Friday, January 9, 2009

Falling In Love Again...

Do you remember when you fell in love with knitting? Maybe crochet? Or spinning? Well, maybe "falling in love" may be taking it to extremes, but for me, it's just like that.

Though I learned how to crochet when I was a teen, and then learned to knit in 2002, it wasn't till two years later that I really fell in love with knitting. I was visiting friends in Albuquerque and every Tuesday was Knit Night at a local bar. Usually I'd miss the Tuesday meetings because I had other things going on, but on the other days, the girls and I would get together and talk about knitting.

Sara made these cute baby sweaters and this one caught my eye immediately.


It's a simple pattern, but it's made of handspun merino wool and it is tiny! It is also so very precious! I fell in love with knitting - and spinning, though back then I had no concept at all about how to spin, or how yarn was made. I just knew that there's nothing like handspun, handknit treasures that find no equal to store-bought machine made items.




Basically I've had this baby sweater since 2004 and Leo and I love it. I remember when I first showed this to him and he was just in awe that he slipped it into a plastic bag and insisted that I never sell it. He was hooked then, too. He just didn't know it yet...

On the spinning front, I've been trying to find time to spin using some test flyers with various styled delta orifices. This means that I have to make add-ins and spin bulky yarn just to test the flyers out as much as I can. I just wish I had the time to do all that, but so far, I am having tons of fun with it.



I haven't exactly spun on "Mr Big" - as I think I'll be calling the Babe custom wheel - but I found out from Terri of The Dream Spinner that it holds not ONE pound of yarn, but TWO! That is a lot of yarn, and really I can't complain anymore that I need a bigger bobbin. I can barely fill up the jumbo bobbin on my Fricke, much less a 2-lb bobbin!

Unfortunately spinning time has been curtailed by cleaning time at the moment. You see, I've been trying to clean out the house of "stuff" so I can start my creative juices all a-flowing for 2009. It's difficult to be creative when you're surrounded by clutter. And my house has tons of clutter. But I am making some improvement though...it's slow, but it's going.

2 comments:

ulli said...

what a lovely baby sweater - i am all for simple, handmade things. they are able to touch our hearts

Liz said...

They so touch our hearts! I know this one surely touched mine the moment I laid eyes on it!