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. :)

Knitters Have Big Personalities

Last night I was invited to a social knitting dinner by Tricia, one of my favourite people at the guild. I don't think the social knitting group has a name or anything complicated - it's just a group of knitters and if they can, they generally show up on Wednesdays. It's nice and casual - I really dig that and it's awesome to have an undemanding social outing in the middle of the week.

I've mentioned before how awesome it is to find so many STEM women in the fiber arts and this group was no exception - there was me, a structural engineer, Tricia, an industrial engineer, and one woman who does IT for clinical research and another who does massage therapy (not really STEM, but still cool). Their names escape me because I'm just terrible with names. Still, lovely ladies and I was happy to spend the evening in their company. Edit: Karen is the clinical research IT geek and Sue is a kids physical therapist. Thanks Tricia!

Another thing I've noticed about fiber artists is they tend to be very interesting people with broad personalities. I'm sure there are shy and retiring knitters - perhaps they don't come to social gatherings? But all the ones I meet tend to have lots of knowledge and experience in interesting realms, stories to tell, lectures to give... and boy, will they give them! Now, please don't get me wrong. These are interesting people with interesting stories to tell and I enjoy listening, but it is a little funny to watch a group of women each... more or less... take turns completely and utterly dominating all the conversation.

... I may also do this.

And, of course, watching the social knitters reminded me to treasure Tricia and people like her who selflessly surrender the foreground and seem to have endless patience and interest with other people's stories. I wanna be like Tricia, if I grow up.

On that note, today was the adultiest day of my life, so far, as I closed on my yarn storage facility house. My first house. My darling, beautiful house. I don't get to live in it for another three months as I have tenants, but still. I am so excited, boys and girls.

Home, sweet home. <3

I'm trying to think of it as three months to pack. And properly plan out my craft room.

Observational Data Supporting Belief in the Power of Knitting!

Today I went to the DMV to get my driver's license renewed. They opened at 8 so I arrived at 7:30am to be first in line (I was not. How did that happen?). Still, there were only a couple people in front of me so I was sure it would go quickly and I'd get to work in plenty of time.

... I'll wait while you laugh at me. All done? Okay.

I'd taken my welcome mat and Jaime's Socks-To-Be along with a Ply Magazine on spinning cotton so even though they didn't allow cell phones, I knew I'd be well entertained for the, what, twenty minutes it take? Half an hour? But while I knit and knit and knit on my welcome mat, I had a vague sense of time ticking by while person after person was called ahead of me. I started to get very antsy and emailed my team leader to ask permission to be late. I flipped through the magazine, I measured, knit, and measured my welcome mat...

And finally, I picked up Jaime's socks. I opened up my book on Two-At-A-Time-Magic-Loop and reviewed the cast on technique. I organized my two balls of sock yarn into ziplock bags, fed tails through little holes, took a deep breath... and then I picked up my tiny, tiny needles and began casting on.

They immediately called my number.

House! And Etsy! But mostly house!

Is anyone superstitious about their knitting?

The Yarn Harlot  has talked in the past about her belief that expected babies won't be born until the things she's knitting for them are finished. And that sounds like utter nonsense except I'm trying to buy a house and I have been fantasizing about all the wonderful things I will knit and weave for my house - rugs, welcome mats, lacy curtains, pillows, and every other thing a pair of needles and possibly come up with. The only thing I've actually cast on is a welcome mat which I have idly been knitting a few rows a week while jumping through loan hurdles. I haven't been in much of a hurry because the house has tenants so I won't be able to move in until August and even my little heart can't maintain enthusiasm for that long. And the house buying process is no joke! It's been an endless marathon of inspections, repairs, post-repair inspections, septic testing, water testing, negotiations, and paper work... at one point I was no longer sure whether I was buying a house or just writing checks as part of some vicious practical joke.

Until the other day. See, I finished my socks and frogged the socks I'd started for Jaime (for no reasons! Definitely not because two at a time magic loop is hard and I got lost some how! I... just didn't like them). I've felt too guilty to cast on another project for me while Jaime's socks languish, unloved, in a project bag but I haven't quite been able to get up the gumption to restart his socks, soo... I've been dragging around the rug and have knit many, many rows on it.

And now. I have a closing date.

Whoa. Like... whoa. After all that rigmarole, apparently all I needed to buy a house was to get cracking on some knitting! That's my kind of karma, let me tell you. The house still has tenants... do you think they'll move out early if I get some lacy blue curtains done? ;D

To keep myself busy while I'm waiting, I also made some lovely, colourful things for Fantasy Fibres.

First there is this beautiful variegated orange I dyed up in a fit of pique after it rained and rained for days. Doesn't it look like a pile of sunflower petals? It chippered me right up and I saved 4 ounces of it to sell.

I also blended this batt with alternating layers of gradients going from pale blonde to dark brown and layers of a pumpkin orange, to give the whole batt a consistency and sort of unifying theme. It's made entirely of the softest things - merino and bamboo, mostly - with a little bit of tencel for strength. Each colour has a slightly different texture to it and I think this will be a wonderful spinning experience.

Carolina Fiber Fest Day 2!

First, I want you all to know that I didn't buy anything. It was a struggle, but I made it through with my bank account intact! Phew! Mind you, Jackie arrived and bought us each one of those awesome canvas knitting bags I talked about yesterday. She also picked us up porcupine quills which were being sold as shawl pins. They're really cool but also absurdly sharp. Stand by for stories of me impaling myself on my own shawl. xD

She also got herself a lovely skein of 50 Shades of Gradient in Patina, from a shop called Yarns to Dye For. I love terrible puns like that and I probably laughed like an idiot after I read it.

Patina colorway. Gorgeous, gorgeous.

The skein is a 100% superwash merino 2-ply, in something like a fingering weight. You could definitely make socks out of it, though the merino would might wear fast. It cost $32 but it's 560 yards which is pretty generous for that kind of (I think) hand dyed yarn. There were all sorts of samples knitted up and one skein can make a lacey shawl very easily. I'm not sure what Jackie's going to make but I'm excited to see. Even though there was a gorgeous silver to blue to black gradient skein I didn't drool too much. I take a certain amount of pride in that. 

The Sheep to Shawl was very interesting.

When I originally joined it I thought it was going to be a competition type thing where you start with a sheepie and it gets sheared in front of you and a small team of devoted workers card, spin, and weave that fleece into a shawl, right there on the spot. It turned out that this was more of a demonstration event and no one expected to finish the shawl that day. Still, a whole bunch of folks worked their treadling feet off to make it happen. We had a lovely Jacob's fleece and every bit of it got spun and plied. It wasn't frantic or stressful, we just worked at our own paces, all together, for four hours straight.

It was especially educational and a bit challenging for me. I'm very picky about my fiber prep and my spinning. Nothing goes through my carder fewer than 3 times and when I spin up something bumpy and lumpy I get pretty grumpy. But at the Sheep to Shawl people just... loosely carded and then spun whatever they had, lumpy gnarls and all. At first I felt uncertain about my spinning around all these much more experienced spinners but after I took a break to look around I realized everyone else was just... accepting all the imperfections that popped up. A bit of an eye opening experience for me, I'll tell you!

Afterwards, I drove up to my parents house and introduced my fantastic boyfriend Jaime to them. That went great - I beat Jackie at cards for the first time in my life with him as my partner! That's never happened! I gave my stepmother an easter basket full of little bits and pieces I'd picked up for her along the way...

Including that awesome sock yarn so we can make matching socks.

I gave my dad a copy of Sid Meier's Civilization so he'd have something to do while Jackie and I babble about fiber... and that was fortunate because Jackie had an easter basket for me too. I tore it apart so I haven't got a picture yet, but it had some bamboo sock yarns, orifice hooks she made herself, and other awesome things. The bamboo sock yarn is perfect for this lace sock pattern, Summer Slice, I wanted to knit.

Meanwhile I need to find a pattern for Jackie and I to do our matching socks in - anyone have any ideas? :D