I got a bump of the most gorgeous alpaca and have been dyeing and spinning little test skeins. The hairy coil yarn it makes is super fantastic! It looks like those little hairs sticking out might be scratchy, but they are ever so soft, silky, and tickly.

The fiber was dyed in an electric skillet. They’re fantastic for hot pour dyeing, since they’re so shallow. I need one that’s about 4′ x 4′. Can you imagine?

Shop stuff-

The next shop update will be April 11. I’ll have tons of dyed fiber in addition to the usual stuff as I went a little crazy and ordered a bunch of bumps and some backordered bumps came in. Mr. HelloYarn has been lovingly packing up 8 oz. bags and putting cute labels on them for the shop. There’s now Merino, Alpaca, Merino/silk, and Bluefaced Leicester all waiting for your dyes. I’ve got Finn (my absolute favorite) coming today.

I’m going to disappear until Tuesday as I have lots of entertaining of Irish guests to do! Have fun flashing your stashes without me!

It’s coming along nicely, no? It cracks me up to sit and work on it, then look in my knitting bag and see the original. They’re practically identical.

I swear, I had to have some quiet time to myself last night to plan the sleeves (because of course I didn’t give them a thought until I was ready to cast on) and figure out how to get the sleeve and body cables to come together nicely in the raglan decreases. There’s this little wall in my brain that moves around, blocking me at odd moments when I try to think about math and how things work. I take great joy in messing around and making up knitting patterns, except when that little wall pops up. Then I get cross and sit on the floor, staring at a sweater and a half, willing the answer to jump out at me. Thankfully, it did and I started a sleeve and no one had to hear me have a fit.

How could I have a fit and disturb this?

ETA: The handspun wave sweater has become a super secret project, so there will be no more mention until the pattern’s released. Perhaps I can get back into the swing of the skull lace stole so there’s something to talk about on the blog. I think I have a good foot of it done.

The Facts:
*yarn- 12 oz. Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mills Natural Color Worsted in Dark Brown (color not shown on website- I got mine at the awesome Circles)
*pattern- Glampyre’s V-neck Raglan
*changes made- all I did was add ribbing to the neck and change the bottom and sleeve ribbing a bit
*size- 40″ bust
*needle- size 8 Addi Turbo for magic loop
*started- ages ago and put away and forgotten (I need to stop putting things I’m knitting away when I clean.)
*finished- March 26, 2006

Sometimes you just need a plain brown sweater, right? I made this one to replace a vintage one I wore to death. I added the ribbing to close the neckline up a bit, since it’s cold in old New England and we need our sweaters to meet our scarves!

I LOVE this yarn. It’s so soft and fuzzy and sheepy. The only problem is that it’s like velcro to every piece of lint/fuzz/dog hair in the world. I’m forever picking stuff off of things I make from it. I’ll get used to the lint brush for this yarn, though. The firm sponginess of it is so fantastic. It’s the opposite of a yarn that drapes well. You could practically stand this sweater up on its own, yet it’s deligtfully soft and woolly.

This is the first top down raglan I’ve made. It’s nice to be able to try the sweater on to check sleeve and body length, but I don’t like the look of the increases as much as I like the look of the decreases in a bottom up raglan. I can’t decide which is better.

New Project:

This is going to be my first yoke sweater. I’ve got tons of handspun natural dark brown Corriedale two-ply, which I paired with a skein of handspun superwash Merino wool 2 ply from Spincycle Yarns. Even though the yarns couldn’t be more different in terms of hand, they work well together in the swatch and the color combination is killing me. Here’s my frightful drawing of the sweater so you can get an idea. It’ll have a fitted waist and hemmed edges. I’m not sure about the neck yet. Crewneck? Taller? I can wait until the very end to decide.

I guess sometimes you just need two brown sweaters!