I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Passion Flower Hand Painted Roving by Chimera

on the bobbin

laceweight single

laceweight single

The roving was dyed by Chimera on Etsy. <3

And my current WIP: Abby by Amy Singer.

Abby

I’m knitting it up with Malabrigo Lace 100% Baby Merino on US6 Addi Turbos. I am so in love with it. If only Austin weather permitted more time for cowl wearing.

It started as this:

Spring Fling Hand Dyed Roving

And then I spun it up:

spin spin spin

And then it was plied with this:

my DIY tensioned lazy kate

Which all added up to this:

Galang

Galang

Which is now for sale in my Etsy shop! I’m quite proud. Spinning is fun!

The Wheel in Space

Wait, no, wrong wheel.

The Real Wheel in Space ... sort of

I mean, it’s a wheel. And it’s in space (which is a vague term anyway). That first picture may actually be better. Eh well, you get the idea.

I spent most of my weekend sealing and finishing this bad boy (bad girl? I’m not sure about the gender yet). I’ve never done any woodworking before so I’m not sure I did that good of a job. It looks fine, and I love it, but I’m sure someone with half an idea of how to do woodworking could have made it turn out better than I did, seeing as I had no idea. But. I like it.

Kiwi

It’s an Ashford Kiwi, and to be honest I’d never even spun on one before I bought it. I know, I know, bad Emily! But after I oiled it up and started spinning last night I quickly fell in love. It is fantastic, and actually reminds me quite a bit of the Louët Julia I spent most of my time using while practicing at Hill Country Weavers. I spun up some leftover roving from the Spin 101 class I took, and then tried plying it together. Plying actually isn’t that bad, though I see the usefulness of a tensioned lazy kate. The one that came with the wheel isn’t quite cutting it for me. More practice is in order.

As far as naming it … here are the suggestions I’ve gotten so far:
- Tension and Relative Diameter in Spinning
- Samus
- Fortuna
- Rumpelstilzchen

I like the first one because it’s so witty. But I’m not entirely feeling it. I guess I’ll just to spend more time with it and hope a name comes to me magically.

I’d like to personally thank the amazing weather in Austin, TX, for the speediness of the drying of my yarn babies. Here’s how they look all skeined up:

Pomegranate

Colorful

I have about 212 yards of the Pomegranate, and about 90 yards of the random colors yarn. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them yet. But I definitely want to knit them up into something.

I spent another five hours over at HCW spinning, and ended up with about 150 yards of worsted weight yarn. That stuff is outside drying out right now, so I’ll take some pictures tomorrow.

At some point last week I decided that I’d crochet a basket for an Easter present. It’s finally dry and photogenic, so check it out!

Felted Basket

Felted Basket

Felted Basket

Felted Basket

The pattern is loosely based on Red’s Goodie Basket from Uncommon Crochet. I didn’t do as many straight rows, I used a thicker yarn and bigger hook, I didn’t really follow the handle instructions very well, and I felted it. Basically I just used the pattern to figure out the best way to shape the basket. I’m pretty sure I could have gotten less stitch definition out of the felting, but our hot water heater in the house is not very reliable. About once a week one of us will get a hot shower, and then it’ll be lukewarm the rest of the time. I might try felting it again if I can get the washing machine to give me hot water. But for now I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

You know, it’s Spring Break this week at UT-Austin. I should get out and do something, especially when it’s in the 80ºs outside and sunny as all get-out. But I just learned how to spin and I want to practice while I have the chance to. So I went over to Hill Country Weavers and set up shop in Knit Buzz. There are six wheels in there free to use, so I spent six hours today with a Louët Julia (which I am in love with).

I spent the first two hours spinning up the roving I get during Spinning 101, and then decided to branch out and trying something new. I went over to the shop and picked up 4 ounces of a merino/silk blend. It was tricky at first to get it started because it was so smooth! I had to use some scrap roving to get it started, and then I joined the merino/silk blend to the wool roving.

Pomegranate

The colorway of the roving was labeled “Pomegranate” so that’s what I’ll stick with. I tried to get a thin yarn out of it, so I really focused on a fine and tight twist. I may have put in too much twist, but that’s something I’ll get better at with time I think. It gives anywhere from 15 to 20 wraps per inch, which puts it somewhere around sport weight or fingering weight. I skeined it, washed it, and hung it outside to dry. I’ll take some skein pictures once it’s dried up. The color above is a bit off; hopefully some pictures of it dry will be more color accurate.

Now I’m on a hunt for a good deal on a wheel. I’m looking mostly for a Louët, because I’ve worked on three different Louët wheels (Julia, Victoria, and an S10) and I loved them all. Particularly the Julia, but there is no way I’ll ever have $750 to drop on a wheel. I don’t even have $300 to drop on a wheel. If I sell off my video game stuff (which I’ve been contemplating anyway) I might be able to afford a wheel. We’ll see what happens.

This weekend I took the Spinning 101 class at Hill Country Weavers. I now know how to spin. Check it out!

yarn spun on a drop spindle

my second attempt with a drop spindle

After the first class I borrowed a drop spindle and worked at home. I really wanted to spend time working on my drafting, and after about three hours I finally got a good hang of it. Turns out I wasn’t preparing my roving well enough before I started spinning it up.

first attempt with a drop spindle

If you can tell from this picture of my first spinning attempt, this yarn isn’t drafted as well and has big chunks in it.

first attempt on a wheel

This is what I got after spending two hours with a spinning wheel. LOVED IT. I really want one now. This is bad.

close up of wheel-spun yarn

I think you can see in this shot that the thickness of the yarn is a bit more consistent. There are still chunks in there, but it’s not nearly as bad as before.

color carding

After lunch on Day 2 we played around with color carding. The teacher had me spin up her examples, and I did a few of my own. Very very fun.

variegated yarn

I spent the last hour or so spinning up my own concoction … it’s a striping/variegated yarn with dark red, pink, blue, purple, and mint green. I’m trying to figure out something to knit up with it.

I now love spinning and really want my own wheel. I’ve been eying a few on eBay; I really want a Louët. I used the Louët Victoria in class today, though that is way out of my price range. I like the modern look of the Louët wheels a whole lot. We’ll see what happens. For now I’ll just go over to HCW and use the wheels that they have set up at Knit Buzz.