Knitting Sandwich

the goods

lily's shopping haul:

my shopping haul:

now we both need to get those spindles a-spinning!

-melissa

before & after

usually i forget to take a "before" picture when i'm spinning and end up with an "in progress" shot instead.

but the other day i actually had my act together and remembered to snap a photo before i began spinning!  so i present to you - the before:

and the after:

-melissa

springtime handspun

i spun two skeins of yarn earlier in the month, but it was only today that i got around to taking some photos to share with y'all.

i have probably an hour of finishing work left on my muddy baby sweater, and then my hands are itching to get back to spinning for a bit.

-melissa

yarn along 04.04.12

joining up with ginny at small things for the weekly yarn along.

this week finds me spinning up some very sheepishly lovely fiber from smokey mountain fibers.  it will be for the back of my handspun logcabin cushion cover, but as i was spinning last night my mind was a whirl (pun totally intended) with ideas and things i wanted to spin up.  so it's fair to say i may have recaught the spinning bug.

and reading.... ah i have finally climbed aboard the hunger games bandwagon!  brian and i are reading this together (which means he reads out loud while i knit or spin, as the case may be) and we just began last night.  he actually gave me the book for christmas but we had to (a)finish listening to dance with dragons (b)listen to the final book in the inheritance cycle (c)have a addictive marathon viewing of the first season of game of thrones and now with all that out of the way we are ready to dive into the hunger games. when we finish the book maybe we'll go on a date and see the movie!

-melissa

making time for spinning

while lindsey was visiting she asked to see my spindle, and as i got it out i realized that i couldn't remember the last time i had used it!  the fiber i was spinning i had started waaaaay back before leaving for claire's wedding in october!

i made a point of making time to finish that braid of roving last week.

i named her peachy-green jelly bean (and i thought of rizzo from grease every time i said it).  she's 196yds of 100% handspun corriedale.

i seem to keep forgetting how much i like to spin!  i need to be more conscious of making time to spin.  because goodness knows, if i was left to my own devices i might just ripple away until the end of time.

i don't know if you remember or not, but back when i first began to spin i started making a log cabin rectangle with all the little skeins of yarn i was spinning up.  i've kept adding to it from time to time and have managed to create a decent sized rectangle.

it's reached the point where i need to decide what i'm going to do with it.... claire had suggested making a cushion cover.  i thought this was brilliant and so my next spinning project is going to be spinning up this natural fiber from smokey mountain fibers on etsy to make the backside.

can't you just almost smell the sheepy goodness?!?!  oh i can't wait to get my hands in there and start spinning!

-melissa

ps - a while ago rachel asked how luna was doing because i only seem to post pictures of my cats.  so today when i was outside photographing yarn/fiber i decided to get rach a picture of luna.  turns out luna's scared of my camera and wouldn't come near me.... so i just zoomed in as far as i could and this is what you get:

 

holiday giveaway!

in the spirit of the holidays i'm going to host a giveaway!

163yds of worsted weight handspun yarn.  it was spun by me and i want to give it to YOU!

if you'd like a chance to win, just leave a comment and tell me..... your favorite holiday movie or song, or both!  i'll leave comments open for a week and then draw a winner.

happy holidays!!

-melissa

ps - my favorite holiday movie is home alone and my favorite song might actually be sleigh ride or it could be carol of the bells, i'm not sure.

project barter

my friend patti is a very talented artist and a month or so ago she had a show at a local gallery where she presented 49 small, original works.  these works were not for sale, they were up for barter.  she said she was open to whatever people wanted to trade.  

needless to say, i was super excited about this project.  not only at the prospect of owning my own piece of patti's art, but about the barter itself!  i love me a good old fashioned barter!  so i set to work spinning up some yarn.  this is what i came up with:

i named it "follow the night fairy" and it's 100% bfl wool spun from fiber from fibers to yarns etsy shop.  then i had to decide what to knit...

enter the devising pattern by jan eaton (rav link).  this was a quick but interesting fingerless glove pattern, i would highly recommend it!

(i was especially amused by how closely the color changes matched up!)

and here's the painting i bartered for:

it just came home a few days ago and is now hanging in my living room.  i couldn't be happier!  like i said, i love a good barter!!

-melissa

 

oh yeah! i spin!

so i guess the tour de fleece took more out of me than i thought... once i didn't have to pick the spindle up everyday i kind of let it slip off my radar.  so much so that it took me an entire month to spin up a single braid of fiber!

but i eventually remembered, "oh yeah!  i spin!"  and finished this baby up.

it's 196yds of two-ply falkland wool, the fiber was from cloudlover in colorway ginkgo.  i love how the colors worked together, and as much as i hate to part with it, this little lady is headed over to the shop!

hopefully the next braid won't take me a month to spin up!   i just need to pace myself and stay focused!

-melissa

Lily's second yarn (part 2)

You probably remember Lily's hand-spun yarn, and how she auctioned off her beautiful second yarn to support team Breast Intentions. 

Well, I am the proud winner of the auction and can I just say that the yarn is even more lovely in person.

It knitted up perfectly

Seam it up, sew on a ribbon and Sabrina loves her new bag.

She wants to take it everywhere!

Thank you again Lily!  And good luck to team Breast Intentions! 

-Love Lindsey

for your shopping pleasures

first up, the amazingly talented and generous claire has donated five of her fabulous photos as prints in the cancer-hating etsy shop.

she is offering two of each five photos as 10x10 prints.  they are all up in the cacner-hating esty shop.  go check them out quick before her flickr contacts snatch them all up!

and secondly, i have taken the etsy plunge.  introducing my handspun yarn shop, girl+sheep.

i'm really excited about this new adventure, and i'll invite you to come on over to girl+sheep and check it out!

a big thank you to everyone for even considering coming on over and checking either - or both shops out.

-melissa