Going for the Gold!

Yes, I am going for the gold this week!  That is to say, I have finished spinning and plying all of my pretty fibers into beautiful 2-ply yarn in 11 lovely colors, and now I am starting on the knitting part.  So far I have qualified for at least the bronze medal, and if I finish the knitting completely, I will earn the gold medal in creativity!  I will give myself a silver if I get at least halfway finished with the knitting.  These happen to be my very own rules, but hey, I am the one that decided I wanted a challenge.  I needed something special to focus on right now and this was just perfect for that. 

I did try to engage a spinning and knitting buddy of mine to take up my challenge but she had a challenge of her own already, and besides she is not big on sports or watching TV.  (You know who you are .... Patty!) But when I threw down the gauntlet, she already had a more challenging project on her knitting needles, and I know that she is ready to complete it.  She had previously set herself the goal of knitting a Guernsey frock in a dark blue yarn, without a pattern to follow, for her hubby who is a Mountain Man reenactor!  How cool is that?!  She did, however, promise me that she would knit on it while watching figure skating, which she does enjoy.

As this blog site gets more established, there will be other challenges that will be thrown out to you, my readers, so don't despair.  This is all just a Great Experiment at this point.

Before the unveiling of the yarns that were made since last I wrote, I must relate that Spring is trying to peek through the cold down here and some aspects of Nature are working as they should.  Amber showed me her tulips peeking through the garden soil yesterday, I have seen the bluebirds house hunting, and yesterday the eastern phoebes returned to check out my front porch light to see if last year's clay nest just needed a bit of simple refurbishing or if they will have to rebuild from scratch.  My forsythia and tulip magnolia are forming buds, and tiny fragrant bunches of narcissus are already blooming in yards and along the highway at long-abandoned farmsteads. Spring definitely wants to burst forth.  I am excited that She does.

And today I hung out the year's first batch of laundry on my clothesline to dry along with the skeins of yarn I spun during the past week.  Hanging clothes outside is one of my very favorite things to do!  I love the activity, the sight of the fabrics blowing in the breeze, the fresh smell of sunshine and laundry soap, and gathering them in my arms once they are dry and ready to fold!  Do you know what I am talking about?  Ah, delicious! Not to mention saving energy, which is another of my favorite things to do.

Not that hanging clothes on the line is a true sign of Spring.  When I lived in the Midwest, I was able to have a clothesline (you know some subdivisions outlaw them!) and I would hang clothes out even in the winter to let them "freeze dry."  That was truly weird, but also quite effective!

Yes, that is my "Johnny afghan" and no, you can not borrow it!

And yes, I am digressing from the main topic of this post....my newly spun yarns!  As you can see from the photos, the change from the fiber into yarn is truly magical.  One's creative mind can picture ahead of time what a particular fiber will probably look like when it is spun up this way or that, but it is not until the actual spinning and then plying takes place that the truth is finally told.  And, for me, that is one of the places where Joy resides!  See for yourself, below. I especially love the way the blues came out.

The chosen fiber before spinning

All of the yarns from the chosen fiber

All 4 yarns made from plying with same color, called self-plying

Yarns made from plying with the gold

Yarns made from plying with the brown alpaca

Godfrey asks:  Are these for me?!

The yarns are now dry and ready to turn into small center-pull balls in readiness for my knitting.  I am still undecided about what to knit, but I definitely still want to experiment with entrelac, so I will look through my book to see what I can find that makes me smile.... maybe a hat or scarf or cowl, something small.  I have thought about knitting a simple length of the entrelac that could be used as a side panel on a purse.  Hmmm, now where's my entrelac book...


Got to get a-knitting here on HeartSong Farm!