red handspun

Lots of business to attend to today. First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!! Chris is a very low key kind of birthday day, we're planning on going out for supper and then maybe a movie, that's all the birthday hoopla he wants. He's so easy going, I love that.

Second order of business, the giveaway winner! The lucky recipient of the lovely blue skein featured in Saturday's post is "Island Sweet". Congrats! You've been e-mailed, please check your inbox and send me your address so I can get the yarn on its way to you. I had two of these special blue skeins, and I've listed the second in my Etsy shop (I've called it January Blue) so if anyone out there can't bear the idea of not having won the giveaway, there is one more skein up for grabs!

Next up, today is Tuesday, I should be doing a TFA Tuesday post, but I'm not. Sorry, no particular reason for this, I've just decided to take a break for today... I expect I will do another one next week, it won't be gone for good.

And lastly, I've got some spinning to share! I spent the last couple days of 2010 spinnging this gorgeous batt:

Into this gorgeous yarn:

The batt was the January 2009 shipment of the Grafton Fibers colourway club, however they have since changed their name to Dyakcraft, and I can't find any info about the colourways club (does it still exist?) or any fiber for sale at the moment... hopefully they are just taking a short break from making these beautiful batts, they really are special.

When spinning this 2-ply, I tried to keep the colour shifts gradual yet pronounced and not too muddy. It worked very well, the yarns runs smoothly through shades of purples, reds and back to purples with bits of blues and browns thrown in. Very pretty.

This last picture is funny. It shows a bit of the behind-the-scenes aspect of my yarn photography. I just shove everything down to one end of the dining room table and shoot my object on the clean end. In the background of the photo below you can sort of make out bags of roving, skeins of yarn, place mats, salt and pepper shakers... 

This yarn has already been worked up into the yoke of a sweater. But more on that another day. I hope you've all started 2011 with a new and exciting knitting project that you love!