Saturday, June 28, 2008

It's not cheating...












...if you get a gargantuan amount of book work done during the day, and then play in the evening. So what do I knit, when I'm not knitting socks for the sock book? A sock, of course.

This yarn is 3-ply handspun from Yummy Yarn's So Far Away BFL roving. I love love love the colors, and how this yarn is knitting up. The stripes are beautifully distinct and BFL (my first time with that fiber, as roving or yarn) makes a great sock yarn: it feels durable, but it's bouncy and sturdy. The close up scan shows the colors perfectly.



And on the spinning front- Twisted Fiberarts always sends a little sample skein or hank along with orders. I have a couple of little yarn hanks in different colorways and blends (dyed to be self-patterning on the small scale, which is totally cool), and this is my second little roving sample hank. It's Circle, a colorway that I love- bright blue, green and purple. The fiber is Lively (superwash merino) and it spins like buttah. This little skein is 15 yds of 3-ply, and I will probably knit a teeny little sock with it for a Christmas ornament, or a package tie-on.


On the wheel at the moment- Twisted Fiberarts Sherwood Sleek roving. Sherwood is a fantastic colorway of greens with bits of pink, blue, purple, coral, and charcoal. The Sherwood yarns are self-patterning, and the roving is dyed in the same colors, though not at a regular repeat. This fiber blend is merino/tencel, and you can see in the pic how shiny it is- like silk or kid mohair. It's beautifully dyed and prepared, and I am spinning it very fine. I haven't decided whether to 2-ply it for lace, or 3-ply it for something else (it doesn't feel right for socks- it's very slippery). This blend is not for beginning spinners- it's easy to overspin (I have a couple of corkscrews on the bobbin), and the fibers are fly-away (and they always fly right to my mouth). But it's gorgeous, and the yarn is going to be beautiful.

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