Easter fun on yahoo list Spindlitis

What do spinners do the day after Easter? We hit the stores to buy EE dye 1/2 off!! Then we dye up some white roving (Shropshire in this case) and spin very colorful yarn.I broke the roving into 6" long sections and spun 2 full bobbins in the same order of colors: Lime green, yellow, orange, red, blue-violet, green. This created a rainbow colored 2ply and I was quite happy that most of my sections were the same length. The colors only barberpoled in a couple of places.
Above is the yarn on my skein winder, below the loose skein. After showing the yarn off for a couple of years, I've finally started using it. I'm making a "diamond" shaped hat that gives the impression of entrelac - perfect for a space dyed yarn. I'm about 2/3 finished in Feb 2007 - Perhaps I'll dig it out and work on it for a while.

Miscellaenous Skeins

This is a pound of corriedale blend fiber I bought from Jeanne Roberts, spun up 2ply and sold. It was a wonderful cinnamon color and I hated to let it go, but I was unemployed at the time and sold a lot of my yarn and fiber.
This white yarn is Coopworth, the dyed wool and yarn are a grey Romney I dyed with Wilton's icing colors, Chistmas Red, Kelly Green and Royal Blue. The blue did split a bit, but the red and green are just wonderful. Look at the sheen you get from longwool!

This is white Suffolk that I spun 2ply, then dyed with Violet Wilton's dye. I used a whole tub of dye on this one skein and cooked it slowly for hours so that the compound dye struck and didn't split into red and blue. This is really an intense royal Purple.

2002 VA and VT fiber festivals

This wool is from Annie's fleece, a coopworth lamb. The fleece was so clean that I spun most of it in the grease. I was still pretty novice at spinning, but having lots of fun at it. This yarn is a 9wpi bulky 3ply.
This skein is more of Annie's wool, but now I'm spinning a lot finer - my finest to date, I believe. about 14-16 wpi, 2ply sport wt!
More of that luscious Merino/silk blend from the Bulky Club. I sent all three of these skeins to the VT and VA fiber festivals and they all did really well - Annie's skeins both took a first - one at each show. This skein took 3rd place both shows. I didn't enter anything at home (Fresno Fair) this year - I sent my handspun all over the country.

2000 Fresno Fair

This felted hat and glove set (FiberTrends patterns) started out as gift for a guy I was seeing who lives in Scotland where it snows in the winter. For some reason I didn't send them to him, but entered them in the fair. I don't have a photo with their ribbon, but they did win 1st place.

This was the first time I'd entered the fair in quite some time - I used to always enter back in the 80s when I was doing x-stitch and tatting and crochet. Entries are due in September for the Fair that runs in October. I started spinning that Feb and this skein was my first fair entry in some time. It's a 2ply coopworth that I bought as raw fleece. I washed, flicked, drum carded and spun up about 10 oz of this yarn. I only bought a lb of wool. Or maybe I bought 2 and split it with my spinning pal Juli. Anyway, this yarn won 1st place that year. What an encouraging start to my spinning "career."

2004 Madera (CA) Fair entries

Ah, I've been neglecting this blogette and only posting on the main blog. Sorry about that - I'll put up some more photos of fiber and stuff for you. :)

This is a 2ply Merino/silk blend I got from the Bulky Club at . I have gotten many of the "spinner's samplers" with the 4oz of various fibers. This skein won 1st place at the 2004 Madera Fair.

This is a skein of 2 ply Wensleydale from Ashland Bay. It is wonderful - heavy and glossy and just glows in the light. It took 2nd place in the wool class at the 2004 Madera Fair.

This is the Fiber Trends Crusher hat pattern crocheted in 2 strands of Red Heart Plush - 2 colors of green. These are quick to do and I made several in different colors. I designed this set, too. Knit in Kroy 4ply Paintbox, I took the stitch pattern from an old Cast On magazine and adapted it to socks and hat. They won 2nd place in the Knit Division. Actually, it's not such a large fair - I was the entire crochet and knit div. <>

This is one of my "fluffy scarves," woven on the rigid heddle loom using worsted wt acrylic for warp and Lion Brand Homespun for weft. RH Light & Lofty also makes a good weft for these scarves. I took 20 of these with me to NZ and AU to give as hostess gifts.

And here are my pride and joy Best in Show socks!! I made up this pattern (based on the "see saw socks" online) and knit the socks with Online Linie 6ply sock yarn. Imagine my surprise when I found these on the BiS table. Woo-hoo!!

Lesson learned the hard way

In this spot USED to be a lengthy post about the last 2 tagged bloggers for that 6 Weird Things game. Since I use a larger than normal font (so old codgers like me can read it without migraine attacks) I type in the stuff, then highlight it all and apply the font and size. Apparently, one ought to save before doing that, cuz when I highligthed the whole post, it disappeared never to return. Blargh. Who knew that Ctl-Z doesn't work in the blogger editor? Or that whatever I did by scrolling past the top of the post would delete it permanently? Anyway, for you other new bloggers out there - use the Save As Draft before you do any wild highlighting. :)

My very first yarns - Feb 2000

I'm pretty sure this skein was spindle spun back when I first began trying to learn to spin. Didn't need no stinkin' lessons, man, so I got a book. Beginning spinners - look and take heart. ALL of us started out spinning stuff that scarcely deserved to be called yarn.

And here is some **wonderful** border leicester (giggle). I would buy a fleece and spin 2 or 3 locks and then let it ply back on itself. I still do this, but my samples look a LOT better now.

It's late, I'm tired and I think I'll go to bed now. I've got a lot more photos to put up, so stay tuned. :)