Spinning progress

And finally a flicked lock. This stuff is so soft I just want to roll around in it.

This is the way I wash my fleece...

I'm Pathetic

I had such grand plans for this blog. I was going to take a picture of all incoming stash. I was going to document all projects in progress. I was going to entertain everyone with stories of fiber get togethers. However it turns out I'm pathetic, or at least way over extended.

I've got to give a talk at JavaOne in May. The slides are due on Friday. The room seats 600 people EEK! Anyway I've gotten great feedback from folks and I think it is going to go well, but it is a bit on the stressful side.

We have a big code release (what a weird idea for an open source project) at the end of this month. so I'm busy busy busy with that. However this is supposed to be about knitting so...

I've fallen in love with the sock heel in Cat Borhdi's new book. It's the best looking heel I've ever made. I'll never go back to short row heels again. There are no holes, no weird little potentially half picked up wraps, no too tight arches that don't fit over my foot. It is absolutely perfect. I'll try to get pictures up of the many (3) finished pairs of socks I've got with this heel.

My current lust object is a thermal (Knitty) out of Dream in Color Smooshy. The notion of an entire sweater (in my size!) out of sock weight yarn is daunting, but I think I would wear the heck out of it!!

I'm making progress on my son's hat from *ell. Carding the fleece left me with too many neps, so I ended up combing it. I didn't get nearly as much out of it as I would have liked, so I've dyed another batch in the crockpot with Wilton's red red. This is going to be one really really red, really really soft (cormo) hat.

Christine

Monday is sock day

Meeting knitting

In my other life I have a 2.5 hour meeting on Monday mornings. In order to stop from fidgeting I knit socks. Here is my progress on the 10 year socks. I started them more than 10 years ago, and just recently pulled them out of hiding.

Socks and Wilton's

Woodland Woolworks had a sale on natural colored sock yarn. I've been having fun dyeing it with Wilton's cake icing color. Here are some examples

My first post

We'll never lose him in the snow

My son wanted an orange hat. I started with a Mary Pratt Romney fleece that I had processed by Still River Mill. I dyed three batches with Wilton's in the crockpot (orange, yellow, red). I spun it gradually transitioning between colors, and then navajo plied it. The picture here is only half the hat. I'm going to knit it as a double layer. The inside will probably be plain orange, or maybe a three color three ply.

Wilton's purple?

This is from a cormo fleece I bought from www.cormo.us. I love her fleeces. This one I washed myself and then dyed in Wilton's violet. It didn't turn out purple, but I love the color. I can't decide if I want to dye the rest of the fleece this color and knit a sweater, or mix this with nylon and turn it into socks.

Shrinking fleece

I asked my husband to fit two fleeces into one box. This is his solution. It really was a McGuyver moment. Using a strainer and a vacuum cleaner he shrunk the fleece to about 1/4 of it's original size.

Christine