There has been much spinning and knitting going on this summer. I've been babysitting my granddaughter, whom I've nicknamed Duck, for ten hours a day in June and July. Plus, I broke down and joined Ravelry.
There was a trend amongst the females in my family to have their last child late in life. I'm glad I ended that. My great-grandmother was in her forties when she had her last, my grandmother was 39 when she had my uncle, my mother was 42 when she had my sister and still trying for another at 45. Right now, I'm the same age as my mom was when she was three months pregnant for my sister. I can't imagine that, nightmares.
To all those late in life mothers, that might come by and flame me, first off, bless you, I just don't have the energy for it. Duck leaves me collapsed in my chair every evening.
This is BFL in Devas and East of Eden, I bought from Crown Mountain Farms.
I took long pieces of Devas, separated in three strips lengthwise and spun up three spindles, which produced a nice light fingering 3 ply, 430 yards, 22 wpi.
Duck kept coming up to me while I was spinning to tell me how much she really loves pink. So, I used the yarn to knit her this raglan sweater. The pattern is from an old baby book, that I greatly reworked. I really like how the coloring striped out and went from medium to light then gradated to dark for the body. For the sleeves, I took about a yard strip from the remaining fiber, stripped it in half lengthwise, spun on two bobbins, then Navojo plied each. I was trying to replicate the color progression of the body, of course, since I was trying to control the outcome, it didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped for.
As you can see, I still have to bind off the sleeves, sew on buttons and finally block it. Duck is at her fathers for the month of August, so I'll finish when she comes back after Labor Day. Will post a final picture at that time with the intended victim modeling.
There was two ounces of fiber leftover which I spun into a two ply laceweight, 440 yards. I didn't check the wpi, but the photo shows it in comparison to commercial spun merino laceweight that was 880 to 4 oz. I will be putting this up for sale. I think it would make a lovely lace scarf, maybe in a feather and fan pattern.
There has been much more spinning and knitting than this, but I'll save it for future posts. Will try for regularity in posting. Popularity, not so much. I keep this blog mostly for myself and anyone who happens by wanting to look at pictures of needlework, bunnies, and cats or opinions about patterns, or chronic pain issues.
I'll leave you with a couple pictures of BFL and alpaca fiber.
