Spin A Yarn for Ewe

Well, I finally had my meeting with the LYS owner. She was very nice and has a very cute little store. Getting there was a nightmare. I had a few things I wanted to get done before driving there which made me end up about 5 miles farther north then where I normally get on. Yikes! That 5 miles took me 30 minutes and that was at 9am and no accident.
She liked my yarns and wants to carry them in her store. She wants skeins around 100 yards and in complimentary colors and naturals. I have quite a few skeins that will work already spun and am working on some more. That roving is my newest dye job. It is drips of magenta, navy and yellow. Where they mixed you have a little green and some orange. It is spinning up nicely and should be pretty yarn. I dyed some more today with yellow and red with the same technique if you can call it that. It is really random and cannot be reproduced exactly but if you use similar colors you get about the same look. I am trying for more spring/summer colors as that is what the store is looking for. Should be fun as I usually go for the blues and purples so adding some brights will be new for me.

I bought myself a new toy. It is called a Weavette. It is a very cool loom that is only 4"x4". I had seen these flowers in a magazine made from 3 squares made on them and thought they were really cute and also would be a great way to use up odds and ends of yarn since they take just under 8 yards. The squares get easier and easier the more you do. I also found that they really work better with finer yarn. I made the leaf with a 2 ply light worsted weight and that was alot harder to weave but makes a much more dense fabric. I think these would make great embellishments for a purse or even a headband. I made one of those panta's that were so hot a few months ago and this would of really been cool on it.

I started the solid/multi 2 ply yarn. I really think this will be something I do again. I am even thinking about getting some jet black roving and dying some really bright roving to make a fun yarn. White and a multi would work too for a subtle look. I have plenty of white roving to play around with this idea but no black. The black fleece I had processed had just a few too many sunburned tips to make a coal black roving. It is more of a very dark brown but that might work too depending on what color I dye the other.

I finished the yarn to go with the flower. It is a heavy worsted 2 ply with some lumps and bumps for fun but not too many.I wanted handspun not homemade looking. It should be enough for a hat or short scarf about 115 yards. I finished the baby hat last night as I knew I had to. The soon-to-be parents are coming to get some stuff from us and I thought I would give it to them in person. So it will be a blanket, hat and booties. Should make a cute package. I also have some cotton washcloths I might throw in there too.

I am at a loss of what to do next. I have tons of roving but nothing is really calling out to me to be spun. I think I might start the multi colored roving I got to go with a solid roving. I was thinking about spinning some of both and plying them together. Surprisingly I have never done this and I am unsure how it will look. Hopefully nice. Anyone else done this?

I also decided to send the Finn/Alpaca/Angelina as my yarn for the KR Spinner's Exchange. I got it all cut up and tagged today so now all I have to do is wait for the address to send it. The fiber had to be a blend of wool and something so this works.

I finished the Sandstone roving. It turned out nicer once it was plied and I really like it. It has very subtle colors with a tan background. Hard to photograph even in natural light. I am currently spinning the roving to go with my flower. It has shades in it for a subtle color difference. Some blue, darker pink and white. I am going to spin it up as a heavy worsted 2 ply and it will have some thick and thin spots for fun texture. The roving had gotten a little felted when dyed so I ran it through my drum carder to loosen it up and it has some large nebs so I have just let those go through when I spin. I hopefully will have it plied up tomorrow. Here is the first bobbin full. I got an email yesterday from the store owner who wants to carry some local handspun. I am going to meet with her on the 31st. Between now and then I plan to spin some different stuff to show her. Maybe some more funky stuff or maybe just more bulky. I tend not to spin bulky as I think it is too hot to wear around here but I know people still love it for the instant gratification it brings. So bulky I will go. I also want to try plying with a shinny thread to see how that looks.

I have been working on a few new ideas for my yarn and thought this might be a fun one to try. I have seen other "kits" that combine handspun yarn with a pattern. I have also seen cute ones with monsters to sew on afterwards. I love the idea but I am hardly a monster-wearing person, so I got out the needle felting tools and whipped this together to see how it would look. The plan is to spin up the roving I have pictured with it and make a scarf or maybe a hat. The flower would be sew on to the finished item adding a little extra visual impact. There might even be enough roving to do a small purse. I really think that could be cute with the flower done as a pin to take on and off.

So many ideas so little time.

I finished the KoolAid roving and the yarn came out kind of like I thought it would. The colors stayed together in places and seperated in places. If I had made more of an effort I think I could of kept the colors together better but I like the tweed effect that happens when they are not together. What do you think? I have been spinning some top that I got and the colors are great unspun but the yarn is seeming a bit muddled in color. I think it will look better plied. I am even tempted to ply some now to see how it turns out. Here is a shot of the roving before being spun. I love the colors. Here is a shot of the spun singles. I like it, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't have that same pop in the singles.

I also started on the baby hat I have to get done. It is coming along nicely and the yarn is really nice. I am using Cashsoft Baby DK in blue. I thought I would have it done by now but my baby is sick and so lots of cuddling has taken away from knitting but he is SO worth it.

I asked about this technique the other day on KR after I had seen it on another blog. You make these very curly corkscrew like bits on the yarn. It looked very cool but I was not sure how to do it. The blogger who had made the yarn responded(much to my shock) on how to do it. I tried it last night. Now I am not by any means good at it but I do now understand the process. When I do it again I will spin my tight single the more so it does not unply during this technique and I have to learn to do it faster.I also see it beeing more interesting if you spun a thick and thin single to wrap around. Off to play with it more.

I have been spinning up the roving I pictured before. It is making nice singles. I have been doing something different with it as I spun sections of it different colors. I did them in the same order on both bobbins. It hopefully will give me sections where it matches exactly and sections where is doesn't. We will see as I plan to ply it tonight or maybe this afternoon.

I finally picked up my knitting needles again. I have a baby to knit for and I really want to get the set of stuff I want to give them done before the baby shows up. I have a blanket done, the Ugg Booties done and I am now working on a hat. I think I want to do matching socks for the hat but we will see. They shouldn't take long and would be cute to round out the set so we will see.

I have been feeling so uninspired with my knitting lately and I don't think it was from holiday gift burn out. I only did a few gifts and they were done in plenty of time. Guess it is just how it goes. I have my spinning and that has been a great source of fun and relaxing too.

Here is the yarn I talked about before. It was dyed as roving and then spun up. It is a Finnsheep roving that I have had. The hot pour method was new for me and even though I used 3 different colors it came out with very subtle differences. My next spinning project involves 3 different KoolAid dyed rovings. This is roving from one of the sheep we used to own and is about a medium VM roving. I have been picking out the bits before I spinn so I don't have to stop so often. Normally I wouldn't bother even spinning stuff this dirty but it has sentimental value as Sarah was a great sheep. She along with Jack and Elizabeth all went to live a a great place around the corner and I hope to get a fleece off Elizabeth again this year.

I have been a very busy spinner lately. I really haven't knit anything since the first of the year and so far I am not missing it. My spinning has been keeping me busy as well as dyeing roving and yarn.

I may have a new prospect on my plate. There is a store that wants to start carrying local spinners yarn and I have been in contact with the owner. We are going to meet and I will show her my yarn and she will give me her idea of how it is going to work. I think it might be a good thing but I am not sure if it is not too much to her advantage. Either way it got me thinking about maybe trying to sell some of my handspun on the internet. We will see but right now my stash is getting out of control and I am starting to enjoy the process of dyeing and spinning more than knitting right now. These are 3 of the skeins I have spun since January 1st. The hot pink one I did not dye but the blue/green/yellow one I dyed as yarn and the other is a blend of 2 natural colors plus Angelina, which is mighty hard to photograph. I have one other skein drying that I finished last night that was dyed as roving with a hot pour method that I had not used before. It turned out a really pretty purple. I will photograph it and get it up soon.