Distractible

I am without a chugalong knitting project right now and as a result I'm bouncing around and dabbling in several different things.

This weekend I...

...started spinning a cashmere and silk blend...


...fiddled and fiddled and fiddled with the tension on Margaret's Matchless that she has kindly lent me (I got it worked out last night! Let the production spinning begin!)...


...frogged my very first completed sweater and soaked the yarn for reuse...


...and cast on for a sock.

The brown yarn conundrum has been solved (I hope) and when the yarn comes in the mail I'll report in. Hopefully this means that I'll be casting on a sweater soon, which should help focus my fiber play time.

1/2 FO: Boxwood Primavera Sock(s)

Yarn: Wollmeise, from the sock yarn club

Needles: 0s! (I know! Zerophobia is healed!)

Pattern: Primavera

The first sock is finished and the second ball is still AWOL. This wouldn't be so terribly tragic if this wasn't my very favorite sock that I've ever knit. Sigh. I love this sock. And I will display it prominently so I can admire it until the other ball of yarn decides to come home.

I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend the Primavera pattern. It's wonderfully mindless (the fiddley bits are only every six rows) and the effect is lovely with a variagated yarn. I will be knitting many more of these socks. Or, you know, at least a full pair. (sigh!)

ISO: chocolate brown, wool, worsted or dk, 2 or 3 ply, long-wearing yarn

Is that too much to ask?

I've been surprised at how hard it is to find such a yarn. My go-to solid wool (Dale's Heilo) has no good brown. I jumped to Jamieson's DK, even buying two balls to see the color in person, but no. Neither of the browns is right.

Here's what I need:

-A beautiful, solid, chocolate brown. Slightly heathered would be okay too, but no tweeds or semi-solids

-Wool, non-superwash please. I'd even take a wool/something blend if it measured up in other ways

-a good quality, long-wearing yarn. Cascade 220 won't fit the bill here - I want an heirloom knit strength yarn

-no singles yarns or no cabled plies. 2 or 3 ply prefered, but I'm willing to go up to 5 or 6 if it looks like a traditional plied yarn and not the kind of cylinders seen in, for example, Debbie Bliss's Rialto yarn

-worsted or dk. I'd go aran weight too, if necessary.

Here's what I don't care about:

-softness. Butter soft or scratchy, I don't care. Merino? Fine. (as long as it's long-wearing) Romney? Great.

This reads a bit like a personal ad, no?

Okay, so my requirements are a smidge specific. But I'm willing to pay a pretty penny for such a yarn, if I could find it! And if I can't? Well then it's time for me to start experimenting with dyeing techniques so I can get an entire sweater's worth of yarn evenly dyed.

Any an all yarn ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Yarn gone AWOL

The first Primavera sock is almost finished.

But there's a mysterious problem. See that ball? That's all I have left. Now yes, it is a relatively tall sock, but this yarn is supposed to have 575 yards in the skein!!

As I see it, these are the possibilities:

a) This pattern ate up a crazy amount of yarn and that small ball is really all there is left

b) I wound the skein into two separate cakes and then lost one.

I strongly suspect B. Yesterday I cleaned out my fiber closet assuming I'd run into the wayward cake, but no. This moring I hunted and hunted and hunted. No yarn. (well, no green sock yarn. I turned up some other treasures along the way.)

At this point my plan is to finish the sock and set it aside, hoping that the missing yarn will turn up. I'm feeling rather dramatic about the whole thing because I have absolutely loved knitting this first sock and was looking forward to the second, but I don't see what choice I have. (dramatic gesture)

If any of my local knitting buds have seen a brilliantly green cake of yarn wandering around, tell it to come home!

Vacation knitting

Does it get any better than this?

(not pictured: gin and tonic in hand)
Ahhhh...

Where have I been?

Oh, around.


Just got back from the trip, more photos to come soonish, but I'm leaving on another trip tomorrow morning, so it may be a few days.

I did knit away busily during the travels.


The first primavera sock is almost a full sock, and I've gotten started on a new project:


Now I need to pack for tomorrow's trip! PHEW!

Long term project

Remember these?


Well...

For a number of reasons I have decided to spin up those fleeces rather than dyeing and selling the fiber. I haven't added up the weights (frankly it makes my head spin to even think of it) but I'm conservatively estimating that there are about 20 pounds of fiber total.

This is clearly a long term project!

I'm happy with how the first fleece is spinning up. It's a yearling romney with tons of luster, so I'm spinning it into a lofty aran weight two ply.


Look at this sheen!

This is definitely not a next-to-skin, merino-soft yarn, but I'm sure it will find a good home in a great project.

For now I'm spinning and spinning, but eventually this yarn or a dyed version of it will end up in the shop. My hope is to have sweater quantities of the yarn available and there may be custom dyeing options. For now, I'm just enjoying the easy, relaxing, endless spinning.

Milo finds it all a bit dull.