My first corespun yarns

Still high on inspiration from Camp Pluckyfluff, I pulled out some beautifully dyed locks this week to try some core spinning. What fun! I used a commercial mohair yarn for the cores -- the fuzziness of the mohair grips onto the wrapping fiber really easily. On Monday, I took out some cotswold locks from HollyEQQ, in a colorway called "pixie meadowbrite," and made this:

I liked the results so much that on Tuesday, I took out some more cotswold locks -- this time from Homestead Wool, in a colorway called "hydrangea," and spun up 50 yards of this:

I suppose that one of these days I should try knitting up some of these handspun yarns, but for now I'm having so much fun making them that it's interfering with my knitting projects!

Post-Pluckyfluff spinning

While I was at Camp Pluckyfluff, I bought some beautiful hand-dyed blue-faced leicester fiber, in a colorway called "neapolitan." Given its ice cream-y name, it just had to be spun up into something swirly, right? So here's Neapolitan Soft Swirl:

Camp Pluckyfluff!

Last weekend was 48 hours of spinning fun -- I got to go to Camp Pluckyfluff in Vermont! We met at The Spun Monkey's studio for two days of spinning instruction from Lexi Boeger of Pluckyfluff. Lexi taught us lots of fantastic techniques for spinning novelty and art yarns. Many of them are discussed in her latest book, Intertwined -- if you haven't seen this book, you should look for it the next time you go to the bookstore. If you're a spinner, it will inspire you to spin. And if you're not a spinner, it could well inspire you to start.

Unfortunately, I haven't got any photos of camp, because my camera battery died when I got there. Lexi's got some great ones on her blog, though. And I've got photos of my yarns. Here's my favorite:

I started this yarn with a base of green wool, with some bits of of orange thrown in as well. Then following Lexi's technique, I spun in some orange silk poppies (bought at Michael's, and plucked off their stems), some tulle, lace, fabric scraps, little flowers, and even a green zipper. Maybe I'd better take another photo that actually shows the zipper.



I spun lots of other yarns, as well.





This one, plied with a textured green thread, has beehive coils, granny stacks, and some spiky bits.








Then there's one with contrasting crescents (left), and one with pre-made felt bits added (right).




























This one was spun from a crazy-carded batt -- we just grabbed bits of wool, sparkle, threads, and whatever else we had around. Then our random fibers were run through a drum carder, and spun up rather randomly as well -- thin where the fiber was smooth, thick where it was clumpy.

This technique, along with the others we tried, convinced me to order a drum carder of my very own when I got home.







... and this wild spiky skein was made by plying a heavily over-twisted single with a red thread.









And finally, this was the last yarn of the weekend, still on the bobbin because I didn't have time to spin very much it of. Gorgeous jade green locks tail-spun onto a core of commercial green mohair yarn. Soft, fluffy, and exotic-looking -- I can't wait to spin more of this one!


Thanks to Lexi, our host Shannon, and to my fellow campers for a fabulous spinning weekend!

I'm still here!

Somehow, I just haven't remembered to post anything in an incredibly long time. Maybe I've just been distracted by Ravelry. And it's hard to get good photos in the winter because of the shortage of natural light. And maybe I've just been too busy knitting. But whatever the reason, I'm back. I'm not going to try to fill in everything I've worked on over the past few months, but maybe I'll take some photos of old projects this weekend.

In the meantime, two fibery things are occupying my thoughts:

(1) I bought a share in the fall shearing of the Angora goats at Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. If you don't know what this is, you can read about it in a Wall Street Journal article. The farm has a wonderful blog to update "shareholders" on day-to-day happenings throughout the year -- and it's full of photos of the most adorable kids and lambs.

(2) I'm anxiously counting down to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this coming weekend. Only five more days! I've got a marked up map and vendor list, and a list of projects that I want yarn for ... but mostly I want to buy fleece to spin on the wonderful Majacraft Suzie wheel that I got for Christmas. I'm planning to spend all day Saturday at the festival, and maybe even go back on Sunday for the parade of breeds and the sheep-to-shawl competition. I'll surely have more to post when it's over.

Some knitting, some jewelry, some fiber madness

Let's start with the knitting. I finished my Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the fall Interweave Knits. It's no exaggeration to say that this may be my all-time favorite knitted sweater. The tweedy green yarn is a beautiful color, and the cabling around the shoulders is gorgeous. I like the deep ribbing on the body and sleeves, especially since the garter rib doesn't pull in tight the way that a regular 2x2 rib would. And for once, I made a sweater that's lightweight enough to wear in Virginia.





Even Zoe likes it. But then, she's not very discriminating -- she firmly believes that all wool was intended to become a cat bed.



Pattern: Eunny Jang's Twisted Yoke Cardigan, Fall IK
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, 9 skeins of "herb"

As for the jewelry, the recent mention of my stitch markers and pendants in Knitty has been great for business, as you might imagine. I've had a number of sales (from Australia even!), and have gotten some wonderful feedback. Thanks everyone! I'd better get another batch made up quick ... stock has run low again.

And as for the fiber madness, I've got two fiber-related weekends coming up! This coming weekend, I'll be taking classes at Stitches East in Baltimore. I'll be in Two Hands Two Colors, Freeform Potpourri, and Fair Isle Knitting. Two of these classes will be put to immediate use, as I've already bought the yarn for Eunny Jang's Autumn Rose pullover. And then, the next weekend, I'm going to Rhinebeck. I hadn't been planning to go, but then I found out from a friend about a reunion of our high school class -- that same weekend, and only 100 miles away. I almost had to go then, right?!

The fall issue of Knitty is online . . .

. . . and I'm so excited! Back in June, I sent off a necklace and a set of stitch markers to the product review folks at Knitty magazine, hoping that they might put them into the "Cool Stuff" section of the fall issue. I've been obsessively checking for the new issue since Labor Day, and it finally went online this afternoon. And there they are -- my "knit" pendant and a set of "I (heart) yarn" stitch markers. Click here to see the Knitty column, and on this link to go to my shop.

And now I have to get back to reading Knitty!

Lots of finished projects -- not all knitting

I'm shocked by the date of my last post. I knew it had been awhile, but I had no idea it had been so long. I've accumulated lots of finished projects in the meantime. My favorite is this messenger bag:





This is the "Cheery Os Book Bag" from Tink Knit. The original has lots more circles, but I liked the way it looked after I finished the first row, so I stopped there. The front flap is knitted and felted, with the circles needle-felted into place. The yarn is Ella Rae Classic, eggplant and a variety of other colors. The body of the bag, though, is sewn from a buttery soft black leather that I bought on a recent trip to New York at Leather Impact. This was my first time working with leather, but the leather was so soft that I didn't have any trouble with it.

I also finally finished another bag that I knitted and felted weeks ago. This one is the medium-size Adventure Bag from Noni Patterns.




I used some Brown Sheep yarn that I've had sitting around for several years (it was supposed to be a sweater). The lining is from Purl, in New York.
The knitting was easy enough, but I was a little intimidated by sewing in the zipper. Luckily, it went in straight on the first try.









Those are the main knitting projects, but I did make these socks while I was on vacation.
















I've also got some non-knitted items to show off today. I got a shiny new Bernina sewing machine last weekend, so I've got a few sewn projects as well -- a cute pincushion, an eyeglass case, and a composition book cover made of some adorable cowgirl oilcloth.








I'm feeling the urge to try a patchwork quilt next . . . but first I ought to finish that cardigan I've been knitting.