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.

You've got mail!

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust

What’s better than yarn in the mail? Unexpected yarn (and treats!) in the mail!

I was picking up the mail Friday and there was a note in my mailbox informing me that I had a package at the front desk that was too large to fit in the box. Hmmmmm, I didn’t remember ordering anything recently. Had I ordered something awhile back and forgotten about it?

As soon as I saw the return address on the package I knew it was from my friend Jacqui! I raced through my remaining errands so I could hurry home and open it up. (LOL, that sounds like I’m so self disciplined! I really don’t have that much self-restraint. I likely would have opened it in the car if it hadn’t been well-taped! Note to self: must keep extra pair of scissors in the car from now on).

Inside the box was an envelope marked ‘Open me last’. I dutifully set it aside and one by one pulled out several nicely wrapped packages (in a pretty Asian-style wrapping paper – I really wish I had thought to take a photo before opening all of them) .

Jacqui knows about my extreme addiction fondness for coffee so she sent me some delicious French Roast (and a fair trade coffee too!) ground for my ultra low-tech Melitta cone:



An autographed copy of Stephanie’s most recent book (from her visit to see Stephanie speak at the Tattered Cover):




But wait! There’s more! A treasure trove of treats:


Isn’t the frog bag adorable? Jacqui couldn’t have known this ahead of time but that is one of the frog designs I looked at when trying to find tree frog samples for my graphic designer while we were working on my business logo!

And sock yarn! I love Opal and I’m looking forward to trying the Knit Picks sock yarn too. A new Chibi in blue (one really cannot have enough of these). The journal is perfect too. I always have at least one journal or notepad with me at all times because it seems that these days if I don’t write my thoughts down they’re gone for good! The kitty stickers are so fun – very retro.

Lastly, I opened the envelope to find a lovely note from Jacqui.

The timing couldn’t have been better. My morning had been spent trying to collect money from three stores that haven’t paid me for merchandise delivered in January. It was a bit discouraging to realize that there are some people who evidently do not feel at all bad about ordering and taking delivery of merchandise to sell in their store and then not paying for it.

But here was the other side of things – a kind, thoughtful friend who mailed off a fun package of treats for no reason except to surprise me.

And I was surprised. And delighted. And grateful.

Meow!

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

Here comes the sun

(of course, now I'll be humming the Beatles song all night after typing that title!)

I was certain the weatherman must have made mistake in his report for Saturday. Here’s what the official forecast said we’d be having:

Looks like pretty typical weather around these parts for February.

Instead we got this:

For once the weatherman’s mistake was in our favor! Usually it works the other way around; if sun is predicted you can bet we’ll get rain instead. Of course when rain is predicted we also usually get rain. Funny how that works.

That unexpected sun and balmy 62 degree weather (practically tropical around here in February!) made me want to work out in my garden to eliminate some of that bedraggled winter look, but unfortunately other conflicting tasks were already mapped out for the day.

Toby and I spent a few minutes in the yard snapping photos and enjoying the sun before returning our noses to the grindstone.

Toby contemplates the strange glowing orb in the sky

It's a good thing that we took a few moments to enjoy the sun because here’s what our view of the sky looked like just a couple hours later:

The weatherman has the last laugh!

Not too much to show right now on the spinning front. I’m still working on the February skein for my swap pal. The first bobbin of Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) is done and I’m nearly done spinning the bobbin of merino-tencel blend that I’ll be using as the second ply.

Chameleon Colorworks BFL in Autumn

This was the first time I'd spun BFL - very enjoyable. I'll be spinning more of this in the future. Though, not on a deadline.

Spin To Knit Swap

While I was away at Madrona, my Spin To Knit swap pal mailed me a lovely surprise:

Inside was a the most beautiful, textured skein of yarn (I had told my swap pal that I loved textured yarns since I spin pretty boring, plain yarn myself). Here it is below at its 'super yarn model' photo shoot.

Inside, flash required unfortunately.

(Have I mentioned it’s a bit grey this time of year in the PNW?)

Outside in full sun.
(I know, I was shocked too. Sun? In January? But don’t worry, it didn’t last long)

I'm ready for my closeup!

My lame photos don’t do the colors justice. I really need a bright overcast day to get a good natural light photo that doesn’t wash out the colors. But again, this is the PNW. In winter. So grey indoor light with flash or outdoors with weak sunshine is as good as it gets until sometime in Spring. Or perhaps Summer (in a really bad year…).

I’m not sure what I will do with the yarn yet. It has to be something worthy of the yarn. For now, I believe it will be enjoyed for its handspun beauty alone!

Acolytes at the shrine of the handspun

Madrona Report

(I am finally on the mend and have been cleared for limited computer access and blogging by the rest enforcer my loving husband. This is a conditional release however and privileges will be revoked if I relapse due to failure to exercise moderation…)

My absolute favorite part of Madrona is visiting with friends from both near and far that I don’t get to see nearly often enough.

Beyond that it’s hard to pick favorites at Madrona because the event itself is just wonderful from start to finish and the classes, in my experience, are always excellent. The only bad part of Madrona is waiting a whole year for the next one!

That being said, if I had to pick one class from the entire weekend as my favorite then Susanna Hansson’s Lapland Hand Garments: The mittens from Rovaniemi would be that class.

When the Madrona class listing first came out I had googled ‘rovaniemi mittens’ and found Lene’s lovely mittens . I was quite intrigued to learn this interesting intarsia in the round technique though the reference in the class description of using “11 small balls of yarn” sounded a bit daunting. I was thrilled when Vanessa and I both managed to get in to the class before it filled up.

Day One – The Mittens of Rovaniemi
After some interesting historical and geographical background we were able to admire, fondle and even try on the sample mittens. I read Lene Alve’s blog regularly and so I have admired her knitting online many times, but it doesn’t compare to seeing her absolutely perfect and beautiful knitting in person. Lene is an artist and an absolutely inspiring knitter.

The mittens were very difficult to part with once on the hand!

The first part of the class involved learning the technique with Cascade 220 and larger needles (I’m new at this blogging thing and was so intent on my knitting I forgot to take a photo of this part). Once we felt comfortable the process in the larger gauge we were able to pick out the colors for our finer gauge cuff.

The technique was a bit more challenging in the finer gauge and smaller needles (I believe I overheard Stephanie tell Susanna that the larger gauge sample made one a little over-confident and the finer gauge knitting was a more humbling experience)

Sample mitten in progress

This had to have been the quietest knitting class I’ve ever been in. There was no chatting or cross-talk in the room - everyone was heads-down and focused on their knitting!

Of course, Vanessa, being the lightning fast knitter that she is, was miles ahead of me towards the end of class. Here she is knitting away:

(note the difference in magnet placement on our charts!)

The mitten round-up at the end of class. My mitten is the blue and green one on the left.

Usually by the end of class I’m ready for a bit of a break before continuing on with my sample (for example, the break for my Estonian lace sample has been going on for over a year now…), but I think this technique is quite addictive. After class Vanessa and I went straight to our hotel room and kept knitting, only stopping because we had to leave for dinner with friends.

Susanna Hansson is simply an excellent teacher and an absolutely lovely person to spend the day with. I’m anxious to take another class from her and am looking forward to attending the the Nordic Knitting Conference in October if I can.

I may have been a bit over-enthusiastic in relaying my excitement about the class to Susanna repeatedly as I saw her throughout the weekend. I’m nothing if not enthusiastic... (Sorry, Susanna, I wasn’t really stalking you. Thanks for being really nice as I gushed about the mitten class and expressed my disappointment in not signing up for the Bohus class again and again. I’m sure by Saturday you were thinking that the hotel was maybe a wee bit too small and, my goodness, can’t they screen these people somehow?)

You can see more reports on this class here, here, and here.

Day 2 – Morphing Cables and Mentoring
My morning class on Friday was the Morphing Cables class with Fiona Ellis. I enjoyed listening to Fiona talk about her inspiration for cables and techniques to use in order to achieve different cable forms. I think I would have done better with a slightly more structured class on this particular day. I was starting to feel decidedly unwell at this point and not overly creative. The unstructured approach left me a bit at loose ends (no pun intended) until the Sudafed finally kicked in close to the end of class. I enjoyed chatting with my neighbors though and seeing their lovely cable creations, Lara’s was particularly lovely. My own was quite hideous and there will be no photographic evidence presented here.

My afternoon class was a mentoring session with Stephanie. Holly and I had signed up just to hang out and listen to Stephanie. Class introductions revealed that the majority of attendees had been of the same mind (I was relieved not to have to be the first one to admit it during the ‘around the table’ introductions). Among other things, Stephanie shared a lot of good information about decreasing for set in sleeves and planning decrease ratios based on body frame (complete with drawn flip chart diagrams!). As usual, Stephanie was highly entertaining and educational at the same time.

For some strange reason, I decided to bring my Rovaniemi sampler to work on during the class. In retrospect, I have no idea what I was thinking other than I really wanted to finish it up. I already knew that I didn’t feel well, that the process takes a lot of concentration and there was limited table space all of which made this knitting a horrible candidate for the afternoon’s work.

So of course you know what happened. I looked up at something Stephanie had written on the flip chart and when I looked down one of my 00 needles had slipped a few stitches off. I tried to fix it in class and succeeded in only making it worse. I set it aside and picked up my sock but too late the damage was done! Dropped stitches with this technique have some real negative progress involved in fixing it. To be continued...

Day 3 – Introduction to Fair Isle Design and Colorwork
Saturday’s class was an introduction to Fair Isle design with Janine Bajus. Another excellent class! As a regular reader of Janine’s blog, it was quite exciting to see her lovely designs in person and hear about her approach to designing Fair Isle projects.

This was a 3-day workshop crammed into a single day. Lots of color theory and hands-on color exercises, including interpreting an inspiration photo in yarn. Janine gave instruction on two-color knitting for attendees not familiar with the technique while more advanced members worked on selecting yarn to make their sample cap. The class included two hat patterns and two ounces of yarn from Janine’s really amazing stash of Shetland yarn.

I would love to take the 3-day version of this workshop!

I did not take as many photos as I should have during this class because by Saturday I was feeling decidedly lousy. I wish I’d gotten a photo of Janine’s huge bag of Shetland bobbins. She has a sample of every single Jamieson’s and Jamieson and Smith yarn available. Invaluable if you are planning to design your own Fair Isle garments according to Janine.

You can read Janine's report report here (with all the pictures I neglected to take!).

Yarn and Fiber Marketplace
I was really quite restrained at the Madrona marketplace, especially if we decide to completely ignore the fact that my actual goal was to buy nothing…

My sole marketplace acquisitions:

Birdseye Maple Spindle by SpindleWood Co

BFL and Merino-Tencel rovings in “Autumn” by Chameleon Colorworks
Mulberry Silk-Superfine Merino roving in “Farmhouse” by Blue Moon Fiber Arts

The Chameleon Colorworks rovings will be spun up as my February contribution to my Spin To Knit swap pal.

The Blue Moon Fiber Arts roving is just because I couldn’t resist (I tried, really, but resistance is futile). That’s a dangerous booth to be in!

I also bought some felted flowers from Una at Wooly Walkers (these are gifts for some friends at work).

I have to admit that the lack of purchases probably had more to do with me feeling sick most of the weekend and not from any real self-control on my part.

Toby inspects and approves the Madrona purchases

Friends!
One of these times I’ll remember to take more photos of the evening get-togethers. The trouble is I’m so busy having a good time that I forget to snap photos. Here are a few that I did remember to take:

clockwise from front left

Mel, Holly, Marti, Vanessa, Jessica

Lara, Kerry, Barb, and Sam from the FT group

Angela! (looking much better in my hat than I do)

Jessica and Marti

clockwise from bottom front

TMK (back of head), Ryan, Jessica, Marti, Rebecca, Vanessa, Peggy

I can’t wait for next year!