Fiber Arts Friday: Rainbow Vanilla Socks, part 4

Last time, in part 3, I had just completed the second foot of this project.

In this episode, I have completed the set up for the Afterthought Heel on both socks and am ready to begin a whole lot of Leg knitting... :-)

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Long Draw Spinning Practice - 2025, part 4

For Part 4 - I chose a 3-color Gradient of Blue, Black, and Yellow.

This one is interesting because the Black is placed through out and the gradient is between the Blue and Yellow.

The good news is that I have an even number of Rolags (6), so I have a better chance of getting the colors to mirror in the single, and therefore match in the finished yarn.  *fingers crossed*

These continue to be better made Rolags and these are spinning quite fine.

 

I do find myself slipping back into short-forward draw, so I need to focus more on pulling my left hand back.  I will say that allowing the spin to reach between my hands feels a lot less weird and out of control than it did in part 1.

Also since I've come up with a loose plan on how to use these yarns in a project together, this one decided to spin much finer, so my plan won't work.  lol.

The quality of the singles are still pretty poor, but I did not have any over-spun sections, tho one section was plied tighter than the rest.  I also did not break the yarn this time.

1 oz (29g), 65.5 yards of 2-ply.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Cozy Stripes Sweater, part 11

Whence last we left this project it was June 2025 and there was one and a half arms, buttons, and weaving in ends to go.

It's been a hot summer.... so I haven't made much progress on my Rainbow Vanilla Socks either, but I have been spinning (TdF, Long Draw).  :-)

We are finally getting more regular, cooler, weather, which means I finally picked up The Cozy Stripes Sweater on September 14th!

In the last week or so, I was able to mostly complete the large brown block on Sleeve #1.  The goal is 108 rows, but I ran out of Skein #8 at 104 rows.

So I plan to leave it as is until Sleeve #2 reaches the same place.  Then I will try the sweater on and reassess when to begin the stripes for the end of the sleeves.

I have two Brown Skeins remaining plus ~14g of Skein #7. 

I am happy to be working on this project again.

Skein duration:

• #1 (11/2/24 - 12/10/24) 5wks 3days
• #2 (12/10/24 - 12/30/24) 2wks 6days
• #3 (12/30/24 - 1/6/25) 1 week
• #4 (1/6/25 - 1/18/25) 1wk 5days
• #5 (1/18/25 - 2/5/25) - 2wks 4days - 14 g remain

• Green (2/5/25 - 2/6/25) - 2days - 22 g remain (begin body stripes)
• Orange (2/6/25 - 2/8/25) - 3days - 23g remain
• #5 (2/8/25 - 2/9/25) - 2days - 11 g remain
• Orange (2/9/25) - 1day - 18 g remain
• Green (2/10/25 - 2/14/25) - 5days - 17 g remain (complete body stripes)

• #5 (2/14/25 - 2/20/25) - 6days (begin hem)
• #6 (2/20/25 - 2/25/25) - 5days - 20g remain (complete hem, bind off pending)

• TINK Body Hem (2/27/25 - 3/6/25)  - 8days
• #5 (3/6/25 - 3/22/25) - 2 wks 2 days (begin re-Knitting Body Hem with smaller needles, US3)
• #6 (3/22/25 - 3/23/25) - 2 days (complete and bind-off Body Hem) - 19g remain

• Pickup Collar/Button Band Stitches (3/24/25 - 3/30/25) - 6days
• #6 (3/30/25 - 4/10/25) - 11days (begin Button Band/Collar, US3)
• #7 (4/10/25 - 4/22/25) - 12days (complete Button Band/Collar and Bind off) - 14g remain

• #8 (4/23/25 - 6/4/25) - 6wks (begin Sleeve #1, on hold for the summer) - 10g remain
• #8 (9/14/25 - 9/22/25) - 8 days (restart Sleeve #1, large brown section nearly complete)

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Long Draw Spinning Practice - 2025, part 3

For Part 3 - I chose a 2-color gradient of Black and Yellow, made from unknown wool.

I am planning a 2-ply yarn and want the colors to line up.  So I organized the Rolags similarly to part 2.  These are more consistent Rolags than in Part 1 and 2, so I'm hopeful the resulting yarn will be better... only spinning and plying will tell.  ;-)

Of course, there is an odd number of Rolags (7), which means the colors are not mirrored from end to end.... The single starts with Black and ends with Yellow.  sigh.

So, I have accepted the fact that this yarn will be mostly Barber Poled.

One of the good things about working with colors and fibers that are provided, rather than selected, is that it means I have to work outside of my preference.  This often leads to good, or at least interesting outcomes.

1 1/8 oz (30g), 56 yards of 2-ply.

I don't imagine that I would have ever made this yarn on purpose.  lol.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Rainbow Vanilla Socks, part 3

In episode 3, I have been working on the feet of these Rainbow Vanilla Socks.

Simple Socks are the best for waiting around knitting.  

• They are small, therefore portable.
• They can be stopped at any time.
• It's easy to pick up at any time and know where you are in the pattern.  

So far, I have worked on these while waiting for:

• warranty work on my truck,
• while travelling to an Invitational Dog Show
• while waiting for events at said Invitational Dog Show
• at the DMV
• Waiting for a yoga class to start

I completed the foot for Sock #1 on 7/11/25 and began working on the foot for Sock #2.

As of today, finally in mid-September 2025, I have completed foot #2.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Long Draw Spinning Practice - 2025, part 2

For Part 2 - I chose BFL again.  This is a blue and green colorway where the colors were placed on the Blending Board in 1/4 sections.

Since I intend to make a 2-ply, I need to be clear about which end I start from for each rolag.  So I matched the rolags by approximate weight, then placed them in order of spinning and reversed the second half.

I did break the single twice, so I ended up with 3 cakes for plying.  This will be interesting to see how well I keep things in order. lol.

I put ties on the ends I need to start plying.  The middle cake will end up being a game-time decision, since I will end up plying from both ends if it.

For the most part each color change included some Barber Poling, which is to be expected.  There was one very long section of Barber Pole and one change that occurred at exactly the same time.  It will be interesting to see how this knits up.

7/8 oz (25g), 58.5 yards of 2-ply.

As a side note, I don't like how the yarn looks on the bobbin.... it is fuzzy and indistinct.  I assume this is a feature that I will grow to appreciate... eventually.  But they don't look so bad from this vantage point. lol

Happy Fiber Arts Friday

Long Draw Spinning Practice - 2025, part 1

Last summer (2024), I acquired a Great Wheel.

She needs some repair before she can be used.... AND I need some skills before I can use her.

My upskilling finally started with a little bit of focus on the Long Draw Spinning Technique in my medium-wools class in June 2025, Spinning Goldilocks.

Several of the students requested some guidance on the Long Draw Technique, so for me it was serendipitous.

I had been working on making Rolags in my Clemes & Clemes class the day before and I had some reserved from an earlier Clemes & Clemes class.

So with a bunch of appropriately prepared materials, all I needed was time and focus for practice.  :-)

With the Tour de Fleece 2025 complete, I figured now is as good a time as any...

First up is to decide which rolags to start with, and I decided on this Purple+Orange Blue Faced Leicester.  The colors are layered, so it should hide my mistakes pretty well... and of course, the quality of the Rolag is pretty bad.  lol.

One thing to note about this project, is that I am giving myself permission to be bad at something... AND putting it in a public space.  YIKES.  Not that many people are still reading this blog, but it will be discoverable by anyone.  Double YIKES.

Learning is about improving skills... or at least going from a place of relative incompetence to a place of better competence in a target topic area.

So in this case, I am objectively a good spinner in Worsted techniques and I am reasonably competent now at preparing fiber for Worsted spinning... but I have spent very little time working on Woolen, or even semi-Worsted techniques.  So this project is intended to chronical this journey.

It does seem to be going faster than my typical, Short-Forward-Draw, but I have much less control over the consistency of the yarn.  I do expect that to improve with practice.

Even though the gauge of this yarn is all over the place, there was only one tiny bit that was over-spun.  It feels lofty and squishy... which is the point of using Woolen Spinning Techniques.

I find it interesting how color plays... how a color looks depends significantly on what it is next to.  The finished yarn looks Maroon+Gold rather than purple+orange.

7/8 oz (26g), 54.7 yards of 2-ply

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

County Fair 2025

As in most years, I did enter a yarn.

This year it was only one Tibetan Mastiff yarn from Ramen.  I have been working on this set of yarn for a few years, since I intend to make a sweater/wrap from it.

The vision is a rustic, big, warm, hug and I have finally crossed the half-way mark on the needed yarn.

I also entered a batch of Biscochito Cookies.  There was a lot of cookie competition... especially in the "other" category.

Thanks to being laid off from my Day Job, I was able to spend some time watching the judging.

I think it's quite nice for the judging to be open to the public, but I've not been able to fit it into my schedule until now.

The baking judges were silent.  So I had no idea what they were thinking and decided to wait for the comments.

The Spinning and Weaving Judge was very talkative about her thoughts... and thanks to that, I learned a lot about what they are actually looking for on the accompanying label that goes with each entry.

I took copious notes when I got home.... so hopefully, my yarns will be better explained in the future.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Football Knitting 2025

As I begin this draft, it is August 1st.... Rabbit! Rabbit!

I was surprised earlier this week to hear them talking about football on the local news.  What?  Already?  Yes.  sigh.  Although, the slightly cooler weather is welcome.  :-)

So over the weekend, I put together my list of sportsing games and started to think about whether I want to focus on a particular project this year.

I think this answer is no.

I have my Cozy Stripes Sweater snoozing until the weather cools a bit more, which is very close to being complete and my Rainbow Vanilla Socks that have been getting some attention over the summer, but still moving slowly... especially during the Tour de Fleece - Hommes and Femme... and my short list of next projects is growing.

So I'm thinking that I will use this time for knitting, but not for a specific project.

Here's to cooler weather on the horizon.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: Tour de Fleece, 2025 - part 6

For Part 5 - - I did a bit better last week of focusing on the fun and less on the task.  This week I will continue to try to focus on the fun.  Changing neuropathways takes time and effort.  ;-)

TdFF Stage 7 - Friday, August 1

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 33minutes
• How I felt:  Nice relaxing day with respect to spinning.  I completed the half-hour over 3 stints.

TdFF Stage 8 - Saturday, August 2

No spinning today

 

TdFF Stage 9 - Sunday, August 3

Tibetan Mastiff:

• Time Spent: 68 minutes
• How I felt:  I did not realize today was the last day.  Instead of 9 Stages, I was thinking it ended on August 9th.  Oy... so at about 30 minutes into spinning, I stopped to ply.

Overall Wrap-up:

• Days Spent: 23of25 +2of3 = 25of28
• Time Spent: 630 minutes (10 1/2 hours) + 101 minutes (1 hr 41 minutes) = 731 minutes (12 hrs 11 minutes)
• Overall Feeling:  I'm feeling pretty good that I only missed 3 days in just over 4 weeks of daily spinning.  The days toward the end were more about fun, but certainly this is a headspace I need to work on some more.  Overall a good Tour for me. :-)

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!