what to knit with the camel

Couldn't wait to spin some more of my camel/merino/silk mix but what to knit with it?

I made a sample, trying stocking stitch and a lace pattern - both looked good and felt very soft. it's lovely next to the skin, so I thought a scarf might be good. I picked Mini Mocha Jasmine Lace Scarf

It's always nice to find a stitch on a pattern that you haven't come across before. This time it was the picot cast on (and the picot bind off is waiting for me) which makes a lovely wavy edge.

spinning newspaper

I've seen newspaper 'yarn' but not tried making it. I received a question about it and curiosity got the better of me.

I went for the 70g top-whorl spindle and it worked fine. I found that I couldn't give it a good twist and let it spin as you do with wool, I guess something slightly heavier would be good but anything too heavy and you'd run into problems with the paper tearing I expect.

I had to keep one hand on the spindle and keep twisting it while 'scrunching and feeding' with my top hand. It was quite a fast process.

As I worked I found that it could take quite a bit of twist and looked better with more twist. The 'yarn' starts to get a bit 'springy' when it's got more twist in it.

Note the way I cut the paper to save too many joins - ie one continuous strip from one sheet.

It's not terribly flexible, I guess it'll be easier to weave than spin.

a camel, a sheep and a worm

This was a bit experimental but I love the way it's turned out - I'm going to have to card and spin loads more and make something special from it.

I wanted to try mixing camel top (which is quite short) with something longer - it's 70% 'white' camel, 20% white merino and 10% silk. I carded and carded so that the fibres are really mixed together well, pre-drafted and spun it short draw so that the result is really smooth, silky and well-packed.

Not sure that the colour has come out very well under the flourescent lamp but in real life it's a lovely pale.. well... camel colour, all silky and lustrous.

You'd never guess...

I needed to try out this Kiwi (fitted a new flyer and whorl) and thought it might be a good opportunity to try the sample of crab that someone gave me some time ago.

Yes, crab! very silky and drafts very easily. The result is smooth with a nice lustre, and a very slight fuzzy halo to it.

Finished trekking socks

First finished project of 2011

Here they are again with the yarn bowl I used

The bowl is a new design from Helen. She's reluctant to make more of these because the ram's horn idea isn't original, but it works very well.

Once again the yarn is trekking sock yarn from p2tog, the pattern is my favourite: Ginkgo socks

Nintendo DS sock

Just before the new year my sister and I left the Game store without the cover for her new DS we'd gone in for on account of people packing the shop shoulder-shoulder.

Instead I bought a ball of yarn and some dpns and set about making this before the end of the year. I didn't quite make it, I cast off the next morning, and the button still has to be sewn on, but it's soft and no-one has one like it!

A-Z sock challenge

I'm only one pattern repeat away from casting off my current pair of socks (photos coming very shortly). That's a very quick (for me) one month.

not sure whether it's too late to join in now, but I've only just seen the A-Z sock challenge on Ravelry via a blog post from laalbear. The idea is that you knit a pair of socks every two weeks this year - yes that's 26 pairs. Each pattern has to begin with the next letter of the alphabet.

At the rate I knit, I'd be lucky to get to my favourite pattern, 'Ginkgo Socks' before Christmas, so I think the prizes (UK only) will be very well deserved. I notice that the discussion thread for the competition has the tag 'omgyoumustbemad'.