Fiber

The Shepards Market and Some Loot!

/ LDSVenus / 3 Comments

The first picture is the “loot” I bought at the fiber show, I can’t believe I only bought one thing out of so many wonderful things there. This is some CVM, part of it was blended with some blue and light teal, the other part is the natural color roving. They came together for about 4 1/4 ozs. My plan is to blend it all together (slowly so I don’t get any neps in it.) CVM is very springy and tho not merino soft it is still next to the skin soft. I’ll post a picture after I blend it on my drum carder, hopefully I will do a good job and it will be beautiful :).

I started another dish cloth using the I Love This Yarn, cotton. First time using this cotton and so for I like it. I am knitting the In Thirds dishcloth it’s a free pattern on Ravelry and one of my favorites. I’m using my favorite needles for this, I’ve had them for years, it’s a nylon needle, size 5, I think the pattern calls for size 6 or 7, but I like the fabric I get using this. I don’t use them as dish clothes, I like to use them to put hot things on so I can handle them (like a bowl of hot soup I want to eat in my recliner while watching a favorite show. 😛

Have sure been enjoying the weather since the end of January, we got up to 80 this past Sunday but are in the 50’s and 40’s this week. We are in an El Niño weather pattern since last year, but starting in the fall the weather man says it turns into a La Niña, so will prepare for a colder snowier winter with coming winter, sigh.

Monday Funny!

/ LDSVenus

You know the old saying, What doesn’t kill you, makes your ankles hurt. Oh yeah, I think that was suppose to be makes you stronger, but whatever!

My son in law said that when we were walking from the parking place that we finally found at Costco’s, when they went to get a large shed so they could put a pen in it for some pea fowl they are buying. The doors on the shed will stay open with the pen inside, but it will protect them from other animals and the weather while thy are young. I hear is you have to keep them penned up for 4 or so months so they will stay at their new home. It was a long walk to the store from the parking spot LOL.

They took me to a fiber festive in Iowa City, The Shepards’ Market, so much wonderful yarn and fiber to look at. I can’t believe I only bought one thing there but I will post about it on Tuesday :).

Accountability Time, FO, WIP and Mail

/ LDSVenus / 15 Comments

I decided it’s time to do this. The dishcloth is one I have worked on for a while because it’s my mindless knit and I only work on it when I’m bored doing laundry at the laundromat or in a car doing some waiting. It’s the grandma’s favorite discloth pattern, you can find it on Ravelry. I use Sugar and Cream, Stripes, this color was Country Stripes and a size 5 needle. I knit a little looser than most so I generally go down one needle size but for this pattern I go down 2 sizes.

The next two pictures are wips (works in progress for my non knitter friends). The hat is one of the hats for warmth I do for the shelter. I like to use the Hobby Lobby yarn I Love This Yarn. It’s a worsted yarn and I like the stripes this makes on a hat. This color number 424 Green/Turquoise/Red. The diagonal scarf was a scarf-a-long I started with a good friend several years ago. She was killed in an auto accident and so I work this scarf off and on as my brain is ok with it. I’m on the 2nd skein, it’s also a mindless knit project. I don’t know where I got the pattern but it’s very easy. Because you do the increase and decrease on one row and just knit the next row, I put a progress keeper on the right side (increase/decrease row) so I remember to increase and decrease :P.

The next picture is a wip spinning project, this fiber is Pop Rox from Camaj Fiber Arts. Almost done with the first bobbin. I thought maybe I would spin all of it on one bobbin and then chain ply but I don’t think I will be able to get the other half on there. On the side of the bobbin, I laid out the rest of this half of the fiber for you to see, then I have another bobbins worth. So I will go ahead and make this a fractal spin, it’s going to my eye dr, who is a knitter, for her daughter a hat. 🙂

The next two pictures are things I bought for myself for Valentine’s day :P. The fiber was something that I didn’t need at all but when I saw it I thought oh my gosh look at those colors! I bought it from Fiber Love Diary I got the last one in this color, it’s a gray BFL base dyed over, color is called Dark Prism. I loved the jewel tones.

The next item was something I needed but had put off a long time getting because it not cheap for the bulky flyer and 2 extra bobbins (the flyer comes with one bobbin) and tax and shipping. I don’t really spin bulky yarn but I needed something that would hold more than 4 ozs for plying. 2 ozs on each bobbin (you can see my reg bobbin on my wheel in the 4th picture) when plied together is over full on the reg bobbin for anything over a fingering weight otherwise I’m stuck just spinning up to 4 ozs of fiber. I have also wanted a Wooly Winder, but could only get one, and I can get by without the Wooly Winder, it just makes things easier, but I needed a flyer with a bigger bobbin more, sigh. Next time :P. I forgot to say I bought the bulky flyer for my Kromski Polonaise at Yarn Barn in Kansas.

We are getting snow tonight, the weatherman said a trace to 2 inches but he was leaning toward the 2 inches, dang we just got all our snow from before melted. Oh well, it’s still winter, I’ll live, spring is almost here!!!

More Snow, A Blizzard, Spinning and Some Roving

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

Yeah, more snow. Started early this morning about 1am and should be stopping soon, looks like about 4 inches extra on top of the other snow, so total about a foot of snow? The winds have kicked up gusting to about 50 mph off and on and causing blizzard conditions until about noon tomorrow. We also get wind chills from now until Tuesday morning. I think the coldest will be down to -35 or -40 on Sunday night with the wind chill. Ok, it’s officially brrr.

On to nicer things :P. I am working on the Tweed Pop Rox color roving, it’s so pretty, not quite to the point yet that I need to make up my mind about how I want to ply it, but I’m getting there. The last picture is a roving I bought, oh my gosh maybe 10 to 12 years ago – a long time ago. I saw it and fell in love with it. It is 64% BLF-Corridale cross, 27% Alpaca and 9% Sari Silk waste (left over when the silk is processed that will give some texture to the yarn as I spin). You can see the black wool blended with I think the blue is Alpaca & green Sari Silk waste. I am trying to work on older fiber purchases that I bought because I loved it, to work my stash down a little. The Pop Rox color way was newer, but it was calling me to be spun :P. The After Midnight color way will be next :).

Stay inside and warm, it’s chilly out there!

SNOW!! and Some Spinning

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

The snow pictures are in order, last night about 2 hrs after the snow started, it wasn’t sticking to the road yet *(actually I think this is the start of the last snow we had, but they look about the same so I mixed them up, and now I can’t find the picture I took lol, so oops). Then this morning just before sun up, and last tonight after sun down.  It snowed for about 24 hrs and we got about 7 inches tho at the airport they measured 13 inches, whoa. I’d say our Christmas snow arrived a little late :P. More snow storms coming this week but not sure how much snow they will bring, I’m sure they will add to the pile as our temps are going down :P. This one was a very big storm.

The last picture is the Pop Rox I am spinning. Had some eye surgery a few weeks ago and I go back to the doctor later this month for new glasses so I can see better.  All in all it was worth it. I can see the color on the roving and yarn so much better! I’m about 2/3rds done with this bobbin, then one more to spin before I ply. Trying to figure out in the mean time if I want to just ply regular or try the chain ply again so the colors stay together. I need to figure it out before I finish this single because if I chain ply I will just continue to spin on this bobbin until it’s full.

Hope everyone is safe and warm.

Forgot the cutest one! This is Everest from my son’s alpaca farm, he was out in the snow today and decided to come in the barn for a bite or two. They come in and out of the barn as they wish to get out of the wind or other weather. Note that the snow doesn’t melt on him, his fiber is very dense and water resistant. They are lovers of the cold, me? not so much!

Cowl is an FO, Won a Fiber Package from a Spinner on YouTube!

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

First is the cowl I finished for my son’s mother-in-law for Christmas. She and I exchange gifts every year and last year I made her a headband so her ears would be warm when she went walking and I wanted the cowl to match. I used the dandelion design from the headband pattern and designed where to put it, how many stitches to make the cowl, how many stitches before starting each pattern and between so the pattern ended up right at the end and staggering them. I’m not really a math person so it always takes me a while to design where to put designs, so I don’t do them very often. I had to frog this several times until I got the count and placement right.

The bottom picture is a package from Fiber Love Diary on YouTube. She gets a spinning package from Paradise Fibers free for their Fiber of the month club to show to her followers and then she buys one to give away. I won the drawing this month from last month’s package, woo hoo!! It was a nice one. I really like the fiber that Paradise Fibers sells. For fiber there were 3 2oz bags of their new chunky multi merino blends (and the card shows all the colors that they have), 1 oz of autumnal chunky merino blend and a sample of their whitest white merino (most “white” wool tends to be a little on the creamy color scale), plus a purple bent nose darning needle, 3 harvest inspired progress keepers, a stash tea and a sticker of their ewe mascot. The fiber colors are very pretty. Lots of merino to spin and I can always use another darning needle for weaving in the ends of my knitting.

I’ve started another hat for my son in law, the one I made him is just a tad tight. I’ll post progress as I go.

My fiber optic Christmas tree quit working so I had to order a new one, I bought it used in 2005, so I can’t complain, it lasted a long time. I wasn’t sure they still made fiber optic Christmas trees but happily they do!!!

Won a Spinning Box Gift!

/ LDSVenus / 3 Comments

A few weeks ago I entered in a giveaway from Camaj Fiber Arts for a spinning box. She prepares these and sells them once a month, they are a surprise box of fiber, and always worth it. I entered and she was giving away 3 and I thought well, maybe! I got an email a little over a week ago and I won one of them!!! This one was titled Silk Road from East to West. It’s all about silk, some gorgeous spinning fibers in it! The light colored package of roving is Opulence, 18 micron Merino and Polwarth and Red Eri Peace Silk combed top, and this is soft, soft, soft! The colorful package the same size is Merino and Mulberry silk combed top, and it is oh so soft! The smaller bag of colorful fiber is Soffsilk, a cloud of various colors of dyed mulberry silk. It will be nice for blending on my drum carder with other fibers for color and texture :). Then there is a silk handkerchief with some bleeding tissue paper to make a dyed silk hanky :), should be fun. The last thing is a sack of some Eri Peace Silk cocoons. I’ll have to check out more about degumming them, tho the paper said I could also dye them and string them for my Christmas tree and actually I have a small fiber optic tree so it might actually look very cool :P. This box arrived on Saturday and my birthday was yesterday, what a coincidence was that!!! What a wonderful birthday gift! I like buying fiber from this fiber arts online store, they have a great variety of fiber and fiber tools and some great prices :).

I’m enjoying this nice fall weather, it will be 60’s and 50’s all week, so much better than the 90’s into the 100’s of this past summer! Hope everyone is well and enjoying their day!

Spinning a Tweed Yarn

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

This was going to be one of my Tour de Fleece spins but I didn’t get to it before the end of the Tour de Fleece, so I decided I really did still want to spin it, so here we go. This is the Pop Rox from Camaj Fiber Arts and it says it is a blend of soft South American wool and viscose bits. I did a search for South American wool and there are several breeds, merino being one and I am going to guess this blend has a lot of merino in it because it is very soft! I am fascinated with the tweed fibers for spinning. They spin thicker (probably a dk or worsted weight when done) and I like to knit with with the thinner yarns (sock yarn and sport weight) but I just love the tweed look. I can hardly wait to see what the yarn looks like when I’m finished :). No clue what I want to use it for, there is 4oz so maybe a hat, but I can make a decision when I see the yarn spun up :). If you like this fiber you can find it here . Right now it’s a pre-order order for a lb and is on sale for $52 a lb. I bought it when they had it in a smaller batch to see if it would be popular enough to order larger quantities. It was :P. Maybe next month I will order a lb myself to make a hat and scarf to match for a grand daughter :), I am loving this.

Still waiting for the last cria to make an appearance. Hoping for a female with grey fiber ;).

Hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather after those hot oppressive humid days just a few weeks ago! I sure am!!

Fiber back from the Mill, Woot!!

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

I had skirted the fleeces shown on my July 20 post and sent them to Mystery’s Meadow Alpacas fiber mill. The fleeces were very dirty and because I had to skirt them heavily, I wasn’t even sure how much I would even get back. But I got them back today, and oh my goodness, they are so clean and beautiful! I love them and can hardly wait to spin them! I was very impressed with how well these were processed. If you have fiber to have processed into yarn or spinning I can absolutely recommend them!! The white at the bottom of the grey fiber is part of the clear plastic bag the fiber is in, it’s not the fiber.

Tour de Fleece days 14-22

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Finished the skein of the tweed fiber called Very Berry Color Pop, it is South American Wool & Viscose bits Blend combed top by Camaj Fiber Arts , I have added a link to this fiber but it’s for 1lb of fiber for a pre-order. Her pre-orders are usually a very good price because she’s pre-ordering bulk. I got mine when it was available in 4 oz quantities. She has a lot of nice fiber. This skein apparently turned out to be a bulky, it is 138 yards, 4.25 oz. Wonder if there is enough for a hat?

The next fiber is called Beach Party, a Corriedale/nylon blend from a surprise fiber box I get monthly from Paradise Fibers , they have a lot of nice fibers and yarn and other knitting and fiber things :). This should be a lighter weight yarn when spun up, it doesn’t show and I wish you see the glittery fibers blended into it and the fiber is a darker blue than it appears, it’s very pretty. You can find this color blend available on their website now, I think it was in their May fiber box,. I will start this today or tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day of the Tour de Fleece and I won’t finish this before the end but I will keep spinning it anyway :).

I’m happy to have finished my last years skein and got one full skein done this year and started another during the Tour de Fleece. All in all I’ll take this as a win!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I hope you accomplish all the things your have planned.