Definitely Tomten

Merino "Burning Bush" 2-Ply and Baby Alpaca 2-Ply. Baby bliss!

Work has kept me extremely busy, and when I'm typing away at my keyboard so much, one of the last things I want to do in my free time is type away at my keyboard (or read anything). When I have had a free moment, I have either crocheted a pansy or spun, spun, spun. As a result, the handspun that I talked about in this post is finally all spun up, and some of it is even knit up. No time for any more designing than I already have going on here, so it's definitely Tomten. Plus EZ's designs are all somehow perfect for handspun, don'tcha think?

Handspun and the bottom half of the Tomten Jacket.
Babies seem just impossibly small!

Adventures in Spinning: She Learns to Sample

I have really missed writing to you guys. It feels like time is moving so fast with this baby, and work is so busy that everything is just passing me by. There is so much that I want to document - in both my knitting and pregnant life - and somehow the opportunity eludes me. There are times when I don't write because I don't feel like it - usually I get tired of hearing my own voice and just need to go away to have something new to say - but this has been an involuntary hiatus. If I could I would stop time and just sit here and fill pages.

Cherry and Burning Bush singles - note the lightness in the singles to the far right which came from the "inside" of the roving.

When work is done I am usually tired enough that I can't do anything that requires math, deep thought, or being at the computer. (I have pregnancy brain so badly already that I went into the bathroom at the obygyn's office to give a sample - not because I had to go but because they needed a sample - and just completely forgot to pee in the cup. It wasn't until I got all the way back and the nurse asked about the sample that I realized I had forgotten. D'oh!) This lack of brainpower has translated into time spent spinning and knitting very simple things.

The spinning has been fantastic (the knitting has also been quite satisfying). I have some gorgeous merino/silk (80/20) roving from Spunky Eclectic in the Burning Bush colorway, that I decided I wanted to spin to make something for the baby. Surfing around on ravelry, I found this beautiful Baby Surprise Jacket done in 2-ply Burning Bush handspun, and fell positively in love. I decided that I would spin my roving up into a 2-ply for a Tomten Jacket. (Also an EZ design and kind of similar).

Gorgeous rich alpaca singles - slippery after working with merino silk!

The only issue was that I only had 4 ounces of Burning Bush and I wasn't sure how far that would go. (I really need to start documenting my handspun so that I have a good idea of how much yardage I can expect to get out of a given amount of roving.) To make it go further, I decided that instead of plying it all on itself, I would do one 2-ply of Burning Bush and one 2-ply of Burning Bush and Chameleon Colorworks Cherry or maybe just ply all of the Burning Bush singles with some medium brown alpaca that I have 4 ounces of and make it go really far.

The Burning Bush roving.I should back up and tell you that when it comes to roving, I pretty much do things the exact same way every time, except that sometimes I will spin a singles instead of a 2-ply, and I also vary the weight. I know, so creative! Anyhoo, although I have read all about different ways to use the same roving and combine rovings, for some reason I just have very little patience for spinning a little, plying it, and seeing if I like what I get. Finally it hit me that my method of spinning was a lot like making a sweater without a swatch. When I taught beginning knitting I would always do my best to make swatching fun - both because it is so essential to gauge and because it is such a great way to get your creative juices flowing. I have always made a point of saying that if you don't swatch, your entire sweater becomes your swatch. It's the same with spinning - if you just pick a method and go until you are out of roving, what you've got is what you've got - your sample is your yarn. Sometimes that is great and a wonderful way to just let go. Other times, not so much.

So, after a very cool ravelry discussion on the zillion different things that I could do with these Burning Bush singles, I decided to take some sage advice and actually sample. I am so glad that I did. I knew that both the brown and the red would dominate the Burning Bush colors, but I really had no idea how much. In this case, I really like the bright crazy colors of the roving, so there is no real incentive to mute them with a solid, but in so many other instances, this would be a great tool to have in my back pocket. In one little session of sampling I learned a ton about how to mute or preserve bright color. I also completely changed direction and decided that for this project I would mute the color and use the brown. I really like the red as well, so I may order a few more ounces of Burning Bush to ply with the cherry for some other baby project.

The swatches - brown alpaca and burning bush for now; swirled with cherry for later.

I'm also glad that I followed the sampling sequence that I have. To make sampling fun, I spun up most of the singles for the Burning Bush and Cherry rovings first, and also spun up quite a bit of the alpaca as well. I knew that I would be happy with all of these singles at the same weight even if I didn't end up plying them together, and I also knew that I would have more fun if I didn't have to work through all of the singles after sampling. (Again, impatience.) This would not work when sampling different weights, of course, but since I knew I wanted to end up with fingering to light DK weight, it was a great method for my purposes. My method worked out especially well, because the Burning Bush varies quite a bit in intensity, getting much lighter near the "inside" of the roving. When I actually get to the knitting phase, I will counteract that a bit by switching between skeins to get a striping effect.

The sampling part was awesome. I wish I had some shots of the 10 yards or so that I spun so that you could see how different the yarn looks skeined as opposed to knitted. I have plenty more to spin, so I'll be sure to do that later for those of you who are as geeky and new to spinning as I am. I really love both the alpaca and cherry version. Now the only problem is the project. I love the Tomten Jacket and do want to make it eventually (Baby Surprise Jacket, too), but I think for such a special handspun I need to come up with something of my own. We'll see.....

Handspun Handknit Braintrust? Bueller? Bueller?

I feel like I'm a little cursed when it comes to knitting up my handspun. I've tried several times and keep having to rip and re-start. It's funny, because I pride myself on being able to pick the right project for a particular yarn, and yet when it comes to my own yarn I'm a bit stumped. Exhibit A: the wonderful party dress handspun:

Gorgeous yarn, crappy swatch.

This definitely falls into the category of "what the hell was I thinking?" Clearly, this stitch pattern has got to go - the vertical welts are totally duking it out with the horizontal stripes. D'oh! So many rookie mistakes all in one project - yikes. I've been calling this one "The One in My Head," but I'm pretty sure it's the one NOT in my head - anywhere! I think my first mistake was spinning the roving into too thick of a yarn. It's totally fun as a skein, but for me the practical value of a brightly-colored, striped, bulky thick and thin yarn is questionable. I would have done much better to spin this as a DK or sport-weight. It is wonderfully squooshy, though, and I really do want to use it, so I'm going to soldier on after a little break. I'm thinking something on the diagonal would be good, and something for a child or baby would be well-advised. Maybe a funky chevron scarf for my niece? Or one of those diagonal scarves that everyone used to make with Kureyon? Or maybe even another so-called scarf? Sadly, I'm having trouble being terribly creative with this one! If you have ideas, puleeeze leave them in the comments. I could use all the help I can get! [Edited to add: I've spun it all and have about 310 yards to work with. You guys have already come up with a ton of good ideas! Keep them coming!!!]

My saving grace: Judy's Grandmother's Baby Sweater.

In general, I've been pretty stumped the last few weeks. I think it's partially because everything on my needles is my own designing and I've reached the point where I really need to either write things down or do some math or both, and my little pea brain just is not up to it. It's a shame, because I was so excited about all these ideas about a month ago, and made some real progress. (Luckily, I did type up the pattern for Mishka during that time period. It still needs to be charted and sized, but the instructions are there rather than somewhere off in the ether.)

Best part? Komari's little face!To break this bad knitting mojo, I decided to start a baby sweater. I have a ton of baby knits to make this year - tis the season! - and it never hurts to start early. Ever since seeing LoriZ's grey Rambling Rose (which she needs to get off her butt and photograph! Edited to add: she did!) I have been dying to knit with my favorite Rowan Wool Cotton - the king of yarns. Lori's sweater doesn't even use wool cotton, but the yarn she's knitting looks like wool cotton and that was enough to set me craving for it. The whole time I watched her knit I was dying to snatch the yarn out of her hands and get in at least a few rows. Instead I had to be patient and start something of my own. The other advantage of the baby sweater is that it is involving and yet contained. I want to get a bit involved, but not overwhelmed, so this is the perfect project. Plus, after going through my grandmother's old knits I was pretty inspired. Everything she did was a little work of art.

I settled on Judy's Grandma's Baby Sweater from the Greetings from Knit Cafe book. I have to say that I have been fortunate to be included in two of my favorite pattern books ever, and GFKC is one of them. (The other is Boho Baby, which is bound to get heavy use this year.) I have wanted to make this baby sweater since I first spied it in Knit Cafe over four years ago. It' simply stunning in person and the unique construction makes it extra special. My love for this pattern is rivaled only by my love for Veronik Avery's Gansey Layette, which I have made three times (and will probably make again this year). I can't believe I didn't knit it earlier. Anyway, I am finally able to engross myself in knitting again, and that is a nice relief. I'm hoping that this little respite will allow me to return to my plans for a few other things on the needles. Some things will undoubtedly get pushed to the back-burner, because I have much more than usual in progress right now, but having tasted the fresh air again, I think I will be able to dive back into at least a few of those stalled projects. Thank goodness!

Spunky Club December 07: Party Dress

Makes you want to dive in, doesn't it?I seem to go through phases where I spin, spin, spin, and then my wheel languishes for months on end. After having my crew over for spinning recently, I was inspired to kick-start my own wheel time. I started spinning a little over two years ago using Amy Boogie's Spunky Eclectic Fibers, and I have never been disappointed in anything that I've gotten from her. More than half of my spindle collection, my niddy-nosty, and much of my past spinning fiber is from Amy, so I decided that it would be fun to keep up the collection and join the fiber club. Amy sends out 2-4 ounces of "mystery" fiber each month to fiber club members, and that sounded like just enough to keep my toe in the spinning waters without the possibility of becoming overwhelmed. Plus I love the idea of being exposed to new fibers (or old favorites) in new colorways. Surprises can really get the creative juices flowing. For December, Amy sent out 4 ounces of brightly colored Corriedale roving called "Party Girl." It looks positively edible to me.

The Superskein lives!!!

Although I love spinning bright colors, I don't usually end up wearing bright colors in combination. A single bright color? Sure! But three is a bit much for my earth tone wardrobe. So I decided to spin up a bobbin of party dress and a bobbin of white merino superwash that I found at my local spinning shop, Stick & Stone Fiberarts, and ply them together. Perfect. The colors come through bright and clear, but are muted just enough by the white, spongy merino to coordinate with other things in my closet. Honestly, the party dress roving is so pretty that if I couldn't use it for myself I would knit it into something for one of the numerous children in my life, but post-Christmas I am a little gifted out, so it is nice that I can selfishly dedicate the roving to myself!

Birth of a Superskein, Swatch of a Superskein...

I love the results. I got so engrossed in spinning party girl that I just couldn't stop. The resulting skein is - as you can see - HUGE. It swatched quite nicely, too. I am not sure if I will knit it into something using the 2 by 3 broken rib in the swatch or something else, but I am definitely inspired to start contemplating what this yarn could be. I've only spun about half of the roving I have and already have 180 yards of aran-weight yarn. It feels like there is real potential to get a substantial finished object out of the party dress roving. So far this fiber club thing seems like a great plan!

Orange Camo Christmas

At 4:57 p.m. on Saturday I ran gasping into the Fedex Kinko's and mailed off the last of my handmade gifts. The guys at the counter laughed at me, but assured me that my box would get put on the truck - although it would be the very last one. The recipients of said gifts, Ma and Pa T., are avid readers of this blog (well, at least Ma T. is, I'm not sure that Pa T. could survive the excitement of reading about knitting), so that is enough said until Santa has safely made his way to their house tonight and the gifts have been opened.

Bird's nests. A camouflage Christmas bouquet.

Singles on the bobbin.Although it is fun to read about all you crazy knittin' folk running your fingers into the ground until all hours of the night (and early morning), I don't enjoy doing it myself. God forbid that I miss the big deadline, because a gift unmade at Christmas is a loathesome thing - I could never get myself to return to knitting it for the incredible resentment of the obligation. I have been smart enough to limit the handmade gifts to two per year, which keeps the level of insanity at a dull roar, but after the outright panic that I inflicted on myself this year, I've decided to go to an even lower-key system next year. I'm doing no handmade gifts, and will instead spend the season knitting Christmas gifts and ornaments for someday. That way I can enjoy seasonal knitting, look forward to giving handmade gifts sometime in the future, and be stress-free.

M's homemade sushi. Heaven.Anyhoo, this is all a long way of saying that on Saturday night I found myself quite happily unoccupied. No work. No obligatory crafting. (That should be a four-letter word, "obligatory crafting.") No cooking. (Moxie kindly went to Little Tokyo and picked up the ingredients for his famous homemade sushi - yum!) So I pulled out the Rose and a tube of merino that Marnie and I picked up in Solvang on our Portland Roadtrip, and began some pre-drafting festivities.

Looks strangely like the sushi, no?Pretty soon I began to realize that the color sequence in the tube was very likely to produce something akin to orange camouflage. But I was curious, so I persisted, and pre-drafted about half of the fiber into nests with four nests for each color. I spun half of the nests going in one direction on the "color wheel" and half on a second bobbin moving in the opposite "color wheel" direction. Each bobbin has two repeats of its individual sequence. Then I plied them together, and found that yes, an orange-olive camouflage-colored yarn was indeed produced by this combo, but I kind of like it. I'm not sure exactly what the heck I can knit with it, but it is pretty unique.

Orange Camo plied on the Rose. Just because.

The best part about the whole thing was that I got back to the (meager) level of spinning expertise that I acquired the last time I was spinning regularly. This is pretty nice, because I've done some "playing around" spinning in the interim that was piss poor, and I wasn't so sure that I would ever get back that feeling of simultaneous relaxation and focus that practiced spinning can provide. Even better, I feel like I am beginning to learn a little more. Some of the lessons that the fiber has to teach are sinking in and I'm beginning to employ some real techniques rather than just hacking my way through. Very exciting. Merry Christmas to me. And Merry Christmas to you, too. I'll see you on the flip side.

State of the Rose

I know that some of you must be curious to know what is going on with the spinning projects. I've been doing much more knitting than spinning lately, both because I have been captivated by the projects I'm knitting, and because my fiber stash is in a place where I don't have too much that I feel I can play around with without having a plan. Right now I feel like playing when it comes to spinning. I have knitting plans; I don't want spinning plans. In between my knitting projects, I have played around here and there with a bit of merino that I got at the Santa Monica Fiber Festival last summer. Marnie spun a bit of it, too, when she was out here for work a few weeks ago. Here's what it looks like so far:

The first ply

This is a sister fiber to the lovely "mud" roving that I spun up in the fall. You might think that I would make more of an attempt to prepare it differently, but in this case I'm looking for the subtle variations of the "mud."

I have a bad habit of hoarding my handspun rather than knitting it. I have recently been reminded of the great error of my ways by Mary Heather, who I taught to spin in September. MH has not only taken to spinning like a fish to water, she has already gone on to complete her first handspun project (which is freakin' gorgeous!) and has plans for a second. Although I have started two handspun projects, both will have to be ripped (more on that later), so I still haven't finished a darn thing!

I keep telling myself that I hoard because I have been spinning such small quantities of each fiber and that I need to spin more before I have enough skeins that will work together in a finished piece. I have an idea for a handspun turtleneck based on a wonderful sweater from last winter's anthropologie catalogue, and I think I have several skeins so far that I can dedicate to that piece. My hope is that this skein will coordinate with those as well. I think that the more colors I add, the more likely it will be that no single color will stick out like a sore thumb. At least that seems to be the principle that the great color artists like Kaffee Fassett and Brandon Mably operate on. We'll see how well it works out for me. I generally work more with shape and texture, and don't consider myself particularly talented when it comes to the multi-chromatic word. This will be an adventure.

I've Been Nupped!

Seriously, people. The next time I offer to write up a tutorial on anything, will you remind me to shut the hell up? Because honestly, no good deed goes unpunished. Offering to write up a tutorial on how to make sure you have enough yardage is really just a fancy and foolish way of asking, no begging, to run out. (Declaring that you have spun koigu probably doesn't help, either. I have a lot to learn from koigu.) So here it is, in pictoral format, my tutorial on how to ensure that you have enough yardage:

Look familiar?!

Go back to the freaking wheel and spin some more. Even if you have to order $2 worth of roving to do it. Suck it up, stop being such a scrooge, and for gosh sakes throw away that damn spreadsheet. Just make (or buy) enough yarn.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, it was the nupps on the Swallowtail Shawl that got me. I am pretty confident that for the most part, my intricate spreadsheet that indicated I would have enough yarn if I made only a few little tweaks and cut out two of the initial repeats was right. The thing is, that even that estimation told me I was cutting it very, very close. And each nupp requires about 5 more stitches than the average stitch - 4 extra go-rounds and another stitch to account for the fact that you have to make them loosely and the stitch that brings all the yo's together is a fat one. And 5 stitches times 5 nupps per branch times about 40 branches (or something like that - I'm done counting!) is, well, a lot. It takes up some yardage.

I don't want to admit how much time I have spent tweaking this pattern and crunching numbers to somehow try to get a Swallowtail Shawl out of 290 yards of fingering. And what for? It is a small shawl to begin with. Why make it so tiny that I can't even wear it?

I realized that I had a problem the other day when my best friend and I were discussing knitting the Marseilles Pullover together. I was going through my mental rolladex of stash and trying to figure out which yarn I had exactly enough of, and eliminating any possibilities that would leave me with too much leftover yarn - say, 25 yards! And I do this all the time. When I make a scarf, I cut the fringe near the beginning of the project, so that I can knit, knit, knit until the bitter end. I weigh my socks in progress, so that they use up as much of the yarn as possible. I did this with the River Stole, too. For many of my projects, I end up making modifications so that I can use some stash yarn that I don't have quite enough of. When the lace leaf pullover was done, I had a four-inch tail left. Almost scary, isn't it?

The thing is, I know myself well enough to know that I will never really learn my lesson. I like spreadsheets, and I like having inches of yarn left when I finish a project. It's just the way I'm wired. But I am going to give in and do the sensible thing with this shawl, because it is my first handspun project and I want it to be great. And I've chosen another yarn for the Marseilles Pullover, so I'm pretty sure that I have plenty of yardage for that. I may even have just enough to eek out a coordinating hat. Hmmm. Maybe I should make a spreadsheet....

Knitting, Spinning, Family

The Knitting:

Swallowtail shawl in merino tencel handspun: far and near.

It's going well. I thought that I might be a bit short on yarn, so after I finished the tenth repeat, I weighed the yarn I had used (40 grams) and the yarn I had left (75 grams). Then I made a spreadsheet to determine how many total stitches a full swallowtail shawl would take (18,583), and how many stitches I could expect to get out of 115 grams of yarn (~15, 900). I determined that if I took out two budding lace repeats I would have enough yarn, and that if I simply added two rows with 4 yarnover increases before changing to the next lace pattern, I would have the correct multiple of stitches for the following lace patterns. This shawl was actually pretty ammenable to tweaking, so I really lucked out. I'm sure that what I wrote here sounds pretty complicated, but it's doable. If enough people are interested, I'll write up a tutorial on adjusting this type of shawl sometime. You never know when you'll need to double-check yardage and re-adjust. It sounds dull as dust, but I'm happy to forego the excitement of running out of yarn close to the end.

My adjustments may very well make the shawl too small to be practicable to wear, but I've decided I'm enjoying it so much that I don't really care. If I can't wear it, I'll frame it. It's a lovely pattern and a really nice use of the yarn. I'll let you know if it's wearable or not, though, just in case someone else has 290 yards of fingering that they're considering using this way.

The red sparkly Christmas beret is almost finished, right on schedule.

This is an easy knit. No thinking, no tweaking, nothing. Perfect for a gift, and completely season appropriate. Normally I shy away from sparkly, but this really appeals to me, and the person it's for does sparkly quite well.

The Spinning:

Heart's Content: 80% merino, 20% bombyx silk from Chameleon Colorworks.

I spun this at the spin-in at my house on Saturday. It's only 57 yards, but I should eventually be able to incorporate it into a project with some other handspun. I love the colorway, and especially after washing, it is really soft.

The Family:

The crew, hanging out in bed the morning after the spin out.

We never used to allow the dogs (we had two) in bed, but now that Caia is an elder, we just put an old quilt on top and let her sleep wherever she wants. The night of the spin-in she insisted on sleeping with me, and when I finally woke up, exhausted and dazed, I found that I was under a pile of furry love. I slept in that little corner at the top! It's amazing the way the kitties pile on when Caia is in the bed. They find the tiniest crevasse and wedge themselves in. Not much sleep, but a lot of love.

Postcard for Marnie

Dear Marnie,

We just wanted to let you know that we miss you! We did much knitting and spinning in your honor, from 2 p.m. to 12 a.m. (!!!) yesterday. Much sugar, and some healthful foods, were also consumed on your behalf. Here are some of the highlights, top to bottom, left to right: Andrea shows off her recently completed Icarus shawl; MH chills with MJ's gnome; Nonnahs gracefully models one of my Christmas berets; Francesca shows everyone how it's really done on a spindle; Lori and MJ try to sort out Lori's handspun for Andean plying; Nonnahs and Andrea discuss the finer points of Icaurs' lace border; Lori enjoys one of Nonnahs' homemade cupcakes with buttercream frosting; MH checks under the gnome's beard to see what's on offer!

Not pictured are Kat (who I only photographed holding knitting for publication!) and myself. We also took a few group shots, but those are on my Contax, so we have to wait a few days to get the film developed. We can't wait to see you! Get here soon!

Love, Us

Hemingway & Faulkner

I've heard it said that if you want to write, you should read all of Faulkner, and then read all of Hemingway to get the Faulkner out of your system. The styles of these two greats are well-known for being at opposite ends of the writing spectrum, and I enjoy them both. (Though if I had to pick, I'd take Faulkner.) This quote found its way into my head after the long ordeal of spinning the raspberry merino tencel was over. After all that precision, concentration, patience, and striving for evenness and perfection, I wanted to spin something positively organic. (Okay, so this is more like reading Hemingway and washing it down with Faulkner - bear with me.) First, I pulled out my Maggie spindle:

Mystery roving from Spunky Eclectic.This was definitely an experience on the road to satisfying, and it was fun to play with a spindle again, but it was just a little wisp of roving (maybe an ounce?) and I was looking to make a big hank of soft, fluffy, thick and thin yarn, and really have some fun. So I pulled out the Rose, put it on the slowest ratio on the big whorl, and spun up the last few ounces of the chocolate-covered cherries bfl which was my very first roving purchase ever last year and the first thing that I really spun into something approximating yarn. The ChocCherries bfl has brought me good luck. It was also the first roving I spun on my Rose.

Treadling with Townes on board.When you are first spinning, more experienced spinners will look at your lumpy yarn and tell you that at some point you will have to work to achieve thick and thin like that, and that you should appreciate not having to work for it now. (Due to woeful inexperience, no less!) I've taken this to heart and made note of exactly what it was that I've done "wrong" to produce such incredibly large slubs, so that I could later reproduce them at will. If you're just starting, take note - your own foibles put you in a position to learn a lot about making designer yarn. One of my favorite thick and thins from early on was this Tahiti handspun, which reminds me of Manos (but lumpier). I was going for an even more extreme, fluffy version. This is what I got:

So fluffy! So soft! So fun!

I'm going to set the twist using Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' method of simmering the yarn, but I'm waiting until I have a chance to hop over to the Goodwill and buy some old stockpots, because I think it's probably a bad idea to simmer dyed yarn in the ones we use for our soups and stews. I've been really impatient to knit with some thick and thin yarn, though, so in the meantime, I've pulled out my Tahiti skeins and started knitting a Christmas Scarf for my little niece, Sophie. I really like how it's coming along so far:

Zoom in, zoom out.

This is almost as good as reading The Bear.

I Have Spun Koigu

I know. It probably sounds a bit boastful, and when I say it, I don't mean that you should all turn in your KPPPM and start begging me to spin for you. My yarn definitely has some "features" that you won't find in koigu, but that said it is shockingly similar. The funny thing is that it wasn't intentional, and that I didn't even notice until I started knitting with it. I just had a strange sensation of deja vu. And then it came to me. I had managed to spin something a lot like my absolute favorite yarn for socks. Happy, happy co-inckie-dink!

I cast on for the Swallowtail Shawl last night. Love it.

I think that the beginnings of the swallowtail shawl look remarkably similar to the beginnings of Charlotte's Web.* Oh happy, happy days. And can I just say that although I am only a wee bit into this Swallowtail pattern I am already hooked on it. It's totally fun, pretty and really easy to memorize. Now I just have to pray that I don't run out of yarn. It's going to be a very, very close call, but I'm optimistic. And I'm so into this shawl that I can't stop. May the knitting gods be with me. Tiffany, my spinning mentor from afar (Marnie was my spinning mentor from anear), is spinning and knitting this one with me. Tiffany, hon, you better spin fast. I'm so excited I may whip through this one despite all the other crap I should be doing.

Here's one last close-up for the knitters out there who are sick of all this spinning content:

See guys? I do still knit! Just with my own brew.

I have several other things on the needles as well, including another handspun project (check the sidebar if you're interested). I've just been so stoked about my handspun that it's been hard to make myself blog the knitting. In this case, it's two for one.

The State of the Koosher
I know that several of you have sent well-wishes to Caia, and I just wanted to let you know that she has improved a lot since last week. Caia is old enough (almost 14) that improvement means we may be able to give her a good quality of life for weeks, or if we're really lucky, months, and that is what we're going for right now. She's not in any pain, and she is still able to enjoy belly and ear rubs, chomping on a bone, and her favorite pastime, naps with Townes. I snapped this picture of them early this morning, before we headed in for her check-up with the vet:

Townes is obviously having blissful dreams of his true doggy love.

I love the way that these two often sleep in similar positions, or even mirroring each other. If there is anyone Townes is more devoted to than he is to me, it's Caia. It's a little bit like watching Pepe Le Pew and that poor black cat. Undying, almost suffocating, interspecies devotion. When we took Caia to the vet last week, we were very afraid that we were at the end, so we brought Townes along. He curled around her head on the exam table and stayed with her throughout everything - shots, having blood drawn - everything. Even the vet was surprised. He said he'd never seen anything quite like it.

*Okay, so that was a crappy Charlotte's Web picture, and never let us mind that I didn't ever get further than that on Charlotte's Web. That was what it looked like before I ripped it out!

Raspberry Merino Tencel

Last week was rough. I pulled some pretty long hours preparing for a presentation in SF that I gave yesterday, and taking care of our sweet Caia girl, who is succumbing to age, despite our valiant efforts and her own. During the week there were only stolen moments of knitting and spinning here and there to maintain my sanity. So on Saturday, I allowed myself to have a complete and total Julia day. I spun the rest of my second bobbin of raspberry-colored merino tencel, plied the singles, spun another skeinlette on my maggie spindle, plied that on my pilchuck spindle, returned to the wheel to spin a wonderful thick and thin chocolate covered cherries singles, knit on one of my gift berets, and then knit some of my handspun for the first time ever. We take our Julia time seriously over here at chez MOW. It was blissful.

Two bobbins of merino tencel, side by side.

Although I know I'm famous for my long-ass windbag posts (and this will no doubt be one, too!), I'm not enough of a windbag to cover everything I did and saw this weekend (Sunday was another Julia day, spent in SF with Emily at the DeYoung Museum, but that, too, is another post), so I'll start with telling you about the raspberry merino tencel here.

The plied singles on the bobbin. This made me soooo happy.

As I've said before, the raspberry merino tencel project was my first somewhat longer-term spinning project on the wheel. Before this, everything that I've done could have been accomplished in a single day, albeit a long one. For this project however, I was going for a finer plied yarn than I've created in the past. The singles were so fine that it took me about 6 sittings to spin each bobbin, and I'd estimate that each represents about 8 hours of work at a minimum. The plying took me about 2 hours, and I was afraid that it was going to take a heck of a lot longer.

Moxie played the role of Margene (of whom he is completely and totally unaware) while I was plying. I was so excited to see the finished yarn I was almost jumpy - chomping at the bit. He kept reminding me that I was supposed to be enjoying the entire *process* and that I shouldn't be concerned about getting to the end product as much as enjoying the spinning that I was doing. I knew he was right, but I thought I was going to kill him. I wanted to see the yarn!

When I was finally done plying, I was left with less than two feet of unplied singles. This made me insanely happy, as I have an obsession with using every little bit of yarn - to the point where it is not unusual at all for me to come very dangerously close to running out of yarn on a knitting project. It's stupid, I know, and I always counsel people to buy more yarn than they need when asked, but I can't help it. I save everything, and I can't stand to have half-skeins of unused yarn hanging around.

Plied singles on my brand spanking new niddy-nosty from Amy at Spunky Eclectic. A truly wonderful tool.

I wound the skein onto my niddy-nosty (love this!) and ended up having about 290 yards of yarn. To be honest, I was hoping for closer to 400 yards, but still, this was almost three times as much as I've ever spun in a single skein, so it was still really impressive to me.

Here's the skein right off the niddy-nosty.
For a zoomed-out shot click here.

Because I had spun the singles over the space of two weeks, there was no way to tell whether the skein was balanced right off the niddy-nosty. (I warned Moxie of this, and his disappointment was palpable. He revels in the fact that I make him guess whether each and every skein is balanced, just prior to niddy-noddy removal. It is prime entertainment for the entire family.) Here it is all curly, but after wetting it hung straight, and is still straight after drying (I thwacked the hell out of it, but did not weight the skein). It looks balanced to me, though I'm sure that there are more experienced spinners who could chime in and let me know how to be sure. (Hint, hint - chime in!)

I love this skein. There are still thick and thin points, but overall, it represents the most professional-looking yarn I've made to date. I'm hoping to knit a shawl from it. I'm not sure that I'll have enough to make Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail Shawl (I've been drooling over Jared's since he finished it), but I'd like to give it a go. If anyone has a good approximation of how much fingering-weight yarn it would take to make the swallowtail, or even exactly how much lace-weight it took, I'd love to know. In the meantime, here are the stats for the yarn:

Fiber: Raspberry Merino Tencel (70/30)
Weight: 4 ounces
Source: Carolina Homespun
Wheel: Majacraft Rose, fastest ratio on the slow whorl
Yards: 290
WPI: 16-17 (fingering weight)

She is (was?) Having Fun....

The pink and blue skeins are from the week before last - the yellow one is the Lemon Sherbet, which you've seen before. The pink and blue are Indigo Moon Brushstroke Batts - alpaca, merino & silk - procured for me by Cara, with guidance from Julia FC at last year's Rhinebeck festival. They are delectible. This week there will be very little spinning or anything else - work, work, work! But, in honor of the upcoming weekend in Rhinebeck, I thought you might like to see the before and after shots.

Before.

After!

Cara, would it be too boring to ask for more of the same? I love this stuff!

I'm a Twisted Sister Part II: How to Turn Pencil Rovings into Mud

When last we left my beautiful Rose Quartz merino roving, I was doing a little experiment to see how the roving would look if I split it lengthwise into several multi-colored pencil rovings and spun it up. If I had actually remembered what I read in the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, or perhaps gone back to reference what the workbook said, I might have known to expect a little mud. Being the intrepid ignorer of the wonderful books I read in preparation for such exercises, I did not. In so ignoring, I have re-invented the wheel and performed the experiment all over again, in living color (or not so much?) for you, dear readers. I give you mud:

But it's a rather lovely mud, isn't it?

Happily, I think mud might be the preferred color of choice in this case. When I purchased this roving, the name Rose Quartz seemed to fit it better than it does now. It had a definite overall pinkish sheen to it, with tons of other colors as little accents. Photograhed, it appears that purple is the dominant color, with strong accents of green, and when you ply it, that is really how it turns out. I know that I read somewhere that the best way to figure out which colors will dominate is to photograph the roving and see what dominates (I can't remember if this was in Twisted Sisters or not), and I'm here to tell you in this case, at least, it works. I like green, and I like purple, but honestly I *think* I'd rather have brown with accents of both than see the two try to compete in a barberpole yarn. We'll see for sure if that 's the case when I try to figure out how to get them to do that.

As promised, here are some shots of the process:

One of these bobbins is not like the other...

Here's a shot of the two bobbins prior to plying. The one that looks bigger actually weighs a smidge less. I like how the purple has a bluish cast here. It doesn't make it through the plying.

The plied yarn on the bobbin.

Here's what it looks like plied on the bobbin. This is where the brown effect really starts to sink in.

All niddy-noddied up.

When you view it from a distance on the niddy-noddy, the overall effect is a purpley brown. Subtle, and nothing like the original roving, which had a distinct lack of subtlety.

The dregs.

You might remember that I attempted to weigh out the roving so that I would have equal amounts of yarn in the singles with very little leftovers. Even if I had weighed everything perfectly (which is hard to do with a kitchen scale that does grams, but not tenths of grams), my uneven spinning would likely throw the lengths of the singles out of balance. And it did, but not by too much. I'm not sure exactly how much I have sitting there, because two weeks later it is still hanging out on the bobbin, but I'm guessing only about 5 yards at a maximum. It could be worse!

All skeined up and hanging out with the lantern.

Here's a final view of the skein in its native habitat. This was actually the heftiest skein that I have spun yet - a total of 140 yards. (Woo hoo!) Eventually, I will return to this roving and alternate ways to prepare it, but for now, I'm knee deep in several other rovings which have distracted me in the last few weeks. In the meantime, if you want to see the differences between spinning from pencil rovings and spinning from the fold, as demonstrated by a much more experienced spinner than myself, check out this post from the other Julia.

Some Help for Achieving a Balanced Ply

The other day, Marnie wrote about how to check to see if your plied yarn is balanced while it is still on the spindle (or wheel). I found this really useful, and was suprised that I hadn't thought of checking my plies this way, especially since I know a similar trick for checking to see what your plied yarn should look like before you actually ply it. Sometimes the rudimentary things just don't filter down! Anyhoo, along that line of thought, I'm sharing the trick for checking to see what your plied yarn should look like in advance. For most, this will be old hat, but perhaps it will help a relative newbie (like me!).

Check your ply in advance in four easy steps.

1. Hold a length of yarn out taut from either your bobbin or your spindle shaft.

2. Place a pen (or any other lightly weighted household object with a hook) over the yarn.

3. Allow the yarn to spin until it slows and begins to spin in the opposite direction - don't let it actually backspin, or if it does, let it go back to "zero" where it isn't twisting in either direction.

4. Take a look at the twist - this is what your yarn should look like when it is plied!

The roving that I've been working with is a merino/tencel blend from Carolina Homespun. It's a little more slippery than what I'm used to, but oh, so nice. No pre-drafting is necessary with this stuff - just grab a hunk and spin.

My individual plies seem very fine, though, in fact, I think the yarn produced will be a DK weight when plied - we'll see. This is a longer project for me. Most of the rovings I've spun up thickly enough that I could easily spin and ply two ounces in one sitting. This roving will take 4 to 6 sessions, depending on how long I spin each time. It's a real exercise in patience, as I am dying to see the finished yarn.

Here's the roving in its original state, with my patient little boy in the background.

This was a long spinning session for the Nounie as well. He loves to sit close by and watch the wheel spin. (When I knit, he sacks out on my lap.) This morning, I spun for so long that he fell asleep at his post by my flip-flops. He is so sweet it hurts my heart a little to look at him.

"You're hurting my heart, little boy."

Townes, on the other hand is completely un-sentimental and non-plussed:

"I'm asleep mom."

"No, really. I am."

When Something Orange This Way Comes

Another balanced yarn? I'll fix that! Cute, but not exactly recommended.

I'm a Twisted Sister, Part I: Roving vs. Singles

We're quickly approaching my one year spinniversary, the day that Shirley and I learned to spindle spin under the tutelage of Marnie. When I decided that I wanted to learn to spin, I sought out the advice of Tiffany, whose gorgeous spinning I really admired. Tiffany responded with a great list of books and resources and a care package of fibers to play with. Her number one book pick was the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, and it was the very first spinning-related book I purchased.

"Rose Quartz" merino from Carolina Homespun, still on the bobbin of my Majacraft Rose.

The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook will not teach you about spinning per se, and honestly, the best pamphlets I've seen on spinning itself are the free pdfs offered by spin-off, but it delves rather extensively into dyeing, roving preparation, and sock knitting and is incredibly inspiring. I devoured the whole thing in a weekend. I've been meaning to write a review of it for some time, but for the moment I will just tell you one of my favorite things about the book.

The section on roving preparation is very, very thorough, and emphasizes the benefits of taking the time to carefully divide and pre-draft your roving.

Here's what my Rose Quartz merino looks like before any preparation.

The author, Lynne Vogel, talks about how she spends a great deal of time considering the roving itself and whether to spin from pencil rovings, created by dividing the roving length-wise, or to spin from the fold, a cross-section of the roving. She determines how long she wants her color repeats to be, whether she wants to spin a singles or a plied yarn. She does all this while simply looking at the roving and contemplating what it might be. The choice of how to prepare the roving will greatly affect the look of the yarn that you produce, and Lynne shows us the differences in beautiful color photographs.

For my first skein of Rose Quartz, I made individual pencil rovings and rolled them into bird's nests.

For me, seeing the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook's pictures of finished yarn next to the roving that produced it was very akin to what I experienced as a new knitter when I could actually see different yarns worked up into swatches. Before you have experience with a given fiber, color, or technique, it can be hard to envision what the result of your efforts will be. (Hence my first lace scarf that I designed using lovely, but thick tweedy wool - not a huge success. Now, I think I could probably finesse a tweedy wool into a lovely lace scarf, because I know the rules and can break them in new and interesting ways. Then, it was just a mess!)

See the vast differences in coloring between the individual pencil rovings?

This particular roving is dyed with long runs of lengthwise color, so when I separated it for spinning prep, I ended up with pencil rovings that vary from one another pretty significantly. The result is a pretty obvious transition between one pencil roving and the next on the bobbin, which you should be able to discern in the top photo. I have always spun from pencil rovings, primarily because I find this the easiest way to manuever on my spindles, but I thought that this time I would experiment, and see what kind of a difference spinning from the fold would make in the final yarn. I believe that spinning from the fold will give the yarn a much more subtle, heathered color, as the individual color runs will mix more rapidly, but we'll see.

Here's a view of the spun singles next to the roving. Would you have known it would come out this way?

I'm on the second bobbin of pencil rovings right now. Either tomorrow or later today I'll ply the yarn (I'll take pictures of the effects of that, too), and then next week we'll see how spinning from the fold works out.

Oh, and if you are wondering about the scale in the bird's nest photos, I use it to determine how much fiber to prep for each bobbin. Theoretically, if you use the same amount of fiber each time, you should not have any leftovers once you ply the yarn. In practice, I'm so new to spinning and to the wheel, that the difference can be significant, but that makes it a good measure of my consistency (or lack thereof!) and spinning progress. I'll take shots of that, too, if you promise not to laugh too hard!

Crater Lake

It's hard to believe that Crater Lake is so far behind us now. It seems like a lifetime and yet only a day. I had a hard time deciding which pictures to post, since there are so many I like, so I opted for a lot. Eventually, I will put up a gallery, so that I don't have to choose. The last thing I'll say, is that we were in Crater Lake at the time that Episode 34 of Cast-on aired, which was significant to me. In that episode, Jennie Spotila spoke about her knitting, her disability, and her remembrance of Crater Lake with such eloquence and poignancy that I will never forget it. For me, it crystallized a beautiful day in my life and made it so much more. Thank you, Jennie. If it is possible to enjoy such things vicariously, I dedicate these pictures, and the spirit of our happy day to you. I am so glad that you saw Crater Lake when you could.

Jennie's essay is also posted here, but you should listen to it if you can as well.

Perfectly Balanced

Not me - the skein! Now I know that this is not always going to happen, and in fact, may rarely happen again, but please take a moment to revel in the fact that my second skein of yarn off the Rose is perfectly balanced. Overspun, thick and thin, yes, but perfectly balanced.

Not the most artistic photo I've ever taken, but you can see the balance. It's so freaking great, I can't bring myself to wash it.

This was one of the few times that a shout out to cyber space simply was not enough. I called both Marnie and Andrea, e-mailed Tiffany and Cara - why the hell don't I have your phone numbers? this is ridiculous! - and would have searched madly for MJ's number in my inbox if I hadn't known full well that she was hanging off some cliff face in Utah having "fun". It was just one of those times when I needed you guys in the flesh, rather than on the net - which is always darn great in itself.

With Townes, for scale.

Also, Mia asked for a review of the Rose in the comments to my Wheelspun post. I feel somewhat inadequate - okay, very inadequate - to do this, simply because I am so new to wheel spinning. But, I'm not going to let that stop me. I have tried a LOT of wheels in the last month (15 maybe?), so I will try to write up something based on my own experience and the very, very little that I know. Just remember to read it with that caveat. In the meantime, I can tell you that the Rose is my wheel of choice. So much so, that instead of sending it back to The Weaver's Cottage, I'm sending those guys my hard-earned cash. Well, mine and Moxie's. He's paying for half as a Christmas/Birthday present. You knew he had to be nice sometime to make up for all those "witticisms," didn't you?

Pink Lemonade

Moxie: "Where do you get all these colors? It looks like Cotton Candy....."

[wait for it]

"That someone peed in."

Pinewoods, Tina's Hand Painted Fibers Lemon Sherbet Blue-faced Leicester, procured at the 2005 Rhinebeck Festival by the lovely Cara. Even Moxie admits that this roving is much more evenly spun than the last. With the Chocolate-Covered Cherries, my aim was simply to get used to spinning and to create enough yarn to ply. With the Lemon Sherbet - more Pink Lemonade to my thinking - I'm going for an even yarn, that is a little less overspun to ply into DK to sport weight sock yarn for footies. I think I've got it!

Wheelspun

In a matter of days - hours, maybe - fall has come to Southern California. For the middle of the day, this means we have temperatures like coastal Canadian summer days - 70's and sunny, dry and perfect. The main changes occur in the night, causing dusk and dawn to be pleasantly chilly. I've put aside my flip-flops for my shearling booties, and this morning, I had to grab Clementine out of the closet to keep cozy, since I refuse to close the screen door or the windows.

The first real skein spun and plied on the Rose.

This one's for Marnie.This happy chill brings on thoughts of real, stovetop cocoa (like my mother used to make with real milk and baker's cocoa, but doctored with a cinnamon stick, vanilla, and a dash of cayenne if Moxie isn't drinking), comfort foods (for me this means huge vats of Indian okra and pulses from the pages of Madhur Jaffrey, God bless her!), and wool - much, much wool. So after finishing up Thelma and wearing her to death, this week I laid aside my knitting and just spun, spun, spun.

Over the last month, I have tried a lot of wheels, and I have even spun up a skeinlette here and there. But this is the first time I've really had to sit down at the Rose - rented from The Weaver's Cottage - and spin a really big hank of yarn. So as not to overwhlem Moxie, who fears that I may be spontaneously transported back to the 17th century where I obviously belong ("Who invited Holly Hobbie into our living room?"), I spun one bobbin of Amy's Chocolate-Covered Cherries each night, and waited until a third night to ply them.

I have to admit that for a while I had to tell myself that it was all about the process. My singles were clearly, seriously, way overspun - so much so that I had little dreadlocks popping up on the bobbin. And the situation didn't improve much with plying, nor did it look better on the niddy-noddy.

Moxie: "Wow! Your first ugly chunky yarn! Tell me again why you wouldn't just buy that finished rather than spending $700 on a wheel? What are you going to knit with that - a hammock?"

Me: "Yes!" "A banana hammock - for you! I may strangle you with it in your sleep."

We have a special love, Moxie and I.

But then I tied it off and took it off the niddy-noddy, and everything changed. I won't tell you this is like blocking lace, because honestly, this stuff really is a poor specimen of yarn. The thing is, I love it and I don't care. To me, it looks like designer yarn. I can easily see Colinette selling stuff like this for $30. It's freaking gorgeous. And it's not even too unbalanced, if you look at the shot on the lanterns. The only sticking point is what to knit with it. Perhaps a Christmas gift for Moxie. Heh, heh.

When you run out of bird on an Andean Ply...

Make use of that fourth finger!

Sometimes you have to utilize the odd ends that evolution leaves you. I always knew that finger had a purpose.

This little bit of yarn is the product of some time in front of a lovely Schacht Matchless for a few hours last night with Satchi and Andrea at Stick & Stone. Satchi took a few pictures.

Santa Monica Fiber Fest

Spinning on a Majacraft Rose under the expert tutelage of Morgaine.

Sweet alpaca.I have been incredibly spoiled the last few weeks. Last weekend, I went to a spin-in at Andrea's and spent the whole day (and much of the night) surrounded by really talented spinners. I got to try out MJ's Lendrum DT and Andrea's Kromski Minstrel, which was so fun. I was the second least experienced spinner in the room, so I had an opportunity to check out a variety of great spinning techniques. It was bliss.

This past week, I have been completely spoiled with Marnie occupying our guest room and joining me in ultra-crafting adventures every day.
Knitting Ring.On Saturday, we made our way over to the Fabulous Fiber Fest in Santa Monica. This was the perfect fiber festival for me. There weren't an overabundance of vendors - there were one or two very nice vendors for each type of material - beads, buttons, fiber, yarn, fabric. I loved it because I didn't have to wade through a lot of wares or people. There were a select number of vendors of incredible quality, and the crowds were manageable. It was fun without being overwhelming.

Prize shawls.Although I don't usually blog about my purchases, I'm considering doing it for this festival. The things that I got are just too special. If I'm still feeling the vibe after my trek to Portland, I will at least post a list of my favorite vendors - they are too good not to share.

For now, I'll just hit the non-vendor highlights of the festival. We were greeted by three lovely Alpaca outside the Convention Center. I have long wanted to have a small herd of my own, but this little group of animals really cemented that feeling. They had the sweetest faces. The Alpaca were escorted to the festival by the women of Fleece Unlimited - a new group of women Alpaca Ranchers.

Claudin & Andrea.Another wonderful sight outside the festival was a ring of three women all knitting the same piece with three circular needles. Each woman knit with one end of the circular needle to the left of her and one end of the circular needle to the right of her, so no one ever had to move - genius!

Once inside we were able to locate the area where the shawls for the Spindlicity contest were displayed, including our own Marnie's shawl (the orange shawl on the right).
Andrea spins!I am glad that I didn't have to choose. Each shawl was lovelier than the last, and the fact that they were all handspun original designs blew me away.

In addition to all the wonderful sights, we were surrounded by good friends. We met up with Caroline, who we met at Andrea's spin-in the previous weekend, and then ran into Andrea as well, who brought her beautiful sister Claudin along for the fun. Claudin didn't craft before, but I think she's ready to start now.

Marnie spins!Marnie attracted many on-lookers and wanna-be spindlers by spinning some beautiful fiber on her Golding spindle, and even enticed Andrea to try her Golding out.

Personally, I got lost in the wheels. My blogging pal and spinning enabler Tiffany recently made the wise observation that I would know my wheel when I saw it, and I think she's right. I got to try out a Majacraft Rose from Carolina Homespun. I loved the wheel and got a lot of special attention from Morgaine, so unless I fall to the siren call of the Schacht Matchless, I will be getting the Rose from Carolina Homespun in December when I go back to San Fran for work. Yippee!

P.S. If any of you have wheel preferences and experiences that you want to share in the comments, I would be thrilled! Until December, I will be window shopping.

Still Spinning

Go Fly A Kite Merino Top from Amy Boogie's Spunky Eclectic shop

Merino singles spun on my Cascade Cougar spindle and Andean plied upon itself using my Cascade St. Helens spindle. Plying does hide a multitude of sins. Read more here. Good times.