Mega Spin Along

I mentioned the Mega Spin Along (MegaSAL) back in April and then again a week ago and just realized that I never explained what it was. First pictures of the pretty fibers. Minus the one that has already been spun.

Clockwise from top left: Magrat of SWM, Maiden's Wish of SWM, Vetinari on SASF,
Octarine on Wensleydale, Nobby on  Finn

The MagaSAL was the brainchild of David (Southern Cross Fibres) based around Terry Pratchett's Disc World series. I remember hearing about this idea a while back in February and that is when I joined along. He got six dyers together who each created two colors based on different series. Each color was then dyed up on a variety of fibers and blends.

I managed to catch two of the updates (Southern Cross Fibres and Spunky Eclectic), one which involved me getting up at a crazy time to get some fiber. Yes, I do question my sanity at times. From Spunky I got Rincewind on BFL and Octarine on Wensleydale, which is my all time favorite long wool. Ventari on South African Superfine and Nobby on Finn are from David.

From the other four dyers there were amazing colors, but I either missed the updates due to work or the colors were just not for me. I was sad that I missed out on the nest Fiber Studio update as I was in love with both of the colors. Not wanting to seem like I was asking for a lot, I put out and 'In Search Of' post for Maiden's wish and one woman was amazing enough to sell me one of each of the Nest colors, both on super wash merino.

Somehow over the years I kept starting the Disc World books, but never got around to finishing any of the ones that I started. Now after all the talk in the forums about the books, I know what my next travel reads are going to be.

Right now I have a small sample spin on my wheel, but I think that the next fiber on the wheel will be  Magrat. Still trying to decide between chain plying to keep the colors together or spinning it as a three ply and not worrying too much about keeping the colors together. Guess we will all have to wait and see!

Busy Part 2

So the rest of the projects consisted of one knitted dragon and three more spinning projects.

This was my first attempt to ever knit any sort of stuffed creature. I'll be honest, there are probably easier projects to start with, but where would be the fun in that? This poor guy still doesn't have a name, but he is knitted in a yarn that had silver sparkles in it. 

And he has wings! And spikes along his back that stand up! The pattern was super easy to understand even for me and I think I want to knit him a friend now.

From left to right in the photo above: Prim from Two if By Hand on a merino/cashmere/nylon (MCN) blend, Outburst on a BFL/silk blend and Rustling Scales on Rambouillet. Both the MCN and the Rambouillet were firsts for me as I had never spun them before. 

After spinning and washing the yarns, they both fluffed up, but the MCN was crazy in what I like to call the fluff factor. I spun the singles for this between 54 and 80 wraps per inch which according to most spinning math would lead to a chain plied yarn between 30-40+ wraps per inch. The fluff factor on the MCN gave me plied yarn having the wpi around 20. No joke, it fluffed up a ton. And then it fluffed up even more after washing to 18ish wpi. Which is what I wanted, but it made me extremely glad that I had done a small sample spin before jumping into the project. Even with all the crazy fluff going on I still ended up with 568 yards. 

Prim

Outburst

Between the five spins I ended up with 2,525 yards of yarn after having spun 5,187 yards of singles. It was a total of 21.5 ounces as well.

Busy, busy, busy

It has been quite around here for a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been crafting. See?

You might recognize shawl in the back from my last post, but the dragon and the 5 yarns have all been started and finished since then.  Because that is a lot of projects, I'm going to brake this into two posts.

First of the finished projects was the grey/white yarn on the right side. It is actually three skeins of singles from the remaining natural colored fiber of the spin I posted back in February.  I tried my best to match what had already been spun and it looks pretty close. The only difference is that there was a little more twist put into the original skein, but I think that if I alternate skeins when I knit with it, it shouldn't be too noticeable. The finished yarn ended up being 1,061 yards.

The next spin finished was the yarn on the left. It was Rincewind on BFL from Spunky Eclectic which was part of the MegaSAL based on Terry Pratchett's Disc World books. This spin was a two ply with a final count of 326 yards for the big skein and a tiny leftover two ply of about 30 yards.

312 beads later...

Just a little close up of some of the beading on my most recent project. Of course, I wanted the beads to match the tan yarn so it does make it rather hard to see the beads. I promise they are there. There are also about two dozen beads that are now in my couch cushions. 

One thing that really helped with adding all the beads was the Fleegle beader. If you have a project where you need to add tons of beads, I would highly suggest buying one. I tried other methods like using a piece of folded wire and the floss things, but they didn't go all that well.

And the entire shawl. I did a quick blocking of it, but it really needs to be redone. And I need to get a better photo of it.

I'm not going to lie and say that this was an easy project for me, but I'm very glad that I kept at it and finished it. Most of the problems I had were just from getting distracted while counting during the top patten section. Then again, watching shows I had to focus on probably wasn't a good idea either.

Also, there has been a lot of spinning going on, but you'll get to see that next time.

Finished!

It took way longer then it should have to get that all balanced on there.

It took a few hours because I could only wash two skeins at a time and I let them soak a while in some Kookaburra Soak since it was still a little bit dirty. But we had a bright sunny day that allowed for hanging all the skeins on my balcony and getting some funny looks from passing neighbors. And since you have already seen the photos before washing, here is the after!

Which looks very similar to the before picture. I promise it is the after photo though! And because I had to spin over 1.5 pounds for the house cup, there was a fun balancing act that took place on my tiny scale and here is the proof. 25.55 ounces spun in two months excluding a few other small spins that I did over that time as well. About a minute after I took the balancing act photo and the once below, the yarn tower collapsed.

And last each yarn on it's own.

Now onto some more of my spin the bin fiber with a possible side spin or two of some Mega Spin Along fiber. More on that another time.

I spun a sweater

No seriously, I spun enough of a single fiber to knit a sweater. Or a cardigan. Or a ridiculous amount of hats. And obviously I have no idea what I am going to use the yarn for.

The sweater spin hasn't been washed yet, but as I type it is hanging in my shower drying. A grand total of 7 skeins with 1,461 yards before washing. I know that some of that will be lost after it dries, but I'll have to wait for final numbers.

The colorfully dyed yarn on the right has already been washed and is 383 yards of 2 ply and 76 yards of chain plied. 

Daybreak

Two color knitting, at least stripes with a few slip stitches, wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. There were a few times when I got my two balls of yarn rather tangled, but that was mostly when I wasn't paying attention when turning the piece.

The shawl is Daybreak by Stephen West and the directions were super easy. And the yarn (100% superwash merino) was wonderful to work with as well- all the yarn I've gotten from Nerd Girl Yarns has been.

And now back to spinning up Violet.

In which I begin to question my sanity...

Had anyone asked me a year ago if I ever thought I could knit a hat in a day I would be laughing.  Seriously full on laughing. Granted a year ago I didn't know how to knit, but a hat in a day? That is just crazy talk...

Barley hat

Oh wait. I just managed to knit a hat in under twelve hours on Sunday. Note to past self, stop laughing. We had a speed race quidditch event with the House Cup and I decided to give it a shot. The hat was very simple, just knit and purl stitches with some decreases thrown in. We had to do the large size and I was a little too into my shows and forgot to measure so I ended up adding about 3/4" onto the height of the hat, but I now have a nice slouchy hat to match my sweater. 

We should probably not talk about how many episodes of Bones  or  Once Upon A Time I watched. It was more then 4 episodes total, but I'm not giving away any more than that. 

Spinning progress

So I have managed to spin up half of the fleece and half of the Hello Yarn fiber shown in the previous post. I wish the little Ashford bobbin showed more of the colors. 

It is interesting how the bobbins compare. I know that the Hansen bobbins are a lot bigger, but after having not used my Ashford for a while I had forgotten how much larger they really are. There are 2 ounces of colorful singles on the front bobbin and it is rather full while the middle bobbin has about 8 ounces on it and still has quite a bit of empty space. The bobbin still on the mini spinner has about 4 ounces on it.

Since this photo I've started the second bobbin of the Hello Yarn fiber and gotten maybe another half ounce done of the fleece.

Neutrals

It seems that I have been on a kick spinning more neutral colors recently, starting with the fleece I'm working on. After carding all the fleece and spinning up some of it I decided to take a small break and spin up something colorful...

Look how well that worked. I kept picking up other fibers wanting something bright and fun, but somehow this is what jumped on the wheel. It is part of some Falkland that I dyed up at yarn school this past year. Spun with a low twist and lightly fulled, I think that when I get around to spinning the rest of it I'm going to try to match it.

I'm back to working on spinning up the fleece, but the other spin that I'm working on fills my need for color. The ply is for a two ply yarn which you can seem the sample on the right on the card in the picture.

NGY

A while back I stumbled across the Nerd Girl Yarns group on Ravelry and was amazed by the gorgeous yarns and fiber that were dye up. And of course I just had to order some...when I had the money for it. You know how that goes right? (I'll give you a hint, I got side tracked by other shiny objects) Anyway, right before Thanksgiving I noticed that there was going to be a Cyber Monday sale of all of the yarn and fiber- both dye to order and one of a kind. One of the few times I will actually admit that insomnia is a good thing. I snagged a bunch of dye to order and a beautiful OOAK skein called Father Time.

From left to right on the first photo there is H.G. (so named for Helena on Warehouse 13), Father Time, Blue Box Exploding, Don't Blink and Jenny x5. H.G. has already shawl/kerchief, Don't Blink and Jenny will become a larger shawl together, and I have no earthy idea what the other two will become. Unless I can figure out how to knit socks soon because Blue Box Exploding would be some super fun socks.

Some how I never managed to get a better photo of all of the yarn before finishing HG and casting on Don't Blink and Jenny. But all of the yarn is amazing to work with. Super soft and gorgeous colors.

Soon I'll post a picture of the current WIP shawl.

Spin In Progress

A while back I showed you the fiber I had started spinning at Yarn School and where it was at

Now, three months later, I have finished spinning the singles! I've been looking for some metallic thread so that I could ply the two together, but I couldn't fins a thread that was the right color or the right weight so I'm going to chain ply it all. But not for a while because it will be one massive ply session. 

Spinning Violet

This is only about 20 ounces of fiber-there is more!

Over two Yarn School visits I have acquired 1.5 pounds of a beautiful fleece from a BFL/ merino cross sheep named Violet. It has already been washed, but had not been processed in any other way and it is time to spin it up. It is also the largest single amount of any one fiber that I have. After trying a few different ways to prep it for spinning, I've decided that rolags are the way to go. And I've started spinning.

First of three plies

I love that the fiber is spinning up slightly textured and know that it will mostly even out with the plying. When all is said and done, the finished yarn will be a true three ply and not my regular chain ply.

Spin the Bin 2015 Challenge

One of the groups I'm a part of on Ravelry is the Completely Twisted and Arbitrary Spinners (CTA Spinners) and last year there was a spin the bin challenge that was a big hit. I didn't find that challenge until about half way through the year and at a time when my spinning mojo had gone on vacation so I didn't join. I could have joined at any point, but then I honestly forgot. Luckily they are starting up the challenge for this year and I'm in!

A quick summary of the rules before I show you my bin- you start your bin with a minimum of 12 fibers weighing 2 ounces or more each; you can add to the bin, but not take away unless you replace it with two items; you have to declare your bin with specifics and then when finished declare with photos (so before and after). One great thing is that if you have a large amount of one fiber (1.5 pounds of Violet's fleece), you can split it into a few entries. The 2015 challenge starts December 24, 2014 and goes until December 31, 2015. You can also decided if you want to be part of the use it or lose it group which means if it isn't spun at the ear of the year you are donating it to the prize pool. I probably should join the use it or lose it, but I'm undecided at the moment.

So my list!

1. CHF- mixed BFL- Firelight- 5.25oz
2. SE- Romney- Lightening Strike- 4oz
3. SE- Corriedale- Acorns- 4oz
4. Julie Spins,- Targhee- Apple Impression- 5.4oz (18.65)
5. TIBH- MCN- Prim- 4oz
6. TIBH- Batt 252- 2.3oz
7. Loop- merino/nylon/angelina- Galaxy- 5oz+
8. HY- BFL/silk- Outburst- 4oz
9. HY- Corriedale- Pressing Reasons- 4oz
10. Violet BFL/merino fleece, 8 ounces
11. Violet BFL/merino cross fleece- 8 ounces
12. Violet BFL/merino cross fleece- 8 ounces

So far the total is 61.95 ounces (over 3.5 pounds!), but I can always add to my bin if I want to. Though to try keeping my spinning options open over the year, I most likely will not add to the list. And also over 3 pounds is more than I normally spin in a year. Let's see how far I get!

At some point I need to take photos of all the fiber laid out and make a collage so you can see the nine braids and batts I've chosen.