Mmm kauni

I am loving the way my Kauni Shawl is knitting up. The color changes are gorgeous; I love watching the yarn transition from one color to the next.

Unfortunately, there's not a great deal more to be said about it. It's all stockinette and yarn overs for a good while longer. Three pattern repeats, at least. I am nearing the end of my Simurgh stole though! I've finished the body and need to do the last bit of knit on edging. 165 or so annoying little rows. I haven't started on that part yet. Here's a photo of crumply, pre blocked, incomplete lace:


A little while ago, Marnie posted a video of herself spinning. Now that I've been bitten by the spinning bug, I asked Daniel to film me spinning. Here's a short video of me making yarn:

I'm actually finished with that yarn, although I haven't done the finishing. What I have finished is reading Spinning in the Old Way which has a lot of good information. I'm a little too set in my ways, a little too cantankerous, to relearn to spin in a different way, so I think it's a good thing that I seem to be doing most things okay. But definitely a resource I'm glad to have.

Yarrrrns

I would do some kind of April Fools, but I'm not that clever. Also, it's still March on the West Coast, so neener neener. But I do have some yarn I made.

I picked up about 2 oz of three different rovings in Seattle on Thursday. I got Ashland Bay multi colored merino in Cranberry, solid color merino in Tartan, and 70/30 merino silk in McKenzie. So far I've spun up about half of the Cranberry on my Golding spindle.

I was liking the evenness I was getting, so I decided to keep the yarn as a single. Unfortunately, I overspun it pretty well, seeing as I didn't decide to do singles until well into the process. But I soaked it and thwacked it on the kitchen counter, and it's not so bad. It's slightly kinky, but it's not twisting back on itself. I'll put less spin into the next half of the roving. And next time I'll be buying more than just a couple of ounces; it spins up fast when you get in the groove (although my shoulder aches something fierce the next day).


With the flecks of blue in there, it makes me think of recycled sari silk, but much more pleasant to work with. I think I'll aim for a finer thread on the next color I spin up and ply it. I'm at about 165 yards so far. I hope I can get up to 300 with the rest of the Cranberry.

Round we go

So I'm really feeling this spinning thing lately. And I haven't even been playing with my pretty new Golding spindle (I want to finish this pair of socks I'm knitting before starting a new project, seeing as I have 3 active and 1 semi active projects right now... that's about my limit). I'm trying to spin up the last couple ounces of black alpaca on my Ashford. The first ounce or two took forever, I think because I was trying to spin it too thin for the spindle, but I'm spinning a thicker thread now, and it's going much more quickly.

I put the pencil there for some sense of scale. Doesn't really work, does it? Aside from black being pretty hard to photograph at night, you can see that my yarn is really inconsistent. I've been jealous of how quickly some people seem to be able to drop spindle perfect yarn. Mine? Still inconsistent. Not like a thick and thin yarn, but with definite areas of slight thicker and thinnerness. It may also not help that this batch of fiber has been abused and carted across the country multiple times.

But I also expect this has something to do with the way I learned to drop spindle, which was from watching videos and reading descriptions on the internet. And I have produced yarn. Yarn which, I think, one could actually knit with. But I want to learn more, which is why I am going to hunt for a copy of Spinning in the Old Way when I'm used book store hopping in Seattle tomorrow. It seems like a good resource for the basics, and I hope to feel less like I am making things up, and perhaps less panic when trying to ply.

I am also hoping to stop at the Weaving Works tomorrow. They have buckets and buckets of spinning fiber to pet and purchase. Since I certainly don't need anymore yarn (unless it's on clearance! That's my weakness.), purchasing spinning fiber is an excellent excuse to go to the yarn store. What kind of fiber? I don't know. Something soft. And pretty.

New toy!

On Monday I ordered a new toy. And today it arrived. A .75 oz, 2" Golding La Fleur in Cherry. And it's so purdy...

These little guys come packed very very well! The box would hold a pair of tennis shoes and was stuffed with packing peanuts. Once it got here I took it for a, um, spin. I spun up some little wisps of leftover merino top I bought when I was first learning to spin. .

I like how it spins - very smooth, very easily. It has a different feel from my entry level ashford spindle, and reacts differently to extreme overspinning And it sure is tiny! Sometimes my yarn would break and it would go clattering to the floor and I fear for its safety.

I think this little spindle and I will be great friends.

Spinning follies

I spin a little. And by a little, I mean a little. I have a drop spindle and all the training the internet has to offer. So I do... okay. I make yarn. Not great yarn. And not quickly. Like what I'm working on now. I bought 2.5 oz of black alpaca roving in JUNE 2007. And I've spun about half of it into 162 yards of a two-ply heavy-ish laceweight.


I think what's happening is that I'm underspinning the singles so that the plies aren't, um, plying enough. So it's a very loose two ply. And my operation is probably not the best. I wind the yarn off the spindle onto my ball winder and ply from both sides of the ball. Also, I haven't "set it" yet, which I believe involves soaking the yarn and then beating it vigorously on a counter top. But still, it is yarn, it is knittable and I did make it. I'm working on the other half, spinning a thicker yarn which will hopefully take less than 18 months. :P

My knitpicks order came!

40" classic circs in sizes 0-3, 40" cord for the options set, and a needle sizer with metric. My current sizer was a thrift store find with no metric readings... and old.

The current projects seem to be unphotographable. The light and the yarn isn't co-operating. Alas.