Recently in Crosspatch Creations SS (Black Gold) Category
I've been busy. I've got tons of little projects in my sidebar to finish up! I'm doing overtime on spinning here as well, trying to spin up fiber before starting on my knitalong project. You remember me talking about this, right? Stranded: the Colorwork Challenge will officially start on December 1! The buttons have been made--check back tomorrow--and we're starting to put more content. In addition to the KAL participants, we'll have a number of drop-down lists of resources: online tutorials, books, online stores, and links to various articles. Are you excited? I am!
Fiber: Crosspatch Creations Black Hills Gold (NM series 3, dye lot 5a). The label says "Wool (Kenya [Romney and Montedale] and India Ink [Merino and Romney] crossbreds), Rayon, Bombyx Silk and Tussah Silk." A partial bag, so no idea on how much fiber I actually got.
Vendor: Gifted by Andrea, who in turn got it from last year's SCHG show and sale from Custom Handweaving.
Yield: 282 yards
Weight: A highly-textured worsted
I had so much fun spinning this! It's an eclectic combination of wools from Joan Contraman's two sheep (Kenya and India Ink, such wonderful names) with rayon and silks. The label states that black is the sheeps' natural color, but of course it's not a true black, but a very deep, burnt umber brown. The shiny, slippery rayon and silks in chartreuse, gold and orange flowed at a different rate than the wool, which made it difficult to achieve a consistent single. But then...
To heck with consistency! Oh, that bothered me for... about a second. Fuck the consistency, the twist, the intended project, the blah blah blah, just spin it. Which is what I did: gabbing away at Julia's meetup, discussing the election with friends (where I overtwisted during a heated debate--uh), listening to BF play Spanish music on his guitar. Happy times, happy skeins.
Smell-a-vision would not be good with this. It smelled--and not faintly, nuh-uh--of sheepiness and silkworminess. Oof. Dry, it's perfectly fine, but I'll break out the lavender Eucalan when I knit something out of this!
Touch-a-vision, oh! If only you could reach through the monitor and pet this. If only, if only...
Here are 4 of the women...
Sunday's small gathering at Julia's was last-minute for me; had I chosen to wash dishes instead of checking my e-mail, I would not have been there. Thanks for the invitation, Julia!
Here's Julia demonstrating how to pre-draft behind Marnie's knitting machine insect, while Mary-Heather takes pictures.
Andrea's knitting away on Marnie's Deciduous Cami, and Kat's working on a pattern for an upcoming book.
I tried some of Andrea's Crosspatch Creations Black Gold fiber. It's an interesting mix of wools (Romney/Montedale and Merino/Romney), silks (Bombyx and Tussah) and rayon. I didn't pay half as much attention to spinning it as I should have, given that we were talking, snacking, and watching Mary-Heather's and Kat's FIRST-EVER spinning efforts. I ended up with 68 yards of semi-consistent plied yarn, balanced, off the nid-nod. Sweet Andrea, she gifted me the whole bag, and Julia gave me some lush pygora and other fibers to try as well! Mary-Heather went home with a great sampling of all the fibers there, and quite possibly, a new hobby (mwaaahahahahahahaha)!
Have a good weekend!
