In which I actually do something

A couple of months ago, planning a trip to the Hudson Valley, I made a map of every fiber store and sheep-farm I could find on the interwebs between my house and my Mom's. The map didn't keep me from getting horribly and hopelessly lost, but whatever. By the time I reached my parents' house, I had filled up the back of my little car with all kinds of goodies, most of which are sitting, uncarded, in bags scattered around me as I'm writing this. Since Mr. Jane was dragged along on this adventure, he decided to make the best of it and pick out some fun fiber and then force me to spin it and make him a present. He decided on this:



It's natural brown alpaca fiber. Now this trip was back when I had spun a grand total of 4 bobbins of anything. I came home, very excited and tried to start making yarn out of it. I failed. I wasn't used to the longer fibers, which don't glide easily through each other and your fingers. I made a mess and put the alpaca away until I got better at this game. After 6 of 7 more skeins of regular wool, bamboo, and soy I tried again:



I figured, since I had to spin pretty much all of this stuff, I would fill the bobbins right up with singly-ply and then just use several bobbins when I plied it together. Here's what we wound up with:



And in the ball:



So in the meantime, Mr. Jane came home from Pittsburgh and got to work flipping through my Ravelry account, searching for a hat that he wanted. He decided on a pretty simple Fisherman's Hat, started here:



And finished and wrapped around his head here:



It's itchy, I'm told.

In which I cheat by using nicer wool

A few weeks ago, Mr. Jane had to go to Pittsburgh for a week and I had too much time on my hands. The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival was only a couple of weeks away, but this did not stop me from visiting a local spinning shop with my partner in crime, Lana. We were disappointed with the shop, as well as the staff, so we will skip the free publicity. On the plus side, I bought this:



Which I promptly turned in 155 yards of this:



This yarn spun up so fast and so well. It's super soft and very consistent.

While I was at the yarn store, I also bought some yellow acid dye, which I had never used before and didn't really understand too well. Never buy yellow acid dye.