Wave after Wave - Swap/KAL in the chantimanou ravelry group

Quite some time has passed without a blog post. I had the pleasure to spend my Christmas/ New Year holidays in Brazil where my boyfriend lives and where it is summer right now.

During the 12 hour flight from Zurich to Sao Paulo I cast on the "Wave after Wave". I could use the flight very efficiently and finished about 3/4 of the scarf :)
I did 11 repeats using 5.5 mm needles. The pattern is super easy and perfect for knitting "out of home", but at the same time, knitting the waves using short rows is a lot of fun, so that I didn't even use the on-board entertainment system on the plane :-P

Here are the pictures of my finished scarf! After blocking, it became a lot longer than I originally intended... it measures 206 cm x 20 cm. Perfect to wrap twice around the neck!

I have written a post about the yarns that I spun for that project here. The thread about this swap on ravelry (where you can admire the projects of all the other participants) is here.

Winter Swap/KAL Chantimanou Group

Ohh I didn't write a blog post about this yet? So it is about time.

This project is a fiber swap including a KAL (knit along) in the chantimanou group on ravelry.
Every participant sends 100 grams of dyed fibers to another spinner and keeps 100 grams of the same colorway for herself. In this way you receive 100 grams of "random" surprise fibers that shall be spun and then used together in the same project with the fibers that were kept for yourself. Everyone will have a different combination, and we will all knit the same shawl in the end.

The shawl knitting pattern is Wave After Wave which has been designed by group member Cordula just for this swap (it is available to other knitters too, of course).

So here are some pictures of the progress so far...

These are my 2x 100g fiber (100% Polwarth). I dyed it myself and called the colorway "Ubatuba", which is a coastal town in Brazil where my boyfriend lives.

My cat Leila was quite sad that one of the two braids had to leave us...

... but not for long, because soon afterwards we received a huuuuuge box that looked very promising.

The contents of the box! 100g Merino/Soja dyed by The Spinning Cat accompanied with wonderful gifts - chocolate, tea and a candle :)

This is the combination of the gifted fibers together with my own. I like their contrast, and how they still go very well with each other. 

Now some pictures of the spinning process... :)

I have finished spinning and plying the yarn, and the balls are waiting to be knit into the shawl.

I am planning to cast on during my 12hour flight to Brazil, which is on Sunday.

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!