Beginning Works of Art

What do I do with most of my free time? I knit, I spin wool, I dye wools and yarns...and that's about it for now.

I started knitting back in high school, or maybe it was middle school when I first learned. In any case, I started with scarves, and I stuck with scarves -- for a long time. I was too afraid to branch out, thinking that all other knit objects were too complicated for me to do.

One of the first scarves I ever made was a fluffy pink scarf. It was long, probably 7-8 feet in length. After my freshman year of high school I had a friend who expressed a desire to own a Harry Potter scarf. I felt that I owed him a favor, so what did I do? Spent my free time knitting a fun Harry Potter (Gryffindor) scarf.

Pretty, isn't it?

I continued with scarves...for a long time. When I went with my parents to Florida one year, we stayed overnight with one of my mom's cousins. His wife knits socks, and when we were there, my mom watched her knit a pair. My mother fell in love and as soon as we returned from Florida, she picked up a pair of dpns (double pointed needles for those non-knitters out there), some sock yarn, a couple patterns and got started.
I continued with scarves.
Finally, Christmas 2005, my mom gave me a "Beginners Sock Knitting" kit that she threw together -- some dpns, some sock yarn, a pair of straight needles, some regular worsted weight wool (hand dyed by her) and a tub for it all to go in. I didn't want to make socks though, I wanted to make mittens. So what did I do? Asked my mom for a mitten pattern and got to work.

I had always been intimidated by my mother's dpns. How does one possibly knit with 5 needles?!? Two is daunting enough! She gave me a quick crash-course in how to use the dpns and I was off! I was knitting mittens! It took me a couple of tries to get the hang of knitting the thumb at the end, but by my second pair, my mittens were just as good as any that one would find in the store!

My love for the double pointeds started to grow and my desire to branch out and try newer and more exciting things began to grow. I started dyeing my own yarn, I started buying a lot of yarn (a lot). The yarn that I was dyeing was weak, the colors were bland and pastel (I wasn't using enough dye, go figure). My mother helped me out, and the two of us spent a Saturday dyeing yarn. I finally got a nice orange and pink color (made a scarf out of it):


And then my next obsession began: spinning.

No, not a bike, spinning wool, spinning wheel (think "The Ox Cart Man"!).
I was reluctant to try at first, I didn't want to invest in a wheel, and I wasn't sure how well a drop spindle would work. I bit the bullet and purchased a drop spindle with a bit of wool roving from Annie May on eBay.
It was a bit slow to start out with, but I was determined to make it work.
This is a picture of my first yarn I ever made:

Pretty!
And then I went out and bought a pound of white wool roving from Brown Sheep Mill End and got some brown freebie along with it.
Here's the brown spun into yarn and all skeined up!

Lovely, no?
And finally, I decided what I really wanted to do was dye my own roving and then spin it up into yarn.
Here it is in it's beginning stages and spinning stage!

and


I don't have pictures of the final product, but I love it and am planning on making some lovely mittens in the near future. =)

There will be more pictures and more stories to come in the future and you will all see just why I am unafraid of color.