I’ve been Tour De Fleecing still. The Freedom Flyer for my wheel came in so I made up some fun bulky yarns on it. I love it! I also spun my first proper sock yarn and I liked it way more than I thought I would. While I am more of a product knitter, I am totally a process spinner. Anyways, here are the yarns I’ve been spinning.

2-ply sock yarn from superwash merino/bamboo/nylon from Yarn Geek Fibers. This stuff was so easy to spin and gorgeous!

Some neon bits from no222 I carded together with some white merino and spun up. I autowrapped with some neon sparkly variegated (Seriously!) yarn. It’s pretty  crazy/awesome.

This last one is from the Fiber Fancy Scott Pilgrim SAL. I picked Sex Bob-omb, and the batt and coordinating locks were beautiful! I spun up the batt first, and then spun the locks up trying to keep some of their amazing texture. I plied them together and added a fine copper thread.

I finally finished knitting my Lopi Jacket! I steeked it yesterday, so all I have left to do is deal with ends and the crochet button band. Which will wait, because the weather is back to being hot. I love how the Lett Lopi is doubled but with two different colours to give this sweater real depth.

I’ve drawn the winners of the Malabrigo draw from all the blog posts, twitter mentions and ravelry group posts and the winners are (I swear I did it random, but there are some pretty awesome people in this bunch)..

Malabrigo Arroyo in Candombe – Cara!

A skein of Malabrigo Sock in Ochre – Sarah R!

A kit to knit the Common Blue Mittens – MuddyMooseAK!

A kit to knit the Queen Bee Mittens – NessaMcTastic!

A kit to knit the Wooleater Hat or Mitts – Prairiedaun

So either contact me or I’ll find you in the next few days and get those prizes to you.
Thanks everyone!

Weekends are crazy for me. I am working at Wolseley Wool Fridays and Saturdays and then Sunday is usually the day we all do something fun (we took the kids to Splash Island in Portage la Prairie this weekend, which was super fun). But I still got some spinning done. Some mid-weight cable plyed superwash merino.

I dyed up some superwash merino roving all polka-dotty so that the colours would have some white and lighter colours spun up with them. I have a lot of this to spin, so I am going to have a lot to do something with! I think I am at 250y so far. I am thinking of finally getting around to that Clapotis I’ve been meaning to knit since the pattern came out. Handspun wrap! Oh my.

I also put together a Kiwi wheel at the shop on Saturday, and I had to test it out with a mini batt and some sparkly sequin thread.

Other than that I’ve been working on a me project. Last week I decided I needed to knit myself a lightweight sweater, and after some looking settled on the Dahlia Cardigan. I’ve been coming back to that one since the magazine came out last year, and I love the loosy wrap front. I am knitting it as written, except if I have enough yarn I will make one side a bit longer than the other. So I go into the store Friday and just when I am trying to figure out what yarn to use, a bit box of Tosh Merino Light comes in. Fate! I love this yarn. I’m knitting it in Cousteau, which is a rich blue green. I love blue greens, it was always my favorite Crayola crayon. I am almost done the back lace panel, and then comes the mindless knitting I am actually looking forward to. I knit so much crazy stuff that I really need a more passive project.

So, my ebook is finally done and out!
Entomology features 6 patterns based on bugs. 1 shawl, 3 mittens, 1 cowl and a hat and mitt set. Next week I’ll go more into each pattern. I had a lot of fun with colour if you can’t tell. My favorite is the Wooleater Hat. I have a weakness for simple Fair Isle-ish slouchy hats. And silk/merino blends are my favorite kind of yarn. I had the great fortune to work with the wonderful people at Malabrigo who do a pretty awesome thing with their Malabrigo Freelance Pattern Project.

It was pretty fun to do research for this. The boys and I went through lots of bug books looking at pictures when I started. Kids love bugs. We just adopted a (slightly poisonous!) prickly caterpillar that is hanging out in its cocoon right now. I’m kind of worried it won’t come back out, but I’ll deal with that when it happens.

You can find the patterns for sale on Ravelry here. Each pattern is $6 or you can get all 6 for only $16. Pretty awesome.
Even more exciting (for you at least) is that there are prizes!

A skein of Malabrigo Arroyo in Candombe

A skein of Malabrigo Sock in Ochre

A kit to knit the Common Blue Mittens

A kit to knit the Queen Bee Mittens

A kit to knit the Wooleater Hat or Mitts

There are a few ways to win:
Leave me a comment on this post with your favorite insect.
Join my Ravelry group and leave a comment in the Entomology Prize thread about your grossest bug-related experience.
Tweet this contest & leave me a comment here to let me know that you did (if you can’t think of anything, “Check out @ohdessa ‘s new bug themed knitting patterns and win some Malabrigo” works

I’ll be drawing randomly next Thursday, July 12th at 4PM Central.

Still keeping on! I spun up two things today. One is a super mini skein that I WISH I had more fiber so I could spin a tonne of. It’s from a rich orange mini batt I got with an order from bohoknitterchic (who makes really nice batts, I’ve spun a few now and they have all been beautiful) spun with some neon orange and blue and yellow finn locks that came with an order from SpunRightRound (I love all the colours in this shop!). I am not usually an orange person, but I really like this. I might have to find some fibre to try to replicate this on a larger scale.
 

I also spun up another batt from Crochet by KA. I recently ordered a batt from this shop and it turned out I was the 100th customer, I won an extra batt (I got to pick – I picked Moonlight Beach). Which totally made my week. I spun this one up thick and thin and am going to ply it with something at some point. I love all the glitz!

I have been so busy today! I have some exciting stuff going on tomorrow, so check back here. There might be a contest…