Happy New Year!

Over in the Stash and Burn Groupies Ravelry Group, CherryMakes started a thread about the idea of a Ten for 10 project.  This isn’t the knit 10 of an item in the year kind of project that seems to be all over Ravelry.  Instead, this was the idea that we could each set 10 goals for improving our own knitting, spinning or crochet skills in 2010.  She posted details about her idea over on her blog in early December.  I’ve been on board with the idea, but it took me a while to come up with my list.

I’ll admit, I took some liberties with my goals.  For me, this wasn’t just about improving my skills or technique.  I also wanted to improve my overall knitting and spinning experience.  For me, the experience includes my interactions with other knitters and spinners.  That social and community aspect is something that was lacking for me in 2009.  I rarely posted to this blog.  I pretty much stopped going to the local knitting and spinning groups this summer.   I wasn’t even all that involved over in Ravelry.

I put my list of goals in the order of knitting, spinning, and then other (includes design, stash and community/social goals).  I didn’t try to put them in any sort of priority order.  My Ten for 10 are:

1. Knit a large square/rectangle shawl (like one from from Heirloom Knitting or Knitted Lace of Estonia)
2. Knit a sweater for me
3. Knit a pair of colorwork socks
4. Clean and prep the baby alpaca (cria) fleece I purchased (which will be much easier since I got combs and hand cards for Christmas)
5. Spin the above mentioned fleece
6. Spin at least an hour per week to improve my overall spinning technique and consistency
7. Reduce the overall stash -I must knit/destash more than I purchase (by weight, since I want to include the fiber and yarn)
8. Design and release at least 2 patterns
9. Post more regularly to this blog
10. Attend my local knitting or spinning groups more often (which shouldn’t be hard – I hardly went at all in 2009)

I want to use the blog to check in on this list once a month so I can keep track of how I’m doing.  I don’t know if I’ll achieve the entire list, but I’m going to try (I can already see myself skipping the large shawl…).

I think I’m going to spend some time today inventorying the stash that isn’t in Ravelry (mostly fiber) so I can have a good sense of a true starting weight for #7.

Does anyone else have any goals for 2010?  I’d love to hear about them.  Leave me a comment or come join us over on Ravelry.

Back in May on Fiber Fun Day, I made some watermelon colored batts.  I’d given these batts to my Mom as a Mother’s Day present with a promise that I would take them back, spin them and knit them into something for her.

I started spinning them back in July.  I decided to do a simple two-ply yarn.  I spun each batt as a single and plyed them together.  I wasn’t aiming for any particular weight, and I ended up with approximately 275 yards of mostly aran weight yarn.  Like all of my yarns so far, it suffers from some inconsistency in thickness.

After the yarn was spun and plied, I then faced the challenge of what to make.  Mom and I had discussed making a “modern lace” wrap for her.  She wasn’t into the idea of a traditional shawl.  I spent some time wandering through handspun lace projects in Ravelry and stumbled upon this project.  It was a heavier-weight Wisp modeled as a off-center wrap.  Mom loves ponchos and the like, so I knew this was perfect for her.

For my project, I originally cast on more stitches than the pattern called for and had a wide (top-to-bottom) Wisp, but not enough yarn to give it length to fit around an adult.  It would have fit like a glove instead of draping nicely.  So, I ripped out all of the knitting.  For the second attempt, I cast on fewer than the original a pattern and knit until I ran out of yarn.  When I finished, I had less than two or three yards of  yarn remaining.

The biggest challenge for this project was finding suitable buttons.  We don’t have a great button supply locally.  Since I didn’t shop for buttons until mid-December, and I wanted Mom to have this for Christmas, I had to settle for what I could find.  I ended up with these shell buttons.  I would have preferred to have 5 of them, but I could only find 4 in this size and color.  I may continue to look for buttons and send Mom some new ones.

I heard from Mom on Christmas day and she was excited about the present.  I don’t have any photos from her, so we’ll have to settle for a quick shot of me modeling it before shipping it off.  In the end, the project ended up to be what I was looking for.  It’s lace and open, but without the frilly, old-fashioned look that Mom was looking to avoid.  I think this will work perfect to keep her warm in those air-conditioned Arizona buildings.

Pattern:  Wisp
Designer:  Cheryl Niamath
Source:  Knitty, Summer 2007
Yarn: Handspun Wensleydale
Color:  Watermelon
Needles:  US 10 (6mm)

Started:  October 7, 2009
Completed:  October 24, 2009

I spent the last weekend up at Sock Summit with Kelly, Melissa and Alyse.  We had a great time.  I didn’t get into any classes, but I did do quite a bit of shopping.  There was so much more I could have bought, but I tried to keep my purchases down.  I tried to keep the buying to vendors I wouldn’t see again soon, or deals that I just couldn’t pass up.

First up is some more roving from Creatively Dyed. I purchased from them at Black Sheep Gathering, but they won’t be on the west coast again for a while, so I took the plunge and purchased some more.  This is 8 ounces of the merino/tencel blend.  This is my first roving with tencel in it, so it should be interesting to spin.

Next is some Yummy Superwash Sport 3-ply from Miss Babs.  They’re each 255 yards of sport weight yarn.  I’m thinking it should give me enough to do a long-legged, heavily-cabled sock pattern.  I’d never seen the Miss Babs yarns before, but I hope they knit up well.  There were some really lovely colors and nice yarns in a range of weights.  If it knits and washes as nicely as I hope it does, I could definitely see additional purchases in my future.

These are Stitch Savers from 5elementknitr.  It’s such a simple but brilliant idea.  Short sock-sized crochet hooks on key chains so you always have one with you.  I stopped in on Sunday to pick up one for myself and one for Kelly, Since she had a buy three for a set price deal, I now have two of them.

I picked up some Cherry Tree Hill solid and semi-solid sock yarn.  They were clearing it out at the Cherry Tree Hill booth, and I couldn’t pass up the deal.  I’m thinking that these two colors, jade and mulberry, will make a really bright, modern-looking two color sock pattern.  I’m thinking one of the longer knee-sock styled ones would be perfect.

This rug was so much fun that I had to get one.  It’s by Lantern Moon and was available at several of the vendor booths.  I put this one on hold when the market opened on Saturday morning.  I’m not sure that there were any left by the afternoon.  Right now it’s in our entry hallway.  I’m not quite ready to have it outside and exposed to the elements.

This may well be my favorite (and least expensive) Sock Summit purchase.  I’ve been wanting a WPI gauge for my spinning wheel.  How can you pass up a bamboo one that looks like a sheep?  I know I couldn’t.  It’s from Girl on the Rocks, and she’s got them for sale on her etsy site.

Now I just need to make a cute way to hang it off my wheel and I’ll be set!

There were a ton of wonderful vendors that I hadn’t seen before, but I couldn’t buy from all of them.   Some of my other favorites were:

• The cashmere blend sock yarn from Mackintosh Yarns (Kelly got some of this)
• The adorable yarn lollipops from Lollipop Cabin Yarns
• The fabulous box bags from SplitYarn – all of the fabric patterns I liked on Saturday morning were gone by the afternoon
• The vendor with the vintage knitting accessories (I don’t remember the name), but they had these adorable beehive-shaped yarn containers.  It made me want to start collecting vintage knitting accessories.

All in all it was a really great event.  I don’t know what the plans are for the next one, but if it’s in Portland again, I’ll definitely attend.

I decided to join the Tour de Fleece group over on Ravelry.  The idea is to spin every day the Tour de France rides, if possible.   It starts today, July 4th and runs through July 26th with a couple days of rest, July 13th and July 20th.  I figured planning to spin just about every day for a month should help me improve my spinning and become more consistent.

I’ve been working on cleaning and dyeing a fleece that was given to me.  I had no idea how much work it was going to be.  I started this morning by dyeing up the rest of the fleece.  I dyed three batches – yellow, orange, and green.  Since it was a hot, sunny day, I laid out the wet locks on the floor of the greenhouse.  It was over 100 in there today, and the locks dried quickly.

In the afternoon, I sat down to play with my new (borrowed) toy.  Kate lent me her drum carder.  I had so much fun!

I made holiday themed batts.

I made a whole rainbow of batts.

I’m not planning to spin these as they are, I do plan to blend them.  But, this was the first pass on the drum carder to turn the locks into batts.  I hand-teased each lock and then ran them through the carder.  I can’t believe how much vegetable matter was still in the locks.  I thought that I’d done a great job of cleaning the fleece.  I managed to get a lot of it out, but there are still bits of it in the batts.

When that was all finished, I actually sat down to spin for a bit.  I started spinning the watermelon batts that I made at Fiber Fun day.  I figured that watermelon was an appropriate theme for this summer holiday.

Happy Fourth!

I had a great time at Black Sheep Gathering last Saturday with Kate.

There were no yarn purchases this year, but there was a lot of fiber purchased.  I didn’t have a huge fiber stash before, but now I’m fairly satisfied with my stash.  I’m going to post in the order of purchase.  I’m not sure that there was a method to my buying, but I’m pleased with the fiber I came home with.  On to the details…

First up, 10.2 beautiful ounces of Blue Faced Leicester Top from Diacentra Designs in the colorway Madrona Dark.  It’s a soft blend of dark red/maroon, slate blue and gold.  It really became a tough color to capture with the camera.  I know that the photo here does not do it justice.

I purchased this fiber of purples, blues and greys with the colorway name Heather.  I looked at this one for quite a while before I got it.  I wasn’t going to, but I’m such a sucker for purple.  It’s a Wolf Creek Wools blend of 70% superwash merino and 30% alpaca top, 4.3 ounces in total.

Next up, 2 ounces of 80% merino, 20% angora roving.  It’s Bunny Patch Fiber from New Hue Handspun in the Ancient Roses.  This one was a bit of an impulse buy.  I wasn’t sold on the roving by looking at it while walking by.  As I stood around waiting for Kate to purchase some, I noticed she was selling hanspun out of the roving, and I really loved the look of it.  I decided to buy some and see if I could spin a yarn as nice as the ones she had.

Next, 8 ounces of Superwash Merino from Crown Mountain Farms in the colorway Hey Jude.  It’s a blend of purples, blues, greens, yellows, and oranges.  From talking with them at their booth, this is a new colorway for them.  This is the same vendor that I purchased my alpaca lace from last year for my Icarus shawl.  I loved the yarn, so I’m hoping to love this roving.

At the Tactile Fiber Arts booth, I picked up 4 ounces of a natural colored alpaca silk blend.  It’s 80% alpaca and 20% silk, and so soft.  I admired it several times before stopping by to pick it up.  I can’t even begin to be able to explain how soft this stuff is.  I also love the natural black color with the silk blended in to lighten it up.  I think this is going to be a dream to spin.

Finally, on my way out of the show, I stopped by the Creatively Dyed booth.  I debated for a while, but finally walked away with 8 ounces of the 70% Wool, 30% Seacell blend.  It’s mostly orange, with lots of blues and greens blended in.  If I were naming the color, I’d call it Key West, just a vibe I get from the color scheme.