THINGS I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS WEEK

I finally started working on a sweater with the yarn I spun from the gray CVM fleece I bought at Taos Wool Festival last October. Ever since my very first handspun sweater, I have been wanting to reproduce that sweater again, mainly because my spinning has so improved since that time. This is the "Lori's Jacob's Windows Sweater" that appears in Lynne Vogel's "The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters" book (pg. 68). Using Lynne's diagram and her great knit-to-fit workshop list, I am knitting the current sweater on size US5 needles instead of US8 needles, so I have had to make appropriate adjustments in number of cast-on stitches, rows, etc. I have also made the sweater somewhat longer and am thinking of adding a shawl collar to this sweater. Here's the progress so far.

Here's a close up.

This picture shows the other handspun yarns I am using for the windows. The apple green is from the natural dye workshop I took with Darlene Hayes and is a yellow (mullein?) yarn overdyed with indigo. The white was spun from a Foxfire Fibers cormo wool/silk roving. The other three yarns were spun from my own handpainted rovings of merino, cashmere, angora, and silk.

The other project this week has been handpainting a new sock yarn that I will have available at the Torrance Fiber Fest on Sunday, November 1st. This is a fingering weight superwash bluefaced leicester yarn. Takes the dye beautifully.

This pattern is the "Waving Lace Socks" pattern from Interweave's "Favorite Socks" book.

Because this yarn is a bit thinner than the superwash merino sock yarn I dye, I knit this sock on a US1 needle, which seemed to work quite nicely. For a lacey scarf project, I think a US4 might do.

And I am getting excited about attending the Taos Wool Festival again on October 3rd and 4th and our week-long visit to northern New Mexico. We will stay two nights in Chimayo and five in Taos. I signed up for a two-day workshop with Luisa Galanter, owner of La Lana Wools in Taos. It will be held at her dye studio and the title of the workshop is: Native Dyes: Consider the Flowers of the Field. Oh my!! does that sound like fun or what? I can hardly wait. We'll also visit some of the weaving shops and the Espanola Fiber Arts Gallery and Tiera Wool Works.

We're still squeezing the last drops out of summer. Headed down to San Clemente State Park beach yesterday afternoon -- me with my knitting basket and Paul with his boogie board. He spent some time in the water and said it was quite warm. We spotted some tremendous whale spouts out a ways off the coast. They were very high and columnar -- and we're pretty sure they were from blue whales. Yes, we do get blue whales off the coast here and especially since this has been deemed an El Nino year. Quite exciting to consider that the largest mammal in the world was so close.