Spinning Singles study

I had the great idea of doing spinning technique studies with my podcast listeners this year. I explained the concept in several podcasts at the beginning of the year, and set March as the start date. I needed a central location for them to post their photos, so I invited any one wanting to spin along to join the Yarnspinnerstales spin in group on Ravelry Even though I set this project for March, it's an open ended invitation, anyone can work on these goals I set to explore the technique of spinning and knitting with singles. So if this piques your interest, hop over to the group, check out the thread for the March singles study group.

I also discussed what I found as I worked on these samples in episode 60 of the YST podcast.

First a picture of all of the swatches, then a photo of each with explanation:


I was using a wool roving, probably a blend of other fibers too. I really don't know the entire fiber content, since I purchased the roving.

The first goal was to spin some of my default single, as if I was just spinning this to use in plying. I instructed everyone to leave the single on the bobbin to rest for a time period (mine was about 1 week) but then instead of plying, to just knit a swatch from that single. This was to give us an indication of whether the single was balanced, or over or under twisted. This is important information to know, even when using the single to ply. Some of that active twist can be relieved when plying, however, it shows up when knitted as a single, even after resting. You see this in the photo below, a slight slant to the knitting, and a curl at the upper right corner.



The next instruction was to correct your spinning, either not as much twist or more twist, to try and create a balanced single. I actually did this swatch last, after step three and four, and so had plenty of fiber left and spun a larger amount than all the others. So to use it up, I knit the garter stitch swatch but then went on to knit SS stitch, with a few YO to make a simple lace design. You can see this area, pulling in due to the SS stitch. I had spun the single as before, being more observant of the twist, let the single rest on the bobbin for 2 weeks and then knit the swatch. The garter area of the swatch was well behaved and laid flat without blocking, showing I had achieved my goal of spinning the single without extra active twist.
Suggestions 3 and 4 were set up to show ways of controlling the active twist of singles, before and after you knit, and also to show that active twist will return if you wash an item, and not block it.

#3 was a study of blocking the single before knitting with it. The single was spun as above, although not allowed to rest. I immediately wound the single on my plastic niddy noddy and wet the skein while stretched and allowed it to dry completely. Then the swatch was knitted straight off the niddy noddy. The resulting swatch was very well behaved, no active twist at all. Even the tiny skein of single, shown above the swatch laid flat. However the gauge of the swatch had increased by almost 2 stitches per inch, so doing this for any garment would require close attention to the gauge. Also, if the item was washed, it would have to be blocked back to it's original shape. But the goal here was to create a relaxed single to knit.
#4 was set up to study active twist yarn, or highly energized yarn as some call it. I spun a single with an excess amount of twist, spinning enough to do two swatches. The swatch to the left in the photo was knit immediately after spinning the single, as you can see it is so energized it almost rolls up on itself. Then I took the remaining single and put it on the plastic niddy noddy and wet it and allowed it to dry, just as in the step above. The swatch to the right was knit straight from the niddy noddy. It shows that blocking the yarn did help alot, however there is a limit, because there was still active energy in the swatch. The gauge is tighter, and the fabric has a very dense feel to to, like all those stitches as being crunched together by the twist.
I think everyone that spun along with me on this study had a great learning experience. I talked more about some of the observations from the group, and my personal experiences in the podcast.

I have other spinning technique spin alongs planned for the year, so be sure to check the YST group on Ravelry and join us if they seem interesting.

Lock washing

This post connects with the Yarnspinnerstales pod cast, episode 59. For this post I will talk about the five different sheep breeds that I picked to wash and how I washed them. In a later post I will talk about the washed locks and spinning them.

First a photo of all five locks:

As you can see, I picked a variety of staple lengths for this study. I figure they would all be about the same as far as washing. The selection of the different lengths was more for the later study when spinning them.

A closer look at each of the locks. In the top of this photo is Romney, dark brown in color, locks very short and in 1 inch or so clumps. Below that are Cormo locks. These locks in my opinion were going to be the hardest to wash. First of all cormo is genetically related to merino, and so will have high lanolin content. Second, the crimp is tight, holding in that lanolin. And finally the clumps of locks are also tight. All these factors make this fleece require special handling as far as processing. However it should be worth it as the micron count of the fleece is very fine and the fiber is very soft.
This next photo shows locks from an unknown breed. It was just marked as from a ewe lamb. However it had such nice distinct locks that I decided to include it in my experiment. Staple length is much longer than the two above, but about medium length over all.
The next photo shows locks from a Cormo border leicester breed. This is an unusual combination but the shepherd was trying to come up with a fleece that had the softness/fineness of cormo with the staple length of the BL. It does have the nice long locks, like a BL fleece, but lacks some in the softness. It looks white in the photo but is actually a very creamy tan/brown color.
Finally, the longest locks, shown below in the washing bag is from a Corriedale fleece.
This is not really a bag, but nylon net that I cut into a rectangle, laid the locks out on and then rolled up. I realize now that I didn't catch the ends of the bag in this photo, but what I did was take crochet cotton thread and a large eye needle and just stitch up both ends, with a very wide running stitch. I left plenty of each end of the thread and did not knot it. That way after I was done washing the locks I could just pull the thread out, open up the bags and remove the locks. I can reuse the nylon net over and over for as many times as I want to wash locks. Rolling the net around the locks keeps them intact through the washing process.

I cut the nylon net to a size that would lay flat in an old oval roasting pan. In fact I used two roasting pans for this process. After I had all five breeds rolled and stitched up into their bags, I filled two roasting pans with water and a couple drops of Dawn dishwashing soap and heated them to boiling. I drew very hot soapy water into my sink, and put the bags into that water first. This prewetted the fibers, and removed the dirtiest part right away. After the roasting pan's water was boiling, I turned off the heat, and transferred the five packets of wet fiber from my sink to the roasting pan. I did this by clothes pinning the five packets together at each end, and picking the packets up all at once by the clothes pins, letting most of the dirty water drain out, and then whoosing them over to the roasting pan, dripping all the way. Ah well, it was time to mop the floor anyway. I let the packets soak in the roasting pan, still clothes pinned together for 15 minutes, picked the packet up, let it drain, and put it into the second roasting pans hot water, this time taking off the clothes pins. After another 15 min soak, I took the roasting pan to my sink, gently poured off the water, drew hot water without soap and slid the bags into the rinse water. I rinsed a second time, let the bags drain as much as possible and then rolled them individually into towels. When I unrolled them, I was surprised how dry they felt. I laid the bags out on my usual fleece drying mesh rack and they were dry in several hours, although I left them alone for a week before actually combing them, just to be sure.

All five breeds washed well with this method, although as expected I feel just a slight tackiness to the cormo indicating there may still be some residual lanolin. This method does not remove any vegetable matter in the locks, however once they are free of lanolin that generally falls out when combing. I really liked this method of washing locks. The only word of advice I would give is to be sure and not put too many locks in the bags, and to not rush the soaking process. But following this method does keep the locks intact, no matter their size or length and with gentle treatment will not felt the fiber at all.

Blending with a hackle

The newest YST podcast, Episode 57, has just been released here, or on Itunes as yarnspinners tales. In it I talk about my experience blending fibers with a hackle.

A hackle looks like a comb, but really is not a fiber processing tool at all. The fiber you use with a hackle should already be in a 'ready to spin' state, because once loaded on the hackle you will pull it off, no combing. So whatever state your fiber is in, will pull off in the same state, or if it is not well prepped, be hard to pull off.

The best use for a hackle is to blend similiar length fibers into a top for spinning. In my experiment I was using a merino top and a hand carded dyed angora fiber (the blue in the photo). So the fibers do not have to be top to be used, roving is fine.

The fibers are laid onto the hackle exactly like you would load a comb. Layer the different fibers however you want. The photo below shows both the fibers loaded on the hackle and being pulled through a diz. That process is also exactly like you pull fibers off of combs after combing. So if you are already familiar with combing, you will not have any problem at all using a hackle.


A photo below showing the pulled off top.

I loaded more angora to that bottom top, which is why it is showing more blue.

Several questions come to mind as I write this. Could I use that hackle as a comb base? Well technically yes, but it wouldn't be good for two reasons, one you can not rotate the hackle like you do combs, and two you have to have a comb any way for combing on it, which means why use it for combs when you have combs. I suppose you could load not well prepped fiber on the hackle, comb it with a small hand comb across the hackle and then pull it off. It would help those that only have small hand combs to comb a larger amount of fiber at one time.

Second question, is a hackle really worth the price? I think mostly not really for most spinners. However there is one nice aspect to it, you can control just how thick or thin you pull off your blend by using a diz with different size holes. It would enable the spinner to spin very fine yarn for lace weight from the blend.

Last question, why not just do the blending on large combs? The main reason not to is that most large combs have more teeth in descending on them, as in the five pitch combs. This is necessary for the processing of combing out all the shorter fibers when you are prepping the fiber. That is not really the goal with the blending process. In fact there is actually waste left on the hackle, surprising for having already prepped fiber. Trying to blend on five pitch combs with increase that waste to probably unacceptable levels.

But basically the hackle is a simple to use but very gratifying tool for the spinners toolbox. There are endless variations to play with when it comes to blending fibers before spinning them, and that is what makes this process so much fun.

On a personal note: did you notice the better photos in this post? I got my much needed improved digital camera, and went through the learning process of how to use it for this post. I bought a Sony Cybershot and I think I am going to really like it.

Color Blending using the tertiary colors dyed fiber

In my podcasts Yarnspinnerstales I have been discussing color. Episode 54 and 55 were both on color theory and episode 56, just released is about the results of blending of the fibers I dyed. The most recent episode can be found here

My experiment started back last fall when I decided to do a two day dye day. One of the projects during that time was to dye fiber as close to the tertiary colors of the colorwheel as I could get. There are six tertiary colors on the colorwheel, shown in the photo below, starting with and going clockwise, orange red, red purple, purple blue, blue green, green yellow and yellow orange.

Now I will be the first to admit, it's a terrible photo, it was a very cloudy day, and I over compensated by putting too direct of a light on the samples. But there is also the fact that I was 'trying' to get the tertiary colors, and that of course meant mixing dyes, allowing for great variations. However, I got lots of fun colors, reasonable close to the concept and went on then to try and decide just how to use the fiber.

I dyed 2 oz of each color, and my first thought was to just spin the six colors, plied with themselves and knit a colorwheel shawl (circular with the colors in pie segments). I became somewhat daunted by the planning in the knitting, so I decided to change my idea to a rectangular shawl, and have the colors progress along the rectangle, one edge to the other. My first visual thought was to start with the yellow at one edge, and put each color in turn as I knit. I figured I would just overlap the two adjacent yarns to ease the transition.

There's two problems with that idea though, first the overlap area would be doubled yarn, and second it's still the jarring appearance of these distinct colors next to each other. I decided a secondary common color was needed to go between the sections of tertiary colors. Black? Gray? Brown? And needing to find a common fiber, superwash merino in that fiber to spin made me go one step further in the thought process. What if I got the common color by blending the existing colors.

And thus the blending podcast was born.

After consulting Deb Menz book Color in Spinning, I decided to play with three options. First take groups of two colors, card and spin those. Or two groups of three colors, card and spin those or last of all all six colors and card and spin those. Once I had some sample yarn I could put it beside the yarn of the main colors and figure out a pleasing color scheme (I hope).

The photo below are the three groups of two that I put together, grouping the purple/reds and the blue/greens and the orange/yellows.

When blended I got lovely batts, but still very distinct and vivid colors. (Sorry the photo below is the opposite of the one above in orientation).

And of course the yarns looked the same. Lovely colors, nice depth but not what I need for the project. I have enough variety of color already.

So I broke it down again, into two groups of three. This time I chose the triad theory on the colorwheel, where the colors are equally spaced around the wheel. So it is pick a tertiary color, skip a tertiary color, pick a tertiary color, skip a tertiary color and pick the final tertiary color. The second set is made on the opposite rotation. First set is red orange, yellow green and blue purple. The second set is red purple, blue green and yellow orange. The photo below really does not show the colors well.

When carded to blend I got very blue and orange looking batts (again these are opposite to the above photo). I really loved the blending in the batts, they are exciting looking.

The yarns of course look very similar to the batts, showing mainly blue or orange in the colors with sparks of the other colors.

Finally I decided to try a blend of all six colors. Now having actually learned something from Deb Menz's book, I knew to get a balanced yarn when using all six colors, I needed to follow the proportion theory. Basically long ago very learned folks in color theory figured out that if you want to combine multiple colors, some colors will present stronger than others. If you want to present a combination that looks balanced you need to use less of those colors and more of the ones that do not present as strongly. I finally had my answer to just why, a little yellow goes a long way in any dyeing or spinning project.

The proportion numbers are given like this:

yellow orange red violet blue green

3 4 6 9 8 6

It does not matter what unit of measurement you use, as long as each color is measured by that unit. So three of x units of yellow are combined with 4 of x units of orange, etc.

Now I was just doing a sample skein, and was working with less than 1/8 oz of fiber, so I just eyeballed the ration by putting the smallest amount of yellow up to the largest amount of the purple blue.

Here's what it looked like before I carded it:

And then, after carded for three passes (mixing the fibers as well as possible):

Really cool colors and finally getting something close to what I could use as my connecting color in the shawl.

The yarn looks purple brown from a distance (this is called optical blending in color theory) but if you look at it closely, you see specks of all the colors now and then. It's a very exciting yarn and certainly one I would love spinning.

I still have not made my final decision on the actual shawl design. If I use fiber to make this intermediate yarn, I may not have the quantity of the other colors to present a balance of each of the six colors. So I may scale my project down to a scarf size to allow the balance, or come up with another design. Still thinking.....

CW

Updated list of recent podcast episodes

For awhile I was listing each podcast as a unique post, but it's been awhile since I've blogged. However I have been podcasting during that time so here's an updated list of the episode numbers and topics. As always these can be found at Yarnspinnerstales website or by searching on iTunes as Yarnspinners Tales.

Episode 43 Spinners Block
Episode 44 Fiber Fairs
Episode 45 Spring Spin in
Episode 46 Spinning Tools
Episode 47 May Spin in 2010
Episode 48 Planning a dye day
Episode 49 A chatty spin in
Episode 50 Pour and Wrap dyeing
Episode 51 Dyeing the tertiary colors
Episode 52 Walnut leaf and indigo dyeing
Episode 53 A front porch spin in
Episode 54 Color theory for spinners Part 1
Episode 55 Color theory for spinners Part 2

Tour de Fleece 2010 finish line

I know this has been over for more than two weeks now, and no I am not still toiling up that last mountain. It's just that with my work schedule and the need to do lots of outside work lately, I have had little time to be on the computer to update the blog.



So here it is finally, the report on my challenge to myself to spin everyday during the Tour de France. It surprised me just how challenging it was to get even 15 minutes of spinning in on many of the days. No wonder I still have a never ending stash of fiber, seeing as how I find it so hard to fit spinning in my day, even when that is my goal.



I did most of my reporting in one of two Ravelry groups during the tour, either my Yarnspinnerstales Spin In group, or the Yarnspinnerstales team thread in the Tour de Fleece thread. Most of these photos were posted there also, but I thought I would pull it all together here in one post. That way, if I decide to remove the photos from Flickr, which will take them away from the Ravelry posts, I still have a record.



First, a recap. One project was to spindle spin a cashmere/silk blend batt. I have one cop of single wound off and a partial one still on the bobbin, no finished skeins of that project.



Another project was to spin the cashmere by itself on my Ashford. I found that I spun on this wheel only three times during the tour, and so I have only maybe a third of the bobbin filled with a spindle. It's lovely to spin, although the Ashford was being fussy about the take up and that is probably why I didn't go back to it much.



The third project was to spin more bamboo for my plying with the Blue Face leicester dyed wool I had already spun. I actually finished this skein during the tour:







The last project is the one I spent most of the spinning time on. There was a dyed Polworth roving that I wanted to spin and ply with a natural color polworth roving. I finished this skein and a smaller one, not shown in the photo, and filled two bobbins with more, which will be plied later.

So now I will start using a copy/paste of the forum posts in order to record my day to day spinning during the tour.

July 3rd

No pics for me today, I worked last night, but I did spin. I did the spindle thing at 4 am in the morning during my break, it was neat to spin at work. I decided to use my regular sized Bosworth spindle, instead of the mini, the cashmere seems to need that heavier spindle for more twist. Oh my I still can not get over just how soft cashmere is…no wonder everyone raves.
After spinning some of the first batts, I’ve decided the blend needs more silk, I’m not seeing the shine in the yarn like I had hoped. Easy to fix, I’ll just add more as I card the blend.
I left the bag in my locker at work, so I hope to do some more tonight, although I am expecting to be pretty busy.

July 4th
Spun at work with drop spindle during my break (4am my time), got two batts of the cashmere/silk spun (remember these are hand cards so the batts are small). Also carded up four more batts. The single is looking beautiful, but I may increase the amount of silk in the next batts, I’d like to see more of it in the yarn.

After sleeping today, and with my ‘morning’ coffe (hah) I finished the plying of the BFL and bamboo. I now know the total yardage is 455 yards. Sounds like socks to me!

July 5th

Day three I spun one bobbin from the dyed polworth roving. This roving has long stretches of the colors that ooze into the next color. And the pound really was one long stetch of this colorway, it makes me want to keep that colorway intact. So I wound the roving into one big ball producing this:

Yes that is my comfy chair it is sitting in, and I put a bobbin on top of it to give you a sense of it’s size. Now you know what a pound of roving wound into one big ball looks like.Then I will just spin the singles starting at one end until I get to the other. Those singles will be plied with a
solid color, probably brown polworth.I hope the color stretches in the final yarn will be muted enough not to be too stripey when knit and I hope that it will be enough yarn to knit me a vest. That’s alot of hoping, but what’s a spinner to do!

Day three’s bobbin from the ball o fluff:

July 6th
Spun cashmere for about an hour (watching a taped show, probably more like 45 min) got this much on the bobbin, did a small self plied sample of 2 ply on top of the bobbin. You can see I have a few overtwisted areas, the Ashford’s take up was fighting me a little, I finally took the
tensioning string completely off to get the take up I wanted. Also I am spinning this with the cross wrap method, single is hooked on hooks on both sides of the bobbin.

My main spinning time was spent on the natural color polworth, which looks gray in the photo but is more brown in real life. It’s spinning wonderfully, better than the dyed roving. I didn’t get a bobbin full though yesterday, and had to sleep today, so this will be on hold until my next day off. Tonight I will spin on my drop spindle.

July 7-9th

Day 5,6 and 7 report.

Bah had to work, and my plan to spin at work failed, it was super busy. I got more time on Wed evening, I spun about 20 minutes on my drop spindle. Thur I spun for about 15 minutes at home on the brown polworth before going into work. Friday early morning (around 3 am) I didn’t really spin, but carded up six batts. I had planned to spin more Friday evening, Digitaldurga and hubby and I went to a wine walk and I took my drop spindle stuff with me. But it was warm and muggy and I didn’t feel like handling the cashmere when I felt that sticky. I did spin during a stop at our local yarn store, for maybe 15 minutes. And not getting home until almost midnight made that the only spinning I did on Friday.So it did happen, I spun something everyday, and I have to remind myself, that was my goal. But it sure didn’t make much yarn LOL.

July 10-11

Day 8-9

They don’t call this a challenge for nothin….
But TGITW that’s thank goodness it’s the weekend! I am looking forward to spinning the polworth, it spins so wonderfully, I’m actually enjoying it more than the cashmere, which I will spin some today too, maybe on my porch. It has cooled off here some too, at least in the mornings and evenings. Ah Fall, you are such a memory….
Sat morning was cool and pleasant, for awhile, so I sat on my porch and spun the cashmere. I have maybe a third of a bobbin done, but a little of the fiber goes a long way.
Sunday I added to the bobbin of the solid color polworth, and I finished filling that bobbin this morning (monday) It’s actually a rest day today, and I won’t be able to spin anything else today, I have to nap and then go to work tonight. I can not wait to see how the two polworth singles look once they are plied, so I probably will take 15 minutes or so tomorrow to ply a bit, just to see how it looks.

My goodness the weekend went fast.

July 12-13th

Day 10-11

This was yesterday spinning and a nice photo of the progress on the cashmere/silk blend

Day 12

Today’s spinning (Wed July 14th, happy BD MOM!)

This is the polworth, one dyed single, one natural brown single, ending up with a 10 WPI 2 ply. But trust me, this shows only the tip of the iceberg, remember all those colors in the pile of roving? You’ll see what I mean when I take a picture of the skein tomorrow, I still have more to ply.I am obsessing about keeping the color progression the same as it is on the roving, because really there is so little repeat in the colors. So to do that, I am marking the yarn as to the absolute start of the spinning, as #1 and each end the next number. I had to do some backwards thinking, since the beginning of the yarn is at the bottom of the bobbin of singles LOL.
I am very interesting in how this is going to look once it is knitted, I will be swatching some soon I think.

July 15th

Day 13

Finished the plying yesterday, now to spin more of both. A little over 250 yards of 2 ply seems to have used about 4 oz of the dyed roving. I haven’t weighed the skeins yet, I am keeping them on the niddy noddy for awhile.

July 16th

Day 14

I am really loving the colors and the yarn is so soft. I’ll be spinning more of both for today’s spinning.

July 17-18th

Day 15-16

I’m in a funk today because I have to work, so I did the easiest spinning, the brown polworth. As I have read posts especially over on the TdF daily thread I see lots of people spinning polworth, and some lovely colors too. I am filling the bobbins with mine for the next set of skeins.
I did spin on the drop spindle last night at a really great production of Shakespeare’s Much To do About Nothing. It was an outside production in a park and I kept up my tradition of taking a drop spindle with me to spin while watching. It’s better than trying to knit. I spun the cashmere silk blend. No spinning tonight at work, since I did spin this morning. Tomorrow night I will try and spin with the spindle while at work.

I am just very happy that I have stuck with my goal to spin everyday.

The brown polworth:

I took my drop spindle to work on Sat and got to spin a teeny bit, but the night was really busy. Sunday night was better I spun during most of a break. I decided the cop was getting too heavy although it really wasn’t all that full on the spindle, it just didn’t feel like it was spinning like I wanted. So I took the cop off and wound it on a paper towel tube, and started a new bit, before I had to put it up for the night.

July 19th

Day 17

Monday evening I spun a bit on the never ending bobbin of brown polworth, I think the house fairy is stealing singles off of it while I sleep, it never seems to fill up! I am going to put it aside tonight and spin some color.

July 20-25
Day 18 to the finish

Here ends any entry from the ravelry forums, and any photos also. Day 18 and 19 were times I spun on the BFL natural color, Day 20 I carded more batts of the cashmere and silk and spun some. And that was it, I did not spin any more. Day 21-23 were too busy with getting ready to leave town and then actually going on a getaway weekend. I chose to truly get away, and did not take a computer, spinning, reading. Just sat by the river, watching the boats go by, drinking a nice wine and sleeping until I wanted to wake, not at the beck and call of the alarm.

As I said, it surprised me just how hard it was to get in just a little bit of spinning each day. It was a challenge, and I almost made it. I have not spun anything since either, although I am getting the itch again. There's two full bobbins of the polworth waiting to be plied, and all that lovely soft cashmere. I doubt it will be a challenge to sit down at the spinning wheel again, very soon.

CW

Tour de Fleece 2010 the starting line

I know everyone knows about the Tour de France, but maybe you have to be a spinner to have heard of the Tour de Fleece. This is a big challenge time on Ravelry for spinners, who decide to spin with goals in mind, while the bikes are spinning their wheels in France.

So I decided to join the fun this year, and have set my goal to spin everyday during the July 3rd to 26th event. Given my current busy life, I have not set any other goal, just to 'get some yarn made' everyday.

To help motivate me to sit and spin, I decided it was time to dip into the prime stuff in the stash. This is stash I have held onto, because it was just so wonderful to me. Well, it is wonderful and so will be wonderful yarn, and later, wonderful knitwear. It's just plain time to spin it.

First: a Rovings polworth dyed roving called Spice Island:
The colors are more vibrant in person, my camera just didn't pick that up in the daylight. I will spin all of the dyed roving into a single, and then spin a single out of a natural colored polworth roving, shown here:
Again the camera and daylight washed it out some, the natural brown roving is a deeper brown that it looks in the photo above.

As a second project I will spin this cashmere roving:

I plan to spin it as thin as possible and see something lacy in it's future.

Now my biggest problem with spinning everyday is my nightshift work schedule. I work two nights back to back, and so the day in between is spent almost entirely in sleep before going right back to work. I decided the solution was a drop spindle project that I could keep in my car or even my locker at work. Then I know I will find at least 15 mintes to spin on a break at work. I had experimented awhile ago with handcarding a cashmere and silk blend and spinning it on a drop spindle, and thought it be good to revive that project. So here is my portable spinning kit:
I carded a few rolags to show the blend. That's my regular sized Bosworth spindle with them, to give a sense of their size. See the shine of the silk?
And so here's the bag, all packed and ready to go (I have to work the first two days of the Tour de Fleece so it will definately be needed).
Yes, that is a Laurel Burch bag. It was a very welcomed gift from a coworker several years ago, and I still smile whenever I use it.

If anyone wants to join me for this challenge on Ravelry (and probably see more progress photos there) check out the Tour de Fleece group and look for the wild card group for Yarnspinnerstales Spin in. Or just come to the group for Yarnspinnerstales spin in and check out the thread on the TdF there.

Onwards

I had to go look in the archives because I truly could not remember, but I started this blog Nov 2002. For many years I used it to record my fiber pursuits. It was not easy those first few years. There was the learning curve of uploading photos, the hassle of dialup and all of those internet nusiances that have finally been smoothed away.

Now I should have no excuse for this last six month absence. My camera takes wonderful digital photos, adobe puts them in nice small jpegs for the internet, DSL uploads them almost in seconds.

I didn't even stop working on fiber pursuits in those six months.

No, but I did go through some major life changing events, first hubby's serious illness and hospitalization, then the need for me to return to work full time. And not just full time but _night shift_ work. It's taken me months to adjust.

Now I need to overcome some other internet issues, to make blogging super speedy again. Blogger insists to keep this blog on a very old google account of mine, so I have to log into that before signing on to blogger. I haven't found a way to keep the free account and change that email log in, so that hassle remains. I now find I need a new camera, and am very tempted by one that will wifi your photos straight to the internet. Will they still be speedily uploaded when there's no photoshop to make them nice small bitsize? I don't know. Where I use to have the time and patience to photoshop all my pics and then upload them, I find I don't have the time now.

I fear that my blogging may come to a screeching halt, because of these time devouring issues. I have found one small starting point again, the Tour de Fleece that begins July 4th. I wanted to blog about my plans for that, so for now, that's a good starting, or I should say restarting line. Hence the onwards title.

CW

YST episode 42 Spinning experiments

Episode 42 of Yarnspinnerstales podcast is posted and continues the theme of intentional spinning of a yarn. For this podcast, and this blog post I share some of the things I learned while trying to follow a statement made by Judith MacKenzie McCuin in the book Intentional Spinning that you can make thicker or thinner yarn with your spinning wheel, by changing nothing but the tension. If you increase the tension and do not change the treadle speed or drafting you will get thicker yarn. The opposite, decreasing tension will create thinner yarn. I knew the spinner's rule of thumb that if you wanted thinner yarn, you should spin with less tension, but this took the idea one step further. It was creating a way to have any spinning wheel spin any size yarn. I decided to experiment with two of my spinning wheels, the electric Roberta, and the Haldane double drive.

Right off the bat, the Roberta has the difference that I do not need to treadle. Instead there are various settings on the speed control, which would relate to treadle speed. I had the advantage that I could keep the speed even, unlike on a non electric spinning wheel. However there is a disadvantage to the Roberta in that it has no way to really tone down the strong pull in created by the bobbin driven set up. Even if I completely remove the tension spring that runs over the flyer, I will still get pull in, due to the bobbin tension always being the same(there is a rubber ring running from the bobbin to the electric motor, speed will change and increase pull in, but even at slow speed there is still a significant pull).

But this is exactly why I wanted to try the experiment with the Roberta, to see just what type of yarn would be spun, trying to keep everything the same except the tension spring. I did do my samples with three different speeds, slow medium and fast. This was a second part of the experiment, I was mainly looking for the ideal speed, given the parameter of increased or decreased tension.

So first I spun my default yarn, both with the tension spring on and off. Both came out to be a 12 WPI 2 ply. These two photos show those samples:





Changing speed made no difference, however I did get a thicker yarn when the tension spring was off, which so far did not match the expected results. It could be because I rarely spin with that tension completely off and it was affecting my spinning.

Next I increased the tension by attaching the tension line and spring and tightening it to the point that the spring was standing taut but not spread open. This increased the pull in dramatically and I immediately was spinning much thicker yarn around 8 WPI. I could get even thicker yarn by increasing the speed, I have the medium speed show here at 6 WPI and got the same thing when spinning at a fast speed (not in photo):

I next reset my Roberta back to how I generally have it set to spin my default yarn. I spun some of that 12 WPI 2 ply, and then started to decrease the tension for a thinner yarn. I completely removed the tension line but was not having much luck creating thin yarn. The next thing to try was to keep the tension spring off and then criss cross the yarn on the bobbin. I saw immediate results, the single thinned out but was not going any thinner than my normal default 12 WPI 2 ply. Here's the photo of all three speeds:
All of the above experiments are based on the premise that treadle speed and drafting stays the same. I finally gave in a split the roving into half of what I had been using, which really thinned the drafting zone. Keeping the other settings the same as above, I finally came up with a very nice even 18 WPI 2 ply.
There's definately proof that yarn diameter can be affected by the increase or decrease of tension. The electric spinning wheel, with it's bobbin driven style may not be the best example of this premise, however I learned so much just doing this simple experiment and now have more skills with the Roberta to spin the type of yarn I want.

Another of my spinning wheels, the Haldane, has had the reputation with me of only being able to spin sock yarn. It is a small wheel, with a small drive wheel which means treadling is often used to compensate for it's lack of range. Likewise it only has two ratios, which I have never understood on a wheel, unless it's just so small that larger ratios would make the operation clunky. But it proved to be the perfect wheel to once again try the tension experiment.

I used the same fiber to keep all factors of the experiment as close as possible. I used a well processed merino top, since I wanted to have a fiber that would draft smoothly and not require me to stop and pick out VM or neps. All the samples were very small, and were created by pulling just spun single off the bobbin and letting it self ply back on itself before measuring the WPI.

First I spun a sample of my default yarn, again a 12 WPI 2 ply. I was spinning on the larger of the two ratios and trying to keep my treadle speed and the drafting the same. I then increased the tension (turn the knob that raises the flyer, tightening the drive band) Of course I felt strong pull in, and also found it was very hard to keep the treadle speed the same, it was much harder to treadle. The yarn thickened up immediately, although it took me a bit of practice to keep the drafting zone even and the twist consistent through out the yarn. The middle sample in the photo below shows my struggle, the bottom sample yarn shows it finally working into a 6 WPI 2 ply:

I reset the spinning wheel back to my default settings and spun some default yarn, and then decreased the tension (still on larger ratio) That yarn is shown as the first decrease tension in photo below which was 14 WPI 2 ply. Then I moved to the smaller ratio and got a finer yarn at 18 WPI (although I had more consistent twist with the larger ratio)

At first I caught myself treadling faster to compensate for the feel of less pull in, but I caught myself doing it and realized I should be keeping the treadle speed the same, and slowed down. I was surprised to find the yarn stayed thin just as before, I just was spinning as much in the same time period.

The last yarn in the photo is an amazing 40 WPI 2 ply that was made after criss crossing the single on the bobbin. It's merino and will relax after sitting, and I just remeasured that WPI as 32 WPI but still, thin is thin!

One comment made in the book is that if you can not go down any more ratios (now true on my Haldane) then you should criss cross the yarn on the bobbin, which is like going down another ratio. I had never tried this on the Haldane, for one thing the way the hooks look on the flyer your first impression is that they are backwards for doing the criss cross. But I found that I really could hook the single on the opposite side and then back to the hook that fed the yarn out the oriface. The only real problem is that the yarn on the opposite side rides very close to the bobbin yarn, it seems to me it could rub as the bobbin fills up.
This angle shows the 'opposite side' on four hooks and then across the bobbin and hooking on the oriface side on three hooks. I found when doing the criss cross, the opposite side is usually on one hook more than the oriface side.

So I have to eat humble pie and no longer say that my Haldane can only spin sock yarn. The wheel is perfectly capable of spinning a lovely lace yarn, as long as I am willing to pay attention and not just sit down and spin my default yarn.

I learned so much from this experiment and I would encourage other spinners to grab some lovely leftover bit of top and try it too with their wheels. You may learn a whole new skill your wheel has, that you never knew.

Nostalgic Knitting

My last two knitting projects sent me down memory lane and it got me wondering: Will our grandchildren love our knitting projects of today as much as I love my grandmother's patterns?

Every now and then usually around this time of the year I knit what I fondly call grandmother slippers for someone as a gift. That's because it was the first thing I was taught to knit, by my maternal grandmother. Oh there may have been the endless garter stitch something that was really nothing, but the slippers are burned in my memory as my first project. As are the directions for the slippers, well almost. I can cast on and knit up the first 6-7 inches, but when it comes to decreasing to fit over the toes, I never remember the formula. Oh I have it written down-in my grandmother's handwriting no less, tucked away with the other precious things I want to keep. I may have even transcribed the pattern but who knows where that copy ended up. No instead I do as many of us of the digital age do, and go and search online for a pattern to follow. It turns out that I am not the only one with fond memories of this slipper pattern, although it was someone's Aunt Maggie that taught them. So I knit my slippers like I have been doing so much lately, with the pattern on the laptop beside me as I knit. How different and yet maybe not so different, to compare that to a grandmother sitting in her chair near you, knitting, and telling you what to do next. See, my grandmother really didn't teach me how to knit from a pattern until much later, because so often, she didn't knit from patterns either. It wasn't until I was ready to make things that she would not have knit, that I had to learn to read that special language of knitting.

The second project, currently on my needles is a dishcloth. Now my grandmother was not knitting dishcloths in her early life when she was teaching me to knit. No, knitting dishcloths triggers a memory for me, of her knitting late in her life, now blind but unwilling to give up knitting. Those dishcloths were often crooked, and had unintentional lace openings, as she would miss a stitch. But they were treasured, and definitely put to use. As I sit and knit on this dishcloth today, I am amazed at her ability to continue to knit by feel alone. I find my eyes glued so permanently to the stitches that I only listen to the TV show, how will I ever learn to just knit by feel alone! And she was not doing the dishcloths that are cast on with 35 stitches or so and knit square. Nope, she was doing the corner to corner, increase and then decrease pattern. And yet, I can understand exactly the love to knit that put the yarn and needles in her hands.

I found out this Thanksgiving that the niece I taught to knit two years ago is now knitting Christmas presents _and_ teaching someone else to knit. My heart glowed when I heard that, passing on the art means so much to me.

As does archiving and passing on the patterns. As I sat and knit from the pattern on the laptop, it made me wonder, is this a good archival tool? In many ways, yes, because so much of the information is available to a wider knitting audience. And the patterns should stay available unless we have a true digital meltdown. It's like an instant access to a knitting only library and that is all kinds of good. What I personally will miss is the thrill, laughs and just plain fun of finding a pattern book from the 1940's and looking through that booklet. It has all the problems of archival paper, it's yellowed, it's brittle, it's been written on, torn, and has a missing cover. But there is just something to having those patterns in you hands, dreaming the same knitting project dreams that another knitter also had, that just can not be duplicated by a pattern on the internet. I think this is why, ultimately the book industry will stand firm in this digital age, and why we as knitters will continue to love the new books as they appear. And maybe instead of looking up grandmother's online bookmarks, our grandkids will have the same love of books too.