Hey, peeps, I did some more spinning this weekend.

Not to worry, you non-spinners, I'm sure I will thoroughly OD on spinning in a few weeks and you can come back and not be bored by pictures of random bobbins of yarn. haha! (You know I'm teasing, don't you?)

Without further ado, here is one of those random full-bobbin pictures:

I am plying over a bobbin full of orange. Clearly, I already need a few more bobbins.

Anyway, I completely forget from whom I bought this turquoise fiber; however, I can tell you exactly where the booth was in Rhinebeck.

Oh wait, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe it was Grafton Fibers. Yes, I think it was.

It was lovely to spin. Can you believe I haven't whipped the plied yarn off the bobbin and microwaved it yet? (See past entries for explanation of this). That's the best part! My favorite part!

Here's how the rainbow dyed yarn is knitting up. There was enough to knit this much while visiting in Boston this weekend:

Well, I forgot I cropped this so you can't really tell how much I finished.

Must chain myself to the wheel and churn out enough to finish.

Hey, for all you asking about the microwave finishing, here's how it goes:

1. Spin a skein.
2. Wash it and get it completely wet.
3. Squeeze out excess water in a towel. (I like to roll it up and stand on the towel.)
4. Put skein on towel in microwave. (My microwave is not clean enough for my precious yarn.)
5. Shut microwave door.
6. Nuke for 60 seconds (600 watt microwave here, yours might be different). If your skein weighs more or less, adjust time. Don't freak out about it. I can't give you a time, because I'd just be guessing.
7. Stay near microwave and sniff for scorching smells.
8. If you smell scorching, you microwaved it too much
9. That's not good. It's too late for that skein. Go spin another.
10. Anyway, after the 60-second microwaving, take out and check for dryness.
11. If still pretty wet or even just wet, microwave for 15-30 second intervals until yarn is dry to touch, but damp inside if you squeeze it.
12. Allow to finish drying of its own accord.

A skein I spun today.

Squishy, elastic yarn! Fiber is rainbow dyed by Lynn Vogel.
Closeups before and after washing & microwaving

I have done a lot of spinning since my Robin wheel arrived. It seems that I have a backlog of fiber in the stash.

I love spinning Bluefaced Leicester. It puffs up so nicely when steamed in the microwave. (What, you say?)
Click for a closeup.

The fiber is from Pinetree Farms shop. Cindy and I went absolutely nuts over this woman's booth in Rhinebeck. She had fiber to spin and some of the most beautiful multicolored skeins of yarn.

The delightful thing about these skeins was that they were spun out of rainbow roving and when plied, not one of the colors plied to the same color. So no green to green or brown to brown. It was all mixed up. Sounds easy to do, right?

Well....I have been trying to replicate that and have had a few problems.

For this skein, I tore the roving apart after 2 repeats of the colors. Then I flipped them around so none of the colors matched up. Then I began predrafting and finally spun each roving onto its own bobbin.

Logically, since the colors were flipped and I made sure they didn't match up before the predrafting was done, then the plied should've gotten close to my plan.

As you can see, it didn't and it didn't. It started out with green plying to green for a good 30 yards, then all was good. Not bad for a first try.

What I am going to do in the future is ply coordinating rovings together to guarantee that same colors do not ply together.

Here's the new Robin!

Lookit all those little shoes.

I am feeling very settled with the new Robin. The waiting and hoping is over and the future is now. Yah! It is a wonderful wheel and now that I have managed to procure my dream wheel, I feel, well, like I need to get on another wheel waitlist.

Maybe I'll sign up for a Hall Traditionals wheel. I hear the wait is a good 7 to 9 years. That will give me a good amount of time to spend looking forward to a new wheel.

No, I am just kidding. I love my little Robin and it is so me. While I love the fancy wheels, I prefer the practicalness and simple beauty of the Robin.

I could make a cheesy analogy here of spinning wheels to men you marry and men you don't. But I'll spare you. HAHAHAHA!

It's not really that funny anyway.

Now, back to my spinning.

Oh...maybe a spinster analogy could go here....nah

***Tune in tomorrow for a picture of my first robin-wheel-spun skein! It's the best I have ever spun! I am telling you this to force myself to blog before I forget about it! Until tomorrow!***

When starting a toddler sock, to think, "will I really finish this?"

Koigu

Toddler socks--do you think I should put some of that grippy gloppy stuff on the bottom of the socks?

That is, if I get that far.

Gilbert Gonsalves called tonight to say my Robin Spinning wheel is done and in the mail!

Hoo! Ray!

I really should write all that in CAPS, because if you were here and I was telling you in person, I would be talking none too quietly about it.

I am so excited about getting a Robin wheel of my own to spin on. I love Robin wheels and Gilbert is such a nice person and he does beautiful work.

Interesting fact: He said there is so much snow where he is that he can walk on top of the snow to the roof of his workshop.

Down here in PA, where it was 67 degrees today, that sounds pretty cool.

Wow, yay me. I had a mad scientist "I've finally done it!" moment this weekend. Demi fits and is actually passing inspection to go on to be the first sweater ever I would consider wearing out in public.

(Yes, I am picky.)

Anyway, I basted all the pieces of Demi up on Saturday, tried it on and the naysaying voices in my head didn't start up at all. Not one complaint. And usually this is the time, when the doubting voices in my head try to convince me to drive to the store and just buy a sweater that fits already.

My mental checklist when trying on my handknit sweaters:
1) Color good? check
2) Size good? amazingly acceptable
3) Strange petite/widen alterations I made on the fly...all good

3.5) Enough yarn to finish? Looking good despite the fact that I made it bigger than called for...thought for sure I'd need at least another ball.

4) Sleeves not too long? No, not too long. For freakin once.

5) Any other comments? What about those bobbles? Not too annoying.

I am working on perfecting the cloak collar. Right now, it's a bit too wing-like in the front and not long enough in the back. Perhaps short rows will help?

I plan to close this with 2 cloak clasps. I never use all the buttons on a cardigan and so why even bother to make buttonholes and sew on all those buttons anyway?

After working this cardigan version, I have been inspired to pick up my cabled cuff design. I want to rework the body to be a cloaky cardigan too.

I've been waiting (p a t i e n t l y) for ye olde camera to finally deliver its sorry self back to my doorstep. Meanwhile, I've been working on Demi from Rowan Vintage Style.

Front sans sad little bobble pattern.

I like the design and the Rowan Yorkshire Tweed a lot, but halfway* through knitting the back, I realized that I must have gone insane to think I would want to wear a aran weight pullover with waist shaping. Yea, the waist shaping is the bane of my short little self. It never falls in the right place, generally falling somewhere where my hips are and well, that's not pretty.

Now, I know it's not a hard thing to just redo the waist shaping, but I am so not inclined. Too fussy, just leave it out. Personally, I am not too keen on waist shaping on such a heavy item anyway.

If only I were taller, I wouldn't have to shorten everything.

If only, right?

Where was I? Yes--the other thing that occurred to me while knitting the back. That was, that while I was busy deciding to ignore Kim Hargreaves and all her absolutely insane, rambling instructions to decrease and then increase for the waist shaping, I was also thinking, "cardiganize!" (I was also thinking I have a soft spot in my heart for the 80s, so why not make it insanely big?)

You might have noticed if you googled the vintage style book (sorry I was too lazy to find you a picture), that there is a bobbly motif that runs up the middle of Demi's front. Bobbles! Outrageousness. How can one cardiganize that?

Let me go on record and say I am completely opposed to bobbles. That's one part of the 80s I didn't really care for. (Am I the only one who associates bobbles with the 80s?)

Why the hell am I knitting this sweater?!

Still, I knit those bobbles into the sweater's back and sleeves just because I was too tired to think up anything else to put there. Besides, I don't think they will bother me much because I won't be able to see them when wearing the sweater. And I promise not to look at my sleeves.

Anyway, getting back to the front, it needed something different, since, obviously, the bobble pattern couldn't be chopped in half. So, sad little bobble motif was swiftly omitted from the fronts and an extra cable was slapped on in its place.

Simple enough. For now....other necessary alterations will be dealt with as they crop up.

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*the point at which the waist shaping begins.