Portland Souvenirs

This post is long overdue - but I have been out of sorts lately due to the theft of my company laptop at work. Yes, at work, during working hours..... kinda creepy to think there is a thief with that much balls hanging out where I work.

ok, on to the swag...



Beautiful new spindle from Woodland Woolworks along with some gorgeous silk to spin on it. By the way - that place is very hard to come away with only 3 items. There was so much more that I wanted. Luckily for me, there was no equipment that needed me on the day we were there. I told the staff about the little wheel I purchased that is now living back in Oregon with Melissa.



more gorgeous silk - 2 ounces of hand dyed yummyness



These two skeins of Koigu KPPM for socks for me me me are from Knit Purl as my souvenir from the PDX Knit Bloggers Meet up

There is also two more skeins of Koigu that will not be posted until they are transformed into something else so that one of the readers of this blog will be surprised.

Polworth and silk - half way done

This is the charcoal polworth and the dyed silk from a couple of weekends ago.

I've been spinning the silk for what seems like forever and finally got to start the plying yesterday.

1070 yards and 4 ounces so far with 4 more ounce to ply up. I think it's gorgeous - not at all what I wanted, but pretty nevertheless.

I was really wanting the silk to be dark saturated colors, but the violet was lighter than I thought it would be and the silk roving didn't get dyed in places in the middle of the roving. The Burgundy turned out to be a very red brown and the dark green is nice - but the violet really throws off my autumn colors plan. Don't know what I was thinking with that.

I will ply up the remaining and look for a beginners lace pattern for a lacy shawl to knit with this.

Or, it really looks like the long color repeats might be nice for a woven piece - I'd have to sett this closer than I've ever woven before, but it might be the incentive I need to get the Macomber set up for a warp.

Bulky grey polworth

Here is 24 ounces - over 700 yards of very bulky light grey polworth. 6 skeins of 4 ounces which average 120 yards each.

This is about 6 wpi and was fun to spin once I let go of trying to control the size of the yarn and let the wheel pull it out of my hand.

I'm hoping that I have enough for a sweater or vest - I think I heard that it takes a pound of yarn for a sweater so I should have enough.

Finished plying the polworth laceweight

Woo hoo! I finally finished plying the polworth laceweight and it is beautiful!

This is 1500 yards of yummy grey yarn. It's a hefty 6.5 ounce skein - I was barely able to ply the whole thing onto my Louet S-10 bobbin.

The yarn is nice, but I don't think it's the best use of the polworth. This grist doesn't show off the softness of the wool as much as I would like.

I can put it against my neck and it's not itchy, but the cloudlike softness of the carded fiber is not evident.

I will probably knit this into a lacy shawl. I haven't knit any lace other than the feather and fan pattern, so this may be the opportunity to pull out some of the stitch patterns I have been dreaming over and see if I can find one with an easy repeat to memorize.

I hate reading charts or patterns. Much better if I can find a pattern I can remember.

Juanita's picks

My sister Juanita came over today and we went thru all my handspun yarns looking for the perfect yarn for Mom's shrug.
Of course, as we looked at each skein, Nita put aside the ones she really liked for other projects too. Here are the skeins she picked out that I was willing to let go.


From the left I will give the fiber the yarn was spun from and source:

• merino tencel blend roving from Winderwood on ebay,
• yellow cotswold locks from Frene Creek,
• orange cotswold locks from Frene creek,
• superwash merino roving dyed by Maegan and Sarah during a fun day at my house,
• blue merino & tencel roving from The Fiber Factory here in Mesa,
• BFL roving from Spunky Electric (this was one of the fiber of the month selections),
• and that little bit of dark blue on the far right is the remainder of a skein that was mostly alpaca with some wool, silk, & firestar that is a combo of commercial yarn and hand spun.

Maegan's shrug

Juanita made this little shrug for Maegan out of a pretty merino tencel roving that I got from Winderwood on ebay. It's spun to a baby weight yarn and then crocheted .


How cute is she?

bulky merino

These pictures do not capture the subtle changes in this yarn. It's spun pretty bulky - 10 wpi. The roving was from Spunky Electric called "into the abyss".

I love her colorways. I am on her fiber of the month club and every package I get from her is a delight.

This was a challenge to spin this bulky - I had to go up to my slowest whorl and still ended up overspinning this skein in places.

It's only 160 yards for the whole 4 ounces.