Loose Ends

It dawned on me as I gathered up these flowers from the garden before the predicted early frost the other night, that there were several loose ends of a fibery nature left from the summer. So this post contains a mishmash of photos taken during that time and will try to bring you up to date.

First off, I did finish the Mystery Stole 3.
Instead of a beautiful swan, mine is more of an ugly duckling. The asymmetrical ends don't bother me so much as I would much rather have the entire wing on the other side of the shawl. Plus, I wish I'd added extra length to make it longer, so it will be ripped out and the yarn will take flight again as an Icarus shawl.

Ah, here's another shot of that Ingeo/cotton skein from the last post.
I certainly didn't want to respin the whole thing right away, but I was curious as to how it would look with Patsy's suggestions implemented. So, I un-plied it, gave more twist to the singles and re-plied. A terrific learning experience! If I'd been thinking, I would have saved a portion of the first one in order to make a side by side comparison. Enough of Ingeo until next year, I think. ;)

After all the accumulated fleeces from the winter and spring were washed, it was time for some processing.
First up was the white Perendale from Treenway. I love this fleece! I used my Forsyth mini-combs and these nice little bundles are waiting to be spun on my big Lendrum Saxony.

One summer day I decided to play with the dyepot.
This is Hope, the extra fine white Corrie from Whitefish Bay Farm after she had a little dunk in it. Processing is on hold until I save enough pennies for a drum carder as I'd like to blend back in a little white, maybe even some silk.

Okay, and there have been 2 more fleece acquisitions.
Velvet, a bottle fed Friesan/Polypay lamb from Debbie Bender. Debbie has a great reputation in the area for fleeces and I picked this small one up from her last week at WI S&W. There are some sunburned tips but it is so very soft, I can't wait to make some mittens with it.

And, from a sheep I know personally...
Dolly, a Dorset/Rambouillet. Dolly lives at an alpaca farm so her fleece isn't highly valued there (in fact it was simply given to me!), but in her younger years she won ribbons in the fine class at fiber events and still is very, very soft. I'm thinking it will make terrific socks! Her fleece hasn't been skirted, so that should be a new and interesting challenge.

In other handspun sock news, I did finish spindling the superwash merino (Blue Hawaii colorway) from Gypsy Girl and it is plyed and ready to be knit up.
I used the Avi spindle pictured for one single and spun the other single on the Joy. The reason behind wheel spinning one of them, was because I used Janelle's recipe for working with handpainted color as shown in the summer issue of Spin-Off (where one single is spun from narrow strips of roving and the other is spun from a wider piece). I didn't think I would enjoy spindling from that wider piece. Because so often I relate being dissatisfied with my spinning, I loudly proclaim; I am very happy with this skein. Can't particularly pinpoint why, it just pleases me very much.

The next spindling project that has risen to the top of the pile, is this Merino/Bamboo dyed by Tracy Bunkers.
It's every bit as pink as it shows on my monitor (hope it shows pink on yours, too) and the colorway is called Flamingo. Love it! I'm using my first spindle, a Mielke Emily and the two paired together is just about as good as it gets.

So, all loose ends should now be tied up with a big bow and we'll be ready to move forward into autumn with a clean slate.