Friday, July 30, 2010

Fiber Journey and Where the Road is Taking Me


When I started knitting, I thought I'd never spin, crochet, dye fiber, or weave. I would have been shocked to find that I now do all but weave and even that might be something on my fiber horizon.

This last year, with so many changes happening in my life, and with my daughter nearly ready to fly the coop and go off to college, I've been trying to prepare for her departure by pouring my heart and my FINGERS into kicking out crocheted Granny Squares for her college afghan. I now have completed about 65 squares and I think Elysbeth has done about 30 - so that should be enough for me to start rapidly crocheting those squares together to get it done in time to send off with her in just a few short weeks.

In the meantime, I must also confess that my fiber road has led me to get one more wheel. Yes, I bought a Merlin Tree Roadbug. It's a little travel wheel perfect for carting around when I don't want to lug my otherwise PERFECT Mach II wheel by Spinolution. It is really small, works wonderfully, and weighs only 9 lbs.

In short, my fiber journey has led me further and further along the spinning road. Making my own yarn has been a total fascination and one in which I intend to indulge even more as my desire to buy storebought/commercial yarn has ebbed to the point where I hardly ever go into a yarn shop anymore. Instead, I am enjoying producing my own yarn and now knitting with it. Here is my lastest yarn I've made from this fiber, purchased a few months ago at the Sunflower Guild fiber fair.




So now I'm knitting with this yarn I just finishing spinning (see above). It's a 2-ply worsted weight yarn that turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I am finding that knitting with yarn that I produced myself is so much more satisfying than any yarn I can buy in a store. Happy sigh.

7 comments:

HattieMae said...

I must thank you for your comment! I think your the only one who has ever made one. After a while you think you are only writing a blog to yourself like a private diary. Then one day someone comments! WOOOHOOO! I really have focused on writing more updates in my blog the more I have gotten into the spinning world. I love to spin and have also not entered a yarn shop in a while. I go once a week to one to a knit group but I find myself walking straight past the yarns and going to a chair for the social part of it all. Yesterday I did the best plying ever! Happy Days to you my friend

ChelleC said...

You are welcome HattieMae. I think your blog is really good. Sometimes you have readers that you don't even know about. It took me a while of writing before all but my closest friends started commenting. Even now, I feel like I am writing most of this just to myself, but even if that is true, it's a good way of documenting my life, especially my crafts.

Sometimes I forget how far I've come, but when I go back and read past entries, it's really fun.

There are also programs/software you can get for free that show you who all reads your blog.

Phyllis Bourne said...

WOW! That yarn is gorgeous! You did a fantastic job on it.

ChelleC said...

Thanks Phyllis! I am now knitting it up into a little shrug and it is turning out really pretty.

Beth said...

You know, Missouri is less than a day from Michigan. Just sayin'

AlisonH said...

Very cool. I'd never heard of that wheel, and now I'm going to go look it up. I have an Ashford Trad I used to lug around to elementary schools for volunteer demonstrations, till the day it fell in the car and broke the maiden. O U C H.

Small and useful sounds really good!

AlisonH said...

A note to HattieMae: your blog won't let me comment. I have no idea why.