I’ve decided to take a break from spinning my peacock silk and grabbed some fibre from the stash. It’s actually from a friend’s destash and the moment I saw it I thought it would be great for a Baby Surprise Jacket as well as for Project Spectrum.

When I unbraided the fibre I soon realized that each strip was dyed separately — one yellow, one green, one brown. After a bit of thinking I decided to handblend the colours together. And this is how the singles are looking:

The singles are currently in the plying queue to be navajo plied, but as I’m hoping to actually knit the BSJ before the end of June I’ll make sure they don’t sit in the queue too long. :)

The SheepSpace Etsy Shop is now open and I’ve listed a few of my handspun yarns for sale. Here’s a quick peek.

I’ll be adding more and will post updates on the blog as they happen.

I got a lovely surprise in the post yesterday when my May Fibre Club shipment from Wildcraft arrived.

This is so perfect! It’s called Hedgerows and it’s beautiful Shetland wool. Do you see the yellows and the lovely spring colours? Perfect for spinning up for the East segment of Project Spectrum.

And one little extra bit of special, a resin spindle in the club theme:

I’m anxious to try out this spindle, although I don’t think I’ll be spinning my club fibre on it. I have plans. Plans that involve lots of fibre. I think this fibre wants to be a tomten. :)

Although allergies have been whipping me badly, I managed to get a bit of spinning in today.

I’ve started rotating my hooks slightly in order for the laceweight to wind on evenly. It makes a big difference, as you can see. The right side was wound on without any hook adjustment, whilst the right side had hook adjustment. I usually wouldn’t rotate my hooks like that, but I was worried about the silk collapsing onto itself.

What you see is about 17 grams of the silk spun up. Only 135 grams to go. ;)

Totally weak. I started spinning for my Aeolian shawl last night. Here’s what more than two hours of spinning yields:

Not much to look at is it? It is, however, a start.

Here’s a view of the sample:

I’m aiming for a laceweight of 40+ WPI once it is plied so this is going to take a while, but I am dedicating almost all of my spinning time towards it. I’ll post another progress photo once you can’t see the bobbin core.

As I’ve finished spinning the singles for the Rice Pudding colourway, I’ve started spinning the next braid for my Lizard Ridge Blanket ( Rav link ). It’s called spring.

And here’s the first third of the braid spun up.

I’m not 100% certain this colourway is going to end up in the blanket. I think this will definitely be one of those yarns I’ll have to see with the rest of the yarns to see if it fits.

A little heads up to anyone who might be interested. We are planning to do a spin-along and knit-along for the Aeolian Shawl from the most recent issue of Knitty over in the Wildcraft group on Ravelry.

Anyone is welcome to join using any fibre, or if you don’t want to spin for it then any yarn. Just pop over to the group and say hello. We are officially (and I use that term loosely) starting on the 1st of May.

I’ve decided to use some lovely peacock silk for my shawl:

I do plan to add beads as per the pattern, but have decided to wait until the yarn is spun up. If I’m purchasing over 2,000 seed beads I’d like to make sure they match the finished yarn rather than the unspun fibre. I’m always amazed how fibre changes once it’s spun up.

Thanks to a few enabling friends of mine, I decided to try spindling. Here’s my first attempt on a spindle I borrowed from a friend:

It’s hand blended merino, approximately 62 WPI as a single. I haven’t plied any of it yet, though, as I’m waiting to spin up a bit more of the singles so I can make a nice lacy scarf or shawl. This particular project is something I can see me doing in spurts so I just do a little bit any time the spindle is free.

This is my new spindle:

It’s a Wildcraft lightweight Cherry wood spindle, approximately 30g. It’s really lovely and I’ve quite enjoyed spinning on it, especially in public.

This was the first fibre on that spindle:

The fibre is an English Wool Blend dyed by Wildcraft in the Rice Pudding colourway. I’m spinning it up so that it comes out as (hopefully) a 3-ply worsted weight yarn. I’m not splitting the braid at all as to keep the colour repeats as long as possible and I’ll navajo ply the singles when the time comes. I have this insane idea to spindle spin a Lizard Ridge blanket for our bed. I’ll keep you post as to the results. In fact, you’ll probably hear about this project for years and years to come. ;)

An exciting addition to the family was acquired in January… I got a new wheel!

He’s a Kromski Symphony with a wax polish to finish. I’ve been lusting after this wheel since shortly after I started spinning. I really wanted a double treadle, large wheel and something in the saxony style. This fit the requirements and (almost) fit the budget.

I love this photo:

D is a total whorl bandit, though and you really have to watch her.

I’ve done quite a lot of spinning on him since he arrived. I’m absolutely loving the double treadle as it’s just so effortless and there’s no need to grab the wheel to get it going the right direction. The bobbins hold approximately 113g or 4oz. I can usually put about 120g of singles and just a touch over 100g of plied yarn onto the bobbin, which means that 100g braids fit nicely and can be kept as a single skein.

The wheel is fairly quiet and so easy to spin on. I found that it required a lot of oil at first until the leather bearings were seasoned, but I’ve not had much oiling since. I’m currently using the Symphony in double drive mode as is my preferred method, but the wheel can also be set up for Scotch tension.

This is a very large wheel and not one suitable for traveling. Actually, I’m not even sure I could get it down the stairs if I wanted to take it outside. I knew this when I bought the Symphony, but I wasn’t concerned as all the Kromski bobbins are interchangeable and Kromski also makes a travel wheel called a Sonata. I was able to try one a little while back and it’s a nice wheel, although it still folds down rather large. It could easily fit into the boot of your car, but I wouldn’t want to take it on a five mile hike. It would be perfect for taking to a spin-in or guild meeting or to pop out in the back garden for an afternoon spin in the summer.

I finished these a few weeks ago and I’m so chuffed with them I thought I’d share.

It all started back in November when I contacted Karen from Wildcraft, a wonderful UK dyer of fibre, and asked her to dye up some sock batts for me. I got some lovely superwash BFL/nylon batts in the Calendulas colourway.

Soon after the batts arrived I started spinning the singles:

And within the week I had finished spinning:

Being the middle of November, we had some lovely colour falling off the trees, so I thought a glamour shot was in order:

It took a while to cast on, mostly because I was trying to get other priorities out of the way, but I finally cast on the socks in February. I chose the Journeyman Socks pattern from the Summer 2008 issue of Spin-Off magazine.

And a pair of socks is born:

The details:
Fibre: superwash BFL/Nylon sock batts in Calendulas colourway by Wildcraft
Yarn: 3ply worsted spun 19WPI
Pattern: Journeyman socks by Kristi Schueler via Spin-off Summer 2008 (Ravel it)
Needles: 2.0 mm
Mods: I reworked the number of stitches for the heel as I wanted the cuff to be the same size, but I wanted a narrower foot, and with this particular sock construction those calculations need to be done before starting the heel flap. I also knit through the back loop of all the knit-like stitches in the cable pattern.
Project page on Ravelry

I really like the sock architecture of this pair of socks and it’s something that I’d be happy to do again, although I must admit that standard heelflaps are easier to just wing a narrower foot. However, with just a small amount of math I have an interesting sock that fits nicely. I also really like the look of the cable pattern. Simple, elegant and effective. It was both interesting and enjoyable to knit whilst being easily memorized for knitting with company.

I’ve worn them a couple of times now, and they are so lovely and comfortable. The BFL is just so soft and I think I’m now sold on handspun socks. :)