Killer Peach

new toy...or two

The wheel arrived and has been a fabulous friend for the past month or so. I've made quite a few delightful sample skeins and finally finished my first 4oz project tonight - a 50/50 Merino Tencel blend in the colorway Scorched from Twisted on Etsy. Her colors are fabulous and have sucked me into purchases I had no intention of making.

As the yumminess is still on the bobbin, I have no idea how many yards I managed to get out of the 4 ounces or the wpi, though I suspect it's between a fingering and lace weight. My spinning strategy: split the roving in two, spun one half and split the second half into fourths. That gave me one ply with very long color repeats and the second ply with much shorter color repeats. I originally thought I would try and match stripes by spinning the two halves the same but when I realized I could simply buy striping sock yarn in the same colorway from Meg, it seemed foolish so I went for something that would be more barber-poling.

My other project for the evening involved starting the process for creating yarn for a friend's wedding shawl. She wanted a very particular color for her shawl - pale gold, not white, not yellow, but pale gold. Being part of the search team, I can say that it hasn't been easy to find pale gold yarn, especially not in a heavy lace weight/fingering weight. But as it turned out Outback Fibers had the perfect two fibers. We went on a field trip there a couple weeks ago while we were on the way to buy Toy Number Two from Fire Ant Ranch.

Tonight's product is a blend of 75% cream and 25% maize. I think it's quite lovely and will try and get Suna's approval in the next couple days because the picture isn't completely accurate, of course. I spun a sample the day of our excursion by holding the two rovings together. She posted a picture of the yarn and it seems much more golden than what I blended tonight so approval will certainly be in order. But since the fiber was acquired locally, it shouldn't be a problem to get more and Outback Fibers was fabulous (a studio in a home but overflowing with fiber delights enough to get me thinking about felting) so going back would certainly not be a bad thing.

In other news, my first shawl from hand spun yarn (the green stuff from the last post) is almost complete. I'm trying to finish a boring scarf for a friend before I let myself finish it but with any luck, that will be done in the next few days. {fingers crossed}

super crazy big news!

Several weeks ago, Suna and I went to the Kid n Ewe and Lamas, Too festival. In addition to the yarn buying and running into people we recognized, I seemed to have found the penchant for spinning. When I got home from the festival, I set about tweaking the dormant Ashford Traddi that was generously loaned to my by Jessica. After a good dose of oil and a couple screw tightenings, it was treadling smoothly and whirring along nicely.

I was amazed at the amount of roving I had strewn about my apartment from my initial spinning foray. There was one bag of Lincoln wool roving that I bought at Rhinebeck that disappointed me greatly by being completely felted and unusable. But I didn't spend much on it so it wasn't overly disappointing.

My first project was to spin a bag of unknown wool from Rhinebeck.

I ended up with two skeins - 345 yards / 4 ounces and 225 yard / 2.7 ounces. That means that the first has 86.5 yds/oz & the second has 83.3 yds/oz, which seems fairly consistent considering it was my first substantial spinning project. The final yarn is kind of fuzzy and the plying isn't perfect but I'm very very happy with it.

Current project:

The singles are already more consistent than the first stuff, probably because the batts I'm spinning from are a smoother wool blend.

I've been doing more fiber shopping than I would readily admit to. Most of it hasn't arrived so I'm expecting a deluge any day now. It's going to be so fun!!! With the six days off for Christmas and four days off for New Years, the wheel and I are going to become very close friends.

But an even more fabulous shipment will be on it's way to me from New Zealand this week. Impatience will abound over the next weeks while I wait! The purchase was more than a bit compulsive but not one that I'm going to regret. Until Rose arrives, the Traddi and I will be getting along just fine. .

The beasts didn't show much excitement when I told them the news:

But I could tell that deep down, they were happy for me.

lots of brown

Today's post is brought to you by the color brown.

I've been doing some spinning. First up we have some chocolaty corriedale. It was easy to spin and had a bit of lanolin on it still. Both good things.

I've also worked on the border leicester I bought in Taos. Also a good, easy spin. It's rather scratchy but since I haven't washed it, yet, I don't know how much it will soften up.

I found that the second half of this ball o' fiber was slubbier than the first half, with tighter little knottish areas of fiber. Perhaps I missed them or was able to deal with them better in the first half. The change was odd to me, though. I was also surprised that I wasn't able to get more yardage. The corriedale was around 50 yards and the border leicester was around 70 yards. I honestly don't know how many ounces of fiber I started with, though.

Samus progress:

And because this post needs something other than brown and because they are out waiting to be used when the chillier weather gets here, here's a pair of Broad Street mittens and Kittiwake from Aran Knitting, which my wonderful library has numerous copies of:

the eternity continues

I'm still knitting away on the Garden Shawl edge. I had to switch from using dpns for the border to my Addis the rest of the shawl is on because I was about to crack up or crack the dpns up because they were much duller and prone to being difficult and anger inspiring. I'm on 85 of 120 repeats. Almost three quarters of the way there.

In order to avoid the dreaded edging, I picked up my spindle, which I haven't done in a long time. This is what I ended up with from a Saturday night of spinning enjoyment and the prior stuff I'd done:

Because of the extreme difference in ball size (hee hee), I was amazed to find that after I plyed these I only had this much left:

The resulting product was a well balanced 120 yards of yarn (I tried to take a picture to prove that the final pre-washed skein didn't twist, but the pictures came out amoeba-like and unrecognizable - the result of midnight picture taking in a less-than-optimally-lit bathroom). I thought that plying would help relax the overspun stuff, but it looks like it didn't. Originally, I planned to keep spinning this way until I had 400-500 yards to knit a lacy scarf with. I think I'm going to try and spin some fluffier stuff that has more body to it. This is all about practice, right? A combination of process and product. Kinda focusing on creating a usable product, though.

On Sunday (today), I made pear butter with my mom. We started around 9:30 a.m. and I left around 8:00 p.m. without pear butter. We chopped the pears, cooked the pears, smushed the pears in the food mill, and baked the pear mush in the oven at 350 degrees starting around 2:15 p.m. When I left, the pear mush was still too mushy to be called pear butter. I predict this will take at least 10 hours of cooking to complete. I'll keep you posted. I hope my mother can take the marathon pear buttering and finish it up.

I should have brought the camera with me because there were several bloggable moments. I'll remember that for next time. I apologize for this oversight, I'm sure you are all clambering to see pictures of the pear butter process. I'll post the resulting butter when I finally obtain it.

sit and spin

I had a great time on Friday at Stonehill Spinning learning more about fibery fun. The store is in a small town called Fredericksburg which has great shops for antiques and kitschy stuff and the drive from Austin is very pretty - lots of hills and trees and whatnot. They didn't have much yarn, but most of it is stuff I can't get in Austin, like Trekking sock yarn and Mountain Colors, a yarn I'd been looking for because I want to make the Friday Harbor socks with the Knitting on the Road Knit Along that starts today.

The woman who taught me has been spinning for 15 years and learned in North Carolina (if I'm remembering correctly) at a craft school. She showed me how to spin a thinner yarn because most of my knitting is with thinner yarn these days and I don't know what I'll do with bulky stuff. To my delight, it seems much easier to spin thin yarn than thick yarn. That perception could also be because the fiber I started spinning with is relatively hard to spin compared to the fiber on Friday. I bought my first fiber from my LYS that doesn't have a very wide selection of spinning fibers. I know there is a more technical way to describe why the first stuff was more difficult to spin that the new stuff, but I didn't retain those words when it was explained to me.

Here's what I came home with Friday:

 

From left to right: 8 ounces merino from sheep raised by the shop owner, 6 ounces New Zealand Corriedale, and Mountain Colors Weaver's Wool in Sierra. Yum. I should be able to make something with that much wool, probably a scarf or hat.

Here's what I've done with the merino so far. The picture on the right was me testing the twist to make sure it will look good plied.

And in recent knitting news:

This is Whitby from Knitting on the Road. I was house sitting this weekend for a couple that smoke in the house - a lot - and I needed a project I could finish and wash quickly because clearly the lace projects and spinning wool couldn't be exposed to the evils of the smokey house. I've finished the first sock and have the foot of number two to go. Once this pair is off the needles, I'll be going for Friday Harbor. Nancy Bush rocks. And then on to the next pair of the Six Socks Knit Along. And somewhere in there, I'll be spinning and working on my lace.

more spinning excitement

Another work day was squandered researching spinning. In the morning, some time was spent emailing Cate, who graciously offered fantastic spinning advice and support. Then, I found out that there was a Weavers and Spinners Society of Austin meeting tonight at 7:00 and a store with very yummy fiber less than an hour away.

When I got home from work, I spent some time with my spindle and we weren't getting along very well. This struggle put me in a mildly annoyed/bad mood and it didn't make me want to go meet a new group of spinners very much and I considered staying home. But then I remembered Cassie asking how many people knew other spinners. I don't know any spinners and don't have any knitting friends, but the only reason I don't know people is because I don't go meet them. I know when and where they meet, I just haven't gone. So I decided to change that habit tonight and my spindle and I went to on an outing to meet other people.

The women there were very nice. I came home with this:

 

and these:

   

How cool is that? I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that I plied yarn or that I got a dozen eggs (wonderful eggs at that) out of the deal.

One of the women raises lamas and another sheep (that's where mohair comes from right? she had onion died mohair) and there were two Lendrum spinning wheels and two women combing wool and 5 of us struggling with spindles. I had a very nice time and learned Andean plying. And more important than plying, I learned that  this isn't ready for spinning as is, it needs to be separated into several smaller sections and drafted some prior to spinning. That's a very good thing to know! I was happier after learning that and I didn't threaten my spindle nearly as much the rest of the evening.

I'm not sure how much I'll learn tomorrow at my spinning lesson, but I'm looking forward to talking to someone else about spinning. There will also be spinning wheels present and I'm sure she has some fiber to sell and hopefully a niddy noddy.

On Saturday, I'll probably make a trip for some gorgeous spiral died roving. Merino isn't hard to spin, is it??

when kinky goes too far

It's a good thing that I've had a lot of free time at work these past few days because I've spent more time than I care to admit reading about spinning and, dare I say it, spinning wheels. I signed up for a drop spindle class for beginners at my LYS for August 13 but since they don't sell spinning wheels or really cater to the spinning enthusiast (a future aspiration), I decided to expand my search to other cities, anticipating stores in Houston or Dallas. I was pleasantly surprised to discover Stonehill Spinning only an hour and a half from here instead of the 3 hour minimum I was expecting. I'm more than willing to travel that far to interview spinning wheels. When I called to inquire about spinning classes, the owner recommended private lessons (only $15 an hour) and I'll be meeting her on Friday afternoon. It takes very little encouragement for me to take time off work under normal circumstances and in the interest of a new fiber pursuit, there was very little hesitation.

After my less than quality time with my spindle on Friday, I had almost decided just to wait for someone to teach me how to play nicely with my spindle. This hesitation was overcome when I started reading this blog because the author (whose name I should know and might remember with more sleep) has recently embarked on the drop spindling thing. The comments have been very helpful and I've been very encouraged reading about another person's spinning attempts. Yet another reason I love blogs.

Here we have the evenings accomplishment:

I was feeling good about the yarn up to this point. I knew there was some kinky happening, but was frightened to realize just how much when I took it off the chair:

I'm laughing even now at that crazy jumble of fiber. It's not even recognizable as yarn. Maybe after a bit of stretching it'll be better.

I enjoyed the process tonight, though, even if the product left something to be desired, and that's a very good thing. I was too tired to concentrate knitting lace but wanted to do something other than staring at the television and spinning was just the thing. Now if I can keep the dreams of a spinning wheel at bay for a few more months...

Lacy Goodness

Madli is progressing nicely. I'm on repeat 25 out of 31. Because I'm using Zephyr, which is a thinner yarn that the recommended, and I went down a needle size, I'm considering adding a few extra repeats to ensure that it isn't too short. This is only my second lace weight project and while I know things expand when blocked, I don't know how much or if it will be enough to make me happy. I'll make the final decision when I reach repeat 31, though.

When I picked up Madli after taking a few days off to start something new, I decided that the stitch markers between the 7 repeats were exceedingly annoying and took a risk, taking them all out except the first and last ones for the borders. Fearing that this experiment would end in disaster, I cast about for something to use for a lifeline and while I found some dental floss, I was at work and didn't have a needle with me. I didn't let the lack of a lifeline interfere with progress and knit bravely through the insecurity, happily without incident thus far. Yeah!

Madli has become my at work knitting because I couldn't wait to start this:

I love this shawl and I love the color. A shawl knit in the round is a good thing - no purling across increasingly longer rows. I'm glad I didn't finish Madli before starting this one because I can knit Madli at work and the Garden Shawl at home. This is a good thing because the rows for the Garden Shawl are already getting long and if I took it to work, it would be challenging to figure out where I was in the pattern if I had to put down in the middle of a row. Not to mention the fact that I'm finding the Garden Shawl more addicting than Madli and would be more likely to extend my breaks and lunch hour to squeeze out a few more stitches than I should.

In other news, this came home with me on Friday from the yarn store:

And, I signed up for a beginner spinning class on August 13. It's a three hour class that I'm hoping gives me a better start than the sad beginning I had this weekend when I attempted to engage the drop spindle without a person to demonstrate and no prior experience. I'm sure a teacher will be able to explain how much twist the fiber should have and how to draft the fiber in a way that doesn't generate sailor cursing or high blood pressure.

My kitten did try and explain that drafting wasn't difficult as she demonstrated how to separate the fiber, but I don't believe her, yet. She won't earn my confidence until she shows me some nicely plied yarn.

And because she hasn't been getting the face time the kittens have, here's my pup, Tater: