Autumn's Gift

I recently ordered two beautiful braids of roving from the truly delightful Patricia of Yummy Yarns UK.  If I'm horribly 100% honest they weren't quite the colour I'd expected (the joys of monitor variation, NOT I hasten to add any fault of Patricia's) but I've got to say I possibly love them even more than what I was expecting. 

When loading them up into Ravelry though I was suddenly stuck when putting in a name for them (for non-Ravelers, whenever you place a yarn or fibre in your stash you have to enter the name of the yarn etc.  Easy for shop bought commercially produced stuff, not so much for handspun).  My moment of inspiration though was in looking again at the braids.  I'd already decided that I wanted to make a cowl and mittens set from them, to snuggle into on those cold morning commutes, and the weather here has just begun to take on the slightest hint of autumn.  

With that in mind,  a sense of gladness for another academic year completed, new job opportunities on the horizon, the potential for a Masters degree in the near future... and of course finally seeing my DH again soon, "Autumn's Gift" just seemed to fit...

Socks from (almost) scratch

Ok I have to admit to the "almost" before I start.  I didn't shear the sheep, prep the fleece or dye the yarn... but apart from those small bits I'm doing these socks from scratch... well from the spinning phase onwards anyway.  So what am I starting with?  Back at FibreEast I managed to get two 100g braids of BFL/Seacell for £5 each.  With the dark blues and blacks in the fibre, shot through with the very pale blue of the seacell, I thought they'd make a pair of socks that I can get away with wearing for work.

My first step then was to split the fibre into three, one for each ply.  Luckily with the braid being, well a braid, that was nice and easy.  I've also decided to do the spinning on my shiney new Turkish spindle from IST.  I'm away from home quite a lot at the moment so I want to be able to do my plying preparation as easily as possible.  The center pull balls that you get from a turkish I'm hoping will make it easy to wind a plying ball once I've got the singles finished, with no need for bobbins or a lazy kate.  As you can see I've got the first third spun up and have the second two ready to go.

And for a slightly gratuitous shot of the finished first cop:

For those of you not familiar with the turkish style of spindle it has a really nifty trick in that it comes apart, allowing you to remove the cop without re-winding.  The shaft first slips out downwards, then the two arms slide out from each other and the cop, like so:

Leaving me with:

Two more sets of singles and I'll be ready to ply.  After that I need so check the yardage I've managed and decide on a pattern.  I currently suspect that I'm going to get a mildly heathered variegated dark blue yarn, which I'm tempted to try my first patterned sock with.

One quick note on the fibre itself as this is the first time I've used either BFL or seacell.  The BLF is beautiful to work with, drafts very smoothly and is crimpy enough to not slip.  The seacell on the other hand is being a bit of a pain.  It tends to stick to itself causing barber-polling and if I'm not careful detaches itself completely from the BFL.  I'm not sure that I'd go for this mix another time unless it was more blended.  It seems to be working out ok at the moment though.

The start of a much better night in London

What more could a girl want, good food, a new spindle, some beautiful fibre (BFL/Seacell for those interested) and headed out to spend time with friends :-)

A disappointing night in London

Tonight found me in London with the interesting choice of sitting on my own in the Youth Hotel all evening, or seeing what knitting clubs I could find.  For once though I'm not going to say where it was that I ended up.  Naming and shaming isn't really fair.

To be as fair as I can I should say that I took them at their word that for as long as they were open people were welcome to drop in and knit... so I did.  Yes it was evening time (but they are open late), and yes there was a beginners knitting class on, but rarely have I felt like I was so unwelcome.

Ok first up, when I wander into a store a hello is always a good start.  Next up, when a customer says they're in town with work, and that they've called in because they're lonely and your website said that people could come in and knit, I would humbly suggest you either say sure come on in, or nicely explain that tonight things are a little different as the classroom downstairs is unavailable.  The yes you are free to knit, but only if you sit at that separate table over there, approach was erm interesting.

Now I don't know about you but a bunch of knitters in a room don't normally ignore each other.  We are on the whole a sociable lot.  It was a bit of a surprise then that in the (long) lulls between instruction any attempt at conversation was utterly rebuffed.  Actually, if I'm honest it wasn't that much of a surprise.  If a tutor had spoken to me like that in a class that I'd paid for, I would have been asking for my money back.  When has it ever been a good instructional technique to say how hard something is to do (casting on!) before the students have even tried... well I could suggest a reason but out would be less than charitable!  The word Bagheera does however spring to mind.

All in all it was a real shame.  The shop is stuffed full of beautiful yarns, they have an amazing range of needles and accessories, they even have some awesome looking project bags... and will I ever go back to buy something?  Not unless it is the last yarn store on Earth... and then only of I'm out of fibre too ;-)

Adventures with Silk

Whew!  One mammoth swatching, stitching and writing session finished.  As promised the write-up from the silk spinning class at FibreFest 2011:

Jane started the class with a talk about commercial silk production, the reason being the majority of preps that we as hand spinners use are rejects or offcuts from this process.  It was good to finally get my head round what each of the different terms meant as I now have a relatively good idea of what I'm buying and what I can expect to produce from it... note to self never ever ever buy 10kg of carrier rods, dyed or not! (Only funny if you were there sorry).

The best part of the class though was getting to try out the various different preps.  I've ended up sewing them in slightly out of order from how I spun them but I'm not sure it makes any difference.  First up in my notebook is the throwsters waste.  This is basically the off-cuts from the reeling/weaving process.  Apparently you can buy them still gummed for not very much and then degum them yourself, or save yourself the hassle and buy them ready dyed and degummed.  Either way we cut it into shorter pieces as the staple length varies massively before carding it.  It was my first attempt at carding anything so I left it fairly uneven rather than worry too much.  Unsurprisingly it ended up fairly slubby when spun.  For my own spinning/knitting I can see the potential, but unless it was much cheaper than silk tops I'm not sure I'd bother with the added time of carding it myself.

Next up was the tussah silk top.  I've never see this in its natural colour and can really understand the comment of "spun gold" now.  When spinning it it drafted like butter, but got absolutely everywhere!  It is so fine and so light it sticks to everything.  I think it took me the best part of a week and several washes before my dark jeans stopped sparkling!  The top sample is a set of singles as this is how I've tended to buy pure silk in the past.  The bottom is a laceweight 2ply which I really wish I'd photographed on the spindle as singles.  It looked like I had a drop of gold somehow stuck there instead of a cop :)

The latter may also have resulted in a slightly expensive trip to the Oliver's Twist stall!  Oh well :)

The next prep was spinning straight from the degummed cocoons.  Here I have to own up to absolutely hating this fibre.  Spinning it was fiddly but not too bad, and the cocoons themselves tend to be cheap as anything.  The yarn though, urk!  It is slubby which I'm not a fan of but worse than that, have you ever bitten a towel?  You know that horrific squeeking feeling that goes right through you?  Yup it does that between your fingers as you knit it.  I hate it, I hate it, I hate it and it very nearly didn't make it into the book for that reason.

The second sample though redeems the page.  It is spun from silk hankies.  These have to be one of the easiest things in the world to spin, but one of the hardest to get even, for me anyway.  Basically you carefully peel off one hankie from the stack, then stick a hole in the middle of it.  From there you gently (or not so gently) pull your hands apart to start stretching it out.  What you're aiming to do is to pre-draft the circle of silk to the width you eventually want the yarn to be.  The staple on these is so long that you stand slightly less than no chance of drafting as you spin so all the drafting is done beforehand.  Once you've got the circle at your desired thickness you break it, curl up the resulting pencil-roving-esq fluff and get on with the spinning.  Overall I can see the appeal.  Far less mess than the tops for an almost as smooth yarn.  Now if I can just get my diameter issues sorted I might be convinced.

All in all it was £20 very well spent.  Jane is a superb teacher and the other students absolutely made the class.  Now I wonder what they'll be running class-wise next year...

Adventures with Corriedale parts 3 & 4

Apologies for posting this lot in utterly the wrong order for you.  I had totally forgotten that I'd not yet posted the rest of the sampling, so with no further ado...

Part 3 - also known as attempting to learn how to spin supported!

Well I eventually got the hang of spinning on the Russian, albeit still as a park and draft style.  My diameter control is almost none-existent in terms of anything intentional, but if I didn't think about it too hard (like when talking to utter strangers on a train!) it seemed to come out relatively even.  I have since been told that spinning from the end of commercial top on a supported is a quick way to madness... but I've got to say it didn't work out too badly.  Yes there are thick and thin bits but they're not a million miles different.  Plying it also helped.  Is is considerably less even than my drop spindled yarn, yes.  Is it unusable, not at all.  One thing I did notice though was that it bloomed much much more than the other yarns have done up to now.  Annoyingly, and I should have thought about this before I did it, I don't know whether it is down to the spinning style introducing more air, or that I didn't weight it when I hung it to dry.  Given the amount it bloomed I would guess at a combination of the two.

Part 4 - or how to do a 3ply on a vertical lazy kate/get yourself in utter tangles

I've not done a 3ply before but given my hankering for socks at the moment I thought an experimentation in this field would be a good idea.  The single sample I have I've got to say doesn't feel representative of the majority of the cop.  I think its a little thinner and a little more twisted.  The backplied sample though starts to show the singles better.  I'm not totally sure what use this had given that I then 3plied it but hey its there for reference :)

Ah the plying.  Hmm never ever give a demo on how to ply something when you've never tried that particular version before.  My kate is untensioned so the capacity for lots of backtwist and other general snarlyness is increased.... especially when you mix is a somewhat damaged wrist that can't turn in certain ways at the moment.  Lesson learnt from this one?  Wind a plying ball next time!

Problems with plying aside I was pretty chuffed with this yarn.  I'd been aiming for a finished yarn of about 14wpi.  On skeining it the initial yarn was closer to 18wpi so I decided to dry it unweighted in the hope that it would bloom a bit, and what do you know it did :)  Turns out the Fleece & Fibre Sourcebook has it right.  It wasn't as dramatic a change as the yarn done on the Russian (24 to 18 wpi) but an alteration of 18 to 15 wpi is still worth noting.  The fabric has much more of the "sproing" that I'd expect from a sock weight yarn too.  It is noticeably thicker between your fingers and has a nice bounce to it that I suspect would feel very nice in socks etc.  Not convinced the fibres would hold up to that kind of abuse on their own though!

Adventures with Corriedale - The nice stuff

Well after much sampling of undyed Corriedale, including spinning, plying, washing, drying, swatching, mounting and writing of notes, I finally decided what to do with the beautiful dyed braid I bought from Alison (@Yarnscape) at Fibre-East earlier this year.  Whilst I'm sure the 3ply would have been soft enough it is inherently not great for lace given its tendency to collapse in on itself.  The thicker 2ply wasn't bad, unlike the diabolical wire of my first attempt!  The sample that really felt softest of all though were the singles spun to about 20ish wpi.  So that is what I've gone for.  I've still no idea on the pattern yet but I'm fairly sure it will be another shawl of some description.

These pictures don't even come close to doing justice to the stunningly subtle shifts of colour that Alison has managed to get into the fibre but they give you a general idea...

 First up a nicely dressed spindle (its the 27g Ebony IST):

 

Then two of the yarn close up, one with and one without flash:

 

Socktastic

The occasional downside of knitting a lot of lace is that you crave something simple to knit.  Now the spinning is certainly simple but it just doesn't cut it on the utterly mindless front.  I wanted something that was complete "stick your brain in neutral"... and then I started to crave making socks.  Now this is something that happens to me every now and then.  As a general rule I loath knitting them, round and round and round and round in the same old stockinette stitch, but every now and then I have the urge to knit a pair... or three.  I think what set me off this time was the thought of spinning for something other than a lace shawl.  I'm still new enough that the thought of a full jumper's worth is daunting, a pair of socks on the other hand :)  So I've got some fibre thanks to the Krafty Koala at FibreFest, and a new spindle on order but I wanted to start knitting NOW darn it!

Luckily for me a quick diversion on the way to work via GetKnitted netted me some of the stunning Jillybeans Tweed Sock yarn... and a new set of needles.  Now I have to admit the latter were an utter "well I might be bored later and I could cast on for the socks and hang the fact that I've got a set of 2.5mm circulars at home" moment.  Needless to say I wasn't bored later and driving home I was feeling very guilty at wasting the money on something I didn't really need (there must be a lesson in there somewhere about stepping back from a situation and being a bit more mindful rather than "wanting" all the time).  It turns out however that I got very very lucky... I didn't have a set of 2.5mm circulars.  I do have the KnitPicks DPNs set but prefer to magic loop where possible as I tend to get less of a "ladder" at the crossover points.

So why I hear you say have I cast on with the DPNs?!?  Well I've loaned my ball winder to the lovely Laura at Wool so that those buying insanely long skeins of laceweight can wind it before they leave, meaning I didn't have it at home.  I didn't really feel like winding several hundred yards by hand so called in on the Friday to use it there.  Luckily for me and the other knitter at the shop she's just had her autumn/winter stock come in, including a whole load of luscious sock yarns... many of which haven't come with samples making it harder for her to sell.  I'd said a while back that I'd be happy knitting some up for her so grabbed the first ball while I was in.  One busy train ride home later and I had cast on the first of the shop socks on, you guessed it, the new circulars.  In my defence I try to prioritise commission pieces above my own knitting and avoid using DPNs on the train as I have a bad habit of dropping them, hence starting these on the circulars:

Both are knitting on the same size needles (2.5mm) but are feeling slightly different.  The bamboo is beautifully soft, as expected, but is creating quite a nice thin fabric.  It is dense enough for a good sock but doesn't have much of a squoosh factor to it.  The ball band recommended using 2mm - 3mm needles so for a demo piece the 2.5mm seemed a good pick.  I would worry that the 3mm would be really quite loose for most knitters but suspect that quite a few may prefer to use the 2mm for the extra density you would get.  The Jillybeans was always going to be more squooshy as it is a merino/superwash merino three-ply with lots of loft in the yarn before you start.  These I could easily have gone up a needle-size on without much effect but given that two of the plys are straight merino I wanted the extra strength of a slightly denser fabric.  It does have to be said though that it is a real ugly duckling of a yarn, stunningly beautiful in the skein, less than lovely in a ball but working up to be really quite pleasant when knitted.  They're not my usual style but the idea of Autumn trudging round the streets of London makes me want to have something to make me smile on my feet :)

Enabling at FibreFest 2011

This weekend saw what I think will be my last fibre/yarn related event of the year, FibreFest held down at Bicton College in Devon.  Mum got the train down to stay with me on Friday night before we picked up one of the ladies from knit club and headed down on Saturday morning.  Luckily (somewhat) the weather was kind to us on the drive down and while we wandered around the outdoor animal section, only starting to utterly bucket it down when we got into the first of the main tents.

You know you've maybe done one or two too many of these in a year when the stall owners start to recognise you!  I think I've already mentioned that having spun up the Nightfall yarn I was about 150m short of what I need to knit the Vermont Shawl.  The fibre was a limited edition blend so I was rather worried that I wouldn't be able to get hold of any more.  A quick email to Sara of Sara'sTextureCrafts though and she said she'd take some down to FibreFest for me to pick up or she could post it.  Needless to say I went for the former.  As I wandered over to the first tent I heard my name being shouted.... Darrin had recognised me and had my parcel already in hand :)  Now that is what I call service!  They were pretty busy having managed to get one of the best spots in the marquee but still both stopped to grab some snaps of the Vermont wip:

Mum and I spent most of the rest of the morning just wandering around the first tent and the indoor stalls.  I was very restrained and only bought two reduced braids from Krafty Koala which I hope will make some gorgeous socks (BFL and Seacell if you were wondering):

Lunch is has to be said was literally a bit of a washout.  I'm not sure if it was the fact that the College had reneged on their agreement to provide catering, or that no one had thought of a wet-weather plan but we got kicked out of the building where everyone was sheltering from the rain to eat our picnic outside!  I'm not sure why it was deemed ok to drink tea and coffee inside but our sandwiches would have caused problems, or why someone couldn't take a sensible view on the fact that it was bucketing it down outside, but it was just one more example of the less than stellar planning that had taken place (don't get me started on the faff of booking and they paying for a course!  Apparently giving people money causes them a mass inconvenience!)

Anyway, after lunch I headed off for a brilliant silk spinning class with Jane Deane while Mum continued to mooch around.  I'll do a longer post about the class later when I've got all the samples mounted and written about.  I did have to laugh when I came out though.  For someone who was in two minds whether or not to buy a spindle on the way there, I found my Mum deep in a demonstration of wheel spinning and with a good 300g of BLF and alpaca ready to play with (I had already helped her sort out the dilemma as to whether or not to buy the spindle... like that was ever in doubt!).  A bit more of a wander and I ended up with the following as my final haul:

From top to bottom:  The first niddy-noddy sold by Jane Dean (1m skein length), two BFL/Seacell braids, a set of Atomic Knitting lace stitch markers in a very useful little tin, two braids of silk tops from Oliver's Twists.  All in all not too bad.

Given it was the last event of the year I thought it was a suitable time to take a photo of the stash collected this year ready for spinning over winter:

A Mind Like a Clear Pool

I think it would be fair to say that I have been struggling with keeping any kind of meditation practice over the past year or so.  Between a fraught post-graduate course, or dealing with being on my own in the house all day every day as I hunt for an apprenticeship, it has been a year of extremes.  One source of moments of sanity of my day though is the tweets supplied by @tricyclemag.  They range from snippets of quotes, through thought provoking questions, to links to brilliant essays.  What caught my attention today was one of the latter.

Mind Like a Clear Pool is a succinct reminder not only of the importance of practice, but of the stages, the purpose behind and the eminently sensible study/experiment/learn approach. I'm not sure what it is about the article which has so thoroughly caught my attention but something in it has.  Either way I think I need to dust my cushion off again, stop using knitting/spinning as my only meditation, and buckle down to some serious work on taming my mind...