Spinning – Knit-Spin-Quilt

Kings County Fiber Festival

Join Spin City and Knit Spin Quilt at the Kings County Fiber Festival on October 8!

Do you like knitting, spinning, fiber arts, or Brooklyn history? Well, if you’re in the NYC area and you’re free next Saturday, October 8, you should check out the Kings County Fiber Festival.

kcfflogo

The Kings County Fiber Festival is held at the Old Stone House in Park Slope Brooklyn, and has a huge number of really excellent vendors this year!

In addition, my sheep to shawl team will be practicing for Rhinebeck, and I’ll be selling their shawls (and maybe some stitch markers, earrings or dice bags) to help them break even on the year’s work, prep, and materials.

Interested in meeting other spinners? Check out the Spin City Meetup on October 8!

Hope to see you there! It’s going to be a wonderful time.

STEM education and scholarship fundraiser

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about Ahmed Mohamed, the Irving, TX 9th-grader who took a home-made clock to school and was arrested for a bomb, then charged with making a hoax bomb — even though he only ever called it a clock.

Ahmed has received a huge outpouring of support on social media — just check out #IStandWithAhmed on Twitter — and invitations from the President, NASA, and too many other places and people to count.

But there are still far too many other children in the USA who face systemic inequalities and prejudices that get in the way of them making home-made clocks or learning about biology, or becoming engineers. Helping Ahmed is the first step: helping correct some of the educational barriers is another step.

So I’m running a fundraiser to raise money for STEM education. Here’s how it works:
-You buy something from my ETSY store, KnitSpinQuilt
-I mail it to you
-I donate the entire purchase price to charity

That’s it! You get stitch markers or a project bag or earrings or handspun yarn, and I donate the full amount you paid toward scholarships for low-income children to go to the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) summer program run by Johns Hopkins University.

So far, I’ve raised $133.00 – I’m hoping to hit $250. I’ll put an image in the sidebar, and together hopefully we can help send a kid to CTY to learn that there are lots of other geeky, talented, academically-minded kids just like them, regardless of their family’s income.

Pre-MASW update

I’m going to the Massachusetts Sheep and Wool festival this weekend and decided to turn it into a long weekend out of town visiting friends.

And what do you do when you visit friends who knit? You bring them yarn they commissioned. (I sometimes spin for friends if they buy the fiber.)

First some Gotland handspun for a sweater:

Then some Abstract Fibers Targhee in the colorway Bandon. My cat had claimed it, but fortunately the friend to whom it is going also has cats.

I also brought them houseguest presents, as one does.

An Avengers knitting bag with a yellow lining for Iron Man:

Ladybird stitch markers:

[AVENGERS BAG]

Spinning up a storm

I’ve been doing a lot of spinning recently. I’ve joined the Spin City sheep to shawl team, and I’ve been spinning a lot of Romney for warp for them:

I’ve also been spinning Gotland fiber for a friend’s sweater:

And I’ve spun up two skeins of Polwarth 3-ply yarn from Spunky Eclectic hand-dyed top:

I’ve also just opened an Etsy shop where I’m selling stitch markers, project bags, and handspun yarn, at KnitSpinQuilt. Readers get 10% off with the code “KnitSpinQuiltReader”

Resurfacing with an announcement: KnitSpinQuilt on Etsy!

I’ve opened an Etsy store to try to sell little sewn bags, stitch markers, and occasionally handspun yarn. Readers get 10% off with the code “KnitSpinQuiltReader”.

To start things off, I’m having a SALE on handspun yarn: all handspun yarns listed in my shop right now are listed at prices that will cover the hand-dyed top, with minimal (if any!) markup for my time. I’ve moved to a small apartment and space is at a premium.

Watch this space for more spinning content and a little bit more sewing and quilting as well. This summer I’m not teaching, so I’ll have more time to update the blog.

Spinning more, quilting less.

Most of what I’ve been working on recently has been spinning, or English Paper Piecing or knitting. I blame the fact that my sewing table is COVERED IN STUFF.

In any case, here are the two projects that I’ve been working on recently of which I have pictures. First is my cat supervising my spinning during the Ravellenic Games:
SpinCat

Next is some singles I’ll chain-ply into a 3-ply yarn for a sweater:
forestryLessIsMore1
I just moved up to a sublet in Inwood (upper, upper, upper Manhattan) for the remainder of the semester, because the hour and a half commute was getting to me. So now I’ve been drop-spindling a lot, too, because those take up less space than a wheel. (That said, my travel wheel — the little one in the previous picture — is here with me.)

This is a Blue Faced Leicester/Silk blend, dyed by Spunky Eclectic.

Apologies for picture quality: I forgot to pack my camera, so these are all from my iPod, whose camera is indifferent at best.

Housebound? Handspinning time.

This has been the weather recently:

For the Ravellenic Games (the “knit something challenging during the Olympics” challenge) I decided to do a spinning project and a knitting project. I haven’t finished the mittens yet — not even the first one — but I did finish the yarn.

This is a 3-ply, chain-plied (chained with itself, also called Navajo plying) yarn that comes in at 19 wraps per inch — that means it’s a light fingering weight yarn, a little thinner than a very thin sock yarn, a little thicker than lace.

And when I finished that, the spinning bug hadn’t let go yet, so I made this from pin-drafted roving. It’s the first time I’ve ever spun bulky yarn, or plied it with thread, and I’m really not sure how I feel about it. I tend not to like bulky yarn to begin with.

I’m planning on putting several of the things I make during the Ravellenic Games up for a charity raffle after the end of the Olympics. I might throw in a pattern or two and a couple of sewn things as well.

WiP Wednesday as the semester first kicks in

The fall semester has been kicking up into gear, so I’ve had less time to work on projects recently. It’s also influenced what I’ve been working on to a certain extent. That said, I’ve still gotten some things done!

Finished:
I made three notebook covers for classes, following Rachel’s tutorial on Stitched in Color. I’m going to make one more in yellow and red, to match the Plantagenet colors, for my class on the Angevin Empire. And this time, I’ll (hopefully!) remember to add a pocket before I sew it all together!

HST BoM QAL: some progress! I made the second July block & and my first of two August blocks.

-finish second August block (cut and partially pieced)
-fix botched May block already!
-start thinking about how to arrange the blocks & what to back the quilt with.

Knitting lots of progress!
-monkey socks in Persia (Malabrigo sock):

The more time I spend on the subway going to and from work/class, the more knitting I get done — I may have to take up hand-stitching things, if the majority of my crafting time continues to be on the subway.

Perk Me Up Bag: some progress.
I finished one side of the bag, which is a patchwork of the various fabrics, and I quilted it, because it’s a lot sturdier that way: I didn’t want to risk knitting needles poking their way through the bag and stabbing someone.
-iron interfacing to back of bag exterior and/or quilt it, too.
-attach pocket to back of bag exterior
-cut strap extender, strap and closure strap, attaching appropriate hardware
-sew lining together with internal zippered pocket in place
-attach lining to exterior pieces
-finish strap and etc.

Simple Math: trimmed a few more blocks!
-finish trimming blocks to 6″ square
-find sashing fabric
-baste, quilt & bind

Baby K’s Quilt: no progress since last week. This one is what’s laid out on my WiP cart right now, but I keep putting things on top of it — I should just get it done! There’s a bit left to work on.

-sew together two more postage stamp panels
-construct pinwheels
-lay out & attach borders
-construct backing
-baste, quilt & bind

Kitchen Window: no progress since last week.
-sort out cut fabrics into groups for individual blocks
-cut black fabric for frames
-cut green fabric for background parts
-start constructing blocks
-fiddle with layout
-make back
-baste, quilt & bind

Spinning: no progress since last week.
-Merino/yak continues to entice me, but I’m not watching much TV, so not much spinning is getting done. Perhaps I’ll watch a move with friends/family one night this week, to give myself some time off before things get crazy. That might be fun.