Misadventures in Knitting

I'd like to show you a picture of Jaime's socks and how tiny their little stitches out and how manly the greens and tawny brown plies look, all knitted up... Unfortunately, the socks are in time out and do not deserve to have their picture taken.

Let me explain... Thursday I went to my fiber arts guild meeting where we had a guest giving us a lecture on bobbin lace. I originally thought we were going to have a hands on bobbin lace experience but it was more of an informative speech on the history and materials necessary. Now, due to my obsessive / addictive personality, I have to sort of limit what I allow myself to get interested in (See: my three spinning wheels and metric arseload of fiber). It didn't take me long to realize that for the sake of my sanity, storage space, and eyesight... I absolutely can not get into bobbin lace.

Still it was a lovely evening. I like spending time with other fiber folk - there's something very relaxing about being surrounded by other people with a shared passion for something the rest of the world thinks is a bit quirky. And I'd taken my socks along so I sat back in my comfy chair and commenced to enjoy an hour of devoted knitting time in excellent company. I finished the heel flaps. I began turning the heel cups. I finished the heels and started my decreasing instep rows, complimenting myself on my speedy mastery of two-at-a-time DPN socks. Once I've finished the heels and picked up the stitches, I feel like the whole sock is a home stretch from there. I was definitely feel confident about those socks when the meeting ended.

So, uh. Imagine my surprise when I pulled them on later to check the length and found them feeling... really odd. After some squinting, poking, and fussing... it turns out, I screwed them up. I mussed up the heel somehow - apparently I was distracted enough to turn them off center - both the same way. So I have to frog and start over but I'm just not feeling up to it right now, so the socks are in time out. That didn't stop me from dragging them all over this weekend, but they're still in time out.

But that's alright because progress was made on other fronts. I took the alpaca to Jaime's place, measured his head, and cast on a beanie. 

Ignore my messy work desk. 

It's just flying along. Spend enough time working 2.25mm needles and 3.75 will feel HUGE!

I also started plying all that sweater stuff for my February Lady. I filled one giant bobbin and now I'm chewing on my fingers over whether I'll wind up with enough yardage for the whole shebang.

So far I've plied, washed, and dried about 530 yards. It's a 3-ply, light blue, dark blue, and a dark brown. I've yet to take a picture that does the colour justice but I love it. Love it, love it, love it. If I don't have enough I'm not totally sure what I'll do... sob hysterically for awhile, probably.

I was a little worried my yarn would be too busy for the lacey part of the pattern so I knit up a few repeats to test - again, terrible lighting but so pretty!

My Neighbors Think I'm Weird

This morning I woke up was forcibly awakened by hungry cats an hour before my alarm went off. I didn't hold it against them for long though because the sun was shining it was it was in the high 60's (Farenheit) outside - perfect weather for drying fluffy wool things. So I shuffled out in my PJs, nodded to the fellow mowing his lawn, and set up my drying rack.

And then a few hours later I was crawling around my bushes, trying to position things in the best lighting and background possible. At one point one of my neighbors drove by and sloooowed down to stare at me. I waved my alpaca at her but I don't think that helped.

As promised, I plied up that alpaca. At first I was a little worried by how stiff and itchy it was - I expected alpaca to be way, way softer than the romney I usually work with. But I held my breath and gave it a swish through some Soak and that made all the difference.

Here it is, all twisted up into a beautiful hank of squish. There are some longer, coarser hairs that I wish I'd made more of an effort to pick out when I was spinning but they're coming out much easier now that it's be washed and allowed to bloom. I've got around 250, 300 yards of the stuff which may be enough for two beanies, we'll see.

I also got hard to work with my dye pots in the wake of this week's success. I did a a yellow and green braid using an interesting new method. I let the braid sit in a yellow dye bath until all the dye had been exhausted and then I added splotches of blue and allowed this colour to rest where it wished. When I first pulled it out, I was horrified by the 70's appliance green look... But once I got it into the sunlight, I completely changed my mind.

It's already up in my Etsy store and I've got another braid on the stove, becoming wonderful.

2 Etsy Sales!

Holy cow, boys and girls, I made two sales on Etsy. :D Call me butter, because I am on a -roll-! My shop is still really small because the only things that go up for sale are the things I dye and then decided I don't instantly need to spin them myself. Or give them to Jackie. There's only five things left in my shop right now! So I'm planning on getting hard to work this weekend, and trying out all sorts of new dyeing.

Jaime checked in to see what I wanted to do this weekend and I had no nice way to say, "I want to dye wool! Don't distract me!" so I encouraged him to take one of his weekend hiking trips. "Are you sure?" he kept asking. "I don't mind coming over". He doesn't realize that showing up this weekend will get him repurposed as a drying stand for wet wool.

I'll also be plying the 8 and a half ounces of huacaya alpaca singles I spun up in the last couple weeks.

This is the alpaca for Jaime's hat which I washed and have been carding and spinning for... just forever. Or two weeks. One of those. I knew I'd need about three ounces to knit the beanie (always rounding up) and I started carding and spinning and carding and spinning. I guess I had some vague idea of spinning it all at once and then splitting it or chain plying or something... but instead, I just kept carding and spinning. For... days. Basically, every night I came home from work and did about an ounce of carding and spinning. I finished two days ago and the singles have been resting on the bobbin.

But now, finally, I get to ply it. Mind you, those are the only three bobbins I have for the Prelude I spun the singles on, so I'll be plying on my beautiful Louet... and that means I should be able to ply it all onto one continuous bobbin. That's pretty cool. :) I forgot to measure Jaime's head so instead of immediately starting the hat I may do something drastic. Something terrible and unheard of.

... I might knit a swatch. Gasp.

New Wheel: 1996 J. Franzek Country Craftsman

Did I tell you all I was going to buy this wheel? I may have forgotten to mention it out of embarrassed greed, but I did. Take a look...

My precccciousssss

By golly is she beautiful. You'll remember a couple weeks back my stepmother had me pick up a Country Craftsman wheel she bought with her friend in mind. Well the two of us absolutely fell in love with this wheel. The Country Craftsman wheels are big, sturdy things that spin smooth as silk. I often find when I'm using my Prelude that if the dog or cats move too fast that poor little wheel will tip right over. This one... this one isn't going anywhere. I saw her for sale on Craigslist and mentioned it to Jackie who was like, "Go. Buy it." I dithered for a bit, making foolish excuses about already having two wheels and not having space until I move into my house. "You can keep it at Jaime's," said Jackie, selflessly volunteering my boyfriend as a storage depot. "If you don't get it, I think you'll regret it."

I had to admit she was right and so Saturday morning I packed Jaime into a car and drove off for a blind date with my new love - a 1996 J. Franzek County Craftsman wheel. She's only got one bobbin and I'm pulling some strings to fix that (I know a crafter who'll tide me over until my dad gets the 3D printer I plan to use shamelessly) but my fingers itch to finish all my other projects so that we can be together with the shiny new Midnight Blue batts the lovely indie dyer Julia sent me as part of a swap. More about those later. :D

What's interesting is comparing my CC wheel to Jackie's.

Jackie's CC - A J. Rooney

The Country Craftsman wheels were made by J. Rooney, who started making decorative display wheels until he realized people actually wanted to spin. He went to work studying and eventually started producing the CCs we love today - replicas of a 1700s saxony flax wheel. He produced the wheels by himself until 1972 when Franzek joined him, taking over the business when Rooney retired in 82. Franzek continued to produce the CC wheel until 2003, when he also retired.

My wheel has a name and date carved into the bottom so I know it was made in November in 1996 by J. Franzek. Jackie's wheel has no dated, only a J. Rooney name carving. So we know her wheel was made by the original crafter... sometime between 1971 and 1982. I'm interested in narrowing down that time range a bit so I'm trying to find more information on the CC wheels, what sort of stylistic changes were made over the years and what woods they preferred working in. So far I'm thinking Jackie's wheel is from later in Rooney's career as it has 12 spokes and I've heard that Rooney started with 13 spokes and by the time Franzek took over, the 12 spokes were standard.

Fetch me a deerstalker hat and pipe, I'm on the case!

What's On My Wheel? February Lady

Sometimes you need a really huge project to totally take over your life inspire you to new heights, right? Forget hats and socks... it's time for me to knit an entire sweater. And not only shall I knit my own sweater but I have decided to also dye and spin my own yarn for the entire sweater. Crazy, right? But I'm going to do it.

The sweater or rather, cardigan, I'm knitting is February Lady. It's a beautiful cardigan, adapted from one of Elizabeth Zimmerman's baby sweaters. It's got everything I want in a cardi - it's beautiful, the pattern is free, and it doesn't look tooo difficult. I think. I'm definitely going to regret saying that in a month when I'm fighting with the pretty lacy repeats, just you wait and see.

I'm using a mix of Norweigan wool and a surprisingly soft Romney. These are both more rugged fibers so the cardigan may be a bit itchy but it'll wear well. The spinning is done worsted style, from combed top, using a short forward draw technique. This will produce a strong wool with very little bloom that'll have great stitch definition.

I took 8 ounces and dyed it a fairly consistent dark blue and another 8 ounces dyed in a variegated lighter blue. After a great deal of thought, squinting at my blues, I decided a dark brown would warm would tie the blues together and give the sweater a balance. While most of my wardrobe is blue and black lately I've found myself adding some brown. I'm fairly set in my ways but brown feels a bit warmer and cozier than black. Or maybe black is just really hard to dye - who can say?

The darker blue

The lighter blue.

All that's left now is the brown. I don't actually have brown dye, I only have the primary colours right now - red, yellow, blue - so all my work is a combination of colours and doing the heat and acid right. Or, uh, wrong. Usually wrong. I got to work with my dyes and had moderate success.

On the far left is the first braid I tried and it's 2 ounces I think, maybe four. It turned out very well so I tried it again with 6 ounces. That didn't turn out nearly as well - I think I didn't use enough vinegar so you can see the red bound very well but the green didn't do nearly so well. Except! All that washes out quite well in spinning and what I'm left with is a somewhat variegated but generally warm brown.

I'm about 4 ounces into that spinning so I should be able to ply this coming week - exciting! I'm not sure what kind of yardage I'll get. If I don't get enough (say 1400 yards? I should lose some weight, it's much easier to clothe a smaller person) then I'm thinking I can do the neckline, button band, and cuffs in a solid brown because I definitely can't dye more of those blues. If this happens I'll probably use a much softer wool, like my merino, so it'll be softer and less pricky against the more delicate parts of my skin.

I'm dragging more people into my February Lady spin and knit challenge because craziness loves company. So far my guild member Tricia and my lovely and talented stepmother are joining in. Tricia has a sweaters worth of corriedale she spun undyed when she first started spinning and she's been trying to decide what to do with it, so this project is perfect for her.

Jackie has decided she'll spin something that I dye for her, which is a bit intimidating. It's all very well for me to look terrible, but not Jackie! I have 5 lbs of Corriedale roving though... I think she looks lovely in green. So maybe one batch with bits of a warm, golden yellow mixed with green, one set in an emerald green, and one strand in brown? Then her sweater will be similar to mine, but in greens instead of blues.

Stay tuned! This will be an exciting (but suuuuper sloooow) project.

What's On My Wheel? Jaime's Alpaca

I'm pretty sure you all spend all day wondering sorts of projects I'm working on, right? I mean, I do! So today I'll talk all about what I'm spinning and what it's for. I'm trying very hard to be the sort of spinner who spins for a purpose - I see a lot of people making a single skein of beautiful, lovely yarn that... will never be made into anything. I'm trying to avoid that but, as I spin a lot more than I knit... it's taking some serious planning.

First up, I decided to knit an alpaca beanie for Jaime. I've mentioned before that he's a thru-hiker and he's planning on doing the Pacific Crest Trail (one of the three big trails, right up there with the Appalachian Trail and the Continental Divide) next year. Merino is a popular material for thru-hikers for its softness, it's moisture wicking, and most importantly... it doesn't stink nearly as bad, even after days of wearing. Alpaca has similar desirable characteristics, as a fiber. Great odor control, less shrinking and felting danger when washed, higher tensile strength and arguably better durability, and it's even warmer than merino.

So I picked out and washed a huacaya fleece I liked in a warm, tawny brown. It's not the best colour to go with him - his beard grows in black and silver after a few days on the trail and I think he looks very good in greens and creams. But I don't want to dye the alpaca and cream will show the dirt too much. He won't wear the beanie for the whole trail because he'll be traveling through a lot of climates, so I'm choosing my spinning and knitting style for the high-altitude, cold weather portion of his trip.

The washed fleece

It's a lovely fleece, surprisingly clean for alpaca. It only needed one wash and a rinse and it's got a reasonable amount of vegetable matter. It barely needs to be picked, though some of the tips need flicking. I pull any defined locks apart and them load them into the drum carder sideways. This alpaca gets one run through the drum carder sideways (someone just gasped in horror) and then two runs parallel. I use a pair of size 15 knitting needles to wrap rolags off the drum carder.

Some different rolags I've used.

I tried with puni-style rolags and they spun alright but a looser rolag seems to work better for this alpaca. I also tried making a very large, loose rolag-batt (about half an ounce) and spun that. Again, this worked alright but what I really want for this beanie is a rolag that can be pulled out into a tube of fiber and spun in a woolen style. I'm using a long, back draw with a little forward action to control the twist. This should make a lofty yarn that will bloom well and create many spaces for air to get trapped, providing a layer of insulation and warmth for Jaime when it's very cold.

I'm spinning it rather fine and with quite a bit of twist. I'll make a 3-ply yarn to knit the beanie with. I'm about half done with the carding and spinning but I haven't quite decided on what pattern to knit. It's going to need a good amount of ribbing and negative ease because alpaca likes to stretch and sag.

Blue Gradient Results

So this morning I rinsed my blue dye, rolled it in a towel, and walked all over it. Then I laid it out in my bathtub on a drying rack.

Look closely: I use horse shampoo.

Predictably, it didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Partially because the plastic wrap failed (curse you, store brand!) and towards the darker end, I didn't get total dye penetration. I sent the picture to Jackie and, bless her heart, she said she likes it and wants it. I doubted her until it finished drying and I took it into better light.

Ignore my messy table.

You guys, look at that. While there is quite a bit of variegation and blotching, that's all going to smooth out *beautifully* when it's spun. This is going to create a heathered dark with depth and shading.

Do you know what that means? Jackie's magic colour skills work at a distance.

Dye Experiment: Hand Painted Gradient

So normally I kettle dye but that can have unpredictable results, especially in the little pot I have until I get into my own house. Today I decided to try something different - hand painting my fiber.

Making sure I have enough plastic down to cover my entire length of roving.

The first step was to lay out plastic to protect my working surface. I chose slightly over 4 ounces of romney wool top. Romney is my go-to fiber as it's pretty inexpensive and easy to work with. I also decided to go with a blue dye. Blue is always a bit finicky to dye but I love blue so even if I totally screwed it up, a few runs through a blending board and I'd be happy to spin anything that came of this. I got these squeeze bottles from the dollar store - they're meant for condiments but I checked them out before hand and they're *mostly* water tight.

I prep my fiber by soaking in in a hot water and vinegar bath before I dye it. This removes the air pockets from the fiber and changes the pH a bit to make it more conducive to an acid dye. I leave it to soak for atleast half an hour before I work with it. While my fiber was getting good and acidic, I prepped my dyes.

Cat for scale?

I filled each of the squeeze bottles with 1 and a half cups of warm water, half a tablespoon of white vinegar, and then a measured amount of liquid acid dye - see the pictures for the measurements that went into each bottle. The far left one I just squeezed some dye in to get a very light colour. The others all look the same, dark blue, but they definitely have different amounts of dye in them.

After that I laid the fiber down on the plastic and squeezed the dye onto it, going from light to dark along the length. I used about half the bottle along the section, then flipped it over to dye the underside too. A little bit of handling and patting the fiber (wear gloves!) seemed to help the dye penetrate evenly, but I'll have to see how the length turns out. Once I emptied dyed the whole thing, I wrapped the plastic wrap up to trap the dye inside.

You can sort of see the gradient here, inside the plastic. Acid dyes need heat to set - I had a large pot of water on the oven. I brought it to a boil and then turned off the heat, putting my blue plastic fluff inside. The fiber will sit there until the water reaches room temperature, then I'll rinse it and we'll see what we have. Wool hates rapid changes of temperature so all that will have to wait for the morning.

There -was- a snag in the process. I bought a bunch of cheap, off brand plastic wrap because if this works I'll want to do it a lot. Unfortunately, it didn't wrap securely so my roving sprung a few leaks. I tried to patch them up but it make ruin my perfect gradient.

It also made a huge mess. Gonna get some funny looks tomorrow at work. :)