Blending hand painted wool

I like playing with colour and the depth that different colours bring to a finished yarn. I am also enamoured with the feel of fibre. The feel as I spin it, the feel as I knit or crochet it, and the feel as it is worn on my body. Sometimes I feel like adding a bit of a different texture into the wool, and when I use hand painted wool sliver or roving, the are multiple option for affected colour as well. My current project is a wool/ramie blend, using hand painted fleece artist bfl wool:

And ramie, which is a plant fibre:

In this case I carded te wool and ramie and then used a diz to create a blended "roving" which I wound up into nests. A diz is a tool with a small hole in it, used to pull the wool through, and I pull right from the cards. I could also create a rolag from the cards, but I like spinning from a roving. The nests are small, fluffy, and soft:

I organize the nests in the order they were carded from the sliver of wool. The hand painted colours are muted because of the white ramie added, but the colours are still distinguishable:

From here, I could choose to alternate the nests in the spinning to make a different variation in colour changes, but I plan to spin them in the order they were carded. I will be spinning a light weight single and then Navajo plying to make a 3 ply yarn. 

Due to the technique used to prepare this fibre I am spinning a woollen yarn, using a long draw method. 

When it is done, I will show you, but the result will be soft and silky!  I can't wait!

Machine knitting immersion

When I was little, my siblings and I played around with my Oma's knitting machine. We didn't really know how to use it, and things would just unravel once we took our "work" off the needles. Well, there was no casting on or off, so what could we have expected?  At thanksgiving I asked my mother if I could borrow it, and she said that if I could figure out how to use it and make something with it, my Oma would be very happy, in heaven that someone made something with it. 

I started out looking at the pictures in the manual, as it is completely in Dutch, and I do not know what it says. I tried to find something in YouTube, but the model is so old that the search for information was just resulted in a bunch of dead-ends.  I figured out how to cast in and adjust the tension, and to knit rectangles. I tested a bunch of different yarn and made a cowl. I knit a rectangle, and seamed the side. It took 20minutes of knitting to create the rectangle and an hour more to seam it and make an edging by hand.

So, all right. I can make rectangles. What else can I make?

I found a pattern for a triangular scarf, with eyelets. It is not specifically for my model of knitting machine but I managed to figure it out. I am on row 39, and while the simple increase rows are quick, there is some fiddling in order to do the eyelets on every 10th row. Still, quicker than to knit it by hand. Don't get me wrong, I am not giving up hand knitting, I just think of how fast I can whip up a hat, or cowl and maybe someday, a sweater!!!

We shall see, but anyway, here is the knitting so far (with mistakes) on the wrong side of the scarf. 

When I finish this piece, I'll be sure to think of Oma.