Spinning Wednesday

Just a quick post today as I have done next to no spinning this week.  So without further ado.....

I'm well along on my third spindle full of the sparkly BFL.  After making a plying ball out of the first and second spindle full I've decided to just keep adding to that ball until all the fibre is gone and ply it all in one go.  I did test ply a little bit of it and was really pleased with the results.

It's nice and soft and ever so slightly sparkly (believe it or not!)I'm really looking forward to having it all done.

I've also started spinning the merino/bamboo/soybean I got a couple of weeks back.  I've not done much but it is spinning nicely, it makes a strange sort of sound when I draft it a bit like paper tearing but very quiet.  It's interesting, but not off putting.  I've split the top into four and I'll be making 4-ply with it.

Well that's it folks, next week I should have a new spindle and therefore a new project on the go.

Shrugging off the crazies

I'm still not really sure where my camera cable is so it's back to the crappy phone cam pictures.  Not ideal but I have actual knitting to share and no matter how beautifully I attempt to describe what is essentially a white fuzzy rectangle, I think a photograph is a much better medium.  So this is my wedding shrug in all it's white, fuzzy, rectangular glory.

So far I have done 4 repeats of the 21 needed for the main body of the shrug.  Each repeat is essentially 26 rows of stockinette with the odd short row thrown in for fun so this is fairly mindless - i.e soothing balm for a wedding addled brain.  For clarification the short rows are actually for shaping, not just fun!  They ensure that this piece forms a flat ring, like a running track, rather than just a loop, helping the garment sit nicely round the shoulders.  Now, I think I may have mentioned that I was knitting this in white with little silver sparklies, however when I tried to add the project to Ravelry I began to suspect that this was not the case.  I could find no such yarn in my virtual stash, there was white Kidsilk Haze and pale blue Kidsilk Night (with silver sparklies) but no white and sparkly.  So I went back to my actual stash and found that there was indeed some non sparkly white in there which when placed next to the sparkly stuff I was knitting with......

showed that I had indeed made a mistake.  The whiteness just makes the yarn I had been using look a bit grubby.  It's a very subtle difference, but I think I would have been so disappointed when I tried it on with my dress.  Thank heavens I had only knitted 30ish rows when I noticed.  So I've started again with the correct yarn, lets just hope I don't change my mind about my wedding dress and have to start again with a whole new colour!

In non wedding news, I have been spinning.  Having freed up a couple of spindles I started spinning both of the new braids I got the other day.  They both contain fibres I've not spun before and I'm enjoying the differences.  The merino tencel blend feels almost elasticy when I draft it, it's quite strange but I love the shine of the yarn I'm spinning.  The BFL is not so different to what I'm used to but I'm enjoying working with it, mainly because it's sparkly!

The ones at the front are the new ones.  I'm thinking I may need to find a bigger jar for my spindles!

Stress

I'm not one for stress, I don't enjoy it and I don't thrive off it like some so I try not to do it.  Yesterday the world seemed to have other ideas and I'm stressed about being stressed about things I don't want to stress about.  Marvellous.  However, while all around me were demanding answers about wedding cakes and cars and flowers and all manner of other matrimonial fripperies I had new fibre to play with.  Thank heaven for sheep.....and Etsy!  Cue terrible phone pics - I really need to find the cable to charge my camera!

So pretty...this is a merino and tencel blend which is so soft and smooth I kind of want to sleep on it and the colours are just irresistible.

This is BFL with sparkles, I've only spun merino so far so I thought I'd give BFL a go and these colours are fantastic - even if they do remind me of a shell suit I have in the 80s.  These are both by Daniela of FeltStudioUk and I can heartily recommend her.  The braids came so quickly and she has so many colours to choose from, plus she slipped this in my package too:

I don't know what fibre this is and I would never choose greens to buy, but it is so lovely that I started to spin it immediately - despite needing to finish plying the sparkly pink merino.  Oh well, I guess the heart wants what it wants - and right now any distraction can only be a good thing.