Smiles and Sparkles with Knits and Spins

September was a month with lots of knitting and spinning on the go. I literally took a project with me to school, BSF, restaurants, and everywhere else. I am so done with hiding away one of my dearest past times passions for the sake of appearing conventional. I have truly enjoyed the liberation and made some new connections as a result.

Spinning at Art Blitz in Valparaiso, Indiana with friends from Duneland Weaver’s and Spinner’s Guild

One of my favorite events was spinning at Art Blitz in Valparaiso, Indiana at an art school with my guild, Duneland Weaver’s and Spinner’s. There were lots of laughs and sharing of ideas.

I met Cathy at the spin-in at the Sauder Village Fiber Fest in Archbold, Ohio

I also went to the Sauder Village Fiber Fest in Archbold, Ohio and participated in the Spin-in with Kate Larson and other spinners on retreat from all over Ohio. We had a good time. I can truly say I always find a friend with crafty people. There is a certain bond that is shared with people who like to create from raw material.

Along with the crafting in public I am proud to say I finally knit up something out of one of the crazy sparkly art batts that I’ve been hoarding lately. My Undercurrent cardigan is complete.

I only had 12 ozs of the DKish weight yarn so I paired it with some white commercial silk that I had plied with dyed silk hankies long ago and forgot about. I think it works well. I used all of the art yarn and barely got away with a bind-off only having a silver dollar sized yarn ball left over, phew. I really love the fit of this pattern and how easy it is to knit. I could definitely use another perhaps in a more conventional yarn. I must say though, I really don’t mind all the sparkles. I’m giving this project 5 stars.

BTW, spinning wise, I was able to get a 4 oz. skein spun up of oatmeal colored Sally Fox cotton on my new Lendrum Very Fast flyer. That thing is crazy fast and definitely beats out my Ashford Traveller lace flyer (which I since sold). I finally purchased the fast whorl for my Kromski Symphony and plied the cotton singles quite efficiently at the 25:1 ratio it offers.

New Fast Whorl on my Kromski Symphony does an excellent job plying high twist cotton

 

My mint chocolate chip spin is off the wheel. I added in some grey Shetland breed wool in order to stretch the 8oz into a nice sweater quantity. I now have a gradient-like set of skeins to work with.

I’ve also spun up Hipstrings’ HillStreet District colorway and 8 ozs of grey Romney that is awaiting plying.

My latest spinning obsession is a tussah silk/flax blend I ordered from Inglenook Fibers in the Madras colorway. The plan is to hopefully get some weaving done one of these days this fall. I’m also spinning up 8ozs of recycled green sari silk on the Kromski Sonata which I hope to weave.

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Wait but There’s More

I did get a little housekeeping done. The Tour De Fleece skeins are finally washed. There was so much to wash that I just filled up my kiddie pool, added a little Dr. Bronners Castle Soap and gave them a swirl to set the twist.

 

I bought some stuff. I bought a lot of stuff (hangs head). A new to me wheel. It’s a Lendrum with a bunch of extras thrown in, including Spunky Eclectic Aspen BFL roving which I immediately spun up. I did try to vote my Ashford Traveller wheel off the island via Ravelry but no takers so I guess I’m a crazed lady with 5 spinning wheels. But, but I spin though.

 

Oh yes, and then theirs a few spindles. I bought 2 bottom whirls one has a pewter whirl and the other is one of the illusive Ann Grout pottery spindles. It was a steal at $25 on a Ravelry destash. Then there’s the cute little Greensleeves teacup spindle and… let me just stop. But, but I spin though.

My favorite is the cute little owl spindle I got from Woodland Woodworks. I saw them in the Inglenooks forum during Tour De Fleece then this happened…

 

I did start a new knitting project. This is the starts of a hoodie that I found on Knitty called Undercurrent.

I did swatch…just in case this thing turns out to be a disaster. I tried to plan really. The yarn is crazy as all get out. The art batts were from Gargoylelover in the Starry Night colorway. I am adding in some white silk yarn that I’ve had in my stash forever in hopes of having enough yarn to finish.

 

Meanwhile I have some socks  lingering on the needles along my crochet Virus shawl which is slowly growing.

Spinning Under the Influence: Artsy Yarn

Every since I joined a few Ravelry spinning groups last month I’ve been under a bit of a trance with my spinning. No, stranger to color it was only natural that I would see Inglenook fibers and need to spin some. They have the most imaginative colorways. I decided to follow the technique of the Ravelry folks for spinning my Hawaiian Shirt braid.

I would spin a two ply yarn that keeps the color blocks together by separating the fiber then spinning each color separately. This skein was completely spindle spun.

I liked it so I did the same with a Fierce Fibers braid I purchased and the Oregon Sheep and Wool Fest

It did stop their there though. Texture! I have been spinning all the art batts I can get my hands on and pretty much any fiber prep with some irregular bumpiness to it.

As a primarily fingering/lace weight spinner it’s really bizarre that I’m spinning inconsistent yarns now.

At Michigan fiber fest I got to card my own batt at the Uniquely Yours booth. I used blue BFL with green merino and added in shredded money. I couldn’t wait to see what it would do. I spun it like a wild woman and made a very thick and thin single then plied it with copper sewing thread, What?!  yes, I’m calling this skein dollars and Cents ya’ll.

I kept the craziness going with an art batt from Beyond the Fleece which I also spun willy nilly.

I spindle spun another batt I bought from her earlier this year at Ann Arbor Fiber fest in my usually lace weight. It’s a nice skein with some texture here and there but otherwise safe.

I should be done right? nope. I bought some roving from another vender (can’t think of the name at the moment) that is minty green with black silk noil. Texure! They called it Leopard Frog, I call it Mint Chocolate Chip.  Seeing as how mint chocolate chip is my favorite ice cream I had to go ahead and start spinning that too. I am swirling in some grey Shetland to make it a sweater quantity.

I’ve had a drum carder for at least 7 years and had only used it for processing until now. The fiber fest adventure has reprogrammed my mind so now I’ve taken it out to turn a bag of colorful odds and ends that I bought a long time ago into a spinnable batt. I will add the trinkets back in during the plying phase

This little treasure trove is now awaiting its turn on the wheel.  This has got to be a phase.

I Still Sew: Cappuccino Dress

I’ve been meaning to sew for a while now, really. I haven’t forgot. Lately my spinning mojo has been in control. There was this one pattern though that was able to snap me out of my spinning trance for a brief moment, the cappuccino dress by Oliver & Co.

I caught on to the Portfolio Dress bandwagon late and Simplicity left us all hanging after the initial pattern run was sold out. When Oliver & Co finally released a follow-up pattern, the Cappaccino Dress, I wanted it although I liked the original better. At $14.99 it is on the pricey end for me but after stalking for a year I figured I wanted it bad enough for the splurge.

The dress sewed up pretty easily and is very comfy. I definitely want to do more. I am surprised at how well the kimono sleeves fit even without a gusset. Cheers to the Cappaccino dress!…now back to my spinning.

I also want to throw in this picture of me feeling saucy for my cousin’s wedding wearing my MCCalls 6770skirt. I made it last year to wear to a murder mystery dinner. It was I think, the last garment I had sewn before this dress. Still loving it.

McCall’s 6770 skirt

 

Meanwhile a whole basket of sewing projects I cut out years ago await their turns on the needle. 

 

 

Me Too: Joining the 2017 Tour De Fleece Spin-a-long

I had only heard of this event a few months ago perhaps in someone’s podcast. I have a vague idea of what the event inspiration Tour De France is. The thought of setting some personal spinning goals and spending most of July treadling my wheels intrigued me.

I decided to participate in two Ravelry forums: Sweets Off the Wheel and Sew Perfect Purls which was a lot of fun. I found it really inspiring looking at all of the fibers and finished skeins people were posting. It was also nice to chat with all people who are just as enthusiastic about fiberarts as me. I made some nice connections sharing and learning with the others in the group.

My goals were to spin 2 sweater quantities of wool (found malabrigo fiber for $12 per 4oz braid on fabulousyarn.com and lost my mind) and 4oz of flax strick. I pretty much did that and also experimented with dyeing raw cotton with fiber reactive dyes.

The plan was to put all of my wheels to use.

Jensen TinaII- spin a strick of flax
Kromski Symphony- spin 12oz of Malabrigo Nube in a fingering/sport chain-plied yarn
Kromski Sonata-combo spin 2 4oz neon braids (1 merino, 1 ramboullet) with a high twist
Ashford Traveler w/ lace flyer- dye some cotton punis (never dyed before) and spin them up.

hand dyed merino from Fierce Fibers on the Kromski Sonata

Malabrego Nube Arco Iris on the Kromski Symphony

Flax strick on the Jensen Tina II

handspun flax skein

I ended up spinning 4 oz white Targhee, 8 oz Fierce fibers 1ply bruised fairy in ramboulett and 1ply bright rainbow merino, 12 oz Malabrigo Nube merino in Arco Iris, mixed skeins of pink/purple cotton/bamboo, 4oz flax strick)

The cotton dyeing was quite the experiment. I learned why it’s essential to scour the cotton with soda ash on high heat. The natural oil cause the cotton to float on the water like marshmallow. The water did not penetrate the mass of fiber until the oil was boiled away.

oily cotton floating in the water

oily water from scouring cotton

The dyeing part was pretty simple. I mixed up some magenta, raspberry, purple in squeeze bottles and got the job done. I even dyed my handspun cotton shawl I crocheted last year.

After that I was worried that I had ruined my punis along with the bamboo fiber I through in. The punis shriveled into little dreadlocks.  It became so compacted and matted. With the help of some wooden sticks and a pillow I was able to fluff them up enough to spin.

scoured cotton dreadlock punis

cotton punis fluffed up with sticks

I ran the bamboo through the carder to fluff it up then hand carded it into a cloud. The cotton and bamboo singles were plied together for a slubby but still had a nice drape and sheen.

I stopped measuring yardage a few years ago after discovering I usually spin a fingering weight yarn by default and 4 oz of wool just about always ends up being about 450yards after washing. The Targhee may end up shrinking more because of the crimp.
Today I counted my flax thinking surely it would be different because well it’s different than wool. Nope. The 4oz skein ended up being 450.7 yards. The last time I measured cotton it had like 9% shrinkage after washing.
With all that said I spun
6-4oz wool skeins =2,700 yards
1- 4oz flax skein=450 yards
The cotton and cotton/bamboo skeins(completely different weight/yardage ration)- 2oz gives about 500 yards unwashed. I’m just gonna say 700yards
Total approximate yardage=3,850yards

handspun cotton and bamboo skeins

 

2017 Tour De Fleece Results

basket of skeins awaiting their final soak

Breaking in and Breaking out: My New Loom and West Coast Adventure.

With school out I have had more time to craft and boy have I been busy. Firstly, my Emelie cardigan is finished. This was my first time knitting a garment with size 3 needles. It was pretty time consuming but made a fine fabric. The yarn I used  came in 739 yards skeins. The entire body of the cardigan and half of the sleeves (I divided the remaining yarn equally between the two) were knitted with one skein.

A small amount (maybe 200 yards) of the 2nd skein was used to finish the sleeves, button, and neck band. The 2nd skein was slightly more yellow than the first but the color variation did not cause too much of an issue I think, since it is distributed evenly in the sleeves.

I never really figured out how to work the lace pattern correctly. The chart has you do a SSK using a yarnover stitch on the purl side which was fiddly to me. My lace does not look like the sample picture. Oh well, I did it consistently wrong so I guess that makes it a design modification. I lucked out and found clearance button at JoAnns.  They are normally so stinking expensive. This cardigan ended up with 12 frosty green shank buttons.

I acquired a Leclerc Artistat 36″ floor loom back in February but have not warped it up until now. I was just as happy admiring it in my dining room. I had warped a floor before however this was the widest warp I’ve done at 30 inches to-date. The warp is only 4.5 yards long which is the max I can do with my warping board. It is finally being broken in.

Everything went fairly smooth with the warping although it was quite tedious. I accidently skipped threading 4 reed slots but the heddles were done correctly so I won’t bother to re-sley the reed. I plan to use this first un-mercerized 8/2 cotton warp to play around with my handspun colored- cotton odds and ends and some flax singles I wove a few years ago.

Being summer break and all I decided to take a little getaway. In an internet search I found that the Black Sheep Gathering was happening in Eugene, Oregon. This was the perfect excuse for me to explore the pacific coast. It was so beautiful! I was in love from the plane’s decent into the state. It is so majestic. Those mountains, gah!

sky view of the plane decent to Oregon

The Black Sheep Gathering was a real treat. I loved the vendors. They were so engaging and talented. This festival did not have many if any commercial vendors which is great. I was shocked to discover there is no sales tax in Oregon. Whattha! so yes, I bought stuff even though I had no room in my carry-on bag for more stuff. I figured I’d get rid of some clothes if I needed to.

I met my spindle craftsman idol Ken Ledbetter  of KCL woods who produces modular spindles. He had beautiful modular Turkish spindles with glass insets. I had to have one. It was cool to be able to choose my own shaft. He uses all kinds of exotic woods. In addition to the spindle I bought a modular spinning bowl. It has a bowl that can be screwed onto a shaft for chair spinning and a mound for table and floor spinning. Brilliant! I love it so much.

I also of course bought some fiber. I found silk roving and bright colored braids that I “needed”.

Another cool textile find was a pleated skirt made in by artisans in Laos Vietnam . It has extremely intricate ikat patterning in indigo woven on a handspun cotton singles warp. The skirt also has cross stitched motifs done in brightly dyed cotton singles. It is a real masterpiece and a humbling reminder of how far I have to go in acquiring this level of skill and expertise.

I honestly have mixed feelings about these sort of purchases. On one hand I know the artisan may have needed the proceeds from the sale. It seems, however that when these items get sold for profit a decline begins. A craft that was once an expression of one’s pride in culture, skill, and love becomes a mere means to an end, a meal ticket. It brings me to the question of whether we are progressing or regressing. Perhaps these artisans will one day be like myself, struggling to regain lost knowledge of our textile traditions sold out for cheapo mass produced clothing.

Fortunately everything kind of smooshed into my suitcase with a little wrestling. I did not need to check my luggage. phew.

my carry-on jammed with fiber goodness

It was a very refreshing trip. I drove about 250 miles along the pacific coast on the scenic Highway 121. It was so cool to weave through the Redwood forests and see all the rock formations in the Pacific ocean.

There was also a little mountain driving on this trip. I drove up to Enumclaw, Washington. At one point my GPS said I was 4,500ft about sea level! It was an intense drive but the view was well worth the stress. I took a gondola ride up Crystal Mountain and saw Mt. Rainier. It was spectacular beyond words.

In 4 days, I had seen a lot but there is so much more I would like to explore one day. The trip was a nice blend of excitement and relaxation. I even struck up a new spindle project (an old 3-4 oz mystery braid I had in my stash) and the infamous crochet Virus shawl that everyone has made on Ravelry. I am using a gradient Zauberball lace yarn that I bought a few years ago.

My Stash: Am I Busting or Building?

I have been spinning a lot of yarn lately. A lot. Now a sane crafter would be telling herself “Good job, see you may buy a lot of craft supplies  but at least you’re producing”, “Look at all of that yarn you’ve spun, one day soon your  fiber and yarn stash will be reasonable. Nope not me. I just go out and buy more. A lot of what I am spinning lately has been new acquisitions. Only about 3oz (the cotton/bamboo blend, and 1.5oz green merino/silk) was old stash. Womp, womp.

Newly spun yarn (2- 4oz skeins of Ashland Bay dyed merino top in Baltic and Bermuda colorways, 1.5 oz of merino/silk green top, hand-dyed cotton punis, and brown cotton mixed skein.

I am having a lot of fun though. The latest finished project was 4.6oz  art rolags from Spindipity in the Monet colorway. They are so interesting to spin with all of the color and texture changes. There are 2 more art batts in my stash that I plan to spin up very soon.

I spun 4 ozs of Ashland Bay merino top on my KCL modular drop spindles.  This a bit of a milestone. I have gotten quite efficient.

fabric strip wrist distaff in use

It was a fairly quick spin especially once I started using a strip of knit fabric as wrist distaff. Having the interchangeable spindle shafts is also nice. I just fill two shafts up and wind a plying ball.

The plant fibers are finally seeing some action now. I whipped out my last bit of recycled blue jean fiber. The tiny sampling was striped with white cotton. In order to make more yardage, I plied it with singles spun from my last bits of carded bamboo. (I did not feel like carding up more).

While I was at it I made a cleanup-skein with bits of left over plant fibers on my bobbins.

brown, white, and recycled blue jean cotton handspun

My other plant fiber spin was the art rolags that I bought from Buchanan Fibers.

Dyed cotton/milkweed rolags

They were a blend of dyed cotton, milkweed, and nylon. The singles spun up fine but the headache came when it came time to ply. I forget an important lesson I had learned a while back. NEVER create a plying ball from a center pull ball with cotton singles. The high twist combined with fine singles WILL tangle and make you cry or even worse cause you to lose yardage. This method works well for wool only (maybe not fine mohair singles).

The most efficient way to divide yarn for plying is to weigh out equal amounts of fiber before spinning. Anyhow I did get it to work out but it was unnecessarily stressful and time consuming. The end result was a pretty nice yarn however. We’ll see how it washes up.

Handspun cotton/milkweed/nylon skein

Alas, I have busted a lot of stash this month however there is more where that came from. I did a little inventory, organization a few days ago. I have 10- 5gallon bins of wool fiber and yarn, a bookcase of plant fibers and yarn, and a bookcase of weaving yarn.

No excuses folk, I know there are no excuses. I’m in pretty deep and loving it.