If you are heading up to the NH Sheep & Wool Festival this week end, please stop by the Ball and Skein booth and say "hi". I'll be in the Home Arts Building. It is the first building in through the Blue Gate, on the left. There is a cookie vendor outside and the booth next to me is the "Tea Guy". Free tea! What could be better?? Cookies, tea, and yarn.. hmmm..!
In a perfect world, on a perfect day, one would sit in the sun knitting and watching the hummers, all afternoon. So.. I only got in a row or two. The time that I had was pretty near perfect.
It is a fun knit, so far. The Tulips Sweater... in Cotton Ease. It's washable.
So far, only the ruby throated males have shown up. The females are usually a week or so behind.
At last!
All day, I've been checking the feeder. I woke up thinking this was it, that finally, today would be THE day. Last evening I filled and put out a new hummingbird feeder. I left the old one out too, just in case they wouldn't feel comfortable with the shiny new feeder. At 5 pm, it was time to take a break. With a drink in hand and my new IK magazine, I headed out to sit on the deck. Almost immediately, the first male of the season buzzed the feeder.
How about you? Are your feeders out? Check the chart.
Last night was COLD! I kept the heat off in the house and my heated mattress pad on. I'll bet these little buggers wish I'd spent my winter knitting them scarves!
Putting a bit more twist on the 2 ply spindle spun yarn did the trick. It still hung straight the way a balanced plied yarn should. I rewashed it and hung it to dry. The balance stayed put. Onward with my plan! Originally, I wanted to knit Mim's Persephone with it. The cashmere and silk are very soft. Perfect scarf yarn. My sister (you know Linda) agreed to knit Persephone, as it is offered in the kit, with my Arbori so that I could go ahead with my original plan. I'm using the Arbori yarn in the same Purple Haze colorway for my Muir shawl. The handspun and the Purple Haze are fairly similar in color and intensity. I didn't need three projects on the needles in the same colors.
Persephone is a very enjoyable knit. I do need to pay attention. Not so much that I can't watch a movie and knit, but I need to keep the chart close and refer to it each line. ONe repeat down.
second verse
same as the first..
I love this spindle. I showed it to you last October. It is from Ken Ledbetter. To break it in, I decided to spin something special, Foxfires' Cashmere Silk blend. Last Friday evening, on a motel balcony somewhere in Delaware, the last bit was spun. Wednesday, I got around to plying.
When I skeined this, I measured out 446 yards. Impossible! I have spindle spun two different fibers during the past year, on two different spindles and come out with the same yardage. Yeah, both weigh in at approx. 3 oz. I must be on a roll. There were 6 cops of the cashmere / silk to ply. Somewhere, there is another ounce of fiber or more little bundles waiting for me to find them. I bought 4 ounces, not three.
Thing is, I don't like it. Here is the problem. As I spun them I worried that I was putting on too much twist. The single felt hard. But, as I wanted a solid feeling yarn, I kept at it. I thought I'd plied it accordingly. As I plied, I checked it, it twisted back on itself a little bit. Not too much. Maybe plying in daylight would have helped, because I really didn't see this coming. It looks under plied. The skein hung straight when I took it off the bobbin.
It was still straight and apparently balanced after a nice long soak in very warm water, hung over the line without weight and dried. Here's a close-up.
It's going onto the swift to have a little more twist added.
with a Hardy..
I finally decided to take the handful of cops I'd spun and make a 2 ply yarn from the llama / silk that I bought at Cummington last spring. I started spinning this yarn the evening I bought it on my (also new that day) spindle from Bill Hardy. When it was skeined, I measured 440 yards of lace wt. from the 3 ounces I plied.
It got a good bath, then was hung over the clothes line to blow dry.
While I waited for it to dry, this came in the mail. Oh My!
It used to be that knitting books were, umm.. knitting books. A Fine Fleece from Lisa Lloyd is so much more. It is a coffee table book, a reference and instruction manual, and the patterns... wow! This book is a spinner's dream. Every pattern has been written for use with handspun or a commercial yarn.
50% llama / 50% silk from Barnswallow Farms
440 yards 3 oz.
Spindle: Bill Hardy, olive wood whirl
