um that's kind of addicting

I plied the yarn from the last post.

Then I spun half of another braid.

Then I spun the other half
I just finished a half of a third braid, and if I didn't believe in a proper rest for singles (12 hours or overnight at least!) I'd be plying half #3 with half #2, and then spinning half #4 to ply with half #1

for those keeping track, I've spun 10oz of singles and plied 4 oz, so I've done 14 oz of spinning.

I still have Friday (and Saturday before noon) before my time with the wheel = exactly 1 week. I think my friend might let me keep using it until 5pm or so on Saturday :D

I wonder how much spinning I'll get done in that time period?

That's what I started with: 3 braids @ 4oz each on the top, another 12.5 oz of misc. on the bottom. Another 2oz of singles and I can say I'm halfway done with Spin the Bin 2015 ! in a week! eee!

truth

true to my own fickle tastes, I have spent the last two weeks NOT working on any of the projects in the last post.

Instead I spun.

it was fun.

I borrowed a wheel.

That's an older version of the Ladybug and it's a darling. I like especially the double treadle--much easier to pace, for me, than a single treadle. Also adjusting tension is pretty easy.

I get this dear for a week. I've finished those 3 bobbins (for a total of 4 oz) on Saturday and Monday, so I've got 4 or 5 more days to play with it. I think tonight I'll go ahead and ply these, not just because the wheel is faster than plying by spindle, but because the bobbins hold more than a spindle.

also I am running out of bobbins so I can't just start something new. so, good. Plying. make a finished yarn. That's not a bad plan at all.

The things I want to do next

I am still in polishing-up-last-year's-knitting (2 pairs of socks, a pair of mittens, and a hat) and working-my-ass-off mode. As always this makes me dream of what I want to knit next, or really, what FOs I want. Yes, I love the process of knitting, but the product is equally important to me. And I love to dream and plot and plan... about all the things I can't do right now. or have, as it were.

First up is shawls. I have two on the list and the first is the incredible Nymphalidea, available for free on knitty. I wasn't sure what everyone was seeing in this pattern at first but then a couple of them really struck my fancy, especially this water nymph one by knitviviknit:

I've got some blue-purple-green Malabrigo sock yarn and a nearly black Dream in Color Starry that seems to be underwashed in similar colors (I think it's Black Parade). That'll be a pairing of this:

(only it's more subtle and complicated rather than straight up bright purple)

and this:

(see that hint of color under the black? this stuff is really hard to take pictures of)

Anyway, I think it'll work out nicely. My LYS is doing a KAL for this project for the month of January, so this will be my number one priority to wind and cast on ASAP when I get back to my yarn stash (the 25th, I think).

The next shawl is the incredible Stripe Study Shawl by Veera Valimaki, and I was especially inspired by this yellow and red version by kristennn on ravelry:

I don't quite have the same colors but I do have two balls of madelinetosh tosh merino light that I've picked up in the past year mostly from swapping. My colors are copper penny:

and oxblood, which is in the mail, but which should look like this:

SO EXCITED.

Finally I really need and want a crescent-shaped lace shawl to replace the Wine in Summer I lost when the car died a few years back.
Wine in Summer looked like this:

although the colors were more accurately this:

I've acquired another skein of the Malabrigo Sock in the Abril colorway that I previously used but that skein looks more like this:

and I'm not sure if it'll turn out the same. Still, it was a quick knit (less than a month, and I was a newb then too!) and a product I wore all the time, so it's back on the list.

I am also fighting the craving to throw aside all my long-held WIPS and cast on some things that'll burn through quick stash. I want to turn every skein of worsted I have into various mitts and mittens so they are no longer there, and I want to knit all the dishcloths to use up my cotton. Speaking of cute dishcloths, though, I am in love with these guys:

and

aren't they just bloody perfect? I am sure I can scrape together enough cotton from my stash to make a couple of solid-colored dish cloths. They might even make cute gifts, if I can bring myself to part with them.

Finally, I am dying for some cowls. I wear the only cowl I've made for myself ALL OF THE TIME and it supplements my too-small-in-the-shoulders winter coat very well. Which ones do I want to make, you ask?

Another Honey Cowl:
(like pixiewear's:

except in red like this:

Though I have three skeins and anticipate using them all.

I also made this beautiful Hannah Cowl by Lion Brand Yarns:

But due to over-excitement I knit the second half of it extremely loose and had to rip the whole thing out due to gauge errors (and the fact that it was about 2x too long and stretched to me knees), so now I need to knit it again because while it existed I loved it.

I also have an urge to churn out a Duotone Cowl in bright neon colors like GarnetTearDrop's:

and a Circular Tube Cowl out of my Van Gogh Sock Yarn:

and some sort of cowl out of my starry night gradient set from Dragonfly Fibers:

Now that's not including sweaters... I want to knit a Poet's Pullover out of madtosh dk magnolia leaf and an Anzen out of a stockpile of some Patons I got for cheap, and an Iced out of my Berroco Vintage Chunky that I just got... and to finish the Harvest and the Takoma I started last year...

or socks or mitts or mittens or hat, the number of patterns for which are infinite. *sigh* guess I'd better get back to making graphs.

Spin it all up!

so, I've got the goal to only knit 6 items for other people in the coming year (2x socks for the twin, a gift for mom, a gift for my sister, a baby item or shop sample for friends, and a shawl for a friend).

I've got a goal to knit/finish knitting 2 sweaters for myself this year

I've got a goal to knit myself 2 shawls--a replacement for my lost Wine in Summer and a Nymphiladea.

aaand I've got a goal to try to play along with sock club and knit myself some socks (but never have more than two pairs on the needles at a time... gotta keep it healthy).

but I haven't played with my spinning yet... and there's this Spin the Bin 2015 challenge, which is to designate and then use stash, ~24 oz over the course of the year.

I am already keeping myself from buying more fiber because my stockpile is pretty big and I am a super slow spinner, relatively speaking.

I think I'll play along with the Spin the Bin thing. Which 24oz should I spin?

1) 4 oz of portugese merino from the Dyeabolical Yarns dyeing company in Thunderboom. This stuff looks totally awesome and feels incredibly bouncy and dense--I bet it'll be a really interesting spin.
2) 4 oz of Polwarth and silk blend in a batt from Into the Whirled in the starrennicht colorway
3) 5 oz fingering roving/ batt in the Tiger's Eye colorway from Loop (my first bullseye bump!)
4) 3.3 oz of silk brick in the Night Orchid colorway from Fiber Artemis (wooosh. that's gonna be crazy. 100% silk is gonna be fine as froghair)
5 and 6) 3.8 oz of 100% corriedale in the Lotus colorway by Fiber Artemis, which I want to then ply with either ~4oz of 100% solid blue corriedale, ~4oz of tonal blue lambswool from Lanitium ex Machina, or ~4oz of tonal blue Falkland with a hint of purple in it, from Fibernymph Dyeworks.


hmm, maybe I should spin all 4 of them up: the Lotus, the solid blue, the tonal blue, and the Falkland... and ply them in 2oz increments to make an interesting gradient. If I do that I can lopp off #3 and #4 from the list, which... frankly will save me some time. Both of those are gonna be tricky, skinny, time consuming spins, whereas this weird gradient idea would probably be aiming for a DK weight so I can make a gradient shawl.

mm, I love making plans.

spinning is the cure!

Well, I finished plying my Lakeshore yarn and spun a bit of my brown-white gradient sampler. Then I ripped out an entire sock and a half and now I'm back on knitting target :)

currently in progress:

1 old pair of socks for my twin out of sportweight yarn that I'm doing in the Hermione's Everyday Sock pattern (so simple, so fun) (10%)
1 old pair of socks for my twin (50%, just had to rip the second one all the way out and restart it because the cast on edge was too tight, alas. but I do have an entire first sock done.)
1 pair of mittens for a friend (50% as well, had to rip the second one out because it was too tight)
1 intricate lace shawl. I worked on it, I did--one row took me an hour. curse you nupps! mostly they're tricksy to purl....


that's it! If I finish 3 of them before I leave I will probably buy more yarn.