Month: March 2012

Keeping up with the Spinners

| Sonia Knits

This weekend I finished plying my first sock fibre club installment, and in not a moment too soon. You see the next installment is more than likely to show up on Monday. Had that arrived before I had finished the first batch, I would have felt a world of doom on my shoulders. It may surprise you to hear, I won’t be knitting up this beautifully spun fibre (if I do say so myself). It’s going in the gift box for a special someone.

I also turned around a quick little project for a colleague. It is a smooshy hat made from some left-over yarn from my cabled-hoody vest. I often deflect requests for knitted items, but this time I relented. My friend really needs an awesome hat, she lives somewhere very very cold and she makes awesome cake. But that’s not why I made it for her (I don’t expect things in return). I made it for her because I know she’ll appreciate it. I can’t wait to give it to her!

I’m up to the sleeves on Folded. I’ve just wound up my third wollmeise skein. The reason I’m using the third skein is because at the end of the day it is a hand dyed yarn, the possibility of having a horrible changeover when the sleeves are joined in to the body without knitting from two skeins is too great. See, I can learn…

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An expanding family

| Sonia Knits

As some of you may have heard (the squees were that loud) my new spinning wheel arrived this week. Last year for my birthday I received a Majacraft Little Gem, it has been a wonderful wheel and indeed experience. My very first wheel and it will not be forgotten. The LG is a ‘travel wheel’, which suits my purposes very well. Have wheel, will travel. It’s almost as convenient as a spindle!

This year I decided it was time for a full-size wheel. Not because my LG wasn’t doing anything I wanted it to. But just because. I test-drove the Suzie Pro whilst at the Bendigo show last year; in fact I tried out ALL of their wheels, it was the Suzie Pro that tugged at my heart springs. I meet one of the owners/makers Owen. Who watched me spin, and be totally blissed out; in fact I think a lot of people watched my bliss fullness and if I recall correctly Susanne even took a photo!

Whilst my birthday is still a few weeks away, I wanted to make sure it arrived in plenty of time (I may have overshot the mark there). The fabulous Spun-out let me test-drive a few wheels (I wanted to be sure) and the Suzie was still an absolute winner, how could I have doubted it?

My wheel arrived this week, and one of the first things I did was to check the base for the signature of the maker of my wheel… It was one of Owen’s! This made me even happier (if that were possible). I’m going to try to abstain from using it proper before my birthday; call me weird but I like to feel like it’s my birthday ON my birthday.

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Yarn high

| Sonia Knits

Something unexpected happened last night. I bought yarn. Now most of you won’t believe me when I say I had no intention to buy three skeins of wollmeise in ‘heavy metal’. But really it’s true.

I plan to make a very wearable work cardigan from it, more than likely it will be by Veera, and most probably it will be Slow Line .

Hence, I have to get ‘Folded’ knit, before it arrives, I estimate a week and a half… Then the guilt of buying more wm will have subsided. The stars were aligned last night, it was meant to be, and I let it happen.

In my defence:
I didn’t know when the update was on, I just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

I wasn’t even logged in when the screen went grey.

I had forgotten my password (it’s been that long), finally after 3 goes I was in.

I dwelled on the array of greys I had to choose from, clicking on photos on the overloaded wm site to decide. Crazy right? Asking for trouble

I made it to checkout… After all that!

This yarn was meant to be mine.

Here’s a peek at Folded’s progress, finally I think I’m excited about knitting it again.

Happy long weekend all!

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Things I’m bad at

| Sonia Knits

It’s a well-known fact that we enjoy doing the things we are good at and detest dislike the things we don’t do so well at.

I was reminded of this last night, when I thought it would be ‘fun’ to take a dance class as part of my new exercise regime. Until last night, I was pretty indifferent to ‘dancing’, couldn’t say I hated it, couldn’t say I loved it. It’s been something I do on the odd occasion whilst out socialising. I can now say I’m no longer on the fence about my feelings towards dancing. I suspect if I actually sang whilst sober and not at the end of a karaoke night, I’d rather suck at singing too.

Lucky for me there are things I’m good at. It’s a shame knitting or spinning doesn’t equate to slimmer thighs though, I guess you can’t have it all.

 

My best handspun so far

| Sonia Knits

I still consider myself a novice at spinning. I have found the joy of spinning is when plying and finishing a yarn and having the feeling that perhaps, maybe perhaps, this yarn is probably the best thing I’ve ever spun… so far. The joy is when this happens on a regular basis (which is not always the case).

In my quest to use what I bought at Bendigo last year, before Bendigo this year, I’ve been spinning up some Kathy’s Fibres BFL/Kid Mohair. Here are the two colourways:

I loved the pink, purple, green colourway, but unfortunately that was her last one so I teamed it with the brown and orange. I split these three ways as my intention was to spin for 3 ply socks. I don’t always know what I’m spinning for, so I call this one planned. These are the singles:

And here is the finished yarn (after plying but before washing):

I can’t wait to turn this into ‘Vanilla’ Socks. My bobbins are now clear for The Thylacine’s Sock Fibre Spin/Knit along. I received my first installment this week, and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. I know a few of you have already started, I would be super impressed and full of hate envy if anyone shows up with finished socks on Monday night. But then again, it’s going to be a wet weekend.