Hazel – Page 9 – Hazel Purls

Fettling

I’ve spent a bit of time this week fettling¹ with my two Ashford Traditional wheels. It started with the thought that perhaps I don’t need the jumbo flyer now that I’ve got the Pipy Poly wheel (though I currently only have one bobbin for it). Anyway, there have been so many changes I thought I’d create a table:

	Changing Wheel Configurations
	1960’s Wheel	Late 1980’s Wheel
Start of week	Jumbo flyer and modern MoA².	Lace flyer and maidens with sealed bearings.
First change	Restore original MoA but use sliding hook flyer.
Today	Remove original (60’s) maidens and install lace flyer maidens and lace flyer.	Remove lace flyer and restore original (80’s) maidens and use sliding hook flyer.

The oldest wheel has been rather heavy to treadle with the jumbo flyer. Sometimes it worked well, but the wheel has never felt entirely happy with this arrangement. The original maidens have leather bearings. They are very sturdy and work well. The sliding hook flyer (and all modern flyers) has a slightly longer spindle than the original flyer. It fits between the maidens very well and works, but the maidens need to be turned a long way to change bobbins.

The big problem is that the front of the flyer is flat and gives a large area of contact with the bearing (the original flyer has a curved front which has very little contact with the bearing). This obviously slows the flyer down making the wheel harder to treadle and also causes some noise. However, I’ve done quite a bit of plying this week with this set up.

1960’s wheel with the lace flyer:

The wheel practically purrs in this arrangement! It’s lovely to treadle. Even the smallest whorl (which gives a lightening fast 40:1 flyer:wheel ratio) is easy to treadle. However, the rubber band which provides the spring in the brake band is on the wrong side according to current recommendations, though Anne Field was of the opinion that the arrangement I currently have is the correct one! Certainly it appears to work well, so I’ll leave it for the moment and see how it does when filling up a bobbin.

The traditional way to thread a single through a small orifice is with a feather. I’m not a fan of feathers, but a pipe-cleaner works well:

The next thing to do with this wheel is to make a nice knob for the brake-band instead of just having a piece of dowel.

And for completeness, the 1980’s wheel restored to original parts with the sliding hook flyer:

I promise that my next post will have yarn. Actual finished YARN!!! Now I must get on and do some spinning!

1- British dialect meaning to modify or change something to get it working correctly. These are often small incremental changes until things are right. When I’m working on my wheels I feel a bit like someone who owns motorbikes and spends the evenings taking the engine to bits, tuning it up a bit and putting it back together.

2-Mother-of-All: the bit of the spinning wheel that supports the maidens and flyer. I think that one day I should make a diagram and write a glossary!

Plumbing

I’ve been looking forward to writing this blog post today, taking pictures and drafting ideas in my head. Then over dinner there was the sound of running water, just a little and I couldn’t place where, so didn’t worry about it…. until the trickle became a rush and water was pouring out of the under-sink cupboard! It turned out to be the u-bend, so I threw some towels at the spill and otherwise ignored it until I got the children into bed.

Anyway, I’ve managed to fix it! It appears that the adjustable u-bend (that was put in a couple of months ago) adjusted itself to its lowest position and then slowly failed. I had to take the u-bend off completely (it was fortunately very clean as I cleaned it last night), fish washers out and then work out how it all was supposed to go back together.

I’ve got it back together. It doesn’t appear to be leaking! There’s a part left over (I’ve no idea where it went but it didn’t seem to help wherever I put it)!

I’ll write the planned post in a few minutes, when I’ve recovered with some chocolate and a mug of tea! Mug

Project Control

Today I realised that I need to get control of both my fibre stash and my works in progress. I wanted to see what soybean fibre would look like blended with some dyed BFL. It took me half an hour to find the soybean fibre – tucked away in a suitcase that I thought was empty! I try and avoid storing things in my suitcases because it makes packing, which I don’t enjoy doing, an even bigger chore.

On Sunday and last night I spun up the seven batts of Shetland and mohair into a coreless core-spun single.

I would like to see what this looks like plied with a thread and I want to spin a fine single for this. I have a number of wheels I could use, but one of the best for the job is the Traditional with the lace flyer. Sadly all three of its bobbins are currently full of Shetland and soybean fibre, of which I only plied a little during the TdF.

So, tonight, I’m going to do some long overdue plying and try and finish some yarn I’ve been making for well over 2 years…

Sunsets

I love sunsets, they are so fleeting yet spectacular while they last. I take a lot of pictures of sunsets. Here’s a selection from the last few months:

This week has been good for sunsets (we’ve had clearer skies than we’ve had for a while and some lovely warm September days). I’ve been wondering if I could use a sunset as the inspiration for a yarn.

It’s quite a common practice for a picture or an object to be the inspiration for a yarn. It’s the approach taken in Creative Spinning. It’s also the approach I took when designing and spinning my Doctor Who yarn. The structure, the colours and even the materials chosen to create the yarn can all be inspired in this way.

But how abstract can the yarn be? I could select colours that are in the sunset: gold, red, peach colours as well as blues and greys, then blend these together to produce a marled yarn. From a distance it could look fairly brown or beige (depending upon the strength and balance of the colours selected), but up close the colours would be obvious and give a pleasing depth to the final piece.

Alternatively, I could keep the colours more distinct, and produce a yarn that gives more of the appearance of the sunset when it is made into a fabric, but would still be very abstract and would be moderately uniform over the whole piece (like a fragment of the sky repeated over and over).

Finally, I could try and capture the whole sky from dark blue furthest to the east to peach and pale blue nearest the western horizon, with the reds, golds and greys of the clouds illuminated by the setting sun. This could be a yarn that contains a picture that’s revealed when it’s turned into a fabric.

I like the final idea. A yarn that when it’s woven or knitted could be an impressionist’s painting of a sunset, made with wool instead of paint.

I did some dyeing a few days ago. I used Sugarflair (artificial food colour) on white Blue Faced Leicester. I think the ball at the front contains many of the colours of the sunset. A starting place for my sunset yarn (the idea is likely to brew for a while, not least until I’ve cleared some works in progress off my wheels).

A Great Wheel and Coreless Core Spinning

Though not coreless core spinning on a Great Wheel!

Some of the mohair I mentioned in my last post was carded into two batts with some natural white Shetland.

I then corespun this without a core (the core is made while spinning, just moments before it is wrapped in fibre):

This has become my entry into the Ashford UK Spinners (AUKS) “First Challenge” on Ravelry. It’s been a year since AUKS was born and we now have well over 300 members. To celebrate our first year in existence Elaine (one of the group’s moderators) has worked very hard to organise a spin-along with some fantastic prizes. The challenge was to have a first go at spinning something, be it a new technique, a new tool or a new fibre. This was the first time I’ve spun with mohair and my first ball of coreless core spinning. It’s been lovely seeing what other members have chosen to spin, and this week pictures of the final skeins have started to be posted.

I still had most of the mohair left, so while at Creating Space a few days ago, I handcarded that into clouds too. I added some glitter and started drum carding again.

Which I finished off with a late night carding session.

All ready for my next coreless experiment!

While at Creating Space I had the wonderful opportunity to try spinning on a Great Wheel. She’s called Catherine (after St Catherine the patron saint of spinners) and belongs to the Guild of Longdraw Spinners.

I’m concentrating very hard (thank you Norma for the opportunity and the photo):

I’m now wondering if I should get a quill for one of my wheels!

The Garden and Dyeing

I got back from all the time away in August to find the neglected garden was doing very well with brambles, that had acquired triffid like proportions, creeping, crawling and scrambling over and through everything. One bramble had sent a branch soaring upwards, through the crab apple tree (at about 8ft high) and was just touching the ground on the other side. The lawn had almost totally disappeared. So, I’ve been hacking (loppers are a girl’s best friend), shredding and mowing to slowly return order to a large proportion of the garden. There is still much to be done, but today I bought a wide variety of spring bulbs and some winter violas to plant in the recently cleared herb bed. I’m looking forward to the garden being a real treat in the spring.

About half of the garden has been neglected for a much longer time and is under a frightening scramble of brambles. I’ve been ignoring this and will continue to do so until I have the rest under control. I then have plans to work on it over the autumn and winter and eventually to plant a range of fruit trees to make a tiny orchard.

Despite all the gardening I managed to do some dyeing one evening last week. I dyed up some BFL tops and BFL, kid mohair and Wensleydale fleece. I did all the dyeing in the oven in some large roasting pans. The pans fit (just) two at a time in the oven and mean that I can dye four batches of fibre in one session.

The fleece, despite the warm weather, took two whole days to dry on the line. I hang the fleece in net laundry bags, but I shall have to find a much better way to dry it in the future. The BFL top was completely dry, fluffy and airy after just a day.

I’ve started using the mohair, and it’s the first time I’ve used this fibre. Initially I thought I’d felted it, as it was very difficult to tease apart the locks, but, I think it had compacted during the dyeing. The mohair doesn’t have the elasticity or bounce of wool and I hadn’t understood how it would behave.

I’m currently teasing the mohair apart and carding it with hand-cards to get fluffy coloured clouds. I have a plan, but that shall be in my next post…

An Introduction and 3 Finished Objects!

Firstly, I’d like to introduce Harriette. She’s my new assistant and will be modelling finished articles on my blog. Within hours of starting her new job she was demanding a new hand-sewn skirt – so I suspect she may be trouble!!! Anyway, here she is modelling the first of my finished objects (and also the new skirt):

This is the Purple Paradise shawl I started weaving in March with hand-spun yarns for both the warp and the weft. It came off the loom in May. I’ve finished it off by making a twisted fringe from the warp-ends. Here I am starting to use the twisted fringe maker on the shawl:

The second finished object is also being modelled by Harriette:

This is a Mobius cowl knitted from my first core-spun yarn.

Finally, I have finished spinning the “Bowties are Cool” Doctor Who inspired yarn. This isn’t being modelled by Harriette as she objected to juggling the three large skeins. So instead I’ve draped them on the back of a chair. However, I hope this gives an idea of the scale of this yarn, which is fairly light (being core-spun) but very bulky:

It’s been a nice few days finishing off knitting, weaving and spinning. But as you’ve probably noticed I still have lots of active projects I really must get on with (though I’m very tempted to immediately cast on a shawl with the bowties yarn)!

Holidays

Going away for a summer holiday has meant that time for craft has been at a minimum. I took my portable spinning wheel and on a couple of evenings did some spinning while the children were asleep. But pre-holiday preparation and post-holiday catch-up has left little time for craft.

My holiday was very child-focused and as a result the vast majority of the nearly 200 photos I took (thank goodness for digital) are filled with pictures of the children, either posing – in gardens or on the beach; or actively playing – flying a kite or digging up large parts of the south-coast.

Occasionally though I was able to take a snap of the scenery. Astonishingly, for a summer holiday in England, there was an amazing amount of sunshine and clear blue skies. One day I shall take a photography course and learn to take decent pictures!

Saddle Sore

I’m not really saddle sore – I don’t think I actually did any cycling while participating in the Tour de Fleece at all. But the tour has ended and now it’s time to look back and review the experience. Before the tour started I set out some aims:

Spin everyday!

I did this! I managed to do some spinning (or spinning preparation) everyday that there was a cycling stage in the Tour de France, and I even spun a little on one of the rest days! Sometimes it was just a few minutes before bed, but sometimes I did a few hours.

Do some spinning on all of my wheels!

I also managed this. I started the tour with six wheels and acquired a new one somewhere in the middle – which did complicate things a little. I’ve spun a lot on some wheels (my oldest Ashford with both jumbo and standard sliding hook flyer has seen a lot of use) and just a little on others (both Haldanes have only been used a little, which is a shame as I like both wheels). Here’s what’s on, or been on, my wheels during the tour.

Completing the singles of the Soybean and Sheltand on my Traditional with lace flyer:

And starting to ply on my oldest Traditional:

Juno dyed Falkland fibre on my Dryad:

BFL dyed with food colour on my Queen Bee:

Continuing to spin some unspun yarn on my Hebridean:

Making singles for the middle of the bowties on my Lewis:

Learning to core-spin on my oldest Traditional with jumbo flyer and on my Pipy Poly:

Spin a fun Doctor Who inspired art yarn.

When I put this as an aim I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do. Part way through the tour I started playing with core-spun yarns. Then I started to think that the structure of the core-spun (with the fibres wrapping around rather than running along the length of the yarn) was a bit like the Time Vortex, add in some bowties…

I decided to make bowties with felt, and wrap singles around the middle to turn the rectangles of felt into bows. I wanted two colours of bowtie, blue and aubergine. Sadly, the first blue felt piece I made didn’t work for two reasons. The Angelina didn’t bond into the wool properly and then when I rolled it, the colour of the Angelina wore off and I was left with bronze and silver sparkle instead of just the bronze. I successfully redid the blue with smaller amounts of pink sparkle (which is the same colour I used in the aubergine felt and looks much better anyway).

I had a very late night on Saturday cutting up felt and then making up bowties.

On Sunday morning I prepared some core yarn by spinning it anti-clockwise to reduce the amount of unbalancing twist there would be in the finished yarn. I then packed everything up and took it to an open farm day, where I spun on the Poly wheel, which I’ve only used once before, using a technique I am still learning and adding the bows to the yarn in a way I’ve never attempted before. I even had to make up more bows using fairly active singles as I’d only had time to make aubergine bows the night before.

I spun some more when I got home and ended up with 80 yarns on the biggest bobbin of yarn I’ve ever spun:

Wound into a skein, washed and tied with yellow ribbons:

I still have about two-thirds of the batts left over so I hope to make another skein with the same number of bowties and a final skein with just a few bowties.

Finish off any languishing projects.

I have not finished any projects that I did not start during the tour, though I have made progress on some. I’m particularly pleased to be finally plying the Soybean and Shetland!

Overall I’ve really enjoyed the experience of participating in the Tour de Fleece. I’ve loved the focus on the spinning, the chance it’s given me to explore new techniques and the opportunity to share with other spinners in the UK and abroad. I will definitely do this again!

Day, ermmm… not sure… of the TdF

What I do know is that there are just two days and a few hours left, and I’ve got a lot of work still to do if I’m going to hit all my aims. Actually, if I’m honest here I’m not going to manage everything at this point. What I want to do now is identify my main focus and concentrate on that.

Well there are two things, firstly I said I wanted to spin on all my wheels. Well, at the start of the tour I had six wheels. I’ve spun on six wheels. However, I now have seven wheels and my Haldane Lewis is feeling neglected!

The second thing I really want to do is make the “bowties are cool” yarn. I have a plan that if I make enough yarn I could make a nice shawl, with bows along the lower edges. I suspect I won’t have the length of yarn for that, but I won’t know until I try. Anyway, to make the yarn I really need some bowties. I’m making them out of felt and spinning short coordinating lengths of yarn (I’ll spin these on the Lewis) to finish them off and attach them to the core-spun yarn.

Last night I checked out some potential colours for the bowties:

Then I had a go at the felting. I really don’t have any skill at making felt. Usually when handling wool I’m treating it very gently so as not to make it felt. But when I try and make felt, I find it takes quite a lot of effort. Last night’s attempt was not 100% successful – the Angelina (sparkly nylon) I added formed a resist layer between two felted layers of wool. I’m hoping that once I’ve rolled the felt it’ll be ok. But I want to make a second piece in different colours and roll them at the same time. So, I’m going to go and do that now otherwise this yarn isn’t going to be spun this weekend!