SpinnySpinny

This morning I just sat down and finished sleying the nasty acrylic warp. It really didn’t take all that long, but I really didn’t want to do it. It’s been a while since I’ve had a weaving project I hated this much before I even get started. I think it will be better with the closer sett and will I end up with some functional fabric. I could just cut it all off and put on those holiday gift dish towels I’ve been meaning to get to but I don’t hate it that much quite yet. This is the hard part, once I get to the point I can actually weave it will go quickly.

It doesn’t help at all that I really don’t know what I want to do with this when I’m done. The entire thing was practice in warping back to front (which I’m not likely to do again unless I have to.) I have this vague idea that it will be a small blanket of some kind but if I’m not wanting to finish warping it I’m surely going to find some reason to put off seaming three panels together to finish a blanket. There are so many other things that sound more interesting, like making the new work clothes I need or washing the dishes. Yes, washing the dishes is more interesting than re-sleying a warp I don’t like. If it’s still ugly when I start weaving, off to the trash can it goes and I’ll start measuring some nice friendly 8/2 cotton.

I’ve been thinking about textiles, how about that? I started to re-sley the acrylic baby yarn on the loom because I wasn’t happy with the fabric I was getting at 12 ends per inch. That’s what I measured from the relaxed yarn, but as weft it insists on packing in way more than I want (like almost twice the number of weft picks as warp ends.) I’m going to change it to 16 and see if I like it any better then. If it’s going to come out like cardboard then at least cardboard in both warp and weft directions is a more useful fabric. It’s annoying to do however, one of those things that makes housework suddenly very interesting.

In the spinning department, I’ve been re-organizing the studio so I can bring the bicycle over finally. Yes, bicycle. A friend has an exercise bike with disembodied Ashford parts bolted to it that she would really, really like gone from her basement. It’s rumored to work, and if I can get it going well enough I’ll use it. Finally I could combine fiber and exercise at the same time. (A Woolee Winder is going to be high on the list for next equipment purchase. Spin for hours, never having to stop to change hooks!)

Note: I’ll be doing an OS upgrade and some filesystem housekeeping for the webserver soon, so you may find the site off-line for a few hours sometime in the next week or so.

I haven’t thrown away the Coopworth yet, but I’m trying something different. I took some of the batt and combed it, and that gave something spinnable. The result still has some problems but most of the junk comes out and the yarn is strong enough for warp. It’s tedious, so we’ll see how long this lasts.

Today was hang out and do fiber at Casa Feorlen. Some friends came, we ate artichokes and chocolate, measured out a huge skein to dye self-striping sock yarn, made rope, wove little bands and warped the big loom. A friend of mine showed me how to warp back to front, a different way from how I usually do it and necessary for the bead leno gauze I want to experiment with. There was much confusion about this and that but eventually we got the warp beamed and I started threading. We’ll see how it goes after I finish. She also brought over a fancy fine fiber drum carder and left it behind for me to experiment with.

It’s a Pat Green Deb’s Delicate Deluxe, and I’ve got some serious equipment lust going on. I do usually like the result of combing, but using a carder is so much faster. I haven’t been able to experiment with the piles of Merino around here because the usual carder (borrowed from a different friend) can’t do fine fiber. With this I actually managed to blend Merino and Suri alpaca and the alpaca even mostly stayed in one place. The fine wool cards quite nicely, there are some neps but at least it actually forms a batt. On the other one it will hardly stick to the drum. I’ve been thinking about what to do with the gift alpaca and blending it with wool is high on the list. When I get a few minutes I’ll spin some of this blended batt and maybe I’ll do that while I have the spiffy carder.

In the weaving department, the back to front test project is some acrylic baby yarn. Slightly less nasty than Red Heart but still something I won’t be afraid to cut off if the experiment turns out to be a nightmare. It’s not designed to be weaving yarn, so you have to plan carefully to make sure you get what you are expecting. Since it’s so elastic, if the fabric looks good on the loom it will be like cardboard when you get it off and the warp relaxes. I’ll have to experiment with the tension to be sure I don’t beat it too firmly. I’ve had an offer for yet more baby yarn, as much as I hate acrylic knitting yarn I’ve been collecting sport weight or finer when I can find it cheap and/or free. It’s always good for something, just as long as that something isn’t knitting. It’s great for trying out new patterns or as waste yarn.

This weekend I borrowed the drum carder, so I could do a few things. One of those things was the Coopworth, which even scoured twice was still greasy. I tried to pick out the second cuts and VM and all those other annoying bits. What I wasn’t counting on was the tips to disintegrate in carding. So now I have carded batts with even more noils in them than before. And seemingly no less VM, despite cleaning up piles of it from the floor. Most of a day of carding produced six large batts.

I spun a section of one tonight. About ten minutes into it, with a lap full of junk I’d pulled out and a grungy-looking yarn on the bobbin, I skeined it off to wash. It didn’t look any better.

My original idea was to spin half S and half Z and do a striped warp. Not only do I not like this yarn, I don’t want to use it for warp either. It’s full of slubs from all the broken tips and then there’s still the VM. I’ll wait until morning and see how the skein looks dry, but this is seriously turning into a “Life’s too short” project. It’s one thing to go through hours and hours of work wondering if the end result will turn out like you imagined. It’s another entirely to do it for something you are certain is going to suck no matter what.

But I did finally get back to the Merino, I filled the last of the first bobbin. 132 grams. I could get a little more on there if I tried, but I’d have to stop and adjust it too much to be worth the bother. Now I just have to finish the other two.

With the machine-wash “Rambouillet” done, I came back home from the annual guild stash sale with yet more fleece. This time about a kilo of Coopworth, which is shiny and dense and looks a lot like mohair. It was one of the fleeces bought for a fiber study, so it was up for grabs in exchange for a donation to the guild. By the end of the meeting it was still sitting there, so I pulled out the $10 I had and tossed it in. I know why nobody wanted it, it is very greasy and caked with clay mud and who knows what else. But it was an interesting breed I haven’t worked with (some people like it for beginners) so I figured it was worth ten bucks.

I knew I wanted to card this, so I didn’t have to go through the long process of dividing the fleece into staples for washing. I just pulled off sections and put them in mesh bags. If only the others were so easy.

I did two scour-wash cycles, with a spin in the washer between. That front-loading washer really does get the water out, although in this case it’s filthy mud and the washer needed a bath when I was done, but hardly worse than the last experiment. I opened up the wet locks to get it to dry and there was still caked mud. In theory, it will flake off during picking and carding and the remainder will wash out later. We’ll see.

I didn’t have enough mesh bags for all of it, so the last bit was put in after and soaked overnight. I scoured it this morning by my usual non-washer method and it looks like the soak didn’t help much.

The other find from the meeting was four cones of 20/2 wool for weaving. It’s in this dreary off-white color called “bone” that makes it look more dirty than anything else. Perfect for dying. Combined with the two huge cones of black I already have, I could get some interesting fabric.