Enchanting Juno

The time, she gets away from me.

I think Thursday is kinda late for a weekend update, but lately I've been spending a certain  amount of time staring at the wall considering stuff, and while this considering is, I believe, ultimately useful to me as a human being, it lacks narrative flow.

I watched the lights in the creek for an hour while reviewing certain choices I have made over the past few years.....not good story telling.  I have a feeling that blogging will be sporadic until after the holidays.  Though you never know.

I did make soup - found the recipe via Specs and highly recommend.  North African Kale and Chickpea.  Not spicy at all, just a really full warm flavor and very head clearing.  It was vegan until I topped it up with chicken broth to cover my excessive kale contribution (I wasn't sure what the meant by a large head of kale.  I erred on the massive side and then I had to put it all in because I'd already chopped it and well, you know).  Part of me wants to put in some lamb sausage too, but that would really be getting off track, since the point of this is that it is kind of temple food, something that's good and healing and delicious.

Next time maybe a bigger dice on the onion, more carrots, more chickpeas, slightly smaller large bundle of kale.  But delicious....there WILL be a next time.  I love soup.  Any food you can put in a bowl, really, but soup particularly.  Winter and me, we are all about the soup - I have a stick blender and I am not afraid to use it.

During this process I was rummaging around in here for something and I saw the wooden shoving tool for the chinois.  And I thought, why is there a nostepinne in the kitchen drawer?  And then I got the camera, becasue I knew you'd understand.
Just goes to show you how your perspective can change.

Last winter I had to take the Merlin wheel back to Dave for some TLC and while he was tinkering her into a whole new and fabulous state of being, he set her up with a giant bobbin and flyer for plying too.  It is dandy, and in between kale chopping and staring at the creek, I made some yarn.

Picture no good?  Yeah.  How about this?

50% merino, 25% cashmere, 25% silk.  Two batts from the magnificently talented Abby. 

This was a struggle a bit.  The first batt was easy - spinning Abby's stuff makes you better than you were, no matter what else is going on - but then I went to SOAR and when I came home I was a different kind of spinner and the second batt was actually way more inconsistently spun - even though the weights were the same, it came up MUCH shorter yardage.  See how the fatter ply has way more air in it?  I could no longer replicate the way I was spinning before, plus the whole time I was trying to spin as I had, I was twitching to get into some long draw and practice what I learned.
Note to self - finish what you're working on before you undergo a sea change.   

If I sound like I am picking on myself, I really am not.  I'm thrilled with this skein, all 300 yards of it.  It is a much higher level mish-mash than I usually achieve, its elastic and not hard surfaced and will make something nice to wear.  I only wish it wasn't November so I could get a picture that showed you how beautiful it really is.

Yarn - unlike people - blossoms with violence.

I thought I was thwacking my fiber on the counter because it was fun (Which it totally is. Lowers my blood pressure too), but it turns out there's a whole lot more to it than that.

The end result isn't quite dry, so the yardage is a mystery, but I adore this yarn.  The llama gives it drape and silkiness and the beat down gave it cohesion.  All the loops are quietly laid side by side in orderly beauty, not resisting their fate.  It's a wonder.  I want to reskein when its dry, but it might break my heart to untie and disrupt it.

Awaiting a soggy fate.

Hello gorgeous.

If you're curious about why you might want to domestically abuse your handspun, click these following images for big and drag them side by side (also imagine that they were taken in good light.  Sorry about the flash glare.)

and look at the article in this month's Spin Off - which I have not yet seen, but in which Judith Mackenzie McCuin says....how to wet finish your yarn.

I expect there's a lot of variation by fiber type and I expect I will learn it all the hard way, as is my habit.  But I'll take the whole idea a lot more seriously.   

Now, if I only have enough.....how can 39 ounces not be a sweater?

Planning backwards

That was very interesting. 

If anyone is, like me, a largely seat-of-her-pants, self-taught spinner, I highly recommend the comments to the last post. I understood in theory the idea that you begin by deciding what you want and work back to get it, but I hadn't followed the thought all the way to its end.  I think I had all the information in my head in a kind of vague way, but it wasn't live for me.  Now it is. 

I also was still - because I hadn't made any kind of one to one comparison - unclear on the textural differences between a three and two ply yarn that might look - to the unskilled eye - about the same weight.  Not anymore - the reason that all my three ply efforts up to this point have been dense like undercooked pasta is revealed to me now. (Answer: Too much twist in my singles)

I'm going with the two-ply in this case for several reason - even though it won't be the hardest wearing yarn in the history of spinning.   Basically, I planned wrong and the singles I've already spun are too large and have too much twist for a three ply that would make me happy to knit or wear.  Next time...and I do mean that, because I have a much better idea of how to accomplish that goal starting from 0 the next time out...I'll plan for a three ply and hopefully get a bit closer to the goal.  Maybe that 2.5 pound bag of Spinner's Hill.......

These three bobbins represent most of one 13 ounce bag of roving.  I plied two of them into one large skein this weekend and got about 225 yards - final wpi pending drying.    At that rate, I'll only be getting maybe 1200 yards of two ply from all three big bags.  If only for that reason a three ply is out of the question - it would be a phenomenally, unwearably heavy yarn at this weight.  And I wouldn't have enough to cover all my parts.   

Since this is now a learning project - well, they are all learning projects, aren't they?  But since I have already missed what I was aiming for, it is open season on this project:  I decided to follow Abby's recent tutorial on beating the stuffing out of your yarn.  The idea makes a lot of sense - torture it now, get any changes out of its system before you knit it up and find out the hard way what secrets lurk inside the ply.  Fluff it up.  Full it a bit.  Make it be itself now.  We are all the better for a little roughing up in life, yes?  Call it experience.

Soaked in hot, hot soapy water, swished, wrung, rinsed with cold, agitated in hot, kneaded, wrung again and taken outside to be smacked on the fence.   Bled a LOT - which the swatches did NOT.  I shall be interested in any color differences when dry.

I love my neighborhood - my neighbor two doors down was in her back yard, didn't even give a quizzical glance to the wet thwap of wool on wood.

Still wet. 

Other weekend activities:

You know when you trip on something - always something that has been exactly where it is for 6 years, of course - and your eyes tear and you curse and hop and eventually nerve yourself up to look at the wreckage of your toe and it is totally fine? 

Not this time.  I am very glad it is sandal season, is what I'm saying.

eeny, meeny, miney.....except more cold bloodedly analytical.

The time has come to make some decisions about what comes next. 

I showed you the singles, and now I have plied samples - a two ply and a three.  They are dramatically different.  I don't know which to choose.  You are my only hope.

This is a rambouillet/llama blend and I plan a cardigan of the sort of outdoor variety - definately not an indoor sweater, but not a ski sweater either.  A walk the dog around the block in october sweater, except, no dog.  An it-is-cold-in-here-because-I-do-not-turn-on-the-heat -no-those-bastards-at-PSE&G-won't-get-my-money-sit-at-my-desk-
being-chilly kind of thing.  I want it to be warm, but pliant. 

The whole world tells me that a three ply is a better yarn for a sweater, longer wearing, better structure overall. 
But I'm worried that its too stiff to be at all flattering.

  2 ply

3 ply

But the thing I am slowly learning is that the YARN looking good is not the point.  I want the SWEATER to look good.  Good and RIGHT.

2 ply swatch

On 5 mm needles, 17 stitches to 4 inches, this was FUN to knit with.  Elastic.  The swatch is flexible and attractive, though today - after washing the skein, knitting it and washing the swatch - I am seeing a bit of blurring to the surface.  It feels great in my hand and I think it would drape nicely.  The drape and the blurring?  May be related.

3 ply swatch

On 6 mm needles, 15 stitches to 4 inches.  Less fun to knit - the yarn is rounder and less fluid, more resistant to each stitch.  Each stitch is clearer and the surface is showing much less wear than the 2 ply.  But it is stiffer.  More structured.  I have an idea that I might be able to block it harder to create drape.  But I need more 3 ply to sample. 

These two mini skeins were both balanced when they dried - but I am wondering if plying the three ply a little loser and knitting it on 6.5 mm needles would make a difference.  Or if I'd lose the firmer wearability.   Hmmm.

OK, off to ply some more.  All thoughts welcome.

Jeeze, OK.

10, maybe 11 inches off by the time he was done cutting.  And still below shoulder length. 

Maybe it WAS time for a change.

And no, smart asses, I won't be covering the fleece for the rest of the season.

And since its cheap to blog just my hair twice in a row (some would say, cheap to do it once, to which I say....pashaw), a update on the state of fiber here.

Buckwheat Bridge wool/mohair singles, which I find devastatingly pretty.  Next for this, another bobbin of similar for a two ply laceweight.

Three bobbins of sportish weight singles from the Rambouillet/Llama from Morro Fiberworks.   Most of one 13 ounce bag of roving.  I was going to make a three ply, but I think it'll be a very heavy worsted and much too heavy and warm.  Samples as soon as I have time to ply.  I have in mind some kind of jackety cardigan.  If I go with the two ply, a very long one.

Blue sweater and orange shawl are the same but slightly larger.

And I planted flowers on the front step today and cleaned up a bit.  Still looking for a suitable pink flamingo for the window box.  Or maybe a gnome.

its a funny thing

Sometimes I spin and it's terrible and sometimes it's great.  I'm getting closer to having an outcome be sort of intentional, the ratio and the wool and the twist and the draft are sort of starting to work OK together. 
Whether or not the outcome is good though, the spinning is fantastic.  Even the superwash.  Which turns out to have some compensations. 

about 117 yards, 4 ounces (Kellee? Yea or Nay?)

It came out cushy and elastic and really quite beautiful.  Amy Boogie is gifted with the dye and prep.

Since I ripped out my sweater, knitting and I have been on a little break.  But that's OK, because I have a metric megaton of wool in my house, even more so since I had my terrible, terrible falling down at Morro Fleece Works.  Ironic, given that the Maryland S&W on Saturday kicks off the festival season and I sort of already filled my house.  A little premature fiber explosion.  Living in the living room.

These things happen to everyone.  But look at this stuff. 

  Rambouillet and Llama pindrafted roving. Not QUITE this orange.  So smooth I'm spinning right from the coil.  I love the singles.  Aiming for a worsted 3 ply.  Guess that means I'll have to learn how to 3-ply, yes?  It is phenomenal.

The rest of the recent product.

The copper two-ply turns out to be light and springy - uneven of course, but considering I spun bits of it on three different wheels over a year, I can live with it.  It's a CVM/silk from Crosspatch Creations via Carolina Homespun.  The color on the link is truer.

I estimate about 320 yards, 165 g.  I still have maybe 135 g left unspun.

The latest skein of the ongoing taupe ramboullet.  Its kind of an irregular roving, mostly because it was a slightly irregular fleece but still the softest thing going.  And actually my plan appears to be working.  This wool is teaching me to spin.

oldest at the bottom, newest on top.

Also there's this, which is the very first roving I lost my self control over.  2 lbs of angora/merino from the Woolen Rabbit, been sitting in the drawer for nearly two years waiting for me to learn enough that spinning it wasn't the exact same thing as setting it on fire.

 

 

color and spinning

One kind of housecleaning or another is always on the table.  This weekend I freed up bobbins.

And hung a yarn mobile in my kitchen window.

Some are old and some are new - this is blue green fleece artist merino from Christmas 05 plied with MMF merino lamb/silk from a few weeks ago.

And a bit of the merino lamb/silk left over.

It amazed me how the colors changed when run next to a pastel. 

A sample of rambouillet and mohair, a gift with purchase, or more accurately a gateway drug.  Quickly and egregiously (under) spun and plied, it was enough to tell me I wanted more. 

Orange Vermont wool and kid from Thanksgiving - when I missed my wheel and bought it a present - copper from last Maryland S&W

Vermont again.

Copper and Iron Rust Rambo/llama from Morro - the iron rust stopped me in my tracks.  The prep is exquisite and again I stopped in the middle of spinning this sample to buy some more.  The iron rust is my first experiment with a cabled 4 ply.  As dense as undercooked pasta but oddly pleasing.

This copper was to be a three ply, but the sample displeased.  I believe it was intended to be spun fatter and looser than this; now I rather think it might be a shawl someday.

The brown is llama merino and hemp which I have found incredibly challenging to spin.  Please don't look too close - it was the first try.

Rotating in the window this is a haphazard record of the year in spinning.  Erratic progress, frustration, pleasure and enormous satisfaction all together.

Swatchtasy

Note to my future self who will absolutely have forgotten this information by morning......

Silk and wool swatch is knit on 3.25 mm and 3.75mm needles.

Wool and angora swatch is knit on knit on 3.75 mm needles.

I think I've been spinning for socks.  Which would be fantastic if I wanted sock yarn.

JoVE and Stephanie raised an excellent point - did I wash my swatches?  Answer - um, no.   Also I knit them on, like, 9s - which was a somewhat arbitrary and, well, absurd choice.  So, redone tonight on more usefully sized needles.

We'll see how they come out of their bath.

They are pretty.....a bit tough, but pretty.

Sleep now. 

the wealth of silence.

I swear.

I love the inside of my house.  Now, I'm not a COMPETE hermit.  I went to the gym Saturday and I had brunch with a friend on Sunday.   

And helped push a neighbor's car out of the slush even thought I don't care for her a'tall and rather enjoyed the sight of her entitled ass stuck in the snow she was too self-important to remove before trying to drive.  Not that I'm judging.  Not me. I would never do that. 

The rest of the time, I made love to a porcupine.

This is half of the balance of Freedom.  You remember Freedom?  He's nice.  That's - seven? - batts of shetland ram lamb and I have another bag of locks to open that will get me maybe 5 or 6 more.  I carded to break up other activities this weekend.  I still think that if I can get 1000-ish yards out of this I'll make a highland triangle out of this.  The thought of wrapping myself in this makes me...comforted joyfully.

I test spun the first batt of that shetland/angora/alpaca.  Looks - eh - wasn't what I was hoping.  And when I cast on to swatch - the yarn is too hard.  I'm going to try to remove some of the ply twist, but I think I over spun it too.  Every time I think I get it, I don't. 

I started to swatch the gladys/silk as well - same problem - that one doesn't feel too hard in the hand, but the stitches are too...separate.

A timely reminder that what the yarn looks like is not how you can judge your final result.  It's what the yarn KNITS like.

The groove is in the heart.

I keep trying new words. Serendipity.  Creative.  Successful visualization. I'm pretty good with the verbal most days, but I am not getting it.

Somethings just come out freaking perfect.

First of all - not nubar at all.....an unmeasured quantity of fawn alpaca, toffee colored angora/merino and this sweet, sweet tiny brown Shetland fleece I bought at Cummington.

There's still some of all three left.  Gonna make me some more.  It is a mess, that alpaca and angora, a fun, fluffy mess...but look what I made.

And that's not even the best part.  I made the best thing I've ever made.  It was in my head.  And I made it real.   And it was even better.  How often in life do you get that?

25 percent a glorious greeny-gold bombyx brick from Curious Creek.  75 percent my beloved Gladys.

 

And I got this.

This is the second try - the first try I sent through the carder 4 times - a thorough blend...but more neps and a lighter, flatter tone.  The second try - seen above - only twice, then predrafted into the coil you see.

In progress....

   

The silk takes the light so its almost all you can see.....but one skein is lighter, less flecked.  Pretty.  But the other one, from the second batch, is the picture inside my head, breathing in front of me.  Well, actually, if it were breathing, that would be scary. It IS yarn after all.

Now I have to swatch and see if Gladys will hold a block.  She's got a lot of bounce, my girl.

 

(Click for big on these pictures - always true, actually, but I'm in love with these.  So check it out.)