Polwarth Lace, after wet finishing

I lost about 60 yards in the finishing process, or about 0.2%. Completely reasonable. And the yarn has poofed up immensely.

In cake form, you can see the gradation better. It’s definitely not in the even steps as I had hoped, but this was what was available from Rovings. Ideally, I would like more contrast between the 2 medium tones and another step between the 2 medium tones and the darkest.

No matter. I’m still in love with this yarn. It will be fun to design something for this yarn!

That’s 9.5 oz of Polwarth on the bobbin. As you can see, that darned bobbin is still not full! I can probably pack yet another couple of ounce or so on this bobbin. Someone posted on Ravelry that they were able to pack 15 oz of fiber on there, but wow! I don’t know if I can top that.

Wait! This is white! The last time you saw the Polwarth singles, they were dark brown. This is the “other” end of the yarn. As I said, I was aiming for a gradated yarn from the lightest to the darkest, with some marling in between each color changes to soften the transition. I succeeded, but a mistake I made early on helped the matter a bit.

What was the mistake? I had originally planned to spin & ply each color separately. After I started spinning a bit (just a few minutes, really), I thought about spinning it all as a long single, one color after another, and let the color changes happen in the plying. So, I set about to split the colors evenly in half. But I was way off on the white, because some of it was already on the bobbin. I thought I accommodated for what was already on the bobbin. Perhaps I over estimated, or under. I don’t know which, but one bobbin definitely had more white than the other. It was evident while I was plying. One bobbin changed colors in a fairly consistent length earlier than the other.

Specs:

• Fiber: 80/20 Polwarth/Silk from Rovings, purchased at SOAR 2008, in 4 natural colors from white to dark brown
• Weight: 9.5 oz
• Yardage: 3,070
• Plies: 2
• WPI: 42
• YPP: 10,341

As you can see, I was a bit off in my earlier estimate of 1,500 yards of singles on the first bobbin!

I had intended this to be my submission to Team Footloose‘s longest single from 1 oz of fiber, but I didn’t finish in time. But how did I do? 6,140 yards of singles in 9.5 oz means 646 yds/oz. This wouldn’t have won the category since the longest single from 1 oz went to a wetspun tow linen, 692 yds for 7/8 oz. (That’s 790 yds/oz.)

Now, I sit down with my lace references and design a shawl!

Finally! It took me about 4 days to spin the first bobbin (approx. 140 g) of lace. The second bobbin? Over 10 days. That’s the difference TdF made in my spinning time. Now, the plying can begin.

A few towels for towel exchanges and gifts...

And a few to keep...

This all started when I bought my cottage a few years ago. I wanted a mishmash of handwoven guest towels in the bathrooms, just like Suzanne. I love all the different towels she had accumulated over the years from various guild sales that she used as guest towels. There’s a fresh pile every morning in the bathroom during the classes taught at her house.

I’m impatient. I want that pile now *. The only way I could see that happening is if I start a towel exchange. Get the maximum variety out of each towel warp by exchanging one or two towels from each warp.  Either that, or spend a lot of money at the Whidbey Weaver’s Guild annual sale, which I also did.

So, I proposed a little exchange with a Laura and Donna in my guild. That was 2 years ago. I bought a kit from Halcyon, and then it sat. That is, until this summer. I put it on the loom in June and wove it off. It was another month before I pulled the sewing machine out and finished them.

The kit came with yarn and a draft pattern — Four Thread Herringbone from Davison’s book. I had a lot of fun playing with the different treadling. Each towel uses a different treadling. I may have repeated one or two of my favorites.

This was fun. Changing out the weft color and the treadling order, I was able to get very different towels off of the same warp. I might get that mishmash sooner rather than later!

Sampler Towel

But for this one, I mixed it up. I inserted all the different treadlings into the towel and used all the different colors in the weft. This also helped me finish up all the partial bobbins of yarn. This will be a fun reminder of the project.

Specs:

• Halycon Tea Towel Kit in Driftwood colorway
• Yarn: Cottolin, 1 spool each of white, natural, blue and brown
• Weave Structure: Four Thread Herringbone; p.25 of Davison’s book
• Shafts: 4
• Reed: 10 dent
• EPI: 20
• Warp Length: 8.5 yards
• Ends: 384 (ends and color order provided in kit instructions)
• On Loom: 18.9″ W x 34-35″ L for each towel; 7 towels plus a partial (square towel in picture)
• After Finishing: 17″ W x 27.5″ L (includes 1/2″ rolled hem, so 29.5″ long before hemming)

* Yes, you can stop snickering. It took me two years to make these, so “now” is relative.

P.S. This is likely the last time that the towels for keeping will see an iron…

Tour de Fleece 2010 Results

Here are the all the fibers that I spun during Tour de Fleece. Not too shabby. The final tally?

Breeds Spun: Merino, Targhee, Clun, Border Leicester, and Polwarth
Finished Yardage: 3,852 of assorted 2 and 3 ply.
Singles Spun: Over 5,000 yards of singles, without counting the Polwarth. There is likely to be another 1,500 yards of singles in there.
Weight: 40 oz. (2.5 lbs)

The Polwarth is the one still on the bobbin in the basket. Here’s what the other half looks like.

80/20 Polwarth/Silk

I am spinning it continuously from white to the dark brown.  I am feathering in the last few inches of one color with the new to soften the transition. And with the inconsistency of the splitting the fiber into halves and spinning, that will soften the transition even more. The colors should more or less flow into each other. The singles are approximately 60-70 wpi. It’s slow going. I only just finished the white. It will take me the rest of the week to finish spinning the singles and ply it.

]]> http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/2184/feed 0 http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/2181 http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/2181#comments Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:29:50 +0000 Ann http://www.fibermusings.net/?p=2181 Not a whole lot of progress over here. I’m still working on the Polwarth/Silk blend. I went camping for the past 3 days and forgot to load the mSpinner in the car, so I am far, far behind. I’ve only started the second bobbin this morning. The first bobbin had about 155 grams of fiber — about 5.5 oz. The single is coming in around 72 wpi.

This yarn would definitely qualify for the longest single in a single ounce, but I can’t prove that until the second bobbin is spun and the 2 plied together. I definitely can’t do that before end of today.

So, I will have a leisurely spinning day to wrap up the day.

To give myself a break from that rough scratchy rug yarn, I moved on to some 80/20 Polwarth/Silk from Rovings in natural colors. I had purchased 4 – 2 oz bits of combed top from Rovings 2 SOARs ago with the intention of spinning it from white to chocolate brown, with 2 other light browns in between. The resulting yarn will be knitted into a shawl of some sort with gradated colors. These 8 oz. in lace weight should take me through most of the rest of the Tour.

I may take a break from the Polwarth/Silk for some naturally dyed BFL from Tactile that’s been sitting around a while. It looks like my tally for breeds spun will be around 6. I might dig into my bins and card up a bit of CVM and/or California Red. There are a few batts of Romney in the stash too.

You see, Kathleen knows that I’m a wimp when it comes to wool. It’s next-to-skin softness or nothing at all. And my standard for next-to-skin softness is pretty high. In fact, Kathleen thinks that I’m a wuss. So, when she saw me with a package of long wool, she snickered.

But what she doesn’t know is that I’ve been mentally planning a punch rug, made with handspun wool. I have some Lincoln X Corriedale rovings in a variety of natural colors all ready to go. The Border Leceister will be a nice addition to the mix.

I have the basic shape and dimensions — an irregular pentagon (2 sets of 2 equal sides and angles, with one set of right angles) to fit in front of the double french doors up at the cottage, but I don’t have a design as of yet. I want it to be of some sort of Native American/Puget Sound theme. There will be some subtle marking to note the 4 compass points. But that’s as far as I’ve got in terms of design.

Yardage: 1,342, before wet finishing
Weight: 15 oz.
Plies: 3
WPI: 16-20, before wet finishing; about 12-14 wpi after wet finishing

The yarn poofed up nicely after a nice soak. It’s about a DK weight yarn. I’m waiting for it to dry before re-skeining to find out exactly how much yarn I have. I think there is enough yardage for  a nice lofty sweater, although a side trip to a dye bath might be in order.

I finally finished spinning the Targhee/Clun Forest singles. It took 6 days to spin a pound, but it’s finally done. I spun a bit on the Rest Day as well. I can now finally move on to the plying.

I started with the Judith Kate by Will Taylor, but the weight of the bobbins (these jumbo tigerwood bobbins are heavy!) and the angle, it was just too much grab for my softly spun singles. I kept breaking one of the singles. (Okay, it actually was drifting apart.) So I moved them off onto the kate that came with the Schacht. All 3 large bobbins will only fit if they are offset in the kate. It wouldn’t work well if these bobbins were completely full though, because there’s a bit of an overlap.

Hopefully, a couple of days of plying and I can move on to the next fiber!

Tigerwood on the Front Nine.

Yesterday was our club’s annual Golf Scramble (aka Tin Cup). I have to admit up front that, while I own my own set of clubs and golf shoes, I don’t play. Or rather, I do, but really, really badly. Scramble is my kind of golf, since the rest of the foursome isn’t waiting forever for me to actually get on the green. Last time I played was at the Tin Cup 2 years ago. And the time before that was probably back in the early 90s. So, I was really happy when I won the Women’s “Closest to the Pin” shot on the last hole!

Back to the Tour de Fleece…Since I was going to be on the golf course, I thought it was appropriate for the new Tigerwood miniSpinner to be out on the course.  I brought the spinner along with the portable battery, and did a little bit of spinning while we were waiting to T up.  Too bad the golf carts don’t have cigarette lighter adapters. That would have been even better!

60/40 Targhee/Clun Forest

The next few posts are going to be slow slogs and likely no pictures. Why? The picture on the right should give you an idea…

A full pound of a 60/40 Targhee/Clun Forest blend that Kathleen brought me in April. And some of you will recognize that it’s been blended and prepared by Morro Fleece Works, my favorite processor.

My plan is to spin this woolen for a 3 ply fingering weight yarn. The final intent is for a California weight sweater. I will augment this with the red Mountain Colors Targhee, purchased at CNCH. The red will be the accent color in another yoked sweater.

Hopefully, the spinning for this won’t take too long since I’m using modified long draw to keep it as lofty as possible. (This should be pretty easy to do with the pin drafted roving.) The singles will be lightly spun with a medium/medium-firm ply. The final yarn (and sweater) should be light and warm with a really soft hand.

Control Card

The single is about 32-36 wpi and the 3-ply will be about fingering weight.

As I was spinning it, I kept thinking, hmm, these colors are more saturated than I remembered? And guess what? I was right. They are similar, but not the same. Add insult to injury, I looked at the fiber content…not the same. The original RTS was 80/20 merino/bamboo. The one I bought at CNCH was SW merino/nylon. That may account for the difference in color as well. Sigh.

CNCH 2010 Return to Sender skeins.

2-ply yarn: SW merino/nylon plied with spun silk hankie. Same as here. 510 yards of fingering weight. Top is the original RTS, and the bottom is the new skein. See the color difference?

The yarn in the new skein will poof up a bit after a nice bath, even though it is SW merino. I may make a triangle shawl out of it with the original skein at the top of the tri.

Breeds Spun (from The Knitter’s Book of Wool)

• Merino: Stages Prologue-2, 3
• Targhee: Stages 4-10
• Clun Forest: Stages 4-10
• Border Leicester: Stages 10-13
• Polwarth: Stages 14-20

Finished Yardage: 3,852

• 2-Ply: 2,510
• 3-Ply: 1,342

Spirit Trail Fiberworks Scottish Thistle plied with Lichen. 1700 yards @ ~28 wpi.

It took most of the day, but I did it. It’s just shy of 8 oz (7.93 to be exact). I still have a small bit of Scottish Thistle left on the bobbin.

With the miniSpinner set at 2 O’Clock and the WooLee Winder, this was as mindless as plying can get. I had the 2 singles laced through my fingers of one hand for tensioning. I occasionally tweaked the tension with my pinky, depending on whether I needed more or less twist.

Next up? I have plenty to choose from. And I will work my way through the stash, hitting as many different breeds in The Knitter’s Book of Wool as possible!

Spirit Trail Fiberworks 50/50 merino/silk singles.

There is 4 oz each of Lichen (foreground) and Scottish Thistle (background) colorways. It is about 50 wpi.

It is amazing how slow it is to ply these 2 bobbins. As of the time I went to bed, I have about 2 oz of 2-ply yarn on the bobbin. But that means I still have about 5-6 oz to go.

Stage 3 of Le Tour contains hills. That will be my challenge today. Let’s see if I can finish plying this today.

I’m using this day to finish up spinning some in progress singles I have on the miniSpinner. It’s 4 oz of Spirit Trail Fiberworks‘ 50/50 merino/silk in the Lichen colorway. I have less than an ounce left to spin. I plan to ply this with the Scottish Thistle that has already been spun. This is intended as lace weight warp for a weaving project (project yet to be determined).

A great way to warm up!

Team Superfleece’s goal is to spin any Spirit Trail Fiber, Briar Rose Fiber, or a breed from the Knitter’s Book of Wool, or the KBOW Woolalong. My goal? Spin as many of the different wools listed in KBOW. Let’s see how many different breeds I can play with during this time. I don’t plan on finishing everything of that fiber, but enough of each fiber/blend to make a project, be it a pair of socks or a scarf.

Team Footloose is even easier — spin on a HansenCraft’s miniSpinner.

These 2 teams don’t conflict each other so I feel good about being able to satisfy both requirements.

Wool/Cashmere/Silk Pleated Scarf

Are you tired of this series yet? If not, here’s the next (and last for a while, maybe) pleated scarf.

Let’s go for eye candy first. Click on the image for the full sized fuzzy goodness (click again on the new page to enlarge).

Yes, it looks a lot like the last pleated scarf (at the bottom of the post). But that one was in preparation for this one. What’s so special about this one? The yarn in the green/blue stripes is handspun Spirit Trail Fiberworks 50/50 silk/cashmere, purchased at SOAR 2009. I had just enough yarn to make one scarf with minimal sampling.

Yarn Source: Spirit Trail Fiberworks
Fiber Content: 50/50 cashmere/bombyx (it doesn’t appear that Jen carries this blend anymore)
Colorway: unknown (I lost it at SOAR)
Plies: 2
WPI: 40 (pre-finishing), 32 (post finishing)
Yardage: 580 (pre-finishing), 578 (post finishing); I used 504 yards for the scarf so I have a little bit leftover for a little something.
Weight: 2 oz.

As soon as I saw Anne‘s scarf, I knew that this yarn was destined to become a pleated scarf. I also knew that I had to do a lot of sampling before I started to wind on for this scarf.

Luckily, I had some Lisa Souza 100% wool lace weight in nearly identical colorway. Making a scarf with the wool would tell me if the grey weft would detract too much from the lovely blues and greens in the yarn.

Loom set up is the same in both scarves, as is the weft yarn (light grey tight spun cashmere single from ColourMart). I was, however, able to get about 36 ppi on this one.

On loom

As you can see, the grey did mute the colors somewhat, but did not alter it too much.

All stiff and unappealing, fresh off the loom

Unwashed sample and lightly finished scarf

I washed the scarf gently in the sink and line dried. I tossed it in the dryer briefly when it was almost dry to full it up. As you can see, it’s still kind of stiff and no halo from the cashmere. I was too gentle with it. The reason was that I didn’t want it to shrink as much as the last scarf.

Yesterday, I put it in a bin with extremely hot water (1/2 hot tap, 1/2 near boiling water). I don’t have a dedicated fiber toilet bowl plunger, so I used the only thing available in my kitchen — a potato masher. I abused it for about 15 minutes with a couple of dunks in cold water in between. After spinning it dry, I tossed it in the dryer with a towel. The halo finally came out.

Loom Length: 76″
Finished Length: 74″

I only lost 2″ in length. Why only 2″? In retrospect, it made perfect sense. This yarn has high silk content which prevented it from shrinking like the last scarf, which was 100% wool (blue/green stripes only). Duh!

So, what’s next for the loom? I don’t know yet. Suggestions?

Blues

Then I tried to shift out of my blues into greens…

Greens

As it turns out, I didn’t shift very far from the color wheel. I shifted from the red side of blue to the yellow side of blue. And those with eagle eyes will note that the cone on the far left is the same yarn as the lower-right yarn on the blue montage.

See that skein on the right hand side of the greens? It was 2 oz of Polwarth Luxury Blend that Jen snuck into my last order. I couldn’t leave it natural. I wanted a teal. But, as you can see, I put a bit too much yellow-green into my dye stock. And guess what, it turned out to be almost the same green as the green in the 2 collapse scarves: one made last week (center; Lisa Souza merino lace), and one that will be going on the loom this week (bottom; handspun Spirit Trail cashmere/bombyx).

So, sometimes, you just need a friend to kick you out of your color rut. Kathy picked out this Mountain Colors Targhee (Ruby River) for me at the Winery last weekend.

Does this mean that I’m moving into a red phase?

Editor’s Note: Snort! I just looked at the post on the website and noticed that the towels in the previous post were blue and sage green. I think it just serves to drive home the point…This color rut is rampant!

Specs:

• Warp: 8/2 unmercerized cotton in natural
• Weft: 8/2 unmercerized cotton in grey, sage and blue (2 towels each)
• Draft: Dissimilar Squares Twill from Handweaving.net (#60967)

Why this pattern? I realized as I sat down to plan my warp that I didn’t have any of my weaving pattern books at the cottage. Handweaving.net to the rescue.* I picked this draft because it is very similar to the one I started to use for this scarf (scarf on the far right). It’s not exactly the same, so there might be another set of sample (towels) coming up. I still want to explore that pattern.

click to enlarge

Here they are again, washed and hemmed.

Loom size: 15.4″ x 25″ (plus hem)
Finished size: 13″ x 23.5″

I’m quite pleased with them. They will go onto the boat as hand towels in the head. The current towels are cream colored terry cloth and have sometimes been confused with my cleaning rags.

These should be distinctive enough that they can’t be confused with the ones that you wipe down the toilet or muddy footprints with! The added bonus is that they can do double duty as dish towels. I will need to make more of these to stock the boat with. I can go through this stack in one cruise out.

click to enlarge

I sewed in a loop of cotton twill tape onto one edge of the towel so that they can be hung onto a hook, if desired. While I was at it, I printed customized labels to iron onto them.

I printed my “labels” onto a sheet of Avery T-Shirt Transfer and cut them down to size.  These were then ironed onto 1/2″ cotton twill tape. I had the transfers leftover from another project. I’m not sure that these will hold up to the rough washing/tumble dry cycles that towels go through, but they are quick to make and I didn’t have to commit to 100 or 1000 labels.

These labels look interesting too. I might give these a try too at some point.

While at the spa on Sunday, the spa/resort bathrooms had a stack of rolled up thick washcloths instead of paper towels. I want to do that for my bathroom at the cottage. A pretty stack of handwoven single use towels for visitors (and a convenient laundry hamper nearby).

* This is a wonderful site with lots of fabulous public domain drafts. Think Project Gutenberg for weaving drafts. You can read it online or pull it into a weaving program capable of reading WIF files and make adjustments. Weavolution has a great article on WIFs.

1. Anne Field‘s Collapse Weave workshop notes.
2. Collapse Weave: Creating Three-Dimensional Cloth, Anne Field. p. 50-55.
3. Handwoven Scarves, Interweave Press. “Pleated Scarf” by Gisela Evitt, p 28-29. (While you are at it, look at the scarf on page 31. It is woven with the same warp, but different weft and a denser sett.)
4. Fabrics That Go Bump: The Best of Weaver’s, Madelyn van der Hoogt. Pleats, Ridges, Furrows, p. 57-82.
5. Handwoven Magazine, November/December 2009. “All you do is spritz!” by Ruby Leslie, p.30-31.

The only place that discusses the effect of ppi vs. epi was in Anne’s workshop. In the series of experiments described in her book (reference #2), you can infer what is necessary to make the pleats. The article in Handwoven Magazine lists the epi and ppi, but does not state the importance of the relationship between the 2 to make the pleating work. Lastly, in Fabrics That Go Bump, the section referenced has a good discussion on the fabric density and yarn sizes.

Have fun!

As I said in my last post, I was fixated on Anne Fields’ pleated cashmere scarf. I have some cashmere/silk yarns spun and plied that I thought would be perfect for this project. But, I had only just enough to do one scarf. One shot. No sampling. If it didn’t work, then the yarn is gone.

If that isn’t enough incentive to sample, sample, sample, I don’t know what is.

I had in mind that the contrast stripes would be Crystal Palace Como used here and here. I bought several cones of that from Morgaine back in March, so all is well. Enough to sample. Enough for the project. But what do I use for accent stripes? It needed to be similar size yarn. I auditioned* several but finally settled on Jaggerspun Zephyr.

* Auditioned means that I fondled several. Wound the finalists into balls or onto cones. Fondled some more. Sat and stared at them for a week or so. Carried it around with me. Fondled some more.

The hand wringing included looking up all the weaving books I had that included pleated scarves or pleated projects. (Reference list at the end of the post.) The notes that I had from Anne were the following:

• the structure is 1/3 and 3/1 reverse twill (8 shafts)
• the stripes needed to be less than 1″ for the collapse to happen
• the sett needs to be denser than normal twill
• the weft needs to be finer than the warp (about 8x)
• the beat needs to be more than the sett (about double)

Warp Set Up:

• 19 stripes total of 16 threads per stripe
  • 10 stripes of Como (50/50 wool/silk tight spun)
  • 9 stripes of Zephyr (50/50 wool/silk softly spun)
• 15 dent reed
• sett: 30 epi
• loom width: 10″

For the weft, I auditioned 4 different yarns:

1. ColourMart High Twist Cashmere Single 1/20 NM
2. ColourMart Wool/Lycra 2/30 NM
3. Handspun Cormo Single (about the same grist as the cashmere single)
4. Anne Fields High Twist Wool Single 40/1

I actually wove a baseline using Zephyr, but it did exactly what I expected it to do. Nothing. But what was disappointing was that while some corrugation occurred on some of the samplers when I cut them off the loom, it wasn’t dramatic. After a dunking in a hot bath, they came out flat. I had to coax them into pleats by scrunching them in my hand and lay them to dry.

In the photos below, the top sample is what it looked like off the loom (small sample), the bottom is what they looked like after finishing (and scrunching).

ColourMart Cashmere Single 1/20 NM. 32 ppi.This showed the most pleating straight off of the loom. Not surprisingly, this had the softest hand of all the samples. Due to the cashmere weft, no doubt.

ColourMart Wool/Lycra. 34 ppi. This did what I expected it to do. The lycra pulled it in and overwhelmed the pleating. I did this sample for another project I have in mind,.

Handspun Cormo Single. 34 ppi. This showed the 2nd most pleating off the loom, but as you can see, it's not much. It curled more though. This also had a pleasing hand.

Anne Field's Hight Twist Single 40/1. 32 ppi This didn't show much pleating at all off loom. This sample felt rough, even after washing. I think it's due to the commercially spun high twist wool.

Things I Learned:

• I knew I wasn’t getting the beats that I should from this project, but I couldn’t beat it any harder. While I was able to get some pleating if I worked the wet fabric, it wasn’t what I expected. I thought that it should “just happen.” Obviously, getting more ppi than epi is the key here.
• It was nice to see that the ColourMart singles and my handspun both worked from the perspective that they showed promise of pleats. This meant that I had a source of fine high twist singles for more collapsed projects. Anne’s 40/1 is impossible to find in the US. Always good to have options. But ColorMart has limited color selections for this. No white nor cream, for example. I used a light grey.
• It was also nice to find that my handspun Cormo worked just as well as the commercial yarn and the hand is almost as nice as the cashmere singles. I have several pounds of this Cormo so I have a steady supply. It takes less than an hour to spin 2 weaving bobbins worth of singles. Each weaving bobbin weaves about 10-15″. The only downside of this is that the cormo is a warm tan color. The options are to dye the wool before spinning (loath to mess up a nice pencil roving from Morro Fleeceworks though!) or look at other wools that I can spin to this grist.

“What about the scarf?” you ask. Well, it’s a pleated scarf, but still not my scarf with the handspun cashmere. Why? I had a birthday present to make and I wanted to sample some more. So…

Scarf off of the loom.

The accent stripe is Lisa Souza’s handpainted merino lace, sett at 24 epi. The beat is still 32. While the beat is still not double the epi, it is higher than my samples. And looky what happened! It pleated right up off of the loom. I was so happy that it finally worked.

Why did I choose this yarn? This scarf was destined to be a present to my friend Penny, who gave me the yarn because it wasn’t doing what she wanted. I had wanted to give it back to her in a finished project. Yesterday was her birthday. So it all seemed to make sense. The fact that the scarf pleated up upon removal from the loom was a HUGE bonus. I didn’t have to manipulate it at all.

After finishing.

Here’s what the scarf looked like after a bath and a tumble in the dryer with a towel on low heat. It fulled up and shrank from 72″ on loom to 55″ fulled. I was so excited that it worked and forgot to measure it after I took it off the loom. The wavy part? Differential shrinkage between the Como (white) and the merino stripes. But I think it’s still lovely.

Next up, my own handspun cashmere pleated scarf!

It’s been three weeks since the workshop and my brain is still twitching with all the new possibilities. And this is one of the projects that I can’t seem to let go…

I am obsessed with this scarf of Anne’s. The brown stripes are handspun cashmere/silk. The white stripes are merino (commercially spun, I think). I don’t remember what the weft is, but I think it is wool/lycra. It is woven in 1/3, 3/1 reverse twill. The reverse twill in conjunction with the wool/lycra is what causes it to pleat up like this. High twist singles will behave similarly.

In fact, I already finished spinning some Spirit Trail Fiberworks cashmere/silk into a lace weight 2-ply for this scarf. I’m still trying to decide what yarn to use for the white — a wool/silk, 100% silk, or 100% wool. Then there’s the weft. I bought some cashmere/lycra from ColourMart that will do, but I’m could also use some hand spun singles. The effects, while similar, are slightly different. (More on this in the samples below.)

So, back to the workshop samples. I have 9 samples. Instead of overloading the front page with all the photos, I will put them “below the line.”  Expand to see the rest of this post.

The set up…

A few weeks before the workshop, I received a little package in the mail from the workshop organizers. The package included a 15′ long warp chain of alternating 110/3 and 40/1 wool (1″ stripes). The 40/1 wool is so fine that you almost need magnifying glass to see! The instructions were for warping back to front.

I haven’t warped back to front in over 10 years. I just didn’t want to put the ultra fine singles through the reed/heddles twice (that’s what happens if you warp front to back). That’s just asking for trouble. So I bit the bullet and read Peggy Osterkamp’s book on warping several times. I built myself a raddle with 1/2″ spacing. And re-read Peggy’s book. Took several long breaths. And procrastinated until the day before the workshop.

It really wasn’t that bad. I’m not sure that I would do back to front too often. I find it fiddly. But it might be because I haven’t done it enough to be comfortable yet. Most of my projects right now are less than 4-5 yards, which is completely within the comfort zone for front to back. I can definitely see where it would be good for longer warps and/or more delicate warps.

And in case you are wondering, it took me about 5-6 hours to warp the loom. Not too bad. That part of it usually takes me about 3-4 hours front to back. This one has the extra complexity of those high twist singles. While it was mostly “at rest,” it still wanted to wrap itself up with the surrounding warp threads.

The yarns used:

In addition to the 110/3 and 40/1, Anne provided a selection of wool/lycra & cotton/lycra yarn to play with as warp. the 40/1 is most likely spun S.

But I couldn’t leave it at that. I pulled out some cormo and merino roving from my stash (processed by Morro Fleece Works) and created some S & Z spun singles. S singles are Cormo (light color), Z are MerinoX (dark brown). I wasn’t able to spin the merino nearly as fine as the cormo. I’m not sure why, but spinning it at 1AM may have something to do with it.  The cormo was close to the 40/1 in diameter. The merino was somewhat fatter. (These are used in samples 5-9.)

The Samples:

Now onto the samples. Click on the images for full size. I do recommend it for the details. These pictures do not do these samples justice. They really need to be touched and stretched and oohed and aahed over. (You may need to click twice. Once to bring it up in its own screen, and again to enlarge.)

All samples are woven at 16 ppi (picks per inch) unless otherwise noted.

The top samples (grey towel background) are as they came off the loom, before finishing. The bottom samples (light background) are after they took a dip in hot soapy water. No other finishing (did not full, did not press). Just rolled up in a towel, squeezed dry, and passed a hair dryer of them to finish.

Sample 1: Plain weave with 40/1. See how the 40/1 "crinkled" up? See Sample 4 for how differently wool/lycra behaves.

Sample 2: 2/2 twill with 40/1

Sample 3: Plain weave. Both sides are alternating 1" blocks of 40/1 and wool/lycra, but...On the right, in addition to switching yarns, we also alternated 1" blocks of weaving across the full width and only over the 110/3 warp stripes (skipped the 40/1 stripes). Because the 40/1 warp collapsed on itself without the weft to support it, it produced the horizontal (on the loom) pleats. On the left, alternated 1" blocks on plain weave over all 11 stripes and just on the 40/1 (skipped the 110/3 stripes). No pleating here because the 110/3 did not collapse.

Sample 4: Plain Weave. Alternating 3" blocks of 110/3 and wool/lycra. This is the first time that you can really see the details on the wool/lycra. See how neat and tidy that drew in, as compared to Samples 1 & 2?

Sample 5: Plain weave using S (light) & Z (brown) spun singles. The tracking is really obvious in the brown section because of the contrast. Close examination of the light colored side also shows tracking.

Sample 6: 2/2 twill with S & Z singles. Because of the twill and the active twist in the singles, the sample just immediately curled up when I cut it off the loom. It behaved better after a wash, most likely because it was laid flat and pressed in the towel in the correct aspect.

Sample 7: 2/2 twill. Left to right: 40/1, Z single, S single. I wanted to see how my singles compared with the commercially spun 40/1 singles. As you can see my S (far right) collapsed more than the 40/1. In handling, it has a lot more bounce too. It's likely that I put a lot more twist in my singles. The cormo has a much softer hand.

Sample 8: Plain weave with alternating 110/3 and 40/1 (2 shots each).

Sample 9: 2/2 twill. Alternating S & Z twist singles (2 shots each).

This is just a sample sample of things that can be done with collapse weave. My brain just wouldn’t stop spinning at all the possibilities. In fact, I signed up for the energized singles workshop with Kathryn Alexander at SOAR this year just so I can pick her brain on this. And Anne is working on an advanced collapse weave class for next year. I can’t wait!

And then there’s the environmental aspect of facial tissue. You are spending quite a pretty penny for something that’s single use (if you even get to use it before it’s unusable). They are flimsy. Most of the time, they won’t even hold up to a single blow. Or, they are the triple/quadruple super-duper heavy duty aloe coated tissues that will not decompose even if you poured a bucket of water on it. (You end up just smearing your snot around. Sorry about the visual on that but it’s another pet peeve of mine.)

This has been an especially bad allergy season in the bay area. I’ve been wheezing through the past couple of months. And in place of facial tissue, I’ve taken to using men’s cotton hankies that I used to buy for Martin every couple of years. But they are big. Really big. Not exactly dainty. And good quality cotton hankies cost upwards of $40/dozen.

I came across this post on Purl Bee several years ago on making your own rolled hem handkerchiefs. In fact, I went straight out and bought some nice fine cotton fabric with small prints and cut them into dainty lady-like sizes (9.5″x9.5″) that are just a little bit larger than regular facial tissue. I even took it along with me to SOAR 2008 (yes, that long ago), thinking that it is the perfect project on the plane.

But the problem was that I never could get past the hump on making nice neat hand rolled hem. I even broke down and tried using my rolled hem foot on the sewing machine. (Didn’t take to it either.)

This weekend, as I worked my way through the dwindling supply of scratchy facial tissue, I thought about those squares of cotton again. I pulled them out, and gave it another go on my test samples.

These look pretty good, don’t they? I think I’ve finally got it.They don’t have the soft rolled edge because I used my fingernails to do a rough pressing, but it works for me. It was just a matter of finding a method that worked for me. The hems definitely are not as neat and tidy, nor as refined, as the ones from Nordstrom.

I have no idea what to do with these little squares, since they are only about 3″x3″ for practicing the rolled hems and corners. They are too thin for coasters. In any case, I’m now ready to stitch up my own hankies.

Of course, this begs the question of how to carry a supply of clean and used hankies.

Anecdote 1: One of the things I remember about Martin, back before we were dating, was that he always had a fresh, pressed hankie at the ready. This was really helpful to a young freshman gal who was always having drama with her then boyfriend. I remembered thinking that some girl was going to be really lucky one day.

Anecdote 2: A clean handkerchief was a required part of my kindergarten uniform. We had to have a clean one pinned to our little coverall/aprons each day. I think I still have a picture, somewhere, of me all dressed up in my kindergarten uniform.

I finished the Ribbed Cap back in December. But the length really bugged me. It was too long to not roll up, but not quite long enough for it to look right rolled. It just wasn’t wearable by my standards.

This week, I buckled and ripped it out to just below the crown shaping and reworked it. I added about 1.5 – 2 more inches to the length, and removed the top knot. I like it much, much better. And I would actually wear this version.

Yes. Just in time for 80F weather. But with this strange spring, I might actually have a chance to wear it before summer really hits.

With the remainder of the yarn, I made a little neck warmer.

I created a small little triangle bit below the cowl to tuck into the V of a jacket or a sweater. This would be much less bulky to wear than a traditional scarf, but a little more coverage at the neckline. I hate it when the wind cuts through the gap between where the scarf ends and the jacket/sweater ends. This little triangle bit can be tucked in for a bit of extra protection.

There are still a few things that I would change, but over all, I like it. This little creation has quite a bit of design opportunities. I made this plain with maximum wind protection. But I can see this with a bit of lace to dress it up. Can’t you?

So, yesterday, I measured out a 70″ warp (enough for 2 small table toppers) and went to town. It took me 4+ hours to warp this darn thing and tie on two continuous heddle string/bar (for shafts 2 & 3). Then an hour to heave the first 2″. 5 hours into this thing and I have something that I wouldn’t give to my cat as a cat bed.

Problems? Tension on the warp, to name one. But more importantly, threads 2 & 3 share the slot in the rigid heddle. These get completely muddled up and I can’t get a clean shed on 2 & 3. I spend 2-4 minutes on each shed, trying to clear it. A girl can go grey weaving this. Oh, wait, I already am turning grey. Never mind.

Here are a series of pictures to show Heather that it is possible to do a diamond twill on a Cricket. If one had the perseverance, that is.

Tie up in progress. 1 thread through the hole; 2 threads through the slot.

Wonky tension and 1 threading error aside, here's what it looks like on the loom. You can see 3/4 of a diamond here.

The back shows the diamond more dramatically.

Yup. I’ve cut the puppy off. I was going to put it onto the Gilmore, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s not worth the < $10 in yarn to try and salvage this. I’ll re-purpose the yarn for tying up warp chains or something.

The yarn? Paton Grace 100% mercerized cotton from Michael’s. It’s approximately the same size as 3/2 cotton.

A bevy of scarves

Left to Right:

1. CNCH Scarf 1: This scarf was woven by a guild for the CNCH committee members. Unfortunately, I have misplaced the slip of paper that came with this scarf that tell me who wove it and the pattern. I do know that they had to dye the tencel yarn in CNCH colors in the warp. It is lovely. The pattern was from a past issue of Handwoven. As soon as I find it, I’ll post the information.
2. CNCH Scarf 2: Laura had dyed some of her luscious super wash BFL in CNCH colors. I requested that she dye a few hanks of it in the same purple. The end result is the scarf you see above. 15 ends per inch.
3. Tencel Scarf: I purchased the 10/2 tencel from Just Our Yarn at Stitches West. The warp is a purple base and the weft is a light blue base. The pattern is a point draft. I had to simplify from my original design because I felt the pattern was lost in the handpainted yarn.

The biggest question is what I’ll do with all these scarves. I used to wear scarves as accessories all the time, but that was back in the 80s. With my interest in trying different patterns on the loom, and that a scarf is the perfect sampler, I suddenly have a surplus of scarves. I think I’ll be wearing scarves again.

This year, CNCH has partnered with PenWAG for the fashion show. In addition to Tien’s wedding ensemble, there will be lots of other fabulous garments in the show. After the Friday night fashion show, the garments will be on display in the gallery for the remainder of the weekend.  Daily admission to the gallery, exhibits and market is $10.

So, what are you waiting for? Come on down!

Crocheted Flowers

Made with assorted leftover handspun and sock yarn. Pattern can be found here. You need to have a Lion Brand website account. But if you are like me, you use this.

And if you want to know what they are for, you just need to come to CNCH!

At my Fair Isle Yoke Design class at Madrona, Janine suggested that we develop our own sloper before embarking on a full blown design. I built mine out of handspun 3-ply polwarth (from Rovings, purchased at SOAR 2009).

I initially wanted a tunic length sweater. But when I tried on the finished sweater, it had that whole Flashdance thing going on. All I was missing were the tights and leg warmers. Since this was knit from the bottom up, I took a pair of scissors to the sweater and snipped off the bottom (about 5-6″), picked up the stitches and knit another 3″. Now it’s a slightly longer than waist length sweater. I would prefer another inch or so. It was okay before the second soak (after reknitting the bottom), but lost some length in the wash.

I’ve found that magical length is a fine line between too short and too long. I think I need to build another to validate my measurements. All the rest of the measurements seem to be bang on.

Oh, and the left hand side of the picture? That’s Ellie, on a hunt for something. I don’t know what. I didn’t notice her until just now, while I was cropping the photo.

Netting (click for bigger)

This is my last piece of the weaving intensive. It called Netting A from Marguerite Davison’s A Handweaver’s Pattern Book (in the Swedish Lace section).

The yarn is Crystal Palace Como on my 15 dent reed at 30 epi.

This was an interesting exercise because it utilizes skip dent technique, but you only skip one dent.

The pattern says to thread 3 through 1 dent, skip 1, thread 1 through a dent, skip 1, thread 1 through a dent, skip 1, etc.

This would be easy if you are threading one per dent. But since I’m threading at 30 epi on a 15 dent reed, how do you skip dent when you are threading at 2 per dent? You’re not really skipping dents, just spacing them out.

Judith and I looked at it and came up with 2 different threading options.

My solution: thread 3 through 1 dent, thread 1 through the next 2 dents, etc.

Judith’s solution: thread 3 through 1 dent, thread 2 through 1 dent, skip 1 dent, etc.

They both seemed feasible so we decided to put my threading on the outside edges (4 repeats), and have the center 8 repeats using Judith’s solution. The thought behind this is that my threading is more dense (no skipped dents) and they should be outside to provide stability.

Guess what? It made absolutely no difference. We took the woven sample (straight off of the loom) and put it up to the light and we can’t see where the shift from one threading to another. In the photograph below, the transition happens about the middle of the photo.

Unwashed Netting Detail (click for bigger)

Perhaps Judith already knew this but just allowed me to work through this on my own. In any case, it was a revelation.

Netting samples (click for bigger)

A: Off the loom, unwashed
B: Washed/Fulled (with toilet plunger), pressed
C: Washed/Fulled (cold gentle cycle in washer and dryer on low)
D: Same as C after pressing

In case you are wondering what the blue is, it’s a fine silk cord that I played with. I think it would make a great accent piece as well. A turned cuff or lapel fabric.

The finished piece is about 5″ wide and very long. Not quite the right dimensions for a scarf. Perhaps I can dye it for whatever color belt Iris has achieved in her Tae Kwon Do class.

Here’a another picture of the fabric held up against the light. This time, it’s the fabric fulled in the washer/dryer. See how much it has changed?

Now, this is much more to my liking. I found some 50/50 wool/silk (Crystal Palace Como mill end) and promptly warped it up at 24 epi.

I used my 12 dent reed and threaded 6 dents (at 2/dent) and skipped 4. I wove it in plain weave with random shots of fat silk singles whenever I felt like it.

Yum! I love accents of the silk.  This fabric is something I can work with. A light summer wrap or yardage for an over shirt or unstructured jacket/shrug.

The photo above shows the piece washed and pressed. Judith spent a bit of time talking to us about the transformation the occurs between off the loom and washed in the past, but it wasn’t until we pressed it before I had my a-ha moment.

I mean, I loved the fabric after washing. And I am the queen of no ironing. But seriously, the piece is absolutely gorgeous after a nice pressing.

Skip Dent Samples. Top: off the loom. Center: fulled. Bottom: pressed.

In the above photo, you can see the transition from straight off the loom to the finished product. The top sample is what it looks like straight off of the loom. For the non-weavers, I wish you can feel this fabric. It feels a bit like burlap. Yes, it’s wool and silk, but the fabric sample has no drape.

In the washed and fulled sample in the middle, you can see that the piece looks more like fabric now. It has a soft hand. This was fulled in the wash basin with a toilet plunger and thwacked against the edge of the wash basin to finish the fulling process.

The bottom piece (scarf) was pressed, not steamed, but hard pressed, to realign the warp. The sheen from the silk reappeared. The fabric has more drape than it had before the pressing.

Hmm. I just noticed that I presented the “ugly” end of the scarf.  This was when I was playing with how do deal with the ends of the fat silk single in the weft. This particular attempt was created by tucking the ends on the alternate shed. In the samples, you’ll note that I’ve tucked the ends into the same shed as the silk singles and it nearly disappears into the fabric. (Yes, Amy, I wove my samples after I wove off the scarf. Yes, I know it’s backwards. Yes, I know I should have tested that out in the sample before I wove the real thing. Yes, I learned from this experience.)

The warp and weft are a mixture Judith’s hand paint (base yarn is Henry’s Attic Pony) and Mountain Colors Wool Crepe (Rosehip color way). I followed the warp threading order with my weft to maintain symmetry, because I’m all about symmetry. The airy centers were created in part by the 4 skipped dents, as well as some spaced dents before the skipped dents.

Yes. The yarns moved that much during fulling.

The result? A nice airy scarf that has both heft and movement. This would be fabulous for a spring/fall shawl or throw.

Okay. We are getting closer, but it’s still not to my liking. Not hating it has a lot to do with the colors and the fiber. But from a technique perspective, I still didn’t see any practical use in my personal life. All that loose yarn begs to be caught by Ms. Ellie’s claws (and my clumsiness when moving against snaggly things).

And seriously, how many scarves can a girl have?

Lunch time walk to the lighthouse. Looking back at the Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco in the background. Look at the currents!

Last week was the March Weaving Intensive with Judith MacKenzie McCuin at Point Bonita (Marin Headlands). And what a glorious week it was. Yes, any week with Judith is glorious, but it was doubly so since spring had sprung with a vengeance in the SF Bay Area. The weather was in the upper 60s/low 70s the entire week. Simply glorious.

This is my 3rd year of weaving intensive with Judith; 4th in the series. (I missed the first year.) This year’s intensive is titled “Designing with the Reed.” I had no idea what it meant heading in, but willing to go along with whatever Judith presented.

In turns out, this year’s topic is cram and space. Our first project was with Judith’s own kettle dyed yarns.

I’ve seen scarves produced this way. They’ve never done anything for me. I have to admit that my heart sank a bit when we started weaving. 5 days of producing fabric that I didn’t want?

Oh well. Perhaps I can full this piece and sew it into a small accent pillow cover. I used this piece to experiment with color. How do I bring out the gorgeous colors in dyed yarn? As you can see from the picture, each color brought out different elements of the dyed warp.

I should have known better than to doubt Judith. This first piece was just the launch point for a whole category of fabric to be explored. Here’s a quick peek at what I produced last week, all based on the same technique.

a bevy of scarves

I’ll share the details of these projects over the next few days. In the meantime, let me leave you with another picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge.

]]> http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/1820/feed 1 http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/1817 http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/1817#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:40:25 +0000 Ann http://www.fibermusings.net/?p=1817 Well, I finished the Return to Sender spinning and have turned it in. Photos will need to wait until after the unveiling at the conference. I’ll let you know how I did after the judging.  I also finished weaving my “Conference Scarf.” I still need to press it before its photo shoot.

In lieu of photos of the CNCH projects, let me leave you with a close up of the balance single.

It lost a few yards in the fulling process, but still a hair over 300 yards. I’m quite happy with the results and still think it’ll be fabulous for the yoke of an EPS yoked sweater.

Fiber: 100% Blue Faced Leicester (mixed black/white, over dyed)
Source: Butternut Woolens
Colorway: Sea Glass (purple, green and blue — think I’m in a color rut? It’s just like the Peacock hankies from yesterday’s post.)
WPI: 22
Plies: Single
Weight: 4 oz.
Amount: 308 yds.

Between Janine‘s class on yoked sweaters and Kathryn‘s class on energized singles at Madrona, I have been dreaming of a colorful yoked sweater with balanced singles. And when I found the last bundle of this BFL at the market, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

I split this once length-wise before spinning. So the color repeats are not as long as they could be, but still of a decent length. After spinning, I left it to sit in a very hot bath (near boiling) and then pulled it out and dunked it several times. That bit of agitation allowed the twist to migrate/even out, set the twist, and full it lightly. I think it will be lovely. I just need to spin the singles for the main color/body of the sweater. I have plenty of light light brown merino-x wool in the house. I think any of them will do.

CNCH 2010 Return to Sender: 80/20 merino/bamboo

Now, I’m facing down the week before the deadlines for CNCH entries — Return to Sender (RTS) and Gallery.  I have committed to RTS — I bought the fiber. Yes, it’s true. I don’t actually have to submit it, but I feel obligated. The roving has been sitting on my desk. I look at it every so often and think, “Oooh, look how purdy!” But what do I want to do with it?

After Deb’s class, the thought to ply it against itself no longer has appeal. With Kathryn’s class under my belt, the thought of a balance single also crossed my mind. But I’m not confident enough of my singles to submit. There are going to be some spectacular entries, so I need to think a bit outside the box.

I pinged Amy & Carolyn on what they thought I should ply with this. I’ve been on a green kick lately. I thought of doing something with the olive. Amy suggested something warm. Caroline says to just go for it, but the olive might be too yellow. So I sat on it a bit more.

Chasing Rainbows Silk Hankies - Peacock Colorway

Due date is next Monday. The next committee meeting is on Saturday — a perfect time to deliver it in person. But it means that I’d better get cracking. And I really started to work on the color options. Suddenly, I remembered some silk hankies that I’ve been playing with.

As you can see, I’ve made one scarf with it and made a weaving sampler with it. Do I have enough? I highly doubt it.

I looked up my fiber database. Yea! There’s one more package in a bin in the garage. Hmm. But was that this package or another package? This morning, I went to the bin, and there it is. Another full ounce of hankies in the same colorway. Thank goodness for databases and marked bins!

Aside: I have Sheila to thank for the database thing. When she first told me about her database/spreadsheet, I just thought that she was even more of an OCD than I was. (That reminds me, I need to mark the new package as consumed!)

See how pretty they look together? My plan is to spin a fine single of each and ply them together. The RTS fiber will not be stripped because I want long repeats of the colors. And no, I don’t think I will separate out individual colors to make longer repeats. I’ve tried that in the past but it loses the subtle color shifts. I’d like to preserve those if I can.

As for what I think will happen, my guess is that the purple and olive sections of both the silk and the merino/bamboo will blend and the silk will disappear. The sections of red/orange/yellow will pop out. That’s my guess. We’ll see if I’m right when I’m done plying.

I think they would make a really pretty weft yarn for a scarf at the next CNCH Gallery. What do you think?

Warp: Gold handspun in 50/50 merino/silk; approx. 40 wpi.
Weft: Olive handspun in 50/50 merino/silk; approx. 40 wpi.
Loom: Gilmore Gem II
Sett: 20 epi
Pattern: 2/2 twill
Width: 8″ on loom, 6.75″ after finishing
Length: 70″ on loom plus hem, forgot to measure after finishing

Yarn spun February 22-26. Warped the loom on March 5. Wove on the morning of March 6. Scarf presented to birthday girl at dinner on March 6. It was a sprint to the finish.

Why so long between spinning the yarn and warping? I had a wake to plan and attend to. Then it was a week on hand wringing on whether it should be plain weave or twill. And if twill, what I should do about the floats on the edges and whether I wanted a floating selvedge or not. Yes, I was over thinking it. I think it is because it ishandspun and a birthday present that gave me so much stress. Thank you Amy for much hand holding throughout the project!

Here are a few more pictures of the project:

50/50 merino/silk top from The Artful Ewe. 3.5 oz each. As soon as I saw the colors, I just knew that it was destined for a scarf for my friend. It scream her name from all the way across the marketplace at the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.

Yarn sample card. The gold is straight off the bobbin. The olive has been wet finished.

Ellie (not) helping. In retrospect, I think she was trying to tell me she was hungry and I should be attending to her, not the loom.

Scarf finished. Starting a sampler for my records. 3/4" plain weave on each edge for a rolled hem.

Tonight, I broke down and bought a matching set of stylish wrist braces. (not!) These are make in anti-microbial grey fleece that is supposed to be soft. Guess what? They itch like crazy. Definitely not the polwarth I’ve been knitting nor the merino/silk I’ve been spinning. Yeah. Those 2 activities aren’t helping my wrist any either. I’ve changed from picking to throwing. The minute twist/flick of the wrist when you pick gets painful quickly.

Back to the itchy wrist braces…I think I’m going to have to make some fingerless mitts as brace liners a la Knitsarina.

Unfortunately, the euphoria wears off. For me, it’s on or about day 10. The memories recede and the projects are less vibrant and clear in my mind.  And that’s too bad. I mourn that loss after each event. And even though I know it’s coming, I am still surprised when I wake up one morning and can’t remember that fabulous project that occupied my mind for so many hours just days earlier.

This year, I’m going to try something new. I’m going to apply a bit of my project management background to the creative side. I know. It sounds totally anachronistic to the creative process. But here’s what I’m thinking.

In David Allen‘s Getting Things Done, David introduced the concept of creating a list called “Someday/Maybe.” In this list, you place all the things that you might want to do someday. Maybe. It’s in this list so you don’t forget it. But it is not in your everyday task list to mock you for not doing it. You can go back and reference the list when you need to.

Since I usually come home with at least 20 (or more) projects of dramatically different types (spinning, dyeing, weaving, knitting, you name it!) that I want to explore. Each project has probably 3-5 variations that needs to be experimented on. There is no way that I can get through them all before the memory fades.

The Someday/Maybe list is perfect for these types of ideas. Jot the ideas down, with as much information as I have. Attach photos, yarns, and whatever other inspirations that I have gathered to propel me toward the finished project. File them away in the Someday/Maybe folder.

Periodically, peruse the Someday/Maybe folder for inspiration. Who knows, perhaps I’ll have another burst of creative euphoria as I look through them.

As I near day 10 of the post Madrona creative euphoria, I’m going to spend an hour or so to gather my notes, thoughts, and samples; write them down and save them for a rainy day.

Ask me in a year how well this worked for me.

* Those more observant might also have noticed that I tend to post more in this blog during the days after the retreats.

Case in point. I measured; I swatched for yoke sweater. All good. 8 sts to 2″. Easy. Just plug that number there into the EPS worksheet. Yup. Plug it in. Okay, pull out the calculator and see how many stitches to cast on. Hmm. 289 sts. Odd number because I wanted a non-thinking seed stitch edging. Just plain old knit/purl all the way around. No need to do anything different at the end/beginning of each round. Easy peasy. I’m so clever.

That should have been my first clue. 289 stitches. I cast on using a needle 2 sizes larger because I’m heeding Janine‘s advice of creating more of a bell shape by using larger needle sizes near the hips and shift down to the correct needle size for gauge for the body.  No complicated math for determining K’ (dubbed K-prime — secondary K number) and then figuring out the decreases back down to my K number. I knitted a few rounds. All the while, thinking, dang! That’s a lot of stitches. I knit on. There appears to be quite a bit of extra fabric here. Hmm. I knit on. Finally, after 3-4 rows, I go to bed.

This morning. I took a look at it. There does seem to be a lot of extra fabric. I did a quick measurement. 3.5 sts/in. That doesn’t seem too far from my 4 sts/in of the original gauge. As a matter of fact, it should provide the ease I wanted around the hips. I plugged it into the calculator. 82.5″. What? I double check. Yup. 82.5″. How could I have gone so wrong?

I looked back at my notes. Yup. 8 sts/2 in. My brain figured out that this is 4 sts/in, but I plugged the darn 8 into the worksheet instead of 4.

Moral of this story? Don’t do math, especially simple math, when you are tired. I can’t even blame alcohol since I didn’t have any. Just plain old exhaustion. Maybe alcohol would have helped.

Okay. got to get back to casting on 145 sts. A much more sane number of stitches. Although 144 pleases me better (12 squared), but I still want the brainless seed stitch edging. But 145 is better than 143, because it’s divisible by 5. Yes, there’s a little bit of Monk in me.

Janine‘s Fair Isle Yoke Sweater Design class got me all excited again about fair isle.  I will finish Anne Boleyn this year. I will finish the sampling for the fair isle sweater that I developed during my 3 day class with Janine 18 months ago.

A single day of energized singles class with Kathryn Alexander only whetted my appetite for more. Her discussion on energized vs. balanced singles make me really want to spin and knit another sweater using balanced singles. I am also determined to spin my own energized singles for the Energized Vest. There’s no photo of it on the web, but you can find the pattern in The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book. You can only purchase the yarn from Kathryn, but she no longer has the natural grey/brown produced. Only the white is available. In order to make the vest, you will need to dye it yourself. And the instructions for dyeing it while preserving the energy? Wow. A lot of work. Hence the idea that I will spin my own. It may be faster/easier. Maybe.

Down Breeds with Judith opened up my eyes to down breeds. As those who know me, I’m a delicate flower. I want/need soft-soft-soft! fibers. I’ve always poo-pooed any other sheep’s wool aside from fine wool class because they are the only thing I can bear against my skin. I have allowed Blue Faced Leicesters into my repertoire, but I’m extremely picky about those too. Not all pass muster. But the down breeds? Wow. An eye opener. The loft! The sproing! And the fabulous hand once I blend mohair, silk and/or angora? Oh. My. Word!

How much do I like it? I like it enough to fly home with a 5 pound bump of a clun/mohair/silk blend roving from Kathleen. I like it enough to ask Kathleen to hold back a clun lamb fleece or 2 at shearing next month. I like it enough that you may find me trolling the websites for a suffolk lamb fleece this spring.

The full day class that I only attended 1/2 of? It was Charlene Schurch’s Komi Knitting class. I was interested in the history of Komi knitting, the stranded color work, and how it relates to fair isle.  I also purchased her recently republished mitten book for more stranded pattern inspirations. I only stayed for the morning part of the session? My brain was full. If I crammed more in, my brain would have exploded.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I will cast on for a plain jane yoked sweater, a la Elizabeth Zimmerman, to test out my measurements. I’ll be using the blue spruce yarn that I just finished. Handspun and EZ’s percentage system are a match made in heaven.

Fiber: Rovings Polwarth Export Fine
Colorway: Semi Solid Blue Spruce
Weight: 735 grams
Yardage: 1,544 yards (before fulling)
Plies: 3
WPI: 10-12

This was spun and plied on the Butterfly. I’m still getting used to the eSpinner. The yarn is not as consistent as I would like, and some areas are over twisted. The yarn is destined for a sweater or a vest. Haven’t decided yet.

Huh? Create UFOs yet not start on new projects? How does that work?

Case in point. I mentioned that I would have liked the new vest to be a few inches longer? I had another skein of the pink yarn, so there really wasn’t any reason to rip out the old waist and re-knit.  Now, it’s 2″ longer and my lower back is much happier, thank you.

Another vest on my vest shelf that hasn’t gotten a lot of wear because something was always “off” about it. That’s the Timber Frame vest from 4 years ago.

See all that rippling around the neck and armholes? Barb always said that I should rip them out and re-knit. She’s right. But I’ve never done it. But since I was in a ripping mood, I pulled it out and started to work away at it.

The neck? I reduced the neck ribbing by 1/2″. I probably should have ripped it all the way back and reduce it by a few stitches, but I thought to try this first.

The armholes? I ripped it back and reduced the number of stitches by about 10% (1 stitch for every 10, or there abouts) and knitted a much shorter ribbing.

Here’s what it looks like now. I only finished right armhole (left side on this picture). See how much better it looks already? I really think I can live with the neckline. But the other armhole? I’m thinking that my neck is off centered and I may have to redo that arm steek. But if I cut more, then the arm scythe will be much deeper on one side than the other. Dang. I knew I didn’t like that willy-nilly steek method! Looks like there will be something wonky no matter what.

Hmm. Maybe I can re-cut the neckline wider toward the left, thus centering it. Worth considering.

Finished.

I finished this over a week ago. It’s the first time we’ve had sunshine for picture taking in weeks.

My mom has been complaining of cold shoulders. I saw a couple of people working on the Truly Tasha’s Shawl at the last guild meeting, and I thought, that would be just the thing for my mom. I consulted Grace about colors. I was thinking a nice red, but Grace mentioned that mom liked Iris’ Golden Braid, but said that she likes a deeper gold. Thus started the search for a good gold.

Grace went to Twist, and found some gorgeous Malabrigo Worsted. After much discussion by phone, we agreed upon Pollen. I happened to be at Uncommon Threads the following day and came across the exact same yarn and panicked. It was the color of butter creme. A very washed out version of what I envisioned by Grace’s description. More phone calls ensued. Grace assured me that it was a deep gold yellow. I had my doubts.

The package from Twist arrived on Boxing Day. I opened the box and came across the most beautiful deep gold. Whew! Grace said that even within the bag containing the same dye lot, the depth of shade varied greatly (see Pollen link to see color variations). Grace and Cathy had carefully selected only the deepest colors within the same dye lot. I am here to say, they did a fabulous job. I am on my third skein right now, and it is barely discernible where I changed skeins.

No pictures right now, but just imagine a big giant-sized diagonal garter stitched washcloth, before you start decreasing. As I said, I just started the 3rd skein. Once I’m done with this skein, I can start the lace border. Whew. I can’t wait.

On the positive side, this yarn is absolutely luscious. The pattern calls for a dense fabric. The yarn in this pattern is soft and squishy. Just the thing for cold shoulders.

I smiled when I saw these LunchBots at the health food store today.

Why? They reminded me of the metal bento boxes we had while growing up in Taiwan.

Each evening, leftovers are packed in tight into these metal boxes and tied with string.  There’s usually some sort of tag (think dog tags) tied on with the string. Then they are placed in the refrigerator.

In the morning, we would carry our boxes to school. Once at school, we would toss them in a pile outside of the class room. Yup. Just tossed it in a pile.

After school has started, the janitor would come by and pick up all the bento boxes and they would disappear until lunch time.  At lunch, they would magically reappear, steaming hot.  I’m not sure where he took them, or what kind of device he used, but I imagine that it was some sort of large steamer. All the metal boxes would be tossed in, steamed, and brought back in time for lunch.

As lunch time progresses, our ears are tuned for the sound of the janitor coming by and the clatter of metal boxes. The sound of lunch — better than the bell! And the aroma of steamed food.  It’s an odd, indescribable smell of all sorts of leftovers being heated up together.  Not exactly harmonious, but not unpleasant either. But, perhaps it’s just olfactory memories tied with hunger and the promise of food.

At lunch, there’s the big scramble to find your own lunch box (this is where the dog tags come in), and you would have a nice hot lunch.*

LunchBots would like you to think that they are into something new, but to me, this is old technology at its best. And lots of pleasant memories to go with. I may have to buy one just for that!

* And this is why, to this date, I can’t face a cold sandwich or salad for lunch. To me, lunch is supposed to be hot, darn it!

So what else can you do with 8 oz of 3 ply sock yarn? Make a vest, of course.

Except, of course, a scant 8 oz (less whatever I used in the anklets) isn’t enough for a full vest.* So I dug into my stash to see what other handspun, superwash, sock weight yarn might be around. Lo and behold! Another skein of CMF superwash in “I Feel Good” colorway, spun in an effort to get into speaking terms with the Lendrum (post here).  The grist is vastly different than from the main yarn, but the pink worked well with the purples in the main yarn.

The vest pattern was based on Barbara Walkers “Knitting from the Top.”  This is the second time I attempted to follow her directions for a top down sweater. The first one was frogged. I’m still not 100% happy with this one.  The problem isn’t with her instructions, but my measurements.  I can’t seem to get my measurements down right. Then there’s the fact that my swatches lie.

The first time, I measured my shoulders from the outside edge to edge instead of at the shoulder bone. So the top was about 3″ too wide. And when you add the fact that my actual knitting was looser than the swatch, I had a sweater that was about 5″ too wide at the shoulders.  Hmm.

This one was better, but still not what I wanted.  Let’s start with the swatch. My swatch said 6.5 sts/in on 3.5 mm needles.  Actual knitting ended up being 6 sts/in.  This vest was designed to have negative ease because I wanted it to be a snug middle layer for winter walking. Instead of negative ease, I have no ease, neither negative nor positive.  It fits, but still not quite what I was looking for.

I would like the shoulders to be a bit narrower. This will reduce bulk when worn under fleece jackets and/or rain coats.

Also, because of the difference between the actual gauge vs. swatch, the neck is too wide. I fixed it by knitting a generous ribbing at the neck to pull it in.

I tried some shaping at the sides, but I think I will forgo that in the next go around. Instead, I will use the staggered 4×1 rib instead to pull it in as needed.

All in all, I’m happy with it, but I’ll likely make another one in an attempt to make it “right.”

* So just how much yarn is needed to make a vest for me? This one weighs out at a generous 8 oz. But I would like it another couple of inches longer (to keep the lower back warm). That plus spinning waste, I would plan at least 10-12 oz for a vest.

** There are a couple of places where the yarn was chain plied in my attempt to squeeze every last yard out of what I spun; once in the pinks and once in the green/purple. They really stand out from the surrounding yarn. Having seen how they pop out, it is unlikely that I will do this again. It may not matter much in socks, but in a larger project, it’s an eye sore.

Two pairs of anklets. The yarn is 3-ply handspun.  Both are spun from Crown Mountain Farm’s Superwash Merino Handpaint and knit on 2.5 mm needles.

The green should be familiar.  It was first used here as a 2 ply; and 3 ply sock yarn here, and again here.  As you can see, 8 oz go a long way on my small feet. 1 full pair of socks and 2+ anklets. (And yes, all the yarn, except for 2-3 yards, has been used up. Whew!)

After the current set of footlets, I still had about 25 g of yarn left, so I dug out the second color way, “The Beat Goes On”, spun 2 years ago, and patched together another pair of anklets.

They are siblings, but wow, can I tell the difference between the 2 yarns!  The WPI on both yarns is similar — about 14-16 WPI.  But the grist is a completely different story.  The green is lofty and a joy to knit with, but the multicolor one was super dense and the resulting fabric is stiff as a board. (The difference in weight between the 2 pairs is just under 5 grams.)

Unfortunately, they were both spun 2 years ago and I don’t remember the details.  But I think the difference might have been the way I spun the yarn. I may have spun with my variation of long draw for the green and inch wormed the multi. I have to say I really like the green much better. And the loftier yarn doesn’t seem to have made much difference in the wear since it’s close on to 2 years since that first pair of socks were knitted, they still look like new.

I may have to find a different project for remainder of “The Beat Goes On” 3-ply, since knitting on itty bitty needles with it was definitely not a pleasant experience.

Knitting Specs:

• Yarn: 3-ply handspun from Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Wool
• Needles: Knitpicks 2.5 mm needles (2 circs)
• Cast on 12, using Turkish Cast-On
• Increased to 56 sts
• Short row heel (I experimented with 3 different short row techniques over the 2 pairs)
• Cast off using Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind off method.  I came across this recently and am absolutely enamoured with this method.  I can finally forego the darn needle and the sewn bind off!

I wonder if I have anymore superwash wool roving left in the house. I feel the urge to try spinning some more and see if I can perfect that 3-ply sock yarn.  Of course, now I also want to try a cabled yarn for socks.

Hand carved beater bar! (click for bigger)

I made it 8″ long instead of 6″ before starting the crown, so I can have enough length to turn a cuff.  I have a big head and I’m not that fond of the beanie look. But because I have such a big head and so much hair, I barely have enough to turn. Sigh. 9″ or even 10″ would have been better.

Size 6 needles instead of the size 8 because I’m such a loose knitter.

Yarn? 2 oz of a 2 ply handspun rambouillet (purchased the roving at SOAR) instead of Noro.  Much softer on the ears. I like the soft lavender blue variegated color.  Very much like a well worn pair of jeans.

So, I guess it wasn’t really much like the original pattern.

A little about the yarn.  I arrived at SOAR with plenty of vests, scarves and shawls, but absolutely nothing to cover my head with. It rained. It snowed. It was frigid. As soon as the market opened, I went in search of something that could be spun up quickly and turned into head coverings. I bought 4oz of Rambouillet rovings (I can’t remember which vendor). How long could it take to spin a hundred yards of yarn for a quick hat?

I didn’t factor in all the distractions. Nor the fact that I decided to use a drop spindle (Forrester, also purchased at SOAR) instead of one of the 2 spinning wheels.  I didn’t finish spinning and plying the yarn until the week after SOAR.

It wasn’t until the weather turned arctic in California that my mind went back to the hat.  Of course, now that the hat is finished, the weather has turned a nice balmy 60F…

I have 2 oz left. I think there’s enough for a neck scarf or a pair of fingerless mitts to keep me warm while walking.

This picture was taken the morning of the 2000 Winter Solstice near Ames, Iowa. The halo is made by sunlight shining through millions of ice crystals.

Yesterday, I went to the Y and hopped on the treadmill to get a baseline. I wanted to find out where I am before I start training. I don’t do treadmills in general. If I want to walk, I have plenty of built-in loops around my neighborhood in 1, 2, and 3 mile segments. But I wanted to get a baseline that didn’t include stopping at intersections and waiting for traffic (or waiting for Waldo to sniff and water each blade of grass as we walked by).

What did I find? I finished a 5K in 54 minutes. That included a few slow downs to set my iPod into the treadmill, re-plug my headphone cord into the treadmill after my wild arm swings pulled it out of the socket, and general playing around with the interface.  Not too bad, but could be better.  My goal is to finish the 5K in 45 minutes. I have 3 weeks to shave 9 minutes. I should be able to do it.

Back to the title of this post. I wore one of my handknit socks. Regia Jacquard, to be specific.  It was a plain vanilla sock, top down with a heel flap, knit in plain stockinette. These socks don’t look much different from when I first knit them. And according to my project notebook, that was in July 2001. 8 year old socks that still look new.

Yup. Wears like iron. Unfortunately, they also felt like sandpaper after mile 2 (3K mark). During that last mile, I could feel every purl bump. And my feet were sensitive for a couple of hours after.

I will go through my entire sock drawer and give each sock an audition. I’ve heard that wearing the socks stockinette side in may feel better than purl side in. I’ll try that. Handspun as well as commercial. Nylon enhanced or not. Superwash or untreated wool.

So, the quest is on for a pair of perfect handknit socks that can withstand a half marathon.  Comfort, wicking ability, cushion, and just as importantly, durability.  Ideally, it would be something like the Smartwool hiking socks. But that would entail creating little terry cloth like loops on the inside for cushioning. Not in this lifetime. Life is too short. If it comes down to that, I’ll buy the darn socks. It’ll be cheaper.

Stay tuned.

I culled through my past blogs and compiled a list of knitting recipes that I’ve sort of written in the past. A little more than scribbles on whatever is handy in the kitchen, but falls (very) short of the neatly typed up 3×5 recipe cards.  These are now available from the menu under the masthead.

(Yes, we are short on blog fodder around here lately. Nothing exciting happening here other than trying to stay warm.)

There has been several requests in the past for the pattern, but there really wasn’t one. As I mentioned in my original post, I made the pattern up as I went along, using my favorite cotton Benetton sweater/shrug as my guide.

Instead of providing the pattern, I provided the generic pattern recipe that can be adapted to any size yarn, any size person.  With the recipe, at least one person from the guild has been able to reproduce the shrug for herself and as gifts.

While at SOAR, I was asked again for the pattern.  Again, I gave the generic recipe, but Sarah & Beth were most insistent. I said that I’d write it up when I had the time. I have a bit of down time right now and need some blog fodder, so I present you the shrug pattern in 2 parts: generic recipe with design considerations; and, as Elizabeth Zimmermann would say, the pithy directions for this particular shrug.

Generic Recipe

I had this lightweight cotton Benetton sweater shrug. I loved it. I wore all the time.  It was slouchy and had bat wing 3/4 sleeves.  I wore it over everything whenever I needed just a little bit more. It ended at the waist. The bat wing sleeves allowed me to wear it with baggy t-shirts or fitted shirts.  It was a bit blousy and buttoned up in the front, but I rarely wore it buttoned up.  In fact, I lost a button several years ago and didn’t notice it until months later.

With this in mind, I made two measurements:

1. depth: neck to waist
2. length: wingspan for 3/4 sleeves

I didn’t want a fully rectangular sleeve, so I decide to make a slight taper in the sleeves, beginning from the cuff. The finished circumference of the sleeve is the depth of the sweater, minus the ribbing.

The shrug is knit from cuff to cuff.  Sort of.  I wanted the 2 cuffs to be identical. I didn’t want a cast on edge on one cuff and a cast off edge on the other.  So, I knit 2 separate and (nearly) identical pieces and kitchener stitch the 2 pieces together.  You can knit it either as a single piece or as I did, 2 pieces.

Recipe:

1. cast on stitches for the cuff; place marker, join and work in the round
2. work in ribbing for 1″
3. change to st st
4. increase one st on either side of the marker every 1″ until desired circumference
5. work even until desired sleeve length
6. remove marker and work flat until 1/2 the length of the shrug
7. repeat steps #1-6 for the other half
8. kitchener the 2 pieces together
9. pick up and knit around the center where you knitted in the flat; pick up in multiples for the ribbing you choose (I used 3×3 ribs, so I picked up in multiples of 6.)
10. knit in ribbing for 3″, or more
11. cast off

The Pithy Directions

Finished Measurements:

1. depth: 24″
2. length: 45″

Yarn: handspun 2 ply blue faced leicester from Dicentra Designs; 12 wpi. The shrug weighs 335 g / 12 oz.
Gauge: 5 sts/in, 8 rows/in
Needle: 16″ and 45″ circular needles in whatever size that gives you gauge
Schematic:

Directions:

1. cast on 75 sts, place marker and join
2. knit 3×2 ribbing for 1″
3. knit st st for 1″
4. k, inc 1, k to last st, inc 1, k
5. repeat steps 3-4 5 times (85 sts)
6. continue until work measures 8″
7. remove marker and work flat in st st until piece measures about 22″ (I worked until I finished a skein around the middle of the piece)
8. repeat steps 1-7 for the second piece, but until both pieces together measures 45″ (e.g. 20″ and 25″)
9. kitchener the 2 pieces together
10. pick up and knit 2 sts for every 3 rows around the center opening. Pick up extra stitches around the corners where you changed to working flat to eliminate any holes.  I didn’t predetermine the stitches I needed.  Instead, I counted the stitches that I had and increased to the right number of stitches I needed for my ribbing.  For example, if I picked up 178 sts, but needed 180 to make my multiple for the ribbing, I would increase 2 sts in the next round.
11. work in 3×3 ribbing for 3″
12. cast off
13. weave in ends

That’s it.

Variations:

• As I said, you can work from cuff to cuff as a single piece. Just take notes of the distance from the last increase to where you start working in the flat, and reverse the decrease to the cuff.
• Deeper ribbing around the center.
• Short row the center ribbing around one side for a shawl collar. Although this would create a definite neck edge.
• Full length sleeves.
• Fitted sleeves.
• I’ve been toying with working a center back rectangular panel and pick up from the edges and knit toward the cuff. This allows for design features like cables or lace inserts.

The possibilities are endless. Excuse me while I dig in my stash for more yarn.

Pattern: Hiker’s Waistcoat
Yarn: Cascade Rustic (3.5 skeins), purchased from Island Wools, Friday Harbor, WA

This was a quick knit.  It took less than a week. The neckline didn’t quite work out as the pattern stated so I winged it a bit.  Otherwise, I followed the pattern exactly as written.  The problem was that the vest came out really baggy, especially at the underarms. The fabric was also sleazier than I liked.  Today, I fixed that sucker by tossing it in the washer with some hot water and soap for 5 minutes.

Yup. I fulled it.  I like the fabric much better now and it fits snuggly.  I like.

Hmmm. Looking at this picture, the left underarm looks kind of funny — curvier than the right. Perhaps I should go back and revisit.

The only thing missing is a zipper.  (I guess that’s a mod. I wanted zippers instead of buttons.) That may be a while.  I hate installing zippers.

Deadline is February 28, 2010. Lots of great prizes too.

Grace — There’s plenty of time for Iris to fire up her Cricket Loom and enter!

I started the Hiker’s Waistcoat with Cascade Rustic from my stash. I’m going to put in a zipper instead of buttons.  This should have been a quick knit except I keep thinking I know where the pattern is going and knit merrily away, only to find out several inches later that my interpretation was off. Waaay off. So, I’ve done quite a bit of unknitting.  Why not just rip? I’m trying to keep track of row numbers so that the seaming will go easier.

The wool/linen blend is amazingly soft. I’m loving it so far.  The soft flowing of pure white to gray is mesmerizing. I can’t wait to wear it. I should have enough for a hat or something to go with.

Maybe some pictures after the most recent unknitting session.

What’s best about SOAR? Hanging out with old friends, some you only see a few times a year, or once a year at SOAR. Getting to know some of them better. Getting under the covers and learning the thought and design process of the mentors for their various projects: Sara Lamb, Deb Menz, Stephenie Gaustad, Sarah Swett to name a few. (Go ahead, click through to their site and tell me you aren’t inspired.) Meeting new best friends. Seeing all the fabulous projects that everyone has been working on during the past year. Creative juices are flowing.

Unfortunately, creative juices aren’t the only juices that are flowing. I arrived still recovering from the ravages of a 2 week old cold (just sinusitis and bronchitis at this point, and cleared by my doctor as not contagious), there were others who arrive while contagious. Sorry, people, cold/flu while you are contagious and in small hotel meeting rooms/suites and lots of other people is just not a good idea. Several of the mentors came down with the crud after the 3 day workshop and had to suffer through the remainder of the week feverish and loss of voice. Not cool. Some think that the SOAR crud is the price of admission; I’d rather not.

The cold dry air of the Oregon High Desert triggered a severe asthma attack for me. That on top of weakened lungs from the bronchitis made it ugly. Very ugly. So ugly that I barely made it to Whidbey Island. So ugly that my doctor put me on a course of prednisone. So ugly that I’ve decided to stay put until this is fully under control instead of returning back to the bay area and some commitments I have down there.

Now that the asthma is better controlled, I have the sniffles. Damn! And a winter storm is now scheduled to arrive tomorrow and stay through the window I am thinking I’ll be able to head south again.

On the positive side, I love a good winter storm when I tucked in the cottage with a fire blazing. Plenty of hot tea and my spinning wheel. I might even break out the Cricket and weave a scarf!

And even better, I will be able to go to the Whidbey Weaver’s Guild‘s Annual Sale on Friday!

I leave you with some images of the week. Click through for full size.

23 Dec, 2009: Edited to use YouTube instead of the local QuickTime movie for improved page loading and throughput.

On other news, I’m home safely. Except for the cold I seem to have caught somewhere along the way. I’m taking these few days easy, drinking lots of fluids, chicken soup, vitamin C, zinc, and plenty of rest while catching up with my Tivo.  All this provides some good knitting time.

The diving was good. I can’t say great because I don’t think it was as good as the Solomon Islands last year. But who am I to say? It’s only my second diving trip. The weather was hot, humid, and unpredictable.  We had residual rain, wind and cloud cover from the never ending Typhoon Parma during the early part of the week. It finally calmed down for the last day or so of the trip.  The waters were murky. But the murky water also brought the corals out for feeding, which we wouldn’t see otherwise.

There was a lot of surge and it took me a few days to learn to not fight the surge and current and go with the flow. I got comfortable enough to play with my underwater housing for my point and shoot Canon.  You can see some of the pictures in my Picasa album.

I’m in Makati, outside of Manila right now. While the areas that I’m seeing look back to normal, I was told by my driver (hotel car service) that the outlying areas are still under water and without power.  They are not expecting to have power restored for at least 3 months.  It means a dark Christmas.  In order for him to get to work, he first has to catch the raft from his home and help push the raft for an hour to get to dry land, then onward to the hotel for a shower and start his day.  He plans to be here by 5:30 am tomorrow to take me to the airport, which means that he needs to be up by 3 or so.  They can’t leave their home for fear of looting.  They can’t cook at home so he needs to buy food for the night on his way home.  (I’m trying to be liberal with my tipping while here in Manila.)

So, yeah, don’t ignore the requests for donations from MSF, Mercy Corps, Red Cross, or your aid relief organization of choice.

And the blanket? It’s finally getting past the “placemat” stage.  It’s almost pillow sized.  It’s another way of say, I have a lot of knitting ahead of me.  It may be a sleepless flight back to California.

Next on the agenda — family time during the next 36 hours, which may stretch into 48-72+ hours.  It all depends on what Typhoon Parma decides to do. As it stands now, Parma is due to be in the sea between Taiwan and the Philippines come Sunday afternoon through Monday morning as a Category 2 storm.

Although my final destination is Panglao Island, which is several hundreds of miles south of Manila, I have to connect through Manila.  I am due to fly out to Manila on Sunday evening.  I am prepared for a flight delay.

Super Typhoon Parma bearing down on the Philippines. (Graphics courtesy of examiner.com)

]]> http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/1572/feed 0 http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/1563 http://www.fibermusings.net/archives/1563#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:41:55 +0000 Ann http://www.fibermusings.net/?p=1563 I’m going Pink for October. I’m not doing anything fancy except changing in the background color because I just don’t have time right now to build a new template around this. Perhaps next year.  In the meantime, read up on it and click on through to give free mammograms.  Which reminds me, I’m due for one this month. How about you?

For more information:

• National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
• Pink for October

I took a look at all my Turkish spindles.  Yes, all.  I found that I have about 8 here (there may still be 1 or 2 hiding in a bag somewhere).  I know I have at least 1 or 2 more up at the cottage.  I took them all out.  Gave them a nice rub with beeswax polish, and set out to weight them.  My spindles range from 20 – 80 grams.  Most of them are in the 55-65 range, but there are a couple of really heavy/dense exotic wood spindles.  I picked the single featherweight spindle (20g) for my singles, and the lightest of my large spindles (40g) for plying.

So I set out to audition fibers to take on the trip. I tried an Abby batt. Nope. It didn’t tickle my fancy with this spindle. I found a little 1 oz. braid of Falkland wool that came in an order from bee mice elf.  Yum. This is a lovely fiber to spin on the Turkish spindle.  Not too slippery, nice crimp, and very soft for a medium wool.

I separated the roving into 2 equal sections for a 2-ply yarn.  I started spinning the first bump and looked down at the spindle. Hmm. It doesn’t look anything like a yarn turtle.

This is the way I was taught to wind a Turkish spindle: over and under alternate arms.  When enough builds up, skip 2 arms and repeat.

I looked at Syne’s turtles and reviewed Amelia’s directions and saw that they wind in a much different way than I’ve been taught.  So, I thought I’d give it a try.

Hmm. Perhaps I’m just not used to it, but I think it looks funky.  It took a while for me to get into the groove of winding it this way.  I’m not too happy with this method because I think that the spindle gets a wee bit unbalanced while winding on.  The old method of over/under builds the yarn evenly around the shaft.  This method builds the yarn parallel to the shaft.  There’s a moment in time each time you switch that the fiber is evenly distributed, but the next wind-on changes the balance again.

And the wind-on feels awkward.  It did feel better toward the end, but still not great.  It may just be the awkwardness one experiences when learning something new.

Here are the 2 nests side by side.  The old method on the left, and the new on the right.  The new one doesn’t look anything like a nest nor a turtle.  It looks more like a giant Chiclets.

And the biggest downside I found is that I can’t find the center!  The old method keeps the shaft area clear, so I can track the starting thread.  When I slide the shaft out, I can pull the start out a bit so I can use it.  The new method completely covers the starting thread.  I couldn’t find it, even when I followed Syne’s method for finding the beginning.

Instead of plying from the same end of the spun singles, I’m plying one from the center and one from the outside.  Darn.

Anyway, after going through all of this auditioning, I’ve decided not to take any spinning with me.  Sanity returned.  There are 2 reasons for this:

1. I really need to finish the Deb Menz Patchwork Throw/Blanket. So, I’ve packed that, along with all the millions of little balls of yarn.

2. I took some fiber and a spindle with me once to the British Virgin Islands.  The heat and humidity did not make it a pleasant experience.  I don’t think I ever finished spinning that beautiful wool/silk blend.  It was also a sailing vacation where we spent 10 days on a sailboat.  That may have had something to do with it.

So, the spindles stay home.

Sorry if this post is a little disjointed. I’m trying to stay awake all night so that I will fall asleep as soon as I get on the plane in 11 hours and counting. Hopefully, I’ll fake my body into the new time zone and have minimal to no jet lag at the other end.

So what’s the deal?

Because I’m making it up as I go, and I’ve been working at it very sporadically, I can’t seem to remember how I was doing things so that they look consistent from previous work.  I’ve made notes, I seem to interpret my notes differently each time I pick them up.

How is that? Well, I tried half a dozen methods, if not more, for how to attach the working strip to the blanket edge.  I came up with a way that gives me a seam that I can live with.  One that looks similar from the front and back.  Most attachment methods will have a right and a wrong side of the fabric.  That won’t do for me.  I don’t want to think about right and wrong side when I throw a lap blanket over myself.  Even if there’s no one around but the cat and dog to see it.

And because I’ve made this up, and because I don’t work on this blanket regularly, I forget my chosen method.  Then, I’d pick up the project and knit merrily along.  18″-24″ later, I look down, turn the blanket over, and do my Edvard Munch’s The Scream imitation. Rip. Rip. Rip! I’d try another method. Nope. Still not it. Rip.

After the 5th or 10th ripping session, I got smart. I wrote down my instructions.

I still get it wrong.  Huh? Back to being lazy. I wrote shorthand for my attachment method, thinking, I’ll know what I mean by “twist the pair of sts and p2tog.” After all, how many different ways can there be? Apparently a lot.

So, I got anal.

I took step by step pictures. I took notes. I combined them into a series of reference/flash cards. Of course, now that I’ve done this, it’s fresh in my memory and I haven’t needed the cards.  But it hasn’t been a total waste.  The hand, eye, note taking memory is serving me well for now.  I still remember after 24 hours.  But then, I’ve also been actively knitting.  So, the jury is still out on these cards.  We’ll know one way or the other next week.  I need to punch a hole and put it on a ring so I don’t end up doing my version of 52 card pick up.

Now I want to know how far along I am on the project.  I am aiming for a 30″x48″ blanket before I get started on the edging. I have no idea what my percentage of completion is or if I have enough yarn spun up. I didn’t want to fall into the trap that The Harlot fell into. But the project manager in me really wanted to know where exactly I was every step of the way.

So…I created a spreadsheet.

With periodic measurements, I’ll be able to track my path to completion, based on square inches.  A quick trip to the scale will tell me how much yarn I have used. Based on estimated yarn requirements for the finished blanket and how much I have used, I can see if I’ll have enough yarn to finish the project.  Since this is all hand spun, spun over the course of nearly a year, the grist isn’t the same, so this calculation is a way to periodically verify my yarn quantity.

Yeah. I’m a geek and I’m anal.

So, where am I?

The blanket is currently at 12″x18″. According to my spreadsheet, I am about 15% done with the blanket, sans edging.  I have ample yarn spun to finish the blanket.  See?

I really hope I didn’t make a mistake with my formulas…

The big giant ball of yarn in the upper left corner is designated for the edging. It most likely will not be enough. I have another bobbin of mixed colors spun up, but it’s sitting on the bobbin to rest before I wind it up into a ball.  And if I that’s not enough, I still have some fiber that I haven’t spun up yet. (Stop laughing. I meant fiber designated for this project. I know I have a garage full of fiber.)

Wait! How is that? You have a spreadsheet that tells you exactly how much yarn you need. I just saw it!

Ah. That was for the base blanket, sans edging.  I have no idea how much yarn I will need for the edging since I haven’t measured, weighed and calculated how much that will be.  Oh, and more importantly, I haven’t decided what the edging will be yet.  Most likely, it will be an i-cord edging since it is easy and takes less yarn than a crocheted edging.

My biggest problem is that it took me months to get to this point. SOAR is less than 4 weeks away. For 2 of those weeks, I’ll be on vacation. In the topics. I really was not planning on bringing a wool blanket with hundreds of tiny balls of wool with me to the tropics. The idea of the lap blanket on, well, my lap! has absolutely no appeal. Nor does the idea of chasing little balls of yarn down the airplane aisle on an international flight.

But, if I want to have this in the SOAR gallery, I’m going to have to just suck it up and take the whole kit and kaboodle on the trip with me.

Wish me luck.

(Of course, I could just bind off and show it in the gallery without the edging. No one would be the wiser. Right?)

This is the first year that I’ve been involved in the conference from something other than an attendee.  I have to say, these ladies are amazing. The committee has been busily working away for over a year.  Yes, a year.  This means each conference takes over 18 months to plan and execute. These women worked tirelessly to create an exciting slate of teachers and classes, activities, and events. And with grace and respect for each person’s expertise.

These ladies also had the courage to make some significant changes.  One of these exciting changes is to put the conference materials and registration online.  This is how I became involved. With the help of all the ladies on the committee, Kris Peergand, and Suzanne Pedersen, I pulled together the conference pages on the official CNCH website.

Who’s Kris? She is one of the driving forces behind the rebuild of the CNCH website. Take a cruise through the rest of the site while you are there and see the amazing changes she has made. The website is clean, easy to navigate, and makes use of the available technology to allow all the member guilds to update their own areas.

Suzanne has graciously and openly shared all her experiences with the online registration process with me.  She has been a wonderful resource for all my questions. She guided me through the selection process of the online registration software. We’ll see how well I followed her advice when the registration opens on November 1st!

By the way, did I mention that this committee is an all volunteer organization? Yes, everyone worked on conference (including Kris for her work on the website) without monetary compensation. Why? Because they have a passion for textiles and want to share that passion with all of you. That’s the compensation, the reward: sharing the passion.

I am proud to be part of all of this. Thank you, Nancy and Kathy, for inviting me along for this amazing ride!

Even though I’ve known about this for a while now, and blogged about it, there’s still something magical about seeing your project and name in print.

Eh-hem. This time, Kathleen turned the tables on me. Hmm. “How many looms do you have, Ann?” Huh. I stopped to count…then I asked, do you count rigid heddle looms? Of course. So, here it is:

• 1 Cricket Loom (Rigid Heddle)
• 1 Flip Loom (Rigid Heddle)
• 2 Gilmore Gem II Looms (1 each in California and Washington)
• 1 Fireside Floor Loom (still at Rachel’s)
• 1 Marudai
• 1 Homemade Triangle Loom

That’s 7 looms.  And these don’t include the old Leclerc Dorothy Table Loom that is on permanent loan to Deborah, the navajo weaving frame, the inkle/card weaving looms, nor the miscellaneous hand held looms.

Yikes! As Kathleen said, I can’t say I’m not a weaver anymore.  Or maybe I could. I don’t weave. I just collect looms.

Sigh. Just call me Ms. Pot.

I’m also battling the calendar to finish the CNCH 2010 website before the unveiling in 2 weeks.  So, more sporadic postings, I’m afraid.

P.S. My copy of the Fall 2009 Spin-Off is still MIA, but I saw a copy of it yesterday.  My scarf is in it! It’s such a thrill to see your work and name in print.  (I won Best Use of Sheep Wool category.) You can download the All Wrapped Up in Natural Fibers gallery from this page.  This PDF also includes a few scarves that didn’t make it into the magazine.  I’m so tickled!

Riiiiiight. Time for a reality check…So far, I’ve finished one pair of socks.  I can’t take a picture of the pair together because Kristine has the 1st one.  I lent it to her as shop sample for Sock Summit, but had to leave early due to an emergency back on the island.

So what took up all of my time?

A sliding hillside (imagine a 30′ drop 5 feet from the end of your deck and water seeping/flowing out of the hillside at several locations), HOA politics from hell, county permitting process. To be clear. The slide itself wasn’t the emergency that took me away from the Sock Summit.  The repair was already underway.  It was the nasty neighborhood politics that took me away. The emails that flew made me a miserable companion to those around me at the Sock Summit, and I felt that I needed to be back in person to defend myself.

But, we are once again back on track…3 weeks later than originally planned.  Last I heard, they removed approximately 430 cubic yards of yuck, and will be putting in 62 tons of rocks in its place.  Now that the work has restarted, we hope the major work will be done by the end of this week, then on to the replanting. Unfortunately, because of the politics, the project won’t be fully complete before I leave.  I hate this. But it can’t be helped. I’m backed up against commitments back in California.

Oh, then there are the new septic system inspection requirements set out by the county.  I still have that to look forward to. I hope to finish that by the end of this week as well.

On the bright side, I had a marvelous week with my niece Iris. She even finished a scarf on the Cricket Loom!  It’s really sad when your 8 year old niece accomplished more than you did…

Well, I did paint one wall…out of 5 or 6 that needed repainting and stair railings, and trim and, and, and…

Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly from this point on.

I got lucky and made it on the Port Townsend ferry without a reservation. I made the decision to try for it, since I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of trying to get through Seattle during rush hour. Whew! Now to find some coffee.

Next stop, Portland and Sock Summit!

A quick post to show you what I’ve been up to.

From this…

Curious Creek Fibers assorted rovings. These were Kristine’s samples.  She has new packaging now.  I’ll see them this weekend in Portland.  The idea is that you will get an assortment of colors in each package. You decided on how you want to spin it up into yarn.  What great fun and full of color possibilities.

To this…

Spun on Spindlewood drop spindle. I randomly spun the colors together in short and medium lengthed sections.  This creates really short and random color repeats.

To this…

Wound off to weaving bobbins (6 total) and 3-plied, again using the same Spindlewood drop spindle because I didn’t have a plying spindle with me.  (This will be rectified this weekend.)  This was my first 3 ply on a drop spindle. It really wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. It helped that I rewound the cops onto weaving bobbins so the tension is even on all bobbins. Having the 3 strands come under the bobbin winder provided just that little extra bit of friction for extra tensioning.

To this…

Really squishy and yummy sock weight yarn.  I didn’t measure the WPI on this yet.  Estimated yardage is about 250 yards.  In fact, I’m already 1/3 way finished with the second sock. I just haven’t gotten around to taking a picture.  I’ll take one on the ferry and post it tomrrow.

I’ll be showing the single sock to Kristine tomorrow and let her decide if she wants to display it with her packages as a sample. In any case, I’ll have a great new pair of squishy socks by the end of weekend and some really fond/fun memories.

Here’s the view from my spinning wheel.  Needless to say, I’ve been a little distracted.  Aside from looking out at the water, watching the sunset, planting herbs, putting in some shrubs, I’ve also been busy picking berries and making jam.  Posting might be a little sporadic as I get back into the groove of island life.

Barb

I hadn’t been to Artfibers since they moved out of San Francisco, so this was my first visit to the new location.  All I can say is, “WOW!” It’s lovely.  It’s on the ground level of a house.  There are 3 rooms full of luscious yarn.  Roxanne’s office and patterns are located in the converted detached garage.

Comfortable chairs are scattered inside and out for you to sit and sample with all the yarn in the shop.  You can opt to sit inside, on the covered patio, or in the gazebo.  Outside the window, between the gazebo and the house, is a lovely organic garden.

On the 4th, Roxanne had an Open Studio/potluck. Everyone brought a little something to share.  There was lots of food, a beautiful berry covered velvet cake, and wine.  We sat around the garden, chatted and played with yarn all afternoon.  I may have bought a little yarn.

I had a great time.  Thanks, Barbara, Roxanne, and Nyles!

Straight edges. 90° corners (T-Square provided as proof). Tidy attachments.

This is probably the 3rd iteration of this attempt because I wasn’t satisified with variations of attaching the live knitting to the knitted piece.  The one I finally settled on is: sl last stitch as if to purl, pickup edge stitch from the back, purl 2 together. On the next row, slip the 1st stitch as if to knit.  It’s a variant of Vivian Hoxbro’s method.  I found slipping that last stitch as if to purl provides the edge I like the most.  Your preferences may differ.

Attempt 1 has been ripped. This is the one I will be going with. (Although, I do miss the movement in the diagonal lines…)

I wrapped them onto old business cards*…

Then I took the leftover bits and started a project…

Pretty, isn’t it? Too bad it’s on hold right now.  The rippling edges are bugging me.  It took me a while to figure out why they ripple.  And to explain, we have to go back to high school geometry.

The strips are knitted on the diagonal with 15 stitches.  Since that edge is basically the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle, from geometry, we know that the width of the strip is 15 / sqrt(2), or approximately 10.6 stitches wide.

But when I do short rows to turn the corner**, I have a block that is 15 stitches wide.  15 is definitely wider than 10.6.  And this forces the triangle created by the short rows to bulge out.  The bulge disappears when you work the next strip outward because the elastic garter stitch allows the diagonal strips to be pulled out.

So, why am I abandoning it? While the inside strips will be straight, the edges will always be wonky.  Since I don’t intend to block the blanket, the wavy outer edge will always remain.  Will that be a bad thing? Will it be noticeable when I’m curled up on the couch? Or can I just call it structural interest?  The answer to the 2nd question is no. I don’t know the answer to the other 2 questions yet. I also don’t know if it will bug me forever or if I will get over it. Until I figure it out, it’s going to stay at this stage. Or until I come up with another design.

So, Attempt 1 is on hold. Yes, Attempt 1.

Attempt 2 has already been ripped. It was based on Vivian Hoxbro’s domino theory. But I couldn’t come up with a satisfactory layout that satisfied one of my primary goals for this project: No snipping of already short skeins. Keep using the skein until it runs out and splice/darn in a new mini-skein. The project needs to be continuous. Domino knitting can be done with a continuous yarn, but I wasn’t happy with how the diagonals of the blocks are lining up.  (After the first few blocks, I went to paper and pencil and diagrammed out to a 5×5 block and it sucked royally.) So, it has been ripped.

This brings us to Attempt 3. Just a normal garter strip of 12 sts wide.  Since the piece is knit straight, the short row corners will maintain the lines of the fabric, thus, no bulges.  As with Attempt 1, I will work this in a spiral from the center out.  This will satisfy my other goal: a design that allows me to keep going and stop (almost) anytime I want. No pre-planning required, except to save enough yarn for an i-cord edging.  But the good news there is, I can always spin more.

Why didn’t I go with a log cabin blanket? While the center of these blankets start with a small/narrow strip of knitting, the subsequent rounds create wider and wider strips of knitting.  With my tiny sample skeins, some of them may not even span a single row before I have to start a new skein.  This will dilute the colors too much.  This brings me to another goal: highlight the individuality of these skeins by concentrating them into small blocks of color.

When this last sample is the same size as Attempt 1, I’ll do a side by side comparison before deciding on which design to continue with.  Or to come up with Attempt 4.

(You know, I’m beginning to know what Charlene goes through when she is designing by the seat of her pants.  Or skirt. Or something.)

In the meantime, I’m practicing my knitting and purling backwards.  By the end of this, I should be quite ready to work on my Kathryn Alexander kit.

* Why business cards? Because I have a lot of old business cards.  These business cards are of good quality cardboard and of a great size for wrapping yarn samples.  I used to trim my own from art boards, but that got old, and they aren’t always the same size.  At my last couple of jobs, each time I moved offices, I had to order new cards. And we played musical offices every 6 months or so. They finally got wise and started to use standard mailing address on the cards.  But then I changed job titles…Anyway, the bottom line is that I have a large supply of these things.

Why save wrapped samples? I have a couple of reasons for doing this. One is record keeping. I wanted to be able to reference back to what A looks like as a single and what happens when A is paired with something of a different hue, value, and saturation.

The second reason for these wrapped cards is for play. When I took my color workshops with Michele Whipplinger, I loved playing with her hundreds of yarn/thread wrapped cards.  We spent hours just rummaging through these cards and pairing them together in different combinations. The idea of building hundreds of these cards at a go is a daunting one.  This is why I still don’t have any.  But I’m changing that, starting now.

Yes, Michele’s cards were mostly solid colors, but no matter. It’s still fun to play with these.  Each time I look at a plied sample, I get a different impression, depending on my mood.  What I didn’t think was working in the sample yesterday isn’t the same as my thoughts today.  It’s still a good color exercise.  Having the singles to refer back to allows me to figure out what I need to do to replicate, or change a single aspect of the plied yarn.

** Turning the corner for working on the diagonal is really the reverse of a normal short-row corner. You start out knitting 2 sts, turn, and start nibbling back, working 1 more stitch with each subsequent row. Once you reach the full width, you have essentially put a square edge to the diagonal piece. Now, you have to get the new side back on the diagonal by working wrapped short rows.

Ed. Note: Fixed a few typos (knibbling indeed!) and light balanced the yarn cards.

Meet Cola. (Get it? Coal…Cola.)  Black merino fleece from Janet Heppler, purchased at Retzlaff Winery Spin-In a few weekends ago.  Isn’t she gorgeous?  I grabbed her because I was there with a checkbook at the right time. There was someone else interested in her, but they walked away to look for a friend to share the fleece.  If you are that person, I’m sorry (not really). But you walked away. And there I was, with checkbook and pen at ready.

It came home with me because Shari is doing pure white right now.  It would be months before she cycles around to black again. So, if I don’t process her by fall, I can still slot it into Shari’s schedule.

Tactile Fiber Arts April Club

Fiber: 50/50 Angora/Merino
Weight: 2 oz
Singles: 60-68 wpi
2-Ply: 36 wpi, pre-fulled; 28 wpi, fulled
Yardage: 438 yards, pre-fulled; 426 yards, fulled.

Singles spun on Reeves Frame Wheel. Plied on Schacht Matchless.

I firmly plied this yarn so that the bunny fur will stay put instead of shedding on my clothes, once knitted.  Then I fulled it by shocking the yarn in alternate hot/cold soapy baths, and generally bashed the yarn around with a water bottle in the hot soapy bath. After pressing out the water in a towel, I thwacked it several times while rotating the skein to ensure that the entire skein has received “the treatment.”

“Thwacking.” Someone asked what this is in one of the Ravelry discussion groups.  You take the wet skein on one hand and swing it from the back of your head against a sharp edge (the edge of a table or your kitchen counter).  This does a couple of things.

1. It loosens up any felting of strands that you may have done in the hot/cold, bashing around process.
2. It fluffs up the short fibers and helps it bloom.  The yarn now has a lovely halo, which it didn’t have when it first came off of the spinning wheel.
3. It helps even out your twist by shifting it a bit.

Remember how I mentioned in my original Spring Cleaning post that I had an idea for an unspun silk project?  This is what I wanted to play with. I wanted to see how unspun silk would work woven. I don’t think it will work with plain weave, but a weft face weave? It’s got possibilities.

But plain weft weave got boring very quickly. A bit more free-form weaving to concentrate a color kicks it up a notch. What you can’t tell here is that by drafting out the silk hankies into different thickness will change the texture of the woven piece. For example, if you don’t draft out the blue/purple section as much, that area of the woven piece will be thicker.  Therefore, it will sit higher than the surrounding weaving.

I know. It’s obvious when you state it like this, but it was a bit of an “a-ha!” moment while playing with this.  You can create textural interest within a single hankie by changing how you draft the hankie.  Leaving some slubs in? Even more excitement.

However, it’s still a bit flat, and not very interesting as a whole piece.  I think what I need to do is to use the unspun silk within a larger piece of tapestry. The unspun silk then becomes accent (or even background to highlight another yearn).  The effect is flat and fuzzy.  Yet another tool for the tool box.

I’ve also been playing with my inkle loom and some handspun. I had been struggling with with edges. I played a bit with different widths. Not happy with it, so I asked John for some guidance. We discussed the use of handspun vs commercial yarns for weft and how to vary the hand of the ribbons.

During our email discussion, I came across the article by Gwen Powell on an inkle woven purse in the Summer Spin-Off.  Gwen’s ribbons were woven at approximately 2x the WPI as her EPI.  What I was weaving was much sleazier than that.  So I played with different EPIs and the effect on the ribbon.

What I found is that the higher the EPI, the easier it was to keep an even edge.  But, I didn’t much like the fabric because it was so stiff.  Of course, it could have been due to practice, practice, practice. By the time I finished these samples, I was getting fairly good at creating an even edge.

Then I tried using different weft: different sizes of crochet cotton, commercial silk.  Using crochet cotton definitely changed the hand of the fabric.  Using a finer weft yarn than the warp created a more supple ribbon.

John also mentioned that after washing, the hand of the ribbon will change. Gwen mentioned keeping a notebook of all her samples.

So, there you have it. The above photos show the first few pages of my inkle sample notebook. As John said in his email, until the computer offers a tactile option, there is a place for a physical notebook.  I have 2 of each sample: before washing (just pressed) vs. after washing and pressing.  Top of each page is also a sample of the unwoven weft, anchored at each end with a bit of weaving.

Just in case you are interested, the silk is spindle spun. 40 wpi. 5,050 ypp.

Did I mention that I have anal retentive tendencies?

I came home today to my copy of the Summer Spin-Off. What do I find but an excellent article on CVM by Robin Russo? It was good to see that my washing and combing experiences were fairly on target with Robin’s. I found that I had to have 2 soap washes (2nd wash had about 50% of the soap of the first wash) and 3 rinses to get all the suint and lanolin out, as opposed to a single soap wash and 2 rinses for the California Red.  The soap washes and the 1st rinse were top tap water augmented with boiling water, resulting in baths of over 130-135F.

But her article did not mention anything about the double coat I noticed.

However, while on island, I had a nice long chat with Camille over dinner.  Based on my descriptions and the pictures she saw, Camille concurs that what I saw was the lamb fleece vs. the incoming adult fleece.  In her experience, the lambs are shorn in their first fall. Had that happened with Badger, the fall fleece would have been primarily white. Then the second year’s shearing would have provided the grey that I saw in the same locks.

So, mystery solved!

For those interested, the skirted fleece I purchased was a hair over 6 pounds. After scouring, I have about 4.4 pounds of fleece fleece.  This is about a 25% loss due to grease.  Robin’s article said to expect 35% loss to grease and vegetation.  Since my fleece was coated and already skirted, I think my net is completely within the range.

Tomorrow is Spinning in the Winery. See you there!

Dear Ann,

Thanks so much for entering our “All Wrapped Up In Natural Fibers” contest. Congratulations—your scarf has been selected as a finalist for the Fall 2009 Handspun Gallery!
…

Best wishes,
Amy
Editor of Spin-Off magazine

This is Badger. Badger is a CVM from The White Barn Farm. This is Badger’s first shearing.

The fleece is about 6 pounds. As you can see from the above picture there are dark areas in addition to the grey. In the picture at left, I’ve pulled out 3 different locks (washed).  Yes, the colors are that different.  The light grey with creamy tips make up the bulk of the fleece (back).  There are also some dark brown/near black and somewhere in between.  The are even more variations in the fleece, but they fall into these 3 general color groups.  If I try to separate them all out, I’ll go mad.

And if you look at picture of both front and back of the fleece from The White Barn Farm’s website (first link), you’ll see that the front/back are 2 completely different colors.  What’s interesting is that those are not bleached tips.  There are 2 staple lengths in the fleece! (see photo at right) The creamy tip is actually a white all the way through. It is about 6″ long. The grey is much darker, once the white fiber has been pulled out. It is about 2.5″ long.

I have never worked with CVM before, so I have no idea if this is normal or if this is because it is a lamb’s fleece and it is unique to Badger’s first shearing. My copy of In Sheep’s Clothing doesn’t mention this at all. If anybody has more information, I’d love to hear from you.

When combed, the white pulls out first, leaving the short and mostly grey behind on the comb.  If I try to pull it all out into a single top, I will have long fibers at one end, and all the short fibers at the other, instead of nicely blended grey.

So, I think the best course of action for this is to pull off all the white and break the top.  Then pull the remaining grey fiber off into a separate top.  This way, I’ll have 2 completely different fibers from one combing.

In the picture at right, the lower right nests are the first pull of primarily white.  Some grey fibers came off with the white, but it is mostly white.  The left are from the second pull. See how much darker it is without the white? The color is nearly black!  The little grey nest at the center top is an “in-between.” I broke off the white because a lot of grey started to come out.  In this one, I played with pulling the fiber off the comb in 3 steps: white, blended, and black.  I don’t think I’ll be going this far with the final preparation, but it was an interesting experiment.

As a side note, the 2 different staples have the same hand.  They are both lusciously soft.

Also interesting is that the browner locks didn’t behave the same way. (see left) Yes, there were some slightly longer staples in the locks, but the difference between the staple length was not as dramatic. When combed, I wasn’t able to separate them out, so I just pulled them all off in a single top.

What is surprising is that the dark brown and the white/grey are all very soft. I would not mind wearing it against my skin. In fact, I wouldn’t mind rolling around in it! But the one on the top right? It feels very coarse to me.  I will be separating this out when I sort out when I do the fiber prep.

So at least 3 different colors from one fleece that is next to the skin soft. More if I take extra time and effort. I think this would be really interesting for a color work sweater.

Bottom line? The fleece needs to be combed.  I haven’t tried it on the big combs, but it may be necessary to use the hand combs to maintain control over the colors.  And the final color sorting will need to happen after the combing.  I’ll need to figure out a way of keeping the nests separate and uncompressed until I’m ready to spin.  Yes, that means I need to figure out how to keep Ellie out of the combed fiber.

I’ll need to think about this more before I get started.  But you know what? I can’t wait!

(Hmm…Does this count as sampling? I never realized that sampling was so much fun!)

I finally finished spinning and plying the moorit merino/silk roving. There are 1,460 yards of 2-ply yarn here. It’s approximately 18 wpi off of the wheel. I haven’t wet finished this yarn yet. Once I do so, the fiber will bloom quite a bit. Why haven’t I wet finished it yet? I would like to over dye this yarn. I think color on the light brown will be very interesting. And the silk will really pop out. The question now, of course, is what color or colors. Until I do, they yarn will stay as it is. There’s no need to wet/dry the yarn twice. Lazy? Probably, but I prefer to call it efficient. Or better yet, more environmentally responsible.

The edging on the pinwheel shrug is finally done. I stayed up until way past midnight to finish off the last panel. Waldo really wanted to go to bed and was very vocal about it. As a shepherd, he needs to be in the same room as I am in order to keep an eye on me. He can’t go to bed in the bedroom with me still in the living room. He was getting quite cranky when I wouldn’t play along.

Anyway, next step will be to unpick the white waste yarn and pick up for the sleeves.  The edging is approximately 6″ wide.  I’ll work the sleeves to about elbow length in stockinette, then finish it off with the lace edging.  That will make the sleeves just shy of wrist length.

The sleeves will have to wait until I return from Washington.  Besides, I don’t have 16″ 4.00 mm needles.

I’m embarrassed to say that I think this one languished only because I forgot about it. I pulled it out to as a trip project. On return, it got put away. Out of sight, out of mind.

I don’t remember the name nor the colorway of the yarn, but it is a 2-ply hand painted lace that I bought from Full Thread Ahead in Los Altos.

Decision: Back in the queue. It’s a good travel project. (Gee, where have I heard that from?) There are lots of short trips and cruise outs coming up this summer.

There has been other fiber activities around here, in addition to the spring cleaning.  I’ve been working away at 12 oz of pin drafted roving from Morro Fleece Works.  I bought this from Kristine via Carolina Homespun back in March. Kristine was clearing through her stash.

Although I have several pounds worth of Morro’s pin drafted fiber in the garage, I just couldn’t resist.  This was a luscious moorit merino with streaks of tussah carded into it.  The blend was a lot of fun to spin with long draw into a slightly slubby yarn.  I have 3 very full bobbins of singles.  I’ll be randomly plying from the bobbins into a 2-ply yarn.  Randomly breaking off a single and joining in from another bobbin.  Why? This will help even out the final yarn.

Amy told me that she is enjoying the Spring Cleaning series, but wasn’t sure that she’s ready to share with the world her stash of UFOs.  First off, I’m not calling these UFOs — just projects that have been neglected.  Semantics, I know.

In revisiting these, I realize that some of them are a lot of fun.  I don’t know why I ever stopped.  Something along the way made me put them on hold.  Revisiting gives me a chance to re-evaluate the situation and determine the path forward.  Or in the case of the Anarchist Sweater, abandoning it was the right path forward.  (Incidentally, Grace, the short pieces from each of the squares would actually be great for weaving.  A perfect project for Iris and her Cricket Loom.)

And the other reason for going through these is partially in response to “I’m bored. I want to cast on a new project” feeling.  It’s sort of like the kid standing with the refrigerator door open and saying “Mom! I’m hungry and there’s nothing to eat!” when the refrigerator is full of food.  There are lots of projects here that fit the bill for my need for lace, something warm to cuddle up to, something small and transportable.

Besides, I’m running out of knitting project bags.

I had resisted when this was all the rage.  I had continued to resist even after seeing a few first hand.  It’s nice, but I just wasn’t interested.

However, once I saw Penny’s Clapotis, I fell in love.  The drape of the Koigu in this pattern is wonderful, and the subtle variation played well. I wanted one, 4 years after the fact.

But it sits unfinished. Why? It’s boring. I can’t believe how boring this project is.  Even the occasional drop lost its appeal after the nth one of these. On top of that, I lost track at one point and now I’m slightly off in the pattern.  It’s not visibly noticeable, but I know it’s there and it bugs me.  But not enough to rip back to find it. I just need to adjust it somewhere to get it back on track.

Decision: Back into the queue.  I’m about 60% finished, so a week or so of knitting should get this finished and off the needles.  Perhaps I can finish it in time for the 5th anniversary of the pattern.

I started these in the fall of 2007 and abandoned it on November 21, 2007.  How do I know the exact date? It was the date that I IMed with my sister about this project.  I had intended this to be mittens for Iris.

Obviously, it won’t fit her now.  She’s been growing like a weed.  Thankfully, Martin’s family is providing me with lots of little ones that I can give these to.  I just need to figure out what “year” to put on it.  My original intent was to put the Iris’ birth year on this, but I think I’ll just put the year that it is finished, so it can be passed between the cousins.  I’m hoping it will say 2009.  (At least I’ll have a chance to finish it in the correct century.)

The yarn is hand spun merino.  I believe at least the dark brown is from Nebo Rock, processed by Morro Bay.  I was aiming to replicate Koigu. I’ve mostly succeeded.  The yarn is a bit thicker, but, oh-boy, I think it is much softer and springy-er than Koigu. Yes, it’s that yummy.

Decision: In the queue after the shrug.  And give it to one of the Woolsey/McDonough kids, just in time for high summer.  But because they live in the Pacific Northwest, they may need it to watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July!

Project Updates:

• Circular Shrug: I have 3 more panels left on the edging before I can start the sleeves.  The project is getting too large for dragging around, so it has been relegated to TV watching project. I think this will be done just in time for the cool summer evenings!
• Anarchist Sweater: Grace has offered to take the project off my hands.

Specs:

• My own design: from the neck down; finished off with 3 st i-cord bound off/edging all the way around
• Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock, 1+ skein each of White/Natural (S269, Lot A) and Reds (S84, Lot A)
• Needles: 3.00 mm
• Back Length: 15″

I had originally aimed for about 20″ depth, but I was so darned bored with this, that I opted to keep it short.  And it works.  At the arms, the shawl ends right at my elbows, which is perfect for wearing around the house — nothing to drag into whatever I’m working on.

Lessons learned?  My design was based on measurements right at the neck.  Instead, I should have allowed for the fact that shawls, like sweaters, generally sit about an inch or two (or three) off of the back of the neck.  So, the shoulder shaping is too far back, which compounded the problem of minor slippage.

In addition, I should have stopped the shoulder shaping about 1-2″ shorter.  As it is now, I have a bit of a David Byrne thing going on.

All in all, I’m happy with the results for a first attempt at a faroese shawl. I definitely would do this again. I don’t think it would have been quite so onerous if I didn’t have to drag 2 balls of yarn around all the time. As it was, I had limited mobility with this project.

I honestly don’t know what to do with this.  I seem to pick this sweater up about once a year. Work on it a little bit, and then abandon it.  My heart just isn’t into this sweater.

I had already woven in all the ends in the main body of the sweater. I experimented with a lightly ribbed roll collar, but I’m not thrilled with it.  The collar and bottom hem would have to come out.  Then there are the sleeves.

I think there is just too much guilt in the sweater.  I originally bought the yarn for a vest for my step-mother. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with leukemia and died from complications shortly after the diagnosis.  (From first feeling that something was off to diagnosis to death was less than 3 months.  It was quite  a shock to everyone.)  After decades of resentment, I finally got to know her as a person, and found that I really liked her.  I was hanging on to so much teenager angst that really had no bearing.  So, each time I work with this sweater, there is the guilt, of things that might have been.

Last week, I had decided that the best thing is for me to rip it all out.  The question of course is what to do with all the little tiny skeins of yarn.  I had thought of re-purposing the yarn for a color block blanket.

Then, when I took it out this morning for its photo shoot, I thought, hmm. This isn’t a bad sweater. It would be nice as a layer on those cold days when I am just hanging around in the office in front of the computer or on the couch knitting.  At one point, I thought of just plow through the sweater and donate the completed sweater to a homeless shelter.

But, as I write this post, I wonder if I would ever get past the guilt associated with the yarn to (a) complete it, or (b) work it into another project, or (c) even if I completed the project, if I could wear/use it without guilt.  But neither can I just throw it away.

So, I offer it up to anyone who might be interested in taking this over, along with all the remaining Jaeger Matchmaker DK that I have associated with this project.  I don’t care what you do with it. If you decide to take it off my hands and put it into a garbage can, I don’t care. I just don’t want to know about it.

Project #2: Circular Shrug

I started this back in January. I was always cold while sitting in my home office for hours at a time. I was thinking shrugs. Then my mind went to the circular baby blanket I made a while back. I used the dimensions specified in Elann’s Pinwheel Sweater for the sleeve placement. I chose to use the same edging as the baby blanket — Godmother’s Edging.

The yarn is Araucania Nature Wool. The kettle dyed yarn makes really pretty subtle variations, which gives the fabric some depth.

I stopped after working 2 repeats of the edging. I remember thinking that the edging took more mental power than I had remembered. I don’t know why I thought this because it definitely wasn’t hard before.

The other night, I sat down with an Agatha Christie DVD and got to work. Again, I have no idea why I had problems with the edging. It’s going very quickly right now. But quickly is relative. It took about an hour to finish the edging for one panel. There are 8 panels, so 7 to go.

Then there are the sleeves. I knitted in some white waste yarn where the sleeves should be. I need to unpick those stitches and knit the sleeves before adding the lace edging. This will take a bit longer than the last project to finish.

The cottage is finally nearing completion.  The new French doors are in. The cabinets are getting their finish this week.  The new sofa and chair are in the warehouse, waiting for the construction crap to be hauled away. It was time for me to dig my rugs out of storage.

Today, they came out of the garage and onto the front lawn for a hose down. I first vacuumed them out with the vacuum beater brush, then used the strongest spray I could get out of my garden hose.  After spraying the first side for about 30 minutes, it was time to turn them over.  Guess what? They were still dry on the underside.  I’m never going to worry about the wine soaking through to the floor again!

All the rugs are wool. Left to right:

• Room sized kilim, approx. 8′x10′ or 12′, purchased about 15 years ago. Provenance unknown. Purchased from Bloomingdales (yes, how authentic is that?)  This will go in the conversation area with my new conversation sofa. It’s possible that natural dyes were used given the variations I see in the rug, but I don’t know for sure.  Woven on cotton warp.
• Area rug, approx. 2′x3′. Gift from Ian & Sandy. Purchased from Mexico. Handspun, dyed, and woven.  Natural dye.  I even have the receipt somewhere with the plant material used for each color!  Warp and weft are both wool.
• Area rug, approx. 3′x4′. Purchased from Mexico. I doubt that natural dye was used here since the colors are so even, but I could be wrong (and pleasantly surprised). Warp and weft are both wool.

Having taken a navajo rug weaving class after acquiring these rugs, I have a new appreciation for the amount of work that went into weaving these rugs, natural dye or not.  The ones with natural dyes? Wowza! Even more impressed, given the number of times the yarn had to be put into dye baths to get the saturation you see here.

They are still damp, but I’ve since moved them from the front lawn to hang on fences and tables in the courtyard. I wouldn’t want these babies to disappear before they dry and repacked.

I’ve been thinking a lot about projects that have been languishing in various knitting bags around the house, and it’s time to make some hard decisions about these projects. What caused me to stop working on them? Are they worth reviving? If so, what do I need to do to get them going again?

Project #1: Unspun Silk Scarf

I actually don’t have a picture of the state of the project before I picked it up. This is a picture of it after I started working on it this week.

Last spring, I had an urge to play with unspun silk hankies, so I dug up a package of Chasing Rainbows hankies in Peacock colorway. I chose a simple 5×5 rib for a quick scarf. I casted on 40 stitches and worked about 4″, then stopped. I don’t know why I stopped. (Maybe I needed a manicure?) In any case, I stuck the whole thing back in a bag with the silk hankies and forgot about it.

This past week, I had an idea for working with unspun silk again.  (Hmm. There seems to be a theme here.  Looking back, it’s always spring when I want to play with unspun silk.  There was at least one other instance of this to support the theory. If it’s May, it must be time to play with silk hankies.) Anyway, back to today. I pulled out a bag of silk hankies and found the knitting with it.

A few hours of knitting over the course of 3 days, and it is finished. I don’t know if I intended one of those long and skinny scarves, but I chose to finish it off quickly by making a slotted scarf instead. Many, many inches shorter this way!

The finished scarf weighs less than half an ounce, between 10-15 grams. (I really need to get a better scale!) So, one package of hankies (Chasing Rainbows put up is 1 ounce) is more than enough for a scarf.

Knitting notes:

• 40 stitches in 5×5 rib with 2.25 mm needles
• at approx. 24″, knit 20 sts, attach new strand and knit the next 20 sts
• continue working 2 sides separately for 2″
• join the 2 sides again to close the slot
• continue knitting as a single piece for another 4-5″
• cast off

I like the sewn bind off, but it’s a bit difficult to work the sewn bind off with unspun. I worked around this by compressing the unspun a bit by rubbing the unspun between my palms, as if I was washing my hands. Do this all along the length of the unspun.

It’s not spinning because the twist goes every which way. But because the silk is so sticky, it stays compressed.  Now, the silk strand is ready to be used for the sewn bind off. The rest is history.

On to the next project!

Google is celebrating one of my favorite Impressionists today. Mary Cassatt.

Mohair/Silk: 1 ply each
28-32 wpi (minus the halo)
852 yards

I finished spinning this yarn back in February, but I never got around to finishing it until this week.  After washing the skein, I whacked and thwacked it around to loosen up the mohair.  Once dried, I wound and rewound the skein/ball on my ball winder while passing the strand of yarn through my boar’s hair fingernail brush a total of 6 times to bring out the halo.

You can’t really tell by the picture above, but the halo is really there.  This sample card on the right shows the halo a bit better. The sample on the right (blue/green) was brushed once.  The sample on the left (lavender/blue) was brushed 6 times.  I forgot to keep back a sample before the wet finishing to show off how different it really is.

It’s not as soft and hairy as Rowan Kidsilk, but I don’t think it would have been possible with this fiber for several reasons.  The primary reason is that the mohair was combed, so it was spun mostly worsted.  This compressed the fiber somewhat, and doesn’t have the loft.  Kidsilk must be spun woolen, though I can’t confirm this.  Also, I don’t think my mohair was kid mohair, but most likely adult mohair.  (The package didn’t say.)

But the drape of this yarn is fabulous!

I moved on to the metal cable needles with a little hump in the middle, like an elongated omega (Ω). This wasn’t bad. You can knit directly off of the needle, but my stitches were always in danger of slipping off of the needle.

Then I found the wooden cable needles with the little grooves in them. I thought I was in hog heaven. Everything is staying put. I even progressed to using whatever random DPN I had laying around. I learned this trick from Eva. Don’t know why it never occurred to me until I saw Eva do it when she was making the DNA scarf for an auction.

I knew about cabling without a cable needle, but the thought of leaving live stitches hanging out there, flapping in the breeze, was enough to give this control freak a heart attack.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t attempted it. I just wasn’t comfortable with it. And it took just as long, if not longer, than it would for me to execute the cable with a cable needle.

This year at Madrona, I took 2 classes that worked on my fear of cabling without cable needles: Lucy Neatby’s Even Cooler Socks and Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Knits and Mitered Corners in Cabling.

Lucy showed me why I was having so much difficulty with my earlier attempts at cabling without a cable needle — I was manipulating my stitches too much. All that movement allowed the stitches to be stretched and ladder.  She showed me how to minimize the gymnastics and get the stitches mounted quickly and easily.  Elsebeth’s class allowed me to practice the technique over and over again until I was comfortable with it.  I, unknowingly, had the classes in the correct order.  Lucky me.

This week, when I picked up the yarn leftover from these socks to make a wrist warmer, I thought I’d spice it up and add some cables to it and practice my cabling without cable needles.  Of course, to fit the cables, the wrist warmers became fingerless mitts/gauntlets.  The good news? The immediate and repeated practice at Madrona was enough to imprint the methodology into my brain. There was the barest hint of a hiccup before I was zipping along. Before I knew it, the mitt was done, and nary a cable needle in sight.

Now, I just need to remember what I did so I can make the left hand mitt.