Posts Tagged ‘spinning’

Hooooooray for Friday!

{ 2 October 2009 @ 8:43 am } · { knit, spinning }
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It’s 8:30, and although I’ve been up for several hours, I’m still in my jammies. This is partially because none of the places I need to go today are open yet, and mostly because my hair is being so evil I can’t imagine actually going anywhere.

So instead, I’ve been taking glamour shots of my yarn & knitting. My artistic director is Max. He was jumping on the bed (where I normally take my pictures) in order to encourage me to take advantage of the much better light  (and the cleared-off table) in the kitchen. I whipped the boy up some pancakes and raspberry jam, and Bob’s your uncle, here I am.

First up, I plied the singles I showed you in Monday’s post and this is what I got:

And here is the recently spun skein along side the one I spun right after I received my wheel, with some baby alpaca on top for decoration.

And finally, I have for you the Willoughby Scarf, posing seductively in the big red bowl (this bowl has a story; anyone wanna hear it?).

I love this scarf. The bobbles are a little frustrating (I’m beginning to have strong negative feelings for rows 5 and 7), but there are only three per pattern repeat, so I just suck it up when I get to them. They’re not hard… I think the issue I have is with turning my work back and forth in the middle of a row. In this photo, I’ve finished 18 pattern repeats, and the scarf is a little more than two feet in length. I’m only half way thru the second ball of yarn, and I’ve allocated 3 balls to each half. I’m going to finish this ball, then switch to the other side (where the blue yarn is now; this scarf is knit from the middle) and do two balls of yarn. Once I reach that point, I’ll measure and decide how to proceed.

On Making Yarn

{ 28 September 2009 @ 6:32 pm } · { spinning }
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Saturday I went to visit the lovely Lila in San Marcos for a spinning lesson. When I called her initially to arrange the lesson, I couldn’t help but think she sounded just like Double-G (that’s Great-Grandma – my grandmother, my mom’s mom), and wondered what she would look like.

Well, she looks just like Double-G. Short and grandma-shaped, with white hair, the only real difference I noticed was that Lila is slightly deaf (Double-G may be slightly deaf too, but I don’t remember). She was very lovely, and after correcting some of my form issues, and showing me how to check my spinning & plying as I go along, proclaimed that I didn’t need further lessons, but I did need to work on my patience.

Just before I left, she showed me some yarns which she’d dyed with plant material: eucalyptus bark, olive tree leaves, black walnut shells… I don’t know if I’m ready to get into the dye pot just yet, but I’m sure it’s coming soon.

Yesterday, in an effort to improve my patience, I spun about 52 yards of baby alpaca. I don’t have it here with me right now, but as soon as I get home, I’ll post the details.

ETA:

It took me a while, but here are pictures of the wool I spun with Lila

and this is the baby alpaca that I spun when I got home

and finally, here is some of that lovely batt from Grafton Fibers.

That’s a lot of string

{ 15 August 2009 @ 1:31 pm } · { knit, spinning }
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Yesterday my goal was to clean out “my” corner of the bedroom. In this corner was a TV stand that was the current home for our printer and a bunch of books; a large gray plastic container that was responsible for holding blankets that we’re currently not using, and which was stacked high with stuff that I’d moved out of other rooms and never quite put all the way away; and a laundry basket filled with yarn, wool, and half (or not quite half, or even nearly) finished knitting projects. My vision is for this to be so completely cleared out that I could put a chair and lamp here and use it as a space to sit and knit or read comfortably.

My first task was to address the basket of knitting/spinning. This is what I ended up with (and what inspired the title of this post):

Featured here are several bags of wool for spinning, my wandering vines scarf, my FLS and all of the leftover yarn associated with it, the Rockin’ Socks club socks from May, bits left over from the two baby sweaters I knit earlier in the year, and the last two skeins of yarn that are destined to become part of the Irish Hiking Scarf. The Irish Hiking Scarf was absent from this photo shoot because it was hanging out in the kitchen from the photo shoot yesterday.

After looking at all of this, I calmly put the all of this stuff back into the basket and closed the bedroom door.

Maybe I’ll get my dream corner later in the week. It’s just not in the cards for today.

Busy, busy, busy

{ 14 August 2009 @ 9:47 am } · { knit, spinning }
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This week has been crazy busy. I had a bunch of stuff to take care of at work, and the girlies were here so I had to shuttle them from hither to yon, I attended a new knit night out in Vista at Clever Knits, and Max was especially energetic (translation: he wouldn’t go to bed until very, VERY late). All of these events conspired to make writing a blog entry nearly impossible.

However, today is my day. Max is playing, the girls are upstairs (either sleeping or playing on their computers, I can’t tell), so I have time to sit and type.

Here is what I’ve been knitting on this week:

The Irish Hiking Scarf is up to about 3.5 feet in length, and I have 2.5 skeins of yarn left. I find it amusing, in an ironic sort of way, how quickly the first skeins of a scarf knit up and then at the halfway mark progress slows, no matter how much time I dedicate to it. In this photo you can see the front pattern (on the left) and the back pattern (obviously on the right). I really like this pattern, and the resulting “material” is thick and plush. A perfect Wisconsin scarf!

As I said earlier, I’ve also been spinning. Mostly I’ve been trying to get my technique consistently right. I’ve been pretty hit-and-miss with it up to this point. It seems like my singles are too tight, and my plying is even more too tight, so what I end up with is a big squiggly mess. I knit up a swatch of the pink-and-grey yarn I was spinning earlier in the week.

I’m not thrilled with the result as far as the colors go, but the resulting “material” is super soft and smooth. I’m thinking a skinny scarf in a lacy pattern would be ideal, but I’m still debating.

Finally, my friend Sharon asked about the sheep in the picture at the top-right of the page.

Those are some stitch markers I made out of Fimo clay. The funny thing about them is that they glow in the dark. When I bought the clay I grabbed glow in the dark white rather than plain white. I could say that this is a feature, except that it totally freaked me out when I noticed a bunch of little green dots sitting on my kitchen table in the middle of the night. I know… they’re sheep from San Onofre!

Accomplishments

{ 9 August 2009 @ 10:38 pm } · { knit, spinning }
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Today was a good day. We went out to breakfast (at an hour that warrants breakfast food) at Papa Bear’s in Valley Center. After stuffing ourselves with way too much food, as usual, Alex took Max to the bookstore & I got to spin and knit the afternoon away.

I spun a little more of the baby alpaca, then plied 144 yards of this:

144 Yards of Merino-Tussah Silk (the pink/red) plied with Baby Alpaca (the gray)

After plying, I resumed work on the Irish Hiking Scarf, and made a lot of progress. Here it is, after the second skein was finished.

Tomorrow, Jojo has an appointment for a sports physical (she’s going to try out for the freshman volleyball team), and we all know how good the doctor’s office is for providing quality knitting time!

Good night all!

Such Fun

{ 8 August 2009 @ 9:32 am } · { knit, spinning }
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After I received my spinning wheel, I spent a couple of days spinning, spinning. I was having a blast, trying out different ways of drafting the fiber, working with different fibers, and changing the settings on my wheel. But then I had to get back to reality and finish a costume for ComiCon for Sami, and refocus my efforts on finishing Jojo’s shawl.

Well, the costume was finished with nearly 24 hours to spare, and the shawl of doom has been completed. I’ve even taken it to knit night to show it to my friends. I’ve cast on a variety of new projects to keep me both busy and interested. And I’ve returned to my wheel.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I’d purchased a merino-Tussah silk blended top‘ (from The Black Sheep in Encinitas), and I finally started spinning it. It’s very easy to spin, and I really like the color(s).

But the colors, although lovely, are a little darker than I was hoping for. So yesterday I went to The Daily Fiber Yarn Co. in Murietta, CA, and picked up seven ounces of baby alpaca top in a silvery color.

As easy as the merino-silk blend was to spin, the baby alpaca is hard. I’m not sure if it’s slipperier or just fluffier, but the fibers drift apart constantly, and I’m having to treadle very slowly in order to draft it properly. My plan is to ply the the merino-silk with the baby alpaca in an effort to tone down the reddish-pinkness of the former. Please, if anyone reading this feels that this is a big mistake (mixing the fibers while plying), please let me know. It seems like a good idea to me, but by now you all know that my good ideas don’t always pan out.

In knitting news, I’m still working on the Latvian mittens, although there hasn’t been enough progress that you’d notice it in a photo. But I do have the scarf I’m working on for my uncle’s Christmas gift. I changed patterns (again), and now I’m using the Irish Walking Scarf, altered to be reversible.

Front of Scarf

Back of Scarf

To make it reversible, I doubled the number of stitches for the cables (originally it was 6, now it’s 12) and knit them in 1×1 rib (k1, p1). The back doesn’t look exactly like the front, but it looks better than it would have if done according to the original directions. I’m still using the Wool of the Andes from KnitPicks, and the scarf is wonderfully smooshy. What you see in the photos is how far I got with the first skein of yarn. It’s about 8 inches long, and I have 5 skeins left – I may need to order more, but this is my usual MO, so I’m not terribly surprised.

Alex went to the desert today with his brother and soon to be brother in law, so I don’t anticipate much getting done today (because I’m hanging out with Max). But during the negotiations for his adventure, I arranged to get tomorrow to myself, so I should make up some serious time.

I’ve been a bit preoccupied

{ 26 July 2009 @ 9:32 pm } · { knit, spinning }
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Since my manic posting on Thursday, I’ve been a bit preoccupied. I just couldn’t stop spinning!

Here is my first skein of yarn, spun Thursday afternoon after about 2 hours of practice and reacquaintance:

It’s a little uneven, but overall I’m pretty pleased with my initial efforts. This is a mixture of the batt that I purchased from Grafton Fibers (Corriedale, color 411 Blended) and the wool that came with my wheel from Louet. Here is skein number two:

This is just the wool from Louet, and I got 33 yards of two ply before the constant gray bored me to tears. This wool is significantly coarser than the stuff I purchased from Grafton Fibers and overall I’m not very impressed with it. Here, then, is my third skein:

This is my favorite. I managed to spin 56 yards of two ply yarn, although I couldn’t tell you what the weight or wraps per inch are. This is only from the batt that I purchased from GF, and it was really quite lovely to work with.

With the loveliness of that wool in mind, I just can’t wait to start in on this:

But first, guess what’s back in my active queue…

Yup, the orange shawl of doom! Even though I showed my poor math skills the other day with the sleeve of my February Lady Sweater, I am going to tell you that, according to my calculations I have 30 rows left to go on this shawl. You may want to check back on Wednesday, though, to see if I have fewer or more rows at that point. My bet would be more.

Here are some final notes:

Bea, I hope you’re feeling better. We missed you at knit night!

I did finish Sami’s costume on time, and I’ll let you know tomorrow how it went at ComiCon. It fit her (which was a major accomplishment) and she looked very cute (which was the easy part).

Waiting

{ 23 July 2009 @ 10:26 am } · { spinning }
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10:23am – I’ve done most of my work-work for the day, and am straightening out the house so when FedEX gets here I can play with my wheel guilt-free. Every time I hear a truck outside, I check to see if it’s them. In fact, I’ve even caught myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, the FedEX dude is making deliveries in his personal car today, so I get excited every time a car slows in front of my house. This is stressful, as I live on a corner with a stop sign.

11:02am – Why are there so many trucks on my street today? I’m wishing the FedEX tracking site had a little GPS linked map so I could see EXACTLY where my wheel is. In fact, the only things keeping me from going out and trying to track him (the FedEX dude) down are: 1) if I leave the house, he’ll get here and I’ll miss the delivery (that’s Murphy’s Law of Shipping); and 2) he’d think I was a psycho, and I’d probably get arrested. I don’t think they let you spin in jail.

11:07 – DUDE! (I’m so excited my hands are shaking!!)

11:35 – It’s all put together, and I’m ready to try it out. YAY!!

Ok, not only does it work, but I remembered (after a brief incident where I was spinning rope suitable for use on an aircraft carrier) how to do it!  Thanks again to Cathy from the California Angora Rabbit Society (she taught me to spin), John at Village Spinning and Weaving, and my lovely husband who encouraged me to do this.

Final update:

I promise I’ll stop after this. Here is the roving I bought a few weeks ago:

…and here it is now, spun up:

I have to tell you, I’m feeling a little bit like a magician!

Quick update

{ 18 July 2009 @ 5:07 pm } · { knit }
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I’m crazy busy today doing house-stuff, so here’s a quick status update:

  • I’m half done with the first sleeve on my February Lady Sweater
  • My wheel is in Utah

Although I’m “busy with house stuff,” my house still looks like a tornado just held a rave here. Back to work!!

Oh yeah!

{ 17 July 2009 @ 11:11 am } · { knit }
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What a way to start the weekend (I only work half days on Fridays)!! First, last night I finally got a FedEx tracking number for my wheel. The last update stated it left Syracuse, NY, at 7:30am East Coast time. Oh, I am SO excited. The only down side is that it’s currently scheduled for delivery on Thursday, which is my knit night. I haven’t decided if I’ll be able to focus on my friends and knitting knowing that my wheel is here, still packed in its box.

Also yesterday, I received my July Rockin’ Sock Club shipment. The yarn is wonderful, the pattern is cool, but the best part is the “extra” they threw in this time. It’s a bumper sticker that says, “No Coffee, No Workee”. I didn’t realize the ladies at Blue Moon knew me personally!! I can’t wait to post it on the door to my office!

Finally, the coup de grace:

Next up, sleeves! But first, I have to find either my short, size 8, circular needles or my size 8 DPNs.  Wish me luck!

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