Yarn in my Pocket

81) And so to plying

The Titania batts:

Yesterday, I realised that I'd managed to fill my lovely Bosworth with Titania-singles to the point where it isn't really behaving itself any more.  (Of course, like a good blogger, I forgot to photograph it).  My original plan had been to spin all the singles, sliding the cops off onto storage devices, then to wind plying balls like I did for the last of the tussah silk and ply.  But this project has sort of migrated itself to work, where we have no spindle-kates, no handy pieces of cop-storage material, nothing.  And I wanted to spin.

So I wound a plying bracelet, reasoning, in the finest traditions of self-justification, that the whole point of this exercise is to find out how the batts work when spinning lace.  Therefore, I should get this lot plied as soon as possible, so I can knit a wee sample, yes?

And I realised that its a very long time since I spun much wool on a drop-spindle.

For the last few years, it's all been silk - except when it's been cotton.  Silk and cotton are both really, really twist-hungry, so I've learned to use a thigh roll to start the spindle.  Rolling the spindle shaft down your thigh gives a much faster spin than flicking it with your fingers.  This is definitely an advantage when trying to fill up silk or cotton singles with twist, but the downside is that wool doesn't need anything like as much twist.  Too much, and it's going to get wiry and scratchy on you - and, ultimately, break.

I can now get a spindle spinning faster than my fingers can draft wool to keep up, and as a result, I've had a *heck* of a time trying not to overspin this wool.

(Close up of the singles - see the sparkly bits??)

You can see how active the twist is, even after sitting on the spindle for a week or so, in these photos.  Every time the tension comes off the singles, they try to kink up and loop back on themselves.  Those bits in the second photo where loose singles have plied back on themselves are really quite tightly twisted, which indicates how much energy is squirreling around in there.

Looks like I'm headed for quite a high-twist laceweight here, then.

77) One bobbin full, and a sparkly spindle started

I'm done with my first bobbin of the current wheel project!  (DK-3 ply from drumcarded batts, for Sandi Wisehart's knit-to-fit cardigan KAL).  I think this is the most perfectly filled bobbin I've ever produced; three batts fit to perfection.  And there are no nasty surprises inside, either; the filling is smooth and even throughout:

I'm still experimenting with the iPhone, but I think I like the actual camera better.  That first shot wasa taken without flash.  This next, otherwise-identical one, with:

Amazing how the flash saddens the blue but intensifies the yellow, isn't it?  Also, I think this is the only camera I've ever used where the flash actually results in a picture that is darker overall.

Since it's currently all about the batts here, I've also started spinning some of my own merino/angelina blend, in Titania, on the spindle:

I'm aiming for a heavyish laceweight.  I really, really want to see how the angelina works up in a fine yarn.  Will there be too much sparkle?  Not enough?  Will the ends of the angelina stick out?  Will it make the yarn scratchy?  We shall see!

73) General update: the Very Bad Photos edition

Well.  My phone was fine for five days or so, then I started getting SIM card errors.  On boot up, or randomly in the middle of a conversation.  I made a not-very-convincing investigation into possible fixes, and then leapt with unseemly haste towards my local iPhone vendor.

I am starting to love the thing, but also feel that I should be doing absolutely everything with it.  I've been taking photos sporadically during the week, but it's taken me until today to get the things off the phone and onto my computer so I can document what I've been doing.  Unfortunately, I'm not yet impressed with the iPhone camera.  So!

Spinning:  This is the start of the yarn for Sandi Wisehart's Sweater KAL (available on Ravelry). I'm definitely very behind on this, as lots of people have knit up to the armholes already.  It took me a while to get the right sort of thickness for the singles - I want a DK weight 3 ply, and my fingers are now used to ultra-fine-laceweight - but I think I've got the hang of it now.

The photo is sort of hazy and blue.  I know why this was - something was occluding the flash and flaring it onto the lens.

Dogs:  Woody doesn't approve of the current cold snap in the weather.  However, if it means he gets extra sofa time, and a blanket, he's prepared to live with it.

He would like to point out he's not quite that yellow in real life, though.

Fibre acquisition: I bought this little lot from SpinGirl's destash - and one of the dogs (I suspect Kita) killed it as soon as it entered the house:

It isn't actually too badly damaged, and I was thinking of carding it anyway, so I'll let her off this time.  The exposure on this photo is about right, but it's much more pink in reality.

Then, I recently passed J's Nan's old sewing machine to a member of the Cambridge KTog knitting group - and in thanks, she gave me this lovely fibre!

It's not really that dark.  Let's try again:

Hmm.  Not a lot better.  The fibre - which is Corriedale - is lovely, though.  And has inspired...

A bit of fibre dyeing!  This is also Corriedale, and has dyed up to a lovely stormy grey.  This is the first time I've dyed Corriedale, and I'm impressed with how well it stands up to the process (read: no felty bits, even in this dark shade):

Exposure and colour: not too bad.  Focus: bah.

I have more very bad iPhone photographs to share with you, but I'll save them for another post.  I'll be trying a few more times, see if I can get a consistently good acceptable photograph with the New Technology, but it might be back to my old camera if the learning curve is too steep.

72) That was the week(end), that was...

Recently, time does not seem to be flowing smoothly.  One afternoon seems to hang around forever, stretching out into infinity - then four days seem to be go past in a single lump.  This makes for sporadic blogging.

Nevertheless, the last week has been rather productive, all things considered.  I have:

• started seaming coppertop (ravelry link) - my two-week sweater, haha;
• finished plying the spindled silks;
• finished plying the Sweetgeorgia BFL/silk, featured mostly in this post;
• started spindle spinning some of my own batts ('Titania' - mixed purples with holographic angelina - here);
• made copious notes about what has and what hasn't worked in the garden this year.  However, these are all currently on the back of an envelope, so I can't share them with you yet;
• reached the crunch point on the Peacock shawl. I will be omitting one full repeat from the middle section.

Several of these items deserve blog posts of their own, but I am rather fond of the plied BFL/silk photos I took on Sunday, so I'm sharing those now:

That is a UK 5 pence piece tucked behind the yarn; that's slightly smaller than a US nickel (18mm as compared to 21mm, according to Wikipedia).  That's some pretty fine spinning!  In fact, this is the first time I've managed to get over 1000 metres of yarn from 100g of fibre, so it's a genuine milestone.  I'm not interested in spinning ultra-fine thread, but I am keen to spin true laceweight knitting yarns, and also yarns that could be woven into garment-weight cloth.

The glamour shot.  This yarn is one ply of silk and one ply of blue faced leicester (a lovely, soft, fine wool).  The flash on these shots really shows off the sparkle of the silk against the more matt texture of the wool - click for bigger to see it properly!

And don't you love that little wooden bowl?  It's maple burr, turned by a local craftsman, and I'm hoping it'll work well as a bowl for using with a support spindle.  It's taller and narrower than the ones I've seen in use, but I love it anyway.

I bought it on Saturday, at the Willingham Feast Market, where I and several others from Rampton Spinners were demonstrating spinning.  Geodyne originally organised the event but unfortunately couldn't make it on the day.  I'm pretty sure a wonderful time was had by all four of us who did make it, even though I dropped my phone down the loo (oops! - time for an iPhone, perhaps?)

This is the demo area as it looked just before the marked opened - we had wool, flax and silk on display, including a progression of flax from dried plant to spun fibre, and a lot of interest was shown by the public.

The left hand side of the display, showing Jo's range of spun and dyed fibres, plus tools and fabrics, (and books!!  I never thought to bring books..) along with my new toy (wool picker) and a bag of clean but unteased wool, and my Rampton bag from last year.  The wool picker deserves another post of its own, but was quite the hit with young boys; it relies heavily on long, black nails for its function, and looks like a mediaeval torture device on the inside.

Inadvertent amusement - and education - was provided by the nice man who came round offering us tea and coffee before the event opened.  I told him I'd brought my own, but thanked him for the offer.  Jo only drinks hot chocolate, so he talked her into that - then, when she finally agreed, informed her that that would be one pound, please.  Both of us were ...slightly gobsmacked.  Bear in mind that we were 'working' at this event for free, and a free cup of tea or the like is a nice (and relatively common) way to say thanks.  It was a funny experience rather than an unpleasant one - but it's a lesson in customer service/expectation management, too.  I don't think that either of us would have minded paying if the price had been clear from the beginning - especially as the proceeds go to charity.  But both of us - even me, and I wasn't the one getting a drink! - felt slightly .. what?  Affronted?  Cheated?  Tricked, I think is the best word.  And the sad part is that I'm sure he didn't mean to make us feel like that.

The really notable part, the one that anyone who deals with customers of any kind should note, is that this is the experience, out of all those I had that morning, that I've chosen to write about here.  They say it takes five positive experiences to outweigh a negative.  I suspect that is a conservative estimate.

71) Travels through time: a 15-minute musing

Several months ago, there was the Tour de Fleece¹.  Since the major goal of this is to spin, even a little, every day, I started giving myself 15 minutes spinning time first thing in the morning.  Oddly, I started getting to work earlier as a result - but that's a musing for another day.

Usually I spin on my wheel in this time, but this morning I grabbed the spindle I'm using to ply the tussah weft for my spindled silk scarf project.  I was working on this last night at spinning group, and was so close to the end of the plying ball, I thought I'd try and get finished.

I don't usually use a plying ball (which is where you wind your singles, together, into a multi-stranded ball, so that all you have to do is go back through the ball and add twist when actually plying).  By default, I've been using plying bracelets, which are a kind of magic, and haven't caused my any significant problems.

But then, it's always worth trying new techniques, and this one comes recommended by Abby herself.  So, each time I finished a spindle full of singles, I wound it off into a neat, tight ball (bo-ringgg! I hate winding!).  Then I picked the two balls that were closest to the same size, and laboriously wound them, together, into a double-stranded, extra large ball. (Booorrrr-ingggg!!!).  At this point, I'm not loving the plying balls.

I didn't love it when I started plying from them, either.  I didn't know what to do with this squirrely, bouncy little ball of tightly wound silk.  Eventually, I figured out that I can hold it loosely in my fibre-control hand (my left, for me), and just let it unwind in a cage of fingers.  After that, this proved to be a really fast way to ply.  Really fast.  I don't know if it's faster than the bracelet overall, what with all that winding and re-winding, but the spindle sure fills up fast when you get going.  And it is much easier to pick up and put down your work using a ball rather than a bracelet.  You can take the bracelet off, but you need to have something else to put it on when you're not wearing it, and you do have to be a bit careful with it to avoid tangling and subsequent swearing.

But what does this have to do with journeying through time?  Well, this was the spinning project that I took up to visit my folks a couple of weeks ago.  And all that winding has some strong memories associated with it.  As the plying ball unwound, I felt as if I was travelling back to the moments when I was winding the ball.  I was transported to conversations with my parents; to the giant box of chocolates on the coffee table; to stopping at a motorway cafe and boggling the other patrons by pulling out a spindle whilst I waited for my coffee to cool; to the smell and feel of the air that weekend (mostly damp.  But it smelled of the sea).

Those memories were a definite bonus.  Oh, and I finished the plying ball:

(the little balls are the mismatched ends from my four balls of singles.  I'll make a mini-plying-ball with those, and bracelet ply anything left over.)

I think I *will* be using plying balls in the future, but I will see if I can find a storage mechanism for my singles which does not involve winding everything twice.  It should be possible to slide my finished cops of singles onto short needles, or something.

---

¹ Note for non-spinners/people who don't hang out on Ravelry:  The Tour de Fleece happens at the same time as the Tour de France.  It's an opportunity excuse to spin every day, to challenge yourself, to try new things.  Frankly, it's fun.

67) The day after

I found the coif; it was in the Pile Of Stuff on the stairs, official status 'waiting to be put away', where it had been for the last fortnight.

The day went awesomely.  I finished pretty much *everything*, except the lacing holes in my sleeves.  The lack of this half-hour job meant that my sleeves were falling down all day, and, by the end of the afternoon, had pulled my shift sleeves down with them, so I was sporting the off-the-shoulder wench look.  Not my favourite, but I don't think many other people noticed.

I talked myself hoarse, and still have a badly sore throat.  This means I did my job well, and I am Pleased.

I have but a single photograph, snagged from Bob and Katy's photostream (I used to work with Bob!  Thanks, Bob!):

Yes, my sleeves are falling down.  I am knackered.  More to follow.

57) Catching up: spinning

So - what have I been up to?

I washed the blue silk:

   

Note the yellow gloves.  These were donned *after* I noticed that the blue that was coming out of the silk was not coming out of my fingers.  I guess since the dye rubbed off onto my hands whilst I was spinning, I shouldn't have been surprised at this, but it made me a bit grumpy at the time.  Anyway, it dried beautifully, and wound into nice little yarn cakes, too:

The Tour de Fleece ran for the duration of the Tour de France, the idea being that you spin every day that the cyclists ride.  I started out strong with spindle spinning as I walked the Race for Life:

 

49 metres of silk singles, spun whilst walking 5 kilometres.  Cool, huh?

I decided that I wasn't going to find a good use for 100g of Corriedale in this pretty handpainted colourway:

So I carded it to make a more blended batt:

Which I spun and plied in under a week (personal best!) to make a rather pleasing 4ply-ish weight.  This is going into the 'stranded colourwork' basket to await other yarn-partners:

...and then I started on the last of my Sweet Georgia club fibres from last year.  This was 67g of BFL and 33g of tussah silk, dyed in the same colourway (not quite as eye-popping as it appears here):

I started with the BFL, which wanted to be spun fine (you can still see hints of the dratted blue dye round my fingernails in this shot):

 

The BFL was addictive spinning, and I finished it before the end of the Tour:

The silk was a different matter.  Given that there was half as much silk, by weight, I figured that the silk had to be spun even finer so that I'll have roughly the same yardage of each when I come to ply them together.  The finer a yarn, the more twist it needs.  And silk likes a lot of twist.

After about 15 minutes of trying to spin this stuff ultra-fine on my standard bobbin and flyer, I realised that I was going to get frustrated.  I was sitting and treadling like mad, waiting for the singles to fill up with twist.  It was time to put on my big girl panties and break out the lace flyer that I've been hoarding for the last 18 months:

Much better.  Though I can tell you that even with a fast flyer, 33g of silk at this weight is still a lot of spinning time.  Last night I got a good couple of hours spinning with the local Tuesday group, and I reckon another couple of hours should see me finish the singles.  Then: Plying!  Fun!!

47) Meet 'Burwash'

It's fleece season.  I'm on a bit of a mission to get better at handling and evaluating fleeces.  So.

When I was demonstrating spinning at Burwash Manor last Sunday (blogged over at yarnscape, because it's a public event), I took the opportunity to buy a fleece from the chaps who were demonstrating sheep shearing.  I selected this sheep's fleece because the sheep looked, to me, like a Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) cross.  BFL is lovely wool; long staple, soft and delicious.  He had some like this one, and the rest of his sheep were rough fells, which do not have soft wool.

Here is the whole fleece, laid out flat, with the britch (bottom!) end towards us and the head end pointing away:

 

Note the poop-smear at the top left hand corner, and the red marking on the right flank.  You can also see how thick the fleece is on the sides of the sheep, and how thin along the spine.

This is some of the lovely thick stuff from the flanks of the sheep:

You can see that the staple length is nice and long, and it's very crimpy/curly at the ends.  (If you click for big, you'll see that the crimp extends the whole length of the staple).  This bit of fleece is quite nice and not matted; you can see it's quite easy for me to pull it apart, and you can see through to the grass underneath.

This bit is from one of the legs:

It's really quite badly felted.  After exerting a bit of pressure, I couldn't really separate out any locks.  You could cut this stuff to size and have instant chair cushions.

Here's a closeup of the fleece running along the spine:

 

It's much thinner and less lush than the flanks, and shorter, too.  It's also quite dry to the touch and may be brittle. So I split up the fleece into flanks, spine, back end and front legs, thus:

I'm going to try washing and combing the flanks; they may spin up to a very useful worsted yarn.  I've kept everything except the matted back end parts, and will see if anything is redeemable.  It may not be, but I have this gut feeling that the only way to find the boundary between 'useable' and 'useless' is to step over it a few times.

42) Blue silk, all spun up

Another 'proud FO' - my blue silk is all spun up!

(My photography skills have not yet magically improved.  I cannot do this yarn justice, but if you click for big, you'll get a better idea).

This is about 120g of silk, dyed by Silksacks (i.e. not me!), and spun up to a sort of heavy lace/light fingering weight. (around 25wpi?)

I managed about 900m out of the one brick; I put it back through the wheel once I'd finished plying to tighten up the ply twist, and it looks much better for it (wish I'd taken before and afters.  Oh, well - never mind!).  The yarn feels heavy and fluid, not limp, and not wiry at all, the way silk can if it's over-twisted.

Some of this stuff was a dream to spin, and some was not.  I will be interested to see how my second brick spins up; it is a much less saturated colour, and silk is known to become 'clumpy' in reaction to certain dyes.

I plan to knit the Peacock Feathers shawl with this yarn.  That has been my intention from the moment I bought this fibre, well over two years ago.  Although I haven't quite achieved the yardage 'required' by the pattern, I'm happy with what I've got (and I wear smaller shawls more often anyway).  I honestly feel I've managed to spin a yarn which will do this stunning pattern justice, and I'm really, really excited to get started - but first I need to finish Basil (my sweater-in-two-weeks, maybe), and really, if I'm going to keep my Monogamous Knitter status at all intact, I really ought to finish the Nightingale Wing.

Can I keep my resolve intact?  My only hope is to Knit Faster!

34) Spinning the blue silk

At the start of yesterday evening (no, I am not always a neat, even bobbin-filler):

After about an hour and a half of spinning:

I've already filled one bobbin with the singles for this project; I'm aiming for a two-ply heavy laceweight/light fingering weight.  I'm probably about half way through the second bobbin, so I'd estimate there are 3-4 hours more spinning left.

This is a 125g silk brick I bought at Textiles In Focus.  The colours grabbed me from across the room and simply would not let go!  Now I come to spin it, though, I'm not sure I'm enjoying it all that much.  The producer of these bricks doesn't really expect them to be spun, I think.  His wife makes stunning costumes involving a variety of felting and surface embellishing techniques, and although some sections of this stuff spin beautifully, others are matted and very difficult to draft.  It's quite a workout for the hands and forearms!

I wanted a very smooth, sleek yarn, but I'm having to temper my desires with realisation.  You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and nor can you spin a lumpy prep into a smooth yarn.  I considered carding or combing some of this to smooth it out, but decided that would probably blend the colours more than I want.  I'd rather keep the colours distinct, and have some slubs.  So, I'm trying to let go of my perfectionistic tendencies and let the fibre be what it wishes.  With any luck, it will have a 'charmingly handspun' quality, rather than a 'yucky mess', but I'm finding it difficult to have pride in this project right now.  I want to do better!!

Anwyay, here's what's left of my brick after last nights' efforts:

It's stunning stuff, isn't it?  I just wish it wasn't such hard work!  Oh, it turns my fingers blue when I spin it, too.  :(

It's probably pretty clear that I'm very ambivalent about this fibre.  The problem, if such it be, is that I have another brick in my stash.  I'd been planning to spin it for weaving into a stole, but I don't know if I'm enjoying this enough to actually embark on another project with the stuff.  The slubs I'm getting in the singles would be a problem for warp yarns, so I'd have to be more careful, and progress would be very. very. slow.  Then again, I'm not sure that the stickiness is actually a property of the fibre, or whether it's been caused by this very intense dye job.  The other brick I have is much, much paler; a soft grey with hints of pink/green/purple.  Think mother-of-pearl.  Again, it's gorgeous, but I'm all about fun in my hobbies, and if I'm not going to enjoy spinning it, I might as well destash it.

I suppose all I can do is finish this up, see how it comes out, and sample the grey to see if it's the same texture.  Hmm...