A Boy and Some Yarn

Noah really loves his yarn...

He likes to squish it and rub it against his face (preferably when his upper lip isn't covered in snot, as here!)

He likes to feel its softness...

 ...and see how much of it he can pile onto his lap.

Oh, and of course, he refers to it as "yarn", not "wool." Good boy!

Here, he is admiring 800g of Falkland I finished plying a while ago; the largest amount I've spun so far. Believe me, this was not a quick exercise. It took several months, and I think thats a generous guess, just in case anyone thinks I spend all my time knitting and spinning. The reason it took months is because I spend no time knitting and spinning! I just fit in a little bit maybe a couple of evenings a week when I'm not way too exhausted.This is why my poor blog gets so neglected; because I choose to do the creating rather than write about it.

I had earmarked this yarn, once finished, for a particular project, but I'm thinking more than ever that I'd rather use it for a design of my own. Its probably a 4-ply ish weight, and the singles are one pistachio colour, and the other a bluey-green-sea colour. The difference is subtle but works beautifully.

The last two photos are particularly vivid. I just put them on the arm of the sofa, on a particularly sunny afternoon, with the sun streaming onto them. You can see the colour differentiation best in the second and third photos. I'm pretty pleased overall. Watch this space for the next fifty years to see what it becomes!

Success and Failure

As usual, this post has been a long time in coming. The first yarn I spun on my, now nearly one-year-old, wheel, was some lovely Shetland which was a gift long ago from Helena. I spun it up quickly (for me), and decided that then was the time to try out my first own design, which was to be a little tank top, or vest, for Laurie.

On the niddy noddy!

It was to be knit in the round, with a plain stockinette back, 2x2 rib around the bottom, with a cable pattern on the front. I scanned Knitting for Dummies, which is still a constant point of reference even though I would now consider myself an experienced knitter, for some cables, and decided on a chain cable set centrally between two wave cables, to be edged with moss stitch. I began from the bottom and quickly got to the armholes, about which I was the most apprehensive, but I did some workings out (to cut a long story short) and was really happy with how they turned out.

Due to the pulling in nature of cables, I gave whatlooked like quite a lot of length to the vest, which did result in it looking slightly peculiar by the time I arrived at the armholes, but I kept inserting my arms into the bottom and stretching it out to the sides to reassure myself! The moss stitch actually became an edging in itself as I began decreasing for the armholes; I had planned to add ribbed cuffs, but considered actually leaving the moss stitch as the edging. More on this later...

So, I completed one front shoulder, moved onto the other and completed that, but the further I got, the closer I got to the end of the yarn. I moved onto the back and finished one shoulder, with about six inches left with which to complete the remaining shoulder, both cuffs and the neck - an obvious impossibility! Oh dear.

The vest in its current state.

 You may also notice that I somehow failed to cross a cable, right in the very centre of the chain cable - what excellent placement for a mistake!

So, I shall have to wait for Wonderwool so I can purchase about 10 grams of Shetland and hope I can get this finished before Laurie's grown out of it (for the uninitiated, you cannot buy fibre in 10g increments - 50g is usually the minimum!) Joking aside though, I am reasonable pleased with this as a first quick design. I have so many swirling around in my head, as well as drawings, paintings and textile projects. By the time I am actually able to produce any of them, I will have sketchbooks full of ideas and won't know where to start. Oh actually, wait, I don't have time to record all these ideas anyway, so who am I kidding? I definitely feel the need to end this post with a LOL, so please laugh with me and leave a comment.

xxx Sam

Splitting Hairs or Three Bags Full

After plying my Shetland (post to come), I was eager to start experimenting with some of the fibres I bought at Wonderwool. I purchased a load (as in, I've totally forgotten the weight!) of Falkland top, which I want to spin to a 4-ply weight to knit the Low Tide cardigan, but I don't feel I'm accomplished enough yet (a hideous understatement) to begin on such a large amount. I bought three 50g balls of combed Merino top from Wingham Woolwork, which I had been hoping to resist as I've been struggling with some Merino I purchased from them last year - my incompetence, not the quality of their products - but the colours were irresistible to me...

I had planned to use them to practise 3-ply, each colour spun separately on three bobbins and then plied together, but having purchased Judith MacKenzie's The Intentional Spinner the other week, and discovered the sock yarn project, I was inspired to be slightly more radical (yes, that is ironic) and work out some kind of colour splitting pattern to make it more interesting.

I began by splitting each length into three, as in the above photo, then splitting both the darkest and lightest tops into eighths, but one "third" at a time, so preparing one bobbin at a time. Hopefully the photos will make more sense than my description.

Then, because I wanted an undulating gradient - light to medium to dark to medium to light - but I had the same amount of each colour, I had to split the medium turquoise into 16ths. 

Quarters

Eighths

Sixteenths

Progress shots for each row...

... ending up with this...

... which became these...

... three little sandwich bags (!) full of lovely, separated fibre.

It was a really enjoyable exercise. I think the design is exceptionally simple - aside from the initial splitting into thirds due to wanting to 3-ply, the rest of the splitting was based on halving, halving and halving again - what could be simpler? Obviously, to anyone who is actually an experienced spinner, that will sound ridiculous and entirely ameteur, but everyone has to start somewhere. The first bobbin has commenced; I'm hoping to end up with sock yarn weight so I'm trying to keep my singles nice and tight to make allowance for plying, as they'll need to be hardwearing for socks, but I'm not sure the consistency is going to be fabulous. We shall see.

xxx Sam

One thing leads to another...

Hello blog! I havent forgotten aboout you, I promise. In fact, I think of you frequently and with longing, wishing I had some time to devote to you and some more love to give you, but with and two and a half year old and a nine week old, you don't figure highly in my list of priorities. C'est la vie. However, even as I'm typing, my fingers still instinctively know where the letters are on the keyboard, so all is not lost. And there was no way I could fail to record my most recent acquisition.

Back in September, the Midnight Sheep paid a visit with a new acquisition she had made. Picked up from a charity shop for £50 following a tip-off, this beautiful Haldane Shetland spinning wheel.

I haven't looked at these photos for a while actually, and looking now, I can again see why I loved this wheel so much. It has a beautiful, antiqued finish, and the wood from which it's made is solid with a lovely grain. The wheel is simple, but with strong attention to detail. I particularly love the maidens and flyer; the maidens (for the spinning uninitiated, the upright posts on either side of the bobbin in the first photo) aren't excessively turned, but have enough detail to look interesting - I think that is the beauty of this wood actually; too much turning detail would take away from that beauty. Goodness, I'm sounding like a spinning wheel critic! I'm certainly not qualified to take that position! The thing I loved best about this wheel though, to cut a long story short, was the fact that it's upright. I found the height of the flyer, in comparison to my wheel, much more comfortable and convenient. I was lucky enough to babysit this wheel overnight, as it wasn't working properly and I offered Marno's services to Helena (the Sheep) to fix it for her. This turned out to be a very simple task. She'd known it wasn't working properly, but intuition told her to go for it, and it turns out she was right. So I had the pleasure of using it that evening once it had been fixed.

Although, as is evident from my lack of blog posts, I haven't had a tremendous amount of time to produce craft of any sort, Marno had been saying he wanted to buy me a new wheel, as mine hadn't been working properly since I took it to Brecon Bible School to do a demonstration last August. It had never been able to reach it's potential anyway, but I wasn't sure this was the year to replace it. But two weeks before Wonderwool, I happened to mention to Marno that it was on, and he responded, "Aren't we going?" I had just assumed we would be unable to because of having a new baby, but weare very blessed in that Laurie is delightful, and very good. So I started to think that maybe we could go, and Marno said we could look at a new wheel. So, thenceforth, all my ideas of saving it until I'm less busy went out of the proverbial window. I became ridiculously excited at the prospect, and started trawling the Ravelry spinning group for possibilities. My prerequisites were that it should be double drive and upright, and preferably a light finish. Oh, and there was a price limit too!

It wasn't long before I came upon the Kromski make, through recommendations on Ravelry. The Minstrel sounded exactly what I was looking for, and I was able to view it on Youtube through the fantastic Tim Horschler from New Voyager Trading, who did a full, in depth, and very informative review of it. Enough for me to decide, after a little more research, that this was the wheel for me! I then looked on Ebay, and, lo and behold, there was "one left in stock". Well, stuff waiting for Wonderwool, I thought, where they may not be available to take away on the day; lets get this thing NOW! As you can see, my attitude changed somewhat!

So, two working days later, it arrived. Unfortunately I had had the MMR vaccine the week before, and was suffering a bad reaction from it - bad enough to not even open the box on the day it arrived. So it wasn't until two days later that Marno assembled it for me, with a small amount of my help, and another Tim Horschler video, this time on how to assemble a Kromski Minstrel - thanks Tim!

So, finally, here is my new wheel, already broken in with some Shetland, which I've nearly finished plying.

I love that it has a lazy kate incorporated - makes plying so easy.

As you can imagine, I left Wonderwool with a massive amount of fibre. I actually bought no yarn this year, instead I bought fibre to spin into yarn for projects I have on my Rav queue... hmmm, when I'll be wearing those items is anyone's guess!

Wonderwool stash.

Me sitting at the wheel, immersed in Judith MacKenzie's The Intentional Spinner.

Have to go, as Noah has awoken from his slumber. Funnily enough, I have been reminded of why I haven't posted for so long - it's taken me an hour to write this post, half of it one handed with a suckling baby on my lap!

So long until next time, whenever that may be... xxx

2 ply

I hereby proudly unveil my second ever plied yarn! With a bit of inspiration from my friend the Midnight Sheep, who was a great help in recommending which rovings to ply, I have finally produced another 2 ply yarn. I can't remember whether I ever posted about my lovely MIL's trip to the knitting and stitching show at Alexandra Palace last year, and the stash of dyed roving she brought back for me - I know I took photos with the intention of, but I may have got waylaid. Aaaanyway... I was showing said stash to Helena, who immediately saw a fantastic pairing that I just hadn't thought of. One roving was lilac with no varigation, the other was mainly green, with lights and darks, but also, as it happened, a little of the same lilac. An obvious pairing, but maybe I didn't think of it because I must admit to being far more drawn to block colours then varigated. So after many months, I can finally reveal the finished yarn, complete with progress shots just to give an idea of the individual colours.

And the finished skein...

The last one is taken in super vivid, just to emphasize the colours a little more, but actually the previous photos are quite a good representation of the true colours. If I were to name this yarn, it would have to be called Lilac Tree in Spring, as that is exactly what it reminds me of. We have a lilac tree at the bottom of our garden, but the blooms are always over so soon.

On a sadder note, and talking of the bottom of our garden which is where our rabbit's hutch is, we came back from a weeks holiday on Monday to find our previously healthy Little Bun in a state of unwellness. He had hardly touched his food or water since we'd been away, and his eyes were all red rimmed. We kept an eye on him yesterday, and he did venture outside his hutch (he isn't usually shut in so has full reign of the garden and only goes in to escape from Noah or to eat and drink) last night. But he seemed worse again this morning, so Marno took him to the vet this evening, who immediately diagnosed him as having myxomatosis, and recommended he be put down, as treatment is difficult for the rabbit and only has a 3% success rate. So Little Bun went to the vet with what I imagined to be overgrown back teeth, and didn't, in fact, come back. A very sad evening altogether. I know Noah will be very confused, as he adores Little Bun and spends many minutes standing at the patio door shouting "Bun, bun", and pointing at him, as well as trying to stroke him at every possible opportunity.

Having said all that, I don't really know how to end this post, so I'm just going to sign off I think - a cop out I'm afraid.

xxx Sam

Just a few words and a couple of photos

This will be a post of few words, as I have a boy on my lap who wants to do everything his mummy is doing! But I just wanted to to show some photos of my hat, which I finished the other day. I saw some on ravelry which looked like they hadn't been blocked, so I found a salad bowl the perfect size to block it over, and it's come out nice and slouchy.

Here it is...

I'm really pleased with how it's come out, but my one complaint is that the pattern didn't say to add an extra knit stitch at each end for stitching up, so I'd got quite far before I thought, hang on a minute, the pattern's working right to the edges so I'm going to need an extra row to sew it up nicely. Anyway, I couldn't be bothered to rip it out, and it was meant to be a quick knit, so I left it and it sewed up fine, and I guess I learnt a lesson. I suppose lots of people say I should have added an extra stitch as a matter of course, if its a pattern to be sewed up at the end, or I could have just knitted it in the round, but, unlike many knitters, I actually like seaming - I find it a really satisfying way of bringing a project to an end.

I just realized that I haven't written about my finished plied skein of yarn, so here are a few photos of it.

I'm really pleased with the consistency considering it's my first attempt at plying. I've just started spinning some new fibre to ply for, hopefully, some kind of project, but I'm not giving any details, as I have so many projects in my head that so few come to fruition. I have, however, very nearly finished my dining room curtains - just the heading tape to sew on, so photos of those to come soon.

Have a wonderful weekend, whoever's reading.

xxx Sam