new drumcarder

i received my deb's delicate deluxe drum carder from pat green carders ltd. a week ago. it is beautiful. my first carding project will be blending buffalo down and icelandic fleece. i washed the buffalo this spring and it clumped together so i have been precarding with hand carders before blending with the icelandic. the buffalo has a lot of vegetable matter that hopefully will fall out with the hand carding, we shall see...

i am also making good headway on the oakleaf socks i like knitting the pair at the same time even though it sometimes feels like it is taking forever to knit the socks. i know i will be pleased to finish both socks at the same time. the pattern is mostly in my head now which is great. it is quicker to see and correct mistakes and i need only glance at the pattern to know what to do next, much faster.

i have started spinning the penultimate roving of the doghair polworth blend. i'm not sure what i will ply it with as yet. i have some black alpaca, hand dyed polworth roving called autumn garden i could use or simply make a two ply of the doghair blend. i like the idea of the latter as i could use it to knit the sleeves for a gabsey and use the aurora polworth/ doghair blend for the body of the gansey. you can never have too many of these warm sweaters here in canada.