Meet My New Spinning Wheel

 

I finally found a used Lendrum spinning wheel on Craigslist after searching for two years!  My first spinning wheel was an Ashford Traditional which I added a double treadle to as I had horrible rhythm with the single treadle.  It was a nice wheel and while I enjoyed spinning on it just wasn't a good fit to our tiny house and boy was it hard to carry to classes.  I tried a Lendrum at my first spinning class at The MN Textile Center in St. Paul and loved it utterly and completely, but the price put it out of my reach. Then a few weeks ago I found one on CL for a price I could afford and it is a perfect match.  She fits sweetly in a corner, spins beautifully and it's a breeze to fold her up and take her with me.  I turned around and sold my Ashford wheel with all her accessories which amazingly covered the cost of the new wheel - yay! 

 To try her out I finished spinning the second ply of some BFL fiber I purchased from the lovely ladies at Friends in Fiber.  The colorway is Antique Tapestry and is a rich array of copper, brown and teal.  I then plied the two singles together using the Bulky head flyer (which is a breeze to switch out) to a DK/light worsted weight yarn.  I cast on right away for the Spiral Cowl which you see above.  It was a fun knit as I learned something new - how to do a picot edge cast on and bind off, and the spiral lace pattern that makes up the middle section was a breeze to knit and very relaxing.  I even got to use one of the handmade buttons from Wooly Moss Roots that I salvaged from a failed project .  It's made of walnut which matched the cowl's colors beautifully.

Currently, I'm spinning the fiber I got from Shepard's Harvest from Three Sisters Farm and Fiber which I talked about here.  It is practically spinning itself into a very fine ply.  I purchased 8 oz. of fiber which gives me enough to make a 3 ply yarn with a good amount of yardage I think.  I really love 3 ply handspun yarn as it's so round and pleasant to knit with.  I'm only sneaking in time at the wheel when I take a break from knitting my Hubbie's cabled vest so progress is slow and I'm only on the very beginning of the second ply.  This yarn's fate will be a cowl I think as it is so, so very soft and well, I love simply love cowls - so cozy!

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.

Shepard's Harvest and Mittens

- The Festival -

 

 

 

- The Goodies -

 

- The Results -

Ok, you made it through the pictures; now onto the text!  This past weekend was Minnesota's largest fiber festival Shepard's Harvest and needless to say I was very excited to go.  It was my first time attending and boy was it a wonderful experience.  It will definitely be an annual pilgrimage for me and my family.  There were beautiful alpacas, goats, sheep and of so soft bunnies (I could just kick myself for forgetting to take some pics of the angora rabbits they were so beautiful.  Sam held one too.)  There were hand knitters, machine knitters, spinners with drop spindles, spinners with spinning wheels (there was even one of these great wheels being demoed) basket makers, tons of vendors, lovely musicians and yummy not so good for you Fair food.  Lots of demos were happening all weekend: spinning, sheep dog herding, sheep and alpaca shearing and machine knitting to name a few.  Crafts were available too for those families so inclined as well as many, many classes (which you need to sign up for months in advance - note to self for next year.)   Ah, it was lovely.

My new friend Mary Lou of Angora Gardens even displayed some of my knitted bunny and cat children's toys (for which I use her yarns) with her fabulous angora products at the festival.  She did a little post about me too on her blog.  Here is a picture she took with one her baby angoras.  She titled it "Real or Imposter?"

She had bigger bunnies ready for adoption at the Fair and my son Sam was itching to take one of the black ones home.  We're considering it and may be making a farm visit to adopt one.

After perusing all the the many vendors I made a few purchases.  From Golden Meadow Alpacas from Lewis Minnesota I bought 5 sport weight skeins of natural colored alpaca yarn.  My original intent was to find Shetland yarn to make this Kate Davies hat which requires 9 different shades, but alas no Shetland was to be found.  So, I "made do", if you can call this beautiful alpaca yarn making do, with only 5 shades of 100% alpaca yarn (I wanted more colors but the price of full skeins multiplied by 9 was a bit too cost prohibitive for me.)  Then to satisfy my spinning urge I purchased 2 buttery soft balls of angora and alpaca roving from Three Sisters Farm and Fiber from Winona Minnesota.  There was quite a lot of alpaca at the festival, which makes me think they must be well suited to our crazy climate of freezing winters and hot humid summers.

Of course upon arriving home I quickly abandoned my current knitting project to knit with these new yarns.  Such a fickle woman am I.  I tried stranded mittens for the first time using this Knitting Traditions pattern.  It calls for eight colors so I had to modify it a bit, but I don't think using only 5 colors detracted one bit from the outcome.  I'm very pleased with the results to say the least.  Although I did pull my strands a bit tight in places, even with knitting them inside out to keep them loose, the blocking seems to have eased the yarn tension sufficiently.  The only bummer is the thumb is a tad bit short, but still wearable.  I was suspicious it would be (I have long thumbs), but then it seemed like it was going to be ok, but then it wasn't.  Trust your intuition Ann!  I'm hopeful that the yarn will stretch a bit with use.  I know I could always undo the thumb and add more rounds, but that sounds too daunting to do with stranded knitting so I'm just going to leave it as is.  Now to get going on the second mitten, then maybe a matching Scottish tam and cowl?  Hmm...so much for summer tops.

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm and Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.