Close, but no cigar.

Last time I plied lace, I did it over about a week. This time, I did it in two days, and it’s occurred to me that it’s possible my posture goes all to hell when I ply.

(Ow.)

Anyway. I got 693 yards for my 100g of shetland fibre, at 26wpi.

It’s lovely and squishy, but I’d hoped for 800 yards… so I’ll have to have another go. I’m going to try some BFL on the wheel, as I’ve spun that at a higher WPI before now.

Once my spindle’s clear I think I’ll try the shetland on that, and see what happens. If I have an hour or so with it tomorrow I should have the BFL on there done (yes, it’s still the stuff I talked about down in the bottom of this post). I’m going to ply that on the wheel – though maybe not till I’ve worked out the knots in my shoulders, and decided whether or not to ply the two singles together, or joining them and attempting to ply them with silk thread. It really seems like it’d be an interesting experiment, but at the same time, I’ve been spinning these fine singles so long that if it all goes horribly wrong I may have a serious lip-wobble moment.

Haiti

I’ll be donating 50% of the sale price of each pattern I sell during this month directly to relief for the people of Haiti.

Warm fuzzies and comfort food

Just what January calls for, if you ask me.

Here’s the story so far with the Shetland lace spinning –

(and the supermacro shot)

I had a guesstimate while winding the first single off the bobbin, and think it comes out somewhere around the 750yd mark. (Cue muttering.) The first person to complete the 800yd challenge did so today, with a very healthy 870 yds of laceweight, so congratulations to apricotqueen – I’ll be very pleased if I get anything like that amount of yarn. I’d like to think I can get this finished, and plied, and knit into something lovely for the end of next month, when we go away for my partner’s sister’s wedding. We’ll see.

I probably would’ve had the singles finished now had I not left my wheel (and the other half, who had to stay behind for work) at home while myself and the girls went visiting.

I took a 3lb haggis from our local butcher down the road, and we celebrated Burns night in style -

Haggis, neeps, tatties (and carrots for the one who *gasp* doesn’t really like neeps). I ate so much, I could hardly finish my pint. And I had a bash at making cranachan -

but didn’t quite make it all the way to the bottom of the glass. It was delicious, but I was utterly stuffed. I kind of used this recipe.

I also delivered the socks for my brother-in-law, who seems well pleased with them – they’re a bit larger than his feet, apaprently, but having size 14s I expect that’s quite a novelty. I did tell him that if he gave them a slightly hot handwash they should be more snug, but he said he was happy with them that way – I think they’ve become his cosy slipper socks for round the house.

I also got a hat knit up while I was there – one of these, though it did require a few extra inches than the pattern states in order to cover my brother’s ears.

On the needles right now is the beginnings of an improvised top-down pullover for the littlest member of the house, and if there’s enough of the Lewis’ clearance cashcotton left over when it’s done, her big sister might get one too. (There’s almost 2000yds of the stuff, so it’s likely she will.) It’s my first attempt at top-down, in the round, sweater knitting – my previous ones have always been knit flat – so this promises to be interesting.

(Lacey thing has been relegated to the back of the queue – I’m not happy with how certain parts of it look, but I’m not in the right frame of mind for the recharting I need to do to get the modifications I think it needs worked out.)

Behind the wheel

Come
pull my strings…

I broke my accidental spinningfast! That’s the start of 100g of Shetland sliver, with which I’ve joined up to the 800yd dash they’re having in the limegreenjelly group over at ravelry.

oh and…

um, oops. Happy New year! It’s January, isn’t it?

(This post is also a bit of an experiment to see how the font comes out – that last one seems to be formatted differently to all the others, and I’m not sure why. One of these days I’ll get a proper website and not just use the free templates wordpress hand out…)

(eta – Right. Seems to be that the latest post has its own formatting, giving it a very slightly different appearance to the older ones – and I’ve only just noticed this. I should probably clean my specs more often.)