Friday, May 9, 2008

Fiber Forward

Minnesota fibernistas, this weekend's Sheep and Wool fest in Lake Elmo, MN is almost here. Shepherd's Harvest will make for an exciting (and wet) weekend. I hope to see you there!
(I'll be around Sunday morning just after 12 noon outside of the lunch building for the Ravelry meet-up. Stop by and say hello!)
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Over a month ago I purchased 8.5 oz of superwash merino roving from Crown Mountain Farms in the "Oh Pretty Woman" colorway. Here's what it looked like after I opened up the white package:

CMF does this cool thing when dyeing sock yarn: The roving is continuous, but the dyework is not. One half is always brighter/more intense/darker and the other is lighter/subdued/less intense (depending on colorway). So, here I've split the roving in half per dyework:
After pre-drafting, the roving was spun into singles:
Singles were plied together, and after a little wash gorgeous sock yarn emerged. (These photos were taken early this morning, and color on my screen is not 'true'.)
In total, 8.5 oz spun into 650 yards of fingering weight yarn. I thought this might be a good fit for this Lacy Cable Knee Sock pattern.
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Two months ago my Wednesday night knitting buddy Addie (pictured front and center here) welcomed a baby boy into her family. A group of us (Renee, Deepa, November, Connie, Marge, Jeanne, and I) knit a group project for the little guy. We did not know the gender at the time. It's the Mason Dixon Moderne Baby blanket in Knit Pick's Swish. We had a great deal of discussion over the color combination-- and I was relieved to hear her say, "I love it. It's just my colors." last Wednesday evening.

Since most people give gifts for the new baby, I though the new mom might like something for herself:
Here's a better pic of the handspun. I used Hello Yarn's Wensleydale in an unknown colorway (Strata?). It's approximately worsted weight and 125 yards. Did I mention that Addie really likes green? :)

6 comments:

Criosa said...

how'd you like the wensleydale? I just picked some up last weekend, but haven't played with it much yet.

maybe I'll see you Sunday.

Anonymous said...

Between the weather, the gas prices, and my overflowing stash, I think I won't go to the festival this year. Sigh. But I just can't do mud. :-)

Guinifer said...

Seriously, you make some skillicious handspun (Puck's new word).

Stacey said...

the pretty woman yarn is amazing!!! it looks just like the yarn you'd buy! the color is beautiful. pretty creative how they divide up the roving like that when they dye it

Knitted Gems said...

Thank you so much for this explanation of how to spin hand-dyed wool. I have stayed away from it and stuck to natural colors or monochrome colors because I didn't know how to make the colors blend well once spun.

limedragon :-: Harriet said...

The handspun CMF is pretty!! Hope you had a good time at Shepherd's Harvest. : )