novamade: spinning a yarn

Actually, spinning many yarns. Spinning, that's what I did for most of February. I spun some Ashland Bay merino...

A hank of English Garden (the blue), a hank of Sage (the green), two hanks of Mojave (the reds), and a hank of Sandalwood (the multi one on the bottom right).

I also finally got around to spinning some wool that my friend Amy gave me for Christmas...back in 2007, which seems like a long time ago. It's from the Enchanted Knoll Farm, a farm in Maine, there was no colorway listed...I am going to call it Red with Bits of Thread.

I was nervous about spinning it because it had all sorts of crazy stuff in it. Threads, vegetatation, what have you; but, I think it turned out pretty great. The blue and yellow (there's some green in there too, I think) threads in the fiber make for interesting visual contrast from the pretty red of the fiber. And then there's the fancy handpainted stuff I spun.

I think my favorite bit of spinning was this merino/tencel blend from the Sheep Shed at Mountain View Farm--this is the Spring colorway. I got this stuff from a sheep and wool festival a while ago, not sure which one (it's embarrassing to not know this stuff, really). I could kick myself for not spinning it sooner. I LOVE spinning tencel, it's a beautiful fiber to work with. And since I loved it so much, I am going to give you another shot of the yarn all hanked up (at least on my monitor, the shot below is pretty true to color).

I have no idea what I am going to knit with all of this fiber. I was thinking a Komb blanket like Kelp!'s (feel free to go and drool, I'll wait for you to come back); but, I think I like the effect she is getting with pretty painted fibers more than I would like the effect produced by knitting the more plain jane yarns I spun from the Ashland Bay merinos. I have no idea what to do with the Spring merino/tencel yarn, any thoughts?

Seven skeins/hanks/whatever worth of spinning, not too shabby, if you ask me.

All of this spinning was, of course, an effort to fend of steeking that Lopi sweater I was working on; but since I imposed that stupid strategy of not working on anything until I finished that sweater, I had to finish it so I could work on something fun (or anything, for that matter). So I bit the bullet and steeked the silly thing.

Now I don't see what all the fuss was about. This sweater is blocking now. It's probably going to take a few days to dry as the New England weather can best be described as frigid, at present. I am hoping to get some FO shots in before I go on a spring break adventure to what I'd like to think are warmer climes; but, since Alabama got snow on Sunday, I have no idea what to expect in Georgia and Florida. And also, it would be nice to feature some knitting on this here knitting blog.

I am pretty excited about some new projects to cast-on...and more fiber to spin, because really, how can I not spin when a rainbow presents itself?