Fiberworks - Grey Shetland and Cotswold Edition

The Grey Shetland is progressing albeit slowly. I decided to trim off the sunbleached tips. Here is what it looks like with and without the tips. ...hint - the trimmed raw locks are on the left. There isn't a lot of weight in the tips, so I'm feeling pretty good about deciding to trim it, especially after seeing the washed result!

The first batch of washed, trimmed locks! There is a little sunbleaching evident, just enough that the finished yarn will have a warm cast to it, and be somewhat heathery looking. The different shades of grey will add to that heathery look, too.

I also weighed the washed Cotswold - 22 ounces. Now, what to make...? A vest would be nice, and 22 oz. is probably enough. Though I like to knit as much as possible in one piece, in this case, I need to make skeins that preserve the light to dark aspect of the design. My Majacraft Rose with the Wooley Winder can ply 4, 5 and sometimes 6 oz skeins. That means the singles will need to be 2 to 3 oz each... safer to be 2 oz each, then 2 plied will yield a 4 oz skein. So, one skein for each front, and two skeins for the back. I start dividing the fleece, and weighing for the singles.

The nice tissue paper from my Coldwater Creek Birthday shopping excursion became the packages for the weighed locks. Below are the locks for one side. Two ounces each, each group containing light to dark locks.

Now, the back's a little trickier, since it is slightly bigger than the two fronts, especially if I make a vee neck. These are divided light for the top skein, two groups of 2 oz each, and dark for the lower back - a little larger skein for the lower back - 2.5 oz in each group. 9 oz. total for the back

As you can see, I may be retired, but am still an Engineer... Engineering... errrr... Designing fibery projects using math. :-)

For those keeping track, I used up only 17 oz of the 22 total. I figure the other 5 oz might either become sleeves - two 2.5 oz skeins, be "in reserve" for the body skeins, and/or serve as sample skeins to determine the final grist of the yarn and knitting gage. Much more to go!

As an addendum, since finishing the birthday socks for my Mom (from Socks that Rock yarn - yummy!), I have two new projects "on the needles". Several years ago, I spun some yarn from a roving exchange intending to make sideways garter stitch gloves. Last Wednesday I finally started the gage swatch for them at my neighbor's "Yarn Arts Happy Hour" - more on this later.

I also wanted something relatively easy for the concert. A couple years ago, I bought some of the Louet Euroflax linen yarns. I even made a bag out of it in basketweave stitch, which worked okay. My intention was to make sampler washcloths out of it but I hated knitting those patterns with it! A French Market bag (from Folk Bags) sounded like it would be mindless knitting, plus be useful in picking up our CSA produce. So that's what I started - modifying the pattern so I could knit it in the round. As it happened, I only got a couple rows done on the way to the concert and between sets. That counts as being on the needles!

- Franna