In Which I Mostly Post Many Spinning-Related Photos

In all the excitement of having a new pattern out in Knit Now Magazine, I forgot to tell you about my shopping trip to A Curious Spin.

I picked up a new spindle, as I'd been looking to get a bigger one for plying, in the hopes that the silk/merino blend shown here with the second batch of singles nearly finished

would perhaps fit all together on the one spindle when plied. Now that I've finished spinning the singles, I'm giving it a go on the new one:

I also treated myself to some Gotland

and to a Curious Spinner's Woolly Pack, which is such a great idea. You get to pick two to four different breeds of sheep from a good variety, and end up with 56g total. The whole idea is to sample a few things to see what you like, so that if you really enjoy a particular variety, you can plan to buy more for a project in future, and if you're not so keen on something, you haven't invested much time and money into it. This is a very fun way to explore breeds you've only otherwise read about, and saves you the trouble of deciding on trying only one.

As you can see, I picked four: Wensleydale, Romney, Masham, and Polworth.






I've started with the Wensleydale, and am rather liking it so far. I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like plied and washed, and must set aside some swatching time so I can figure out if there's a particular project I'd like to use it for in future. I'm getting a bit tired of darning mittens, so I'm tempted to try something in the way of a sturdy longwool for an outer mitten, and maybe something fluffier for an inner mitten.






















Of course, having freed up a spindle, I started something else right away. I pulled out my Vancouver souvenir of silk top, and started with the blue. I've been dying to try this out, but was waiting to improve my skills a bit first. I'm glad I've spent a bit of time with long-wools, as the Leicester was actually great practice for this stuff.

















The saturated colour is almost startling, and the shine makes this stuff just plain magic.

Finishing off with a quick Byatt shawl update, I ran out of the main colour before I could finish the second repeat of the striped chart. I had a wee bit left, but while it was close to being enough for two more rows, it was nowhere near enough for the four more that I would have needed, so I just stopped that chart a bit early.

I have plenty of the gold colour though, so am currently contemplating extra repeats of the lace chart. Perhaps two more for five in total, as it feels that an odd number would balance best, but I'll complete the fourth one first before deciding. So very close to finishing now! I have a lot of math to work on this week, but hopefully I can squeeze in a bit of time to finish this up!