Tomorrow afternoon my Jersey friends arrive and the drinking begins! I have about 24 hours left to get the place in shape, and I'm almost there. But first, I there is procrastination to be attended to. Like checking out the new Magknits. Only one thing appeals to me, though: Lemonade. I love this! I'll probably go with wool and make it long-sleeved for fall wear. I'll probably have to redesign the whole thing to make it work for me, but it looks pretty straightforward and easy. I love the shape and the neckline and the single button.

I don't know when I'm going to make it, since I seem to be way more interested in spinning lately than I am in knitting at all. I'm on a fat singles kick since they're so fast and fun. Here's the yarn I spun last, the polwarth I mentioned before is on the left and on the right is a skein of corriedale (both hand-dyed). The yarn is lighter than worsted weight; I'm having some trouble making the singles fat enough. I'd like a worsted to heavy worsted single for felting. So far, corriedale is my favourite fibre to spin this way. The skeins are about 4 oz. each. I spun them on the Lendrum, which I am starting to prefer for thicker yarn now that I have the two wheels.

I also just finished this merino 2-ply. It's a squishy worsted weight, maybe a bit on the heavy side. I didn't measure WPI or YPP or anything on these yarns. I'm trying to keep a notebook with these kinds of details but it's hard to force myself. I dyed this fibre too, in shades of peach and silver-grey. There's lots here, 218g. It turned out just right. I love this one.

I guess you could pack more onto one bobbin than this, but I'm not going to try it. It's pretty much the George's wallet of bobbins. Don't add any more to it, or it'll explode!

These singles are having a soak right now. When the hank dries, the yarn should be perfect for felting. We'll see tomorrow! If it works out, Freakgirl, this yarn is yours.

I cast on for these socks the other day and they are really short and cute. Once they're done I was thinking of crab-stitching the top, to give it a picot appearance. Picot hems on socks tend to feel very thick to me, so I wanted to try it a different way. The yarn is pretty nice, wouldn't you say?

This is what's left to ply of my second batch of corriedale, which is being immediately knitted into this shawl:

I think it's going to drape really nicely. I just hope I have enough yarn to make it a decent size. I should probably have used a slightly larger needle. Anyway.

What else have I been doing?

A little of this.

And that.

And this, too:

My handspun on display:

It's a bit blurry because I didn't have the greatest light, but she's pretty just the same! This is my new Majacraft and I love it. I've had it a couple of weeks now. It took me a few days of fiddling and getting to know the wheel but now it's worked in smoothly and I like it more than my Lendrum. Eventually I plan on selling the Lendrum and replacing it with a Little Gem, because I love the way the Majacraft wheels have interchangeable parts and bobbins.

This is one of my latest handspun yarns. It's superwash merino roving, hand dyed by me and spun to a fingering weight of about 1800 ypp. I'm not sure of the exact specs because I can't find where I wrote them down. This yarn was spun on the Lendrum and plied in record time on the Rose.

I did complete another skein of yarn, this time in some hand dyed corriedale, but I forgot to take a picture. This yarn I spun and plied entirely on the Rose, and it's my finest yet, at 2000 ypp. I've already started knitting with it: I'm making Evelyn Clark's Flower Basket Shawl. I dyed 8 ounces of the fibre, and I'm in the middle of spinning the remaining 4 ounces now.

Now, have some kitties:

Continue reading "New Addition"

We had a wonderful time, and I really miss them. After visiting us, Marjon and Ivon headed down to the Finger Lakes in NY. While they were here we ended up going to Centre Island and the CN Tower, which I hadn't been to in ages. I'll post a few shots of the weekend as soon as I feel like going through all of our pictures.

For now, I've got some shots of the stash I scored in Oakville at The Wool Bin. They're really friendly and they carry Koigu! We happened to be in the area a few weeks ago for my cousin's wedding with a couple of hours to kill between the ceremony and reception.

I got two skeins each of four colours. I didn't like any of the colours for a shawl, so they're going to be for socks. I started a pair of Monkeys with the yellow.

I also got a couple of skeins of Sea Silk - one in gold and the other in shades of sea blues. I thought I'd combine them to make a shawl, since I was in Sea Silk Shawl Withdrawl. I managed to finish my Leaf Lace Shawl in time to wear it to the wedding (finally, a finished object to show off!).

The shawl used up almost exactly two full skeins of Sea Silk, knit on a 3.5mm needle. I had just under half a skein left after the 19th repeat, so I decided to knit the edging at that point and as it turned out, I had exactly enough yarn leftover to add seven 12" strands of yarn, looped in half and knotted, as fringe along the entire shawl. Perfect.

Finally, here's my (almost) latest handdyed handspun. It's all superwash merino. Both yarns are similar in grist, but I didn't measure yet so I don't have any details. The green one is from the fibre I dyed here, and I rather think it looks more like green grapes than it does olives. The green and orange fibre was dyed the same night.

The latest spun yarn is sitting in its finishing bath right now, and I'm about to go slap it about and hang it to dry. It's 4oz of the polwarth that I dyed with Rochelle back in April.

On the left we've got about 311 metres of superwash merino from some roving that I dyed in blue, orange and yellow. It was so much brighter in the roving, but I left a lot of white which toned down the intensity of the colour. On the right you see about 268 meters of blue-faced leicester, dyed by Fleece Artist in a slightly varigated pink. I normally don't like pink very much but for some reason, I loved this shade.

I'm pleased with these. The merino is loftier than the BFL and surprisingly, more wraps per inch at 17 to the BFL's 16. The grist of the two yarns surprised me considering the merino looks like a DK and the BFL seems to be a fingering. The BFL is definitely more dense, but to be honest, my measurements could be completely lacking. My scale is good to within one gram, but the yardage is at best an estimate since I measure the distance around the skein and then multiply it by the number of strands. I want one of these.

Blue and orange merino: 118g, 311m (341yds), 1323 YPP, 17 WPI
Pink BFL: 105g, 268m (293yds), 1266 YPP, 16 WPI

Last night Jeremy helped me dye up some more fibre and this is what I'm spinning today - superwash merino dyed in olive shades.

I finished my first Bruise sock, ain't it purdy? It's 3x1 ribbed all the way down, regular slip-stitch gusset heel. 60 stitches around, 7sts to the inch, made with my handspun corriedale. I cast on for the second one, but I have honestly been so fickle lately, don't count on me to finish it.

I also spent about an hour out on the deck with my spinning wheel. I've got a class tomorrow and the last couple of days have been about clearing up my bobbins so I have something to spin on. It's so nice outside. Cool and breezy. I guess it's time to clean up our deck and get to using it! I just hope it's not long before I STOP reaching to the patio table for my goddamn nonexistent cigarettes! Today is 91 days smoke-free for us, and this old habit is dying so, so hard.

So here's the red and black roving from Saturday, and I would say it looks great except for a couple of spots where the red didn't cover up a few pasty, pale grey bits. Pinch those out, and it's going to spin up really nicely.

I also finished spinning and plying this batch of 2-ply hand-dyed polwarth this weekend. I was going for spring greens, and I only wish I took a photo of the roving before I spun it because it was so pretty. It's 331m and 117g, which is just over 4 ounces and approximately 363 yds. YPP is 1408, and WPI is 17. Not bad. The colours are really well-balanced.

I meant to take a few more photos, but it started storming and it's much too dark. I wanted to show the roving in browns I made on Saturday. It's very muted and it's going to look great spun up, but I was going for deeper, bolder colours. Over the next couple of days I'm going to make some stronger, deeper stock solutions.

I also navajo-plied some roving I dyed a couple of weeks ago, to see how the colours would work out. I love it, and I'm going to do the rest of the roving this way. The sample is a bit overplied, though. My hands are starting to get pretty fast at chaining the singles and I've found a comfortable way to work, but I'm still slightly slower than when I spin or 2-ply, so I need to lower the wheel ratio when I ply this way.

Rochelle came over this morning with her new Victoria which is so small, I accidentally ate it with some fava beans and a nice chianti. (No I didn't.) It's certainly very cute, and so light! It comes with an awesome carrying case into which it fits so precisely, there is a specific method you need to use to get it out and back in again.

Then we talked, then we dyed some fibre. We decided to do 8 ounces together, and we chose a couple of shades of red with black for contrast. We lay down plastic wrap and poured bits of colour here and there, then wrapped it up and put it in the top half of the pasta pot I use only for fibre.

I have two black enamel roasters, so for our next trick we each did 4 ounces in different colours. I made mine shades of brown and Rochelle did reds and purples. These went into the oven for a half-hour.

When it was time to rinse the steamed fibre (red and black), all of the dye started rinsing out! I was so upset. I was sure we'd left it in there long enough, but now that I'm thinking about it, I have never done 8 ounces at a time and I believe that the increased amount needed more time to reach the correct temperature. It was pretty damn ugly! To salvage, I decided to overdye and now it's in a red dyebath, in the oven. Which is almost ready.

As soon as it is, I'm going to take it out and take a NAP. I'm so exhausted!

PS...I have no pictures, but Rochelle does. Check with her later!

Clown Vomit: Okay, so it's not as bad as I made out. After sleeping on it some more, I decided to finish spinning it up and then we'll see.

Boring Irises: Also, not nearly as bad as I thought. Now that I can see it spun up, I actually really like it. I still think it would have been better, were it a little bit on the brighter side.

My latest attempt, late last night. I think it's my favourite so far. Since I can't think of any flattering names, I've been calling this one, Bruise. All three of these are corriedale fibre.

This turned out great, but I have to admit that I liked it better in the roving than in the finished yarn. This one is going to be Monkey socks.

I mentioned yesterday that I had dyed more fibre, two batches of corriedale. I've taken to calling one of them, Clown Vomit. Clown Vomit didn't exactly turn out the way I'd planned, but I wasn't discouraged right away because sometimes the ugliest roving can spin up beautifully. Not so with Clown Vomit. The colours I used were a dull blue, a rusty red and some pale yellow tossed in for fun. They looked great together when I was testing them on small bits of fluff, but on a larger scale in the roving, the result was disappointing. I tried spinning it up yesterday and the result of that was even worse. I have learned some things.

Continue reading "Making Ugly"

Yarn: 100g spindle-spun from Crown Mountain Farms "It's My Party" Sock Hop roving, superwash merino
WPI: I have no idea, but they're knit firmly at 7.5st/1"
Pattern: My own basic, top-down heel-flap sock

This is my first completed project from handspun yarn. I'm pretty damn proud of them - I don't know if I should wear them or hang them on the wall! The thing about spinning to knit socks is that it doesn't matter if the yarn is not entirely even, and I think a rustic yarn looks really nice knitted up.

I've got two more Crown Mountain rovings on my spindles, one is nearing the end of the plying stage, and the other I had just begun when I got my wheel. They fell by the wayside, but I'm in the mood to pick them up again. But then there's the polwarth I dyed myself that's already on the wheel. I also dyed some more fibre; I've got two batches of corriedale hanging in my laundry room, ready to go. I've also got 2 big projects on the needles, and the yarn for a crochet (of all things!) project on its way to me. I don't have enough hours or hands. It's funny how I can go from not feeling like doing anything at all to feeling like doing EVERYTHING at once.

I got over myself and started fooling around with my acid dyes. This is 100g of polwarth dyed with Gaywool dyes. I used three separate colours (turquoise, yellow and brown which I mixed from primaries and black) and let them intermix in the wool to make this. I'm happy.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks. It turned out that the first doctor (walk-in) we saw about Alex's arm was wrong and the arm was broken after all. It didn't seem to be healing, and Alex's regular doctor thought it was broken as soon as he saw it. No harm done, he's almost done healing and soon he'll do some physio to strengthen his shoulder muscle which has diminished from being in the sling. Personally, I can't wait until he gets better because I really enjoyed when he used to load and unload the dishwasher.

Continue reading "Day 12"

Yesterday I got a call from the fibre shop. It turns out that a couple of people who had ordered wheels months ago have changed their minds, and when the shipment came in, they thought of me. HELL YEAH!

My first nice skein of handspun yarn was meant to be sock yarn, but it turned out to be a little bit too heavy and I didn't have enough for two socks. So I started knitting mittens with it instead. My second attempt worked out much better.

Here I'm in the middle of plying my second batch of superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms. I love it and I'm going to order some more. For the first batch I spun and plied 100g and just in case I don't have enough to knit both socks, I decided to spin up another 50g.

This is how I ply. Rochelle gave me a huge Louet spindle that I use for plying, mainly because it's so big it can accomodate as much as 100g before the cop falls apart on me. I wind my singles onto a toilet paper roll that I shove onto my ball winder. I flip my shoebox upside down and stick the spindle in a hole I've made for support. Then I use my left hand to both hold the spindle up and provide a bit of tension so the singles wind onto the toilet roll smoothly. I pop the roll off my ball winder, shove a knitting needle through it and suspend it in the shoebox. I do this with two rolls, and then I ply from that.

I've just finished the gusset decreases on my first sock. I'm really thrilled with it! The yarn is somewhere in between a fingering and a dk weight. The sock is 60 stitches around (I usually use 64 when I knit with fingering) and it's knit on 2.5mm needles.

That's not all the spinning I've done. Rochelle came over on the weekend and brought her wheel with her. I spun and plied this teeny bit of corriedale, and I'm really pleased with myself although the yarn itself is horrid and unusable. There is just so much to keep track of on a wheel! Even though it was difficult and I felt like I had no control over what I was producing, I had a blast and it's just a matter of time until I am able to consistently draft and achieve the correct amount of twist like I do with a spindle. I hate wishing the time away, but I can't help but want to jump to July when my Lendrum will finally come in.

Cuba, my eldest yet littlest cat is 3 years old now. Such a grown up lady!

On Wednesday I got 2 braids of some Fleece Artist merino and got started. Yesterday I plied it, and now I have this. It's a bit heavier than I had intended...my goal with the spinning is to make my own sock yarn. It's a light worsted, so it looks like I'm going to end up with some heavy socks. I don't know how far it'll go, so I'm going to knit toe-up until I run out. I can't tell you how proud I am of this skein. I made it myself and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Last night I taught Jeremy how to spin - he's a natural. He said he'd been watching me over the past couple of weeks and wanted to give it a shot. I showed him step by step everything that I know, and he ended up with a plied strand of yarn far better than my first attempt! I'm going to wash it today and then take a photo. He's so proud!

I decided not to post the pictures from my trip to Jersey because I don't feel comfortable posting shots of people and their kids without permission. I uploaded a very few to my Flickr site, though.

The three of us are heading to New Jersey at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow morning and I'm behind in the laundry/packing portion of the program. So I don't have time for pictures, unfortunately.

So far I have spun and plied two little balls of the purple Corriedale. The yarn isn't perfect, but for my first serviceable yarn, I think it's quite good! I am learning a lot. Since I don't spin quite uniformly yet, the density of both balls is quite different even though the thickness seems the same (heavy worsted). One ball is 44 metres and 40 grams. The second ball is 47 metres but 50 grams. That's quite a difference! Quite! I think I need a thesaurus.

I cast on with my first ball and knit a swatch. I didn't measure wpi first so I was surprised to find that it knits up best at about 4 stitches to the inch. By the look of it I was expecting 5st/1". The swatch itself seems way too heavy and thick, as well. While the yarn is balanced (doesn't twist back on itself after plying, yay!), I have obviously spun it too tightly for the amount of fibre in each ply. While it's pretty soft and squishy, it's not airy or lofty enough. The second ball, being 10 grams heavier for practically the same yardage, is even more dense. For my next attempt I'm going to concentrate on not giving the singles quite so much twist.

The other thing I noticed is that for the way I knit, I spun the yarn the wrong way. The plies want to untwist with the motion of my needles, leaving me with messy individual stitches in my stockinette. I spun it "backward;" I gave the singles an S-twist and plied with a Z-twist, and I read that as long as I'm consistent it shouldn't matter. For my particular knitting style, it does seem to matter quite a bit. My next batch will be twisted in the opposite directions.

For my next trick, spinning in the car!

What's this? It probably doesn't look like much to you, but to me it's a masterpiece. It's my very first yarn.

On Tuesday I went to my SNB, innocently planning to work like a fiend on my Peace Fleece cardigan that I wanted to finish and take on our trip next week. Rochelle said she had a little suprise for me and when I got there, she gave me a drop spindle and a bag of South African Fine roving. After I finally closed my mouth I tried to knit but I couldn't help thinking that I wanted to get home and try out the spindle.

When I got home, I tried to mimic the movements that I remembered Rochelle made while she spun. With the help of a book she lent me to get started, I spun, andean-plied, and washed the teeny yarn you see above. Since then I have been doing nothing other than fooling around on that spindle.

Now, and no disrespect meant to Rochelle because she is such a kind soul, the spindle she gave me was horrid. She told me it was horrid when she gave it to me, but she just wanted me to give it a whirl (HA HA HA) and see how I liked the concept. I can't thank her (or curse her) enough for giving me the spindle, horrid or no, because I am totally hooked. Yesterday morning we met up at Gemini Fibres where I bought myself the awesome Tom Forrester spindle you see in the photo above. What a difference! I also bought some burgundy and purple Corriedale roving. Above you can see my first attempts with the burgundy, which isn't too bad but it's under-plied. On the spindle I have the purple Corriedale and I'm just going to keep going with that until I have enough to knit with.

On Monday I'm putting a deposit down on a wheel. I know!