FOs and My Favorite Thing

This is a rather tight squeeze and I think it might be making its way to a smaller baby soon. The striping is weird and the seaming leaves something to be desired. But he can wear it and I made it and I have less little balls of Blue Sky Cotton rolling around in my stash so, kind of a success right? Not an entirely satisfying one I'll admit. I'm not super happy with the weird white panels at the top but I really was trying to get rid of that white. The baby is still cute though.

Maybe once a week I get to do my all time favorite thing which is: sit in the yard with my wheel and a bag of wool and spin straight from the lock. This is romney I got from Homestead. Its nice, its not my absolute favorite wool ever. I have that order being built now-there are some amazing romney fleeces coming my way. I never thought I'd be a romney lover but they've made one out of me. A lot of their romney fleeces are towards the finer end and full of luster. I'm a total sucker for luster lately. I've got some merino and a lot of romney, most of it from one sheep that I have a total crush on now. So, here is what I do with my super special daytime spinning time, I don't have a flick carder so I just use my handcards and charge the lock on there:

Pull it gently through and the waste gets left behind. I put that into a bag for later felting usually.

Then I spin it, sometimes over the fold, but today with an attenuated long draw, straight forward from the lock. Its almost like combed fiber but without all the prep. I feel like spinning this way puts me in touch with the individual fleece and how it wants to be spun. The different parts of the fleece are very distinct and neck fleece is a totally different yarn than another area. The fleece in my bag has a lot of variation in color and texture, each lock is different. Some of these staples were shorter and it was easier to not fold them over my finger.

See, invisible spinning. I guess its tough to see the yarn being made and looks like some invisible force is pulling the fiber out of my fingers, but really there is yarn there.

This isn't today's spinning but it is Homestead romney again, a lamb's fleece from last year. Its small, a sampler skein and its a pity its so difficult to take pictures of darker colored yarns (for me it is anyways) because this is lovely. It is soft! I'm very sensitive to the itch factor and I'd think I'd wear this anywhere but on my neck. I actually cast on for another toddler vest, take two. In the mornings its still chilly enough for a light long shirt and vest. I may just find something else to use at the neck ribbing on the collar.

And I've decided I'm giving myself over completely to ribbed scarves. No more shame. I need absolute mindless knitting, something that can (and has been) ripped out twice in one day and not frustrate me. I need fascinating color or texture and I need fast results. Plus, I wear them, I love the vertical lines, the chunky, squishy texture that the combo of big yarn and 2x2 ribbing make. And I finished some things so I'm just going to own this painfully simple obsession.

Finally, I finished these and gave them away to my mother-in-law. They are some of the first yarns I spun and my first attempt at natural dyeing. I held onto this for a long time. When I began trying to knit with it long ago everything started turning purple, my hands, my needles and my couch! Madder has a purple dyestuff in it and I don't know the exact process to extracting it, I don't think many people do. Apparently, you can just come rub things on my yarn though. So, I knit and fulled these simple boots. During the fulling, which took FOREVER they reddened a bit. Then, the shape of one of them was funny (Mr. Partner thought they would be good in case one foot developed gout.) and I ended up having to cut and seam and then full the seam. During this hand fulling the water turned purple again and dang it, this time I threw in some alum mordanted wool.

Its turning a gentle shade of pink. I didn't heat it or anything, just letting it soak a bit. No purple but I'm still intrigued in this pink.