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Posts Tagged ‘spinning’

SQUIRREL!

September 14th, 2009 No comments

Had great fun over at Jane Prater’s house on Sunday. She hosted a spin-in, so the house was packed with wheels, wool, and people. I got to try out someone’s drum carder, which was a nice new experience to have.

Jane Prater is my former eighth grade English teacher. I ran into her again as an adult in a local yarn store. Turns out she’s a master knitter. We’re both adults now and have similar temperaments and hippie leanings, but she never lets me forget that I was once a 14-year-old in her class, one who wasn’t always perfect. That’s okay; giving people a hard time is another thing we have in common.

I did more yesterday than I should have to make up for Saturday’s inactivity due to illness. Em didn’t have a great day on Saturday, so I wanted to be sure on Sunday that we worked on times tables and that she got out and about. All the running around town has me tired today. Of course, it’s not 7am yet, so there’s still time to wake up and have an excellent day.

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lavender spindle

April 3rd, 2009 No comments

lavender spindle
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

Mystery Romney, likely dyed by tangles and mud at one of our dye days last year. Spindle by Preston at JetsyKnits: www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5760766 As I’ve been spinning it, it’s gotten thinner and thinner. It started about sockweight and now it veers toward thread sometimes. We’ll see how that turns out. I’m certainly enjoying spinning it.


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Spinorama

March 16th, 2009 14 comments

Had a lovely time yesterday at Jetsyknits’ home, where a group of us got together to sit by the fire and spin wool into yarn. Meanwhile, the menfolk went out and hunted bear for the coming winter. Okay, maybe not, but it does sound rather colonial.

I hadn’t spun in a while, except occasionally on Pat’s fiber. I think it’s because I can’t bear the thought of actually finishing that fiber up. So I decided instead to start fresh with a bag of fiber I got on the way back from St. Louis in 2007. If you were around then, you may remember the post about Murfreesboro, TN and the wonderful people I met and the great time I had during my oh-so-brief trip through town. This was the Three Bags Full wool that I got from The Knaughty Knitter.
3bagsfull quarter bump
This spun up quick! After about an hour and a quarter, there was only about 1/3 of the bump left. There are a few reasons for that.

One, I always find myself spinning up about dk weight. That just seems to be what my hands go to by default. This time, the fiber had such a rustic quality that it seemed to want a little more heft to it, so I tried to spin thicker. Naturally it went faster. It’s mildly uneven in thickness, since if I let myself stop thinking about it, I started pulling less fiber into the yarn and it thinned out. Fortunately, the fiber has so much character that it doesn’t really matter.

3bagsfull noils
Two, this fiber had a lot of silk noils and bits of tussah. There was really no point in going for a nice uniform texture, because it was going to be bumpy no matter what I did. Might as well go with it.

I also have a tendency to underspin, so this time I cranked up the twist, which may not have been so necessary with a thicker yarn, but was still fun to do.

3bagsfull half bobbin
Here it is spun up. After this photo, I sat down and spun up the rest, and it pretty much filled the bobbin. It’s still on the bobbin, because I cannot decide whether I should ply it or not. Opinions?

I also can’t decide what I should knit with it. It’s got such a great rustic character that it could go a lot of ways. You really wouldn’t have to design a busy stitch pattern to let it shine, this yarn would do a lot of work for you.

I should also mention that Jetsyknits’ husband sells gorgeous drop spindles on etsy and I look forward to seeing him put some new ones up. But no pressure. Ahem.

Anyway. Jet, I had a great time. Thanks for having us over. I think this got some of my spinning mojo back. And that’s good, because I don’t have enough other things to do with my time.

Oh, wait…

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Em progress report and learning style

September 30th, 2008 4 comments

After staying up too late Sunday night, I decided not to run on Monday. I figured I’d get back on the horse this morning, but I forgot that today is a teacher workday. So no running this morning. And tonight’s the night Mr. Tvini does his regular 30 mile ride on the bike, so if I do go tonight, it’ll be late. I guess it won’t kill me to wait until tomorrow morning.
The rest is a LONG post about Em’s schoolwork.

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Spinning and Jayne

September 11th, 2007 6 comments


Done!

This is that blue single I showed earlier this week, plied. I first plied it on Sunday, but I was in a hurry and did a lousy job. It was incredibly loosely plied. No amount of setting the twist was going to fix it. So I wound up re-plying it. In other words, I wound it onto a ball and ran it through the wheel again to twist it more. Much better! This is the second time I’ve had to do this, so clearly plying is an area I need to work on. Plying, for those who aren’t fiber geeks, is when you take two or more strands of fiber and twist them together. It makes a stronger yarn, and one that in theory doesn’t pill as much.

I had some of one bobbin left over, and rather than Navajo ply it onto the end of the skein, I decided to leave it as a single. This is part of what I spun at Simucon, which explains why the thickness and twist is all over the map. I actually think I like this yarn better as a single, though, colorwise. I worry that the plied is too random in its color shifts and may be a bit busy. Well, this was supposed to be a learning experience, so I call this a success, since I learned!

The final skein turned out to be 152 yards. Plenty to make a nice scarf or something with. , this yarn came from the wool that you gave me when we met up in Raleigh. You want I should make you something? It seems only fair.

A word of warning, though. In addition to gift projects for the other loved ones in my life, you’d be behind the Jayne line, which exploded last night as forward-thinking Browncoats geared up for Christmas. It now stands at 30 hats in line, including orders from this morning. (Brown Sheep, send me my #$*# yarn!) So you’d get your gift in, maybe… 2010. You can wait, right?

Because I’m just too proud, here’s the progression:

Big time fun. I look forward to doing this again!



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Wednesday pics!

September 7th, 2007 8 comments

But on Friday! Er… good things come to those who wait?

Anyway, here’s this week’s almost all-Emily awesomeness report.

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Picture post

August 9th, 2007 No comments


This half of a bobbin of the blue wool that I dyed. The half on the left was spun at Simucon. The half on the right was spun at home. As you can see, I’m still not ready to spin evenly with a lot of distractions. At Simucon, I chose conversation over consistency, and it was the right choice.



This is the sock I was working on at Simucon. The picture was taken on the banks of the mighty Susquehanna. Knitting needles are permitted on planes, but if the screener chooses, he or she can deny them. I decided to put the sock on bamboo DPNs, which seemed less threatening than two long metal circular needles. I also put in a lifeline and brought a self-addressed envelope and book of stamps, in case I had to mail it back to myself. You can see that the lifeline is halfway down the foot. I got as far as turning the heel on the trip. Good progress! I also listened to Harry Potter on audio, finishing it just after returning home.



Table Rock, with Mother.
We were hoping for some nice cool weather. It was not to be. Instead it was 90 degrees. On the river, however, there was shade and a fresh breeze. We stopped as we walked through town to take in the air and be in the moment. Very calming. Here’s a view of Towanda from Table Rock taken in 1899. We would be about where that bridge crossed into town. There are more phone lines now, but the town is not really much larger, to my eye.

Next time, hopefully a post with actual events.

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Fiberama!

July 22nd, 2007 8 comments

I’ve been running all over town for the past few days getting things ready for the upcoming trip. One stop on Saturday was the yarn stash swap sponsored by Charlotte Yarn, our most excellent local yarn store. People bring the stuff in their closets that they want to get rid of, and exchange it for money or other yarn. I brought some stuff I thought folks would want, and I was right. I had just opened my container and hadn’t yet taken the yarn out, when the other swappers were on it like piranhas on a dead cow.

And so, a hundred-odd bucks heavier and some Cherry Tree Hill lighter, I hied me to Borders and spent the entire wad on audiobooks for the St. Louis trip. I picked up Harry Potter on CD, but didn’t notice it was 80 bucks until I was already out the door. Well, at 21 hours, I suppose that’s still some good bang for your buck. I also picked up two Alexander McCall Smith audiobooks and some iTunes, mainly 80’s stuff, which is good to sing along to when I’m starting to feel sleepy but am not quite at my hotel yet. Because I’m a mom, I also snagged some activity books for Emily, so she’ll have something to do in the hotel room in case it rains while they’re at the beach.

One non-trip-related purchase: The DVD set of The Critic. Jon Lovitz, this is my pledge to you: every time you beat up Andy Dick, I will purchase another one of your products. Deal? Deal.

I had purchased some spinning fiber from SakinaNeedles to use to teach others the wheel on the trip, but that was a while ago. Last week in a moment of weakness, I forgot it had been earmarked for that purpose and I started spinning it. Oops. I intended to order more, but let that slide until it was too late to have it delivered in time. And so, panicking, I started searching around for another source of fiber between here and there. A very nice woman in St. Louis who dyes for sale has offered to help me out, and I’m definitely taking her up on it. Even if I wind up not using it for teaching, it’ll be a great souvenir to bring home.


In the meantime, it suddenly occurred to me that duh, I do in fact have fiber. I have that giant bag that gave me in Raleigh! Yay! What’s more, I have the fiber dyeing kit from Hello Yarn that my husband got me for my birthday. Double yay! And so I’ll give you one guess what I was doing tonight. Yes, dyeing wool.


It’s cooling down in a pot on the stove now, so we’ll see how it looks tomorrow. It looked good being dyed, but you never know. I was going for a kind of random pattern that left a fair amount of white showing rather than wide bands of solid. This is my first time dyeing unspun wool. I’m not expecting miracles. Although I’ll take a miracle if it happens.

Tomorrow my daughter and I will be stopping by AAA to get a TripTik, as well as the usual stuff like speech therapy and going to the library. I know I have a million things to do, but the major stuff is taken care of. Now it’s mostly “what to pack” type stuff, and being sure all the really time-sensitive Jayne hats get shipped out in time. I knitted up one for Georgia today at a Browncoat picnic, so I think we’re looking good on that front, too. I haven’t been getting enough sleep because I’ve been doing more weddings this week. Tonight, I’ll try to catch up a little.

…she said, noticing it was midnight. Oh well. Good night!

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Updates

July 11th, 2007 10 comments

Am going crazy from being home all day as a mom. I love my child, Lord knows I do, but I’m still going a little stir-crazy. Emily’s taking swimming lessons in the afternoon this week and next week, so we’ve got that going, but our early July is pretty light on the summer camp stuff. I need to get more sleep, that’ll help.

I’ve put my 2004 knitting projects into Ravelry. I’ll start on 2005 at some point soon. I am omitting the hundreds of individual Jayne hats in favor of one single Jayne hat project that I’ve listed as ongoing from 2004 to the present.

Speaking of Jayne, I’m almost out of orange and the mill won’t be spinning more for another six weeks. You’re killing me, Brown Sheep, you’re killing me. More road trips are in my future.

The Tofutsies socks were finished tonight! They look good. I’ll post up pics soon. Speaking of posting pics, having to put things up on Ravelry means that I have to put my knitting pics up on flickr. I feel oddly exposed having them all out there.

Am doing Girl Scout paperwork, trying to find a new home for my two rising Juniors and merging with another troop. Also mailing out cookie badges. I have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I’m overlooking something important, but I don’t know what, and something will go wrong this Fall. However, I did speak with the council membership coordinator tonight, and she gave me some info that gives me a place to go to get more in control of things.

Started to spin up the second half of the red fiber, but you know what? After spinning that gorgeous cormo/silk blend, I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the red stuff. It was pretty, but just not so much fun to spin. Instead I moved on to the BFL I got from SakinaNeedles. Wow, is that stuff soft. Like buttah. I went to split it, and it fell apart into two perfect little slivers in my hand. Then four, then eight. Easy peasy. I’m still getting the hang of spinning it – I think I need to set my brake a little harder, I’m kind of uneven – but it’s just so soft. Did I mention that it’s soft?


I’m preserving the hard color breaks, so I think it will ply up pretty barber pole-y, but I’m okay with that. This is for fun. I’m going to order more to have for Simucon, since I think this will be fun for newer spinners.

Still recovering from staying up too late a few nights ago after getting the DVD transferred. Maybe I’ll put up another spot tomorrow.

Time for bed. Pics and vids another day.

Hats up for: NC, MO, CA

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FO: cormo/silk blend

July 4th, 2007 No comments


Behold! Grapey goodness!

I spun up the last remaining super-soft cormo/silk batt (pictured left) that I had in order to take a break from the neverending itchy red wool that I had been spinning. Last time I spun this, it came out very loose (pictured right) because I was underspinning it for my desired result. This was an early attempt at spinning. I’m still not an advanced spinner, but it’s been gratifying to see how much better, in my opinion, this one looks compared to that one.


I posted after that first attempt, and got a lot of good suggestions. This time, I loosened up the tension on my wheel and treadled like a one-legged duck as I tried to spin tighter. I actually wound up making the second bobbin of singles more spun than the first bobbin, and I think it shows, but I’m okay with that. I two-plied it, and Navajo-plied the last little bit from the bobbin that ran out last. The Navajo-plied bits are hugely more twisted than the two-ply, even though I slowed down my treadling for that section. Clearly I’m letting it take up more slowly with the Navajo plying as I try to get it right. I’ll have to work on that.

When setting the twist, I took a page from ‘s “rough set” book and soaked it in very warm water for about an hour, then in cool for a bit. Then I spun it around in my bathtub, then beat the tar out of it against the tile walls. Then I hung it unweighted to dry. It hung very straight. Pictured: a closeup of the plies. This still isn’t as tight or even as I’d like it to be, but it’s miles better than the last time I tried this fiber a few months ago. I don’t spin as often as I’d like, so I consider this good progress. I’m pleased.

The finished skein has 76 yards, enough to actually make something, but I have no idea what. I’m open to suggestion as to what to knit!

Many thanks to everyone in the community for all their suggestions, they’ve really helped make me a better spinner.

(crossposted to my own journal and )

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