Adventures with Corriedale part 2

Well I've bowled out at least part of the problem with the first sample, it is definitely overplied.  Having now knitted up the singles it is evident that they bias slightly in the opposite direction when knitted up in stockinette stitch.

I've got to say that I'm pretty happy with how this swatch has turned out.  Yes there are slightly thicker patches where I've not got the consistency in my spinning quite right, but it is nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be.  More importantly it feels lovely.  Of course it isn't merino soft, but I think it would make an acceptable scarf without being too scratchy.  What it does look amazing for though is a lace pattern utilising the solid parts of the yarn, with the slight halo giving it an amazing warmth.  

As I said I'm documenting the yardage etc that I'm getting.  In amoungst the measurements I'd been taking was the before and after finishing wpi figure.  From the Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook entry on Corriedale, I'd been expecting the yarn to fluff up massively on finishing, hence spinning deliberately on the fine side.  Well up to now it hasn't.  I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I've been taking care to spin as worsted as possible and weighted the skein as it dried with a spare coat-hanger.  Either way I was starting to doubt the entry until I plied and finished the sample that I've spun on my russian.  Erm wow!  Initial length was 63.7m whilst the finished was only 57.82m, not that bad only losing 10% of the length.  The surprise though was the wpi, dropping from 24 before finishing to 18 afterwards!  I probably should have stuck to the same drying method to find out if it was the spinning method or the weighting which made the difference but I wanted this sample to be as light and airy as possible... and boy is it ever!  Photos and more analysis to follow once I've got the sample knitted up and mounted.

Adventures with Corriedale

I don't know, I don't blog for a couple of days then a couple of posts come along at once.

I thought I was time I started posting a bit about the fun I've been having with those samples I posted a photo of back on the 4th of August.  As I've got a braid of beautiful Corriedale from Yarnscape begging to be spun I thought I would start with the undyed New Zealand Corriedale sample.

My first attempt was a fairly fine set of singles, the idea being to then ply them to a laceweight.  I may have overshot my initial idea a bit when I ended up with a plied yarn at 44wpi!  The problem is that the yarn is really rather "crunchy".  I suspect I've overplied rather than underspun as, when comparing the final yarn to the self plied sample it looks miles out.  That I've overcooked something in the spin/ply was rather highlighted when I then knit up a small sample square.  From the photo below you can see the blatant bias when it is knitted up using stockinette stitch.  Believe it or not that sample was knitted on 2.25mm needles which are the smallest I own!

As you can see I'm documenting the stages of the spinning, partially in the hopes that I learn from my mistakes, but also so that I can recreate the bits I appear to get right.  As it all fits into an A5 folder I'm hoping it will be small enough for me to throw in my bag when wandering around fibre fairs.  That way I can see at a glance what type of yarn I can produce from which breeds, and compare the braids etc on offer with the samples that I have also stuck in.

It has to be said that I'm enjoying the freedom of having bought fibre purely to play with.  The first 10g or so turned into an utter snakes wedding, resulting it a fast trip to the bin, after I decided that making a plying ball with singles the weight that went into that sample above was a good idea... using a ball winder!  It really wasn't.  Not keeping them under tension resulted in the biggest yarn barf I've ever seen!  Most irritating.  The next 2g or so formed the sample above, and another 8g (can you see what I'm doing here :) ) has been spun into 22wpi singles.  So so soft!  Although I've finished the yarn I've yet to knit up the sample so that one has yet to be documented.  You really wouldn't believe both mini-skeins came from the same fleece though.

As to the rest, I've almost finished spinning 10g up on the Russian and there is another 10g on the Amboyna.  The stuff on the Russian really is experimental as I'm still not comfortable with a long draw.  The slubbyness is decreasing although I'm still very very much at the park and draft stage.  The slowness with which I've picked up supported spinning is driving me nuts, but providing many good lessons if only I had the patience to learn them!  I've not really decided what to do with the singles on the Amboyna yet.  I don't want to leave them as singles as I've got a good sample of that already.  As I'm probably going to use the last 10g to redo the lace 2ply (after I've figured out what went wrong last time!) I'm thinking a 3 ply could be interesting.  Going that route I suspect will give me a sock-ish weight, probably tending a little towards the lace side rather than the chunkier side.  Either way it will be interesting to compare 3 ply to the 2ply.  Then I just need to get another bag to spin chunkier yarns, low twist, high twist, n-ply.... or maybe not until I've worked through all of the other samples!

Clearing the decks

It is looking like life is about to take a slight turn for the tumultuous, with me spending the majority of September living in a youth hostel during the week (the joys of unpaid internships!).  With that in mind, and the upcoming trip to FibreFest 2011, I decided to finally get the yarn/fibre mountain under some kind of control.

First up was investing in a couple of Really Useful Boxes to store my fluff and spun yarn in.  I'm hoping that by locking it all away it will a) keep the dust etc out b) stop the spiders trying to show me how it's really done and c) will have it looking nice and tidy for when hubby comes home.

Next up was finishing up a project that has been on the needles for what feels like ages, Little Arrowheads.  With my damaged wrist it was obvious that I'd never get InDreams finished in time for the DyeForYarns Ravelry competition, and to be honest after almost a week of solid work on it a little while back, I'm mildly sick of the beads.  With my Mum's birthday coming up soonish, and her wanting a project knitting up I wanted my needles back from the Arrowheads shawl, and to get it out of the "hanging about on the sofa" pile of projects.  So here it is:

Its a much simpler design than I normally go for and if I'm honest it really isn't one of my favourite FOs.  The only reason it got started was that I'd used a skein of the yarn in testing lace patterns for a class I might run, so had 110 yards of it knocking about doing nothing.  A free pattern dropped into my inbox so I thought I'd combine the two.  The intention is for it to have an extended vacation at Wool so that other knitters can see what the yarn looks like knitted up.  As it's hand painted the colour changes are very fast when you're knitting making an odd but nice effect.

Nightfall

Just a quick post to add the photos of Nightfall:

#OperationCupOfTea

With the utter madness that appears to be taking over what is fundamentally a good country, this seems like a brilliantly British way to voice our disapproval - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=261568193854371
The power of silent condemnation.

Getting my skates on

Well I've finally finished spinning and plying Nightfall only to realise I'm probably a good 100m short of what I need to knit the Vermont Shawl by Hanna Breetz.  Thankfully it has a) ended up a little thicker than I'd intended, at about 16-18wpi, making it a heavy laceweight and b) Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts has some more of the blend in stock.  Whilst I would have preferred to not be joining skeins mid lace, I think there are a few sections where I can make it invisible without resorting to the thicker patch made by a russian join.  Photos will follow once I've got the skein dry and re-measured to see what yardage I've lost in the finishing process.

The project I need to get my skates on with though is the In Dreams for my friend.  That self-imposed deadline of the 20th is looming very large now!

Mindful thoughts, mindful speech

Today has been one of those days that really makes me think of the value of not only being mindful in what I say but also in the thoughts I allow myself to dwell on.  Suffice it to say that a certain person that I am currently spending some time with is challenging both my patience and my conception of them as a person.  Words such as bigoted and self opinionated spring to mind, sadly in conjunction with ill-informed and not-using-the-brains-you-were-born-with.  After fourteen hours, and to avoid an ugly argument I decided that the path to peace for all involved was to leave well alone.  Mindful speech can achieve only so much, and it is impossible to educate or even discuss with a mind closed to the possibility of other points of view.  How I deal with the feelings the day has raised however remains to be seen.

Of plying and parcels

Today has to go down as a good day in spinning terms.  Last night at knit club I started spinning the final 25g of Nightfall, finishing it before I got to bed last night... and no it wasn't a crazily late finish either.  I have definitely got faster with my singles, and having finally learnt how to butterfly yarn up on my hands my plying has sped up too (though you would rather hope the amount of it I've been doing over the last couple of days!).  So this morning I wound the singles on to the second bobbin ready for plying leaving me with this:

Sadly I've made the mistake of starting the plying on the Ebony IST and I'm not at all sure it will all fit!

On a more positive note a couple of parcels I've been waiting for turned up (finally thank you Royal Mail).  The first was a book called the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.  To say this looks stupidly good is an understatement, the only downside being that it is a hardback and weighs a ton for dragging round fibre fairs.  Having glanced through it though, the hastle of carrying it about will be more than worth it.  Wow, just wow.

My other squee moment was opening this parcel of amazingness:

I now have 400g of fibre purely to play with, guilt free if I make mistakes, just to get to know what the breeds are like and how to use different methods of spinning.  Heaven in eight little bags.

Complete spinning insanity

I think it would be honest to say that I've gone a little mad over the last 48hrs.  Monday evening saw me put the last 50g of the Phoenix fibre on my spindle... and finish spinning it that night.  Ok not so bad, it was just a solid evening's spinning.  The next morning saw me have it plyed, skeined and washed in a little over three hours.  Again still not totally nuts.  The biggest challenge with this one has been matching it to the first skein.  In the photos the original is at the bottom with the second at the top.  A month of spinning laceweight and then going back to spin singles for a sport weight was interesting, especially when I tried to add in the slight slubbieness of the original.

The madness though was in starting the August spin challenge from Ravelry.  This month's theme was "Hot August Nights" and the second batt I'd bought for my sister-in-law seemed appropriate, reminding me of a sunset seen through a sand filled sky, like you get in Dubai.

Well for some reason (something about there allegedly only being 30g of fibre) I decided to spin the singles up that evening, which actually went remarkably quickly... so quickly that the mad part of my head thought it couldn't possibly take that long to ply the singles!  I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed with the singles, as they were much more brown than I had expected from the vibrancy of the outside of the batt.

After seeking some advice from the brilliant Spindlers group though I decided to ply it back on itself rather than ply it with a solid red.  Having seen the final skein I think it was the right call.  A solid red would have washed out the red from the batt, bringing even more to the fore the pale brown sections.  Again, like the first one of these batts that I've spun its not the softest thing in the world but it doesn't feel overspun either.  I think the slightly rougher hand comes from the complete mongral mix that it is made of (Romney, Merino, Mohair, Gotland, Sari, Cotton, Lurex).  Having again spun using a long draw the yarn feels nice and airy, but with an almost tweedy look to it.  All in all not bad.  At just shy of 60m for the 38g it is definately a highlight yarn, or a square of a throw type skein, but either way it is definately usable.

In Dreams - end of Chart 5, and trip to Coldharbour Mill

Can you start to see a theme in my productivity at the moment?  Firstly, I think my friend really would like this to be finished sooner rather than later, but secondly DyeforYarn are running a competition for projects made in their yarn, and finished in July or August this year.  The design is probably nuts enough to rate a few "love" clicks on Ravelry... now I just need to get it finished by the third week of August!

On a spinning related note I wandered down to Coldharbour Mill this weekend just gone.  First up I can highly recommend the treacle tart that they sell in the restaurant... absolutely divine, stupidly huge slice and a sugar headache to last three hours.  Now I must admit I didn't go round the mill itself, having wandered round lots of similar as a child.  From the outside though it really is lovely and I could imagine any budding photographers wasting many a productive hour round the leats etc.  My main reason for going down though was the craft fair they were hosting.  I must admit I've been eyeing the pieces of felt I've been seeing recently with increasing interest... not enough I hasten to add to try it!  Well the fair gave me the perfect chance to sit and watch the process of wet-felting, and as it turns out give some impromptu spinning demonstrations.  Needless to say I didn't escape completely without increasing the "to-be-spun" stash, with the following lovelies from Sara's Texture Crafts: