We have been having some difficulty lately with the littlest Tuna not sleeping very well or for very long. She seems to settle for about 45 minutes to an hour for one, maybe two naps per day. At night, she sleeps for about 4 hours from midnight until sometime around 4am. We went through this difficult phase with James as well around this time: 5 months of age. I was expecting it but for many reasons, including that we have more than one Tuna now, it is much harder. I have decided to stop fighting and bucking against this season in our life and instead load her into the Baby Bjorn carrier (because I can sit down in it!) and spin into the night. The benefit to this is two-fold: I get some spinning time which means things get finished more quickly!
Spoiler Alert! For those in the Sweet Georgia Yarns Fibre Club who have not received their August 2014 fibre yet and want to be surprised: Stop reading!
For everyone else, enter the Hot Hot Heat of Summer colourway for August 2014!
This was a beautiful and inspiring colour that came out of the summer we have been having here in Vancouver, BC: Hot, hot, hot! Most summers, we tend to have 1-2 weeks of heat around 29-32 degrees Celsius, which is hot for us since no one has air conditioning, but this year has been week after week of heat. People have really struggled since we aren’t used to it nor are we prepared!
Sorry for the ‘spread out on our bed’ photo but when I examined the braid of fibre, I noticed magenta and yellow so I knew the finished yarn would look quite orange or peach/coral. That is exactly what happened by spinning a traditional 2-ply. I split the braid into 4 smaller sections lengthwise and spun two end-to-end onto one bobbin and repeated for the second bobbin.
I divided and spun quite evenly in retrospect because when I finished plying, I had about 2 yards left on one of my bobbins. I just made a loop and finished it off with two Navajo-plied ‘loops’ to clear off the bobbin. You can’t tell that they are any different since the end is buried in the yarn!
Fibre: Polwarth+Silk, traditional 2-ply
Yardage: 365M/123gr, 400yrds/4oz
Can I just let the rest of this post be photos of this yarn? As with my handspun socks that I just completed, I am really proud of how this turned out. I had major moments of doubt but it was so lovely to spin that I just kept thinking, “How bad can it truly turn out?” Apparently, not badly at all!
I have a few ideas about patterns … I would love to knit a shawl of some kind. I’m thinking about the following:
-
Boneyard by Stephen West
-
Spinel by Paulina Popiolek
-
Brighton Beach by Dieuwke van Mulligen
-
Autumn Blush by Joji Locatelli
-
Brickless by Martina Behm
I’m leaning towards Spinel since I have have been coveting it for a while … but I’m also loving Brickless for this yarn … The feature on Ravelry that allows a person to search for handspun projects might help me find some inspiration, too!
Do you have some favourite shawl patterns for handspun? Please share them in the comments below!
Happy spinning :)
