The fear of looking like an orange sausage

Orange dress, originally uploaded by projektleiterin.

I'm blocking a dress. It's not finished yet, the collar is missing (it's a long white stripe, similar to the one that you see in the picture, that you sew to the rest of the dress. It's not finished yet.).

As far as now I can tell you that the dress fits very very tightly... A kind soul suggested that I wetblock it on my body. Ha, ha, good joke Mr. I-have-a-pimple-in-my-nose.

I also have two balls left?! My swatch was off by half a stitch, but when I knit the dress I used metal needles instead of the wood needles with which I knit the swatch and this dress is knit in the round (of course, I did not swatch in the round. Only people who do not believe that their magic knitting skills make everything end well do this but when you realize you have two balls left and whatever you are knitting fits very tightly left you do start wondering a bit about your gauge.

Tomorrow when it's dry we'll see!

First attempts at spinning

I bought the fibers at Wolle Rödel, but I don't think they had been really meant to be spun into yarn. Probably for more suitable for other handicrafts. The pink stuff was the second product that my talented spinning fingers gave live to. The talent is clearly clearly there. Me, not stupid, also had bought something called "Eiderwolle", a white something that smells like sheep and produced a pre-product for ropes. I concluded spinning was something for fine motor geniuses...

The fibers from Wolle Rödel were not ideal, but I was able to spin much finer singles. The green ball gave me hope that I might be able to spin something nice one day. Spinning is pretty hypnotic, by the way. Or meditative?



Rovings from TheFiberDenn at Etsy. I spun two small samples to see how it would work out. As you can see I have improved tremendously. :D After spinning with the sticky Wolle Rödel stuff, these rovings were supereasy to spin. Laceweight? - Easy as pie!



On the left hand side:
Fiber: Fine Shetland
Colorway: PeachesNCream

On the right hand side:
Fiber: Corriedale
Colorway: Coleus
Quite overtwisted... I will finish the sample I'm knitting at the moment and maybe it won't be that bad.

Spun with this spindle:


It looks a bit like a toy, but it spins well actually.