I won this prize from The Kelly Green Rogue. She started a contest on her blog right before she left for her vacation in Italy. This package was so wonderful it felt like opening a Christmas present.You can see all the wonderful stuff, but let me point out a couple of my favorite things in the package. The little mesh bag is holding wine glass charms that she made. This set has sweater and knitting needle charms. She has the wine glass markers for sale on etsy.
Of course I have to mention the wonderful yarn too. It was raised, spun, and dyed right there where she is from. It is about 400 yards and is 80% alpaca and 20% merino. I'll be knitting it up very soon!
Thank you!
These skeins are destined to become a hat and probably thrummed mittens for Brad. I should have enough yardage for those two projects. I just need to get some fiber for the thrums. I think just about everything I have in my stash is dyed in bright colors. I think I'd like to find something more natural in a brown or off white.
This yarn ended up a little more uneven with more thick and thin sections than I've had in a while. I'm going to put that down to speeding through the whole process. This time I was just spinning to relax and go through the motions.
Needless to say we were up early and headed out to the beach to see if Sherman would like the water. the first obstacle was the wooden boardwalk over the dunes that lead to the beach. I would guess for 99.5% of dogs this would not be a problem, but steps are not Sherman's thing. But for some reason he went right up the ramp and down the steps on the other side to the sand.
I think we all had the most fun on about our third trip down to the water that day. Sherman actually decided to get in the waves. I wouldn't use the term swim because his feet never left the ground but I think he had fun just the same.
I didn't use that method. Instead, I spun three individual threads and plied those together just as I would normally do with two threads. It was a little awkward at first. I had to get used to holding the three threads and controlling them so they plied together evenly. But I got the hang of that aspect pretty quickly.
The trickiest part was dealing with any type of breakage of an individual thread. It was challenging to manage each thread and get them to reconnect with a nice smooth join. The bad part is that I had that problem more that I ever have. I think in part this was due to how thin I attempted to spin each thread so I would end up with a three ply that could reasonable be used for a pair of socks.
The results seem to be worth it so far. The yarn seems strong but not too hard if that makes sense. I've decided that this will be knit up into my first pair of handspun socks instead of last week's two ply fingering weight. I've read that a three ply yarn is much more likely to stand up to the wear and tear that socks experience. After the spinning and knitting, I'd like the socks to last as long as possible.
I like the way this three ply turned out and I'd really like to try the other method in an attempt to create a striping yarn. But so far I haven't seen much that really makes it click in for me. I'm hoping to see the process in person at a guild meeting or SAFF in the fall. If you have a link to instructions that worked for you, I'd love to check them out.
So the easiest thing to do was substitute another fingering weight variegated yarn that stripes. Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn was the first thing that came to mind. I have wanted to try the yarn out ever since I saw it, because I'm a Noro junkie. But I just wasn't convinced that socks were the way to go. Plus everywhere I went the yarn was back ordred.
Well one Saturday I was out shopping with 
One of the great features of iris is how hardy they really can be. The rhizomes aren't to be buried deeply and that makes them fairly easy to plant. Iris can grow well in poor soil and don't require a lot of watering and that helps make maintenance easy. They also seem to multiply fairly quickly and you can dived them to spread them out or share with other gardeners. I even have some iris that are from my mom's yard in Indiana.
I've also had really good luck buying iris on clearance at wall mart in those little bags too. Sometimes for less than dollar. This dark colored iris is one I got from Walmart. It's growing well and I think I'm going to have to divide it out this year.
The best thing about iris so far is that the deer aren't event touching them. I have a terrible time keeping any type of plants in the yard. They seem to end up as deer food shortly after planting, but for some reason they aren't even touching the iris. I can imagine the foliage isn't all that tasty, but I thought they'd love the flowers. Oh well, I'm not going to question it, just enjoy it now because the iris are almost finished for the year.
The color did end up a lot lighter in the finished yarn than it looked in the fiber. I think that has to do with the white portions of the fiber and how it mixed with the colors as I drafted the fiber. I like the results, but I liked the deep colors that were in the fiber too.
My understanding is that Colonial wool is actually a blend made of wool from unspecified English sheep breeds, raised in South America. The nice thing is that this fiber is washable, so I think I'll be knitting a pair of socks with this skein.
This was really easy and fast to knit. It was knit flat from side to side. Then it was folded in half and seamed up under the arms to finish. the seaming was actually quick too, it just took me a while to sit down and actually do it; but it is finished now.
I also managed to add a single crocheted border around the edge of the body. I didn't add the crochet to the cuffs. I like the rolled edge on the sleeves but maybe I'll go back and add the border; I definitely have enough of the yarn. I decided that the Silk Garden might not be the best thing for seaming so I found an almost perfect color match with Simply Shetland. It is a wool silk mix too. I bought two skeins but only used a little bit on this project, so I plenty left over for a scarf or something.
We liked the muffins so much that I ended up making a second batch and stowing them away in the freezer for later. Homemade treats are always the best - especially warm out of the oven. Later this week I have a finished project to share and of course I have a new skein of handspun fro Friday.
It was fun to spin the mix of fibers. You kind of have to pay attention because of all the different fiber lengths but it was great watching the shiny fibers of the silk and bamboo mix with the alpaca and wool. It is amazing how slippery the bamboo fibers really are.
The resulting yarn has a beautiful sheen and a very nice drape. I wish I had more of this to spin.
We also have two kitties and they learned very quickly how handle Sherman regardless of size. Biscuit is actually still top dog in this house.
Sherman at six months old in the woods behind our house. This has always been one of my favorite pictures of Sherman.
Sherman likes to take time to smell the flowers.
The best thing about Sherman is that he is always there to be a friend.
I ended up turning the ten ounces of fiber into just under 600 yards of yarn, so I should be able to knit something nice. Though I'm not sure what I'll knit. I'd guess that the yarn is somewhere between a DK and worsted weight.
I think I will spend this weekend seaming up my sweater and starting my shawl with the Noro sock yarn. The pattern finally came yesterday.
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