SpinnySpinny

I started this blog post yesterday, but it’s just been too damn hot. So instead I took advantage of free Caltrain and went for an air-conditioned train ride. In the process of going to San Jose and back, I got almost all the way through the heel on the sock. I still haven’t quite gotten this wrap and turn thing down, the knit end looks fine but the purl end is awful. It fits correctly, at least.

I did get the fair yarn done before I headed out, however. It takes no time at all to ply compared to spinning the singles. I skeined it off the bobbin, gave it another scour soak and then a vigorous wash. Last night I started a swatch, a teeny tiny hat. (Yes, there are pictures but the camera batteries are currently charging so I can’t get them to the computer.) I figured I should do something in the round, and when I get it back I can send it off for my mother’s doll collection. I delivered the yarn today to the designated fair-goer, who predicted it would take first place because it’s way better than hers. Eh, who knows. It’s not like I’m all that worried about it. I mostly did it because she asked, so her yarn wouldn’t feel lonely. There aren’t all that many spinning entries in the fair these days. Apparently the top prize is $15 and passes to the fair, all I had to do was send in the form and deliver the goods. She’s doing most of the work, drop-off and pick-up. It’s a yarn I was working on anyway and nothing particularly special.

Now I go back to spinning the single, and I think I’m just going to fill the bobbins again to make up for what I plied. I’ve got plenty of fiber and the yarn is something I would use for other things. I’m contemplating trying to overdye it to get a real black. This is considered black for a sheep, a very dark brown. But it’s not really a proper black. I just have to decide what to dye it with. Blue has been suggested, and if I’m going to do that then I’ll just wait until the next indigo party. It’s going to be a while on the rest of the yarn anyway.

Just because I have given up on getting this yarn done in time for the San Mateo County Fair, that doesn’t mean I’m not working on it. I finished spinning all the fiber I had prepped a few weeks ago, so now I’m back to flicking wool. I’ve been doing a lot of sorting and messy prep work on the kitchen floor, as it’s the easiest to clean. Flicking wool throws little bits of junk everywhere no matter how I try to contain in. I’m going to vacuum and mop in the morning anyway because we have guests coming over, so I figured this would be as good a time as any. The loom parts are put away for tomorrow.

While I was at the store the other day, I got some Ashland Bay top in two identical colorways of Merino and Merino/tussah. Again, everybody was shocked I bought something not natural color, but I’ve been branching out. I’m also coming to terms with commercial top and feel better about spinning it. I’d still much rather do all my own prep, but I’ve gotten better at spinning commercial top without too much reworking (as long as I’m not overly fussy about the results.) Since the two blends are the same except for fiber content, I had this idea to weave a twill block pattern with one in the warp and one in the weft. When you do this with two colors, you get some blocks more the warp color and others more the weft color. If the colors contrast enough, you get this shimmery op-art sort of effect.

The two yarns would differ only in sheen, the silk being reflective and the Merino matte. I haven’t tried anything like this before but the theory makes sense. At any rate, it should make nice fabric. It will be singles, and I’ll almost certainly do one with S twist and the other with Z. I’m not sure which, however, so I want to experiment with twist direction in another fiber first. I bought some discount (because it had some bad spots) brown Blue Faced Leicester top a few weeks ago for exactly that purpose.

The Learning Exchange samples are going in the mail, The Boyfriend is off for the long weekend, and work is being relatively tame. I even already took care of my mother’s birthday present. I can hang out and do all the fiber stuff I want.

I’ve started spinning for some legwarmers, but not the kind you think. You see, I like the idea of handknit socks, but I don’t actually like knitting that fine so they fit in my shoes. But it’s Summer once again in San Francisco, so my legs are freezing all the time. I’m going to make just the leg part of some knee socks, out of one of the black lamb fleeces I got last summer. It will probably take a little elastic in the top cuff to make it work, but that’s really no different from the sock variety.

In the I-Have-A-Loom-Now department, I ordered some cotton weaving yarn. One is a big cone of singles blended natural green organic cotton, which I will probably ply with itself the same way I did with the stuff I found on pirns at the surplus craft store. It’s all really fine, presumably intended for weaving sheeting. I now have white, brown and green and I think somehow dishtowels will happen. I just need to get the studio cleaned up.

I’m working on my second learning exchange yarn, three plys of different colors. My first sample was about my usual small-ish size and the space-dyed pink vanished in the final yarn. Now I’m making the singles about twice as large so you can actually tell there is supposed to be something going on there. I like subtle, but my idea of subtle is usually not even noticed by anybody else. So it looks like I’m doing two bulky knitting yarns. How… un-weaver of me. Oh well.

The yarn is one ply burgundy, one ply red and one ply the dyed pink. I’ll have pictures up when I get somewhere, but for now I’ve only just started on the first single. I pulled off about 30 g of each fiber (yes, I measured.) I need about 70 m of yarn for all the samples, I hope that will be enough.

If I were ambitious, I’d knit a swatch of the other yarn and take a picture for the website. Err, maybe later. After the sofa gets assembled.

I started a page for my Learning Exchange yarns. I have one done so far, with pictures. It’s some brown-gray Merino fleece I got in Vermont a few years ago. Parts are too short to comb, so I’ve been flicking it with no particular purpose in mind.

I’ll add more as I go. I’ve got a second yarn started, that tentatively involves scary pink hand-painted fiber. No, not that same one again, although I did start with the Merino/Tencel for sampling. I didn’t have enough, so I dyed some white top. One of my other goals for this project is to not buy any fiber. And since I’m not planning to do anything with the yarn, I can design all sorts of stuff that I would never actually use myself. There is something liberating about that, in a way, although The Boyfriend keeps commenting on the “Anti-Feorlen” yarns I’m turning out. I may have to stop just to protect my cranky traditionalist reputation.