Spinning new wools

Right, it's Friday, which must mean it's time for some fiber, right? We've successfully arrived back in the UK, and have had a lovely week getting over jet lag and getting back to the Real Life (TM) schedule. I now have not one, but two English schoolgirls, who are pretty thrilled to be back in academia.

 

I've spun two yarns in the 6 days we've been back (hooray for the wheel!), both of which are destined to be turned in to socks for the school girls. I ordered a bunch of different wools that I've never spun before we left, and have been happily working my way through dyeing and spinning them. First up is for Devil - some Lincoln Longwool dyed in blues.

This was dyed to give a specific stripe pattern, so I split it in half and spun each half separately, then chain plied. Since Lincoln is a longwool, and I tend to overspin, I spun and plied at much lower ratios then I usually do, hoping to avoid ending up with wire (spun at 6:1, plied at 7.5:1). The fiber was fairly slippery, surprisingly so, and it took a bit for me to figure out the right amount of twist to keep the single together without overspinning. I ended up with 114 yds of bulky chain ply, which I'll knit up into some quick, cosy socks for her. It's not terribly tightly plied, but I'm hoping a small needle size and the durability of the fiber itself means they won't wear out by Christmas.

The second yarn is for Boo Boo, dyed by herself:

Cheviot fiber, spun/plied at 12:1, 2-ply.

I spun this one as a quick wheel fix right after we got home. I think I did the entire 100 gr in a day and a half. I've never spun Cheviot before, but I now consider myself a huge fan. It's not a soft as some fibers, but it has such a great toothy feel while spinning - it would be great for sturdy mittens or outerwear sweaters. Plied up, it's a lot softer then I was expecting from feeling it in top form. I'm not terribly sensitive to wool prickle, but I'm not sure I could wear a Cheviot sweater without a layer underneath, but that may just be this batch. I plied fairly tightly for durability, and I think these socks will be a huge hit.

There they are, all balled up and ready to go. Time to bust out the bigger needles and get started!

TdF Yarn #2 and a Rest Day

My second TdF project was/is 1.5 lbs of Romney from Hello Yarn.

So I started in on the spinning. And I spun. And spun. And spun. And all my bobbins were filling up, and it didn't really feel like I was getting anywhere. Here's a photographic rundown of multiple days of spinning:

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7:

By Friday I was over the Neverending Romneying. Over. It. So after I finished that third bobbin, I totally jumped ship, threw the plying maiden on the wheel, and banged out this.

1.5 hours, 227 yds/4 oz of my first attempt at thick and thin singles. The fiber is Amy's Corriedale in the "Twenty Ten" colorway (from my 4 Oz Challenge prize last fall). Fun colors, quick yarn, end product is soft and squishy. Love it.

And then it was back to the Romney, Day 9:

Today is a rest day, and so far I have: read on the porch with the girls.

Played with (and bathed) the dog.

Gone raspberry picking.

Made raspberry chocolate chip ice cream.

As yet, there has been no spinning. I suspect that won't last, as I'm on a tear to get all these singles done so I can start the neverending plying. The extra special good news is that I've cracked open the last bag of fiber, so the end is in sight!

Now I just have to decide what's going to be next...

Seventy two months, plus or minus

Dear Devil,

On this exact day six years ago, I was at our house in Houston, supremely grateful to be out of the hospital and to have my mother around, and more then a little gobsmacked at the job we'd taken on. I was counting your age in hour and days. Then, for the longest time, whenever anyone asked me how old you were, the unit of time was weeks. It eventually shifted to months, and now it's finally reached years.

You are six years old. The cliche is that time flies, and that's exactly how I feel, even though I remember events all along the course of those six years. Somehow it's gone by so quickly that I look at you and can't figure out where you came from or how we got here. We recently had to go to the US Embassy to renew your passport, and one of the things we had to bring was a photo montage to show how you've grown from a total standard looking baby to the gorgeous creature you are now. While I was putting it together, I realized that I could see the person you are now in those little baby and toddler photos, but I never would have extrapolated forward from those points to now.

This past year has been an incredible one for your brain - in the last few months something has clicked and all of a sudden you are voraciously reading everything you can get your hands on. You told me a few days ago that reading was your favorite thing ever, and I have to agree with you on that one babe - it is amazing. When you and Boo don't want to go to sleep right away, she climbs up on the top bunk with you and you read her stories by the light of a doll someone gave us years ago that has a necklace that lights up. Not the best thing for your eyes no doubt, but I have fond memories of doing the same under my covers with a flashlight for years, so you come by it honestly. And very often in the morning we'll find the two of you snuggled up together cosily, having fallen asleep together the night before.

You and the SRD are huge buddies, and you take your responsibilities as dog trainer very seriously. After an initial attempt to take both of you along to puppy class, your sister stayed home with me last week and you and Daddy had a much better time of it. You came home all excited to show me how to make him lie down, and you love taking him for walks on the Common. And I think all the attention from your friends and other people at school about the dog has made you much more confident - last week Daddy and I came to assembly to hear your class talk about their day at the Golden Hind and Tate Modern. You had to stand up and recite a line about the trip, and you did it with nary a hesitation or stutter - a far cry from last year's end-of-term school play. I'm not sure whether it was knowing the audience, practicing more, or just feeling more sure of yourself, but boy was I proud of you.

I love you sweet pea, even more then ever, and I can't wait to see what the next year brings for you.

Love,
Mumma

Phew!

Time stamp: 09:14:34 am 30 October. Wiktory!

FF: One week, two sweaters

Sweater #1:

Sweater #2:

Not surprisingly, Devil was uninterested in modeling her sweater, although I have managed to get her into it voluntarily. But Boo was happy to put her's on for our grey and drizzly Sunday visit to HMS Belfast.

Both sweaters: top down raglans a la Barbara Walker.
Needles: US 10/6.0 mm for bodies, US 8/5.0 mm for ribbing on the Technicolor Dreamsweater
Yarn: handspun from girl-dyed top (colorways Mermaid and Clown Barf). I used all of the Mermaid yarn and 95% of the Clown Barf.

These were great fun to knit, and have only increased my conviction that I will be much happier when I do most of my knitting from handspun rather then commercial yarn. It's so satisfying. I am also pleased that Boo's dye job ended up as a very bright, but perfectly 3-year-old-appropriate sweater. She loves it, and it makes it really easy to keep track of her in a crowd!

I've got to go back and fix the collar I think - add ribbing all the way around instead of doing a little Peter Pan deal - but then it will be time to move on to the next project. Spinning seems to be falling by the wayside these days, in favor of actually using up some of the stash. I think the next sweater should be the IM Aran, but a new Knitty (and a new Norah Gaughan pattern) is very tempting!