Spinning Friday - June 22, 2018

I haven't done a Spinning Friday update in eons and since I finished up a spin yesterday, I'll count this as perfect timing.

I pulled out a roving I had been gifted in a swap from the Alaska Yarn Company, a 70/30 wool/alpaca blend, pin-drafted roving. The colorway was Silver Blues (a handpaint colorway).  Dyed over the natural gray of the roving, I really liked how the jewel tones were softened and made a bit more subtle.

There were only 3 oz of this, but I divided it evenly.  (Or so I thought - turned out I was actually pretty far off and I lost about a half an ounce when I got to the end of one bobbin while plying).

This is a 2-ply, fingering weight yarn with 200 yards and 2.4 oz in the finished skein.  It is lovely and soft with a nice gentle halo from the alpaca.  I plied it a bit loosely to maintain the drape, and I think, with the limited yardage, it'll likely grow up to be a cowl or something I can wear and still feel the softness of it.  It also nicely fit the "blue" prompt for the June Wonkapalooza craftalong, so I'm counting it for that too!

Sunday Spinning (12/3/2017)

Haven't done a spinning update in quite a while, so I thought it was time to get one posted.  I'm still (wo)manfully working on my stashdown. (More on that momentarily.)

I'm currently spinning up a braid of Finn wool from Bride Flight Studios (I don't think they are any longer in business.  A Google search didn't find anything current anyway.)  This is from a shop update in 2009, and the colorway is Alchemy of the Word.

I decided to spin this up into a fractal spin, so bobbin #1 has multiple thin strips spun up and bobbin #2 has only 5.  I split the braid in half, and then split each half into those thinner long strips before spinning.  All the singles are spun up.

My plan is to get these plied this week and then pick one more stash fiber to spin before the end of the year.

Looking forward to 2018 (which is one of my favorite things about this time of the year - planning ahead for another year), I'm definitely sticking with my stashdown goal.  One of the things I really am going to make myself accomplish is getting all of my current personal stash - both yarn and fiber - to fit in the 3 cubbyhole-type bookshelves that I now have for my office/crafting space.  When we had the floors redone last month, I went through and sorted all the stash, sold some things, and I got most of the stash redistributed into the bins. There are, however, a few larger Rubbermaid containers still lurking in the garage and I would like to get the point in 2018 where all of that stash can get put into my new storage shelving and have it all in one place and nicely organized.

I've got a few -Alongs I'm going to be participating in next year to try to keep me motivated.  I really find I do better at sticking with goals if I have a public forum to be accountable to. I've joined the Blaine Fleece and Fiber Ravelry Group's Spin Your Goal-Along for 2018.  My goal for next year is to spin 5 pounds.  That's 20 four-oz braids or their equivalent and that would be about a braid and a half per month.  I thought that way months like February, which will likely not be very spin-friendly, and months like July with Tour de Fleece, which will be more spin-heavy, could balance each other out.

And if I can accomplish that, it will free up about 2 of these cubbyholes in the current stash set-up.

Stay tuned for more 2018 plans to come this week in knitting and stitching.  I'm on a mission.

Spinning Friday: January 22, 2016

This week, I spun up the Wooly Wonka Fibers January fiber club - Starry Night.  All of the club colorways this year are based on great works of art and January's club is based on Van Gogh's Starry Night painting.

The fiber is 100% Falkland wool, which is a great multi-use fiber, IMHO.  Not as soft as merino, but still plenty soft for most applications, and it does wear a bit better as the staple length is slightly longer.  Here's the roving before I spun it up.

One of the Ravelry groups I'm in (the Spin 16 in 2016 group) has a challenge for January to spin singles, so I decided I'd do that.  I don't spin singles and leave them unplied very often, but I did so for this braid.

I spun up 262 yards/4 oz of a DK-weight yarn that looks like:

I think my plan for the yarn is to work up a pair of loosely knit mittens and then felt them down to fit, to make a nice, densely warm pair of mittens.

I've started my next spin already too - more FatCatKnits club fibers.  This time it's a merino swirl (white and dark wool) from the December club package themed on Scarlett and Rhett.  I've finished the first half of singles and started on the second half which I'm hoping to finish this weekend and then ply the yarn up during the upcoming week.