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what I've been doing

I have, as previously blogged, been busy spinning. I spun up the rest of the blue from last post. It's very nice, but I got 205 meters, rather than the required 400. I'll make mitts to match the hat, rather than the shawl. This has led to a great deal of thought about spinning, thickness, lightness and so on. And some attempts at maths, always a painful and unfortunate occurrence. My current project is the rest of the Merino / silk, for Leon's mitts for his winter set. I'm planning for 500 meters from 180 grams, at about a fingering weight. This should be enough for Leon's knit and a shawl for me. Hopefully. I'm sure its achievable, and if I can do that, I can make Ysolda's Cria jumper, from Little Red in the City from 500 grams of alpaca / silk I am going to card up.
That's the other thing that has been taking up my time. Last Friday I got the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard, to clean up all the bits of blue fibre all over the floor, and realised how much unwashed and unprepared fleece I have. I washed a little baby alpaca that I was randomly given by a friend - we think he was seeing a woman who lived on a farm, but that is pure conjecture. Anyway its very pretty, but only about 300 grams of alpaca. I've got 200 grams of silk, I'm going to card them together and spin it fine for Cria. I'm also prepping some merino for a jumper for Leon. And there is another fleece I haven't started washing yet. And a bag of alpaca. I should try and get it all washed before the end of summer - if summer actually ever starts.
I've also been doing a little bit of knitting. Tempest is currently blocking - I've decided to block it before I do the button band as well as afterwards, because my swatch grew quite a bit. Have I mentioned how much I love the smell of Wollmeise? Even after being soaked on a bucket with Soak, it still has that magic smell. Hopefully it will dry in time for me to do the button band tomorrow. Either way, I'm starting a baby jumper for a work colleague tomorrow. Here's hoping I'm back with FO photos in the next couple of days.

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  1. Sonia12 January, 2012

    I knew it… you've finished finished Tempest! or pretty much close to… woe is me… looks like I'll be burning the midnight candle this weekend :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sharondoubleknit12 January, 2012

    Yay Sonia! And then we can both wear them on Monday :)

    ReplyDelete

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