If Fiber Were Liquor

This would be smooth 12 year old Scotch.

Since I don't drink, fiber becomes the stress reliever of choice.  Last weekend, in an effort to deal with work stress, I started on this tri-color organic, naturally-colored cotton.  The previous picture was prior to washing and this is what it looked like after it got boiled with the washing soda:

The difference in color is more about how the cotton darkens after it's washing that about the difference in photo lighting.  250 yards of smooshy, cushy cotton.  Hummm...now, what can I make with it?

While I was busy spinning the cotton, there was something busy spinning other things around here:

Yep, and it was really as big as it looks. 

New Video

I just wrote a whole post that disappeared when I was trying to post it.  Never mind.  Here we go again.

I've just posted a new video on spinning cotton from the seed so give it a look.  Here's the link.  It came out of a program I've been preparing for the Prairie Weaver's group this coming Tuesday.  I thought this would be a fun way to have a follow up for those who want to go back and practice spinning from the seed (which, by the way, is my favorite way to spin cotton).

I also wanted to remind you that if you've ever wanted to try out spinning with a drop spindle and are in the Central Illinois area, be sure to sign up for my class at the Lincoln Land "Needle in a Haystack" event on January 15th.  There's still some room in the class.  You'll be able to put together your own spindle, learn the basics of handling fiber and get started spinning.  Although the class is a little over an hour, I'll be around all day in the demonstration area and you can bring your stuff over and we'll spin all day.  Here's a link to more information about the day and how to get registered.  There are lots of other classes, too.  Hope to see you there.

Never Ending Cotton

For those of you who have been following the Cotton Saga, here's the latest.

I met up with my mother in Oklahoma City on Saturday and we've worked our way to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  When we met up, she whipped a zippy bag out of her luggage and said, "Here you go.  The first gleanings!" 

Here's what I saw:

This is from the first few bolls and there are a ton more, she says.  I would venture to say there are about 60 seeds in this bunch, at least.  Can you believe it?  In just 90 days.  In all that we've been able to read, they're not supposed to start giving out until about 180 days.  I'm sure it's her green fingers! 

My step-father has kindly offered to care for the 26 plants while we're gone so KUDOS to him!

We're off to explore more.  We stayed around the historic downtown district yesterday.  The Georgia O'Keefe Museum was fabulous.  I never knew much about her, nor was I particularly interested but now I'm sold.  So interesting and such use of color and shapes.  No words.  Here's a little of what we saw...

Sampling

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend.  I spent mine visiting yarn shops in Bloomington, IL, such as MaryLynn's Yarn Garden and Ewe Knits.  Both are wonderful, warm, friendly spots and I thoroughly enjoyed the chats I had in both places.  Don't think I got out without buying stuff, either!  More on that another day.

The rest of the weekend I spent sampling, getting some knitting started and also some dull things like getting the house straightened and washing clothes and dishes.

The fun stuff included...

finishing a project I've had in mind for a long time, which was to spin some black wool roving to match some beautiful jewel tone Nashua Creative Focus worsted yarns I got in South Dakota a couple of years ago.  It's a wonderful singles yarn and, although the actual Nashua yarn is wool and alpaca, I just used wool for my version.

It was mildly successful but I really had a hard time walking the fine line between getting too much twist into the singles or not enough.  I knew, too, that no matter how little twist I was able to get away with, I would still have an unstable yarn.  But, lo and behold, the first time I've gone on Ravelry in about 3 weeks, I stumbled on a discussion string about this very thing and was told that it should go into a really hot bath then into a cold one and it should be "roughed up" (their term, not mine!).  This fulls (slightly felts) the yarn which gives it strength and stability for knitting.  Who knew?

Oh, yeah, the reason I wanted to do this is because I thought this yarn in colors I've got would make a wonderful mondrian sort of something.  I've always liked that look.  I'm thinking I might do some sort of bag.  That could be cool, right?

The other finished project pertains to some silk hankies I finally got spun.  These were a purchase from Stitches a couple of years ago.  I started spinning them by poking my finger through the middle and drafting out but then I thought I'd try spinning from the corner.  It worked a lot better for me so I'll definitely be using that technique in future.  I did a video showing how to do it and will post it when I get it edited.  It's nothing fancy but it does show the process.

I spun the singles medium to very fine and, of course, with the hankies you get a good bit of texture in the yarn.  Then I navajo plied it, mostly because I was too lazy to try to wind half of it off onto another bobbin.  They say that necessity is the mother of invention but I have to say that sometimes it's laziness that's the mother of invention.  I would never have originally thought to finish this as a 3-ply but it looks great and I'm much happier than I would have been otherwise.  And when I got it finished, I suddenly realized that the colors matched exactly some linen in my stash.  I've decided to do a little vest in stripes with the purple and green linen and this beautiful veriagated silk. 

But, is that all?  Nao, there's mooorah!  (Remember that from My Cousin, Vinny?)

Anyway, back to spinning...

I started playing around with some red hankies and red merino/bamboo that I think will go very pretty together.  And I started playing with some tri-colored cotton.  You can see a little of both here.

Last night at the spin-in I got 2 more of the samples spun up - the acala, which is one of the shorter cotton fibers, and the Egyptian, which I think is sort of in the middle of the staple length spectrum. Here's what I learned.

1. When they say cotton wants a lot of twist, they're not just whistlin' dixie. I've had the problem of thinking I had enough twist in my single, only to have the plies break while in the process of plying because the twist relaxes while plying. On the acala last night I spun until my long draw had what I thought was enough twist and then I put more twist in before I let it feed onto the bobbin. I only had 1 breakage on that sample whilst plying so I think I'm getting more of a hang on that now.
2. Patience is a virture. When I was drawing out the long draw, the intial draw was done quickly but the thinning out process needs to be done a little more slowly. Where you have thicker spots along the yarn, it does better and doesn't break as much if you get a little twist in those areas. So I was drawing out, letting the twist come up the strand, then drawing out a little more, a little more, letting more twist come in, etc., treadling all the while. Depending on the setting of the wheel, you may not have to treadle like speed racer, either. It's more about paying attention to the yarn.

2.b. It's amazing how little you need for the initial draw. Less is better because as you draw out to thin the yarn, you'll find you're reaching behind yourself if you're not careful!

1. I began to be able to feel when the yarn was pulling too fast or too hard and I began to use my forward hand to pull it back towards me if needed to make sure nothing it made it past my front hand without the twist needed.
2. There's so much to pay attention to - all of your limbs are doing something different so it becomes like patting your head and rubbing your tummy - that it's much better to practice in a quiet place with as few distractions as possible until you gain some proficiency. So far I've been doing it in groups but I haven't been able to pay too much attention to what's going on in the groups or participate in conversations. As soon as I did, whang, it would break.
3. Speaking of breaking, when you have a break, you lose the twist much more quickly than you do with wool or other fibers so you have to go back pretty far and make sure you've got hold of a bit that still has enough twist to hold together. Then you want to add more twist to that bit before you attach back the pieces that broke off. It's easy to add back those bits by just laying the ends down on the part that's twisting just in front of your fingers. They'll be grabbed up in the twist and you're off again. That's how you add on a new strand of sliver or top or whatever you're using, too.

I think that's all I know - keep in mind it's from a newbie but I think they are all valid points. Several people recommended a book by Paula Simmons called "Spinning for Softness and Speed" for a great explanation of the long draw. I haven't seen it but they thought it was a great book. Don't know about the availability, though, as it seems to be an older book.

I have the Pima sample still to do before I work on the Sea Island, which is supposed to be the ultimate in cotton fiber. She gave us a fairly large sample of the Sea Island so I think I'm going to try to get a good thread out of that and use it for my knitted doily.

Cotton Galore

What a weekend! We did just about everything you can do with cotton in every possible way with every possible variety of cotton fiber. Pat Maley from Cincinnati did the workshop and you really couldn't have had a more patient teacher or a more wide-ranging workshop. Starting out with raw cotton straight from the plant, we learned how to 'gin' the cotton with a stone and iron rod. With the cotton laying on the stone, you simply use the rod like a rolling pin and gently roll it over the cotton until the seed pops out the other side. Easy, peasy. Then to opening up the fibers, we used a bow where you simply ping the string over the top of the handful of cotton until it opens right up or you can use willow branches to open it or you can steam it and watch the fibers relax and open up.

We spun our freshly 'ginned' cotton then we spun the fiber straight off the seed. I think that was my favorite way of spinning and I plan on trying more of it.

We spun Acala, Sea Island, Upland, Egyptian, Pima, Fox Fibre (naturally colored cotton) and even cotton from pill tubes. Name it...done.

We spun on our wheels, tahkli spindles (a small support spindle), charkas (just about every kind) and electric wheels.

It's undeniably a challenge to spin but I was very pleased to have something to show at the end of it. It's not pretty but this is the skein...

It was fascinating to spin the naturally colored cotton and then watch it change colors as soon as it hit the steaming water. (To finish cotton yarn, you have to boil all the stuff off it after it's been spun.) I knitted it up just to have something from cotton I spun with my own little fingers.