My new granddaughter's hat

I carded and spun yarn then knit it into a hat for my sweet baby Khloe. The grapefruit is keeping her place for now. I will post her picture when her mommy sends me one.

Knitting Daily TV: Tubular Cast-On

Other Tubular cast on from Knitting Daily. I like it!

Italian Tubular Cast-on part 1

I liked this video on the Italian Tubular Cast-on. I am now to the point where I want to learn some different cast-ons for my knitting. This one is cool. There is also a good demo written on knitty.com that I like here. The YouTube for this type of tubular cast on is on knitting daily and I'll post it too, probably above this one. Very cool stuff!




The video should point you to part two at the end of it.

Enjoy!

Hat yarn

I made some yarn for my daughter to knit herself a slouch hat. It's Shetland and black angora and I spun it chunky. Now we are looking for a pattern.

Sock yarn

I space dyed some sock yarn today at Kathy's house in Tucson. This is three skeins. I will take more pics after I reskein it.

My latest quilt

I almost have my latest quilt finished. I am just doing the edge around the moon now. I don't really have a big enough design board to make it as big as I want but I'll figure it out. I have not made one this big before.

I spent the weekend dying cotton and washing fleece and working on the quilt. I also spun some cotton as I dyed the last stuff I spun and it worked pretty well. I meant to do some sock dyeing too but didn't get it done yet. I also carded up some of the new merino that I washed last weekend. It makes a beautiful batt and I'm looking forward to spinning it after I get the cotton finished. I will spin that or the purple cotton I dyed after that with the Pro MX cotton dye. It worked very well which was weird because you don't heat it. You just put it in cold water and let it sit, and stir it now and then. And it dyes the cotton. It also dyes anything you might get it on that you might be wearing. So wear an apron. Wish I'd thought of it before I got one teeny spot of purple on my white cotton shirt. LOL!

Finished my rug

This is my finished rug. I love it! It was a lot of fun to do. But the warping may discourage me from doing more.

My loom

This is the first rug on my rigid heddle loom. I have several inches woven in white. I'm doing plain weave and just getting used to the process. It went pretty fast so far.

Piles of fiber

I spent a lot of time this weekend carding up Romney fiber to spin for rugs. I also started weaving the first one. Now I have to decide which colors to spin first. It all carded up bigger than I thought it would. I wished I'd gotten some spun.

I love the bright colors and enjoyed getting the fiber all smooth, fluffy and ready to go.

Hemp habit

I got a bracelet at the yoga studio a while back and I just love it. So I decided I could make some. So I went through my beads and bought some hemp. This week I started creating and I took some pictures of some of the things I made. I made the one above. I like making and wearing the bracelets. They are not typical hemp bracelets and I liked the look of them. They are lots of fun. And still sort of fiber related. LOL I have got to use up some of my bead stash so this is part of that effort.

Baby stuff

So my daughter is having her 1st baby, a little girl and so I have switched over to knitting baby clothes. I'm going to see her this coming weekend and going to a shower for her. Did I mention I dislike baby showers? But it's my little girl.

I will admit I like knitting baby clothes as they work up quickly and are so cute. I am using sock yarn for some of it as it is washable. I will be doing more but I'll have a few things to give her. Plus I pulled out the baby things I saved of hers and am soaking the stains out. (I hope)

It should be fun to see her and her brothers. I can't wait!

Final version

As you may have seen in my last post, my first effort to dye 3 different fibers didn't turn out like I'd hoped. So I overdyed the "blue" silk with magenta. Then it was way darker and a blue purple so I used the only other purple and overdyed the mohair and cashmere.

They ended up much closer, at least in the same color family so I am using them as is. It should look pretty, I think. But I do love purple.

Dyeing different fibers

I spun three different fibers for a sweater. Cashmere, silk and mohair. They all went into the dyepot at once but dyestrike aside, they turned very different colors. The silk took up the blue but didn't soak up any red in the purple dye.

This is one argument for dyeing first because then the uneven dye is spread throughout the yarn when you spin. Not that it would have fixed the silk problem. I might try to overdue it or just not use silk in the design.

I'll do some test swatches. Maybe I should have chosen blue after all.

Hemp bracelets

I am making hemp bracelets lately. I got the purple one at the yoga studio and I was so taken with it that I had to get some hemp and dig through my bead collection to find some good beads to use with the hemp. Of course, I ended up at the bead store for a few more things, and also raided my mom's stash. The red one is my first effort. It's not bad and I am making another one now for my friend Gloria.

Of course, spinning some cotton and waxing it would make it even more my own creation, but I would have to get cotton dye as I currently only have protein dyes which won't work on cotton. But I can always get some if I can spin the cotton firmly enough and fine enough to handle the wear and tear of the beads on it. This could be fun!

I had a visit yesterday with Kathy to see her latest projects. She is always a great inspiration for my creativity and I need to keep in touch better. Trouble is that I don't always visit Tucson.

So I'm going to make hippie jewelry for a while and maybe put some of it on Etsy. It's really yoga jewelry for me, with OM symbols and chakra colors. I love color!

Finally Spinning again

I finally got back to doing a little spinning this afternoon. I've been working a lot and haven't had time to spin. But today I spun a thicker silk single to use for my sweater that I'm trying to make. I hope it's not too twisted for a single. I have been trying to spin it very softly because I don't want to use a 2 ply in the sweater.

I miss seeing my friends in Tucson like Kathy. She's having all kinds of new kids on her ranch and I have not seen hardly any of them so far. But I think next weekend I'll get to go down for a quick trip. I worked this weekend.

I have to take inventory now and see how much yardage I have on the different yarns. I need a bunch and then I have to dye it all at the same time. Where can I get a really big pot??? And I have to decide on color. I know Kathy thinks I should design my own sweater but I really liked the design on this one, so I hate to try to improve on it. I think it's lovely.

Kathy's wool festival

I worked all day at Kathy's spring shearing festival. This is a momma alpaca who took a fancy to me. She and her baby were so cute.

The festival was well attended and I have no idea how Kathy does so many tours. I was exhausted just working in the shop.

Art show in Tucson

My parents and I did an art show last weekend in Tucson. We showed Dad's and Mom's paintings, their photos, Mom's jewelry and my quilts. We also had copies of Dad's book on Energy "Running on Empty" available for sale. I sat and spun almost all weekend and attracted quite a few onlookers. The display was beautiful thanks to Mom and Dad who did a wonderful job of setting it all up. I also had some of my yarns there and gave out a lot of cards. It was a successful show for us and we did what we set out to do, so that was great.

The Whisper Stripe Sweater

This is my new sweater, that I'm going to make. You can find the pattern at http://www.interweavestore.com/Knitting/Patterns/Whisper-Stripe-Pullover.html?a=ke091230

I have 3 hanks of mohair done and will do another one just to be sure I have enough. I'd hate to run out because matching a color would not be possible. I started spinning some cashmere though for a change of pace. I have to put a lot more twist in the cashmere to hold it together because the fibers are very short, less than 2" long, closer to an inch really. If I don't twist it well, it just pulls back apart. So I will also ply the cashmere for strength and hope plying softens up the yarn enough that it will bloom a little bit. It is so very soft as roving. I just love feeling it slip through my fingers but it is challenging to spin. The silk will be tricky too because of the length of the fibers and the fact they tend to clump a bit from the roving. I will probably pre-draft both the cashmere and silk, and pull the rovings into thinner pieces to help make it easier to spin. That seems to help with the cashmere and I believe it will help with the silk too. I have spun it before.

I'm going to dye all the fibers the same color, they will just be more or less intense because of their fiber content and density. The mohair should be fairly see through and the cashmere and silk will not be. The silk will be shiny and the cashmere will be more satin finish. I can't think of the right word now. But I am still waiting to see what color will inspire me. I am leaning toward periwinkle, or a blue purple because that is my favorite color and looks great on me. It always brings out the color of my eyes. I love the color of the scarf I am making but would I be sick of it after knitting both pieces? Probably not. But the other sweater I made is a soft periwinkle and I do not want all my sweaters to be the same color. That would be unimaginative! So I wait to see what catches my eye after I get everything spun up and get out my dyes. Then we will see.

I can't wait!

Happy New Year

I am spinning out the old year and in the new one. I am working on my next project. That is happiness for me. I am tired of people asking me if I made my sweater when I have to say no. So I found a new pattern I would like to make and I am spinning up the yarn for it. It is all luxury yarns with mohair, and silk and cashmere. So I am spinning up those fibers which I have in abundance, thanks to Kathy Withers. And I will be knitting a new sweater before you know it. I will have to get more dye though. I wonder what color to make it?

I also washed some icelandic fleece today. One less bag of the smelly stuff. It was looking bad and I was worried that it was molding or something. It washed up lovely, soft and mostly snowy white. So all is well and I just have to decide what to do with all that icelandic fleece. It's pretty nice but how much icelandic can you spin?

Time to go to bed and dream of my new sweater. Some of the yarn is already drying in the bathroom. I will make more tomorrow.