Pretty things

Remember I said I've been working on pretty things? Well, I have!

Here's the first Ringwood glove! This pattern was written by the fabulous Rebecca Blair. She's an amazing friend and an even more amazing designer. This is a fun and quick knit and I am doing it in the most ridiculously soft angora blend and oh my god I barf rainbows every time I touch it <3 I also bought sweet little bocote buttons to embellish them!

I am also working on a Central Park Hoodie in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, which I bought off a Rav destash. It's the first time I've ever knit a sweater for myself!









There has also been a lot of fibre excitement, which I alluded to in my last post!
This is the eight million pounds of unsorted Angora clippings and combings which Soho and I bought at the Royal for a song. This may be the greatest bargain I've ever found, ever.

 Here it is, sorted by colour. Ridiculous!

And here's a little bit spun up on one of my spindles (the Bosworth of Major Internet Drama, for those who know me IRL.) It's tough to spin pure angora, and it's a bit clumpy at times. I'm spinning right from the cloud without carding it, but there's enough here for me to try carding it to see if that improves its spinnability.

 I recently also finished spinning about 2-3 oz of the alpaca roving I picked up at the fair. I was going for a two-ply laceweight, although I still don't quite have the control down pat so it's a bit lumpy in sections, but overall I am really pleased with the results. There's still about half a bag left and I plan on getting back to it soon and then maybe knitting the whole thing up into a Swallowtail.

This is some awesome Romney from Fleecemakers which is my new favourite fibre source. A few months ago I bought a half-pound of romney roving from the Purl and spun it all up super fast into an awesome worsted yarn and from that I learned that Romney is basically the best fibre EVER and I scoured the internet for more. The Romney from Fleecemakers is absurdly soft and lofty and it all comes from sheep on their farm. It's a joy to spin, has virtually  no VM in it (unlike the bag I got at the Purl) and I want to buy all of it and spin everything.

 And since I loved it so much, I went back to her store and bought 4oz of Cotswold locks to play with. They are dyed in the most gorgeous greens and browns which I just can't seen to capture on my camera.

These locks are really awesome and shiny and around 6" long. Fab! I recently bought some hand carders and I'm going to flick-card the tips and butts of these and spin them into something wonderfully shiny.

 And now for one last bit of absurdity: about two months ago we visted a sheep farm and hundred mile market out near Arthur, Ontario. I bought 3 3/4 lbs of Colombia X carded wool. This is what that looks like. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately, it's also a pain in the ass to spin. It's absolutely full of VM and wasn't cleaned very well before it was processed. This is why I wound up buying hand carders, so I could re-process the wool myself by hand. Very, very frustrating, but somewhat fruitful at least: I can pick out a lot of the VM as I go, and the carders help take out a bit more, and hopefully whatever is left over will fall out as I spin.

There's a lot more fibre goodness going on here, including some awesome buys from other online stores and some other knitting projects! My fingers have been crazy busy, although I should be using my time to research and write a paper D: