Masterpiece: Alicia's Wedding Shawl

When my friend and podcasting co-host announced that she was engaged, I immediately told her I was knitting her wedding shawl.  We worked together over the course of a couple months to figure out what yarn and pattern she wanted. Originally we picked a different pattern but it just wasn't working out so we went back to the drawing board and I could not be happier with how this turned out! 
Project details
Ravelry Project link
Pattern: Aphrodite by Sivia Harding
Yarn: Juniper Moon Farm Findley
Cast on: February 8th, 2014
Finished: April 26th, 2014
Notes: This is one of those projects that is so special!  I really wanted it to be perfect!  I took my time with figuring out the pattern and once it clicked I was able to knit this relatively quickly.  There are beads in the edging that you can't really tell are there but add to the weight and helps with the drape.  So glad I was able to knit this for such a very special day!

Alicia surprised me by actually walking down the isle in the shawl!  I freaked out because I had been following the wedding through her instagram tag and I saw her walking down the isle in the shawl and was just floored!  It was so awesome and made me feel like I was there. 

For her bridesmaids, Alicia knit them beautiful Traveling Woman shawls.  This is my favorite picture of all the shawls because you can tell a Knitter was getting married!  Love this so much!

Hope you enjoyed these pictures!  Alicia was such a beautiful bride and I'm so thankful to be her friend.

Happy Knitting!

Thankful Fridays: chocolate, family, friends.

So much has happened since I last posted, that I didn't have anytime to update this space.  I have a lot of catching up to do but as I'm a little overwhelmed where to start...I'm just going to skip most of it and go with a quick top ten things I'm thankful for this week.

1. My husband...who is my shoulder to cry on, my rock, my best friend, my babies' daddy, and so much more.

2. My daughter...whose smile, laughter, hugs, and kisses are what life is about.

 3. The baby in my belly...getting to feel you move makes my heart full.  It's amazing how much you can love someone you haven't met yet and have never seen.

4. My family...whose support I'm not sure how I could ever survive without. 

5. My husband's family...which most of his father's side I met this week for the first time, as we all traveled up to WV to celebrate the life of my husband's grandfather.  There is so much I could say about Carmen's Big Papa, who passed on Halloween but I feel like this isn't the place to share it.  The weekend was very emotional and was sacred.  Just know that he was a wonderful man, who was loved by many and touched so many people's lives.  As sad of a time it was, the family togetherness was cherished, important time.  It was wonderful to meet those I hadn't met and to see again those I had.  Hoping next time is under better circumstances.

6. That my baby girl is on the mend.  We got back from up north and she quickly got very sick.  Long story short, she had trouble breathing and have been giving her breathing treatments to help her.  She's doing better and has spent the last 2 days being pampered with a great comforter.

7. This person I mentioned(I know she is a private person so I will leave it at that), who I am so thankful is in our lives and was able to be there during CGR's apt when we had to wait for her oxygen levels to go up and they talked about admitting her.  And who has taken care of her the last 2 days.

8. My friend Lish, who's company at breakfast this past weekend was just what I needed.  Wish we lived closer and got to knit together more often.

9. Chocolate...silly I know but oh how I have caught up the last couple days on eating very little chocolate for Halloween.

10. Matching with friends...another silly one but I love this game and thankful for it's distraction and entertainment.  If you are playing, start a game with me...barknknit!

Hope you are having a good week.

Happy Thankful Fridays!!!

What are a couple things you are thankful for this week?

FO Friday: And they're off!

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm participating in a Fiber Arts Show up in OH.  Well, my hand knits are participating since we had to cancel our trip because of our move.

The Fiber Arts show is being held at the Main Street Gallery in Toronto, OH.  I was introduced to the shop by a fellow knitter friend, who's boyfriend owns the gallery.  Lish grew up with my husband and she found out through my MIL's husband that I am a knitter and the rest is history!  The last several times we've visited OH, I've planned a meet up with her.  We've gone to a yarn store and then last time we did a knit meet up at the gallery!  It was awesome!  She's amazingly creative and doesn't really give herself enough credit for her talent.  I've been pushing her to expand her comfort zone since I met her.  Wish we lived closer so we could hang out more.

When we first started planning this Fiber Art Show, I was planning to be up there for the opening party and the weekend.  As you all know, we found a house and are moving this weekend and need to be out of our house by next Saturday at the very latest.  We also need to be saving every penny for the down payment on the house and all renovations we have planned once we own it.  That meant that any and all unnecessary expenses had to be cancelled and stopped.  The trip was the first thing that got cancelled as much as we were looking forward to seeing family and being at the show.

Back to the topic of FOs, I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to send to display and what I wanted to knit to sell.  At first I was actually contemplating selling a couple of the finished objects I had already knit for myself but then I ended up having a hard time letting them go.  I did look through my stash of handspun and found some amazing things I've spun and decided that I would knit them up into things I could sell.  The picture below shows the items I'm sending to sell.  The top 2 are seed stitch infinity scarfs.  The bottom left is a drop-stitch infinity scarf that was inspired by one of Tinyants FOs.  The bottom left also inspired by tinyant is a buttoned cowl.  These four items will be for sale at the show.

The items that will be on display are the wedding shawl that I knit for my SIL.  I don't have any great pictures of it but here is what I do have.

Then I also sent my wedding shawl(bottom right), a pair of Bellatrix socks I recently finished, and my Spectra scarf(top right)!

My handspun, hand dyed, hand knit Calligraphy Cardigan...The most prized item that I'm sending is only being sent because Lish sort of pressured me into sending it. (She was right to do so) I think this was the hardest to let go even though I'll only be away from it for about a month or 2 it was still sad to put it in the box to ship.  I'm not sure if I have expressed how much I LOVE this thing!  It's the first large item that I have done start to finish!  Before I took it home to wash, block, and ship, I had been wearing it EVERY day at work with occasional trips home for a wash.  Didn't matter if it matched or not, I was wearing it. :)  Lish promised to guard it carefully and also to get it back to me safely.  What is so funny is that I asked her if she had tried it on and she said it was the first thing she did when she opened the box!  She asked me how did I know and I said it would have been the first thing I would have done! :) hehe!

 So, the box has already been shipped and arrived safely to Lish's house.  I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of how it all looks in the gallery and hearing how the show goes!  Hopefully this will be the first of many shows at the gallery and that I get to send more stuff to display.  Lish has also been hoping it inspires more people to learn to knit up there.

If you live near Toronto, OH, please stop by the gallery next weekend to check out my stuff and some of Lish's awesome knits as well!  I know there will be several other artists submitting items to display and sell.  Details of the show can be found on their facebook page.

Happy Knitting!! 

Weekend Love: Beach, pool, boating, and some golf!

This weekend was one of those great weekends where we packed it full of fun things, but also got time to rest and clean the house a bit.  Saturday was FULL of water play and awesome!  We started the day with a meet up with our friends K and T at the beach!  The four of us gals had a blast playing in the sand and water!  The weather was perfect and company even better!

Carmen then passed out on the way home and took a nice 2 hour nap and then was ready to head to her Papa's house for more water fun!  She swam with her daddy and had too much fun being silly!  We then went on a fun boat ride, but no pictures because I am too nervous to bring my iPhone with us.  She had a blast on the boat and said hi and bye to other boaters and liked to make noises as we sped through the water.  After all the fun water play, she had dinner and cuddled with her Papa and her dollies.

Sunday morning, Special K, Carmen and I headed to Walmart to pick up her first set of golf clubs.  Special K had seen them there for around $5!  It was worth every penny!  Watching the two of them play with these clubs, was priceless!  It was another warm day but we chose a park by the water so there was a nice breeze!

I took the following video and all I can say is could this be any cuter?

And how cute is this!  I could just follow her all day. :)

After the lesson, we sat on the sidewalk and ate snack with the squirrels and birds.  We kept the animals away from Carmen, but Special K couldn't help but try to feed the squirrels out of his hands.  He did get a little snip from the squirrel!  

 On our way home after her golf lesson, she fell asleep and took a 3 hour nap!  The rest of the afternoon was spent coloring, running around the house, and watching Despicable Me or ilo and itch.

We ended the weekend with a Google+ hangout with CGR's Grandma Shari while we ate dinner.    As I said, the weekend was full of awesome but relaxing.  I felt refreshed going into my work week, which is always a great thing!

Happy Weekending!

Catching up: High Tea, swimming, and the stomach flu.

Hi, everyone!  Sorry for more radio silence but between trying to avoid talking about the one thing I want to and getting a stomach bug Monday morning...I've been sort of struggling to stay afloat.  I have wanted to share some fun things about our weekend though.  So this is going to be a weekend update on Wed.  Yes, I know a little later than I had hoped.

This weekend was full of awesome!  Saturday afternoon, my niece Flower girl organized a girls high tea at my sister Fleas' house.  Other than having to wake up grumpy from her nap, which made her very grumpy, the tea was awesome!

The guests included my sisters, nieces, and two other little girls and their mommas.  One of them was my long time friend K and her daughter T, who I've talked about on this blog before here,  (It's also T's birthday today! Happy Birthday T!) and the other was a mommy and me friend, who was the first person I sat next to at my local Tuesday morning mommy and me group.  CGR was 2 weeks old and she was impressed I had made it out of the house!  My niece Flower girl takes care of her daughter a couple times a week.  The little girls all sat so cute at their little table and all drank lemonade out of some cute tea cups that K had brought. (The bow from the pictures is from Krapfl Girl, who is currently on vacation but check her out after Aug 1st when she gets back.  She's got some GREAT bows!)  Carmen also had her first Oreo, which is vegan, and she loved it!  Personally, I think she had too many but I'm sure if you asked her she would have signed more! :)

Sunday, we had an impromptu park time then spent the morning with CGR's daddy before he headed to go play golf with his dad and CGR went down for a nap.  After nap, we went shopping and stopped by K's house for a quick swim and then played with lots of toys!  CGR is a huge fan of little people so when she saw K's daughter's little people stash, she was in heaven! CGR also liked petting and giving kisses to K's dogs and kitties.  I am allergic to cats so I stay away but thankfully CGR is not.

The weekend ended with dinner with the hubby and then some quality time before he was fast asleep by 8:30.  I ended up staying up way too late and then waking up at 5:30 am with the stomach flu.  UGH!  Monday was pretty much spent sleeping the day away, trying to eat, a shower, and then slept all night as well.  This is my 2nd stomach flu this year and let me tell you...NOT a fan of it.  My niece Flower girl ended up sick the same day and then the following day my brother-in-law got sick.  Thankfully CGR and no one else has come down with it and praying it stays that way.

Lot's more going on, including lots of hexipuffs knit!  I'll talk more about those in a post soon!  And hopefully I'll be able to share some news after this weekend!  We are almost through with the details and once papers are signed, then I'll let you all in on what's going on.  If you can just send good thoughts and prayers our way that it all goes smoothly that would be great!

Happy Wednesday aka Catch up day!

How was your weekend? How's your week going? 

Weekend in pictures...

Great weekend of family, friends, crafts, swimming, food and lots of fun!

How was your weekend?

Knit, knit, spin, knit...repeat!

Hi blog readers!!  Did you miss me?  I feel I have left you all hanging lately!  Life has been pretty busy as usual but that is no excuse.  I'm back and I really hope you enjoy all the catching up I'm about to start.   Since there has been a lot of it, we are going to start with crafting update!  This might be picture heavy and pretty long so hang in there.

The new term of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup Spring started back on May 1st and that as usually got my creative juices flowing!

First it inspired me to start working on more blanket squares for Carmen's Barknknit Raising Quilt.  The pattern is the Barn Raising Quilt from Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together by Shelley Mackie and Larissa Brown.  I started this quilt Sept 23, 2009, which was quite a few months before Carmen was conceived but I started it with the intention of knitting it for my future baby.  It's one of those projects that I knit in between other bigger projects or when I'm just not sure what I want to be knitting.  The squares go relatively fast and I'm using just random sock scraps from my stash so it's fun to see the colors take shape. Last month, I turned in 2 squares into classes and if I recall correctly are square number 14 and 15 out of 36.  I'm hoping to complete this before we transition her to her toddler bed sometime closer to her 2nd birthday.

 In the Winter term 2012, for my BROOM project I set out to complete a shawl for my SIL for her wedding.  I worked with her on what pattern she liked and what color and type of yarn she wanted.  We looked at a lot of different types of shawls and together we picked the Haruni Shawl by Emily Ross using the lovely 50/50 silk/merino blend Juniper Moon Farms Findley yarn.  This is the first laceweight shawl that I have ever completed.  I have a WIP for a shawl for myself that is still sitting in it's project bag waiting to be frogged and knit into something else but this Haruni is the first one I have finished.  I added crystal beads to the bottom chart but you can't really tell in the pictures.  I'm hoping to get better pictures but you will have to just deal with these until I am able to get better ones.  It came out more beautiful than I imagined and I am so happy with it!  It's delicate and drapes beautifully!  I wasn't able to complete it in time to turn in for my BROOM but I turned it in first day of Spring term for detention.

Completed but pre-blocking.  Check out the spread at knitting that night!

Creative blocking!

Ignore dirty bathroom but this is the best picture I have of the back!  And you can't really see the beads.

The next project I completed was a shawl for my friend Jessie, who is having surgery today.  I cast on this simple shawl using my handspun from MissBabs merino/nylon pencil roving.  The colors were perfect for Jessie aka Tinyant and I used Lala's Simple Shawl pattern by Laura Linneman.  I didn't follow the pattern exactly but that is perfect as Jessie never follows patterns and when she does she uses them more as guides than patterns.  I feel the shawl is just perfect for her!   Carmen and swung by on Saturday and gave it to her and she was so pleased with it!   I'm so happy she liked it and she even blogged about it!  Can't beat a handmade gift being appreciated so much!  I will be praying for her today as she goes through her surgery and thinking good thoughts through her recovery period. 

picture borrowed with permission from Tinyant.  Please check out more pictures on her blog!

The last thing I completed or really started was the Beekeeper's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits using random scraps of sock yarn in my stash and some poly-fill.  These hexipuffs as they are called are so fun to make!  They are pretty fast and once they are done so squishy and fun!!  I made 2 in one night and finished the 3rd the next.  I calculated out how many I had to complete to turn in for classes and I have to make 3 so that isn't bad and so fun.  I plan to fit three sets of these into classes and 3 blanket squares in to other classes. 

3 hexipuffs and blanket square in progress.

And now onto WIPs!  You thought I was almost done right?  Not Quite!  The first thing I'm working on is my History of Magic OWL this term.  I wasn't able to finish my OWL last term so I'm really hoping to complete this one.   The OWL is to finish 3 pairs of socks.  I have to finish 3 individual socks by the end of this month to be able to get 50% points so I need to focus on them as all I have is almost 1 sock done and the toes of 2 others. :)  Here are some progress pictures.

Bellatrix sock in progress.  Had to rip back toe last night and make the foot longer.

Hedwig sock!

Dumbledore sock!

For my BROOM this month, I'm spinning.  The goal is to spin the equivalent of 30 mins a day for the duration of the BROOM time with a minimum of 8 oz spun.  I started some laceweight with some lovely merino/bamboo/nylon I had in my stash!

not a lot of progress...need to catch up on this!

Well, I think that covers pretty much all my crafting right now.  I hope you enjoyed this long post and all the updates!  I hope to be back soon with more posts!

Happy Crafting!!!

Dia de los Muertos...

Tonight was very interesting...

For a couple months now, I have started going to a new knitting group.  It's much smaller than the one I used to attend at Panera's on Wednesday but it's been a great little group that meets every Tuesday.   One of my old co-workers attends and it's nice to see her at least once a week.  It also worked out PERFECT because right after I started going, my hubby decided he would finish up the school he started a couple years ago and they have class mon. and wed. nights.  Now that I go on Tuesday nights, his return to class has been seamless for the most part.  

Anyway...back to why it was interesting. We have moved our meeting around a couple times, however, we have been mostly meeting at a local indie coffee shop near downtown St. Pete.  It has been a great place to meet and we've encountered ALL types of meet ups from last week's admin meeting for the St. Pete Occupy group to a writer's group that meets about once a month and reads their stories out loud and then critiques each others work.   I like going because I feel we get to see a pulse of a world I don't normally encounter.  I also hear the pastries, especially the fresh baked brownies, are disgusting..just kidding...they are actually DELICIOUS but they all tell me they are gross so that I don't feel bad that I can't have them...have I mentioned I really like our little group. :) 

This week we showed up as normal, however, when we walked in the door a lady dressed in all white and face painted greeted us with a friendly hello and "Welcome to our Day of the Dead Celebration."  We all though this would be like the other groups, a side area where we could still converse and join if we so choose.  Not quite what happened...as we were figuring out the best place to park our knitting selves the lady begins her "program."  She welcomes everyone and proceeds to talk about the history of the Dia de los Muertos, which is awesome but not what we all come to knitting to do.  When she starts her first poem of the night, we look at each other and make a quick decision to find a new place to knit tonight.  I think we all felt a little guilty about leaving during the "program" but we all wanted to discuss our week and our knitting and that wasn't going to happen during her program.   We sneaked out the best we could. 

Once outside, several ladies still had not arrived so we had to figure out where to go that they could still find us.  While sitting outside the pizza place next door, we figured why not ask if we could knit in there.  They said ok, so we went in and parked ourselves at a table.   We were the only group of people in the whole pizza place other than two woman and later on two men that sat outside.  I think the pizza place was happy to have people in there and we were happy to have a place we could sit, knit, and chat.  I enjoyed myself a beer and fries but mostly the company!


Since the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup new class prompts are up on the first of the month, I had to get some project done that I could turn in.  I practiced MORE crocheting skills which I'm really enjoying.  I learned how to do the triple crochet!

Well, I hope you had a great Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos!  I know I posted pictures of my little lamb BUT I have to post this one that was taken on Halloween because she is just too cute!

The happiest cutest little lamb EVER!

and because I rarely post pictures of me and her...here's an extra!

Momma and my little lamb

Happy November!!

Edited to add:  I had wanted to share these awesome Dia de los muertos socks posted on Keep on Knitting in the Free World blog that I read! Go check them out!

New Daycare, Knitting, and all about me.

This week has been the first full days at the new daycare.  So far I think it's going great!  My new hours of 7am to 4pm are working great too!  It's kind of hard getting up at 5:45 am every morning but it's getting better.  The first day was SUPER hard because Little Miss CGR woke up at 3 am and wouldn't go back to bed until 5!! However, after the first full day of daycare and playing with the other kids, she has been sleeping wonderfully since...yes I just realized I am jinxing myself.  She has been a bit fussy lately but we are all thinking that it's teeth coming in.  Not only has she been fussy but she has been putting everything in her mouth and slobbering all over the place.

Along with the new daycare, she just reached the age where she has separation anxiety.  I knew that this would hit around this time and thankfully it doesn't come with her crying as we leave daycare but she just doesn't like to be left alone anywhere.  If I try to put her in her excersaucer and do things in the kitchen, which is in site she will fuss at me.  I just talk to her and she usually settles a bit but she doesn't like to not be within site or really near you.  I know this stage will pass but it is nice to know that she wants me.  I think it also is this way because of the teething.  

Knitting related, I have been knitting! Lots of knitting going on.  I finished a slouchy hat for my niece for her birthday and it didn't fit so I'm in the process of fixing the ribbing.  I will post pictures of the process once it's completed.  

I'm also doing a test knit for a friend.  It's a super easy and fun scarf pattern.  I picked some of my latest handspun to knit it with and I'm loving how it's coming out.  I don't want to post pictures of the pattern as she hasn't posted it yet but here is a sneak peak.

In a couple posts ago, I talked about how I had lost some friends.  Along with losing these friends, I also felt like I couldn't go to my old knitting group anymore.  It was just somewhat uncomfortable and I didn't feel I wanted to go to a place I really didn't feel welcome anymore.  It's been sad and hard because I really did love going to knitting and when it no longer felt that way, I just felt I couldn't go.  In the end, I have found a new knitting home and it's a very small group, however, it's a great group too.  I miss some of the other ladies from my old group but I just can't bring myself to go anymore.   The new group consist of one old friend and two new ladies that I enjoy spending my Tuesday nights with.  We are all getting to know each other but there is no stress or drama and I love all the ideas and knitting content with our evenings.  My old friend and I are planning some VERY exciting new things so keep your eyes pealed for that! ;)

I also have some giveaways I will be posting on here and one on my barknknit podcast blog.  I just haven't had a chance to post them yet.

Hope you have a great evening and are having a great week!  Happy Knitting!

Baby Coma...and the birth of Mama Barknknit

I've talked a little about what I now call my baby coma before but when Carmen was born, I swear it took all my brain power to just take care of her and heal that I feel now that I was in a daze most of those first couple weeks.  We were nursing around the clock, changing diapers I felt every hour but I'm sure it wasn't, rarely getting more than 15-30 mins of sleep at a stretch an hour or two were amazing times and also getting to know this little girl who had joined our life...as well as letting others get to know her.  This took up a lot of time and mental energy.  I look back on this time, which was most of my maternity leave and was like why wasn't I doing this or this...but in the end I just know I was learning to be a mom and that was the most important thing I could have been doing with my time. 

Now, almost 7 months later, I've been regaining my identity and it has also forever changed as well.  Sadly, I have lost friends in my journey to motherhood and I've come to grips with that.  I realized that I am who I am and I happen to like myself.  I know not everyone will like me and life is too short to worry about those who just don't get me.  There are plenty of people out there for them to be friends with as well as plenty of others for me to be friends with as well.   I've said sorry for anything I did that was unintentionally mean and slowly working on righting my "wrongs" but I not going to say sorry for being me and for putting myself and my family first and why should I.  They are not saying sorry for being intentionally or unintentionally mean to me.  If they can be who they want to be and be rude, mean, sneaky, and just plan unfriendly, then why should I have to say sorry for being myself.  Anyway...I'm getting WAY off topic here. I didn't plan this post to go into this but anyway...it's there and I'm not deleting it.  This is my space...if you don't like it as I say about my podcast...there are other blogs you can read.

So...as I've been getting back to: Knitting: which I've managed to do a lot of lately; Podcasting, which I've gotten 3 episodes up in the month of June! Dog training/walking: which I never really stopped doing but have started trying to run with Abby and generally doing the things that I enjoy.  I haven't given my wheel Pilar much love lately but hoping that the Tour de Fleece fixes that.  You can also join me and other podcasters and podcast listeners in the Team Sasquatch group on Raverly for Tour de Fleece!  My goal this year is to spin a min of 5 mins a day during the Tour.  Wish me luck!  I just hope I can finish some of the project on the needles before the start of it.

Back to the topic at hand, as I begin to plan out this blog and my podcast and figure out what I want to do, I realize that Barknknit doesn't really cover everything anymore.  I used to be all dogs and knitting.  Then I started spinning but that still fits and now I'm a mom.  A mom who just wants to be the best mom I can be.  I also want to be more of a natural momma than I thought I would be.  I am into breastfeeding, babywearing, and I'm not against co-sleeping and now I'm diving into the cloth diapering world.  As I learn more, I want to share more and so where does that fit in.  I'm really not sure who all reads the blog, I know tons of people listen to the podcast and I've gotten good feedback about adding the Carmen's Corner, but I think I need to add more.  I haven't decided exactly what that will look like but you will find out when I figure it out.  In the meanwhile, my name went from just plain ole Barknknit to Mama Barknknit as being a mom is a huge part of who I am now.  I was always a mom to my furbabies but that role has grown and I'm very excited about what life still has in store for me.

Hope you enjoy my thoughts as I really do plan to use this blog space for more than just pictures and incorporate more of my thoughts and ramblings that exist in my head, which is a bit crazy and I'm ok with that!  I love who I am.  I hope that you love who you are!  How can you expect others to like you when you don't like yourself?

Happy Day!

My first attempt at Cabled yarn.

This past week has been full of plying yarn and re-plying and adding twist and so on!  I have taken a bunch of pictures so we'll do this with pictures! :)  For starters, what is Cabled Yarn.  The definition I got from this site is as follows: "A cabled yarn is simply a plied yarn that is plied back on itself. In its most basic form, a cable yarn is 2 - 2 ply yarns which are then plied together."  There is more details about how this is accomplished on the site referenced but I will tell you how I did it.

We'll start with talking about the singles.  I first spun up two singles of brown Merino clockwise or with a Z twist. Which by the definition found on this site means "This is twist that is inserted into the fibers when the drive wheel is spinning to the right or clockwise"  To view a picture of detailing this click here.  I then over twisted it by running it back through the wheel clockwise to make sure there was lots of twist.  This is requires when it comes to cable plying yarn.  I also spun up a single of white Cormo and a single of  white Corriedale.

2 brown merino singles, 1 cormo, and 1 corriedale

After making sure these have plenty of twist, I plied together the two brown singles the opposite direction, counter clockwise or S twist and plied the two white singles together as well. The S twist is the opposite of the Z twist where when the twist is added to the fibers when the drive wheel is spinning to the left or counter clockwise. We will call these the original plies.

Brown Merino original ply

 I figured since I was over-plying them that I would not have to run them back through the wheel, so I started plying a white with a brown ply clockwise on my wheel...ummm...boy was I WRONG!

Under twisted original plies, over twisted yarn

So, after a good conversation with my spinning mentor/adviser/friend Jasmin from the Knitmore Girls podcast,  we decided that I now have several yards of pretty yarn to show off but I need to run what's left of the original plies back through the wheel before plying the rest together.   So...back to plying I went.  I ran a bobbin of each of the original plies back through and added twist...again we are plying counter clockwise to add twist to the original plies.  After making sure these had plenty of twist, I started back plying the original plies clockwise for the final cabled yarn.   This was much more productive!!  I finished plying the two bobbins of original plies last night and am VERY happy with the results.  So, far with the two skeins I set the twist last night, I have about 250 yards of worsted weight cabled yarn!

Successful, cable plied yarn!

I was originally hoping to be done with all the plying before heading off this weekend to the Florida Fiber In with Manda, but I just wasn't able to finish.  So, I'm bringing all my bobbins, some singles left to ply, and the other original plies with me so I can finish the rest of the yarn.  I am really hoping to have about 600 yards when I'm done so I can make the Lady Kina with this yarn but we'll see.  I'll let you know after the weekend.

Speaking of weekend, Manda and I are leaving to Orlando as soon as I get of work on Friday and we'll be in Orlando at the Florida Fiber In until Sunday!  I'm looking forward to meeting new people, and all the fibery goodness in store for us this weekend!  I plan to get lots of pictures and some audio to share!  So, look forward to that!

Have a great weekend!  Happy Spinning and Fibery Fun!

Shalom Redux completed and Spinning, Spinning, Spinning!

he weekend has gone by fast!  Since I posted yesterday, I spent Saturday evening knitting the Shalom Cardigan, spinning, and watching Trueblood with my friend Catie.  We had a great time!  I was able to finish the Shalom Cardigan by Meghan McFarlane, weave in the ends and sew on the buttons!  And for those of you keeping track, it was knit in 7 days!! I beat my goal of knitting it within 14 days!  YAY!  It came out so much better this time. I think it fits great and doesn't bunch in the yoke.  It is now blocking and will soon be worn at work in the arctic called my office.

Shalom Cardigan completed

After I finished the cardigan, I pulled out the spinning wheel and continued spinning the merino.  I'm making good progress and today I finished the first of four bobbins.

Merino bobbin completed

This morning I was up early!!  Special K went golfing with his dad at 8 so he was up early.  I was hoping to sleep in today but I couldn't get back to bed after he got up at 7:15 so I just stayed up.  I had coffee and a scone and started recording the podcast.  I was having difficulty recording and my friend called to see if I wanted a bagel, so I took a break. :)  After I got back from my bagel break, I finished recording the podcast before Special K got home for the family fantasy football draft.  I went over to my sister's house and took my wheel to watch the chaos over there while they drafted.  That was where I finally finished the first bobbin.

Spinning at Tammy's

The draft was entertaining...:)  Afterwords, I came back home, edited and posted the podcast and now plan to go back to spinning. Have I mentioned lately that I'm really enjoying spinning?

Well, I hope you all had a great weekend.  I'm off to spin!

Happy Knitting, Spinning, and Podcasting!