Spin to Knit Swap Pal Revealed

If you hadn’t guessed by the lack of posting here at Yin & Yarn, Casa del Chaos has definitely been living up to it’s name the last few weeks and I’m a bit behind with nearly everything; emails, blog posts, laundry, housework*, etc. you name it and it’s probably not getting done right now.

I mention that by way of explanation as to why I’m so remiss in posting a well-deserved thank you to my great Spin to Knit swap pal, Faun.

Faun gifted me with not one but two lovely skeins of her wonderfully soft handspun merino yarn in my final swap package! And as if that were not enough, she included one of the beautiful pendants that she makes, some of her art cards, fun fiber samples and some cute bunny picks.



I couldn’t really capture the pendant’s opal-like glow with my camera. This was the best close-up shot I could get, but as usual my marginal photography skills don’t do it justice.

I tried to get a better, natural light photo of the skeins, but the grey oyster-light of the PNW did not allow me to capture the true color. I think the color is more accurate in the flash photo above.

The Acolytes of the Handspun display their new treasures

You can see more of Faun’s creative work at her Etsy store.

Thank you so much, Faun for being such a terrific swap pal! I have never done a swap before and I had a lot of fun. I will do my best to come up with a project that is worthy of your handspun.


* I wouldn’t really mind as much about those last two if it weren’t for the fact that my place of paid employment is not yet clothing optional (nor do they look kindly upon those who might be tempted to roll into work in their jammies and slippers in lieu of real clothing) and that the amount of clutter around the house has reached critical mass. The only fiber I’ve contemplated in the last two weeks has been the frighteningly large dust bunnies rolling around the wood floors in the bedrooms like giant tumbling tumbleweeds.

The Skein and I

My new and improved longer daily schedule has a 30 minute lunch break instead of my previous hour long lunch. Which is nice for getting home a bit earlier but not as handy for running lunch time errands since 30 minutes is only enough time to navigate out to my car in the cavernous underground garage, drive out, and get approximately halfway to any desired destination before needing to return and reverse the process in order to be back at my desk on time.

This inability to run errands at lunchtime during weekdays means that a skein finished mid-week would not be able to ship off to its new owner until Friday.

Now a more disciplined person would have boxed up the skein immediately. Primarily to be prepared to ship the skein first thing Friday morning, but also to avoid the established temptation of the skein.

I am not that person.

Instead the skein and I spent some time bonding preparing to say goodbye.

I decided that the first of March was International Take Your Skein to Work Day and so the skein took the brief commute with me to ACME Giant Government Bureaucracy Inc. to witness an exciting day in the life of a cubicle dweller.

The skein endures basks in the glow of the florescent cube lighting

The skein observes the daily email ritual

At lunch time the skein traveled down to visit my friends in graphic design who regularly are compelled to admire my purchases from fiber festivals and my spinning and knitting works-in-progress.

The Adoration of the Skein

All too soon our day ended and it was time for the trip home and our final goodbyes. Somehow I got the impression that the skein was taking it much better than I was and after our day together was definitely perhaps looking forward to its new, exciting life in New York.



(** Note to anyone concerned about workplace efficiency: No paid work hours were used in the making of these photos. )

Addendum to Sarah (from previous post comments): Sarah, I couldn't access your profile via blogger to leave you a reply comment. My main wheel (I have three total) is a Jensen Tina II and I adore it. You can find more detailed technical information here.

Separation Anxiety

The good news:
I love how the yarn turned out! (which is, amazingly, pretty much as I envisioned it during the ‘planning but no sampling’ stage)

The bad news:
I have to send it away to my swap pal.

I knew better. Don’t get attached, I told myself when I was spinning and plying, remember you can’t keep it. Since I’m weak and undisciplined, I failed to listen to my own good advice. But really, how could I not love this yarn?

220 yards total - 16 wpi

It was all I could do not to put it on the ball winder and knit up a small swatch. For my swap pal, of course, so she would know how the gauge worked up right away and what the finished fabric might look like. Really, just as a favor to her. Because that’s how I am. I’m a giver.
In the end I decided it was probably best to send the skein off to her undisturbed despite my completely selfless intentions.


The other good news:
I’ll be getting something absolutely wonderful from my own swap pal (she of the glorious merino yarn from January). I can’t wait!

It's all in the Details:
All fiber from Chameleon Colorworks in Janel's lovely Autumn colorway

Blue Face Leicester (BFL) single: spun slightly larger than 20 wpi and approximately 21 degrees of twist angle

Merino-Tencel single: spun slightly finer than 25 wpi with approximately 27-30 degrees of twist angle

Plying Twist: two-thirds spinning twist for the merino-tencel blend. I tensioned the merino-tencel single fairly tightly and held the BFL single loosely and at a slight angle to the tensioned single (about 45 degrees or so from parallel).

*all measurements per the Twist Angle Guide and Thickness Measuring Guide from The Essentials of Yarn Design for Handspinners by Mabel Ross

I don’t have the twist per inch (TPI) figure. Partly because I'm too lazy to go calculate it right now but mostly because because I don’t worry about it much. I have my own sort of odd method of spinning that involves drafting back a certain distance and counting the total number of treadles I need to have for the desired twist angle for the length before letting the yarn feed on to the bobbin. Then I just use the same set distance when plying and use 2/3 of the original treadle count for a balanced ply (adjusted up or down a treadle or two as needed during set up).

When the yarn comes off the niddy-noddy it had about 1.5 turns of overtwist to it. (Just the right amount according to Judith MacKenzie McCuin, who says that if a skein comes off the niddy-noddy perfectly balanced one will find it under-plied after it’s been washed and dried. )

I was relieved to find that after washing and drying the skein was perfectly balanced. I wasn’t quite certain it would be due to the mixed twist in the singles.

I like that the finished yarn looks considerably similar to the unspun fiber even though I plied two singles in the same colorway (I hate it when beautiful roving turns muddy when spun up into yarn – so disappointing). I think the smaller visual weight and lighter tone of the merino-tencel against the thicker and darker BFL helped to present a balanced look in the finished yarn.

I will definitely make this type of yarn again (well, actually, I’ll make this very same yarn again since I have more of this fiber). I was able to get a lightly textured yarn with my normal spinning method just by varying the grist of the singles and slightly altering my plying technique.

Productive Procrastination

After some dedicated spinning while watching ER last night I finally saw this:

that's all folks!

Hooray! Maybe I’ll be able to get a package off to my swap pal in time after all.

I had way too many tasks on the ‘to do’ list to consider doing any spinning this morning.

So, of course, I sat right down in front of the wheel, because I rationalized that I would just be distracted all morning wondering what the yarn was going to look like if I didn't. Just a few minutes couldn't hurt right?

I spent a few minutes plying up the singles. And then a few more minutes. I had probably sat there about 20 minutes or so before realizing that I was totally procrastispinning* (or should that be procrastiplying?). ::sigh:: Time to get moving.

But I think my spinning and plying plan may have actually worked out this time. What do you think?

Excellent planning or plain dumb luck?

(Plying on my Little Gem II with the WooLee Winder)

I'll get a better picture when there's more yarn on the bobbin. It looks quite nice in person!

*Procrastispinning: The spinning one does when there are much more important tasks at hand that one should be completing instead. (see also "Procrastiknitting")

I got your spinning right here...

Lots of spinning going on here at Casa del Chaos these days, unfortunately the majority of it does not involve fiber. We’ve got lots of plates spinning, brains spinning and spinning out of control but not nearly enough spinning at spinning wheels. I definitely have too much yin and not enough yarn these days!

I really need to finish my February skein for my swap pal. I have been working on it as much as possible but I’m running out of month faster than I’m running out of fiber left to spin.


Here it is, looking remarkably like the first bobbin, except thinner and shinier.

Chameleon Colorworks Merino/Tencel in Autumn
(colors not quite accurate due to flash)

I’ve been spinning this second bobbin at about 2-3 times as many WPI as the BFL in an attempt to make the finished skein look a bit more textured than my standard, plain DK-weight handspun yarns. We’ll see how that works out. I didn’t make a sample to test this imagined yarn perfection and my recent track record for envisioning the finished product based on the appearance of the singles is maybe not so great.

And someone here thinks I’m spending too much time at the spinning wheel and not enough time cuddling with a certain small terrier:

Toby works the "poor neglected terrier" angle