There have been a LOT of fibre related activities going on recently. Here’s some of what I spun yesterday and finished off plying today.
On the left is some brown fluffy stuff I got from Craftspun at the last Knitting and Stitching Show and on the right is some of the light coopworth I brought to class yesterday. It’s quite ropey but it’ll be nice together in a hat I think. Now, I never blogged about it but Laura gave me some very pretty pencil roving for my birthday and I got stuck into spinning it after breakfast.
These are my singles. I split the roving in two and spun two batches of two different colours. Then, I plied them together so that the colours would have good contrast.
There’s not a huge amount there but I was really happy with how I was able to keep the thickness mostly consistent. Yay!
I have also been knitting… snail mittens with some Bolivian alpaca I picked up in Vermont…
Right now I want snails on every thing. Snails and elephants. See those green and white bits on the cuff? They are welts. I had never knit one before so now I want welts on everything, too. Snails, elephants and welts.
The palm.
After a struggle with my Schaefer Elaine (I spent about an hour trying to find the end of it so that I could just wind it up – Lisa came to my rescue), I cast on for a really, really difficult…
…garter stitch scarf!
For some reason I can never trust my initial instincts when it comes to sleeve caps. Last night, I struggled through five more sleeve caps before striking as close as I could to perfection for this guy. Sometimes I think that we must work through purgatory whilst living – or something! – because reknitting sleeve caps is about as close as I come to writing old Dante a letter re: one’s circles of hell. Anyway, this is the Sampa tunic that I put to one side for reasons unknown. All it needs are two sleeves and a pattern.
It was worth it, though
Last but by no means least, I received this charming little pin in the post a week or so ago.
Marian made up some of these crocheted pins for any readers that wanted them. Isn’t that sweet? Mine currently resides on my summer jacket. Marian is one seriously crafty girl! Check out her blog and see what she’s up to these days.
Elephants to follow in next post!
Thanks for the link Aileen, glad you liked the pin. Those mittens are looking good.
Oooo that’s good spinning! Think I’ll have to try andean plying this weekend as one of my singles is full of knots after a spinning accident and might require scrapping if I can’t ply it on itself (rather than plying with a good single).
And loving the snails 😀 What are mittens without snails?
You’re a natural at that spinning thing!
When you start something you seem to practise until it works well !!! I like those mittens too. Have to look for the translation of “welts” but this green thing is a nice idea.