Spinning

New Fiber and Alpaca Farm Days

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Well I might have accidentally bought some more fiber :O. I love yellow and this has sparkles and it was for 8oz at a sale price, so my excitement got the best of me. It’s Merino and Glitter and is called Sunny Day . The yellow is now only available by the lb and will be discontinued when sold out. I’m excited to see how it will spin up. The fiber under the yellow was a free 1 oz sample of Rambouillet from Camaj Fiber Arts, it is as soft as the merino. It will be fun to dye it too :).

It will be a while before I get to spin the yellow merino tho, because I only have two spinning wheels and my Kromski Polonaise has fiber still on it that I need to finish spinning, and I need my 2nd spinning wheel, my Rick Reeves wheel, empty because my son and his spouse are having their annual Alpaca Farms’ Day event on Saturday and I have to start the alpaca to spin on Saturday at the event. The fawn colored alpaca bump is not a new purchase, it’s a deep stash cria (baby alpaca). It is as soft as butter!!! I will try to remember to take pictures on Saturday. Usually the event is Saturday and Sunday but they are only opening their farm on Saturday this year so I expect it will be VERY busy!!!

Sending prayers out for those in Florida for safety with this hurricane :(.

RAGBRI Spin is a WIP

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

My drive band was very frayed so I went and bought some jute to make another one, I did get the new drive band on my spinning wheel and this is the fiber I am spinning. It’s a BFL-Corriedale cross 64%, Alpaca 27% and Sari Silk waste 9%. The blue and green looks really pretty against the brown fiber. The color sure pops on the brown back ground. This is a thinner spin compared to the Pop Rock tweed, will probably be a light sport weight. When the RAGBRI is finished tomorrow, I will go ahead and spin for the Summer Olympics, lol. Promised myself I would work on some older fibers and this is one. I think I bought it about 5 years or more ago at a small fiber festival in my little town. I have lots to choose from when this one is done :).

RAGBRAI 2024 – There’s Still Hope!

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

For those of you not familiar with RAGBRIA, it stands for Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It’s a non competitive 434 mile bicycle tour across the state of Iowa from west to east. This is the 51st year for this. So instead of spinning to the ride across France this year I will spin to the ride across Iowa, so all is not lost with my spinning. I planned on starting today which is the first day of RAGBRAI, however I noticed my the plied string I use as my drive band, is very frayed and being held by two of the small strings, so I will go get more string tomorrow and fix the drive band and start tomorrow. Always something isn’t it, I’ll call it a flat tire on day one.

Tour de Fleece Update & More Mail

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

Almost finished with the 2nd bobbin, then the plying can begin! More mail too, the Tour de Fleece tee shirt arrived so now I can spin with a 2024 Tour de Fleece shirt (I need to wash it, it’s bit wrinkled) :). I try to get one for the current year each year. And I may have ordered some Angora rabbit fur to blend with some wool :). It was 2.5 oz, that is a lot of rabbit fur and oh so soft!

We will be having a heat wave Saturday through Monday. Low 90’s and with the humidity and dew point it is suppose to be upper 90’s to 102, sweltering I believe they said. Stay cool everyone, I’ll be inside being grateful for the guy that invented the air conditioner :).

Tour de Fleece Update and Mail

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

I’m about 1/2 way finished with the 2nd bobbin, have missed a few days, hate when life gets in the way of stuff you’d rather be doing. But I’ll be working on catching up and spinning on the riders days off to rest.

2nd picture: I may have accidently purchased something I saw on Etsy, from Friends in Fiber, it was shipped quickly and is gorgeous. I promised myself I wouldn’t buy anymore fiber until I got some of the older things I have spun up. Fail :P. Hopefully I won’t have any more failures, but this was so pretty. Guess I need to quit looking until I have some older stuff spun ;). I am S.A.B.L.E. in fiber (stands for Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy), in the meantime I will leave it out to look at until I have at least one older fiber off the wheel :). Oh, the little piece of fiber at the top of this roving was a sample that was sent with this and the little gold thing is a beautiful charm of a tree of life, so pretty! I will be making this into a stitch marker or a progress keeper. Will show it off when I get it made :).

In the mean time enjoy your knitting or spinning or whatever hobby keeps you busy and happy :).

Tour de Fleece 2024 Day 4

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

The first picture is my progress so far! The 2nd picture is what I have left to spin. I separated them into about 30″ pieces and then separated in the lengths of colors to spin back to back. If I had started them on a bulky bobbin I would do them as a chain ply to keep the colors seperate but I didn’t so I will ply the two bobbins together and the colors will overlap each other more of a fractal spin, I didn’t really have a plan at the time, it will be pretty. The last picture is my Kromski Polonaise spinning wheel and the beautiful view (a braided hibiscus tree and night sky pansies) that I get to see on my balcony while I spin :).

Tour de Fleece Starts Tomorrow 6-29-24!

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

Almost forgot to upload the things I chose to spin this year. Starting the 2nd bobbin on the the Pop Rox that I started last year, I shouldn’t have let it sit there for so long :(. Then the next one is a 5oz roving, a beautiful BFL, Corriedale Cross (64%),Alpaca (27%) and Sari Silk Waste (9%). It’s called After Midnight and is black, streaks of blue and a few streaks of green. I’m interested to see what it looks like spun up. If I run out before the end of the Tour de France (that’s what we spin with) then I will choose another one and share it 🙂

We cooled down a lot today with lots of rain, we needed it. Glad our heat wave is over for a little bit.

FOs and Better Late than Never

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

I finished the latest of the Hats for Warmth project. I liked the colors, hope it will keep someone warm next winter. I really like the cotton yarn I got at Hobby Lobby, I love this Cotton. It’s very soft and this was the 2nd wash cloth I got from it with some left over, tho I’m pretty sure I’d lose a game of yarn chicken if I started another, time to buy some more :P. This is the Granny’s Favorite dish cloth pattern, you can tell it’s a diagonal knit with the stripes. I’m going to start, some time this week, the 2nd bobbin of my multi color tweed spin. Still not sure if I want to chain ply each bobbin separately to keep the colors separate and have two half skeins or just go ahead and do a fractal ply. That’s me, last min decisions!

I try to have a picture of the Robbins when they first come back for spring. But they are not helpful in that aspect. I saw the first one about 6 weeks ago but they were only out where I could see them when I was driving and that wasn’t helpful. I was parked at the drs office earlier this week and lo and behold one where I could get a picture!!! He was running back and forth staking out his territory. I don’t get them every year because they are not always worried about rather I can get their picture or not lol. I have a feeling the males out there looking now probably missed the boat on a companion this year :(.

I forgot to get pictures when I was out at the farm :(, but I will try hard to remember to do that this next week. In the mean time here is one they took at the farm. I am calling the alpacas the motley crew right now because they are in need of sheering, which happens next month lol, then they will look more dignified and a lot thinner, their fleece is very thick. Can you find Libby? She’s only about 7 months old and already the size of the adult alpaca. They changed the llama’s name from Belle to Libby because my son has an African grey parrot named Belle (who is a character). Libby’s registered (call) name is When Liberty Rings. Libby the Llama has a ring to it, lol. She is friendly, no fear and sweet.

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!