spinning

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a moment of weakness

My goal this winter is the spin down my stash, NOT to add to it. And I’d been doing well. But in December I had a weak moment… (or two or three… ;) )

Dyed by AllSpunUp in my fave colors. Her hand dyed fiber is so distinctive but I’ve only once before bought from her and that ended up in my handspun shawl. Before then, I loved her reclaimed/redyed yarn. I have an awesome skein of cashmere (Yes, blue & purple) that I haven’t used yet.

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The fiber is 80% Merino & 20% Silk. I can’t wait to spin this up!

Stay tuned for more stash enhancements. :D

p.s. Happy New Year!

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all I want for Christmas is handspun

The Fiber:
Superwash Merino in the colorway ‘Kaleidoscope’, dyed by Spincerely Yours.

The Yarn:

The top was split lengthwise in half; each bobbin spun from opposite ends to create a 2-ply barber pole effect. 3.9 oz / approx 401 yards.

I am very happy with how this yarn came out. It’s consistent and very soft and shows that all the work I’ve done to learn and improve my spinning is paying off, but I don’t love it.

Part of that is having too much green and another part is not being a huge fan of barber pole yarn. But with that said, I am holding out to see how this yarn will look knit up. Up until this point, I’ve been spinning for the sake of getting the yarn I want, with no regard for how it will knit up. Time to take it a step further. After I wind it into a ball (after the requisite period of just petting and squishing the skein), and determine wraps per inch, we’ll see what this yarn wants to be. (I know what I want it to be, but I’ve learned that Yarn can be a bit stubborn in that regard.) :)

I will end with a tip for you:

When wet finishing your yarn, it’s important to remember that the yarn is superwash, or else you’ll spend five minutes beating up your yarn, wondering why it’s not fulling & fluffing up. (Granted, this was my first superwash wool yarn, and I’m used to non-superwash yarn. Yeah. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it! ;) )


I wish you peace, joy and lots of squishable fiber. :D

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happiness is being warm

I take my handspun shawl with me everywhere. Any moment I can steal to add a few stitches, I do. I’m not sure how many stitches there are per row but recently, in about an hour, I managed about three rows – but I don’t mind. It’s not about completing it, it’s about the knitting and I really like knitting on it – truly mindless, joyful knitting. And because I have it with me at all times, it’s big enough that I can put it on my lap while I’m driving and it keeps my legs nice and warm. :)

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Spinning is going nice but slow. I think the honeymoon with my wheel is over but what I’m left with is the love of spinning but not the overwhelming desire to stay up until 1:00 am finishing a yarn. I finished plying the pink yarn but haven’t skeined it up yet.

Currently I am spinning some superwash Merino – in the colorway ‘Kaleidoscope’ dyed by Spincerely.

You can see better pictures on her Etsy shop. It spins like buttah. I split the top vertically in half and will spin a 2-ply, starting at opposite ends for each bobbin. I went down on the ratio and I can tell that I’ve improved. Drafting at this ratio has become easier.

Spinning every day this month? So far so good.

Until next time. :)

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now… where was i?

Spinning-wise, I mean. When last you saw my spinning, I’d finished ‘Parasol’, a squishy, sparkley, very pink skein of yarn…

When I sat at my spinning wheel again a few days ago, I was motivated to spin some more yarn for the hand spun shawl. I decided to work with two ounces at a time and I have finished the singles for the first two ounces.

It’s just waiting to be plied. I spun this in more of a woolen style than the previous yarn because the fiber is commercial combed top. The fibers are very aligned and I didn’t have the concentration or energy level to do a more worsted yarn.

When that was done, I went back to what had been sitting on my wheel, waiting ever so patiently.

I know! It’s pink! I don’t know what is up with all the pink in my stash. I don’t wear pink. I don’t buy pink stuff. I don’t even buy pink yarn. But for some reason, in fiber, it really catches my eye. It is rambouillet wool that I dyed myself – pink with splashes of red. It totals about three ounces. It’s going to be 2-ply yarn.

Dave reminded me that I can tone down all the pink by being daring and actually taking two different colorways and *gasp* spinning them together. I’m not there… yet. One day, perhaps. :)

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Poinsettia

I have cancelled most of the fiber clubs I’ve participated in, but I’ve re-upped with the Black Bunny Fibers fiber club. It’s not every month and you don’t have to pay a bunch of money up front. There’s also another reason:

My camera can’t convey the depth and variances of the color, but it’s amazing. The colorway is Poinsettia and the fiber is 4 ounces of Cormo roving.

I’m going to wait a bit to spin this. It’s so gorgeous as is.

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spinning and learning

I’m so happy to have these days off. Today was a good day.

Spinning

I finished up the first ply of the 2 ounces black Merino that I’m spinning and started the second. This is true combed top so I am spinning from the side to do more of a supported long draw. Spinning goes much faster that way and more air is trapped in the single, ultimately making the yarn squishier and warmer.

Learning

My work hours are such that it is impossible to take classes or attend a knitting group on a week night. So, the alternative is online learning. And there are a lot of things I want to learn and online learning allows me to learn what I want, when I want. Today I took advantage of that.

Lynda.com – Online software training & tutorials – I have Adobe Creative Suite CS3 and only really know how to use two programs included in the Suite – Premiere Pro CS3 & Photoshop CS3. Today, I did some training on Illustrator CS3 – the ‘One-on-One: The Essentials‘ training. Adobe software can be a little intimidating, but I’ve learned that perseverance and time will get you to the skills you need to learn so you can do the fun, exciting, creative stuff you want to learn.

Beaducation.com – Online jewelry making tutorials – They have several free classes, which I watched today. Much better than reading instructions that, like a knitting pattern, can be confusing. I finally saw someone do the basic jewelry techniques that I’ve been reading about – and for free! I can only imagine that the paid classes are even more in depth and I look forward to trying them out. The class I found most intriguing is the Byzantine Chain. Oh, the possibilities!

Never stop learning! :D

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all or nothing plus a new goal

Perfectionism is a sneaky thing. You work on it constantly and yet, it keeps rearing it’s ugly head. All or nothing is a trait of perfectionism. Sometimes I can work through it, but often, I don’t realize it’s taken control. Just because I missed a day doesn’t mean I have failed, right?

Thank you, Sophie for the encouragement!

Ok … my main goal for December – get back to spinning. My own personal and unofficial NaSpiYaMo – ‘National’ Spin Yarn Month. Spin at least 10 minutes a day during the Month of December. I’ve worked so hard to learn and improve my spinning and I feel all that slipping away and I don’t like that. Anyone wanna join me?

I’ve taken 2 ounces of the eight ounces of black merino I bought and that’s what I’m going to work on first. I spun for a little bit yesterday. It was weird – I wasn’t totally in love with spinning as I had been the past few months but I didn’t dislike it either.

Another issue is that I messed up my bobbins. Majacraft has plastic bobbins – inexpensive but functional – and a couple of them were a little tight and I got a little over zealous with some sand paper and now they rattle. :( The manual says to use vaseline on the flyer shaft if the bobbins do rattle but it did not help much. I ordered two more this past weekend and hopefully these will be nice quiet bobbins. One day I’ll invest in some wooden bobbins.

I hope you have a pleasant day. :D

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day 27: look! a rainbow!

You might have guessed by now that I love rainbows. It’s fun to try different rainbows from different indie dyers. I finally got my hands on one from The Painted Tiger.

Isn’t it gorgeous!? :D The colors are so rich & deep. I’m not gonna spin this right away ’cause it really hasn’t told me how it wants to be spun. I love the chain ply I did of the other fiber I got from The Painted Tiger …

But I’m wondering how this one might look if I did a 2 ply and tried to match up the colors as I plied.

Hmm … I’m gonna have to think about that one.

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day 29: forbidden flame

I enjoy fiber clubs. They’re a great way to introduce yourself to fibers that you might not have thought to try or even know about. It’s always a nice way to expand your color palatte (although I’ve not found any shade of green that I enjoy knitting or spinning … but I digress). Unfortunately, it’s also a good way to spend money, so I’m bowing out of the next round of the Sweet Georgia Yarns fibre club. It’s a sad thing because I really love the colorways she’s created for the club. Out of the past 9 months, there’s only been 2 shipments that weren’t a favorite. It’s a given that you won’t like like every shipment, but that’s a pretty good track record, in my opinion. So here’s my last shipment – October 2009. I love it so very much.

It’s called ‘Forbidden Flame’ – 100% tussah silk plus some matching Blue-Faced Leicester.

I hope my spinning mojo comes back soon…

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can’t… stop… knitting…

There has been a major shift here at saffronknits. But, before I get to that, I want to you show the last yarn I finished.

I had 4 ounces of ‘Cotton Candy’ mini batts from Spincerely Yours

I chain-plied this yarn, being very conscious about the amount of twist I was putting into it and I am very pleased with the results. I’d say this is a pretty woolen yarn as I spun this with a supported long draw. I call it ‘Pink Parasol’. (Inspired by line in The Sound of Music).


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But back to that ‘major shift’. After finishing that last yarn, my spinning mojo went on vacation but an obsession with knitting has taken it’s place. Want proof?

I bought that Dream in Color Smooshy – Visual Purple and made the ‘Simple Yet Effective Shawl‘.

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I saw someone knitting an Ulmus shawl (designed by Through The Loops) at my LYS and went home and started one of my own. I’m using Claudia Handpainted Yarn fingering in the colorway ‘Carousel’ and Koigu Premium Merino in Black, both from my stash. I’m so glad to finally be using this yarn.

My issues with reading patterns reared it ugly head and I misread the chart so my Ulmus is more of a stockinette version. I really like it!

I’ve had to rip out about 16 rows to fix a mistake, but that hasn’t really slowed me down. I still love knitting this shawl.

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And finally, a shawl made out of my own handspun. The very first time I’m knitting with my own handspun. I’m so in love with knitting this, I almost can’t stand it!

Once again, it’s the Simple Yet Effective Shawl. It’s completely in stockinette and I completely love it! (The picture shows the shawl upside down – The navy is the top of the shawl.)

I’m going to knit all of color blocks then add black at the bottom. I’m still deciding if I want the garter stitch edging to be in color or in black.

Ok … enough blogging … gotta get back to my knitting.

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i love this yarn!

‘CMY Party’ – 8 oz Corriedale from The Painted Tiger:

The spun singles:

The YARN!

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I call it ‘It’s My Party’

What fun, right? I love all the colors in this yarn! No predrafting – I just spun the top from end to end then chain-plied it.

Started on 09/20/09 and finished on 09/28/09. It is approx 423.33 yards. There is a knot in this skein because I wanted to maintain the progression of the colors as they were in the top. It has way too much twist in most it, but I still love it. I can’t wait to see how the colors stripe as it is knit!

But what should I make???

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in the pink

I bought some ‘Cotton Candy’ mini batts from Spincerely Yours.

I got a total of 4 ounces and the singles are almost done. I am trying a variation of the long draw which I think could be called a form of supported long draw.

Twist seems to be the bain of my spinning existence. Either I have too much or not enough. I’m still working to find that balance. I plan to chain plying this.

- saffronknits 4 Comments

a party on my wheel

While I have seemed to lost my blogging mojo lately, my spinning mojo has been in full force. Wanna see what I’ve been up to?

I have been practicing long draw with some fiber I got from my LYS:

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I spun up that black merino that I bought:

I’m going to knit this with Rayn-bo Brite.

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I took the Spunky Club offering ‘Soul Windows’ (4 oz)…

… and took out most of the non-blue sections and got this:

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Currently I am spinning fiber from The Painted Tiger – 8 oz corriedale in the colorway ‘CMY Party’.

I switched from the delta flyer (Star Trek: Voyager, anyone? ;) ) to the fine fibre flyer and I like it. My spinning seems more even. But I’ll have to try some merino with the flyer to see if that’s actually true. I got nearly 6 ounces on the first bobbin.

I have about 2 ounces left. I will be chain-plying this. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

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And yes… I have been knitting. Currently I’m working on the Simple Yet Effective Shawl using Dream In Color Smooshy in the colorway ‘Visual Purple’. (My LYS got a bunch of Dream In Color in stock and I couldn’t resist.)

I wanted to do something that was minimal lace and minimal thinking and this fit the bill.

Hope you enjoy your week!!

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le tour de fleece finis

During Le Tour de Fleece 2009, I spun a total of 11.5 ounces, completed three skeins of hand spun (plus one sample) and improved my skill on Navajo-plying (chain-plying). My goals evolved during the tour and working on chain-plying became my focus.

To start things off, here’s the mini-skein I spun during the tour… I forget which night…from a batt sample from Spincerely:

On Friday, July 24th, I tried to start my day spinning. I’d finished these singles the night before:

And I wanted to start plying. But a few minutes into it, I became frustrated because I wasn’t liking the results so I stopped. I knew I was practicing the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Also, there was just a feeling impatience, which is not good when trying to learn something. And little did I know, this was the beginning of a very bad Friday that ended with a headache.

On Saturday, July 25th, I went to my local yarn store to knit and pick up some yarn that they had custom ordered for me – some Blue Sky Alpaca’s Skinny Dyed organic cotton, DK weight, in a lovely pale pink (color# 305)… but more about that yarn in another post. The rest of the day I was a little under the weather and didn’t spin, so that became my rest day since I did not rest on Monday.

Finally on Sunday, July 26th, I got back to the spinning wheel after deciding to let go of the frustration and had one of those moments that are special when you’re self-taught – where something clicks, for whatever reason. In this case, I was fixing a broken single, trying the splice in the end and I had to switch my hand positions and things started to work. Among other things, I got better tension and I was liking how the twist was looking.

The finished yarn definitely is not perfect, but it’s better.

Never stop learning.

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le tour de fleece continues…

I finished spinning the Lame Duck Mallard colorway.

While I didn’t fall in love with the yarn I created, I was very pleased with the progress I made on chain-plying. I’d previously been underplying my singles (and the plies) so I worked to add more twist, even going so far as to add too much twist in places. Hopefully, at some point, I’ll find a balance. It’s hard for me to tell if I have enough twist. So I’m trying to add more twist than I think I need. Being a solitary spinner, it’s more of a challenge to figure this out.

Now I’m spinning this:

Dyed by Spincerely – Superwash Merino in the colorway, Delilah.

I’m spinning it fine so it’s going a little slower, but I’m enjoying it. I love spinning Merino. I started out with a couple pf pre-drafted sections, but I lost the color variations so now I’m spinning directly from the top.

I also finished my socks this week! Stay tuned for pictures! Hope you enjoy your week!

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tour de fleece begins aka I’m obsessed!

First off all… what was in the box? My very own Majacraft Rose!! :-) Whoo Hoo!!!! :) I haven’t had a chance to take some really good photos of it but here’s a peek:

I feel I made very good investment with this purchase.

See that little bit of pink in the lower left corner? It’s what I worked on first for Tour de Fleece. It was a work-in-progress that I had on my spindle for a while. I had totally over pre-drafted it but I wanted to finished it.

It was hand dyed by Spincerely, one of my favorite indie dyers, in the colorway ‘Goldflame Honeysuckle.’

I’m am very happy with the final results. I call it ‘Flower Petals’.

Started: 07-04-09 (as WIP)
Completed: 07-07-09

Weight: 3 ounces
Length: 208.3 yards

I LOVE it! I think it’s enough to follow through with my original thought to use it for a Morning Surf scarf. (If I can’t stop staring at the yarn, that is. ;) )

Now I’m working on this:

It’s from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber club in the Colorway ‘Lame Duck Mallard’ – Superwash BFL. Not one of my favorite colorways so it’s perfect to practice chain-plying. I’m going to spin 2 ounces and then ply those singles and trying to figure out why I have such trouble. I’m enjoying spinning the singles – I’ve never spun BFL before and I’m like it.

In other news, my socks…

…I only have to do the cuffs and they will be done! :) Yay!

Fiber is so much fun, isn’t it? :D

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Gearing up for Le Tour de Fleece 2009

I had originally signed up for the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry but it quickly became overwhelming and I considered pulling out of it and maybe just doing it on my own or not at all. I knew there was more than one Tour de Fleece so I did one more search and found the one I one I was originally looking for, which has no connection to the group on Ravelry and the one I had seen on the Yarn Harlot’s blog in 2008. It is run by Katherine, who was perfectly lovely when I emailed her for more information.

(Click the below link to find out what Le Tour de Fleece is all about.)


http://www.tourdefleece.com/

I am excited to be participating in this! I’m still on teams on Ravelry (rookie & stash busters) but this is much more low key than Ravelry and I feel that will work better for me. It’ll be fun tracking people’s progress via the Tour de Fleece blog.

I have decided to set small goals for this challenge while having one overall goal. I seriously want to spin down my stash. I know some people feel that there is no such thing as ‘too much fiber stash’, but I have more than I am comfortable with.

  1. I want to spin two purchases from my favorite shop – Spincerely. I keep buying fiber from her but I have yet to spin any of it. One I have started and it has been sitting on one of my spindles for quite a while, and like my knitting, it starts to drive my crazy to have something sitting unfinished like that so I am going to transfer it to my wheel and finish it. It is Merino/Tencel in the colorway “Goldflame Honeysuckle” in a lovely pink & yellow. My original goal for this yarn was that I would have enough yarn to knit the Morning Surf scarf. I’ve never tried to spin for a specific project so we’ll see how that goes. The 2nd Spincerely fiber selection is to be determined as I have lots to choose from.

  2. Spindle spin ‘Happy Accident’ – Figure out how much I already have on the spindle, start spinning for the 2nd ply and make a two ply yarn on the spindle. Then spin the rest on the wheel. It might be interesting to see the difference between the spindle spun and wheel spun yarn from the same fiber.

  3. Practice chain-plying on the wheel. I love the look of chain-plied yarn. To my surprise, I figured it out rather quickly on the spindle but on the wheel there’s a lot more to factor into the process and currently is kicking my rear end. But to make it easier, I’m going to spin small amounts at a time so I can get a better sense of what works, what doesn’t and to maybe have a better sense of achievement than trying to do a whole 4 ounces at once. Haven’t chosen the fiber for this goal yet either.

    Ok… as I am typing this … maybe these goals aren’t that small … But I won’t really know that until I start spinning and seeing how much I can get done.

    I just took a moment to see what the Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s (the Yarn Harlot) goal was last year. I didn’t think much about it when I was reading her blog last year but now? Her goal (and accomplishment) of spinning THREE pounds and 5 ounces of fiber is amazing to me. My head explodes even at the thought of considering such a goal. But this makes me want to expand and be more specific with my overall goal to spin down my stash, one that will encompass my other goals and go a little beyond them.

  4. Overall goal: To spin ONE pound, 4 ounces of fiber (this includes the works in progress).

I will say it is proof that you are addicted to fiber when you create a plan to reduce your stash but a part of you is thinking .. “This is something special! I need to buy fiber for this special event!” :roll: I’m not gonna buy any … but I’m just sayin’. :D

Stay tuned for photos of the fiber I’ve chosen above. I’ve never spun with a goal in mind and I’m still new to wheel spinning. This should be interesting and fun!! :)

- saffronknits 2 Comments

my first three-ply

Here it is! :-) The learning curve of wheel spinning feels so high at the point. Some of it is wildly over plied and some is ridiculously underplied… but it can only get better from here, right? I’d never done a true 3-ply before, not even on a spindle. I don’t know the yardage yet but it is wet finished.

I chain-plied (navajo-ply) what was left on the bobbins. I haven’t wet finished it yet, but I wanted to show it to you.

I’ve already moved on to my next spinning project. Finally delving into to fiber from the Spunky Electic Fiber Club: New Day – Corridale. I definitely struggle with longer staple fibers, even on the spindle. But this was the reason I joined fiber club – to work with different fibers, to find out what I enjoy working with. So far, Merino & Rambouillet are at the top of my list. This is destined to be a two-ply yarn.

See ya later, alligator! :D Happy Knitting and Spinning to you!