sock knitting

Today was another sock knitting day.  Only a couple more inches to go on my chevron socks.

sketch

A quick little pencil sketch.

cat toy

fiber, bells & felting needles

Tonight I made my cat a couple of ball toys.  They were pretty quick and easy to make.   For each ball I wrapped a jingle bell with wool roving and then needle felted it.  Unfortunately the cat seems to have no interest in playing with them.

bell wrapped with fiber

finished ball

chevron socks

More sock knitting today.  So far I am happy with how the chevron pattern is working on my latest socks.

spinning North Star Alpaca Fiber

   Started spinning the lovely fiber from North Star Alpacas.  It is a total of 4 oz of mixed fibers - alpaca, merino, bamboo, silk and angelina.  So far it is spinning up sweetly.  Right now I am thinking it will end up as a fingering weight cabled 4-ply yarn.

more knitting

Finished up the socks I almost finished yesterday.  And started a new pair.  Self-striping yarn again, this time however I decided to try a single chevron stitch pattern on the top of the foot.  Not sure how that will look.  It might look really good or it might not be very noticeable.

sock knitting

I almost finished my current socks today.  Almost.

plying

I had 3 bobbins with 1/2 oz of fiber each so I decided to try plying then together straight from the bobbins.  Um, that was a bit of a tangled mess.  I think that it could possibly work to ply like that if I could find a way to keep the strands under tension as they were being plied.  In any case, it is now all plied.

plying

Plied up my alpaca/wool - now i just have to give it a bath to set the twist.  It looks like it is a dk/light worsted weight.

sketch

A sketch of an idea that I might pursue as a larger painting.

plying balls

Tonight I wound up the alapca/wool singles that I've been spinning into a couple of 3-strand plying balls.  For the first ball I wound all 3 strands together at once.  The strands kept getting tangled all together as I was winding so for the second ball I tried something a little different.  For the second one, I first wound 2 strands together and then wound the 3rd strand with the first two.  There was a lot less tangling to deal with with the second ball but it ended up taking about the same amount of time since there was a lot more winding to do.

sock knitting

Made some progress on my latest socks.  Once again I am using a self-stripping yarn (Opal by Zwerger Garn), this time in a 4 knit 2 purl rib.  I am finding that I really prefer these self-striping yarns knit up in a very simple pattern.

spinning

Spun up some of the raw wool that I picked and hand carded.  I think that I need to remove the lanolin.  The fiber spun well enough but it was unpleasantly sticky.

plying Shetland

4oz on a Bebe spindle

I finished plying the Shetland that I've been working on.  It is chained 4-ply and is about a fingering weight.

same 4 oz wound onto a niddy noddy

new spindle

 The mailman delivered a new toy today - a little (.75 oz/2" dia.) Golding spindle.  Love how this spindle spins.  I can certainly see how people can end up collecting these things.

carding fiber for spinning

I bought a pair of hand carders last week and tonight I gave them a try.  It took a little while to get the hang of it but by the end of 2 oz of fiber I think the rolags at least looked okay.  Maybe tomorrow I'll give them a real test and try spinning them.

washed fiber (I didn't remove the lanolin)

fiber after being hand picked

fiber pulled on carder

my first (pathetic) rolag

a row of rolags

spinning

Spun up my fourth spindle full of alpaca/wool fiber.  I really like how this fiber is spinning up for me.

knitting socks

Today I made some progress on my current socks.

spinning

Spun some more of the alpaca/wool mix that I've been working on.

spinning

chain-plied

plied and transferred to the niddy noddy

Decided to ply up the the wool/mohair blend fiber that I've been spinning off and on since the beginning of August.  I still have about 4 ounces that needs to be spun but I am beginning to think that maybe it is bad fiber.  Or maybe mohair isn't a good fiber for how I am spinning.  In any case the remaining 4 oz is going into time out.

knitting

Made some progress on my latest socks.

spinning

Shetland 2-ply

Another spinning day - half of my Shetland singles are now 2-plied and I made some progress on the alpaca/wool mix I started on Monday.

alpaca/wool singles

Halloween wreath

I decided to Halloweenisize (yes, I am sure that is a real word) my door wreath .  

To make this I just wrapped wool roving over top of the ribbon that was already on the wreath and pinned some rubber spiders on.  Super easy and, I think, super cute.

spinning

Started spinning the next fiber in my spinning queue - some Moskal Farms aplaca/wool mix fiber that I bought at Old Mill Yarn in Eaton Rapids, Michigan.  So far it is spinning up nicely.

spinning

My Shetland fiber is now all spun up into singles.  Tomorrow I will start to ply it.  I am planning on plying them into 2 sets of 2-ply  and then plying the 2-plies together to make a 4-ply yarn.

sock knitting

The start of pair number 21.  I probably won't make my goal of knitting 30 pairs of socks in 2012 but I should at least get pretty close :)

frozen yogurt

A few months ago I bought a Hamilton Beach soft serve ice cream maker at a Goodwill.  Tonight I decided to give it a try.  I didn't have any cream or half & half but I did have some yogurt so that is what I went with. I also had some coffee creamer that needed using up so I added some of that as well.  Have to say it was right tasty - my husband even went looking for seconds and doesn't even like yogurt.

My frozen yogurt "recipe"

3/4 cup plain whole milk yogurt
1/4 cup baileys coffee creamer - Toffee almond cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons agave syrup

Mix all ingredients well and add 1/2 to pre-frozen ice cream maker bowl.  Securely place lid on bowl and turn on for about 10 minutes.  Repeat with other half of mixture.

acrylic painting (ampersand)

Worked on my acrylic painting today.  I added an ampersand, blocked it off with wax and then added a layer of blue paint around it.  It doesn't look like its quite finished yet.  I think I will need to build up the ampersand a bit.

soy milk

Tonight I made some organic soy milk.  It was actually very easy.  I just dumped soaked soybeans & fresh water into my nifty new soy milk maker and turned it on..... 20 minutes later - fresh soy milk.

knitting

Worked some more on my ribbed socks.

sketch

A 5 minute pencil sketch.