January 03, 2012

A little time at the wheel

It's official.  Back to a new semester tomorrow.  That sucks.  I didn't get time to do the gazillion things on my to-do list during the Christmas break, and I'm a little grouchy about it.  So I thought that, like a true English teacher, I would stay up one more time until after midnight and do something else on the list:  spin!

Look at these adorable sheep!



Weeks and weeks ago, I purchased some chocolate brown baby doll sheep roving from someone on Etsy (My Little Sheep) because the sheep were just so adorable and I had never heard of baby doll sheep before. When I got it, I was a little turned off because it was a little tacky from the lanolin and that lanolin smell is just plain unpleasant.  It has been sitting on top of a cabinet in the knitting room, begging to be spun.  It finally got a chance on the wheel last night.  I didn't get much accomplished between my cold and the time of night, but here's how it looks:


I figured that, since the individual fibers were totally kinky and the lanolin was so tacky that the end result would be stiff, sticky, and course.  Not so!  It feels soft and squishy even while still on the spindle.  I bought a bunch (over 4 ozs. I think), so I am hoping that there will be enough for me to make something really swell, like mittens or socks.

Last weekend I was able to get this gorgeous fiber spun that I had bought at SAFF in October.  It's original name was "Blueberry Pie" and it came from Rivers Edge Fiber Arts. I always have trouble photographing navy blue and purple with my camera--not sure why--so this has some dark purple in it, but you just can't tell from the picture.


Milk, banana, superwash merino, and tencel combine to make this possible the softest non-camel fiber I have ever spun.  I love, love, love it!  The fact that it is mostly a dark navy is also really pleasing because that's a color that I love but almost never buy or dye.  Not sure what this skein is going to be because it came out less than 200 yards of two-ply, but it's definitely not going in the shop.

I've also gotten the yarn dyed and the swatches knit and photographed for my Twist Collective submission.  Another week and I should be ready to go with all of the required documents and drawings.  And that entrelac scarf thingy that I started a week ago is at 24 inches and growing.  I don't know why I thought it would be a good plan to use a skein of nearly 400 yards to knit the darned thing.  It has become quite apparent that this project is not going to be a cowl. So, I will continue to knit on, if for no other reason than to see how far this skein will get me.

And I guess that's all that's going to get done before it's back to that 5 am wake-up call.  How many days until summer vacation?

1 comment:

  1. Oh my! Those lambs are ridiculously cute!!! :) Hope your post-Christmas vacation time is going well. I know returning to school was challenging (as usual) over here!

    ReplyDelete

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