the Akamai Knitter

Yesterday I got together with my friend Chiye and taught her how to knit. It went amazingly well. She was a really fast learner and before you know it she was reading stitches and zooming along.

Unfortunately I was a really bad blogger and I failed to get a photo of her doing it. :(

Although it might have been because she blinded me with the pretties. Lookie!

That beautifully soft skein is made out of sugar cane! Can you believe it? Sadly, I was too busy fondling the yarn to bother taking down who manufactured it.  Truly, I suck.

To make up for my failings, I’ve got some handspun to share.

First up is a skein that has been marinating forever. I dyed the fiber way back when I was in Pennsylvania. I think I finally finished chain plying the single two or three months ago too.

The stats:

Caribbean Blue

235 yards
18WPI
2.7oz/76.54oz

Corriedale/hand dyed by me

And another one!

The stats:

Elektra!

Corriedale and Silk Throwster’s Waste

145 yards
12 WPI
4.3 oz/121.9g

fiber from Laughing Rat Studios

I’m over spinning my singles so I discounted this skein. It’s hard for me to transition from spinning laceweight to fat singles. My feet want to go go go! With fat singles they need to mellow out and take it slow. I suppose I need to keep practicing and concentrate better.

Anyway, I see Chiye again on Saturday. Hopefully she’ll bring her knitting and hopefully I’ll remember to bring my camera.  So hopefully that will  mean photos of my star pupil and her beautiful knitting. Fingers crossed that my brain doesn’t fail me!

Also, thanks for all the well wishes. I’m feeling much better. I was able to get a lot of knitting done yesterday and my thumb did well. I also seem to be over the flu. In fact I’m so much better Lady Insomnia has returned to plague me.

Things are definitely back to normal.

Yay! :P

Look who else is awake!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Have a good one!

I can’t remember the last time I posted any handspun. These two skeins have been languishing for months. I just hate counting yardage. I probably could get a fancy gadget to count the yards for me, but they’re spendy and I’m just too cheap.

Without further ado.

Fiber Stats:

Strawberries and Chocolate

100% South African Fine
145 yds 14 WPI
3.85 oz 109.15g

fiber credit: “Hungry For Handspun”

colorway: “Cow Cat”

I really love South African Fine. The stuff almost spins itself and it’s so soft. I also love pink and brown together. I just do.

Fiber stats:

Nuclear Purple

100% Targhee
195 yds 14 WPI
4.5 oz 127.57oz

fiber credit: “Hungry For Handspun”

colorway: “Purple Fog”

I love love love this colorway. The purple is electrifying. The Targhee is so soft and so easy to spin. Love I tell you. Love.

Both of these skeins are up for sale over at The Opalescence. As are the umpteen billion stitch markers I made this week. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. It just feels like I made umpteen billion. :P

I’m having a promotion right now. If you buy a skein of yarn, you get a free set of Teeny Markers of my choice. If you buy two sets of regular stitch markers, you get a free set of Teeny Markers.

So now’s the time to shop for last minute gifties for those knitters in your life and to treat yourself. Mmmkay?

On the home front, I tried to get a good photo of the Scheyer. He’d have none of it.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Thanks for stickin’ around.

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. :)