Let There Be Spinning!

I did manage to just barely get my entries in for the CJ Kopec Creations July SAL. I had not been able to spin for part of the month because of a flare up in my arthritis of my hips, but in the last few days of the month, I did my best to catch up.

The first is the Navarro colorway. I separated the 3 colors in the batts, a mint, a strawberry and a dark chocolate (reminded me a little of a variation on Neapolitan ice cream). Then I spun them in sequence.

Finally I Navajo plied it to obtain 407 yards of a fingering weight, 3 ply, self-striping yarn. This is the first time I have ever made a self-striping yarn. I think it turned out quite well.The second colorway for the KAL is called Second Chances. I pulled the batts into thick rovings and then spun from that. I attempted to control the fiber color in the drafting to get long color sequences without separating the colors, then Navajo plied it, resulting in 100 yards of bulky weight 3 ply.On August 9th, I was fortunate to be able to attend the Bartlett Yarn Mills open house in Harmony, ME with my mother and sister. I will try to get pics posted from that trip soon.

Thank you for all your wonderful comments that you have kindly left on my blog and for your patience with my infrequent posting.

My First FO for the Ravelympics

That's right! I have finished one project for the Ravelympics on Ravelry. Only 3 more to go before August 17th, 2008. How are you doing on your projects?

The first project that I cast on for the Ravelympics was a child's hat, the Saturday Afternoon Hat designed by Julie at J. Knits, so it didn't take much time to knit up. I made it in the hand spun yarn that I featured in my last post, so I was very excited to see how it would turn out since that was the first time I had spun yarn. Here is a picture of the finished hat, modeled on the end of a one pound skein of worsted weight yarn.

I did make a few changes in the pattern. First, I used my hand spun, which is a very uneven sport weight instead of the worsted weight the pattern called for. Because of the yarn difference, I knit on US size 5 needles. These changes resulted in a child's hat instead of the M/L size adult hat that the pattern suggested it would be.

Now I am trying to decide what I cast on next. Should it be:

1. The Basic Sock Pattern by Stephanie McPhee
2. The Rainy Day Scarf published by Unique One Sweaters & Yarn
3. Mittens From the Top Down by Meilynne

What do you think I will do?