Sometimes I worry about myself

Case in point: riding home on the train tonight I found myself staring at a fellow passenger's pinky brown extensions and wondering what the yarn would look like if I spun up her hair.

A nice heathery tweed I think...

Fiber Friday: Toxic overload

Meet Toxic, the November offering from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. Since I opted for the double option this round, I had 8 oz of superwash goodness to play with. Given that this is superwash merino, what else could I do but make some sock yarn? I split my two lengths of top into approximately equal weights (2.6, 2.7 and 3 oz respectively) and predraft each group.

I ended up with two balls of predrafted top that would have long stretches of each individual color (2/3 strip of each 4 oz top) and one that would have a shorter repeat (1/3 from each 4 oz top). My "plan" was to end up with two singles that had more or less the same color sequence, and one single that would be different for most of the skein. Maybe they'd overlap occasionally to give a solid yarn, but not very often.

Here are two bobbins spun up. I started each bobbin with a stretch of bright orange, and only realized when I started plying that the common color starting point was on the inside of the full bobbin. So they all got rewound...

In order to try and keep my singles consistent, I made myself a cheat sheet using some commercial sock yarns. The sample on the top is some Regia I think, and its a 4-ply. The bottom is a 3-ply from Knit Picks. Strangely enough, the Knit Picks single is thinner then the Regia single, but that yarn also had a core thread that it was wrapped around, which may account for the discrepancy.

I'm plying this sucker now - my first true 3-ply - and I'm trying to be a bit technical about it (i.e. putting the same amount of twist in to each length of yarn). It's coming out alright (the colors occasionally match up as I envisioned), but perhaps a bit underplied. If it's an issue when I'm done with a first pass, I'll run it back through to add some more twist. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up this weekend.

And then I'll have to decide on a sock pattern. Any suggestions?

Christmas loot

I'm home enjoying some alone time on the holiday, and I was unpacking some boxes that got sent back from New England after Christmas - there's a bunch of stuff that I haven't shared yet.

Although I put a bunch of yarny stuff on a list for Santa, somehow he never got it (hmmm...next time I'll make sure I send that list to Santa myself, rather then relying on Ironman to do it). The only yarn present I got was some lovely brown handspun alpaca from Hampden Hills Alpacas.

There's 148 yds of sportweight, and 414 yds worsted weight, all in a gorgeous rosy greyish brown color. I have no idea what it's going to become yet - maybe a nice cozy hat and scarf combo. Or some mitts - it's a cold wet day today and I could use a pair.

I also had the opportunity to visit Halcyon Yarns in Bath, ME right after New Year's. What an amazing place! I walked in and thought I'd died and gone to yarny heaven. It's a big fiber warehouse, brightly lit and cozy warm. I was accompanied by my mom and my brother, who were very accomodating of my enthusiasm as I wandered aimless, mouth agape in awe. There were aisles and aisles of yarn, for both knitting and weaving, wheels, piles of fiber, patterns, everything you could possibly ask for (as long as you weren't looking for lots of sock yarn). I was especially stuck by the number of local products they stocked - lots of yarns I'd never heard of that were made in Maine, locally made swifts and other such things. They had a separate room full of needles and notions. I managed to restrain myself and only got the following:

a bag of handdyed wool of unknown variety - about a 5 in staple and quite crimpy, maybe Romney?

4 oz of superwash merino and 4 oz of merino-tencel, to play around with dyeing once Boo is weaned,

and one small cone of Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk laceweight in the most gorgeous color ever, for a small lacy scarf somewhere down the road.

It really was a fabulous place. As I was heading to the register, I came across the display of Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I practically fell over from color overload, and grabbed a skein to take home with me. But it's not exactly soft in the skein, so I asked the lady at the register (who might have been Halcyon herself, but I don't know) if she'd used it yet, and whether or not it softened up much after washing. She allowed as how she hadn't made socks with it yet, but another customer had used it. The socks had softened up some with washing, but she was not particularly enthusiastic about it. I've read elsewhere that it does soften up considerably after washing and (gasp!) drying, but she more or less said she wouldn't use it for socks. And it was another $20 I wasn't sure I wanted to spend just then. So I didn't get any. How many yarn store owners/employees would be that honest about their products? Now I'm pretty sure I'll get some, based on what I've read about others experiences, and I'll be getting it from Halcyon.

One last bit of news to update:

Ivy is now done (except for two 52 inch ribbed ties - crap!) and is soaking before being blocked. I love the smell of Eucalan! And I'm looking forward to a new sweater as soon as I knit up 87" of ties.

ETA: Here are some pictures from Halcyon Yarn at Deb's blog - sounds like she had the same reaction I did!

Fiber Friday: Sara need not read this post

No really S, I won't be upset if you just navigate away from this page right now. I'm sure you've got more important things to do. Seriously, all that's going on around here is normal, everyday, humdrum stuff. That's right, go read a good book or something. And if that's not enough for you, here's a couple of cute pictures of the girls on Christmas day.

OK, that's it. Get out of here. Scat!




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Is she gone? Good.

OK, let me tell you something about Sara. Sara is one of my bestest friends ever since (my) junior year in college. She is a (semi)new knitter - she messed about with it a bit years ago I believe, but has been wanting to get back into it recently in a more serious fashion. She braved a weekend Chez Porpoise back in November and we made a trip to Yarntopia to get her set up. She walked away with several gorgeous skeins of yarn to make some hats. Given that she lives in Chicago, hats are a necessity.

Needless to say, despite many protestations of "I don't really know what I'm doing!", in short order she was zooming along on a beautiful alpaca hat for someone for Christmas. Disgusting I tell you. In any event, she seemed well on her way to getting sucked in by the Massive Fiber Black Hole that seems to be invading the world as we know it.

Now that she's out of the way, I can show you my most recent spinning project:

This is handpainted Targhee roving in the colorway Wild Raspberry from Woodland Woolworks. I split the entire length of top into four pieces and spun them end to end at 12:1, using a short draw and smoothing the single as the twist went into the fiber (my standard "worsted" technique).

I managed to get all 4 oz on to one bobbin, which I then chain plied at 7:1. I ended up with 274 yds of approximately DK weight yarn (14 wpi), soft, squishy, beautiful yarn. Yarn it was hard to part with (it all but killed me to wrap it up in tissue and stick it in a box), but yesterday was Sara's birthday. So the yarn is sitting here, along with some other goodies to further bring her over to the dark side, waiting to be shipped out tomorrow. If it does actually get mailed tomorrow, it will be the most timely birthday package either one of us has ever sent each other (case in point: when I was home with Boo on maternity leave, Sara allowed as how she had a package of goodies to send me. Boo is now almost walking, and said package is still somewhere in either Illinois or Wisconsin freezing it's poor little butt off, when it could be down here in Houston enjoying the loverly winter weather. But I digress...). Enjoy it sweetness!

PS - Devil wants you to know this is from her too - she helped.

Fiber Friday: Tour de Wool, Part II

White American wool, Shetland Moorit, Merino 64's and BFL

In the previous post, I reviewed the coarse wools from the sampler pack. This installment will cover the softer fibers. Note: I meant to reference Sarah's review of this sampler (page down to April 20 and 23 entries) in the first post but managed to leave it out completely. Check out what she has to say about the fibers as well.

1) American wool - 5" staple, soft and smooth. This was the coarsest of the softer fibers. I wouldn't have any trouble wearing it next to my skin, but I'm not very sensitive to that sort of thing. This was really easy to spin - it just flowed. After washing, 9 wpi, 12 yds from 0.5 oz.

2) Shetland Moorit - ~4" staple, crimpy and soft. This felt much softer as fiber then yarn unfortunately. I found that it wanted to be a thinner single (although given the final wpi counts of these samples, "thinner" is all relative!). Certainly the softest of the colored fibers. After washing, 9 wpi, 16 yds from 0.5 oz.

3) Standard merino 64's - very very soft fiber, ~3.5" staple, didn't note down the crimp. My notes say "the new crack", so I guess it was pretty good to spin! Very soft in the skein too. 19 wpi, 14 yds/0.5 oz.

4) Blue Faced Leicester - A favorite, ~4-5" staple, lots of crimp, soft and so easy to spin. BFL is one of my favorites (even after only a few months of spinning), and I'm looking forward to lots more of this in the future. 10 wpi, 12 yds/0.5 oz.

Superwash Colonial, American Targhee, Fine South African, Superwash Merino and Superfine Merino 80's

5) Superwash Colonial - ~4-5" staple, soft with medium crimp. This is the first superwash I've every spun, but it didn't seem that different from the other fibers. It was nice to wash something I knew wasn't going to felt in the process. Final wpi = 11, 11 yds/0.5 oz.

6) American Targhee - 4" staple, very crimpy. In the skein, this feels very similar to the Standard merino 64's top that I tried. Which makes me happy because I've got 4 oz of it to spin. Very soft, squishy yarn. 9 wpi, 12 yds/0.5 oz.

7) Fine South African - 4" staple, very crimpy. This was a pleasure to spin. Not quite as puffy as the Targhee after washing, but it has a nice sheen to it. I'd be interested in dying up a bunch of this stuff, and it's got enough definition that I think it might work really well as a three-ply for cables and textures. 10 wpi, 14 yds/0.5 oz.

8) Superwash Merino - 4" staple, crimpy. The other superwash sample. I had some trouble with this one - I think it needed a lot more twist to hold together then I realized initially, so I had a bunch of breaks while spinning and plying. However, once spun, its really nice stuff. 11 wpi, 16 yds/<0.5 oz (I lost some while plying).

9) Superfine Merino 80's - ~3.5" staple, crimpy. This stuff literally spun itself. I just held the fiber in one hand and it flowed into singles all on its own. Amazing. Some of that is certainly that I've gotten better at spinning but this was some beautiful stuff. Final wpi=12, 17 yds/0.5 oz.

Spinning up these samples has been a great way to try out different types of wool. Woodland Woolworks  has an exotic fiber sampler too (mmmm...yak! Cashmere!) and a variety pack with a bunch of non-wool fibers, that I'm also looking forward to trying out. For all you new spinners who might be reading: here's a closeup of how your skills can improve in not very much time:

The sample on the right is the first one I spun - the grey Swalesdale - on July 16th. It's underplied and fairly inconsistent. The hank on the left is the superfine Merino which I spun last night. Much nicer stuff (although some of that may have something to do with the fiber too). It is pretty thrilling to see how much I've improved without a huge time investment. My spinning has definitely been somewhat sporadic this summer, but I am getting better. It might even be time to start spinning with a definite project in mind (gulp!).