Fiber Fool

You know, I recall being young (grade 7 or 8 probably) and thinking one of my aunts was off her rocker. You could randomly speak one word and she’d break out into song. I now realize that we all have a soundtrack rolling around in our heads and certain phrases or activities will bring at least portions of their lyrics and often their melody to mind. Anyway. just a bit of a long explanation for my post title today :-)

So, I mentioned last week that I was going to try plying the same singles from last week’s skein with a 3rd ply made of wooly nylon. It was an interesting experiment. I went from what looked to be a light sport weight while under tension to very interestingly textured bulky yarn. It was 385-yds under tension and I’m guessing about 257 or so yds not under tension, but that is purely a guess based on the shrinkage of the hank. I have no idea what I’ll do with this yarn. The idea at SnB was large needles so it would be less likely to split the yarn and so there would be plenty of room to see the texture of the yarn. It is likely to sit in the stash for a while.

Here are some comparisons including the 60 yds of leftover singles I had, the 2-ply and the 3-ply with the wooly nylon. Interesting, no?

I also spent some more time with my drop spindle this week. I’ve had some lovely pink and yellow coopworth that Snow gave me over a year ago on my spindle for several months now and I finally finished it up (in only 45 minutes) and then I plied it (andean style - Hannah has pics I believe so that Cathy can show Anne that people really do ply on the drop spindle) on the spindle at SnB. There was more on there than I thought and it took much longer to make the andean bracelet so I stood out in the parking lot for aobut 30 minutes finishing up the plying after SnB was over and Catalyst Coffee closed. Ashley kindly kept me company though and it went quite quickly.

There was a total of 66 yards of 2-ply when all was said and done. It’s really fuzzy and sort of soft, but sort of itchy too. The plying could have been a little bit better, but I was performing for an audience and in a bit of a hurry, not a good recipe for a great plying job. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I have some two-tone blue coopworth that was also spindle spun that I overdyed. That one is about 85 yards, so between the two I should be able to do a little something. Wrist warmers come to mind, but I’m a little concerned about the itch factor…

For the summer spinning challenge instead of running out of steam this week as I feared I spun more this week than last week! My total for week two was 6 hours of spinning. 2 hours and 10 minutes of that was spent with my drop spindle! That six hours also does not include the time spent finishing the 511 yds of completed yarn (60 yds singles, 66 yds of spindle ply, 385 yds of 3-ply with wooly nylong) from this week either - wrapping onto the niddy noddy, washing, etc. If I did not spin again until week five I’d still be on pace with my goal of averaging 3 hours per week. So, I’ve given myself a bit of a break. I didn’t spin on the 4th or yesterday (hubby was still home). Part of it was for a bit of a break and partly it was due to my inability right now to make a decision I don’t know what to spin next!

Do I spin up some of the lovely purple blend that will be one of the prizes for the challenge? That would also count for project spectrum! How about some silk? I have the lovely 3 ounces of hankies that Amanda kindly brought back from Stitches West for me or the two ounces of sliver I bought at Detta’s last year… Or, I’ve still got samples that Snow gave me last year as well as some other samples that Cathy gave me for my birthday, those would not require a long commitment to any one thing… What shall I do?

A friend of ours lives within an easy walking distance from City Park here in Fort Collins where they put on the annual fireworks display so a bunch of us gathered as his place for the last year as he will be moving at the end of the month. We grilled all kinds of great things from vegetarian italian sausage to gluten free hot dogs to plain old hot dogs plus some fruit like peaches and pineapple. There was also tabouli, potato salad, fruit salad, chips, and cookies to munch on.

Once dusk began we wandered over to the park with the other herds of people who were filling the residential streets in the area with their vehicles and then we waited for the show to begin. My Trekking sock (I really need a name for that pattern…) made the trek with me and enjoyed a few rounds before it got too dark. Eventually, the crowd was saturated with light sticks and the show began. I’ve seen better displays, but I’ve seen worse. But I’ve never before gotten pictures like I got last night! Enjoy!

Despite the lack of posts on knitting there has been knitting going on around here. It hasn’t all been baking and spinning. However, it has been rather boring knitting that has taken place so I haven’t been showing it off. With the heat and the on-the-go schedule of summer I’ve been mostly knitting socks. I have two completed socks, but I’m afraid they are not mates.

See, the gorgeous sock yarn from Kirsten arrived shortly before the Trek-a-Long started and I couldn’t wait until after my Treks were over to see what that hand dyed yarn was going to look like so I cast on for that. I’m not one for knitting two different sock patterns at the same time usually so I didn’t really do any real Trekking until that first one was done last Monday. Then it was time to focus on the Trekking, and focus I did! I kicked that puppy out in under a week!

I’ll knit the Trekking mate and then probably go back to the Dye-o-Rama mate before starting another Trekking sock as I don’t care to have unmated socks around for very long. And, I’m hoping the trekking socks will get to trek here before this holiday weekend is up.

Ah, the month I’ve been most waiting for during this Project Spectrum journey. July, the month of purples, lavenders, and violets! I know there are many others out there who were also looking forward to this month with great anticipation.

Above is a little moasic of purple and lavender flowers from the yard of our friends, Anne and Rod. They planned all of their landscape to be useful, with an emphasis on edible. I think it was a wise thing to do in the water-starved front range of Colorado. Most of the plants that have chosen don’t require a lot of water once established and when they do require water the water is at least being used on something that can be used for purposes other than to look good. I took these photos several weeks ago and did not take good notes so I can’t positively identify them. The one on the far right is a mini version of pansies that I just adore! They are way too cute! I should have had a coin in that photo to give a sense of scale, but if I remember right only the largest flowers were about the size of a dime.

Since it is a holiday weekend this Spectrum Sunday is a little light, but I anticipate a lot of purple showing up here on Sundays and other days this month. As usual I do have a couple wallpapers to offer up. One fiber and one floral. I will likely have a yarn one ready by next week as well. As usual, just click on the thumbnail below to go to Flickr. Once there, click on “All Sizes” above the photo, choose the “Original” then right click on that image once loaded and choose “Set as Wallpaper” and you will be all set!