Who? Me? Oh, I’m just the one over here knitting with my very own handspun. (!!!!!!)
Last fall, I sat at my spinning wheel and turned the fiber in this (horribly over exposed) picture:
Into this yarn:
And now I’m using the yarn to knit this pillow cover (Rasta says hello):
This is kind of a big deal for me because this is the first real thing I’ve ever knit with my own handspun yarn. The fiber is from Hello Yarn—more about that in a minute. It’s Shetland Wool Top in the colorway “Minerals.” It was their November 2010 fiber club fiber, and I got a nice quantity of it in a destash a year or so ago.
My original, and I now realize overly ambitious, goal was to spin this for a sweater. Turns out I’m not that good yet. After finishing a little over a thousand yards of it, I realized there was no way I’d be able to get anything close to a regular gauge once I started knitting with it. It’s pretty consistent for beginner yarn, but not nearly consistent enough for a garment.
So . . . I set it aside and thought for about six months. Then, Friday night when I finished 28thirty, I decided to take the plunge. First, I tried knitting Quaker Yarn Stretcher, but the fiber turned out to be too coarse for neckwear. I wanted something that I could have around me all the time because, despite its lack of garment worthiness, I really love this yarn. It makes me so happy to look at it and think I took it from fiber to yarn with my very own hands. And I think about the happy things I was doing while I was spinning it—mostly hanging out with my good friend Cari and other cool fiber people at the Knotty Ladies Weekend Getaway last October. Having it nearby in the form of a tangible, knitted thing will be a regular source of warm fuzzies. I can clutch it to my breast on days like this past Thursday and Friday to remind me that work craziness will pass while spinning and knitting and friends remain.
I eventually decided to make it a cushion cover. I’m into the third ball of yarn at this point, so I should finish up the knitting tonight or tomorrow, and then I can seam it up and stuff it. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Before I sign off, let me tell you about Hello Yarn. There are lots of awesome fiber clubs out there, but I find that as often as not when I’m looking at gorgeous handspun on Ravelry, the fiber is from Hello Yarn. I think I must have a particular affinity for their colorways, among other things. The only problem is that even getting onto their waiting list is a huge task. I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that I’m now ON THE LIST! Sometime in the next six to nine months, I should actually get to join, and then I can look forward to a delivery of their gorgeous fiber every month. Woohooo!! Just one more reason why this seemed like the perfect time to take the plunge and knit with my Hello Yarn yarn . . .
I’m so happy for you to get to knit something from your handspun that you will get to see and love every day. I’ve been spinning for two years and have only made two things with mine, one of which I made for a friend, and the other I’ve frogged three times. I actually frogged the gifted item’s yarn several times before actually making something I was happy with. I wish you many more spinning/knitting successes.
Your spinning is a finished object in its own right, my friend.