Sunday, September 2

Guess where I am??

In my bed! Blogging from home! Wow - what a freakin concept!! Can we get a whoo hoo?

I finally got some internets to come in at my house, it was a pain! It made my head hurt. It involved going out and buying a new wireless card for my laptop. But I finally got there :-)

I really hope that this will make it much easier to update this here bloggy thing, well yeah, duh! It better.

Another thing to celebrate is the long weekend! Boy did I need a bit of a breather. There have been a few times over the last few days where I seriously thought my head was going to explode. I'm also taking next Friday off as well. I was called for Jury Duty, and I'm hoping that I don't have to go in. But regardless, I'm taking the day off! I haven't had a day off since I started at the place, so I figure they are not expecting me to come in, I let them know about it weeks ago. And I'm just letting them know that regardless if I do get called in, I will not be in the office. I have enough PTO time that it won't be a problem.

Anyway... On to prettiness! Two posts ago I showed 800 yards of 3 ply that I'm calling plummy plum. I definitely want a long sleeved something out of it, so I went ahead and spun up some more of the three bobbins... Same fiber, though the silk/wool that I handdyed was very different even though I dyed it in the same batch - I did it with the coffee can dyeing method, where different parts of the roving can come out looking very different. Anyway - this batch came out with 644 yards of the three ply. Between the two skeins, I definitely have enough to make whatever type project I want!!

I really like doing three plies for knitting. It has enough grist to be able to knit with a 4 to 4.5 mm needle, which is a perfect size for the way I knit. I can knit for hours with size 6US needles, give me some 8 mm needles, and though the fabric grows pretty quickly, I find myself getting tired very quickly.

Another nice thing about 3 plies is that I can just use my Joy to ply onto the Skipper. I put two bobbins on the "onboard lazy kate" and leave the third up on the flyer, put it someplace off to the side, and then spend many hours plying onto the Skipper.

I love spinning outside in my courtyard in the summertime. I get neighbors stopping by to say hi, and see what I'm working on. It's been hat here, so outside is good.







Now that I have a couple of my Joy bobbins empty I was able to get to a long awaited fiber that I got from Abby Franquemont after reading her excellent post about what goes into blending a tweed batt. It's been a long time since I've spun any heathered yarn, and I'm loving it!

Here are the batts before spinning.



And here they are on the bobbin. It's coming out pretty fine, and taking a long time to spin. But it's going to be gorgeous when it's all done! I'm thinking that this will definitely grow up to be a shawl.

Anyway - that's it for this installment! More soon :-)

4 comments:

Marti G said...

Oh Abi, it's all so pretty! I love seeing your work. And your setup outside is just perfect... wish I could join you for an afternoon! :-)

Tracy said...

Very, very nice stuff. I'm sure it will make a beautiful sweater. Neat looking wheel, too.

Batty said...

Very nice! And I'm jealous of your setup. Fabulous, looks like so much fun!

Anonymous said...

Hey, you shouldn't whip yourself. Just keep up the good work and know that everyone is behind you.