fiber – Sheetar.com

Go With the Flow Socks

By Sheetar 16 April 2011 16 April 2011

Finally, another spun-to-finished project. I’ve been accumulating quite the stash of handspun, and I figured it was time to put some to use. The yarn is dyed by Meg at Twisted Fiber Art, and she’s really quite the magician with dye. The colorway is called, “Intrigue,” and was part of a club Meg ran for 3 months. I spun the superwash merino roving into a thin single and then chain or navajo plied the yarn so that the colors would stay together as they were dyed. I ended up with about 425 yards of fingering weight yarn that was then turned into a really squishy pair of Go With the Flow socks. The pattern knitted up quickly, and I only made a few modifications – worked a plain slip-stitch heel and didn’t turn the work inside out after the heel flap was done. I love the way they came out and refuse to take them off now that the photos are taken. Yeah, it’s almost not-sock season, but that won’t stop me from stocking up for the winter!

Fiber Festivals

Rhinebeck 2009

By Sheetar 20 October 2009 20 October 2009

Wow, what a weekend. I’ve definitely got a bad case of the post-fiber-festival-shock in that I have to be back in the real world instead of oogling knitwear, squishing yarn, and snorgling sheep. The fiber festival world is SO much more fun than this everyday kind of crap.

The haul? I did well. Fell off the budget wagon a touch, but I think it was well worth it and I can see all of what I bought being knitted before MDSW. (Disclaimer: Just because I can see it happening doesn’t mean that another pattern won’t queue jump and ruin that plan)
3 skeins – Socks That Rock Lightweight, Mill Ends
2 skeins – Socks That Rock Lightweight, Rare Gems
1 skein – Holiday Yarns Sock Yarn
1 skein – Silver Moon Farms sock yarn (770 yards)
1 skein – Silver Moon Farms Laceweight (1375 yards)
2 skeins – Bijou Basin 100% Yak Laceweight (400 yards)
1 skein – Briar Rose, Charity (900 yds worsted)
Firebird Sock Kit from the Tsock Tsarina
4 oz – Targee Top from Mountain Colors
4 oz – Clover Leaf Farms Merino Roving
4 oz – Holiday Yarns Merino Roving
4 oz – Little Barn Linsi-Woolsie Roving
4 oz – Little Barn Alpaca Roving
Book – Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren (signed!)

I realize that means nothing to you non-knitters, but suffice to say, I got what I wanted, and then a little more. 🙂 Abbie and I did very well in terms of getting in early the first day, getting what we desperately wanted, and generally had incredible luck on our side when it came to just being in the right place at the right time. For example, the Chicken Pot Pie line is known for being epic. People usually wait a good half hour for this incredible chicken pot pie. Us? We got in line right when there were only a few people waiting. Granted, had there been a half-hour-long line, we probably would’ve found something else to eat, but it was nice to finally get a forkfull of that yummy pot pie. Then there was the Ravelry party, Saturday night, which was awesome. The vanilla mead went over well, but I still managed to come home with a good amount left in the keg. Sunday was rainy, but we managed to go through all the barns/buildings, grab a few things that we missed on Saturday because we had enough of the crowds really early on. Sunday though, the grounds were rather empty, there were no lines, and much more room to browse around without getting bumped. Finally got home to Pennsylvania around 8pm to my two little snugglebutt dogs who were thrilled to meet me. The husband had left for a class in Texas, but had baked this incredible chocolate ganache/praline cake and left me a bouquet of flowers on the table. Perfect end to a really spectacular weekend.

I will leave you with a photo from Rhinebeck and link you to my whole set from Rhinebeck on Flickr. To all of you tweasels who I met? It was really, honestly great, and I hope to see you all again next year!

Hats, Spinning

Thorped

By Sheetar 10 February 2009 18 February 2009

There’s this great thread on Ravelry that shows a project from roving to spun yarn and the finished object. It’s without question my favorite thread on Ravelry and is really inspiring for a spinner to see what people spin with what fiber and what patterns they’ve adapted to their handspun. REALLY creative people there.

Sometimes, you get a batch of fiber and you just know what it’s going to be – like Michelangelo said about his sculpture, “I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free.” This may sound a bit strange (if it does, then Michelangelo was strange and that’s a club I don’t mind being a part of), but you knitters know what I’m talking about.. The times when the yarn speaks to you and tells you precisely what it wants to be. It’s just like that with roving and spinning fibers. The finished article is in there somewhere, waiting to be let out. Sometimes it just wants to be yarn. Sometimes it wants to be a finished object and you just KNOW it the second you lay eyes on the colorway and the texture of the fiber.

So, here’s my most recent Spun-to-Finished entry and the first one for the blog.

Fiber:

Superwash Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) from dkKnits – January installment of the fiber club.
Colorway: Burnt Blueberry Baa’Hill (baa’hill.. baaagggellll.. get it? :-P)

Yarn:

8wpi, Heavy Worsted, 167 yards, navajo plied, spun on my Spinolution Mach 1 wheel.

Finished Object:

Pattern: Thorpe
Needles: US #8 (5mm)
Trimmed with a bit of leftover Cascade 220 Superwash. I have NO idea of how to crochet, so I used a helpful video on YouTube.

In other news, a family friend sold her sheep farm and moved recently, bringing with her A LOT of fleece. I graciously offered to take some off her hands and came home with just about five pounds of raw wool from Border Leicester mix sheep. There was about 1.5 lbs of black fleece and about 3.5 lbs was white. I decided to mix them together to save on processing and shipped it off to Zeilinger’s for cleaning and to be drawn into roving. I hadn’t heard anything back in a few weeks, but sure enough, today, a box showed up on the doorstep containing my roving. Dog for scale, but there’s a ton of it. I believe this roving is begging to be a sweater. It hasn’t decided on a color yet though, but I’m sure it will let me know once it’s ready. (The dogs are North American Standard Mutts by the way, weighing in at about 50 lbs each)

2009 Knitting, Finished Objects, Resolutions, Socks, Spinning

Project updates

By Sheetar 1 February 2009 1 February 2009

January end-of-month update:
The knitting resolutions haven’t all been met (already, I know!).
1. Clear the WIP queue from last year by the end of the month.
Didn’t happen! I did clear out a bunch of things, but there are still two open WIPs from last year. Not bad though..

3. Knit one pair of socks per month
Got that one! One pair of socks per month is definitely manageable and I still have time to knit other things.
Pattern: Little Child’s Sock
Designer: Nancy Bush
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm)
Yarn: Knit Picks Imagination in colorway â€œWicked Witchâ€
–Ravelry Project Link–

Nancy Bush can write a pattern like nobody’s business. It was so well written out, line by line, you just can’t but help be in awe of the time that must’ve been spent writing it out. The book, Knitting Vintage Socks, is becoming a fast favorite. The yarn is super soft and fun to knit with although the variegation obscures the pattern mostly. And see all that color pooling? I know it’s something knitters strive to fight against, but I just love it. It almost looks like tye dye on the stockinette part of the leg.

4. Spin four ounces of roving per month.
Didn’t quite make this one either. I got about an ounce of this superwash merion from Crown Mountain Farms (colorway “Sunshine of your Love”) done for the spin and knit along at Ply by Night on Ravelry. I’ve really gotta spend more time with the wheel in the evenings and maybe alternate nights between knitting and spinning. Plus, there’s a fun project coming up for next month with roving from dkKnits that I’m pretty antsy to get started on!