Monday, February 16, 2015

Berry Crush Socks

I recently saw a picture on Instagram of Annettle's Graquellow Socks and loved the texture. I was so inspired I grabbed some yarn I had recently dyed and casted on.

My version is garter stitch between slipped stitches and love how it is turning out. This color is one I recently dyed as a variegated and I love it, but it is difficult to photograph.
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It's between the picture above and the picture below.
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Love the texture.
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The last socks I knit myself were in 2013, before that 2011, so I think I am due a pair of hand knit socks! :)
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Are we noticing a recent pink and purple theme? Yeah, I don't know where it is coming from either, but I am very oddly enjoying it, so we will just go with the flow.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Spinning Experiment

So with my Valentine yarn I am plying-on-the-fly, which utilizes chain plying to create a 3-ply yarn. I like to spin thin and was a little disappointed with how thin my 3-ply was, a heavy lace/light fingering. I was given the idea that when plying on the fly I could do it twice and create a 9-ply by chain plying the yarn I had just chain plied.

Here are the two skeins next to each other. I did a smallish sample of the 9-ply, but large enough I could get a good feeling of how it would turn out.
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I decided not to do it all 9-ply as that is just a little too thick for me. It's a bit thicker than worsted, by eyeballing it, which will probably grow after it's been washed.
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Here is a better comparison.  The 9-ply is wonderfully squishy though!
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Started spinning the rest of it, going to stick with the 3-ply to finish it up.
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When I start my next fiber I want to experiment with plying-on-the-fly to see what I can get. I think it might be possible to get a 5-ply by double looping, but I'll need to experiment. If I can get a 5-ply/6-ply that would be ideal.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Valentines Spinning

I realized today that I haven't posted any of my Valentine's spinning yet. I have been working on it through January.

Here it was at the start, I am doing plying on the fly, so I spin up a certain amount of singles, wind them on the shaft, ply them, and then wind them on the arms.
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Here you can see the ball of yarn wrapped around the arms is the plied yarn and the singles wrapped around the shaft.
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I am usually not a pink person, but I have been quite addicted to this colorway.
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Here is where I am so far. I'm trying to spin the whole 4oz on my Turkish spindle. It is the Large in the sleeker design from Threadsthrutime.
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The fiber is Victoria from Greenwood Fiberworks in Polwarth, which is lovely to spin. I absolutely love their fibers.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Belated Wookie Birthday!

With all the doggy check-ups and court dates we forgot to mention that Wookie turned 5 on Wednesday!


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