Monday 4 January 2010

Baby, it's Cold Outside!

I welcomed the cold this year with open, albeit well-bundled, arms. It's the only excuse I have to motivate myself to stay inside, not get frostbite, and make a dent in my Romeny fleece from Rhinebeck.

dec2009 1094

It was the first really nice fleece that I got my hands on at the mad rush of the fleece sale. It's a silver-gray color and super clean. It has the big, open crimp typical of romney, but it's so soft. I always thought of Romney as a long-stapled, coarse easy-to-spin beginner's wool, but some of the fleeces I saw and touched at the sale have convinced me otherwise.

dec2009 1096

I can't find the farm tag, but I remember it came from a farm in Maine that doesn't have a website.

I flicked each lock open and ran it through the drum carder, and carded the resulting batt three times.

dec2009 1097

It was a lot of work, but in the end, i had a basket full of this:

dec2009 1098

dec2009 1099

drool

I spun up some samples before I settled on a 3-ply. I'm getting about 13 wpi.

dec2009 1091

Which, incidentally , is a good weight to try for the Oatmeal Cardigan from the Winter Spin-Off:



Fleece to Sweater projects are real time commitments, but they are a perfect long winter project. I'm having so much fun spinning this, I'm really looking forward to the next day where it's too cold and snowy to deal with going outside (unless it means going outside will get me some cantonese noodle soup).

1 comment:

  1. I loved the Oatmeal sweater the moment I cast eyes on it. I also love what you did with the Espresso sweater. Your modifications on it were great. Now the question is, I'm considering doing either Oatmeal or Espresso during the Ravelempics challenge. 17 days to knit a sweater. It usually takes me a month. But I'm thinking of really pushing myself, and to start spinning the yarn for it now. Question is: which is easier to do: Oatmeal in Spin Off or Espresso, and I'll probably use similar modifications as you?

    ReplyDelete