Somebody To Love

I’ve got a new spindle that is very beautiful and well-balanced which is helping immensely to improve my technique.

I’ve got the money for a spinning wheel and just need to get ahold of the not-so-local yarn store that sells them so I can go pick one up.

I’m making some progress on several of the pairs of socks that I started for myself last year.

I’ve started a pair of socks for Dean that is coming along swimmingly.

I’m working on Peacock Tapestry again.

I got a haircut that looks nothing like any haircut I’ve ever had before.

Though it took a day later than I thought, I have pictures for you.

This one’s more accurate to the colour, though I used the magic of Photoshop to try and fix the other as well.

These skeins are the same size as the first batch. I have yet to measure and find out the yardage or weight of them though.

I actually meant to post this before Reading Week, but in the midst of packing and such it just didn’t get done as planned. Anyway, I made yarn. In the last six weeks I’ve been taking a spinning class in order to improve my technique and to expand on what I’ve taught myself. The benefit to doing it is they let you borrow one of their wheels for the duration of the course. I don’t like this particular wheel much, but it has taught me what to look for and what to avoid in the one I get for myself.

So far I’ve made these:

The two on the outside are Crown Mountain Farms superwash roving in the Ain’t No Mountain High Enough colourway. It’s been two-plied into sock yarn. I really love this stuff. I finished some more sock yarn in Wild Thing over Reading Week and should have pictures of it later today. I also ordered a couple more colours that should arrive tomorrow.

The middle-right yarn was some roving we were given to mess with in class. I have no idea what it is. Wool, definitely, but beyond that I have no clue. It’s been navajo-plied, my first attempt, and that seemed to go really well. This yarn runs from lace-weight to worsted, since the green was an incredibly thin single, the white was slightly larger, and the blue was even thicker than that.

The middle-left yarn is a mixture of a whole bunch of fibres. We were learning to use hand carders and could pick from lots of stuff to blend. It has several different kinds of wool, mohair, and corn silk. Maybe some other things but those are what I remember.

The middle one was the first that I spun on the wheel. It’s wool again, but rather coarse. I brought it home with me and the cats confiscated it, so whether or not it gets found will dictate what it can be made into. My cats like eating things that resemble string.

I finally received my biscornu and it’s the coolest thing. I love the design and the colours so much.

[click for larger images]

Also, my partner sent me lots of loot to go with it. That was much appreciated what with exams looming a week away and massive essays and such.

I’m so happy!

I finished the first half of the biscornu I’m doing for the exchange. No pictures until its done though.

You might remember that in my last post I mentioned making my sister some yarn out of the cat hair she’d collected from brushing her cats. I thought we didn’t have any pictures of it, but when Dean started showing me the pictures taken last weekend there were quite a few that he’d taken of it. These are the two that I liked.

Most of this came from the same cat, though with 5 of them and a dog around I’m sure there are bits of all of them in it.

The star of today’s post: ROSS (and Stephanie’s legs)

I’ve been eager to learn to spin for a while now, but I didn’t know where to start. One day I got bored and starting looking for information on the internet, which lead to my buying a spindle and a bunch of roving to try. Unfortunately, it was taking a long time to arrive in the mail (and we know how impatient I get with the mail) so in a fit of desperation I made this:

My roving arrived that same day, so I decided to see if I could get the hang of spinning from the pictures and such that I’d seen. It was easy! My first single came out surprisingly thin, if a bit underspun in a few places.

Unfortunately, there was no way to wind on in order to spin some more, so I contented myself with the knowledge that I could do this and decided to wait another week for the spindle I ordered.

It finally arrived, and I went straight to work on my first yarn. The first skein is the sky blue that I ordered with the spindle, plied with some of the superwash merino that I had already received. I find the blue is harder to spin evenly, though the superwash is a dream to work with. That is why this skein is more even than the other even though I spun it first. The second skein is more of the blue, plied back onto itself.

I’m still practicing with the blue one, since the other I’d like to be able to spin consistently enough to make yarn for socks with. This is what I currently have:

I got bored with midterm studying and started surfing cross-stitch sites, and came across some neat patterns on Stitching the Night Away. This one caught my attention because of its aboriginal style and turtle motif.

My brother loves turtles, so I think this is going to turn into a gift for him. I’m not sure how to finish it though. This was my first attempt using waste canvas. It seems to have turned out well, though removing the threads was a bit tedious. I’m glad I tried it with a small design and not something larger.

It’s coming along good. I have all the leaves done in the section I’m working on. I’m starting the pears this morning, and should have those done shortly. After that I need to do the filler-colours between the leaves. Once that is done I shall take the promised progress pic for you all.

Edit: The promised update.

Yesterday I started working on the Tapestry again. I’ve been stubbornly ignoring it because a few weeks ago I got a big tangle at the back and I knew I’d have to cut that mess out and start that spot over. After all that work in that area I was not looking forward to taking it out, so I refused to work on the thing at all. It’s all better now. It took about 20 minutes of careful cutting and untangling to get everything back to normal but it was well worth it. The whole snarl looked much worse than it actually was and I lost much less work than I thought I would.

For those of you that are asking why I couldn’t just leave the tangle there, since everything looked good from the front: needlework is a strange thing, your reputation depends on the back of your work looking as good as the front, so a knot or a tangle is a huge no-no. Sure, no one would know once the thing is finished and framed, but I would know and the framer would know and that would drive me nuts every time I looked at the thing.

Once I get some notable progress I’ll take pictures so you guys can see the pretties. Maybe I’ll take pictures of the back too.

For now I’m going to go work on it some more. There’s lots of thunder outside making me happy. Storms rock!