WIP Wed- Er, FO Frid- Wait... What is today?

I've been trying to post this for weeks now. I missed the last two Wednesday's postings even though I did have things to show off.  Then I thought I'd do a FO Friday, but I missed that too... a couple times... So, I bring you my second WIP and FO update... this time on a ... What day is it?

Only a couple days after my last post I finished up the purple and green scarf made out of the yarn I spun. I finished it just in time to wear to the AppleUmpkin... though I didn't see the booth that I purchased the wool from last year, so I was unable to show it off to the people who raised the sheep and prepared and dyed their wool. :-(  Also, it rained at the AppleUmpkin so we had to cut it a bit short, but the scarf did it's job and kept my neck perfectly warm and dry! I'm pretty sure there's still some lanolin left in at least the green fiber.

As you can see, after getting it wet and letting it dry while still tied up, I now need to block it all over again. It's quite wrinkly...

I really do love the colors and texture of this scarf.

Speaking of the green fiber - what was left has mysteriously gone missing... I've looked everywhere and either Seth hid it from me hoping I wouldn't pull the spinning wheel back out into the living room (that didn't work) or my craft room has consumed it. Most likely, it's the latter and that pretty green fiber will only be found when I clean my craft room.  ... Cleaning the craft room is on my list but so is decorating for our Halloween party this weekend, perfecting my spinning, and cleaning out and organizing my bedroom closet. Somehow I feel like those other items either take priority due to imminent demand or will take a very long time to complete... I'll eventually find the green fiber, I hope.

I've got one more half FO to show off.  I've completed one of the fingerless gloves from last post as well. Even though I'm still working on its mate, I'm still counting it as an FO (or a half FO). Afterall, I did all finishing work for it already! That's got to be a new record for me!

It looks better on than it does just sitting there. It fits perfectly!

I do wish the stitches were a bit more even in places, but overall I'm very pleased with the finished product.  I'll have to work on this slipped stitch colorwork method a bit more to determine what exactly I was doing wrong and how to fix it. In the meantime, I'll wear these and no one but me (and possibly other knitters) will even notice anything wrong with them. I've already gotten multiple compliments on the finished one!

Also, I love the new cast on and bind off methods I learned in this pattern and the new way to work the finger holes makes me very happy.  It's so much easier this way and they even look cool.

Another notably cool feature is the colorwork on the thumb gusset.

On to WIPs:
I pulled out the fiber that came with my spinning wheel. I still don't know what fiber it is, though reading The Intentional Spinner has given me a few ideas. This fiber is so soft, it's amazing! I read a post on the Knitty blog which makes me think that I may just need to strip, predraft, and/or fluff it to get a better result. It has been shoved in a plastic bag for who knows how long as that was how it was when I got it.

I decided to see how fine I could consistently spin it and this was my result after plying. Not bad, though I was hoping for a bit more consistency again.

This was sort of just a test run for the fiber, so I didn't spin all of it. Here's how much I spun. I still need to get the supplies to be able to easily measure yardage and weight. They're on my Christmas list this year.

I've also decided that I need to make a trip to my local Holiday Fiber Fair when it comes along, since I really don't have much left to spin. I used up most of it already... :-( Luckily, the fiber fair is Nov 10th so I don't have too long to wait.

Another WIP is one that I actually started without the intent to ever finish. Though it does look pretty neat, and I'm considering making it into a quick scarf. (I seem to have a scarf obsession at the moment... I never had this problem before...) I don't have a picture right now, but I'll post one later if I decide to finish it.
It was a sample I used to show my new sister-in-law what happens if she drops a stitch while knitting her scarf. That's right! I've converted another one! Hannah is now learning to knit and is working on a striped scarf. I'll try to convince her to let me post a picture of her FO once she's done too since it looks so good.  Seriously, you won't even believe it's her first ever knitted project; it's that good.

And since this chunky yarn was out (what Hannah and I used). It called to me and told me to quickly make a very basic wrist warmer when Magz was over last. (I owe her like 20 or more wrist warmers since I've told her at least every Christmas and Birthday that I'd make her a pair) I knit up a very quick and very basic wrist warmer and tied in the ends all in about 15-20 minutes. I only made one though and I already gave it to her that night, so I don't have pictures... *some random person shouts "Pictures or it didn't happen" and I hang my head in shame at forgetting to get a picture of my awesomely quick work*

I also picked up the needles of an old infinity scarf I started as a mindless knit and I've made some progress on it. I'm thinking I'll bind off soon (using the new stretchy bind off I fell in love with) and use the rest of the huge ball of yarn to make some arm warmers/mitten/gloves and a hat possibly.

The yarn I'm using for this project is just something acrylic that I picked up from a chain store, but it caught my eye something fierce and it's really soft too, so I'll excuse it for not being woolen or handspun or dyed just this once.

Also, in order to free up the needles I used for the dropped stitch sample I mentioned above, I finished this scarf. It was some crazy raggedy fabric-like yarn that caught my eye years ago and became a half finished scarf for my Renaissance outfit.

It's incredibly long since I just used up the entire ball of yarn and fairly thin as well.

Last but not least, on my needles is the second half of my FO fingerless gloves above. I'm not far into this one yet, but it's going quite smoothly considering I've already knit one. Also, it's still interesting since I'm still trying to work out how to make my stitches more even. This is a good thing since that means that I may actually finish the second one!

Also, Magz took home her WIP first hat ever and I was hoping to see some results from that, but expected questions first. I wasn't overly surprised when the next time she came over she said hadn't gotten past the casting on. After all, she's only made a couple scarves so far. So, she is now working on her first ever swatch so I can teach her about gauge as she knits her hat.  I'm pretty happy that she's actually listening to me about gauge. Sra never did. :-P

Whew, finally got all of that out. I'm sure I forgot something, but it'll just have to find it's way on to my next update. Also, the promised update about what I learned from my spinning books should be coming soon. It's taking me longer than expected to read them. I kept getting distracted by actually knitting and spinning and then planning for my Halloween party took up too much of my time. ...I know, excuses, excuses! So, update on Objective A very soon! I swear!

WIP Wednesday

I always have way too many WIPs going at any one time. In my experience WIP simply stands for "Work In Progress" but for me that definition includes waaaaay too many projects, so for the purposes of my sanity, I use WIP to refer to projects I've worked on recently. Usually the last 4 or 5 projects or what I've worked on in the last week or so. Below are pictures of some of my WIPs:

I picked up some pretty purple fiber at Appleumpkin (local fall festival) last year and I've been hesitant to use it even though I got a huge ball of it.

I finally got over my nerves and started spinning it. I'm really glad I did! It spins really well.  I think I did a pretty good job of keeping it even and I thought I was keeping it pretty thin until I plied it...

I plied it with some green fiber that I also picked up from the same booth at last year's Appleumpkin.  The green fiber was a bit more challenging to work with since it had some black and white sections (very small sections).  I like the random additions though.  Plying two "thin" singles together ends up in a bit heavier yarn than I expected, but I still love it.

Here's a close up of it.

 I had to immediately start knitting with it. Here is my partially finished scarf in seed stitch.

This close up of my knitting shows that my spinning still needs some work. I'm fairly sure that I spun the singles in the wrong direction to begin with then plied it in the wrong direction (to be used for knitting).  As I knit, the yarn was unwinding. I've started re-spinning it on my thigh as I go before knitting it... It still does the job though and it's still gorgeous!

This is a quick mindless stockinette in-the-round scarf in crochet thread that I started because I need some more scarves (I freeze at work) and because I needed something mindless to knit while reading. The seed stitch scarf above is technically mindless knitting as well, but because it's knit flat I have the tendency to pause at the end of a row without realizing it while I'm reading. When my project is just in the round, I just keep knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...

Another picture of the yarn from my previous post "Waiting..." Here it is off of the bobbin. Again, I know it needs some work, but it looks like it'll make a really comfy blanket (a small one though as I don't have much yardage) or something. I'd say scarf but... *looks at above WIPs* Something tells me I have enough scarves in the works right now... Plus my coworkers tease me more when I wear the big cushy ones all day.

Here is the left-over single after I plied the rest. My bobbins were uneven.  I soaked it in warm water then hung it to dry as I found out that some people do that to set the twist in a single.  I haven't played with it much yet, so I don't know if it worked or not. Unfortunately, I'm finding that I don't like this yarn spun up as much as I liked it before it was spun up... Not really sure why. Usually I like the yarn as much as the fiber, if not more... Not sure what I did wrong with this one.

And here is my most recent addition to my WIPs. It caught my eye... somewhere... someone else's blog perhaps? Anyway, it's Knitty pattern Phalangees and so far I'm loving it. It's actually a lot simpler than I originally pegged it for. You only use one color at a time and you switch colors every two rows. So far I learned a new cast on - Twisted German Cast On - which I love. It may just become my new favorite cast on!  And I'm looking forward to learning the lazy way to make fingers.

Here's that project again. And behind it is actually my last project. The books I requested at the library came in! I'm now working on reading The Intentional Spinner: A Holistic Approach to Making Yarn and then I'll move on to Spin Control.  The third book hasn't come in yet.
Coming soon: An update about what I've learned from my books!