March Happenings and Contest Winner

Spring is here...wait...is it?  23 degrees this morning makes it feel like Spring has not yet Sprung here in the Miami Valley.  I'm so ready for warmer days!  Though I did enjoy a lovely 70 degree, sunny day on Friday!  It was just too lovely to stay indoors, so I packed my hiking bag with some knitting and headed over to Cox Arboretum in Dayton.  It was a perfect place to spend the afternoon.  I hiked through the woods, sat by the pond and knitted for awhile, and then hiked some more.  

 I began working on Rill Scarf by Miriam L. Felton.  I have wanted to do this scarf for a few months now, but wasn't sure what yarn to use for it.  My stash was lacking in lace weight yarn, which is what this pattern calls for.  After a lot of thought and perusing Etsy shops, I decided I wanted to buy some bare yarn, dye it myself, and use it for this scarf.  I found some merino/silk lace weight yarn on Etsy that was perfect for this project.  As for the color, I dyed it using Kool Aid and Wilton's Food coloring.  It is actually more variegated than this picture shows.  It has areas of lighter green and darker, mossy green.  I absolutely love how it turned out!  I named the yarn "Shamrock".  

Feels good to be knitting again after taking a bit of a hiatus over the winter.  

I finished spinning and plying some merino/silk fiber for a friend of mine.  She had purchased the roving at a local auction and had me spin it on commission.  The original roving reminded me a of a Tribble from Star Trek.

 Here's the yarn I made from it...

 2 ply, 494 yards, fingering weight yarn

This past week, I added some new hand dyed lovelies to my shop.  This organic polwarth top was part of my colorway naming contest in my Ravelry group.  The winning name is "Mermaid's Hair" which was suggested by Ravelry user DKBach.  

 I think the name fits it perfectly!  Thanks to all who participated in my contest!  More contests to come!

Next we have a set of 2 skeins of merino/alpaca/nylon named "Purple Plum Love"  219 yards each. 

Next we have "Cornflowers" on 100% merino lace weight yarn.  440 yards.  

This one is "Marigolds" on merino lace weight yarn.  

And finally we have "Emerald" on lace weight yarn.

       Now to get back to more spinning commissions and knitting!  

Colorway Naming Contest

I've been dyeing for the last 3 days!  Lots of lovely items to be shown to you soon.  Just letting things dry.  :)  

In the meantime, I wanted to let you know about a contest I'm doing in my new Ravelry group.  If you are not a member of Ravelry, you can join my group HERE.  If you are a knitter, crocheter, weaver, fiber artist, or anyone interested in these things, I highly recommend joining Ravelry.com.  

I'm asking for name suggestions for this colorway...

The winning name will be chosen one week from today (March 23rd) and the winner will receive a 10% off coupon to my shop!  

So log onto Ravelry, join my group, and tell me what you think I should name this lovely organic Polwarth fiber!  

Spring is in the Air

I'm sure many of you can relate to feeling like it's time to come out of hibernation.  It has been a LONG winter here in Ohio.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the beautiful snow covered ground, but the bitter polar vortexes were rough!  Looking back at the crafting I accomplished over the last few months has been pretty scarce.  Just difficult to get my creative mojo going when all I want to do is curl up under a stack of blankets and sleep until Spring.

Today it's near 60 degrees, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing (quite strongly too!), and I have been hanging out in my kitchen dyeing yarn and fiber.  It's just been TOO LONG since I've cooked up some pretty items for my shop!

I also realized that my last blog post seems like ages ago!  I have done a few things that I wanted to show you since the items I'm dyeing won't be ready for viewing until a few days later.  

Last night, I finished plying this lovely merino/silk top for a friend of mine.  She had commissioned me to spin it and told me to do whatever I wanted to do with it.  It called out to me that it wanted to be a fingering weight yarn, so here you have it!  This picture doesn't quite do it justice.  It shimmers in the light due to the silk, and the colors range from light yellow, to gold, to orange, tan and deep brown.  It's soaking now and will be ready to pass off to my friend by Sunday.  Then I can start on another spinning commission for someone else.

I got back into the hexipuff making routine thanks to an new friend on Ravelry and Facebook.  She reignited my love of making these little things!  Here's just a taste of some I've knitted up over the last 2 months.

A few weeks ago, I got out my sewing machine and made a few bags out of some sheep fabric that had been sitting in my stash for too long.  

The first bag is a commission sew for a friend of mine.  Made out of organic fabric.  It's a medium sized bag...the pocket inside is big enough to fit a Kindle.  

I have just enough of this fabric left to make a small project bag with it.  If you are interested, I created a Preorder for it on my Etsy shop HERE.  

I also made some other adorable sheep bags for my Etsy store.  All organic fabric.

The bag above can be found in my shop HERE.  

The one you see below is listed HERE.  

The main difference between the two bags is the size.  

One is a medium sized bag and the other is a large.

I also completed two scarfs/shawlettes that I forgot to post for you to see.  One I started on while in DC in January, and the other is one I started in November.

This is the one I started on in DC...

This is Pogona pattern from Stephen West.  If you are on Ravelry, you can check out my project notes HERE.  My friend, Beth, gifted me some lovely Mountain Colors Barefoot yarn for Christmas.  She knew I had not knitted with Mohair before, and this yarn is a blend of wool, mohair and nylon.  Unfortunately, my sensitive skin can't handle it next to it, but it does drape nicely over my shoulders.  I just love the color!

This yarn was gifted to me by Beth as well (she spoils me!) for my birthday last year.  She dyed it with Kool Aid.  I made a "Whimsical Wallingford" scarf out of it.  So soft and light to wear this time of year.  The Wallingford pattern by Jen Lucas can be found on Ravelry HERE.  My project page is HERE.

Before I sign off, I wanted to let those of you who are on Ravelry know that I started a group for my business!  The Purled Ewe now has a home on Ravelry!   Please join us there! 

Now back to cleaning up my Kool Aid mess in the kitchen and putting away my dye stuffs for the day.  :)