The cure for grumpy pants

I've been in a crappy mood all week. Grouchy, out of sorts, irritated by everyone and everything around. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm pretty much ready to be done with it...

I think I've found a solution to my mood, though, and it involves wool (big surprise, right?) Lots and lots of wool.

Hello Yarn Fiber Club Shetland, colorway "Dark and Stormy", June 2013 offering
Spun singles on Lendrum, 15:1 ratio
Plied (3-plied) on miniSpinner

WPI: 8-10, so somewhere around aran/worsted weight.
Grist: still needs to finish drying, so check back later
Yardage: 1100 yds total.

This comes out at heavy worsted weight according to wpi, but it feels bulkier to me. I pulled out all the fiber I had and tore each length in half, and then each piece into fourths and mixed them all up randomly before spinning. I spun the singles woolen, using a long backwards draw, to get fluffy, airy singles. The yarn is super light and cozy - I can't wait to knit it up! I'm thinking this is going to be a sweater with deep ribbing at the hem and cuffs, a loose fit and cables around a turtleneck or cowl. Kind of like this sweater that Allison pointed out to me this week, only my own design because I don't have the pattern.

So my cure for the grumpies is Shetland wool. At least this week - next week it will probably be merino and silk...

Seeing improvement

I noticed something during my whirlwind Christmas weaving frenzy that really brought home how quickly spinning can improve in a short period of time. Take a look at these two scarves.

Notice anything about them that strikes you, from a spinning perspective?

Let me clarify a bit. Both scarves are woven from SW merino handspun - the first is from fiber that I dyed at Yarn School in 2008, so about a year and a half after I started spinning. I spun it up in December of 2008, and ended up with 185 yds/4 oz of 14 wpi 2-ply yarn (approximately fingering weight). As I said in that post, this is some seriously dense yarn (740 ypp). I also made the comment that I was much happier with this SW spinning experience, as it was a lot less overspun then my previous attempt at a superwash fiber.

The second scarf is also woven from SW merino, this batch from Hello Yarn in the colorway "Peat" (March 2009 Fiber Club). This arrived right before we packed everything up to move to the UK, and might have been the first yarn I spun after we moved. I ended up with 200 yds/4 oz, about 12 wpi, a true 3-ply, coming in at 800 ypp. I loved this yarn so much I hoarded it away until the perfect pattern came along. Strangely enough, the perfect pattern was no pattern at all - just simple warp faced weaving with some brown sock yarn for weft.

After I washed the two scarves and let them dry, I noticed some really striking differences in the feel of the fabric. Note: they were both woven at the same epi and same ppi. But the blue scarf is much stiffer and has a less consistent fabric surface then the brown scarf (which I think you can see in the above pictures). Here's a few more to emphasize:

It's really obvious if you look at the fringe.

Although I may have felt (with my vast experience of 1.5 yrs spinning time) that the Yarn School SW Merino was an improvement in terms of overspinning, it's clear that another 6 months of spinning (and a sweater lot in the middle there) made a huge difference in the quality of the yarn I was making. The brown yarn was much more flexible and pliable, and the resulting fabric was super cozy. The blue yarn ended up making a fabric that, while still lovely, was quite a bit stiffer and crunchier.

Suffice to say that it was desperately hard to let the Peat Scarf go off to it's new home, but it's one of the few times I've finished something and thought: this has to go to Person X. I hope he appreciates it!!! I know the other recipient appreciates his...

Wheel surgery

A few weeks ago I made a wee list of Holiday Crafting Goals (TM). I got everything set up to whip through my Christmas gifts in record time, got a few done, and promptly turned around a began spinning up a sweater lot of Hello Yarn fiber (Dark and Stormy Shetland, so glorious!). Predictably enough, the Holiday Gift Gods saw my hubris, and decided that it was time to give me a swift kick in the ass, because there I was, happily treadling along, when suddenly, I wasn't...

I don't know if you can see so well in that photo, but my footman and my treadle are no longer connected,

which means no more spinning!

I'll admit, a few tears were shed. And then a bit of money was spent on replacement parts from the lovely Morgaine at Carolina Homespun. After some back and forth about where to ship the parts, they were sent out, and arrived here in London yesterday*.

So this evening, feeling flush about having finished the overseas Christmas New Year's presents yesterday, I took the wheel into Himself's lair for some surgery.

Taking out the first bit of the broken connector was straightforward, involving one screw driver. Then things got a bit more complicated: the second end of the connector is held in place by a screw with a square hole in it.

No problem, thought I, and I pulled out the drawer of small wrenches for all sorts of things.

Apparently I need to rename this "The Drawer of Small Wrenches for All Sorts of Things that Need Hexagonal Wrenches".

No problem, I thought again, I live with a man who has more hand tools then I have skeins of yarn (no joke!). Surely there is something in this garage that will work. Some pawing through another few drawers and, ta da!

A square headed screw driver type-thingie! That is too big...le sigh.

Ok, I needed to bust out the big guns - time for the power tools:

Not one, but two square drivers. One the same size as the above screw driver, and one bigger. Bugger.

Now I am trapped at the point of having a half-way repaired wheel, with a spinning lesson tomorrow morning at 10:30 am, and no way to unscrew this damned teensy screw. The Holiday Crafting Gods are not to be messed with people, not to be messed with...

So I'm going to go drown my sorrows in Peter Pan pantomime (with The Fonz!!!), and see if I can't puzzle this out later. Or maybe just get Himself to do it - I'm sure he can come up with something, right?

* It should be noted that Morgaine sent them out immediately, the delay came from the fact that they went to Houston, then to Himself's office mailroom, and then to Himself (and, by extension, me).

How to prove to the world that you are an idiot who can't read a calendar

So, apparently I'm a bit over excited about this whole Tour de Fleece thing. Because not only is tomorrow NOT the 21st of June (which is the date I had stuck in my head for the start of the race), it is also NOT the start of the race. This was very gently pointed out to me by a dear friend and I am now totally humiliated at my complete lack of functioning brain cells. And my ability to double check my drivel before I exposed myself to public ridicule. Oh well...the up side of this is that I now can stop carding myself into carpel tunnel syndrome, and I can do a bit more organizing of my plan of attack.

There has been a bit of training going on (but only a very little bit): some Oregon Green Wensleydale on the Turkish spindle.



This was my maiden voyage with the Turkish, and it's absolutely lovely to spin with. IST has some with weights added to the cross bars to increase the spinning time - this one doesn't have them, but it spins beautifully anyway.

Then I dove into the Hello Yarn stash for a bit of squish factor:

Hello Yarn Polworth in Troll, the December 2012 club offering
Spun/plied: singles spun at 15:1 on the Lendrum, backwards point-of-contact drafting, plied on the miniSpinner
Stats: 271 yds/~4 oz, 10-18 wpi, 1084 ypp, true 3-ply
Comments: Like all of Adrian's fibers, this was an absolute pleasure to spin. I did this as a real 3-ply instead of chain plying. I split the 4 oz bundle into 3 pieces of equal length, then split those lengths for fractal spinning. The first piece I split into 3 (mostly) equal sections lengthwise, the second into 4 pieces, and the third into 6 pieces. I spun them end to end, but for the first and third plies I reversed every second piece to maintain the color progression. So if the first piece started with yellow and ended with purple, I spun the second piece from the purple to yellow.

I tried to spin the singles very finely  with a backward draw, letting twist into the drafting triangle. I wanted a lofty and fluffy final yarn, and I knew from previous Tour de Fleece experience that Polworth has a tendency to fluff up a fair bit during finishing. Before a soak in warm water, the skein from my niddy noddy was 90 inches around, and the wpi ranged from 13-23. Post-soak, I lost 8 (!) inches in length from the skein, and the yarn plumped up into the worsted/DK range.

I can't stop petting this skein - it's soft and drapey and a lovely blend of colors. The yellow/oranges ended up dominating the final yarn, which I'm not such a fan of, but I'll wait to see how it comes out in the knitting (there are some lovely blue/purple/grey sections too!). I'm thinking Multnomah maybe? Not quite enough yardage...Or Traveling Woman? Hmmm...have to think about that while I'm spinning every single day for three weeks. Starting a week from tomorrow...

Fiber Friday: Seasick, three ways

In my excitement to channel Top Chef, I have managed to come up with what my possibly be the most unappealing blog post title ever. I promise it won't be as bad as it sounds, as the Seasick in question is of the fiber variety, not the bodily. Behold:

This is Seasick Corriedale, from Hello Yarn, and it was the February 2010 offering. That was back in the days when I was getting a double dose of club fiber, so I had two bags to play with. I spun up the first bag during the Tour de Fleece last year.

My recent spate of sampling and trying out different ways to spin up colorways for the shop inspired me to split the second bag into two batches. The first half I spun as a standard 2-ply.


I like the barberpole, although I'm not sure how it will play out in the knitting (or crocheting). I ended up with approximately 67 yds of floofy aran/bulky weight yarn.

The other half of the bag ran smack into my sudden and burning need to try core spinning. It was not an entirely successful experiment, to say the least!

I had some mohair core yarn that I got at Ally Pally in 2010 (this experiment has been a long time coming obviously), and I used the miniSpinner to add some extra twist to the core before I started core spinning. I tore the fiber into approximately thumb wide strips and set off.

After a few yards and some fiddling with the miniSpinner, I had two observations: 1) this was going to work better if I predrafted the fiber a bit to really loosen it up, and 2) I would probably do better using the Lendrum, where it was easy to stop and start the wheel, or slow down/speed up without needing my hands. The predrafting part was easy to do, but since I'd started on the miniSpinner, I decided to keep going and use the Lendrum next time.

You can see that I ended up with a number of spots that are waaaaay over spun - I think using the Lendrum will help with that because I can slow down my treadling when I need to - and the thickness is all over the map. Final yardage: 35 yds of more-or-less bulky, fairly non-elastic yarn.

Here are the three versions of Seasick all together:

They are all in the heavy aran-bulky weight range, so I guess I could get really creative and use them all together in something...any ideas?

She spins, she scores!

At least that's what it feels like given the rate at which this bag of fiber got spun up (I didn't even manage to take pictures of the fiber before it got thrown on the wheel).

This past Tuesday was my monthly spinning group, and since I hadn't done any spinning since Wool House, I spent a fair bit of time on Tuesday afternoon frantically pawing through the fiber stash looking for something to play with. I chose this colorway (Fiber Club flickr group photos) on one of my favorite fibers, Shetland. I decided to spin this up super quick to get a bulky 2-ply, and boy howdy did I succeed.

Hello Yarn Fiber Club January 2013, Mouse Ears Shetland.
90 yds/4.2 oz, approximately 325-400 ypp, 3-5 wpi, 4 tpi, super bulky squoosh-gasm
Spun on Hansen miniSpinner.

Details: I split the bundle into two halves, and then split each piece in half lengthwise. Each half was spun drafting against the twist (semi-woolen), and the singles were about 10 wpi.

Started Tuesday night, finished Wednesday night, blocked on Thursday. I love these subtle neutral colors. Adrian doesn't often do neutrals, but when she does, they are absolutely spectacular. This yarn is going to end up as a cozy cowl somewhere along the line. For the moment, I'm just going to cuddle the skein to my bosom whenever I feel the need.

I'm off to Wonderwool Wales this afternoon, and may be enhancing my fiber stash dramatically in the shape of a fleece, if I can find one that I like. Keep your fingers crossed!

Finis

My first pair of socks in just over a year (last pair were finished 20 March 2012).

Pattern: no pattern used, just started at the toe, increased till it seemed about right, knit the foot for a while, did a short row heel over >50% of the stitches (for extra heel room), knit the leg until I ran out of yarn (Sock A) or it was the same length as the first one (Sock B).
Yarn: chain plied handspun, "Gobbler" Cheviot from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club, 95 yds for Sock A and 130 yds (not all used) for Sock B.
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm and US 3/3.25 mm. I should have gone down one more needle size for Sock B, as the fabric is a bit too loose for socks IMHO, but c'est la vie.
Start/Finish: 11 March 2013-20 April 2013.
Gauge: yes
Comments: so...I love this colorway beyond all imagining, and am very happy with the socks except for one thing: clearly my winging the pattern (i.e. not using the Sock Fitting Bible*) has resulted in socks that are too big for me. The heavier weight (thicker yarn) sock is better, but I got a bit too caught up in making the stripes line up perfectly (mostly) and ended up with a second sock that is just a hair too loose. So be it - these will be lovely around the house socks when the cold weather shows up again. In June**.


My next pair of handspun socks (handspun skeins in this post, also with a large edible bird-inspired name) will be done a bit more mathematically, and so hopefully will fit a bit better.

* any and all books about socks written by Cat Bordhi.
** a certain fatalistic British-ness is infiltrating my attitude towards the weather. I suspect this is completely unavoidable. My apologies!

When life hands you a sick child, make yarn

Last weekend, for the second time in 16 days, my youngest child managed to run a fever, thereby ensuring 1) a low key weekend, and 2) no school on Monday. Since Monday, she has spent about 1.75 days at school, as apparently this particular virus has a very long recovery time (which would explain my lingering fug as well...). So I've spent most of the week, cuddled up with Boo and the Wee Dog on the couch, watching 101 Dalmatians (the Glenn Close version - so fabulous!) over and over and over and over and...and spinning. Lots and lots of spinning.

First up: you've seen this yarn before, but now it's had a bath and I have stats.

Dirty Porridge Portuguese Merino/Targhee combo (from Silt PM and Parritch Targhee, Hello Yarn Fiber Club offerings), 3-ply, 1210 yds/20.3 oz (plus 38 yds in the mini skein for swatching), 10-14 wpi, 947/925/990 ypp for the three big skeins. So approximately aran weight. Destined for a big, squooshy, wraparound sweater for me, me, me.

This week, I managed to ply up the leftover singles from each colorway.



I ended up with 130 yds of Parritch Targhee, and 27 yds of Silt Portuguese Merino, both chain plied and approximately aran weight. The Parritch might even be enough for a hat or something, which is a very exciting prospect...

My most recently finished spin for the week (i.e. still drying!) is also from Adrian at Hello Yarn: Gobbler Cheviot.

I started this on the miniSpinner at spinning night on Tuesday, finished the singles while home with Boo on Wednesday afternoon, and chain plied (for the first time on the miniSpinner) last night while watching Game of Thrones season 1.

I want matchy-matchy socks from this fiber, so I split the top in quarters lengthwise and spun two pieces end to end, added a bit of waste yarn in the middle to mark the split between the two skeins, then spun the other two pieces. I also tried chain plying on the miniSpinner, which I hadn't done before, and it went pretty well, once I figured out the right speed to set.

Final yardage is 95 yds and 130 yds, so either I split very, very poorly or I'm going to need two different needle sizes for each of the intended socks. Hmmm. I love the colors though, and my goal is to finish the socks by our next spinning night a month from now. Initially I intended them for me, but I suspect Himself might decide these need to be his....good thing his birthday is next month!

However, I didn't limit myself to Hello Yarn fiber in this spinning frenzy. There was also a bunch of Porpoise Fur. I finished (i.e. fulled) the Parakeet singles I spun up last week,

I ended up with 100 yds/2 oz (800 ypp, about worsted weight), with only a few spots of overtwisting and no breaking when skeining - result! I was hoping for a bit more yardage so I could whip up another singles hat for myself, but this may end up as a kid-sized version.

Finally: the fastest sweater lot (I hope!) ever.

This is a pile of Magpie Shetland-silk that I've spun up for a sweater for barter as part of mine and Alli's SSP*. Started the singles on Sunday afternoon. Finished singles Monday morning. Finished plying Tuesday night. Finished yarn by Wednesday. 480 yds/16 oz, 8-5 wpi, 480 ypp, super bulky (At least in my eyes. In fact, it's so bulky I'm not sure I have needles big enough to get a nice fabric!). I spun the singles on the Lendrum at 12:1, doing a backwards draw to keep them light and airy (and superfast to spin). In essence, I let some twist into the drafting zone and pulled backwards against it - kind of a long draw, sort of, maybe**. I plied it on the miniSpinner trying to keep the plying twist low to maximize the yardage. We will see if I have enough once I swatch and do some number crunching!

And...I think that's it for me. One week, 705 yds of yarn from scratch, 157 yds of newly-plied, and 1348 yds of newly finished and measured yarn. Which makes a total of far too many 2210 yds of finished yarn for the week. Basta!

No more spinning for me for a while - with all this fresh new yarn around, I've got to get knitting!

* Sooper Sekrit Project.
** I can hear the screams of the true long draw spinners from here. Sorry!

Get a miniSpinner, if only for the plying

This week I learned the true value of the Hansen miniSpinner: super amazingly fast plying.

Sometime in November I started spinning 24 oz of fiber (first blogged 23 November) - 16 oz of Portuguese Merino in the "Silt" colorway,


and 8 oz of Parritch Targhee.


Last Friday, I finished the third and final bobbin (the Targhee), making it just about 2 months for spinning the whole 24 oz. Yesterday, I finished plying the last of the combo, making it less then a week for plying 24 oz of fiber (!):

Here it is in all its glory:

And in extensive, close up detail...




Clearly the miniSpinner is da bomb (and speedy!) for plying. Truly!

These big squooshy skeins are still a bit damp, and the small final leftovers/swatching skein still needs a bath. I'll update with yardage/wpi/grist statistics when I've figure it all out. Have a good weekend!