Hello Again Friends,

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season! We went to Arizona to spend some time with my family and meet my new nephew. There are definitely some missing Vlogmas photos because of that so oops. There has been a lot going on with the holidays and things are finally getting back to normal so my posts should be back on schedule now. I also feel incredibly rusty, I guess, so this may be a bit of a jumpy journey sorry.

Vlogmas

As it has been a while since my last post I will remind you what Vlogmas was. I ordered a fiber advent from Jillian Eve. The advent was for twelve days and there was one ounce per box and had an every other day schedule to give you time to spin the fiber. It was all gorgeous and amazing and I loved every second of it. Last post covered days/boxes one through 3. For all of the days I split them roughly in half and spun them. Then put them in a center pull ball and did a two ply from that.

Vlogmas Days 3-6

Day 3 is included again because I spun up the other half of my Day 3 fiber to make a Christmas present. Instead of doing a two ply of Day 3 though I chose to chain ply it to give it a different look and play around a bit. Here is a link to the photo of the two ply Day 3 to compare if you want.

Day 3 was a blue and silver BFL and silk. Day 4 was a reddish orange Polwarth. Day 5 was a brown, yellow, and orange Targhee. Day 6 was more of the rescued dark grey 18 micron mystery wool. I enjoyed the mystery wool much more the second time around. I think because I knew what to expect and could adjust my expectations accordingly. I also felt a bit more comfortable with it knowing what to expect and how to handle it.

Vlogmas Days 7-12

Day 7 was a blue Targhee. Day 8 was a taupe and yellow BFL and silk blend. Day 9 was a natural silver and grey BFL and silk blend. Day 10 was a tan, orange, and yellow Targhee. Day 11 was a red and maroon Cheviot. And Day 12 was a gold and yellow Targhee.

I had so much fun doing this advent. I learned so much about spinning and different fibers. I loved all of them really and can’t wait to play with the other halves. I have some projects planned and completed with some of them so read on to see those.

Vlogmas Projects

The first Vlogmas project is the baby booties I knit for my nephew! The chain plied yarn made it self-striping with the knitting so they ended up a bit more of sisters than a matching pair.

The next project was actually one that was a add-in to the advent boxes. An adorable little sheep ornament with holes to make it fluffy. So I used some of the small amount of scrap from the baby booties to fill it in and make it floofy. It is currently adorning one of my floof (wool fiber) drawers.

The last Vlogmas project is the crochet shirt that I am in the process of making that includes all of the two plied Vlogmas yarns. I am already in love with it and can’t wait to share the finished product with you. It will, fingers-crossed, be done by next week. But here is the start of it!

Distaff Day

I guess I should start with a description of distaff day for those who are unaware. Distaff Day is a holiday that is not often celebrated in the modern world. But it is historically the day before everyone was set to return to work after the holidays. The date it is celebrated is January 7th. The Jillian Eve discord server set up a fiber swap for the holiday that I participated in. It was essentially a secret santa but with fiber. My pair gave me two Wool of the Andes knitpicks rovings, some merino, silk, and sparkle rolags that they made, and a romeldale X finalee. I spun one of the rolags for distaff day and then took several more days to ply it. But it is so pretty and turned out beautifully. I can’t wait to play with the rest, especially the romeldale X finalee.

Other Projects

Fiber Projects

Other yarn projects that were created were a bag holder that I made from some cotton yarn for my sister-in-law. I cross-stitched a little bee for my mom, from a kit, whose house is partially bee themed. And brioche knitted a pair of mitts that I ended up giving to my sister-in-law because they also fit her and they weren’t going to work for what I wanted to do with them. I wanted a pair to wear while crafting but the brioche ones ended up too thick to comfortably use my thumb. I also finished those Berlin Woolwork pillows. They definitely weren’t 100% perfect but the recipients really liked them.

Food Project

While at my parents house we made a gingerbread house. This was a tradition started during COVID that has kind of stuck. My husband and aunt had a work gingerbread competition so we decided to video call and make them together. My mom and sister-in-law decided to join in. And we have done it every year since video calling in whoever was in different places.

This may be the best angle of the house, and it may in fact have fallen shortly after this photo. We forgot we used melted sugar as glue last year to get it to stay up.

Upcoming Projects

I have a few upcoming projects that I am really excited for. The first is that I ordered some wool locks to fully process. So they have not been cleaned or prepped for spinning at all. I also ordered some wool scour and hand cards to see if I like to process wool.

I also have some dyed flax on the way to spin with a make-along in the Jillian Eve discord. I can’t wait to see what this new process has to teach me about spinning.

I also found this sweater pattern that I have decided that I need to make for myself, because I need it in my closet.