As for me, well, I’m up to my elbows in a pile of spinning projects. Lovely projects, for lovely people, but there seem to be tons of them.

First off, I’ve been working on spinning up some Aussie fur for a good friend. (Yes, dog fur.) It’s really soft and fluffy, and has been washed. Definite bonus. I’m spinning it on a spiffy new gadget I’ll have to tell you all about in a future blog post.

Theoretically this yarn will end up as a two-ply fingering weight, although there will be some DK weight bits in there, given the nature of the fiber. I carded the fur into batts, but it’s so fine that it spins more like a cloud, which results in a lot of difficulty keeping things even. And there seems to be different lengths of fur in there, which also makes things interesting.

All in all, it’s spinning up to be an interesting taupe color. Almost like sand.

Another fiber project I’m working away on is some more indigo merino. Remember the indigo merino from last year? This is more of that. Thankfully it’s going much quicker this time, although it’s having to share space on the wheel with a different project.

It’s been audio book city around here as I work away on all this. Nothing like a good audio book to make spinning go faster! Or at least, to keep me sitting there longer.

The third project, and the biggest, is some wool that I’m washing and spinning for a lovely new friend. Her parents have some Corriedale sheep, and she and I worked out a swap where I would wash and spin a portion of their fleeces for her, and then I could keep the rest of the fleece for myself. And, given how it’s behaving, I’m really excited. The fleece is gorgeous. But you don’t just have to take my word for that, you can see it.

It washes up really white, and has a great feel to it.

It also cards into beautiful, fluffy batts. I’ve already spun one and a half of those little fellas into the first skein of probably eight or nine at least. A nice two-ply light worsted.

I’m happy to report that the fleece is well worth any hassle to work with. Including the somewhat amusing event that occurred on my hour’s drive to pick up the raw fleeces.

Picture me in my father’s little blue Honda, trucking happily down the highway with my Google Map printout. No cell phone, but I had directions, so who cared? I followed the map step by step, turned off the highway, and started along a nice little country road. Then a sign loomed up.

Pavement Ends.

The last thing I wanted to do was drive my dad’s car down a little one-lane gravel road, but there was no obvious alternative. I drove along, watching the mailboxes for the right number and keeping an eye out for any enormous pick-up trucks who might want to pass me.

Then the road got narrower. And suddenly it ceased to be a road and became a grand canyon with a rushing river in the bottom of it.

Okay, so it was more like a normal creek bed, but the road tilted down into the water, then emerged on the other side in a somewhat muddy slope.
I am not a country driver. I am a city girl. And I am a city girl who knows better than to take her father’s car through water, thank you very much.

Hope springing eternal, I turned the car around and headed back up the road to see if I had missed the number. Turns out I hadn’t, but the road continued on the other side of where I got on it, so I crossed the pavement road and checked out the other side. The numbers decided to go the wrong direction. And then that road T’d with another road and hope was squelched.

I had no cell phone. I had no map. (Well, I had a map, but I was off the edge of it.) There was nothing for it but to turn back around and pray I could survive.

Now, thank God, the second time I showed up at the creek there was a very nice lady in her four-wheeler who assured me that the water was not as deep as it looked, and that as long as I “stayed far away from that big rock there” I’d be okay. (There were three big rocks sticking out the water, and I never did figure out which one she meant.) So, with a deep breath, more prayer, and a trembling accelerator, I splashed in. And across. And up the other side. (You may sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” here.)

Wet, muddy, and gravel-dusted, I set off along the still-unpaved road to find the farm. The road went on for a bit, then suddenly dead-ended at a nice, paved road, and the sign informed me that the road I wanted continued to the left. Through lovely suburbia. And easy roads. And a little way down that road, there was the farm!

If my web map had routed me one more road down the main highway and come at the farm from the other side, I would have had completely normal driving the whole way.

As I said before, though, the whole trip was worth the wool and getting to make a new friend. And maybe God decided I needed off-pavement driving practice, who knows? I do think next time, however, I will make sure I have a cell phone.

The shawl was supposed to be my dear aunt’s Christmas and birthday present, however both of those dates have passed, so I decided I’d better get hopping. The last thing I want to do is end up like I did with my last two “birthday gift” yarns and not deliver on them until after the next year’s birthday.

Before I got started on the shawl yarn I had to reel off the cinnamon alpaca that was already on my favorite spinning wheel. (This photo only strengthens my mental connection between brown alpaca and herringbone. For some odd reason I think they were made for each other.)

Once I got all that reeled off the bobbin, I went ahead and started spinning up samples. This was a little more difficult than I bargained for, as the original pattern calls for a worsted weight yarn made of llama. Llama is rather heavy and drapey, but my batts are not. They are wonderfully springy and fluff up like you wouldn’t believe. So it took me a good four or five tries to nail a proper sort of worsted weight. (More of the fiber being used!)

I’m hoping against hope that I have enough of these batts to finish out the shawl. There are all these abstract variables floating about.

After getting the right weight (or so I hoped), I gave the little piece of sample yarn to my sister, who will be doing the actual knitting of shawl, and she knit up a tiny swatch. Thankfully it was bang on with blocking. Hurrah for gauges that actually work!

I’ve got a half of a bobbin of this lovely stuff at the moment, and I intend to add to it pretty soon. The shawl calls for 820 yards of worsted weight, and I have twelve(ish) ounces of batt. This is going to be close. If all else fails, I can get a few ounces of something else and spin one of the yarn plies with it, then stick it in with two of the batt plies.

First, admire the lovely flowers the little boy I babysit gave me for Valentine’s Day, and consider making him a crocheted blanket (not alpaca) since he took such a shine to the last crocheted blanket project I took along to work on. It might be a good idea to do that sometime soon. I mean, when he likes the blanket enough to ask if it’s for him, for his mom, for his little brother, or for his big brother, I can kind of see a broad hint in the there.

Second, relegate the blanket thoughts to the back of my mind and transfer my attention to this . . .
(I will wait for the ooohs and aaahs to die down.)

These are sections of the fleece that I carefully detached from the bag-full and laid on end in a nice green tray. Not only does it keep the fibers neat, it collects the dust, and doesn’t look half bad to boot. Hooray for being crafty and, at the same time, looking sharp.

Third, choose a small section of the locks and hang on for dear life while combing and fluffing up one end.

And I pay special attention to not let the comb pull the fiber from my hand. Then it gets messy. Then I repeat the process for the other end so the entire lock is beautiful and soft and any bits of hay have fallen out.

Fourth, having amassed a few handfuls or so of these fluffed-up locks, I lay them all on top of each other (ends still pointing the same way) and roll them up from side to side like a scroll. Actually, more like a cinnamon roll.

Then I pull it out into a gorgeous, fluffy, lighter-than-air mini-roving.

This, of course, goes onto the spinning wheel with eager anticipation.

I’ve gotten only a few spare moments here and there to work on it, but I’m very excited to see how this yarn turns out. I’m spinning it low-twist, so it’ll be a very soft yarn. Or smooshy, if you want the highly technical term.

On the flip side, I have been working on some of those batts I mentioned in the last post. I’ve got one almost completely spun, and it’s looking quite snazzy. Now before you go pointing out any little neps and slubs in the yarn let me say that I did intend for those to be there. It is all part of a grand, super-secret experiment. (Cue the dramatic music.)

In the midst off all this, I’m beginning to hear the call of the crochet hook again. I haven’t used them for an actual project for some time (and during that time I managed to accidently stab a tiny one into my heel) and I’m beginning to miss it. Miss crocheting, not stabbing my heel. That hurt.

I’ve got this crazy idea involving crochet hooks and un-spun silk. I have a silk hanky laying around. I just have to decide if that’s what I want to use it for. I think it would make a lovely, airy shawl or wrap. Probably rectangular, as silk makes hair static, and I wouldn’t want it right up by my neck.

However, to get to the point, one of his shorter writings features tips on writing letters and contains this little gem: “My second Rule is, don’t fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner!” And I have taken this to heart. I think it safe to assume that you’re fed up with my apologies for not having blogged sooner, so I will dispense with them forthwith.

I’ve been keeping pretty busy lately with various fiber projects. One of which was a large undertaking.
Eight ounces of superwash BFL fiber to be handspun and dyed for a Maiden Yarn customer. Oh my goodness – I practically had to fight off my knitting sister to keep the spun yarn. Bluefaced Leicester is rapidly elbowing its soft and lustrous way to the top of the fiber heap, so to speak. It’s simply wonderful stuff.

And, of course, it’s just coincidental that I happen to have more Bluefaced Leicester on my other spinning wheel.

This is the “Violet, You’re Turning Violet!” roving I mentioned earlier. A blend of BFL and silk, dyed by OrangeJello. I’m really enjoying spinning this, especially as I’m spinning it on the wheel that was formerly in disgrace. I hauled the wheel back downstairs from its exile in the bonus room and decided to give it another chance. Mainly because my other two wheels were full of custom BFL, and (amazingly enough) some more BFL that was a gift from my aunt. Do I sense a theme here?

This will most likely end up in the neighborhood of a two-ply fingering weight. I’m rather enjoying the ability to just kick back and spin and not worry about getting the weight exactly right, or making sure there aren’t any weird little bumps and slubs in the fiber. This is fiber for me, and yarn for me, so I will spin in such a way that it promotes my fiber experience. In other words, I’ll spin it the way I choose and pick up the chips later.

Not that I have a project in mind for the finished yarn, though. I’ll have to wait and see for sure what gauge it winds up at and go from there. Oh, and yardage. That’s a bit of a factor. I made the mistake of browsing Ravelry’s patterns again and discovered an interesting fact about myself. Apparently I labor under the delusion that bigger is better. Do I like the little shrugs or lacey half-sweaters? No, of course not! I go for the giant knitted coats with cables and snowflakes, or the shawls the side of bedspreads. Not exactly conducive to the four-ounce braid of roving. And I doubt I’ll have a chance to spin that much yarn anytime this year.

I’m so flabbergasted that we’re almost into December already! And this is a good sort of flabbergasted. This is a “oooh, Christmas is coming” sort of sensation. I’ve already snagged some fun little Christmas-y things for my two stores. Hurrah for half off sales at Hobby Lobby.

I’ve been spinning and spinning away on the indigo-dyed merino, and I have three nice skeins done already. Hooray! I think once the whole batch is finished I shall have to get some “big pile of smooshy blue yarn” type photos.

I tell you, though, spinning this is really eating up the audiobooks. I’ve already done most of The Wind in the Willows, The Jungle Books (part one), and now The Hobbit. Thankfully I was able to get to the library the other day, so now I have The Children of Hurin and one of the Mitford series ready in reserve.

On the knitting front, I have plunged into another stash-busting project. This one is of the “knit until project measures x length” variety, and therefore works for movies and such. It’s called The Floopy Hat and is really just for kicks. And to use up the amazingly large stash of this amazingly turquoise and textured yarn.

Angora cobweb fluffy laceweight. Ahhhhhhhh. You cannot believe how soft this yarn is when it’s plied. It’s like the tactile rendition of feeling warm and fuzzy inside!

I’m actually spinning this on a nifty contraption that a friend of mine plans to make available on Etsy. I’m not at liberty to divulge many of the juicy details, but I will say that I could not spin this delicate of a yarn on any of the other tools I have in the house.

The grand Etsy store updates continue! I just listed a couple more yarns, and soon a nice big order of fiber will come in, and I can start all over again. Hooray!

Oh! You heard it here first – I will be participating in Etsy’s Christmas in July sale (July 15th through 25th). I’m running a special on shipping for those of you who want to stock up on Christmas gifts. Pay shipping on only one item in your order. All the other items in the order ship free!

And, while this is not lace, I’ve started knitting a scarf from this lovely, hand dyed pink yarn a good friend gave to me. I’m knitting it on the bias, and then throwing in dropped stitch stripes every so often.

On the one wheel I have this gorgeous stuff. It’s the laceweight silk I promised my sister a year ago.

And on the other I have this. Cinnamon alpaca laceweight that will probably wind up in Filigree Willow Laceweights. (Sorry about the nasty photo. I have concluded that TV rooms are out to sabotage photography everywhere.)

The only problem with this new obsession is that I have multiple spinning projects calling out in their plaintive, soft voices for me to come console them after their long imprisonment in my closet. Stuff like this unfinished indigo and cochineal dyed sock yarn.

And this.

And my soysilk. And those batts I’ve been hoarding. And some of the black llama.

And you get the idea.

Here’s hoping I’m able to spin a lot these next couple of weeks!

No, I am not starting to knit sweaters for birds. I have made excellent progress on the Raven’s Wing yarn, and I want to show you! Ta-da. My first wound-off bobbin of the single ply. Looks pretty nice, eh? I’m so excited about the way it’s turning out.

And, for the second half of our program, I give you my sweater progress. I finished one of the sleeves and started merrily in on the cowl. Supposedly the accepted and generally used method of sweater knitting holds that you must knit both sleeves one after the other, but who wants to do that? I mean, it’s bad enough when making socks! I just got done doing one of these and you want me to do another when I have a chance to do something different but just as productive? Believe me, if there’s an option B, clear the pool ’cause I’m coming in.

So I’m almost four inches into the cowl. Once I hit four inches I’ll be able to go back to the larger sized needles and put in some increases. I’ve got the best kind of motivation to get this done soon: I’m getting really antsy to wear it.

And here’s one more parting shot of the Raven’s Wing yarn. Gorgeous!

Of course, I’ve got my fair share of green and purple glitz tracked all over the house, but I believe it’s worth it.

And yes. That bright pink thing is my make shift drive band. It really dresses the wheel up, don’t you think?

In other news, I finally got to the seed stitch part on one of my sweater sleeves after very carefully increasing way more then the pattern called for. Thankfully the sleeve isn’t too wide, and can therefore be fudged with the greatest of ease.

And my first Creeping Vines sock is finished, except for weaving in the ends. Pictures will be forthcoming.