Spin – Page 52 – Fiber Musings

Artisan’s Vest

On 20 Dec, 2007

It’s been cold. I just want to wrap myself up in something soft and warm. I can’t stay in bed under the comforter all day, so…

Pattern: Artisan’s Vest by Green Mountain Spinnery (I have both the single pattern and the book)
Yarn: Handspun of unknown source and vintage; approximately DK weight; chain-plied. The fiber is most likely from Dicentra Designs, but I can’t be absolutely positive.
Needles: US #6/4.00 mm and crochet hook E
Size: 40″ (because it’s all about layering)

I followed the pattern exactly as written, even down to the needle size and gauge. The only change is the yarn. It’s a little loud, but it’s soft, and warm. It’s also bright enough to cheer up any gray day…too loud for me to comfortably wear outside the house. No matter.

There are random spots where the color is long, and they happily occurred in the top front areas. I didn’t go looking for them, they just happened. I love it when that happens. I even like the fact that they are not the same colors.

For the crocheted edge, I picked up 3 out of every 4th vertical row. I need to find 5 buttons to finish off the front. Any suggestions on colors? I’m thinking a potpourri of colors. What do you think?

I have enough yarn leftover to make a hat or fingerless mitts or both.

I’m now digging through my handspun stash for more yarn that I can turn into winter warmers.

Preparing Hand Painted Silk for Spinning

By Ann

On 26 Nov, 2007

In Spin, Technique

I love spinning silk. I especially enjoy spinning hand painted silk top. There is something very soothing about spinning silk. And I really love watching the movement of color in a well painted silk top.

Here’s how I prepare a hand painted silk top for spinning.

This is hand painted silk top from Earthues. The silk top is somewhat matted in appearance and texture. Not unlike paper that had been wetted, wrung out, and left to dry in the wrung out state. Silk top in this state is not easy to spin.

I’ve often referred to my own hand painted silk top a “drowned cat” because that’s what my Ellie looks like when she gets out of a bath. This painted top from Earthues looks much better than ones that just came out of my own drying rack, so it’s likely to have been neatened up somewhat. But it still needs a little preparation before it can be spun.

Strip the silk top along the full length.

I like to just shake the top a little bit before I start stripping it. Once shaken, you’ll start to see the natural breaks in the top. This is where the top wants to pull apart into smaller strips. I strip it in half first, if I will be making a 2 ply yarn. Then I take one of these “breaks” and start stripping a thin strip along the full length of the top. I like these strips to be about pencil or little finger width.

Note: How thin your strips are is completely dependent on how thin/thick you want the final yarn to be and how long/short the color repeats you want to have. I generally spin my silk to be lace weight, so I strip it down fairly thin so the repeats don’t go on forever. If I am going to chain ply the yarn, then I may have wider strips because that will also shorten my color repeats.

Lightly draft the strip.From left to right: the full top, a single strip from the top, and lightly drafted top.

Start from one end and hold the strip of silk between your hands, about 3-4″ apart (just shy of fiber length). Lightly snap the silk between your hands. You’ll see the silk between your hands open up. Move down the strip and repeat until you’ve fluffed up the entire length of the strip.

You’ll notice the shift of color from the original top, which is more intense, to a softer color in the drafted strip. The original top is closer to real color of the spun yarn because you’ll be compressing the fiber again, thereby intensifying the color.

Left: Silk top (unstripped)
Right: Stripped and lightly drafted top.

The pile of silk top on the left will be stripped down and drafted into at least 4 more of the drafted balls of silk like the one on the right. This will represent 1/2 of the original top. See how much the fiber fluffs up?

Amazing, isn’t it? I’m always fascinated by this transformation. I can do this all day. But then, I’m easily amused.

Triangle Shawl Sampler

By Ann

On 20 Nov, 2007

In FO, Knit, Spin

This is the sampler I made from Evelyn Clark’s workshop. (Click for big.) It has only had a sauna treatment (steam block) because I bound off just in time for the guild meeting and I wanted to take it for the show and tell. The ends are not yet trimmed because it really needs a nice soak in a hot tub and re-blocked before I can call it finished.

Pattern: my own compilation of Evelyn’s stock lace patterns in her book “Knitting Lace Triangles”
Yarn: 2 ply spindle spun yarn (Lisa Souza’s Superfine Merino in “Bird of Paradise” colorway)
Needles: US #4, 3.50 mm
Size: Depth: 22″; Wingspan: 50″. Just about the perfect shoulder shawl size for me.

I worked the lace patterns from most open to most dense, and worked all the transitions in between. In retrospect, I should have followed Evelyn’s advice that if you are mixing elements, you want to have denser patterns at the top of the triangle. But by the time she dispensed that piece of advice, I had already worked through to the first or second repeat, and I was too lazy (or stubborn) to rip back and start over.

Of course, if I were to completely do this over, I would have chosen a more solid colored yarn. I think the pattern is busy enough and doesn’t need the competition of the variegation.

I close this post with a detail of the tip, complete with the “mistake” I referenced in the last post. Can you find the mistake if I hadn’t already told you where it was? No? Me neither.

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Category: Spin Page 52 of 69

Artisan’s Vest

Preparing Hand Painted Silk for Spinning

Triangle Shawl Sampler