Fiber Arts Friday: Random Fun

Hello, and welcome to Fiber Arts Friday! I'm sorry I've been a little absent from blogging lately; things have just been busy as usual around here!

Recently, most of my fiber arts activity has involved buying fiber, ha! I've been on a real combed top kick, though I haven't spun any of it yet (I think I'm starting to hoard for Tour de Fleece). It's funny, though, because just when I think I'm on a combed top kick, I pull out my drum carder and start playing around. Then suddenly I want to keep all the batts I make!

This week I whipped up a few beauties to add to the shop, like this one:

or the silky-shiny-sparkly goodness of this one:

At this point I remind myself that it's good to have a stash with plenty of variety to suit your moods. :) If you're looking to boost up YOUR stash for Tour de Fleece, might I suggest having a peek around the Storied Yarns shop? The batts above are just two of the beauties I've added recently. :)

In other news, I have actually been knitting and spinning this week! My first-ever sock is coming along nicely; I've done the heel decreases and now just have to do the increases and then move on to the ankle portion:

I'm also knitting a Shimmer Lace Top using KnittinK Black Canary sport weight yarn:

In the spinning news, I've been spinning up the mini wool samples from my February Phat Fiber box and a few others I had here using my Threads Thru Time medium hot pink spindle:

I'm planning to include them in the shop as a mini skein set for hexipuffers who want some handspun in their blankets. So far, though, I only have three samples done:

Left: Storied Yarns BFL/Firestar in "Lady Chatterley." Middle: Masham top from BohoKnitterChic Spins. Right: Berry Gelato batt from Zauberzeug.

Anyway, that's about it from here. The Hunger Games KAL/SAL kits will be going out very soon, so follow along with us in the Ravelry thread and cheer on the Tributes as they compete to have the best yarn or FO!

Happy Friday! Head on over to Andrea's blog and have a visit, will you?

It's Finished!! My Handspun Shrug

If you've been following along with my handspun sweater project this year, then you know I spun three sets of batts to make a gorgeous yarn and then wanted to knit it into a sweater.

Except that it turned out to be fewer than 300 yards total, even though it weighs in at nearly a pound, so I didn't quite have enough for a full-sized sweater.

It's all good, though. My motto around here is "Keep Moving Forward," remember?!?

So, I settled on a sweater-like project instead: Shrug This. I made a few mods to the pattern - namely, I went up to a size 11 needles since my yarn is a little bit more than worsted weight, and I added 2 stitches per sweater section (10 stitches total) to the cast-on. I knit as directed until closing up the arm holes and then I just kept knitting until I ran out of yarn.

The result? Awesome:

I haven't blocked it yet, so right now it still kind of curls in at the front edges. I'm thinking a little bit of good blocking will help it not do that and also maybe even it out a little, and after that it will be pretty great!

Thanks for following along with my sweater knitting and spinning adventures! I'm sure this will NOT be the first sweater I make this year, so stay tuned for more fun!

In the meantime, though, I'm taking a break to knit my first pair of socks. Wahoo! I'll report more on that project later. :)