If at first you don’t succeed, ply, ply again January 21, 2010
Posted by Laura in : Fiber, Spinning , 4 commentsThis is going to be a relatively long post:
I was happy on many levels with my first completed yarn attempt. However, the plying left much to be desired. I also didn’t expect plying to completely throw my back out. Now, I’m really, really out of shape, or I am ignoring some universal understanding of physics & ergonomics. I think its a combo of the two.
I felt a little vindicated when Meredith explained that plying is harder treadling than spinning. Whew. One down. Next - don’t ply while sitting back on the couch. Plying is serious business! Okay - ergonomic issue addressed. When I asked why my plying looked, um , unplyed, Meredith simply said to not let the yarn go into the orifice until it had the twist I liked.
Duh.
It never ceases to amaze me how I can still overlook the obvious.
With this gem of information in hand, I plyed my Lonesome Stone alpaca, colorway “Taos Sunset” (at least that’s what they named it for the Taos Fiber Festival this year). Please insert choir of angel-song for this next picture:
I think it’s aptly named:
In order to remember my fiber experience, I’m going to start rating my spinning according to the following categories:
Name/Type of Fiber
Value/Where purchased: Basic bang for the buck
D’yer Maker: If received in undyed state, does it take dye well, and just because I wanted to have a tip o’ the hat to Led Zeppelin. If already dyed - quality of colorway
Ease of spinning: Draftability (is there such a word? There is now.)
Singles Compatible: Well suited for singles? This is relative as I am so new, but for my limited experience, I am noting some are better than others.
Finished Skein: which is not always a some of its previous parts. This as, all the other categories, is highly subjective according to my experience.
Finished Product: When finally knitted.
I’ve been thinking of a cute, hokey rating system, like “3 spindles” or “4 bobbins” - for now I’m sure 1-5 will do as 5 being the best.
Now, to catch up:
Name/Type of Fiber: Lonesome Stone/Alpaca
Value/Where purchased: 5 (You can’t beat the fiber festivals!)
D’yer Maker: 5
Ease of spinning: 4+
Singles Compatability: N/A
Finished Skein: 5
Finished Project:N/A
I would definitely buy this again, and plan to.
Previously spun:
Name/Type of Fiber: Sheepfeathers Farm/ CVM/Corriedale Cross
Value/Where purchased: 4 (Again, you can’t beat the fiber festivals!)
D’yer Maker: N/A Fiber was natural fleece color
Ease of spinning: 3+
Singles Compatability: N/a
Finished Skein: 2 (my bad, not theirs)
Finished Project:N/A
I would definitely buy this again.
Previously spun:
Name/Type of Fiber: JazzTurtle’s Luxury Batts/baby alpaca, merino top, bamboo, corridale fleece, merino locks, silk waste, merino/cormo fleece, angelina, lurex
Value/Where purchased: 1/Etsy
D’yer Maker: 5
Ease of spinning: 1
Singles Compatability: N/a
Finished Skein:1
Finished Project:N/A
Notes: I was totally seduced by this batt - as it is stunning. However, either I am not experienced enough to work with it, or it is just a very difficult fiber combo to work with. It was very expensive, IMO ($30 for 3.8 oz) and although the description did say it was carded only once, I found it almost impossible to spin. The corriedale was hardly carded and what I got was little balled fluffs that didn’t do much. There was way too much lurex in it and at times I thought I was spinning Xmas tinsel. The bamboo and silk areas were fine and the merino still had lanolin in it which felt nice. I had a hard time plying and had to stop before completion as the end buried itself in the bobbin and I’ve been trying to find it for a week.
I would not buy this again, at least at this skill level. Next time an Etsy vendor say they will run something through the carder a 2nd time - I’ll take them up on it.
More to come…
Don’t hate her because she’s beautiful… January 8, 2010
Posted by Laura in : Spinning , 2 commentsWell, at least to me she is. I call her MallowMar:
and I love every yard of her unevenly plied skein~ She weighed in at 6.8 oz and I’m thinking she’s about 400+ yards of fingering weight.
One good turn… January 3, 2010
Posted by Laura in : Fiber, Wool Fest 2009, Spinning, Yarn , 1 comment so farIt is getting hard, very hard to pick up my needles lately. I know this is a normal part of obsessive behavior around a new toy, but I feel my knitting is secretly pissed off.The fiber I was spinning here turned out to be this:
I love every imperfect twist in its being.
Next up was the CVM/Corriadale cross Meredith & I bought at the last Taos wool festival (2009). I believe it was from Sheepfeathers in Longmont, CO:
Getting better, getting better. I’ll probably ply this, this week. Finally, I bought a bag of Lonesome Stone Alpaca which was the mess you originally saw a post back:
Oddly enough, my fingers want to spin relatively thin automatically, regardless of the ratio. So, I attempted to get fatter with the lovely BFL batt I got from Looking Glass in Santa Fe. It is from frabjous fibers, hand dyed in Vermont. Be warned, I am not going to beheld responsible for shattered budgets…
And finally, an Etsy purchase with some Holiday Money I received:
This is a luxurious batt from Jazzturtle Creations from her etsy shop.
And how was *your* holiday????
2nd Spin Session December 20, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Spinning , 3 commentsWell, the alpaca wasn’t giving me any love, so I switched to some merino mix ( I can’t remember exactly what, but I got it from a gal in Australia; it has a bit of angelina in it which I love).
I started spinning thin again, even on the lowest gear, which was pretty cool, this time overspinning instead of underspinning, which is fine, I’m just glad it’s looking like yarn this time:
First try:
2nd try:
And so the learning process continues…
Rose is in da house! December 19, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Spinning , 3 commentsI was in shock when I went to work at the yarn shop yesterday (Friday) and found that the Majacrafts had arrived. After a cursory inspection (believe it or not, they were shipped unisured!) and all looked well, I called Paul to tell him we had a new addition to the house. He gallantly offered to put it together. So here it is in photographic glory, our journey from box to finished product.
Below is the look of a spinning wheel being assembled. Note reading glasses:
Puppies lending moral support:
And here I goes: a spinning fool (Actually I have no idea what I was doing, I just winged it)
And now, the moment of revelation…I suck at this! Below is the ugliest spun yarn I’ve ever seen, LOL, I guess I’ll need more than 15 minutes to become masterful~
So, while others are getting more & more technologically advanced toys, we regress with the simple spinning wheel:
Sock yarns December 14, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Dyeing, Socks , 3 commentsI’ve handpainted some of the sample yarn bases I recently got and have learned a couple of things this time. I was playing with DOS and was pretty happy with that, along with playing with conjuring up some colors:
This skein on the left knitted up to this:
The skein in the middle is knitting up like this:
My next batch was working with oranges & greens. The middle skein is laceweight, the other two are 4 ply sockweight. I got the chartreuse by mixing Sun Yellow with a drop of black.
Mixin it up… November 20, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Dyeing , 2 commentsI decided to do multi-color kettle dying today with the last batch of yarn from Lori’s Yarn Shop. Here is the first batch simmering with Emerald, Hot Pink, and Brilliant Blue:
As is the norm for me lately, I love it in the pot, I’m ambivalent when pulled from the pot:
The next batch I used only a couple of closely related colors: purples, burgundys and browns:
Oh - the spin cycle on my washer is my new best friend. It takes almost all the water out, so they are not dripping all night long and is as close to dry as you can get. Plus, it helps the yarn bloom beautifully.
The good news is that the last batch I dropped off to the Yarn Shop, a skein of Morningstorm sold immediately. This colorway was not re-skeined which makes me wonder which is the better way to present the skeins. I always thought re-skeining was the way to go, but I’m not so sure now.
A Ravelry dyer gal said that she only kettle dyes multi-colors one skein at a time in the pot to have control over where the dye goes. That makes sense on paper, but I’m wondering how that fits into a ‘production mode’ scenario.
Also, once the dye is exhausted and the water mostly clear is it okay to reuse it for the next batch? Here in the high desert, I always feel guilty about ditching the water.Another dyer mentioned that she spends a session just mixing colors, without having the distraction of dyeing. I’m waiting on a couple of dye books to arrive and will probably try that.
My mantra these days is: it’s a journey, not a destination….
Yarn Dyeing - Part II November 14, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Dyeing , 5 commentsIt funny how a couple of tweaks can yield the results that have been eluding me. I finally achieved dye exhaustion:
This time, I pre-soaked the yarn in a vinegar solution. I added the powdered dye to the pot and it only needed 15 minutes (as opposed to last time’s 1 hour) to achieve exhaustion.Oh, I also added a little table salt.
I neglected to untwist the skeins, thereby resulting in the light spots. I’m going to think about it whether I like it that way or need to do a little repair work.On the handpaints, I added more dye powder to my mixes. I used a wooden spoon to press the dye into the fiber. I wrapped and steamed, about the same. I call the following “Berries”:
The next is called “Strawflowers”:
:…and finally Morningstorm
I used less vinegar than I did last time. I’m still just having “happy accidents” because I haven’t a clue as to what I’m doing yet. I get a couple of dyeing books from Amazon delivered next week, so hopefully some of this will start to make sense.Oh! I also rinsed the skeins after dyeing. The house does not smell like salad.The hardest part of the process is not automatically hating everything the minute I pull it out of the pot/unwrap it from the steaming bags. I tend to think everything is going to look like mud, and am so shocked that it doesn’t. I’d still like a more vibrant hit, but I think that also has to do with the base yarn.
Actually, I’m the more I look at them, the more I dig it.I’ve been having a really crappy few weeks lately and not feeling very good about myself. I stand back and look at my humble skeins and feel better than I have in a very long time.
Drier dyeing November 8, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Dyeing , 2 commentsAs the fiber/yarn is closer to drying, I’m getting a better sense of what we did:
Here are the skeins:
Oh , yeah - we didn’t rinse them out, so even though they didn’t bleed, they do smell like salad.The jury is still out on the silk roving. I don’t know if it’s felted, or if it’s just taking a very long time to dry.
Perhaps today *is* a good day to dye~ November 6, 2009
Posted by Laura in : Dyeing , 2 commentsTwilight and I got together to have a day to dye for (I know, I know, I can’t help the cheap puns). We were using Jacquard Acid Dyes. I had 2 100 gm skeins of Knitpicks Bare Fingering Merino; 2 oz. of Silk roving from La Lana Wools, and 4 oz. of Mohair, also from La Lana’s. Twilight had a bunch of handspun in natural brown that she wanted to dye over for an art piece she is doing. She was going to kettle dye - I was going to kettle dye and hand paint. Here is the initial setup:
We soaked our fiber for about 1 hour:
Take note of the dark brown color of Twilight’s original yarn.
I am now preparing the dye that I’ll be using to handpaint:
Didi is supervising:
I’m laying out plastic wrap; I will lay out the fiber on this to hand paint. It will then be wrapped in the plastic and steam heated.
Hand painting with squeeze bottles:
Wrapping the fiber:
The fiber/yarn is now ready to be steamed. In the meanwhile, we’ve been cooking up some yarn in the pots:
We ran into some challenges, which I’ll go over in my post-mortem at the end. At the end of the cook period, we set the yarn out on an outside patio table. The advantage of this wrought iron table was that the iron lattice top was perfect for squeezing the water out of the yarn/fiber. Here is Twilight’s initially brown handspun, now a lovely, bright green.
I was disappointed with mine at first, but as they dried a bit, there was some hope:
I am extremely happy with the way the Mohair took the color. It has such a beautiful shine on it, almost like there was silk in it:
The kettle dyed fingering has some subtle shade variations which are nice:
The silk roving will have to dry more thoroughly to regain its original properties. Right now it is a bit stiff:
Hands down, the mohair roving took the dye the best and looked like something attractive. My biggest disappointment was the handpainted fingering, which at first I thought was solely due to my inexperience. I thought the colors were dull and muddied. The kettle dyeing is pretty hard to screw up, although we came very close.
Notes to self:
- We used too much water in the kettle dyeing. The water never got clear, although we did not get bleeding from the yarn/fiber when pressing out the water. The final kettle dye lot for Twilight, we used half the water, but forgot to reduce the dye, so once again, did not get clear water. Again, we did not get any bleeding.
- The most important knitting rule for myself is never use crappy yarn under any circumstance. This applies to dyeing just as well. I am very comfortable saying it is my belief that the Knitpicks Bare is truly a crappy base yarn. I did not like the way it took the colors, I don’t like the twist on it and I will not use it again. On the other hand, the fiber from La Lana took the color beautifully and gave me some sense of satisfaction for this first time out.
- Weigh my yarn before soaking to know how much dye/water etc. to use. (Duh~)
- Start a bit earlier in the day to allow more drying time.
- Try sponge brushes next time for handpainting to have a little more control over color. Leave a little more room between colors for blending.
We set up very well and this was not anywhere near as messy as I thought it might be. I look forward to the next time, but in the meanwhile, I must source a better base yarn. I want fingering and laceweight, merino and/or silk-merino blend. I’d like to card up some silk & fine mohair for a blend to dye as well.