Bobs and Bits

I'm afraid this week, much of what I am going to post is going to be incremental improvements on previous projects that you have already seen. However, in order to sweeten the process, I am also going to show off some fun things that I have discovered recently that I thought would be fun to share. So the bobs are my current projects and the bits are the interesting finds.

And Then There Were 2: Getting Closer to Plying my Moorit CVM

I have now finished spinning 2 bobbins of the moorit CVM roving. I'm now 2/3 of the way to getting to ply up my first mondo skein of 3 ply, which I hope will end up being somewhere between a DK and worsted weight yarn when all is said and done. In the process of spinning the singles for this project, I came to realize that it would be impossible for me to get sidetracked into any new projects if I didn't get some more bobbins for my WooLee Winder. How boring would that be? So now I have 3 new bobbins (for a total of 6) in my collection. This means that I can work on my CVM, but that I can also get started on the sock yarn I want to make for John for Christmas.

The Ball is Still Large

And just for the record, I thought you might want to compare the current state of the CVM ball to the last picture I took. I tried to take it in the same location so that you could see the size relative to the post on my table on the balcony. Clearly Mr. Fiber Ball is still quite large. I would estimate that I have spun somewhere between 9 and 10 ounces at this point.

And as for the "bits" in this post:

Paper Goods: Greeting Cards (top left) Knitting Print (bottom center) and a Redwood Datebook (top right)

I headed out to the Renegade Craft Fair, that is held in Wicker Park every September. Wicker Park is less than a mile north of where I live, so it's a nice walk from my house. It's always fun to see what crafty people who have other crafty passions besides fiber are up to. In particular, I like to see the paper artists. I discovered a new one that I love and revisited an "old" one that I had to get a little more goodness from.

The new one is Katie Muth, an artist from Toronto. The box of cards contains 8 cards, 4 of which are that lovely ball of yarn and 4 of which are the knitting hands (bottom center). I loved the Knitting Hands so much that I also bought an individual signed print that I am going to frame and hang in my fiber room or some other place that I like to sit and work.

The "old" one (I put the old in quotes because I discovered the work of this artist a couple of months ago) is Jill Bliss. Something about her whimsical flowers and plants -- along with the fact that she puts them on quad-ruled papers -- just makes me smile. I purchased a copy of the Redwood Forest Datebook for next year. What makes it so nice is that there are no actual dates printed on the pages, just blank weekly entry pages so that you can number as you go. Not a bad thing for someone like me who might forget her datebook for weeks and then might have several weeks where she needs to write a bunch of things down.