summer sky citron

There are few knitting-related things more satisfying than planning out a project and having it turn out just as you'd hoped.  Happily, that was exactly what happened with my handspun Citron shawl!  Yay!  I started out with eight ounces of beautiful blue and white roving from Skirted Fleece Mill, in a soft, perfectly prepared merino/alpaca/silk blend.  It came from the mill labeled as 'Snow Angels,' but the colors looked to me more like fluffy clouds in a summer sky.

   

 I debated whether to spin this into a two-ply yarn, for a more barber-poled look, or to chain-ply it to keep the gorgeous, pure colors together.  In the end, I decided to two-ply it to prevent weird color-pooling when the rows on the knitted shawl got very long towards the end. 

  

 

  

After plying, I had 888 yards of a fingering-weight yarn.  It's one of my favorite handspun yarns to date-- the merino kept it from becoming too wiry even though I was spinning thin, the alpaca added some staple length to the shorter-staple merino, and the silk gave the yarn a beautiful sheen.  And of course, the fiber prep was gorgeous.  This is the second fiber I've spun from The Skirted Fleece (this was the first one) and both braids have been a pleasure to work with.  There have been virtually no felted bits at all, and the fiber is dyed consistently through the braid, not just on the outer layer.  

And for all of the above reasons, I bought four more eight ounce braids of fiber at The Skirted Fleece Mill when I went to visit my mom for a weekend.

I regret nothing.

  

I cast on the Citron Grande pattern a few days before my trip to Boston as relaxing travel-knitting, and I finished it in two and a half weeks. The very, very long purl-back rows at the end got a bit tedious, but over all, I really enjoyed this project.  

  

I'm so happy with how the finished shawl turned out!  It's huge and light and airy, and it's very cozy either wrapped close to my neck like a scarf or wrapped around my shoulders like a socially acceptable Snuggie.  It's hard to imagine needing it at the moment, since it's been so hot that I run the risk of actually melting every time I leave my apartment, but when winter gets here, I know I'll be glad that I made myself a hoard of knitwear.

  

 The only modification that I made to the pattern was that instead of knitting my increases through the back loop to close up the holes, I knitted into the front of the increases to create a radiating pattern of eyelets.  I did this by accident on my first Citron shawl, when I was a newer knitter, and I liked it so much that I decided to do it intentionally this time. 

  

As soon as I finished this project, I wanted to start a zillion other ones.  I cast on a pair of socks and a shawl, spun up a four ounce braid of Malabrigo merino (and speaking of felted bits and inconsistent dyeing, Malabrigo roving, I am looking right at you.  Good thing you're so pretty), spun a Loop Bullseye Bump (perfect prep, I want to buy a hundred more of them), and did tons of knitting on a super-secret project.  And I'm having to resist the urge to cast on a hat and another shawl and some fingerless mitts.  I want to knit and spin all the things!  I think it's the influence of those sneaky KnitGirllls.  I want to win Stash Dash!  For non-knitters, that means knitting or spinning a 5K worth of yarn, or 5,468 yards, before August 7th.  At the moment, I'm at 3381.2 yards.  I think I'm going to make it!

What projects are inspiring you lately?  

♥

on the wheel: easter fiber!

Hi there!

Ok, before I show you my recently acquired fiber-y goodness, here's a little bit of backstory.  I decided that 2013 was going to be the year I started living a healthier lifestyle, and since January 1st, I've lost about twenty pounds.  Woohoo!  My brother and I grew up getting amazing Easter baskets every year, and it's a tradition my mom has continued even though we're both adults.  This year, though, an enormous basket of chocolate seemed a little counterproductive.  When I mentioned that to my mom,   she said that she wanted to give me some spinning fiber for Easter instead.  How sweet is that!

In a fantastic coincidence, a new fiber mill opened nearby last weekend!  My mom and I took a ride to the Skirted Fleece Mill for the opening day.  It was so much fun!  I'm in the habit of looking at hand-painted spinning fiber on Etsy before I go to sleep (which is a terrible idea, by the way, when you're sleepy and your resistance is low), but there really is nothing like seeing it in person.  

How cute is their logo!  The little gray creature is obviously a sheep, but the other one is a yak.  They have yaks!  We got to see a baby one snacking on some hay, which was just adorable.

My mom and I came home with these two gorgeous 8 ounce braids of fiber.  The one on the left is a blend of merino wool, alpaca, and silk in the most beautiful Maxfield Parrish blues and natural cream.  The one on the right is Corriedale wool that reminds me of the crocuses that start popping up around Easter, even though some years they have to push through the snow to be seen.

I immediately started spinning the Corriedale braid, and I love it.  I've never spun Corriedale before, but if this is any indication of how it usually spins, it's going to become one of my favorite fibers.  It's soft like merino, but a bit sturdier, and it has the sheen of silk or bamboo without the slipperiness.  The fiber prep on this braid is really lovely, too.  It's easy to draft and spins very consistently and smoothly.  It's spinning up as a laceweight single, which I'm going to two-ply into a sock-weight yarn.  I'm hoping to get enough yardage for the Still Light Tunic if I make the collar, sleeve ribbing, and bottom ribbing in either cream or gray.  Added advantage of losing weight-- it takes less yardage to knit a sweater!  Yay!

I hope you're having a wonderful week!

♥

fairytale forest cowl

Happy Friday!

Phew, this week has been a whirlwind!  But in the best possible way.  I hope you've had a fantastic week, too!

I recently whipped up this cowl, and it is the softest, coziest thing in the world.  I knit it out of some wool/angora/silk/sparkle yarn that I spun from a fiber batt I purchased at the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival in September.  The pattern is the Blushing Lace Cowl by Lauren Weinhold.  The only modification I made was to knit one extra repeat past the end of each round on the slipped-stitch rounds for a more seamless look.  

The slipped stitches really show off the little blips of color in the yarn, and the airy lace pattern made the most of my small amount of yardage.  The bright pops against the dreamy purple main color reminded me of the fairies who flit through the air in Fantasia.  

Hence the name Fairytale Forest!
The cowl is so snuggly, but even when it's doubled up it's not bulky at all-- perfect for days when I'm sewing and want to be warm without anything in danger of getting caught in my sewing machine.  Also, have I mentioned how wonderfully, ridiculously soft this cowl is?  Have I discussed that at all?  I feel like I'm wearing a cozy cloud.

I hope your weekend is off to a wonderful start!
♥

playing catch-up

Hi there, ladies and gents.

I hope you are having a fantastic January!

It's been a bit quiet around here lately-- between the holidays and being sick on and off for the past few weeks, I've either been gift-knitting like a madwoman or snuggled up in bed, sipping tea (and maybe whining just a little).  But I'm excited to get back to blogging.

the Christmas Spice tea has little snowflake sprinkles in it-- how cute is that!

My brother's girlfriend sent up this delicious tea for Christmas (thank you Sheila!) and I've been having at least three cups of it every day because it's just so tasty.  I think the Strawberry Honey is my favorite.  I've been getting a lot of knitting done between the inevitable caffeine crashes.

Speaking of which, I finished my Robins' Feathers shawl!

snow boots instead of ballet flats in shawl photos this time of year...

I'm pretty excited to have knit my first big lace project.  Yay!  You'll be seeing more of this shawl soon-- I want to post a photo of myself wearing it because it's huge and I don't really wear shawls draped around my shoulders.  It makes a lovely scarf-ish wrap, though.  But y'know who needs to see me looking bleary and cold-stricken?  Nobody, that's who.  So it'll have to wait until I'm no longer sniffly.  

Anyway, my Robins' Feathers shawl took a couple tries to get going, but now I feel confident in my ability to read complex charts, and I'm already trying to decide on another shawl to cast on.  I think it's going to be the Hogwarts Express.  I've been spinning up some soft, fawn-brown alpaca for the Pomme de Pin cardigan, but I'm not going to have enough yardage, and I think it'll be a better match for the Hogwarts Express anyway.  ...And c'mon, how could I not knit it?  It's snuggly and Harry Potter themed.  I'm also still knitting away on my busy bee quilt, so I'll show you my progress on that soon, too.

I hope you have a wonderful evening!

♥

on the needles: robins' feathers shawl

It's the holiday season and I have lots of gift-knitting to do.

So naturally I decided to cast on a non-gift charted lace shawl!

Here's the yarn I'm using-- it's soft and fluffy superwash merino wool, which I spun from this Lorna's Laces roving.  I have 900 yards of a heavy laceweight to light fingering weight, so my shawl should be big and cozy!  

Here's my progress so far.  I'm using the Gwendolyn pattern, by Stefanie Bold.

Since it's lace, the full effect of the patterning won't be visible until the shawl is finished and blocked, but I am so, so pleased with how it's turning out.  The lace looks like feathers, and the yarn is the most beautiful robin's egg blue, so I'm naming this shawl my Robins' Feathers Shawl.

As I keep working on this shawl (along with the four or five other projects on the needles-- how did that happen?  I almost never have more than one knitting project going at once!), I'll include a few little tips and tricks that are making my first charted lace project a bit easier.  The first thing I've discovered?  I can only work on this shawl if I'm listening to a podcast.  If I'm trying to watch a movie at the same time, I'm too visually distracted, and if I'm not listening to anything, my brain gets bored and my mind wanders from my place in the charts.  Podcasts seem to be a happy medium for me.

I hope you're having a wonderful week!

♥

quiet rainbow

Hello, and happy first day of December!

I realized recently that I never shared this project with you-- it's the shawl I knit from one of my early handspun yarns, a ply of gray alpaca/merino blend and a ply of a bunch of different colors and wools from Into the Whirled.

This was actually my first shawl-- the pattern is Lala's Simple Shawl.  I think it's a great pattern for a first shawl-- it's simple, but not boring to knit, and it helped me quickly understand the structure of a triangular shawl.  It's really cozy, too!

I called this my Quiet Rainbow shawl because it has a lot of colors, but the ply of gray mutes them and keeps the shawl from being too loud.  It's big and snuggly.  (In case you're wondering, that's why I tend to take shawl pictures that have my feet in the frame-- it gives a reference for the size of the shawl.)

I hope you're having a great weekend!

♥

moonpie shawl

Good morning!  Or afternoon or evening, whenever you're reading this. 

Today I want to share with you my finished Moonpie Shawl. (You can read about my progress here.)

I'm so pleased with how this shawl came out.  It's soft and light and airy, but warm, too.  And knitting with my own handspun always feels extra-special.

It's also huge!  I didn't even block it out as intensely as I could have, because I didn't want to lose the ruffled effect.  (For non-knitters, blocking is when you hand-wash a finished knitted object in wool-wash,  then pin it out to the size you want it on a flat surface to dry.)

I'm looking forward to lots of cozy evenings snuggled up in this shawl with a cup of tea.  I love that it can also be worn like a scarf-- perfect for chilly days or overly aggressive air conditioning.

Have a wonderful day!

♥

on the needles: moonpie shawl

Today I'd like to share a knitting project with you!

     This is the Citron Grand shawl pattern,  and I'm knitting it in merino lace-weight yarn that I spun up from a Jill Draper gradient roving (you can see and read about the roving in this post!).  It's a simple, easy pattern, perfect for car-knitting and taking to knitting group.  I'm calling it my Moonpie Shawl because of the silvery blue-grey color of a lot of the yarn.  I'm just moving into that color and you can see it along the edge of the shawl.  It reminds me of moonlight on the ocean and I love, love, love it.  I'm only about halfway through the pattern, so this is going to be a big shawl, and I may end up adding more sections because I want to make sure to use up all the yarn so I get all the way through the purple color at the end.  It's on a size 6 needle, though, so it's still light and airy.  

     I'm going to be spending my afternoon knitting and drinking tea and snuggling with the kitties (by which I mean, trying to keep my yarn away from their adorable but grabby little paws!).  What projects are you working on?  By the way, if you're on Ravelry, I'm JulieRoseSews on there as well-- feel free to friend me, I love seeing all of your beautiful projects!

Have a wonderful day!

♥

endless mountains fiber festival

Hi friends!

On September 9th, I went to my very first fiber festival!  It was such a fun experience.  My mom and I packed ourselves a picnic lunch and made a day-trip to the Harford Fair Grounds to check out the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival.

This llama was enjoying showing off for the camera.  

The sweetest baby alpaca-- I love his little teddy-bear face!  

These 4-H rules were posted on the side of one of the barns.  I think those first four are appropriate in any situation!  And no cruelty to other humans, either.  No cruelty in general.

And of course, I came home with some beautiful spinning fiber.  On the top left is fawn alpaca (or part of it, anyway-- the whole roving takes up half of my kitchen table by itself!), the green is soft, springy merino wool, and the two orange and purple batts in the middle are angora, merino wool, and some firestar sparkle.  Orange isn't usually my color, but this batt is even more beautiful in person and I couldn't resist!  The pink and white roving on the bottom is a blend of merino wool, silk, and bamboo fiber.  I'm working on spinning it right now!  It's a pleasure to spin.  The bamboo content gives the yarn a gorgeous sheen.

I also purchased a sparkly mini-batt of all different colors and fibers, which I spun up right away.  

I'm calling this yarn "Fraggle Rock" because the colors are so reminiscent of my favorite '90s kid television show.  The orange matches Red Fraggle's fluffy pigtails perfectly!

Red is my favorite Fraggle.  She cracks me up.

I left this yarn as 192 yards of a single-ply to show off the texture of all the different fibers.  It's very different from what I usually spin, but I love it!

I hope you have a fantastic day!
♥

traveling bee

Good morning sunshines!

It's been a little quiet around here lately because I have been traveling!  From Friday to Sunday I was in Connecticut for a fife and drum muster, then at six on Monday morning I was on a bus to New York.  It's been a little hectic, but lots and lots of fun.

I'll be posting some photos from the fife and drum muster soon, but for some reason, I just wasn't in the mood to take pictures while I was in the city.  I think it's because I haven't been there for a few months, and I just wanted to experience it without worrying about documenting it too much.  I did a lot of my favorite New York things-- I went up to the High Line, had a pink champagne macaron, met with one of my wonderful professors from FIT, frequented my favorite café, and stayed over with my adorable cousin!

she is the cutest.  seriously.  one of my favorite people on the planet.

I also went to a yarn shop I'd never been to-- oh my goodness, you guys.  The Yarn Company is a tiny little shop near Central Park and it is full of the most gorgeous yarn and fiber in the world.  I think I actually did a happy little clap when I walked in.  

This gorgeous Jill Draper roving caught my eye immediately and I carried it around with me the whole time I was in the store. 

It's so soft, and the colors are incredible.  And the packaging is so adorable that I haven't even taken the tag off yet.

The other roving that came home with me is this beautiful, beautiful robin's egg blue merino by Lorna's Laces.

this is 5 oz., too, but it's enormous!  It's fluffy and springy and I basically ran from the bus stop to my spinning wheel when I got home just so I could get this on the bobbin.

I've been scouring etsy for roving just this color for the last few weeks, but I'm weirdly picky about robin's egg blue and haven't been in love with any of them.  But this one?  Oh my goodness, it is perfect. 

So yes, there's a lot of spinning in my future-- which inspired these handspun tags!  They're available in sets of 6 in my etsy shop, if you'd like to adorn your own handspun with them.  I love displaying handspun-- it's like soft fluffy candy.  So I really needed something more attractive than the little scraps of paper I had been using to write down the information about each skein.

I'm off to try to get my phone fixed-- that darn thing.  It just spontaneously restarts over and over until it runs out of battery, which left me phoneless/mapless/clockless in New York.  Not helpful.  Here's hoping it gets its act together when faced with the threat of replacement.

Have a wonderful day!

♥

fibery goodness

Well, helloooo!

(in my head I said that in a high, loud voice, like a Dame Edna voice.   We're two sentences in and I'm already talking about Dame Edna.  That's how you know it's a good post.)

Yesterday I finished spinning the grey alpaca to ply the 'Odds and Ends' fiber with, and I plied them together, and this is what I ended up with.

I've got to admit... I am completely in love with this yarn.  It's soft and squooshy and the colors blended together beautifully.  And there's a ton of yardage, too-- it's 856 yards out of a combined 8 ounces of fiber.  It's going to become a Lala's Simple Shawl that I'll wear more like a scarf.  I'm really excited about it, I think it'll be just enough texture to show off the yarn, but not so much that it will become muddled.

The grey alpaca makes it incredibly soft-- I was holding a skein up to my neck earlier, because I have pretty sensitive skin and I wanted to make sure the yarn wouldn't be itchy, but it was just fluffy and cozy.

It took about three hours just to do the plying on this yarn because there's so much of it and it's quite thin.  It's definitely my favorite handspun to date.

And after what must be the most ridiculous struggle in history with the postal service, I received some super-cute Ravelry stickers in the mail!  (Readers who don't knit, crochet, or spin:  Ravelry is basically a social networking site for fiber artists, and it is awesome.  If you've been wanting to learn, check out Ravelry and I guarantee you'll be intensely motivated.)  They were delivered to the wrong house, then nobody at the post office knew who the substitute mail carrier was that day, it was such a fiasco.  But some lovely person put the envelope back in their mailbox when they realized it wasn't theirs, and ta-da!  Stickers for me.  Aren't they adorable?  I think the middle one is going to go on my laptop.  

...And here's a picture of Bucky and Cocoa for no particular reason other than that they were being adorable.  Who doesn't love an adorable cat photo?

I'm off to alternately snuggle my cats and my yarn.  Have a great night!

♥

odds and ends

Good morning sunshines!

After spinning 12 oz. of pale yellow wool for my Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica scarf (which is finished!  Photos coming soon!), and another 4 oz. of a semi-solid for some secret spinning (also done!  Photos coming...eventually), I was ready to spin something with some color changes.  But apparently I am a tiiiiiny bit commitment-phobic when it comes to choosing roving colors, and I couldn't decide whether I wanted something pastel, or something dark, or something neutral-- so I ordered a 4.4 oz. 'Odds and Ends' bag from Into The Whirled Fiber Arts and got a bit of every possible color and fiber.  I took this photo yesterday morning, but I'm actually finished with the whole 4.4 oz. now and have a beautifully full bobbin.  Now I'm working on spinning up some gorgeous grey alpaca and merino blend to ply it with, because as much as I love how vibrant and saturated the Odds and Ends are, I'd like a more subtle overall effect for the shawl I'm planning on knitting with it.

I hope you're enjoying this rainy Tuesday-- it's perfect weather for curling up with tea and yarn!

♥

handspun

...Have I mentioned that I've been doing a little spinning lately?

The pink skein is from the same wool roving as my first handspun, and the yellow is for my "Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica" scarf.  The color looked a little too dark and flat after I washed the yarn the first time, and there was quite a bit of excess dye left in the pot I was using, so I gave it another rinse this morning and it's looking much more light and buttery, with more tonal variation, like it did while I was spinning it.  It's hanging up to dry right now, but you'll be seeing the new and improved version soon when I cast on for the scarf!  Yay!

This blue yarn was my first try at spinning merino wool-- I was really surprised at how different it was to spin!  It sticks to itself much more, so it's a lot harder to draft.  I love the color of this yarn though.  I always love robin's egg blue, and the little swirls of yellow, green, and purple add a depth that I really like.  I have another four ounces of merino, in yellow with shots of color, and I'm excited to see if it's more intuitive the second time.

This grey was my first go at spinning alpaca and oh my goodness, it was a dream.  

The resulting yarn is soft and lofty and squishable.  I have another four ounces of the same roving.  When I spin that up, I think they'll become a soft, cozy hat.

What projects are you working on?

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

♥

bears. beets. battlestar galactica.

So guys.  

This morning I was spinning away on this beautiful tonal yellow wool, which is going to become a ruffled scarf.  I'm really pleased with how it's coming out, but as I was spinning it, I kept thinking, "What is this color combination reminding me of?"

And then it hit me.

Oh.

It's Dwight-shirt yellow.

If you've been visiting for a while, you know that I love The Office.

And now that I've seen the connection between my yarn and Dwight's color of choice, I can't un-see it.

It's also the color of Jim-as-Dwight's shirt in my absolute favorite moment in the entire series.

(it's in season 3, episode 20.  I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.  ohhhh jeez, I'm giggling just thinking about it.) 

So now this yarn is going to be my "Bears.  Beets.  Battlestar Galactica." scarf.

And I'm kind of excited about it.

♥