Finish line Saturday

I always get a perverse thrill when I finish more than one project on the same day. Such was the case yesterday, when I finished this scarf:

I used the free His (Birthday) Scarf pattern (astute readers will recognize it, as I made one for Boy 1 years ago) and some delicious yarn I got in Maine this summer:

It’s called “Acadia” (which was mighty tempting since we just spent 5 days in Acadia National Park) and it’s a “rustic blend” of silk noil, baby alpaca, and merino wool from The Fibre Co. The color is “Jack Pine.” I used almost all of 4 balls, and the scarf is 7.5” wide by 8’ long. It is rather longer than I expected, but the recipient is a tall man. I’ll get a modelled shot when I give it to him! (Steven: it is not you. Don’t want to get your hopes up. I know you love your green and all!)

I also finished this handspun skein, which is Targhee top from the Sheepspot Fiber Club and started out life looking like this:

The color is a little greener in real life… I’m not sure why the camera wasn’t reading it correctly. Greens can be so tricky to photograph. I spun this worsted style and made a 3-play yarn. It poofed up quite a bit during finishing… but I have 390 yards and only 74 grams. It is deliciously soft! It took a long time to spin because it was so fine, but every minute was pure pleasure. I think I need to try to make a thicker yarn next time, just to make sure I still can. Experienced spinners often bemoan not being able to spin thick anymore. I guess one usually spins finer and finer and finer with practice. Maybe you can see how fine the singles were here:

What’s next? I have a pair of gift socks on the needles that I’ll tell you about soon, and I’m swatching… for fall sweaters!

Mrs. Who?

In early June, I went to the Frederick Fiber Fest, a newish event I hadn’t been to before. It was smallish but packed with gorgeous yarns. I think I hadn’t prepared myself mentally for the bounty of beauty, and I fell off my yarn diet. But I got some beautiful things that I really love:

Now that I’ve knit two of the skeins in that photo, I’m ‘fessing up. I got these two with only the vaguest idea that I would make one of those two-skeins-of-sock-yarn shawls. After getting home, I settled down for some serious Ravelry searching, and eventually settled on the Mrs. Blandings shawl. (I still don’t know if the reference is to the 1948 film, the 1946 novel, or something else.) I cast on before our vacation – proof!

And then I proceeded to ignore it in favor of some grey socks until the socks were done. But now, it’s done:

I think this will fit into my so-called wardrobe well. I have plenty of grey, and the multi color works with just about anything. It is LONG – 83” wingspan – but not so deep – only 17” at the deepest point.

I really loved working with the multicolor, which I guess is hand painted but is probably splashed more than anything else. It was so entertaining to see which colors would come up against each other. Though at times, there isn’t enough contrast between it and the dreamy dove grey color. And I wonder if the fancy stitch pattern in the solid section even shows up against the riot of color:

The shawl was supposed to end with a striping section, but I added another 9 garter ridges of grey since I had the yarn and I felt it balanced that edge against the cast-on point.

I have a little bit of yarn left over, but it will go straight into my I Love Leftovers blanket. Overall, this is a serviceable shawl and I look forward to cooler temps that will cause me to pull it out again.

Cirrus

This colorway is perfectly named – the fiber (organic Polwarth) is soft as a cloud, and the color (a dreamy semisolid dove gray) is really just a wisp of a color. I bought the fiber at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last May and intended to spin a 3-ply yarn for the Pania of the Reef shawl. It was meant to go with this gradient yarn, which I spun in April 2016:

I spun the top worsted style all onto one bobbin, which I then transferred to 3 storage bobbins (weighing to get them as even as possible):

Then I made a 3-ply yarn. One bobbin emptied sooner than the other two. I tried something new at this point… I took the remaining bobbin that seemed the fattest and I wound it into a center-pull ball on my ball winder. Then I held that little ball in my hand, and I pulled from both ends of it – along with the remaining bobbin – to make more 3-ply yarn. I think I got about 30 extra yards by doing this! Boy 2 tried to capture an action shot:

This worked quite well – I’ll use this technique again in the future!

This photo shows the yarn before finishing (left) and after finishing (right). The color difference is just due to the light (evening light made it look bluer). I thought this Polwarth would puff up more than it did. It puffed a little, though.

This was a really lovely spin. I would definitely purchase from this farm again – it came from Middle Brook Fiberworks in Bedminster, NJ.