Welcome Autumn!

You have finally come, bringing showers and cooler weather! Thank you! :-) This weekend was great - nice rain both Saturday and Sunday, much cooler temps, including frost this morning! That will get the trees changing faster.

I finished up the Wool Peddler Shawl Friday evening and blocked it Saturday. Talk about fall colors!


Sorry about this picture - my batteries went out yesterday after the first pic, so this was taken early this morning (very little light.)

Remember this?

It became this cake:

Then this was casted-on (sp?):

Just my own little design, a top down triangle with elongated tails in feather and fan lace. I really like the way the colors are - very distinct changes from purple to green. I had planned to have this happen when I spun it up - very long color repeats for excellent striping. It pays to plan ahead, no? ;-)

Enjoy the changing (read: cooler) weather! :-)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

My mom's birthday was last Wednesday, and she looks awesome for being...well, those who need to know how old she is already know! Those who don't know will just have to guess. (BTW - my mom and dad are the same age!) ( You look good, too, Dad!) :-)

Anyway, Saturday was great. Got to hang out w/ my bro and dad for a couple of hours - talked Star Trek, movies, fiber (of course there was show and tell), among other topics. Then we all met for dinner at Roxy's at the El Dorado. For anyone who lives in the area - that is a great restaurant. And if your visiting ever - definitely try to go there. Very nice place, has a great atmosphere, good food, excellent service. It is inside, with a "patio" and somewhat open to the rest of the casino, but there is a large fountain the masks the noise of passersby.

I gave my mom this for her birthday:




I actually finished it over a week ago, and blocked it last weekend. However, didn't want to give a way the surprise, so now I am posting pics. This is the Cherry Leaf Shawl pattern from "Victorian Lace Today" using Malabrigo Laceweight in the colorway "Citrus." Perfect colors for my mom, not too much orange, not too much yellow, and just a touch of pink. She really liked it. :-)

I have been a little slow about posting the last couple of weeks, and here's the reason why:





I got new toys!! :-) I've been playing with them - handcarders at the top, and a fast flyer for my Lendrum DT. I need to work on my carding skills, but you can see the progress so far to the right of the carders. I had some miscellaneous colored bits of wool that I didn't know what to do with as well as some smallish amounts of angora and tussah silk.

All three of the rolags are the colored wool blended with a little bit of angora and silk. I haven't tried spinning them up yet, but I think I will make a nice soft, airy yarn. And if I use my other new toy, I can do semi-lace weight. :-)

As far as the new flyer goes, I've been using it more that the carders, but I'm still getting used to the faster speeds. Up til now I've had to treadle really fast to get enough twist in the finer singles I've been producing lately. Now I really have to watch my treadling speed, otherwise...wire-like singles. Oops! I've also had to adjust the tension a LOT, because the thread kept breaking. I spun for a while with it yesterday afternoon, moving the ratio down after about an hour or so. I think I've got it now. Before I stopped for the day, it hadn't broken for a while. Yeah! :-) The thread on there in the picture is the cream BFL that I will ply with the red, green, and orange single shown in the previous post.

I also worked on this over the weekend:


I actually started it last Sunday and am almost done with it. This picture was taken this morning after working on it for about an hour. It is the "Wool Peddlar Shawl" from Folk Shawls, with a few modifications. I am using "Ultra Alpaca" on US9's, and the top part is in stockinette instead of garter stitch. I moved the yarn-over increase in 4 stitches , so the top is a 4-stitch garter border. I am also increasing the tails in the pattern'd part just like in the "Feather and Fan Triangle" shawl. I think it will come out looking pretty nice - it is a Christmas present. And you that blocking lace always is magical anyway, so I'm not too worried! :-) Hopefully I should have it done by the weekend, so I can block it then.

My knitting class at Jimmy Beans Wool is going well. Saturday was the 2nd class. It is always interesting seeing how the different women (and sometimes men, too) interact and form bonds, even in the first class. Everyone seems to be picking it up fairly quickly, and this time around I have changed my methods. The classes I taught last year I just had a pattern packet that they could choose from for something to make along with the packet with directions and pictures of how to knit. This time, I still have the pattern packet (revised, edited,and pared a little) and the "how to" part, but instead of simply taking the stitches and learning them in one large piece, I put together a sheet with different pattern swatches to make. This was my students learned 3 things in the first class - cast-on, knit, and bind-off. They took that home with them, and came back Saturday with a garter stitch swatch all complete! This week we refreshed last last weeks lesson and learned to purl. Then we moved it from stockenette stitch to ribbing and seed stitch.

I think that this new class set-up works much better and more efficiently than the way I was doing it before. The next couple of classes we will discuss gauge, pattern reading, touch on cabling and lace, and get them set up with a project. I am optimistic. ;-)

Have a great week, and happy knitting!

Productive Weekend

Yes, this weekend, I "labored." :-) But it was a good, I want to do this, sort of labor. On Saturday I had a dye day here at chez Hannah. I haven't had one in a while and I picked up some big bottles of food coloring and vinegar for Smart n Final. Yeah, I'm still using food coloring simply because I have neither the space nor funds for dedicated dye pots. I really like the colors I got this time - bold and bright. One of the reasons for this is I used the dye straight on the fiber - no diluting with water or vinegar. As you see:



When spun - the one on the left will be varying depths of blue and green, and the one on the right, I am calling "Roses" for the deep red and green. There was supposed to be a brown in the middle of the orange part, but I need to work on the brown.


I did start spinning this:

and I plan on plying it with a cream merino. I think it will be an awesome lacewieght yarn - perfect for a top down shawl! :-)



There was a pound of silk dyed also, split in half for 2 sessions in the crockpot:

The pic on the left is when it was spread out to dry. There are streaks of orange in there and varying shades of yellow. I kove how this came out - such a bright and cheerful color! Can't wait to spin it up! :-)



I also dabbled in some more koolaid dying:

From outside in - pink lemonade, lemon-lime, and grape.



Knitting
Yes, there was knitting accomplished this weekend also! I was on a roll. Instead of working on one project for a long period of time, I split my time between several unfinshed items. One of them was ths one:

Phase 2 of my Shetland project. Almost done with the body - started the dark chocolate brown last night. Then it's onto the sleeves and then...fin! The cable going down the front is called "Fudge Swirl." Appropriate, no? ;-)



Happy knittng, spinning and dyeing!!