Tour Time

Yep.....the Tour de Fleece is in full swing again.    Of course I'm back on the Team of Wonder and the best part of the Tour is seeing all the fantastic yarns that are being created.

In my last post, I shared the last of my Yarn Hollow roving that needed to be spun.  My first priority was to get this done to free up my bobbins. 

 

This turned out to be the most colorful, fun yarn I've ever spun. Ssssssh, don't tell my team mates, I am on the Alpaca lovin fiber team after all.  It's Merino Superwash in two colorways,  Spumoni and Bengal Bees, finished yarn is DK and 284 yds.   I absolutely LOVE this yarn

I'm currently spinning some of my Suri/Merino that I dyed a nutmeg color. 

My plan is to spin a 3 ply yarn using these three roving's. 

Notice the use of the word "plan". This is the first time I've ever considered spinning a 3 ply yarn and the first time I've spun so thin.  I figure it will take me the rest of the Tour and beyond to complete.   I'm hoping I can stay the course.

I'm also moving along nicely on my Stripe Study shawl using a skein of the 100% suri lace weight yarn I dyed last week.  I'm pairing it with a purple merino/silk skein of Cascade Heritage fingering weight. 

KellyJ suggested using the different yarn weights and I must admit I was concerned about how it was going to knit up but she's very persuasive.  She said "have I ever steered you wrong".......trust me"!   Once again....she was right.  I'm loving how it's looking.

I've completed five of the 12 rows the pattern calls for.  I have another skein of the purple on hold at Your Local Yarn Shop encase I decide to make it larger cause I'm not sure how using lace and fingering together will affect the size.

So that's my week in review...... just want to leave you with a couple of pics that brought a smile to my face when I got home from work yesterday. 

New addition to pasture, 1995 Buick

Your know your a redneck if......

We don't have lovely green pastures on our farm but more importantly, for our alpacas and goats in this heat, we have shade, lots of beautiful shade.  After hosing down the alpacas, my husband decided to wash our second car and just closed it in the pasture for the night.......safety first.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday

Fiber-licious Fun

Just a quick post as the day has gotten away from me.  Had a great week for dying some yarn.


First up was some lace weight 100% Suri.......

.....next came a blend of brushed Suri and nylon.  I really like using one strand of mohair for plying with my handspun so was thrilled when I found this brushed Suri.  Who needs mohair when you can have Suri......right?  Just kidding, I'm sure there'll still be mohair in my spinning future.

Currently working on 100 % alpaca in fingering...........

On my wheel......the last of my stash from Yarn Hollow.  On the larger bobbin is Merino superwash top in colorway Spumoni.   I'm spinning up 4 oz. of Merino superwash top colorway Bengal Bees.  I think this will make for an interesting combo.

My plan was to have all my bobbins emptied for the start of Tour de Fleece tomorrow.  You know how that goes.....

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend....enjoy the 4th and will see you next week.

Getting ready

Yep.....need to get my self together for this years Tour de Fleece.  Once again I will be on the Team of Wonder.

Last Saturday we had the annual roof sit for The In As Much House at Your Local Yarn Shop.  Tables were rented for $5.00 (that is then donated to the cause) and anyone can sell their "stash" of yarn, material, knitting & crochet books, needles, basically anything they don't want anymore that's related to crafting.  The monies the individuals make is theirs to keep or donate if they choose.

My husband always brings a couple of our alpacas for the day and this year we even had hot dogs sold by Bill's Pizza.  This was our biggest stash sale with 20 tables sold and we collected $1500.00 during the event to donate.  Woot, Woot!

Well, what does this have to do with me getting ready for TdF?  Just leading up to the fiber I purchased at the sale.......did I really need any fiber?........nope, but I just couldn't resist.  Luckily I don't have much time to shop during this event since I'm working.  When I saw some of the bags of fiber that others had purchased, I was surprised at the amount of fiber was there.  Next year I'll have to pay a little more attention.

Their both merino top.......I love, love, love spinning from top.  The Mauve colored one I plan on using with this.........

Merino, silk top I purchased from Lady Peddler.   When I bought this fiber from Jill I was planning on using it for some core spinning for my challenge days.  I have 16 oz of both colors so maybe I'll use half for core spinning and then half plied together.  We'll just have to see what I feel like once I get started.

A couple of week ago I dyed up some of my alpaca roving......

I'm thinking about using the golden merino from the stash sale as a second ply with this.  They are pretty close in color so right now I'm toying with the idea of over dying the merino in some brown/nutmeg tones........what do you all think?

So these are my spinning plans for the TdF.  I wonder if I'll stick to this plan?.......you never know what inspiration I'll get from some of my fellow team mates.

Just wanted to share the finished yarn I was working on in my last post.  The Yarn Hollow, Merino Tussah Silk  and the Finn I purchased from The Spinning Loft.

Merino Tussah Silk colorway "Electric Chai

Finn colorway "You Love Me"

.........350 yds and I love these two colorways together.  Both rovings were wonderful to spin with.  I see more Finn in my spinning future.

  

That's all from me this Fiber Arts Friday.  It's a beautiful day and I have some alpaca yarn that's saying, dye me.....please dye me!....so off to the basement I go.

 

Week Filled with Fiber Fun

Knitting.......

Weekend Shawl

This was a really fun shawl to knit until I got to the bind off.  I used needles 2 sizes larger than I used for the shawl .....took it to Your Local Yarn Shop for blocking and KellyJ said the bind off was to tight and I'd have to redo it.  BIG sigh! 

Put it aside for a while till I could bring myself to work on it again.  I was having such a great week I decided this was the time to tackle the problem.  Still used 2 size larger needles and bound off using the stretchy bind off method I found on Youtube.

It turned out much more relaxed so I thought I was home free.   NOT!  Took it back to the shop yesterday and Kelly said even though it was much better, it was still not loose enough to block the lace out completely.  This time some "strong language" was used instead of the "BIG sigh".

The good news is Kelly is taking pity on me and is going to rip out the bind off and get it back on my needles so I can try once again using a Lucy Neatby bind off technique.  I'm hoping 3rd times charm!.....I'll let you know how it works out.

On a more positive note......yesterday I completed my Color Affection using the Lucy Neatby technique so the bind off is perfect.  Happy face!........now it just needs to be blocked.

Spinning......

Spun  this yarn from roving I purchased from Yarn Hollow......4 oz BFL colorway Spumoni and 4 oz BFL/Tussah Silk colorway Morning Spice.   It turned out to be a very happy skein........196 yds, don't know how many ounces since I didn't take the time to find my scale.

I'm currently spinning some Merino Tussah Silk top in colorway Electric Chai (again from Yarn Hollow) to ply with a bobbin of Fin I purchased at The Spinning Loft.

Big bobbin on left Finn, Electric Chai on wheel

Wow....look how close the two colorways are turning out and I bought them months apart.  I was hoping for some difference between the two so I'm looking forward to seeing how the yarn turns out.  Will the color run be different on the Yarn Hollow or will I end up with a barber pole affect?   Now I need to spin, spin, spin to find the answer to that question.

The weather was so beautiful, I decided to get out the dye pot..........

Dyed up several skeins of my mill spun Suri/Merino yarn in Violet and 8oz. of my Suri/Merino roving in Buttercup.

I've had problem dyeing without felting my Suri/Merino roving but after getting some pointers from a couple of people I decided to give it another try.  When I had the fiber processed I had one side done in white and the other in light fawn.   It certainly looks better than my earlier tries but I'll have to see how it spins before I can judge how well I did this time.

So that's what I got accomplished duirng my fiber filled week........thanks for stopping by.......now I'm off to read about everyone else's fiber week and to start my Whippoorwill shawl.

Quick post from Indiana

Hey everyone......we're down in Needmore Indiana for the Ukulele World Congress where my husband, Jim, can play his uke to his hearts content. 

We usually camp on site but this year we found we had major problems with our truck so we had to leave the camper at home and motel it.  I'm not to sorry about this since last year it was about 90 degrees with 75% humidity.  So far this year it's cold and rainy. 

Last night we ventured out to the field where everything happens.  Jim was able to reconnet with his friend from around the world.....Australia, Alaska, Thiwan, Canada, Bermuda, England, Nova Scotia....what a crazy bunch of uke players.   This is what the sky looked like when we decided to head back to the motel.

Those clouds opened up and the rain came pouring down.....felt so bad for the people in that field who were in tents.  You have to be a hardy soul for this uke weekend.  No electricity, no running water and only porta johns.

Here's my handsome man playing in the lobby of our motel.  He's so happy to be here again despite the weather.

 
Of course I did bring my knitting.   I'm working on finishing up my Color Affection Shawl.  Just completed section 3 so only have 2 inches to knit in the brighter blue color to finish it up.

....hubby chomping at the bit to get out to the field so that's it for me this week.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

No animals were injured.......

That's right....once again no animals were injured during shearing this year.  Although both the shearer and his handler sliced a finger while cutting fighting teeth that had grown back on one of our older boys.

We had amazing weather on Wednesday, just the right amount of help and animals that behaved well.  Who could ask for more.

We started with our white animals..........

then moved up to the darker ones....

Here is a before and after of our one any only Huacaya born from two Suri's.  His name is Dude.....

Look at all that awesome fiber!   Now you see it......

........now you don't. 

This is our youngest, Jimmy Boy, born May 26th, 2012 right before a terrible storm. 

He's such a sweet boy

Beautiful, shiny black fiber....mmmmmm.

Now look how tiny he is!

Happy Girls

Happy Boys

This year we used Easy Alpaca Shearing and had a wonderful experience.  They were helpful, humorous and best of all allowed us to move at our own pace.....slow and steady.  Great Day!

I'll leave you with a picture of my husband's favorite goat.  He was so stressed out with all the alpaca's not being in their proper places, he spent the whole time in his house.  After everyone left, Jim let him out to play.  He loves the leaves on our apple tree.

Lil One

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.  If you get a chance, say Thank You to a veteran.  Although I didn't like the times we were apart, I'm very proud of the 33 years my husband served.

Knitting+Beads=Jewlery

That's what the book Betsy Beads is all about.   When this book arrived at our LYS I knew it had to leave with me.

I used my left over sock yarns for this bracelet. Solid blue 100% alpaca by DROPS but can’t remember what the variegated is.  The I-cords went fairly quickly but it took quite a bit of time to sew together. I used my June Taylor quilting board to hold the I-cords in place while stitching.

Loved how the blue alpaca worked when stitching the variegated sock yarn I-cords together. Smooth, even stitches as if using thread.

I was supposed to use the variegated yarn to stitch the blue I-cords together but because the alpaca was so much softer it looked very messy. I looked through my stash and found the yellow/green alpaca thinking it would look okay.

I do like how it stitched up but when the bracelet is worn reversed, that side is not as striking as the other. A lot of stitching to go through to not wear the reverse side.

Pattern called for size 8 seed beads to be used to sew up the sides but I didn’t like how they looked. Tried several different types of beads and in the end used 1 size 8 seed bead, 1 size 8 fringe bead and then another 8 seed. By using the fringe bead in the middle the beads pulled closer together so you couldn’t see as much of the thread between them.   I also didn’t care for the look of the yarn showing between the beads so I used beading thread instead.

Then I decided to make this choker using Duet yarn in black with beads called River Moss.   The yarn has a satin and matt look but when the necklace was complete this difference did not show.  I chose to use only one color of beads through out instead of using accent beads as the directions suggest because I just love the color of these beads.

This truly is a choker and turned out to be to small for my liking. I extended the length by adding about 1 3/4 ” of beads at each side and used a toggle claps.  I used 1 strand of yarn and 1 strand of beading wire when I added the extra beads at the ends. I felt this would add a measure of security to that section. I left long tails and wove them back into the finished knitted section of the necklace.

Loved how quickly this knit up and the final result.....can see more of these in my future.

These earrings are what really excited me when I first looked at this book.  I don't know why....don't wear hoop earrings.....loved them anyway.  Maybe I'll have to give them a try.....their just so sparkly and take about an hour and half to make.

That's it for me today.....hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and don't forget to check out all the other exciting posts at Wonder Why Alpacas.