the Akamai Knitter

Friday has snuck up on me. I’ve been so busy, the whole week has gone by in a blur.

There has been spinning. Spinning of an unexpected colorway. I’m calling it Spring Bouquet. All I could think of when I was spinning the singles were Easter eggs, but it’s not Easter.

alpaca/silk/merino singles

I normally don’t choose pastels, but I couldn’t resist this blend of fiber. It’s 50% alpaca, 30% silk, and 20% merino by From The Wool Room.  It was heavenly to spin despite the fact that I kept expecting the Easter bunny to jump out and yell “boo!” at every turn of the wheel.

Once I finished with the pastels, I searched for the antithesis of pastels for my next spinning project.

I came up with this.

100% Superwash Merino - Spirit Trail Fiberworks

I feel like I’m diving into the ocean whenever I work on this. I just love these deeply saturated colors.

Deep Sea Diving

It’s also been a great mail week. Since Kris has shown me that she’s got a bigger fiber stash then I do, I’ve decided that I need to catch up with her.

My newest acquisitions from Hungry For Handspun aka the Moonlight Baker.

Water Lilies by Hungry For Handspun

Earth Day by Hungry For Handspun

I don’t think I’ll have a problem catching up with Kris’ stash size. In fact, I might already have done so and more.  But pulling out all my fiber and taking a picture might be too traumatizing, so we might never know.

Another acquisition for the week was a gorgeous sock project bag by Cheeky, my Plurk buddy. She just opened her Etsy store this week and I was her first customer!

I couldn’t resist the hot pink kittehs and I’m really impressed with how well it’s sewn.

new sock project bag

One last thing. I’ve  thrown together a shop blog, so I can blather about what I’m doing for my little endeavor there instead of doing it here. Hopefully I can maintain both blogs without too much trouble.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend. :)

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Last night there was a  meeting of the Aloha Knitters so I finally got some knitting time. I was shocked to realize that the last time I had picked up the needles prior to that was on Saturday! :-o

Despite the chaos of the chatter of twelve different women and meeting Naomi, which was really exciting, I was actually able to finish the knitting of the Nanner Socks.

Pattern: Nanner Socks by Wendy Johnson

Yarn: Shibui Sock in Jonquil

Needles: Size 2.25mm/1US

Started: June 28, 2008

Finished: July 10, 2008

No modifications.

I had so much fun knitting this pattern. It was super easy to memorize making it the perfect project to tote along with me whenever I had errands to do. It was also an adventure as I got to try a couple of new techniques. The first was the Turkish Cast On.  The second was the heel construction.

Usually when I do toe-up socks, I do a plain short-row heel but with this pattern Wendy has you do an actual heel flap. I’m a huge heel flap fan so I was eager to try it, but  I was a little mystified by the heel turn. In fact, I really couldn’t see how it would work out. But I kept plodding on and lo..

… a perfect heel. Wendy is genius.

I think I’m going to try to do this type of heel for all my toe-up socks. Unfortunately I still don’t get how she does it so the math mystifies me. But then math usually mystifies me.

As for the spinning? The spinning continues to consume me.

On Tuesday I started spinning the Superwash Alpaca/Merino fiber Lori sent me. By the end of the day I had finished this much of the bobbin.

I just love the stuff. It’s so soft and buttery. It was like drafting a cloud. I was able to finish it all on Wednesday. I plan on Navajo Plying it sometime today.  Thanks again, Lori.

I also managed to finish the first bobbin of the Corriedale From Hell. Lemme tell ya, I feel quite virtuous about it too.

In celebration of the finished bobbin, I threw this on the wheel.

Berry Pie Filling Merino roving from Moonlight Baker. Good stuff.

Jen sent me this roving to “test spin”. For some reason she wasn’t sure if her roving was good enough for general consumption. I have to say it’s plenty good enough. It’s 80 count Merino and it’s another buttery soft roving that I wish to eat.

Gratuitous close-up shot.

I have a graduation party to go to tomorrow night. I hear the place doesn’t have adequate air-conditioning and I’m having second thoughts about going. Only the food will be really good. And of course the people. The people I will love.  I think. I tend to hate people when it’s humid and I’m sweaty. Is the food and people worth sweating for?

Have a good weekend everyone! Stay cool. ;-)

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I was out of commission for a few days this week because I am stupid and didn’t check the label of a wine bottle carefully enough for the sulfates warning. I only had half a glass but I ended up with a really nasty reaction. Lemme tell ya, being doped up on Benadryl really messed up my mojo. I still managed to get a few things done though.

I’m up to the gussets of my second Nanners socks. I’ve decided not to bore you with pictures of the sock though. After awhile, pictures of the same over and over again just get monotonous.

I also finished plying  a couple of 3-ply yarns. I’m calling the first Burnt Sienna. I dyed the roving with Shelly back when I was in Pennsylvania. I love seeing the transformation from roving to finished yarn.

Here’s the roving.

And here’s the yarn.

The second yarn was spun from roving I purchased from MDSW. The name of the colorway is Cherry Blossom and  was dyed by Gale’s Art.

Once again, here’s the roving.

And here’s the finished yarn.

The first yarn surprised me quite a bit with the way it spun up. Somehow I expected more color separation.  Instead there’s more of a blended heathered effect. (Wow, I hope that makes sense.)

The second yarn was a little more predictable, as you can see the colors that were in the roving are noticeably in the finished yarn.  There’s no mistaking that this yarn was spun from that fiber.

One of the main reasons I’m so in love with spinning these days is the rather unexpected results I get when I spin up hand-painted rovings. It’s also why I love doing 3-plies so much. I wonder if I were a better spinner, would the results be so surprising? If so, perhaps ignorance is bliss.

To the American readers out there, Happy Independance Day! To the rest of you, happy Friday! Have a great weekend everybody and thanks for reading. :-)

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I surprised myself this week when I realized that I now have three new skeins of handspun yarn to show off. It seems that once I admitted to having a problem with the plurking, I was able to step away from the keyboard long enough to get some spinning done. Not only that, but living 6 hours behind the East Coast means I go to bed much later then most folks. So when my plurky friends are in dreamland I often find the time to get even more done.

The first skein is Blue Faced Leicester that was a gift from my generous friend Naomi.  The tag on the braid only had fiber content. I have no idea who dyed it.

The second skein is a Merino from The Yarn Wench in the colorway Hearth.

The final skein is some mystery wool that was also a gift from Naomi.

All of these are 3-ply yarns and are most likely going to be knit up into socks.

Speaking of socks, Summer of Socks begins tomorrow and I’m such a doofus. I still have two pairs of socks on the needles. There’s no way I can kick off the KAL with a new pair. Well, I could start a third pair but that would be bad. My aim is to finish projects this summer. Not create more UFO’s.

Only my knitting mojo seems to have left me. Not helpful. Not at all helpful. If you see it, please tell it to return home.

The spinning mojo is another story. I have been diligently spindling for at least ten minutes each day thanks to the support of my good friend loribird. We take spinning breaks from plurk together just to spin.

I’ve also been practicing spinning on a wheel and plurking at the same time. I figure if Wendy can knit and plurk, I should be able to spin and plurk.

Those who plurk together, spin/knit together. Good times.

Happy Friday you all! Have a good weekend!

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One of my goals for going to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival was to test drive as many wheels as possible. I was on a mission for a second spinning wheel.

I tried two Ashfords. I tried the Journey Wheel. I tried the Schacht Ladybug. I tried the Lendrum DT.

In the end I was torn between the last two, the Schacht Ladybug and the Lendrum DT. So I thought listing the pros and cons would be a good idea.

• My two cohorts in crime both own a Lendrum so I would have a good support network in place.
• The Ladybug is so cute!
• The Lendrum is extremely versatile and has a plying head.
• The Ladybug is so cute!
• The Lendrum is a folding wheel making it easy to store. (A definite plus for my small house.)
• The Ladybug is so cute!
• Someone was selling actually her barely used Lendrum locally.

And that’s what clinched it. I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping and I’d actually get a better price then I would if I bought the Lendrum new.

And on Thursday night, I came home with this.

And despite a really messed up right knee, I was up until 2am that night plurking and spinning.

I’m completely in love with this wheel and I think it will serve me well. Don’t get me wrong, I still have much love for my Majacraft Suzie. I’ll just be able to have more projects in the works with an additional wheel at hand.

Later today, I plan on heading over to Aloha Tower where the Aloha Knitters are meeting for WWKIP. That’s if I can manage to tear myself away from the spinning wheel. The only reason I managed to stop and write this post is because I needed to ice my knee. :-P

Here’s a picture of Quincy trying to squeeze himself into a basket. It was quite a sight. Big cat! Tiny basket.

I hope all you knitters managed to KIP a little today. Have a great rest of the weekend!

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