Sunday, March 01, 2015

Spin, Knit, Read. Prizes, and A Present

It's been a long while since I posted.  Here's an update on what I've been doing.

2014 year end update:
Spun 12.875 pounds of fiber
Used 48.75 skeins of yarn (knit and crochet)

Finished projects:  (goal #/completed #)
hats 4/6
shawls/scarfs/cowls 6/15
socks 4/4
sweaters 2/0
snuggles for pets 4/5
mitts 0/1
use books in my library 2/6 (for 9 projects)

I'm happy with the year end results.  So far in 2015 I've finished 2 hats, 1 sweater (not a WIP) 1 socks (second pair just needs ribbing and heels) and 3/4 of a shawl (working on the applied edging).  I've also finished 34 ounces of fiber with 2 more fibers on 2 of the wheels.   Here's a pic of the finished Miranda sweater.



Some of the finished spinning included several stash fibers, mostly from older stash.  I just grabbed a couple of bins and started working my way through them. 

I had planned to dye a semi-solid in blues and one in reds to ply with two fibers I had previously bought from June Pryce Fiber Arts.  Cheryl was at my spinning guild in January. I bought some tonal blues to go with "Nolan" and some tonal reds to go with "Tuscany".  The blue set is done and looks great.  The red set is still waiting for me to finish it.  Since she only had two braids of that, and I ordered the third one I need, I'm not in a hurry to finish it right now.   The spinning was done on my Minstrel and the plying on my Sonata. I used the jumbo flyer for that.

Lots of time has been spent reading as well.  I love my Kindle for that.  I can just download books and read at my leisure.  There's a few sites with lots of free books for this.  BookBub and EreaderIQ are my favorites. 

I've been listening to The Yarn Thing Podcast.  Each episode has the guest giving a special word/phrase to be used in a comment for a prize drawing on an future show. I won twice since November.  One prize was an ebook, "Sock Architecture"  from Cooperative Press.  The other was a sweater kit from WEBS.  It includes the pattern, enough yarn for the largest size, three sets of needles needed, and a Della Q project bag created for the WEBS 40th Anniversary. Here's a pic of the kit. 



Now for the present part of this post.  Dear husband wanted to surprise me but since I had to pick out what I wanted he couldn't do that.  I've been asking him to build me a e-spinner for a few years.  Well, he couldn't find a motor that was quiet enough and he liked.  He decided to buy me a Hansen mini spinner!  It's a pleasure to spin with and so easy to use. He told me to get everything at the same time.  I chose the cherry finish with a woolie winder.  It comes with one bobbin so I ordered three more, as well as a maintenance kit and orifice reducers.  We ordered the battery separately since Hansen doesn't supply those.  There's a slight issue with the battery turning off after 30 seconds of non use.  To stop that, I bought a little "Daffodil LED Lamp" to plug into the battery.  Problem solved, and it gives the perfect amount of light.


Well, that's enough yammering for now.  I hope to post again soon.