Yarn

Mail Call!

/ LDSVenus / 9 Comments

I follow a yarn dyer Awenyddyarn.com and I had some incoming mail last week. I follow her on youtube (under the Awenyddyarn name) and Patreon and for supporting her on Patreon she sends out a few goodies. I thought these were beautiful! She has beautiful yarn :). What she sent was a pretty stitch marker and progress keeper and a mini skein from one of her magical misfits (skeins that don’t turn out like she expected – they are pretty no matter what she thinks!!)

This coming Saturday is Alpaca Farm Days for all the alpaca farms in my area, lots of people will come out to see the alpacas and my son will have his skirting table out for people to see what he does to the fleeces before sending them off to the fiber mill, and his drum carder will be set out with a demonstration, and I will be spinning alpaca on my Rick Reeves spinning wheel. It’s lots of fun.

Hoping all this rain is at least mostly done! Looks like most of IA is no longer in drought conditions ;), the parks near rivers in my small town have flooded quite a bit. Glad for the cooler weather the 90’s and 100’s were getting old!!

You all take care.

New WIP, New Tee!

/ LDSVenus / 3 Comments

The project is the Brick Work Baby Blanket , it’s a free Ravelry download. Have a new little one due from a friend at Church. It’s too warm for a sweater and sweaters really only fit for a few months so I chose a blanket again, takes longer but I was more in the mood to knit a blanket than a sweater. I chose yellow in the Crafter’s Secret Big Idea 16 ozs 810 Yards. It’s acrylic for easier washing. It should hopefully be plenty, it calls for 700 yards but I’m using the needle it calls for US size 8, 29″ cable, and I would normally, because of the gauge I get with my style of knitting (combined continental) I knit a little loose and generally go down 1 size needle, hope I’m not going to be playing yarn chicken. If I think I am I’ll end it early :P. I’m still on the top border (yeah they are starting on the top border instead of the bottom – tho I can’t think with this pattern it will make any difference which is top and which is bottom) and again this one starts row one on the wrong side of the work, so it won’t confuse me this time!!

I did buy another shirt, I just love these funny shirts (this was a picture on Etsy). Honestly I could cross off the ignore part and it would still work :P. One more shirt and an another pair of jeans and I should be good to go with clothes for a couple of years. The shirt and jeans will be next month’s purchase, clothes are expensive!!

FO (Finished Object for My Non Knitting Friends)

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

This is the pattern for the Messy Bun Hat I chose. I probably got it on Etsy, but I’m sure you can find it on Ravelry as well, I will probably choose a different one next time. It was easy to knit but not quite what I wanted, tho what I wanted would not have shown up well with the very dark chocolate brown (almost black) color. If I knit this again I would chose a 2X2 rib, so it would pull in a little more to be a little bit more snug around the head, (this is a 2X1 rib) and maybe go down a needle size on the head. the red kinda looks like fireflies, except instead of yellow their lights are red :P. Maybe re-dye this with a yellow tied off under the black or dark brown and call the color Fireflies. Sorry, you can’t see where the bun would come out because my mannequin’s head has no hair :P.

Special Order Yarn

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

I special ordered this yarn from Awenydd Yarn and Fiber who also has a YouTube channel. I got it in the mail today and she sent with it a very cute little strawberry progress keeper :). She does some awesome yarn dying and I love her Wild Card Wednesday on her YouTube channel, where she has a random picker program that picks 3 colors at random and she will dye a skein of yarn using those 3 colors. It’s so fun to watch her decide how to use them together. :). I wanted black with the red random dots but her new black dye had issues and it ended up as a deep chocolate brown. She offered to redye a new skein, but I told her to send it anyway because honestly this is beautiful so I told her I wanted to keep it, 🙂 and if my daughter insisted on black yarn I would reorder another skein. She is very easy to work with, I told her she should put that color in her shop!

The hat I am making with it (I will put a picture in when I start the hat) is for my daughter who really wanted just a plain black yarn but I know she loves red so I wanted to have those random red dots in there for a pop of color (you know as a knitter plain black yarn is not as fun to knit :P). If she insists on the black instead of the brown, I will reorder it for her, then I’m keeping the brown for me :). I would just make it for her and say oops, but she wants a messy bun hat for a pony tail for her long hair and I want just a regular closed crown on a hat so I will ask her before knitting the hat for her. Crossing my fingers :).

Storm headed our way this week end, it’s gonna a be a bad one for those above us at first then for those below us and as it heads east. Everyone in it’s path please keep an eye on your local weather, it is covering a wide path with lots of snow above us and some snow for us (about 4 inches they said) and tornados for those east of us, be safe.

Baby Sweater FO

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

I show the sleeves pulled on the top so you could see the cables. When I straighten it out, the yoke sets properly. I used Yarn Bee Warm & Cozy, color Spa. It’s a nice soft yarn but I don’t think it held the cable texture very well. I will probably go back to the “I love This Yarn” for the baby sweaters. I used my Knit Picks 16 inch fixed circular needles size 7 for the body, what was called for in the pattern. I usually use a size down because I knit a little loosely, but since I needed it to be a 6 months instead of a 3 months size (you know how fast they grow!!), the size up needle worked well. I used my Knitter’s Pride Dreamz, 9″ size 7 for the sleeves and a size 6 for the cuffs. I think next time I’ll go down to a 5 on the cuffs and bottom of the sweater.

Last day of the Year 2025 – an FO Hat and Just Started Hats and a Baby Sweater.

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

I started the baby sweater (in the 1st picture in the light blue, Spa color way) in Yarn Bee Warm & Cozy yarn a few weeks ago, but had to frog it and start again. Been a while since I’ve done the Tin Can Knits Flax sweater pattern. Plus I decided to do a cable on the sleeves instead of the garter stitch. I have the neck done and the stitch markers in to mark off the front, back and sleeves. Just started the increases for the raglan part. I will be working on it soon, it needs to be done in February.

The hats are something I work on during the year for the local homeless shelter and as a bonus they give me a mindless knit when I need to knit but don’t have the brain power to think about complicated patterns. I don’t normally have more than one on my needles at a time, because having too many things going at one time gives me anxiety. But, for some reason, I started 3, sigh. The one in the 1st picture, that is finished, was done with I Love This Yarn, Print in the Mahogany Singe color way, it’s a very nice color. The 2nd one in blue in the 2nd picture is the I Love This Yarn, print color way Blueberry Buckle, which is also a very nice color knit up. The 3rd one I went with Yarn Bee Yarn ID in the color way Thistle (a light lavender). All these yarns I buy at Hobby Lobby on the weeks that they are 30% off (which is every other week) and they are all worsted weight. Hobby Lobby has a nice selection and you can also order them online if you don’t like to go to a store to shop. I’m a tactile person and like to see and handle the yarn before I buy :P. Anyway these should keep me busy for a few weeks. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will start spinning again too.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed New Year!!!

Fall at the Farm and Flatbed Knitted Hats

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

My son has been busy knitting on his flatbed knitting machine. He is having so much fun creating these hats from his fingering alpaca yarn!

I love fall (except that it means winter is coming) for all the colors of the trees. These are two of the trees on my son’s farm. Maples, so pretty. I took these a couple of weeks ago, the leaves have all fallen now. So after Christmas I will be going, “Is it Spring yet?”

A Skein of Alpaca with Red Pulled Sari Silk and some Fair Isle

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

The first picture is a skein of yarn I bought from my son’s farm store, it’s a medium brown alpaca from his male alpaca, Charlie, mixed with 20% red pulled sari silk. It is so pretty! It’s a fingering weight yarn, 200 yds. I might get another one to make sure I have enough for a hat or a pair of fingerless mitts as I like the cuff on the long side, I think they will be so pretty!

The next two pictures are a fair isle pattern my son has knit into hats using his flat bed knitting machine. They are knit flat, I’ll be sewing them up for him because, lol, that’s the part he doesn’t enjoy. He is really enjoying that machine!

Let There be Yarn!

/ LDSVenus / 14 Comments

Was at the farm today, my son and his spouse picked up so much yarn on Friday!! The first two pictures show all the beautiful yarn. The 2 pictures of roving (first picture is so you can see the roving clearly, the bottom picture is to show how much there is) is from a cria from last year named Laya, it is sooo soft. It was so soft the mill couldn’t spin it without it getting neps in it, so she processed it as roving and my son gave it to me, oh my all this soft fiber to spin!!! Her color is light enough that I can dye some of it if I want :).

It was Alpaca Farm Days today at my son’s and his spouse’s farm but I didn’t get to take any pictures, I was busy showing spinning for all the people who came to see the alpacas. The fiber I was spinning is some old stash cria that looks a lot like Laya’s fiber and just as soft :). It was a good day :).

New Cria Named!

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

He has been named….Apollo. He weighed 11 lbs 2 ozs at birth (on the small size) but weighs 12 lbs and 8 ozs now, he’s growing like a weed!! We won’t know his permanent color until he’s sheared next spring, but he is a cutie!

All my son’s yarn, for knitters and crocheters, and roving, for spinners and needle felters, from the past two years of shearing (yeah, there will be quite a bit!) is being picked up this Friday from the fiber mill and should be in his shop on Saturday for Alpaca days at his farm.