Spinning Action

 I've been spinning but more about that later. First, I taught a workshop at Spin A Yarn and Joyce gave me a copy of The Knitter. In their gallery feature this month they're featuring Spin A Yarn customers. Joyce sent in a box of various customers knitted items and the magazine chose the ones they wanted to feature.

My Midnight Stolewas featured and I love the photo they took of it. Less happy with hte photo Joyce took of me a few months ago to accompany this feature.

 One of the other knits featured was Yvonne's shawl. Yvonne came on one of my Advanced Lace knitting classes some time ago, which she mentioned in the write up accompanying her shawl, thank you Yvonne. Doesn't her shawl look lovely in the Noro sock yarn?

 I've done some spinning. I finally finished spinning the natural grey merino I've been working on for about 6 months. I'm not sure if I'm as happy with the finished yarn as thought I would be. I tend to end up with far too much twist but this yarn is softer than the yarn I normally spin and fairly even too considering I spun it over such a long period of time. Still not sure if my plying is very good. I'm more or less self-taught when it comes to spinning. I attended a beginners spinning workshop but I already knew most of the thing that were taught when I attended.  I could do with an intermediate class. I don't know if I do short draw or long draw and I end up wiht the same thickness whatever I do. I've not washed this yarn yet, so will be interesting to see how it changes after washing. I'm thinking I might knit a hat and scarf set for Simon.

The grey merino skein is on hte right below. Blogger has changed the way photos are uploaded and I don't like it.

I was keen to keep my spinning mojo going. I've got some gorgeous fibre in my stash including some stunning natural camel, dark grey alpaca, merino/seacell (got lots of that) cashmere, and some other things. I'm thinking I may get startged on that camel soon. But in my spinning basket in the lounge i had these 3 lots of colourful fibres (picture on left below). They're all from Touch Yarns and wer ebought at Spin A Yarn a couple of years ago.  I've only got a small amount (probably 50gr) of each and I waswondering if I could combine them but I'm not sure. the two on the left are mohair and merino blend, not sure what the red one is.

I've started spinning the plum/grey blend on hte left and it's spinning up beautifully. I'm trying to spin it as fine as possibl. I'm hoping to end up with a thickish laceweight yarn.

I want to practice spinning laceweight yarn as I think I may spin the camel laceweight to make the most a luxurious yarn.

I'll have some fiber in the shop tomorrow. I dyed some Falkland merino fibre on Monday and it looks gorgeous but I ran out of time to photograph it. I'm planning to test-spin some tonight. II've been struggling in the past to dye fibre successfully. I've never been 100% happy with what I've spun but I think I may have cracked it.

I've just finished a shop update. Some gorgeous, bright summery colourways in Merino Plus Sock, Silky Merino Lace and Bambino Lace. Click here for al the new arrivals. Here's some of my favorites from tonight's update: