Setting the Tension

Yesterday’s much-anticipated third spinning lesson was… interesting. Though I’d successfully continued drop-spindling the green-blue roving just before setting out, once I got there I seemed to lose my spinning mojo.

But first, we dyed the skeins we’d spun and plied in previous classes:

I’m not especially enamoured of the dye job, to be honest. It’s very patchy. There are some well saturated bits, and some where dye didn’t penetrate the skein well enough, either because there wasn’t enough dye or the wool resisted taking it up. It was dyed using the “put skein on plastic wrap, drop dye on it, wrap up and steam” method. I’m very tempted to give it a dip in a pot of blue dye, to even out the colour and see whether it is a resistance issue.

Then we tried spinning roving. I struggled and struggled, either getting hideously overspun singles or breakage. Just couldn’t get the tension right. It was disappointing after the success I’ve been having with roving spun on the drop spindle.

I’m afraid this will probably go in the bin. There’s slubby yarn, and then there’s yarn like a dog’s dinner.

Thankfully, we went on to learn carding, making rolags and mixing colours. Until then I’d been wondering if buying these had been a mistake:

Definitely not. I found it was easier to spin from a rolag than tops. Which was probably why I then succumbed to these:

I think I have enough roving now that I can start referring to it as ‘stash’.

Other uses for music stands

I’m all over the place craftwise. I have a loom warped up for the last week, but I’ve done no weaving. I haven’t spun on the wheel for a week, either, and I have another lesson tomorrow. I have a half sewn-up Zhivago Top and a second white chocolate sock halfway along the foot (I had to stop to take instructional photos today). And I’ve just started another pair of socks. (Rosebud Socks – will take a pic when the lace repeat starts to show itself.)

I also got halfway through spinning up the green and blue roving yesterday. That’s when the music stand came in handy.

The hollow tube of the base is just a bit bigger than the dowel part of my drop spindle. I can wind off singles onto a paper towel tube just by pulling gently… well, except when the singles cling a bit to each other.

With the adaptor bit that the beau made so I can slot my skein winder onto the base as well, and now this little useful discovery, my music stand hasn’t seen so much use in years.

FOs for the Year So Far

There’s nothing like a bout of food poisoning to justify stuffing around on the web all morning. I just added a list of FOs for 2006 to the sidebar. Now I’m analyzing the contents:

I knit four garments: the Summer Stripe Top, the Thneed (which I gave to someone it suited much better than me), the Liquorish Allsorts Jumper (for my Dad) and the Squares Jacket. I should have the Zhivago Top finished by the end of the year, too. And maybe a vest, if I’m lucky. So far the Squares Jacket is the most successful. I’ve worn it so much it’s already pilling. But Dad was pretty pleased with his jumper, too.

Accessories? I knit two scarves and wove three. I gave away the woven ones. I knit one beanie for me and one for my Dad, and crocheted a headband.

Of what could be called ‘homewares’, I wove a blanket, my first large weaving project. I knit my first dishcloth and some Baby Wash Gloves for friends. Both dishcloths I knit wore out in a few weeks.

I knit twelve pairs of socks! I haven’t included the chocolate socks because I haven’t finished an actual pair yet, but they should be done by the end of the year. Four on that list were gifts – and two of those were fast 8ply socks. Most fancy sock: definitely Pomatomus. Most hated pattern: Jaywalker. Coolest yarn: Mega Boot Stretch (with the stripy Yarnivorous yarn coming in a close second).

Lol! I should have a FOs of 2006 Awards Ceremony. What categories could I make up? Most successful project? Most challenging pattern? Most annoying pattern? Best yarn used?

Any suggestions?

Stripey, socky goodness

The Yarnivorous socks are done!

I finished them yesterday, on a trip out to the country to join in a Melbourne Cup Day bbq. However, I forgot to take along my notions bag, so I couldn’t sew in the ends until I got home last night.

There’s plenty of leftovers:

I could easily make another pair of socks. Maybe two. Maybe knee-high socks. Except I don’t wear knee-high socks. so that would be silly. (The silliness may be due to giddiness due to lack of sleep due to being up all night with the dire consequencs of food poisoning due to something I ate at the Cup Day bbq. But it was worth it. It was fun, and my horse won!)

These socks were the right socks at the right time. Easy knitting – for the brain and hands – with entertaining yarn. And a perfect fit.

On the way home yesterday I knit the toe and a bit of the foot of the pair to the White Chocolate sock. I’m going to use this one for taking instructional photos to go with the pattern. Must not get carried away and finish it before I get around to taking photos…

Last night I knit and knit and knit on the band of the Zhivago top and didn’t appear to make much progress. It’s returned to being a knitting black hole, as I feared. Mind you, if I hold it up and consider the bulk of it, I suspect there’s more yarn in it than both the front and back together. No wonder it’s taking so long.

If I ever again consider knitting a top with a wide, off-the-shoulder collar/band that folds over itself, could someone please whisper “Zhivago top” in my ear? I’m sure it’ll be all I need to come to my senses.

And yarn like this…

I had a very crafty Sunday, spinning, knitting and warping up the loom. The Yarnivorous socks and Zhivago top are both nearly done. The bobbins on the spinning wheel are fattening up with singles. The loom is ready for more weaving.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could make a thin yarn on the drop spindle, using some of the roving I bought at Winterwood. It turned out I could – and it was much, much easier than I expected. Clearly, spinning clean silky roving is easier than greasy fleece, and I’m wondering if we started with the latter in class so we’d be delighted when we tried the former.

I split the roving into four strips, then took one strip and tugged it a little all along the length to loosen it a bit. Then I wrapped it around my wrist and began spinning. Drawing out the fibre as thin as I dared, I got something that varies between a 2ply and 4ply.

While the roving is a gradual shift from green to blue to green, it’s not an equal transition over the whole length. More than half is green. I’m thinking I might spin the last two of the strips ‘backwards’ – starting from the opposite end to the first two – so I get a maypole effect that might spread the colours out a bit more.

Yarn like that

I finished the first Yarnivorous sock last night.

And promptly whipped up a toe for the pair. Somehow I’ve also found the time over the last few days to spin this:

On a drop spindle. With advice from Lynne and a website called ICanSpin with great little video tutorials.

You see, what attracted me to spinning wasn’t the idea of producing cobwebby lace yarn, or even smooth 8ply weight yarn. Something in me would go all drooly whenever I saw thick, slubby handspun. Sometimes plied with a fine metallic thread like this:

I’m feeling inordinately pleased with myself. Not just for producing the sort of yarn that I drool over, but because I spun it on the drop spindle. I thought I disliked drop spindling. It seems I don’t, if I have drool-worthy roving to spin.

The irony is, I don’t tend to knit this sort of yarn. I do like it woven, though. But for now I’m just going to put it on the coffee table to admire.

I have a question for any readers of this blog who also listen to CastOn. If any of you have listened to the new episode yet, can you tell me if Brenda has followed through with her aim to base the next series on promoting the abolishion of copyright laws? I love her show, but the last one left me feeling depressed. There’s not much point me listening to a podcast if I’m just going to end up depressed!

Feelin’ the sock lurve

I am so loving this sock yarn.

Last night, as I was watching Time Team and enjoying the straight-forward, self-striping delights of this sock, it occurred to me that if I kept going with the instep increases the stripes were going to get skinnier. And that heel flap socks don’t always look that great with contrasting heel yarn.

Next thing I was ignoring Time Team as I forced my sluggish brain to come up with a solution. It was this: I kept the five instep increases I’d done, and launched straight into short row heel, wrapping 12 times each side.

And it worked perfectly. The extra ten stitches made a heel big enough to fit my wierd feet. I then decreased in line with the instep increases to get back to the foot circ stitch count, to fit my ankles. (See little yellow triangle doodles above.)

It wasn’t a flash of brilliance so much as blindingly obvious, really. I think someone has suggested it to me before, too. Yes, that must be it. My brain is too befuddled by this wierd energy-draining virus at the moment to think up anything useful, let lone clever.

Have I mentioned how much I love this yarn?