Spinning on my Holiday

I have been on holiday, which is why I've been so quiet online.  I went to Cornwall for a week.  We stayed in a self-catering "lodge" on an holiday park.  It was near Lostwithiel and quite close to the Eden Project.  We managed three days out, of the 7 we were there, because I had to rest up on the in-between days.  It worked out quite well in terms of weather, and the days we went out were really nice and the days I rested were a bit wet.  Here is my favourite photo from the week:

This was a really quiet little beach, just North of Newquay, at a place called Watergate Bay.  Apparently Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall restaurant is on this beach, but I didn't see it until after we were leaving the car park.

Of course, we went to the Eden Project.  I love that place.

I won't inflict any more holiday photos on you, but if you are interested, here is the link to the rest of the album.

Whilst I was on holiday I did some knitting and some spinning.  Spinning, in particular, is perfect for a lazy holiday.  You can disengage your brain and just twirl your fibres.  I'll talk about the knitting later in the week.  Today I thought I'd talk about the spinning, simply because Sarah from Crafts From the Cwtch is doing a Spinning Show & Tell  feature as a regular event on a Tuesday and as she seems to blame me for feeding her spinning addiction, I thought I'd keep showing her more pretties!  I say it is a reciprocal feeding of the spinning bug though ;-)

The fibre I have spun is from EasyKnits.  It is Polwarth/De-Haired Camel blend in the Exterminate colourway.  This colourway is a complete departure, for me, from my usual colours.  I think this is part of what made the spinning so pleasurable.  The other thing \I enjoyed was the fibre itself.  It is such fluffy fibre.  I really need to learn more about spinning terms so I can describe what I mean by "fluffy".

As this fibre felt so plump I decided that I wasn't going to fight it's nature and try and spin a skinny lace weight yarn.  I divided the fibre in two and then each of those sections into three, using a scale.  I then spun each of the six sections into quite fat plies and then plied two sets of 3-ply yarn.

After a good soak and a solid thwack, I have approximately 140m of fibre.  I really wish I knew how to get an accurate measurement of the gauge of the fibre.  I suspect it's an aran weight.  I have heard about spinning apps that help you work out gauge.  If anyone knows what one is called, I'd love to know.

Here is the yarn I've ended up with.

And a close up, so you can see the plump and fluffy plies.

I am so pleased with this yarn.  It's incredibly warm and soft.  Initially I was going to use the yarn to make a Rebecca Danger monster, because of the bright and cheerful colours, but now I really want to make an accessory out of it.  I think maybe a hat or a cowl.

after enjoying this Polwarth so much, I bought some more fibre to spin.  I ordered it from Countess Ablaze.  It is so pretty and as it is pure Polwarth I'll get more of an idea of what it is I liked so much about it.

I don't know what to begin playing with next, from my growing fibre stash.  It's a tough call, but I think I should choose something with different fibre content so I can keep on learning what I like to spin and why.  I've subscribed to Spin-Off Magazine from Interweave Knits, so hopefully that will help me as I go forward in my spinning career. I may also invest in a copy of Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook to help understand a bit more.  Hopefully my posts will become more informed over time!

New Podcast Episode

It seems like I have lots of new things to talk about this episode.

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Plotting

Stash Dash 2013 with The Knit Girlls
Swatching for Goldilocks KAL, being run by Lete's Knits

Done and Dusted

BFL Superwash fibre from The Yarn Yard in Beach Colourway.  Blogged about it here.
BFL/Silk from Picperfic spun on Rakestraw/Mayan Spindle from www.handspinner.co.uk. Blogged about it here.
LaLa The Panda by Stacey Trock for my nephew, project is on Ravelry.
Cardigan for my nephew, Beyond Puerperium, by Kelly Brooker, project is on Ravelry.
Drizzle by Mel Ski of Single Handed Knits in Posh Yarn, blogged about here.  Dana from Just One More Row had the same comments about the lace on the crown!
I've created a striped shawl of my own design, I blogged about it here.  It uses some of the yarn from last episode's Splashed Out section

Nose to the Grindstone

I have made no real progress on Dew Drops Shawl, for reasons explained in the Quest for Knowledge Section.
My striped shawl had been my simple project of choice which means the Nuvem has been placed on the backburner for now.
Spinning Polwarth/Camel Fibre from EasyKnits on the Rakestraw.

Trillian by Martina Behm using Deeply Wicked from EasyKnits in Beach Party colourway.

Splashed Out

BFL Superwash (50g x 2) from The Yarn Yard in Blackcurrant.

Fibre and yarn from EasyKnits
Fibre from Hilltop Cloud

100g - Mallard - 62% merino/25% BFL/13% baby alpaca

100g - 70% BFL/30% ramie

Posh Yarn Sadie Lace (100g x 2) - merino 50% and tencel 50% in Unforgiving Minute colourway

BabyLongLegs Radiance Aran (100% wool) in BellaDonna and Semi-Precious Aran (50% silk and 50% superwash merino) in Dolly Blue.

Ordered a Tibetan spindle from IST Crafts.

Toolbox

Rakestraw
Yarn Corset from The Yarn Yard

Quest for Knowledge

KnitCompanion
Supported spindling - discovered via CraftStash.

Here's a video showing how the fabulous Fleegle, uses her Tibetan spindle.



Fleegle is selling an ebook on supported spindling, but it is delivered on a flash drive.  This means not only will I have to pay the price of the book ($30), but the postage ($10), the UK VAT (sales tax @ 20%) and the admin charge to pay the sales tax charged by the post office (at today's exchange rate a cost of $12.26) which gives a total cost to me of $58.26 or £38.01.  I need to think a little more before spending that money, after ordering a Tibetan spindle.  Maybe I'll revisit the idea of the book when I've had a go with my own.

The Online Community

iMake

Stash Dash 2013 with The Knit Girllls

As you might have gathered, I have recently been listening/watching podcasts.  Some of these podcasts have kals and challenges and the first challenge that I have felt like joining in with is from The Knit Girllls.  I love their podcast.  They are a funny couple of friends who live in different parts of the US, and Skype their podcast to each other.  I love the projects they do, the yarn and fibre they use and their humour.  They also get to review lots of interesting things, none of which are based in the UK :-(  However, they are doing a Summer challenge.  Laura, is a teacher and has a Summer break and each year she tries to use up some of her stash, during that break.  The plan is to use up 4,000 yards of yarn, or spin that yardage from fibre.  It started at the end of May and runs until August and I decided that I will try and join in this year.  If you are interested in joining in, the thread is on Ravelry.  I also recommend watching the podcasts, they are well worth your time, if you haven't seen them before.

These next three projects are my initial entries into #stashdash2013.  First up is the yarn that I finished, using the BFL/Silk fibre from Picperfic.  I adore this yarn and I'm really quite proud of it.  It's much more even than my previous skein.

The colours are amazing.  The green and purple together has an oil on water effect to it.  I wouldn't hesitate to buy this colourway again.

I have 399 yards/365 metres of this yarn, which is more than enough for a decent shawlette.  I really want to find a good pattern to show this yarn off properly.  I'm thinking possibly of doing Ginko Crescent, which is a free pattern by Jade Keaney.

Next on my list is the Drizzle Hat.  I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  The yarn is perfect for this sort of pattern, it has lots of spring in it and is nice and plump.  This was my first project knit with sport weight yarn and I really enjoyed it.  The thickness of the yarn as it runs over your fingers is really pleasing, for some reason, or maybe it's just because the yarn was a merino/cashmere/nylon blend!

I chose to do the small size and use a medium amount of slouch.  When I first finished the hat, before blocking, I was wondering if I should have done a larger amount of slounch.  Here is a quick snap I took before blocking.

As you can see from the first picture of the hat, it blocked out to be much more slouchy.  I'm not used to wearing hats with slouch.  I generally go for head hugging styles, but this one was so appealing I knew I wanted to knit it.  The pattern gave good guidelines about how to to block the hat, which ended up being done twice, the first one to even up the stocking stitch part of the hat, and the second to stretch out the lace, without stretching the brim.  I think this might have been where I have gone wrong, blocking hats with slouch or berets, in the past.  I always stretched out the brim too much.  This hat has tonnes of slouch in the back and a nice snug brim.

The lace section on the crown, was my least favourite part of the knit, even though it only lasted a few rounds.  I didn't really enjoy doing K4tog and slip 3, k1 and psso whilst moving small amounts of stitches around the needles.  It was tricky, but I understand why the lace panel was included.  It breaks up the stocking stitch crown and adds interest. It also give more shape to the slouch part at the back of the head, to make it less pointy.

So whilst I didn't enjoy it, I know why it is there and I would do it again, especially as it only lasts a few rounds.

I'm so pleased I won this pattern, thank you Mel Ski and Faith for giving it to me.  I have a lovely hat and I will be happy to try this new type of style more often now.

In accordance with Stash Dash, I decided to use up the rest of my yarn from this skein, so I knit some very simple garter stitch mitts and used up every last scrap of the yarn.

I nearly lost these, after several people at knit night threatened theft after trying them on.  They are lovely and snug as well as being soft and light.

In total I used up another 285 yards/260 metres with these two projects.  This means I have a start to my Stash Dash total of 684 yards, only another 3316 yards to go!  I wonder how close I'll get to the target?