I have readers!

I...have readers...I have readers!

I mean, I know I have readers, of course, since I have pageviews, but I didn't know until this past Sunday that I actually had readers, you know? But I met one! In person! One of the guy at the knitting group that I (finally) made it to said "I read your blog." Cue the emphatic waving to him in this post, since I am utterly and completely stoked, now!

Sadly, I have little to report this week. I've been sewing away on Easter stoles as surprises for the four pastors for our church, leaving little time for knitting...I've also completely neglected spinning, and my poor wheel is stain mournfully at me. I promise that as soon as I'm done with my Easter dress (or after Easter, whichever comes first), I will get back on the horse!

I do have an actual finished project to show for my efforts at Knitting group on Sunday, though!

These are Harvest Dew, by Rose Hiver, knit up in Knit Picks Stroll Hand Painted in Make Believe. I did a fairly short cuff and opted for an afterthought heel, 'cause I'm all about trying new things, and I thought shorter socks would be nicer with the heat. Spring? What spring? We had Fall all Winter and then jumped straight into Summer. Ugh.

With said heat, I think I'm going to be doing a lot more socks and lace. Speaking of lace, The Studio is having a lace challenge this quarter that I'm totally stoked for. I already snagged my needles because I've fallen in love with the Knitter's Pride Dreamz and I was scared that there wouldn't be any more left when the challenge started, so...yeah.

Anyway, the details are that you have a quarter (3 months) to knit up a project (lace, for this quarter) and anything for that project is discounted for the first couple of weeks of the quarter. If you finish in the allotted time, they will double your reward points from your materials purchase. Tres cool, if you ask me!

I'm planning on knitting the Rose Leaf Trellis Shawl, so I have an excuse to buy new yarn for it, hehe.

How do you get to the MET?

Practice, practice!

I'm a little late with getting this one up, but here's my plied up first try on the wheel:

 

Eager to get more yarn under my belt, I threw on my smaller whorl and got a little more consistent. I split the BFL I'd gotten in half and made myself some faux rolags (fauxlags?) to spin up. I was pretty pleased with the single that resulted, although I completely forgot to take a picture of it in the tizzy of having company over last night and showing off my wheel's capabilities. I went straight from finishing up my single to plying it with some black cobweb-weight merino from Colourmart that I happened to have in my stash. (I figured that a nice dark solid color would compliment the color transitions without confusing the eye the way I thought plying two singles from the dyed BFL would. That, and I'm not ready to Navajo ply. Need a little more experience with singles and regular plying first, I think!)

However! I did finish plying it up today and remembered to take photos, both on the bobbin and in the skein, so now I will dump them upon you!

 

 

I'm finding that, at least for right now, it's a lot easier to spend the time ripping off sections of fiber and wrapping them up into little cocoons to spin from. It's still got a learning curve, but I think that drafting from a rolag comes a lot more naturally to my hands than inchworming or even spinning from the fold, which I was really the only way I could handle drop spindling. 

There's something insanely relaxing about the long draw...just slowly stretching the fiber out and letting the twist do all the work in regulating the width of the strand. I can't by any means do it perfect with every draw yet, but when it works (and I remember that a Death Grip on the fiber is a Bad Thing), it makes a beautiful, even strand with so little effort that it makes my heart sing.

Seeing as it only took me a few days to spin up entirely half of my painted fiber stash, I made a little order on Etsy. I laid claim to two braids of Unwind Yarn Company's handpainted BFL, in Memphis Blues and Wide World, as well as a custom-dyed 4oz of Corriedale from Fangrrl Fiber Arts that was made specifically to fulfill my request. 

The lovely green of the Wide World is (my hands willing) going to become a dk-weight single to be knit up into a simple pair of fingerless mitts for a Christmas Present. The other two, well...We'll see what they want to be! ^_~

The adventure begins...

So, last night my dear darling boy ordered my Christmas present early. Yes, I'm aware it's not even halfway through September, but I've never really been one for antici......

...pation.

But now I have to anticipate, because it's going to take 3-10 days for my lovely new Kromski Symphony to get here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (More exclamation points illustrate more excitement, right?)

I had pretty much already decided on the Symphony when I first started thinking about spinning, but I did my research and even drove the near-hour to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence (and stopped and got some gyuudon at Don Don, too! Delish!) to test one out before I made any kind of commitment. The Yarn Barn couldn't offer me anything over-and-above the standard package and didn't have one in stock, so I didn't order from them. Instead, I ordered from Village Spin & Weave, who offer fabulous extras. I of course got the extra bobbin + Niddy Noddy + 8 oz of fiber package.

I've got a good deal of my Corriedale top left over from my spindle spinning (which I will still do, but only on the go, I think), and I also picked up some Mountain Colors BFL while I was at Yarn Barn. I'm hoping to also start dying top myself, and maybe eventually save up for a drum carder and "paint" myself some batts, but for now I'm good. I mean, I still have most of two Ugly Batts stored away, mostly because they have a large amount of VM in them and I couldn't deal with the predrafting and the VM with a spindle...Might pull them out again and try long draw once I get the hang of my new baby!

I'm going to be good about this whole blogging thing. I've failed many times in the past at writing journals, be they online or on paper, but I've decided to approach this as less of a journal and more journalism.

With that in mind, please bear with me while I hammer out what the template of the blog is going to look like, and as I get settled into some kind of posting rhythm!