A bit of knitting things!

Wet blocking lace is officially my favorite thing ever. What do you mean that’s the before and after. What do you mean it got like twice as large and also softer. Also I made a TikTok complaining about rainbow yarn being difficult to use and not only did it get like 100k views but half the comments were just ‘fruity pebbles’. Shoutout to that one person that just said ‘clown vomit’.

Pattern is the Peafowl Dance Shawl by Susan’s Family. Absolute banger of a pattern I wish more designers did crochet lace like this.

another bite sized fair isle project to quench my fair isle thirst

There is not one singular "best needle material" or "best way to tension the working yarn". There is the way that works best for you, for your priorities and your experience.

I think sometimes people find the way that works best for them, and then start yelling about how its the best way to do it and everyone should do it. And while i get where they're coming from -- they figured out an easier way for them to do a hard thing, and they're excited to tell everyone else about it -- I think it also misses a crucial point: we are all different. We all have different bodies and different brains and different histories, and what's easiest for you might be a nightmare for me. The things you like about continental style might not matter to someone else, the things you love about english style might be the reason someone else hates it.

chart i made under the cut!

Wasn’t sure this was gonna work, as always with a grabbag of mystery yarns one can never really know how they’ll react to the wet blocking that gives a tam or beret its shape, plus throwing some mystery fuzzies in there for good measure….. happy to report the black was where I ran out of my mystery navy as if by design.

Also a moment of silence in recognition that I was so close to winning yarn chicken with the light blue 🥲

The spindle had a nice gradient at the moment so I dressed it up all fancy

Whiteface woodland, dyed by @littlebirdinagarden, being spun and plied on a 19g drop spindle most likely of Kerry Spindles on Etsy. I tear the top into 10g strips because the spindle is comfy with about 20g for the plied yarn (I have pushed it to 30g in the past and it was not fun). It's a very easy fibre to spin IMO - a bit coarse, medium to long staple, practically drafts itself.

The 2ply is coming out at about 600m/100g and 30wpi for the sample I measured just now. I've been working on it since September at a gentle pace and am finishing up the seventh 20g skein (and have spun the first single for the next skein already, as spinning is more portable than plying for me). Each skein takes maybe 10hrs total - 4hrs spinning each single, something like 1.5hrs for plying, and a bit of extra time for winding and general faff.

Currently on my spinning wheel is a yarn inspired by crazy quilts. It's made of a random assortment of wool blends of different breeds, with a little silk, all circling around purple as the main color, but with plenty of pops of other colors too. I've got about 8 Oz to spin and with one bobbin done, I'm past the halfway point with my singles!

It's been really nice to watch all the colors slip past my fingers, and since I'm trying to keep it pretty randomized, I only need to do minimal "shepherding" of my scraps in any sort of order, which is a nice change of pace from other recent yarns.