Finished yarn

I finished spinning the Malabrigo roving, which, if you'll remember, I bought on the March cruise.

I tried to divide the roving into quarters, but still misjudged and ended up with 34 yards of single left over, after plying. I plied that with some commercial white wool

The tally: 256 yds, 108 gr, Malabrigo Merino roving, 2 plied, fingering weight; 34 yds, 19 gr, Malabrigo Merino/Commercial wool, fingering weight.

I love it!

Wordless Spinning- Malabrigo Roving

Weaving Retreat #3- The Rest

It's amazing how much time I have for picture taking when I don't teach...

Anyway, here's the rest of Saturday...(and again, sorry that some of the pics are less than wonderful- it's the photographer, not the camera).

 Here's where we were- a wonderful big old building at a Youth Camp. The morning started out beautiful and clear, but by evening, it was sprinkling and dreary. Outside that is, inside it was wonderful.

 I went up into the loft to get a shot of the spinning circle below. Look at all those spinning wheels!

 The longer shot shows the tables, more looms, and the kitchen.

 Sara gave a presentation on the history of women in Fiber Arts.

 While she spoke, I finished spinning a little batt of wool and silk and sparkle. In this crowd, it is not considered rude to spin and listen at the same time.

 Here's a shot I should have included yesterday- Connie taking warp off the warping board, as Jill watches.

 And another one I overlooked yesterday- Marie and Lyla warping a rigid heddle loom.

 Kelley did some organic dyeing. Look at those wonderful colors!

 Betty showed off a few of her little weave-it squares. Most were made from handspun yarn. She makes the most adorable flowers with these squares.

I won a Nostipinne as a door prize. It was made by  woodcrafter David Lindquist. Don't know what a Nostipinne is? It's a device for winding a center pull yarn ball, like so. I have always wound my center pull balls with a ball-winder or by hand- it will be lovely to have this tool at my disposal.

Next year, I hope to stay the whole weekend, or at least overnight. I missed out on the evening shenanigans (pajamas and wine... woohoo!)

For another take on the Weaving Weekend, check out Connie P's blog. She stayed the whole weekend, and her pictures are much better than mine!

Not so wordless spinning...

I have another project that I want to start, but The New Me (the one with a Work Ethic) tries to finish WIPs instead of abandoning them.

 So I finished spinning the matching singles for Sunday's yarn. I was able to divide the Twisted roving in half almost perfectly, but the lighter roving (above) wasn't divided quite as evenly. I ran out of this bobbin while plying it to the Twisted single (though there was some left from the first *half*, so I was able to finish plying the yarn).

The 2nd hank is 4 ozs and 309 yards, for a total of 7.7 ozs and 552 yards of 2-ply, self-striping yarn. The hanks look matching, but they're not going to line up perfectly when knit because one hank has more yards, therefore the stripes are going to be wider. That's not a disaster- spinning matching self-striping yarns is difficult, and this was an experiment that didn't actually fail. It just didn't turn out exactly as I hoped it would. Regardless, the yarn itself is gorgeous. I hope to make either cabled or lace socks (and there will be plenty left over). Or maybe gloves. Whatever I knit with it, it'll be a pair of *something* anyway- I went to a lot of trouble to make these skeins vaguely matching, so I might as well take advantage of it.

By the way- this WIP was the spinning of the yarn. The knitting of the yarn is an entirely different project, which is definitely not IP. Nor will it be IP for awhile because I have the urge to do a little quilting.

Not patchwork. Hand quilting.

 I bought this beautiful one-yard fabric is called Firebird. It was designed by ceanirminger through Spoonflower. I am going to add a cream print border, but otherwise it won't be pieced. I just feel like doing some decorative hand-quilting, so I'm going to sandwich this with batting and a plain backing, and just sew wherever and however I please. A good friend became a Grandma for the first time last month, so this will be an At Gramma's House Blanket.

And of course, I'll post pics.

Pick a bale of cotton

A few years ago, I had the urge to spin cotton, and as with all of my obsessions, I overbought the raw materials- in this case, pounds of cotton sliver (which is pronounced SLY-ver), in lots of different natural shades. I was particularly intrigued with the Fox Fibre cottons- undyed cotton that grows in colors: brown, oatmeal, and green. I also somehow ended up with about 3lbs of natural brown cotton lint (ginned cotton fibers that have been carded but otherwise not prepared for spinning. I think it's mostly used in paper making), and an entire bale of ginned, uncarded white cotton that my friend Ann sent me from Arkansas.

The only problem in this scenario is that I swiftly learned that I don't like spinning cotton. Cotton has a very short staple (about 1/2", as opposed to the 2"-3" for angora, 2"-6" with wool, and often 6"+ with mohair), and therefore needs a lot of twist for the single to hold. And by a lot of twist, I mean a LOT of twist. My natural spinning mode is hard and tight (get your mind out of the gutter, Alan- those are legitimate yarn words), and even my default MO wasn't tight and hard enough. I had to adjust the ratios on my Ashford Joy, to the smallest groove on the flyer. And even so, my learning curve was steep, because in order to put that much twist into the cotton, I had to learn the long-draw, which is also not my default style.

I did not learn it well.

Anyway, as with many of my failed experiments, I sighed and shoved the materials back into a corner of my Wool Room (which did not appreciate the plant invasion, lemee tellya), reset the ratios on the wheel, and forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I again got the urge to spin cotton. Why not?, I thought. Maybe this time, I'll get the hang of it.

And you know what? After a half hour that consisted of many restarts and even more bad words, I did get the hang of it. My cotton single is lumpy, but lumpiness is part of the charm of handspun yarn, right?

 I chose a baggie with small amounts of several colors: white, oatmeal, green, and brown, and spun them all onto the same bobbin. I intended to Navajo 3-ply the yarn, but that didn't work, in a spectacular way. The yarn broke every 24" or so, and I invented a few new swear words before giving up on that notion. Instead, I plied the single to a very fine cotton yarn. That worked beautifully.

 Note the colors- off white, brown, and green.

 In order to set the twist of handspun cotton yarns, the yarn has to be boiled. In order to bring the colors out in naturally colored cotton, it has to be boiled in water with some baking soda added. The deepening of the colors was instant, and amazing to watch.

 The difference in the colors is amazing!

 It's just as well that the Navajo plying didn't work- look at how messy this is.

 Ah- much better. The large skein is 175 yards of slightly heavier than lace weight. It's still damp, so it'll weigh a bit less than the 1.7 ozs (which is what the scales said now).

I have another bobbin of singles ready to ply. This will probably boil out darker too. We'll soon see.

So, what am I going to do with all this handspun cotton yarn? Hell if I know. I don't like knitting with cotton.

Spinning right round

I'm still in spinning mode, and lately I've been reminded of a few things that I already knew but forgot.

#1. No matter how pretty this kind of roving looks before spinning

It always looks like this afterwards- muddy. Now, it's a pretty mud, but it's still mud.

#2. Ebay bargains, in this case 17,000 yds (I'm not kidding) of very fine brushed mohair yarn for $9, may sit in the Wool Room for years, but eventually I'll think of something to do with it, like

using it to ply with muddy yarn. On the right, we have 1 ply of the mud roving and 1 ply of brushed mohair (it'll make a lovely halo after it's knit up), 2.6 ozs and 133 yds. On the left, we have a boucle experiment- 1.3 ozs, 94 yds, 1 ply brushed mohair, 1 ply sewing thread, 1 ply metallic glitter strand.

#3. Old Spin-Off magazines are wonderful. I was thumbing through back issues for a pattern that I vaguely remembered, when I came across the instructions for making boucle yarn. Since the Monster Mohair Cone was already out, I gave it a shot. I think this turned out beautifully, and I plan to try again with handspun.

#4. Ugly roving sometimes makes pretty yarn. The yarn on the left was a Merino blend that I'm hoping I got in a trade, because if I actually bought this green/yellow/pink stuff, I need my eyes examined. It was totally ugly in the bag, but I have to say that the 4.5ozs and 183 yds spun up rather prettily. The yarn on the right was gorgeous in the bag, and it turned out just as pretty spun up. It's naturally dyed with Goldenrod and I think it came from Connie at Colors by Nature's Studio- it's soft and sproingy, and will probably be used with the formerly ugly green/yellow/pink.

#5. It takes a long time and a lot of concerted effort to use up every bit of 1lb of handspun yarn in small projects. I knit another waffle hat with the Decadent Fibers Jelly Roll yarn, this one smaller than the first. I still have a small ball left, which I will use with the novelty yarn to the right, to knit one more hat. With that, the yarn should be gone. I hope.

#6. I'm still not tired of spinning. Go figure.

#7. The stash in the Wool Room doesn't look any smaller yet. sigh.

...whoa... knitting...

In between all the spinning, and swimming, and complaining about the heat, and writing (!), and the Farmer-y things I've been doing lately (picking and stuffing peppers, sun-drying tomatoes, keeping the flower beds marginally neat), I actually found some time to knit. You know, with yarn and pointy sticks... I haven't done a lot of that in the last month, and it was nice to get back to it.

And what am I knitting? Take a wild guess...

Did you guess right?

This is a cold-weather clog/boot sock, knit from the Decadent Fibers Jelly Roll that I finished spinning a couple of weeks ago. I'm using a very simple waffle texture (4 rnds K, 2 rnds K2 P2) which showcases the color variations in the yarn nicely. Now whether the mate will have the same sort of spacing between the "stripes" is anyone's guess. (My guess: no, it won't, in part because I'll have to wind and use another hank of yarn to finish Sock #2, and it's bound to have a different sort of rhythm in the colorway). I'm using my general worsted weight sock pattern: 48 sts, size 5 needles. I decided to do a flap and gusset heel in order to run the texture down to the foot. I rather like the effect (the yarn is too heavy for the normal slip stitch heel flap construction), especially for clogs (which I wear most of the winter).

These are the socks that I am knititng for Mary's Ravelry August Sock Knit-Along. In the old days (say, a month ago), I could have whipped a pair of socks out in 2 days, max. But these days, what with all the grandkids around and splashing and other distractions (not to mention the Fearless Fair Isle galley pages that are waiting for my attention), I will be lucky to finish these in time, which means I might just want to shut the computer down and go knit.

Tomatoes, yarn, doll clothes

It was really really thick and sticky yesterday, so the tomatoes didn't dry down as much as I hoped they would. I could have put them in the oven for awhile to finish the process, but I didn't want to heat up the house, and I was afraid to leave them out in the humid air any longer because they might get moldy.

So I bagged them in pizza-topping portions for the freezer. And oh my, the flavor... like concentrated tomato essense. I have another big bowl full of ripe tomatoes that I'll slice up today, and start the process again.

I finished spinning the yellow-green yarn (108 yds, 2.1 ozs). It's hanging next to the blue-green that was in the same fiber bundle. Both came from Color by Nature's Studio, and are naturally dyed.

Next on the wheel was this fiber, from my friend Dana. It's all wool, with little nubs and bits and threads and bits of sparkle, and streaks of dyed wool here and there.

The darker half (another bag with two shades in one bundle) spun up to 128 yards and 3.8 ozs

with lots of pretty little splashes of color. I'm done spinning the lighter portion and just have to ply it tonight.

Frog Girl has been visiting, and yesterday she worked on her fat quarter Cut, Color 'n Sew outfit for her 18" doll (my design from Spoonflower).

I love what she's doing with the fabric. It's going to make a great doll outfit.

Romneyed out, neck coolers, and garden stuff

That, my friends, is 1167 yards of 2-ply, award winning silver Romney yarn- about 2lbs, which, along with the lovely charcoal lamb, and the Romney-ish white, is more than enough to make a traditional yoked sweater, which is what I intend to do with this yarn. It's unlikely, but if I run out of yarn, I have at least 2lbs of award winning white Romney roving (from Iron Water Ranch) and at least that much charcoal, nowhere near award winning but nice enough for all that, roving as well. I'm set for Romney.

I'm also tired of spinning solid color stuff. So I dug through the stash (I'm still stashbusting, don'tchaknow) and came up with this:

a Jelly Roll batt from Decadent Fibers. It's about 4' x 6', and 1lb of lovely hand-dyed wool (they use a blend, but I think it's primarily Corriedale). I love love love the deep jewel tones of this batt- Pat and Christine did a wonderful job! Of course, spinning from a batt is a different from spinning prepared pencil roving- it's not just a matter of finding an end and taking off. The layers have to be separated, and then each layer has to be pulled apart a bit more. I could run it all through my drum carder, but I don't want the colors blended even more, so I'm mostly just grabbing handfuls, stretching it some, and spinning

which results in a slightly thick-n-thin single, which combined with the random coloring, will make for a really lovely plied yarn. I hope. In any case, it's nice to be working with a bit of color again. This yarn will not only be softer than the Romney, it'll have a lot more bounce.

I've also been sewing up neck coolers as gifts- they go together quickly and 4ozs of the polymer crystals goes a loooong way (I've made 11 so far, and I have enough crystals for a few more).

Bee Girl bought a Sunflower kit in the Target Dollar Section (I love Target, and I especially love their dollar section- which in this case was 25 cents because it was late in the season so everything was on sale), and she carefully planted the 4 seeds on the south side of our house. I'd say she got a quarter's worth of beauty.

We planted 6 Big Boy tomato plants- they're now about 4' tall and have spread out about 6', and they've set hundreds of tomatoes. I see salsa in my future.