Holiday knitting and spinning

We went for an early Christmas holiday this year to the west coast. My husband's family lives in BC and Oregon. We had a lovely visit. :)

I saw some beautiful scenery:


And there was yarn and fibre:

(Merino Silk top and handyed sock yarn by Alexandra's Crafts)


(Superwash Merino Top from my niece! She knows me well ;)


And then I met the woman who is partly responsible for my spindle addiction:


This is Wanda Jenkins of Jenkins Woodworking. Her husband makes turkish spindles, of which I have 5. We had a lovely time! Thanks Wanda!

I also managed to finish gifts for my dad and brother (photos to come).

And finish my Laminaria Shawlette. LOVE it. :)

Wool socks

I love my wool socks, and now that winter is here, my hand knit socks are getting a lot of wear. If you buy sock yarn from a store, it usually contains 75% wool, and 25% nylon. The nylon is there to increase the durability of the socks. It's very effective and none of the socks I've made from sock yarn have worn through.

I did, however, make a couple of pairs of socks out of pure wool. They are a little thicker, and a really cushy and warm. I'm a fan of natural fibers and I'm especially fond of my all wool socks. But last spring, I noticed that one sock of each of the two pairs has a hole in the foot.


This one is a sock I made from sheeples yarm. Sadness! Unfortunately I'm not one for mending/darning. I remember at some point hearing about a work-around (though I don't remember where) and I thought it was worth a try.

First, I found some roving that matched my sock (it works with yarn too). Then I dug out my needlefelting tool (with sharp, barbed needles!).


The felting tool has a brush to lay the fabric over and poke the needles into. So I pulled my sock onto it.


Then I laid the roving over the hole and needlefelted it in place. I put several layers over the whole and made sure it was well secured.



Tada! Socks fixed!!! :)




So much easier than darning! And the roving matches so well, you can bare tell (look at the ball of my foot, you can see the patch).

In other news I've been doing some spinning...


Corriedale pencil roving on a holly Jay


Merino top on my myrtlewood standard turkish.


Targhee on my maple Turkish Delight. Very sproingy fibre.


Qiviut on a russian (bottom left) and baby camel/merino on a tibetan (top left). mmmmmm... I am true loving supported spindling.

Ok... now back to schoolwork....

Where did summer go?

There's a chill in the air and autumn is here. September went by in a blur and it's already the middle of October.

I spent September travelling. I went to Northern Manitoba on a field course. It was pretty cold by the Hudson's Bay...


(My spinning and knitting came along of course).


And then I went to Nova Scotia for a conference. That was pretty awesome.


The best part was that I ran into some spinners at a farmers market in Wolfville. They worked on the nearby Gaspereau Valley Farm. I pulled out my spindle and spun with them because it just happened to be WW Spin in Public Day (and because it was just fun!).

They even gave me some Cotswold locks to take home.


As autumn settles in, my thoughts turn to warmth. I had a bunch of samples of fibre that I'd gotten with my spindles and from Sheeples. I didn't have very much of each but I decided to make something, a bag, I thought.


But as I knit I realized that what I had looked more like a hat. And so it was.


All my own handspun :)

This weekend I went to my spinning group (I missed the September meeting). I had a wonderful time as usual. I was telling a story about how I had touched Qiviut (musk ox down, very expensive and soft) when I was in Churchill. All of the sudden, the hostess disappears and returns with a garbage bag full of Qiviut. And then she gives out handfuls! (Someone had given her 2lbs!) I just about died of happiness!


I immediately got out my russian spindle and the fluff practically spun itself! Wow...

Camping!

You know what I love about knitting and spindling?


It's portable. So I can take my knitting and my spinning on camping trip!! :)

This weekend hubby and I went camping with out good friends, Michael and Esther.


Esther is also a knitter.


She decided that the cast iron frying pan needed a cozy. I agreed.


I spun at the campsite.


And also at the beach in the afternoon.




There may also have been some smores made from giant marshmallows....


What a fun weekend!

Two bags full

Todd and Christine Burton from Burton Alpacas were kind enough to invite me to help them shear 10 of their 60 alpacas today. It was such a fun experience!


Some of their females were already sheared last week.


We sheared some of the boys today. This guy's name is leo. He had quite the messy hair-do.

Before:

After:

Bet you didn't know that alpacas are ticklish? Yup, and because of that some of the big boys required several people to hold them down, even though they are tied to the table.


We started by shearing some white boys and they had lovely fine fleece (even though the Burtons consider them "fibre males" meaning they don't use them for breeding).


Still... very luscious!

We also sheared some brown boys, with coarser fibre but lots of personality!


And in the end I cam away with two big bags of fibre... beige and chocolate brown. This is my first raw fleece and I'm so excited. More on that later though!!

Kool-aid fun :)

I needed to have a little fun this week and I had this yarn in my stash that was calling me. It was creamy white alpaca lace weight and I have been dream about dyeing it with kool-aid since I got it at Christmas time.

Yesterday I tested out some Kool-aid colours, to see which combo would give me the best raspberry red.

I used different combinations of strawberry, grape and cherry.


(the darker one in the top right had all colours plus extra grape)

Combining all three in a 1:1:1 ratio gave me a very rich colour, so that's what I went with.


I then bought four packets of each flavour, and started out with a dye bath of half of them. But first I soaked the alpaca overnight in water with a little bit of dishsoap. I was told this would help the dye penetrate.



I then put it in the microwave and heated it in two minute intervals. I then let the bowl sit on the counter until the water went clear.



I ended up adding more dye, twice, as the dye bath exhausted, because the yarn wasn't quite as dark as I wanted. Eventually I got a colour that was pretty close to what I wanted. It's slightly orangey, but the colour is very rich and it has lovely tonal qualities that change in different light. All in all, I'm happy with the result! :)

Now the question is, what should I make with it? Maybe Cascata or Abrazo? Or the larger version of Pine and Ivy? What do you think?