Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Swatch

Last fall I acquired 5 skeins of, very delicious and discontinued Worsted Ware (a superwash merino that is as the name suggests worsted weight) at the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Barn sale, I especially love the darker of the blueish ones.

Worsted Ware Hanks

I've been wrestling with patterns trying to decide what to make them into for the last year, and had just started a cabled scarf with it for a test knit. Unfortunately however my cousin who also got a skein of the Worsted Ware, didn't have as much trouble and used it to make a very cute bolero for her extremely cute daughter...

It fulled the first time it was washed, in fact she said it felted better than the Twisted, which is actually intended for fulling.

So I frogged the scarf and, took about 2 grams off each of the skeins, and knit them up into a swatch strip(something I never do) on needles a size larger than recommended. I wanted to make sure that it had plenty of room to full if it was so inclined. When I was knitting it I noticed was that the pale blue is substantially heavier than the other others, I think it may actually be a bulky.

After I'd rubbed, yanked, and swished it around in some very hot Dawny water, I had my results.

Swatch Test

While I did get at least a little fuzzing on all of them, due to the extreme mistreatment the colors had endured, the green and pale blue are only two that went for it completely.

The three that didn't

Felted Two

Sunday, November 15, 2009

NwRSA Spin-in

Well I'm not a spinner but yesterday I attended my first spin-in. It was pretty low key and there was a rather impressive number of vendors there considering the small size of the event.

Room at Large

I got a couple skeins of Super Sock from Abstract Fiber, the green one is Sweet Pea and the other is a Limited Edition.

Spin-in Stash Additons

It was really something to watch some of those ladies spin, almost like magic. I mean I've tried to use a drop spindle once or twice and to see these ladies pulling a fine, even thread from a clump of roving with extremely deceptive ease, was awesome.

Awesome Spinerati

Oh yeah, and a dog named Gladys was there too. She was so sweet!

Gladys