Mikknit

I finished my first project on Suzie the other day. I found a bag of fiber on top of the fridge, who knows how long it’d been there, but it seemed like it’d be a good candidate for a first project on a new wheel. Mill end fiber, probably wool/mohair from Brown Sheep (but we can’t say for certain, as even the vendor didn’t recognize it!), purchased at Detta’s Spindle a few years ago, probably in 2001 or 2002. The color shown in these pictures really doesn’t represent the true color, which is sort of a dead-grass color (grayish green?) with darker green shot through it. I’m going to continue to play with it, try to get a good representation of the color.

Both skeins in natural light, pretty but the color’s not quite right

Close-up, again in natural light. Still sucky color, but I love the detail. The yarn is under-spun, you can see here.

Indoors, with a flash. This is probably the best color representation I’ve got. Not thrilled.

I started another project practically as soon as this was wound off the bobbin, of course. I mentioned the *other* thing Kerry enabled me into at Detta’s sale - a bag of superwash wool/mohair fiber, white with shots of black in it. It’s asking to be sock yarn, a request I simply cannot deny. It’s spinning up SO nicely, but of course I didn’t take a picture of it. Hopefully I’ll get another chance to spin tonight after the kids are in bed and I can take a picture of my progress then. My wheel is making a clicking sound which was not remedied by having a certain screw tightened, which I was led to believe would work. I may have to take a closer listen and see if I can pinpoint where the noise is coming from - it’s not as easy with this wheel as it was with the Louet. Of course, I spun on the Louet exclusively for nearly 5 years and know its quirks as well as I know my own. This one, I’m still learning. I have to remember that even though I like to think I’m a good spinner and am mechanically inclined enough to troubleshoot things, I’m not intimately familiar with this wheel quite yet. Therefore, I need to cut myself some slack and not get frustrated if I can’t figure it out and need to seek help.

There’s been some knitting going on too, of course - while I was waiting on the return of the little bit of yarn I’d given Kerry, I whipped up a sweater for Arlo out of some Reynolds Signature (color 118) that Grace and I picked up at Three Kittens (their website seems to have gone kablooey). I don’t normally care to work with something with so high a percentage of acrylic, but they were having a huge sale and this stuff was 75% off - I got six balls (three of this color, three of color 108) for just over $8, so not so expensive that I can’t just donate it if I don’t like it. I think it took all of four days to knit the sweater, including having to rip the body back to the armpits once, having to undo the ribbing and lengthen the sweater, and then having to rip out the first sleeve and redo it because I’d miscalculated my decreases. *I* think it’s cute, though I don’t love the colors. Arlo doesn’t seem to want to wear it, but I think it may be because in the first day or two of knitting it I tried it on him several times and then took it right off again - he’s done trying it on, I think. It’s already been through the washer and dryer, though I see that it’s apparently supposed to be dried flat. Whoops oh well. Looks just fine and doesn’t seem to have shrunk or anything. Modelled shot to come soon, provided I can get the boy to sit/stand still for a few minutes.

I’ve got a first blogiversary project cooking (technically my first blogiversary was 9/13, but the first anniversary on THIS site is coming up on 12/6) - stay tuned for details!