In Dreams - end of Chart 4

I've finally manged to pull my finger out and get some decent progress on the In Dreams shawl I'm doing for a friend.  I'm a bit hampered by my wrist at the moment as I can only knit for about 40 mins before it starts to ache, but if I take it carefully it seems to be ok.  The pattern though is turning out even more beautiful than I thought it would:

I was just messing about to pin this for a photo, so I left the cord it's being knitted on in, which isn't something I'd normally do when blocking.  That said though, for this design I might use it in the final blocking as it seems to give a really nice sweep to the edge. The top edge I suspect I'm going to have to use a few wires on, one at the very top of the peaks, one in the main row of eyelets and a further line to hold the bottom of the edging straight, which will be interesting to say the least.  I'll have to see how the pattern progresses but this could be an interesting challenge.

Fibre-East and spindling russian style

Last Saturday I made the longish drive up to Fibre-East held just east of Milton Keynes.  A three and a bit hour drive there, and the same back made for a long day but it was worth it for the new spindles I got.  Having been utterly bitten by the spinning bug, I was after a 25-30g drop spindle for spinning silk singles on and had been toying with the idea of learning to support spin after the interesting experience that was spinning on an aircraft recently.  Knowing Ian from IST would be there with his stand of temptation was enough to make the drive worthwhile:

From left to right are my Indian Rosewood russian spindle, spindle cup and my 27g Ebony on Sycamore rim banded drop spindle.  The cup I should say was very kindly not charged for which was much appreciated.

Yarn wise I actually behaved myself (though after the amount I'd just spent on spindles it was probably sensible), and just succumbed to this beautiful braid of Corriedale from Yarnscape:

I must admit it was the chat to Alison (of Yarnscape) that really made the trip worthwhile.  Whilst the spindles are beautiful, I could have bought them online.  The impromptu lesson in fibre properties, the differences between 2 and 3ply and a few other spinning related things beside on the other hand was spontaneous, very helpful and exceptionally friendly (can I get any more superlatives into that sentence do you think?).  It was the kind of thing you only get by going places and meeting people face to face.  Speaking of which I ought to say thank you to the ladies I shared a table with during lunch too.  I now know more about Shetlands than I did before and you put up with all of my beginners questions.  Thank you.

So, spinning on the russian.  Hmm.  Well, having taken to the drop spindle like a duck to water, trying to use this was like hitting a brick wall.  I don't know if it was the difference with being shown how to do it and learning from the University of the Interwebz, or that my hands just didn't get supported spinning, but I've struggled like crazy with this.  The Soay I bought just wouldn't draft, the phoenix merino/silk twisted up like crazy or fell off the spindle, and I didn't want to risk wrecking any of my other fibres as they're all earmarked for actual projects.  In the hopes of getting some cheap(ish) practice fibre and of bumping into other spinners I wandered over to Jumble Jelly this morning.  A lovely morning ensued, 50g of alpaca bought but sadly no other support spindlers so I was still stumped.

So what was a girl to do?  All of the videos I'd found up to then were of experienced spinners looking like they were doing six things at once.  What I needed was a "park and draft" style lesson for a russian spindle... one like this!  All of a sudden I got it, a bit of a faff getting it started but I got it.  The yarn isn't pretty, it certainly isn't consistent, I wouldn't like to try knitting with it, but it is yarn!  I think a bit more practice on this and my muscle memory might kick in.  A lot more practice and I might even make it to the heady heights of those spinners I saw in the other videos!

In Dreams - end of Chart 3

Hurrah for the end of Chart 3!  It had just a few beads in it.  I think at its widest the bead row was taking about 30mins... and its going to get bigger!

 That said I'm absolutely loving the design.  The tussah silk from DyeforYarn is gorgeous to knit with and has a really subtle variegation to the yarn.  In places it almost glows a gold through the deep red.  I can't wait to see it finished, though at this rate there might be a fight when I have to give it away.

First batt, art yarn and the long draw

Firstly I think I need to make clear that what follows was a very very very bad idea!  Combining learning how to use a new fiber prep with a new way of drafting, and then do that with something designed to create art yarn was at no point a good idea.  That said.....

A couple of weeks ago I wandered down to Exeter to the Devon Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers' fleece fair.  One of the lovely stalls selling fiber was Sara's Texture Crafts, from whom I bought the following with the intention of spinning them up for my sister-in-law.  She's got a degree in fine art and knits stunning things with yarns that I would never touch, always seeming to get the best out of the colours.

Now the first problem is that I've never spun from batts before so this was going to be experimental to say the least.  I found Abby Franqemont's  and the Bellweather's flicker shows of how its done and went from there.  So here's how my first one went in photos:

1) The front and back of the batt once its been opened up.  I've used the second from left in the photo above, and as you can see the bright colours are far fewer than they looked when it was rolled up.

2) I've then split it into four strips, and subdivided each of these into two chunks each.  One slight problem I did have when splitting them was that the "arty" bits tended to detach themselves or form long bits on their own.  One strip of sari silk was particularly irritating and the lurex is now all over my living room floor!

3)  Having suitably muddled the chunks up I then started the spinning... long draw... for the first time ever... really what did possess me to think that was a clever idea!  The first chunk I tried spinning from the fold.  BAD idea, really really bad idea with this stuff.  It just felt very stilted.  I think the utter mix of fibre staples, combined with me not really knowing what I was doing just made it much more difficult than it needed to be.  That combined with spinning on my 45g Ashford meant the yarn filled with twist very quickly, meaning I got a lot of backspin.  The next few I spun from the end, still long draw, and it seemed to start to work better.  At least I started to get the idea of how it should work.  The backspin was still happening, but not quite so quickly which meant I could at least spin some yarn before I was attempting to control the spindle again.

4)  Having spun the whole lot as singles, I decided to leave them as that.  It ranges from something I'd be happy to use as a lace single, to something almost Como width!  I wound the skein round my feet as usual before tying it, dunking it in Soak and giving it a brief thwak.  It seems to have fluffed up nicely as it dried overnight and I now have approx 70m of my first art yarn.  Whilst its not something I would like to knit with, or indeed would ever buy myself, I'm pretty happy with it.  Hopefully sister-in-law will be too!

Wrist distaff cont.

First up and as promised some pictures of my wrist distaff.  This first one is just it lying on my desk so you can see the beads and charms that give it some weight.

And this one shows it loaded with 50g of tops hanging as it would on my wrist.  The upper silver bead allows me to tighten it against my wrist which seems to stop it sliding about so much.  Although I doubt I'll spin 50g of lace at once (for starters my spindle can only just hold that much plied!) its good to know the distaff will take it for when I spin thicker yarns.

Having used it a bit today I can see it being a big success.  One thing that I'd not anticipated is that the placement of the beads allows me to hang my spindle on the distaff when I'm not spinning.  Useful when you want to make a cup of coffee and don't want to put everything down, or when you need to show your ticket on a train mid-spin.

A wrist friendly project

Well with my wrist still in a splint I've been rather limited in what I can do. That silk sample has also been tempting me to do something with it. With only 50m or so to play with, and a temporary inability to knit, I decided to create a very slim wrist distaff using a weaving method I used as a kid to make bracelets. I think it is actually a Japanese technique but the version I know involves a cardboard disk with a hole in the centre, and slots around the edge. By moving the threads from slot to slot across each other you gradually weave them together.

Anyway, with the main cord complete, I bought a load of beads etc for the weighted end, and have a three hour train journey in which to attach them all this evening! Photos as ever to follow.

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Broken wrist!

It would appear that the price of an amazing holiday with my other half was to possibly have broken my wrist. No spinning or knitting currently possible! I don't know where to put myself!

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N-plying continued

Ok so I've decided I like n-plying... for the right yarn and the right project.  I'm interested to see how some pure merino would work up doing it as I suspect my "go to" shawls will take some wear, and that the extra ply may protect them a little.  My new spindle is also really rather nice, albiet very tiny... not surprising for its 10g weight though.

Mindful speech

There was an interesting debate on TV this morning which got me thinking about everyday mindfulness. The program was debating the extent to which the public was to blame for the events which occurred at The News Of The World. The argument put was that without the pressure of the public hunger for such stories, the hacking would not have taken place. An abdication of responsibility if ever I heard one!

It did get me thinking though of both the unintended consequences our actions have, and some of the utter drivel I choose to watch and listen to. I wonder why it is that I wouldn't dream of eating pizza every day because of the poor effect it would have on my body, but am happy to listen and watch such poor quality programmes etc...

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N-plying

Note to self, learning how to n-ply with lace weight silk is not a good idea! It's an even worse idea when you've never spun silk before. That said I'm gradually getting the hang of the silk, and the plying is fairly simple.

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Of completions

As promised, a picture of the finished Hiker.  I am finally more or less pleased with how it turned out.  Washing it was a little emotional as it suddenly stretched itself out of all proportion!  A quick corralling with the help of a tape measure though and it started to look a little better.  What never ceases to amaze me though is the transformation that takes place as a piece drys.  In this case, when the yarn was wet it almost shrank in on itself in terms of loft, resulting in a horribly open looking piece of material.  As it dried though, the stitches gradually filled out as the yarn fluffed up again.  Now I just have the wait to find out if the recipient is happy with it... fingers crossed.

My other completed piece of work has been the laceweight,Waves Breaking, a 50g bag of merino/silk that I bought at Woolfest a couple of weeks ago.  For the princely sum of £1.75 it instantly became my second skein's worth of practice fluff.  While I was plying it I could see a distinct difference in the first 100m or so of the singles that I'd spun but after that it was fairly even.  The plying seems to have balanced out most of the variations in thickness and a quick thwacking during the setting process did wonders for the slight overspin.

As with the first First Phoenix it was a bit of a learning curve.  Getting the drafting fine enough was not as hard as I had expected, even if I did put the "drop" in drop spindle on a number of occasions.  With singles this fine and long though I didn't even contemplate Andean bracelet plying it!  Instead I treated myself to a lazy kate from the Spinning Weal along with two bobbins.  As things worked out the first half almost filled the spindle in terms of what I was happy to continue to spin with, meaning I could wind it off onto a bobbin without worrying too much about joins.  First lesson learnt was to never ever ever just take the cop off the spindle... cue an utter yarn barf by the end!

Anyway I ended up with both bobbins about a third full and set off plying them.  I just used a simple 2 ply method, holding both singles together whilst spinning the spindle in the opposite direction to the singles.  I'm a flick spindler rather than a thigh rolling one, so I could get a good meter or so plied in each run.  That said it still took about 5 hours to ply the lot.  Most impressive (even if I do say so myself :) ) was the amount I managed to cram onto one spindle:

In lieu of a niddy noddy I wound the skein around my feet (has the advantage that I can pull my feet together to release the skein rather than getting it stuck on a chair!) then gave it a quick soak in some Eucalan.  A couple of thwacks against the side of the bath and a night hung up in the airing cupboard resulted in this:

All in all, for my second ever skein I was pretty happy.  Hopefully I can work on getting the singles a little more even before I try my hand at some silk.

Hiker complete

Hurrah I've finally finished the Hiker jumper!  For a project which started off so quickly, with the front/back/collar/one arm finished in about a week, the final arm has been tortuous.  I'm still not overly happy with the finished item but it is at least complete.

For once I did swatch before I started and, for the needles given, it worked out perfectly... I should have realised that this was a bad omen.  The back went well, though as it was ribbed it was hard to say.  The fabric felt a touch loose but nothing to write home about.  So far so good.  The front though was where I started to worry a little.  The stockinette section just felt too loose with the gauge looking like it had really loosened up.  That said the overall size was looking good.  Then I moved onto the collar.  I would like to take this moment to register my irritation with badly worked out, lazy patterning.  If you knit as described the ribbing on the neck will bear little to no resemblance to what you've just picked up stitches from!  So a little redesign and I was back on track.  The sleeves are ok pattern-wise.  It is a little annoying that the rib at the cuff isn't as symmetrical as it could be but that is a minor inconvenience.

So I finished it, unsure of the gauge and sure that it would be larger than required.  Imagine my surprise when it transpires that the gauge is a little loose... but the overall object is near as damn it perfect on the given dimensions!  Some things I will never understand.  I'm just glad it is finished and can now be washed and blocked ready for handing over on Friday or Saturday... photos to follow.