New Year... New Things

I haven't done any knitting since Boxing Day! As I've had time off work and I didn't do much spinning before Christmas I've been indulging myself with spinning :o)

This should have been for DH for Christmas but the fibre only arrived Christmas week, so I spun it up afterwards... DH chose these colours after seeing what Natalie of The Yarn Yard had done with a previous fibre club parcel of a variegated and matching toning solid... He straight away said if you use some of the bright windows 16 bit colour palette colours and ply against a charcoal semi-solid you'll get a nice stripey yarn....

So here I give you 'Windoze' - A new fibre Natalie will be having in the shop shortly a Merino/Nylon blend which is an absolute dream to spin... I will be investing in more :o)

I am also taking part in a skein swap on Ravelry, so I spun this up and it's currently on its way to it's recipient... I hope she likes it... Again the fibre is from Natalie and is a blend of Merino/Silk spun up into a 3ply

After MissAliceFaye introduced me to Enchanted Knoll I ended up with some batts from Josette... which I have been itching to get to try out and turn into lace weight...... Here are 3.8oz Pumpkin Juice, which I started spinning last Friday...

Which I spun into 2 singles on my new e-system lace flyer & fat core bobbins using my fast whorl at 17.7:1 (I'm working my way up the ratios!) and produced these.....

After spending time plying on Monday I produced this..... I am as proud as punch with this even my plying has improved... 530m / 110g (612yds / 3.8oz) of 2ply lace weight at 30wpi

Now in the very near future this is going to be turned into a lace stole for a friend who is 60 in June... yes I'm starting early but from the end of June this year until the end of January 2010 I have 6 birthdays ending in a '0' and they all knit &/or spin... plus it lets me indulge my passions for spinning fine and knitting lace something which has been sadly lacking this last 12 months.... I'm planning to do one of two designs from 'Estonian Lace' by Nancy Bush so it's either going to be 'Leaf & Nupp Shawl' or 'Lilac Leaf Shawl'....

I enjoyed spinning the Batts so much I have started on the 'Fern Batts' from Josette unfortunately I'm back at work so time is a little less abundant, so this yarn won't get produced in 3 days....