Blue Ribbon! October 18, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, handspun, spinning, yarn.1 comment so far
Just a brief check in from the New York State Sheep and Wool festival, where we had an unexpected gloriously rain and snow free day yesterday. What a gift! I was delighted to walk up to the blue ribbon wall for spinning and find my handspun among these lovely submissions. My work is all the way on the right. I won a blue ribbon for spinning this year’s featured breed, Leicester Longwool. Hooray!
We are going back today even though the day promises to be wet! More soon….
Spun sample October 15, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in drop spindle, fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, yarn.1 comment so far
Sometimes the very best thing to do is take on something small and savor it.
During my last visit to The Fold, Toni introduced me to something wonderful! A new dyer (to me anyway) by the name of Kimber Baldwin, the creative force behind Fiber Optics. Her shop is worth a visit and I can tell you that her eye for color is spectacular. In my hand (above) I am holding a tiny sample of her pencil roving (Foot Notes, 80% superwash merino wool and 20% nylon) in the black coffee colorway.
This sat on my desk for just a couple of days, spun on my ringspindle in spare moments stolen from other tasks. So delightful. Simple, satisfying drafting, gorgeous colors, and a perfectly matched set of double pencil rovings that I split to create two singles.
Yes those singles were stored on bamboo skewers… inexpensive and long enough to fit into my industrious kate reasonably well. This was a very tiny amount of roving, and I wanted to use the same spindle for both plies. On that note I would like to sing the praises of the recent addition of Seth Golding’s work to the ringspindles collection. This one is an ebony ringspindle, 0.8 oz.
The result was 25 yards of laceweight in lovely colors.
The colors are easier to see here.
Simple. Satisfying. Utterly worthwhile.
Spinning Milkweed October 5, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, yarn.Tags: spinning milkweed
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I have always been enamored of milkweed fluff. It floats beautifully, shimmers in the sun, it’s soft and light and magical. As a child I even decided to love monarch butterflies because they loved milkweed. Then one day someone told me that it can be spun. Into yarn. Really.
I started by carding those cotswald curls that you see at the top, opening the locks before adding the shimmering milkweed into the mix. I read that you can only use up to 70% milkweed in a fiber blend before the resulting yarn becomes too brittle to spin. It is best blended with wool. This blend was only about 5% milkweed, because it was just an experiment.
The drum carder took up the milkweed well, once in was sandwiched between two layers of wool. I removed all the seeds of course, but wish I had separated the fibers from their connection point before carding. The might have all floated away of course, but I think the blending would have gone better. It is amazingly hard to keep your milkweed from blowing away. There was much holding of breath in this endeavor.
Here is Devorah kindly modeling the fluffiness of the final batt.
This was spun up long draw again. Another 50 yards or so like the green curls. Shiny!
The Sheep Shed Studio May 11, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Ravelry, dyeing, handspun, spinning, stash enhancement.4 comments
So I finally (ok a month ago) entered into the lovely fiber artists’ world of the Sheep Shed Studio. This wonderful business in Wyoming provides all kinds of rovings, mill ends, rugs, mysterious bales of fiber and various other adventures for the fluff lover in us all. If you haven’t tried them out yet, I would highly recommend it. I decided to start small instead of ordering a 15 pound bag of yummy dyeable fibers. Hmmm… maybe after I move. Anyway, I asked for cotswald curls, some beautiful forest green roving, and a pound of soft grey roving that a number of dyers on ravelry had been raving about. Carol (bless her) added a little thank you sample of some black wool that you see nestled up there on the top. That grey fluff is super soft! I was ready to try my hand at dyeing greys but… first things first.
By now some of you will know that while on occasion I will accept the role of pink in gift giving, it is not a favorite color of mine. That has a lot to do with trauma overdoing the pink in my early childhood years, but that is a story for another type of blog. See that pile of pink? I think we can all agree that Carol did a lovely job with a variegated dye on those curls… sure to produce some lovely depths of color. However, pink does not go on my wheel for fun so after opening my box of goodies and cackling with glee, I pulled every pink or almost pink curl out of that back and threw it straight into one of two dye pots.
After some time in a marine blue dyebath and a high acid (for fast color striking) dyebath with blacks and mustards this is what our culprits turned into. Mwa ha ha. Soon there were batts to behold:
I did eventually get to play with some greys. I did a free form dye bath just as an experimental starting point. Whoops! Caught myself in that photo. The sun has been tricksy of late…
Here is a close up to show the color variety.
I still have a lot of fiber prep (and spinning) to do, but so far I am delighted with my Sheep Shed Studio experience. Definitely the go to fiber option for my upcoming grad school years. Hmmm… I wonder what my advisor will think of me buying fiber in bulk?
Small Cabled Tarot Deck Pouch April 20, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Knitting - FOs, Paganism & witchcraft, fo, handspun, knitting, pagan.1 comment so far
So what do you do when your first attempts at long draw spinning result in all of 50 yards of green three ply yarn? I decided that my little nubbin of fluff and need for a pouch for my new tarot deck were well matched.
See that ridiculously small tuft of green on the side? That is how much yarn I had left over when I was done. I even used the tail from the cast on to sew up one of the sides! Still I am supremely pleased with this little pouch. It features a cable from Viking Patterns for Knitting by Elsebeth Lavold and is just about the sproingiest twist of green goodness that I ever did see.
We are very pleased.
HONK! March 15, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, stash enhancement, yarn.2 comments
I want to begin with apologies for the lateness of my honk, and yet honk I must for I was one of the many caught off guard by this latest revelation. Fluffy, delicious batts. They are so much fun to spin! We all want them. Let’s be honest… making fiber potions of fluffy goodness is the main reason why any of us owns a drum carder in the first place. For example, I can’t wait to card some milkweed into… well, that is a story for another time. For now, suffice it to say that when I read on our beloved YarnHarlot’s blog that wool fibers should be loaded onto a drum carder sideways I was as stunned as most of the rest of you.
So here I am honking because yes, I was told to load my fibers facing toward the drum and yes, even my written instructions say to do the same. In fairness, I have an amazing drum carder. I got fluffy batts the other way… but nothing like this. The one drawback is that so much less fiber fit into this batt of lusciousness. Here is the story.
I started with this beautiful mass of wool locks that I purchased at Rhinebeck this fall. The vendor never told me the breed of sheep, and the locks were already dyed. While one of my friends tells me this looks a bit lke a diseased brain, I see only fibery goodness waiting to be spun up into something heavenly.
From this mass of potential I separated out the individual locks (above) and teased them open with my fingers (below).
I then did what I think we all ran to our carders to do (if we were lucky enough to have a drum carder. Mine was a gift for which I am constantly grateful). I loaded up my carder with overlaping locks laid sideways so they would be pulled at from their sides by the rows of tiny metal teeth.
Even the sound was different! I could almost hear a chorus of young girls complaining about their mothers being too rough with the tangles in their hair. It takes focus and grim determination sometimes to keep that handle turning. Oh the flashbacks of it all! As the fiber started teasing apart between the almost touching metal I could instantly see the depth of color that would be in the final batt. Lustrous. I don’t know what breed of sheep this is from but I wish I did.
The full drum looked like this after the first pass. It took three total passes through the carder to make the batt above.
By the time the batt was really finshed it had an even color, great loft, and a wonderful shine. I did a test twist that doubled back on itself into a two ply just to see what the fibers would do. Though in truth I really just have a hard time keeping my hands off of the wool.
I made three batts in all just 15 grams of wool each. I only purchased 70 grams to begin with… just pulling a bit out of the basket of fluff to try on my carder. I still have some wool in glorious reds from the same basket. I will have to card that into a blend with something fun. In the meantime I decided to start learning to spin using the long draw technique. It is humbling, and a good reminder, to start learning to spin all over again in a sense. So different from a nice (read control freak spinner) worsted method. The result is 50 yards of three ply. A happy and fuzzy green ending to my story.
My New Schacht wheel is Matchless! February 19, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in handspun, spinning, spinning wheel.4 comments
Possibly the biggest unshared info in recent months has been my acquisition of a new and much beloved spinning wheel. Thanks again go to Toni at The Fold for helping me to both select my wheel during a visit to Marengo, IL and then have it arrive safely at my Florida home! It is a Schacht Matchless wheel and so different from the Ashford Traveller wheel that I have now been using for two years. This again was a spliced together holiday gift (huge thanks to my parents and to Devorah). Really amazing how expensive a good spinning wheel can be. That said, I absolutely love this wheel. There are some major differences. It has a double drive mechanism (though it can be converted to scotch tension) and SO MUCH SPACE for my feet. Also I love that the orifice is in the center. Though, wouldn’t you know it, after two years of spinning twisted to the left, I still sit that way. Plus changing bobbins and ratios is so much easier. Do not misunderstand, I really love my Traveller wheel. But now I can just leave it set up with its lace flyer in place and still have a lot of options without messing with the entire mother of all everytime I want to do something else.
As always Devorah in all her fabulousness put together my wheel for me. Doesn’t she look happier this time than last time? True, this wheel does not come with 29 pages of assembly instructions. Now that was a labor of love. You know she is too good to me because trying to put a wheel together while a crazed and excited spinner is bouncing excitedly all around the house just has to be harder. Poor Devorah.
Eventually spinning was taking place and the world was very, very fine indeed. I am now 3/4 done with the last of three bobbins of this eight ounce wool roving. I am really wanting to ply!
Still more spinning July 28, 2008
Posted by lunarawe in dyeing, embroidery, fo, handspun, spinning, yarn.1 comment so far
While there has been some knitting going on (I promise! Both a lace shawl and some socks are ever growing – but can’t be shown because they are secret still) I still have my heart set quite firmly on my spinning wheel. Mainly I have been focusing on interesting experiments.
I finally spun up the Romney wool I had blended with recycled sari silk in the drum carder. Why does no one tell you that carding sari silk sounds like pulling tangles from hair with a hair brush? Not so nice. But the inclusion in the wool is lovely. I did a basic two ply from two singles – one pure Romney, one Romney with sari silk embedded:
Yep. It even looks hairy. But the two ply is lovely. It is a little rough since Romney is definitely less soft than the ubiquitous Merino. But it does have a lovely sheen to it.
Sorry. Will try to get better pics next itme. That couch is supposed to be green. The yarn has both purple and green silk in it (as you can clearly see… oh no wait. Yeesh).
Next I went to visit a long-time, and greatly beloved, friend who graciously allowed me to spin on his wheel while I was there. This is a simple two ply Merino, in soft green and pink. I can take no credit for the staging. This is actually prior to wet setting, but the yarn was basically balanced already.
I left this 250 yard skein with him for hand weaving. He makes luscious things with his loom.
Finally for another Crafty friend I have been spinning fine two ply (why so much two ply, huh… not my norm) for embroidery purposes. She is working on a lovely hanging).
Let’s see. In the first row from left to right we have hand dyed silk hankies, 100% Merino, and more hand dyed silk hankies. In the center we have a blend of the Merino and Alpaca, which I am lovingly calling “baby puke.” The bottom row from left to right is Baby Alpaca, 100% hand dyed Tussah Silk, and 100% black Blue Faced Leicester (natural color). Everything I have labelled hand dyed I dyed myself. Super fun!
I am very happy with the red Tussah Silk. So fine!
In Love with Lace Weight Spinning October 25, 2007
Posted by lunarawe in fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, stash enhancement, yarn.add a comment
I am aware that this is now the second non-Rhinebeck photo laden post in a row. Yikes. We will have to fix that later in the day.
That said, I had to share my new love of spinning lace weight yarn. I am biased, because that is what did so well at Rhinebeck, but also it has been such a joy. I picked up a lace weight flyer for my Ashford Traveler Wheel at The Fold before leaving Illinois. The kit came with a short length of undyed New Zealand merino wool for spinning. I started with that and spun half of it before my big move.
Then my wheel and all sundry supplies were packed up and shipped (or in the case of the wheel itself, driven by me, to Orlando). I finally started spinning the second bobbin of the merino this week.
I just spent a huge amount of time plying and ended up with 406 yards! From half an armspan worth of wool top! These photos are before wet setting. The soft squishiness came off the wheel nearly perfectly balanced. I just can’t stand myself. This photo is the yarn posing with my new niddy noddy, lovingly provided by Devorah at Rhinebeck. This was its first use!
Hooray for pretty tools.
Rhinebeck Ribbons! October 23, 2007
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, blue ribbon, handspun, spinning, yarn.1 comment so far
Rhinebeck was amazing!!!
We could not have asked for a more perfect weekend and this was a phenomenal experience. I have so much to write about Rhinebeck that folks are likely going to get sick of reading about it. The best part was going with my most beloved friend, who deserves huge credit as blog staff photographer! All the Rhinebeck photos (except for a few sad fuzzy ones of mine – don’t worry, I will take the blame for those) were taken by Devorah… she of hat modeling fame. My favorite is the one above. Couldn’t you just kiss that nose?
Anyway… in total self promotion I really kind of have to start by sharing my excitement. I submitted three handpun skeins to the novice spinning competition (for folks spinning for less than a year) and I took first, third, and fourth place!
I am super proud. I think these may be the first ribbons I have ever won… well, maybe some swimming ribbons as a kid. Anyway, in celebration I came home with piles of loot… I mean stash… I mean fiber for spinning. Woo hoo!
Here is the proof:
It was a huge joy just to see that much spinning on display as well. There were some 15 or so categories of competition for skeins alone, so there was a lot of soft fluff on hand.
Stay tuned for tons of photos and more Rhinebeck news (Yes, the green and pink in front are mine).
