I have had the spinning fever lately. I have the urge to spin every fiber I can get my hands on. I love the handpaints; I have been spinning more singles lately. I like the fact that the colors are separate, and knitting with it just has a handspun 'look'. Plus, you can spin up enough yarn for a big project fast. I am hoping that it will go further as well, because I have a pound of a great color that I would like to get a sweater out of.
The weather has been so cold this week, that I decided to go through my boxes of UFOs to see if I had a sweater that was nearly done to work on. I came across one of my first spinning attempts.
It is a spindle-spun sweater in reds. I didn't even know how to ply at the time, and so did everything with singles. I did a lot of things 'wrong' in this project. The fiber wasn't an easy one to spin which is part to blame for the somewhat thick/thin look. I was so excited to knit this sweater that I worked on it piecemeal - knitting up a spindleful, then knitting it, etc... which I did know was not the 'right' way to do it. I knew you were supposed to spin up all of your fiber first, but I'm not sorry - this was a fun way to work, and the yarn is pretty consistent. I realized that there would not be enough fiber, and purchased some in a coordiating color to do part of the sweater. Also because it was made on a spindle, there are of necessity quite a few ends, but that really doesn't bother me.
All of this being said, the sweater looks surprisingly wearable. I was making it from the top down and had the yoke and both sleeves done. I spun up some yarn yesterday evening, and knit it up, and some more today. It looks pretty OK! I am going to try to finish it up this week, to try to get some wear out of it while Spring is still making up its mind whether to stay. It's too late to take decent pics. tonight, so I will get some done tomorrow. Fun!
Here it is - it actually looks better in person.
