Raspberry Tweed

Here is a little bit of eye candy for the yarnies and fiber addicts (myself included), who frequent the blog and to the new visitors out there WELCOME! and enjoy :)

First off I must share the Antique Skein Winder I scored for $15 when I went to a local antique shop with my Grandma, Aunt and Cousin. I found this wedged behind a couple of old shovels and a wooden crate. At first glance I wasn't sure if it was what I thought it was, but when I heard it was only $15 on sale that day, I bought it on the spot. I used it already, to wind up the skein of Raspberry Tweed I finished spinning this weekend.

This is a skein I just listed on my Etsy today! I spun it up and plied it all on my top whorl drop spindle made by spinsanity on Etsy. It was spun from an Angora Merino batt I purchased from Wiley Woolies at the Fiber Fest at Cornwells Turkeyville this past fall. It is 294 yds of a heavy worsted / light bulky weight yarn weighing in at 5.4 oz / 150 grams. I am in a little personal competition with my cousin who fills her spindle to such capacity I have yet to surpass her in total yardage of a single skein. I thought for sure I would do it with this skein, but her last skein was 295 yds! I missed it by 1 yd! She also told me that she found some extra fiber after plying her skein and if she had been able to add that in she was sure she could have hit 300 yds in a single skein. WOW! Her success with spinning keeps me striving to excel in my own abilities. Someday I would like to own a wheel to make spinning faster, but there is a real sense of satisfaction knowing that this HUGE skein of yarn was spun up on a humble little stick and whorl!

Now that spring is here, I am pulling out all kinds of roving and fiber that has been stored away during my winter knitting phase. The Holidays really wiped me out with all the knitting they required. Now I can get back to a relaxed pace of spinning, knitting and sewing. Currently what is keeping me busy is spinning and knitting, sewing only falls in here and there when I get a free moment from everything else.

So currently, almost all of my spindles have fiber on them. I am spinning up some more flax. I have 4 ozs of flax fiber that I spun just a small amount of last summer, I navajo plied it, and then it sat around in a tiny skein (I think about 90 yds) for this past year while I was a gloomy gus, disappointed with how much it resembled a bunch of sticks in color and texture. Well, I finally pulled it out and decided I was going to knit something with it and see if it would really soften up like I have read and been told, that it would. Surprise Surprise! I am knitting a napkin, yes.....a napkin in a basic stockinette with a garter stitch border this yarn has gotten softer and softer the more I knit with it. I can only imagine how much softer it may get once the napkin is done and I launder it a few times. So I have been encouraged by this little bit of knitting to spin up the rest of the flax and maybe make something a little bigger than a napkin with the finished yarn.

I am also spinning a bit of australian merino wool that I Hand dyed when I was visiting with my cousin a few weeks ago. You can see her hand dyed rovings on her blog at Holly Marie Knits. Here is just one of mine currently on the spindle. We have just been practicing our dyeing with some Wilton Icing Dyes, but I plan to purchase some Greener Shades Dyes for my next batch of fiber dyeing coming up in a couple of weeks.

And....I am just starting to spin a burgundy batch of Merino/Alpaca fiber I purchased from Jehovah Jireh Farm at last years fiber event at Cornwells Turkeyville in Marshall Michigan. My grandmother wants a wimple like the one I knit for my cousin and so I thought this would make a nice yarn for it if I spin it up lace weight. The pattern Ice Queen from Knitty.com

Well, I'd love to stay and chat a while more, but with all the photos this post has taken me longer than I anticipated. The new women's bible study with the ladies from my church starts tonight and I need to get a move on or I will be late! More updates to come later this week........(including some video of fiber dying and a knitting tutorial for one of my patterns)

Little Lace Shawl

I just had to share this little lace shawlette I made this weekend. I absolutely love it. After I finished spinning up my Summertime yarn, I wanted to find something small that might only use 1 skein of yarn and so I logged into Ravelry and started searching. What I found was a simple, easy to knit pattern for this little lace shawlette called 198 yds of Heaven designed by Christy Verity. This is a free pattern and you can download it directly from Ravelry. It is not really a beginner pattern, because it assumes the knitter has some prior experience with triangular shawls and their construction and so it does not give any directions for the sequence of knitting the repeats of each row. With a little help from my cousin Holly and some trial and error I was able to figure out the row repeats and once that clicked, I did not have any further trouble knitting the rest of the shawl. It is a little involved for the novice knitter, but I highly recommend it and you can always ask someone for help getting started on the row repeats to make sure you do it right. I am certain this will be my favorite shawl pattern forever, and I will knit them all year long, gift them to friends and family, and make them in colors to go with every season and every dress I own. They will be house shawls and church shawls, and just going out shawls. There will always be a reason for me to pick up some sticks and string and get to knitting another little shawlette.

This little shawlette is being gifted to a friend and I am delivering it to her personally when I visit her this afternoon:)

Hand Dyed, Hand Spun, Hand Knit Mitts

I fell in love with these mitts when I saw them in the IK Fall 2007 Issue and knew that one day I would knit them.

2 years later........I finally have!

I hand dyed the colorwork wools with Wilton Icing Dyes and spun them up in small batches to make the mitts. The body of the mitts is knit with a worsted natural gray handspun wool. My mother purchased a batt of it at a recent fiber festival in my hometown, sadly, she does not have the label telling what kind of wool it is. I can tell you it is a little bit coarse, but not scratchy, and it was a bit tricky to spin, as it was carded into a huge batt at the mill and the fibers are very short bits and pieces. I had to pull the batt in several directions to loosen up the fibers for drafting, I then rolled it loosely like a rolag and folded it gently in half so it formed a V shape. then I drafted it from the tip of the V which pulled the fibers sideways across each other, this seemed to help them twist more firmly together. I am a fairly new spinner, so if there is a specific name for how I drafted this I don't know what it is, but I would love to hear it if you do.

I measured out 2.25 ounces of this wool and spun up 90 yards of worsted weight yarn.

The yarn used for the colorwork is as follows:

Red 3o yds handspun 12 wpi

Orange 1o yds handspun 12 wpi

Teal 11 yds handspun 12 wpi

* I used this in the center colorwork of the 2nd mitt when I ran out of the red.

Salmon 15 yds handspun 12 wpi

Lime Green 27 yds handspun 12 wpi

lt pink 7 yds handspun 11 wpi

* I only used a very small portion of this yarn on the top portion of the 2nd mitt because I ran out of the Salmon color. The colors are so close that you almost can't tell the difference unless you really look closely at them together.

I really like the slight differences that resulted in the 2nd mitt due to the color changes. I knit these mitts over a few days. Each one took about 12 hours. I CO in the evening for the first mitt and knit for 6 hours. I picked it up again at 7am the next morning and knit until 1pm. The first mitt was finished. The majority of the second mitt was knit in a single day. I knit 27 rows from the CO edge in the evening and then picked it up again at 6am the next day and knit for a few hours in the morning, and then I knit again in the afternoon until the mitt was finished. I think the second mitt actually went a little faster, but since the first one was 12 hours of knitting I figured it would be safer to estimate 24 hours for the whole project.

I like these mitts so much, I think I will make them again in different colors. My mom wants a pair and I am sure my daughter would love a pair too.

The pattern for these mitts can be found on Ravelry here Interweave Knits Composed Mitts

Happy Knitting!

Dye Spin Knit Felt

Lately I have really been into felting Knitted projects. So much so, that I have made several felted patterns and made them available on Ravelry (I still have a frog toy to write up and post though). While browsing Etsy the other day I came upon many needle felted items, mostly adorable little animals. I have a needle felting tool that my mother sent to me and I decided I really wanted to make some little needle felted animals and things.

THE HUNT FOR FIBER WAS ON!!

Well, I am visiting my parents in SC right now, and I knew that anything I purchased on Etsy probably would have to go to my house in Michigan because I was going to be heading home soon, and I am very much a "Spur of the moment" kind of crafter. Once I get something into my head, I want to do it right now and waiting around for items in the mail is NOT an option.

So I took a trip down to Hobby Lobby to look at their needle felting roving packs. They really didn't have anything of interest. While I was there my Mother wanted me to check out the baking and Cake decorating aisle for those nifty silicon muffin molds (She uses them as soap molds because they are easy to manipulate and release the soap better). Well, sadly for her, they did not have any of those silicon molds, but goodie for me, I spied some wilton gel colorings in little jars and had an epiphany!

At 1.49 each, I grabbed up 8 jars of various colors and headed to the checkout.

Once back at the parents, I pulled out about 12 oz of natural ecru fiber I had been hoarding. 4 ounces of Romney and 8oz of BFL. I pulled it into shorter lengths and soaked it in a bowl in the sink for about an hour, until it was heavy with water and there were no dry spots left.

There are numerous posts online if you do a google search for "dyeing fiber with Wilton Dyes" too many to list them all, but I really liked this one by PieKnits.

I did not really write down measurements for this first attempt at dyeing. My goal here was to dye up the fiber I had for my own personal use, so I really just jumped right in and played around with it.

And this is what I did:

I put 3 separate saucepans on the stove top, each with 4 cups water and 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar. I brought the water and vinegar mixture to a boil and then reduced the heat to simmer.

I used a butter knife to measure out a small bit of Wilton Dye from the jar. Basically I covered about a 1/4 inch of the knife tip with dye from the jar. The dye is like a thick paste, so I mixed it with some boiling water in a small glass pyrex dish (very small custard style cup) until it was well dissolved. Then I added this color mixture to the pot of water and vinegar on the stove and stirred it in. I mixed a different color in each pot.

Now I took my bowl of soaking roving and poured it out into a colander. Then I removed each length of roving, one at a time, gently squeezing out the excess water and laying the roving on a small towel I had opened up on the kitchen counter.

Once all the roving was ready I put 1 short length into each pot. Now I just waited a few minutes, spooning the fiber up out of the water to check the saturation periodically. It really did not take more than maybe 5 - 15 minutes for the fibers to be well saturated with color. Many times the fiber would suck up all the color in the pot and the water would be clear once the fiber was removed. When that happened, I would just add more color and more wool to repeat the process. If there was color remaining in the pot when the wool was removed, I would simply place new length of wool in the pot to use up the remaining color. This is how I was able to get varying shades of the same color. As I went along, I became more confident and started mixing colors in the pot to try and achieve different shades. (I will be dyeing more fiber soon and will post detailed instructions on mixtures for the colors I achieve).

Once I spooned the fiber out of the dye pot, I would let it sit in a colander in the sink to cool for a few minutes and then I would rinse it with warm water until the water ran clear. I would gently squeeze the excess liquid from the fiber, shake it out a little bit to fluff it, and then hang it outside to dry.

And here are the results for my afternoon of dyeing fiber!

I used a little bit of the colored rovings to needle felt this little Mother Hen and her Chicks

and these 3 little piggies

And then I decided to spin up the wool I need to knit the Composed Mitts from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 Issue Here is the link to the Composed Mitts Pattern Page on Ravelry.

These are the mini skeins I spun up last night for the bits of color.

I am still spinning the natural lt gray to use for the body of the mitts. I am currently using my US4 Addi Turbo 40 inch circular to knit the Dream Twister Socks 2 at a time, so I will have to buy another pair to knit these mitts 2 at a time.

Next post will be an update of the ongoing Toe Sock Project and more knitting WIP.

Happy Knitting, Spinning and Felting:-)

COMING SOON - Audio and Video Podcast!!

Recently I have been thinking that it is time for me to take the leap into the world of PODCASTING! I plan to introduce my very first Audio Podcast sometime this week, with a video podcast to follow shortly thereafter.

I have been listening to several knitting podcasts this weekend and I have decided that it would be nice to get a peek at some of the projects and techniques that many of the podcasters discuss during their segments. So when I start my own podcast, I am going to include a video segment later in the same week which will show details of the projects, tips, techniques, and other things of interest that were discussed in that week's Audio segment.

I am very excited about this idea, and I hope to be able to include my Cousin Holly as a special guest in several of my Audio and Video Podcasts as well, as she is a superior knitter and I have learned much from her and her mother, my Aunt Mary over the past year.

Topics will include Knitting, Spinning, Fiber, and for those of you in my local area, a glimpse into the fiber related activities and events coming up or currently going on in the community.

So STAY TUNED........for now I will leave you with my latest Youtube Video

In Vogue - Elizabeth Zimmerman Snail Hat!

Some things never go out of style. I was browsing some of my favorite blogs the other day and read about the EZ Snail hat on Cosymakes blog. I thought to myself......that hat looks familiar, so emboldened by curiosity I clicked a few links and wound up on the Snail Hat Pattern Page on Ravelry where I was given the option to buy the pattern or, I was told, I could find it in the Winter 09 Edition of Vogue Knitting. Wouldn't you know, I happen to have that very copy of Vogue Knitting, hence why the hat looked so familiar. I had dog eared the page to knit later. Well I decided I would knit now instead.......added bonus Cosymakes is offering a handspun giveaway!I had just visited a local fiberfest and had 2.5 ounces of pink Angora/Merino/Silk/Angelina blend that I had spun up into a light worsted/sport weight yarn at 12wpi. Even though the pattern called for a bulky with a gauge of 2 1/2 sts per inch, I wanted to see how this would knit in the angora blend and figured I could hold on to it for a Christmas gift later. The finished hat is perfect size for a child of preteen age, say 8-12.I used a US 10 16-inch circular for the main portion of the hat, and switched to (4) US 9 DPNs to finish it off once I finished the round at (p1,p2tog,p2tog,k10,m1). From there I continued to decrease until I was left with a total of 15sts total, I decreased 2 more rounds as stated in the pattern and pulled the working yarn through the final 9 sts and finished off the hat. Using the tail of the cast on edge I seamed up the 2 edges of the garter stitch band at the bottom and weaved in all ends.I am very pleased with the results and can't wait to make another one of these luxurious hats. Imagine my joy at seeing how the wonderful Halo on this fiber appears in the final photos.

Scrumptious!

Bobbles and Buttons - Neckwarmer and Mitts

I have put this pattern on Ravelry - you can find me there as lildebi, and you can find the pattern PDF for printing here

I went to the Fiber Festival in Marshall last Saturday and fell in love with all the fibers. This fiber was from Jehovah Jireh farm and I purchased it in an 80z roving ready for spinning. It is a blend of 70% Merino Wool and 30% Alpaca, and I spun it up on my new bottom whorl spindle that I bought from Spin2knit to make a bulky yarn. I happened upon a women plying on her spindle using the navajo plying method, it was great to see, and even greater to realize that I knew and recognized what she was doing. I tried the Navajo Ply myself on this yarn and it turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself. I really love it and have decided to continue to purchase this fiber and make more yarn to sell in My Etsy Shop . I can envision this yarn in a nice chunky sweater or poncho with pockets. Too many of my clothes are minus pockets and I really miss the ability to carry small things without having to lug around my huge duffel of a purse.

Since I am under the weather this week, I am using this down time to spin and knit. I just finished up some angora/silk last night, it is a light pink reminiscent of Cotton Candy, and I just love it. I am also spinning up another smaller bundle of Merino/Alpaca from Jehovah Jireh Farm that I am going to navajo ply and use to make myself a pair of fingerless mitts.

I have also written up the pattern for the Owl Pincushion and am adding it to that blog entry later today. So keep an eye out for it later on.

Spinning Flax into Linen Thread

Here is my very first YouTube Video! How exciting. I am still getting the hang of my video camera. I have had it for a year, but I have just started using it to make videos of my spinning and other crafts.

This video is a close-up view of drafting and spinning flax into linen thread using the Wet-Spun method. This is my first time spinning flax. It sort of resembles a twine when finished and this type of flax is Line Linen I believe as it is the longer fibers and it does not need to plied at all. It can be used as a single. I plan to use my linen thread to knit a lace tank top. It is large enough that it is worn over a lighter blouse and long similar to an apron style in the front. I thought I had a copy of the pattern, but I cannot find it in my stash. I will have to hunt it down online and see if I can post a link to it here.

This is just the first of many more videos you will see from me in the future!

Happy Spinning!

Eye Candy for Yarn Lovers!

I have been so busy trying to catch up on my knitting and get some spinning done in the past few weeks. Finally I have finished some yarn that I can list for sale on my Etsy. (I have been hoarding all my other handspun for personal projects, or giving it away to family members to try out)

For anyone interested, you can find me on Ravelry as Lildebi:)

Here is the latest Handspun and Knitting projects currently on needles.

2 needle socks

Another Pair of 2 needle socks

Mohair Blush Handspun Lace Weight Yarn

Clementine Shawlette from Interweave Knits Summer 2007! Knit with my handspun Alpaca/Silk light worsted weight yarn

Butterfly Moebious from The Knitters Book of Yarn Knit with Baby Alpaca Grande Bulky Yarn from Plymouth Yarns

Belle Wrap from Knitting Little Luxuries using my 100% Wool Bulky Handspun

50/50 Bamboo and Llama on my spindle

BFL Wool on my spindle

Plied into yarn using the Andean Plying Method
120 yds Light worsted/sport weight at 12-14 wpi

More BFL wool Plied into Yarn
120 yds Fingering Weight 16wpi

I still have 158 yds of Lace weight mohair to upload that I finished spinning this week. I am using it to knit a wrap pattern of my own design.

I am getting ready for my first Fiber Festival in June, so I am spinning as much as I can right now. I am also making my own drop spindles with polymer clay whorls. I have already made 10 but have kept 2 to use and gave the rest away to family. I will be uploading pics of those as well soon.

I will give you all an update on the Fiber Festival as we get closer to the date in case any of you are close enough to attend!

Happy Knitting (Spinning)!