Me & My Knitting

Just a quicky to say hi and share where I've been at with my fiber. 

I may have mentioned that I've come to a decision about my 

knitting 

& 

etsy.

I'm not going to do a ton of knitting for my etsy shop for at least 

a long while.

My plant dyed 

hand spun

yarns are doing really well

and take almost, if not more time to produce

so I'm going to be putting more energy into that

and more energy into knitting for my growing family- including my growing self.

So, with that said, 

here's what I've been working on;

AAAHHHHHHH!!!!

isn't it the cutest thing ever?!?!

I just loved knitting this little romper. 

I used wool that I bought while on honeymoon in Ireland 2 years.

The town of Dingle is adorable and though it will be a few years till we can go back, 

I can't wait. 

The pattern I used is by Carina Spencer and is called Small Things Romper. It can be found on ravelry. 

I'm 24 weeks now and just finished knitting and blocking this past weekend.

It's been a really long time since I had such a connection with something I was knitting. 

I've been needing that feeling for a long time. 

I thought it was gone.

While knitting it I was able to think about the wool and where it came from-

off the backs of sheep all over Ireland, deing dyed in Donegal, it's Donegal wool- I'm not sure though, if they do their dyeing in house or in England or Germany, but in any case, it's what I thought about.

I thought about our honeymoon there and all the adventures we had- mostly sitting in pubs drinkng tea and going for walks. 

I thought about the baby boy in my belly and his increasing wiggles and what he might look like wearign this sweet romper- and how long he'd be able to wear it! 

I may knit 1 or 2 more a I have the same yarn in green and purple. 

I then got to re-working this 9 year old sweater that I made with Maine wool. 

The pattern is from the Last Minute Knitted Gifts book.

I first washed the fleece,

stuffed it in large glass containers with the Pumpkin colorway from country classics dye 

and let it do it's dye thing in the sun for 3 days.

I spun the wool and knitted this up following the pattern exactly- and not all my measurements. 

It's turned out that I don't like hiking up long bell sleeves and pulled at the waist. 

So, I frogged sleeve hems and waist hem, shortening the sleeves by 6" each and adding that rest of that yarn to the bottom. 

I'm almost finished. 

Though I don't use this dye any more, I adore this color and yarn and have been 

loving this methodical heavy knitting every evening. 

I'm noticing more and more with my pregnancy that I'm enjoying the slow process- or just making everything slower, the process of just doing things. I'm not really in a hurry as my body is slowing way down. My level of calm has been developing:)

Here's two extra tidbits;

these yarns {may} appear in the shop- 

haven't decided yet.

Just a collection of what has been sitting in my spinning basket. 

I don;t know about you, but I do love to clean house and use things up after a certain point. 

The brown is: natural Maine Icelandic.

The blue is: Navajo spun Maine mohair dyed with indigo

The magenta is: 1oz, first bath of Umbilicaria lichen fermented liquor.

The lighter pink is the 2nd bath of this lichen. 

The last two are a combo of evernia, xanthoria, and a curly green lichen I never identified, all spun together. 

All dyed in the batt form first and then I lost track of what every thing was so I spun it all up! These last three I'm not sure yet where they will end up...

Remember my last post of Operation Wool? This is another finished finished fleece, Maine Icelandic from Pondview Farm in Limington. 

It will get dyed this spring when it warms up enough. 

I cannot wait!

I go to bed at night planningout my outdoor dye space.

We'll set up the canopy,

bring out the enamal table, 

set up the pots,

etc...

This will be the first year I've worked my yarn creating into such a fine tuned mass production.

Well "mass" for me. 

Whether your a handspinner or not, you should know, it's kind of a big deal to knock out about a dozen spun fleeces in a one year.