Thick and Thin

A little while back I found some yarn hiding in a drawer. It looks like this:

It's some of my very first handspun yarn and it's so crazy. It goes from super thick lumps to weak sections that are thin like thread.

I guess I spun this yarn about a year and a half ago and I think it's fun to see what a better spinner I've become. Spinning was really hard for me at first. When my wheel arrived in the mail I sat down at it and couldn't get the hang of it at all. I couldn't get the wheel to move continuously or at an even speed and I didn't draft the wool at all which made it even harder (definitely self-taught...). I seriously might have cried that first day... Rage tears... Just a little.

I'm certainly still not perfect but I've improved a lot.

Thank goodness.

Spinning Experiment

I got a package the other day. It was some wool I bought from Skeinwinder 123 on Etsy. It is so nice and pretty.

This one is BFL in a colorway called Rainbow Soup.

And this one is merino in the colorway Midnight Zephyr (I like these names).

My original plan when I bought them was to simply spin the two together into a 2-ply. Probably sock weight or worsted weight. But when I laid the two big braids or wool next to each other I was starting to have doubts about whether I'd like the result.

Time to spin and swatch...

It was super overcast when I took these photos so the colors are weird but you can at least get an idea...

The 1st swatch (on the left) is a single of each wool spun in to a 2-ply yarn. It's okay but I don't love it.

The middle swatch is a 2-ply made with one strand of the Rainbow Soup BFL and one strand of wool in a Lemon-Lime color. This one looked really cool as yarn but when I knit it up I really didn't like the resulting fabric. Too much contrast.

And lastly, the swatch on the right, one strand of the Rainbow BFL Navajo-plied (making it a 3-ply yarn). This one was the winner! This method involves spinning one extra thin yarn and then sort of hand crocheting it. It takes quite a bit longer that a normal 2-ply, which explains why this swatch is so much smaller, but the result is that you get to see more crisp color transitions.

So I spun and spun and spun and I'm not done yet but here's a taste of the prettiness.

See how certain colors really pop? Like the yellow and red? That's why navajo-plying is so neat. You really get to see those colors.

I think this yarn might end up as a pair of mittens. And I'll think of something to do with that big lump of merino later.

Do you spin yarn? Do you like reading about the process I use to decide what I make? Let me know what you think!

The View From Here, Part II

For the second time this week I looked down to realize that my knitting matched my outfit. I think that's kinda neat.

I'm using some hand spun that I had forgotten about. I think it's turning into a little camera case. It's pretty cute, huh?

Knitting, knitting, knitting

Check it out! I'm almost done with my Estelle cardigan. It's been hard to work on during this crazy heat but I'm so close to being done that I just want to keep going and get it done. The second sleeve is nearly finished and then it just needs blocking and buttons... and then I just need to wait a couple months for the weather to get cold enough. I'll be ready!

And I also finished a hat with the yarn I spun a couple weeks ago (I wrote about it here). I knit most of it on the car ride up to Vermont last weekend. I just cast on 88 stitches on a size 8 (or maybe it was a 9?) circular and improvised the decreases as I went.

The colors turned out really pretty and the alpaca in the yarn gives it just a little bit of shine. This one might be a present for someone in the Fall...

Oh, and guess who got shipped off to a new home today?

This cute little guy. Hooray! I should be putting the money towards buying an air conditioner... but I have a feeling it will probably be for more yarn... and beer...

Summer Spinning

It is hot.

Really hot.

And I don't have air conditioning.

I wouldn't mind so much except for that most of the things I like to do require a cooler atmosphere; knitting and spinning is hard to do with sweaty hands and fingers, and cooking or baking is no fun because it makes the apartment even hotter... Hmm, what to do...

Well, I was home alone the other night and bored and just needed to make something. I got out some wool, hand carders, and the spinning wheel. Then I directed both of my fans directly at my body and got to work.

I pulled out some bright rainbow merino wool I bought and experimented with a while back. The yarn I was getting from this wool was pretty but just too bright for my taste and it's just been sitting in a basket. You can read more about it here.

Then I found some alpaca that I had forgotten about. I decided to try blending it with the merino to (hopefully) create more pastel-type colors.

My mom gave me some hand carders for christmas and they're really fun for this sort of thing. And when I use them I get to feel all old-timey. I laid strips of the white alpaca down first and then layered the rainbow merino on top and got to carding.

The result was these lovely pastel fluffy puffs. Cute!

They kind of reminded me of little sea creatures. Then it was time to spin them up! I love working on the spinning wheel...

Here's the thin single I spun up first. I used all the fiber on this single then wound it into a center-pull ball. I love this technique when spinning small amounts of fiber because nothing goes to waste. You do this by taking the yarn end from the center of the ball and spinning it together with the outside yarn end from that same ball (and don't forget to spin the wheel in the opposite direction of the single). Does that make sense? If you want to try this you can email me and I'll explain it better (the heat is frying my brain a little bit right now).

And here it is! A soft and squishy 2-ply merino/alpaca yarn. And it's in sweet pastel colors that I'll actually want to knit with! Hooray. I'm thinking I'll use it to make part of a hat but we'll see. I'm excited to see how it knits up.

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I made this fiber into yarn... Because I really liked doing it.

Perfect Timing!

Today it is a hot and sweaty 92 degrees in Brooklyn, New York and guess what I finished knitting.

My ugly/beautiful wool socks! What do you think?

So, yeah... I really won't be wearing them again for another 3 months or so, but for now the are sitting on my bookshelf for me to pick up and admire. And even though they're so weird and nerdy, I really do love them. I sort of can't believe I made them. My spinning skills have improved so much in the past year. I never thought I would be able to make sock yarn, let alone actually make enough for a pair of socks (I also never thought I would be enough of a nerd to want to do something like this but that's another matter).

And in other crafty news. Siri (of Treehouse Brooklyn fame) and I biked over to the Renegade Craft fair at McCarren Park and it was awesome! There were quite a few vendors I had never seen before and Siri introduced me to a lot of cool artists. And of course, I picked up a few treats:

This beautiful printed tea towel from Enormous Champion. I think I want to hang it on the wall so it will never get dirty (I've just gotta iron it first).

Some lovely merino from Traveling Rhinos in the colorway "Blue Beard". It was quickly transformed into this 2-ply yarn!

Lastly (and most sadly) I got a Moss Bulb from Land Rich and it was so pretty and nice and I was able to bike all the way home without breaking it. Then as I reached in my bag to get the keys to my apartment, the little glass bulb rolled out of my bag and smashed on the sidewalk...

oh well... boo hoo...

p.s. The photo below is not mine. It is from Land Rich's website. I didn't have mine long enough to take a photo of it.... waa

Yarn Talk

Remember that yarn I was talking about spinning a while back? It's done! Probably... And it's insane. Technicolor rainbow yarn and tons of it. The whole ball is as big as.. like... a really big grapefruit... or something like that.

Norel was over a few days ago and saw the mostly-completed stuff and got very concerned that I was going to make some sort of rainbow article of clothing that I would wear around. It took a couple minutes to assure her that the product of this silly yarn (slipper socks) will not be leaving my apartment.

Spring!

All I can think about these days is warmer weather, dresses, sandals, sunglasses, ice cream cones... and uh... wool.

I've been spending a lot of time in Central Park, especially by the Harlem Meer and in the Conservatory Garden. It's all really incredible right now.

I've also been working on turning this big box of fluffy stuff (the Phatfiber March box) into sock yarn. I almost can't believe I'm spinning sock yarn. I used to tell myself that I would never knit socks. I just thought they were too silly, too expensive, too time consuming. But I felt like I had to try it just once.... And they didn't turn out quite right so I had to try again. And I love wearing my hand-knit socks (they are really are comfy).

So, I guess I've come to terms with liking to knit socks.... But taking hours to spin wool into a ton of yarn and then hours and hours to knit the yarn and then in the end all you've got is a pair of silly looking socks? Yes. That's exactly what I'm doing. And for some reason... I really like it.

Sick!

I'm sick. I had a bit of a cough all weekend and by Monday morning i just had to call in sick. And then again today. And tomorrow too.... Ugh.

Yesterday I tried to convince myself i wasn't really sick by being productive. I made a big pot of black bean soup from scratch with some vegetable stock i made over the weekend. Then i spun up some merino. The colors of the wool are pretty bright and i wasn't sure what kind of yarn to make so I spun three singles. Two of them i plied together and one I plied with rainbow thread. Then I knit a couple of swatches:

The 2-ply is on the left, the thread plied is on the right. I wasn't really into either one. The 2-ply is a little too muddled and the thread plied feels insubstantial and looks a little odd.

So then I made a three-ply yarn by navajo plying. Here's the swatch:

I like this one the best. Navajo plying takes the longest but there's no sense in making yarn I won't use. And it's good practice; I'd really like to start putting some hand-spun yarn in the shop.

I've been working on the giant granny square blanket a lot. It's a good thing to work on in bed. I'll show you my progress tomorrow.

Spinning Rainbows

I'm making some yarn with all different colored wool scraps and a couple of ounces of white super-wash merino from The Yarn Tree here in Brooklyn.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I Love Merino

This past Saturday I sat myself down with 4 ounces of beautiful merino wool from Halfday. A couple (maybe more) hours later, I had in my hands the best and prettiest yarn I've ever made. It's squishy and soft in pastels and light browns and I'm kind of in love with it.