the Akamai Knitter

Last year, my dear friend Megan gifted me with the most beautiful batt.

I don’t have much experience with batts, so I let it marinate in my stash. Then the Tour de Fleece (Ravelry link) came around and I started corespinning.

It occurred to me that this batt would make a pretty nifty corespun yarn. So I set to it on Day 5 of the Tour.

It was a pleasure to spin and all the more special because such a close friend gave me the fiber.  I really like how the Romney/Cotswold blend grabbed the crochet thread as I spun.

The finished yarn has 52 yards in the skein and weighs approximately 2 ounces.

Today is Day 12 of the Tour and I’m still spinning, spinning, spinning. I have more art yarn on the wheel, but nothing is ready for show and tell. I have a stock pile of vanilla yarn that I finished up before the Tour but nothing is ready for show and tell there either.

Between the Tour and the custom orders I’ve been trying to keep up with I’m also woefully behind my blog reading. So I’m publicly apologizing to all my friends! I swear I’ll get my act together soon.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m taking a jewelry class with one of my favorite people. I’m really looking forward to it. Then on Friday, it’s shopping with blogless Dayna. Last weekend, there was a going away party and a luncheon from which I’m only now recovering from. I’m not really sure, but I think this constitutes “having a life”.

o.O

When that happened, I have no idea. I’m much more used to the idea of myself hermitting in my home and venturing out maybe once a week to knit night.

Sammy just can’t bear all this time away from me, as you can see.

Plfft. Likely story.

Happy Wednesday, people! Thanks for putting up with me. ;-)

Awhile ago I bought the most gorgeous Merino/Tencel  fiber from “Hungry From Handspun“.

gakked from "hungry for handspun"

I bought this back in September of last  year and I had no idea how I was going to spin it and do it justice. In the end, I decided to do beehives. (I’m still not sure I did the fiber justice.)

With much help from Megan, I was able to produce this.

Basically a beehive yarn is a thick and thin single plied with thread. The thick parts of the single is then coiled to produce the beehive!

See?

It was incredibly fun to make and I already have the other two ounces on the wheel.

Only now I’m thinking I need to get the Jumbo Plying Flyer or the Wild Flyer for the  Suzie since I’m spinning such bulky yarns. Those beehives were really hard to push through my wheel’s flyer hook!

Of course there’s the small monetary issue.

/sigh

I’ll just add that to the list. The list that includes a better rock tumbler (for polishing wire jewelry), a steel bracelet mandrel, and a better camera. ;-)

In the meantime, I’ll be glaring at the perfectly blue skies with the perfect little clouds while wishing for rain. We surely need it.

Happy Saturday, peoples! And yes, I’ve been spinning every day!

My brain isn’t functioning today. Carrie K asked what was wrong with my blog earlier this morning and it just kind of  rolled over my head. It wasn’t until Cookie’s email started bouncing that I eventually found out my domains had expired.

And that’s only part of my morning.

Bottom line? This post has little chance of being coherent.

So I shall regale you with photos of what I’ve been doing for the Tour de Fleece(Ravelry link).

Here’s the rest of the Corriedale I dyed and spun into coils on Day One.

What a mess! It looks much neater the closer you get.

Day Two of the Tour had me doing even more coils. Only this time I used the Good Stuff.

photo yanked from moonlightbaker's shop

I finished with the coilies with some time to spare on Day Two. So I decided to practice some corespun in preparation for Day Three.

I prepped the fiber, which is some mysterious mohair blend I picked up at MDSW back in 2008. Maybe Patrick or Roseann can help me out with the vendor’s name since they instigated the purchase.  o.O

Corespun kicked my ass. It was only thanks to Jen’s awesome video(scroll down) that I finally got the drafting down. (Special thanks to Megan for holding my hand as I alternately swore a bluestreak then cried in my coffee.)

Here’s my first successful attempt at it.

It’s not a pretty yarn, but it’s corespun and it’s what I was aiming for. Uh-huh. That’s right. Exactly what I was aiming for.

/ahem

I’ll be working on more of it today. Hopefully it’ll be finished today too as I’d like to go back to some simple vanilla yarns.

Did I burn your eyes out?

Here’s a cat to soothe them. Only I think I disturbed Sammy with all the cussin’ I did when I was trying out corespinning the first time around.

Happy Tuesday, people!

In preparation for the Tour De Fleece (Ravel it!), which starts tomorrow, I’ve been getting some spinning projects out of the way. I managed to get two of them done and they’re out on the lanai drying.

I still have a 3-ply to actually ply, but I’m hoping to get that done today. *fingers crossed*

Since the plan is to produce some art yarn for the Tour, I thought I’d practice some coiling techniques yesterday. This is what I came up with.

I’m not sure I like the finished product, but I had a lot of fun making it. What you can’t see is the spots where the crochet threads is showing.  Nor can you see the knots where I had to tie the crochet thread together because I held it so tightly it snapped.

So I’m going to try and practice a little bit more today and see if I can adjust my tension.  Again… *fingers crossed*

With all this spinning going on, it should have been no surprise to have gotten what I got in the mail yesterday. But it really was a big surprise.

It all started when I bought a green opal spindle from Zebisis Designs. Unfortunately, when Maiysha was testing the spindle the whorl broke.  The sad part of this story  is that she didn’t have any more green opal whorls nor could she get a hold of any more.  I was sorely disappointed.  :(

But! Maiysha went above and beyond the call of excellent customer service. Not only did she refund my money, she also asked me to pick out whatever I wanted in her shop free of charge. I picked a spindle and much time has passed since.

Then it arrived yesterday with a note that said “I didn’t forget!”

Not only did she send me that gorgeous blue agate spindle, she also sent me that lovely tussah silk! Now that’s customer service for ya.

Thank you, Maiysha. You’re a gem!

Also, I’m having a sale over at my Artfire shop. Everything there is 30% off. You don’t need to sign up for an account there, you can just dive in and have at it.  Here’s a sampling of what  you can find there!

Finally, I think Scheyer is a little tense about the possible firecrackers about to be set by my yahoo neighbors over the weekend.  He sure doesn’t look very happy.

Happy Friday, people! Be safe this weekend. :)