It’s December already?

Tags

spinning, yarn

Sorry for the radio silence lately – grad school keeps getting in the way of my knit blogging! :)  I had a pretty big exam last Thursday that has been consuming all of my energies for a while, but now that it’s over I can get back to the knitting!  Unfortunately some of my knitting has to stay secret for now, but I can tell you that the grown up version of Baby Sophisticate is being test knitted as-we-speak! Hooray! It’s taken a long time, but hopefully there will be some baby-daddy (or baby-mommy) matching sweaters out there this winter.

I’ve also been spinning! See, I finished spinning the pretty brown fiber I mentioned before – and I have to say I think I’m getting better! This yarn seems much more consistent, and I’m trying to think of just what to knit with it.

By the way, I took these pictures right before Thanksgiving, thus the pumpkins.  Just so you know.  :)

When I stopped into L&B a couple of weekends ago I got sucked in by some of the batts Brita of Brains and Beauty Yarn had put up in the store and (obviously) one of them came home with me. It’s called Autumn Glory and is BFL, silk, sari silk and angelina and it’s bea-utiful. I’ve already spun half of it, so hopefully I’ll have a finished product to share soon!

Now off to finish some Christmas knitting!

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Acquiring a New Addiction

Tags

handspun, spinning, yarn

A few weekends ago, I pretended that I had enough time to do all the knitting I want, and that I might have time for another sort of fiber hobby on top of it.  Under this delusion, I took a beginner spinning class at L&B Yarn Co. with Brita from Yarn Made Me Do It.  Brita dyed up some Corriedale (I love sounding like I know what I’m talking about by naming the type of wool) for us all to try out.  I learned to pre-draft the fiber, and Brita taught us to “park and draft”, which lead me to numerous thoughts of “and she claims I will be able to do this continuously some day?”.  I did eventually finish spinning, then learned how to ply, wind onto the swift, wet finish the yarn and twist it into a skein!  My first skein of handspun, beautiful greens and blues, in all of it’s lumpy, bumpy, thick and thin glory:

This is probably a skein that will never be knit – I think I might frame it, along with my second skein of handspun.  (When Brita pulled out more fiber for sale after class, I couldn’t resist grabbing some more to try out).  They both look so adorable in their skeins (and probably a lot better than they would knitted up!) that I’m going to have to leave them that way.  The fiber for my second skein was also 100% Corriedale, in the “Something New Everyday” colorway (such an adorable mix of pinks, reds, and grays):

I did much better on my second skein, and by the end I think I had finally figured out the whole let-go-of-the-spindle-while-drafting-at-the-same-time thing (just like Brita said!).  My yarn was getting much more consistent by the end of the . . . ok, I forget what you call a bunch of fiber that is not a batt . . . was it combed top?

Now I’m working on another 3 oz. of fiber from a Louet spinning kit I got for Christmas last year (I’d been too chicken to try it out until I had the class).  It’s a solid color, and I don’t know what type of fiber it is (I can’t find it anywhere on the box or any insert in the kit), but I can tell you that it’s pretty!  The singles I’m spinning from it are much thinner than my previous two skeins, which hopefully means I’m getting better because Brita said for a while all any of us would be able to spin was really fine gauge yarn (I think this was an attempt to get us to enjoy our fat, lumpy first skeins while they lasted).

I’m sort of cringing at the thought of an actual spinning expert (or even someone with intermediate spinning skills!) reading this post, because I’ve probably said multiple things that are incorrect (and infuriating to a fiber-fanatic).  Hopefully this learning curve won’t be too steep!

The one where Linden realizes she has a problem

Tags

knitting, koolhaas, malabrigo, miss babs, socks, wrap, yarn

I have a yarn problem. It’s not that I can’t decide which yarn to use. It’s not that it’s too itchy for me to knit with. It’s not even that I have too little to finish my project. It’s that I have too much right now and I can’t stop buying it. This is no thanks to L&B (my LYS) changing up their reward system. For a while now, every $5 I spent was marked on a card and once I got to $200 spent, I could cash in my card for 25% of my next purchase. A steal, right? Well, now I have been told that I have to use any cards I have by the end of December. I won’t say how many I happen to have, as I have been avoiding this fact because knowing would indicate how much I have spent there in the last year. I’m totally in denial about the amount.

But back to why I have so much yarn. I’ve decided that I think it would be awesome to design my own patterns and offer them here and on Ravelry. This means that something I want to make pops into my head and I have to go buy the yarn.

Oh, and then there’s Christmas. Yes, I have to make Christmas gifts because clearly I am super-knitter and can knit things for all 22 members of my family. No problem. Ok, so I’m not planning on making 22 gifts. But I am (for some reason) planning to make 11 gifts (and 5 of those gifts are double gifts – meaning I have to make two of them – knitters, you see the problem). The progress has been good so far, though. Four of the six single gifts complete. Four of the ten double gifts complete. I might make it. That’s not my problem.

Back to my problem. The yarn. So I have too much of it. Reasons: “Designing”, Christmas, forced yarn buying due to discount card expiration, and pretty green yarn addiction. I fear I might have to go on a yarn fast . . . help . . . me

I put designing in quotes above due to the abundance of ideas in my head, the abundance of yarn in my possession, but the lack of concrete evidence of designing (i.e. written patterns). I have made some progress, however. I’ve got one hat pattern ready to go, and I’m almost finished writing out my dream sweater pattern. I’ll be a designer on Ravelry yet!

Now for an update on my knitting projects:

The Jackson Wrap: finished a few days after I returned from Mississippi. I actually love how this turned out, now I just have to find a place to wear it.

Yarn: Miss Babs Yowza– Whatta Skein

Pattern: Dream Swatch Head Wrap by Wendy Bernard (I just made it much bigger)

I also made a Koolhaas hat and mitts for my friend Ryan. Now I just have to get them to him in Denver . . .

Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Charrua Pattern: Koolhaas by Jared Flood

And socks . . .

Pattern- Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula by Amy Swenson Yarn – Miss Babs Yummy Hand Painted