Here is all the spinning I’ve done this week. I was going to start that purple and orange that I dyed last week, you can see it in this picture, but I decided not to, just not in the mood right now. Plus I need to recard the roving and I just don’t feel like reaching up to the top of my closet to get the box, so lazy today.
So, clockwise, from the top left we have: some wool/llama/mohair that was half aqua, half bluey green that I blended together with lots of sparkle. If you look at the big (really big) picture, you can see the sparkle better. I spun it into a very thick and thin, low twist single. The next is white superwash wool with natural reddish brown alpaca, gray mohair and natural colored soy silk. This is, again, a thick and thin single, very soft. Bottom right is the yarn I showed the other day, another thick and thin single plyed with a thin nylon single. Bottom right is the same wool/mohair/llama mix, the roving had felted a when I dyed it so it was kind of hard to spin. This is hugely bulky in spots with the thinner spots being about a worsted weight. It’s a two ply and will knit up into stripes.
As far as my other projects go, the big work project is speeding along, I’m almost finished with the largest part of it. I sat for an hour or so last night and got about another foot to foot and a half woven on the big stole. And yesterday I blocked and wove in the ends of my scarf from Victorian Lace Today. I’ll have pictures next week.
I’m off to drink some coffee and look for a sweat shirt, I’m freezing!
I promised I’d write a bit about my new yarn from KnitPicks, so here we go. First the standard disclosure: I kind of work for KnitPicks, I’m a test knitter there. They send me yarn and a pattern and I send it back to them and they pay me to do this. That said, I ordered a ball winder, their new lace blocking wires and a couple skeins of the new organic cotton yarn last week. The ball winder is your standard plastic hand cranked winder, like any other that I’ve seen, except the fact that theirs is a weird purple color and it comes with a handle, which is removable. I played around with it for a while the other day, I wound some lace weight wool, lace weight silk, and this worsted weight cotton above. I could fit a full skein of the lace weight yarn on the winder but, as you can see, the worsted had to be split into two cakes. The winder is easy to clamp on to a table or desk and the crank handle is a good size for my small hands and cranks very easily. I didn’t try the handle, but it attaches to the bottom, where the clamp goes and you can hold the winder instead of clamping it down. I don’t think I’ll ever use it but it’s kind of neat.
The blocking wires are your basic 32 inch metal wires that came with a little package of T-pins. I used the set this morning to block my lace scarf and they did fine. I don’t really know what else to say about them except it would have been nice if they came in other sizes and with a yard stick like some of the other sets do.
The cotton yarn is really nice. It’s soft and sturdy feeling and didn’t bother my hands as I knit with it, no cramping. I knit the swatch on US8 needles and it it has a nice feel, it’s drapey and soft. I think this would be great for people who make dishcloths, which I don’t, but I would like it as a little spring cardigan. The colors are natural, no dyeing, it’s just the color of the cotton, and very muted. The lighter color is called Malted Milk and the darker is Toffee. I like the darker color better, but that’s a personal thing. This also comes in sport weight and I think I’d like to try weaving a little scarf out of it.
I did some spinning yesterday, I started with this roving, the brown, purple and blue in the middle, that had felted while it was being dyed, and ended up with these singles. I fluffed out the roving the best I could and split it in half, where I two separate roving with one repeat of purple, brown then blue. I then split one of those halves in half again, this time length wise. I spun one half just as it was, with one repeat of color and the other half with two repeats (purple, brown, blue, purple, brown, blue). The singles came out extremely thick and thin, with parts that were almost too big to go through the orifice of my wheel. I plied them last night and I’m waiting for them to dry now, pictures tomorrow, The yarn is just crazy, lightly fulled with very thin and very thick parts. It’s so pretty.
Now, just to show you what I put up with all day, here’s Sally spying on our neighbors. She does this all day, except when there is another dog outside and then she barks.
Yesterday I made a day of warping my loom. This is some rayon chenille that I got a long time ago off Ebay that was a little difficult to warp. I had a couple threads snap and while that wasn’t hard to fix, it was really time consuming and annoying.
The end result is totally worth it. I’m really liking this loosely woven soft, velvety fabric. It’s nice and wide, too. I warped almost the entire width of the loom, the weaving width is 30 inches, and the warp started out at nine feet but I had to cut some length off, I’m hoping it will end up about seven or eight feet long with the fringe.
I haven’t had much time to weave since I warped the loom, I have maybe a foot or so done, but I’m happy with the progress so far. I’ve been really dividing up my days and trying to squeeze as much stuff in as I can. I’ve been spinning in the early afternoon, weaving in the evening and knitting on my work project at night. Speaking of the work project, I really like it so far, the yarn is so soft and so pretty and the pattern is super easy and the whole thing is coming along really fast.
I got part of my KnitPicks order yesterday. I got one of their new ball winders and some of the new Simply Cotton organic cotton yarn, which is really nice. The ball winder works great and you can’t beat the price. I’ll have more on my order later.
Today was all about finishing. I washed and blocked (if that’s what you call it) the two little scarves I wove this weekend, washed all the yarn I spun last week, and did a little more spinning today. Here’s the process for this yarn. I started with this roving, carded it with some sparkle fiber into the rolags on the bottom right, spun the singles above that, they’re a bulky thick and thin, took the nylon singles I spun last week (aren’t those colors pretty?) and ended with the yarn on the left. The yarn is squishy and bumpy and pretty bulky but there isn’t much of it, only about 20yds. I finished two other small skeins of yarn that I’ll get pictures of later, they’re still drying.
I had planned on warping up the loom today with some black rayon chenille that I think would make a nice wide stole (I have a ton of this yarn that I bought on Ebay a long time ago that sucks to knit with, I’ve never managed to make anything out of it) but I just didn’t have a chance, maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’ll take some pictures of my little sample scarves that I wove this weekend and post a bit about them.
It’s here! UPS dropped off my new toy this afternoon and I immediately got to work putting it together. If things had gone as planned there would be a few pictures of that process but it got cloudy and all my pictures came out blurry.
So we skip ahead and we have a fully assembled 32” Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom! I’ve wanted one of these for years and I finally just gave in and bought it since I have the extra money. I almost wish I had gone with the 24” loom, this thing is huge, almost three feet long and around two feet wide, but I think this size will give a little more flexibility when it comes to making things. I haven’t tried to warp it yet, I’m thinking about that now, but this came with a really clear instruction book (tons of color pictures and very good written instructions) and it doesn’t look too hard, the worst part will be finding enough space. I plan on picking up a few more books and a couple more heddles in different sizes. I can see me having a lot of fun with this.
Peanut is terribly excited by the whole thing. And my lens is dirty!
I also finished my scarf today but it started getting dark before I had a chance to photograph it so I’ll get that Monday. I ordered some blocking wires (and a ball winder and some yarn) a few days ago and I plan on waiting for the wires to get here before I block it. Just FYI, KnitPicks has changed their supplier for some of their accessories so they have the blocking wire kits and ball winders for $20, that’s a really good deal. I’ll let you all know how they work once mine get here.
Have a great weekend! I think I’ll spend mine weaving (and starting my work project).
