Catching Up

Hi Knitters,

I have a few things to catch you up with. First off, another hank of yarn has been spun. I actually started this one months ago. It is the beautiful Fiber Optic Yarns roving I purchased at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival back in May.

The roving was 4 ounces of an 80% merino and 20% silk. The stunning colorway is Gold-Fuschia Layered Gradient. I spun up a hank with 224 yards in about a light worsted weight. Although it isn't all that even so in some spots it is a sport weight. The colors are so rich and interesting and that's what attracted me to the roving. I love the way the gold plays out, too.
It is a gradient roving starting with a vibrant red and gradually moving into a brilliant fuschia. I am thinking about a hat or a cowl for this one. I think that either of these projects will show off the yarn at its best. I'll keep you posted.
I wanted to keep the gradient colors together so I spun the singles and then Navajo plied. This keeps the colors together. I did much better this time with the Navajo plying. In an earlier skein I overspun when using this technique. Thanks to the advice of a kindly spinner on Ravelry I slowed my speed way down when plying and this seemed to help a lot. This is a very balanced hank of yarn, not perfect by any means, but it hangs straighter than straight. That's progress.

Click here for the Fiber Optic Etsy Shop!

Now my neglected once again wheel has some yummy Sunshine Yarns superwash wool roving sitting and waiting to be finished. This is the Phoenix Song colorway and I think it is pretty brilliant with gray, white, orange, gold, red, blue and yellows sprinkled throughout. There is something very sweet about the way it is spinning up. I can't wait to see how it turns out.
I saw this sock yarn last fall and didn't get it. This year I snagged a hank of Vesper Sock Yarn in the Candy Corn colorway. It is self-striping and I can't wait to dive in and have some Halloween-inspired socks to wear. I'm a big fan of the candy corn, the kind you eat.

It is not easy to get this yarn as it flies out of the shop as soon as it is listed. If you want some for yourself you have to be on your toes. Click here for the Vesper Sock Yarn shop.

I wrote about the Sew Bendy bags a long, long time ago. The Etsy shop is on my blog sidebar. I use and love these little bags literally every day. I keep my small projects in them and I have a lot of small projects going at the same time and all of the time. I have also given these bags to my daughters and my sister. I can't recommend them enough.

Click here for the Sew Bendy etsy shop!

This is TC's favorite Sew Bendy bag, the sweet pea one. She is knitting on her Be Sweet cotton stripes hat right now amongst other things.

Click here for the Be Sweet Bambino Taffy yarn!

Here are TC's latest knitting accomplishments. She finished her long in the making baby blanket out of Plymouth Heaven (click here to see the Heaven yarn). She bought her Heaven yarn at Stitchers Crossing. TC even ran out at one point and biked up to Stitchers to buy another ball or two. She absolutely loves this garter stitch baby blanket. She was going to donate it to her knitting group but I see that it hasn't left the house quite yet. I think she is having a hard time letting it go. We'll see what happens. She donates so much that it wouldn't be so bad for her to keep a little something.

I think I may have mentioned the Chunky Mochi Baby Hat she finished this summer. It is on her shoulder in the photo. TC picked out this yarn on our Door County trip. She is always attracted to the Chunky Mochi yarn and has another hat on the needles in a different colorway called Baby Face.

Click here for the one ball Chunky Mochi Baby Hat pattern!

Click here for Spin of Door County, where she bought the yarn!

Last but not least, Miss Molly has finished another sock and is on the foot of the second sock. This is her first pair of fingering weight socks and she is moving right along. The sock yarn is called Shamrockin' and it is another hank of Vesper Sock Yarn. This yarn is interesting in that the colors change dramatically depending on the light.

Miss Molly loves green and she loves being Irish so this yarn was meant to be on her feet. I love sharing her knitting progress. Last fall she was a complete beginner, this fall she is knitting socks on US size 2 double-pointed needles. Pretty impressive.

I am off for Vogue Knitting Live in Los Angeles in a couple of days. I hope to see some of you there and I know I will see some of you in my classes. I am really excited to go but I'll be even more excited once I finish organizing and packing.

Take care and I'm planning on posting from California so stay tuned.

best, susie