Tag Archives: 2-ply

spinning alpaca.

Posted on by
5

This morning (instead of starting the book I need to finish for a discussion on Thursday) I sat down to play with the alpaca I am spinning for a friend of mine. Boh woke me up, barking to go out, ten minutes before my alarm went off. (I don’t know about you, but I really, really enjoy the sleep I get early in the morning, just before I wake up.) So I was groggy. Hence the decision to make coffee and spin, rather than jump into the day’s work.

This stuff is much softer than what I used for my first (short-lived) attempt at spinning alpaca last summer. I don’t have any information about it, but I’m wondering if it is a blend, or perhaps baby alpaca? My friend gave me two different fibers to spin — this natural brown stuff, and some natural grey alpaca. The grey stuff feels coarser, and more like what I thought alpaca was like.

I’ve got close to 6 oz. of the dark brown alpaca, so I’m aiming for a two-ply in the light-worsted to worsted range. Some sections of the fiber spun smoothly and evenly, while others required a bit more wrestling and wrangling. I’m not sure if that has to do with the fiber being a bit compressed in places, or if it is simply the natural variation in the quality of this animal’s coat. I am quite happy with the way this is turning out — and I’m anxious to spin up the second bobbin and ply so that I can see how the fiber reacts when it is set. (Will it soften further? Plump up?) I’ll keep you posted.

This photo was pretty dark, so I clicked the “enhance” button in iPhoto, and here’s what it gave me. I like it.

FO: chard.

Posted on by
8

This stuff was so soft and pretty that I had to take a few pictures before I set the twist. I snapped these while I waited for the sink to fill up!

This is 211 yards of squishy, soft, light worsted-weight 2-ply spun from Pigeonroof Studios merino in the chard colorway. I am in love. I haven’t spun merino in awhile, and returning to it felt luxurious. Just what I needed this week.

Also, I’m almost to the feather and fan section of my hemlock ring. I’m really enjoying this, and I’m planning to sit down with this before today’s soccer game. I think this project is helping me to rebuild my lace confidence — I’ve had to rip back a few times to catch small errors, and being able to read my lace and solve my stitch count issues feels really good! Also, I put just a little bit of ice cream in my coffee this morning. Clearly a good move. Happy Sunday!

FO: new day (also, zucchini and chard).

Posted on by
12

This is 150 yards of squishy, shiny, 2-ply made from 4 oz. of Spunky Club corriedale in the New Day colorway. The orange bits are my favorite part.

And here’s the zucchini ricotta galette I made for dinner last night. (I had company.) When Deb posted this recipe recently, I knew I had to make it. I think I’ve made every galette recipe she’s posted, and they’ve all been absolutely delicious!

I’m part of the way through plying the Pigeonroof Studios merino in the chard colorway, and I am absolutely loving the way the colors are combining. So pretty! In fact, pretty enough that I might put off the reading I must finish before my afternoon meeting to ply just a little bit more…

from scratch.

Posted on by
4

Time to stop petting my handspun and start knitting with it! Boh and I spent our lazy, rainy Sunday morning listening to podcasts and winding yarn into cakes. Well, and then taking pretty pictures of them. I have plans to cast on projects in all of these yarns…this week, even!

Following Adrian of Hello Yarn’s recipe, I cast on a legwarmer out of my Hello Yarn patchwork merino 2-ply handspun. This stuff is super soft and squishy, and I am obsessed with the way it is striping. (It has doubled in length since I snapped this photo.) I cast on 48 stitches to start, and will post my notes once I finish the pair.

Here’s another shot of those stripes, against a less busy (Boh) backdrop.

Making yarn cakes is exhausting, clearly. Alright, time for some coffee and morning knitting. I can’t wait to get back to my legwarmers — and then, back to work. Happy Monday!

FO: wurm.

Posted on by
5

Swoon. This might be my favorite hat ever: just the right amount of slouchiness, so soft, and of course, handspun that seems as though it was made for this pattern. I cannot stop drooling over these color repeats. I know I say it all the time, but Adrian over at Hello Yarn works magic. Seriously. Magic. I had 201 yards in the first skein of this stuff, and I managed to use what looks like about 195 of those yards.

I knit the pattern’s size M on US 5 needles. The pattern called for 10 sections of knit/purl ridges, but I did seven and it seemed deep enough, so I began the decreases. In order to get to the final bit of yellow in my skein, I stretched out the decrease rounds by throwing in a few extra knit rows between them, and when I had enough yellow (if there is such a thing), I bound off.

Also, I’m making progress on the Hello Yarn corriedale in Seasick that I showed you yesterday. I’m almost done spinning all 4 oz, and I’m starting to lean towards leaving this as singles and making a shawl. What do you think?

lack of motivation.

Posted on by
10

I snapped this photo last night. Boh got halfway off the couch, and then seemed to either forget what he was doing or lose the motivation to continue. Oh Boh, I can relate. I am having a hard time staying focused and motivated to work on many of the things on my plate right now — April is just crazy.

I’ve had a few skeins of finished yarn sitting here next to my computer, waiting for me to blog them. I might not be done reading, planning paper topics, or (ahem) writing that conference paper for next weekend, but I can blog these skeins and check them off my list!

This is that lovely blue-green merino/wool blend that my dear friend H. picked up at a Maine sustainability festival in the fall from Friends’ Folly Farm. This is 257 yards of worsted weight (maybe light worsted in some places), in 2 skeins of 181 and 76 yards, respectively. This stuff was beautifully prepped, almost batt-like, and I spun it in sort of a modified long-drawish kind of way, which seemed to allow me to get a more even single. I have no idea what this will become, but I absolutely love how the colors catch the light.

This is a scrappy 2-ply skein of all the leftovers on my bobbins — a mixture of Hello Yarn shetland in Sour Fig, the gorgeous green stuff I just finished, and Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino in Albatross and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. 68 yards of surprising prettiness.

And now, back to the pile! I’m hoping to get caught up on blog reading and comments soon. Apologies for the radio silence this week.

FO: patchwork (future legwarmers).

Posted on by
7

Three skeins of worsted weight 2-ply — 150, 140, and 80 yards, respectively, for a grand total of 370 yards of Hello Yarn Fiber Club merino in the patchwork colorway. (Also known as future legwarmers. I can’t wait to cast on.)

I know it doesn’t look like it, but Boh is hard at work in this photo. Boh is breaking in a new, better-fitting slipcover for the couch — this small change makes me feel so much better about my space.

And this is warming in the oven. I have managed to make a peck’s worth of apple crisp in the last few weeks. Clearly, I am in the midst of a scientific experiment to test the following premise: apple crisp fixes everything. (I have not yet disproved my apple crisp theory.)

plying patchwork (all things P).

Posted on by
8

Boh was clearly instrumental to the plying process.

Here’s the second bobbin of patchwork singles, spun from the second bump of fiber.

Plying in progress.

Skein #1, hanging to dry. I gave this an extra long bath (okay, I sort of forgot about it), and the resulting 2-ply is particularly plump.

Sigh. This first skein is about 150 yards. I might attempt to ply another bobbin’s worth before heading to campus this morning. I am in love with this stuff.

FO: sour fig.

Posted on by
6

Boh decided that he wanted to pose alongside my finished skein of Hello Yarn shetland in Sour Fig. This is 201 yards of 2-ply, and I have a second, smaller skein of 85 yards. This stuff looks to me to be mostly sport weight, and I’m wondering if it would make a nice wurm hat. Thoughts? (Too variegated? I am also craving another set of mitts.)

Yesterday also involved this:

And this:

Friday. I managed to eat ALL of that apple crisp last night, this morning, and as a late lunch today. Boh and I just took a nice, sunshine-filled walk around the neighborhood, and I’m hoping that I have energy enough to do a bit more work this afternoon.

spinning/silliness/sunday.

Posted on by
7

The sun came out yesterday while I was spinning the first bobbin of my first (of two!) bump of Hello Yarn shetland in Sour Fig, from the Fiber Club. I had to stop and take a picture. Twenty minutes later, my bobbin looked completely different:

I’m super excited to see how this ends up. I’m aiming for a 2-ply dk weight, but this stuff wants to be spun fine, so we’ll see what happens.

And now, the silliness:

I am a lucky girl.

Yep, another picture of this sweater. The fit is a bit awkward, the armholes are huge, the seams are wonky, even the ends are poorly woven in. I love the big ribbed collar, but I think the reason I wear this sweater more than any of the others I’ve made is that it was my first, finished in February 2008.

I wear it to late night reading groups, to dinner at friends’ homes. I pull it on to take Boh outside in the morning, I curl up in it on the couch. I buy groceries and write papers in it. It fits over many layers, even other sweaters, which is often how I wear it. It warms me, in more than the obvious way. I’ve been reading/discussing Rushdie this week, and these rather silly ruminations on my green sweater make me think of something his narrator says in Midnight’s Children. “Reality can have metaphorical content; that does not make it less real” (230, in my 1991 Penguin edition, though this was first published in 1980).

Time to slip my arms into the green sweater and get back to work.