Baa baa!

So lately I've been thinking about sheep and following. The animal comes up a lot with knitters and knitting, but I'm also feeling the pressures of the herding instinct since I last posted. Some of the results have been awesome. In thinking about sheep, I've been trying to plug along with the fleece. After some drive band issues, which were ultimately solved by me getting off my lazy butt and getting a ball of kitchen cotton string from the hardware store down the block, I'm up to 2 (count 'em!) full bobbins of singles. I really really really want to get other spinning on the wheel, especially now that both of my fiber clubs are in full swing. It's especially difficult to resist chucking the fleece in the closet in order to have a short fling with this:


December Hello Yarn Fiber Club, "Night Sky" Superwash BFL

Oh. My. Gawd. First of all, the colorway speaks to me (Night Sky?!?!?) as if I custom-ordered it, and it's heavenly-soft superwash BFL. I've only used this fiber once before, and it was one of the easiest things to spin ever. So I want to spin other things besides the fleece these days, but I know if I free up the wheel for other projects, it'll be ridiculously difficult to get back on it. Which means I'm doing some spindle spinning!


Christmas Gift Baltic Merino

This fiber was a Christmas gift from another knitter friend (my evil plan to convert all my friends to knitters/spinners/fiber-maniacs is slowly coming to fruition... yesssss...) from Smoky Mountain Spinnery in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It's a nice heathered blend, which will make a good nearly-solid-color yarn. No plans for a project, I just split the top in two strips and will probably get my standard heavy DK to light worsted weight 2-ply yarn. I also received this fabulous yarn from another friend:


Christmas Fire Gradient

She knit a rectangle in straight stockinette using two strands of plain wool (most likely Patons, they are knitting bff's) and dyed it using regular old Rit dye! It's so lovely, transitioning from a very pale lemon yellow (it's nearly white) to a deep vibrant red. I have no idea what to do with it yet. Right now it's draped across the back of my spinning chair where I can admire it every day, but inspiration has yet to surface. Maybe something double knit? Perhaps a symmetrically-patterned fair isle scarf? Who knows!

Another knitting friend, hesitant to purchase something I wouldn't like, took me to her LYS and said "pick something out." I was about to get back on the airplane, had just finished two fairly complicated pairs of mittens, so I was looking for simple, mindless knitting, but still interesting. Oh yes. You know where this is going. Here's where the herd instinct comes in:


Noro Striped Scarf #1

I have fallen down the rabbit hole (Thanks, Stephanie!) of two-row stripes with Noro. About 10 inches in, the significant other (that phrase still works if you're engaged, right?) walked by and said "Oooh! Is that for me?" I reluctantly said no, it was for me, and then told him that he didn't really want it because it was going to get pink. He then asked me: "How pink?" I would like draw your attention to the two light girly pink sections on the bottom portion of the photo. I'm not adverse to him borrowing the scarf, and he is certainly the kind of male who is confident enough to wear something with a little pink in it, if he likes it enough. However, if it's cold enough for him to want a scarf (the man is like a walking furnace, takes a lot of wind chill for him to want a scarf), I will also certainly want a big, warm, wooly two-row-striped-Noro scarf of my own. So I'm in the middle of another one, this yarn purchased with a gift certificate to another LYS, that is slightly more manly-colored and sufficiently different so that the scarves don't look too matchy-matchy. You know, just in case we decide to wear them at the same time while we're out together.


Noro Striped Scarf #2

They're an awesome project, if you're willing to plop down nearly $40 for a scarf. I don't know if I would have sprung for this yarn myself at this point in time, given the size of my stash. I feel a little guilty when I think about buying new yarn for projects these days. Hopefully I'll get to the point where I start to forget about some of the really really old stash, so it will feel like new yarn. Hmm. Maybe I should go see what's lurking in the bottom of the basket.