Update + Mobius photos!

I have to admit, my application to this blog has been sorely lacking of late. Mostly because uni has decided to give me a royal kick up the behind and has taken me away from the sweet, sweet knitting and spinning time. However, the stole is on hiatus until sometime early this week when my knitpicks needles should arrive! Yay! I'm currently using a set of clover bamboo circulars and the transition isn't smooth in the least, or it just doesn't like silk. Either way, it's not being easy to use.

In other news, I finally obtained photos of my in the lovely scarf sent to me by Leigh!

As a shawl

As a standard scarf

I'm rather pleased with it actually. It has a wonderful feel to it, and it is rather warm. Thanks again, Leigh!

YARN!

My mother chose well when she picked out my godparents. Very well indeed. It turns out my godmother, who is heavily involved with such crafts as knitting, spinning and felting, also sells yarns when she sells her wares at market. Not yarns she's spun her self normally, but yarns that she gets from her suppliers at wholesale price...

Guess who now has 6 skeins of 2ply merino/mohair on order... at $12 for 100g...

I have a feeling I'll be knitting lace from Victorian Lace Today for a fair while now, and I don't have a problem with that idea, nope!

Also, I recently obtained a skein of handdyed magenta laceweight silk. I have responded to this acquisition by commencing the alpine scarf from VLT. I have an occasion I want to wear it for next year, so I'v justifed it rather well, I think!

I'm aware that the photos have been few and far between recently. I'll try and fix that once I get hold of a camera. I've been rather disillusioned with the quality that I've been getting from the camera on my phone. I'm not overly surprised though, it is actually a phone, not a camera.

All hail the ball winder!

It has come to my attention that the hand crank ball winders may in fact be one of the more useful tools in a spinners collection.

I came to this conclusion by spinning up a bobbing full of plied yarn and found it to be under plied when I tried to wind it to the niddy noddy. The ball winder came to the rescue. The yarn when straight from the bobbin, to the ball winder and back through the wheel in less time than it would have taken me to redo the lazy kate (my lazy kate is only object that I know of that can be temperamental and yet have no moving parts...)

Yay for the ball winder!

In other news, I've been trying to learn to spin laceweight yarn. Laceweight appears to be my default on a spindle, I can't spin bulky on a spindle but it's easy as pie on the wheel.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem, but I would like to knit a beautiful lace shawl from my own handspun, in a lovely merino/silk blend. There's a goal for me to try for!

I've also been tidying the house recently, and I've found my stash is much larger than originally thought... I haven't been spinning all that long, and yet I have piles and piles of wool in batts, top, rovings and one raw fleece! At least I don't have to worry about running out any time soon. The biggest problem here is time management. Uni work, or spinning, or knitting?!