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Warm and Woolley Valentines

I am pleased to announce the almost-completion of a project, the Waldo (as in “Where’s Waldo”) Hat:

IMG_0558-edited

The pom-pom is too big still, and the hat might be a bit too tall (still have to try it on and see what I think),, but the Waldo hat is essentially complete.

And, it’s kind of Valentine-y, to boot.

Here’s another smidge of kind-of-Valentine-y fiber fresh from the wheel and promptly swatched:

IMG_0557-cropped

That one is more of a strawberries and  chocoate (or neopolitan ice cream?) type of treat.

Ingredients: Pink-y blended shades of merino top, handcombed milk chocolate and vanilla shetland. Spun separately, plied together, and then cabled. It’s more complicated than what I usually do, and I think I like it, but it is pretty busy.

Oh- and if you are in the area (western WA), I thought I’d pass the word about an upcoming fiber sale:

Whidbey Wool Producers
Fleece Sale

Saturday, March 7th, 2009, 11 to 3 o’clock Held at Crossfire Hill
Farm on Whidbey Island
3537 Day Road, Greenbank, WA 98253

Vendors will have: Corriedale, Alpaca, BFL, Mohair, Romney, Shetland

For more information you can call (360) 678-5625

Denise out.

She’s Come Unspun-

I got the new issue of Spin-Off this week (thanks, Mom), and was pouring over it when I came across an interesting article about knitting with unspun, pre-drafted rolags.

And lo and behold,, I just happened to have a pile of rolags handy,

blended rolags

as I am experimenting with blending fibers to achieve a tweedy-type of effect. So I thought I would give it a try.

It’s kind of a delicate business, and you can’t put any tension on the wool while you’re knitting it or it will come right apart. But the results are pretty cool. Very light and lofty.

unspun swatch

It is really soft, and would make a wonderful scarf. Two unspun rolags made a knitted swatch the same size as 4 rolags that I spun and chain-plied:

najavo plied swatch

The raw materials for the blend are a kind of hairy oatmeal-colored shetland roving,

kinda hairy shetland

dark brown Romney,

flicked out romney

and dribs and drabs of those dyed border leicester locks I bought last weekend. (A little goes a long way with those bright colors!)

flashes of color

Don’t know what inspired me to throw them all together,, but I’m liking the results so far!

Knit on-

Denise