Fiber
-
3 New Yarns on Sale at Etsy
I just put up 3 single skeins of yarn on Etsy. Sometimes when I am spinning for a customer or a personal project I will get the first skein a little fine or a bit too thick for the order or I may have a skein left over from a knitting project. These single skeins will appear as only 1 available but you can always custom order most of the handspun yarns in your choice of yarn weights and hand dyed colours. To see these skeins on Etsy: special prices available The Eastport Alpaca in DK weight and natural snowy white colour, 2.1 oz. 132 yds The New Zealand Merino…
-
Shopping at Diamond Yarns
Ohhhh My what fun I’ve had over the last few days choosing my intitial order for my new account at Diamond yarns. I’ll have so many more yarns to choose from when creating new designs for patterns and also for your custom hand knits. I probably won’t list them all on the web site here but if you want anything from Diamond I’ll do my best to get it for you. Please do check out my Etsy store as there just might be a little more listed there. I can’t always keep them exactly co-ordinated. I’ve ordered several Interchangeable Knitting Needles sets by Knitters Pride and a huge great order…
-
A New Design in Progress Grace
A new design in progress – I guess that would be a DIP, right? Along with the Custom Fit Sweater for Amy Herzog and her team (beta testing) I’ve been working on a few custom orders and a new designs that I will call Grace after my Mom who just passed away last year at this time. Mom was my mentor, my soul mate, my best friend and the one who taught and inspired me to knit and be creative in so many way. She was also my biggest fan and alway gave me so much encouragement. Well, anyway, the new design is Grace. It will be an elegant but casual…
-
Managing Color in a Raw Fleece
If you’ve been keep up with my adventures you will have read Spinning a Fine New Zealand Merino Fleece where I talk about spinning a beautiful fine Merino fleece into lace weight yarn after washing it lock by lock and hand combing it. There were some mistakes, and I leaned a lot from them, but I found myself spinning a lovely lace weight yarn that would be excellent in a handknit shawl by the third skein so I started to knit. I choose a pattern from Nancy Bush’s book Knitted Lace of Estonia, the Queen Sylvia Shawl and cast on. The knitting was fun and after a few days I got to…
-
Slow Cloth Polwarth Socks Finished at Last
They started life as a lesson in preparing and spinning a raw fleece for worsted spun yarn. You can find that post here “Hand Spinning a Worsted Sock Yarn – Slow Cloth” so I though you might like to see the finished product. The socks are a slightly modified version of Gladysby General Hogbuffer. This pattern is available as a free Ravelry download. I had a bit of difficulty keeping the yarn consistent. This was probably because I was spinning too many other projects at the same time. I do find I can be completely consistent to the point where I can match yards per ounce in skein after skein…
-
Spinning a Fine New Zealand Merino Fleece
I can’t tell you how much enjoyment I am getting out of my new Merino fleece recently imported from Stuart Albrey at Fine Fiber Farms in New Zealand. According to Margaret Stove The Merino wool of New Zealand is among the finest and highest quality wool fiber to be found anywhere in the world and I second this opinion. The New Zealand climate is just perfect for this particular breed and quality of wool and the sheep can be raised out of door without any coats on and without getting chaff and other veggie matter in the wool. It is super clean, ultra fine and soft and surprisingly white. Spinning…
-
Shetland Wool Moorit Hand Spun
I spun this yarn for a customer in DK (3 Light) weight from some lovely moorit or brown shetland wool. It was spun from a combed preparation and I pulled off several staple lengths and held them folded over my finger. Spinning from the fold with a long draw and a very light touch, gave me a wonderfully airy and bouncy yarn that is not too fuzzy. I think it’s the best way to spin this wool for knitting. It will last a very long time, it is more consistant and will show the stitch definition much better than a true woolen yarn but has all of the bounce…
-
More of my March Spinning Adventures
Meredith has just sent me a few pictures of the sweater vest she created with the last of the Mango Merino Wool and Silk that I spun up into a yarn for her. She’s amazing. When I spin for Meredith she doesn’t ask for yardage or WPI and I don’t have to match a gauge. She lets the yarn do the talking and doesn’t even decide what it will be until she’s had it in her hands for a while. This is creative freedom at it’s best. Meredith has also generously sent me a testimony for our testimonials section. Here’s what she says about the yarn and a few pictures.…
-
Finishing Jacob The Sweater my Guys Like
A few months ago I shared the pattern for the Hat my guys like and now here is the sweater that falls into that same category. With lots of input from DH, the eventual wearer of this pullover, I designed another sweater to match the one I knit him almost 30 years ago. Not only did the original sweater last for 30 years, but hardly a day went by that it was not called into service (except those hot summer days, of course) and it’s still all in one piece even if it is showing a little wear now. As you can imagine, I’ve knit him a few sweaters over…
-
Spinning Like Mad in March
Louet Spinning Wheels S90 and S45 I haven’t posted in March because I’ve just been too busy spinning my custom orders. This month required another wheel so we got out the S90 and dusted it off. It didn’t even need a tune up but it got a new drive band just because… I’m reminded why I got this wheel in the first place and I really enjoyed spinning with it this month. I’ve been spinning everything on the smaller S45 recently. I switch over to the little S45 from the larger S90 because the S45 has Scotch tension and I can spin a yarn as fine and delicate as I…
