From weaving leftovers to knitting pattern

I have had this beautiful yarn sitting in my stash for more than 4 years: the blue colorway of Blue Sky Alpacas, Alpaca/Silk.It was leftover from a weaving project I did for a small show in Tacoma, WA.
The piece is called Walk on the Beach and includes shells, dried algae and drift wood from a beach on San Juan Island. These items were woven into the piece with the help of supplemental warp threads made of a stainless steel/silk thread.

I had 4 skeins of the blue yarn left over and finally found the perfect knitting project for it: a light shrug that drapes beautifully and features armholes so it doesn't slip off my shoulders.


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It can be worn with the front panels hanging down loosely or pinned across the bust with a nice shawl pin.

Since some of my friends would also like to knit this shrug, I wrote up the pattern which is currently up for testing on Ravelry in the Free Pattern Testers group. It will be published when the test knit is compelted.

Roses

Lot's of knitting
It's finally May and the roses in my yard are starting to bloom. I love roses! No wonder I always wanted to design a shawl with a rose theme. After I had spun up the shetland from Juno Fibrearts in the Smokey Rose colorway I decided that this was going to be the yarn for the project.
Since I had 400 yd of this heavy lace / light fingering 2-ply handspun yarn it had to be a shawlette. I am not too fond of the triangular shape and therefore designed a rounded shawlette with plain stockinette sections and others with a rosebud motif.
I am currently writing up the pattern before having it tested. I hope to have a nice photo of the blocked shawlette for you soon. The top photo has the accurate colors.

Baby Camel - oh so soft
Knitting another Twinleaves stole from some Baby Camel that I spun into a laceweight 2-ply yarn years ago.

Birthday socks
2 days ago I realized that my boyfriends birthday is next Monday! OMG, I have a non-fibery gift for him but wanted to make some socks , too. So I am trying to whip out a pair in time, just plain socks in a variegated yarn. But not only that, he has a twin sister who, for the very first time, showed any interest in anything handknit. So of course she will get some socks, too. I decided to make her Wanida by Cookie A. Got one sock knit in 1.5 days, started the second one.

Shaun
My 2-year old LOVES Shaun the Sheep - not that he understands any of the humor but he loves sheep, the music, and the part where the cabbage flies through the window. So I decided to buy the Patons Shaun kit and knit it for him. I think there will be Timmy in our future, too...

Please excuse the bad pictures, I will try to set up a better environment with enough light to take decent pictures.
Enough chatting - got to get back to the socks...

My new toy - a Bosworth Charkha

Back from my trip to Seattle - which was wonderful, because I got to spend time with my friends, and awful, because my son was sick for most of the trip.

However, I have a new toy!!

I have wanted a charkha ever since reading about Gandi and his spinning. It took me a long time to decide whether to buy a more authentic Indian charkha, or the luxury version made by Jonathan Bosworth in the States. Even though I feel a little guilty I decided to get the Bosworth charkha because of it's compactness and it's beautiful craftmanship. SinceI had to come up with quite a few dollars I decided that I would wait until I earned the money with selling my handspun fiber. So last fall I was ready to order, and now I have it!
It is just as beautifully made as I had hoped.
I tried the cotton that was supplied as a fiber sample and didn't like spinning it. Then I used some Merino, and loved it!
It does take some time to get used to the mechanisms of turning the drive wheel with you right hand (Iam righthanded) and feeding/drafting the fiber with your left. Well prepared fiber helps a lot!
I have to practice a lot more to get profficient but I was surprised of fast you can get the hang of it.
It will be the perfect traveling wheel for me! I will keep you updated of my progress.

Image: Gandhi with spinning wheel (Margaret Bourke-White, LIFE)

Read the Wikipedia entry.


Off my wheel
I have finally finished spinning the singles of the crimson colored Merino/Silk blend from Corgi Hill Farms that I decided should be lace weight. I still need to ply, but the majority of the spinning is done. yeah!

On my wheel
Now I am spinning a wonderfully soft and shiny BFL/Silk blend, the February Club fiber by Squoosh Fiberarts in the colorway Samba. After all that thin lace weight spinning I decided to spin thicker singles, probably for a 2-ply DK or light worsted yarn.

On my spindle
Strangely, trying out my new charkha made me want to spindle again. So yesterday I spun up 1 spindle full of a mystery fiber, and am almost done with the 2nd.

I red a little more in Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont (on loan from Ballee), and found a tip that seems so logical that it makes me wonder why I haven't done it before. Instead of winding the yarn onto the spindle homogenously from top to bottom and back, it said to wind it on in a figure 8 style. Works great, is faster, and will probably be easier to wind of, too! Check out this book if you haven't yet - well worth a read!

Here we go

After a long time of contemplating i decided to blog about my knitting, weaving and spinning projects. Maybe it will help me get a little more organized :-)

Needles:
Currently I have 5 projects on my needles,

• 3 pairs of socks in varying states of progress - the green ones are hibernating because I hate knitting socks with Drops Delight, the colours are beautiful (matter of taste, of course), but I decided that socks with a singles yarn are not for me! The red ones are lovely, and the pattern is interesting (from Knitting socks with handpainted yarn) but after the first excitement it's a little tedious. However I want to wear them so they must get done! The third pair I love, even though they are also knit with a singles yarn (Meilenweit 100 Magico)... I used a simple garter rib pattern which makes for a perfect fit.

• 1 lace shawl - trying my hand at designing a semicircular lace shawl. I am knitting it with some of the most beautiful hand dyed silk yarn from Walk Collection

• another lace shawl, Unique Melody, for a friend, knit with the incredibly soft and beautiful Merino/Cahsmere yarn from Squoosh Fiberarts.The pattern is cleverly designed and very easy to memorize.

• 1 toddler sweater for my son. I found this great color pattern to use up one skein of Cascade Heritage 150 Paint plus some grey sockyarn as the background color.. No stranding for this pattern! I will design it as a shawl collar sweater with set-in sleeves that are picked up and knit top to bottom.

My spinning wheel is working almost on a daily basis, and I will update my current spinning projects in the next post.