Yarn Since Baby

Well hello there, ol’ blog.  Long time no see.  This baby/working full time stuff  is busy and leaves little room for making.  I keep reminding myself that there are times and seasons for everything and enjoying the little sweet little sips of knitting or spinning that I get to take while J is napping.

Spinning is something that I can do with him on my lap; he seems to like the treadle motion and watches the whirling wheel.  Now that he’s sitting up and getting grabby, he also seems to like the fiber (and likes putting it in his mouth – nooo!), so I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to spin with him.

FatCatKnits Polwarth in Mixed Peppers

Mixed Greens BFL

For her birthday in November, I knit my MIL some thrummed mittens:
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When my SIL saw them, she asked for a pair for Christmas. I got the green fiber spun up above for use in her thrums and spun the rest.
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Thrummed mittens knit up surprisingly quickly, even while baby-minding.

I’m still plugging along on a pair of handspun socks. I rounded the heel a couple of weeks ago and am knitting a row here and there when I have a moment. And I’ve started to look longingly at my sewing machine – I have several FMQ ideas and am hoping to get back to it in the spring.

All this goes to show that all is not lost in my crafty life.

Getting Back To It

Well, hello there, unintentional month-and-a-half blogging hiatus. February was rough, yo. I think I was sick for the last month and a half, which isn’t pleasant in the best of weather. But here north of Boston, we have many feet of snow, which has pulverized our public transportation system (aka how I get to work every day). Not feeling well + commuting for several hours a day on crowded trains with cranky fellow commuters has left me very tired at the end of the day, so much so that crafting hasn’t been my number one priority.

To be completely honest, most nights I watch Jeopardy and then go to bed.

I did spin a little, turning this delicious Malabrigo Nube braid into 324 sproingy yards of delicious sport-weight yarn.

The braid itself wasn’t the easiest spin. The fibers seemed very compacted, so it was difficult to pull apart and each piece needed to be fluffed a bit before spinning. I was going for a slightly thicker spin (than my usual super thin) and I’m very happy with the finished product.

But! It is now March! We’ve gotten through yet another February and Spring, the most wonderful season, approaches! Already the light is returning and days are noticeably longer. Now for temperatures to rise above freezing and the snow to melt (also, for the storm scheduled to dump more snow on us tonight to not dump as much snow as predicted).

And it being March means that the wedding of my dear friend S is a little over two months away, so I better bust a move on the HST Chuppah. Today, I sewed all the HSTs and started trimming.

I’d really like to finish this top by the end of the month, so for a bit of motivation, I’m making this my March ALOYF goal.

Many WIPs on Wednesday

This week has been about finishing some projects, starting others, and thinking about long-term projects.

I finished quilting Fortunate Granny and got it bound. I’m hoping my husband will help me wrangle a couple finished shots tonight – look for a FO post soon!

The spinning urge hit me this week, so I grabbed this Friends in Fiber braid I got at VT Sheep and Wool last fall and got to work. It is 6 oz of BFL, which I split evenly and am spinning the two halves on two bobbins. The plan is to ply them back together to get a 2-ply barber pole yarn. I love braids that have a lot of complimentary colors!

I also started matching fabrics and cut into my Fox Field Craftsy workshop kit.

I adore the colors in Tula Pink’s latest collection, Fox Field, and the log cabin diamond pattern is exactly what I want to sew. I’m going to try to stretch the fabric to make top and bottom log cabin setting triangles instead of the plain cream print in the pattern. We’ll see if that works out according to plan.

The only WIP I don’t have in process right now is a knitty WIP. I frogged the handspun socks out of fear that I’d run out of yarn. The yarn really wants to be armwarmers, anyway!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Garden Path is All Spun Up

Football season is here. My husband is very excited about this. His fantasy team played their first game the other night, and he won by the thinnest of margins. He knows all the rules and strategies and stats and cheers heartily whenever anything happens. I’m on the other end of the spectrum – last Sunday, he gave a big cheer, and I innocently asked (and I quote) if “someone had kicked something through the Superbowl net.” AKA the goalposts. And while I don’t enjoy football much, I got to spin for quite a while this weekend (and on Monday, hello American Ninja Warriors and your insane amounts of upper body strength), finishing turning this:

Garden Path superwash wool/cashmere/nylon top.  Photo courtesy of Inglenook Fibers

into this:

This fiber. Oh my gosh, what a dream to work with. It’s a merino/cashmere/nylon blend from Inglenook Fibers, colorway Garden Path II. The fiber was so soft and light and it drafted very easily. After spinning the single, I chain-plied it (with only a few moments of thumbs akimbo, as I tried to dredge up plying muscle memory from the last time I spun).

The finished product is 493 yards (ish – it was stretched over my swift when I counted) of thin fingering. Like really thin – I haven’t measured WPI yet, but it was visibly thinner than the sock yarn I’m currently knitting up. I’ll update its Ravelry page when I have WPI. This is the longest 3-ply I’ve ever spun and I’m looking forward to working with it further!

QAYG Christmas Stockings and Spinning

Happy September! Happy Wednesday after Labor Day! I hope those of you who had the day off from work on Monday had a lovely, restful day. Husband and I mostly stayed home (except for an outing to church and to check on his brother & sister’s kitties while they were away) and read and played games and cooked things and ate things. After a moderately stressful week at work, it was nice to bum around in yoga pants and listen to the rain (did I mention that it rained off and on all weekend?).

I’ve been wanting to make a pair of quilt-as-you-go Christmas stockings (tutorial from imagine gnats) for C and I to hang on our speakers near the TV with care, come the holiday season. I pulled Laurie Wisbrun’s Brrr! holiday polar bear line yesterday, along with some leftover batting, and began!

I love the polar bear holding the flower. He’s my favorite.

I cut stocking shapes from the batting and the lining fabric and strips for the fronts. I decided to spray baste the lining fabric to the batting, as when I tried to QAYG with one layer of fabric and batting, my machine started to eat the batting. No bueno. I stitched two rows of the first strip to the batting-lining fabric combination and noticed that my lines of quilting were causing the fabric to ripple a bit.

So I decided to think on it a bit and broke out my spinning wheel.

The fiber is a BFL/cashmere blend from Inglenook Fibers (no pic of the fiber – I’ll try to get one tonight)and it is so soft and easy to spin. I started spinning it back in April and am trying to finish it up this week. Once I have a bobbin full of single, I’m going to n-ply it back on itself to not muddle the colors.

I’m feeling all crafty and maker-y now that (at least in this part of the world), the air is getting crisper and fall is approaching. I love this time of year – I always argue with myself about if spring or fall is really, truly my favorite time of the year. Fall makes me want to wear boots and scarves and drink apple cider and take long walks. And knit. And spin. And sew. Hooray!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!