Commuting knitting

I went back to work yesterday, and noticed a serious shortfall - I have no commuting knitting. There I was, on the train to Waterloo, with no mindless or small knitting project in my bag.

You'll be glad to know that this shortfall has since been remedied. I've had a couple of skeins of Malabrigo Lace marinating in the stash for about three years now, and it's time to convert them into a Whisper Cardigan.

This is one of the few instances when I've bought the yarn with a project in mind and actually ended up casting it on. True to form, I am modifying the every-living Bejeebus out of this pattern. After looking at the schematics, I decided that I wanted to have the option to make the body and the sleeves a bit longer. I've only got 2 skeins, so I've decided to start from the middle of the back and knit outward to the sleeves (instead of starting at one cuff and knitting across). I'll put the stitches for the sleeves on holders, and knit the rest of the body as long as suits me, then go back and finish the sleeves off.

That's the plan at least. But knitting laceweight on US 7/4.5 mm needles makes for quite the change from 3-ply handspun on 6s!

Incoming!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been spending far too much time tracking a particular parcel on it's way to me from some lovely folks in Washington state. After a few days of forgetting to check, I just noticed this.

So. Freaking. Excited. And preparing to spin ALL THE THINGS! (And believe me, these days, that's a lot of things. Like, somewhere around 20+ lbs worth of fiber hiding in my house.) (Of course, some of that I'm supposed to be selling, not hoarding for myself...)

Oy...my poor hands. Y'all should start buying stock in Nurofen/Advil, if I have anything to say about it.

Sampler packs, get your sampler packs right here!

I've just finished loading the update into the shop (after a couple hours of photo editing after the girls finally went to bed), and I'm really excited about the sampler packs. Each bag has half an ounce (approximately 14 g) of each color in my semisolid Vital Dyes series. There are three fibers available in the sampler packs: Dorset Horn, Humbug BFL (shown above) and Shetland. Grab one and let yourself play with some new colors!

Undyed fiber report

There's been so much application of dye to fiber around here of late, that it's something of a relief to have some naturally colored fiber to play with. I've been plugging away on the Gotland (halfway to the required yardage, with another full bobbin and starting another one tonight), but I decided I needed a break, and I'm spun up the Hebridean fleece for the colorwork.

This stuff started out looking like this:


There were some intact locks.

The staple length was about 3-4 inches, and the fiber had some really nice crimp!

I had 68 grams of raw fleece, and after washing I had about 60 gr left.

I carded that up, after tossing out the bits that were too matted or scurfy to be worth messing with. This box full of rolags,

Ended up as approximately 70 yds of lovely 2-ply yarn.

This was really nice to spin - it drafted pretty well (better then the Gotland for sure!) - and the resulting yarn has a nice bounce, although it's not the softest in the world. Sadly, 70 yds is only about half of the required yardage! I do have a couple of other lots of black/brown fiber (Black Welsh Moutain, some Jacob), so the plan is to use the Hebridean for the colorwork on the arms of the sweater, and spin up probably the Black Welsh for the hem and yoke. We'll see how it goes.

Fibreholics unite!

This week has been all about finishing up the dyeing for the next update, and packing up a bunch of samples for the next round of sample boxes from The Fibreholics UK. For those of you not familiar with them, Fibreholics UK is a sampler box scheme (similar to the Phat Fiber boxes in the US) that gives customers the opportunity to try small samples of yarn or fiber from UK independent dyers.

The first set of samples I'm providing should look pretty familiar.

Leaf Peepers BFL

There will be larger bumps of this available in the shop. The other half of samples are in a similar, autumnal color range, and will also be available in 4 oz bumps in the shop.

Salamander on Wensleydale

I'm really excited to be part of Fibreholics, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity for a bunch of new people to try some of this stuff. Boxes go on sale 1 October.