Spinning

I've got a new hobby. It fits nicely with my knitting hobby :) Yup. Spinning.

I ordered a spindle back in September, to see if I can get the hang of spinning on that before I try it on the wheel. I feel like it's more "art" than "science" which is fine with me.


I first started with a small amount of fibre that I had left over from the thrummed booties I made. I went a little nuts and over spun it in places. It's REALLY thick and thin, and the thin spots are really twisted. But it's yarn and it looks pretty :) I think it might be merino because it's super soft and has a short fibre length.


The lovely person who gave me the wheel was thoughtful enough to send a long a whole bunch of super soft black fibre (which I'm guessing is also merino?). I predrafted it and I'm spinning a yarn that is somewhere between a dk and worsted... I think... :)

I'm going to leave at as singles for now... one thing at a time. I'll leave plying for another day! I want to get better at drafting evenly (that's how much yarn you pull out to be spun) so that my plied yarn looks even.


There are so many things that go into spinning. How long the fibre is, how much you draft, how much spin you put in... I think I'm getting the hang of it. As long as I focus on the art, I can just relax and got at my own pace. It's really quite meditative. I certainly enjoy having a little spinning time at the end of a long day of schoolwork.

On another note, I've been doing lots of bus knitting and am getting lots of small projects done!

Man socks for my hubby:


(see the texture?)

and alpaca mittens ready for felting.


I'm loving my alpaca hat so much, I'm going to be sad to give these mittens away. The person getting these mittens is going to have warm hands this winter!!!

Let it snow... let it snow...

Well it appears winter has decided to overtake fall this year. (We had a very warm summer september and now it's snowing.)


Luckily, a box of alpaca yarn from Willowind Alpacas (bless their woolly hearts!) arrived earlier this week. I'm knitting them some hats and I decided to try out my mitten recipe with alpaca instead of wool.


I've heard mixed reviews about alpaca's ability to felt, so I swatched:

It felts beautifully. So soft and dense!
(the yarn is close to sport weight so I'm doubling it. Aren't the natural colours lovely?)


And then I cast on!

I love knitting mittens, and the weather really makes me want to. (Did I mention the snow?!) And these mitts are going to be WARM baby! I tested out my alpaca hat in the blustery weather and it is toasty! (It even does a better job at cutting the wind than some of the other hats I've knit from wool!)

While I'm talking about mittens, last year I knit some mittens for the Mitten Tree at my church (for inner city kids). This year I'm asking around to see if other knitters want to knit some mittens for kids too. I even have a pattern that I put together so if you are in the winnipeg area and would like to knit some mittens, post in the comments or email me: alleyDOTdanielsenATgmailDOTcom and I'll send you the pdf.

Now I think I need a cuppa tea...