On to May...

Right. Time to update the old blog. It's been languishing the past, oh, 4 months. Now that I am officially selling handspun yarn, handknit items, and soon--carded batts of fiber, I think it's time to dust off the blog.

About three months ago I purchased two adorable French Angora bunnies. A silver-gray doe (Nuit Noire), and a light cream-color buck, Primo Torto. Over the past months I've noticed that they have developed personalities. Nuit (I call her New-ee) is a bit timid, but will always come right up to the door to say hi to me. Torto is very gregarious. He hops right up to the door before I even unlatch it, and insists that I rub his nose/head before anything else occurs. They are about 3/4 through their first fiber shedding, and I've been combing it versus shearing it. As a handspinner, I find sheared bunny fiber tends to have coarse ends where cut. Combing or brushing ensures a better spinning fiber.

French Angora bunnies are smaller than the English/Giant breeds, and therefore have less yearly fiber yield. However, I think I'm going to get at least one, as the fiber yield can be anywhere from 1-3 lbs per year--which is 2-3x more than FA yield.

I finally got new yarns and some knitted hats on my etsy site. Even made 2 sales in the past week! I'm very excited, as I hope this leads to Vtknitboy on Etsy becoming a larger part of my life.

Will try to post more often, as I will be listing yarn, knitwear, and batts (to spin) later!

Cheers!

Summer of...spring and deconstruction

It's been just ages since my last blog post! I blame it on Twitter. Really. Once the lampooned fad of the month, Twitter is extremely popular and can be quite useful for developing contacts and connections for inspiring entrepreneurs and small business people. (Hint: I will be opening my Esty shop selling handspun yarn very soon!) And, I am vtknitboy on twitter.

Where is summer?
I'll keep this short. It's been a very cool and rainy summer so far. Only a paltry few days higher than 80 degrees. 'Nuf said.

July finds our household, well, literally, the house itself, under deconstruction! After years of complaining about the cold seeping through the thin 2x6" walls, and cool breezes streaming through the now gas-depleted double-pane windows (in winter, no less), we are having some work done on the house. The house was built in 1973 and all its parts are original.

We are having the roof replaced, all the windows replaced with energy-efficient double-hung windows, insulation and new siding, and insulation placed in the garage. We are also having the screened-in porch converted into a year-around sun/tv room. The room will have windows taking up the majority of the wall space on the north and east sides. And, the old walkway (ick) and decks have been removed, and will be replaced with a smaller deck on the east side, and there are dreams of a stone patio and sitting area on the south side, in the faraway future...

Etsy!
Yes, I am finally doing something about getting my handspun on my etsy site. I have weighed, measured, and reskeined several skeins of handspun. I just have to take pics, and get the info on the site! I have dozens of skeins to list on the site. Just trying to get in gear, while completing tasks needed for the house remodel. My site will be vtknitboy.etsy.com I will do another blog post when it's active!

Not much for pics this post. I'll see if the pics I took on my Blackberry work out on Blogger.

Hope you are all having a nice summer! Enjoy the pics of the raspberry color astilbe and the beebalm.

Chris

Stash for sale!

Hello my friends all over the U.S. and elsewhere! I will be selling handspun yarn soon, but am going to start off by getting rid of some of my huge stash of purchased yarn! I will be adding other things to my Esty site (vtknitboy), which is not up quite yet, and am opening up a Paypal account, which should be operating in 3-5 days. If you want to purchase any of this-at this point I'd take a check (and send out the yarn once the check clears).

Note to Vermont knitters on Ravelry's Vermont Knitters group: you have first dibs! If you want any and are going to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival on Saturday, September 6th, I'll bring it and you'll save on shipping! Shipping is $4.50 for up to a pound. I'll let you know what it is for a skein or two, although I'd prefer to sell each color as a group. I'll sell the entire lot for $85! That's 2,165+ yards!

First batch up is Vermont wool, and Vermont wool/mohair blend. This yarn was spun by Green Mountain Spinnery about 8 years ago, but has been stored safely with no moths or yarn deterioration. I just washed all the skeins, and have re-skeined them. The yarn is a singles yarn. Some of it is slightly thick and thin, but the majority of it (90%+) is worsted weight to maybe slightly heavier worsted weight.

All this wool is from a woman who lives in Morrisville, Vermont, from her sheep and mohair goats.

White Vermont wool: 12 oz approx 660 yards $30This yarn is very soft, light and lofty, some thick and thin. Will dye easily, and probably felt well too! Great for socks, hats, mittens.

Grey Vermont wool with about 15% mohair: 16 oz. approx 890 yards $40 (PLUS 170+ yards skein that is slightly bulkier)
I made a sweater out of some of this yarn 8 years ago, and it's warm, soft, and a little fuzzy from the mohair. One of my "comfy" sweaters!

Red: Grey Vermont wool with 15% mohair, overdyed with red: 6.65 oz approx 365 yards $16.

Enough for a pair of socks, or maybe a hat and small mittens? Or buy it and add as an accent yarn with the grey.

Green: the same white yarn dyed in a pale, lovely green. 4.6 oz approx 250 yards, $10. Soft and light! Nice for socks.

Thanks for checking out this stuff. I'll have more up later. Email me or comment here with any questions.

Have a great day!

Colorways, Navajo plying, and projects

Just a quick update on the yarn from the alpaca roving I wrote about in my last post. I have around 1,000 yards, with 6 oz left to spin. Here's a picture of one of the skeins that has been wound on my ball winder. I usually don't ball my yarn up until I'm really ready to use it, but I am dying to knit a sample from it! The skeins came out really light and airy, and have a WPI of 21 (wraps per inch for you non-spinners). I think it will make fabulous socks! I have enough to also do a scarf. With the extra left on one bobbin, I plied it with some extra wool I had on another bobbin from the Dr. G's Vest I spun the yarn for (mentioned in a previous blog...)

Upcoming projects (as always, click on the pics for a larger view)
Silk Lace: At the knitting retreat we had a schwag* event where you pick numbers and the lowest numbers get to pick first, etc. I was number 12 out of 20 something because I was a "Chatty-Cathy", so I missed out on some really great stuff, although what I got was wonderful too.

I picked out a skein of Cherry Tree Hill cascade lace (1,000 yards of 100% silk) in a beautiful Martha's Vineyard colorway with purples, blues, and greens. (Funny how all three things I got at the Retreat have the same colors! Just different shades and blends.) The silk makes the colors shimmer. I have no idea exactly what I'm going to do with it.

Soysilk: This was a lovely gift for being a workshop presenter. It's 50/50 soysilk and merino. It's called Karaoke, in the Mermaid colorway, with plum, seaweed green and some light olive greens (others may say teals, purples and blues, but I'm blue/green colorblind, so what do I know!). I pulled the roving into 2 long strips, then broke just one into 4 more. I spent some time attenuating just one strip--the "silk" feels just like real silk, has the same shimmer, and has the same "tacky" feeling from being dyed, ie., it clumps some. This made attenuating a bit of fun. Not! But, the time I spent attenuating (also called predrafting) was well worth the effort. The fiber drafted well when I spun it, and I spun enough to make a sample swatch.

I really wanted to maintain the colors in the plying, so I spun up a bit on just one bobbin, then I Navajo plied the single, with my wheel set at moderate uptake, I treadled verrrryyyyyyy sllllooooowwwwly.... Navajo plying turns a single ply into a 3-ply. It's like finger crocheting. You pull out a loop from the main "line" about 10-20", or shorter (when pulled out, the loop now has two "sides"), the leader then wraps around the two "sides", thus making a 3-ply. This takes a LOT of practice! If you treadle too fast, it's just a harsh, tight and overplied yarn. I really wanted this to be soft, and to maintain the color changes at the same time. One hard part is to ensure that where the loop meets the next loop that there is not an overlap, because you can see this. Navajo plying (in my opinion) works better on thinner yarn because the "join" is less obvious. For a lesson and video clip go here: navajo plying.

I knitted up a 4" x 8" swatch, using a modified basket weave. Mine was 3 sts edging, then *(k2, p3)* repeat between * * to last 3 sts, then 3 st edging; next row: maintaining 3 st edgings, *(p3,k2)* repeat to last 3 sts, do 3 st edging. Repeat rows 1 & 2, then do row 1 again. On the next row (row 6), do a purl row (this is the back side). Then repeat the first 5 rows, but switch the k2, p3 to p2, k3, thus offsetting the sts. On the 12th row do a purl row. Anywho, you probably get it by now!

The purl row creates a pull on the front, so that the knit blocks on the right side pop out, and almost have a convex curve. It's cool!

I plan on doing at least a scarf with this. I think it's 8 oz.

Superfine Merino Top: The last stash I got at the retreat was 7 oz of superfine dyed merino top in a green/blue colorway. This one has more greens and blues in it than the other two stashes, with some purple. I haven't spun up any of this yet, but have attenuated a couple of strips. More later!

*for a history of "schwag" go here: schwag