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!

Trying Wine-Dyeing

The other night I was having a glass of wine after work. The bottle had been opened a few days prior, was half-full, and the wine seemed just on the verge of being totally un-drinkable. So I settled down on the couch, put on The Simpsons, poured myself a glass... and almost immediately fell asleep.

So, here I was this afternoon with some sour old wine. boo. I decided maybe it would be fun to try using said wine to dye some yarn. I couldn't really find any information about it online but I felt like I'd heard about people doing this before so I just decided to go for it.

I pulled out some nice worsted weight un-dyed 100% wool yarn. I got this yarn at a good price so I didn't mind if I got a funky result.

I also had this big container of mordant in the craft room. Someone gave it to me a while back but I haven't tried it yet so I decided to use this as well. This mordant is alum, it's one of the least toxic mordants, this is lucky for me because I accidentally breathed some in when I opened the container. Seriously.

If you're wondering what mordant is, you can click here.

And the star of the show, the gross old wine! I was ready to begin.

I dissolved some alum in a bowl of hot water and added the yarn. I let this sit for about half an hour, then strained out the liquid.

I poured all the wine over the yarn and then added just enough hot water so that all the yarn was submerged. I let this sit for about an hour but it seemed like the color wasn't really taking. I transferred everything into a pot and cooked it on the stove until it was just about to boil. I was hoping the heat would help set the color. After letting the yarn cool a bit I rinsed it and hung it up to dry.

Anyway, the final result of this little project isn't very exciting:

The yarn on top is the wine-dyed skein. The one on bottom in un-dyed. They're different, but not very different. I don't mind the color, it's sort of a really pale dusty lavender, but I think I'll probably dye it again to get something darker.

After doing a bit more research I found out that I should have boiled the wool with the alum and also some cream of tartar. Then I should have let it dry before dying it. But I didn't have any cream of tartar and I also wanted more immediate gratification so, even knowing what I know now, I probably would have done the same thing anyway.

So in the end, I had a skein of yarn that was a slightly different color than it had been a couple hours earlier and a kitchen that smelled like wet sheep and hot wine... I probably won't wine-dye again. At least not for a while. But I also don't see myself not finishing a bottle of wine again any time soon so I suppose that's okay.

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.

Miles and Miles

A while back I made some yarn. It was blue wool that I Navajo-plied and I thought it was pretty and I posted about it here.
But this yarn just sat and sat and I tried knitting some mitts but they were kind of itchy and looked weird... So I sent the yarn to Pluckyfluff to be a part of the giant skein of handspun yarn in her Handspun Revolution show in Norway. Videos are being posted to show the progress of the project and it's crazy! So many people donated yarn. An estimated 10.5 miles of yarn. All of it hand-spun. So neat!

Growing

The granny is getting bigger.

My hand is there just to give you an idea of how big the blanket is so far. And the colors in this photo aren't really quite right. The part that looks black is really a nice chocolate brown, and the red stripe is really more raspberry.

Right now I'm trying to decide if i'll pull my sick self out of bed to go out and buy more yarn...

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.

Yarn Babies

Have you heard about what Lexi Boeger (of Pluckyfluff fame) is doing? She's organizing a Handspun Revolution show in Norway that will consist of a GIANT skein of handspun yarn made from thousands of individual handspun yarns. It's going to be really neat and spinners of all skill levels are invited to submit their work. Click here for more info. I'm excited to see what the final product looks like...

In other yarn news; the giant yellow cone of yarn had babies! Hooray! Logan and I are planning on making some sweet God's Eyes.

I Like Yarn

Hello again.

I've been bad about getting back in the swing of writing here after the holidays. And it's a shame because I really enjoy having this space to share what I'm working on. So I want to get back into the habit of writing more.

Anyway, here's what I've been working on:

I tried a couple of new things!

I tried knitting lace from a chart.

This really didn't go so well. I had to rip it back three times and I only have about an inch of knitting... And I'm pretty sure I made another mistake... But I'm going to try again because I really want to figure this out and confidently read a chart.

The chart I'm working from is Haruni by Emily Ross and it's free on Ravelry. It's so beautiful and i really want to make one.

I also tried Navajo Plying yarn and this was much more successful. If you are a spinner and you've been thinking about trying this technique, you really should go for it. For non-spinners who are wondering what I'm talking about; it's a way to take one strand of hand-spun yarn and then turn it into a 3-ply by sort of re-spinning it.

And it looks pretty.

And I finished a new design. Well, really just a circle scarf 2.0. That's what I've been calling it, I'd like to think of a prettier name for it though. My friend Tim called it a 'Harf" (hood + scarf = Harf). And Maya says it makes the person wearing it look like "an acorn head" which I think sounds really cute.

More photos and (probably) a pattern soon to come.

New Yarns

Two new yarns added to the shop tonight.

Yarns and Leaves

First of all, I now have hand dyed yarn in the shop. Hooray!

I have to say I really think they are so pretty... and I'll have more coming out within the next couple weeks.

I also want to tell you about something that i think is really neat:

I am very lucky to get to hang out in Central Park a few times a week (because of babysitting). It's such a beautiful place to spend time and it's especially beautiful in autumn.

So, behind the Metropolitan Museum (which is in the park) is this huge vent that blows out a ton of warm air, and the kids from the school play this game where they all get a huge arm-load of leaves and throw them on the vent at the same time.

The leaves shoot way up into the air and all the kids shout and scream and it's actually super exciting. If you're in nyc you should really try it sometime.

Dear Internet,

My name is Lydia and I'm starting this little blog today for a few reasons:

-to promote my Etsy shop http://smallestfriend.etsy.com

-to organize some of my own thoughts and ideas (and hopefully be more productive)

-to share some of the knowledge I have through tutorials and knitting patterns and other things like that

-to have more motivation to take photos of things I make and do

Lately I've been really getting into Kool-Aid dying. It's really fun, pretty cheap, and a great way to try out dying with out spending a ton of money on a big dye kit and special pots and mordant and whatnot. I used this tutorial from Leethal.net to get started. You can really get some beautiful colors and it even smells good. Well, except the Mango, that one smells so weird and musty and definitely not something I would ever drink.... eww.

Some yarn drying on my little balcony

Yarn dyeing in progress using Cherry, Orange and Mango Kool-Aid

More to come soon!