SpinnySpinny

While we are on the subject of pictures, there were some other things on the camera once I got everything off. Here is the yarn I sent off to the San Mateo County Fair:

I didn’t even measure it, it’s somewhere around 100 g I’d guess. I think it’s a nice medium-ish sock yarn size and it’s good and solid. One thing I don’t like about the yarn I bought is I keep splitting it with the needle. Here’s the swatch:

Yes, that’s a roll of coins there. I say it was a teeny tiny hat, remember? I did it on 2.25 mm (US 1) needles. I like how that worked, so I expect I’ll do the actual projects on that size also. I even got a second matching circular needle for the occasion.

With all the excitement going on with the loom, I haven’t done any spinning the past few days. I have to prep more fiber first, which I’m not so excited about at the moment. I’m also doing some computer stuff, which is why these past few entries didn’t get posted right away.

In the interest of scientific inquiry, I tried washing some fleece with the “Hand Wash” cycle of my front-loading machine. I tossed in a mesh bag with a handful of throw-away fleece, added extra detergent, set it to hot and let it go. The results were not nearly as bad as I feared, but not something I would do again. What I did get out of it is that I’m ok with putting most handspun finished items in there. I tried to felt a wool scarf this way and it came out no different from when I put it in.

The wool was a little remaining from the mystery fleece, divided into decent-sized locks. It came out with the butt ends felted together and the tips every which way. I can pull it apart into recognizable staples, but not that well. It is, however, quite clean and it wasn’t before. It’s felted enough that it would be annoying to card, you would never get a good yarn from it without first pulling it all apart by hand and brushing out the felted tangles. Plus, there are still sticks and burrs and whatnot, but I hardly expected that to mysteriously dissapear. Since it didn’t come out one huge felted blob, it’s getting tossed in the carding pile with the rest of the junk wool.

I suspect that had I added baking soda (as I must when I try to felt something for real,) it would have come out looking more like a felted blob. That is the more normal result and I’m convinced it’s because of the weird San Francisco city water that makes it hard to felt things. Don’t try this at home, kids.

I keep trying to find entertaining tidbits to dazzle and enlighten, but the truth is I’m not doing anything the least bit exciting on the textile front at the moment. The skein for the county fair is off and the sock is in that row after row of stockinette stitch part. I’ve even spun all the Merino I combed for the bobbins of singles. So what am I doing now? Fiber prep. Sorting, scouring and flicking. I haven’t even gotten back to the pointy dangerous tool bit.

For those of you who were here for the whole COE thing, I realize this is a letdown. First the COE, and then the Learning Exchange and now… fiber prep? Yes, I hate to break it to you but I am one of those types who generally works on a project until it’s done. I may have two or three going, but rarely more. Right now, there is a knitting project, a spinning project and a loom-configuration project, in addition to the ongoing may-take-forever spindle project. I’ve got some ideas for other things, I’ve toyed with a few samples, but I haven’t actually started anything.

Since I finally finished scouring the first lamb fleece from last summer (there are two more to go, remember,) I’m continuing with the spinning of it. I’m basically going to spin three full bobbins of single and make sock yarn, which will be used for legwarmers and wrist warmers and possibly some socks. The Boyfriend has expressed an interest in gloves. Several of these things will come from this first batch. If I need more yarn, well, it was a four pound fleece.

I like to spin a bunch of yarn all at once because I get better yarn. If I do all the singles first, they are more likely to match. And if they don’t, I can still do something about it (like decide I want a six-ply yarn instead.) I also do better if I ply all at once. Now with full bobbins of fine single, that’s going to mean many bobbins of 3-ply yarn. But I can ply a full bobbin in a couple hours at most. I usually do it in one sitting. I count treadles when I ply, so I set aside an afternoon when I have nothing else I have to do and nobody is around. I don’t answer the phone. I even got some extra bobbins so I could do several at a time.

All this is about as far as you can get from the gee-wiz school of spinning, where one is in it for exploring the unending parade of possible fibers, colors and textures. I like to pick something and do it for a while until I feel I really understand it. Add to that my preference for large projects and it can easily take years to finish something. When I finished the COE, the one thing I most wanted to do was make something. After such a long time of doing nothing but samples, I need to produce a finished object just to see that I still can. It didn’t help at all that many of those yarns are things I would never choose to do for myself. “Ok, I did the novelty yarns. Can I go back to fun stuff now?” Bobbin after bobbin of technically precise yarn is the fun stuff.

It’s too hot to do much of anything except wash wool, and even then I don’t want to have the hot water running too long. After some weeks of never quite managing to get the dishes cleared up enough to use the sink for scouring, I finally just did it. It’s so hot outside that the wool will be dry by this evening. It would be nice to do another batch, but with no air conditioning, I’ve already closed up the apartment for the day and I don’t want to do anything to make it warmer.

I’m well into the top of the sock. Yesterday I went to go knit at the library rather than sit around and melt at home. I may do it again today. I’m going to try to take advantage of the good fleece-drying weather while I can, but it means getting the scouring done early. We’ll see how well that goes.

I started this blog post yesterday, but it’s just been too damn hot. So instead I took advantage of free Caltrain and went for an air-conditioned train ride. In the process of going to San Jose and back, I got almost all the way through the heel on the sock. I still haven’t quite gotten this wrap and turn thing down, the knit end looks fine but the purl end is awful. It fits correctly, at least.

I did get the fair yarn done before I headed out, however. It takes no time at all to ply compared to spinning the singles. I skeined it off the bobbin, gave it another scour soak and then a vigorous wash. Last night I started a swatch, a teeny tiny hat. (Yes, there are pictures but the camera batteries are currently charging so I can’t get them to the computer.) I figured I should do something in the round, and when I get it back I can send it off for my mother’s doll collection. I delivered the yarn today to the designated fair-goer, who predicted it would take first place because it’s way better than hers. Eh, who knows. It’s not like I’m all that worried about it. I mostly did it because she asked, so her yarn wouldn’t feel lonely. There aren’t all that many spinning entries in the fair these days. Apparently the top prize is $15 and passes to the fair, all I had to do was send in the form and deliver the goods. She’s doing most of the work, drop-off and pick-up. It’s a yarn I was working on anyway and nothing particularly special.

Now I go back to spinning the single, and I think I’m just going to fill the bobbins again to make up for what I plied. I’ve got plenty of fiber and the yarn is something I would use for other things. I’m contemplating trying to overdye it to get a real black. This is considered black for a sheep, a very dark brown. But it’s not really a proper black. I just have to decide what to dye it with. Blue has been suggested, and if I’m going to do that then I’ll just wait until the next indigo party. It’s going to be a while on the rest of the yarn anyway.