Tuesday, November 18, 2008

"Socks, yarn, and Fleece....."

After posting the photo of Barb, with the basket of socks, I got to thinking, I do not remember posting photos of the finished pairs. I will remedy this today. The commercial yarns are the pairs with orange/brown, light blue/brown, and the brighter oranges/dark blue. The rest are all knitted using my hand spun. I had the pairs all set in different places, and when I decided to gather them to store in one place , I was sort of amazed that I had so many (happy, but amazed). :)



Here are 2 of the finished skeins of my hand spun. The blue is spun from some 100% Merino Superwash roving that I bought, and the "barber pole stripe" is what I just had completed, using hand dyed wool and nylon rovings. I am anxious to see how it knits up.


Here is a close up view, so you can see the color paths in the barber pole effect easier (especially if you "double click" the photo).


Last Friday, I decided to wash the raw Icelandic fleece that I had bought from Joan, who lives in Maine. I got it almost completed in one day, but had to finish 1 more batch of the fleece on Saturday morning, thus, the "not quite awake look" and the robe.......


The drying fleece. This was taken with a flash which I think, brings out the true colors/warmth of the fleece. I had it drying on a window screen in the basement, and it actually was completely dry by the next morning. I now have to card (comb to arrange the wool fibers in one direction) the washed fleece in order to be able to spin it.

2 comments:

Molly Bee said...

Holy Plethora of Socks, Batman! I am so jealous. I have yet to knit a pair from my own handspun!
Ahhh...there's nothing like the smell of wet fleece drying in the basement, eh! :-)

Travis said...

Mike, You could make an enterprise of your talents! There's a store at Hilldale, Bindley, that sells only Wisconsin artisan crafts. I bet you could commission some of your socks, hats, and felted bags. People would go nuts for them for Christmas gifts. You are so talented and prolific, by the looks of things. Jonas and I will give you a call soon. I think he'd love to see your birds, although he's kind of loud, so he might scare Zack. I just listened to "Fresh Air" on NPR last week and the woman who owned and trained the famous Alex the African grey parrot was on talking about her new book, "Alex and Me". I thought you may be interested in her book. I have a hold placed at the new Sequoya library for it already. Have you been up there? Jonas and I went today and it is beautiful.
Sara