Tour de Fleece, Day 6

This is getting a little repetitive. But I'm getting an amazing amount done!

It's day 6, and I've finished the last two oz. of my Border Leicester fiber. I haven't decided if I'm going to ply it with itself, or spin something else to ply it with.





I do know it's going to be a 2ply. I have some alpaca fibers that match fairly well; though it may just be plied with itself.

Tour de Fleece, Day 5

Day 5; and I'm still at it. This might be a record for me.

Tonight I spun another ounce of the Border Leicester. It really doesn't look much different than yesterday.

I also started a sample of merino/milk fiber from Mama Jude's etsy shop on my tiny spindle.





I wanted to spin more on my wheel tonight but developed a strange cramp on the outside of my left leg. It's not my calf muscle and not my shin, but somewhere in between. I can't figure out how to stretch it or position my leg so it doesn't keep cramping up. Hmmm... spinning injury? Maybe it's from yesterday when I fell off a garden stepping stone 1/2 inch off the ground. (Grace personified, that's me.)

Tour de Fleece, Day 4

Today I managed to spin 1 oz. of Border Leicester fiber in "Spring Forest" from Esther's Place in Big Rock, IL.

The fiber is from the Illinois Green Pastures Co-Op, so not only do I get to spin something pretty, I get to support local shepherds and farmers as I do. Just this little thing makes me feel good on an otherwise craptacular day.





I have 3 more ounces of this fiber. I think it's going to be a three ply. I'd like to to be at least a worsted weight so I'm trying to spin a little thicker and with less twist than I have been lately.

I can't wait until I have time to spin more than an ounce in a day!

(It would probably help if I didn't spend so much time keeping up with the Tour de Fleece boards on Ravelry!)

Tour de Fleece, Day 2

Day 2 didn't see as much spinning as I would have liked, but I did finish one ply of a future three ply yarn from Fiber Optics fibers.

I took some time to split the fibers up lengthwise so to end up with a fractally plyed yarn. I hope. (Think of Trekking XXL sock yarn striping to get an idea of fractal stripes.)

Tour de Fleece, Day 1

On Ravelry, I am participating in the "Tour de Fleece" this year. It's a fun non-competition where you spin yarn while the Tour de France rides. I've never joined in past years because, frankly, I know next to nothing about the Tour de France and I'm usually so far behind the curve hearing about these things that it's too late anyway.

Well, I caught the chatter about it in time this year and realized that there really isn't a strong connection (or at least there doesn't have to be) between the Fleece tour and the France tour. You just make yarn.

It helped that the Tour started a week after I took three spinning classes, and have been itching use my wheel more. My personal goals are to spin every day the Tour rides, finish a least six stash fibers, and try new things.

Today, July 2nd, was day 1. I tried something new by using my new mini turkish drop spindle to spin a mini art batt (from a Phat Fiber box) and ply it onto itself. I'm impressed with myself that I actually used a spindle to make yarn. I usually just end up frustrated in a tangle of fiber.





If I do manage to stick with this every day, it could do wonders for my blogging as well!

Finished Yarn: Neapolitan

I've been itching to do some spinning since I purchased the alpaca fiber last week. I have a growing stash of nice fiber, but haven't had the nerve to spin much of it for fear of 'ruining' it.

In my defense, it's not like knitting - if I mess up, I can't just un-spin it. (Would that be nips? Like tink?)

Anyway, my desire to make yarn took over and I got out some Neapolitan Blue Faced Leicester fiber from Spunky Eclectic. I tried spinning from the fold for the first time, in an attempt to get a little softer, loftier yarn than those I have previously spun.






It worked so well. Much easier than I anticipated, and it seemed to go quickly too. I ended up with around 114 yarns of semi bulky yarn from 4oz of fiber. I haven't measured the wraps per inch yet, but I'm guessing it's around 7 wpi.

I think I am going to make a cowl or short cabled scarf from it.

Finished: One Row Handspun Scarf

Before I started spinning, I imagined that it would be difficult to actually knit with (and "use up") the yarns that I spun. In fact, the opposite has been true for me. I love knitting with my handspun yarn, and only worry a little about finding the perfect pattern to use for them.

I'm sure it helps that all of my spinning to this point has produced worsted weight yarn approximate to a skein of Cascade 220. Hats and scarves, anyone?

I wrote about spinning this Spunky Eclectic fiber here in March. I was excited to see how it knitted up, since I didn't pay any attention to how I split the colors while spinning. I ended up with some great subtle stripes:





Pattern: One Row Handspun Scarf by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (available free here)
Yarn:Handspun Spunky Eclectic Roving in "New Day", details here
Needles:size 8US bamboo straights
Start/Finish: October 6, 2009/October 13, 2009

WIP Wednesday

I've been spinning!

I set my wheel up for the first time since we moved in April. My room (craft room? knitting room? relaxation room? I'm not sure what to call it yet.) is almost put together so I have a nice space to spin without feeling like I'm talking over the living room.





The fiber is BFL from Spunky Eclectic in "Riverwalk". There are 8oz, which I gave to my mom for mother's day. It was supposed to be in yarn form already then - over two months ago. Whoops.

In other WIP news, the sweater and socks still haven't been touched. I have been working on my Swallowtail shawl but each row takes a while at this point and I only seem to have the time and patience to do one or two at a time.

Something wonderful, and frankly a relief, is that Reggie doesn't seem to be interested in the fiber or my yarn at all. He was a little too interested in the wheel as it was spinning but I stopped for a minute and he lost interest.

(Gratuitous cat photo:)

Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair

Last Friday, I was there.

The weather was chilly and a little rainy, but luckily only part of the fair was outside and we hit that part first before it rained. Hubby joined me, since we both had the day off work and he truly enjoys looking at all of the fiber-y goodness. (He is such an enabler. I bought twice as much as I would have without him. Plus, he often exclaimed "You could do that!" or "You should try that!". How could I say no?)

My budget was a little (lot) larger than it usually is at these sort of events since I had just received the first paycheck with my raise added in. This is what I bought:





No yarn at all. I wanted a bunch of new types of fiber to try out on my wheel. Included, clockwise from top, are a "mill mystery fiber" mix (a great deal and very soft), a silk hankie, wool/bamboo blend, wool/seacell blend, Wenslydale mix wool, and some FLB-BLB wool (??) in a color I couldn't pass up.

The only other comment I have on the Fair has to do with about half the vendors we dealt with. It doesn't seem to have gotten through to them yet that my husband and I are their target audience. Ignoring us for 'older' customers, hurrying me along to complete the sale before I have a chance to see everything in your booth, looking concerned when Steve touches something, running over when I walked to the other half of the booth while carrying fiber -- it was painfully obvious a few vendors thought we were out of place. Of course, the fair was at a community college. Maybe some of them thought we randomly wandered away from class to shoplift from them or waste their time? (Should I be flattered, since I'm almost 30?)

The other half of the vendors we dealt with were wonderful. One really sticks out in my mind at this point: River's Edge Weaving Studio. I even went back out in the rain and made a second purchase from them. The silk hankie and wool/seacell blend above are from them.

All in all, it was a fun day. I'll probably go back next year, if only because it is less than an hour away from home and a good place to pet and buy fiber.

Moving, Pt. 2

I just remembered that I snapped this photo of Lennie, my spinning wheel being packed to move.

I realize that the folding Lendrum is built to be folded and moved around, but the only time I've done it is when I brought him home from The Fold. Still safely enclosed in the original box with padding, I might add.





So. Bottom of back seat folded up to cover the space over the foot wells, blanket wrapped around, seat-belted in. If I owned a child seat he probably would have been strapped into that. It was only a five minute drive but I was relived to see that he didn't move at all and came out of the journey perfectly intact.

Me? Neurotic? Nahhh... It was justified, since I think this is the most expensive thing we own besides the cars.

Up for Air

I have knit exactly one row in the last three weeks. Things have been extra busy at work and with the overtime, moving, packing, cleaning, planning, etc. I haven’t had much time to sit and concentrate on knitting. I need a vacation. And maybe some chocolate cake? Oh, and sunshine. I think it has been raining for two weeks straight.

I have managed to squeeze in a little spinning here and there. It seems to be easier to pick up and put down than knitting right now, ironically, since I am still not very good at it.

So, enough whining, on with the photos! (Don't you hate reading posts where all the person does is complain about their life? I hate to be one of them...) I am attempting my first true 3-ply yarn from Spunky Eclectic’s “Route 66” BFL.


Here is my first bobbin:





Lennie in action:




I actually have all three bobbins spun, and hopefully will be able to finish the yarn this weekend. We are renting a truck on Saturday and moving all of the remaining large furniture pieces to the new house.

Send “no rain” vibes – if this rain keeps up much longer we make have to move by boat!

Finished: Spinning Wheel Bag

(Last catch-up post. Woo!)

I happened across this cute little spinning wheel bag on Ravelry and knew I had to make it.





I don't have any of the little tools that are supposed to go in it yet, and to be honest am not really sure even what they are. But the bag is cute, huh?

In keeping with my theme of using leftover yarn, I wanted to finish the Paton's SWS I used in my Fake Isle hat. I'd never felted it before but knew other people had successfully. (It worked just fine, but took a few trips through the machine.)

I didn't measure how much yarn I had left - just assumed it was enough. This next photo is entitled "Extreme Yarn Usage":





The arrows point to my two yarn ends, untrimmed and not woven in. Oh yeah! That's extreme, baby. (I am unreasonably thrilled by this. I think I need to get out more.)





Pattern: Felted Spinning Wheel Bag by Shannon Geddes (on Ravelry)
Yarn: Paton's SWS in Natural Navy
Needles: US10 Bamboo circs
Started/Finished: March 20/March 20 (about two hours around 1am)

Finished: New Day yarn

I finished spinning and plying my Spunky Eclectic roving Wednesday night. Unsurprisingly, it didn't end up looking anywhere near what I was imaging but I'm sure that will improve with practice. (Whether my spinning improves to match my expectations or my expectations become more reasonable is anyone's guess.) I haven't decided what I am going to make with it yet, but it has been sitting beside me all evening. It's very nice to pat and squish every now and then.

Specs:
Fiber: 4 oz of Spunky Eclectic Club February '09 "New Day", Corridale wool
Ply: 2-ply
WIP: 7-8
Yardage: ~220
Started/Finished: March 14 - March 18

Projects I'm considering include a hat (Abalone by Woolly Wormhead?) and a simple lace scarf. Whatever pattern I choose needs to be able to show off the colors well.

Spinning: Color Experimentation

As I've mentioned, I took a spinning class a few years ago and during the class I used a ball of roving that had four colors carded next to each other, so there was very little mixing of colors at the joins.





During the class, I decided to divide the colors and spin the yarn so when it was plied each ply would be a different color than the one it was next to. I finished two skeins of it in class and had the ball of roving photographed above leftover. This sat in my closet until last week when I was playing with my new wheel and decided to see what else I could do with it. I came up with two other ideas to test, separating the colors as before but plying them so the colors matched up and spinning all of the colors together randomly. I knit up little swatches of each, and I feel that this is a good starting point for future experiments in spinning with color. (Or, at least a good starting point to know what my finished yarn is going to look like.)


~Skein 1, completed in class, was spun by dividing the colors in a length of roving and spinning each one individually in order and then repeating. (I don't remember exactly, but think it was pink, green, yellow, orange.) I had two bobbins, and they were plied together so the colors hit randomly.



Skein 1

closeup

knitted swatch


~Skein 2 was spun by dividing the colors of the entire length of roving I was going to use and then spinning all of the pink first, then all of the green, etc. I had one bobbin and Navajo plied it to make sure the colors matched up with each other.



Skein 2

closeup

knitted swatch


~Skein 3 was spun without separating the colors. I pulled off a length of roving and drafted it without caring which colors were being pulled in. This was also Navajo plied, but only because I only had one bobbin.




Skein 3

closeup

knitted swatch


I think it is very interesting to see the effects of these different techniques. I have a few more ideas that I want to try if I ever find roving prepped the same way again. But at least I have the beginnings of an idea on how to spin striping or Trekking XXL style yarn.

My New Best Friend.

Last Saturday, my husband and I drove out to The Fold in Marengo, IL and purchased my new BFF.





This is a Lendrum Double Treadle with the complete kit: flyer and bobbins, kate, jumbo plying head and flyer, and fast flyer. Yeah. It feels a little (ok, very) extravagant, but I've been saving for this for a long time and am very happy to finally own one.





I had never been to The Fold before; I guess I always assumed it was far from me but in reality it was only an hour or so. It seems like a great shop and I can't wait to go back. I actually didn't even look at much yarn (there was a lot) since I wasn't planning on buying any that day. They gave me a huge bag of fiber to get started with, and I've spun up a few bobbins so far.



two ply, about 80 yards


Not horrible for my first attempt. I seriously need to keep reminding myself that this is going to take time to learn and that I need to be patient with myself.

If anyone knows of a good technical spinning guide or some place with good instructions on why you need to do something, not just what you do, I'd love any recommendations.