The first thing I spun on my hitchhiker was the May offering from the Spunky club. I have since had to end my subscription:-( I was backlogged 5 months so I figure I’ll join again once I’m up to date. I do miss the little surprises in the mail every month.
Of course this fiber comes with a story, I’ll try to keep it brief. May’s offering was 4 ounces of Coopworth dyed in a color fittingly called Nightshade. Spunky noted that her inspiration for these colors were the deep rich colors of the vegetables in her garden. The original roving was dyed an intense eggplant, indigo, black, and emerald. I decided to try and spin something thicker than my usual sock weight yarn. I spun the singles on one bobbin then plyed it onto itself using a center pull ball. Sidenote: Here’s some interesting information regarding spinning from a center pull ball.
So anyways, as I’m spinning, I’m noticing that my hands are turning a bit black. This was my first time experiencing that so I didn’t pay it too much mind. I was just getting a kick out of spinning on something so cute & petite that I really wasn’t paying too much attention to the wool. After I finished plying, something told me to take a picture of it but I had no daylight and I so wanted to finish off my purty new skein that I skipped that part. I went to give my yarn a good soak and you can imagine my horror to see the water turn blue. And not just light blue but navy blue. Uggghhhhh, Oh woe is ME! I immediately pulled the skein out of the sink, drained the water and soaked it again. I had to soak that bugger six times to get the water clear and by then my pretty skein had morphed into something totally different. The pictures you see here is what I ended up with. I don’t loath this skein but the other was 100 times better than this one, I just wish someone besides myself could’ve seen it. Oh well, at least I have 4 more months worth of wool to play with.
10WPI, 3.875 Ounces, 158Yds, 652YYP
My last spinning project was the second half of the flower roving I showed you guys a while back. 
It hasn’t gone for its formal bath yet but I’m positive that it will have almost the same stats as the first one. I’m planning on making some gloves out of this. I want a simple lace pattern for the cuff and just plain stockinette on the glove/fingers portion. I’ll be using my handy dandy notebook for the glove pattern. Speaking of gloves, is it just me of did Jack Frost decide to come for a little visit. I don’t know, it might be his nippy cousin or something but it is chilly. I need to get cracking on the hats, scarves & mittens for the family. What kind of mother would I be if I let the child go to school in the same hand knits he wore last year?
So that’s about it. Oh, almost forgot. A couple of posts ago I teased you guys with a little hobby I may have picked up. Well I started full force then slowly lost steam. I plan on finishing my project but for now it’s on hold. What is it? Oh, just doing a little hooking. Rug hooking that is.
Since the repeats of Knitty Gritty are boring me I’ve started taping the show Uncommon Threads that comes on the same network. A girl has to have her fiber fix. They did a whole show on rug hooking in which they made this hot pink wall hanging depicting a half faced winged skeleton. I fell in love with that winged skeleton so while in my local craft store I picked up a kit for just 4 bucks. I let the little one pick it out and of course he picked out the train. He wanted to play with the box as soon as we bought it home (can ya tell he like trains) but I promised him that he could play with it as soon as I’m done. In my opinion, I think it’s just as relaxing as knitting. You practically don’t have to think about anything. The yarns come precut in all the colors you need and all the little spaces are color coded also, easy peasy.
Next time I’ll let you guys know how the never ending sweater is doing. I’m getting a little nervous seeing as I started it in January of this year. I refuse to drag it out to 2008 but these weeks are flying by too quickly. See ya.
