Spinners and Finished Sweater

Yesterday was the spinners group. It is always such fun to go and see what everyone is working on. It's also fun to catch up with the people who don't attend very often. We had about eleven people in and out of there during the day which is a pretty good turn out.


We almost always have pot-luck lunch and it is really good. Becky served a quiche this time and others brought salads, pickled green beans, steamed asparagus in a cream sauce, and lots of sweets for after lunch. Valerie made some really good bread with a cinnamon butter that I really enjoyed.
Carol, in the orange sweater, was there this week. She hasn't been to spinners for almost a year. Life gets really crazy and sometimes in the way of us attending the monthly get together. She has been busy with all kinds of projects, as was every one else. In the top photo, you can see Sharon's spinning wheel with her silk challenge on the bobbin. She has some really pretty colors that she's dyed and I'm anxious to see what she will make with it.


Ok. I am normal and don't really like to have my picture taken. But, I do want to show that I completed Mr Greenjeans. It was made with stash yarn (Lion Brand wool-ease). It is a nice light-weight sweater. I am not too happy with the way the bottom half of the sweater sits. I should have put two buttons on it, because the cabling pulls the bottom of the sweater apart. One at the top of the cables and one at the bottom. I also made the sleeves a little longer. I don't care for 3/4 length sleeves.

I think I will make this sweater again, but it will have more modifications made to it. I think I will make it out of handspun and make it according to the directions until I get to the bottom cables and then I will join it and knit the cable section in the round. I think I would be more happy with it. I will also go down a couple more needle sizes on the sleeve cables. Oh well, live and learn.

I will still get a lot of use out of this sweater. I am planning on taking it with me when the boys and I head to DC this week. ES says the cherry blossoms have started and should be really pretty when we get there.

Happy knitting & spinning.

Fiber Weekend

Warning! This is a picture heavy post.

Yesterday was gray and dreary, heading down to the Spinner's group. You can't even see the mountains for all the clouds and that is unusual. It was fun to see how much snow, or lack thereof, there was in the fifty mile drive.

We had people there that haven't been in quite some time. It was great to talk with Betty again and see all the projects she has been doing. Betty is the lady in the blue vest she knit from the Folk Vest book. June is looking at the shawl Betty knit and asking questions.


Heather, in the grey sweatshirt, is the proud new mamma of twin lambs. Here she is showing the pictures to Sharon. Heather has one brown and one black lamb. The pictures are so cute. The first thought for Heather was that they were both black, but then she noticed one was lighter that the other and they were different shades.

Here is Lyn showing off her pi shawl. She says it took her almost a year to complete it. She dyed, spun and knit the silk used in this shawl and she did a wonderful job.


Here she is modeling for us. Don't you think she looks great in this shawl? Congratulations, Lyn!

We received our challenge fibers or rather fiber. We were each given about 2 ozs of a silk brick. The challenge, for about half of us who have not used silk before, is to dye (if you want) the silk, spin the silk and then make a scarf of some kind. We have until May to complete this challenge. It should be fun!

After spinners, C modeled his new hat. Ok, it's not really a hat, see it has the hole at the top where the vase is sticking through. It's the latest in the finished baby sweaters. This one is the first one knit for a new expected grandchild. The soon to be parents liked it.
Happy knitting & spinning.

Productive Weekend

It has been a great weekend. The fiber guild met on Saturday. We had our usual pot-luck which was really good, but made for not wanting to make dinner for the kids later that night. We were all able to meet Judy, who was able to try the Lendrum. She says it spins really smooth and her mind is made up. She didn't even spin on the wheel for very long, but she was able to spin her angora very nicely.

Here is a picture of Lyn and Judy picking out dirt and gunk from the angora that Judy brought with her to the meeting. Judy raises Angora rabbits and I think she said she has seven of them. The fiber is really nice and some guild members were jumping at the chance to get some. I think it would be really pretty in a blend of some kind, but I refrained from buying as I really don't want to move anymore stuff than I have to.

Here is a bobbin and a third plied of the "Dew on the Moab Desert" and then the skein from this bobbin.

I ended up with 211 yards in this one skein. I came home last night and while watching "Bourne Ultimatum" (love Matt Damon in these movies) I was able to spin another complete bobbin of this roving. This means I have spun about 6 ozs of the 16 ozs purchased. I am excited to finish spinning this and start a project with this color-way. I really like it!

I have also spun three bobbins of the Knowlton's dark brown roving for my Notlwonk's sweater. I can ply them altogether in a 3-ply, not Navajo plied, and use them as the base color of the sweater. This project may still take a few months.

Well, off to make meatloaf.

Happy knitting & spinning.

Blending fun for Christmas exchange

This past weekend was our family's traditional Cousin's Christmas party. My siblings who live close get together and play games, eat lots of food, and exchange gifts between our children, hence cousin's Christmas. The cousins that live further away are also included in the gift exchange. They just don't get the chance to hang out and play games with us on that day.

This past weekend was also the weekend of the spinner's Christmas exchange. For the exchange this year, I dyed some of the "skirts" from Notlwonk . I had five piles of fiber spread out across the couch. Each pile had the three colors of wool, the alpaca, and the dyed purple silk. I carded the green wool by itself, with the yellow wool I added the alpaca, and with the purple wool I added the silk.




In the picture of the colors next to each other, you can see the silk (it's the really wavy stuff in the purple on the far left).







I really like how the blend turned out. Lou, who was my exchange partner, also liked it and said she was going to make something for just her out of it. I have enough of the materials left that I can spin some myself and make something also. I think it will be my next project, when I have a free wheel.


This is a picture of the completed mitts. I have nine completed pair, one single mitt, and one & a half pair still left to knit. I needed to take this picture though so I could send away the two black pair in the center. I can't believe Christmas is only eight days away! There is still s-o-o-o-o much to do.

Happy knitting & spinning.

Saturday Guild Fun

This past weekend was spent with fiber, friends, food and fun. The guild met at Marie's on Saturday. There was lots of spinning by Catherine and Sharon.






Still more spinning by Heather and Marie. (Don't you just love Marie's purple moose dress?)







There was knitting by Diane and Bonnie. Did you check out Bonnie's hand knit socks. They look really good. There were also the knitters: Becky, Eldri, Elizabeth, Joan, and Valerie. I ended up not getting good pictures of them.





I did get a great picture of Elizabeth being kissed by one on the dogs. I can't remember which one he was.

I was able to get three bobbins of Notlwonk roving in a champagne color spun at the guild meeting. Saturday night I went home and finished spinning that bump. I ended up with five and a half bobbins that I am now Navajo plying. I am now spinning some of Knowlton's white roving and then I plan on the dark brown I have from them. I have a plan to make a sweater. It is in the design phase in my head. I'm pretty sure it will be worked from the top down, but haven't worked it all out yet.

I got all the "skirtings" from the spring "wool-trek" washed. I am planning a dye experiment with them. I am excited to see how that will turn out. So much to do and never enough time in the day.

Happy knitting & spinning!

So many things

There has been a lot happening around here lately. First a picture of the "haul" from only an hour of shopping at the Great Basin fiber fair. The green and pink on the left is from here.
The color doesn't show up too well on the photo, but I think it is really pretty. The purple in the middle is a corriedale cross from Rumpelstiltskin's in Logan UT. This fiber is spinning up very nicely on the drop spindle I got from Greensleeves.
The fiber on the right is from Judy's Novelty Wool in the Macaw color-way. I really liked this when I saw it at the Idaho Falls fiber fair and so I got some now.

On Saturday the fiber guild from Pocatello came for our monthly meeting. Some of the pictures didn't turn out. I'm sorry ladies!

We had lots of good conversations, touchy feely experiences, new books to look through and covet, great food and an excursion to the LYS Yarn Connection after the group split up. We also stopped into the bead store across the street.







The weather started out sunny, so the sun-room started to get really warm. But then the clouds came up and made the room just right for the afternoon. Thanks weather for cooperating with our afternoon!















I have done some knitting this past week and have completed the socks for Jb. They are only size 12! Why does this child have to have such b-i-g feet. The color doesn't show up to well, imagine that! But it is a brown tweedy color which is really nice. I have enough left to use as
heels and toes on another pair of socks. Maybe I can use the left overs in the sock class I will start the first Saturday in October.

I do have another pair of Christmas stocking to get done. They will be for ES's second daughter, Ag, and here soon to be husband. They are getting married in about ten days and they may end up getting the stockings as an early Christmas present.

Well, enough of my ramblings for the night. Happy knitting and spinning!

Warning! Picture heavy post!

It has been a long week this past week. The boys are getting ready to start school tomorrow. Hip, hip, hooray! They went shopping for clothes with money their dad sent, on Wednesday. I then took "C" on Thursday evening to get some more of his clothes which he didn't want to get with "R".

On Wednesday I finally finished spinning three bobbins of the "sea foam" roving. Friday night and Saturday morning I plied the bobbins to get this beautiful three ply.


I think it really looks much better in person. I haven't counted the yards yet, but I think there are around 200. I think this would make a wonderful scarf or something else. Any suggestions?

Yesterday was spent at the fiber guilds dye workshop. We had lots of fun with black walnuts and indigo.

We started with two piles of fiber like this. One pile went into the indigo and the other into the black walnut.


It was a lot of fun watching the indigo change from green to blue as it hit the air! The black walnut turned out such lovely shades. The roving that Heather and Lyn put in were a camelid color at first. Lyn put her roving back in the dye pot to get a darker color which she likes much better.

We had rain this year. It is the first time in all the years of doing the dye workshop that it has rained. Granted, it didn't rain very much, but the drops were h-u-g-e. We did run to put spinning wheels in cars or the house before they got wet. It kind of put a damper on the spinning for the rest of the afternoon.

On the umbrella stand is only a portion of what was dyed. The skeins and roving all look pretty hanging there drying.
Heather has two very different indigo dyed rovings. The one on the left is from the first dye pot and was put in with two other rovings in a mesh bag. The right side is from the second pot with the roving just put in the pot, not in the mesh bag. The one on the left will be a pretty variegated yarn, I think.

Finally, just for you Lyn. Here's a picture of one of the oil lamps I made for girls camp. It fits in just the palm of my hand. And no, I haven't tried lighting it!
Well, happy knitting & spinning!