Persistent Knitter

Sometimes you put something aside. Then you get back to it. That’s the case here. I was only to the cow’s noses when I put this aside earlier this year (or was it last year?). But now I’m making some serious progress:

The jag in the middle is the beginning of each round, so it’s supposed to be there.

Why the sudden desire to get back to this project? I need the needle for a new project.  :)  This one was started for my youngest (he’s only two now), but I made the largest size available which was sized for a 36month old.  My gauge is a bit bigger (no suprise there), so this really would probably fit a 4 year old. Not sure I want the older child to wear it or not; when I finish the body I’ll see how it would look on her.

Sheep-News-Weekly has been lucky enough to secure an exclusive interview with the super famous Lamby, sheep star and diva extraordinare.  She tells us, "I just met Lumpy a few weeks ago at a bookstore. He was so beautiful standing there reading Shearing for the Amatuer that I couldn’t resist going up to him and saying hello.  It was love at first sight and we haven’t been apart since."

Lumpy and Lamby wave to the crowd as they exit their favorite bookstore.

With a twinkle in her eye, Lamby does a little twirl to show off her haunches.  With a wink at the reporters she is gone in a flash with Lumpy hot on her heels.  More details from this exclusive interview later this week.

Here’s what I entered:

Left to right, Grey Alpaca, White Lincoln cross, Purple Mohair/Cashmere.

The results? 2nd, 3rd and 2nd places + Best Skein by a New Entrant  :)  I’m very pleased with how well I did. 

(mine is in the middle). This is the skein I’m personally the most proud of.

(mine is the white in the middle with the third place white ribbon).  Look at the competition! All the skeins were just amazing.  I feel honored that I placed. THis one was marked down because it still had some lanolin in it, despite me cooking it on the stove top for a while.

The purple skein. I almost didn’t enter this one because it didn’t do well up at Estes.   I wasn’t there at Estes for the judge’s comments – so I don’t really know what she thought. Now I’m really glad I did enter them at the fair.  The skein to the left of this one was a really cool novelty skein (yes, they were in the same category. wierd, but true). A singles yarn with huge white slubs and thinner brown skinny sections.

A new design, coming to you later this year:

The colors aren’t quite this bright in real life, think more brick red than bright red.
Such is sucky digital photography in incorrect lighting :)

You already saw the true raw form of the alpaca in this post.

After some spinning, plying and skeining:

Looks good. Let’s see what happens when we take it off the niddy noddy:

Hmmm.. not bad! See here for a good explanation of twist, yarn and what it means in the skein (esp down at the bottom of the page) It isn’t completely telling because the longer the yarn has been sitting on the bobbin, the more the twist has set. It’s good to see that it’s not twisting back on itself really badly.
Then I did some serious washing of the yarn. It was spun without washing the fiber first. Alpacas don’t have lanolin in their fleece, and any pre washing is just bound to matt and felt the fleece. Alpacas are also not coated either. There was a bit of VM that was driving me batty in it. I chose to drum card the fleece (helps remove the VM as well as blending colors to make a more heathered yarn instaed of splotchy), then spun it semi-worsted style, by pulling/making strips of roving off the batt, and smoothing the yarn as I let the twist in. This will help keep down the fuzz factor some, but does make a more compact yarn. The staple length of the fiber was around 3″ – which is just a joy to spin.

So back to the washing. I put a bit of Eucalan in the sink. Let it soak. Squeezed it out and rinsed it two more times. Then I took it outside to swing around to get as much of the water out as possible. Back into the kitchen, I employed the “whap the yarn against the kitchen counter a few times” technique recommended by Debbie. As I was whapping, I noticed the water left on the counter had a distinct brown tinge to it. Eww! Back into the sink for a bit more eucalan and a few more rinses. Wow that water was BROWN. I think all the flinging/twisting/thwapping of the yarn let more of the dust and etc out of the yarn.

I managed to really foul up the skien by all this abuse. Not felt it, but it was a bit tangled. Some diligent work with an umbrella, ball winder, and then back to the niddy noddy produced this:

Obviously the alpaca is on the bottom. It’s approx 2.4 ounces and I would say lace weight. (2 ply. Yes. It took forever to ply). I plan on knitting a lacy shawl with it. I think it’ll be wonderful – the alpaca is sooo soft and even in this thin of a yarn will be warm.

The white yarn is about 4oz of a lincoln cross. That was drum carded and also spun semi worsted style. The yarn is much thicker (sport weight ish?), and is also a two ply.

Both of these skeins will be headed to the Boulder County Fair for the handspun yarn contest.

A close up:

Spinning Yarn.  But only after you spend countless hours preparing the fleece to be spun. Unless you are using already-prepared roving.

In this case, it’s all about the fleece.  Alpaca fleece.

Seen here in the very beginning of sorting it out.  The dark pile was just barely started – I pulled all the dark stuff out of the main bit too (in the upper left corner of the pic).  Then I sat down and separated out 3 oz of the middle grey stuff to spin. But not until I had pulled out as much of the guard hair as I could.  Then I had to pick it, and shake out as much of the VM as possible. Then through the drum carder.

And then I finally get to spin after I draft out sections of the batts.  Shaking out the still-present VM as I go.

Just who is this bubble covered sheep?

Seen here, wallowing in the luxury of a supreme bubble bath:

It’s not Lamby; we just saw her over at the beauty salon.  Who could this divine creature be?  We’re on the trail of this up and coming star – full photo spread coming soon!

That girl needs a SWEATER! Quick, let’s knit her one :)

Well, I suppose I should be flattered, but I’m just NOT.  The Knit Foundry is now popular enough that some lower-than-life spammers are faking using the domain (but not from my mail server, that should be protected by my ISP) to send out their stupid "buy this drug" and crap emails. *sigh*

So I get a truck load of "Mail not Delivered" emails back to these "phony" addresses on my system.  To try and combat the annoyance, I’ve turned off the catch all email (which usually forwards anything to my email just in case someone had a typo in the address) and tried to make sure all the ‘valid’ email addresses will still work.  I’ll put a notice up on the kf site later today (no access to the html from here).

I’m not sure what else I can do; and might try to contact my ISP to see if there is anything they know of (not holding my breath there). If anyone else has any brilliant ideas; please do share.

The new Knitty is out:
http://www.knitty.com
(if you don’t see a picture of two hands in some wrist-warmer things, you’ll probably need to clear your browser cache out.  you can also go straight to the issue here http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer06/ Far be it for me to make you clear your browser cache when I can provide you with a quick link)

Knit Visualizer recieved a great review! I’m so pleased to have been featured in Knitty, I can’t tell you how happy I was when I saw it.

http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer06/FEATsum06stuff.html

PS. It’s been rumored that the fabulous purple super-star, Lamby, has a new sheep friend she’s been seen cuddling up with in public – stay tuned for the full scoop!