Icelandic Brown

Another Estes Park purchase spun up.  It was purchased in June of 2012 and has since been hanging out in my stash along with other fiber for spinning and yarn.

 This is the soft part of an Icelandic fleece and comes from Fire Mountain Fiber.  Being the soft part rather than the hairy part of the fleece means it has short fibers.  Something, I didn't know.  When I first started it, I was having trouble with it coming apart.  Checking on Ravelry, one other person had worked with and mentioned that they might try having a lot of overspin in it.  That is what I did and I ended up with overspin sticking out on the singles using a 12:1 ratio.

 I then did a three ply and it was easy to balance the singles using a 8.5:1 single.  It was a bit slower for plying because the doubled overspin had to be pulled apart on the singles.

 The three skeins of three ply are bulky and contain, 116, 74, and 88 yards of yarn.  The small dab of two ply is worsted weight and has twenty yards.  The two ply will probably at some point go in a multicolor item.

The three ply is most likely going to become a scarf.  It is a bit scratchier than what I normally do as a scarf so I don't think it can be a cowl.

Sock It Too 2016

I don't take many pictures of the socks I knit.  One, reason is that the ones for my husband are based on the same pattern,  Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock with Dutch Heel.

There was only one pair completed this year.  As you can see it is a basic pattern.  I do less ribbing for the cuff and more stockinette for the leg.  If you are wondering one skein of about 420 yards does a pair.

In review, it has been a slow year for socks.  Only two other pairs were finished.

 Above is the start to a pair of Moody's stockings which were completed in April.  The pattern doesn't show much until they are on.

And here are the Horcrux Socks made with the Opal Draco color way.  It seems fitting to walk on Malfroy Draco.   I didn't increase the leg length.  

Somehow, it seems fitting that I knit some socks based on Harry Potter this year.

Beaded Badge Holder

I have not done a bead project for at least two years.  While on Yarn Along the Rockies, I picked up a kit for a beaded badge holder.  

It was an impulse buy and not the worst one I have ever made.  I am going to admit that I am rusty on working with beads.  First, thing I did was sort the beads and then I didn't read all of the directions. Not reading all the directions lead to having to back up and restring a bunch of beads. If I had read the directions, I would have realized starting out that I wasn't going to use to metal beads where it said to.  There were only enough beads to use one in each location.  I believe the silver beads include were about the size of two beads mentioned in the instructions.

 And I am glad I have some basic beading supplies since I dropped two of the tiny crimp beads and had one fail to attach.  For some reason crimp tubes work better with my crimp pliers.

All in all, it turned out looking pretty much like I expected.

3rd TdF and Ravellenics WIP - Stormy Seas

This was started as a 2016 Tour de Fleece project.  At the end of Tour de Fleece, two of the singles had been spun with 16:1 ratio.  Which made the project eligible for the Work In Progress Event of the Ravellenic Games on Revelry. 

I picked the name Stormy Seas because the roving reminded me of the colors of the Pacific when there is a storm.  The name could probably be revised based on the final color.   

This was another mystery roving.  I knew it was Ashland Bay and after I started spinning I realized there was definitely silk in it.  My guess is the Mackenzie color way. I will never know for sure since there was no note or receipt in with the roving.

 I started off with the idea that it would be a three ply and that is what I did for the first two skeins.  Total of 393 yards for them.

 The next skein was a two ply for 190 yards.  And then because of overspin, I ended up doing a chain ply for 58 yards.

 To get, the nice balance on the yarn, the three ply and the two ply had to bed run back through.  There was still to much energy after the initial plying.

I have assigned a DK weight to the yarn based on appearance.  I will need to figure out what to knit with it at some point.

The 2nd TdF Project

The second project was mystery wool.  This happened because at the time of purchase, I didn't put a label or note in with the roving.  At the time of purchase, Revelry didn't have a complete system for tracking fiber, it was done on the stash page. Now, there is a fiber stash page which I do much better with entering items.

 Started off with a nice ball of roving.   Based on feel and crimp, I went for a two ply worsted weight yarn.

 I should have weighed the fiber since it took more than two bobbins for the singles.

The ply had some energy left in it.  I am still working on getting balanced yarn.

The total was ~ 445 yards in 3 skeins. And notes for me, 8.5 ratio on singles and 6.5 ratio on the plying.

First TdF Project - 2016

It is amazing how life can make it easy to put of something, like posting my Tour de Fleece projects.  This is the first project I did as part of TdF.  And here it is weeks after being done.

 The roving is Alpaca top from Lonesome Stone.  I picked it up in 2010 at the Taos Wool Festival.  Sadly, since then Lonesome Stone sold their mill.  Best I can tell it was sold around 2012 or 2013.

And this photo shows some progress on the singles using the 16:1 ratio.   Approximately, 3 ounces per bobbin.  It wasn't exact as can been by the next photo.

After doing the center pull trick to finish the second bobbin of two ply,  here are the results.  The ratio for plying was 12:1.

 The final photo here shows the fiber after the twist was set.

The yardage is 358 for the bigger skein and 210 for the smaller one.  My guess for yarn weight is fingering.  I haven't selected a pattern for knitting yet.  There have been hints that I should knit more of my handspan up.

The yarn was spun July 2nd thru July 8th.

Gotland Grey

I purchased 5.6 ounces of Gotland fiber from Blazing Star Ranch during Yarn Along the Rockies last year.  It was soft and had a nice sheen.  After following me home, I decided to try my new lace whorl with it.  I did a two ply since lace is often a two ply and there is only 5.6 ounces.  

Some thick and thin did happen.  Also, it didn't help that there was a several week period where I didn't spin.  One of the bobbins shown below.  I think it is a good first round with the new whorl.

In order to have a fresh start for Tour de Fleece which starts today, I plied one bobbin last Sunday and finished the second one on Tuesday.   Wednesday, I skeined the yarn and still need to set the twist.  The second photo has the start of winding on to the kniddy-knoddy in the foreground. 

Next up will be a Tour de Fleece project.

Estes Park Wool Market 2016

Most folks go to the Estes Park Wool Market on Saturday rather than Sunday.  As you can see, it isn't crowded on Sunday. Yes, some of the items at the market were probably sold out.  I didn't see the deals so I didn't miss them.

First up was the vendor building.  While I love the new building, I think the number of vendors is down from a few years ago.  Also, it looks like there are more rules about the booths than with the old building.  I am basing this on the booths were more open with less stuff crammed in them.  And not as many booth spaces.

 I did find several items to buy.  All spinning fiber.  I had to smile when one vendor warned me that I wasn't buy super wash and it would felt.

A quick tour of the goat and sheep area netted one young Jacob that would pose.  

 And then the ever so cute alpacas were milling around in their pens. 

 On the way out, ran across the south end of a north facing llama.

Then off to a late lunch at Dave's Famous BBQ.

Elder Berry Plied

Here are the three bobbins before I started plying.  My guess was that the grey had the most yardage.

Based on how the fiber feels.  The grey and blue have the silk in them.  I Suspect the red has the alpaca.     

 Part way through plying here is what it looks like up close.

 And at the end of the three ply, a bit of blue and some grey is left.  I actually thought the red had a bit more yardage than the blue.

 And one very full bobbin of the three ply.

 After setting the twist in warm not hot water, I had some help with the picture.  I was interested in the yarn so a kitty needed to check it out. It doesn't smell too much like animals or she would be threatening to roll in it. The colors in this photo are the closest to how I see the skein.

And the grand total is 200 hundred yards. of light worsted or heavy dk.

ElderBerry Spin

In January,  I went up to Fort Collins to order a lace whorl for my wheel. Once, in Fort Collins, it is hard to resist checking some of the other stores.   This is 4 ounces of fiber in the elder berry color combination. And it followed me home. 

I decided to spin each color separately and plan to ply them together.  The first one up was the red purple one.

And next up was the grey one.

I am now wondering if the the weights between the three rovings are even.   Next up is the blue.

All of the singles are being spun with the 16 ratio whorl.

Mojave Sunset

And here is the completed product, three skeins of three ply and a dab of two ply.   The three skeins add up to 522 yards.  The dab is 27 yards and has some energy in it still.

I am think dk for the thickness of the three ply, maybe light worsted.  The yarn is soft without much halo.  The color variation might be enough to keep it from being good for a pattern with a lot of texture.  I will have to think about.  I did end up with more than I expected too.  Probably explains why it took longer than expect to spin.

Mojave Three

I finished my last single last night.  The three bobbins are supposed to have 3 ounces each.

 They are decidedly uneven.  One bobbin definitely has less and could use some from the almost full one.  I divided the roving by splitting in thirds.  I didn't weigh it.

And I found out I have been doing my ratio marks backwards. Sigh, I was using the small numbers for the small whorls.  It should be the big number because as it was point out to me, it is the number of times the whorl spins for one revolution of the wheel.

Bearing that in mind the singles were spun with a ratio of 16:1.

Mojave Roving

This was started a couple of months ago.  It is Ashland Bay Merino roving which comes in fun colors.  I always have trouble anticipating how the colors are going to spin up.
Here is the roving which clearly shows the different colors that are blended.  I was expecting some pops of gold.  The single as shown below is far more tweedy than I thought it would be.

The singles are being done with a ratio of 6.5:1.  That is my smallest whorl.

I keep wondering if I would like to pick up the smaller whorl sometime.