My First Year of Handspun

This is 848 of 2-ply, plus a little bitty 20-yard skein of chain-ply.  This was a merino/silk batt called Forest glade, from Corgi hill farm.


Chocolate cherry BFL mini


This fun little thing is a bunch of color samples from Corgi Hill farm, of fibers mostly blended silk samples


This is 214 yards of a light worsted superwash merino called Chocolate wine (plus a little 24 yard chain ply), also from Corgi hill farm.


This is 196 yards of another light worsted superwash merino in Denim.  The chain plying on this went really badly, and I have no idea why.

All total, having a wheel is exactly what I dreamed it would be.  I love it, and I've finished just over 4600 yards on it this year.

Yarn Blocked Hats

Several weeks ago, I really wanted to buy some yarn.  Really, really wanted to buy a sweater's worth of Klickitat and Malabrigo Worsted.  Weeks went by, and things were out of stock, and back ordered, and different lots and it was all ridiculously frustrating.  I was completely yarn blocked.  Somehow, I ended up down at Michael's, coming out with 5 different skeins of Vanna's Choice.  I'm not even kidding.  And I got some great Christmas hats out of it!

A twisted rib (136 yds):

A Koolhaas (107 yds):

And three self-designed hats with garter stitch earflaps and a garter edge (277 yds):


I also got a Noro hat (119 yards) out of the stash-diving part of my frenzy - it matches my Noro striped scarf, but the Little Dude has appropriated it.



Now, it's my birthday today.  So I'm off to buy yarn, my lovelies!

We Three Shawls

There are several days left in 2010 and, thus, only a few days to finish Shawl #10 of 10 shawls in 2010.  You may be surprised at that number, because I still have 3 shawls to show you!

The first is a handspun Madli's shawl which I made for my mom for Christmas.  Since she's one of my mainstay readers (hi mom!) I've been sitting on this one for months now.  It's 530 yards of a Corgi Hill Farm-dyed merino/cashmere braid that I spun for Tour de Fleece.

This is a Peacock Tail and Leaf shawl made of 308 yards Alpaca Cloud in Raspberry Heather.  Also a Christmas present, finally making its blog debut.  This one was a really fast knit - the pattern was fun, but easy to memorize.

The third is a Multnomah, which I finished on the 23rd.  It's still not blocked (maybe I'll get a chance next year!) but Sweet Pea has already adopted it as her own.  

It was a fun conglomeration of all sorts of lace ends from the previous 8 shawls (plus others from last year, and one that didn't quite make the yardage requirements).  It's a total of 1066 yards of 7 different kinds of laceweight (for a breakdown, you can see the project page here).  The color gradations are seen better here:


This pattern hit my sweet spot of stupidity.  It's simple enough to not engage my brain at all, but complicated enough that I couldn't get the feather and fan to line up.  Really.  Didn't happen.  Let's blame it on the cold medicine, shall we?

Shawl #10 is more than halfway done.  Guess what it is?  Another multnomah.  Here's hoping I can get the increases centered.