Things are Looking Up

I always think of March as being something of an endurance test - something to get through before April and Spring starts in earnest. But today, on the 9th, I feel like things are looking up.

First of all, the sky is blue and the snow is melting.

No really, trust me - it is. And the temperature's are up. Today is only a little bit below freezing. The birds which are still here, the Jays and Chickadees are flitting around the trees and chattering away and there is heat in the sun when it comes through the window. I've also noticed that rivers and streams are starting to open up, which means the ducks and geese will be back soon.

My husband is getting better. He's had an extremely heavy chest cold that was bordering on the plague. This was the kind of cold where he didn't get out of bed for four days - and I've been in the guest room for four days because I didn't want it. He actually got out of bed today, got dressed and ate. Which means I might get to sleep in my own bed tonight. Fingers crossed. On a related note, I've discovered that we need a new mattress for the guest room but that doesn't have to happen right away.

Ian progressed through two levels of snowboarding this year! I don't have a picture of this because I forgot my camera yesterday, but we spent the day at Mount Pakenham where he's been taking lessons. He'll be starting in Level 4 next year - pretty good considering he only started riding a year ago. And while I was there waiting for him.....

...I finished a pair of socks; almost.

I need to graft the toe and weave in the tail from my cast on then I'll have something new. These are knit in Malabrigo yarn in the Archangel colourway.

I also got back in the proverbial saddle and decided to try spinning more Alpaca. This time it is working wonderfully and a good thing too because this isn't actually for me. A couple years ago, a lady I worked for took a vacation to Vermont but before she went she asked me if she bought fibre, would I spin it? And being so keen as a new spinner I said "Sure!"

So I've had this - about a pound and a half of Alpaca fibre in my stash for about two years.

The white is pretty standard white, 4 oz but the brown is the most beautiful mahogany colour which really doesn't show in this picture. She's got 8 oz of that. I'm sure she's a bit annoyed at me by now - or has forgotten about it. Two years ago, I really didn't have the confidence or skill to do it.

Now I feel and do, at least enough to spin this well and give her something that she can use. In exchange for my time, she also gave me 8 oz of Alpaca from a lovely animal named Gus from Maple Farm Alpacas in Brandon, Vermont.

I might have the order of who gets what wrong but either way, it's such a pleasure to spin. I really like how this is prepared, the fibre is extremely clean and wrapped neatly into bumps. While I didn't buy this, I would order more from them (once our dollar goes up again).

One Red Sock

I didn't plan to be away for this long, but holiday weekends do tend to interfere with knitting time.  I had ten people over for Easter and while I love to entertain on this scale, and had a great time with family, there was very little knitting done.

I do however have a sock to show you.

This is made from Regia 4 ply yarn.  It feels quite coarse in the ball and is reputed to wear like iron but don't be fooled by it - it knits up into a nice sock and is much softer than I expected it to be.  As for the colour....that was an impulse purchase about a month ago.  While dressing that morning, I had a passing thought that red socks would go well with what I was wearing but I didn't own any.  Later that day, I happened on red sock yarn so without really thinking about it, I bought two balls.

A funny thing about colour is what we associate with it.  I said once that I had never in my life owned red socks but that isn't true.  I did once own red socks; even made them myself.  I don't know if I genuinely forgot about these, or suppressed the memory, but when we were moving from Beijing, China back to Canada I made a pair of red socks.  It was something for me to do with my hands while 10 men  (honestly - there were 10) roamed my house and packed all my things in preparation for the move.  It seems it was also a place for me to put all the stress of an international move.  I never actually wore the socks when we got to Canada - they were the normal number of stitches but were knit so tightly I couldn't get them on.  This sock fits much better.

I also finished a new skein of handspun.

This is made from Knit Picks Full Circle roving in colour "Wolf".  I was so pleased with the last three ply yarn I did that I tried it again and I even surprised myself with how well this turned out.

The result, after washing and a good "whack-and-thwack" in the tub is about 120 yards of remarkably even, worsted weight yarn.

Not bad for a spinning wheel with only one bobbin eh?

New Yarn and One Sock

This past week was somewhat difficult.  There was a major professional deadline to be met and a major winter storm came through.  My boss is a big fan of me working from home when the weather is poor so I've been at home since Wednesday!  On Tuesday night as I drove home I figured I'd be able to get some spinning done, and move ahead with my knitting, tame the laundry monster and get the floors cleaned all while hitting that deadline with ease.

HA!  What a joke.....that professional deadline ended up being tighter than I thought but I had everything done by 5:00 on Friday.  The downside is the laundry monster is still rampaging upstairs and the floors still aren't clean.

I did however get some spinning done.  This is my very first attempt at a three ply yarn.

The colour is called "Tavern" and is part of the spinning colour Six Pack from SweetGeorgia Yarns.  I'm much happier with the finished look and feel of this compared with the two-ply yarns I've been making up until now but that could possibly be because maybe, perhaps, I'm getting better at this.  I've also learned that I'm not a good judge of how a dyed roving will look when it's been spun.  I thought the roving for this was straight up ugly.  No nice way to say it, but I'm quite taken with this finished yarn.

I also have a finished sock in the Fleece Artist yarn I showed you last week and have done about half the leg on the other sock.  I decided to give them to Chuck for no particular reason other than I thought he'd like them.  I was right - he's looking forward to having them.

I'm also considering the purchase of a new spinning wheel.  I have a lovely Jacob Plum wheel that works well and is in good repair but that has the distinct liability of only having one bobbin - makes making a decent three-ply yarn more of a production than it needs to be.  I knew when I bought the wheel that this was going to end up being a problem and since there isn't a local 'Jacob Plum' dealer it's not a simple thing to get parts.  I know I can send the entire flyer assembly to a guy who will make bobbins to order and that's all well and good, but what happens when something else breaks or wears out?  

The quest is on.

Yarn Finishing Results

There are a lot of things you can learn by reading about on the internet.  There are loads of videos to demonstrate techniques if you are a visual learner.  But for me, the most effective means of learning is to do.

So I have to say, the experiment in different finishing techniques was (for me at least) fascinating.  I also had a suggestion to use steam (thanks Gemmi for the idea) so I wound another length onto the niddy noddy and placed it over a pot of boiling water to steam for a few minutes.  (Tip:  I used a rack to suspend the whole thing over the pot rather than trying to hold it.  Tip #2:  Make sure the rack is clean.  My yarn smells like banana bread)  

This is contender No. 5.

The Results

These are samples 1 - 5 from left to right.  The most obvious thing is that steaming doesn't cause shrinking the way immersion in hot water does.  Curious because the water I used was hot to touch, but not nearly as hot as steam.  The steam however did relax the yarn enough to get rid of the twisting.

Here are the five samples showing relative width.  Samples three and four were the densest - no real surprise as they were the two that were shocked with the hot and cold water.  In sample four, I can clearly see where I had underspun the single as that part of the yarn ballooned.

Sample One

Sample Two

Sample Three

Sample Four

Sample Five

For the purposes of my experiment, I wanted to know how to finish the larger skein of yarn I had spun and based on this, I like the feel of sample 3 the most.  It was shocked with the hot and cold water and snapped, but it wasn't really beaten like sample 4.  I like the density of yarn that I'm getting from this better than 1, 2 and 5.

I'm also intrigued by the way the steamed yarn didn't shrink but relaxed enough to not wind itself back up.  I'll have to remember that!

Now What?

This past week has seen a great breakthrough in my inability to ply my hand spun yarn.  With the help of a video I downloaded a few weeks ago (The Gentle Art of Plying by Judith MacKenzie), I have figured out what I was doing wrong.  It still isn't perfect, but it's a thousand times better than it was before.

This was an undyed organic merino combed top.  I don't think the organic part makes an ounce of difference in how it spins but it feeds into my desire to get the chemicals out of my life.  I think it makes for a healthier animal, is safer for all the handlers along the way and is better for the earth and water supply.  But I digress.

So after letting it sit on the bobbin overnight, this is what it looked like off the wheel.  It is very twisty and will wind back on itself at every chance it gets so it's a pretty messy skein right now.

For a long time, I thought plied yarn needed to be balanced coming off the wheel.  I'm not sure where I got that idea or if I misheard something somewhere but that is what I was always striving to achieve, but the yarn always looked limp and lifeless.  I've since learned that that isn't always the case and that often you do want what appears to be 'overtwisted' yarn.  This has plenty of life and bounce.  I have 80g (approx 150 yds) of it and see a hat in my future.

But how do I finish the yarn?

I spent the morning trolling the internet on what to do next.  I know it needs a bath, but is that all it needs or should it be slightly fulled to fluff up the fibres a bit?  What about 'whacking' the skein against the side of the tub to help redistribute the twist more evenly?  And how much abuse can the yarn take?

I'm a big believer in the "try it and see what happens" school of learning so I took one of the sections out of my niddy noddy and wound off four mini-skeins.  Each skein has about 16 feet of yarn and apart from giving them all a hot water bath to start, they've all been treated differently.

Skein 1:  A hot bath with wool wash, squeezed the water out and hung up to dry.  I did not stretch this or beat the skein in anyway. (Closest to the wall)
Skein 2: A hot bath with wool wash, squeezed out the water and whacked the skein against the tub.  I stretched it out around my wrists and snapped it a few times then hung it up to dry.
Skein 3:  A hot bath with wool wash, then straight into the tub which had cold water (I'm on a well - that was really cold water in the tub).  I swished it around a bit then back into the hot water for a few more minutes and back into the cold.  Squeezed out the excess water and snapped the skein a few times and hung it up to dry.
Skein 4: Just like Skein 3 but this took a lot of abuse.  It was heavily agitated in both the hot and cold water and beaten pretty hard before being hung up to dry.  (Closest to the camera)

I'll have pictures of how each of the mini-skeins look when they're dry and then I'll decide how to finish the big skein.   Stay tuned!

Thursday Update

Today was a work from home day - what a relief.  A relief because last night there was a howling wind for most of the night and I never sleep well with a wind like that.  A relief because it means I don't have to drive to and from work.  The past few days - for one reason or another - I've had two-hour commutes (yes - each way) and as much as I like what I do, I can live without that.

And because I'm working from home there is no dress code.  I wore fleece pants and an old sweatshirt today.  Not there there is a strict dress code at my workplace; I'm a software engineer so I can wear just about anything but there is something liberating about going to work in slippers with your feet up on the couch.

I also did this today.

This is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Roving.  Despite the fact that there is a Wool Depot 30 minutes from my house, I decided to give Knit Picks a try.  I was pleased with how quickly the items were shipped and I was happy that when the discount code on the catalogue wasn't recognized at the checkout online, I wrote a little note of explanation  - and the discount was applied when my credit card was billed!  This roving isn't quite as 'easy' as the Blue-Faced Leicester I did last time, It doesn't have much crimp so doesn't grab onto itself as easily but I think as I get into a rhythm with it, it's getting finer and more consistent.

I also did more work on Semele last night.  

If all goes well, this should be finished, washed and blocked within a week.  I'll be happy to finish this as I have something else I want to start....and I'm sure you're getting tired of looking at the same thing day after day!

Lakeshore Drive

So I finished spinning up the roving from SweetGeorgia Yarns.  This was 28g (1 oz)  from the spinning colour six pack in Lakeshore Drive.  The fibre is Superwash Blue-Faced Leicester - for those of you who care to know such things.

I'm really quite taken with this.  I even managed to get a sneaky photo of my camera shy cat.

 

It isn't plied as tightly as I'd like it to be, but I figure this is still a learning process.  I know I can run this through my wheel again to put more twist into it - I might go ahead and do that anyway.

But I really am pleased with the colours in the end result.  

The Semele scarf is progressing too.  I've passed the halfway point and have started decreasing towards the end point.  Apologies for the poor quality photo.  I only ever seem to think of getting a picture of this after the sun has gone down.

Stolen Moments

I have a new work schedule that I'm quite excited about.  I work from home on Thursdays now.  Yup - every Thursday is me parked on the couch with a blankie and my doggie, my own coffee in my cups and a full kitchen to make lunch (which is really funny since I hate making lunches).

So today I hit on a great idea though I'm sure the rest of the world is going to say "Well, yeah...what else were you going to do?".  I took a few moments in the middle of the day to spin.  What a treat to have a spinning break in the middle of a workday!

A little backstory here - I ordered a six pack of BFL roving from SweetGeorgia Yarns in BC and it arrived last week.  I've been looking at it for days now.  Aren't they lovely.

It was a bit of a job to decide which one to start with but in the end I picked this one

I think these colours absolutely scream "Summer".  They remind me of the colour of the water when I was last in Thailand, the colour of the grass by the sea, summer sky with a bit of cloud.  I can almost hear the surf and the sea birds.  

Its the most perfect tonic against this.

Progress

Some days I amaze myself.  I can't believe how well weighting the yarn worked to take the extra twist energy out of this this!  Don't mistake me, there is still a little too much but the hank isn't winding itself up anymore.

This is actually usable.  There is roughly 80 yards.

And this is making progress

I think I better head out and buy a lottery ticket while my luck is holding.

Spinning Saturday

I'm not sure where the idea of "Spinning Tuesday" started.  I've heard it on Knitty and I've heard it from the Yarn Harlot.  A Google search shows that loads of others are now taking part in Spinning Tuesdays - so many that it's actually becoming a 'thing'.

But Tuesday is a lousy day for me; I don't think my boss would take too kindly to me saying "Sorry - I'm not going to be at work today.  Today is Spinning Tuesday".  And by the time I get home, I'm not much interested in spinning.  Besides, I need better light for spinning than for knitting and it's dark when I get home.

But I want to spin.  I've got some big dreams for the roving piling up in the closet and I'm not going to become a better spinner simply by wishing I could participate in Spinning Tuesday.  So I am declaring Saturday to be "Spinning Saturday".  No, not every Saturday and I can assure you there will be weeks where for one reason or another it will slide to Spinning Sunday, but this is the goal - to do more spinning and actually knit something with my handspun.

So this is what I did today.  I had 40g (about 1.5 oz) of roving from Windblest Farms.  Windblest is a farm quite close to where I live that raises Leicester sheep.  I picked up this roving at the Almonte Fibre Festival last fall.  I tried to spin it a few weeks ago and had no luck with it - it was lumpy and kept breaking; a very frustrating experience.  But curiously, I could spin it on a spindle with no problems at all.  This lead me to realize that I'm not pre-drafting well enough.   You can see that its quite a dense roving.

I didn't get a good picture of the singles spun onto the bobbin but they looked really good.  It was a fine strand and was surprisingly even.  So I wound it off the bobbin into a center pull ball and plied it back onto the wheel.  Herein lies the problem - it was plied too tightly so now there is too much twist in the finished yarn.  I washed it, and hung it up with a weight (I used an old water jug) to see if I could get it to relax a bit.

I'm disappointed that there is so much twist, but the finished yarn is pretty even and about the gauge I was hoping to get.  I think now it's just a question of practice before I get it the way I want it.

In other knitting news, I continued work on the Semele scarf  today and finished the second chart.  Now, comes the real test - can I count to four consistently to ensure an even increase?

Stay tuned - I'll post more pictures of this as a work in progress.

In the Spirit of Judith MacKenzie

As I'm sure you already know, Judith MacKenzie lost her fibre studio to fire on October 29.   In the days after, there was a flurry of blog posts and tweets about this, fundraising auctions and knitting patterns released with proceeds going to help her.

So who is Judith MacKenzie?  I asked the same thing.  Judith is a weaver, spinner and fibre artist living in Washington State who has taught at numerous fibre events in the United States.  I've never met her, never had the privilege of attending one of her classes, and wouldn't know her on the street if I passed her, but I can't help but think that the fibre arts community is small and we need to stick together.

That being said, I wasn't much interested in just flinging cash at the problem.  Broadly speaking, I don't do that because so often it isn't really helpful, but if someone is going to do something tangible to help fix a situation, I'm more interested in contributing.  So when the Wild Hare pattern became available on Ravelry for a pair of mittens with proceeds going to Judith's Studio Fund I bought it.  Truthfully, I would have bought the pattern anyway but I was glad to find a way to help.

I have all I need for these, except the red for the accent rows in the ribbing and a few highlight stitches.  I don't need much, just a small amount but I can't really justify the cost of a skein for a few rows.

I did however, have this.  It isn't exactly red, but it's closer to the colour I want.

So, in the spirit of Judith MacKenzie, I made it.

Spinning the roving showing a preview of the finished yarn.

Single ply wound onto a nøstepinde

Used the spinning wheel to make a two ply yarn by taking the beginning and end of the ball made above and spinning back onto the wheel

Wrapped the two ply yarn onto a niddy noddy.

Finished yarn in a skein.