Campfire Socks

Camping brings back great childhood memories. My family always camped every summer. Sometimes we took longer trips like to Yellowstone Park and then other times shorter trips to Mackinaw or Higgins Lake. Now we've carried on the camping tradition with our kids.

Our most recent trip was to a campground where the kid's favorite thing was the big jumping pillow. They jumped all day. Tim and I tried it but it was very disorienting and not like a trampoline at all. Oh well, the kids had fun on it anyway.

I think my favorite part of camping is the campfire. The kids try to roast their marshmallows to perfection but usually end up starting them on fire. I started these socks on a recent camping trip and a good part of them was knit by the campfire. The pattern is the garter rib socks from the Sensational Knitted Socks book.

While our camping is done for this summer, the sock knitting continues. The next pattern I'm gearing up for is the Glynis socks from Cookie A.'s Sock Innovations book. The cool part is I actually know someone with that unusual name.

Ooooo Shiny

I've kind of lost my knitting inspiration lately. Not sure if it's just the busy summer, hot temps or what so there's not much progress to show on the knitting front. Luckily the spinning has been going well and I've just finished spinning up a merino tencel blend from Susan's Spinning Bunny.


I love the way it's so shiny and smooth -- perfect for summer spinning and knitting. I spun this into my first 3 ply sock yarn. I've Navajo plied before but never did a true 3 ply. I've heard that a 3 ply makes a really strong and long wearing sock yarn. We shall see. Hmmm, now to pick the perfect sock pattern -- any ideas?

Adventures In Wool Washing

So the last time I purchased a raw fleece and the difficulty began, I swore I would never get a raw fleece again. It's kind of like childbirth, it's painful during the delivery, but once you see that sweet little baby face, you forget all about the pain. Processing a raw fleece is kinda like that.

The fleece is a beautiful, crimpy Cormo fleece.



Little did I know how greasy and dirty this fleece would be. I purchased some special wool scour just for scouring raw fleece and it just didn't cut the grease. Two washes and several rinses later and the fleece was still sticky from the grease and still dirty. Yup, I even used original Dawn for multiple washings adding almost boiling water, all without success.

Then I heard the host of the Manic Purl Podcast talk about using Tide Free to clean a fleece. No fragrances, no dyes, no phosphates -- I had to give it a try.





Wow what a difference! My fleece went from a dingy light brown to perfectly white. See that yucky water. To think that all that was in the wool. And the grease? Completely gone. It still took a couple of washings and lots of rinses to fully get the fleece clean.

Here's the result after flicking.



Ahh, nice white, flicked locks, ready for spinning. Yeah, it almost makes me forget about the pain.