I was gently reminded the other day that it’s been a looooooong time since I’ve had anything to say here. One might be inclined to think I’d just dropped off the face of the earth. Nothing that exciting has happened, I’m afraid. I’ve mostly just been keeping my nose to the grindstone since I came back from Long Beach. I tried to take some pictures this morning to share, but everything turned out as grey and dismal looking as today’s weather. No amount of Photoshopping would rectify the situation. I have, however been

Knitting

In addition to the ever present socks, and sporadic work on BJ Bass’ sweater, I’ve been trying to make progress on this

It’s K1C2′s pattern #1544, the YinYang Bolero out of their Paintbox self-striping wool. Mine’s in a color called Tandoor, which I like very much.  The goal is to have this done by the end of March, when I go to Chicago for a conference.  It is still cold in Chicago in March, isn’t it?

Spinning

Last year I went to a small fiber festival in Murphreesboro, TN and bought quite a few packets of fiber from two women who call themselves The Fiber Den. One of these was an eight ounce batch of Corriedale, dyed in shades of grey, which was a delight to spin. Always looking for a way to kick things up a notch, I spun up some superwash merino I had in the stash that had splashes of acid green, deep purple and black. I thought that the contrast of the green and purple against the black/grey and white would be striking. It would have been had the dye gone beyond the very surface layer of the fiber. The green drafted out to be quite pale, and the purple bits were so small as to completely disappear. Though I now have 630 yards of a lovely 3 ply sport weight yarn, it just doesn’t thrill me like the idea of it did.

I’ve been playing with the drum carder this week, having dyed up a bit of soy silk to blend with… something. I finally found a batch of carded wool that I’d bought at the Little Barn around Christmas time. Don’t know what kind of wool, it doesn’t say. It’s very soft, and dyed a deep teal. I had dyed the soy silk in a variety of pale colors and I’ve added quite a bit of it to the wool. The color in the soy silk is quite lost, but I’m ending up with a nice teal tweed. Maybe the finished yarn will photograph better than the batts did.

Dyeing

This is what I’ve had the most fun at lately. Sock yarn and laceweight merino are my blanks of choice right now. A few of these are still on the shelf at the store, but the majority of them have walked out the day they arrived.

Seeing these skeins of yarn leave the store with new owners has pleased me more than anything.  I’m really enjoying the opportunity to explore color in a new way.

Happy weekend everyone!