Nothing on the loom!

Currently there is nothing on the loom...oh no... however there are several projects planned. After the shawls however, I felt like doing something else. So I picked up a set of Addi stainless steel needles that were a gift - and started knitting. Let me tell you, those needles had the project, albeit small and simple, simply fly off the needles because they were so nice to knit with. I used some leftover wool from the shawls to knit a pair of half mitts. My hand tend to get cold in between seasons and these allow me to still do things and keep warm. Especially useful I thought for the Ontario Alpaca show in April, where several of us are doing a fleece to shawl demo.

I've been spinning as well. The black shetland that I was considering using as singles has been plied. It's a nicer wool plied, so I'm considering using it for a cloak project, once I get enough spun. It's soft but it has been really hard to spin completely evenly as the little vm bits keep breaking my spinning rhythm. Even when I pick them all out of the rovings before I spin, they seem to jump back into the wool. Plying made it just a nice yarn, so all is good. I may spin it a tad thicker though so it spins up faster and makes the cloak a bit warmer. Mainly so it spins up faster. This last skein took an awfully long time to spin, but it's really, really fine.

Tomorrow a friend is coming over and we're going to play with the pot of madder roots which have been overwintering in the garage. They are still happy but I think they should be used soon and my friend wanted to learn how to dye. It should be a fun day.