Catch Up On Work

It's been a while since I have blogged about what I am doing. It can be hard to balance this blog with all kinds of information. Some of my readers are family and couldn't care a fig about spinning,weaving and knitting... while others follow this blog for exactly that purpose, then there are others who follow this blog because I farm so I try to write a little about that too. It is hard to find the perfect balance and I know that I'm not even close doing this perfectly, but today I'm going to show you all some pictures and tell you all about what I've been working on.  

 The current question that I am working on for my level 4 of the MSP is a camel down blend question... basically I have to blend camel down with something and make a yarn and then use it to knit or weave or crochet a tiny garment. I decided to blend camel down with silk at a 40/40 blend and then blend in some bison too. So I have 40% Camel down, 40% Silk, 20% Bison. It is very luxurious and soft. I decided that a 3 ply in a worsted technique would be best and I decided to weave it on my tri loom in a continuous thread thereby not breaking a perfectly good yarn. It started out really well and I just love, love, love the yarn.... this picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice.... it is so soft and all the silk really makes it sparkle in the light... this picture just makes it look brown but in actuality it is a combination of silver, (that would be the Bombyx silk),  gold (that would be the camel down), copper, (that would be the copper dyed Tussah silk rovings), and earth (that would be the Bison)... it is gorgeous... even if I do say so myself...

Here are some pictures....

This is the best picture I  could get.... God, it's nice! Just look at that shimmer and then imagine that ten times more and you might be close!

Then I started weaving.

But I realized in very short order that the weaving was not showing the yarn to it's best advantage so I pulled the weaving apart. Considering that it is a 3 ply, (for you non-knitting types, 3-ply yarn works better for knitting because it is a round yarn and looks best in knitted form), I decided that knitting was the best option and so I got to work and cast on 32 stitches and began knitting a man's vest... but really tiny... like for a Teddy Bear.... but I knew after a few rows that I had too many stitches and would run out of yarn before I could finish it... so I raveled it out and began with fewer stitches. It took two more times before I got it right but I have the back of the mini vest done and I have half of the left front done. It is showing the yarn off as I wanted it to... but I will show pictures here later today when I get it finished.

So I have not been idle... these last few days... it took two days to card and blend and spin enough yarn to have the required ten metre skein and enough for the little vest too. 

It doesn't look like I will get the third section done before the end of January but I hate doing a half assed job on stuff and so I wanted to do this question well before I moved on. But if I get this question finished today there's still a chance I can get a little done on the next section before the end of January. We'll see...

Anyway, do stay tuned to see my itty bitty vest.....