For the past almost a week, I’ve been working on finishing up a project last summer. I’ve been spinning up the remaining Mocha Swirl blend. This is a blend I created two or three years ago, but I’ve never worked with more than a sample.

This blend is 60% suri alpaca and 40% huacaya alpaca. The suri is not particularly good fiber – in fact the first time I spun the suri, my yarn approximated baling twine in texture, color, and oder. I have since learned to work with this batch of fiber. I wash it more. I make sure it’s well carded. I try to avoid folding the fiber because when it folds, it really pokes. In addition, there are buzzy bits in the suri – weak spots or partial shedding or something. I can’t card those out, so I have to work with them. One of the things I have discovered over the years is that this fiber does well when blended with huacaya. I can take not-very-good suri fiber, not-very-soft huacaya fiber, and achieve a yarn that feels softer than either of the input fibers.

I finished spinning the singles Thursday evening, and started plying. I kept plying and plying and plying. My legs started getting sore. The bobbin kept getting full. I did really well, not breaking a strand in plying.

The bobbin got really full. I wasn’t sure the yarn would all fit, but then one bobbin of singles ran out.

And I did a pretty good job of balancing the singles between the two bobbins.

I almost didn’t get the whole thing on one bobbin. If you look close, you can see light between the flyer and the yarn – in places. It was that close!

This evening, I pulled the yarn off the bobbin into a skein. Make that two skeins. After being so careful in the spinning and so careful in the plying and not breaking a strand, I broke the yarn while skeining it off the bobbin.

1132 yards. 12.4 ounces. Yes, I got it all on a single Louet bobbin and I almost got it all into one skein.

It’s spun fairly fine. As you can see in some of the pictures, it’s a rather hairy yarn. That’s a function of the fiber – and this yarn is a case of taking what the fiber gave me. I’m looking for a good project for the yarn. The yarn is uneven and has slubs, bumps, and a lot of hair. The project must work with those terms. You can see from the picture that the yarn is fairly fine. The suri content means the yarn won’t have a lot of memory, but ought to have great drape. I don’t want to be trying to rip this yarn back very much, so if it’s a knit project, it needs to be simple enough I don’t make a lot of mistakes. Any thoughts?

Mark the mocha swirl roving out of the stash. It’s yarn in need of a project. I spun one bobbin of singles and did all the plying in 2008, so I’ll credit myself with 6.2 ounces of spinning for the year.

I’ve got an excuse!

I was here:

and here:

I rode the metro and walked a lot.

I saw this:

and that:

and the national mall …

At the zoo, I saw these prezewalski’s horses

I’ve never seen them before. I remember them fondly from my graduate school days when I became quite familiar with their geneology. One of the professors I worked with was studying them and trying to help conserve all the available genes in the small population. They were fascinating to me – yet nothing more than squares (males), circles (females) and lines on a piece of paper. this is the real animal.

My new job is near Washington, DC – and while I mostly work from home in Alabama, I do travel to the area quite frequently. The Smithsonian has long been the most interesting part of Washington, DC to me. Here’s the Smithsonian castle

And another view.

Pam came with me this trip, and we took some time to see the sights including the Smithsonian Native American museum.

Personally, I found the architecture more impressive than the displays – there are some impressive displays, but the building is just plain cool!

The George Washington Masonic Temple in Alexandria from the hotel.

The trip kept us busy. Early flight on Saturday morning. Touristing Saturday and Sunday, a hard week of work followed by another weekend of the tourist gig. The late flight home Sunday evening dropped us into bed in time for me to wake up and work Monday morning. Somehow, it’s
Friday night already and I haven’t touched yarn since before we left.

We got to the National Zoo, the Mall, Old Town Alexandria, the Smithsonian Castle, the Smithsonian Native American Museum and the National Archives before the batteries (camera and ours) quit. We also visited the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery (across the street from the White House) and walked past the White House and Treasury.

Of all the places we visited, I was most impressed with the Renwick – and I couldn’t decide if the art or architecture was more impressive.

I also found the National Archives interesting. It’s rather like a big bookstore, but theyr’e all old and interesting books. I kept wanting to open up the books and touch them. I found national history on display that intersected with family. The logbook from the USS Nevada was on display, open to Dec. 7, 1941 – famous national history, but I wanted to turn the page to see if my uncle was mentioned.

While we were away, a blog reader asked if we had T-shirts with our logo available. While we were flattered at the request, we had no logo apparel. After some research, however, we discovered Cafe Press and remedied the situation. Therefore, in the best spirit of blatant advertising, I direct you to the new button on the sidebar.

I get a three day weekend this weekend and we’re not going anywhere because it’s supposed to snow. Maybe I’ll touch some fiber.

The reveal continues.

I knit a hat for my brother. The crown of the hat (fawn) is millspun sock yarn from Drake and others. It’s not very soft, but my brother can wear wool and he’s still got a full head of hair, so I figure the crown of the hat really isn’t skin contact. the darker brown is from Georgia – handspun – and it’s nice and soft. This is the part that will contact the forehead and ears, so I made it a softer yarn.

It ought to be a nice, warm, hat and not too scratchy because of the softer yarn where skin contact is likely. My brother is visiting my parents in Wisconsin and the moment, and they’re having some real winter weather. My nephew is very excited about the sledding opportunity, which means my brother is spending a lot of time outside. From the reports I hear, the hat is much appreciated.

This is the first hat I ever knit. I worked top down starting with a round of single-crochet. Picked that up onto four – and eventually six – dpns. I increased every other row for a while, until the hat threatened to turn into a tablecloth. It just kept growing and growing even after I stopped increasing. It’s so very different from the top-down hats I’ve crocheted, because in top-down crochet, the hat tips over from a flat circle to a cylinder in about three rounds. The needles – at least in my hands – held this thing flat forever.

I switched back to k1p1 ribbing when I switched to the handspun yarn. The hat was still growing at this point. If you look closely, you can see that there are actually decreases in the darker yarn.

Even with all the adventures, I think it turned out to be a pretty good hat.

Enjoy it, Brother!