Finishing Spinning: To-Ply

More spinning!  I wanted something to spin at the last Spinning Guild meeting so I grabbed a rope of semi-solid fiber from the stash.

The fiber was from To-Ply and it was a Merino/Bamboo/Nylon blend in colorway Gold.  I bought this 4-oz braid at the Handspinner’s Guild marketplace in Torrance a few years ago.  The fiber felt great to spin with and it was pretty inexpensive too!

There’s the fancy “inside a plastic bag” shot.  It was nice to work with something that I didn’t have to worry about the color with.  I just split it in half (not lengthwise) and went for it.  I didn’t realize it was going to be so thin, but it is probably a fingering or even light fingering.

I love the color!  It is really carrot-y.

Start date: August 24, 2013

Finish date: September 5, 2013

4 oz, 327 yards.

Merino 60%, Bamboo 30%, Nylon 10%

I was so happy with it when I was done.  Then I went to put it away and realized I had some other lace/fingering weight handspun that looked just like it.  Here it is next to some hand-dyed Optim that I spun years ago:

I can see the difference, and I guess that’s all that counts… right?

Spinning: Rain City BFL/Silk

Last month was Michele‘s birthday month.  About a week before her actual birthday she gave me some fiber to spin.  The agreement was that I would spin it in exchange for some yarn.  But when I realized that I would see her on her birthday, I made it a priority to have it finished in time to surprise her with it.  I’ve been pretty bad about spinning time recently, so it was good to have an incentive to get stuff done!  I finished it in about four days, which is practically record time for me.

The fiber is 4 oz. of BFL/Silk from Rain City Fiber Arts.  Michele bought it when we went to Convergence, the weaving conference, last year.

I split the roving in half length-wise.  Then spun it into 2 plies.

I hoped that I had, 1. split the fiber in half evenly and 2. spun the fiber at a consistent thickness.  If those two things happen, then when plying I should end up with both bobbins finishing at the same time. (Same yardage on each bobbin.)  But that never happens with me.  And it definitely didn’t happen this time!  I had like 50 yards left on my second bobbin.  As always, I had to andean ply the last little bit.

Bobbin close-up:

Don’t worry, this is a full bobbin, not what was left after plying!

The goal was also for the striping to line up together when plying.  That dream ended pretty soon once I started.  The resulting yarn has more barber poling than I would have liked, but still came out nice looking.

Michele had requested anywhere from a fingering to a worsted.  I had aimed for DK, but was closer to fingering.  I wrote down how many yards there were, but I forgot.  It’s more than 300 yards.

I’m excited to see what Michele makes out of it!  I don’t always like the look of silk in blends (looks acrylic-like to me sometimes) but I really liked this fiber blend.  Wonderful to spin and had a great sheen.

Blurry closeup!:

I was even on such a kick that I finished up some other spinning that I had started months before.  But that will be for another day.

More to come soon, I’ve been pretty productive!

 

Rose City Yarn Crawl

I had a Tasty Tuesday post all set to write, and then I forgot to upload my pictures.  But I meant to post this last week, so I’ll push everything back.

The weekend before the one that just ended, I flew up to the Northwest to spend some time with my Mom and family.  I flew up to Portland, spent a day there and then the two of us drove up to Puyallup, WA to go to the SewExpo.  Since I had a full day in Camas, we decided to join in on the Rose City (Portland) Yarn Crawl.  There were 18 stores participating, and we made it to four.  That isn’t a ton, but both of us were trying to keep our yarn purchases low.

We went to Dublin Bay Knitting Company (a beautiful store!), Pearl Fiber Arts, Angelika’s Yarn Store, and Twisted.  I did pretty good about purchases.  My Mom bought me this skein of Bamboo Bloom at Angelika’s.

It’s not my normal style of yarn, but I think I’ll make a cowl out of it.  Maybe just plain stockinette, but then purling when the big puffs come around.

This was my second trip to Twisted, and I love it so much!  I was trying not to buy anything unless I really loved the yarn.  And I lost all resolve once we got there.  Maybe it was this little face that did it!

A real lamb!  It was adorable.  I never realized that people banded lamb’s tails.  I didn’t know that sheep have long tails naturally.  Hmm.

I did buy some Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarns.  I got two large skeins of Victoria in color Mossley Manly.

And Socks That Rock Lightweight in Henpecked.

I have a couple skeins of STR at home that I need to use.  I saw a beautiful woven scarf on Ravelry using some and now I’m kind of obsessed with weaving a scarf with it.  I’ll have to wait until I go back home to use my Mom’s loom again!

We had a lot of fun in Puyallup, but I’ll post about that soon.

Spinning: Rain City Fiber Arts

I have been barely spinning, but I finally finished a skein of something!  The first thing I’ve finished in months!  This started out as 4 oz of 70% Superwash Merino/30% SeaCell.  Remember these guys?:

I bought them when I went to the Convergence festival with Michele.  I’ve only spun up the bottom one so far.  To be honest, I thought they were a little ugly, but was curious about how they would spin up.  I loved the feel of the fiber.  It was a fun blend and ended up a little bit shiny.  I spun two bobbins of singles and planned on just randomly plying them together (basic 2-ply) with no plans of how it would line up.  But it ended up looking horrible!  I like barber poleing, but only to a certain extent, not when the whole skein is like that!  If I remember I’ll edit this and add in a picture of how that was looking.

I had made it a little bit into plying and just decided that it was not working.  I ended up navajo-plying the singles into a 3-ply.  This way it kind of kept the colored sections together.  I’m not going to end up with real stripes but at least it won’t be a muddy mess.  There is the chance this will still knit up really weird and splotchy!

Because I didn’t want to waste any fiber, I went back and actually unspun the part I had already plied!  That actually took a long time.  I put it through the wheel again, this time unplying the two singles (turning the wheel the same way I did when initially spinning, opposite of plying twist).  Then I had to wind the separate plies off onto a stick (my niddy noddy), then wind them on a ball winder and navajo-ply them to match the rest.  Phew!  The result is a heavy worsted/aran weight skein that I forgot to get a yardage count for!  I’m not sure how soon I will knit it up, but I am very curious about how it will turn out.

There has been plenty of crafting being done at my house, but not much to show for it.  Maybe I will do a progress post just to have something to write about!

Re-plying

I’ve gotten a few yarns done recently.  Two of them didn’t take too much time, because I was really just fixing some previous problems.

Here is some Acid-dyed Optim fiber that Jill P. helped me dye, um, 3 years ago:

The Optim really compacts, so the dye didn’t really penetrate through to all layers.  The yarn ended up being a little more pastel than the fiber.  I spun and plied the fiber into a laceweight yarn.  I have no idea how long ago.  But it’s been sitting in my in-progress pile since then.  The problem being that the finished yarn looked limp and dead.  Even though I put a fair amount of ply twist into it, the plies seemed to be drifting apart in sections.  I finally decided to do something about it.  I put the hank of yarn back on to my swift (a.k.a. my lampshade) and just fed it back through the wheel again.  This time I just added extra ply twist into it.  I had never done that before, but it worked like a charm!  I refinished the yarn and am totally happy with it now.

Of course, now I can’t remember how much fiber I used.  I keep meaning to getting new batteries for my scale and not doing it.  I’ll have to find a special project to use it on.  It can’t be more than 400yds.

Here’s a close-up:

Here’s another spinning project that needed a revamp.  This is an old picture, and I’m pretty embarrassed to show how crappy this looks.  This is two skeins of Ashland Bay Merino in Sandalwood and Purple:

The Sandalwood I am very happy with.  But take a closer look at that Purple.  Yuck!  Can you see how loosely plied some of it is?  I was also having some trouble with putting too much twist in my singles at the time.  This was a little more than three years ago.  I think I needed much more ply twist to counteract the singles twist.  I knew I wanted to use these yarns together, but the purple skein was in shambles!

I re-plied the purple skein, and much better!:

I was also realizing while plying, how much more even my spinning is now than it was three years ago.  Even though I don’t devote much time to it, I guess practice does make perfect.  I am now using these yarns together to make a handspun Scalene.  I have it set up so that the solid section of the scarf will be in purple.  I’m starting to regret this a little because I think the Sandalwood is a more interesting color.

I’m only partway through my Scalene.  I got sidetracked with a KAL in the Joji  group on Ravelry.  I’m knitting Boxy, and a giant oversized sweater in fingering weight is going to need all of my attention!  I’m worried it will be awhile before I have any finished items to show…

Any fun plans for the weekend?

New stuff!

Time to catch you all up on my latest crafty purchases.  The other weekend I went to Convergence, the Handweavers Guild of America‘s conference, down in Long Beach.  I roped Michele into going with me.  I had never been to that part of Long Beach.  I didn’t expect such a big city.  I have only been to the Belmont Shores side of town, and only then for Halloween dog parades!  We really just hit the marketplace.  I had refused to pay for parking for the whole day (why am I so cheap?!), so I rushed us a bit.  It was a little empty, but maybe we were there when everyone was in classes.  There was lots to look at and admire.  I had been worried that I would come home with a loom, but I’m not that easily persuaded.  I did pick up a few items to come home with me.

First purchases were from the Forbidden Woolery:

This is Pride Lace in Goldilocks.  It has Stellina sparkles in it.  I was really drawn to all of their yellows.  And as an impulse add-on, I got this lovely:

This is Pride in Dingle Peninsula.  It’s a fingering weight yarn, also with sparkles.  I don’t often do variegated yarns, but this is on the border of being semi-solid.  I think it will make a nice shawlette someday.

I have been really good at avoiding fiber purchases recently.  In fact, I didn’t buy any yarn from January to May!  I fell off the wagon in June, and it’s been kind of bad since.  I need to get spinning so that I can get through some of my fiber.  I bought a few braids at the Rain City Fiber Arts booth.  They had lots of beautiful rovings.  These two were in the sale bin.  This is the kind of thing that I don’t find all that pretty, but am totally intrigued with.

I think it will be interesting to see how these spin up.  I like how fiber with a lot of white turns all the colors a nice pastel.  They are both merino and seasilk.  I might actually spin up that white/blue/green one next to see how it comes out.

This one is a BJS Fiber braid of Merino/Bamboo/Silk.  I am totally into yellows and oranges right now.  Colors that were not my favorites in the past.  This orange really speaks to me!

That’s all from Convergence.  I have also been stalking Etsy for box pouches.  I’ve seen some blogs where people have used the Melody Miller Viewmaster fabric in their quilts and I am obsessed!  I loved ViewMaster as a kid.  Our favorites disk was the Michael Jackson’s Thriller one.  I was trying to find someone who had made a box pouch out of this fabric.  This was easier said than done.  But eventually, I saw someone sew a clutch in that fabric and she also made box pouches.  I convo’d Kaelin from The Plaid Scottie and she made me a custom order one!  I love it!

This is the large size.  It would be a good size for a sweater-in-progress.  She added that strap for me too.  Easy to grab and go.  I also ordered a medium one from her store:

Here’s a size comparison:

I know a lot of people make these pouches, but I would definitely recommend Kaelin.  These came super quickly.  She has a great selection of fabrics and was really willing to customize for me.  Thank you!

Hopefully I’m done spending money for awhile.  Though it is the last week of the Knit Picks book sale…  See you tomorrow!

Swap dyeing

Jill P.:

As you know, I joined a shawl swap on the Anthropologie Knits group on Ravelry.  I knew what pattern I wanted to use (the Percy Shawl) but couldn’t decide on yarns.  I knew I didn’t have anything in the right color in my stash.  We went to a couple of local stores, but couldn’t find anything that I liked.  Twist would probably have had something I could use, but it’s far away and not open the one day I was going to be near it.  You graciously offered to let me shop in your stash.  There were many good options, but we ended up getting super motivated and decided to dye up some yarn and some fiber.  Lucky for us you still had some dye stock in your fridge! 

My goal was orange, so I dyed some merino laceweight and about 6 oz of Optim fiber.  I used a mix of Yellow Sun(right?) and Vermillion.  In hindsight we should have taken step-by-step pictures!  We kettle dyed the yarn in pots.  Here is my laceweight yarn:

I am totally in love with it.  I think the color turned out just like I hoped for. 

The Optim fiber dyed up a little weird.  First when we were soaking the fiber, it wouldn’t sink in the vinegar water.  It felt totally saturated, but it kept popping back up.  When wet it looked like bread dough.  I put in a lot more dye for the fiber, because it seemed to only be dyeing the outside of it, and not the whole rope.  I figured a deeper shade would be better so that when I spun it it didn’t get too pastel.  It looked like hell when we removed it from the water.  Like a big dreadlock.  I don’t think it was felted, but it didn’t look good.  It did fluff up a little when it dried.  (Which took forever!)

I had debated spinning the yarn for my swap project, but I think that I am glad that I changed my mind.  Maybe I will still try to spin some to send along with the shawl. 

Since we had the dyepots out, we both overdyed some yarn that we didn’t like.  I had some Knitpicks Bare sock yarn that I had tried to dye at one of the guild’s Dye Days.  Don’t ask me what happened here, I know it looks awful!  I guess I was apathetic, in a rush, and trying to just use the colors of dye that were already out.  Plus I thought the color had seeped all the way through the yarn, when it really didn’t.  At all. 

I overdyed all of it with Gunmetal.  It took several tries to add enough dye to color all the ugliness.

Some of the old sections still show through, but I think it’ll knit up okay.  It’s not an amazing job, but it is such an improvement that I am ecstatic about it. 

Jill, you overdyed the world’s ugliest Knit Picks autumny laceweight yarn, and got something resembling Mountain Colors.  I don’t have any pictures, and I can’t even guess at what the KP colorway was called. 

All in all, a successful dyeing day.  I’m glad you were there to hold my hand!  Especially since I can’t make my own decisions and I got you to make them all for me! 

Jill B.

Adventures of a Holiday Sweater…

Hi Jill B!

I know this is a bit belated, but I think you”ll still enjoy it…

“The Adventures of a Holiday Sweater” or “Jill P. Visits Four States and Takes All Her Pictures With a Miniature Sweater and Everyone Thinks She’s a Little Strange”

SOOOOO, I loved the tiny little sweater you made me for Christmas and thought it would nice to take to Boston with me and use as our tree topper at my mom’s house. Well, little Sweater seemed to take on a life of her own and boy was she a diva, always posing and sticking her cute, little mug in the shot.

We got to the airport early and had some time to get breakfast and hang out at the gate for a while. It was Christmas eve, so the airport was fairly busy, but not out of control. We got buckled into our seats. Sweater is a little nervous flying for the first time so she got her drink on right away.

After Sweater passed out, I had a little time to myself to work on some of my last minute holiday knits. This is the beginnings of a triangle scarf I made for my cousin (It’s an improvised pattern, lots o’ garter stitch, in Knitpicks Shadow.)

Our arrival in Beantown was super exciting! there’s no place like home…

Mmmmmm, Dunkin’ Donuts. How I’ve missed you chocolate frosted and chocolate honey-dip.

Boston is a very cultural town, so of course there was an art exhibit in the airport. And everyone knows that no art exhibit is complete without a sheep painting.

Time to meet the folks! Mom and her DH met us at baggage claim and welcomed Sweater to the family.

Kermit Kitty was a bit suspicious and probably just a little too under the influence of his new catnip toy to give Sweater the time of day.

Mom and her DH saved the joyful task of tree trimming to me and OG… and Sweater. I think Sweater did a great job, don’t you?

We spent Christmas day with family in Connecticut. The food and drink was fabulous! In New England, the only true cure for a holiday hangover is a long drive up the craggy coast of Maine for a lobstah feast complete with Shipyahd Ale and Clam Chowdah! Oh, and don’t forget the dessert! Some sort of puff pastry sundae and apple crumble. Sweater has a mighty appetite would you say?

It was a beautiful day and Sweater soaked in picturesque views of the Atlantic and a charming little lighthouse in York.

The next day we took a drive up to New Hampshire to visit more family. Sweater was the life of the party!

Sweater really hit it off with Disembodied Head. She thought this was a match made in heaven…”I have no head, you have no sweater… let’s be friends!”

Sweater also discovered where they had been hiding all the snow!

Exhausted from all the traveling, Sweater suggested that our fatigue could only be remedied by a pilgrimage our to Webs in Northampton, MA. The men disagreed, so Mom, Sweater and I gleefully hopped in the car and hit the road for a girls only adventure. Due to the madness of “End of the Year Warehouse Sale” I wasn’t able to capture a single photo inside the yarn store. My brain totally went into fiber overload and I think Sweater just lost consciousness. Webs is enormous and wonderful! We spent about two and a half hours in there and it felt like two and a half minutes. (Note to self… next time, plan for six hours minimum and bring a sack lunch.) We got a lot of good stuff. Mom uncovered a whole bunch of discontinued Skye Tweed. Lucky! (BTW, this is her photo, Nice, huh?)

I ended up with several cones of cottonflake, 10 skeins of Twize 327, a ton of bulky merino in Spring Melody colorway, some other random stuff and a special treat of 2 skeins of laceweight malabrigo in glazed carrot colorway. Ooh, I also got this really nice dragonfly shawl pin. Sorry there aren’t any photos of the amazing innards or the stuff we got, but you can imagine it, can’t you? Here’s the outside of the store anyway…

The ride home was a little treacherous with the sleet and fog, but Sweater’s keen guidance kept us on the road and out of trouble.

Weather wise, the trip to Webs in Western MA was probably the worst of it, which isn’t saying much. We were really blessed by mother nature and had sunny skies much of the time. OG and I took a nice walk around the neighborhood where my Mom lives in Chelsea, the smallest city in Massachusetts, and got some really nice shots in the sun!

Our last day in town was filled with more New England touring. We had yummy breakfast at Beach Street Cafe in Manchester By The Sea

and took a little stroll around town to check out the locals,

followed by lunch with my cousin in Newburyport (My favorite place on earth! I will live there someday!) Newburyport has a really nice LYS called A Loom With A View. Their website isn’t much to look at, but their yarn selection is prime! I really like this new yarn line they carry called Mirasol. My Mom got me a couple skeins of Hacho for X-Mas and I picked up a few skeins of Cotanani to swatch for the Cobblestone Pullover I want to make. The nice woman working there humored me by posing with Sweater.

All and all it was a lovely trip and I think Sweater had a good time. We got home super late, but just in time to pop open a bottle of bubbly and knit toast in the New Year. Thanks again Jill B. for picking Sweater and us up at the airport. It was a nice welcome home 😉

xo, Jill P.