More than one way to skin a skein

I’ve started working on a post over the last couple of weeks but just haven’t been able to get everything together at one time.

I’m not going to go through the new hats but here’s a picture of the collection.  I gave away the alpaca fair isle one to a friend but I’ve got plenty more where that came from so I think there is one more hat in my future but for the most part I think it’s over.  For now.  Except the one I’ve got going to match the scarf I made with the last of the Kickapoo Creek silk/merino/alpaca.  That’s all.   I think.

I had a great time once again at the Bishophill Spin-In.  There were some unexpected surprises and some intoxicating fibers.  The 2 big surprises (no, make that 3) came from a stall run by a couple who were disposing of an estate that comprised 7 storage lockers of crafting treasures.  From them I obtained some very rare and exciting bobbin lace books (scoooore!), a Schacht warping board (20 yard warping board that probably cost over $200 for $35) and a bobbin lace bobbin winder (that usually costs more than $100 for $30). 

Wasn’t expecting those at all.  I’d been pricing warping boards because the only one I have is a small one on the back of my rigid heddle loom.  Problem is if I have that loom warped (which I do), I can’t use the warping board.  

But, on to the fiber, which is the whole reason for going there.  I’ll tell you more about the fleece I got another time but I also got the most beautiful roving from a local farm.  The sheep is Blue-faced Leicester.  It is the best prepared roving I’ve ever had.  It’s from Floya’s Fleece (sorry, no website link can I find).  She’s from Chana, IL, and her fiber is fabulous.  I got a mixture of white, med brown and dark brown and I’m going to do something special with it. I’m just itching to spin it but I don’t want to be rushed with other things.  I want to just enjoy the process.

I also got a fiber mixture from Fae Ridge Farm which I wasn’t at all convinced I really wanted but I have a very pushy friend.  Never go shopping with Mary if you don’t have an iron will.  I’m just saying.  Anyway, I’ve lost the tag that gives all the fibers mixed for this roving but I just wasn’t convinced except I really liked the colors.  Definitely not love at first sight but the second I started spinning, I started getting courted.  Then I plied and got wooed.  And then I washed and I was hooked.

It was in a cloud preparation, which I 'm particularly fond of, and I’ve spun it to a 3-ply almost worsted weight.  So far I have about 200 yards with probably another 100 to go and, although the intention was to spin a sock yarn, I’m not sure that’s what this lovely stuff wants to be.  It’s predominantly Border Leicester so it’s not totally soft (although it’s really pretty wonderful) and it’s a little chunkier than I would normally have for socks…we’ll have to see.

But the thing I look forward to every year is the dyed silk hankies from Lone Tree Wools.  I get them every year and every year they’re the first thing I spin and I can’t wait until the next year to get more.

You know I love to spin hankies.  I spin them corner to corner and have posted a video to show how I do it (in case you’re interested).  But I’ve discovered that it doesn’t do very well as a 2-ply yarn.  I really like it to have 3 plies – gives it a bit of structure.  I’ve had this discussion with several friends lately and seem to have some support on this but I’ve never looked up the discussions on Ravelry to see what the wider opinion is.  I don’t guess it really matters, it’s my yarn and I’ll make it like it want to.

But this brings us to a dilemma that every spinner faces from time to time.  How many plies?  After you’ve spent all this time spinning the singles, do you go for the yardage or do you go for the perfect yarn?  Of course, with every ply you add, you decrease your yardage by a significant amount.  Having the perfect yarn, though…

So I decided on a 3-ply but I didn’t want to do a Navajo ply with this because silk doesn’t absorb that little bump you get at the end of each chain like wool can.  I tried to guestimate* how much to spin onto each bobbin and got pretty close on the first 2 but the third bobbin was a lot more.  Coulda, woulda, shoulda.  It just was.

I tried to figure out how best to do it so that I could spin a true 3-ply off of my 3 uneven bobbins and here’s what I came up with.

I had 2 pretty even bobbins so I left the singles on those bobbins.

Then I wound the 3^rd bobbin into a ball.

To begin with, I spun with the inside and outside ends of the ball along with one of the bobbins – 3 strands.  I continued that until I realized I was going to run out of the ball then I started using 1 strand from the ball with strands from each of the bobbins.  I did that until the ball ran out.  At that point, I was close to the end but I had about twice as much on one bobbin as I had on the other.  So I wound the long bobbin strand on my hand and Andean plied the hand strand with the remaining bobbin strand until I was finished.  

It worked out beautifully.  Once the strand on my hand was finished, I had about 4 inches on the remaining bobbin.  Pretty darn close.  Can’t wait to wind this off and get it washed!

The moral of the story is there’s more than one way to get a 3 ply yarn.

* Just a little note to say that an organized spinner would have separated her fiber out before she started spinning so that all 3 bobbins were even to begin with.  I had my reasons.

The hats just keep coming

The hat thing hasn't lifted yet although it is starting to slow down, I think.  That's because I'm almost finished with the first skein of red merino so I can start swatching for my Bohus sweater.  But while I"m at it...

I had some gray alpaca left over from the hat for my friend's aunt and I had some blue left over from my blue hat.

Bam!  How cool is that?!  I love this hat.  I adore this hat.  Alpaca and Blue faced leicester, 2 of the softest, coziest fibers in the known universe.  The electric blue against the gray.  I love this hat so much that I've been wearing it around the house.  I have to take off from time to time because, of course, it's not cool enough yet to wear this hat for real and my head gets too hot.  So I take it off until I'm cooled off and then it goes right back on.

Then, for something different, I decided I would make a hat from the Entre to Entrelac book by Gwen Bortner.  She's got some cool stuff in the book which I think is worth the effort to understand the patterns and techniques.  It is an effort to follow the shorthand used and you will need to refer to 2 or 3 sections of the book at once so keep some sticky notes handy so you don't lose your place but what you get out of it will entertain, intrigue and delight you.

For me, it was the hat pattern that I wanted to try. 

 The brown is alpaca/merino/silk that I got from Kickapoo Creek Farms that no longer exists.  It was such a lovely preparation.  Wish I could find more of it.  The black was supposed to be alpaca but wasn't.  Alpaca would have been better - this isn't nearly as soft. 

For the first part of the hat, I used each of the yarns double since it was such a large needle size (for me - US size 7).  I don't like it and wish I hadn't done it but by the time I'd decided that, it was too late and I wasn't up for undoing it.  So for the entrelac section, although I used the basics of the pattern in the book, I did my own thing and did it with single strands.  The pattern called for decreasing stitches down to make six entrelac panels.  I didn't decrease; I made eight.  The pattern called for just 3 sections, I made 4, repeating the brown for the final section. 

To me, that kept the poofy quality of the entrelac and made it a better fit for me.  I obviously have a way bigger head than most hats patterns are written for.  One really clever thing the pattern did was calling for the sections to be stitches together at the top.  I love that feature of the hat.  The only thing I decided it needed, though, was the little black section to close up the hole and to finish the hat off.  Having just the brown there looked too unfinished.  All I did was crochet some stitches around for a couple of rounds and then closed it up.  That helped a lot.

I think this is a hugely creative use of entrelac and I will definitely want to do this hat again.  Next time, though, I may just go for a solid color all the way through.  I think first, though, I need to hit the fiber stash and spin a little more because I've used up almost all my handspun.  Mon Dieu, what shall I do?

I know, next Saturday is Bishop Hill Spin-In.  Maybe I need some more fiber....

Hat, hats and more hats

And a cowl.  And gloves.

First of all, let me reiterate that I'm not really a hat person.  I like them but I tend to look pretty silly in them.  In saying that, I have no idea why I'm so into hats right now.  Can't get enough of the them.  Need hats.  Need more hats.

Part of the seduction (for seduction it is), I think, is that it's a good project for handspun.  You don't typically have tons of yardage out of your handspun unless you're spinning for a particular project and a hat is a good project that doesn't take loads of yarn.  But that's always been true and this has only descended on me over the past couple of months.  Hummm...

So, here's the latest in the line and it comes with a bit of a silly story.

I saw this pattern in the magazine.  But like any lazy knitter, I saw the pretty picture, didn't read the pattern and chose the yarn I wanted to use.  I sat down with said pattern and said yarn and needles to go with said yarn only to discover that the pattern called for a worsted weight yarn and US size 6 & 7 needles.  Said yarn was lace weight and chosen needles were US size 3 & 4. 

Not to worry, the band is made flat, you just repeat the pattern until it's long enough to go around the head.  No problem, right?  Actually there wasn't a problem with that part.  What was the problem is that said yarn was actually this slightly variegated bfl yarn AND another handspun lace weight corriedale in a solid color that I thought would go with it.  I made the band, sewed it together, picked up the stitches for the crown with the solid color, knit the crown (only not floppy like this - it was more fitted), finished the hat and decided the colors definitely did NOT go together.  They were sort of the same ball park but off enough to set your teeth on edge.

For some reason I didn't want to rip it out so I went back and picked up stitches with the same yarn I'd used for the band and upped the needle size to the size 4 and I finished the crown.  Again.  What I ended up with was a double layer hat with a lacy edging and I really quite fancy it!

But before I'd even got the hat finished (the second time), I knew there had to be gloves.  I love gloves and the lace weight was the perfect weight for good gloves that you can wear and still move your fingers in.  So I used my basic glove pattern working in the lace pattern from the hat band into the back of the glove.  You can't see it very well in the photos but just look at the hat.  It's the same pattern.

The other thing I finished this weekend as I watched the first three seasons of Leverage (which I am totally addicted to, by the way) is the Tilting Tardis Cowl.  This was a hugely clever pattern posted on Ravelry by Marilyn Phillippi.  She adapted a Barbara Walker lace pattern to look like little Tardises (Tardi?) hurtling through space and time and I just couldn't resist.  I'd started this ages ago but it was one of those projects that gets buried in the stash until the proper time.  It made it to the surface this weekend as I cleaned and organized the craft room (and watched the first 3 seasons of Leverage) and I had to finish it.

I don't think it was supposed to be big enough to cover the head but after it was washed, it became this size and I couldn't be more thrilled because I do love this kind of option to cover one's head but then be able to drop it around the neck for storage, as it were.  I think I'll be wearing this a lot in the coming months.

Getting through the pile

A while back I decided to try to start knitting through my handspun stash and I'm finally making a dent.  The other thing I've had a hankering for is knitting hats.   I'm not really sure why because I'm not a big hat person but for some reason I have this craving for hats.  Here's the latest:

You can't see it so well but there is a cabled band around the bottom edge.  The advantage of this, which I feel is going to pay off later, is the double thickness of cushy BFL around my ears.

There really is just not enough time to do everything but this is where I'm at on my bobbin lace bookmark:

Some of it has been a little more successful than others but I think it will be pretty.  If I ever get it finished, that is.  I've got a couple of days off coming up so maybe I can get this finished up and make a dent in my yardage piece.  I'm up to 22 inches on that, I think.  Or is it 24.  But do you think I can find a tape measure?  When you only own 15 tape measures, you can't expect to always be able to put your hand on one. 

I'm going hunting...

Bits and Bobs

There's nothing organized about this post, just some things that got started, some things that got finished and some things that are in progress.

First of all, one of the challenges of spinning is figuring out what you're going to do with the yarn and if you have enough for what you'd like to do.  A couple of weeks ago, I spun some yarn from batt.  I wasn't that thrilled with the yarn but decided I would do a scarf/snood/whatever it came out to be.  I cast on in the round and started working up.  I decided on the way up that I'd cast on too many stitches so I did some decreases and then started a nice little lace pattern.  My mistake in casting on turned out to be a really nice little collar that lays flat across the shoulders.  Nice.  Once I got to the lace pattern, I decided I would just knit until the yarn finished and then I would stop.  Here's what I got:

I'm still not that crazy about the yarn but I've very happy with the final result.  The only problem is that it's not quite long enough to cover the whole head.  Never mind.  It makes a nice scarf anyway.

The second project came out of a conversation I had on Saturday at a birthday party.  We were waiting for the birthday girl when I got talking to a lady.  In the course of the conversation, we talked about alpacas and how if someone is allergic to wool, they can often wear alpaca.  Later in the conversation, we were talking about the cold weather and she made the comment that she looked for a knitted hat last winter and the only one she could find made her itch because it had wool in it.  She added that she was always looking for a knit hat with a pom-pom on the top like she had growing up.

Now, as a spinner and knitter, how could I not take up that challenge?  It's our goal in life that those lacking in fiber shall have it in the form and manner that would give them most joy.  When I got home, I had a look through my handspun stash to see if I had any alpaca that would serve.  What I found was a skein of medium grey alpaca singles that I'd spun probably 5 or 6 years ago - 460 yards of it!  I decided to go ahead and ply it and then use it for a knit hat - with a pom-pom.  I just used a basic recipe for a knit hat and whipped it up.  It doesn't yet have the pom-pom because I'm waiting for it to dry but I'm happy with how it came out and I think she'll like it.

This photo is not very good color but it shows the style anyway.  You can see the true color in the photo of the snood since it's fitted underneath it on the model.  If you're interested in the hat pattern, here's what I did.

With US size 4 needles and a yarn that was probably equivalent to DK or a light worsted, I cast on 80 stitches.  I worked knit 2/purl 2 ribbing for about 3 inches.  I then changed to US size 5 needles and knit in stockinette for about 6.5 inches more (9.5 inches in all).  Once I got it long enough so that it could be turned up at the cuff, I did the decrease this way:

Round 1: Knit 2 together.  Repeat around.
Round 2: Knit around
Repeat these 2 rows 2 more times (10 stitches remain)

Cut the thread, leaving a tail of about 10 inches.  Using a tapestry needle, thread the yarn through all the stitches twice.  I left the tail because I'll use that to help tack down the pom-pom.  That's all there is to it.  I used double pointed needles but, of course, you could use any technique you prefer.

I have been back working on my bobbin lace projects, too.  One of them is an attempt to make an entire yard of a bobbin lace pattern - a challenge instituted by the LACE group I'm in in Chicago.

I've got about 20 inches so far and I feel like a big girl lacer!  I'm working on a travel pillow that I made myself using some travel bobbins.  Although the pattern is a simple one (as befits my exceedingly amature status), I've had to do things like take out sections where I'd made mistakes, move the pattern on the pillow (which isn't as simple as it sounds) and add new threads as the bobbins have run out of thread.

Colors

When I was in Kentucky earlier this year, I got a copy of the book, "Poems of Color: Knitting in the Bohus Tradition" by Wendy Keele.  I'd heard of this style of knitting but didn't know too much about it.  Reading about it and seeing the patterns made me absolutely want to knit one (or 10).  The one that intrigued me was one that has a solid color body and a yoke knit with a number of shades of a color, sort of shimmering back and forth through the shades.  I'd been wanting to play with blending colors with my hand cards (since I don't have a drum carder) so this seemed like the perfect project.

I decided to do the body in red and do the colors shaded from a yellowish white through to red and back.  Seven shades.  Like this:

To add to the project, I decided I needed to spin this yarn in the proper woolen manner, which I'm not very good at.  The base fiber I used for these colors was blue-faced leicester which I found to be really too long a staple to spin very well from the rolag.  You may disagree but keep in mind my lack of experience is a factor here. 

I have been practicing other than these skeins with spinning from the fold and spinning from rolags and I think I'm getting better but I definitely need to get some help.  When I get some time I need to hunt through YouTube to see some examples of people spinning woolen from rolags because I want to be a little better before I start spinning for the body of this sweater.  I reckon I'm going to need at least 1,200 yards of the main red color for the body.  Best way to learn is to have a goal, though, so I'm hoping my technique will improve with practice.

Back to the book, the thing I love about this book is that for each of the 7 or 8 styles they have patterns for, each style has a pattern for pullover, cardigan, jacket and hat.  I love the flexibility that gives you to explore each pattern.  If you want to explore Bohus Stickening (Bohus Knitting) more, start here or do a search on it and see examples of the patterns. Warning:  You'll definitely want one!

It's all a Dream

I had a dream last night. In my dream, I was in a plant room.  There were several people there but I don't think I knew them.  The lady whose plants they were was playing hostess, answering the various questions about the plants.  As the visit was winding down, I found myself asking her questions like, "What's the most unusual way you've obtained a plant?"  "Which plant surprises or surprised you the most?" "Which plant gives you the most pleasure?" "Which plant is the most meaningful?"

The questions surprised her and as she started answering them, the plant room, all of a sudden, became more personal.  She became more thoughtful and softer as she let the questions take her back to her encounter with each of the plants.  She told me the plant she'd obtained in the most unusual way was a little ground plant.  As she pointed out a little plant, close to the ground with pinkish, red leaves or blooms or whatever they were, she began to tell me the story of how she was in a cab one day and began to talk to the cab driver, as you do.  They got on to plants and talked plants until they arrived at her destination.  As she was getting out and paying him for her trip, he reached down into the floorboard, brought up this little plant and gave it to her.  He didn't tell her anything about it or why he would have a plant in his cab but he said he wanted her to have it because he knew she would appreciate it.

I could tell that this gesture touched her deeply as her eyes began to moisten.  She got hold of herself and continued with her story but I knew that when I asked her which plant was the most meaningful to her, this would be the one she would go back to.

For the rest of the tour through her room and the stories she told me in response to my various questions, she has a deep, satisfied expression on her face.  The gift the cabbie gave her that day was working its magic all over again.  From that point, too, she was more animated about the history of the various plants, giving the proper and common names for each. (I should tell you that I know nothing about plants and have no idea what names she used - it was probably one of those dream things where I heard whaaa, whaaa, whaa but knew that's what she was telling me.)

I actually remembered the dream when I woke up, although it's fading now, but what I took from it was this.  Whatever your passion is, whether it be yarn or fiber, spinning wheels or looms, coins or angels or books, salt and pepper shakers or music or figurines, whatever that thing you have gathered around you, go and pull it out or look around your display cases or pull out your displays, and remember why you started collecting.  Really look at it again and remember where you got some of the items.  Do they remind you of a wonderful vacation or a dear friend or loved one who gave it to you to feed your passion?  Did you just love the colors or the feel of it?  Let it give you again, that feeling your first had when you saw it.  Was it excitement or satisfaction or humor or love or being loved?  Appreciate it all over again.

And if it doesn't give you that same thrill, why not pass it on to someone else and start over with something that you do feel passionate about now, right now, in your life.  In the immortal words of Rob Thomas, "No one said we have to keep the things we get."  Don't let sentiment hold you back.  Keep your fresh passion fresh abd let someone else appreciate the things that once thrilled you.