Spinning - FO and update

I finished a spinning thing! That doesn't happen often, so it's worth celebrating. I made 400 meters of yarn from 85grams of yarn, so it's a teeny bit finer than I thought it would come out. That might me in part because it was an amazing preparation from Charley of Ixchel, comprising of merino, cashmere, angora and sparkle. I was thinking of it as my contrast colour for Waiting for Rain and and it's stunning, although it might be a bit more autumnal and subtle than I want.

While I'm thinking about the neon rainbow I want to be spinning, I'm working on the main colour for Waiting for Rain, which is a black with tweed bits, again from Ixchel.

This pic from Charley's site, because I forgot to take a photo of the unspun fibre.

I'm going to ply it with some black mohair/silk (commercially spun) so that it should be quite interesting. I'm trying to spin it so the neps don 't get too stretched out,and I'm ok with some texture in the spinning.

I've been spinning away, and even though I'm happy with the yarn I'm getting, it does feel a little like I'm making it up as I go along. I haven't done any formal spinning learning since I did my first beginners course. So I joined Craftsy (again). They had some weird drama where they renamed themselves BluePrint and then disappeared, but now they are back and offering a year for $3. Good deal. All the old content is there, and today I'm doing a class from 2014 with JC Bloggs about different kinds of drafting. There is also a class on spinning colour and another on dying that I'm going to do. So now I I've got some fun learning to get me through this (final?) lockdown.

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Linky Wednesday - the one with the pause

In meditation it's said that the pause between the in breath and the out breath is a gap, a space to rest. Well, I'm in that in-between space for reading, listening and knitting. This is a random photo of a highlight of my week - I filled up my lolly jar. These are just supermarket party mix. During the lockdowns, we sources a great pick-and-mix delivery service, but at some point they started sending from the UK, which is a bit silly. Rachey messaged me a new one she found, and I impulsed purchased a kilo of mixed lollies, and then she sent me a link to the biggest lolly shop in Melbourne, which also delivers sweets by the kilogram, so i think I'm sorted for the rest of the year! In reading I've just finished The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham . It's the second last book in the Summer of Mystery, and I have to admit, having now read nine Margery Allingham books, that they are OK. I wouldn't have read them if they were not connected to this club, but on...

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.

What I made, by Sharon

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