"Sunray Shawl" - Free Knitting Pattern!

Wohooooo I just published my design "Sunray Shawl" two days ago as a free ravelry download.
Somehow it has become super popular... thank you all for your comments, and for taking the pattern into your favorites!
I can't believe it!

More than 800 hearts already and Top 3 position in the ravelry "hot right now" click charts...

Find the pattern here:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sunray-shawl-2

Many people keep asking me about the yarn that I used. It is my own handspun yarn, from a roving out of Polwarth/Silk dyed by the wonderful Sidi from http://sidispinnt.ch/

Batts, Artyarn, and a Video!

Camel-silk combing waste carded into batts

Color Theme: Underwater

This is how it looks like on the bobbin...

... and this is how it looks like when I spin this :D

Sorry, it's in German. But you can jump to minute 3:30, there will be only spinning and music!

Spindled Leftie

This week I have been a good girl and finished many things :)

Here is another UFO that landed this week:

It is a "Leftie"(pattern from Martina Behm). The pattern originally calls for Fingering weight yarn, but as this is not my favorite weight of yarn, I decided to go a bit thicker :) The yarn that i had spun had about 9wpi  (somewhere between DK and worsted weight) and I knit with 4.5mm needles.

The colorful yarn was originally spun during the Tour de Fleece 2014, it was a leftover from a roving that I once dyed for a different project.

It was only 43 grams (97 meters), but I loved the colors so much that I wanted to turn them into something big.

Then I found the Leftie pattern and thought it was perfect!

For the "background" yarn I decided to spin a Merino/Babycamel mixture (50:50) in natural color.

And as I was so happy with my new spindle from the famous German wood turner Matthes, I decided to spin everything on the spindle.

That took a while.... so here some photos of the progress :)

I love the result! It's so decorative!

Fiber Club October 2014

This month I received my first fiber club from Sidi's.

The name of the colorway is "Autumn Leaves" and this describes it perfectly:

50% Polwarth / 50% Tussah Silk

(dyed by the wonderful Swiss handdyer Sidi)

She dyed the roving in a "palindromic" sequence, from golden yellow over orange to red and back.

So I have spun the roving from one end to the other into a fine single to then ply both ends of the single together out of a ball. I thought this should keep the gradient a bit (because of the symmetrical dyeing), but not too much, to give a little bit of the "barber-pole" effect.

plying ball: one piece of single comes from outside, one from inside the cake

Here's how it turned out - 106 grams, 373 meters (Yippie! Fingering weight was my goal!)
Super soft and shiny thanks to the 50% of silk.

I'm already so curious what the colors of the next month will be!

Artsy spiral yarn

I spun my Plum Pie Gradient Roving to a fluffy semi-woolen single (long draw from combed top) and then plied it with a silk thread, while holding the silk thread straight and tight and the woolen single at an angle of 90 degrees to give the spirals.

107 grams, 190 meters, 100% Merino 16 microns

After Surf Hat

Ja, jetzt kommt noch ein Eintrag, nachdem ich sooo lange "still" war, hab ich ja Nachholbedarf :)
Diese Mütze hab ich für meinen Freund in Brasilien gefärbt/gesponnen/gestrickt. Nach dem Surfen ist es oftmals etwas frisch, und da braucht man etwas warmes wolliges um die Ohren.
100% BFL

Farbinspiration: Sonnenuntergang in Vermelha