Spa, Knit & Spin 2015 - Market Place Tour

I spent way too much on this weekend, but once you see all the amazing things that the vendors had for sale, you will understand why.  The lovely face saying hi to Melody is Heather (boutrosbabe) Kinne, of the Fiberista Files fame and proprietor of Highland Handmades.  I was fortunate to purchase one of the spindles that her husband, Paul Kinne, produces and I love it!  

I will do one more post about the "Spa" showing what I purchased in a few days, I hope.  Until then, please enjoy a view of the market place via my phone camera.  

Let's all stay yarn crazy!

On The Needles and Wheel

Wow, I have been busy!  This week I received two custom orders through  my etsy site, so I am knitting like there is no tomorrow.  The hat below is part of the first order.  The colors are for Iowa State University.  The hat is a basic k2, p2 ribbed hat in Plymouth Yarn Encore Chunky.  I am working on a reversible cabled & ribbed scarf to go with it before I start on the coordinating mittens.

I have been taking 15-30 minutes per day to get back into the habit of spinning everyday.  My beautiful sister and her handy hubby switched my wheel over to double treadle for me and it has made spinning even more of a pleasure.  

The fiber is from Highland Handmades in her Neptune colorway.  The content is 50% SW merino and 50% tencel.  It is spinning like a dream!

This is a picture of the single, spun on my Ashford Traditional.  I think I will be 2 plying it and putting it up on my Etsy shop.

Lastly, I would love some ideas of what to feature in my Tuesday's Temptation.  Do you have a shop or know of a deserving shop that could use a little love and attention focused on it.  If you have any ideas, please leave a comment.  I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Snow + Knitting = Tranquility

This was the scene at 9:00 am this morning and the snow has been accumulating ever since.  I love to watch the snow fall while I knit.  It is so peaceful and reminds me of how much comfort and warmth my handmade items bring to others.

Currently I am working on a new design. It is a cabled hat, that I will eventually post for sale in my Etsy shop and on Ravelry.

I would really like to be spinning on my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel while I watch the snowfall, but I "tweaked" my back yesterday, when I reached a little too far for a pair of scissors at my knitting group.  So, my heating pad is keeping me company while I knit.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S.A.   I am grateful for so many things:  my incredibly supportive family;  my significant other, Ray ♥;  and my greatly improved health.   I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day in your homes with people and fur-friends that you love.  Please leave me a message about what you are grateful for and about your holiday preparations.  Above all, stay safe!!!

Tuesday's Temptation

OMG, omg, omg....I love this shop.  La Tea Da Designs is simply amazing.  I could browse all day there and totally destroy my budget while I was at it.  She offers spinning fibers, spindle kits, yarns and handmade items too.

I am having a difficult time deciding what picture(s) to feature for the shop because everything is so amazing, so I am just going to let you know that you MUST go see for yourselves.  Hurry!

I Got a Spindolyn!

Yes, I got a Spindolyn and I love it! It is a supported spindle, but better than traditional supported spindles. It leaves both hands free to work with the fiber.

I purchased both the Tenor and the Soprano spindles to go with the Castle base. The following picture is of the Soprano spindle with some singles that I spun on it.

The next one is the Tenor spindle and it has a few yards of some of my handspun that I plied on it. Neither of these spindles hold as much yarn as any of my other spindles, but it is much more convenient and easy for me to use in my lift chair.For more information about Spindolyns and to purchase one or many go to http://www.knittinganyway.com/products/spindolyn.htm

Spinning Fun!

I have been spinning for the CJ Kopec Creations August SAL on my Bellwether 1.6 oz. spindle. I have been using the spindle so that I can keep my legs elevated as they have been swelling quite a bit lately. So far, I have spun up about 50 yards of ww/bulky low twist singles. I am thinking that this very soft, squishy yarn will make a lovely cowl. (click on the picture to enlarge it)

As you can see, I have found a new use for my TV tray holder. It works wonderfully to hold my spindle while I wind off the yarn. I am going to try using it for plying from spindles in the future, as the grooves that hold the trays in position seem to be perfect for my spindles.

Also, I have started using a bead as a diz for predrafting my roving. I have previously used the holes in a button, but that can create a thinner drafted roving than I desired. I am finding that the large hole in this bead is perfect in size, approx 4 mm, plus it is very smooth, so nothing catches on it.

My other revelation this week has been how to make and use a wrist distaff while spindling. I have seen a few pictures of wrist distaffs, but I didn't quite understand how they worked. Last night I came across this blog showing how to make your own wrist distaff, which looked simple enough. Then I wondered why or if I really need one. I found a video showing how to use one and decided that I would make one and take it out for a spin (lame pun intended).

In the photo collage above you will see how wonderfully it holds my fiber in place. I will never spindle without one again! Below is a better picture of the one I made. I think I will make another one with better yarn and beads, since this was just a quick trial with what I had within reach. Although, I must admit that the trial one works wonderfully!

I won, I won, I won!

I am so grateful for the kindness of my friends. They voted for the yarn that I made in the CJ Kopec Creations June SAL and because of it I won a $10 gift certificate to CJ Kopec Creations! In all fairness, it is the beautiful fiber from there that makes it so easy to make an incredible yarn. Also, there were so many gorgeous entries that I think really deserved to win more than mine.

This is the original blog post of the yarn that I spun for the SAL, if you want to check out the pictures.

If you are a spinner, please check out the etsy store, and then come join in the fun of the SAL. Perhaps you will win too!

Tour de Fleece

TourdeFleece, originally uploaded by starathena.

I am going to spin in the Tour de Fleece! This will be my first year of this challenge and I am very excited. I will be spinning for Team Plurk.

If you want more information about the Tour de Fleece, please check out the blog, Keep On Knitting In The Free World and the Ravelry group, Tour de Fleece.

If you are a spinner, come join in the fun!

Love getting the mail!

Saturday was a very good mail day. Three packages were delivered to our apartment on Saturday! One was from Wonderbook and contained 10 books on baseball. HUH? Okay, that package was for Ray.

The second package is this beautiful and incredibly soft fiber from CJ Kopec Creations for her June SAL. It is BFL! This is so soft that I just wanted to pet it like a new born kitten. I let it caress my face and I started to put a bowl of milk down for it before I came back to my senses and realized that it isn't a pet. I am still trying to decide how I want to spin it.
The third package I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. I had ordered from Knit Picks the Comfy worsted weight in the Peony colorway so that I could knit the Hey Teach! sweater that is in Knitty Summer 2oo8. I love that sweater and the Knitting Purls group on Ravelry is running a Sweater KAL and a Summer Hotties KAL that this will qualify for. Plus, there are a few others in the KAL knitting the same sweater so if I need help they will be there for me and visa versa. I was so excited that I let the yarn jump on my needles as quickly as possible. I actually swatched! Gasp! It only took 2 swatches to get gauge and I am using a size 9 circular for this (the pattern calls for an 8). Here is my start, yesterday morning. This is the first time I have ever used Knit Picks Comfy yarn and I must say that I love it. It has a wonderful hand feel for a cotton blend and is draping wonderfully for me. It is truely a pleasure to knit with. This was my progress as a of 2 am this morning on the back of the sweater. Insomnia can be a knitters best friend.I am off to start the lace work on the bodice back. Wish me luck as I have never successfully made a sweater that required seaming or lace work, but I have my KAL mates to help if I get stuck.

More Goodies!

I have received some more wonderful packages in the mail from my dear friends. I don't know how I will ever thank everyone. I am trying to pay it forward. I recently joined a Ravelry group called RAK (random acts of kindness) and I have choosen a couple of people there to send on some little anonymous packages of love. If you would like to have a nice warm feeling in your heart too, check out the group. Some of the members would just like a post card or a blog comment.

From AkamaiKnitter on plurk I received some beautiful Hungry for Handspun rovings in the same colorway that Jen sent to me. This is makes it even more wonderful, because I can now plan a larger project.The next fluffy delivery came from Hattie. She hand painted this colorway she calls Tie Dye. Isn't it beautiful!Then I got a delivery of books from purlypig on Ravelry! I love books and these are by one of my favorite authors, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I can't wait to start reading them. She also included one of those mini sock blockers (I forgot to take a pic) which I have been wanting.

How Rude of Me.

How very rude of me to get my new toy and then to just leave like that. I do hope that you will forgive me. I can't believe I haven't posted about my spinning since I received the wheel, but when I went to upload pictures, there were a ton of them to weed through. I am going to have to learn better camera skills because I just can't seem to get a good representation of the yarn with my camera. I apologize in advance for the quality of the pics and I will try to do better in the future.

In my last post I showed my first yarn on the new wheel. I decided that I just had to knit with it as soon as it was dry, so I just cast on a few and started knitting. This is what it looked like in garter stitch. I have felted it after the photo was taken, because it was too small to actually be anything and I have always wanted to experiment with felting.
The person who sold the wheel to me was so generous that she included to small balls of rovings in the package, one in a light sage green and the other a turquoise blue. I spun each of them into lace/light fingering weight singles as shown below.
Then I plied them together into a 2 ply yarn somewhere between sport weight and DK weight. I love it.There was a little more of the turquoise blue singles left over so I left them as just that and I will try to find something to do with them.The next fiber I spun was from Sheep Shed Studios grab bag. It is a navy and white wool fiber that I spun and then 2 plied into a thick and thin bulky weight yarn. This was not the very best fiber, but it was pretty good for the incredible price!
When Sheep Shed Studios sent to me the grab bag fiber that I had ordered for the yarn above, they also included a small sample of superwash rovings in a forest green and white colorway. I spun it as a single and then Navajo plied it. It is so soft and squooshy, that I can't stop petting it!
Now this post seems like it is getting a bit long, so I will stop for now. Tomorrow I will post pics of some more nice stuff that has been sent to me by my wonderful, generous and thoughtful friends.

I am so excited!!!

I have just sent payment for a spinning wheel! Yes, really! I have been wanting one for so very long and the right one for me was offered for sale by a wonderful person on Ravelry. She has been wonderful to deal with and very generous in the deal as well.

The following information and picture were provided by the seller:

Ashford Traditional SD Double Treadle, plus the original single treadle.

• 4 regular bobbins
• Jumbo set with maiden, Jumbo flyer, 4 Jumbo bobbins, plus a bushing so you can use regular bobbins on the Jumbo flyer 3 Speed Flyer (ratios of 6.5, 12.5 & 17.5:1)
• Original kate (holds 3 bobbins at a time)
• Ashford Maintenance Kit
• Stretchy drive band (about a month old)

This wheel spins beautifully and is super smooth. Double treadle, jumbo set up and 3 speed flyer were purchased about a month ago.She will be shipping it out to me on Saturday and I am simply overcome by anticipation! Okay, I am a little disappointed that the cutie pie chihuahua doesn't come with it, but I will get over that.

It has been an exhausting process of elimination, trying to decide what spinning wheel would become my first, and most likely my only, spinning wheel. I need to thank my plurk pals for their support and feedback during this process, as it has been invaluable. Also, the man in life has been very encouraging and that means a lot to me as this is a big investment for our meager means. I feel that I have made a good choice and look forward to many years of happy spinning. Now I just need to try to be patient while waiting for it to get here.

IS IT SATURDAY YET? ha-ha!

Spinning!

I have finally made a 2 ply yarn! Ok, it isn't anything that anyone else would want,but I am pretty proud that I have accomplished this feat no matter what the quality. My youngest brother made the spindle and the burnt orange corriedale fiber was a gift from twistedknitter on plurk. I apologize for not being a good photographer and having difficulty getting the color to show correctly.Then I tried my hand at the Andean Bracelet so that I could turn this into a 2 ply yarn. I don't know if I did it correctly, but it did allow me to ply from both ends of the yarn.When I went to remove the plied yarn from the spindle I wrapped it around my walker handles. It turns out that it is 37 inches for every revolution around the handles so I just counted that as 1 yard. It is nice to find another use for the walker ;) From there I put the yarn in hot water to soak and set the twist, then I hung it to dry with a soup can at the bottom to straighten it a bit since it was very curly. I think the curl means I over twisted it at some point, or possibly at all points. It was dry by this morning so I wound it into a center pull ball.Now I have cast it on my needles to make a hat for the Ravelympics! I don't know if this will turn out to be anything that will ever be worn, but it certainly has been a learning experience and I can't wait to spin again!