Tour de Fleece - Day 12

...or, "How we freaked out the spinning muggles while waiting for the new Harry Potter movie to start.."

Yep. Three of us from the HPKCHC groupon Ravelry and some local knitters / spinners decided to brave the lines and hit the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

The plan was to show up at about 9:00pm with chairs, knitting and spinning to chat, craft and people watch. Much to our surprise, the theater was seating each group as earlier movies ended, so we weren't actually outside all that long after all! This actually worked out great though, since we were at the front of the line for our group and scored awesome seats in the first row up from the cross aisle, right under the house lights.

Onica borrowed my Cascade Little Si and passed her Louet boat anchor learning spindle on to a friend of hers who was visiting from Portland. In the end, there were four of us drop spindling front and center with another two knitting merrily alongside. Fun! The only down side? In 2.5 hours, this is all I got done!



This is a pretty light spindle and I am definitely starting to see the impact of the cop weight - a little less balanced, a little shorter spin time and it backspins right away now without the delay that it had when I first started. It is still spinning okay, so I think that I will shoot for 2x the original weight and wind off when I get there.

I am moving right along on the Autumn Leaves baby sweater now, but don't have a new photo to post today. Here is what the yoke looked like just before I put the arm stitches on holders.



I just finished the first ball of yarn last night and the sweater is about 7 1/8 inches long. It is looking pretty cute, but much smaller than I had hoped. It was supposed to be a 6-9 month size, but we tried it on a 10-week old baby at knit night and it was barely even big enough for her. (sigh...)

I'd probably rip it out and restart, but 1)I need to finish it by the end of the month and 2)The only sizing in the pattern is provided by changing yarn and needle size. This would mean abandoning "the perfect yarn in the perfect color" and trying to find some soft, superwash worsted weight wool or wool blend to use instead. Blech! Guess it'll just be a 0-3 month size...

Note to self - find some kind of standard size chart for babies! 6-9 months = ?

Tour de Fleece - Day 6

...or, "A plan is a good thing to have..."

Not that having a plan means you will actually accomplish what you set out to do, but it's definitely a start.

My plan for the day was to lick my wounds a little with some spindle spinning, then hit the wheel again with another run at woolen spinning. I made it through the first part at least, keeping my "spin every day" goal alive.



It may not be obvious at first glance, but the cop on this spindle really is bigger than it was on Day 4. Honest!

Spinning part two was postponed in favor of knitting part two. I started swatching for this baby sweater yesterday and was almost at gauge, but not really happy with the fabric I had produced. After a few hours of denial, I accepted the fact that I probably needed to go up a needle size (as usual). I knit another couple of inches with the larger needle and was much happier with the hand feel of the swatch. Gauge looks about 1/2 stitch off when measured over 2 inches, but spot on when measured over the full 4 inches. Go figure!

Tour de Fleece - Day 4

Otherwise known as "barely there"...

Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I only managed to squeeze in about an hour of spinning tonight since I opted to go to knit night. Had to do it though, 'cause the Lollipop Cabin sample sock needed to be finished and it had stalled out completely after I ripped out the toe last week. (grumble, grumble, unacknowledged errors in Interweave pattern, grumble, grumble...)

So, I raced home and picked up a fairly recent acquisition (Tracey Eichheim Spiders Ultra Light top whorl spindle) and some old roving (The Sheep Shed Studio Superwash Merino) and spindled for about an hour. The Spiders Ultra Light spun like a dream! I had no problem producing a fine even single and the hook worked out just fine. It was more rounded than I am used to and I had wondered if I would have a problem with the singles sliding out of it. Nope! It just may have to go to knit night with me tomorrow too!