They See Me Rollin, They Hating...

The Spinning

Two years ago I bought 2 Shetland fleeces from Schoonover Farm in Washington.  I bought Logan's  fleece, which is a lovely moorit, and Jewel's fleece, which is a really nice silvery-gray.

I washed both fleeces when I got them, but haven't done much with either of them since.  I managed to keep most of the fleece with their lock formation intact, and last night, I pulled out Logan's fleece to start preping for spinning. 

Since this is a ram's fleece, it's a little more coarse than Jewel's lady sheep fleece, but still not as coarse as I thought it would be.

Here it is -

clean Shetland fleece

 I have about 2 pounds of this clean fleece, and I've toyed with the idea of sending it out to be pin drafted, but I thought I'd try my hand at carding it first.

I have a set of Schacht 72 pin/inch curved hand cards, and I really like them.  I originally had a set of Ashford hand cards, but I love the finished maple that the Schacht hand cards feature.  I confess, I also have the Schacht mini hand cards...but here are my full-sized cards -

handcards

I decided to make punis to spin, which are pretty popular right now.  I wanted to see if I could make them myself, since buying punis is really expensive - although if you factor in how much work they are to make, they're not expensive at all!  This is a very labour intensive way to process fiber, and I'm already sporting a huge blister on my thumb from rolling them.

punis

I used this YouTube tutorial on making punis -

Take my word for it, you want to avoid googling 'punis' if you can.  Most results have nothing to do with punis...

I also used the advice given by Gourmet Stash in this article.  She makes really amazing punis.  She goes into more detail about punis, including how to spin them on her website.

Here are a few of my punis -

punis

I'm just using a 14" long 4.5mm bamboo knitting needle to roll them.  It's a little slippery, but it works.  I've made about 10 now, and the ones that look the best were made when I had the least amount of fiber on the cards.

The Sweater

I'm making fast progress on my Lucky {you} cardigan for Jack.  The size 4 is really quite large and I'm thinking that it will be a couple of years before he can wear it, but that's ok, it's not like he's going to stop needing sweaters.

I'm really pleased with how the sweater is turning out.  I love the big chunky cables!

little sweater progress

I've decided I'm going to omit the pockets, since knit pockets have the tendency to droop at the best of times, especially if they're used, and little boys tend to put things in their pockets.  I figure he'll probably wear this with jeans, so he can use the pockets in his pants if he needs pockets.

I've made really comprehensive notes on my Ravelry page for this project.  You can find it here.  I'm toying with the idea of making a size 2 for him next, just so he has one to wear sooner.  I have 3 hanks of Cascade 220, which provides almost the exact yardage the pattern calls for.  With my progress so far, I think I'll likely only have to use 2 hanks though, so I could pick up one more and make a second one pretty easily.