’nuff said!!!

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Bonkers merino/tencel The finished BFL…delish! Pigeonroof studios superwash merino in Lettuce Green gifts from Ingrid! …that my wheel has been shipped! :) YAY! I cannot wait! I don’t know if they mean it was direct shipped from Poland or shipped from Germany. I’m hoping it’s the latter, because that means I’ll get it tomorrow or the next day. The extras that I ordered will come later though, and that’s fine with me! This means I really need to get the podcast edited before it comes. But the fiber…it calls for me…it whispers my name in my sleep (or lack thereof). Anyways, since there has been almost zero knitting done, I thought I should show you my latest spinning FO’s. I LOVED spinning merino/tencel, the shine to it was very nice (thanks Linnea)! But while I was setting the twist and whacking it, 2 strands BROKE!!! I was so sad … this skein is so lovely! But it’s ok, no biggie, that means that it is just like Noro (har har!). And the BFL, I think I already told you the trouble with spinning it up, but the finished product feels very very nice (thanks to fbz!). I can’t wait to knit these up but at the same time I want to produce more! Now that I have a pile of handspun, it makes me smile everytime I pass by it! I am currently spinning up some Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino and my god, it is lovely! I want more more MORE! I basically want more of everything. The only downside to the Pigeonroof is that it has a lot of nepps. But I’ll put up with pretty much anything because it is so nice to spin with. It is the most spongey fiber I have spun with so far and I know it will fluff up whenever I set the twist. This roving also has a lot of white in it, so I’ll have to make something other than socks with it. I love the kettle-dyed roving though, so cool and random!!! It’s amazing how a bold little spot on the roving breaks up and turns into a light streak in a small section of the yarn. I CANNOT get enough of spinning. I am so hooked on it and want to do so much all at once! I also received a package from Ingrid, my upstream SP8. She is so sweet and has sent me a beautiful green (and oh-so-soft) skein of Posh Yarn Emily. It will be interesting to see how this one knits up as opposed to the Lucia. Both of them are beyond soft!!! She also sent me some green glass beads - what should I do with these? Any suggestions? Thanks so much Ingrid!!!

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Ahhhh, I finally achieved what I wanted!

BFL - why don’t I love it more?

Merino/Tencel is amazing!!!

I have been literally holed up spinning. And spinning some more. And when that’s done, I spin. I love it so much and there’s so much to learn and explore - most immediately, I still have to learn how to ply tight without over-plying and to experiment with different fibers. It is *so* much fun!!! Knitting? what’s that again? Children? do I have them? Sleep? isn’t 4-5 hours a day enough?

I finally made a skein of yarn that was the reason why I started spinning in the first place. The colors come together then barber pole, then come together again and starts all over. For some reason, I’ve been only working with two colors - or variations on one color - light blue/dark blue, light green/dark green, etc. This skein was all kinds of colors and I absolutely love it - I want more more more!

I am currently spinning with BFL, and I don’t know if it’s this particular roving or what, but I am having a hard time with it. There are lots of “balls” (for lack of better word) in the roving that I have to pull out or sometimes if I’m lazy I will just spin it and it will create a little lump in the single, as well as it’s sticky in some parts. Maybe this one is slightly felted in places making it hard to spin? I have no idea. I’m starting to think that’s the case because there are parts of it that are super easy. hmmmm… I am getting more BFL in the near future so I will definitely try it again.

My next skein will be a merino/tencel blend and I spun up a little trial swatch and OMG, I LOVE it! It just glides out of my hand and spins itself! I am looking forward to completing the skein.

I also got some Pigeonroof Studios and Funky Carolina roving that I want to spin up as well - I just want to do it all! The great thing about spinning is that you get an FO much much faster than knitting, AND you have yarn all ready to knit up or add to your stash!

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I think I am going to explode from all this!!!

Ostseegarn Eiderwolle

Little did I know that writing “I am out of multicolored roving” sends out an emergency alarm that only fiber enthusiasts can hear! My fiber angels Linnea and Fabienne sent me an “Emergency Fiber Re-Supply”, and OMG, they sent me some really amazing stuff with various content. I tend to stick to merino, so this was a really welcome surprise. I got some Bamboo which you would swear is silk, some merino/tencel (can’t wait to try!!!), some BFL (haven’t spun any yet), some mixed yarn - merino/llama, corriedale/alpaca, all of which I haven’t tried. Argh, the torture of choosing which one to spin up!!! They did an excellent job of re-supplying me with fiber - thank you SO much! Linnea also threw in some American goodies - pop tarts, shark bites and of course squishy wonderbread, which arrived in absolute perfect condition!

In addition to that, I got some birthday gifts - stitch markers from the husband (as well as the much bigger gift that isn’t coming for another 3 weeks - argh, the torture!), blue roving/beautiful red lace yarn/chocolate/coffee from tini, and a gift I got awhile back but was holding out until today to post - an amazing rich blue skein of madeline tosh sock yarn and Annie Modesit’s “Romantic Hand Knits” book, from the one and only Yarnissima!!! The patterns/models/photography in that book is very inspirational and indeed - romantic! You guys are the best and thank you again!

Tini’s roving arrived yesterday and I was extremely frustrated with spinning corriedale. I know they said that this is a good beginner wool, but dang, I found it freaking hard to keep a consistent single. I gave up and broke out her gift. I spent all day/night spinning and it came out great. The fiber is Eiderwolle, a domestic roving and was dyed by her. The fiber was a little bit sticky and hard to draft, but once you get going, it was soooo easy to spin thin and even. The finished product isn’t as soft as merino, but it feels really strong, almost like it has some linen in it. It’s also not as fuzzy as I thought it would be, and it has a nice smooth finish. I thought it came out great!

In addition to that, I also got a surprise gift from Roslyn. I was able to procure some Wollmeise laceweight for her at the Sauerlach market (which was a serious chumfest, btw) so she sent me some Eucalan, a cheery skein of Claudia Hand Painted yarn and a stitch marker. Thanks, Roslyn!

So now I will hole myself up with all this yarn/fiber. I feel like the Rumpelstiltskin lady. But without the evil gnome or whatever Rumpelstitskin was.

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Skein #3 - getting there!

Skein #4 - a little too thin and a lot overplied!

So, I’m spinning like a madwoman. Really, up all night trying to get more done. This last skein was a pain in the butt, only because it was sooooooo thin and it took forever. I think the 2nd single suffered a bit of quality because I was just rushing through it. Then the plying…I made the mistake of over plying and so now my yarn is kinked up a bit. It’s not that bad, but I am in a quest to spin the most perfect yarn ever. Which, at this point is impossible, but one must try! I think I now know how thin it should be for fingering weight yarn - but I need to work on my plying to get it the way I like it without it getting all crazy. So I’m going to take a break from spinning full skeins and make up some samples (besides, I’m complretely out of multicolored fiber). I think I am going to take some of my solids and mix them up.

I really am enjoying spinning! So much so that I bought the wheel today! It is a mahogany Kromski Minstrel. Wahoo!!! I got that one because several friends have it and they all love it, as well as it being compact and not too expensive. Of course I had to get the extras as well - the lazy kate and extra bobbins. I am currently working with 4 and that seems like too little. 6 is about right.

And then I got into an email “conversation” with a friend of mine in Darmstadt - Linnea. She was supposed to get an order of fiber from Canada to spin up for me (isn’t she an angel?) as well as some extra fiber, but it hasn’t arrived yet (it’s been a month). So she is going to send me some emergency fiber. I mentioned Crown Mountain Farms (aka Crack Mountain Farms) in one of those emails and before she knew it, she placed an order. They do that to you. And then just the thought of her ordering fiber has made me order more too. My mom is coming with a bunch that I ordered but that’s not until the middle of May and I can’t wait that long!!! Especially with my new wheel coming.

So anyways, that’s pretty much all that’s going on. Knitting has kinda taken a back seat, although I have been knitting toddler socks for my boys. I knit them cuff down so that when their feet get bigger I can cut the toe off and make it longer. I guess that’s assuming they don’t lose it first. ;)

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The very first skein!

The second skein - went much better

I wrote this huge post and then accidentally pressed a button in my browser and poof! It was gone. I was so angry and upset. That’ll teach me to save my posts! So here is my attempt at a 2nd post.

So let’s back up a bit. Remember when cauchy09 sent me a drop spindle and I tried it and hated it? Well, I still do. BUT I have always said that I think a spinning wheel might be funner. I kinda put spinning out of my mind for awhile until I knitted up cauchy’s handspun that she sent. Then it started my mind thinking again of spinning. But I knew a spindle was not for me. It’s too slow, and I am super impatient.

Then, I did a swap with Micki and I pretty much just exploded. I spent many nights looking at fiber and handspun and wheels and what not. I bought a lot of fiber and sent it to a couple of friends who are kind enough to spin it up for me. But that wasn’t enough.

I remembered that the Wollmeise used to spin so I asked her if she still had her wheel and if she was using it. She doesn’t have time to spin anymore so she uses her wheel as a reskeiner for the worsted weight yarns. And, lucky for me, she is done dyeing for awhile since she has a market coming up as well as a trip to the states. So I get to borrow her wheel for a couple of weeks and see if I like it or not.

She brought it over on Sunday since she hung out with us for the podcast (as well as bringing over a box full of yarn to take pictures of). She and Elem made a short demo on how to use the wheel and I tried it and it was HARD! Being new to drafting and all, I got lots of bulky slubs and crazy thick and thins. I played with it all night and the next night until 3am and was able to get a fairly even single. I played with all kinds of different fibers - from super coarse to some german merino (which was HARD for my beginner hands). And then I was semi-successful with some space dyed pencil roving merino (?). I was so excited and didn’t want to stop! I had to take a break for a day to edit the podcast since so many people were hounding me for it!

I came back to it the next day