Knitting from Outer Space

17 August 2010

Selfish Spinning

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

New niddy-noddy was obtained on Friday, and there was much rejoicing.  I decided to go with the fancier, albeit more expensive, Schacht niddy-noddy because I loved the idea of being able to create either a 1.5 yard skein or a 2 yard skein with the same tool.  I was also a bit put off of the Ashford niddy-noddy because my old one (the one that was eaten by the pup) was an odd length — 1.66 yards (otherwise known as 5 feet, don’t know who thought that was a good idea).  It was a bit of a pain to remember that when figuring out yardage.

I actually managed to begin spinning the Selfish Shetland over the week, but only just got half a layer on the bobbin before things like errands, laundry, and cleaning crab (tasty, tasty crab) got my attention.  This is my first time spinning Shetland, so it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

One of the things I’m going to focus on while spinning this 2-ply laceweight will be the plying.  I think I’m doing okay with the amount of twist I get into my laceweight singles, but the finished yarn still comes out a bit… um, what’s the word… not fluffy at all, sort of rope-like.  The singles when I test them with ply-back are as I want them.  So, it must be that I’m over-plying; I tend to add plying twist to my singles so that they look they way I want them as I feed them onto the bobbin.   But, I think I read somewhere that twist continues to be added until the yarn actually winds around the bobbin shaft.  Several of my early yarns are nicely balanced and fluffy, and they are from the time period when I just let the wheel pull the plied yarn in as it went.  I wasn’t overthinking things or trying to control how the plying twist entered the yarn and put the singles together.  I may need to try that again.

12 August 2010

4 Ounce Challenge

Filed under: Knitting,Spinning — Tags: , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

Having too many options always seems to make decisions more difficult.  The days are ticking by on the 4 ounce challenge (deadline is Sept 30).  I don’t have any fiber from Hello Yarn or Southern Cross Fibre, but I do have plenty of Spunky Eclectic fiber to choose from.  That’s part of the problem.  Well, that, and not even being able to decide what kind of pattern I want to try to come up with.  Socks are always fun… so is lace… ooo, what about a cowl?  If I can’t even settle on what it is I’m going to make, how can I pick the right fiber for the project?

The top fiber in the running is a Spunky Club offering from last year – Selfish in Shetland.  I’m also considering the newest shipment, which I can’t give details on yet.  The nice thing about the Selfish is that it’s all set to go.  When I received it last year, I split it up and pre-drafted it.  So, it’s ready to spin.  I’m also finding the maroon, orange, and green combination appealing.  I think I’ll aim for a 2-ply laceweight yarn as I’m considering knitting something like a cowl or shawlette.

Off to ponder…

10 August 2010

A Niddy-Noddy Problem

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

I was hit by the oddest fever in the middle of the week.  No other symptoms, just a fever and all its fun side-effects like aches, chills, joint pain, and sore neck.  Thankfully, it only lasted a few days, and by Saturday morning I was feeling much better but still not up for much.  So, I got out the spinning wheel and sat down to plying.

Plying up 4 ounces of wool into a approximately fingering weight yarn (I’ll know more details once it has finished drying from its bath) went a lot quicker than I expected.  I am so used to spinning 2-ply, laceweight yarns that take forever to see a finished product.

On Sunday, I wanted to see about getting the yarn into a bath to see how it looked finished.  Go to pull out my niddy-noddy only to remember that the pup chewed it up a couple weeks ago.  *sigh*  I also remember that my LYS is on vacation, so no quick dash to the store to save me.  This is when I recall that I have a back-up niddy-noddy.  It’s a handmade piece that I bought from The Rug & Yarn Hut years ago.  I also have a spindle made by the same guy.  It took me a little while I find where I stashed it and to get it back together into one piece (it splits in the middle for storage and it held together by a wooden pin, which has a very tight fit).  I gleefully proceed to winding the yarn off the bobbin into a 2-yard skein for washing.  I tie up the ends and go to pull the skein off, when it dawns on me why this is my back-up niddy-noddy.  I can’t get the yarn off, at least not easily.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful piece of wood and craftsmanship.  A dark hard wood with a lighter wood inlay.  The maker thoughtfully put a slot in one of the arms to hold the end of the yarn as you beginning to wind it.  But, and it’s a bit of a but, he left all 4 arms of the niddy-noddy swooped up in a pretty little design.  A pretty little design that does not allow the yarn to slide off the niddy-noddy.  My now gone Ashford niddy-noddy had all 4 arms smoothed in a downward fashion making slipping the skein off a breeze.  I have seen more ornate niddy-noddies such as mine with the decorative ends, but they usually have one arm left smoothed down for yarn removal.

This beautiful niddy-noddy took me a good 15 minutes to get the yarn off as I slowly slipped small sections off at a time, hoping that doing so wouldn’t hurt my newly-minted yarn.  So, unless someone can recommend a way to make this tool work more easily for me, I am now on the hunt for a usable niddy-noddy or skein-winder that doesn’t cost too much.

Meanwhile, the yarn came off the niddy-noddy looking extremely excited.  It’s gotten a nice soak and several thwacks.  I can’t wait to see how it looks once it’s dry.

3 August 2010

Tour de Flop

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

The Tour de Fleece began July 3, and I happily sat down in front of my spinning wheel with the hopes of seeing it through to the end.  This was my first time doing the Tour de Fleece, and I signed up with Abby Franquemont’s Team Suck Less because I wanted to focus on improving my technique as well as Amy King’s Team Monkey Farts because I planned on working my way through some of my Spunky Eclectic Club backlog.  I spun on Saturday.  I spun on Sunday.  I spun on the Monday Holiday.  On Tuesday I had the beginnings of a bad headache, which revealed itself on Wednesday to be something wrong with my back, right between my shoulder blades.  I felt like someone was ramming something into my spine.  My shoulder hurt.  My head hurt.  Spinning was not going to happen.  Thankfully, my chiropractor got me in for her last available appointment Wednesday afternoon, but I was instructed to ice and take it easy for a few days.  That’s all it takes to fall off the wagon.  For the rest of the tour I found excuses not to spin.

On the upside, I did manage to fill 3 bobbins with singles on their way to becoming what I hope will be a sportish 3-ply.  I tried to spin so that the yarn would have a bit more loft, thus make the final yarn more fluffy.  I have such a bad habit of making smooth dense yarns that are all thinner than I want.  So, this yarn is an experiment.  I have no idea if I did the right things to get the yarn I’m hoping for, but I’m willing to accept that.  (I still have another 4 oz. of this fiber/color combination, so I still have a chance to make a gorgeous, usable yarn.)  I had discovered when I took Janel Laidman’s spinning class at Stitches West 2010, that if I draft faster, I get yarn that’s fluffier.  Now, granted, I was doing that on a spindle.  But, I gave it some thought and tried to apply what I did with the spindle to my wheel.  Like I said, I have no idea if I did it right; for all I know I did the complete opposite.

I wanted to ply faster.  But, plying faster means nothing if the yarn is sitting around waiting to move onto the bobbin.  I also figured that a fluffier yarn needs less twist to hold it together (this may be one of the places I’ve gone completely wrong and find myself with singles that just fall apart as I try to ply them).  I was basing this on thinner yarn needs more twist, thicker yarn needs less twist.  So, I turned up the uptake on my wheel and plied like the wind.

Who knows, maybe the bobbins of singles sitting around while I do nothing with them for 3 weeks will work in my favor allowing the twist to settle in a bit.  Or I might just be on my way to ending up with a huge mess.

29 July 2010

That was loads of fun… not

Filed under: Knitting,Site Maintenance,Spinning — Tags: , , , , , , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

I apologize right up front to anyone who visited my bog in the last month and found it redirecting them to some stupid, fake “anti-virus” site.  My blog was somehow hijacked, and a script was inserted in every. single. frikken. post.  Thankfully, my server host provided me with a SQL statement to run against my database to clean out the script.  And I wasn’t affected by any of the other hijacking symptoms that were possible.  I’ve backed up and upgraded, so hopefully, this won’t happen again.  I have plans for backing up more often and keeping on top of making sure I upgrade in a timely manner.

In other circles, I completely failed at Tour de Fleece.  I spun for the first three days, then I hurt my back and didn’t get my wheel out for the rest of the tour.  On the upside, I did manage to get the singles for a 3-ply yarn spun, just need to find the time to ply it up and see if my experiment to try getting a specific type of yarn worked.

I’ve been knitting, working on a baby blanket for my niece, who should be joining us in October.  I’m also working on designing a pair of socks.  This isn’t the first time I’ve created my own pattern, but it is the first time I’ve done something more than just stockinette or ribbing.  I’ve actually put some thought into it.  It’s been fun enough that I’m already thinking of a second pattern for the first installment of the Mean Girls Yarn Club, Part Deux that I just received.

22 April 2010

Never-ending spinning

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

Thanks to a few threads on Ravelry aimed at either spinning down stash or spinning for a lace project, I’ve been motivated to pull my poor neglected wheel out of my fiber room and do some spinning. I’ve even managed to finish(-ish) a couple of projects that have been languishing. On Monday night, I finally finished spinning the singles from those green merino/silk batts that were my first drum carding experiment.  They went sadly unfinished during the Ravelympics, but there is an end in sight now.  Here’s proof:

All that’s left is to ply it.  I think I’m going to try making a plying ball to see if that works better than plying from a center-pull ball.  The only thing I’m slightly worried about is that I know there are some spots where the singles are more than a bit thin.  I’m already anticipating them breaking as I try to create a plying ball.

25 February 2010

Move along

Filed under: Knitting,Spinning — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 6:02 pm

No progress to see here; please move along.  I have been so tired from slinging boxes at work the last few days that I’m unable to bring myself to even knit in the evening.  So, my Ishbel and my spinning both sit where they were at the beginning of the week.  The Ishbel may actually get finished since I just have the lace section left to do.

Tomorrow is for Stitches West.  I’ve signed up for Janel Laidman’s Getting the Most from a Painted Roving.  It goes all day on Friday, so hopefully, by the end of the day I should have some idea of what to do with the handpainted fibers I have slowly piling up in my fiber room.

I plan on just having lunch at the bar/restaurant in the hotel so that I don’t have to drive anywhere.  Then, into the market.  I’m not planning on returning for the rest of the weekend, so all shopping needs to be done during my lunch break and after class ends.  This year’s shopping theme is going to be tools/books.  I was in my fiber room cleaning it up so my BIL could stay the night and realized I truly do have quite a lot of fiber and yarn and no time to do anything with it.  (And I just got into The Loopy Ewe’s sock club for this year and am considering signing up for another year of infliction sock yarn from the Mean Girls Yarn Club.)  So, something will have to be truly amazing for me to think about getting it if it isn’t a tool or a book.

I also have the mission to buy a couple of skeins of sock yarn and a sock book for my MIL’s birthday, which is in a couple of months.  She’s getting back into knitting and the pair of socks I knit for her has inspired her to have more handknit socks of her own.  I think I’m going to get her a skein from Abstract Fibers and perhaps one from either Pigeonroof or Lisa Souza; I like the idea of getting her something rather local.  The book I’m thinking of getting her is Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks.  I think she’ll like the historical connection as well as the simple, but pretty patterns in the book.

I’m not entirely sure where my Ravelry name pin has gotten too; I’ll have to see if I can find it.  I do plan on wearing my Brandywine shawl tomorrow so that I can show it off to Romi in person.  See you there!

23 February 2010

Ravelympics

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 9:30 am

How are your Ravelympics projects going?

I can tell you that they are probably going far better than mine.  I have yet to pull out the fiber I decided upon for my spinning project (the superwash Corriedale that was to become socks).  Instead, I have been spinning some green batts that were the first to ever come off my drum carder.

I had received some very, very dark green with touches of red and yellow fiber from Deep Color in a swap several years ago (see the yarn to the right).  It was one of those cases where I highly doubt my swap partner had read my questionnaire because I had listed green as a color I don’t like.  (It wasn’t even until everyone was supposed to be finding out who their secret swap partners had been that I realized that my partner had fallen off the planet.  Oh well.)  So, I had this nice merino that just happened to be dyed a rather unfortunately color.  I tried spinning some of it, but hated the color so much that it languished on a bobbin for almost a year and a half.  I ended up using it as my first attempt to Navajo ply because I didn’t care if I completely screwed it up.

I had spun less  than half of it, so I still had over 2 oz. of this fiber laying around.  Then, I finally decided to get brave and try to use my drum carder.  I bought an ounce of bright yellow silk from Spunky Eclectic; it was a color called Walking on the Sun.  I blended the 2 together and got a much lighter grass green.  The silk also add a great feel.

I have been wanting to practice spinning from the fold and these batts seemed like good practice fodder.  Next thing you know, that’s what’s on my wheel.  The problem?  I started spinning it back in September, so I definitely don’t believe it’s eligible for the Ravelympics.  My wheel got put away after I had spun only 1 of the 4 batts I had made because the new puppy showed too much interest in wanting to chew on the treadles, which I just couldn’t let happen to my beautiful Catherine.  When I got the wheel out to begin working on the superwash Corriedale, I saw the silky green bobbin and couldn’t help myself.  The Corriedale was forgotten.

At least my knitting is going okay… I think.

20 August 2009

Monterey Wool Auction

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

Please imagine wonderful pictures of the fun time that was had at the Monterey Wool Auction throughout this post.  Someone… *cough*… okay, I forgot the camera at home inthe rush to get out the door.

Got down to Monterey, picked up my mom, and the 2 of us were dropped off at the fairgrounds by The Husband, who then went off to do non-fiber activities.  Got signed in and got my auction number.  Had to wait a little bit ot get a listing sheet as they had run out.  Unfortunately, there were also some problems with the sheet in that several weights and prices listed were incorrect.  Thankfully, they announced them as each fleece came up and I made sure to double check on those fleeces I was interested in.

I decided this year’s strategy was going to be pick out a couple of really nice fleeces and concentrate on them.  One of the fleeces I picked out was also wanted by 2 of my friends, so we decided to split it because it was 10.5 lbs.  Sadly, we were outbid.

The next fleece I was super interested in was one of the champion fleeces.  I figured that I would be willing to pay up to $25/lb for it.  It came up and turned into a bidding war between me and someone sitting up front.  $25/lb came very quickly and I made a quick assessment — we hadn’t won the earlier, larger fleece for spliting, so I hadn’t spent any money yet, and I could go higher, but this would be it.  I kept bidding.  The price hit $30/lb, which I determined to be too rich for my blood.  The audience actually seemed to collectively let out their breath when the auctioneer said, “Sold!”

There was really only one more fleece I really wanted.  Thankfully, my friends who had also been interested in it, said it was okay for me to go after on my own.  It was only a 6.25 lb fleece, which is a little hard to split 3 ways if you lose a lot to processing.  I decided on my maximum bid and was quite happy when I won the fleece at a much lower price.  It’s a very pretty variegated grey fleece from Hobbit Hollow Farm.  I think it was a 1/4 blood.  It’s been turned over to Shari at Morro Fleece Works for processing, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  I think it’ll be a very nice sweater for me.

7 August 2009

End of the week

Filed under: Life,Spinning — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 2:49 pm

After I finished the Rivendell socks, I was a bit listless over what to knit next.  I had bought some Mountain Lace in a nice navy blue that I want to make Aeolian out of, but the idea just wasn’t getting me excited.  I kept thinking I wanted to knit something out of some of my handspun.  I hadn’t done that in some time.  There’s something really nice about knitting with yarn that you’ve spun yourself.

I had managed to get my hands of some Spunky Ecelectic Corripaca before Amy ran out of it several months ago.  The colorway I chose was Estuary, which was a pretty mix of green, brown, and natural.  I spun it up as a 2-ply lacewight getting approximately 509 yds out of the 4 oz.

I thought with the brown and greens the perfect pattern would be Laminaria.  So, I cast it on last Thursday.  I’ve gotten through the star chart and have completed the first repeat of the blossom chart.  So far, I love the way the colors are stripping up.  I think with the edging it will really look seaweedy.

I should also say thanks to BigAlice and Sandy for their comments on my last post.  Since they’ve given me permission to whinge, here it is, in all its silly glory….

First off, I’m an introvert; being around people can be tiring, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like to be social.  Things in my life got a lot better when I accepted the fact that I am an introvert, that I’ll never be an extrovert, and I learned what I needed to do for myself.  However, knowing and accepting don’t always help when I go through periods of profound loneliness.  I lament that I don’t have many close friends; I pity myself for not being invited out to do things.  It leaves me feeling like there’s a hole in my gut for a few days, then it passes.  I have to remember that I probably don’t present myself as someone who is interested in going out and doing things, and frankly, I’m not sure how to even give that impression.  I don’t know how to make instant friends with people, and I have only a slim number of lasting friendships.

I’m not looking for a pity party, but just explaining where my head was earlier this week.  I’m hoping maybe by putting some of it into words I’ll get a better grasp on what it is that bothers me.

Now, on a lighter note… YARN!

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