Danish shawl project (from Sheep to shawl)

I am attempting my first sheep to shawl project. This is where you start with raw fiber and end with a completed knitted/crochet product.
The project I am undertaking is the traditional Danish Shawl. It was feature as an article in Spin Off magazine Spring 2008.

Front/back view (This is from the author's website http://www.lustauffarben.de/faerben-strickanleitungen-englisch.html)

I am using Alpaca/romney blend. The Alpaca color is called Cinnamon. I left the color natural. The Romney was died various colors.

I carded the two together so that it would appear that the brown shawl had hints of color throughout.

Here is the fiber in its carded state

Here it is on the bobbin

I will continue to update as I get further along.

Warm ribbed hat for my dad

At the Lambtown festival, my dad really wanted some fiber so that a hat could be made for him. He decided not to purchase the fiber. When I got home I was thinking about how much my dad wanted a hat. It just so happens that about a month ago I spun up some yarn in the exact colors that my dad was looking at during the festival. So I did some searching on Ravelry for a hat pattern and found this one. I completed it in about 2 days. I am going to give it to him for his birthday. I can't wait for him to see it.

Naturally colored cotton?

This is really neat stuff. This is naturally colored cotton. This color is Palo Verde. I am going to spin this and then ply it with some bamboo and nylon. The colored cotton is part of the Spin Off Fiber school in the Ravelry Spin Off Fun group.

Palo Verde Cotton from New World Textiles

100% handpainted bamboo

Woohoo!!! My Lambtown adventure

This was my first time visiting the Lambtown festival in Dixon since I was a kid. My dad came along with me which made the day even more special. Our first stop was to watch the Sheep Dog Trials. These dogs are amazing. We watched a few trials before the sun got too much for us and we decided to go check out the rest of the event.

Our next stop was to see some of the many vendors. There was such great stuff crafted by many talented people. I was very good and didn't purchase anything. I was hoarding my small stash of money for the fibery goodness we were heading for.

At the fiber building I came unglued. Short circuited is more like it. Some of the fiber was so soft it made my eyes roll to the back of my head. I felt such luxurious stuff as pygora, baby alpaca, mohair, just to name a small few.

My first purchase and main goal was to find some alpaca that matched the alpaca that I already spun for my Danish Shawl. Luck was with me. There were many vendors selling alpaca, but there were only two vendors that had the color alpaca I needed. So I purchased 7.4 ounces of alpaca from A Star Alpacas. I have to give much thanks to Sunburst who is the Alpaca who gave this gorgeous fiber. I have a feeling I will be going to her store very soon.

My next planned purchase was some Romney that I purchased to blend with the alpaca. For the life of me I don't remember the vendor's name that I purchased it from. I sure wish I did because she had some more fiber I wanted to purchase when I can refill my fiber money.

Here I have already started the dying processes. The original color was white.

Now this was an unplanned purchase, but this gorgeous fiber was calling my name. As I walked into the building I the first thing I saw was this amazing silver wool. Don't know what kind of sheep donated it, but the wool won 3rd place at the El Dorado County Fair. After fondling it for several seconds, I moved along to the other vendors in the search for my alpaca. During our second tour of the building after lunch, I once again find myself fondling this amazing wool. Well, it ended up going home with me. I am planning on making a sweater with this.

Now with our shopping all done, our next stop before we head home is to the sheep shearing contest. We had stopped by earlier, but they were only prepping the sheep for the contest. During the prep I pointed out this gorgeous ewe in the mix. It was the only colored sheep in the bunch. Well, during the contest, some of the contestants were ready yet, so to stall for time, they decided to sheer one of the sheep to show the crowd what the contestants will be doing. They happen to choose my favorite colored sheep to demonstrate on. When they were finished sheering her, they threw the fleece off to the side onto the ground. During a quite moment while still waiting for the contestants, I asked the person MCing the contest what was going to be done with the fleece. He stated **GASP** "were going to throw it away". I quickly asked if I could have it and to my surprise, he said yes.

The staple is a bit small, and the fleece is really dirty... but hey it's free. Who can complain. Plus it will be fun to see what will come of the fleece once its cleaned.

Loaded with all our goodies, tired feet and bodies, we head home for some much needed rest.

My latest spinning project

This is the the SeaCell/Merino blend that I purchased from Creatively Dyed Etsy store. I have to say I love love love this fiber. It spins like butter and is as soft. It is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend this stuff.

It is approximately 27 WPI (lace wt). I plan to ply it into a 3 ply sock yarn then knit it up using the Journeyman sock pattern in the current issue of Spin Off.

Look what came today!

I am so excited. This is just absolutely gorgeous. It is 100% bamboo handpainted by Traditions Fiber Arts. Judy is wonderful. She doesn't know it yet but she is my new best friend. If you get a chance, check out her Etsy store. She has lots of yummy fibers.

I am planning on spinning this and then plying it with some cotton that I am going to spin up.

The cotton spinning is part of the Spin Off Fiber School thread on Ravelry. The current article of Spinn Off highlights cotton in it Fiber article. Anyone who wants to participate, can spin some cotton and then share their experience including tips they learned, likes, dislikes, and hopefully lots of pictures.

Here is a link to the thread: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/spin-off-fun-2/258542/1-25#13

Finished spinning the Alpaca/Romney fiber

Well I finally finished spinning all that Alpaca/romney fiber that I carded. I got approximately 296 yard of yarn. Unfortunately, the pattern that I want to make calls for 1040 yards. I am not even close. [sniff sniff]
















I am going to purchase some more fiber at the Lambtown festival this weekend.

Finally finished preparing the fiber for my Danish Shawl

I have been working on this fiber for the past couple of weeks. I have taken the Alpaca and the dyed romney and carded them together. I look forward to seeing how it looks when I spin it. I plan on spinning it for the Danish wrap shawl that is in the current issue of Spin Off magazine.

Dyed NZ Romney

I purchased this raw fleece from Rumplestiltskins. Once I cleaned it all up it showed itself to be a soft gorgeous fiber. I did notice that dyeing the fiber caused the fiber to lose some of its softness. But the fun colors make up for some of the loss of softness. Besides, I am going to blend this with the yummy yummy soft Alpaca.

Here is a picture of the dyed romney. This was my first attempt at dyeing fiber. I did not have a clue as to what I was doing. I used Jacquard acid dye. It looks a bit like Bozo's wig is having a bad day.

Practicing my spinning

I am practicing my spinning. I am trying to learn to spin thinner so that I can eventually make a 2-3 ply sock weight yarn. I think I am starting to get the hang of it. What do you think?

Look what I purchased

I purchased this gorgeous fiber from Creatively Dyed.

It is a Superwash Merino/Sea Cell blend. I have read some wonderful information about the benefits of Sea Cell. I am going to spin this into sock yarn to knit myself some socks. I am hoping that the Sea Cell with work its magic. I have Fibromyalgia (as I may have mentioned before in this blog). It causes terrible problems in MANY different ways. One of those problems is inflammation. The inflammation in my feet has caused Morton's Neuromas in both of my feet. The cortizone shots have not had any effect in reducing the swelling or pain.

Well, according to the research, Sea Cell is supposed to have anti-inflammatory properties. Here is a link to the research information.

http://www.louet.com/downloads/seacellinfosheet.pdf

New Zealand Romney

This weeken I cleaned some New Zealand Romney that I am going to dye and blend with my just recently cleaned Alpaca. My plan is to use the yarn that I make from this blend to knit a Danish shawl.

Here is a Romney before I cleaned it

Here is a picture of my cleaned Romney

My clean Alpaca fleece

Well, it is all done. My fleece is all picked clean and washed.

Here it is

DIY spinning tools

I decided I needed a few items to make my fiber and spinning preparation easier. But I don't have the funds to pay the higher prices for the items I wanted. So I decided to head to my local hardware store (dad's basement, hehe) and see what I could do about a DIY project.

The first project I made was a Kniddy Knoddy. I purchases 3 pieces of PVC and 2 "t" connectors.
I then cut one of the pieces of PVC to measure 16". I then cut the other PVC into 4 pieces each measuring 6". I sanded the cut ends, placed the "T" connectors on each end, placed a 6" piece in each end of the "T" connectors and there you go. Your own Kniddy Knoddy. And it is water proof.

The other item I made was a screen to hold my wet fiber on for drying. I used some left over window screen and scrap wood. I used some metal braces to hold the corners together and provide some added support. I then stapled the screen to the wood frame. Voila... fiber screen.

What a day!

Good thing I had planned on being home from work today. I had originally planned on taking the day off of work to stay home with my son because the summer daycare program won't start until June 16. Well, as I am writing this, the plummer is working under the house to fix a nasty little leak in our pipes. YIKES!!! There goes all my fiber money. :(

Well, my little guy ended up going to grandma's house for the weekend so I have the whole day to myself (besides the plummer). What do I do... I spend the entire day cleaning my Alpaca fleece.

I spent the whole day cleaning and getting no where. At least that is how is feels. So thanks to many helpful folks on my favorite website, Ravelry, I hopped into the car and drove to the pet store. Pet store you say. Why go there? Well, I found some great dog combs (more like rakes) that I can you like fiber combs. Just a LOT cheaper. I researched on the web and found that a pair of combs for combing fiber cost a minimum of about $90. Well, I purchased my combs for $7 each. Much better.

Here is a picture of my dog combs.

My first handspun yarn

This is my first handspun yarn created on my Louet spinning wheel.

My plans for this weekend

This weekend I will be spending my entire time cleaning this Alpaca fleece.

Over a year ago, I purchased some raw Alpaca fleece from a farm. Unfortunately, the fleece that arrive at my home did not meet the description in the ad. This fleece had HEAVY VM and dirt. Can we say lesson learned. This was my very first fiber of any kind that I purchased to spin. This before I had actually learned to spin (I was signed up for a class, then the class got cancelled). So chalk it up to being a newbie.

Well here is a picture of the fiber I will be cleaning.

Started my second bobbin of spun yarn

Well, I spent today (or has much of it as I could due to housework) working on my second bobbin of yarn.

I am getting much better. My yarn is much more consistent and it is not breaking very often. This is a huge thing for me. However, it think I may have gone from not enough twist to too much twist. But at least it is not breaking (grin).

I am also trying not to spin as thin as I was. I think that was also contributing to some of my breakage.

Well here it is:

Spinning at the County Fair

I went to the county fair with my family and parents today. The fair had the best display of crafts. The fantastic part about it was that there was a Sheep to Shawl competition going on and I had an opportunity to watch the spinners and ask lots of questions. I spent hours just drooling over the delicious yarn they were spinning. Oh if I could only make yarn half as decently as they do.

My son was the total highlight of the day. He decided that he wanted to try and climb the rock wall. He must have tried more than 8 times. He made it to the last 2 rocks before he decided that it was too high up and decended to the bottom only to try again and again. I sure wish I had my camera and especially a camcorder so I could tape this.

Well, when I came home from the fair, I was inspired to sit at my wheel as see if I can put all the information I gained from today to good use.

Here is a picture of my first attempt at spinning. This is a single ply of wool. We are required to bring two full bobbins to our last spinning class so that we can learn to ply.

Second spinning class

Well our second class was even better than the first class. We brought our spinning wheels to class and leaned how to use them. We then spent the entire class treadling our little happy hearts out. Ok... maybe not so happy. The yarn and I were having a battle of the wills. I kept wanting to twist it and wrap it around the bobbin, it kept wanting to break on me as it was being wrapped. I finally won out by treadling faster and adding more twist. hehe.

Here isa picture of my beautiful spinning wheel. It is a Louet S51.