Tag Archives: silk

Never-ending spinning

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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.

Ravelympics

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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.

Fiber Fun

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Sadly, I’ve owned a drumcarder for about 3 years, but it’s just sat in my fiber room collecting dust.  Since the advent of Ravelry and my participation in the Friends of Abby’s Yarns (Rav link), I’ve come to have a renewed love for batts.

Almost as long ago, I participated in the Secret Pal 4 swap.  The swap partner who was supposed to be sending me things sent me one package before I never heard from her again (not even to tell me she was my partner when the swap was done).  Unfortunately, based on the package she had sent me, I don’t think she had bothered to read my filled out survey as the colors were all the opposite of what I had listed as my favorites.  One of the items in the package was a 4 oz. bump of dark, dark green merino with slight red and yellow streaks in it from Deep Color (who, sadly, no longer does any dyeing).

I spun up a little more than half of the merino to discover that it seemed to get even darker as I spun it, leaving me a bit disappointed.  So, I used the singles to practice chain plying.  Since it’s very nice merino, but too dark to overdye, I had thought I could pull out the drumcarder and blend it with something to lighten it up.  I found some tussah silk at Spunky Eclectic in a warm yellow color called Walking on the Sun and bought 1 oz.

Sunday night I finally got a chance to set up the drumcarder and play with it for the first time.  Here are the results:

The batts weight 2.75 oz. total, with 1 oz. being the tussah silk and the rest being the merino.

I had a lot of fun blending the fibers, although I was a little surprised to find out that it can be hard work.  I think I need to see about picking up a kitchen scrub brush for burnishing since my Ashford carder did not come with one.  I also need to find out the easiest way to clean up the drum and the licker as there are bits of merino and silk deeply inbedded in the carding cloth now.

Searching for knitting satisfaction

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Imagine photos of cute baby items here.  They are currently trapped on my camera while I wait for the battery to recharge.

My knitting has been experiencing some ennui recently.  i have been unable to get a decent pair of socks started, and have cast on and ripped out 2 different patterns.  Maybe it’s the yarn.  I did get my first Mean Girls Sock Yarn club shipment a couple weeks ago and am now contemplating what kinds of socks it wants to be.

I have also been chugging away on my Miss Lambert’s Shetland Pattern for a Shawl from Victorian Lace Today.  I actually started it over a year ago, did about 10 repeats and promptly got bored with it.  But, I am knitting it out of Jade Sapphire Silk/Cashmere 2-ply that is quite nice and will be a treat for me to finish.  The photo here is from it’s sadly 10 repeats done state.  I’ve got about 13 repeats of the center panel to go before I can begin the border.  Unfornately, the way the pattern is written leads me to believe that I may get to the border and put it down again for many months as the instructions seem to be written in gibberish.

Because of this, and because Purlescence Yarns had assorted lace yarns on sale at 25% this last weekend, I came home with a very pretty ball of Mountain Colors Winter Lace in Deep Blue.  I found the solid color reassuring.  I’ve been doing a lot of variegated projects of late (even Miss Lambert up there has some variegation to it).    I’ve settled on the Aeolian shawl from Knitty.com because I wanted something with nupps.  I’m also considering doing the beading on the edging to give it a little glitz.  Just need to decide on the needle size I want to use.  I swatched on size 3 needles last night, but I think it may still be too closed.  I do tend to use size 4 needles for my laceweight projects, so that may just be the way to go.

Tulips!

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My tulips seem to have weathered the rainy winter much better than the iris bulbs I planted. My crocus bulbs seem to have been hit or miss. I’m afraid that for several of the bulbs the rain just made them rot. My bearded irises are starting to shoot up, too. Yeah, for spring flowers. I had to drive up to San Bruno to see my chiropractor this afternoon and the dandilions are blooming along the Palo Alto section of 280. Very pretty.

Meanwhile, there was yarn…

This is about 140 yards of a 60% silk/40% wool yarn. I haven’t measured the wpi, so I don’t know if it classifies as lace weight, or if it’s fingering weight. The silk is multi-colored: pink, yellow, green, blue… I got it from The Silk Worker. The blue ply is a 80% wool/20% silk that I got off eBay.

Okay, I’m going to go have soup now… soup is good.

Let there be pictures

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Here you can see the baby alpaca and silk I spun up awhile ago. The dark bit is the alpaca, and the light bit is the silk. What was kind of weird about this one is the silk is more than just one color, but because the alpaca is so dark in comparison, the color changes don’t stand out. I only think this is funny cause I had spun up a different alpaca/silk set of rovings from the same person and the silk looked bland by itself, but once I plied it the color variations jumped right out.

Next, we have the roving a dyed at the dyeing class that wasn’t a few weeks ago. I know the picture looks a bit off but the camera was yelling at me about the battery being low, and using the flash made it look radioactive… probably shouldn’t have put it on a dark background either. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet… I’m thinking I might card each into rolags, throw them all in a bag, stir it up, and spin them in the order it comes out… or I might blend them together.

Norma was going on today about jinxed yarn and how she’s crap. But I’m inclined to say it’s not her… everything lately seems crappy. I’m sure Stephanie’s unmentionable problem is also part of the ensuing crapage. Things I have seen recently that support this theory are 1) I got paid last Monday, and they shorted me 16 hours, 2) A friend of a friend lost his daughter in a car accident on Jan 30th (thankfully, they have the alleged drunk driver in custody last I heard). So, see spectacular crap all around.

The fast and the furious

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I have been trying to knit fast and furious on the Sister Shawl… I have to have it done and blocked by the 24th, which is when we’ll be driving down to Monterey. Unfortunately, with people staying at my parents’ house and the dog I can’t block the shawl there… of course, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to block it at my place. The last lace shawl I dressed I pinned out on a full size bed. I have a queen in the guest room… hopefully, it will be big enough. I’m thinking of using fishing line as I have not had enough time to get dressing wires… okay, so I didn’t remember I needed dressing wires until too late. But, fishing line and T pins should do the trick. Although this raises the question of where one goes to find fishing line… huh. I’ll have to figure that one out. Anyways, the shawl… I’m up to only 116 rows cause I didn’t get half as much knitting done last weekend as I wanted to. I looking forward to tomorrow… I have nothing else I am required to do until 8:30 pm when I’ll be whisked off to a company Christmas party.

My sister emailed out a schedule for the 27th and 28th (D-day)… boy, am I glad that Josh and I did the simple yet sweet wedding*. This is insane. I must admit that I thought it was pretty funny that she reminds all the guys going to the store to pick up their tuxedos the day before to check for both the left and right shoe. *hehe*

Thankfully, I picked up my dress on Sunday… very pretty… of course, now my mother hates me. *sigh* She showed me a dress in a catalog by Spencer Alexis… the dresses are mostly flowy things using different types of fabrics in all the same color or nicely contrasting ones. Then, I found out a place in Carmel sells them, went in and tried one on, ordered one in what I believed to be my size, and picked it up a week later. Now, my mother is moaning over the fact that she wanted to get a dress by Spencer Alexis, but now she can’t cause we’d look like twins** even if she got a different style and color (her words, not mine), and what is she going to wear. *sigh* But, with my dress safely in my hands, all I have to worry about is the shawl and if the pins I bought on eBay are going to arrive in time. (I picked out a couple of sparkly pins, both of which are kind of art deco in design, so that I can give one to my sister to help hold the shawl on without needing to worry about holding it or tying it, etc.) I should get at least one before next Friday since it’s already shipped out.

Wheee… I am so glad this is not my wedding.

*We did the 20 people in the redwoods with a fancy dinner afterward… no dancing… no cake cutting… simple.

**People usually think I’m either my mother’s clone or her younger sister we look that much alike. Clone I don’t mind… but sister? Granted my mom is only 20 years older than me… I should just be happy that no one believes what age she is and that I got those genes.

Just say "Bah!"

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Due to a various number of things, I feel completely drained. However, thanks to my sister’s wedding and me selfishly taking a week off at Thanksgiving, I am out of usable hours off. This of course means that I am at work and do not want to be. This means that when I have been at home the last few days I have thought that I should work on the Sister Shawl because the wedding count-down is growing terribly short, but I say “Bah!” I have been spinning instead… spinning a little bit of silk and now a little bit of baby alpaca which are dyed to coordinate with each other. I’m about half done with the alpaca, then there will be plying. I feel like a horrible blogger since entries have been sparse, without pictures, and rambling… this entry being a prime example.

I can only hope that the pain I am experiencing in my sinuses is from the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure affiliated with the rain storm that came through last night… cause otherwise I might be sick… without an usable hours off… and a manager who won’t let me work from home even though all I do is edit stuff. A co-worker has suggested I cough on him if I do indeed turn out to be sick.

Do I have to go back?

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Back at work after a beautiful week off… if only the week had been longer… but we can’t have the week adding on extra days just for me, other people might get jealous… or pissed if they have to work. The unfortunate thing of the week off was I have come to realize that I need at least a month off from both work and school. The nervous twitch in my left eye actually went away for a couple of days; it was back this morning. *sigh*

I didn’t really get any knitting done… I finished my bookmark, so now I need to block it. I guess it will get into the mail eventually. I did get the spinning for my sister-in-law’s Christmas gift done… approximately 118 yards of fingering weight romney. I think I need to practice the whole spinning bigger. I’ve gotten damn good at spinning lace weight, which means I can’t spin anything else. Maybe if I got a lazy kate… just spin lots of lace weight singles and start making 3…5… 8-ply yarn… I’d be spinning forever in order to get anywhere.

Anyways, the yarn came out pretty nice; now I need to dye it. I don’t know my sister-in-law very well, so I have no idea what colors she likes. I was thinking of going with a green blue combo… everyone likes green and blue, right? Now to find a time my husband won’t be mad at me for making the whole apartment smell like vinegar and wet sheep.

Did I really say I didn’t get much knitting done a couple paragraphs ago? I did, look at that. *groan* I actually did work on the Sister Shawl at Thanksgiving. I can’t believe I forgot… especially since knitting seems to be one of the few ways I can impress my family. Knitted lace seems to truly amaze them, and it rocks my socks that it’s my skill they’re impressed with. I think it’s funny that my mother has told me more than once, “We never thought you’d be one to knit.” What she did think I’d do, I have no clue.

Sadly, knitting will be laid by the wayside for most of this week unless I need a stress break. Must get to work on the 15-20 page paper that is due come Saturday. Most of the work is reading all the articles and books I’ve been collecting… should have gotten started on it over the weekend, but laying around in my pajamas for a few days made me feel better. I’m such a procrastinator. At least I’m getting better… a couple years ago as an undergrad I would have just begun looking for sources right about now.

Now you know why I didn’t become a computer programmer*

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I fiddled with the math some more cause something didn’t seem right, but all is well. My math:

1 leaf pattern repeat = 16 rows

16 rows knitted = 1.5 inches = 10.67 rows/inch

16 rows blocked = 2 inches = 8 rows/inch

To get 18 inches in length with a blocked gauge of 8 rows/inch = 144 rows

144 rows at 10.67 rows/inch gauge = 13.5 inches

Of course, there is the fiddly little issue of wondering if my gauge swatch is over blocked. The lace is opened beautifully… but looks a little flat… I don’t know if this means I over-stretched it or if it’s because it’s a 5 inch gauge swatch.

“Bah!” I say. Maybe I should take a break and work on my lace bookmark that needs to get into the mail by the end of the month. I want to try something with beads… so I will need to plan a trip to the bead store. I going to go simple for the lace pattern itself; I’m planning on using the Diagonal Maderia Lace pattern from Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I’m thinking of adding a bead at each yo after a sl1-k2tog-psso… the beads should then sort of underline the diagonal lines. The yarn I’m using is a pretty french blue color… so I need to figure out if I want lighter beads… darker beads… or something completely contrasting.

*I couldn’t get passed the 3rd semester of calculus, and I didn’t even want to try the 2nd semester of physics. I understand theories… they make perfect sense… it’s the implementation of them (especially in relation to exams) that I have trouble with.