spinning

Is it arrogant to love your own yarn? Even if it is, I bet it happens a lot. Right now I am mesmerized by this skein of Blue-faced Leicester, which I spun and navajo-plied back in January.

Must have been right after I learned worsted spinning. It was sitting in a storage drawer, but I just rediscovered it. I think when I had first spun it, the colors seemed dull. Now, though, I think it’s quite mysterious.

I gave Rich a choice: he could either buy a new lazy kate for my Kromski bobbins or make one. He decided to make one. Although afterward, he said he wished he’d just bought it. But I am very pleased with my new kate, which holds four bobbins. We’re going to add a place for the jumbos closer to the inside because they’d hit the cross bars. Isn’t he just too handy?

jumbo flyer ordered!!

wee! I just ordered my Kromski Sonata jumbo flyer from Paradise Fibers! Plus an extra bobbin, that put me over $100 and I got free shipping. The best deal I could find. I’m excited at the prospect of not struggling with fitting yarn onto my bobbins. Hoobah!

blerg!!

Help. I need some purchasing guidance!

I am looking into buying a Jumbo Flyer. However, I have two wheels.  Do I get the Ashford Traditional flyer or the Kromski Sonata flyer? Several months ago I started pondering this situation, dropped it, and have once again returned to it with the same frustrations as before.

Things to consider:
Cost – which flyer is priced better? which bobbins are better priced?
Value – where will I get the best bang for my buck?
Size – which bobbins hold more fiber? which has a larger orifice? which gives me more options?

My main hang-ups include:
Old Ashford + new parts may equal weirdness
Sonata works better than Ashford
Sonata spins fine yarns better
Could leave jumbo flyer on Ashford

Do you see how I can’t make up my mind?? I’m about to make a chart and do the pros/cons thing, but I have a feeling they’ll end up equal. It’s so irritating. I feel like I’ll end up putting it off so long I’ll be dead or disinterested in spinning before I make up my mind! Erlack.

back to the combs

I’m such an “oo! shiny!”…

Wanted to try carding, got carders, carded.
Wanted to try combing, made combs, combed.
Wanted a drumcarder, got a drumcarder, drumcarded.
Wanted to try flicking, got a flicker, flicked.

This sounds like I get whatever I want instantly, but that’s not the case. It also sounds like I have a 10 second attention span, which may be true. Lots of these different tools I tested in some form or another before investing serious money. For hand-carders I bought dog brushes and played with those for 3 years. Just last October I finally got real ones. When I decided it was time to try combing, Rich and I made a pair. The drumcarder was a fluke – found in the garbage at the university. And the flicker started as a cat brush and eventually I bought a real one.

Last night I took my wool combs to the Shire meeting to work on some Merino cross locks. I had been inspired to give it another try after taking an all day wool-related class on Saturday at Masque of Courtly Love. I sat with the teacher combing Icelandic wool and spinning on her nifty old Canadian production wheel.

When we first made these combs, I couldn’t handle them. I combed some fiber, but just gave up really. Now, two whole years later, I pick them up again and have very little problem. I definitely believe some things just come in time. You need to gain more experience, confidence, etc. before addressing certain things. It’s always a learning process!

jars of sunshine

Do you ever have those days when you’re dyeing and you love everything that comes out of the pot? You’ve just got IT, whatever “it” is, and “it” is all over your wool. I had one of those days. Four pounds of fiber arrived from Hello Yarn last night, 2 Corriedale and 2 BFL. I couldn’t wait to get into it and I dyed both pounds of Corriedale today.

I’ve been using Lanaset dyes for nigh on 2 years. It’s nice stuff, but not so easy to find as Jacquard acid dyes. I bought a kit from Sheep Hollow and have been buying the individual dyes since. The colors I use up most quickly are yellow and gold, with orange, blue and turquoise (which I can’t spell) close behind. Jars that are still almost full, black and violet. Which colors do you have to replenish frequently? Which don’t you use much?

card me happy

It sure is amazing what a difference having the right tools can make. For a while now I’d been using dog brushes to card and blend wool. They were cheap and performed the task to some degree. I can’t say that they made good-looking rolags, but since I had no idea what I was doing, it didn’t matter. However, it prevented me from ever really grasping the concept of handcarding. Now with my great new Ashford Minis, I finally get it! They’re just the perfect size for me and they do the job so well. I used them on a pile of Columbia locks for practice.

The subsequent yarn ended up quite lumpy. I didn’t get the second cuts out, so maybe I did something wrong. Or is that the way it’s supposed to be? I realize this looks remarkably similar to another bobbin of yarn from a few weeks ago. I did not do that on purpose.

And while I’m here, I received my box from the Thrift Store Treasures Swap hosted on Swap-bot (my first one). She sent me this lovely Pyrex casserole dish in the Forest Fancies pattern, #475, 2.5 L. I think we’re going to use it tonight for dinner!

whiskers’ big day out

Sunday afternoon I got the bright idea that I would haul Whiskers (the drumcarder) out onto the back porch and revisit batts. All summer I’ve been staring at him feeling very guilty for not taking advantage of the awesome free machine that I was given. That plus my new fleece inspired me to go for it. This time I flick-carded the locks before sending them through the drumcarder and it made a huge difference. Mostly I worked with the Columbia fleece, adding bits of mohair into it as well (Heathered Plum). The other batts consist of mystery wool and mohair (Soda Fountain); Indiana wool and poodle (small pink batt). I realized that it’s best to always have things on hand and ready to go when you need them. Now I’ll dye more locks and flick-card them during my free time so they’ll be available.

Also, thanks to those you have taken part in the giveaway from my last post. The winner will be chosen next Saturday, so you still have time to get in!

1. Flick-carded, 2. ready for action!, 3. in progress, 4. in progress, 5. cranking, 6. in progress, 7. in progress, 8. exhausted, 9. finished batts, 10. heathered plum, 11. soda fountain, 12. batts

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

more awesome pennsic buys

Finally finished unpacking after Pennsic and found more acquisitions:

• A little brown jug
• White wool thread
• Three balls of weaving yarn
• An old book on wool
• Spin Span Spun
• Turkish spindle from Valkyrie (no longer being made!)
• Belt knife (historically accurate)
• Circlet
• Carnelian necklace
• Amber ring
• Brown leather belt (made by Rickard)
• Two cloak pins

a few sock-related things

1.) The first sock of the BFF Socks (Summer of Socks Pair 001) was completed last night. I’m pleased with the way it turned out, except that I forgot to do the little thing Stephanie Pearl-McPhee suggests in order to make the toe less square. It became very obvious once I put the sock on and the toe stuck out in a corner.

2.) The second sock for the above set will be put on hold in order to knit a pair for my mother who was very excited when she found out I was making socks. I expect her to wear them more frequently than someone else in my family.

3.) The pattern that will be attempted on behalf of my mom is the Snicket Socks by Sabine Riefler.

4.) The yarn that will be used I received in a fantastic gift package from Christabel a few months ago. I think the colors suit my mom just right and so does she. 

5.) I wound the skein into a ball using my clacketty ballwinder (one of my first knitting/ebay purchases) and my yarn swift. They worked together quite nicely, except for the complete inability of the ballwinder to actually fulfill its duties. For whatever reason the ball it creates is a shameful mess of yarn and I was then obligated to rewind it by hand using my awesome NOSTEPINNE. If you do not have one of these, I strongly urge you to acquire one. I took several photos of the yarn cake partly because I was so thrilled with my yarn winding capabilities and also because the yarn was posing so nicely.

I cannot express to you how much better this looks than the ball I pulled off the mechanical winder. And yes, you too can have such lovely balls of yarn using only a stick of wood! It is possible. Soon I will compose a brief tutorial on the benefits and magical abilities of the Nostepinne (excellent for reenactors also!).

a fancy new spindle

At War Practice I bought a new top whorl spindle from the Spanish Peacock. Frankly I’m not sure why I wanted it, but I did. When I took the top whorl spinning class last year at Pennsic, I found out how excellent they were for fine yarns. Ever since I’d been thinking that getting a nicer spindle (not a dowel and toy wheel) might be beneficial. Plus I enjoyed the little fancy end he put on it. Only problem: it does not have a notch in the whorl, which would’ve been helpful.

I dug out some old practice fiber to see just how fine I could get it. Here is a picture of my finest yarn yet. Not sure the WPI at the moment. It measures a mere 21 yards. But it wasn’t too difficult, so I think I may continue to pursue fine spinning.