Spindlicity

While I was waiting

I'm in a holding pattern waiting for something.  I didn't really want to start a new spinning project, but I also didn't want to not work on my spinning stash, so I decided to work on my handspun yarn stash.

In addition to all that fiber waiting to be spun, I have a lot of handspun yarn waiting to become something.  Some of this yarn goes back to 1993 or thereabouts!  In my earlier days of spinning I often made small skeins of yarn that aren't really enough to make something out of, so I decided to combine some of those skeins, knit them up and get them out into the world. (Oh, who am I kidding?  I still make small skeins sometimes, but I'm working on that)

There were a lot of different colors and different fibers in the pile, but I managed to find some that I thought would go well together. Combining seemed like it would be tricky, but, in reality, I had a lot of skeins of the same grist.  My favorite grist I guess.  I made a few project bags, chose one and started.

I started off with the hot pink/pink/brown batch and decided on a little bit of stranded colorwork.  The brown is an experimental blend of a beautiful gray/brown lincoln x finn fleece I bought many years ago at OFFF and copper and silver angelina for sparkle.  The yarn is actually quite nice and sparkles in a subtle way, but I only have the one skein of it.  The hot pink is a cormo/silk blend and is leftovers from a "because of love" beret that I knit for myself and love to wear.  The medium pink is BFL and is from the original "because of love" beret.  With all that beret DNA in there, I figured this batch of yarn should become a beret too!  A nice, girly, beret.

And then, because I still had some leftover I decided to make a pair of mitts to go with it.

Perfect!  Stash busting, and holiday gifting all in one fell swoop.  When I get these off the needles I'll write up the pattern.

And what am I waiting for?  I got word from Morgaine at Carolina Homespun, that my new wheel is finally in!  She shipped it off to me right before Thanksgiving, which means it's supposed to arrive today... I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope.....

Spindlicity Stashdown 2011

Well,  I spent a lovely weekend spinning up the red Romeldale fiber and made quite a dent.  This is about 25.3 oz (719 g) (a little over 1.5 pounds) and 1046 yds (957 m) of yarn.  At 3 plies, that's a lot of spinning!  I'm still not done yet, I predict I have a little less than a pound left of this fiber and I plan to spin it all up.  I've decided to postpone the official opening of the Stashdown.  I realize the holidays are coming up and I may have been a little zealous and ambitious when the idea came to me, so I think I'll officially start Project Spindlicity Stashdown 2011 on Jan 1st.  If you're interested in spinning your stash down too, just take Nov and Dec to put together 12 packets of fiber and join me on Jan 1st to start our year of spinning and using up our stash. 

My project until then will be the red Romeldale.  Here's what I've spun so far.  It's a 3-ply spun semi woolen and I think it's going to be perfect for my planned project which is a sweater.  I think the next step is to begin designing!

 In case you'd like a button for your blog I've created one here.

 

Inspired by Stephanie Pearl McPhee

I recently went on a spinning retreat with my local spinning group.  As I was packing I began rummaging through the stash, trying to decide what tempting spinning project to take.  And that's when it hit me.  I haven't spun in a long time.  A very long time.  There might have been dinosaurs roaming around the last time I spun.  And then an avalanche fell off the top shelf onto my head and I had another revelation... I have a lot of fiber waiting to be spun.  So much, in fact, that it's getting precarious in my fiber room. 

So I got inspired by Stephanie Pearl McPhee's self imposed sock club idea and decided to create my own fiber club.  The idea is that I will make up 14 different packets of fiber that have fully marinated on the shelves in my fiber room.  Each one will have enough fiber to make a project and will have a project idea attached.  A few of them are already begun, most are brand new projects.  Then, each month I will choose one of these packets and by golly I will actually sit down and spin!  Why 14 packets and not 12?  Because I am starting now, in November and going through December 2011.  By the end of the year I should have spun down some of this stash, gotten some beautiful, unique yarn out of it, and hopefully started a project or two from handspun.

My first project, chosen not so randomly, is the beautiful red Romeldale wool that I blogged about here.  I chose this one first because it was hogging up so much room in the fiber shelves and I didn't want to shove it back in there, so doing it first will free up a bit more space.  Plus, that red is just really, really pretty.

Here, in no particular order, are the other projects I plan to complete. 

alpaca/silk - approx 8 oz

wool/silver (superwash?) approx 8 oz

BFL/kid mohair 12 oz

superwash BFL 8 oz

Cashmere/silk - 6 oz

shetland/angora - 4 oz

cormo - 8 oz

pygora/merino and black diamond - 4 oz

cormo/alpaca - 4 oz

polwarth

cormo/merino and superfine merino

paco-vicuna - 2 oz

merino/viscose rayon

mystery superfine luxury batt - 4 oz

superfine merino/silk - 8 oz

merino/silk and merino/yak - 6 oz

Got stash?  Need space?  Love yarn?  Join along and we can spin down our stash together!