Smokin’ Fearless Fiber!

It’s been a crazy past couple days. I will stew and ruminate over a decision until impulsively I bit off a bigger chunk than I can chew. Then I’m left gasping for breath.

In a rash flurry of the “it must be done NOW” mode I became cohorts with Rhonna , (she’s a whiz at this stuff!) in moving TheWeekendWhirls over to our new community, Weekend_whirls at Live Journal. If you’re into spinning please check it out. We’re still working out the bugs but it’s alive.

And now to Deb’s fabulous Fearless Fibers! Check out both her fibershop on etsy, and her blog.

I’ve been itching to use some of her fiber for several months, especially after seeing so many beautiful items designed by Anne of Knitspot. I have long been admiring Anne’s design savvy. If you’ve never read her blog please don’t wait any longer. She has a gift with words and pictures to go along with her math abilities.

Oh yes, socks. I’m not quite sure which came first; the socks, or the yarn. Socks for Aurora. No, yarn for Baby Faith. Hmmm. I think it’s Faith’s fault, but wait, no! it’s all Anne’s fault. You see, last fall I saw her pattern of a lacy dress for a little girl. Ever since I’ve wanted to make it but I don’t do lace. I have to if I want to make this dress. Fortunately the dress is for at least a toddler, Faith is only now crawling. I’ve got time. Umm, not really, not as slow as the stitches come off my needles.

No matter that Faith was a tiny babe in arms, I downloaded Anne’s sweet pattern. I’ve gazed at it, read over the directions, carried it around with me as I’ve fondled yarn but never found quite the yarn that clicked. Until browsing over at Fearless Fiber Etsy, when Citrus, a yellow yarn screamed, “Buy me!” I had no choice.

I don’t wear yellow. Don’t get me wrong. I love seeing yellow on people with deep tans, blond hair; rich brown skin, black hair. I have neither. Yellow makes me look sick, seriously, dog-sick. But suddenly I realized it was meant for Faith’s dress. But Aurora needs socks for her upcoming birthday. The next page over I. see. The Yarn – Midnight Passion! Less than a week later a box was waiting at the PO. Plump-full-of-goodness yarn inside.

Since I’m such a slow knitter I decided I’d best get cracking on Aurora’s socks. I was able to get my hands on Anne’s Smokin Socks pattern. Aren’t they a fun knit! I’m loving the rhythm and patterning of the sixes.

I’m using two sets of #1 needles to knit these socks, sort of an experiment. I like dpns for socks. Brittany 5″ bamboo feels right in my hands and I don’t mind switching needles but after hearing so many people raving the merits of knitting socks on circulars I decided it was time to try again. Ed made me two #1/3.25mm 16″ circulars for this project. I should have asked for 24″ length – the 16″ length almost gets in my way but once I figured out how to ignore the resting pair it’s very workable. I still favor dpns, except for their tips – I much prefer using the sharp tips Ed puts on his needles – but it’s not too bad knitting socks on two circs.

I’m really enjoying knitting with Deb’s Fearless Fiber yarn, it’s very soft yet sturdy, she’s great to work with!

As a self-taught knitter I don’t have a great deal of experience reading patterns so it’s nice to have Anne’s pattern which I don’t have to puzzle over before understanding what I’m supposed to do next. I can hardly wait to have the lace skills to tackle her Morning Glory Pattern or her latest, the skimmering, shimmery Bee.

Spinning a Move

Welcome to Fiberjoy’s new blog home! Nothing fancy yet. I need to figure out to make it cozy and friendly. Another challenge to overcome will be adding all the buttons and links.

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It’s not fair to snap a picture of small portion of project from handspun yarn and expect people to guess what it was with nary a clue. It’s a sorry part of my nature to want to keep people guessing. Drives Ed crazy.

It will be a hairpin lace Ruana, pattern by Oat Couture. The only thing slowing me down is spinning the yarn. But since I’m in the Tour de Fleece it’s a great daily spin. Four completed strips are finished so far (three have been joined the fourth is laid out ready to loop onto the third) and one of our Jenkins hairpin looms used to make it.

Each hairpin strip takes only an hour – it’s so quick and mindless. I’m so excited about the process and the looks that I just may end up making another Ruana, only the next time I plan to buy the yarn first.

Here are a couple pictures from the spinning day at the Mission Mills Museum in Salem last Wednesday.

This is the Jason Lee house which was built in 1841, the oldest frame house still standing in the Pacific Northwest. I realize that’s not old compared to places on the east coast and especially in Europe and other lands of old civilizations. Jason Lee set up a Methodist Mission on these grounds beginning in 1834. He had a strong sense of formal education, industry, and large scale agriculture on this fertile Willamette Valley ground.

These girls were two of the dozen participating in the week long “Pioneer Players Camp” at the museum. They were giggling and having fun dressed in period clothes, learning hand crafts, and playing old fashioned games.

I have socks on the needles! Pictures next time.

I’d love it if you took the time to visit my older posts, dating back a year, which are <a href=”http://fiberjoy.blogspot.com”>here</a&gt;. In moving from Blogger to WordPress it seemed much simpler to leave everything there where the pictures are intact.  Thank You!