I have a dream.

Making a sweater. From greasy wool to wearable garment. And then tell all of you how long it actually TAKES to make something wearable all by yourself. (I'm doing quite the statistical analysis on my yarn making process right now...)

In the beginning, there was this:

I knit a shawl (the second shawl ever... actually the second thing ever that's bigger than half a sock...) using the Annis pattern on ravelry (it's free!) but I didn't like neither, short rows and casting on 363 stitches, so I somehow improvised (didn't turn out as planned, I don't have to tell you that, but still, despite the unexpectedness and somewhat wonky shape, I really like the piece, especially because of the gradient (I combed leftovers of brown and white wool together in various constellations, sorted the slivers by color and spun a thin lace single).)

The thing I like most about it is the knit border with nupps which sparked two separate ideas: for one, I definitely have to knit boobs. And code a knit boob calculator for all of you to enjoy (already figured out the math to get perfect, round and squishy boob shapes, haha :D). But the more important one right now... as the huge shawl already wears kinda like a cardigan, I was delighted by the idea of having a sweater with this trim around the hem and sleeves. All made with handspun yarn of course (those english wool combs will have to pay for themselves... kinda...) and with one of my favourite fibers: Zwartbles.

Zwartbles is a darkish brown or black with reddish or golden sunbleached tips, so perfect for someone like me who likes dark, but whose skin and hair color simply won't go well with pitch black (who would want black if they could get dark chocolate and gold, anyway?). It's a bit of a rustic fiber (about 30 microns), but not scratchy (for me at least... but I like things to feel a bit more exciting to the touch, anyway. Synaesthesia ❤). Oh and the fact that I still have about 3-4 unwashed zwartbles fleeces in my basement might also matter.

The fleeces are not very dirty per se, but they have LOADS of veggie matter in them, so there was no way I could've fed them through my drum carder (one of the reasons I got the wool combs...).

OMG, all the hay in there!! 

... behold! The combs doing their thing (actually me doing their thing and trying not to rip my magnet out on one of the tines or turning my back into concrete from combing).

All the icky stuff separated from the fiber... about 98% at least. The occasional stray blade of grass gets picked out by hand as I spin.

These are the finished combed slivers. The amount in the picture is about as much as would go into a 4 oz skein. Wonder how long it takes to get this result? About 3 hours. And around 10 oz of raw fiber. Wouldn't have thunk, huh?

Here's a picture of my first skein. It's almost 7 oz and took about 4 hrs to spin and navajoply.

This is what I get when I take my standard spinning results and navajo-ply it: 11 WPI DK yarn. It'll be sooooo many stitches in my sweater!!! *horror*

All in all a good 8 hours of work (plus washing the fiber) for one skein. Impressive. Would never have thought that it took that long (and I am a pretty quick worker!).

I'll keep you posted ;D And probably will share the pattern later on.