leslee roberts :: shouting into the wind

holiday snow and rain

here is what the weather was like for mika during the holidays:

first the snow:

then the rain (good thing she got those nice red boots for christmas!):

i think that's erin in the giant puddle:

spinning fun on my mach 1

i'm all excited about next saturday -- i am going to camp pluckyfluff at urban fauna studio in the sunset (where i bought my spinning wheel - the mach 1 - last month). this is an all-day class to learn how to make art yarns. when i told cheryl about it, she went on and on about the disgusting cliche names of many of the fiber-related stores and websites.

then she came up with one of her own... cheryl says we're knitdiots.

:: :: ::

i'm in the middle of spinning some merino for norah gaughan's tweedy aran cardigan. this yarn was supposed to be sock yarn but i still can't spin fine enough to ply up sock yarn. this turned out to be a heavier weight instead but that's ok since i think it'll be perfect for this cardigan. i'll have to check the thickness again after i finish and set the yarn.

here are the singles on the bobbin:

here are both bobbins filled. each one holds 8 ounces (the mach 1 has huge capacity bobbins):

here i've got the bobbins on my new katie-a-go-go (christmas gift from dave and vickie). because the mach 1 bobbins do not have a groove in the rim, i had to make a "phony" groove by placing two rubber bands on the rim with a little groove between them. then i put the tension string around them in the phony groove to control the tension when i ply the singles together. i also put a couple of door stops under one end to tip it which also helps with the tension control:

so, i've already plied the first pound of fiber. from that 1 pound, i was able to skein up 634 yards of 2-ply yarn. i ended up with left-over singles on one of the bobbins so i'll just continue to spin it up with the rest of the fiber (which is on order). here is the plied yarn (not washed or set yet):

notice that the color of the yarn looks different from picture to picture. that's because i'm still trying to figure out how to use my camera. the plied yarn looks the most like the real thing.

sleepy girl

top of her class

some finished work

among the many things in progress and all the christmas gifts, i managed to finish a few things for myself:

fountain hat by katie himmelberg, in heavy sock weight yarn:

after i finished this hat, i went shopping at art fibers and picked up a small cone of their lace-weight yarn, sylph. here's the same fountain hat pattern in lace weight (artfibers' sylph in color 14):

and alexandra brinck's fishtail wristwarmers in the same sylph yarn: