Spin Nirvana

Two days ago I got a Greensleeve Lionheart spindle in the mail. My first nice spindle.

Yesterday I got my 1 lb box of mill end roving in the mail. Gorgeous stuff, mostly dark brown and some off white with dark brown stripes.

Last night, I was in spin-nirvana :D It's amazing what good tools and some nice wool top can get you. It appears I've become a much better spinner overnight, thanks to the new spindle, which spins forever, and the roving which drafts like it WANTS to be spun up.

*pride*

*love*

I am definately addicted to this spinning stuff :P

Craft goodness

I adore my crafty goodness. I don't have enough time in the day to get everything done that I want to! *pout* But I love doing it all, nonetheless. I decided to share some pictures of some of the things I'm working on :)

This is the finished product of my first spinning. My first plied skein of yarn! Yay! It looked a gagiilion times better before I wet it to set the twist...then I got to learn allll about the concept of "bloom." Apparently, my fiber had a lot left :P Ah well, I still love it *caresses the wool yarn*

Now, I'm working on this yarn. I bought this spindle and roving on eBay. The fiber is really long, so it isn't a joy to spin like the fiber above, but I am persevering and going to finish it. I've been using the drafting method of folding a piece over my index finger (not sure what that's called) and it helps A LOT with the drafting of such long fibers. It may be a pain in my ass, but I do think it's pretty. I don't think I'm going to ply this one, just use the singles as a very thin, lightweight yarn. I bought some PVC pipes last night to make an immerseable niddy noddy so I can wet the singles to set the twist and keep the tension on the yarn by keeping it on the PVC pipes. *proud of myself*

If you could spin love, this would be it. These colors SOOOOO aren't "me," but I love it nonetheless. This is silk. Silk hankies, to be exact. I love spinning them' it's so easy and fun and the colors are so brilliant and deep and shiny :D It is a bit difficult, though, keeping my hands moisturized enough. It does tend to such them dry. I can't wait to finish this and ply it - it's going to be deliriously beautiful :)

One knitting project I'm in love with. I'm taking the idea of the convertable from Knitty.com and making a long shawl that can be converted into a shrug with a few well-placed buttons. I am IN LOVE with the way the pattern is coming out. It's knit on the yellow Knifty Knitter (as you can see in the picture). It's Caron Simply Soft Grey Heather yarn purchased on a whim cheap at Wally World and I'm simply doing 4 rows of mock crochet stitch and then 6 rows alternating knit and perl. It's such a glorious, lacy, light summery feel to it and I love the color. I'm about 1/3 of the way done and I can't wait to finish it and wear it. I have to find some great buttons to make cufflinks with so I can wear it as a shrug (I think that's going to be it's main function, with the shrug option being present in case I want it that way.)

Yay for craftiness!

To knit or spin, that is the question...

I have been on the spinning bandwagon lately. Currently, I'm working with some gorgeous but long and slippery red wool roving on my ivy spindle. It's slow going, but I'm having fun. I learned a new technique at the Spinning Guild meeting I attended last week where I pull a thick piece of roving about 6-8 inches long off and fold it over my finger and draft from the point of my finger. It works OOODLES better with this long slippery fiber - yay!

I'm also spinning some GORGEOUS silk hankies on my cd spindle. Oh my gosh, the fiber is stunning in it's beauty once it's spun. I never would have guessed from the blotchy hankies that such beauty would come :) I have to get some pictures of what I have thus far so you can see it as well! It's a bit of a hassle spinning it, though, because it SUCKS the moisture from my hands and I have to really lotion up my hands to start with or the silk starts sticking to my hands as I spin. But it's worth it for the beauty of it all :)

A few days ago, I bought 1 lb of mill end top *bouncy* I'm so excited to get it and see what colors/types of fiber I get...it will be like christmas! I also ordered some possum/wool fiber yesterday (just a few ounces to mix with some of the mill ends - dayum that stuff is expensive!) to make Possum slippers for my sweetie. It's an inside joke :P

Today, I found a used greesleeves spindle that I purchased and I am SUPER excited about this. I have heard over and over again that Greensleeves are really great spindles and well, it's gorgeous and I am saving about 10% off a new one by buying used. Yay for me :)

Can you tell I'm in love with my spinning?

Well, I started to feel badly about my poor looms just sitting there, projects abandoned and lifeless, lol. So, I started making a lovely lacy medium grey shrug last night. I think it's going to be all one color, but varying textures to bring some interest to it. It's also going to be quite loose and baggy and scrumptious, if I do say so myself ;)

*sigh* Never enough time in the day to do everything I want to, craft-wise. Poor me!

Why won't my work pay me to knit and spin? I just don't understand it :P

12-step for Spinners

Hello, my name is Mel and I'm a spinning addict.

:D

I finally finished my very first skein of yarn spun by my very own two hands and I am just as proud as it it were a kid I gave birth to :D lol.

I know it's not even. I know it's chunky at parts. I know it's thin as dental floss at other parts. I also know I don't care! I andien plied it last night and washed it just to see what would happen. It got all big and poofy : I wasn't expecting that, LOL. So, now my skein, that I was so proud of because it was almost a regular worsted weight sken is now a super bulky weight yarn, lol. It's currently laying out in my kitchen drying. Is this puff factor normal? Did I do something wrong?

Regardless, I'm in love with it :D

Here's the singles wrapped around my spindle prior to plying...ahhhh...such pride :P

Spinning frenzy

I am so in love with spinning yarn. I started about a month or two ago, but got frustrated because I was having serious problems with drafting and over-twisting the yarn and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to do it right.

Fast-forward to this past weekend. My sweetie just happened to meet a woman who spins and the woan gave my sweetie her email. I started writing her and ended up going to a cool event this weekend that her spinning guild was teaching a class at. I paid my $5, made my CD spindle (I brought my own, but decided to use what everyone else was using) and started a'spinning. With guidance from my new friend and several others in the guild, I was spinning in no time!

I am just SO UNBELIEVABLY EXCITED about how addictive and fun spinning is now that the missing chinks in my newbie education have been filled in :) My right hand just ITCHES to be drafting, day and night. Spin spin spin, I'm going to their guild meeting, which just happens to be the weekend coming up :) I just can't wait to learn from these amazing, knowledgeable women and learn more and more and more about spinning :) I see a wheel in my future : They're DAMN expensive, but there was this super cool collapsable one a woman brought to the class that made me drool :)

I'm sitting here at work, with nothing to do, and it KILLS me that I could be SPINNING right now, instead of sitting here at my desk bored and surfing the net.

For that matter, I could be knitting or sewing together my last bunny! but noOOoOoOooOoooOooooo...I need money to live (and buy more spinning and knitting supplies :P) so I have to sit here like a lump and get paid for being bored.

Ah well. Maybe tonight *gleam*

It's still an amphibian....

Awhile ago, I knit up a square to attempt to make a frog based on the bunny pattern (someone made up the frog pattern and posted it to my loom knitting list). Today, I finally had the time to stitch the frog up and see what I came up with.

Well, I made his head too small. And I was looking at it, thinking, "This will never be a good frog..." when it hit me that it may not be a good frog, but it would be an adorable turtle :D

When we got home, I knit/sewed/knotted on a brown shell. I'm not terribly happy with how the shell came out. I wanted a variety of browns in there, but I only had the solid brown in my stash. Also, I think next time, I will crochet something and then just sit it on the top and lightly stitch it on in a few places.

But, he's cute in his ugly own way :P As I was finishing his shell, my son started whining and kissing my arm and cuddling up to me. I finally asked him, "What do you want, honey???" and he just points to the turtle and looked up at me with these big eyes :

Heck, it's his birthday today, how could I say no?! So, he's my son's now :D I wasn't going to put any face on him, but my son requested "polka-dots" which after much discussion I figured out was eyes, so he has eyes now.

Here comes Peter Cottontail :)

I finally had time to sew the ears on my bunny :) I think it's ADORABLE :D

It's much cuter in real life than in the pictures...I couldn't get the knitting to show up just right in the photographs. Ah well, I still had to brag :P

I call him Bunnicula and he's an Easter present for my sweetie ;) (She got him on Easter sans ears, LOL)