Jananas

Another one of my favorite indie dyers is Rogue Adventures. How can I not love that name? Plus, her fiber is just delicious and easy to spin. I grabbed 8oz of braids off of her shop in January and before I knew it they were spun up into a worsted weight two ply. I have no idea what these two skeins will end up being or if they’ll get gifted to someone. I have this feeling that they need the perfect person or pattern and until I figure that piece out I’ll pet them periodically and admire them.

I’ve been lucky this year and have been able to get my hands on a fairly large amount of the highly coveted Hello Yarn roving. I first met Adrian and had the pleasure of spinning her roving at Yarn School in the fall and immediately fell in love. However, her stuff can be so hard to come by that I didn’t want to waste what little I had. But due to my recent windfall I’ve started spinning and fallen in love all over again.

In January I spun 4oz of Bustle and its just gorgeous. Its also one of the first finer yarns I’ve spun, thanks to some advice from Ravelry forums and members. It takes forever, but is so lovely and rewarding once its done.

I picked up three awesome batts from Spun Right Round’s etsy shop in Blender, Kitchen Sink, and Neon. The bright neon colours drew me in like a moth to a flame. I spun the full 6oz up in less than a day into a slightly think and thin yarn (as batts have a tendency to do).

I absolutely positively adore this yarn. Its ridiculous and bright and reminds me of all of my favorite eye shadow colours (heh). I’m scheming about what I want to do with it, but I’m leaning towards a triangle scarf to make the most of it.

The photos below don’t do it justice. But that’s what I get for a) not being good a yarn photography, b) living in a climate with limited winter sunshine, and c) using my phone to take pictures.

I recently discovered and fell in love with the absolutely stunning dye work of Juliespins (etsy or artfire) through a destash on Ravelry. She has an eye for some fantastic and bright colours and her generous braids seal the deal. Most dyers offer braids in the 4oz range. Julies vary from 5 to 6oz, which means that even if your yardage isn’t fantastic that you’ll still have enough for a full project.

A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed one of her braids of fiber in Pastel Chalk and decided to spin it up. I ended up with about 280yards of a fingering weight two ply. As it sat on the bobbin, the colours just screamed BABY. Thankfully a coworker’s wife is expecting a little girl at the end of February. Even though fellow knitters (who know his wife through their mutual workplace) said that she loves orange, my coworker loved the yarn in the skein.

Off I went to find a baby cardigan that met my yardage and yarn weight requirements. I came across this lovely garter yoke baby cardigan that had enough freedom in the pattern that I could eke every last yard out of my yarn. I knit the body first, divided my leftover yarn in half and then knit the arms last so that there wouldn’t be any guesswork about them being the same length/possibly running out of yarn. Lastly, I did a simple crochet edge using Fleece Artist’s Peter Rabbit so that there would be something soft and snuggly.

Seriously, cutest baby sweater ever! The colours are pretty and varied and overall its just adorable. Below is a close up so that you can see the little tiny stitches.

This project was super fast – I think it was two weeks from combed top to a finished baby sweater. The longest part was getting motivated to sew the ends in and block it (on day three of drying out!). I still have to chose a couple of buttons and sew them on, but that’s such a tiny amount of work that I’m not worried.