I bought some Crosspatch Creations from Amelia of the Bellwether.
It's a blended batt from Joan Contraman in Montana. A mixture of 2 types of wool Corriedale Cross and Romney (names of each sheep provided!), silk and viscose. The color is called Tammany's Prize.
I started spinning it up almost immediately. Here's one skein from one 4 ounce bag. 200 yards of 10 wpi (wraps per inch).
I also bought a 1 ounce batt of English Garden from the Bellwether. It's another blended batt from Crosspatch Creations.
I spun it up and navajo plied it just to get an idea what it would be like as a 3 ply. I want 2 pounds of it!
I think it would make a beautiful sweater.
Meanwhile, as I save my pennies, I'm inspired to start blending different fibers and colors together on my drum carder to get more textured yarns.
There was also a woman there with a company called Great Balls of Fiber. I love the name. She had some alpaca/merino superwash that she had overdyed on pale brown, gray and green. The colors spun up beautifully. I bought about 8 ounces though the picture below doesn't really show the colors well. I've found that photographing outside is the only way to get true colors and it's been raining so much.
Everyone seemed to have some of her dyed fiber!
Most of the spinners stayed 4 days in cabins. They met and spun in a common area. Since I live on Vashon, I visited briefly on Thursday and then again more extensively on Saturday afternoon.
What can I say! Spinners are such great people. I didn't know anyone. The room was filled with spinners. Not a free chair in sight never mind a spot to put one. Someone immediately helped me find a chair and as I wandered around looking confused, another woman told me just to stick it in the middle of a circle. I felt so comfortable. Everyone was friendly and helpful. I sat chatting and spinning for about 5 hours and then went back again that evening. Six of us stayed up spinning, talking and laughing until past midnight.
All I can say is that it was so much fun. I'm amazed at all the talent and knowledge in that room. Every bag had beautiful things peeking out. Some people even showed me the gorgeous yarns and knitted items that were hidden at the bottom of theirs.
I'm having so much fun with entrelac.
I've designed a few hats in children's and adult sizes. I've used the wonderful Noro Silk Garden and have been hand dyeing fiber and spinning it up with entrelac in mind. It's so much fun but I feel like I want to do more than a few more hats to get it right and also to explore color a bit more. I really do like to just sit back and let it happen without influencing the way the colors come off the needles but I do see the fun of maybe using 2 different balls of yarn and switching every row. That would take away some of the building up of color in certain sections.
And after seeing all the wonderful fibers and yarns at Camp Burton, I feel I want to play a little more with texture and blended fibers in these hats. The Noro one is absolutely satisfactory. Please disregard the unwoven ends sticking out!
But the handspun ones need some tweaking.
I saw some hamster bedding at a friend's house. I rushed to Petco and bought this:
It's viscose and a little under $4 for 35 grams. I spun up a little and it produced a fine slightly bumpy yarn. I'd like to try blending it with another fiber. I'm not so good with my ounce/gram conversions but I think it's probably not such a cost effective way of getting spinnable viscose. I had to try it though. I'm not even sure that the color is fast though I am assured that it's perfectly safe for my rat/hamster/mouse to eat.
Joe's sweater has been a challenge in some ways, primarily the finishing details. I didn't want to rush through so I took my time and redid almost every part of the process, sometimes 3 times!
Right now, I'm hand sewing the zipper in place. The finish work on this sweater has been tough!
And just in case, you didn't know what I meant by using those children's foam floor mats for blocking.............
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