To explain. In the natural course of events, I ran out of my Crimson dye about a week ago.

Now, I’ve used two red dyes before. One is Crimson (my favorite) and the other is Fire Red. I had always preferred Crimson because of the deeper color tones. (The Fire Red tended to go orangey.) Well, when I ran out I hastened to order more, but the place I was buying from didn’t have Crimson! Against my will, I wound up trying the Scarlet dye.

A few days ago I gave it a trial run, not expecting much success. I aimed for the brightest, most intense, luminescent shade of red I thought I could get away with. And it exceeded my expectation. Wow! I’m so excited.

For the record, that’s a merino/silk laceweight that will be going up on Etsy in the next few days. Along with its friend. My lovely cobalt blue and purple version. (Which is already up.)

Spinning wise, I’m plying the Willow fingering weight. It looks like it will be a less dense of a yarn than I had originally envisioned, but still quite nice.

Ahem. As I was saying. I began knitting my first shawl. The Emily Dickinson shawl, it is called, and it’s available for download on Ravelry. (I’m LoveFiber on there, by the way.) This is my first shawl, my first knitted cobweb lace-weight, and my first time adding beads to a knitted project.

And let me just say it now, knitters have things so easy where beads are concerned! You just pull the loop up through the beads one at a time with no fuss. The last beaded non-knitting project I made required loading the seed beads onto the yarn ahead of time. All hundred and something of them. Then I had to keep scooching them along the yarn until I needed one. Crazy.

I’m rather pleased with myself for only having to cast on twice with this project. It’s a sign that I’m getting better at judging the length needed for a long tail cast on. True, the second time I had quite a bit of extra tail, but that’s not the most important thing. Actually, the most important thing is that I cast on five hundred and forty something stitches by my lonesome twice. Well, almost twice. The first time I ran out of tail about thirty stitches from the end.

On a very interesting front, look what my drumcarder-owning friend found while traveling.

These, believe it or not, are three apparently Walking Wheel bobbins. (They’re leaning up against the leg of the Walking Wheel at the moment.) They slide onto the metal prong that I’ve been using as my “bobbin” since I got the wheel. If these actually work, it means I won’t have to stand there and reel off a whole prong’s worth in order to spin more. I’m really liking this!

But, of course, the Walking Wheel happens to be full of Willow sock yarn singles at the moment, so I can’t try it out yet. Bother.

Did you notice the red thread on one of those? That stuff is hand spun two ply! Thread thin! Consistent as all get-out. Good night, I don’t know if I’d be able to spin like that on a Walking Wheel without years and years and years of practice. Wow.

Oh, I promised another batt picture. Here is a close up on my “Night in New Orleans” batts. Very bright and cheery.

Crash. Bang. Shriek of car brakes. WHAT?!?!?!??!?

Last year I took ten days. Started on December the twenty-second. There I was, December twenty-sixth, thinking I would get even more fiber spun then last year. Ha ha ha. Ha ha.

So . . . my New Year’s Dash is becoming a bit more of a New Year’s stroll. What with an unfinished and late Christmas present, and not having spun for a long time (various muscles and joints don’t like to be thrown into the deep end, so to speak) I’m idling my way along. But I am spinning. Yes, I am. It’s some superwash merino with bamboo in it, and I think some nylon.
Gorgeous, soft stuff. I dyed it quite awhile ago and stowed it away, lost and forgotten. I absolutely love the way it’s spinning up. (Into a sock yarn, of course.) It shall be called “Willow” and may possibly make its debute in my Etsy store. If it stays here I shall find myself dropping all sorts of works in progress and plunging into a new pair of socks. I do not need more sock yarn. I am firm. I am resolved. And maybe I can make some more later.

Every single scrap of Iowa fleece I have left (except for one chunk that had lots of VM) has been pre-soaked twice. All of it. Excuse me while I go collapse.

I spent I don’t know how long outside in the backyard hauling pots of water, wrestling fleece, spinning out the excess water, and shooing away any curious insects. It wiped me out. I have this feeling that the neighbors think I’m some sort of odd person — constantly lugging pots out there, whirling around spraying water in every direction — yeah. Well, if they want some wool they can have it. I just want to get it all washed by the second of August.

Why the reason for this sudden haste? A certain special friend is coming to visit next month, and she’s bringing a toy with her. Something very beneficial for those who have lots of fiber to process. Any guesses?

A drum carder.

Ta-da! Cymbal crash. Wild applause.

And, on the knitting front, (while it’s not quite as exciting as a drum carder) I threw the potential sock pattern out the window and started spinning the indigo yarn the way I wanted to spin it. If I really want to use that pattern once the yarn is done I’ll go dig around in the roses until I find it, but in the meantime I’m having fun.

Yes, I’m planning to finish it. And its mate. This one will have some queer little lumps and bumps in it. Things like “repeat rows A and B until x amount remains on the needles” should not be listed after “continue.” What do they think I am? A knitting guru? Ahem. Well, anyway, it seems to be turning out despite the difficulties. I can get it on. And off.

I’m enjoying knitting something that small. I like tiny things. Tiny stitches, tiny needles, tiny yarn. I even have a pattern picked out for the next pair! It’ll be a very special pair due to the fiber choice. (More on that later.)

Here’s something I did with the Iowa fleece during a movie. I had a drop spindling urge and some roving handy, so why not?

Two and half hours on the drop spindle made this little skein of a lace weight single. It does have slubs in it. We’ll pretend they’re in there for interest. I want to dye it in some rich jewel tones and knit it into a hair scarf/bandanna thingummy. I think emerald green and royal purple, with hints of gold, copper, and light blue would be nice.

And here’s the dark Lincoln batts all spun into singles. It came up to one spindle full on the Walking Wheel, and I can’t remember if that was one ounce or two. Anyway, it’s a nice amount. Just very very fuzzy. I think I’ll have to scratch the cowl idea. At least with this yarn. It’s gorgeous stuff. I love the color.

I’d been trying to do some fiber-related something every day so I’d have lots of interesting things to blog about, and that afternoon I wound up pulling out the Aussie Fur. That stuff was incredible.

I didn’t even have to card it. I just grabbed a handful of fur, loosened it up a bit, and spun from the fluff. (Is that what is technically called a “cloud” of fiber?)
The fur took a large amount of twist and I could spin it thick or very, very thin. And the weird thing was that it behaved like alpaca! I mean, really? Farm dog hair acting like very expensive fiber? How cool is that! In short, I had a grand time with it on the Walking Wheel. The final yarn had a gorgeous halo that was softer than I’d expected. My only regret is that I put a little too much twist in the singles, so the yarn is a dense one, not the smooshy-lofty kind that normally goes with fuzzy.

If you do try to spin Aussie fur, keep in mind that it doesn’t pay to overreact to anything that messes up. You’ll make the yarn snap or drop the fiber or get big ole globs of un-spun puffs. (There has to be some technical term for that last, but it’s not coming to mind right now.) I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, although keeping it to feel every so often has come to mind. Maybe I should crochet it into a tiny dog.

On the Etsy frontier we are moving forward! I hope to get things going in the next week or so, so stay tuned.

That stuff is so soft! It’s unwashed at the moment, which is driving my dog nuts. I can hardly wait to get started with it. I think I’ll spin it first, then wash it. That will help keep the fibers from felting or getting tangled. Which is pretty much the same thing, now that I think about it. (Unless you want to get into the molecular structure of felted fibers.)

I’m going to spin it on the Great Wheel as soon as I finish up the fall colored fleece. Talk about motivation! Let’s get that fleece done! She also sent some rescued cotton bits from pill bottles. I’m very curious to see how they will behave on the wheel.

I think the Aussie fur will turn into a pretty bag or pouch, but I have no idea what I’ll do with the cotton. It’ll be a spur-of-the-moment yarn. That’s the exciting kind.

Now, if I can just hurry up and get the fall fleece done. I’m almost through with the singles. Almost.

And, though not quite as impressive, here’s the finished merino/silk scarf. My first big knit project. (If you don’t count the little red scarf, which didn’t involve yarnovers.) It’s almost done blocking, and it turned out huge. It’s really more of a narrow wrap than a scarf. But I like it.

If you’re wondering, the tam hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve worked on it a bit. The dyeing has taken up a lot of my attention, but I haven’t forgotten it! In fact, I’ve graduated in my “knitter-ness.” I’ve thought about bringing the project with me on two occasions, decided not to, and regretted it. Maybe I should just strap the project bag to myself.

Not to mention I’m suffering from a little beginning knitter’s naivety. On being told that my gauge was seven and a half stitches per inch instead of eight, I promptly thought I would have to knit more loosely. Because, as everyone knows, if you want seven and half to become eight, you have to add.

I’ll just leave that one alone for awhile.

And speaking of not boding well, I got smart and decided to sample a yarn. Remember the fall fleece/green silk blend I was going to do? Well, I tried a little piece to see how it looks.

Scratch That

I think it’ll wind up at about three ounces of fleece. If I like how it turns out in singles I can always dye more, then when I ply I’ll just trade out between balls. That way it won’t matter if my dye lot shifts a bit.

Flax on the Wheel

Now, I’m not saying it’s the worst fiber ever, and I love the idea of spinning fibers right out of a plant, but I’m glad I only ordered four ounces. It drafts in a very different way from wool, and it’s going to take a ton of twist. And I mean a ton. Right now it has just as much twist as I normally give wool, but it won’t double back on itself at all! Maybe I spun it too thin. Anyway, I’ve reeled the little bit I spun off the wheel so it can dry, then I guess I’ll run it back through with way more twist, and carry on from there.

Of course, my short attention span with the flax could be caused by having this gorgeous stuff on the Walking Wheel.

Alpaca Single

And this even more gorgeous stuff off the wheel. It’s so soft and squishy! I’m curious how washing will effect the finished yarn. At the moment it’s still slightly greasy and dusty. Not that that’s hindered the overall appeal. I love it, I love it, I love it.

Nearly Finished Yarn