I picked this up at a local store (which has since gone out of business.) It’s Masham, which I haven’t spun before and I bought it because it was the only yarn with an odd color like this. It was called “Dragon’s Breath”. I finally finished plying it and I still don’t know what I was thinking. It’s not as awful as I thought before I plied it, but it’s just not a pretty colorway. Maybe I need a felted cat bed?
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I have already been banned for 10 days on Ravelry, So I am not posting anything on that site. Why did I get a new 30 suspension from them today? Because they are trying to ban me for things I have posted on other sites AND ON MY OWN WEBSITES. For any of you still naive enough to think they are not trying to ban conservative speech, you might want to rethink that position.
Are you that easy, that your silence and consent to this behavior can be bought with free patterns? Do you want to live in a world where everyone must be made to think a certain way and only voice the approved positions?
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Still working on a project. I’ll have more to say after the weekend, when I have more time to work on this.
I was over deleting my projects and stash from Ravelry yesterday. I had some thoughts about it. To be honest, I was a bit embarrassed by what I had up. Most of it was “popcorn” knitting. That’s the simple, mindless stuff you to when you don’t want to have to think too much about what you are doing. And I know how that happened. I sometimes get into a cycle where I’m interested in new commercial yarns. In this case, I was fascinated by chainette yarns. So I did a lot of projects in commercial yarns. Now, commercial yarns are designed, for the most part, to make the yarn the centerpiece. They don’t lend themselves to complicated patterns. Look at projects with cables done in hand dyed yarns. The yarn design overwhelms the pattern. I had a lot of commercial yarns, so I wound up doing simple stuff. What happens next is that I get bored with commercial yarns and want to knit with handspun. And that’s where I am today. There is a liveliness to handspun that you don’t get with commercial yarns. And I can create simple, single colored yarns that let the design stand out. And one last note, I am really disappointed in how badly some of those commercial yarns held up. I’m not going to name company names, but I really should not have a hole in the sleeve of a sweater I’ve worn less than a year.
If you pack away my craft books, I will simply buy more! I recently picked up Deborah Newton’s “Finishing School”.
I liked her book on design, although I didn’t do any of the projects. If you want to get better at something, the best way to do it is to treat it like a class in school. Get textbooks, study it and test yourself.
And there’s this one:
Reading Sarah Swett’s blog has made me want a backstrap loom. I saw this book and found it interesting. Reviews were good too. The loom she recommends is inexpensive. I am holding off on this for now, but I may play around with it next month. Bands like these can be used on Norwegian style sweaters. And that’s one of the styles I’ve wanted to knit for some time now.
Back to work on the baby sweater. Gotta get it done this weekend as his birthday is the 3rd.
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Since I do not discuss politics on this site, those posts are over at my other blog.
When I have time to work on it this weekend, I will do a post about how to replace the functionality you had on Ravelry, after you delete your account. I’ve been considering an actual project notebook, because there are physical things you can’t include in a digital format. But digital has great advantages for searching. It requires a bit of thought. And I have not worked through the Stash Fit workbook yet https://www.infinitetwist.com/shop/stashfit-workbook
I also have a nice spinner’s template that I was given. I am trying to document my spinning, which is just hard for me. My struggles might be useful for others 🙂
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First up, my cool new tool. It’s a plying stick.
I learned about these on Sarah Swett’s site. It’s like a nostepinne and replaces the plying ball. The ridges hold the ball on the stick. You wrap the singles together on the stick, just like you would with a nosty. Then you ply off it. This one is walnut. And here’s the link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/262781967/plying-wandstick-made-to-order?ref=shop_home_active_2
She also makes lovely tapestry bobbins and nostepinnes.
Next up is some finished yarn. I posted this on Rav. This is the spindle spun fractal, Three Waters Farm colorway Spring By Way in Finn.
I divided the fiber in half, then split one of those into four sections horizontally. I put each piece in a bag, labeled AA to AD. The second section was split into four long vertical. These went into the bag, after the first four were spun. It was easy to see which color to start with since these all started at the same end. Next up, the two singles wrapped on a ply ball, in the correct order:
Finally, the plied yarn. I plied this on the new Bosworth Maxi.
No idea what I’ll make with this but the colorway is wonderful.
I also plied up some Bam Huey. I received a sample of this with a Jenkins spindle. I like it, so ordered 4 ounces. I believe it’s BFL. This is another project that disappeared for awhile. The main part had felted slightly and the pieces I’d spun were out of order. So it’s not a great looking gradient.
And I’m spinning up two ounces of dyed Corriedale. They call this teal, but it’s more sea green to me. This is the Bosworth cherry skinny maxi. I have found that I love the skinnies!
Last is Hipstring’s Flannel Jammie on my Bosworth butternut skinny midi. I don’t normally like merino, but this is really a nice blend. I think the colors are perfect.
I am getting closer to starting the sweater project. Still trying the new tools out and I have one more spindle order to place. And I am working on something new for this site. More on that to follow.
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Your comments will be deleted as spam. Continue to harass me and I will lodge a complaint with your ISP. I do not tolerate bigots.
And, although I’ve made no political posts on Ravelry, I’ve been banned for 10 days. I called them out for smearing people as bigots. It is a shame. There are good people, torn up by this. We should be able to discuss our craft, without it being politicized. My concern is for the vendors. Folks trying to make a living should not have to worry about attacks by the SJW mob. But that is the country we live in today.
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I am getting closer to finishing the fractal spin. I do like this Greensleeves spindle. It feels a bit fragile, but has a nice long spin. I’ve sold off a couple of Jenkins spindles and will be adding a few more Bosworths. I have larger projects that I want to do on spindles and am trying to figure out the right mix. I have two spindles coming in today!
And I’m going to spin up some flax! That will be a project for the wheel. I think it will do a good job, as it’s a reproduction of a flax wheel. I will likely do a little weaving when I’m done with that project, although I am trying to rein that impulse in. I really am not a weaver.
This is not recommended as I had to really push to get 59 grams on this 21 gram spindle.
I’ve started using this nice knitting basket for knitting. My friend Beth made it for me, back when we worked together. It has tended to just collect stuff. When I brought that stuff back in the house, I brought this back in too. I’m using it in the living room, for current projects.
This is my current wrist distaff set up. I used to macrame distaffs and put beads on the part that holds the fiber. I decided I wanted something really simple. I used up some yarn left over from another project. Cast on 8 stitches and knit in garter until long enough. I sew the ends together. You want these to be a bit snug as they stretch. It works well enough and I knit several, so I can have one for each project.
I am spinning the grey corriedale on the wheel, for sock yarn. No pictures yet. I am trying to get some of the smaller projects out of the way, then tackle some sweater projects. And I really need to finish the baby sweater this weekend.
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I’ve been doing some spindle spinning this morning and some wheel spinning. I’ve gone back to the truck and brought in the fleeces I love the most, as I want to start working on them. Grabbed a big chunk of this. It’s a Corriedale/Romney cross I bought at Black Sheep a couple of years ago. It was a third place winner in its class, which makes it the fanciest fleece I’ve ever bought at BSG. I’ve spun this on Turks, and it’s the puffiest stuff you’ve ever seen. I’ll be doing this on the Bossies and I’m considering making a cabled sweater for Lon from it. But I love combing this stuff on my Viking combs, almost as much as I love combing the Romney lamb fleeces that I also brought in.
Lovely long staple.
First pass
Second pass
Third pass and ready for the diz.
You can see how the diz compresses the fiber. It makes a big difference in the finished product.
Working my way through.
There’s not a lot of waste with this fiber.
All done! There’s a little static in the air, but it’s going okay. I pulled out about 117 grams to play with. I’m still spinning the odds and ends on the Bossie so this may be tomorrow’s spin.
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So I took 50 grams off a 21 gram spindle yesterday. I probably could have put more on it, but that’s all the fiber from this sample.
I’m spinning some fleece samples. I bought these after reading In the Footsteps of Sheep. I thought it would be great fun to spin up some of those breeds and knit the socks from the book. I did get these samples washed and combed, but the book has been packed. And the samples did get scrambled, so I think I will just ply up some three ply and knit socks of some sort.
When I picked up this Butternut Skinny Midi, I really didn’t know much about the spindle. I had no idea exactly what the difference was between a standard Midi and the skinny version. I was just aiming for a spindle at about 20 grams and I wanted butternut. This spindle really has been a great choice! It has a great spin and I can just keep packing fiber onto it. I am assembling a team to spin up sweater yarn. Yes, I could use the spindles I already have. This is my Bosworth team. I am never going to be the person with just two spindles. And even though I’ve tried to see the financial benefits to going with the standard spindles, I still want what I want. So….new order going in soon. My plan is two Midis, two Maxis and one Mini (just because.)
I have two bumps of carded roving, processed way back in 1998. These are from a sheep shearing, where I learned to skirt fleeces. I’m planning a sweater for me out of one of these (likely the brown one.)
I just grabbed some of the roving and spun it as is for the lower sample. On the top sample, I combed it with my Viking combs. I prefer the feel of the bottom one, but I’m doing cables. These are just two ply. I’m going to do a few more samples to be sure.
This is the Shetland/CVM roving that I used for my shawl. I love this stuff, but won’t be using it for this project.
This is the grey. I think these were Border Leicester crosses, if I’m remembering correctly. I did this as a thin three ply. I’ll try sampling this a bit thicker and see how it feels. This is a bit too coarse as spun.
And I started the baby sweater. I like this pattern and the yarn is really nice. I’m not a merino fan, but this is a nice squishy superwash yarn. The blue leans a bit more turquoise than this picture shows. I’ve never done a top down raglan baby sweater, but it’s fun. It will have a shawl collar and I ordered some maple wooden buttons for it.
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I am thinking about doing some large projects on my spindles. And that leads me to thoughts about production. Because you run into this issue with all sorts of spinning tools. My Pipy spins nice yarn and I can spin enough to do a large project. It’s not the most efficient way to do it. It doesn’t have large bobbins and it has a 16″ drive wheel. My Louet S-10 has larger bobbins and a large drive wheel. It’s a lot easier to crank out the yarn on it. The new Country Craftsman does not have especially large bobbins. It does have a 24″ drive wheel. I can do fine yarn projects on this wheel that I would find tedious on the Pipy.
The same thing applies with spindles. A production spindle will have a longer shaft, so that it holds more yarn. It could be a bit heavier, but really I think the shaft length is major. I love those Kaaris, but the shaft is so short that it doesn’t hold a lot of yarn.
My Mongold, which hasn’t seen a lot of action lately, is a real production spindle. I’ve used it to ply a 4 ounce bobbin, spun on a wheel. It’s not too heavy if you are spinning thicker yarns. And it has a nice long shaft.
This Tracy Eichheim low whorl is another production spindle. I use it for plying fairly often. It holds a lot.
This is the new butternut Bosworth Midi. It’s a lighter weight production spindle, weighing in at 20 grams. Nice long shaft and I can pack a lot onto it.
This is my Jenkins Delight and an unnamed Turkish spindle. I don’t really think of my Delight as a production spindle. I am working on a sweater project and I also know there are ways to pack on more yarn, depending on how I wind it. But it’s limited. A Swan might be a better choice or even an Egret. The big Turk would work, but it’s heavy enough that it doesn’t put a lot of twist in the yarn. I do use it for plying sometimes.
Sometimes, we just want to have fun and spin or even do a quick sample. And sometimes we pick up a spindle because we fall in love with it. With spindles, you really do need to have few different weights around, for different types of yarns. I’m assembling a production team for my sweater projects, all Bosworths because I really want to work on my high whorls again. If you are considering larger spindle projects, you might want to take a look at the spindles you are using and make sure they are a good fit for the project.
