Platformnine Designs

Fair warning: This post will be LONG.

Spinning
Ok, I mentioned in my last post that I would be experimenting with a spin project. I received this gorgeous painted roving from a friend. The roving is from Sunshine Yarns and was in the colorway Lockhart, which was beautiful! But not my style, SO I decided that I would card the roving on my drum carder to attempt to make a more heathered color.

The roving started like this:

Then I broke it into color sections, separating mostly blues/dark colors and mostly yellow/light colors. I carded the blue section first into a batt (the blue & white batt) and then I carded the yellow section (the yellow/blue batt) and then I blended those two batts together and put it through the carder about three or four times so that it was really smooth and fluffy! I ended up with a really nice color, lighter than what I was expecting, but I really like it!

I’m spinning it with a little less tension so that I can have less twist in my singles. This is giving me a “fluffier” yarn that does have a technical name that I don’t feel like looking up right now :) The test plies look really lovely though! Here’s how it’s spinning up so far:

Books: Intentional Spinner & Color in Spinning
I just got them! I found them both on sale on Amazon, so I splurged and got myself early Christmas presents hehehe! I haven’t gone through Intentional spinner in depth yet, but thumbing through it earlier I already found a few nifty tips that can improve my spinning! I love Color in Spinning, the color theory charts are awesome and the samples of the colorways in the book are really helpful!

Other spin projects and Knitting
I also just wound this into a cake for storage until I ply it. It’s my Rootbeer batt from Corgi Hill Farm! I finished 2oz before I left for Alaska, and I still have about 2oz to spin. It’s Merino/Silk/Firestar :D

I also carded up this gorgeous BFL/Kid Mohair/Mill Ends/Silk/Bamboo batt that spurred me to create my first spinner’s notecard! The card has a batt sample, plied fingering weight sample, and a tiny little knit sample. I also put my carding notes and fiber percentages/colors notes on my little note card. It’s really shiny and soft and silky, I’m so excited to spin it!

My friend Scott was having a bad day the other day, so I knit him The ‘Stache. He was thrilled and it looked really good on him! I also finished my mom’s Christmas present, a Butterfly Beret. It seemed to take forever to knit! But it turned out lovely. I steam blocked it, which may be my new favorite blocking method. I had a heart attack and a half when I was weaving in the ends because my weave in at the crown snapped and ripped back four or five rows! I cinched up really snugly the second time around. The only projects I have left to knit before Christmas are my two brothers’ hats, my Stepdad’s hat, a cowl for my mommom and a cowl for my aunt. Five projects left!