It's Finishtober: Part 4

This October, I had three projects that had been sitting around half completed, that I wanted to finish. However, I was a bit realistic and set the goal of finishing ony two of them before the end of the month. A goal I was happy to meet by finishing my Husband's Birthday sweater, and the Swirl Shawl. Sadly though, I did not get much work done on the crystaline shawl, but I think sometime next year I will set anoother month for finishing, and that will be the first project I work on.

Now, with that said, I have to announce next month's challenge. I think I may go with a yarn brand that I have stashed away, but never go around to using. Next month will be "Norovember", meaning that I will knit with nothing but yarns by Noro. I will especially be knitting with the Silk Garden Light and the fun and sparkly Auroura.

I have decided to knit a top down cardigan with the Slik Garden Light, but need to do some research yet as to what I want to knit with the Auroura, which may be a bit harder because I only have six balls of the Auroura as opposed to the tewlve balls of the Silk Garden Light I have in my stash. Whatever I come up with will be a great project though.

It's Finishtober: Part 3

It started back in April, and then I got tired of how tedious it became to knit each little section, bind it off, and then cast on the next little section, that I set it aside and let it haunt me for the next six months. like the Tell-Tale Heart, it sat in my basket and reminded me that I need to finish the Swirl Shawl.

So, after finishing Husband's Birthday Sweater, I picked up the shawl and began to work on it again. The process was slower than I would have liked, but once I found my rythm, I noticed that the piece was rather enjoyable to work on.

It blocked up nicely, and really opened up to it's full width and length. I am definately going to enjoy wearing this out and about.

With the completion of this shawl however, I am not left with much time to complete the Crystaline Shawl. But, it will be interesting to see how far I get into it.

A Change of Pace: Husband's Birthday Cake.

Every now and then I do other things beside knit and spin. Sometimes, I find something that I just have to do to make things a bit more interesting. Which is why I give you my husband's Birthday Cake!

Needless to say, it was a huge hit at the party, and I got tons of kudos on my Slimy Green Swamp Monster cake (Note the green icing oozing off the monster's body). The biggest novelty came when you cut into the cake and the monster "bled" red velvet cake, it made for tons of laughs in the end!

I will return soon with a blog about my progress in Finishtober.

Spin to Knit: Mitts

For the first time since I began spinning this last summer, I am finally making yarn for a project. Usually, I spin the yarn and then set it aside, just in case I find a good project to knit later with my handspun yarn. Frankly I would hate to go through all that work just to find that I really did not like the pattern after all. It would feel really wasteful.

However, when I found this fun little kit for spinning and then knitting a pair of fingerless mitts at the Sunset Fibers booth at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, I just couldn't resist! And I loved the colors as well.

When I got home, I grabbed my little Drop Spindle, spread the directions out on my work table, and ran into a snag. The directions called for me to spin the wool at 20 WPI. But what does WPI mean? Is that fingering weight, sport, worsted, or lace? How do you measure that and do you need a special tool for that? I Googled the term and found that there is more than one meaning for that term, and none of them seemed to be related to handspinning. So I contacted a person through Ravelry who could do amazing things with wool and wheel and asked her what WPI meant and how to measure this. I was a bit supried to learn that it was not that complicated of a concept at all.

WPI meansWraps Per Inch, and this is measured by wrapping the yarn around a standard ruler (See above) and then counting how many times, within one inch, the yarn can be wrapped around the ruler (Note: I did not spin the yarn in the photo, I just needed a yarn that would stand out on the blue ruler). A very cool way to measure the weight of your handspun yarn, especially if you are spinning for a paticular project.

Armed with this information, I began by spinning a test strip of yarn and found I was right on for the weight. I continued to spin the yarn, and noticed that one ounce of wool spins up pretty quick! I am now, more than half way through the wool, and beginning to get a bit sceptical that I have enough yarn for both mitts.

I will just have to wait and see.

It's Finishtober!: Part 2

After seven long months of this sweater haunting me, I am pleased to say that I have finally finished the sweater. I bought and started this kit back in March of this year (Bought the kit from the stand run by Philosophers Wool at the Sewing and Stitchery Expo), but got tired of working on it when I found several other projects that I really wanted to make more. However, like a really annoying and naggy mother, it was sitting there reminding me that I needed to put down the other projects and work on finishing up that sweater.

With the sudden cold weather and my Husband's Birthday looming on the horizon, I decided that this was going to be the first project that needed to get done foy my personal challenge for this month (the Renton Knitters KAL helped as well to inspire this challenge).

Anyhow, I am glad to finish this project and look forward to moving on to the next one. Perhaps it will be finished in a short of time as the last one.

And.........

Happy Birthday Husband!

Adventures In Handspinning: Moreno/Tencel

Recently I handpainted my own blend of 50/50 Moreno and Tencel but, after seeing the results I became uninterested in spinning it. I honestly think it was the purple that I added to the greens and blues that threw me, because something just seemed amiss when I really looked at it.

However, the need to empty out my little spinning basket, combined with just being tired of staring at it, drove me to throw it on the ashford (Traditional) and spin it up.

And then A very funny thing happened.

I began to love the colors, even the purple.

I love how smothly the transitions between the colors blended, and how nicely the tencel feels as I work with it. It is so soft, and easy to draft, it almost wants to draft itself as I work. It is so pretty as a single, I can't wait to see how it looks when I spin it and make it into two-ply yarn.