Spinnin' Fool

I've had several spinning projects hanging around for several months. They're mostly well behaved but the last couple of weeks they've begun to mock me and have gotten gradually more irritating. So, for the peace of the house, I've been getting them cleared out.

I showed the 2 oz of lace weight that I finished up last week. That was fiber left over from a project that is now hanging out at the State Fair waiting for the judging to begin. I had another bunch of leftovers from that project, a silk/merino/angora blend that was probably just under 2oz. As with the other batch, I wanted to see how finely I could spin this. With the silk content helping, I discovered it was very fine indeed. I need to weigh the final skein but I ended up with more than 300 yds (before washing - probably around 270 after washing) of gorgeous bouncy fine lace weight yarn. 

Scrumptious!

What am I going to do with it?  It's going into a very special place in my stash reserved for the specialty lace weights in white that I've spin over the years. I have plans for a "white on white" project using these in their various shades of glorious whiteness. 

The other finished project?

Plump and squishy. Not sure yet but about 450 yards of heavy worsted softness. Probably a hat and mittens?  We'll see what the yarn decides to be. 

Finishing Up

For some reason, I've been on a big finishing binge lately.  I finished up a drop spindle project so I could have the skein for the class I just did at 365 Days on a Farm in Eldridge, IA (which was tons of fun, by the way):

I finished a bump of Louet Northern Lights wool that I've had on the Hitchhiker spinning wheel:

This is going to be used in a project with some black merino I'm going to spin one day.  I'm picturing a fair

isle yoke sweater with the black background and this wonderful gold/orange/red yarn as the pattern yarn.  Now I just need to get the black spun!

Then there's this funky yarn.  I bought this wool at a place in northern Illinois because I loved the colors - so tropical and luscious.  When I started spinning, however, I discovered the fiber was a really poor preparation and was yucky to spin.  I did a small skein from my first experiment and gave it away because I didn't like it.

But the fiber kept laying around and I finally decided if it didn't want to spin regularly, I'd spin a novelty yarn with it.  So here's what I came up with:

Finally, here's a skein from the final bag of Kickapoo Creek Alapaca fiber - a mixture of alpaca, merino and silk.  She always had her fiber prepared in a "cloud" which is not even close to being my favorite preparation.  I'd bought this fiber probably 4 years ago and had started spinning on it about 6 months ago.  Since it was on the bobbin, it got caught up in the fever.

I decided, since it's such a soft mixture, that I wanted to spin a worsted weight 3-ply that would be light and fluffy.  It actually came out just a little lighter than worsted but I'm really pleased with it. I spun this on a medium ratio and then plied it on a slightly higher ratio.  The thinking behind this is that when it's plied, you lose some of the twist from the singles.  When you ply on a higher ratio, you lose more of the twist.  That makes the yarn looser and lets the softer qualities come forward.  This photo is the skein before it's been washed.  Once it's washed it will fluff up wonderfully and I want to use it for a cowl.  I see a ribbed fabric just slightly fluted at both ends.

Not pictured here because they're not quite finished yet are a camel yarn that is in the process of being plied on the Minstrel and some Clun Forest that's being worked on the Fricke.  I don't have high hopes because I didn't do a very good job with the singles.  Comes from not being very good at the long draw.  I've been practicing, though, and I think I'm getting better at it.  The aforementioned Clun Forest, the Cormo I'm spinning and the Navajo Churro/Mohair fiber I'm spinning with the Navajo spindle (which I'm almost finished with, too) are all using the long draw so I'm getting lots of practice.

It's very satisfying to get things finished but I always get a little, ummm, sort of, well, shall we say driven.  Gotta go finish my camel.

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.

Spinning things

I've finished my first go at silk hankies spun on the wheel. It came out fairly well but I did make a few live and learn mistakes:

1. I didn't get enough twist into the singles. I think I assumed that because silk was such a long staple that it wouldn't need as much twist. I used the next to the largest ratio but I think I would use a smaller ratio because it really does need a lot more twist that I added.
2. I drafted it too thin. It works fine but I think I would prefer to have it a little heavier. I'm glad that I got 370 yards out of it (18 grams) but I think when I do the red hankies (23 grams) I'm going to for about 250 yards.

I also got a good start on the hand-painted wool I bought at Bishop Hill. I've got about a quarter of it left to spin for singles and then I think I'm going to 2-ply it. I've been debating about whether I want to Navajo ply to keep the color pattern or 2-ply. We'll see when we get there.

Road Trip

I had a bit of a get-away this weekend with a trip up to Madison, WI. The main reason for going was that I’d never been there and it was an easy long weekend trip. It wasn’t until after I’d planned the trip that I discovered it was the same weekend as the Jefferson County Sheep and Wool Festival. I also didn’t know that this was the BIG sheep and wool festival for Wisconsin, as I was told by one of the vendors. There were 2 large buildings just full of fiber and spinning wheels and fiber and looms and yarn and fiber.

Here are some pics:

There was also a sheepdog demonstration from a lady who ranches in southeastern Illinois. I didn’t get her name but she definitely knew her stuff. She was also spending time coaching some folks with sheep dogs that had not had any training. When I first got there, she was working with a man and his dog who was doing amazing. Little did I know that the dog had never herded sheep before that morning. Two hours of work she did with the dog and his owner and they were going through all the paces.

Then she brought out her dog. Wow. What a performance!

Fortunately I was only there for Sunday morning! But I got some yummy roving and a beautiful Border Leicester fleece. It’s so scrummy that I’ve been able to ‘card’ it with my fingers. It’s still in the grease but it’s only a light lanolin and there’s almost no vegetable matter. Can’t wait to get it spinning.

The roving I bought is a gorgeous dark green with black highlights. It’s the exact color I’ve been wanting for the fisherman’s sweater I designed a couple of years ago. Yes, the ‘pretty man sweater!’ I’ve been looking for more than 2 years for the right yarn in the right color and haven’t been able to find it. Well, now I just have to spin it!

I did also visit the 2 yarn shops I found in Madison – both very nice. One is a smaller shop but with some lovely yarns and lots of sweater samples. I found a pattern book from Gedifra Moments that really took my fancy. I’d never seen this company before and when I searched on it mostly found German and Greek web sites that carried it so I’m guessing European.

But it was at Lakeside Fibers that I fell in love. For it was there that I discovered the Weldon’s Practical Needlework series. Weldon’s was a late 19th century needlework magazine that was published in Britain. Obviously getting hold of a real copy of one of them is not easy these days and not at all cheap. But bless Piecework Magazine’s pea picking hearts, they republished them in a series of 12 volumes a few years ago. I knew nothing about this. I poured over the volumes for a long while before deciding which I was going to splurge on. I decided this was what I would spend my State Fair winnings for! I wish I could tell you how wonderful and amazing these reprinting are for a lover of vintage patterns. Sigh…. I’m still swooning just a little bit. Click on the Amazon.com link above and you can have a little peek into the volumes. Lightheaded. Ohhh… I’m okay, I’m okay. Whew.

All in all, quite a weekend! Just as well I was driving.

Ode to Wool

I love wool. Wool is cozy and warmy. Wool keeps the cold out and allows you to mock the below zero temperatures. Wool socks keep your tosies warmy and cozy. On top of all that wool is pretty.

Inspiration can come from anywhere - literally

Last year I watched a dvd of a British tv show (called Spooks in the UK but called MI-5 in the US). I love that show. This particular episode was one where a rogue newpaper publisher was trying to derail Israeli-Palestinian talks, killing the UN’s chief negotiator who was a friend of Adam’s. At the same time, Harry’s daughter, unbeknownst to him, is making documentary films about the Palestinian situation. By the time she gets onto his radar, she’s gotten herself into a situation where they can’t tell if she’s being run as a spy by the Israeli intelligence so Harry tries to come to her rescue. Adam stops him from blowing the operation until they understand more of what’s going on.

Now I tell you all of that to say, regardless of how pretty Rupert Penry-Jones (who plays Adam) is, the thing I couldn’t take my eyes off of and what I watched over and over with the remote and the pause button with my nose to the screen was his jumper. He had on this wonderful deep green chunky sweater and I had to figure out how it was made. I was obsessed. Now understand they were filming in winter (thus the jumper) so he often had a coat covering the pretty sweater. But I finally think I figured it out and decided to make my own version of it.

Now, because this was a test version and I didn’t want to spend loads and loads on some expensive chunky wool (which wouldn’t do for me anyway), I decided to use my favorite wool in the whole world. Not actually my favorite, favorite but I do love it, not least for the fact that it still has it’s wooly lanolin fleecy smell and I love that smell. Sometimes I open my craft closet where my fleeces are stored just to dwell in the smell of the fleece. Weird, I know but I’m not bothered. Not everyone enjoys this sheepy smell as much as I do but I’m not worried about them. It’s not like I force people to smell my closet.

Ah, yes, the wool. This is Fisherman’s Wool from Lion Brand. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best value in 100% dyable, feltable wool on the market – 465 yards for about $8. You can’t beat that with a stick. I always have a full stock of it on hand because, in addition to knitting beautifully, did I mention it dyes like a dream and felts like a charm?

But I digress. The sweater. The pretty man sweater.

So, I began my tests. After tons and tons of pausing and stepping through the scenes of the sweater (and he must have liked the sweater, too, because it was in a lot of scenes – cheers, mate) I decided it must have been a fisherman’s rib stitch (to go with the fisherman’s wool yarn – do you see something happening here?) using a chunky yarn and large needles. Since I have quite enough chunk without adding chunky wool to the mix, I decided to tone that part down a little and use the Fisherman’s Wool and size 7 needles for my gauge swatch.

You learn so much when you start playing around with things. I’ve always loved this double stitch but I can’t remember that I’ve ever made anything with it. It’s just lived in the back of my imagination waiting for the perfect project. One thing I learned from my lovely swatch is that this is an extremely stretchy-in-the-width stitch. Extremely. My normal long-tail cast on would never be able to corral this wild stitch. But I found that if I use the backwards e cast on or backwards loop or whatever you want to call it – it’s just throwing loops onto the needle with them flipped to the back – I could accommodate the stretchiness of the pattern without it going crazy. I also learned that, in order to get anything approaching an accurate gauge, the swatch needs to be stretched width-wise slightly. Did I mention the pattern is stretchy? Yes? Good.

Once I had the gauge all figured out, I got stitches on the needle and started knitting. Once you get the rhythm of the knit 1 stitch, knit in the stitch below the next stitch, it’s pretty fast until you get to the armhole shaping. Then I had to figure out a) how to work the first armhole decrease, and b) how to start the cable and bring it up the raglan sleeve. Oh, yeah, the pattern was a raglan sleeve with a pattern running up the decreases. I don’t even remember now if it was a cable but I’m thinking it was. Anyway, in my world a cable wove its way up the raglan. I decided a 6-stitch cable would be the right size to both travel up without making things too funky and big enough to stand out and be noticed.

So far so good. Now the sleeves. Of course, the only thing with the sleeves was to get the right number of stitches cast on and then figure out how many I needed there to be at the widest point. From there you just have to figure out how many increase rows you need and how you want to spread these over the body of the sleeve. If you add more decreases early, you have a more blousy sleeve. If you add them later, you get a more form fitting sleeve. I wanted somewhere in between so I sort of made it up as I went along, making the decreases fairly even up the sleeve body. The armhole shaping for the sleeves was a doddle because of the nature of the raglan. It was exactly the number of rows and frequency of decrease and the front and back pieces (minus the cable stitches) so they would fit together perfectly. Done.

I had the cable follow all the way up the raglan into a cozy, almost turtleneck collar. I continued knitting for about another 2 inches so I could fold over and hem the collar on the inside. Now, I not only have a sweater that double thick (because of the way each stitch is knitted twice) but the collar is quadruple thick (because the stitches are knitted twice and I have 2 layers of fabric). There you have a cozy, comfy pretty man sweater – for a woman. The pretty man was just the inspiration. Well, not actually the pretty man – it was actually the pretty man’s sweater. Actually I guess this sweater could be for a man with a few alterations. Not many. Just a few.

I absolutely love the finished item and wore it all the time last winter. As I was making it I did take notes and even managed to get the pattern mostly written. In fact, it’s written to the collar decreases and I’m working on the test sweater now so I can make sure everything fits together. It’s a challenge to keep track of trial and error. I don’t know about you but, with most things, I usually sort of poke around until I find something that works but I often don’t remember what I did to get there.

I’ve had to make a few corrections and, ahem, refinements to make the pattern flow and be intelligible to anyone other than me but I loved the exercise of capturing the process in a reproducible form. It’s made me much sharper in examining what I do and has helped me to think more critically about my craft. As they tell me Dobie Gillis used to say, “Good stuff, Maynard.”

I'm planning on making the pattern available to puchase on my website at http://www.wandagraysondesigns.com/ as soon as I finish the testing and get the pattern prettied up.

By the way, you’ll have to watch the episode to find out what happens to Adam and Harry and Harry’s daughter and all the others. Very exciting.