Feeling Chatty Part 3-

That'll learn ya!

See? You ask where I've been and you get a three part blog post. lol


On With the Fiber! In which I say "FINALLY!" and " Whew!"
Ok, a while back I started these "color blend" exercises in which I tried to blend colors I would not normally blend. Can I just say now I consider it a failure? If I can't stand to blend the fibers and resort to striping out the blend to spin it, is is really a color blend test? Does it matter? Does anyone care? Anyhow, here's the latest that I named Charleston Chew and immediately liked it better due to it's name. It had no name before it's photo shoot and I hated it, but upon naming it Charleston Chew (which it resembles) I was immediately overtaken with a comforting memory from childhood and liked it better. Not saying that if you claim it it's not yours cause to be honest it's repellent to me. Just saying that it's not "throw it on the bon fire repellent". K? It's one redeeming factor before naming was that it was a softer twist and a fluffier yarn than I've been spinning, so there's progress, no?


Holy Cats! it feels good to be speaking of the fiber again! It seems so long since I've typed a sentence about the fiberly goodness! Not that it's been neglected. Oh, I've been dyeing. I've been carding. I've been spinning. I've even been knitting.


When I show you what I've come up with for Maria, you will be so jealous you may well want to hunt her down. To be fair to her, as I love her dearly, I won't tell you any more of her. We'll just refer to her as "The Fair Maria" from now on. K? Well, "The Fair Maria" has commissioned three skeins of yarn from her minion (myself) . One to be a Burgundy/blue mix of my choosing, one to be of a vermilion and the final to be of a purple hue. All three are to be for the Princess Brooke and must be skin-worthy. I dyed and blended a soft wool/alpaca blend that I believe the Princess Brooke will be pleased with.
Here's the blue, which I've already started. It's the softest blend I've come up with so far and the color is pleasing. At the time of this post, I've completed one bobbin (approx. 1/2) of the blue. Once the blue is done, then I'll start the Burgundy. After completion of both colors, I will ply one color with the other to complete the yarn.

After that is the purple.



And the vermilion. Three skeins total.

If I'm able to fight off the call of this fiber, I'm working on Mom's shawl. It's the only knitting I'm allowing myself at this point. So far I'm at 140+ rows. Here's a picture of it holding down my new knitting basket. ;) At 250 rows, I'll stretch it out to approx blocking measurements and then make a determination from there. Do I go to 300 rows or not? That's remains to be seen. My mother is a small framed woman and I want her to be able to wear this. I'll probably be making this decision this weekend. (oh man I hope so, cause I need to figure out how to do the border around a triangle, cause you know?, it wasn't addressed in the book it was published in. And I quote, "Alternatively, you can finish the piece with a narrow knitted on boarder." Thanks. Thanks so much. From those of us new to this, how do I knit the freaking corners?!!! Before Christmas would be nice thank you very much! So anyone with any clues, it would be much appreciated if comment now. It could make a huge difference in a nice elderly lady's Christmas presents. Just sayin. ;)

Another "finished project" on the bobbins was the previously cabled yarn from HERE that became two separate yarns again in the last few months. I discovered that to make a cabled yarn you really had to intend that at the onset of spinning the singles, so I un-cabled this yarn, added twist to the two, two-plys and then set their twists, making two skeins of two ply yarn. Both beautiful and functional, but not one cable yarn. Therefore, the cable yarn is still on my to-do list, but these beauties are now functional yarns. ;) We're all happy with the results.

There have been other spinning feats, but I'll wait until I have yardage to post the pics. At least I'm somewhat up to date. ;)