I have joined two spin-alongs.
This spin-along is about spinning and knitting a shawl. I have wanted to do this for a while, so this is perfect. I have no idea what shawl I will knit. I'll wait for the yarn to tell me what it wants to be.
Spin along with the riders in the Tour de France. Spin on days the riders ride, spin fast on time trial days, and above all wear yellow! Roger loves the Tour and I love spinning (and Roger!). Ah, togetherness.
But, Maia (I hear you saying), what are you going to spin? Thanks for asking. I have these lovelies:
The top one is 2 oz of tussah top naturally dyed in cutch (brown) with a touch of madder (orange) to warm the brown a bit. It was vat dyed. To get color variation, I tied the length in a couple of places. Sort of a tie-dye technique.
The bottom is 2 oz of tussah top naturally dyed in osage orange (yellow), madder (orange), and cochineal (pink). I was thinking about plying these together. I fear that that would muddy the lovely colors in the bottom silk. Maybe I'll dye more in yellow. I love yellow and it is appropriate.
The red is Targhee fleece naturally dyed in the same vat as the brown tussah above. Hard to believe isn't it? The plum is PolyPay fleece naturally dyed in Lac. I may have the fleeces mixed up. I have it written down somewhere. The fleece comes from Homestead Wool & Gift Farm. These nice folks taken in abandoned and injured farm animals and give them a life of luxury and frolicking in green fields. They sell fleece (raw and washed), some dyed. Everything I got (more than I'm showing here) was well prepared and nice fiber. Check them out.
Below the fleece is three colors of tussah naturally dyed with cutch (brown), osage orange (yellow) and cochineal with a touch of logwood grey (mauve). I started with two pounds of raw fleece and one pound of silk. There is at least a half pound of each fleece remaining after washing. I should have plenty for a sweater. I need to decide how I want to spin it. I'll do some carding and spin a few samples.
In other news
I got my invitation to Ravelry! Wow! It is pretty cool. If you are already there, feel free to friend me. I use the clever handle: Maia. Sometimes it is very handy to have an unusual name. I don't have much up yet; I just joined yesterday.
I am working on a new pair of Sidewinders. This pair is for the write up I am going to do on my mods to Nona's wonderful pattern. Before doing this, I checked with Nona and got her permission. It is very important to me that I have her blessing. As a designer, I would appreciate someone checking with me first.
The method uses two circular needles (I'm thinking it is possibleto use magic loop too, long needle would be recommended). The cuff is on the right, the toe on the left, and the heel at the bottom. You may also notice some extra width above the heel. I am adding a few short-rows to create more space for my high arches. There is a blue thread basted along the cast-on (Turkish). Click to see a bigger image.
I have had trouble with this sock. The first one (got to 3/4 done) was inadvertently knit on one 2.75 mm needle and one 3 mm needle. Frogged. The second one (got almost half done) pooled in a big way and I couldn't stand it. Frogged. Hopefully, the third will stick. So far, so good.
All the frogging gave me this bit of fleeting art. I rewound the yarn cake and it held its shape until the last few yards. I had to snap a picture.
The yarn is the C*EYE*ber Fiber I got on the Marin Yarn Crawl. It is beautiful and very soft. I'm not sure if I am a fan or not. The plies are softly plied together leading them to unply and split as I knit. The soft plying contributes to the softness, but I worry that it may compromise how well it will wear for socks. We shall see.
Last but not least, Happy Independence Day!