Fledgling Spinner

This month being my first Phat Fiber contribution, I have been enjoying the excitement that surrounds release and capture of said Phat boxes. My own arrived today, quickly opened and poured over by yours truly and a visiting Mom. But before I sit down to plan the inevitable smallish projects with all these wooly wonders, I wanted to take a bit of time to share photos of the blessed event. Video of contributions can be seen in the link on the prior post while following the boxes happens on the Rav group and the Phat Fiber Blog.

Since the December theme was space-y, I plucked some starry fabric from the stash to protect against pine needles in the yard while I tried to take advantage of fading winter sunlight:

This is a shot of everything from a distance……fleece in the back, coupons and stitch markers in the middle, and yarns up front. I also received two great patterns hiding in the wings there.

The yarns were lovely and I have to admit that “Pigs in Space” moniker that a couple of people used brought a smiley memory for me. I also love how creative some of the tags and cards are – everyone has wonderful designs AND colors for yarn. There was a great blue combo from Alaskan Nancy, Pigs in Space pink dominated blend from Gale’s Art, a great fingering called Moon Beam from Dame Emi that I keep trying to guess content on, a surprising and soft lovely from Anzula luxury fibers, almost earthy “Meteor” from By Rebekah with Love, and great greens from Wabi Sabi.

Here’s the two patterns, mostly covered up to not infringe on anyone’s pattern-y rights – one from Michelle Miller and another from Kira K. Also the clever wee WC Mercantile package, a rich, green merino hiding from FromEwetoYou, and a couple of the great stitch markers from winemakerssister and My Fair Bag Lady.

More fluffs – totally in love with the natural dyes from Vibrant Fibers and the feel of the BFL from Vivid Creations…also, can’t help but love the almost ethereal Natchwoolie sample. There are two hidden stitch markers – one fantastic big snagless from Dawning Dreams and a cute beaded one from Lampyridae.

On the other side, the large batt from Lampyridae is a delightful combo of fibers and Color Bug Yarns’ Pigs in Space is a fun wee sample plus what I think is a lamp work bead. Even though I have the wrong side facing, there is some recycled yarn from Jags Funky Fibers hiding in there, too.I still haven’t opened the Woolen Mill St. Yarns bag of bamboo cause I fear that I won’t stop touching it and it will get in the gingerbread I have to make later. Still a sucker for the cuteness of wee braids in the Unwind Yarn and Gems sample.

Overall, many , many hours of fiber feely lay ahead for me.

I have not been very holiday spirited this year. It has probably been a few years since I felt the full warmth of holidays…sometimes I imagine they are more for younglings who don’t have bills, work hours, and project timelines. This year, though, my mom is visiting for the holidays so it does inspire at least a smallish portion of enthusiasm for the season. Since I am spoiled having a fiber loving mom, I have already scored all of the knitting and spinning gifts for the visit as she unpacked her suitcase.

I am in possession of my first skeins of Noro and need to think of something to do with it (all I know is that I will not make a scarf since it wouldn’t get much play in FL). I have some lovely lace weight wool and sock wools as well. Fleece gifts were also tucked in there including some amazing silk with a handpainted spindle. I assume the spindle is a “lace” variety since it is smaller than any I have seen before although I could just be making that up – here it is next to a simple bottom whorl.

The fleece is absolutely amazing but I still feel like I need to master the weight and coordination of spinning on a drop spindle before I attempt it with silk blends…even of the soy silk variety. The recent brown mix soy silk has not been worked on much since I spend more time wrestling with the fine wisps not drafting or all getting bound up when I don’t want them to. I still need to practice on plain, 100% wool. It is definitely more forgiving. Maybe I should save the silks for the wheel for now….

In other craft news, I cut and sewed the fabric that came on Friday and put the new bag up in my shop. I am so excited I have asked my designing spouse to make another one for me. I hope everyone loves it as much as I do.

Several weeks ago, I had opportunity and means to participate in the December Phat Fiber box, and today the video of the samples hit the airwaves.

PhatFiber December09 Part 2

My samples are roughly at 4:20 and Jessie (the fiber lady herself) had so many nice things to say about the packaging and stitch marker that I was all butterflies and giddyness for about half and hour after. It will still be so exciting to see what comes from the experience. I would love to get more exposure because even though I know plenty of people can make stitch markers and create an etsy store, I am still pretty darn proud of mine.

Another thing I am proud of will shortly be cut, stitched, and placed in the store. This came today:

In physical, quilting cotton form, my brilliant designer has made me my own fabric! I can’t wait to sew up some of my bags for the shop but I am so reluctant to cut it! I think I will just admire it for a few days…

There is a quiz for everything now:

34 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor Take the test!

I think I scored poorly based purely on my politics and lack of cooking skills.

At least I can knit like it’s 1930 but with all the fun colors of the 2000s as well as internet patterns. I can’t remember what it was like when I couldn’t find instructions for spinning a certain way or a fiddly pattern or video for long tail cast on in a matter of minutes. I think that may have been why so many women had stitching circles or knitting clubs – > access to materials and inspiration.

Ahead of the holidays, I always want to get my rear in gear to finish a few things and maybe make some warm or fuzzy presents. This year isn’t shaping up to be as productive as I imagined. I did do some felting of veins on the dumpling eye bag just to see, pictures forthcoming. I am also motoring along on a pair of tall socks for a friend, pictures too boring,  will model when complete.

Other than that, I am looking forward with no small amount of delight to the December Phat Fiber box since I did send in a few of my Caution: Live Yarn stitch markers. I had the greatest support for small sample boxes and was over the moon with how they turned out. I am happy to get the chance to be a “phattie” and hope that people like my little clay monsters as much as I enjoy making them. I have another surprise coming soon in the mail that I can’t wait to show but in the spirit of the holidays, I will keep it quiet ’til I have it in hand and then readers will get to see a treat. Until then, I should go draft some more of that Tuscany – one more braid to go!

With Swatches!

So the Knit Witch roving in Vatican that I was spinning is now all done. I got a couple of 100+ yards of squishy two ply. It is a funny thing with two ply: two bobbins full of singles equal one bobbin with two ply and one with the end of whichever length of single was shorter. The math never makes sense to me….I mean it does. I get that I am stretching one of them a little more or when I predrafted one might have been thicker and ended up longer. I think it is the reason I favor Navajo ply though since that uses exactly that you have on the bobbin as it chains back on itself.

When I looked at the first bobbin with the sad leavings of the first skein of two ply, I figured I would save it for sampling. I would knit a swatch with the single, knit another with the finished two ply yarn, and a third swatch would come from a Navajo ply piece chained up from the other left-behind single.

My results were a fun, albeit kinda obvious now that I think on it, exploration into how the color play across the swatches for each:

The largest is the single ply, the so-called “energized” knitting that some books show. I am not a big fan of how the singles knit up, but it could just be me. The colors on that one obviously had the longest runs.

Looking at the two ply on the left and the Navajo on the right, I have to say I am glad at the way the two ply turned out. It seems to have softer borders or transitions between the colors (I am not sure what the technical term is). The same colors seem more distinct on the three ply and, with the “chain” in the Navajo, the color runs are more pronounced or concentrated to me. I can understand why the fingerless gloves with the Tuscany turned out the way they did. (Still love these colors).

In other news, I am being a button procrastinator. I don’t have  a large vat of buttons and these two seemed the best choices for the Sideways Spencer. I am kinda leaning towards the purple-y shell looking ones.

I am fortunate to have a visitor coming soon, one who will explore the world of felting with me. Despite its popularity, I have never really dabbled in felting but was nearly immediately stuck with an idea for an experiment. A year ago, Interweave had this unusual pattern for bags, the Ravelry folk can follow this link – Dumpling Bags. Basically, it looked like a round bag once felted and I thought a quick bit of red eyecord to capture the idea of the optic nerve and a few needle felted pieces for veins post-wash, and it would look just like an eyeball. So I set about with my Patons scraps to felt an eye for carry oddments.

I played in the stash for color scraps and basically knit this monster without buying anything new. Even though the pattern calls for size 13 circular needles and double pointed, I only had straights and improvised. This was, after all, just an experiment. And here is the giantess eye prior to felting:

The pattern also calls for a couple of lucite rings to act as closures on the bit of I-cord at the end. I skipped that too! Apparently I also overlooked one more thing: the green iris yarn wasn’t wool.

When I plucked the eye from the washer I was so tickled at my first felted object I nearly overlooked the fact that one row was loose and….NOT FELTED!!

I was sure it was wool. I just never tested it…..to make sure. But! You can teach an old knitter new tricks. I am making it again and this time I might buy the circular when I go to buy green or blue yarn. Stay tuned.