Golden Yarn













Rajah and his yarn







I finished the Golden Retriever yarn. I love it when the yarn is new, all washed, measured and ready to knit. Finished projects are nice, too, but there is something magical about yarn just before the knitting begins.



The skein on the left is a blend of wool and GR fur, 50% each by weight. A 2 ply medium weight yarn, 14 wpi . I blended the fibers on a Louet Drum Carder then spun the blend Z and plyed the singles S on my Louet S10 wheel. There are 220 yards at 960 yd/lb.

On the right is a lace weight 2 ply 100% GR yarn, 26 wpi. I hand carded the fiber and spun it Z on a drop spindle then plyed S on a Louet S10 wheel. I have 420 yards at 2150 yd/lb.

I have the paw print pattern for mittens charted on knit graph paper and am ready to get started.

Golden Days

This is a picture of fur I am spinning from Rajah the Golden Retriever. The rolags are 100% dog fur that I hand carded and am spinning on a drop spindle. The small ball in the center of the basket is what I have spun so far from about a dozen rolags. I am spinning the singles 'Z' and hope to make a 2 ply yarn for use in my paw print mitten pattern. In the back of the basket is a blended two ply yarn I spun earlier of Rajah's fur and wool; 50% of each fiber by weight. I carded and blended these fibers on a Louet Drum carder and then spun singles 'Z' and plyed two singles together 'S' to obtain the final yarn on a Louet S10 spinning wheel. It contains clippings from Rajah that were a bit on the short side and not ideal for spinning alone. It hasn't been washed yet, but I expect it will bloom with a fine halo once it is clean.

Gloves Galore!!


I have been going through a glove phase lately. It started with the Houdini gloves and now includes 4 additional pair knit during December 2006 and January 2007. In the photo from left to right: light brown fingerless gloves from hand spun wool (Bluefaced Leicester, 14 wpi), yellow alpaca gloves from commercial yarn (Blue Sky Alpacas), red wool gloves from commercial yarn (Nature Spun), wool and dog fur (Keeshond) gloves from hand spun yarn (18 wpi), and last but not least, the Houdini gloves from hand spun dog fur (November 13, 2006 blog post ). The first three pair of gloves I made for a knitting class that I will be teaching in February. I made the last two pair with chiengora yarn for me to wear.

The Keeshond gloves are quite unique. They are knit from a 2 ply yarn that I spun. One ply is 100% gray Keeshond fur, the other ply is wool that I washed, dyed, and spun. I obtained the wool as a raw fleece and it took a long time to pick out all the VM and then hand wash. I then dyed the clean fleece in my crock pot. The fleece did not dye black as was my plan. The pot may have been too full of fiber or maybe the fleece still had some lanolin residue on it. Not exactly sure why I didn't get black, but I am happy with the multitude of other colors I did get. I hand carded the wool to preserve as much of the color variations as possible and spun a thin single that I plyed with a single of Keeshond fur. The gloves were knit on US size 0 needles. They fit my hands nicely and are quite warm and fun to wear. They are not as warm as the Houdini gloves, but the added wool gives the yarn a little more memory which I like for a snug fit.

I have been reading about double knitting lately and am thinking about making a pair of gloves with a lining knit in at the same time. I have some of my Monroe's fur spun into a 2 ply yarn that would work well for the glove and I have a yarn with one ply Monroe fur and one ply angora that would be nice for the lining. I need to play with the idea a little bit in my head. Right now I am in the middle of a creating a Russian style mitten design with dog fur. The variegated silk and alpaca that I am using with the dog fur makes me feel like I am in the garden with my dogs. I am very hopeful that this pattern will work out.