Spinning – Page 5 – Hazel Purls

Challenges

My life has definitely been full of challenges over the last couple of years (they’ve not been fun, but I think I’m stronger for them). However, I have two challenges coming up that I’m really looking forward to.

Firstly, I’ve been invited to be a guest blogger on the Creating Space blog. When I write here I’m talking about my creative journey (and sometimes I manage to discuss techniques and my wheels). To write on someone else’s space I need to think about the readers there and write something that reflects the group (rather than just me). This will mean that I have a slightly different focus from when I write here, but I’m looking forward to meeting the challenge. When I’ve worked out what I’m going to write, written it, and the post has gone live, I’ll post a link here 🙂

Secondly, I’ve signed up for the Ravelry Tour de Fleece (TdF). This is an annual event that runs while the Tour de France is on-going. I’ve joined two teams: Ashford UK Spinners and Team TARDIS. The objective is to spin everyday that the Tour is running – with two rest days and a challenge on the day of the hardest stage. I’ve been trying to keep my aims low-key to fit with my current situation. So here they are:

Spin everyday!
Do some spinning on all of my wheels! Not everyday obviously, but I should do some spinning on each of my wheels by the end of the TdF.
Spin a fun Doctor Who inspired art yarn. I intend to learn a new technique while doing this. I may spin something inspired by “Bow Ties are Cool” or “Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey”, but I may do something entirely different :-) Yes, it is a bit silly, but it’ll be fun, I’ll learn and perfect a new technique and I’ll end up with a scarf that I can wear to an SF Convention should I ever make it to one!
Finish off any languishing projects. I have a number on both wheels and spindles. On my wheels this is an achievable goal but on my spindles I hope to make progress.

Once I’ve finished the “in progress” projects I have quite a lot of fibre all lined up for projects. I have 10oz of carded Soay-cross fibre that I need to spin into a yarn for a shawl, plus a number of hand-dyed tops and a multi-coloured merino top.

The TdF is often a chance to de-stash a little. However, I’ve been so overcome with enthusiasm for art yarns since my success with the Wild and Independent yarn and scarf, that I’ve ended up ordering more stash! There’s lots of sparkle, un-combed fleece and also some bamboo and wool tops from different breeds for me to try. As you can see I didn’t even manage to contain my enthusiasm to a single order:

The TdF starts next Saturday (29th June) and runs for three weeks. I’ll update progress on Ravelry and Instagram daily and post regular, but not daily, updates here. Wish me luck!

Locks and Labels

I’ve crammed lots of spinning and knitting into the last few weeks. But first a mystery!

I was away for a few days and took my portable wheel and a small selection of tops to spin. I eventually decided on an pink/orange top that I’d dyed. After dyeing it I remember thinking that I would know what it was when I used it and so didn’t add a label. However, for the entire time I was spinning I wasn’t sure of the fibre. It was humbug tops but that’s all I knew. Was it Shetland or BFL? I didn’t have a clue! When I got back from my trip I checked my blog and thought that maybe it was some BFL humbug tops that I’d dyed. But apparently I’ve already started spinning that into a crepe yarn!

I’m going to have to start making notes on the dyeing that I do and also adding labels to both my dyed tops and to the finished yarns. However, I Navaho plied this mystery into a lovely yarn of about 190 yards.

I’ve also continued with the Wild and Independent yarn that started as a response to the suggestion I should downsize my spinning wheel collection. I had enormous fun spinning this big yarn and plying in the locks. I also really enjoyed knitting it up into a crazy scarf.

I took advice from my friends at Creating Space and settled on making a two-ply yarn with the locks trapped between the plies. I did try tail-spinning the locks during the plying but I couldn’t quite get that to work. In the end the locks are partially tail-spun and partially encapsulated by the plies.

I then proceeded to knit a huge scarf in just a few evenings.

I plan to wear my wild and independent scarf at every opportunity. During the summer I’ll wear it when spinning in public (I’ve never got enough layers on when spinning in a field) and during the winter I’ll wear it with my military style wool coat (military and wild – a great combination).

I have plans to make more wild yarn – for my next one I have some locks in pink, yellow and orange ready to use!

Wild and independent

Today has been a lovely day. The rain has stopped and the sun has appeared. The apple and lilac trees are still in blossom and the Horse Chestnuts are decked with their candles of white and dark-pink flowers.

The best part of today though, was getting some carding and spinning done in the company of other very creative people. A day filled with spinning, weaving, sewing, quilting, carding, painting and knitting. It was a positive delight of colour, shape and texture. I went along with my car filled with tools, equipment and fibre, but no real idea of what I was going to do. After getting myself settled (which always means getting a cup of tea) and sorting through my boxes I was starting to see the beginnings of some inspiration.

I wanted to spin something “wild and independent”, as was suggested by Lyn following my last blog post. After discussing this on Ravelry I’d decided that locks and glitter wasn’t too over the top – but I still wasn’t sure what I was going to spin.

In the end I decided on some Shetland humbug tops I’d dyed, but the original tops had been a disorganised mess and really needed carding to make them usable. To this I added some commercially dyed “poppy” Shetland and some rainbow trilobal nylon. I tried out the combination on a hand-carder then decided to drum card some batts. I made four equal piles of fibre, or at least I tried to – I didn’t have scales and no-one else had brought any either, so I did it by eye.

When drum-carding I didn’t use the licker-in at all, I simply turned the drum while applying the tops directly to it. This is the first time I’ve tried this approach. Sometimes the drum would grab a larger lump of fibre than I desired, but otherwise I was able to fill the drum fairly consistently. A couple of times I did get into a tangle where the licker-in grabbed the tail-end of the tops and started feeding that in as well as the tops I was applying directly to the main drum. (I do hope you’re a spinner and following this. I’ve just realised that I’m talking a special spinner’s language here and perhaps I need to think about a glossary on this blog?)

I made four reasonably consistent batts. I didn’t do any blending beyond putting the fibre on in layers (a little like a lasagne: dyed tops, nylon, poppy, dyed, nylon, poppy,…)

I then split the tops lengthways and pre-drafted a little before spinning in a worsted style. There a quite a few lumps and bumps, mostly deliberate (after all this is a wild yarn).

The results of a day’s work. I’m planning on Navaho plying and adding the locks of Leicester Longwool at that stage.

A Long Update

Firstly I must apologise for the length of time it’s been since I last made an update to this blog. The reasons for which I’ll briefly explain. Sometimes I read other craft blogs where the authors have wondered how much from their personal life they should put in the blog, and I don’t think anyone is sure what the right answer is. In my case I’ve decided I’ll mention a little of what’s going on in my personal life, then you don’t need to worry if I go all quiet again for a while, but in general I intend to keep this blog as a mostly craft only zone.

I’m in the process of divorcing my husband and, as it turns out, even if you’re able to sit in a room and discuss the options calmly with a mediator, rather than dragging the process through a court, things can still be said that surprise or upset. There were certainly surprises during that last mediation session a few weeks ago. One thing that upset was the suggestion, from my husband, that my spinning wheels should be considered as a “collection” that could be sold as a job lot to raise funds. When discussing this later it transpired that my husband considered this to be a joke.

As an act of defiance I came home and finally put together my main Ashford spinning wheel with the lace flyer. I polished it with a beeswax polish, and did two coats. But after doing that the undermining effect of the implicit suggestion that my craft hobby is unimportant and that my equipment can simply be considered as an asset to be sold has taken its toll and I’ve found it impossible to get any inspiration for any craft activity at all.

However, today the sun came out and I took my spinning wheel into my patio to supervise the children playing and impressed them with my long draw (and impressed myself with the 40:1 ratio that my wheel now has). It seems to have a rattle at the moment, so I’ll try and tighten everything up and get it running smoothly, but otherwise it’s delightful. And here it is glowing in the afternoon sunshine:

And here’s some Shetland and soybean fibre I carded together a long time ago, being spun on my new lace flyer (as you can see two coats of furniture polish isn’t really enough and the spinning oil has stained the flyer, I’ll add more polish over the summer):

Before the mediation session put the kibosh on my crafting energy, I had a lovely day at Creating Space and got my Purple Paradise Shawl off the loom:

Since then it’s had a wash but I’ve not done anything with the fringe. I think I’m going to work a twisted fringe. However, at the moment I’m unsure how to proceed, as it does appear to be a rather tedious process (this from someone happy to spin 100g of fibre into yarn – a process that takes many hours)!

Half way there

Before I came home yesterday, I’d finished, washed and dried my first skein of crepe yarn.

Late this afternoon the sun finally popped out from behind the rain clouds that have kept us indoors for much of the day. I grabbed my skein and my camera and put a pretty book and the skein on top of the stacks of paperwork and books that seem to have migrated to the part of my desk I’m trying to keep clear for project photography (it stays clear for about 5 minutes, then gets invaded by the usual junk all over again). So I added the macro lens to my camera and tried to hide the junk.

I’m fairly happy with this as a first skein of rickrack yarn. It’s a long way from perfect, but it’s predominantly balanced and overall the yarn is interesting. For the first time ever I think I’m going to need to sample this before I decide on an end project. And there’s still a second skein to complete…

A breather

I have paused from what has turned out to be a mammoth plying task. I’m working on the last stage of the 3-ply crepe yarn. I started working at about 8pm this evening, setting up the skein of (deliberately) over twisted 2-ply onto the swift and the thin z-twist single onto the built-in Lazy Kate of this wheel. I eventually stopped about halfway through the plying at 10:30pm when my neck was starting to feel achy.

When I started the plying I had to fight the wheel while I persuaded it to take up the yarn (all previous spinning on this wheel has had me fighting too strong take-up and having to lace the singles once or twice between the flyer arms to get a reasonably gentle take-up). I swore when the yarn jumped out of the open flyer hook (there is no orifice on this wheel) and tangled up instead of winding onto the bobbin. I was worried that working from a skein of yarn from the swift would give me problems, but this has worked well. Sometimes my single and two ply has got a bit tangled, so next time I’ll set up the swift on my right-hand side instead of behind my wheel.

Anyway, I eventually managed to get a balance between twist and take-up and I started being able to think about the yarn I was producing. It took quite a while to get the right way to work on this. I say the right way, but until I’ve washed and set the twist it’s going to be difficult to tell if it’s completely right. However, the yarn does seem to snap into place when it’s going correctly. I’m not holding the yarn in the way I would normally when plying (the single I’m holding fairly straight and the 2 ply I’m feeding in at a slight angle). I’m working at it slowly so that I can control the amount of twist. This means that I’m taking much longer to ply this yarn than I would normally take.

My yarn is not yet consistent, but as you can see when it’s working it’s very pretty. I’m looking forward to seeing this washed and set.

The winter blahs!

Winter is, I think, getting to me. Earlier this week there were signs of spring, and I managed a walk with my daughter, taking some pictures of lovely spring flowers.

Since then the weather has been cold and grey, and then the snow arrived.

I’ve been feeling the need to counteract the colourlessness of the continued winter. At this point if someone handed me a pot of multi-coloured paint and a brush I’d go round the house frantically painting blocks of colour onto plain walls. Instead I’ve been grabbing lengths of tops from my supply, pots of food colour and large bottles of vinegar and been combining them with abandon.

A couple of weeks ago a friend suggested dyeing in the oven as a way to prevent the tops felting/compacting too much. So these were dyed in my largest Pyrex dishes with foil on the top. I found 150 degrees centigrade to be a good temperature, putting the prepared tops in to the cold oven, turning it on (it’s a fan oven), then turning off after an hour and leaving the wool in the oven for about an hour – or overnight in one instance – while it cooled a bit. The first batch was very successful, the second I didn’t manage to work the colour into the wool enough.

The first batch is on natural white Shetland:

Overdyed fawn Shetland:

Overdyed humbug blended Shetland (the humbug blended tops are looser than the single colour tops, which I find makes them harder to dye):

Leicester Longwool rainbow dyed in two batches on a stove-top:

I have plans for the longwool. I need a new handbag and think a woven bag with a mass of locks near the top would be totally impractical and completely mad (and a good test of light-fastness of food-colour dyed wool). I need to finish a few more projects off though before I start on that one!

Crepe Yarn in Progress

It’s been a while since I last made a blog post. Various reasons, including the continued poor weather. Even though it’s now March and the crocuses and the early daffodils are up, we are still having cold, snowy, frosty and grey days. Sadly this makes taking pictures tricky. However, the sun finally came out briefly yesterday afternoon, so I’ve been able to take pictures of work in progress.

A few weeks ago I received a lovely spinning book for my birthday. It’s The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson:

Yes, I did just grab that image from the preview on Amazon’s site.

The book’s absolutely brilliant. Full of inspiring techniques and ideas for yarn constructions I’ve not come across before. I love the clear diagrams that show the construction of a yarn at a glance. My first project inspired by this is a 3 ply yarn, with a construction similar to a cabled yarn. It’s called a Crepe yarn. 2 singles are spun in one direction, then plied. Then a second single is spun in the plied direction and plied with the original 2 ply. Are you still following? No? The “at a glance” diagram would really help here – which is one reason the book is so brilliant.

I’m spinning this with a thick single from my dyed BFL (the pinky/orange one), here it is a few weeks ago:

and two thin singles of natural white Shetland. I was aiming at a Bubble or Rickrack Crepe yarn, but I don’t think there’s enough difference in the thickness of the singles. At the two ply stage I have two almost full bobbins of yarn. However, I don’t have enough bobbins for the wheel I’m using for this spinning, so have wound the 2-ply off into skeins:

As there’s a lot of unbalanced twist in this 2-ply, the skeins are a little like super-scrunchies. I’m sure there are good reasons not to handle the yarn-in-progress in this way, but I’m afraid I don’t know them (a little knowledge at this stage may be a dangerous thing). At the moment I’m working on the second white single. When I ply I’ll put each skein onto my swift and ply from the swift and a bobbin. I’ve not done this before! It could all turn into a huge tangle of wild yarn!

New spinning related addition

My almost ex-husband (I’m in the process of divorcing) has taken to bargain hunting in his local auction house. Since we’ve separated he’s bought himself a spinning wheel (as a project) and started pointing out interesting spinning related items to me. He spotted a spinning chair and asked for advice on a price. He won it (on a commission bid) and I’ve just bought it off him. He made a small profit on the transaction (probably enough to pay for a tea next time he visits the auction house).

Anyway here’s the chair:

The carving on it is very pretty (and the reason I ended up buying it). However, the construction is a little rough and one of the legs is wobbly and may have been broken at some point. There are also paint splashes on it. I’ll probably end up taking off at least some of the stain (it’s worn away in places) and then refinishing. I’m not at this stage quite sure how I’ll finish it. I’ll have to keep the dark finish in the carvings and perhaps have a lighter finish on the flat surfaces (and probably the legs).

I’m not sure I’ll ever use it as a spinning chair. It’s astonishingly uncomfortable to sit on, but it may prove to be the right height for the children to sit on when they are spinning.

Finish, start, start!

Sometime ago I dyed some Blue Faced Leicester, hung it up to dry, made the tops into a chain and then started to spin it. It’s finally finished. I decided to Navaho ply this and created two skeins. In total there are about 490 yards:

As I’ve finished lots of projects recently, it’s time to start some new ones. First I’ve started to spin the last batch of BFL I dyed – this is the pinky-orange tops as a single:

I’ve also started to knit a Moebius cowl:

This final project is being knitted in some Rico Poems yarn. I bought the yarn because it was in a lovely range of colours and then put it in my stash until I found a project worthy of the lovely yarn. At least I thought the yarn was lovely until I got it out and tried to use it.

I tried Tunisian crochet with it, worked a few stitches and noticed that the yarn was twisting up, so decided that knitting it would be best. I rewound the ball and put it into my work-basket.

A few days later I realised that this was a mistake, the ball was starting to come apart. I tried to rewind it, then put it into a plastic zip bag for sorting out later. Later came while staying at my Mum’s. I fished the yarn out and asked to borrow the ball winder.

At this stage the ball decided it was going to be two balls, with random loops of yarn in between and twisting around. It took two knitter’s about half an hour to tame the run-away ball into two neat re-wound balls.

I decided that the new project would be a Moebius cowl. I found the instructions and a long cord for my needles and cast on (and on). The cast on was lovely and easy, but the next row was hard work. However, after a very long time I got through it (though noticed that the yarn was fluffing up from the work, which was surprising for a sock yarn). Undaunted I’ve carried on and now it’s starting to look rather lovely However, I did notice I had managed to knit two stitches together at one stage, now fixed by dropping the stitches down a few rows and re-working them back up. The yarn is also still twisting up really badly and periodically I hang the loop of knitting down and gently untwist it (one time I untwisted a little too far and the yarn drafted apart).

I’ve decided after all these problems that this cowl is going to have to look gorgeous. In addition to the colour I think it needs something glittery, so I’m going to add beads. What could possibly go wrong (it’s the first time I’ve added beads to knitting)?