Spinning Lately

Last June, my mom and I took a spinning class at our state's sheep and wool festival.  The topic was color in hand-dyed rovings/tops, and we learned three ways to manage overwhelming or clashing color in hand-dyed braids.  The first (on the left in the photo above) is involves tearing the braid into small pieces to create a gradient.  The second is stained-glass - spinning the colored singles together with a solid neutral singles.  The third was fractal-spinning.  Then, I had a fair amount of leftover colored singles from the stained-glass sample, so I chain-plied that to get the fourth skein in the picture.  My stained glass and chain-plied samples have too much plying twist, so at some point before I use them I'll have to run them back through the wheel to remove some of it. 

This enormous skein is spun from Hello Yarn roving that I brought home from Yarn School in October 2012.  It took me over a year to spin!  I don't remember what my final yardage was, but I'm pretty sure it's over 800 yards, and it's laceweight.  My plan is to knit it into a large square shawl, maybe something like this, or this, or this.  I'll use it to wrap around my head in winter instead of wearing a hat.

Then, I spun up two alpaca skeins to go together.  The white one is un-dyed alpaca that I bought on vacation in Vermont several years ago, and the purple is a sparkly alpaca-merino blend that was given to me as a Christmas gift a few years ago.  They're fingering weight, and I've forgotten the yardage on them, but I'm hoping to knit something with colorwork.  I think the purple skein has a bit too much plying twist, so I'll need to remove some of that before I can use it.

Not Tour de Fleece

I didn't do the Tour de Fleece this year ... because I was too busy packing up our apartment and moving!  We moved across the country for my new job, as an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the midwest!

Since we got to our new house about ten days ago, we've been busy unpacking our boxes and getting settled in our new house and new town.   But I have been doing some knitting and spinning.  I'm getting close to done with my Hello Yarn singles: (the picture is from before the move)

We've also been doing some gardening.  Because now we have our very own yard!  There was a strawberry patch already established when we moved in, so I've spent some time weeding that.  The strawberry patch takes up half of a large bed alongside the garage.  Our eventual plan is to put in rhubarb in the other half of that bed, but for now it was too late to plant anything but greens, so we weeded it out and planted some kale and broccoli seeds.  It's so exciting to see the little plants coming up!

Spinning along

I've been spinning at least one day a week since the Tour de Fleece ended.  I still have a ways to go on these singles, but I am making good progress.  It's good to keep the spinning in my fingers - I had a really great groove going by the end of the tour de fleece and was hardly ever breaking my singles, even though I'm spinning this as finely as I can manage.  Now I'm having a few more breaks and it's a bit frustrating, but I'm still enjoying it.  I can hardly wait to see the shawl that this is going to be!

Tour de Fleece Finish!

Here is what I accomplished during the Tour de Fleece, which ended on Sunday.  I finished spinning the singles, plied, and washed my green gradient shetland.  I ended up with about 468 yards total, including both skeins (the larger, darker skein is about 357 yds and the smaller, lighter on is about 110 yds).  I think it's approximately sport weight, but I haven't checked.

The third skein was 2 ounces of Wensleydale wool, which I bought on vacation in Vermont six years ago from the Wool Shed at Frostbite Falls Farm.  I spun it sort-of long draw and plied it into a 2-ply.  I'm not wild about the finished yarn.  I don't love how the colors work together, although I do think it's better in person than in the photo.  It's not that soft, and there's not that much of it.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.  The skein is about 64 yards.

On the bobbin is almost half of my Hello Yarn Portuguese merino in the colorway "Furry Paws" from Yarn School in October 2012.  The plan is to spin two equal bobbins of singles and then ply them to end up with lace-weight two-ply finished yarn.  This might be my ongoing spinning project for quite a while!

All in all, I consider my Tour de Fleece to be a success.  I spun just about every day - the Tour has two rest days, so even though I missed two days I made them up by spinning on the official rest days.  I feel like I got a good rhythm going with my spinning, and I really do enjoy spinning.  I'm going to leave my wheel in my living room and keep spinning at least once a week - my plan is that Tuesdays Are For Spinning.

Tour de Fleece: Stages 12-16

I started a new spinning project Thursday night (which was stage 12 of the Tour de Fleece).  This is Hello Yarn Portuguese Merino from Yarn School 2012.  I have 4oz of combed top, and it's in beautiful olive, brown, and light blue-grey colors.  I'm trying to spin it very finely and hoping to end up with a 2-ply lace-weight.  It's easy and smooth to spin, but going pretty slowly.  I doubt I'll even have the singles finished before the Tour de Fleece ends on Sunday.

I missed spinning on Saturday (stage 14) because we were visiting family out of town, so I'm going to spin today (which is a rest day for the Tour de France) to make up for it.

Tour de Fleece: Stages 10 & 11

On Tuesday (Tour de Fleece Stage 10) I finished spinning the singles of my 2 oz of Wensleydale.  I figured out/remembered that I could spin it long draw from the fold and that made a huge difference!  It went much faster and more smoothly.

Yesterday (Stage 11) I plied the singles.  I chain plied, and it mostly went smoothly.  There were several places where the singles were too thin or underspun and the thread broke as I was plying - including one spot where the broken end got lost in the bobbin of singles and I ended up cutting it.  Those spots were much more common towards the end of the plying, which was of course the beginning of the singles, when I hadn't yet figured out how to spin this fiber.  Towards the end I also noticed that the singles were way underspun (you can see this in the picture) so I may not be able to actually use all of the yarn.  I'm okay with that.

I have no idea what weight this is or how many yards I have - I still need to skein it off and wash it.

Today I get to spin something new!

Tour de Fleece

Yesterday was a rest day for the Tour de France, but since I missed spinning last Thursday I decided to make it up by spinning anyway.  I spun for about an hour, still working on the wensleydale top.  I started out with 58g of fiber (the package says 2 oz) and I have 31g left.  I feel kind of impatient to finish spinning this so I can move on to something I'll like better.

Tour de Fleece: Stage 9

I spun a bit more Wensleydale yesterday. I'm moving a bit towards long draw, just grabbing with my right hand close to the orifice and pulling back with my left hand. The yarn seems to be breaking less often. It's pretty fuzzy-sort of like what I think of mohair as looking like.

Tour de Fleece: Stage 7 & 8

I did spin on Friday (Stage 7), but somehow I didn't manage to get a picture.  I finished plying my green yarn (you can see it in the bottom of the picture up top, I haven't wound it off the bobbin yet). Yesterday for stage 8 I started spinning a braid of Wensleydale that I've had in my stash for at least 6 years.  It was immensely frustrating.  I want to get comfortable with long draw spinning, so I figured I would practice on this, but the staple length of the wensleydale is really really long, I was having trouble with the drafting, and the singles was lumpy and kept breaking on me.  I felt like I couldn't get enough twist in without having the twist all the way up to my fingers and the fiber I hadn't drafted back yet.  I think part of the problem is that the staple length is so long - I think 8-10".   

So after a few minutes I reverted to my modified short draw that I always do, but I might try to watch a few videos of people doing long draw and try again.  I don't think I'm going to like the finished yarn, so I figure this is really just for practice.  You can see in the picture of the combed top (there's about one staple length pulled off, split in half, and fluffed on the right) that the staple length is longer than the color changes, so there's no way the yarn isn't going to look muddy.  I also don't like how the colors are much more pastel in the spun singles than in the length of top.

Tour de Fleece: Stage 5

Wednesday was Stage 5 of the Tour de France/Tour de Fleece.  I filled up a bobbin with 2-ply green yarn.  I also figured out the awful squeaking noise my wheel was making.  The drive band was slipping on the drive wheel.  At first I thought that meant my drive band was too stretched out and I would need to replace it, but then I did some internet research.  It turns out that for the smaller whorls, it is sometimes necessary to tension the drive band with the little white drive band tensioner wheel (just above the red drive wheel in the picture).  I had thought that the drive band tensioner was only for the double drive set-up, but the wheel's documentation also mentions it in connection with the smaller whorls in Scotch tension set-up (which is the only set-up I've ever used).  I started using the drive band tensioner once I figured out where the sound was coming from and it seemed to help, but next time I sit down to spin I'll set it much more aggressively and hope that that makes the noise go away all together.

Yesterday I had a super busy day with work and then a church commitment, and I didn't even think about spinning until I got home from church at almost nine o'clock and just wanted to go to bed.  So yesterday was an unplanned rest day.  I'm planning to spin on the first planned rest day (I think it's the 13th) to make up for it.

Tour de Fleece: Stage 4

Yesterday (Stage 4) I finished spinning my green shetland singles and started plying them.  The plying goes fast, but there's still a lot to do!  I'm not sure if I'm putting in the right amount of plying twist.  I'm concerned that this yarn won't match the white yarn I intend to knit it with (which I think has not quite enough plying twist and is probably not really the same weight) but I guess I won't know until it's done and washed up!

The yarn is still shedding an alarming amount of dye.  I still have blue fingertips this morning, after washing several times since spinning last night.

Tour de Fleece: Stage 3

I spun for a little less than an hour yesterday (one episode of Star Trek Voyager, which is what we're currently working our way through on Netflix), and I spun probably 10-15 grams of combed top.  I'm pretty sure I'll finish the singles today.

Tour de Fleece: Stage 2

I did a bit of spinning after dinner yesterday - more than the first day of the Tour de Fleece, but not that much.  I'd guess about 20 grams of combed top.  I'm nearing the end of the green fiber.  I'll probably finish the singles today or tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I'm getting terribly behind on the mystery knit-a-long shawl I'm doing.

Tour de Fleece - Stage 1

Yesterday was the start of the Tour de France.  Stage 1 was a short 13.8km time trial. It was also the first day of the Tour de Fleece! Since it was the 4th of July and I had family plans, I only spun a tiny bit - about 5g of combed top.  (The bobbin is almost full because this is not a new spinning project.  I'm continuing to spin my hand-dyed shetland top from Yarn School at the Harveyville Project two years ago.)

Spinning, spinning

I did my usual Tuesday spinning on Wednesday this week (and I only did half as much as I have the past few weeks).  I'm getting excited for the beginning of the Tour de Fleece on Saturday!

Tuesday spinning

Today is Tuesday, and Tuesdays Are For Spinning, so I spun up some more of my green singles this afternoon.  I can definitely see that my two bobbins are filling up.  I might have to ply these up before I finish spinning the singles, because with only four bobbins I can't have two pairs used for these singles - I need at least one to ply onto!

Yesterday morning I was amused to see that Huck thinks green wool is cosy.  I had to straighten up and re-order my gradient arrangement of the pieces of this combed top on the guest bed because he had climbed up and snuggled himself in a little nest of combed top!

Tuesday spinning

Tuesdays Are For Spinning, so on Tuesday I weighed out another 32 grams of green fiber in two equal portions and spun green singles while I watched TV after dinner.  I think so far I've done 90-100g out of about 230g of top.  I'm excited to see how the yarn turns out, and to move on to spinning something I don't have to weigh all the time.

Tuesdays are for spinning

I decided to get back into spinning regularly (in preparation for the Tour de Fleece next month) and am taking inspiration from the Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, who for many years made it a point (maybe still does?) to spin on Tuesdays.

I washed one of the braids that I dyed at Yarn School three years ago.  When I dyed this braid, I tried to do a gradient from light to dark green.  It was only moderately successful.  When I washed it, there was a SHOCKING amount of teal dye in the wash-water, and I've been getting some blue-green on my fingers as I've been spinning it.  I pulled the top into short lengths and roughly ordered them from lightest to darkest, and I've been using a scale to weigh out equal small amounts to spin onto two bobbins, so I can hopefully capture the color change when I ply.  I'm using a short backward draw, because that's how I spun the undyed BFL fiber that I plan to use with the green yarn - hopefully to make a color-block cardigan, if there's enough yarn at the end.

White yarn finished!

My UFO list says I started spinning this yarn in November 2011.  I finally finished it last week.  I bought a pound of un-dyed blue faced leicester to practice spinning on.  I spun the whole thing on my wheel, using a short backwards draw and the slowest ratio on my ladybug.  I plied it into a two-ply yarn and got two skeins: the one with green ties is approximately 270 yds and the one with brown ties is about 240 yds.  I could definitely see when I was plying it that the earliest singles were much less uniform that the more recent ones.  That was pretty gratifying!

I decided to use this yarn to knit a cardigan version of this sweater.  I have 4 oz of Hello Yarn hand-dyed roving that I got at yarn school two years ago, which I'd like to use for the top part of the sweater.  I'm not sure if it's enough, or if I have enough of the white yarn to do the body AND sleeves, so my plan is to start the sweater body from the bottom and see how it goes.  If I have enough to do the sweater body and sleeves as in the picture I'll do that, and if not I'll just do the body in white and then either spin something else for the yoke and sleeves or buy some Noro for it as the pattern suggests.

Finished yarn!

This is the first yarn that I've finished since I went to yarn school, which was over a year and a half ago.  It is one ply of natural white BFL and one ply of a batt that was mostly alpaca with a bit of tussah silk and a little bit of something sparkly.  The color in the bottom photo is much more accurate - the natural really is a creamy white, not yellow.  I honestly don't love the yarn, but I am satisfied that I finished it.  I guess I should wait until it's knitted up into something before I make a final judgment, but I don't know what I should knit from it.  If I counted correctly when I was winding the yarn onto the niddy-noddy, there are about 225 yards here.  It's kind of thick and thin, and I sort of wish that the plies were more tightly twisted around each other, if that makes sense.  I think I am going to try to overtwist my singles and plies a bit on my next spinning project to make that happen.  I should probably make a sample card for quality control on my next project, too, to try to make it more consistent.

Fiber: one ply BFL, one ply mostly alpaca with a bit of silk
Yardage: ~225yds
Weight: sport to bulky, but mostly worsted?
Spun and plied on my Ladybug