spinning – Page 7

Rumpelstiltskin

September 2, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Most of us know the story of Rumpelstiltskin, yes? With the maiden whose father tells the king she can spin gold from straw?

Tonight we had a little family party at our house, and one of my nephews seemed fascinated by my spinning wheel and wanted to touch it. None of us were even sure he knew what he was looking at but he, very matter-of-fact, exclaimed “It makes gold!” To which I laughed and replied “Well, I guess that must make me Rumpelstiltskin!”

Never one to turn down showing an interested child how something works, I pulled my wheel out better and explained how it worked. I even let him treadle a bit with me. He so carefully worked with me to turn the wheel, watching the yarn uptake onto the bobbin. And just before he decided he was done with the process he looked up and asked “Where’s the gold?”

If only, little dude. If only.

Spinning Sable, the final verdict

June 23, 2012 Marie 3 Comments

Well, here it is. The finished yarn. 850ish yards of handspun beauty. This sets an entirely new record on yardage for me. The braid of fiber was only 4oz. No wonder it felt like I was never going to finish the plying – 850 yards! Good grief.

I was still unsure of the yarn until I started winding it off the bobbin to see the colors blend. The red isn’t near as pronounced when you twist it up with the other colors. It’s a very colorful fiber and I think it wants to be woven into a scarf. The colors would blend gorgeously in a woven item, though I may just be using that as an excuse to try to coax the Mr into buying me a loom for my upcoming birthday.

I think, if the loom thing doesn’t pan out (and it probably won’t), I’ll be casting on for Mini Mania scarf. A sideways-knit, textured scarf would be a perfect match for the colors and give it that woven look without actually being woven. The downside to this is casting on 500 stitches, and then knitting row after row after row through all 850 yards of fiber with what might end up being the most boring knit ever. Which means it’ll probably end up being my no-brainer knit – the kind I take with me to knit group, sporting events, family gatherings, etc that I can knit and knit and knit without worrying about messing up or having to follow a pattern.

Spinning Sable, the never ending plying

June 19, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Last night I attempted to begin plying, but I just wasn’t feeling up for it after spending several hours trying to finish the singles.

Tonight I’ve been plying for nearly 3 hours. As soon as I came home from work I was at my wheel making my yarn. And in that time I’ve only managed to end up with this… a mostly-filled bobbin. And there is a ridiculous amount of yarn left on the singles to probably fill almost an entire 2nd bobbin.

Initial thoughts on the ply-in-progress: I’m liking it, until I get to the red bits. The teals, blues, tans… even the pink-like shades that came from the edges of the red. They all flow. And then you get these shots of red throughout. Red with cream/tan, red with teal, red with green. It’s… jarring.

Spinning Sable, singles edition

June 18, 2012 Marie 2 Comments

If you remember, a few months ago I posted about my current spin-in-progress. Well, nearly two months later I’m finally finished with the singles. And, instead of my initial intentions for a 3ply, I ended up just doing 2 bobbins for a 2ply.

I’m not sure how I feel about this yarn yet. Now that I see the finished singles I’m worried the final product will be…. ugly. There are just soooo many colors and while they’re all gorgeous on their own, I’m afraid they’ll look awful plied up together.

I’m also second-guessing my decision to do a 2 ply. A 3 ply would have lent itself to be more ‘blending’ of the different colors. But I get more yardage out of the 2ply, and that lends itself to nice lace knits to show off the yarn better.

I guess I’ll just have to ply tonight and see how it goes. This will either be an epic win on stepping out of my comfort zone, or an epic fail that results in me never trying anything ‘different’ with spinning again.

On a whim

May 9, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Monday I decided, on a whim, to dye some fiber. I had egg coloring kits on hand, and I had fiber fluff, and I had a Monday at home to clean and dye fiber in between work projects. Ahhh the joys of being your own boss at least part of the time!

What I started out with was a few handfuls of alpaca fluff. It’s a really pretty fiber – grays with bits of black. I initially thought I’d spin it up as-is, but then I decided I have a whole pound of the stuff so who cares! Dye that sh*t up!

I went for orange, yellow, and red. Mainly because pretty much any other color combination didn’t appeal to me whatsoever. The fact that the fiber was so mixed in natural color made for some interesting dyed fiber. At least while it was wet/in the dye bath.

Annnnnd then it dried. And look at that – bright yellow, bright pink….. and a really ugly orange.

Damn. Not at all what I was hoping for. Maybe it’ll spin up nice and pretty? I was hoping to have a nice bright orange to match. I had a mind to make a pretty little cowl out of this, with both singles spun and plied one color to the next in long blocks to almost have a graduated effect. Now it’s just going to be bright yellow and bright pink on the ends with a muddled middle. Not cool.