Newborn Vertebrae: Work in Progress

One sleeve down...

And one to go...

 

I started another little sweater

with yarn that rivals this in softness.

It might have taken precedence over this one...

I'll share soon.

xoxo

Newborn Vertebrae: Work In Progress

Seriously?

Sock yarn?

Who am I??

This is what I asked myself halfway through the newborn vertebrae (pattern on Ravelry).

Last winter I went on a silly sock-yarn buying-spree. I was only three inches into my first sock ever, and decided I only wanted luxurious handknit socks to snuggle my feet into, for the rest of forever.

(This winter I finished that first sock - this one - and got started on the match)

Turns out... I'm just not a sock knitter, and I remembered this as I started the first sleeve on my little newborn cardigan. 

Little tiny yarn

Little tiny needles

One more thing! I'm going to over-dye this. What color do you think would look the best over pale pink, sky blue, and taupe?

xoxo

Baby Bunting: Work in Progress...

using this pattern:

from this book:
 
with my handspun yarn:

I brought my wheel to a spinning group last night and totally forgot the major component to my project... a core yarn! So I played around with core-less core-spinning. It's definitely one of my favorite techniques, but I prefer to use combed top as the base to spin the fluffy batt around - otherwise it gets messy. and tedious. and takes forever.

Here you can see the difference; 
Above, core-less core-spun. It's much more dense and confined.
Below, core-spun (with a thin nylon yarn). Super lofty and frizzy, seems like it will pill a lot quicker, but so soft and squishy. Also uses way less fiber!

The fiber for this yarn came from the aplaca farm in Florence (read more about that here). This particular fleece was shorn off of Joshua. He was a pretty clean fellow so I didn't bother washing before spinning, instead I shook it out, sent it through my picker a few times, and carded it up. The pink and orange wool locks are unknown bits from my fiber stash.

We'll see if you can notice the difference in the yarn once it's all knat up!