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A New Year, A New Goal

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

A new Year, a new start…

Will I be better at blogging this year? I hope so, only time will tell. I do miss it, and the longer you are away from it the harder it is to get back to it. Little stupid thoughts start stalking you like “nobody wants to see that” or “who cares about that?” or “that’s just too stupid to put out there”.

Yea, stupid, now you know I can be too. So, my solution is to blog anyway, since I’m not running for President I can get away with a little stupid. Blogging helps me realize I am making progress, without it there is little measurability. So…  blog on!

I have been quite busy over the last year. I’ll give you glimpses of my recent history in the next few posts – just ignore the obvious point of my seriously lacking focus  ;)

Loom Trap detail

Loom Trap detail

This post is for Clara who wanted to see the “trap” modification to my little table loom. Hubby created a tray that attaches to the front of my small loom to hold my shuttles for me (called a trap). It turned out fabulous and does the job admirably.

Loom Trap

Loom Trap

Weaving is much nicer when you don’t have to keep jumping up to retrieve your shuttle off the floor – again.

I’ve finished spinning the yarn I gave an in-progress report on here and it turned out lovely!

Grey & pink handspun

Grey & pink handspun

I haven’t made anything with it yet, I’m letting it “age” like a fine wine!

So now I’m carding up some dog hair to spin.

carding dog hair

Carding dog hair, 70% Husky/30% Merino

When you have a husky that sheds at the speed of light, it’s a survival skill.

Deb H

Posted in spinning, weaving | 3 Comments »

Correcting the Twist in Yarn

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

I learned a very valuable lesson the other day. It was so valuable, I have to share!

Under plied yarn

Under plied yarn

I was about to knit with some yarn and discovered that it was was too loosely plied for my taste and therefore split annoyingly when I knit with it. Having purchased a large amount of this yarn, I was not happy to just forge ahead. I stewed over this for several days, then a memory tried to surface in the back of my quick-sand brain. I remembered something about ball winders and twist.

Google to the rescue! Two Blogs popped up that were a huge amount of help. Ask The Bellwether actually tested it with some ribbon and gave me the hints and clues that lead to my yarn’s salvation. True Blue Fiber Friends gave me the technical information that saved me from the trial-and-error method.

Adding twist with a ball winder

Adding twist with a ball winder

In a nutshell; my yarn was a loosely plied yarn that I wound off of a cone, onto a ball winder. Winding yarn onto a ball winder actually effects the twist in the yarn very little… But pulling it off of the cone effects the twist in the yarn a lot. Likewise, so does pulling it out of a center-pull ball.

Aha!

So I examined my yarn to determine whether it was a “Z” or “S” twist – as a plied yarn it should most likely have been an “S” and it was (drum roll please) an “S”! When I hold a strand of yarn vertically, the strands in the ply slant from upper left to lower right like the letter “S”. A “Z” twist (usually a singles) would obviously go the other way.

top view of center-pull ball

top view of center-pull ball

Following the True Blue Friends post I knew that to add more twist to my “S” ply I had to pull it from the center pull balls I made so that when looking down on the ball from the top, the yarn pulling from the center would unwind in a counter-clockwise direction. By turning the handle on my ball-winder in a counter-clockwise direction, I could guarantee it would do just that (your brand may differ). BTW – if the yarn unwinds in the opposite direction from which you want it too, simply flip the cake (ball) over and feed the center pull yarn through the middle – it will now unwind in the other direction – cool, huh?

Happy yarn, good twist

Happy yarn, good twist

Happy yarn! After feeding the yarn balls (cakes) through my ball winder a couple of times (and setting the twist with a niddy-noddy and a steaming tea kettle) I have a happy (nicely twisted) yarn and I’m a happy knitter. Yes, it took time, but the smooth knitting experience is worth the effort and saving the yarn was too.

Life is good!

My heartfelt thanks to the Bloggers who shared so I could learn, aren’t fiber-freaks a great bunch?  :)

Deb H

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Almost a “Twitter”

Friday, May 29th, 2009

I don’t have a Twitter account (or Face Book, or My Space – but I’ve been curious) but I guess this post is so short, it’s almost  a “Twitter”.

gray-spin-1

I just wanted to show what I’ve been spinning; a lovely soft merino top of natural gray that is such a beautiful color, it is almost blue. I’ve had it in my stash for years — so long, I had started to spin it on a lace weight drop spindle when we lived in Virginia in 1995 (Ack!) and we would go to Floyd on Friday or Saturday nights to listen to blue grass music and watch the locals do flat bottom dancing. It was held in a small general store with great ice cream and standing room only. I would stand and spin while we listened and watched. Does that still go on there? I also used to attend a very artsy quilt guild there in an old church, it was a great group!

I digress.

This will be plied with the pink and blue-gray singles I’ve just finished spinning.

Pink Spinning

Deb H

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Posted in spinning | 1 Comment »

Progress

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Pink RovingI’ve got my Cushy Mushroom Sweater knit up to the armholes – again. This time it all works and I’ll post a picture next week. It’s nice to have my knitting stay knitted.  ;)    The same for the cashmere handwarmers for DD. Progress is being made, finally.

But it hasn’t been all re-knitting this week. I’ve been spinning a lovely Cormo blend of roving from my stash. In a very soft blue/gray and pink. It’s spinning up like a dream and simply lovely. I think it will grow up to be a two ply fingering weight yarn. I’ll decide what to make with it when I know what the final tally on yardage will be.

I know, those that know me are thinking PINK??????  I must have had my Mom in mind when I bought this – or maybe the softness and the yummy feel of the roving made me silly.

Pink SpinningOther progress involves my determination to get a bit more organized in my art supply room. This involves listing some of the books I still have from my (now closed) business on Amazon. to take a peak at my current offerings (not all books are listed yet – by far!) go to my Amazon Store Front or see the link on the side bar (under links, of course).

I’ve also decided (after purchasing the same books more than once (cringe) to organize my own (and hubby’s) library. Have you discovered The Library Thing? It is too cool, see the “peek” box in my side bar (scroll down).

More later, must knit…

Deb H

Posted in Books, knitting, spinning | 1 Comment »

Spinning

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

ply 1 - bright colors!I’ve been spinning. It started with a brightly colored roving I dyed of Merino superwash (photo, left – click to biggie-ize) with the intent of knitting socks. To avoid muddying the colors and making the whole look too “busy” I dyed an equal amount (8 oz.) of the same fiber in a solid teal color to ply it with. I firmly believe that (almost) all projects should have an element of challenge or something new to learn built into them. My challenge for this yarn was to get some variety in the the thickness and in the twist.

Ply 2 - solid tealI did much better at this in the colored than in the solid. I must have been more attentive in the first roving… the bright colors held my attention better? I don’t find a lot of time for spinning, it seems to be one of those guilty pleasures; I always feel guilty for spending time doing it. I go to a spinning group once a month for the sole excuse of spending time with my wheel. At the last meeting I managed to finish filling one bobbin with the teal (the multi colored is done; two full bobbins) and got so excited, I went home and plied.

Pearls of Color - Handspun yarnRuthanne M. talked me into this and was as eager as I was to see it. So Ruthanne, here is the plied yarn!

A pearl yarn; one ply is thicker (thick & thin) than the other and they have varying degrees of twist for a “row of pearls” look to the yarn. This skein weighs 6 & 3/4 ounces with approximately 283 yards. I expect the next one will be close to that.

Pearls of Color - detailHummm…. a vest? Knitted or woven? This is the first time I have ever spun something with an actual project in mind. Does it take points away if I end up using for a totally different project?

I have also done some more dyeing. I put a second layer of color on some yarns and silk noil fabric I mentioned at the end of my last post. The yarn is done, but still needs to be photographed.

pastel silk noil - hand dyed.

The silk is still very pastel but it has some nice color subtleties. I will definitely put another layer on at least some of these (4 pieces) as pastel is not my usual color range.

And the Planet Earth sock yarn I showed you last post looks so different after being re-skeined.
I love it!

 

Planet Earth - hand dyed sock yarn
And lastly, I have to share a photo from my back deck, there are benefits to living in the tooley-dingles. :) A full rainbow. I do not have a wide-angle lens so this is best I could get. It was quite wonderful!

Rainbow

Deb H

 

Posted in dyeing, spinning | No Comments »

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