The singles for the jumper are complete! This is what I’ve spun so far on the Tour:

and here is the entire lot of singles destined to be plied:

I’m stoked. I’ll start plying them up tomorrow. In the meantime I’ve started working on my silk laceweight for my Aeolian shawl. Photos to follow, likely tomorrow. :)

My contribution for the day, all spun before tea time:

I have to say, I’m certainly getting faster at longdraw spinning. I think I should be able to do it in my sleep by the time I’m finished the jumper.

By 2:30pm BST:

On the Hedgerow spindle is Wildcraft English Wool blend tops in the Trudge colourway.

By 10:00pm (in a darkened room by street lamplight, no less… I love my camera):

There may have been some spinning happening. ;)

I have made some more progress.

In fact, I’m more than a quarter of the way through my 900g of fibre. Yay! :)

I’ll find something more colourful to photograph tomorrow, but in the meantime I’m finishing off my handspun BSJ. It still needs buttons, though. Hoping to find some soon so we can have some new FO photos.

We have progress on a jumper!

That’s approximately 130g spun up today… only 770g left to spin before plying up all 1.2kg worth of jumper.

This was a project I started a while back, approximately Christmas time, but as usual, pretty coloured fibre called to me and the rest is history. One of my main goals for the Tour de Fleece to to finish up all those yarns in progress, especially this jumper. The body bag of fibre is taking over my cupboard and I’d like the space back.

I’m hoping to update my Tour progress daily. With any luck I’ll post in some knitting, too, as I have socks to share. :)

I’d like you to meet my May club fibre:

It’s called Hedgerows and it is a beautiful Shetland. This fibre was a dream to spin, I really enjoyed it. I spun it longdraw style but from the top itself to produce a lovely squishy, sproingy yarn roughly worsted weight 2ply. I really love how this turned out and it is in queue to become a tomten for my little girl. I’ve got a few braids of Shetland from another dyer that I thought might coordinate with this for striping details.

I’m totally looking forward to knitting this up, but I’m sad I’m out of club fibre. Good thing there’s only a couple weeks until the July shipment. ;)

52 pair plunge did you say? Yes. I’ve joined the 52 pair plunge. For those who aren’t familiar with this challenge, the idea is to knit 52 pairs of socks between June 1 and May 31st. Socks must have heels, toes and a cuff but can be any size (baby, toddler, or adult). There’s even a Ravelry group.

Nearly halfway through the month and we have a pair:

The pattern is called Cascading Leaves and it is a lovely. I really enjoyed knitting the pattern, although I wasn’t head over heels about the wool. The pattern is a cuff-down constructionwith an eight row lace repeat which is simple, intuitive and effective and I’m positive it would look amazing in a handdyed sock yarn.

The yarn I used was a Rico 4ply print (75% wool, 25% nylon) which is… functional. And cheap. They will make a lovely pair of socks, though. The yarn is very sturdy so they’ll be great for hiking and I won’t be overly concerned about getting them muddy, sweaty or dirty. This is actually a really good thing since I only wear handknit socks and training socks. (And if I could knit training socks, I probably would.)

And just to prove there is a pair:

Pattern: Cascading Leaves by Jeanie Townsend
Yarn: Rico 4ply print
Needles 2.25mm

And I even have enough left over to make a pair of toddler socks.

51 to go…

My Violas fibre is all spun up and ready to be knit.

Details
Fibre: Wildcraft fibre club, March edition, BFL/silk, Violas
Yarn: 2ply semi-worsted, spun mediumdraw back, woolen style
475 metres, 181 grams, 12 WPI, DK weight

And I have a small amount of navajo plied Violas. Once I realized I had way more fibre than I needed, I decided to play with the rest. The n-plied will likely become doll-wear, where as the 2ply is destined to be a vest for my little girl.

This also falls into Project Spectrum for East (yellow). :)

I have a little catch up to do… so let’s talk about the Pansi Socks. :)

The fibre was a handdyed merino that I had a few issues with whilst spinning, but I have to say I was so happy with the end result:

For whatever reason I just can’t get a decent photo of these socks, but I’m beyond chuffed with the socks themselves, although I think they’ll end up being bed socks in the long run. They are soft and squooshy and I love how they striped. They’ve sold me on making my own self striping sock yarn. :)

Speaking of spinning my own sock yarn, I’m planning to take this up as my Tour de Fleece project(s). There’s a Ravelry group for the Tour de Fleece and I’ve joined the Team Woolies. If you are interested in joining the challenge, do check out the group and join a team if you’d like.

Go Team Woolies! :)

I’d also like to thank everyone for the lovely comments on my Handspun Daisy cardigan. The mum loved it.

It’s finished and I’m delighted. I hope the mum to whom it will be gifted is just as happy. :)

I really like how this all came together, and I’m so happy that I decided to do this one seamlessly, it made such a difference in the finishing to only have to kitchener the hood and a couple stitches under each arm and weaving in a few ends.

In all, it didn’t take that long if I had been working on it religiously, but given the amount of spinning I’ve been doing that obviously wasn’t the case. It’s a great little pattern and I’d recommend it, especially if you aren’t sure that you have enough yarn for the hood. :)

Fibre: Superwash BFL custom dyed by Wildcraft
Yarn: 3ply worsted spun 14WPI, approximately heavy fingering weight
Pattern: Daisy by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee via Knitty (Ravel it!)
Size: Approximately 6 to 12 months (22.5” finished)
Needles: 3.5mm
Mods: made it seamless
My Ravelry project page for this item: Handspun Daisy

If I were to do it all over again, I’d love to do it on needles one size smaller, but I was so paranoid about running out of wool I didn’t. I got a lovely fabric with the 3.5mm which will drape nicely without being too airy.

I hope you like it Claire. :)