A dose of fiber, finally!

Last night I had my penultimate spinning class. It has been so nice to have a night "on the town" every week for the last 5 weeks. I'm hoping to go to the knitting clinic in the next room at least occasionally, but it starts earlier so it will be tougher to be home for dinner (but easier to be home for bedtime).

We dyed yarn last night. My fingernails are purple. I had even thought about brining rubber gloves and then forgot. Ah well. I dyed the white blue-faced leiscter/rambouillet cross carded with a little white mohair in a rainbow. It came out nice--a little pastel, but good. I think I've figured out that the mordant you use affects the brightness of the colors. This was mordanted with vinegar, and I think if we'd used something a little more toxic, LOL, it would have been brighter. Not that it isn't nice--it is--but it's just not super-bright and rich. I'm definitely happy with it. I also overdyed some light-brown rambouillet. That was less successful. The red came out pretty nice--a sort of deep maroon--but the rest of it wasn't so great. It probably would have done better in an immersion bath--we painted the dye on. I'm also really interested in dyeing roving, but we didn't have a chance to do that. I don't have a lot of white wool right now, so I think I'm going to have to wait a while to do a lot of dyeing. That's okay, I have too many projects on deck anyway.

So, I'm working on the back of the shapely tank now. It's coming along, but I've been neglecting it in favor of spinning. I am a bit worried that I didn't do enough short rows for the bust, but I can always rip back--it's not that much to take out, happily. I'll see once I pin it together, but I suspect I might be doing that.

I'm spinning up some beautiful multicolored pre-dyed combed merino top from Webs. It was gawd-awful expensive, but they gave me a little sample of it and I just had to go in and buy more. I got 5 oz. and I'm almost done spinning it. I spun it all together, and then I'll ply it from the inside and outside of the ball. The plan is to make socks.

I bought 1.75 lbs of "Zeus," which is a Shetland owned by my spinning teacher. I washed it this weekend. It's a nice uniform color--my classmate got the top, which was nice, but then she wanted more and she got some of the sides, etc. like I did, and now she has a bunch of white-gray stuff and a bunch of brown-gray stuff. I'm actually quite happy with my relatively uniform brown-gray stuff. I'm looking forward to carding and spinning it. Well, perhaps not looking forward quite so much to carding it, LOL. I really want a drum carder for my birthday, since I'm buying myself a wheel, LOL. I'm going to use it to make a really pretty cardigan from the Winter 2001/2002 issue of IK.

I am glad they had closed up the shop by the time I noticed the ribbon yarn in the dollar bin at Webs. I may go back and get it tomorrow, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone snapped it up. There's enough for another shapely tank. It would cost $10 for plenty of yarn--it's a cool ribbon. Looked it up: it's Berroco Echo and they have enough for a tank in gray, beige, and red. Hmmmm. Seriously don't need another project. I think I'll go out and get it in gray. That logic will only make sense to other fiber addicts.

Then when my mom was here, she came with me to get more of the merino, and she bought me some soy silk to spin up and make a shawl for her. It's going to be her Xmas present. It's slow going spinning it because it has a very short staple and I'm trying to spin it really thin. I'm going to make the Lillies of the Valley Shawl from Spring 2004 Spin-Off. When, I'm not so sure.

So let's see, active projects:

Self-striping socks for knitting in the car (90% knitted)
Shapely (60% knitted)
Merino socks (90% spun, 0% knitted)
Zeus cardigan (fiber washed; 0% carded, spun, or knitted)
Soy shawl (30% spun, 0% knitted)
Kids mittens from leicster/rambouillet hand-painted yarn (100% spun, 0% knitted)

I also have some seriously languishing UFOs.

Falling cables cardigan in a wine-colored alpaca/wool blend--this is lovely and deserves to be sewn up, which is just about all I have to do! (95% knitted)
Green sensuwool sweater (10% knitted)
Other things I don't care to think about like the kids' sweater that I never finished and now they're too big for it.

So it's not a good time to buy more yarn. Like that's going to stop me, LOL. I also want to make hats or gloves or socks for people at xmas time, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen!

I should figure out how to get those little graphy-doo-dads people have on their blogs. But I think I'll find them depressing after a while, LOL.

OK, just a few more things, and then back to work. I did go shopping at Webs before class--I just didn't see the markdown Echo then. I got this journal so I can start keeping track of my knitting and spinning. I will make things then have no idea what I did and I need to start keeping records. It's very cute.

I also got a ball-winder, which I think will make my life much better. That and the drum carder I dream about, LOL.

OK, I'm going to post some cute kiddy pics and then back to work.