Salidas & Butterbeans

Oh, I haven’t gotten very far at all. This is one beautiful pattern, though, and I love it in this yarn. Very fine and well defined. Crummy picture, though, that’s true. I’ll continue to knit these, along with the 2nd sock in the SKP. With Spring being here and the great big fat giant increase in the amount of work around the farm, I’ve had to limit all my fiberwork to late night. Ten – two. Them’s my hours. And my ol’ lady eyes were having one heck of a time with the pattern for the first few rows. No whining. Alright. My goal is to enjoy every stitch!

More KC Hat…on its Own

View of the KC Hat…without a Head

Bird’s Eye View of KC Hat

The four yarns used to knit this hat are all natural. No dyes were used. The dark cable is of Running Moon Farm’s colored GCNI, the cream, from one of their GCNs too, the “waffley” rectangle is a blend created from that dark GCNI and some tawny alpaca – his name was Reggie. The seed stitch triangles as well as the ribbing, was knit from blend of the cream GCN and Reggie. Just shy of 4oz of fiber was needed for this hat. I spun little 100 yd worsted weight hanks on the Fricke as I went along.

For more stuff like this…join Ravelry. If you’re already a member…come say hi. My ID is Dove. This hat was designed by Kerry Crone aka kerryknits. She sells her patterns on Ravelry, but if you’re lucky enough to join a Adirondack Yarns KAL, you might snag one of her designs! And you know, my yarns are available at my etsy store…dovesroostyarns.etsy.com

The Hat at the Dance

The famous hat, designed by Kerry Crone, made from a variety of handspun yarns, was finally finished on the way to the contra dance last night. I was temped to add a bunch of I-Cord oozing out of the top, but figured, let us see how it looks.

This is Patty in The Hat. After a long night of contra dancing, she was happy to model. It’s a nice big squashy hat, and would be fabulous in Minnesota in the middle of a snowstorm. But, in Casselberry (near Orlando) Florida, in an un-airconditioned hall…well.

Spinning a Blend for a Hat-along

Yes, yes. Yes. It’s a Ravelry group. What did we ever do before Ravelry?!?

I’ve been making alpaca blend worsted weight yarn for a mystery hat-along. The project takes 4 “colors.” I spun the first hank using tan alpaca fiber from Robin Crane’s famous “Reggie” and wool from one of Margrett Stretton’s amazing dark brown Gulf Coast sheep. I spun a 2-ply yarn, very supple and soft, that regained it’s hairy/fuzziness once knitted.

The second leg of the project demanded a new color. So, I decided to stick with the alpaca as a base color. This time, I chose to blend with more of Running Moon Farm’s (Margrett’s farm) Gulf Coast Native – cream colored fleece. I took pictures to document this process of making a blended roving by hand.

Here’s a box of washed and combed alpaca fiber from Reggie. The dark tan is the soft soft blanket. The lighter color is coarser hair with great luster.

This is about 3/4 ounce of freshly washed Gulf Coast Native locks. Not a terrific photo, but look close and you can see the incredible fine crimp. This is soft, springy, fairly fine fiber that loves to be blended.

This is a stack of batts taken off of my handcards. The alpaca and GC fiber is about 50:50, and unevenly distributed. This will make a softly hearthered yarn with a lot of visual interest. I make a stack of 6 batts before I pull the first “pre-roving.”

I turn the stack of batts on their sides, and pull from the bottom, making a fat long “rope” of fiber.

This is the first pull.

The first pull has to be recarded. Here’s a carder full of the recarded blend.

The recarded batts were stacked up and here we go again. This time the roving is pulled out with a slight twist that helps to keep the roving together.

Here are two balls of roving (center and right) that total one ounce of fiber. These two balls will be spun into a single. Two more balls will be spun into a second single. The two singles will be spun together to produce a soft, lustrous, fuzzy worsted weight yarn. I’m spinning on my Fricke, scotch tension, at a ratio of 8.7:1.

Ravelry Strikes Again: New Shetland Yarn for SKP

And then, I found this group on Ravelry…

This Group is SKP…the Sock Knitters Pentathalon International…a group of passionate, talented knitters who will knit 5 pairs of socks over the course of the year. The first challenge was posted a while back…the 1st of February…and I am well behind. Even more behind than usual, as I’ve decided to spin my yarns. Many of the knitters are posing challenges for themselves within the challenge.

So here it is…the first leg of my challenge…a few ounces of 2 ply Shetland…which, I must add, matches my hair exACTly. The Shetland has its own story, but let it suffice to say that this is the remains of an 8oz bag of roving that I won in le tour de fleece a couple years ago. I made one pair of gansey socks from 60 g of this wool. And nearly wore them out.

This yarn measures 26wpi, is very soft, and beautiful. I will be knitting toes and heels with a contrasting yarn…in all likelihood a Border Leicester 2 ply. This will give me the added strength that I want. The sock pattern is a fine gansey. I believe this yarn will suit the sock perfectly.

Lovely, n’est-ce pas?

Fresh Garbagecan Yarn! Whoo hoooo!

Here she is. A brand new skein spun from scraps. She’s nestled into a bed of those same scraps…yep, there are plenty more. I’m not sure about this picture. I took it using the flash, something I never do.

This skein has been washed and thwacked and sun dried. The yarn is very soft and fairly fluffy. This worked out to 3 oz and 122 yd.

Now, it’s off-to-find-a-pattern time. Or, off to design one, anyway. I was thinking a cowl. Well, last week, I was thinking a cowl. We had three nights of frost last week. Tomorrow, the weatherman predicts a high of 82 and a low of 47…the lowest temp predicted over the next 10 days. Maybe a bikini top?

A Rav Challenge: Spin your Scraps

Perfect diversion for me. Scrap heap spinning. Oh. I collect scraps. So…I joined this group on Ravelry, and set about laying out a nice fat pile of scraps. We are aiming for 2 oz of fiber. Yardage…unimportant. Skinny yarn. Fat yarn. Whatever. Two ounces. No problem. So, there in the studio, on the daybed…a nice pile of scraps. I went out of the room to grab my camera, and when I returned…

the muse herself, Artie, had made herself comfortable. And isn’t that appropriate? So, I worked around her. I sorted the fiber by color, to see if I had a full palette…and by jove…

White Gulf Coast locks, corrie roving, and a lone lustrous mohair lock, Border Leicester locks dyed with marigold, with goldenrod, with sumac, natural brown Gulf Coast locks, a hunk of brown alpaca, a hunk of brown llama, a teeny blob of black alpaca, some indigo dyed Gulf Coast, some overdyed Gulf coast, green cotton, and finally some pokeberry BL, and coreopsis and marigold dyed Gulf Coast. And Artie.

The handcards were charged with a variety of fiber. This card has (L – R) brown alpaca, natural Gulf Coast, coreopsis dyed Gulf Coast, sumac dyed Border Leicester, natural Corrie, and natural brown Gulf Coast.

This is 1/2 oz of rolags (carded fiber) in a variety of colors. I continued on until I had a 2 oz pile of rolags. So, now…I am ready to spin. If Artie, la muse, will just let me near my Fricke!