A camel through the eye of a needle

I did a little more spinning - this time some camel/silk fiber I bought at Stitches from A Verb for Keeping Warm. I recommend you look at the photo of the fiber here as it is lovely in it's natural colour.

The fiber was lovely and soft - but actually really hard for me to spin! The silk fibers are long, but the camel clearly has a short staple and I felt I was often spinning lumps of camel fiber onto the silk. I hoped that some of my inadequate spinning would be disguised when I plied - and maybe it is, but the resulting yarn has a very obvious thick-and-thin character.



However it was really fun trying to spin this evenly and a good learning experience for me. The yarn is pretty soft and I still love the colour. I have plans for this yarn for Gill!

A spot of spinning

Despite evidence to the contrary, my wheel has not been sitting idle. I spun this fibre that I bought at Stitches 2011 from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The fibre is 60% Merino/30% Yak/30% Silk.
The colours are lovely subtle shades of blue and it was very easy to spin.



I was aiming for a DK weight to knit a hat for Nigel - but it looks a little thinner than that. I think I will knit a top-down pattern and knit as long as the yarn lasts. I only have 2oz of the fibre so I may mix it with another yarn once I settle on a pattern. However, since Nigel won't be needing a hat for a while it will probably sit in my yarn stash for a while.

Thundercloud scarf

Kerstin and I both bought some fibre at Stitches 2010 from Redfish Dyeworks. If you ever saw her stand at Stitches you would certainly remember it for it's profusion of intense colours.



I chose this 50/50 mix of tussah silk and baby camel in a colour that reminded me of thunderclouds - although the dyer thought it was more like the inside of an abalone shell. Either way I loved the subtle mix of dark and vivid fibres.

I eventually spun it into a fingering weight 2-ply yarn. I warped my loom with a Habu yarn 20/3 bamboo in a deep purple. (Colour 3) and used my handspun as the weft. I am really pleased with how the colours are preserved both in the yarn and the woven fabric.



Now this is really a cautionally tale in weaving: I had some difficulty warping with the Habu yarn; it's very fine and slippery; but I did get the warp on and thought it was OK after some adjustments. When weaving I seemed to have difficulty maintaining an even tension across the warp. The truth became apparent when I cut off the finished item:



A lot of the bend in the scarf I was able to massage out before I tied off the fringe and blocked the scarf. It's certainly not noticeable that the scarf is not straight - but it's an excellent example of how poor warping can have a bad effect on your weaving!

Fibre to fabric

The reason I bought the loom was to use some of my handspun. I bought some merino bamboo fiber (Meribo) from Purlescence yarns at Stitches, and some carbonized bamboo fiber from MC Mercantile on Etsy.



The merino blend is on the right - it came out with a lovely shiny finish and a nice marled effect. The carbonized bamboo was very soft but I didn't enjoy spinning it as much - it was rather sticky. It also made a very matte single.

I spun each of these as a fine single and plied them together.



I was pleased that the merino mix retained it's shine and the yarn was very soft.
I warped the loom with a Habu laceweight in 100% bamboo. It is colour 3 which is a very deep purple.



I made sure to use paper between the layers of the warp as the yarn was so fine. It was harder to warp than the sock yarn I had previously used and I did have to make some adjustments for tension.

I wove about 6.5' and cut off the warp. I tied the warps in groups of six to make tassels.



Nigel seems pretty pleased with his new scarf.

First yarn

I did a lot of spinning over the weekend with much attention from Fin. He kept asking to "have a go" but as I was in the middle of a project I could not really let him and fobbed him off with "when I've finished spinning this yarn".

On his arrival home from school he immediately cornered me, demanded the status of my spinning project, and insisted it was his turn to use the wheel.

We sat down with some fiber and I started to teach him the rudiments of spinning. After a few minutes he announced "it is harder than it looks"! (As I discovered on my first attempt at spinning with Christina).

He did persist and wanted me to wind his yarn off on the niddy-noddy (he liked that name) and make him a little skein.



Now he wants me to teach him to knit!

More yarn

This is some yarn I spun since I spun the Columbine yarn. I was trying to make a thicker yarn to knit a hat or cowl or something.

The fibre is from Tactile Fiber Arts and I bought it at Stitches West 2009. Its a Blue Faced Leicester combed top in colour 'dogwood'. Tactile use natural dyes and the colours are pretty and delicate. I love the pink/green colour combination and wanted to preserve the long colour transitions, so I spun the top without splitting it, and then navajo/chain plied it. I had tried navajo plying previously but it was much easier with my tensioned kate. I have 85 yards from 2oz of fibre, although I had spun a little of it on my drop spindle so the yarn is actually about 1.7oz.

Handspun Fetchings

Having spun quite a bit of my orange fiber I thought I would try knitting something from my handspun. The gauge of this fiber is like a thick aran so I thought Fetching mittens would fit the bill.





They look like handspun in that the texture of the yarn is rather uneven, but I think it works pretty well with this pattern. Of course it's been over 100 degrees here every day so the idea of wearing mittens seems rather distant!



These are the first actual item I have knitted from my handspun!

Sheep to shawl: a slight snag

The Old Shale Lace shawl pattern seems a good match for my yarn and it's really been knitting up nicely. A load of travel last week helped with progress! However I have run into a small problem...


I'm out of yarn. I decided to do the picot cast-off, which looks terrific by the way, and have run out of yarn 4" before the end of the cast-off.

I have some fleece left so I can at least spin some more.

My own private sheep to shawl

At Lambtown last year we watched some of the Sheep-to-Shawl competition: multiple spinners spinning yarn for a weaver to make a shawl, with fleece from a sheep shorn that morning. My private sheep-to-shawl is a somewhat more leisurely affair (not to mention trans-atlantic!)

Here's is Christina's sister's sheep Columbine being shorn.

Christina then washed and carded the fleece and sent it to me.

I spun the fleece into real yarn! This took me quite a long time (probably 20 hours or so spinning).

I plied the single into a 2-ply yarn, skeined it, and then set the twist by washing the yarn

I now have 380 yards of fingering weight yarn to knit into my shawl. I committed a spinning sin by plying my first 2 bobbins before spinning the second 2, but a) I thought I might have spun enough on 2 bobbins...seemed like miles, and b) I wanted to see if it 'worked' before I spun any more.

The yarn is pretty soft, and a lovely rich brown colour. I managed to spin both lots pretty evenly at 16 wpi, but am not sure how it will knit up - it seems rather weak and I broke the yarn once winding it into cakes

I will cast on once I finish Lamour...gives me an incentive to knit that second sleeve.

Recession Kate

I dont have a proper Lazy Kate for my wheel, the bobbin holders on the front are not tensioned, so I made one based on one I saw somewhere on the internet (sorry to whoever thought this up because I cant remember where I saw it!).

This is made from a box with 2 knitting needles. I created a tensioner from a piece of string with a bulldog clip, however this picture shows the 'recession bobbins' that I was using for the spindle so I didnt need any further tensioning.

I did ask Nigel to make me a kate from wood dowels, but frankly, this one seems to work pretty well!

First yarn

I have been practising with Spinning Julie. Last week I had a spinning lesson with Amy which helped a lot. Since then I have plied some yarn that I spun on my spindle, and some that I have been spinning on the wheel.

This is the spindle yarn, I dont know what the fibre is, but its not very soft. I bought it at Lambtown last year and it has made quite a chunky yarn.



This is some BLF that I bought to practise with on the spindle - this fibre was rather felted and the yarn is also rather chunky. The colours worked out nicely.




Here is the stuff that I have spun since my lesson - it's still very thick-and-thin, but a lot better than the purple stuff. I plied it as a 2-ply, but also had a go at Navaho plying, which looks better for this yarn, but I had very thin singles and was obviously rather rough with my plying as it kept breaking.

Still, I have a pound of the orange stuff so I have a lot to practise with!

Meet Julie*

...my new toy! This is an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel that I bought from Craigslist on Friday.

I think it was produced between 1980 and 1991. Don't know what wood, but it's a nice solid wood with a lovely patina. It's a double drive wheel, although you can rig it as a scotch tension wheel, which I think I will do as it's supposedly easier for beginners.

It was very dusty and needs a does of oil, but seems in good condition. I cleaned it today and tried some spinning...

This was some Blue Faced Leicester roving that I bought from Blue Moon Spinnery at Stiches a couple of years ago to use with my drop spindle. As you might expect, I have a lot of it left. The spinning is rather uneven, as I'm really still getting used to the pat head/rub tummy aspect of treadling the wheel while drafting the fibre.

I've ordered a maintenance kit from Yarndogs, and will sign up for a spinning lesson as soon as possible. Really I need to learn how to adjust the wheel for starters, but I could certainly use some technique on my drafting too.

Spinning is supposed to be relaxing but at the moment I realise that I am holding my breath while I'm spinning, which is making it less relaxing than it might be!

* Julie is named after a friend, also a Kiwi.