When all else fails, read the directions

I love the Yarn Harlot’s blog. I quite enjoy starting my day as my computer is booting up sharing a little visit to see what’s happening in the Yarn Harlot’s world.

However, I have a little bone to pick with Ms. Harlot. Just a little one but here it is.

On a recent post, she was experimenting with some fiber she wanted to use on a project. She talked about her plans and experiments with the fiber and why she was deciding on one spinning method over another. Very nice. Very informative. But then she blithely mentions she thought she might cable ply it but I think, I can’t remember all the details, I think she decided against it because it didn’t bring out the colors of the fiber the way she wanted. I think that’s what happened but it’s not really important. What’s important is that she introduced me to something I’d never heard about before – cable plying. She did, however, mention it in the same breath as 3 and 4-ply. Breezy. Just like that.

So how hard could it be. You spin 4 singles (whichever direction you choose). You 2-ply 2 plies (the opposite direction of the singles). You ply the 2-plies together, in other words you cable them (in the direction of your singles). How hard could it be.

Ms. Harlot, I appreciate that you share both your fiber joys as well as your fiber pains and usually I find your blog very informative and fun. However, last night when I ended up with singles left over on 2 bobbins from a worsted 3-ply I was finishing up, I thought I’d try it. Singles. Ply. Cable. Right?

How shocked was I when I ended up with an overtwisted muddled, mess? Shocked and dismayed. But a little wiser. There’s more to this than meets the eye, I thought.

I let a ton of twist out of the yarn since it was only about 4 yards long and it’s pretty but very loose. I was determined to do better.

In the time honored tradition of when all else fails, read the directions, I went on Ravelry and found a post about this very problem in the Spin Tech group. One of the best things about Ravelry is never being alone with your fiber problems again. I love that. There was some explanation about the fact that you should spin your singles normally then totally overtwist your 2-ply. That way when you do the cabling, it will balance the yarn and “snap” together. “Snap” is the actual word used by Judith McKenzie MacCuin in her splendid and wonderful book, “The Intentional Spinner,” when talking about cabled yarn.

So I got out some generic roving I love to work with and spun away. I got 2 2-plies done and added what I thought was a ton of twist. Evidently even that wasn’t enough because this is what it did:

One thing I think I need to change is to set my wheel to take up the yarn much more quickly when I’m doing the cable part. That would mean less twist in the cabled yarn before it goes onto the bobbin. More experimenting is in order but I’ll be traveling the next week. I’ll see how it goes with a drop spindle.

So, thank you Ms. Harlot for sharing with me a new concept in spinning. For that, I’m grateful. For making it look so easy, not so much!

Three Sisters Folk Art School

Karen, Bill and I went over to Chillicothe, IL, yesterday afternoon for a presentation about a new Folk Art School that's being established at Three Sisters Park. There's a lot of history there that I don't have time right now to mention (click on their links and have a read) but it's a fascinating project that I hope I can be involved in some way.

There are folk art schools but mainly concentrated in the Carolinas and the Northwest. There is nothing really available in the midwest and these folks have a pretty ideal setting for it. The park is set looking out over the Illinois River and is an absolutely beautiful area. They've had one weekend of classes (dollmaking, relief carving, goard carving, quilting and some others I don't remember right now). There is another weekend set for November and then another in April. They're building up a contact list and are interested in talking to anyone who would like to be involved as a volunteer, advisor, teacher, etc.

There were quite a few people there yesterday and it sounds like, just among the group that was there, that most folk arts were covered - by interest, if not by expertise (and there was a lot of expertise there, I can assure you!). They have such a broad selection of classes already planned, from fiber arts to cooking to woodworking to painting to jewelry making and more.

You can sign up for email updates or find out how to contact them at their website.

Lace Galore

Just a quick post to show you the galore of lace that's been going on here lately. I've missed crochet. These are the crocheted 1918 doily at the left, a lady's hankie with crocheted edging at the top, the finally completed knitted 1918 doily at the right and my little handspun knitted doily in ecru. Sometimes I think I should have been a Victorian!

Handspun Ella

I will be making a visit home to Texas soon and while there my Mom and I are hoping to make a side trip to her home town, Rotan. Rotan is in Fisher County, the heart of cotton country and I want straight from the field cotton. I've been looking forward to this trip ever since the Spring when we had the cotton spinning workshop. I had a call with a very nice lady at the cotton gin who told me that the crop was going to be late this year but that we would be welcome to come and tour the gin and see how everything gets processed.

In preparation, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to some cotton and see if I remembered how to spin it. It's not necessarily pretty but I managed to spin about 65 yards of 2-ply Upland cotton yarn. I wasn't sure how much yardage would be needed for a doily and I didn't want to run out in the middle so I found the smallest knitted doily I could find! Here's what it looks like worked into the Ella pattern from Gloria Penning's "Danish Lace Treasures."

One thing I learned while spinning this, and I think I got better as it went along, is the rhythm of the long draw with cotton. When you draw your hand back, there can be slubs. You don't want to be in too big a hurry to draw these slubs out. That's where you get the thick and thin that doesn't ever want to thin out. You have to draw your hand back and let some twist go into the fiber, then you can draw it back a little further, let more twist in, draw a little further. It seems counter-intuitive but the more twist you add, the more it stabilizes those thicker slubs so when you draft it out further, there's something there to hold it together.

The thing I struggle with most in long draw is making sure that I have enough twist in the yarn before it feeds onto the bobbin. So this time I made my initial draw back shorter so there was less to work with on each draw then before I let it wind onto the bobbin, I pinched the yarn with my forward hand just a few inches away from the orifice and with my back hand just before the unspun fiber and gently pulled. When there wasn't enough twist I could fee the unstability because it would let me pull my hands apart. When there was enough twist, I could easily feel that it was solid and was ready to go. It really is about teaching your sense of touch to know when the yarn is stable. I still need a lot of practice but I'm feeling better about it.

Dyed in the wool

I just got word that all 3 classes I proposed to Lincoln Land have been taken up so I will be teaching the following classes this fall:

September 19 & 26 - Knitting mittens and gloves
October 10, 17 & 24 - Learning to knit socks by knitting a Christmas stocking
November 14 - Knitting Jewelry Wire & Beads

The catalogue is supposed to be out in early September but if you're interested in one of the classes or know somone who is, you can click here to see the LLCC contact information. To get ready for the mitten/glove class I've been dying yarn. It's a bit of work but it's lots of fun to see how they all come out. Here are some samples of what I've been doing:

I've used a variety of dying methods and dyes including Kool-aid (the red skein in the middle of the 3rd picture), Jacquard dye (blue skein and rose skein in the second picture)from KnitPicks, and Wilton icing dye (for the rest). I love the Wilton dyes because they will often break up and you get really interesting effects. For instance, the skein of aqua and purples in the last picture was done using the Wilton black icing dye. The purple/green/aqua mix in the first skein of the second picture was done by mixing the Wilton black and Wilton teal. I'm never sure exactly what I'm going to get but because the colors have been mixed for a certain effect, you can be sure the colors will blend in the skein. These skeins are all worsted weight yarn but I also need to do a few skeins of fingering weight. The mixtures from today have certainly given me some ideas for other mixtures!

I'm in love

Finished. I know I say it every time but I love this more than anything I've made in a long time. I don't know if it's the crochet, which I have neglected so much over the past couple of years, or if it's the connection to my Grannie, whom I loved and was my best friend, or if it's just the pattern that worked so elegantly from start to finish. Or maybe it was just the whole thing combined together.

From the outside in

I've never made anything like this before from the outside in. The construction has been so fascinating and I've really enjoyed making this. I suspect I'll do another one for me. The pattern writer made the comment that you could use a linen middle or you could crochet it like I'm doing. I think it might be interesting on another one to work it this far or maybe a little further and then use the linen for the middle. At this stage it looks like a flower. My Grannie would have loved this pattern and I love that.