Craft fair spinning and a sock

Thought I would update with a view of the vibrant colours which spawned from the dye pot this week. The Honey said the blue and green was his most favourite so far. The orange and browns were inspired by J. from craft night.

Let's see... All the roving is merino. The dyes Jacquard dyes, new to me. I am not as happy with these as the Maiwa dyesbut maybe I just need to make a stronger solution? It seems fine now, but they were more smelly, and I think more expensive too. Starting with the far left we have a small merino skein I dyed up from some leftovers. Beside it is a silk skein. The silk is definitely not as vibrant in colour as the merino, but pretty. I think I will ply it with the red merino ball top right. The first blue/green is merino (from Grandma), beside two skeins of lincoln (also spun by Grandma) in orange and then blue green. I love spinning lincoln! It has a much longer staple length than merino and once I got the hang of spinning it I loved the sheen. It has to be spun worsted because of the staple length, and produces a nice soft smooth yarn. My lincoln skein is still undyed and thus not pictured. Grandma prefers to spin merino though, it is all a matter of preference. Top right is a small ball of taupe alpaca. Lovely, but no idea what it will get plied with yet.

I will be spinning the blue/green roving tonight and then taking this project with me on another Kamloops trip: sox on two stix from knitty.com. I am knitting in the same handdyed purple yarn I used for my celtic vest (which is awaiting finishing and blocking). I followed the pattern but didn't check my gauge so I tore out the first sock this morning to redo on same needle size with 16 rather than 20 stitches. We'll see!