Tour de Fleece 2011

Tour de Fleece has begun! My goal this year is to finish processing the fleeces I have in the stash. Not spin. Process.

Day one is dedicated to washing the one fleece I bought this spring. It's a lovely Border Leicester x Wensleydale ewe fleece. I have a dark fleece from her lamb last year already in the stash. Her fleece is soaking in the tub right now and it's coming out a variety of grays from pale silver to pewter.





Prior to the Tour, I also did some weaving.





I knitted a baby blanket and a monkey.





I spun some yarn.



And played with a new alpaca cria at my friend's farm.



All in all, I've been a bit busy since my last post!

A new start

I can't believe it's 2011 already and that I have been SO lax in updating my blog. I've had a lot going on in my fibery world. I needed to recharge my batteries, so I got back to knitting. For Christmas I made a little shrug for my niece, two hats and three cowls. I also finished my very first sweater for myself. I knit it with handspun and the resulting fabric is wonderful.



I'm currently working on a cardigan called Aidez. It's a free pattern from Berroco and it's a fun knit. There are lots of cables and twisted stitches to keep it interesting. I'm knitting mine with thick, chewy Cascade Eco in a brown that reminds me of tree bark.



There are extensions of the fronts that wrap around and meet in the back of the neck. I used my Google-fu and discovered TechKnitter wrote an article in the Spring 2010 Interweave Knits that explains Kitchener stitch in pattern. I used it to graft together the two pieces and the result is almost invisible. I'm so pleased with it! I'm going to remember this technique because it's so much more elegant than a clunky seam, especially in bulky yarn like this.



Alas, all is not well. I'm blocking my first sleeve but at first look, it's sized to fit a gorilla and assumes I will be wearing football shoulder pads to make it fit properly. I may end up frogging back to the underarm and reknitting, but I really hope it doesn't come to that. I suppose it's not a real knitting project unless I make at least one bone-headed mistake.

On the other side of the coin is my Saori weaving. In Saori, mistakes are human and meant to be embraced. I scored a deal and found a LOCAL used Saori loom that really wanted to be mine. I bought it the same day my long awaited Saori weaving book arrived in the mail. I was getting ready to try the techniques on a rigid heddle because I've been full of ideas. I brought my precious loom home in a snowstorm, warped it after watching YouTube videos (with a few mistakes) and spent several days weaving fabric for a blanket. It's warped with Kauni leftover from a felted bag project and the weft is various Beaverslide yarns, Patons Rumor, some sock yarn scraps and pieces of fabric. I really love how it turned out. There are errors in the warping, but I appreciated the texture they added and I kept on weaving. Next step will be learning how to hem and seam on the sewing machine so I can form this long strip into a blanket shape. I am looking forward to lots of experimentation with this loom!