Spinning again...

BlogRolling is playing up again. For weeks now I have only had the occasional notification that journals have been updated. When I move my mouse cursor over some of the blog links, the little information window tries to convince me that these blogs have not been updated since the beginning of February, despite the fact that I *know* that they were updated three times a week for the last two months. What's going on? And this is for journals for which I've had plenty of updates before.

This means that despite BlogRolling I'm back to checking each and every one of the blogs on my regular reading list separately. *grumbles*

But enough of that.

Do you remember the delicious burnt-orange coloured corriedale roving that my SP6 sent me a while ago? Well, to make it go further, I decided to ply it with some yellow merino. The result is this:

I love the way the colours compliment each other. The warm orange and the warm yellow make such a cheerful combination. Yummy looking, even. Juicy! And I ended up with not only one skein of it either. Rather, I have five:

I am very much hoping that it will be enough for a sweater or cardigan. Maybe if I have shorter sleeves?

In an attempt to get back into a more crafty lifestyle than I have had during the last two weeks I also treated myself to an X-Files marathon on FX the other night, followed by a new episode of Lost on E4, while I was spinning some of the merino that I brought back from my trip to Fibre Paradise (aka, Wingham Wool Work). My plan was to make a chunky 3-ply with 2 strands of white merino and 1 strand of grey Jacob's fleece, and to use the resulting yarn for some Rowan Big Wool sweater or cardigan pattern. The result of one evening of spinning is this:

I *quite* like the look of the yarn, and the softness of the merino counteracts the rougher fibre of the Jacob sufficiently. What I don't like particularly is how dense and how heavy it consequently is. I think I may have to abandon my plan of producing enough of this yarn to create a cardigan - it would weigh at least 1kg and I'm really not sure that I want to carry that on my back!

Instead, I have started using the merino to spin an approximately sock-weight single to be plied with some brown Blue Faced Leicester. I want to use this yarn for Norah Gaughan's pretty pretty side-way ribs cardigan from the Fall/Winter issue of Knitscene:


I *love* that cardigan!






When I researched the yarn, it turned out to be a German handspun. It's a single ply, but I have decided to use a 2-ply yarn anyway - I imagine it will pill less that way.

I spun a single from the white merino, and have started preparing the roving for the second single - merino and just a trace of brown BFL:


And finally, look what I got yesterday!!

I am doing a swap with Donni from Mog's Blog. She promised to weave a scarf for me and I will knit her some gloves in return. I have a bit more time to do my part of the swap, because it's summer right now where she lives (Australia), so I will get to that after xmas and New Year.

Isn't the scarf beautiful, though? It's a Suri Alpaca Handspun, woven in with 'Flame' from Crystal Palace Waikiki. Here is a close-up so you can see the texture better:

Thank you so much Donni, I LOVE the scarf!! It will get worn a lot this winter. :-)

ETA: Thank you also for the lovely little notebook and the yummy Australian sweets you sent with the scarf. I wasn't able to take a picture of the sweets because they are already eaten... ;-)