Spinning

Spinning Purchase and Knitting Update

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

Ok, I hemmed and hawed and decided to buy a set of wool combs from Bam Fiber Works . I got the double row, fine wool combs with a magnetic comb cover. LOL so glad I got those covers, these things look like weapons!!! It came with a bottom that you can clamp to a table and had a nice set up to hold the comb still while you use the other comb to comb through the fiber and align it and and clean it from short cuts and left over vm. I will be washing some of the 2nd cuts from the cria (baby alpaca) fiber I got so I can try it out. Gotta be careful using those, they can do some damage!! These combs are very nice, I will enjoy learning to use them (carefully!!)

On my Look for Happiness Blanket I have the bottom border and 20 patterns done (4 rows to a pattern). This is the medium size and I need to do about 49 total patterns before doing the top border. So almost halfway done. If it doesn’t look like yarn chicken, I might add an extra pattern or so before the doing the top border. I am almost done with the 2nd skein and I have 4 more, so I might be able to make it a little longer, I’ll see where it is when I finish the 3rd skein. I’m hoping to be further along before Tour de Fleece starts on July 5th when the Tour de France begins. We spin on our spinning wheels on the days that the bicyclists ride and have two rest days when they do. We don’t normally spin all day, just however much time we have decided to spin, I’ll probably spin 20 to 30 min a day, it ends on July 27th. Will need to buy a new Tour de Fleece tee shirt this year :).

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer!

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 :(.

Knitting Update and Fiber

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

This blanket looked like a perfect fairly mindless knit with a nice texture for a friend who is expecting. I didn’t ask if she was expecting a boy or girl so I chose yellow, cos yellow is an awesome color and she already had a girl and a boy sweater I had made her for previous little ones. Oh my gosh, this blanket was jinked! I got the bottom border and the plain stockinette stitch area done and started the main design and the stitch count was off. I recounted it several times and then looked at the stitch count according to the instructions. ARRRGGG, I had cast on the stitches for the one size larger than the baby blanket. Frogged it and started again. Got back up to the main design and the starting row was on the wrong side, ARRRGGG again. Only had to tink back one row, the pattern said row 1 was on the wrong side and I had started it on the right side. Ok, I think I’m done with (my) issues now and this is it so far. I think I’m going to have to ask Heavenly Father to bless it before I give it to her :P.

Next picture, this was the braid of fiber I bought, that I mentioned in an earlier post, that was so soft, Merino 18.5 microns (so soft!!!). It has Alpaca, Camel and Mulberry Silk and it’s like holding butter. Can hardly wait to spin this up!! Most Merino you buy is around 23 microns (that’s the fineness of the fiber, the lower the micron the softer), and that is still soft. I partly bought it because I knew all those fibers are amazingly soft and because I loved the colors on the braid.

I need to get back to knitting hats as well, fall is coming fast. They say it’s a La Niña year starting in the fall, so colder fall and winter, I can’t remember if that means more snow or just colder. But the last 2 summers have been sweltering, dang humidity.

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.