Why kids' sweaters rock

You can more or less finish them in three days:

Devil's mermaid sweater, yarn spun from top that she dyed herself. Top down raglan with yarnover increases. I found a scallop-y sort of lace pattern for the hem, and repeated it on the sleeves.

Thankfully she decided she wanted short sleeves, because I didn't have a lot of yardage (~320 yds). I still need to decide what to do about buttons/button bands - it might come down to applied i-cord with a few gaps for the buttons to fit through. We'll see - it's now soaking so I can block it out and figure out how many buttons I'll need. But one more thing can be checked off the list - hooray!

A wee bit of fiber to tide you over til the Tour...

So I'm full in to the rush of knitting six different versions of Annis by July 7th, but really the deadline is July 3rd, because that's when the Tour de Fleece/Tour de France starts. My goal for the TdF is to spin up at least three of the seven lbs of Hello Yarn Fiber Club I have sitting around. Here's the status of the pile as of March:

Since then, there has been two further shipments (one more pound) added. So Something Must Be Done.

But, as I said, there's some scarf knitting to be done in the meantime. So here's the last spinny bit for a while: Dev's Mermaid Yarn, spun from top that she dyed herself, destined for some sort of top-down yoke sweatery thing.

Spun/plied at 12:1, short forward draw, about 300 yds from 8 oz. That's some dense yarn! But there's a lovely pink bit showing up there - I'll have to figure out how to get it front and center on the sweater.

I split the top in half lengthwise and spun two bobbins starting from opposite ends - as you can see, one end was a lot darker then the other, and I wanted to try and minimize the dark-to-light variation. It was a fairly easy spin - a bit of felting/sticking in spots, but I predrafted a bit to loosen up the fibers and it went smoothly. I plied pretty tightly in order to get some good bounce in the finished yarn and then soaked in warm water. In fact, I put the yarn in warm water and forgot about it until the next morning, so it got a really good soaking...

So that's it on the spinning until the prologue. I'm thinking about going in chronological order, starting with Mollusc Wensleydale (August 2007!).

I even have a plan for this fiber: laceweight singles to make an Anne Hanson shawl. Either the Honeybee Stole, which I already have the pattern for, or one of the Raven ones she's done. After I finish that, I've got 8 oz of Insect Wings(somehow I don't have a photo of this fiber, so I'm pointing you towards the HYFC pool) to do up. Not sure what form that will take though - anyone have any suggestions? After Insect Wings is some more Norway, and then Five Plum Pie. And then Sour Fig. If I can get through those, I'll be a happy camper! And there will be space in the bin for April, May and June's installments (1.5 more pounds - ulp!).

Fiber Friday: The end is in sight

A few days ago, I snapped. Really snapped. I couldn't face the prospect of anything more having to do with purple cabled yarn. So I turned on "Gladiator" and spent the next couple of hours turning this

into this.

That's the top that Devil dyed over Easter break. I'm calling it Mermaid yarn, in an attempt to get her more excited about it, and I'm planning a mini-Tappan Zee, maybe with a fish scaley lace pattern to complement the yarn.

But just to prove that the purple yarn is being finished up:

I've got four skeins finished, two more bobbins full, and 2.5 bobbins of 2-ply left. I can bang out a full bobbin of the cabled yarn in less then an evening, so I'm hoping to have it done by the middle of next week. And maybe the Mermaid yarn will be done as well!

Sewing FO: Devil's cupcake skort

After a massive shopping expedition to the fabric store with the girls, I came back and promptly cut out the pieces for this skirt. Which then sat for most of a week before they actually got put together.

Pattern: Simplicity 5531
Fabric: ??? Some cotton with cupcakes that Herself fell in love with. I bought 0.8 m of fabric, and had plenty left over.

This pattern was super easy. Two back pieces, two front pieces, one skirt flap. Sew together, hem, put in some elastic and you're good to go. There's supposed to be a button on the front, at the top of the skirt panel, but I couldn't find my button jar, and Dev was quite insistent that she put it on Right. Now. So...no button, but all is well.

I made the size 6, and there's plenty of room in there, both length and width-wise. If I'm really lucky, she can maybe wear this next summer too. Provided it isn't too devastated that is. And after such a quick and easy project, I got inspired to do this:

Cutting the pieces is always the toughest part of sewing for me - it takes so damn long! But after three hours hard work yesterday morning, I now have all the pieces cut out for their dresses. Expect more sewing FOs in the next little while!

Growing

There are definitely lots of things growing around here at the moment. Camellias,

Magnolias,

Tulips,

Laptop bags,

Cherry blossoms,

Pitcher plants,

Handspun sweaters,

and children.

Given the last, I'm embarking on another craft for a few days - sewing new summer dresses for the girls.

You'll be glad to know, however, that there are some things that are shrinking around here, i.e. my massive ball of purple top.

I'm now down to only 4.5 ounces to go. And since I'm imposing a moratorium on knitting for the next few days (my wrist is acting up again), I'm hoping against hope that it will get finished this week. Then I'll take a week or so before embarking on Neverending Plying.