Off the Wheel

I love spinning, but I especially love the handspun yarn that comes off the wheel in the end. As a new spinner, I get so excited to see what will happen after the actual spinning, plying, and blocking is all done. So far, I have not been disappointed...





This yarn was spun from louet's 100% wool pencil roving. The colorway is irises. This skein in the photos is 150 yards of light worsted weight yarn (about 9 wpi) and weighs 6.1 oz. I spun the singles on two bobbins with an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel, and plied them using the jumbo flyer attachment for the wheel. I also spun the remaining 1.9 oz. onto one bobbin, and plyed it from a center pull ball. This gave me 45 more yards for a total of about 195 yards. It was nice to finish all of the roving and end up with no waste. I have not decided on a project for the yarn yet, but I am extremely happy with the results so far.

One Sock Down

Last week I finished my first jeweled step sock from "New Pathways in Sock Knitting" by Cat Bordhi, and I immediately cast on sock number two. I can't wait to wear them and see how the pair looks together. Here are some pictures of the first sock...


I love the little jewel steps, but I was especially happy to see how the colors on the heel turned out. I need a pair of clogs to show off the little blue "eye" on the back of the heel. One of my favorite things about knitting socks is finding out how colors will pool.
I have just started the arch expansion for sock number two, and I have had no problems with the pattern or the techniques described in the book. I am a very slow knitter, but these are knitting up quite fast. Most of the sock is knit in stockinette stitch, and the best thing about Cat's new patterns is that there are no stitches to pick up. It just doesn't feel right to make a sock without a gusset, but the sock fits great and is very comfortable.

I'd Rather Be Knitting...

I put off starting a knitting blog for so long, but after joining ravelry I decided that there would never be a better time or a better excuse for me start a blog. Finding projects on ravelry and checking out the journal entries linked to each project has given me so much knitting inspiration, and I hope that someone will find one of my projects on ravelry and be able to get more information about it here. That is the "purpose" of this blog anyway... to help inspire other knitters and to have more participation in the online knitting community. I'm not sure that anyone is actually reading this blog, but I've been a knitting blog lurker for so long that it does not really bother me to feel as though I am writing to myself.
Now that I finally have a blog, I feel guilty that it has been so long since my last post... I knew that this would happen, because I would much rather be knitting or spinning than writing about knitting and spinning on my blog. Nonetheless, I will do my best to keep on writing and posting pictures here!

On Saturday, October 13th I attended the Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival in Corydon, Indiana. It was a small festival, but there was plenty of fiber goodness to find. I don't have any pictures of my fiber purchases yet, but I have some pictures of the cute animals that were there (sheep, goats, and angora bunnies) and a very long table covered with fresh wool.

I will stop here for now, but I promise to post more about all that I've been knitting and spinning very soon!!