A Little Spinny

I recently received a pair of carders (that's those wooden spiky brush things in the picture), as well as a little wool, a wool winder and some inspiration.  I have spent my time learning to card and make rollags.  Rollags are what you get when you roll the carded fleece off the carders to make spinning that much easier.

It's all about the prep work and understanding what it takes to go from the freshly shorn sheep to the completed garment.  You wash it several times to get the fleece clean.  You pick it to get the various bits of grass, seed, wood, sawdust, moss, and other bits and pieces of stuff you wouldn't want to spin into your wool.  Then the wool is dyed or left in it's natural state depending on what you want to do with it.  After dyeing there is more picking... It seems you never get all the stuff in the fleece, you'll be looking at it and suddenly see something in the shadows... lo and behold it's more detritus.  Then you card it, which is taking two wire brushes and pulling them in opposite directions to get all the fibers in the same direction for better spinning results.  Once that is done, you spin it all up, and if you are so inclined you ply it, but you can leave it as a single.  Once that is done you have your yarn and it's up to you what you make, but you still have to make the item.  This is what I do.  From start to finish I can create a garment.  I love the work, there is something extraordinary about sitting there and peacefully picking through fleece, cleaning, carding, spinning and then knitting (my preferred method so far).

I just spent the better part of 4 days picking through some lovely dyed fleece that was given to me.  I was certain it wouldn't take more than a day, but by day two I knew just how compact  that fiber was.  I have enough for at least 7 full spindles which is 4 ounces each... That's just under 2 pounds of fleece.   There is more fleece in the offing and a bakers dozen of acid dyes for me to play with.  when I say more fleece, I mean it... I'm not sure how much there is, but it fills one of those clear garbage bags over halfway.  That's a lot considering it's in it's raw form.  It needs to be scoured, dyed, picked and cleaned, spun and turn into something glorious, but right now I'm catching up.

The same friend who brought me all that fleece also went to Fibrations, a place where fiber fanciers meet and sell their goods and have a wonderful time showing off and discussing their passion for what else... fiber.  Next year I'm going, nothing could keep me away.  While she was there, spinning on her wheel, she picked up some Romney dyed fleece in a gorgeous blue for me.  So I went to work and spun my finest and most even thread so far.

 I like the way it turned out, and it's so soft.  This needed something regal made from it.... so I started my search while I was picking and cleaning the delicious blue and purple mix, to find me a pattern I would like.  I checked out shawls, and cowls in abundance and finally have settled on a wimple.  Once it's done I"ll be posting the outcome, but for now all you get to see is the wool.

So this is what my last month has been filled with, woolly adventures in spinning, dyeing, cleaning and prepping.  And of course I chose to switch things up during a blue moon and return to my passion for knitting,  which is what started all this need for spinning in the first place.

The Busy Bee

Over the last few days, I have been working on creating more wool for me to create items from.  I've done some dyeing, which I outlined in my last blog, and then I did some spinning on my kick spindle and have designed and completed a pair of summery fingerless mitts.

As you can see, I've spun up 3 balls of wool the pale lavender, which I created by diluting the Grape Koolaid.  The ball on the mitts, still needs to be plyed, but it is the palest of the lot, and will create some beautiful plyed yarn, once I get to that.  I spun the blue wool and it came out quite lovely with a lot of variance in the colors.  I have a lovely selection of colors to choose from and now just have to figure out what to make.  I have to also figure out the weight of the wool, whether it`s worsted, Aran, fingerling and so on, and for that I use a little guide I make out of a card and notching out a one inch space. I don`t know if there is a name for this kind of measure, so I`ll just resort to my favorite word and call it a doohickey for today.  

The writing on the left hand side has the wraps per inch and what it stands for.  To make the doohickey, I just used a recipe card and cut a 3 inch rectangle off it.  Then to make it a little more sturdy I fold it in half.  I mark out an inch in the center and using a pair of scissors cut about 1/4 of an inch down, and fold the ends over.  This I do on the cut end, I now have a 1 inch notch with which to wrap my wool.  To make things quick and easy I always put down the table that converts the W-raps P-er I-nch or WPI to the wool weights we know so well like worsted or Aran.  

Now for the table of weights:

Wool Weight Name                            Wraps Per Inch

Lace *************************18

Fingerling-----------------------------16

Sport*************************14

Double Knit---------------------------13

Worsted***********************12

Aran----------------------------------11

Bulky*************************10

When using the doohickey, you have to push the wool up together on the inch end and make sure there are no spaces.  In the picture it's wrapped loosely to show how it works, however, carefully moving the wool over takes this to 12 WPI, meaning it's a worsted weight, a standard and popular weight.  

I also designed a pair of finger-less mitts, they are quite lovely and summery in a fingerling weight yarn in green.  I had a lot of fun making them and they go part way up the arm,  perfect for those nights when a gets a wee bit chilly and all you have on is a t-shirt.  Their lacy pattern also makes a lovely fashion statement. 

I'm including a close up of the pattern.  I found it difficult to take a picture with one hand so it's a little blurry. This closeup should help.  It's called a fan pattern and it's really lovely on.  It stretches nicely and they are airy, so they don't get to warm when you wear them, yet they do provide a little warmth should it get cool.

Now after all I've been working on, I need to tidy up.  Although productive, it's been a messy few days and it's time for me to get some things ready.  Packages to wrap up, wool to label and put away for another day, A few things to price and perhaps if I can get things done quickly enough I can even have some time to make another pair of tiny little Mary-Janes.

Adventures in Koolaid Dyeing

So there is the culmination of a good mornings work.  I used 4 Koolaid packets to make this rainbow of color.  The colors on the dryer are more vibrant than they appear, it's grey out and warmish, and perfect for drying the wool away from the sun.  It's actually a simple process, so if you're just starting out it's an easy way to go.  

The procedure is basically the same for all the different dyeing's I did.  First I washed the wool/fleece in a little dish soap, and rinsed it carefully, squeezing it out gently because I didn't want to felt the wool.  Then I soaked it in some water for about 10 minutes.  I didn't want it too saturated, I was going for a mottled look.  The next step was to dissolve the Koolaid in a liter of water inside a large pot that I knew I would only use for dyeing.  The Koolaid doesn't need anything since it has enough citric acid in the packet, which acts as the mordant which helps it set so the color doesn't leach out.  Once the Koolaid has been stirred enough so that the crystals are fully dissolved, you can add the wool if it has had a good enough soak and enough water to cover the materials being dyed.  Now put the big ole pot on the stove and crank the heat up on your burner.   Check it every once in a while, you don't want to boil it, but you do want to get it close to a boil.  Now put on the lid and check your dye every 10 minutes or so.  Once the color has leached from the water into the yarn or fleece and is left clear, you can pull it out of the water and into a container for rinsing.  I do this in my kitchen sink matching the water temperature of the tap water to the temperature of the yarn/fleece being rinced so I don't felt the wool, and once the water runs clear you are done dyeing.  Time for drying.  I use a small little round about with pegs attached to hang my items.  I place them in a shady place and allow to dry, squeezing the water out gently as it hits the bottom of the dyed item.

So now that the basics are out of the way, here are the variances I applied to the dyeing.  The first color I used was Koolaid Cherry.  I wanted a full bodied color and so I used only one skein of wool.  I followed the procedure outlined above and then hung to dry.  The color is a nice soft red, not quite pink.

The next color was Koolaid Ice Blue, which I followed the procedure for as stated above, but instead of using prespun yarn I used unspun fleece.  I used a lot of fleece, enough to make about two skeins of yarn, and after the final rinse, I put it in a net bag, then hung the bag of fleece to dry.  I achieved a variety of colors on the fleece from a whisper of blue, almost soft white, carrying through to soft palest blue, to a very pale blue, to blue.  There is a lovely mottled affect on the fleece and when it spins up it should have quite a lot of variance in color.

I then followed up with Lemon-Lime Koolaid, which is a bright green.  However that is not the color I wanted to create.  I wanted a pale grass green.  So I grabbed 3 skeins of wool, 2 of them were wool blends, and the third was 100% wool.  I soaked them for about 5 minutes before I added them to the pot with the dissolved Koolaid.  There is not much dye in there so it does not take long to soak up all the color.  I was rewarded with one skin of pale green wool, and two skeins of mottled very pale green wool blends.

My final batch was with Grape Koolaid.  I did not want bright purple, I wanted lavender, so I went again with using 3 skeins of wool and wool blends and followed the same procedure as for the Lemon-Lime Koolaid.  I was happy with the results and received one offwhite and lavender skein, and one greyish lavender skein of wool blends, and one lovely very colorful mottled lavender skein of wool.

This was a great project and I'm going to do some more dyeing soon, but this should keep me busy for the next few weeks. I have the spring colors I want, well almost... tomorrow I may be delving into yellows with some onion skins and vinegar. :D  We see how the day goes.  For now, I'll have to wait for my beautiful rainbow to dry.

Learning Curve

So above is the first pair of socks I knitted.  Not perfect, but not bad, just basic little socks.  They fit well and I used an alright yarn I guess.  It's a mystery yarn, not sure of the weight, but it worked fine.  They seem to lack some shape, but I did want something simple for my first time, and that's exactly what I got.

After making my socks, I decided to make a pair for my grown son.  I used the same pattern, same math and got that monstrosity of a sock.  It is too lose at the top, fits all right at the foot, but it's so misshapen.  I was disappointed and frustrated the whole time I was knitting it.  I could see it was not doing what it should even though the bag of wool said that this was sport weight... yeah right, it was not sock weight, more worsted and it looks terrible.  I also used the wrong needles.  With the socks for me I guess I lucked out.  For both socks I used DPNs 3.5mm my favorites for knitting up a hat on the fly.  Yeah socks are not a knit on the fly type thing.  

  Now I'm working on a sock with a pattern, Skyp socks to be exact.  I have some very lightweight fluffy wool in a color I like.  I also have some DPNs 2mm this time around.  So far this looks much more like a sock and I'm feeling better about the thickness.  I'm going to find some grey or another dark colour (anything but black) so I can make my son some socks, and I'll see from there.  

Things I've learned:  *make sure you have the correct yarn and gauge

                               *make sure you have the correct needles to get the gauge correct.

                               *with socks size matters, triple check the gauge.

                               *when starting with socks, math is for mathematicians, use a pattern.

I'll be posting when the socks are done.

Arabian Knit Dreams

I have been working on these mitts, and a hat to match the last few days.  I sometimes get interrupted while I'm in the zone and I loose my concentration, there is a knock on the door, or someone wants something.  I depart my world of knitting and give a hand, I come back to my work and start up again, but I'm not yet in the zone and I find it hard to get back there.  Luckily I don't get so deep in that  getting back to where my head space at is a problem, but when it does occur, I unravel and start again, that is what happened with these.  I was counting cable stitches and just well my counter was adjusted, it was just one of those things, but I could really see the cable was off.  I tried to just go back a little, but no, the unfinished glove was telling me to unravel all and start from the beginning.  It was worth it... These knit up quickly after that and I am learning to say, I'll be with you when I'm done.  I'm working on a hat to match, when that's done I'll post.  this pair of fingerless mitts was fun to make and they are nice and warm.... I love the color; I call it Arabian Knight Blue, it reminds me of the deeply star speckled starlit skies in all those movies about the Arabian knights.

My Stash

This is my stash, some of it is hand spun by a friend, and some is from Brigs and Little as well from the friend who did the hand spinning.  All of this is wool, I believe sheeps wool.  All of it is Canadian and it's beautiful.  I have more yarn than this, however, it's acrylic and I'm quickly veering away from unnatural fibers.  I have plenty here for making some lovely items.  My favorite thing to do is scatter all the bits and pieces beside me and start  pondering all the different things I could make from this lovely stash.   When inspiration hits, it usually strikes quickly and I'm reaching for one of my hooks or my knitting needles and I'm off.  I love the bright bold colors and in all honesty, the photo does not do it justice.  

I have learned to spin myself and have gone from using a drop spindle made from a pencil, to what is called a kick spindle.  Above is the kick spindle, you kick the large round wheel to spin the spindle and it twists, leaving your hands free.  To wind the wool on you just kick the spindle and it's done... so easy so quick.   I love this and it was made for me by the same friend who helped me with the wool, and got me involved in spinning and such.  The next adventure, is going to be dying some wool.  I have some dyes, but still need to do some reading.  Little things, like life, are getting in the way, but there comes a time when you just say enough and disappear into the wooly blue yonder.