WIP Wednesday 14

Is it Wednesday again already. I'm sure the weeks are getting shorter. OK so what have I been up to this week.

Firstly I've made a crochet Poppy from a pattern a friend from NM's has written. It looks great and is straightforward to make so if anyone is still in need of a poppy for Friday she has provided the pattern free on Ravelry here

I've worked some more on the zen jacket for the CAL and its coming along nicely now.

I've also been spinning this week. I've had a total fail when it comes to spinning on my new wheel, a secondhand hitchhiker. I just cannot get it right but my spinning has been getting alot better with my traditional.

thats a little overspun but at least the thickness is more even.

nearly no bits I can see overspun in this though. Yey

I did these on Monday and filled another bobbin with the various brights last night. I've got a jumbo flyer on the way so am going to wait to ply them till that arrives.

The other thing I've been playing with is making crochet necklaces and bracelets. I've been playing at making up my own pattern for the first time as an idea of giving them as Christmas presents maybe. I've no pictures at the moment but if I get the sizing figured out I'll do some then.

For more WIP posts please see Tamis blog and have a look at what everyones been up to this week

Further adventures in spinning

So following my drop spindle experiments I've started with the spinning wheel.

So I cheated a little and still split the wool right down into thin strips. Alot thinner than I did with the drop spindle.

Following watching loads of youtube videos (I liked the stuff by this woman and this also) I was all set up and got spinning.

It worked alot better than I expected to (I put it down to the preparation not actual skill yet) and is definitely more even than my drop spindle yarn was.

I think I might be over spinning it a bit and I defiantly need to work on getting it to wind onto the bobbin more evenly but hopefully will get better with practice :)

ETA:

I've done some more this evening and have done most of a bobbins worth. Its not perfect but for a first attempt I'm really pleased with it :)

WIP Wednesday 9 - Adventures in Spinning

Well to be honest my WIP has really not changed much since last week so figured there's not much I can really write about that I haven't already shown before so this week it's not so much a knitting/crochety type WIP but more my adventures in spinning (which I think is definitely a long term work in progress but fun none the less).

I got a drop spindle and some roving a few weeks ago but hadn't gotten around to having a go with it. Well I figured it was about time, so did a little youtube surfing and watched a few videos.

I found a few I liked and decided to follow this method to splitting and predrafting my wool before starting to spin it and then using another video by the same poster I started to spin my wool.

So I started with this

I unbraided it and had three chunky strips

I split it down and ended up with a pile of thinner strips

I then had a go at predrafting the wool. This is harder than it looks and I kept pulling it too far apart and splitting it up. So after re-attaching it a fair few times and then adding all the strips together I had a nice long piece to spin.

A couple of things I found out with this first attempt is your predrafting needs to be alot thinner than I thought. I thought I'd got it quite thin but I've still ended up with quite thick yarn. Its pretty, though I'm not sure I'm going to try and ply it as its going to be super chunky if I do :)

I've got a few more lengths to do practising this method and then I get to play with this next.

Its an ashford traditional. I'm planning on going on a course at the end of next month on spinning and also getting in touch with my local spinning guild as I think I still need quite a few pointers but its definitely fun.

For more work in progress posts please see Tamis blog.