Hand-spun yarn

As I was organizing some bags of craft supplies, I came across a few older crafts I haven't done in a while, like these balls of hand-spun yarn. I began spinning in college and was instantly hooked. I used a drop-spindle, and while it takes quite a while to get a decent amount of yarn spun, it is so addicting!

These are just a few of the balls I completed. I only ever knitted a hat from the yarn I spun, but would love to do a bigger project with all hand-spun yarn. I love multi-step projects. Buying the wool (one day I'd love to have my own sheep for wool!), spinning the wool, winding into balls, choosing a pattern, knitting the said pattern and then wearing (or gifting) the final product!

My next knitting project will be knitted Christmas stockings for me and Ryan's first Christmas!

Knit this, crochet that

There's something about cold weather that makes me itch to knit. I have a lot of odds and ends of yarn, half a skein of this and half a skein of that. So I decided to use it up! I'm making a scarf knitted the long way on circular needles, you only need a little amount of yarn. It's a great project to do when you have 10 or 20 minutes without any plans.

And...I finally did it, I taught myself to crochet! You can learn just about anything online. The world wide web is pretty amazing in that regard. I can only single and double crochet, but it's a start.

I clearly had some trouble in the beginning as you can see. It's way harder to control the tension when you crochet than it is when you knit. I'm still working on that. But after a while I started to get the hang of it and switched back and forth between single and double crochet.

It's coming along but I still have a long way to go! I was amazed at how quick crocheting is. I mean, it takes days if not weeks to knit a scarf, but you could crochet a scarf in a few hours! Crazy.

My goal is to be able to crochet Scandinavian heart ornaments for next Christmas.

source

This requires having way more crochet skills than I currently have so it will take a lot of practice before I can accomplish that, but it's exciting to learn something new!

Red Scarves Project for the OFA

(picture via OFA)

The Orphan Foundation of America collects red scarves every year for OFA students enrolled in college or trade schools. If you knit or crochet this is a great opportunity to send encouragement to some great students! They are currently accepting scarves for the 2010 year until Dec. 15. Send yours in today!

OFA The Red Scarf Project

21351 Gentry Drive,Suite 130

Sterling, VA 20166

USA