Thursday, July 30, 2009

Yarn!

handspunseawool
This yarn is now nicely knitted into a cap for my dad. First of the Christmas presents done! I still need to spin some complementary yarn for the pom pom he requested, but I still feel pretty on top of the game.

I'm done cat sitting tomorrow and I'm going to start on project #2, Noisette from the Blackstone Tweed Berroco Booklet. I'm swatching with Patons Classic Merino, and I'll have to see if it works, but Emma approves of the colour and pattern, so at least that's out of the way. There's no way I'm surprise knitting a sweater. She's going to be bugged about it every step along.

I finished a few things while at Sam's place. The hat turned out great, and I really like the shrug, but I wish it wasn't riding up a bit in the photo. It fits way better than it looks like it does...

shrugback

Sam2


Now I just have to finish the Branching Out Scarf I've been working on for the last three years. Yeash.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Summer Projects: Part 1

My class ended a couple (okay, three) weeks ago, and I'm starting to feel like I can get my own projects going. I have a big list of things I'm trying to do over the summer, with lots of new things thrown in there.

momsbag

This is the fabric and pattern for a handbag I'm making my mom for Christmas (finishing up 2008's presents this week has convinced me of the wonders of starting early). I do sew, so this isn't totally a new thing, but I mostly tend to hand sew, or sew with felt, or just redo all the seams on my vintage dresses. I'm excited about getting all the pieces together and making something carefully and precisely, not a skill set I generally use.

You may have noticed the tuft of white fluffy wool in an Ashford box in the corner of the picture. The box is for the wonderful handcards that Brian got me for my birthday last year, which is almost a whole year ago now. I put them together and tried them out on Monday. I started with some light blue merino roving from Lettuce Knit and tore it up into a pile of fluffy, and some dyed corriedale locks from Louet which I opened up.

spinsupplies

The idea was to make a nice tweedy blend for some fluffy yarn to make my dad a hat that may actually fit his bizarrly large/round head. Hats in the past have just popped right off the top of it. I'm working on that. You can see my first couple of rolags in the first picture, and here's all 18 of them next to my aging cellphone for size comparison.

rolags

I spun the first half of the batch on my large handspindle, semi-worsted draw on some fibres that really want to be woolen. I then navajo plied the singles. I'll post some pictures once the second batch is done.

And did you notice? No more cellphone photos!