One more mile

Since I got that new Lendrum, it's been less about knitting and more about spinning. ToolMan fixed StitchJones yarn reel for her and she felt compelled to "pay" by gifting me with a roving. This is 4 ounces of blue faced leicester in her "Gems" colorway. Feast your eyes on those colors!



This gal's got a way with color that is unbelievable! Go click on that link up there and look at her yarns. Her hand painted yarns are beautiful, and her kettle-dyed are fabulous! She does a deep cobalt blue kettle-dye that is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.

I split the roving length-wise and made two very fine singles. Let me tell ya, it spun like "buttah." I found only 1 or 2 neps, no vm, and not a felted spot to be found.



See how nicely the color change looks on that bobbin? I did my darnedest to make both bobbins come out that way. I was hoping to ply them together for a 2-ply that would have stripes with some marling in between. Which only sort of happened; I got a lot more marling than I really wanted. So, I cabled the 2-plys together to get a light worsted weight which was all marled, but with sections of mostly-blue, mostly-green, and mostly-purple.



A couple weeks ago at Westside Wednesday, StitchJones said she had no hand spun in her stash. So, last Wednesday, this little skein went home to live with it's mama! I thought it only fitting that a gal's first hand spun should be her own colorway!

And I plied up the second batch of that bright green from Ronnie's Handspun.



You can't read the card in that photo, but it's 1,156 yards. That, along with the skein for StitchJones, put me over the 2 mile mark. It took me four months to do the first mile, but with the speed of that Lendrum, I did the second mile in less than a month.

And, I'm working on that second goal, of improving my spinning skills. Look how consistent this skein is:



The first skein wasn't bad, but side by side, this one is definitely more evenly spun and plied.

That was the last of the Kermit green; next up is the darker green. I'll have to think of a better name for the color while I'm spinning it.

And just to prove that I haven't given up knitting all together, I cast on for a Comfort Shawl from the Sweet Somethings pamphlet from Interweave Knits.



I made the Summer Shawlette for the auction for Thomas; this is a similar pattern but without the lace pattern down the back. Lots of stockinette so it's good commute knitting; and machine washable yarn so it'll be easy care. I only have about 10 rows left, so I'll finish it up in the next day or two. Then, I'll have to toss the stash for another project (I mean besides the socks I'm supposed to be blogging about for Monica).

I'm trying to use up all my "store bought" yarn before using knitting my own hand spun. I've made a few things of my own yarn: ToolMan's socks, a couple of scarves, and a beret. But I know that If I really start using my own yarn and the small producer yarns, I won't want to go back to the mass-produced stuff. You know what that means, don't you? It means I'll be knitting lots of Christmas gifts early! Yeah, right.