September Spinning

As a result of the rather late (and some would say 'non-existent') summer this year, canning season has been a bit extended and has dragged on through most of September. This is what my spinning time looks like lately:

Mmm, Spicy Garlic Dills! We will enjoy you.

I probably have a bit more to go in October when I eventually completely give up on the notion of having any ripened tomatoes and decide to try out all of the interesting looking green tomato recipes and canning ideas that my friends have so helpfully sent me. (11 tomato plants = a lot of green tomatoes)

So anyway, that extended intro is all by way of explanation as to why there really hasn't been much knitting or spinning going on here on the blog of late.

I have been sort of poking away at a second batch of Dicentra Designs Merino/Silk/Angora blend here and there between gardening and canning sessions.

Label Info

Singles spun for a 3-ply fingering weight

The color is actually much more attractive in real life - the photo was taken at night in rather challenged lighting conditions. I really must learn how to use my new Photoshop software so I can color correct my bad photos. Sorry about the sideways label. Blogger absolutely refused to load the picture (which, by the way is actually oriented correctly). I tried to outsmart the photo loader and rotate the photo 90 degrees but then, of course, it loaded it correctly. I give up.

This is some fiber that I bought at Black Sheep several years ago (I haven't been to that festival in at least 3 years so it's older than that). I'm hoping to have enough to make some stranded fingerless mitts in conjunction with the off-white angora blend that I spun for Tour de Fleece.

I have big plans to set aside time to finally learn how to use my new loom and also venture into learning how to sew for myself this winter, once the garden is finally put to bed for the season (ha ha, a little bad garden humor there for you!).

Tour de Fleece - Day 10

first bobbin completed

pretty much the same boring off-white yarn as before...

I Navajo plyed* (or Chain plyed) my completed TdF bobbin on Saturday evening.

Finished Yarn Info
Spinning notes:
I usually ply at two-thirds of original spinning twist, but I followed Fleegle's tip on Navajo Plying and plied a bit more firmly - about three-fourths of original spinning twist. (I didn't bother intentionally underspinning because I don't spin a super firmly twisted single as it is).

Plies: 3 ply
WPI: ~16-18
Plied twist angle: between 21 - 27 degrees
Yardage: ~ 300 yards

If I recall my basic math correctly, since the yarn is a 3 ply that means I spun approximately 900 yards since the beginning of Tour de Fleece, or only a little over 100 yards per day. But I did manage to spin every day so I suppose that's considerably more than I would usually manage this time of year (spinning is usually primarily a winter activity for me since we're usually working in the garden and canning in the summer), especially given that we've been otherwise engaged with a minor home-improvement project.

plied yarn - before and after washing

Before going to bed I started on the remaining batts:

Second verse, same as the first

Non-Tour de Fleece happenings
My spinning time has been a bit limited due to seasonal jam making and the most current household project here at Casa del Chaos.

This is what I was doing Saturday morning:

Goodbye old 'dirty vanilla' colored tile - you won't be missed!
(note original mid century wallpaper behind the tiles!)

Late Saturday afternoon:

It actually looks better without the tile

*is it 'plied' or 'plyed'? Neither one looks right to me this afternoon, but Blogger spell check really doesn't like 'plyed'. Do you ever have those days where regular words that you use all the time just don't look correct? I'm having one.

July Already?

I can't believe it's been nearly two months since I last posted. June was a very busy month here at Casa del Chaos! I'm not going to try to catch up in one post because it will be too much.

Tour de Fleece
I'm doing Tour de Fleece this year. Here's my progress as of yesterday morning (day 3):

Tour de Fleece - Day 3

That's more of the angora blend (actually a Dorset/kid Mohair/Satin Angora mix) that I've been spinning to match the Dicentra Designs roving I was working on here . This is actually some of the oldest stash I have in the Basement of Wool since the Dorset component is from when I was a brand new spinner nearly 20 years ago (and with an interesting story around its acquisition but that's a story for another blog post).

Non-Tour de Fleece
I finished spinning the Dicentra Design BRIGHT rainbow:

two tiny balls of handspun

Unfortunately, there's only about 80 yards or so, maybe around 100 yards when combined with the yarn used for the initial test swatch. So I'm not sure if my initial plan to make myself a pair of mittens will work out here.

The natural angora skein next to it is from the batts I'm currently spinning for TdF, but this batch had a higher percentage of angora than the other batts, giving it a more definite grey color (the satin angora I used was silver). The grey angora skein only has around 120 yards in it.

I quickly swatched a bit with the initial run of matching Dorset/mohair/angora blend to see how the grey worked with the colored yarn (nicely I think). I have to say that my purling in two colors technique is something I need to work on.

I've nearly finished my handspun Spring Forward socks:

Yes, Vanessa, I still have my bad habit of waiting to graft the toes!

And I've started another pair of socks:

Pattern: Cedar Creek Socks
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts
Colorway: Rainforest Jasper

I know, I know, I said I wasn't starting any new knitting projects until the sweater was done, but I have been rethinking that approach (not really working for me - more on that later). Besides I used the well-known "Traveling to son's college commencement" exception. What, you haven't heard of that one? It's right there in chapter 12 of Denise's Book of Knitting Rationalizations.

Quilting!
I also started a quilting project. It's a gift but I think it's safe to assume the intended recipient doesn't read this blog (and if they do, they wouldn't necessarily know it's for them) so I think I can blog my progress on it here.

I think it should be noted that I am a very beginning quilter. Very. Beginning. A lot.

My previous quilting projects have consisted of some seriously simple nine patch blocks in table runners and precisely two baby quilts (one nine patch and one printed panel type quilt). I do have some sampler blocks from a beginning quilting class I took more than 8 years ago, but I got the flu and didn't manage to finish the class so the sampler wall hanging was never finished. And, unless buying fabric and patterns counts, I haven't really done any quilting in years.

I mention all of that so that it's clear just how ambitious this project is for me. And also to show that I may not be completely clear on the difference between optimism and insanity.

So far I've pieced the 'leaf' units and now I'm working on the base units. The base units involve using templates, which I've never used before. I can't really say I'm wild about them at this point. I think I prefer shapes that are rotary cut. The second batch got a bit easier after I starched the fabric and switched to a narrow (.5 mm) mechanical pencil for outlining the template shapes on the fabric. Here they are in progress:

And here's the initial test block (to make sure the templates were cut correctly):

Untrimmed block I guess I should have tidied it up before its photoshoot
(leaf units are to the side)

And here's part of the reason I don't think I'll be doing too many template-based patterns in the future:

Maybe if your post-cut out pattern piece 'adjustments' consist of one or two
thread-widths it was probably close enough to begin with...

Yeah, like I really need something that works to enhance my abilities in the 'obsess about the tiny details' department...

Spinning is the new avoidance

I was sick with an ill-timed, weekend stomach virus and after a not-too-successful attempt at getting some gardening done Saturday, I retreated into the house to suffer in silence* and total non-productivity for the remainder of the afternoon.

By late afternoon Sunday my new diet of delicious extra-dry saltines and ginger ale had restored me to a point that I wanted to do something that felt productive but didn't offer too much in the way of personal exertion. I didn't feel like knitting on either of my current projects (and frankly, wasn't up to working on either of them), but my current personal growth rules prevent me from starting a new knitting project. What to do...?

Well, spinning certainly doesn't count as a project as far as I can see.

In fact, it's practically a house chore since I have all this stored fiber cluttering up the house that needs to be processed and gotten out of the way. And I wouldn't be spinning any new fiber! Heavens no, this is old, old fiber from a Black Sheep Fiber Gathering event several years ago and I'm sure it should be spun up before the expiration date. Did I mention it's old?
::cough::

Moving on...

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either.
I think I was trying to 'buy something different than I usually buy'.
I succeeded.

The fiber:
2 oz of 50% Merino/30% silk/20% angora blend dyed by Dicentra Designs

The colorway:
BRIGHT Rainbow
Official name is currently unknown. (The label has wandered off. I'm hoping it surfaces at some point.)

The goal:
light fingering weight 3 ply (Navajo plied)


I had already spun a healthy sized sample and knit up a swatch with it a few months ago in order to check the length of the color repeats:

extra large swatch

My plan is to use this yarn in a stranded knitting project in the future and the swatch had the length of the color repeats I was looking for, but there's a slight problem. The swatch is knitted flat and the project I have in mind would be in the round so it would have double the fabric and, as a result, the current color repeats would be half the length.

To solve this, instead of splitting the roving I should just spin it as is and problem solved. Unfortunately, I had proactively split all the roving already. (note to self: next time, maybe wait until *after* sampling to make decisions about the roving).

Of course I can still spin it with the longer repeats by splitting out the color sequences, it just would have been easier to do if I'd left the roving as-is until the sample was finished.

Did I say I only wanted to *feel* productive? Well mission accomplished!
Not much to see here.

*my motto is 'I don't mind suffering in silence as long as everyone knows about it first.'

Spinning and Swatching

No, you haven’t stumbled upon the wrong blog by mistake, there is actually some spinning and knitting content here on Yin and Yarn for a change.

First up, spinning.

Fiber: Dicentra Designs Blue Faced Leicester Top (5.2 oz total)
Colorway: Longbottom Leaf
Project Plan: TBD but likely socks

Spinning Details
Singles: Slightly less than 25 wpi - Approximately 27 degree twist angle

This bobbin represents about half the total fiber. Nothing fancy attempted in trying to manage the color runs. I just split the top in half and then split each half again, keeping each section in order so that I start them all at the same spot in spinning.

This top practically spins itself, making it perfect for a bit of pre-trip anxiety stress spinning.


Now, on to the knitting content portion of this post…


What I had originally planned to have completed for our trip:

Actual current project progress

Basketweave Vest
Handspun Yarn Details
Fiber: Colonial Wool Top (2 pounds total)
Colorway: Unknown ancient colorway (purchased over 9 years ago)
Project Plan: Basketweave Vest from Jamieson’s Book 2
Progress: Swatch completed

This is a DK weight 3-ply that I spun up in Spring and Fall of 2005 to keep from going insane while taking Trigonometry and Calculus.

(ETA: the spinning was much healthier than fantasizing about the various ways I would like my Calculus teacher to meet with an untimely end. Oh, I still did it, just not as much as I would have without the spinning. It wasn't just the difficult coursework - he was *not* a nice person and especially didn't like women over 40. A fact he made very clear throughout the quarter to me and the rest of the 'non-traditional' women students in the class. As you can tell, I'm still a bit worked up about it.)

would it be too pathetic to start considering yarn a finished project?

so not a vest...

Leaf Lace Shawl

Yarn: Lisa Souza Baby Alpaca lace
Colorway: Olive Tones

Project Plan: Leaf Lace Shawl by Fiber Trends
Progress: started (soft of - see below)

the real yarn is so much prettier than my photo would indicate

A better color representation
Look at how huge that skein is - it took forever to wind!
Note to self: must get a real swift at some point

I love this yarn!! First of all the color is glorious (my photo, sadly, does not nearly do it justice), but the yardage is incredible – 1500 yards. At a mere $34 this is such a bargain!

I cast on for the Leaf Lace shawl Saturday night. I thought things were going along well but Sunday morning I saw what had been obscured by the dim lighting* of the living room the previous evening. For some reason my yarnovers at the right-hand edge of the right-side rows are considerably smaller than the rest of the yarnovers. It’s especially apparent when compared to the left-hand edge.

unevenly stretched out to show lack of similarity between yarnovers

So more negative progress has been made - I’ll be ripping this out and starting over.

I was contemplating taking the shawl as trip knitting but I’ll probably be taking my old standby, socks, instead.

I’m thinking of finally trying some of my Koigu that I purchased at Madrona 2 years ago for one of the patterns from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road. But which colorway? And which pattern?

Yes, Vanessa (aka, The Koigu Queen!), I'm still a Koigu virgin

Things are amping up here at Casa del Chaos now that there is less than a week to go for vacation. So much to do before we leave! And then there’s the actual flying part, but let’s not think about that right now.

My friend Jo has been posting wonderful pictures of the Irish countryside and sending me wonderful travel ideas that have us even more excited to see things in person. I can’t wait to visit with her at the lovely new yarn store in Kenmare (no website yet unfortunately)!

*Our 1960s ranch home has remained remarkably unchanged since it was first built (who knew that the original gold fleck formica was so durable?). This includes some pretty inadequate original 1960s lighting throughout the house, making evening knitting and spinning challenging.

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

SuperWool Sunday

Preparations got underway early at Casa del Chaos for SuperWool Sunday celebrations.

A quick trip to Starbucks provided the caffeine-fueled ambition needed for the early morning trip to Costco for appropriate snackage supplies for the event. Some basic amount of housework was performed in order maintain the illusion that we are not complete slobs somewhat tidy (family members were coached in appropriate intervention techniques should a guest appear to be inadvertently opening a closet door on the way to the bathroom).

Toby (aka Spazzy McTerrierpants) did his part by barking wildly for several minutes after Holly and Miss O’s arrival just in case we hadn’t noticed that there were actually guests standing in our living room. (what did we ever do without him?)

We quickly got down to business with SuperWool Sunday activities.

First we all went through the Magic Stash Box** that came home with me from Madrona courtesy of Sam. Selections were made and re-stock contributions were added to the box.

After some snacks to keep up our energy, it was time for the knitting and spinning portion of the day.

Miss O swatched for her first sweater and received some tips from Mom in how to alter the pattern to fit her swatch in lieu of knitting a second swatch to meet the pattern’s gauge.

Sorry for the sucky picture - I really need to get a scanner for this kind of stuff

After the details were worked out, Miss O cast on for her first sweater.

Holly worked on Miss O’s birthday sweater for awhile (Bed & Breakfast Pullover, Interweave Knits Winter 2003, in Beaverslide Yarn) and then got to work spinning sock yarn from her Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks to Shoe spinning kit.

This is where the internet needs ‘Touch-O-Vision’. This Beaverslide Yarn really needs to be touched to be experienced! It’s absolutely glorious. And the colors have great depth too.

Oops! I forgot to take a picture of Holly's spinning until was starting to pack up her wheel!

And I worked on finishing my Brocade Wrap (Jamieson’s Shetland Knitting Book 2, page 94, in Elann Peruvian Highland Wool yarn)

not in Beaverslide yarn unfortunately

I am still undecided as to whether to keep knitting one or two more repeats to use up all the yarn or follow Miss O’s sage advice to just bind off and finish it at the end of this particular pattern repeat (each repeat is 24 rows). I’m thinking at this point it may be the latter. This project has been in progress for too long.

Only too soon the day was over. If only every Sunday could be SuperWool Sunday!


Hey, did you know there was some big football event today with a similar name? Eerie.

**The Magic Stash Box is a box of traveling yarn (or several boxes in this case) that moves among group members. When it arrives at your house you go through it and remove the treasures that you want and then add your unwanted treasure contributions back to the box before shipping it off to the next person on the list. It's great fun.

Now With 100% More Spinning Content!

This is my current favorite wheel, my Jensen Tina II, shown here removed from her native environment due to the current cluttered state of my spinning corner. (Rather embarrassingly, right in our living room and the very first thing guests see.)

And here an inadvertent long-range project:

(kindly pretend not to notice that the yarn on the bobbin actually has dust)

This is some Sweet Grass Wool Targhee that I spun awhile back. The colorway is Grass Valley Green - sadly no longer available. I became aware of this fact shortly after beginning to spin this batch of top when I called to order more, having decided a bit too late that I really liked it. The only time I didn't completely overbuy! I believe the total amount was only 4 ounces.

I finished spinning the top and set the bobbin aside until I could decide what to ply it with. I considered and discarded various options. Time passed (okay, years actually). The bobbin became like my yarn mascot, a more-or-less permanent decoration on the spinning wheel.

At Madrona last year I saw some Chasing Rainbows Deyworks silk caps from Crown Mountain Farms and thought of my lonely unplied bobbin.

They seemed like a good match at the time...

But once I got back home I wasn’t as sure about it, so the bobbin of Targhee returned to yarn-in-waiting status.

Then at the The Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, OR this past June I spotted some lovely top in chartreuse and olive tones by Chameleon Colorworks . (I didn’t even have my Tina with me this time but I had brought my trusty bobbin mascot, just in case.)

This new top seemed like a better match since it made the colors of the Sweet Grass Wool ‘pop’.
(note: the colors aren't exactly represented here. I tried getting a natural light photo but it's been so gray here that even outside in the daylight the flash was going off. This is as good as it gets until, say, April)

Here’s the superwash in progress.

I love the color! Though I did remember once I started spinning it that I’m not really wild about spinning superwash wool.

Rather inconveniently I have misplaced the label so I don’t have the colorway information or the original weight. I think it was around 8 oz.
The superwash fiber didn’t come with a label – I did find the receipt though and I bought 4 ounces.

I think that I am procrastinating a bit on finishing this project because I’m unsure about how I’ll like the finished yarn. I do have a history of not finishing projects when I suspect the end-result may disappoint.
I have to remind myself that finished not-quite-perfect yarn is better than unfinished ‘potentially perfect’ yarn. It’s just yarn for heaven’s sake and in the end, I can always spin some more!