Nuclear Knits: Where knitting is the bomb!

The braided roving. Singles. Project Details: I'm ahead of schedule for spinning. This came out fantastic. From Spindlefrog this is 100% Coredale wool. Spun up into sport weight 375 yards. Colorway Rosebush. Seems like lately my spinning has all be in similar colorways. Really I'm just diving into the bin of fiber and pulling out the first thing I find.

Here is the roving. Wonderfully bright and happy. Especially with all the clouds and rain that we are experiencing. Well I'm a bit ahead of schedule. I had planned to spend ~3 days/4oz of roving over the tour. I finished my first single yesterday, my second single today and I plyed the singles today as well. This is from Knit It Up. Colorway Blooms. It is 100% Superwash Merino (which I have never spun up before and found it a challenge to get the correct weight). I wanted something thicker and in the end got 340 yards of DK weight. I think a lovely winter hat is in order. I also know - that I'm very very ready for a rest day. Spinning each day at this pace is hard.

Well I'm nearly finished with the scrappy singles. My goal was to ply them by Thursday and I think I'll make that. Although spinning on the road - in a moving car - in a storm was a bit strange. And this KAO wouldn't let me post my photos yesterday.

While waiting for my latest handspun to dry Methow decided that her love of fiber could not be contained any more. That is right - she made a nest out of the wool and now smells sort of like mint and wet wool!

Remember this is what the package looked like when it showed up. Two bags and only 3.5 oz. For some reason I thought it was 4oz (maybe because of how long it took me to finish). This was the kit from Oceanwind Knits. Here are the singles. They took me a long time to spin up - not because of the wool - but because of the size. I decided to try and do the finest spinning I've ever done. Here are close ups of the finished double plyed yarn. Project Details: Alpaca, merino, silk, corrindale blend. 3.5 oz. Hand-carded batts. Came out with 477 yards of fingering weight. I love the feel and colors. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it!

Remember what the yarn looked like when it showed up from Lori (at Oceanwind Knits ). Not my favorite type of wool to spin up - but I made it through. Here is what the finished Heavy DK came out to look like. I had the Spiral hat from Winter 2009 Interweave in mind for this yarn from the second I started spinning it. Project Details: Started on December 7th and finished on December 8th (easy and fast). Cute pattern where the stitch marker moves to make the cables. There needed to be more repeats to make it tall enough - and as is (on size 8 needles) the hat is a bit wide at the bottom. If I were to do this again I would make it even smaller and taller. But, for now - my head is warm and I'm not too upset with the finished object.

I actually have something to report today. The spinning wheel is working well finally! Although the first roving I picked would not be my choice (and I'll probably never choose to spin this up again). I was going for something bulky (for a hat pattern I want to make). This was an Oceanwind Knits kit of New Zealand Coopworth 4 oz. I'll skein it up tomorrow and wash it.

I just finished this hand spun (superwash merino top - purchased from Anne). I have something like a pound left. This is 3 oz sport weight and 264 yards. I'm thinking that slowly over time I'll spin up more (the same weight) and make a vest or sweater out of it.

Last night I decided to cast on for my last hand-spun (from the Oceanwinds Knit kit, Diego Rivera). I found this lace scarf pattern on my pattern of the day work calender. In the pattern you can use 2 colors and beads. I decided to do neither and just see the wave lace pattern come out on its own. Of course being lace you can't really see the pattern until it is blocked - but I'm 1.5 repeats in and really liking it so far.