sock porn for knitting voyeurs.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

spinny bitty

Time flies when... well.
Or, how I spent my Thanksgiving vacation.

:)

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Handspun superwash merino, 2-ply
110gm, approx 360 yd
fingering weight
roving dyed by zero.etsy.com

I take it all back from before-- saying I couldn't spin a plump, squishy, full of life fingering weight yarn. Don't get me wrong, I love the slightly dk handspuns of mine (so warm! so fast!)... but I felt I was kind of missing out on a whole range if I didn't start trying to spin a fingering weight that I was happy with.

And I am happy with this one :)

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When I dyed this, it was pretty out of character for me-- I usually like to dye (and spin) not too contrasty fibers... but this one! Green, purple, orange, blue... probably others I'm forgetting there were so many :) Even so it definitely has a purple overcast to it... for some reason it reminds me of Mardi Gras. Or Mardi Gras beads. :)

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As lovely as it is, I am setting it loose on the world :) You may have read about Alyson's pup needing some emergency surgery over the holiday weekend and her subsequent stash sale (dude, check it out-- good stuff!)... I wanted to help so I've listed this yarn for sale in my etsy shop with all proceeds going to Alyson directly, and I'll ship it for free to the buyer once payment's cleared Alyson's pp account. I've tagged it "bittyfund" for easy finding on etsy -- I know Jen (Piddleloop) is going to be listing a few of her adorable 4x6 pouches specially for Bitty fundage too.

Speaking of etsy, I did manage to dye up some of the new seacell/superwash merino roving for my shop as well, inspired by "Love in the Time of Cholera." I recently bought 4 oz each of alpaca and merino in the Sangria colorway from SpunkyEclectic and plan to spin it into a 2-ply (a ply of each), so couldn't resist dyeing the seacell/sw merino with of some of my favorite superwash merino at the same time... the effect of dye on the two different fibers is fun but will look great if plied together.

leo
"Leona Cassiani"

(The rest of the flickr sets are here, the rovings for sale are here.)

I do have one unlisted set of these fibers I need to try and take pics of (again)-- "Miss Lynch" in emerald and deep greens that wouldn't photograph true. If you're interested in the greens lmk, otherwise hopefully I'll have them photographed later today or tomorrow :)

I did dye several samples of the seacell blend to spin up myself. I spun all of the solids together thinly and navajo plied them...

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wooden keychain sock blocker from thebellwether.biz

The seacell seems to be more of a sheen, not so much shine. I love spinning the tencel blend rovings, but they always look so shiny that I don't really gravitate towards knitting them once spun. It may be that there is less plant fiber in the seacell blend than the tencel blends I've spun (30% seacell), but I like it. The seacell doesn't dye (you can see the white streaks in the individual pics in my shop), but spun up you don't really see the white-- just sort of an iridescent quality left in the yarn. I can't help but think how awesome the fiber would be dyed up in black and brown (thinking of splityarn's Hanami stole in seasilk-- 70/30 silk/seacell.)

I also abused the 7734 put of my navajo plied sample yarn-- the hot set rinse water was clear, and despite me agitating, thwacking, and just being mean to the yarn :) it held up quite well.

Me, not so much :) This is too long... miss you, have a good one.

10 comments:

Chris said...

Ok, that wee sock is just TOO cute.

April said...

Do you have an ANSWER for me yet about KNITTING ARTS? :)

The Gadabout Knitter said...

Oh I love your handspun! (It sorta fits Alyson's personality too, you know, bright and cheery). :) And your roving!!! *Sigh* If I wasn't on a budget due to Christmas, I would so snatch it up this second.

Stacey said...

missed out on that yarn - it is beautiful (or should I say "was"). I'm waiting for the Piddleloop bags to go up also....a great cause!

lexa said...

Beautiful yarn! I knew that wouldn't last long. :)

Anonymous said...

Nice Matters. That's why I've nominated you for the award. Please click through to my blog for the details. :)

Sherry W said...

Oh crap, you can't dye seacell? Hurmp. I have a pound of it undyed.

Carol said...

Yowza, that is some FINE handspun. Really gorgeous.

Something for me to aspire to...

Anonymous said...

I love the handspun colors. Like a candied sunset.

Lisa said...

Lovely spinning.
Darling sockie too!

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