for charity

I have posted before about our wonderful LYS Golden Willow Natural Fibers and its owner Sharon. She received a large donation of wool this summer and sent out word to local knitters that she intended to knit hats for Souls Harbour Rescue Mission with it and could use help. There was no shortage of help offered once word got out. I took a skein and here are my finished hats to donate.

I don't know what the yarn is but it was very nice to knit and washed up even nicer. I think there must be mohair in the blend because it is soft and has a nice halo. It is a rustic yarn - I picked out bits of vegetable matter as I knit so I don't think it was mass produced. I'm sure it will help some people stay warm this winter. I won't be taking any more yarn to knit hats though because my hands really, really don't like knitting with anything heavier than sock yarn. I was happy to finish up this knitting and give my hands a break.

I also finished spinning some sock yarn with Spinning Awesome Good Falkland fiber in the Hydrangea colorway, one of the club offerings. I'm enjoying this fiber club. Shelby offers plenty of choices for each month's fiber and even will dye this month's fiber from a photo that each member provides for her. I'm excited to see what she does with a picture of Austin that I sent her.

Anyway, back to the Falkland.
It's the first yarn that I have spun on the new Hansen miniSpinner. I'm very impressed with the Hansen! It's so easy to use and I love that I have great control over my spinning with it. I spun two plies with the Hydrangea and plied them together with a strand of light blue wooly nylon for extra durability. Wooly nylon is serger thread that I buy at a sewing machine store. Some people carry it along with their sock yarn in heels and toes for strength. It's so fine that it could be carried for the whole sock. I hate carrying two strands of yarn as I knit so decided to try just using it as a third ply. It was a little tricky to ply from the little spool that the wooly nylon comes on but once I figured out how to manage everything it worked okay. The end result surprised me a bit. Due to the wooly nylon's elasticity, the Falkland plies puckered up somewhat and the yarn is quite delightfully bouncy! My plan is to start a pair of socks with it right away so that I can see how it knits up.