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. ;)

52 pair plunge did you say? Yes. I’ve joined the 52 pair plunge. For those who aren’t familiar with this challenge, the idea is to knit 52 pairs of socks between June 1 and May 31st. Socks must have heels, toes and a cuff but can be any size (baby, toddler, or adult). There’s even a Ravelry group.

Nearly halfway through the month and we have a pair:

The pattern is called Cascading Leaves and it is a lovely. I really enjoyed knitting the pattern, although I wasn’t head over heels about the wool. The pattern is a cuff-down constructionwith an eight row lace repeat which is simple, intuitive and effective and I’m positive it would look amazing in a handdyed sock yarn.

The yarn I used was a Rico 4ply print (75% wool, 25% nylon) which is… functional. And cheap. They will make a lovely pair of socks, though. The yarn is very sturdy so they’ll be great for hiking and I won’t be overly concerned about getting them muddy, sweaty or dirty. This is actually a really good thing since I only wear handknit socks and training socks. (And if I could knit training socks, I probably would.)

And just to prove there is a pair:

Pattern: Cascading Leaves by Jeanie Townsend
Yarn: Rico 4ply print
Needles 2.25mm

And I even have enough left over to make a pair of toddler socks.

51 to go…

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). :)

…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.

Okay, so not really. But it seemed fitting since I’m talking about Pansies and Daisies.

First, let me introduce you do the Pansi Socks:

I’m in love with them. I love how the yarn feels, I love how it feels knit up, and I love how it is striping. I’m so chuffed with these. They are just a basic 64 stitch top down sock with a heel flap, although I’m going to make a shorter leg than normal as I’m worried about running out of yarn. I can hear all the toe-up fanatics screaming from behind their monitors, but since my feet hate short row heels and I’ve never quite figured out how to do an extended heel flap on a toe up, although that’s mostly for lack of trying. I just want a quick pair of socks and I’m not wanting to mess with the math right now. Maybe some day I’ll figure it out.

Next up in the garden we have a Daisy in progress. I got up to the raglan decreases at the time of this photo, but I’m now just starting the hood. (I’ll admit so slight warps in the time-space continuum for sake decent light for a photo).

I even managed to find some buttons:

I had no idea it would be so hard to find some simple buttons that don’t look cheap. Okay, maybe I did but still haven’t admitted to it. Needless to say, I’m hoping to have Daisy off the needles today.

So, since Project Spectrum’s East theme breaks down into yellow, air, wood and spring, do you think Daisy would count for spring since it’s named after a spring flower?

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.

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. :)

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. :)

Today is the first day of the East theme of Project Spectrum 4.

EAST (May/June)
Color: Yellow
Material: Wood
Season: Spring
Element: Air

As anyone who knows me well would attest, I’m not a yellow person and this theme was one of the main reasons I wasn’t sure about doing this year’s Project Spectrum. Funnily enough, after a bit of stash diving I found several items with yellowish tones in them. Depending on time constraints I have the option of a toddler vest, a pair of sock, a shawl and various bits of fibre containing various percentages of yellow. I will not get to all of it, I know that. But at least I know that I have options.

Let East begin.