emchick - purchases

yum!

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:21:25 +0100

Last week at my LYS, I was overwhelmed by all the Rowan yarn on sale. I gave in to some very pretty shades of red and pink, just in time for Project Spectrum.

7 balls of Kid Classic in a warm, creamy pink, with tiny flecks of white, for a sweater, and the store's last 3 balls of Kid Classic in a deep but bright red, also with white flecks. I was hoping to design some kind of shrug with 3/4 length sleeves for the red, but am having some problems. I'd like sleeves that come to my elbow, and are cuffed, but I don't want to just do a normal basic shrug pattern because I find the bottom of the back flares out, or gets too stretched out, which I don't like at all. I wanted it to be lacey in the back, and maybe with a collar around the outside, and have found some pictures, but planning the whole thing and putting together all the bits and pieces I'd like seems daunting. Lacey patterned shrugs usually seem to have normal sized cuffs, drastic increases, and super big sleeves and backs made by seaming up the sleeves and leaving the back straight. I don't want big sleeves, but I still want something pretty on the back. I guess it's hard to design a shrug you can't even picture in your head. Oh well. Finished the vest definitely comes first.

tom and jane

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 09:00:00 +0100

This weekend I made it out to The Yarn Tree in Brooklyn. A woman there talked to me about my spindle, and showed me some possible fibers. I bought some fiber, as well as my second spindle, Jane:

It's a Schact 3" Hi-Lo Drop Spindle and way prettier than my first spindle, Tom. Here are both, side by side:

We weighed Tom in the store, since I know nothing about it, and found out it weights 1.5 oz. Jane is 2.2...That's all well and good for being able to spin bulkier yarn but since my main concern was making longer skeins. Oh well. I couldn't wait to try out the new spindle, so I dyed the rest of Corriedale with lots of blues and greens, and a little orange. The weight difference while spinning is way more noticeable than I expected - it really takes more effort to get Jane going! But when I was done spinning the first half of the roving, I still only had 56 yards.

The colors are still not as deep as they could be, but I'm still super excited to see how the two ply turns out!

good times

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 09:45:00 +0100

My package came from Kendig Cottage! Eee!

8 oz of merino, 8 oz of corriedale. I was anxious about the color I chose for the merino, worried that I couldn't trust the pictures online, but the color is exactly what I expected:

I couldn't hold back - I went straight for the merino. I don't think I like how it spun up - I've been trying not to let the singles get too thin. I just don't like laceweight yarn, and what I'd really like to make eventually is fun thick-thin stuff, like at pluckyfluff. I'm not sure how I feel about the purple stuff when it's almost a worsted weight:

So I switched to the corriedale for the rest of the skein. I don't know why, but the spindle was spinning out of control way faster than I expected, so I had to end the skein kind of quickly...At least the little hank is endearing. It's kind of like my first self-striping yarn!