We have progress on a jumper!

That’s approximately 130g spun up today… only 770g left to spin before plying up all 1.2kg worth of jumper.

This was a project I started a while back, approximately Christmas time, but as usual, pretty coloured fibre called to me and the rest is history. One of my main goals for the Tour de Fleece to to finish up all those yarns in progress, especially this jumper. The body bag of fibre is taking over my cupboard and I’d like the space back.

I’m hoping to update my Tour progress daily. With any luck I’ll post in some knitting, too, as I have socks to share. :)

I’d like you to meet my May club fibre:

It’s called Hedgerows and it is a beautiful Shetland. This fibre was a dream to spin, I really enjoyed it. I spun it longdraw style but from the top itself to produce a lovely squishy, sproingy yarn roughly worsted weight 2ply. I really love how this turned out and it is in queue to become a tomten for my little girl. I’ve got a few braids of Shetland from another dyer that I thought might coordinate with this for striping details.

I’m totally looking forward to knitting this up, but I’m sad I’m out of club fibre. Good thing there’s only a couple weeks until the July shipment. ;)

My Violas fibre is all spun up and ready to be knit.

Details
Fibre: Wildcraft fibre club, March edition, BFL/silk, Violas
Yarn: 2ply semi-worsted, spun mediumdraw back, woolen style
475 metres, 181 grams, 12 WPI, DK weight

And I have a small amount of navajo plied Violas. Once I realized I had way more fibre than I needed, I decided to play with the rest. The n-plied will likely become doll-wear, where as the 2ply is destined to be a vest for my little girl.

This also falls into Project Spectrum for East (yellow). :)

I have a little catch up to do… so let’s talk about the Pansi Socks. :)

The fibre was a handdyed merino that I had a few issues with whilst spinning, but I have to say I was so happy with the end result:

For whatever reason I just can’t get a decent photo of these socks, but I’m beyond chuffed with the socks themselves, although I think they’ll end up being bed socks in the long run. They are soft and squooshy and I love how they striped. They’ve sold me on making my own self striping sock yarn. :)

Speaking of spinning my own sock yarn, I’m planning to take this up as my Tour de Fleece project(s). There’s a Ravelry group for the Tour de Fleece and I’ve joined the Team Woolies. If you are interested in joining the challenge, do check out the group and join a team if you’d like.

Go Team Woolies! :)

I’d also like to thank everyone for the lovely comments on my Handspun Daisy cardigan. The mum loved it.

…because of course, knitting a Daisy cardigan and Pansi socks just aren’t enough. There is a definite flower theme happening at the moment.

I thought I’d share the newest fibre on the wheel.

This is the March fibre club shipment from Wildcraft. It’s a BFL/Silk blend in the Violas colourway and I have 200g that really want to become a vest for my little girl.

I wanted to do a long-draw with this fibre but it’s just not quite happening, likely due to the silk content, so I’m doing a supported long-draw instead. It’s going quite well so far and I’m loving the colours.

I’ll also be using this as one of my Project Spectrum East projects, although I’m not actually sure if I’ll manage to get it knit before the end of June. However, getting it spun up is definitely a step in the right direction to getting it done.

The Banana-nana yarn is now finished and anxiously waiting to be cast on as a BSJ. I’m quite chuffed with how it turned out.

It’s a 3ply (navajo plied) superwash BFL yarn that works up to about 14 WPI, or what I’d classify as a heavy fingering. I’ve got about 348 metres of yarn to work with and I’m slightly worried I might not have enough to complete a BSJ out of this single skein of yarn. I have a back-up plan, though, so no worries.

I’m also quite chuffed that the yarn is fairly on the yellow side. I was hoping at least one of the fibres I was spinning up for Project Spectrum might actually be yellowy rather than just have yellow in there somewhere. ;)

I pulled out some more fibre I got through a friend’s destash as I loved the colourway. I was originally planning to spin it up for the shop but soon realized that the braid was slightly felted. The colourway is Pansi and I really love the colours:

I figured I had nothing to lose in spinning it up and trying some colour experiments with the fibre. I split the braid into six pieces lengthwise and predrafted them to help loosen up the fibres before putting them on the wheel.

I decided to navajo ply the singles to give me short repeats of colours. My idea was to turn this yarn into socks and I wanted to see what kind of striping the short repeats would give me.

I really like how the colours turned out. Coincidentally, the May theme for Sock-a-month 7 is Flowers, so my Pansi yarn will fit in just nicely… as long as I can get them knit up before the end of the month. This yarn also falls nicely into the May-June colour theme of yellow for Project Spectrum.

Spinners Gathering was a meet up hosted by the Tynedale Spinner’s, Weaver’s and Dyer’s Guild in Stocksfield where folks can meet up, sit, spin, knit, and chat. And buy. There was lots of buying going on.

Look how happy Sophie and Claire are with their lovely batts of wool.

There was lots of fibre:

And lots of wheels:

And even some spindles:

There were many purchases made:

But best of all, there was a lot of interaction between fibre people. We taught people how to how to spindle and how to navajo ply on the fly. Other people taught us how to spin with a stick, told us about expeditions to Fair Isle and Shetland, and told us about spinning groups where the same people have been meeting up for 30 years.

I think a great time was had by all. :)

If anybody is interested in the guild, they meet on the third Saturday of each month at a hall in Stocksfield. If you want further information, leave a comment on the post asking for specific details and I’ll see what I can do to hook you up with some people in the know.

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve updated the shop with some handspun Corriedale:

And thank you to Audrey’s Country Crafts for the shout out to my Etsy shop. It’s much appreciated. :)

I thought that today would be a good day to talk about what was on my spindles as I’m going to Spinners Gathering on Saturday and it all might change by the time I get back. :)

First, on my Cherry wood spindle (30g from Wildcraft ) I have a Spindlefrog Batt of delight in a colourway I’ve called Strawberries and cream:

The batt is a blend of merino, angora and sparkle totalling 59 grams. I’m spinning it thick and thin and allowing in nepps for a yarn with a little bit more character. This will hopefully be a hat for my little girl come winter. (And thanks to Rosii for the batt in the first place!)

On my Hedgerows resin spindle (31g from Wildcraft as a part of my May fibre club shipment — thank you Karen !) I have some Wildcraft English Wool blend in the Spring colourway. The is the second bobbin of three, so I’m hoping that I might even finish this off at the Gathering on Saturday.

And this is the best view:

I love resin spindles. I’m hoping to buy a chilli pepper one as some point in the nearish future. :)