Frosted Fern Finished

Well, I'm feeling a little better about it today now that I've got all the ends finished and it's on the table. I still don't care so much for the solid border and if I did it again, I think I'd figure out how to replace that. Here are a couple of photos of the finished doily.





And I finally got started on Lyra today. I thought my arm was going to fall off before I got that skein of Tencel wound into balls! 2200 yards is a lot of winding! At first I was kind of worried about the long color changes pooling, but now that I'm going, it doesn't look like that is going to be so much of a problem. What I am worried about is being able to see the pattern with is multi-colored yarn. It's still too early to make the call, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had to start over with a solid color. Maybe by next weekend I'll have enough to solicit some opinions.

This was a pretty productive weekend considering I spent all of Saturday spinning. Tall Pines had a spin-in instead of our usual January meeting since it would have fallen on New Year's Day. We had a good turn out with 4 or 5 new spinners. Esther's new wheel got here just in time, so we put it together there and she was able to finish the bobbin she started at my house, and almost finish another one! All were impressed with how nice it was. Looks like she's just a natural spinner. Sure made me look like a good teacher!

Happy New Year 2008! (a little late...)

Ok, so I didn't quite finish up my 2007 projects, but December was a blur and I had a bad cold during the last week. But now I've finished spinning the green merino/silk that I've had on the bobbins for quite a while. I think I lost some of the fiber somewhere and ended up with 500+ yarns of fingering weight yarn. I was very pleased with how even it turned out. When I plyed the two bobbins together, they actually came out pretty even with only a few yards left on one. I think I'm going to make a present for someone out of it. Here's a picture of the finished skein. It is kind of a heathery bluish green.


I also finished the "Frosted Ferns" doily by Herbert Neibling. It is a free pattern, but is not charted. I knit it using a couple of OLD odd balls of J&P coats six cord mercerized no. 20 cotton thread on size 1 needles. It was ecru, but when I finished up there was a definite line at the spot where I changed balls. Since it wouldn't wash out, I bleached it white then treated it with "bleach stop". Don't cringe! This is not an heirloom in any sense of the word, so I'm not worried about it degrading the thread. I had some problems with this doily in several places (stitches slipped of the Addi Turbo needle), I don't like the hand of the thread, and I don't really like the edge. Mostly I just knit it to get of feel for Neibling's work before I start "Lyra". Frosted Fern will make a nice table topper, which is ok. Everything has it's place. It's funny how you just kind of know while you're knitting, when the project is going to totally exceed your expectations or when it's just going to be a learning experience. And materials play a big part.