because I wanted the color changes to look like this.



And I just really wanted to try Navajo plying. It's pretty overspun because I was a little uncoordinated.

For the second week we had a bunch of diffrent fibers to wash, card, and otherwise play around with. I blended them together and spun some singles and some good looking navajo ply. Pictures later.

For the third week, I had the Ashford Traveler, and I learned what it meant to not like a wheel. I couldn't pinpoint it, but that wheel just didn't feel natural for me.



I spun two singles of different colors of Louet roving



and plied them together



During the last class, I turned some more Louet roving into



I learned a lot from the class. The next step is to get a spinning wheel for my birthday.

Spinning Class

So, I was lucky enough to get a spot in a spinning class at Hank's Yarn. The shop is great, the ladies that own it are great, and Ginger's a great teacher. It's so much fun.

There's this



The Golding Spindle that Ginger was nice enough to let me use. It's amazing, and if I wasn't getting a wheel soon, I'd be investing in one.

It allowed me to make this.



Then, there's the wheel.



This week I'm using the Ashford Traditional. I picked it out because I love the look of the Saxony wheel.

Wheel spinning is easier to do than I expected. I've gotten started with this (the same roving as the spindle).



Which has become this



I also made a few purchases. Going into a yarn store on pay day can be dangerous. But fiber is a lot less expensive than yarn. I seem to have bought them in pairs.

It's Yarn: Nameology

Drumroll please...

I have finally finished Nameology, my Very First Handspun.

After the singles, (see previous posts) I plied.

I made my lazy kate into a tensioned lazy kate with the creative use of a paper clip and some gorilla glue. I put both singles onto separate bobbins and plied away.





(my house isn't really this messy, we've just been cleaning out both of our offices, post on that once our new office is presentable)



I ended up with a very full spindle of two ply.



Isn't it just gorgeous! This picture is probably the truest color.

Then I made use of our dining room chair, since I don't have a niddy noddy.



After a resting overnight, I gave it a quick bath in the morning. Then some good whacks against the tub (yarn's version of a shiatsu massage) and hang up to dry.



It's even balanced enough to hang in an open loop! The strands that are out of place here are because it wasn't hung properly.

The end result:



About 26 yards of a very bulky thick and thin yarn.

It won't grow up to be anything. Its sole purpose is to hang out in a vase in the living room, and be pretty.

Worldwide Knit in Public Day and the Celtic Tote

Last Saturday was Worldwide Knit In Public day, and to celebrate, our group went to an event planned by a few LYS's: A Stitch in Time, The Local Needle, and Fran's Knitting Boutique.

It was a great time. There were at least 35-sih people. I got to meet some new people and see some faces I hadn't seen in a while.

Unfortunately I had camnesia (and only took a few very poor shots) and didn't do nearly enough mingling, because I was too busy working on Arrgyle socks for Nerdy Husband.


Just in time for Knit in Public day, I finished my Celtic Tote.



Pattern: Celtic Tote, Interweave Knits
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted in Wild Oak (embroidery in Sable)

I was such a good little knitter, I not only made a swatch, I made an extensive one to make sure I liked the decreases and increases, and to practice needle felting on the embroidery.



And I even felted the swatches (no pictures of that, you'll have to trust me).

Here's the completed bag before felting.



I used half a skein of Sable to do the embroidery, (thanks Brenda) and needle felted the yarn down. Instead of using a brush to support it while needlefelting, I used a pillow form. When I tried using the brush on my swatch, it caught on the fuzzier fibers and made a huge mess. See, those swatch things are useful.

The mesh in the bottom wasn't really that wonky, that's just how it was hanging.

And then I felted it.



Somehow, during that felting, the mesh in the enclosed pouch managed to double itself over. And the bag overfelted a little, so the pouch was too small for the mesh. It was a pain to work it out.

When I finally got the mesh as flat as I could, it was clear that the mesh and the bottom of the bag were bent. Since the only way I could get it out would be to cut the purse, and that didn't appeal to me, I had to find a way to straighten it.

What I came up with was a bit strange, even for me.



Behold the Leaning Tower of Totebag.

I figured that I needed to put weight on the bottom of the purse to flatten out the bottom, but didn't want to put weight on the handles, but still wanted them to dry in a sort of natural position. So I hung the purse on a doorknob and got enough random things to reach from the floor to the bottom of the purse (a bucket, our new phonebook still in the plastic bag, and the box from our Wii Fit). Then I raided our pantry for cans (for weight) and plastic bags (for shape), and stuffed it to the shape I wanted.

I then turned down our dehumidifier, said a prayer to the Fiber Gods, and went to bed.

It worked out reasonably well, with the exception that the bottom didn't really dry well, not being exposed to air and all. Putting a towel under the purse would have helped, but the inside would have still been wet. The basic shape of the bag was right after drying in the tower overnight, so I stuck it on a hanger and let it dry naturally, turning it inside out a few times a day.

The other problem was the fuzz. It took over the purse, and then became aggressive. Some of it tried to escape in the form of pills that came completely off the purse while felting.



Some of it even tried to eat me.



This is probably what happened to Cousin It and Chewbacca.

I had limited time to find a sweater stone before WW KIP day, and the best I could come up with was one of those shavers. It had absolutely no effect on the swatch (handy little thing) and I think I killed the motor trying.

The purse was still wet and fuzzy and unlined when I went to the event, but I was happy as anything it was there.

It's not quite as fuzzy as it seems in the closeups, but it's close.

A few days after the event, I stayed up till 11:30 lining it.



It brought back memories of sewing with my mom, who always seemed to be sewing late at night. It makes sense; with several munchkins running around and a full time job, she had her hands quite full. That woman taught me a lot about balance.

Lazy Kate

Here is my lazy kate and bobbin.

Well, by bobbin I mean a dowel from a home improvement store, that has been cut into pieces, sanded, and rubbed with Paste Wax.



The lazy kate is a decorative shoebox bought from Joanne's.



Doesn't match this yarn, but oh well.

First Steps in Spinning

Not much today, just pictures.

On Monday, I took my predrafted fiber and turned it into a single ply.



It's pretty thick and thin.

Pre-Drafting...

Sunday evening, after getting home from the graduation, I finally let myself mess with the fiber. I'd had the roving and spindle since Wednesday, but I was too busy to sit down and start.

I got started with the help of Maggie Casey's Start Spinning and Megan LaCore's drafting video.

This is the roving before drafting



all spread out



This is the one step that I hadn't picked up on until the video



splitting the roving into strips. At first I was trying to draft the entire roving, and it was almost impossible. I got it all sorted out and made some pretty little birds nests.



Gorgeous!

Tomorrow: some actual spinning!

Gone to the Dark Side

Spinning!?!?

I can no longer resist the urge to spin.

Blame Meghan from the Stitch It Podcast and Brooklyn Tweed. After fighting this bug for a few months, it's no longer possible to resist.

So last week I ordered this



my very first drop spindle.

It's workable, but not great. The Etsy vendor isn't a spinner, and it isn't well balanced. The main benefit is that it can be either a top whorl or bottom whorl spindle.

I also went on a fiber binge. The first purchase to arrive was this little number from tehandehness on etsy.



This is "Grizzly", a domestic wool blend. It is very pretty, and the colors are so me. It's a soft muted pink, with not-too-bright teal and brown. And it's gonna become my first handspun EVAR.

I don't plan on using this yarn as anything but a decoration. It will be thick and thin and slubby, but when plied it will be very very pretty.

Over the next two weeks I want to try and post every day (hah!) with my progress.

Back Home
Last weekend I went back home for my little sister's graduation. I knit a grand total of 3 stitches (one row of a finger tip for my Dad's gloves). We were too busy doing stuff.

Like taking ATM-surveillance-quality photos of ourselves in the fish-eye lens of the side view mirror of an AT&T truck



and watching my youngest sis lead the pledge at her graduation.



What would they have done if she didn't show? Find someone else who knows the pledge? I jest. We're proud of her, there were a lot of people there, and she did great.