The sun is shining, my children are away for the weekend and my wheel was empty. So of course I needed a new spin!
I pulled eight ounces of blue BFL roving from my stash and started on the wheel. This fiber was vacuum packed and a little felted. So I am having to work a little harder to predraft this fiber to get it to spin nicely.
But for now I leave you all as I plan to spin while the shade and my iced coffee last. Happy Spinning!!
My blue BFL gradient spinning is ALL DONE. The singles are shown on the left and I ended with the deepest, most navy of the five colors.
I ignored my children and responsibilities for roughly an hour and a half so I could chain ply the results. The singles had rested about three days before plying. The process had a few hiccups and breaks but I managed a pretty decent finished bobbin.
I am going to let that sit for at least a day and then I’ll give the skein a wash and a whack. So excited to get this off the bobbin so I can see how the gradient turned out! Happy Spinning!!
For our recent vacation travel, I also took my Victorian Mauve sock with me. I used this as poolside time killer as I made sure PB didn’t die on the toddler slides.
I think I managed to add roughly an inch of sock over two days of poolside knitting? I did end up getting in the pool with the kiddos so my knitting time was limited. But any progress counts!
Side note: I tried to be the cool mom for Jellybean and I regret all my life choices. I did all the slides and stair climbing he asked for. Every cell in my body is sore and he better know how much I love him! Legitimately made a Target run mid vacation to buy ibuprofen and icy hot, lol.
Happy Knitting!!
I had the kiddos help me hand wind my La Bien Aimee skein of BFL sock so that I could get the first toe of my Victorian Mauve sock.
With my toe up socks, I use DPNs to do a magic 8 cast on and then work across those two needles until I get to my total number of stitches. Then I switch over to my nine inch circular to work up the foot.
This is my first time working with a BFL sock yarn that is as fine/thin as this one is. I would categorize this as a light fingering weight instead of regular fingering. Should make a really light but warm finished fabric. I did make one small mistake with an errant yarn over that created a hole. I couldn’t be bothered to rip back so I’ll just sew it closed later, lol.
Happy Knitting!!
My BFL gradient is moving along. I am in the third of three total colors and its a kind of nice solid blue.
The first color was a very bright teal that rubbed off on my fingers and the second was a very light or pale blue. This gradient should develop nicely! I hope to get all these singles spun onto one bobbin and then 3-ply/chain ply the singles to maintain the gradient.
The trick is going to be finding time to spin with the hectic buzz of summer and children’s activities. Happy Spinning!!
Since my Kiwi wheel is free of a spinning project, I decided ot put something back on it. I pulled some BFL roving from my stash that were a teal to blue gradient. I felt like making a singles that would end up a 3-ply gradient!
This yarn might have an excess of dye…..my fingers were a little blue after working the first part of the gradient. Could be part Smurf??
Pretty happy with the singles I have been creating. I still have half the teal to finish before I start the next color. Not too shabby for an afternoon of outside spinning. It’s really getting warm here in Kansas!!
Happy Spinning!!
My finished Fusion hand spun is all skeined and measured up! I was finally able to dig out my yardage counter and other spinning tools. They had migrated to the bottom of my fiber stash box.
First up, on the left, is the chain plied 3-ply. This came out to roughly 18 grams and 11 yards. So definitely a super bulky! I think I got 5 wraps per inch depending on where in the skein I measured. Next up, on the right, is the 2 ply. This one came out to 6 wraps per inch and there were 90 grams over 73 yards. So I think this one is more of a bulky weight.
I am pleased as punch with both and they have landed in the special “golden egg” portion of my stash for now. My brain is now planning my next spin!
Happy Spinning!!
I took some time in between pie and napping yesterday to wash and dry what I’m calling my Fusion 2 py and Fusion 3 ply handspun.
I am super super super happy with these skeins. I have lots of issues but I managed two pretty well balance skeins that hang straight and stayed together through washing! Considering I have about 20 hours of total spinning under my belt I am super happy with my results. I am taking all of this with a growth mindset and looking forward to improving from here.
My chain ply is a little ropey and tight in places but still a super useful yarn! Next up is to dig out my yardage counter and get these measured up. Still betting on these both come out to a bulky weight. And I have absolutely no idea what I will knit with these. I might need to hoard them in the stash for a bit, lol.
Happy Spinning!!
With the short holiday week I snuck in some extra spinning time, tee hee hee. My Jakira Farms BFL singles flew through my fingers. I had about 3.5 ounces of fiber left for this go around. I had split the fiber braid in half so I spun half on one bobbin and the second half on a different to aid with plying.
I managed to get a decent sized bobbing of a two ply (left) and then I had some singles remaining because I obviously didn’t split precisely or more likely my spinning varied quite a bit from beginning to end. So followed some more YouTube tutorials and managed to chain ply what I had left (right).
I am just pleased as punch to have some finished yarn that I made on purpose! Next up for these guys is a wash and whack to set the finished yarn. I am pretty sure both of these will come out to a bulky weight but we shall see!
Happy Spinning!!
Since my wheel was empty after finishing my teal singles I decided to put some more singles on before plying, just to keep my hands and feet practicing going in the same direction. This time I grabbed the Jakira Farms BFL I had tried to spin over a year ago to absolutely no success.
Safe to say I am making better progress this time! I am starting to notice that I can maintain a more even single with fewer thick and thin spots. Don’t get me wrong there are a ton of them in there! There are just fewer than last time, lol.
Happy Spinning!!
Michele plays with yarn, food, and music in Portland
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