Fiber Musings

Sigh. It was tough coming back from vacation. This was our home away from home for 9 glorious days: Sailing Vessel Pink Panther LS chartered from Sunsails, out of Tortolla, British Virgin Islands. Wish I was still back there: sun, tropical breezes, beautiful sailing weather, sandy beaches, wonderful snorkeling, and lobster BBQ on the beach…

Okay, enough of wishful thinking and back to spinning, as the entry title suggests.

Thank you, Amy for your pictorial of how you prep and spin your thick and spin. Believe it or not, I do split my rovings and pre-draft. But, that’s about all we did in common, and where I go wrong (in terms of making thick and thin yarn).

While I was pre-drafting this beautiful hand-painted roving from Paradise Fibers, I realized that, while I’ve always split and predrafted the roving, I don’t always make them into consistent sizes. So, you say, shouldn’t you still get thick and thin? Wouldn’t the thick and thin spots be more exaggerated? If one were to take my statement at face value, that would be so. But, I get the fiber into such a state that it can be drafted again easily, while spinning. Yes, I continue to draft while I spin, so that I get a nice even yarn.

So, following Amy’s advice, I tried really, really hard not to draft again while spinning the pre-drafted roving. But, I keep catching myself drafting more. But I like the results so far.

It’s more DK weight than worsted, but it’s a good first attempt.

I had a little problem with this wool because it’s superwash merino. I don’t know what possessed me to buy this, except that I possibly thought that it was the wool/silk blend that I also bought a bump of. The superwash should have made it good sock yarn, but I thought that merino was too soft and wouldn’t wear well for socks. I was also hesitant to turn it into thick and thin singles because I was worried that it would pill or, worse, fall apart, because the superwash wouldn’t allow the wool to lock together when softly spun.

Oh, well, that’s what experimentation is all about, right? I have about 10 oz of this. I should be able to make something out of this yarn. I really love the colors in this colorway.

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We went to the Lair of the Bear last week and I managed to sit down and finally complete “Kate”. “Kate” is in quotes b/c I was too lazy and cheap to send away to Canada for the pattern. I downloaded the free tank pattern from Phildar’s french website. Never mind that I don’t read french–the schematics seemed clear enough. I picked up 4 skeins of cotton-ease from joann’s on the way home from the doctor one day and cast on.

Casting on was an adventure because I plunged right in without thinking things through. (This will be a recurring theme.) Why have side seams in the 2×2 rib?
Why not just knit in the round? So I added up the stitches for the front and back, subtracted 4 stitches (clever me!) for the seam stitches and then added 4 stitches to make a slightly roomier sweater than the sz 38.

Adding 4 stitches works for the 2×2 rib, but then I encountered trouble making the sweater ribbing at the side symmetrical. Aha! I need to add 4 stitches front and back for a total of 8 stitches. Frog the thing and cast on again.

I knitted the first ball while watching movies with my family. Knitting in semi-darkness is hazardous to your knitting. In the light of morning, the sweater looked really limp and pathetic; it screamed to be knit on smaller needles. A second visit to the frog pond.

So I went down 1 size to #5 needles for the ribbing, #6 needles for the body. Note to self, recheck the gauge and adjust the total number of stitches. But I was in a hurry, having already spend too much time fussing already with the number of stitches.

The pix and the rest of the story of woe will have to wait for another lunch break.

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Since the locks are still in really good shape, I might try using the flicker instead. Also, since I’m not trying to get perfectly blended colors, I should be able to do some rough blending with the flicker and/or while spinning. More experiments. Unfortunately, I’m out of time. I need to get my work projects a little further along before I head out on my vacation, not to mention the packing we still have to do.

At this point, I’m resigned to the fact that there’s no way that I can start the tapestry, let alone finish it, before vacation, I think I will just put the whole thing on hold until after my Navajo weaving class at the end of the month. I’m also worried that the warp yarn that I spun won’t be strong enough. I’ll check with Hannelore before I set myself up for disapointment.

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I see that Cat Bordhi has put previews to her new book, A Treasury of Magical Knitting, up on the web. So, in celebration, I’m going to show off some of the stuff I made during/after my workshop with her.

Click!

Clockwise from top left:
mobius basket: made during Cat’s workshop;
arrow lace: shown on page 15 of her PDF;
pencil basket: my own design based on her techniques.

Sorry, please don’t ask for patterns. It’s in her book. I haven’t seen the book yet, but if the rest of the book is as fun as the few that I’ve worked on, it’ll be well worth the price. I can’t wait to try the cat bed. Cat is such a neat lady and has wonderful insights to share, you’ll love reading through the book. I’m sure of it. And if you ever have the opportunity to take a workshop with her, do it. You won’t regret it.

I tried my hand at dyeing the Lincoln x Corriedale fleece that I bought earlier. I put the alum directly in with the cutch bath, and let it sit in my crockpot on low for 2+ hours (after it came up to temperature). Then I left the wool to sit in the crockpot until it cooled off. I wanted a dark brown, so I used a little more cutch, as per instructions. But it’s not turning out as dark as I wanted it to be.

At first, I thought it was because I didn’t fully remove all the lanolin in the fleece. So I did the full hot water and lots of soap scour on a small handful of fleece that had already gone through the cold scour earlier. Still no joy. It turned into a light brown. As Martin puts it, the sheep is a dishwater blond. I know I can darken it with an iron dip, but I just don’t want to mess with iron right now. (So far, everything has been food grade.) Perhaps after I get back from my vacation.

I was going to comb this with the dark grey fleece to darken it anyway, so it might not matter. Stay tuned.

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