Fiber Musings

Here’s the finished result — 3.25 oz of navajo plied merino. I haven’t counted the yardage. It’s approximately fingering weight.

After looking at it in day light, it didn’t look as bad as I thought it was. I think I might be able to make a pair of socks with this (I’ll use something else for the heels and toe that is a little more durable). I love it!

Thank you wendy e for your encouraging words. I took things a little slower with the second skein and really paid attention to what was happening. You are right, there is plenty of time to stop and untwist, if necessary. I didn’t have an opportunity to test out your suggestions for restarting the loops after a break, since the second skein didn’t break (and I wasn’t brave enough to purposely break the yarn just to test it out!).

Here are a few things that I’ve noticed while plying the second skein:

I need to be more consistent while spinning the single. With navajo plying, any thick spot is 3x as thick just because they become juxtaposed when plied. When plying from 2 or 3 singles, these thick and thin spots even each other out, since it is highly unlikely that you will get 2 thick areas on the singles at the same time.

Also, when moving from a thick area to a thin area, the transition is very noticeable at the end of the crochet loop.

But there is something really mesmerizing watching the flow of colors. Once you get into the rhythm of making the loops, you don’t have to think about that and you can start focusing on other things. Like the amount of twist that I’m putting in.

I wasn’t the only one that really liked the feel of the merino yarn. EliSpot helped herself to the finished skein and started to play with it (on the dog blanket). Of course, when Martin grabbed the camera to take this shot, she gave us the feline version of the finger.

I’ve been re-reading (aka “looking at all the pretty pictures”) Twisted Sisters. Yesterday, I took some white rovings that I had a did a little Kool-Aide dyeing. I tried the spot method (page 24) and nuked them in the microwave (3 minutes on high, sit for 1-2 minutes, 3 more minutes on high). They didn’t turn out as dark as I would’ve like it. And it was more stripes than drops. Oh well. They should make nice socks nonetheless.

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I did my first successful navajo ply today … as in, it didn’t turn out as a big knotted mess. The first skein today was over twisted (cat toy now). The second skein was with handpainted roving. Wow. What a difference that makes to the finished yarn.

I didn’t try to stop the colorways exactly at the end of a loop, but let the color “bleed” into each other. This resulted in a blended color transition instead of sharp color changes. This worked because the roving had soft color changes.

Questions for the masses:

- Do you make clean color breaks when navajo plying? How do you do that? Do you treadle very slowly, stop and align the yarn “just so”? Or do you just let it happen?

- What do you do when the single breaks? How do you restart the crochet loops? This was driving me nuts. Perhaps I didn’t have enough twist in my single, but it kept breaking/pulling apart. Do you need to have more twist than you would normally put in?

Anyway, I’ll need to practice some more before I can knit with any of these finished skeins. Now that I can see what the end result in handpainted rovings, I can go back to beast for practice.

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Ever had one of those days? A voice in my head kept screaming at me all day … “must spin silk … must have silk … NOW!” It was getting quite noisy in my office with all that screaming. It made it darn difficult to work. I left the office as soon as it was deemed appropriate, dug out some silk I had in my stash, a drop spindle, and aaahhh, the voices stopped. I can hear the cat beating up on the dog again (EliSpot missed Waldo while he was at the groomer today.)

Here’s a Christmas beanie that I made last year. I wore it today, and remembered why I didn’t wear it last year … my head is too big or hair is too smooth/slick for it to stay on. I do like the fake rolled edge though. I think I’ll have to make another one, a little bigger this time.

The sweater vest is almost done. I pieced the shoulder seams last night and knitted the neck ribbing. I just need to seam the sides and knit the sleeve ribbings tonight, now that the silk spinning demands have been somewhat satisfied.

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By Jove, I think I’ve done it! The elusive long draw! I have some wool/mohair rolags that I carded a while ago. I thought I’d take it for a spin today, with the intent of using the single to practice my Navajo plying technique.

It’s the first time that I spun with rolags. I’ve also spun commercial rovings. One thing led to another, I did it! The long draw. I am so excited.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough twist in most of it to be able to ply it (it keeps falling apart).

I was able to 2-ply a very small bit of it at the end because I finally changed to a higher ratio for spinning the single. That worked much better. It added the requisite spin to hold the fiber together.

And yum! It is sooo soft. There is so much more loft than spinning using the inchworm technique. I know a lot of it is because of the mohair content, but yum-mee!

I don’t know if I can do this with commerical rovings or if I would have to spin from the fold (another technique that I haven’t tried).

This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for experimentation. I know it not places where no spinner has gone before, but they are new to me.

On knitting … I’ve started shaping the shoulders of the front of the vest. I was planning on finishing it today and block it tomorrow, but I got carried away with the spinning. I’ll knit tonight while we watch LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring.

I saw The Two Towers yesterday. Wow! The imagery was pure magic! I also saw it at the right theater. We saw The Fellowship last year at a cineplex, small flat screen with okay sound. This time, I went to the Cinerama with a curved screen and state of the art sound system. I have to tell you, Paul Allen did a great job restoring that theater. You actually feel like you are in the middle of the battle, about to be trampled by the orcs.

Got some knitting done on Martin’s surprise present while waiting in line and for the movie to start.

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Ah, there’s nothing like whooping the you know what out of the people who try to kick you out of the competition by any means, even if it’s not the right thing to do nor if the allegations have any merit.

What am I talking about? The Louis Vuitton Cup, of course! OneWorld first knocked Team Dennis Conner (party #1 in the most recent protest) in the out of the race in the quarter final repechage, and now, Prada (party #2 in the aforementioned protest) in the semi-finals.

Unfortunately, OneWorld is now facing some really tough competition with Oracle in the semi-final repechage, and if they get there, Alinghi, the Swiss team. (Although, where would a land locked country host the America’s Cup races?) I have no beef with either of these teams, in as far as fair sailing is concerned, so there is no real need for revenge. Just something against Larry Ellison. So, this will be interesting when racing starts again later this week.

Should OneWorld win the LV Cup, I would dearly love for them to run over Team New Zealand, for their part in the latest round of protests. But there are two very good teams of sailor between OneWorld and there.

Of course, I would just love to have Seattle to be home to the America’s Cup for a while, as ugly as it is. And there’s the ever question of where they’ll actually hold the event, should Seattle hosts the next America’s Cup. I just want a front row seat.

Here’s a picture of Mark putting a hex on The Cup while he and Joelle were down in New Zealand … hoping to send it home.

Knitting

Oh yeah, this is supposed to be about my fiber addiction, not my sailing addiction. I’m finally finished with the back of the sweater vest, and have started the ribbing on the front. Just another inch or so and I get to start playing with the Kureyon! It’ll definitely go much faster now. Hopefully, I can finish it this weekend, so I’ll have time to wash and block it before Christmas.

The other knitted Christmas surprises are coming along fine. I’ve been relegated to knitting on the bus because it’s the only time that you-know-who isn’t around to see what I’m working on.

There have been a few disparaging remarks — “get a load of those toothpicks!” to a woman poking at me from behind with “better hurry, it’s only 10 days ’til Christmas, you know.” She didn’t believe me that it shouldn’t take long to finish that particular project and I had plenty of time. Sigh. However, the sweetest comments were from these little children on the bus asking all about what I was making, and assured me that it will be gorgeous and you-know-who would love it.

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