July 25, 2005
Spinning and So Forth
The weather was much improved this weekend, so the house could be open and the back porch used, and so forth. A fair amount of spinning happened.
This is some Shetland fleece I bought on eBay.
I realized after I cropped the picture that I should have put a ruler next to them, or something for size. They are about 6 inches long. This is really beautiful fiber - it isn't going to turn into a ring shawl anytime soon, but it's not extremely coarse. This was the cleaner stuff - I have about 2 pounds, and I swear that there is one pound of hay in the bag and 1 pound of fleece. But it does comb out, I just have to sit over a tarp.
I'm spinning it long draw, because the fibers are pretty long and, as you'd expect, the Shetland is really grabby. So it's going fairly fast and making up in a lovely shade of silver grey.
Meantime, I finished my first four ounces of white merino.
This is not my most consistent yarn ever, but even Emily pronounced it soft:
It's 4 ounces and maybe 225 meters. I'm well into the second four ounces, and I think it's a little more tightly spun, so I'm trying to relax a little.
In knitting news, I swatched with my 3 ply cormo, on size 3.25mm needles, and got stitch gauge for my pattern but not row gauge, and a very firm fabric, so I decided to swatch again on 3.5mm. Now, my 3.5mm ebony needles were being held hostage by the silk-from-hell (last seen here). So - guess what - the silk from hell is in a plastic bag waiting to be dumped in a traveling stash box! I'm free! I had good intentions of putting it on a piece of yarn in case some lunatic actually wants to knit it, but I realized I haven't got the slightest idea how to get about 500 stitches onto a piece of yarn. Yahoo! Out it goes!
Posted by Prudence at July 25, 2005 08:28 AMHey, Caroline, I have some silver grey shetland on my wheel, too! I must be in the air. The yarn all looks gorgeous, and Emmy can't wait for a sweater out of that merino! ;-) Lovely work, Ma'am!
Posted by: sam on July 25, 2005 01:27 PMFree! The shetland looks really pretty! Was it double coated? What pattern are you thinking about?
Posted by: elizabeth on July 25, 2005 02:38 PMWhee! I love silver-grey shetland. Beautiful!
Posted by: Angela on July 25, 2005 02:41 PMooh ooh ooh, I just want to touch it all!
My heart hasn't started beating again after hearing that shawl is a pile of rumpled silk, but how free you must feel! Good for you!
Posted by: Kerry on July 25, 2005 03:20 PMJust gorgeous, Caroline. Love the picture of Emily - I'm missing that cutie pie!
Posted by: Jen on July 25, 2005 09:31 PMKerry, if you touched that silk, you'd think 'venetian blind cord,' which is the first thing I thought when I touched it...
Elizabeth, I have no pattern in mind, I have to see what kind of yarn I get and how much! I'm not to the point yet where I can spin to a pattern! I'm usually at the mercy of the fleece.
Posted by: CarolineF on July 25, 2005 09:46 PMAww, Miss Emily. What a great kid and what pretty spinning. You people and your perfect yarn...I tell ya, it makes me just want to go eat worms.
Posted by: Lisa S on July 25, 2005 11:43 PM