Daniel's Socks - Part 1

When I first started dating The Boy (heretofore known as Daniel), I decided I wanted to make him a pair of socks, using my own handspun. However, I knew there might be consequences. I had made a pair of Knitty.com's "Cigar" gloves for my ex, and he hated them, and called them "gay"....however, my brother loves them. So There!! And I am well aware of the "Boyfriend Curse", so I figured socks would happen more quickly than a sweater ;-)



Anyway, it's been, what, nine months and I haven't gotten around to this yet. I had picked up some alpaca at a fiber sale on Whidbey (Whidby?) Island (which he had taken me to) back in the springtime, and I wanted to blend that with some manly-colored wool for some nice dress-socks for him.



I bought a merino/silk blend roving from the Weaving Works (one of my local yarn stores), in an olivey-heather tone. Here is a picture of it next to the alpaca down:







Here is a picture of both fibers next to my Strauch handcarders:

I carded the alpaca with the merino/silk roving and started spinning it pretty finely onto my Majacraft Susie wheel. Here you can see the very beginnings of the bobbin:

Here is a shot of me drafting the alpaca rolag:

And here is the finished bobbin of alpaca/roving blend. I then made another ply of just the roving (since I have a whole 4 oz of roving):

The other pictures will be in the "Part 2" post. This site wouldn't let me post all the pictures in one blog (probably too big of an upload time)...