MG: poolside pop

fiber: handpainted merino/tencel top from Black Ethel Cash's Stash, color Poolside Pop. spun: over-the-fold longdraw; 2-ply; vigorous fulling wash to finish. gauge: 21-28 wpi; 108 grams; 580-ish yards.

MG: echo bluefaced leicester

i've been spinning and spinning and spinning... addictive fervor at the wheel. been inspired by the beautiful handspuns over at SourCherries, especially by these handspun socks. wanted some of my own. wanted color. i spun with the Olympics (stacking dreams upon dreams) for company when it was available, random sitcoms and dramas when not, even terrible ones. can't seem to spin in quiet.


fiber: handpainted bluefaced leicester top from Black Ethel Cash's Stash, color Echo. spun: over-the-fold longdraw; 2-ply; abusively washed with alternating hot and cold water and plenty of agitation. gauge: mostly 15-17 wpi; 105grams; 250-ish yards.

i hated this yarn when it first came off the wheel. the colors were beautiful, but the yardage was so short and the grist so inconsistent. i was angry with my own spinning. but the skein grew on me as i slowly sorted out my expectations. i'm still a young spinner, and really, i don't desire robotic perfection in my handspun. a day later, i can barely recall why i hated it so. i love the curvaceous coiling of the plies against each other and the shifting muted colors.

MG: skittles

i had the delight and fun of hanging out with Andrea again this year as part of my MDSW escapade. she gave me a crash course on drumcarding and set me to play on her Strauch Petite. i made two little batts and spun them up (instant gratification) in a matter of hours while she spun spun spun away on her new handspindle. happy, making, chatting hours in her cozy, kitty-patrolled fiber studio.

i always acquire new skills when we hang out. i got to see some wool-comb usage, which yielded a prep that was deeeliciously smooth to spin. and she had me braving the fleece world. there are two fleeces in this apartment right now... one of them is just a half fleece. beautiful things. the half fleece traveled home with me by plane. in the overhead compartment. a beautiful but smelly border leicester ram fleece. i wonder what my luggage neighbors thought.


dyed locks (lincoln and coopworth i think. is that right, Andrea?) in saturated, circus colors of red, blue, green, yellow along with undyed white were fed to the drumcarder to make two batts; each batt went through the carder three times. all the colors somehow worked together into a 46-gram, chameleon candy of a skein. i was surprised at how fun the drumcarder was; i always thought prepping fiber (even non-obligatorily) would be tedious, but it wasn't at all. thanks, Andrea. :)

MG: lemon creme

bluefaced leicester. 55 grams.

longdraw from the tip to cope with neps and felted bits. chained 3-ply. 20wpi(ish). harsh and crisp from overplying but still knittable. and cheery.

MG: zero to sixty

from knitting stagnation to two knitalongs: i've joined Socktoberfest 2006 and Zimmermania. Zimmermann-worshipping and project details over here.


bluefaced leicester spun thinly for practice and stress-relief. spun and plied in what's becoming my default techniques: from the fold, point-of-contact longdraw; navajo-plied 3-ply; varying grists of laceweight; about 320 yards. for scale, the index card in the photo is 3" by 5".

my navajo-plying is better! after good advice from Andrea about not overthinking, i returned to the basics. i reread the Plying Chained Singles article (scroll down), treadled slowly on the largest whorl, and carefully watched the forming twists. my weakness lies in maintaining adequate tension on all three strands at all times and stopping/starting the travel of the twist while making the chained loops. and in general, i feel extremely unsure about how much ply i would like in my yarns.

query: when you check balance by the number of times a hank twists on itself, do you do it before or after setting/washing the yarn? if before, wouldn't the length of time the singles and/or plied yarn sat on the bobbin affect the amount of active twist seen? i'm thinking if i work for a balanced skein coming right off the wheel, the hank might actually be underplied, since my singles usually wait on the bobbin for a long while. what do you think?

MG: lendrum-happy again

a crisp hank of the moorit shetland (scroll down) i spun before my summer trip and long separation from my wheel. spun from the fold, longdraw; navajo-plied, therefore 3-ply; 270 yards--large margin of error on this measure; around 17 wpi or fingering weight.

i do not yet own the art of navajo-plying. i made a gnarly mess of overplied and underplied yarn, despaired over ruining my beautiful singles, then unplied a bit in order re-ply. it was tedious but worth the tedium and improved much. the yarn is probably overplied and too dense, but still, i love it with beaming parental pride.

continued stocking stitch, 5"/13cm:

MG: hone

i'm still at the mercy of my spinning in thickness and consistency. i don't quite spin what i mean to spin. instead, there are particular yarns i drift towards--they escape from my fingers--the thickness of which ebbs and flows depending on the session. it's always a thin yarn; singles thicker than sportweight are difficult for me to maintain, but even the thin yarns i spin as my rhythm bids are not consistent.

after an eye-opening post on spinning for consistency over at Twosheep (why have i been guessing and remembering, relying on amorphous memory?), i began spinning the above (blueface leicester. larger photo here.) with my physical eyes towards consistency. i didn't make a sample card, but i stop often and twist a length over itself to compare with landmarks on my fingers.


i've also been practicing thicker singles (larger photo here). the white one is blueface leicester (again), and the yellow/green is Blue Moon Spinnery's 80/20 merino and silk in the Guardians of Water colorway. no, still not consuming conventional (versus peace-silk) silk; this was a gift and will be going to homes elsewhere. both the blueface and thicker merino/silk range from 6 to 17 wraps per inch but average about 9-11wpi--bulky. the thinner merino/silk is light worsted to fine fingering, 13-17wpi or so.

all three are relatively low-twist; hanging skeins wind about a quarter turn. they are soft and fluffy, and i can't stop smooshing them. oh, note to self: do NOT wind low-twist yarns (before setting the twist) on tension (duh, you say. i know... i wasn't thinking). too little twist to ply probably means too little twist to stand up to tensioned lazy kate? i paid for my foolishness with many knots. an invorgorating warm bath fixed everything. twist set. strong and bouncy and elastic now.


these yarns were instant gratification. they took me hours rather than days. extremely satisfying. and even though i don't love bright greens and yellows, am rarely taken by wild color variegation, i still somehow find these little skeins appealing. they make me think of parrots. i covet more handpainted roving.

MG: extra day?

i like the corrugated, egg-carton-y, waffle-y configuration that is pre-blocked lace. elastic little hills--where does it get the memory to do that? why does a bath make it forget?

olympic kiri still on track--19,203 stitches knitted at the end of day 9. that's 62.06 percent done and 636 stitches ahead of gold medal pace.

but i just opened my calendar to note the closing day of the olympics, counted, and... there are actually 17 days to the olympics... right? 10th to the 26th--endpoints inclusive--means there are 17 days to knit, right? am i counting wrong? an extra day! interesting! but what does it mean?!?!


shouldn't have the tape measurer so far back; not very good for scale then. closeup here. yarn FO specs:

Winegum
fiber: Blue Moon Spinnery, 100% Wensleydale, Guardian of Spirit (handpainted violets, plums and pinks). singles: spun over the fold thinly and smoothly, low-twist (sometimes too low, breakage during plying), large sections of various single colors. ply: 3-ply, navajo-plied to preserve sections of color, overzealously plied resulting in knotty, crinkly yarn. gauge: 12 WPI (worsted) to 28 WPI (crazy lace), most of it around 17-19 WPI (fine fingering).


wound winegum into an american-football-styled ball with a nostepinne, well... extremely large, wooden knitting needle used as a nostepinne that is. Rose, when i blogged about winding my drop spindle like a nostepinne a while back, you asked how it worked. i found more links for you (icanspin has a video and woolery has photos). it can be hard to envision; grab some yarn and a thick stick of any kind and try it. it's nifty.

i swatched from the yuckier, knottier end of the yarn, then i had to start something with a 1x1 rib. knitting with my own handspun is spoingy, squooshy, and hypnotic.

MG: back!

left wintery ohio, where i started a stripey sock with vesper yarn Kitty Kitty gave me (because she is terribly good to me). the color is "crew," i believe. it's toe-up, short-row heel and toe, stocking stitch, back seam increases for the calf.


still head over heels in love with my lendrum; still can't believe i have a wheel of my own. its appeal pulled every member of my family in for a turn at treadling; kitty kitty got a crash course. she needs a wheel; please encourage/pressure her towards her perfect wheel.

i've been spinning Blue Moon Fibers dyed roving and bluefaced leicester top. unfortunately, my little lendrum is in ohio to be sent to me, so the pictorial ode to the lendrum and photos of yarns on the bobbins remain on queue...

but look at my first lendrum-spun FO! it's Blue Moon Fibers roving--no other details b/c the tag was lost somewhere in the shuffle. i drafted a thin single and one of chunky thick-and-thin, both relatively low-twist and spun over the fold like i like to spin everything. the two singles were then plied together chaotically and joyfully. it was play with plying, which was fun and edifying. i think this yarn will become a hat. if you'd like, here is a closer look

MG: next?

my Ashford Joy rental time is over again, but i spun up more bluefaced leicester and jacob sheep while the wheel was visiting. i have some thin bluefaced singles and some thick-and-thin jacob sheep, also singles.


i also have some 100% hemp, which i found hard to draft. it felt both slick and sticky. either a bunch of fibers pulled out of my hands or the yarn fell apart. i think it probably needs a lot more twist than i expect. it took a while to get a feel for the hemp, and even then the singles were full of weak spots.

the fibers are straight and rigid in comparison to wool, and i didn't like the way the ends protruded from the singles. it looked messy rather than comfily fuzzy. after najavo-plying though, the yarn dramatically improved. here is my itty-bitty hank.


my yarns are looking pretty boring, aren't they? i need to start dyeing. knitting is at a lull. i started a sheer cardigan with KnitPicks' Alpaca Cloud in Iris. this is a sleeve (140 rows!):


i love this yarn. it's really soft, and the color has a lovely depth. but i'm now in ohio, where the weather is a bit warm for me; so, i left the cardigan behind and am looking for more summery projects.

i have lovely cotton yarns but haven't been able to decide on a project. lacy top? or this Phildar wrap tank that Knitalicious is about to start? or the sundress in this summer's interweave? or a cap-sleeve raglan?

added later: my heart and thoughts are with those of you in London. Yarn Harlot posted quotations in which i found hope and comfort on a day like this.

MG: more spinning

in the midst of my spinning fervor, i neglected to say what i was actually spinning. it's bluefaced leicester (pronounced like lester... esther; pester; tester) wool. Claudia starts her beginners on this fiber. it's soft and easy to draft; i love it. i have singles and more 2-ply to show you:


remember Stumpy the Jacob Sheep? Kitty Kitty fell in love with him at Maryland Sheep and Wool, brought home roving as a memento, and generously sent some to me. i spun up some singles--between fingering and lace weight, i think. the yarn looks funny and kinked and curly even after a wash (sets the twist), but it seems to knit up fine:


there is more swatching around here. in response to my last post, Andrea and someone who wished to remain anonymous gave me great inputs on using these first yarns i'm spinning. thank you! thanks to their suggestions, i'm now pondering designs for a chunky sweater with dropped stitches. here is my bluefaced leicester yarn in 1x1 ribbing, stocking stitch, and garter stitch with a column of dropped stitches:


i had to give the wheel back this past week, so this ends my spinning adventures for a little while. :(

MG: call me Rumpelstiltskin

my spinning has improved:

this week, we learned to ply:

i made my own yarn!! i can't believe it!

hmmm... what should i knit with it?