Spinning All the Day Long

If you've been following on IG, you know I've was bit by the spinning bug. Or maybe more like an obsession.

And not the type of obsession where you do it for 30 minutes to an hour each night. No, more like once I pick it up, I can't put it down. I think last Sunday, I started after lunch and essentially didn't stop until well past bedtime. (Once I was close, I just had to finish the ball.) So maybe more like an addiction.

What I am working on is some fiber I started a year or two ago-Malabrigo Nube (colour Azules).

I had two singles already spun from some.

I had some plan for spinning a three-ply yarn, but it just wasn't coming together. (I had never found the third colour to use.) Anyway, I decided to just carry on and make two-ply yarn from the singles.

So that's what I did with my redneck "bobbins" and "lazy kate".

In not too long (you know it was finished the same day it was started!), I had this two-ply yarn:

Spinning singles is fun and all, but plying is super fun. It's fast, requires a lot less work, and you get to see the final yarn! (It's also really fun to watch the interplay of the colours on the two singles coming together.)

I didn't measure but something in the process made me note that I think it's about 250 yds. It's a little too loosely plied and there is a chance I may hit it again and fix that.

Once that was done, I turned my attention to the sister yarn in colour Lavanda.

I had half of it already spun.

I ended up splitting the second half of the fiber into two hanks because it was too much for my spindle to do all at once, and at the end I had three hanks of singles:

They measured 252m (275yd), 184m (201yd) and 124m (135yd).

I think you can see the colour difference between the middle (larger) hank and the ones on the outside. I believe I split the original roving in half lengthwise, which normally would make the two halves match, but apparently one side had more colour than the other! (Or something about how I spun them - two years apart - changed how the colour played out.)

I set about plying them together (combining the two different colour tones) and ended up with these two squishy hanks:

They looked like a matched pair (which is good) and I think I got a much better twist on the two-ply this time. (This is what encourages me to take a second run at the Azules.)

The yardage of these two hanks is 162m and 116m, 278m (304yd) total.

Maybe because I was still stuck on the three-ply yarn, but I kept thinking that I needed a third partner for these two yarns. Maybe if I were in stores more often, I would have purchased more (roving was hard to resist even when I wasn't spinning) but then I remembered this yarn:

It's the same fiber as above in the colour Archangel.

I spun it back in 2014. It was definitely a beginner project. I still really like the colours and I like the yarn, but I just don't knit with bulky yarns that much. And certainly not inconsistent almost thick and thin bulky yarns. I like them, (they're really pretty), but I've realized I don't really like to work with them.

This would have made an interesting cowl (I think there was enough yardage) but I didn't need another short bulky cowl. So it sat in a box until this week, when I pulled it out, untwisted the plies and then respun the singles to match the other two yarns:

Or I'm working on it anyway. I have the first half done and a good start on the second half. Then I'll ply them together and then I'll be ready to find a project for these yarns.

I saw this shawl pattern recently:

Briochealicious by Andrea Mowry

It uses three colours with a constant colour running through. (the striped sections are brioche stitch). It looks lovely to me but I'm not sure it's the exact thing I want. (And I'm not sure I have enough yardage.) But I'm thinking something along these lines. (Because I don't need another short bulky cowl, but I don't have enough big-ass shawls, right?!)

I went through my stash recently (looking for that Archangel yarn, now that I think about it) and I found a good amount of a light "natural"-coloured wool/silk mix that may do. Once I get this last yarn finished, I see some swatching in my future. I'm looking forward to finding out how these yarns will knit up.

Spinning Malabrigo

I've been spinning lately and really enjoying it.

I bought the following two braids at Red Purl a few weeks or months apart. I think I bought the second one with the gift certificate I got for Christmas from my boss. (We get to chose our own certificates. I think you're "supposed" to get a restaurant certificate, but I get yarn.)

 Both braids are merino from malabrigo.

I thought the colours had enough overlapping tones that I could maybe combine them.

So far I have spun half of the second braid pictured.

 With the supported spindle, I am much better at getting thinner yarn.

For those of you interested, I pulled the braid into two halves (the long way) and then spun the colour as it presented. Theoretically I will get two spools of yarn that have close to matching colour progressions.

The purples don't come through very well in the photograph, but I think you can see a little of how the colour progresses through the length of the yarn in the picture above.

After watching the Craftsy class "Ply to Knit: Spin the Yarn You Really Want", I really wanted to make some 3-ply yarn. So that was my goal with these two braids. But I haven't been able to think how to combine two colours into three plies. (If you have any ideas, please let me know.)

Hmm...I just thought of an easier solution. Buy one more braid that will coordinate. Good plan!

More of All the Things

I don't feel like I've been getting very far on any of my projects (hmm...maybe a consequence of having so many going?), but I have updates on all of them for you.

Last time I showed you this Wool-Aid sweater, I only had a few inches done on the back!

I've had a lot of meetings this past week and since the sun was shining, I knit over some lunch breaks while sitting in my portable sunroom (aka my car) and so I've made some good progress. It doesn't hurt that I like to knit this yarn.

I told you I was going to add stripes, and you can see that I did. I placed them just below the armhole. All the pieces are knit and I have sewn the shoulder seams. Next up is to knit the collar. I have to get that set up tonight so I can work on it on the way to and from church tomorrow.

I got the 200+ stitches cast on for the skirt I said I was ready to start. I knit about 10-12 rows in the smallest size needle (a real pain in the hand) and had some doubts about the size.

So I threaded two cables together so that I could stretch the knitting out and try it on. My doubts were well-founded. It looks like I can reduce the stitch count by 30. So much for swatches! I haven't quite had the fortitude to rip it out and restart. Yet.

My orange tulip socks are coming along:

 I only work on them at home when I can follow a chart. Can't quite make out the tulip pattern? Here it is:

I assume you can see it now. I think I'll start the heel after this pattern repeat. I've decided to make these shorter than my usual socks. They have a much lower percentage of wool and I'm thinking they'll make good spring/fall socks. I've finally come to realize that not all of my socks need to be warm enough for dead-of-winter.

After finishing re-spinning the grey Jacob wool, I have done more on the Blue Face Leicester. My spindle got full enough that the wool was getting unruly on the shaft, so I wound it onto the niddy noddy.

I'll do the rest of the fibre separately. I have 75 yards done and it weighs one ounce, so that should be about half. (My scale isn't particularly accurate.)

I don't know if it's because of the colour or the fine weight, but I keep thinking of doing some lace with it. Single ply isn't the best for lace, though, and I'm not sure I can trust my yarn to hold up to the blocking!

I've been itching to dye something and with the Wool-Aid sweater almost done, I'll need another project to take out and about. I want to switch back to socks because they're a lot easier to do away from home.

I've made a couple pair of socks from this wool from a GAP sweater

and could use it again. There is just no way I am making another grey pair. So I have it soaking right now and am going to try for a multi-tone blue/green colour. We'll see how it works!

Second Chances

When I'm knitting, I know I can always take it out. Undo it and start over afresh. (Except with mohair or angora--those are just better to get right the first time.)

I thought spinning was different.

I told you before that I was spinning some grey fibres and was hoping to use one of them with some red cashmere for a pattern. I started spinning some Jacob fibre and it just seemed to want to be thicker than I could use. So I put it aside and spun some Blue Faced Leicester. That was spinning a nice thin thread that I thought would really work.

But it was white and I couldn't let go of the idea of using grey.

I don't remember if I watched the Craftsy class on plying yarn before or after this, but in the class she made the point that you can always go back and respin something to add more twist (or unspin it some if it's too twisted). At some point when I was spinning white fibre and wishing for grey, I tried the grey again and was able to get a much thinner result. So I spun the rest of the grey, but didn't finish the yarn with a soak or a blocking.

What I did do was wind it into a ball and then redid the spinning process. Yes, I had to untwist 3-5 inch sections, draft them and then retwist them, but I have to say it went faster than working from a raw fibre and I was getting the result I wanted.

On the left (above) you can see some of the original yarn and on the right is the newly respun yarn. It made a big difference! I have no idea if this is "allowed" in spinning, but I took the chance that if there are no knitting police and no quilting police (and many people have assured me of this), then there are no spinning police about to bust down my door and take me a way in handcuffs. (At least, they haven't yet.)

In the first spinning I had 75 yards of a yarn the maybe averaged 12 WPI (wraps per inch, a measure of thickness). After the second spinning I had 130 yards of a yarn between 16 and 18 WPI.

I soaked it last night, gave it a couple of good snaps while still damp, hung it to dry and rolled it up this evening:

 I was time to swatch again.

Although it's still not perfect (you can see how the sides bulge out where the grey is), it is much better than my last swatch and I think it is good enough. The grey is used in smaller amounts (no more than four rows at a time) and in places where a bulge won't really harm (sleeve cuffs and cowl collar). The pattern calls for grey stripes at the bottom hem too, but I had already decided to omit it there.

I did most of the respinning in one go on Sunday and didn't realize I was using the same spot on my thumb to pull on the fibre to draft it. By the time I noticed, the whole pad of my thumb tingled and felt numb. Once I was aware of it, I used different areas of my fingers, but my thumb is taking a while to heal. Unfortunately, it's the same area on my thumb that I use to hold a knitting needle so I've had to limit my knitting time this week. Today was pretty good, but it's Wednesday and my thumb still tingles when I push on it! Live and learn.

All. The. Things.

That's what I feel like I'm making. In a sudden burst, it seemed like, once I finished the Wool-Aid socks I was working on (more on those another day). Once they were off the needles it was like everything looked tempting and possible.

I showed you the red cashmere swatch I had started (here) and now I've picked (and even purchased) the pattern. It's an Amy Herzog design called Trimmings. I'll do it with the larger cowl neck and three-quarter length sleeves. Or shorter sleeves if the wool is running out!

Somewhere she suggests doing the contrast colour in some handspun. That caught my attention and I thought, "I don't have any handspun. But I could make some!" So I took the fiber I got for Christmas in a kit (a spindle and 2 oz of three different kinds of wool) and got to spinning.

I had started one batt or roving or sliver or whatever you want to call it while on the Christmas trip and had done a little since then, but not much. I set to it in earnest after having watched the "Spindling" class from Craftsy.com. I learned more by watching the class, but the real thing is to do it.

So I spun some wool and my fingers and hands learned better what to do. By the end I had this:

"I made that." It never gets old. I made that!

 I thought some areas looked pretty good:

 And others were still a little thick and uneven:

I tried knitting some of it onto the top of my previous swatch. (I just undid the bind off, picked up the stitches and knit a few rows.)

You can see that all is not well. The handspun is thicker than the cashmere and either the cashmere gets stretched out or the handspun buckles.

I liked the idea of using grey as the contrast at this point though, and I had another grey batt in my kit. This time Jacob wool instead of Coopworth. No you don't have to remember that, but they were different to spin with. I think the Jacob acted much more like hair.

I could tell pretty quickly that I was not getting a much thinner product with the Jacob wool. It was also going to be too thick. Well, then. I thought I may as well dig into the last batt in the kit--some white Blue Face Leicester. (That last word is pronounce "Lice-ster".) That's the same breed that I knit Troy's sweater out of and I loved working with it.

I started spinning the BFL and got a lot thinner results. I'm still not sure I'm spinning really nice yarn, but it's all a work in progress. Certainly this feels better and drafts more easily than the Jacob for me.

Here are the two side by side:

Top is the grey Jacob. Below is the white BFL.

I am using both "drop spindles" as supported spindles and I enjoy that way of spinning much better. For one thing I can sit more comfortably instead of leaning forward to let the spindle drop in clear space. I put the point into a smallish bowl that is sitting on my lap. I've taken the hook out of both of the spindles because they were catching the yarn too much and now the wool just spins off the top of the stick. Works great.

Here is a close up so you can compare the two:

I have put the Jacob aside for now and I have quite a bit more of the BFL to spin up. Naturally since I am spinning it thinner I am getting a lot more yardarge out of 2 oz and it is taking longer. But I am enjoying it and not in a hurry. Assuming it works with the cashmere, I think the white will be fine with the red cashmere as well. A little different than grey, but still good.

In between all that, I raveled a sweater I picked up at Goodwill:

So much potential released!

The wool felt great and I liked the stripes, but it was far too short and wide for someone to wear. It didn't take long to cast on a sweater for Wool-Aid to work on when I'm out and about.

So far I have a few inches done of the back. I'm making the same pattern as last time (see it here) in one size larger. And don't worry, I'll be adding some stripes very much like the original.

And then in the last day or two, I finally jumped off of the fence I was sitting on and started a swatch for a skirt I've been thinking about since last Squam!

I picked up a book from the "free-take me" table, Modern Knits Vintage Style just because of one skirt pattern. I love the classic look!

I've haven't had a yarn to use for it and also I've been plagued with doubts about whether I need another knitted skirt. (And let's face it, no matter how nicely it comes out, it won't top my Missoni inspired Vogue skirt.) But I threw those thoughts away and got started because I couldn't forget about the idea.

Plus I'm going to Squam again this year so I would love to wear something that resulted from my last trip to Squam.

It also helped that I raveled this sweater that Troy no longer wears:

It's a lovely maroon/burgundy colour and about the right weight for the skirt. I'm not certain I have enough of it to cover what the pattern calls for, but I keep thinking that a sweater has got to have enough yardage for a skirt. (I mean you could pull it on over your hips if your legs could go through the shoulder seams, right?) Worst case scenario, I figure the skirt will be a little shorter than the pattern, but really I think I have enough.

First up was a swatch (because apparently I am being such a responsible knitter these days):

The bottom was done with the smallest size used in the pattern (US2) and the top with the largest (US5). But you may have known that already by the holes I knit in! (Refer to my previous tip, if you are wondering what I'm talking about.)

Once I get the skirt going (math done for size and cast on), I think it will be an easy sail.

So do I have enough projects going? I don't know but I've been enjoying them all. I'm just missing a fabric project. The art gallery in my church is going to display work from the congregation and I wish I had a quilted project to display, but nothing comes to mind. But I did just have someone offer me an old quilt they got years ago wrapped around a bed frame when they bought it! Sounds like it will be worn and used enough to justify cutting it apart and using the pieces. Hmmmm....

Ravel It, Twist It, Ply It--All to Knit It

So once there was this sweater that I picked up from Goodwill. It was orange and I liked to wear it. Especially in the fall.

But then I was tired of it, and there was a spot on the cuff I couldn't wash out. And in a fit of decisiveness, I took it downstairs, sat on my couch and ripped the sweater apart. In a very organized way, of course.

I got 230 grams of very lightweight 40% merino/30% viscose/20% angora/10% cashmere. When I entered the yarn in my Ravelry stash, I discovered I had unraveled the same sweater in pink! (You can see a picture in this post.)

I got a hankering to knit socks out of this yarn so I decided to ply it. In order to ply it, I decided to twist it. You twist in one direction and then ply in the other. Then the yarn wants to stay put. You could just ply it and block it, but I didn't want to in this case.

Here is one sleeve twisted on the spindle next to the yarn from the other sleeve:

I had a funny moment getting started. I twisted the yarn the "regular" way (clockwise or Z-twist), letting the spindle spin and spin. Then I stopped to inspect the yarn and it was utterly not twisted--in fact, I thought it was less than before I started. So I examined the wool straight from the sweater a little more closely and realized it already had some twist in it (very unusual for yarn from a commercial sweater), and it was going the other way! So I twisted it in the other direction and things went fine from there. (There's no advantage to one direction or the other; it's just a convention to twist the one way and ply the other.)

Once the yarn was all twisted, I was eager to ply it. Not only was it the final step, it also would go a lot easier and quicker than the first step! But I had to do some other stuff, get ready for a trip, etc., and my spindle sat on my table for a couple days.

But finally I had a few minutes. I put the spindle in my "super fancy" lazy Kate (yup, that's what they're called):

Constrained by the holes in the side of the box, the spindle
can spin freely, making it easy to unwind.

and wound up a cake of yarn:

Once I had a cake of yarn, I put it in my project bag to take on the trip.

I tried out a double strand, triple strand and quadruple strand and decided that the triple strand gave the thickness I wanted. That meant chain plying (aka Navaho plying). It's basically a long crochet chain done with your fingers while you ply.

When my fingers got sore from knitting socks during the drive, I pulled out the ball of yarn and my spindle, and got to plying.

It was easy work as the yarn practically plies itself since it was twisted already.

With just a little more time once I got to my destination, I had the whole ball done.

The yarn has nothing to do with my trip to the Netherlands, but I feel like they will make nice souvenir socks of the trip anyway. I did purchase a sock yarn while there that I optimistically called orange, but it's really yellow. It was the best I could do at the time, but I have admitted to myself that it's not orange.

I am happy with this result and can't wait to cast on a new pair of socks. My first plan was to knit one sock with the plied yarn and the other with the yarn from the other sleeve unplied, just to experiment, but I've since decided to use the plied stuff for the toe, foot and heel of the pair and use the unplied for the leg. The wear parts will be stronger and I won't have to ply everything. We'll see how it goes...