Local Fiber

Although I've been working with commercial fiber from the big mills, I've recently discovered the ultimate pleasure.....spinning local fiber.
I've bought some Romney batts from Weaving Works in Seattle. These batts come from a local farm and are luscious! I had so much fun with my first batt that I bought another. I've just begun spinning that up and am thinking I might have enough for a vest.
The other batt was spun and knit up into the Fiber Trends clog (A-33). Although the clog pattern has been around forever, this was my first attempt.

These were for Sam who has a size 12 foot. They were unbelievably long before felting. I think perhaps 30 inches! The Romney wool was loosely spun into a very low twist single and felted beautifully although the initial result was very furry looking, very much like those fuzzy slippers fom the fifties that didn't seem very appropriate for Sammy. I took a pair of scissors and trimmed closely to the fabric and I liked the result.
The clogs still need soles. I'm not so sure I want to use the FiberTrends ones . I'm tempted to visit the leather store and make my own.

I was asked to demonstrate spinning at the Willingham Weavery on the Art Tour on Vashon Island. I was set up right next to the batts and yarns available from Vashon Island Alpacas. I chose a few batts from an alpaca named Black Bart and spun up enough fiber for an alpaca hat for my son, Joe.
I used a top down hat pattern available on the internet from Silke Hupka. It's called Karlchen. I had used the pattern earlier for Guy's superwash hat and was worried about the bind off edge being too tight. I did a little exploring and found the technique of using a yarn over every 3 or 4 stitches on the bind off edge. The yarn over was immediately cast off with the stitch next to it. The result was a neat flexible edge. Very simple but it works beautifully.

Joe seems pleased with the hat and wears it a lot.



I loved working with the alpaca from the local farm so much that I made an appointment to go look at fleeces. Bill and Lee Green have the most wonderful house on thirty acres with the female alpacas and crias always on view from their windows.
I came away with some washed raw fiber in this beautiful shade of cinnamon from Sienna:

There is close to 3.5 pounds and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have enough for a sweater.




I also couldn't pass up the fiber that resulted from a huacaya jumping the fence to mate with a Suri creating a crossbreed named Deliah (possibly Delilah but it says Deliah on the bag)! It has the characteristics of both and is a wonderful white shade. I have less of this fiber so I have no ideas yet.

I noticed Weaving Works also carried raw fleece, batts and yarn from Vashon Island Alpacas.



This month, Spin Off, the magazine for handspinners has an article on eco-friendly farms of fiber producing animals which seems right in sync with my inclinations now that I'm discovering local fiber sources. Though at present, I feel supporting local farms is important even though the farms may not be completely deserving of the term "sustainable". (The two above may very well be but I don't have the information to state if so or not.)What appeals to me are the humane situations in which the animals are raised and the small support I am able to give to local farmers.
There is also the delight of working with fibers not distributed by the major suppliers. There is so much more variety! Keep in mind that I have yet made it to a sheep and wool festival so my experience is very limited. This is my first taste of that joy!

A First!

My first handspun, handknit sweater!

It's not perfect or even lovely but for me it's still an accomplishment.
I had been speaking to a friend about how intimidated I was about making a sweater without a pattern. She said something like, "Well, you know how to remedy that, just do it." and I did without a lot of forethought.
My initial idea was to have a more "painterly" blending of colors like the yarn used for the circus tent hat.





There just wasn't enough blending of colors in the yarn to give the effect I wanted. I am learning that the more complex colors are, even if they appear solid gives a richness and dimension that I'll strive for in the future. Pictured is the yarn I used for the sweater although adequate doesn't really have qualities.




When the sweater was still unfinished, I had a lot of doubts about continuing. There was the disappointment with the lack of color complexity and my very unplanned approach to the pattern. The body was narrow. Maybe ideal for a fitted sweater with set in sleeves but not so desirable for drop shoulder sleeves. I had to use drop shouldered sleeves because my skill was not up to figuring out how to steek fitted sleeves. Is it possible? I think it is. I had to keep the color changes in the yarn halfway consistent. To try to remedy the narrowness of the body, I made the sleeves larger. It made me nervous. In the end, it worked out okay.
In progress, it looked very serape-like and I thought it might be better to rip it out and make a shawl or a blanket. I'm glad I didn't though.









I have more to show you but not the time right now to do it.
I'm doing a 3 day juice fast and having a hard time staying focused.

Still Playing!

The rain came a little early this year to the Seattle area and with it slightly cooler than normal temperatures (or at least so it seems) and although I'm completely startled by the lush beauty the rains brings, I'm already putting on long underwear even though the thermometer says it's in the low 50s. I feel like such a wuss!
I continue to experiment and play with color and different techniques without much forethought but surprisingly I do find myself completing projects with my handspun.
I've heard people talking about subpersonalities. I'm sure it's some well thought out template of human personality and interpersonal exchanges but I don't know anything about it. Though I am certain that one of my subs must be a clown. Why else would I keep turning out articles of clothing that are so brightly colored, so whimsical, so clownish.





Don't laugh! I actually like these. They do fit almost as I intended. They're almost knee high in length. They just don't feel complete at this point. I bought some of the FiberTrends soles from fiber2yarn.com .





The soles just don't give the effect I want. They make the felted socks look too much like traditional slipper socks so I'm saving the suede soles for something else........perhaps the Fiber Trends clogs which I've never tried before. I'll continue to keep my eyes open for something to "complete" my felted socks. I keep seeing leather trim and buckles canabalized from thrift store handbags or belts.




I handspun the yarn for the socks from the NZ carded wool that most spinning supply shops carry. I practiced my woolen technique and initially weighed all the fiber before blending so that I would get an approximate matching pair. After a bit, I just eyeballed which worked pretty well. I drumcarded the colors into vertical stripes and then rolled the batt with colors running still in vertical stripes. Then I drafted and spun from the side of the batt allowing the colors to unfold in sections as I spun.I think the resulting mismatching on the feet was partly a result of working fewer rows on the second heel and partly the inferiority of eyeballing. The mismatched feet don't bother me at all though I am glad that the legs seem to be similar.





I used the mukluk pattern in Folkknits from Interweave Press as a guide for knitting though I ignored some of the instructions. If you haven't seen the book yet, it's very fun with lots of lovely patterns that although unique in themselves are idea inspiring and can be used as a jumping off place for other garments or accessories.
The socks were knitted and then felted. In my early days of spinning, I never thought I'd felt my handspun but it makes perfect sense. Singles felt beautifully and woolen yarn spins quickly so I have no qualms about felting it. Here they are before felting:





I've beeen having so much fun with the drum carder. I spun up some Corriedale that I'd blended on the drum carder and knitted up a lace scarf with thick singles.






The lace pattern caused one edge to make chevron like points while the other end turned out pretty even on the cast off edge. If I ever use this particular lace pattern again for a scarf, I will definitely work up from each end and graft the 2 together.


Deviating a bit from the rainbow colored batts, I spun up some singles and worked out a pattern for a hat. It looks a lot like a circus tent to me.



It's all just playfulness and fun. It feels as if I'm just sticking my fingers in paints and smearing it around and seeing how things look.
For awhile I was just spinning up small bits of blended fiber and knitting small, narrow swatches.

























I hadn't been dyeing in weeks so I threw some fiber in pots to wet and after 2 days felt I had to go ahead before mold grew. The mixing and dyeing were hurried. The space dyed roving really should have been split so that if I decide to knit socks or gloves, they would be more consistently matched but I just began spinning. I love spinning worsted and it had been so long. I just sat down and went into a trance. I realized too late that I hadn't split the roving so I would have more choices for its use after it had been spun up. It's Blue Faced Leicester and I navajo plied it. I have 170 yards of the muticolored and about 150 yards of the light green. The color sections of the muticolored skein are at some points very long.......yet another argument for splitting the roving especially when there is little yardage and the knitted item will be small. I do have a few ideas though. How they will look when executed is a different matter.......







That night, I also dyed some Punta wool I bought from Carol Lee at thesheepshedstudio.com for blending with other colors on the drum carder.


I'm pleased with the color and can't wait to start blending batts.




I am slogging along on my Gothic Leaf Stole. It's not that I don't enjoy the pattern. It's rhythmic and relaxing. The yarn is Henry's Attic Prime Alpaca and it's wonderful to work with. I knit this piece only on the commute though which ends up being a total of 30 minutes a week. I started in May and I'm a little more than half done. If you're not familiar with lace, I'd like to point out that often it looks like one big crumpled mess until it's washed and blocked. Then the pattern appears very distinctly...or so we hope!












And I just began fixing the Peruvian hat I made for MaryAnn last year. The hat was so roomy it slipped down on her head! I'm going to remedy that by putting in a polar fleece band. It really does need ear flaps too so I just began those this evening. I already ripped out one but it is coming along. Pictured is an unformed idea of the ear flap. The actual earflap will be knitted on from picked up stitches. I actually tried sewing on flaps last year and it ended up looking pretty amateurish.






The pattern for the hat, I just made up as I went along................no wonder it slipped off MaryAnn's head.....but the motifs, I found in Andean Folk Knitting. Sadly, I think it's out of print. If you see a copy, grab it if the price is right.

Drum Carder!!!!

I'm so thrilled! I finally have a drum carder. I've been making batts like crazy and spinning up the batts practicing my long draw.





The skeins pile up as I practice, practice....... I feel pretty sure if I keep on practicing, my yarn will get better.




I think when I first started spinning, I spun pretty much a woolen yarn but then just months into my spinning, I took a class in which I was converted to worsted spinning. And I've been kind of stuck there for awhile. I still love worsted yarn but I am beginning to see the advantages of woolen spun too.
These are the batts I'm spinning up this evening:







I'm having so much fun! I'm also learning a lot.
The only problem is that I'm going through fiber so quickly and I keep on buying more..........

Color

As a knitter, I prefer solid colored yarns that are spun worsted and have nothing unusual about them except perhaps being a beautiful color or spun from an exotic fiber.
As a spinner, I still love to spin the yarns with which I love to knit but color and whimsy are just too hard to resist.
Ever since I took that Navajo Plying class, I am enjoying knitting with yarn that changes colors as I knit.
I dyed some Blue Faced Leicester top.











Ans spun it up.












Navajo plied it and ended up with about 200 yards of a dk weight. (When I start using wraps per inch, you'll now that I've become a real spinner!)










And knit them up into fingerless gloves.






I have been teaching myself the woolen method of spinning and I am catching on. I spun some singles using my hand cards to blend the colors of some NZ carded wool I bought at Weaving Works in Seattle.
Unfortunately, I didn't even take time to take photos of the skeins I spun up. I just started knitting some slippers with it. They were felted and although looked okay by themselves, they just didn't seem to work on my feet. Too floppy!









So I put a loop and button on each one and now I'm very pleased!




I really fell in love with the colors in the slippers and really want to use them in another project...a vest? or maybe a felted bag?

My approach to color is at this point purely intuitive but isn't it amazing how I came up with analogous harmonies for the two projects! If I learn more about the color wheel, it can only help.


Or then again, maybe I just absorbed the information subconsciously. This color wheel was in my room for weeks on exactly the same setting.




And I have an idea for a large project knit in sections that involves navajo plied silk.
The original skein began its life as the start of a bag.





But I ripped it out to use it with these two yarns.








I think silk is very forgiving in terms of color. I'm not sure if I'll be sucessful in combining these colors in my project but look at them all twirled together in a big skein. It seems silk by its very lustrous nature makes allowances, making working with it so much more fun.







Awhile back, I had a not so successful dye experiment go awry so I decided to spin it up into a somber 3 ply. My friend Guy saw the skein and exclaimed "It's beautiful. Let me go look at it in the light!" Such enthusiastic appreciation is very rare so I had to knit him a hat out of it. He's very happy!



It's a merino superwash from Henry's Attic. It's a very springy yarn. Guy even noticed the springiness while I was knitting to fit. He picked up a piece of the yarn and stretched it and saw how it sprung back and pointed it out to me. He is not a fiber person, at least not actively, and it amazes me how he notices these things. Unfortunately, he can immediately zoom in on what's wrong with a yarn or a project and always points it out. Well, it's really not unfortunate. It's actually pretty helpful but sometimes I can enjoy a yarn or a project with its obvious flaws and don't always want to be reminded of them.
I did try to teach him to spin on a spindle. He seems very interested in traditional methods of spinning as in Andean spinning or charkha spinning. I bet he would enjoy a charkha!

I have been spinning up some superwash merino/alpaca blend that I bought at Weaving Works. It was a limited supply but was an amazing .90 an ounce. I bought enough for socks but unfortunately got it into my head to navajo ply some and I'm not pleased with it. I think I'll end up with a pair of gloves. Which isn't bad because fall is almost here.
I feel so fortunate to live in an area where I have access to fiber because otherwise I'd have to save up and spend hundreds of dollars at fiber festivals and saving money isn't my strongpoint either. Well.........there is the internet but being able to see and feel is very important.
They had some Romney batts from a local farm. I bought a little less than a pound. I'll practice woolen spinning and maybe have enough for a vest!





I'm also going to spin up some dog hair from a Cairn Terrier for a 12 year old girl. She wanted purple but I left some natural and dyed some pink so that the colors will change as she knits. She's a very basic knitter so the color changes will make the knitting process more enjoyable. I was thinking of adding beads too though I'm wary because I've never done beaded yarn before.

Experimenting

I've just been having fun experimenting with color and technique. Sometimes I approach things without too much method. Other times, I find myself focused on achieving a particular result or effect.
So I have both successes and failures to show you but I have to stress that the failures are not complete failures because these have elements that please and displease giving me more of an idea what to aim for.
My newest is a silk roving down in lime, violet and gray. It is almost exactly what I aimed for. I tested the color of the dyebath by dipping Qtips into the dyes. I love spinning silk and I have an idea for a project using skeins of navajo plied silk in different colorways.














This will get spun up very quickly as I plan to use it with this yarn.













That is spun from this roving.





I'm getting good results from my new method of dyeing. Instead of handpainting the roving with syringes which is labor intensive, I used dye in Mason Jars placed in a water bath and covered. The silk is steamed. I am not too up on kitchenware nomenclature but the pan I use seems to be a roasting pan. It is a deep rectangular pan with an equally deep lid that easily fits over the Mason jars to create a seal.




I did use this method with not-so-good results for the following superwash roving.




The problem wasn't so much the Mason method I used but rather the way I tested my colors before dyeing. I had read in Deb Menz's book Color in Spinning that coffee filters were a good way to test color. Unfortunately, the way I did it gave me an inaccurate idea of the depths of the shades. I must have done something wrong but I am returning to my QTip method because it seems to work for me.
The colors came out so much darker than I wanted. They really weren't suitable for my original idea of Navajo plying so I spun 3 bobbins of the darkest portions of spruce, black, and brown and plied them together in the traditional way.
The twist is not set yet and the yardage is about 120 but half of the dyed roving went into my scrap bag for mix and match. The areas that weren't too dark were sparsely dyed and not very evenly.













I did successfully Navajo ply some cotton! I was told it couldn't be done because it breaks but after spinning it I really wanted to keep the color progression so I sprayed the skein with starch, let it dry and then Navajo plied it. I was a little alarmed to see a strange twisting when I examined the yarn but that was just the starch holding the twist in one direction. After washing, I ended up with a balanced yarn.







I dyed the roving for the skein using a new method I read about. I filled cupcake tins with different colors of Procion dyes with a little soda ash in each. In this case, I used Brilliant Blue, Peach and Olive.








It was a very small amount of cotton but I wanted to swatch it to see how it knitted up. I decided to swatch it as a little pouch. At least I'd have something to keep for my trouble. There's a little bit of olive alpaca that got into the mix. It is a much larger yarn so it creates a point on the bottom.



And getting a little playful, I tried it as a cat hat.......




And then as as needle "quiver" which actually works the best since I can never keep my doublepointeds together.






The superwash roving in those cheerful reds and oranges that seemed perfect for a child's hat did make there way into a hat but it ended up more an adult hat. The hat is knit in sections as the previous one done in Noro to play up the color variations. The hat has both good and bad elements but I enjoyed the whole process because of the opportunity to see the colors unfold and then see how they juxtaposed when knit up. So I might love how this color and that color are side by side while in some areas I find the effect not to my liking. It was fun.
My friend modeled the hat and I turned it to show the completely different back and front (or sides as well).

















And here's the top:












I really love to see different areas of color side by side!








All in all, not a stunning hat but still an adequate result. It's value for me was in the use of technique and the colors unfolding and teaching me what I like and what I don't!


I also used up some of the other superwash I dyed and spun a few weeks ago to make another hat. The colors please me less but it was still a worthwhile effort.



I left the front edge unribbed in order to add a brim but the brim doesn't quite work. It definitely would work on a head with dreads but that wasn't my intention so I'm going to try again.
My approach to designing is hit or miss so I expect setbacks but I do know that even the more professional approach requires a lot of time ripping out and redoing. I really admire handknit designers for their amazing abilities that rarely get fair compensation.

So you see..I've been having fun, exploring technique and color. I feel satified even though I have very few "pretty" things worked up from my yarn.