Wooly Links: March 2018

Wooly Links is a round up of the best knitting, spinning, and crochet links I find on the web. The collection goes out bi-weekly in the With Wool Express. You can sign up to get the newsletter full of Wooly Links and other good stuff every week below.

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These giant oversized crochet doilies by Ashley V Blalock seem like they could grow and take over the world.

That Night There Were Roses by Debbie Sullivan solves the hump shape of crescent shawls with short rows. It’s lacy and gorgeous with a wide wingspan.

Neat! How to spin a beehive coil without using a core for your handspun.

A great complication of different knitting increases with clear diagrams and instructions.

This tutorial was sent to me when I asked for help preventing holes at sleeve joins, and it is a detailed look at how to seamlessly knit set-in sleeves. Saving it for later.

The Spring+Summer 2018 issue of Knitty went live and it’s full of good stuff. I’m definitely going to knit a sea turtle or 5 and Charmayne is on the list too.

Janelle Shane is trying to teach a neural network to generate knitting instructions, and a Ravelry group is interpreting and knitting up those garbled lines with interesting results.

I’m incredibly tempted and smitten by the large scale lace of the Equal Night blanket. Might even have the yarn in my stash to make it too!

Blocking your knits can be an art form all by itself.

I used a Clover pom-pom maker to make the pom on my latest hat, and it was so easy to make a great pom without a lot of extra trimming. Here’s a handy tutorial about how to use one.

Why crescent shaped shawls always seem to have the hump in the middle.

Info and advice from Patty’s Purls of Wisdom about biasing gauge swatches, metric vs US needle sizes, and “startitis”.

The SNAP hat pattern might be just the thing for all those leftover bits of sock yarn.

25 names of fabrics, wools, and leathers derived from place names.

Looking for a quick baby knit? Franklin Habit wrote up his variation of the vintage Fine-Hour Baby Jacket and it’s a cutie.

Here’s a great example of just how much color can change when colorful blended fiber turns into yarn.

I’m loving the texture of the Beeswax Scarf by Amy van de Laar.

A quick and helpful tutorial about how to count rows in garter stitch.

And now for something completely different... is about the other interesting stuff I find online. Sometimes it's photography, art, science, crafty goodness, or a good story.

The Parthenon, Pyramid of the Sun, and other ruins have been restored to their ancient architectural glory in a series a series of GIF's by Maja Wronska.

Ethel Stein, a master weaver who combined historical weaving methods with a Bauhaus design aesthetic, has died at the age of 100. (via Mielke’s Fiber Arts Newsletter)

Diana Sudyka creates beautiful illustrations around vintage postage stamps.

Elyse Dodge meshes beautiful geometric mountains with painted landscapes of British Columbia.

Wooly Links: February 2018

Wooly Links is a round up of the best knitting, spinning, and crochet links I find on the web. The collection goes out bi-weekly in the With Wool Express. You can sign up to get the newsletter full of Wooly Links and other good stuff every week below.

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A clear tutorial on how to work double crochet without it turning into a wobbly trapezoid. Saving this for the next time I dabble in crochet.

How to make super fluffy pom-poms

MochiMochiLand is at it again with a cute (and free) knitting pattern for a four-leaf clover.

I was in a bind the other day when I needed to figure out how to space button holes on a button band. This button band calculator from did all the math and made the knitting a breeze.

Knit and Tonic wrote a helpful review of the expanded edition of Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book.

Cute alert! Check out this free crochet pattern for a cactus hat.

As part of the Tuff Socks Naturally project, which explores the durability of socks made without nylon or superwash fibers, @rebeccaspindle shared the interesting history and breeding of the Ryeland Sheep.

Why row gauge matters

Beth Smith shares how she uses sample cards to plan her spinning for large and small projects.

Adventures in natural dyeing with black beans. Follow along with a super detailed attempt at dyeing yarn with black beans. The colors are lovely.

Nora Fok creates wearable art using knitting, weaving, braiding, and knotting. One piece is made of 3,500 knit spheres made from nylon microfilament.

Even a knitter with decades of experience can really screw stuff up.

I’ve never washed a raw wool fleece, but this is the tutorial I’d use if I ever decided to try.

Curious Handmade has written an informative series on how to get started knitting your own socks.

Tutorials for 3 different and beyond-the-basics knitting cast-ons.

And now for something completely different... is about the other interesting stuff I find online. Sometimes it's photography, art, science, crafty goodness, or a good story.

I am continually surprised by the scale and detail that can be achieved with needle felting. Paolo Del Toro makes huge masks similar to Japanese Noh theater masks.

Cayce Zavaglia creates incredible portraits using embroidery, and this behind the scenes interview gives a neat look at her thought process and intention.

Bete Molina uses her background in graphic design to create these incredible patterned quilts.

Bring on the giant, inflatable, light-up rabbits of Amanda Parer! I’d love to see these in person.

A Little Studio Reorganization

I’ve been feeling the itch to reorganize my studio space for months. I stared at it all for a bit before moving on to measuring and mentally rearranging all the furniture. Unfortunately, nothing drastic was going to happen without moving furniture to a different room which just wasn’t an option. But, I wasn't completely out of luck because I was able to stack a second shelf on top of one I already had. That little bit of extra storage space has made all the difference.

I’m not done rearranging, clearing out the clutter, and moving stuff around, by my studio feels so much cleaner and better organized. No more random piles of stuff shoved into corners. Yarn Fort can actually be Yarn Fort instead of a stack of all the things. The tip top shelf is the new spot for all my WIP’s and in-progress designs. My craft supplies, sketchbooks, and art supplies have a designated space that I can get to without moving other stuff out of the way first. And I have some extra shelf space to work with too. It’s great. The only downside of this new setup is that I haven’t figured out where to put the drum carder. It can’t chill on the couch for much longer.

It’s been awhile since Yarn Fort made an appearance, so here’s the stash in all it’s 5’ 7” glory. That’s 1.7 meters for my metric friends. While Yarn Fort hasn’t gotten noticeably smaller since 2016, it is better organized at least.

How to Clean Stubborn Fiber Out of a Drum Carder

My drum carder has been sitting unused and unloved for the past few months. Why? All this green fiber stuck in the tines. I bought 4 ounces of Corriedale wool locks, AKA the green fiber, to practice making batts and figure out the carder’s quirks. Making the batts turned out to be a struggle because the locks were matted, but I didn’t realize how matted until it was time to feed them into the carder. I had to crank the drum while pulling back on the fiber to get them to open and pull apart instead of just feeding onto the main drum in one big clump. I made 2 batts before calling it quits because the all the  fiber stuck on the main drum. To make things even more aggravating, the stuck fiber only seemed to trap more fiber down there with it. The bent paper clip I attempted to pick the fibers out with didn’t do that great job and none of my other tools did a thing. So the carder went back on the shelf until I could figure out how to clean it.

The answer to my problem turned out to be in a blog post from 2009 (!) that listed the basic tools to use with your drum carder. Definitely worth a read if you’re thinking about getting your hands on a carder. Anyway, one of the recommended tools was a pair of long thin forceps, extra long tweezers, because they’re thin enough to get between the tines without damaging the carding cloth. So I picked up a pair at the hardware store.

This is what my carder looked like before:

And this is what the carder looked like after the 23 minutes I spent picking at with the forceps:

I didn’t pull off every bit of green since I’m going to try carding the rest of the fiber (it’s a point of pride and stubbornness now), but the difference is night and day. The forceps were great for picking up both small and large bits of fiber. Even better I was able to work them under the larger sections and push the fiber up so I could grab it.

Cleaning the the carder wasn’t quick, but the forceps did a great job. They grabbed every stuck strand big or small. Plus, I didn’t scrape or poke my fingers on the tines. Glad I’ve got the forceps as part of permanent drum carder cleaning kit. They’re cheap, work well, and don’t take up a lot of space. Get a pair.

Wooly Links: December + January 2018

Wooly Links is a round up of the best knitting, spinning, and crochet links I find on the web. The collection goes out bi-weekly in the With Wool Express newsletter. You can sign up to get the newsletter full of Wooly Links and other good stuff every week here.

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Got a hole in your handspun sweater? Here’s how to reclaim the yarn.

Even if you don’t spin, this article on the differences between woolen and worsted mill spun yarn explains the differences - durability, warmth, color, stitch definition - between the two types.

This post by Elise Blaha focuses on knitting and sewing, but the overall focus on getting started making your own clothing applies to any craft. About time, cost, knowing what to make, supplies...

Techniques for advanced swatching: cables, lace, in the round, and fair isle.

Kate Davies outlines how to estimate yardage to make a pattern larger using her Carbeth jumper. I use a similar method myself for all sorts of projects.

Loving the cosy simplicity of the Earthshine cowl by Hillary Smith Callis.

The new issue of Twist Collective is live and it’s packed with good stuff.  Patty’s Purls of Wisdom tackles lying gauge swatches and how to get a swatch that tells the truth.

The Harmonium Slouch Hat by Kelly McClure is a great mix of slouchy and fuzzy.

A Guide to Reversible Cables that look good on both sides.

The Vintersol sweater keeps popping up in my Instagram feed and I love the yoke more and more each time.

Knitter Nina Dodd and photographer Joseph Ford collaborate to create hand knit sweaters that blend in seamlessly with the background. They’re all so good!

I’m looking forward to listening to this interview with Rachel Denny who makes incredible knit and crochet sculptures of deer and yaks. The photos are incredible!

Strauch Fiber released two worksheets to track and keep notes on making batts and spinning yarn to keep all of the details. (via Mielke’s Fiber Arts Newsletter)

The Winter 2017 edition of Knitty is here with plenty of good stuff inside.  My favorites are the Skew Too Mitts, the Cool Bearing sweater, and the Stellen Socks.

Try out this neat trick to figure out what the weight of that label-less yarn is. Good for figuring out whether a yarn would be a good substitute too.

Now this is a spinning kit! Jillian Moreno shares what she carries for her every day spinning and teaching. So much good helpful stuff in there.

If you’re on the hunt for gift tags for your hand made gifts, Alisa Burke put together a colorful collection.

Emily Wessel of Tin Can Knits wrote a great essay on developing the knit “grit” and stamina to get past self-doubt, the middle slog, and finishing.

This DIY llama ornament is pretty cute and looks simple to make too.

A cute idea to use of leftover yarn for a pair of striped socks. I’m keeping this in mind for later.

I love the simple undulating texture of the After Midnight mitts by Thea Colman.

And now for something completely different... is about the other interesting stuff I find online. Sometimes it's photography, art, science, crafty goodness, or a good story. 

Amy Joy Watson combines wood, rope, and paint to create these beautiful hanging sculptures.

Take a look at how pencils are made. The photos are incredible. Definitely gives a new appreciation for how this commonplace tools are made.

Need some cute today? Here’s cats wearing hats made from cat hair. The Princess Leia wig is great.

Impressionist paintings? Nope, close-up photos of Jupiter taken on NASA’s Juno Mission.

Everyday objects arranged into incredibly detailed patterns. My favorite is the rainbow of forks and toothpicks.

The 80-year-old timber escalators of the Wynard Station in Sydney, Australia were turned into a beautiful suspended sculpture for the station’s renovation.

17 Fiber Arts Things That Made 2017 Great

I’ve enjoyed making lists since I was kid and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I wanted to write up a 2017 review, but couldn’t muster up the energy or motivation to write about in paragraph form. So, I’m taking a page from Austin Kleon’s blog and making a list of the knitting and spinning that made 2017 great. Somehow the 2017 list was 17 items long without any extra help from me.

1. The Bearded One and I going to our first fiber festival, Estes Park Wool Market.

2. Completing 100 Days of Spinning where I spun and worked with handspun yarn for almost all of those 100 days.

3. Putting in the work to design more knitting patterns. Most of them didn’t make it past the layout stage, but they’re so close to being released in 2018.

4. Releasing the Melded Scarf, a free pattern for a striped reversible scarf, in February.

5. Knitting a Boneyard shawl with my own handspun yarn.

6. Mostly staying on the sheep and being more conscious about my yarn and fiber buying. The stash is still worthy of the name Yarn Fort, but it hasn’t taken over any more space.

7. Spinning along with Tour de Fleece for the 5th row in year.

8. Pushing my spinning boundaries to try new batts and more textured yarns.

9. Going to Interweave Yarn Fest.

10. Finally playing around with the drum carder and figuring out how to use it.

11. Digging into my fiber stash and spinning a beautiful gradient from one giant batt. 8 matching skeins!

12. Taking my first ever spinning class about different ways to spin color with Maggie Casey.

13. Going to meetings and being a member of my local fiber guild.

14. The KIS hat and Mosaic Sisters patterns being used to teach classes on color work and mosaic knitting respectively.

15. Getting a whole room to use as my studio where I can work and get to all my art supplies, yarn, books, and notions. Wanted this for years so it’s great, but scary too.

16. Developing a new appreciation for hats knit with fingering weight yarn.

17. Wearing and enjoying my own hand knits. And seeing the Bearded One wearing and enjoying his hand knits too.

A Handspun Boneyard

I’ve wanted to knit a Boneyard Shawl for years. Not with the burning desire that makes you drop everything and head to the yarn shop, but when I eventually found the right yarn. Eventually is the key word. I wanted a variegated yarn that’d be fun to knit and fun to wear. I’d know it when I found it. I didn’t find that perfect yarn because I ended up spinning it during the 2017 Tour de Fleece. It’s a thick-and-thin variegated mix of greens, blues, and browns. The skein is one of my favorite yarns that I’ve spun this year, and was thrilled that I had enough yardage to make something big out of it. Well, bigger than a hat anyway.

With 260 yards of aran weight to work with, I knew it was finally time to cast on for a Boneyard Shawl. So I did, and it was a fun knit. The shawl was so hard to put down because it was good auto-pilot knitting and I wanted to see what color would come next. The only change I made was to switch out the m1’s for lifted increases.

The only trouble came when I was trying to figure out how much shawl I could knit. There were still a few yards left and I didn’t want to waste any of them. So, the Boneyard sat on my desk for months, mocking me, while I worked on other projects. The shawl would probably still be sitting on my desk too if I hadn’t needed a break from all my holiday gift knitting. I’d knit 7 ridges already and decided to start the edge and see how far I got. A few tv shows and an inch of garter stitch later, it was time to bind off. Why did that take me so long to do? Ugh! At least I made the most of the yardage.

It may have taken years to find the right yarn and also a good bit of procrastination, but this Boneyard Shawl is just what I imagined. It's cosy, just the right size to wear under a coat, and special. Also, it feels good to knit with my own handspun in the same year that I made it. Who knew?

The Details
Pattern: Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West
Yarn: 253 yds 2-ply aran weight handspun
Needles: US 9 (5.5 mm)
Dates: August 20 - December 2, 2017
@Ravelry

Wooly Links: November Edition

Wooly Links is a round up of the best knitting, spinning, and crochet links I find on the web. The collection goes out every week in the With Wool Weekly newsletter. You can sign up to get the newsletter full of Wooly Links and other good stuff every week here.

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Clare Devine of knitsharelove.com is conducting an experiment to try out sock yarns spun without the added durability of nylon. I’m curious to see how it turn out.

Halloween is behind us but the amazing skeletons crocheted by Caitlin McCormack from discarded textiles deserve a look no matter the time of year.

Looking to expand your stranded color work library? Tin Can Knits has some suggestions to help get you started.

5 Tips for Getting Gift Spinning (and Knitting) Done

“A Day in the Life of a Fiber Mill Owner” is an interesting behind-the-scenes look at running a fiber mill.

And here’s a look at the commercial process of skeining and prepping yarn for yarn shops.

A pretty convincing argument for 2x2 rib to be the stitch pattern to teach new knitters. What do you think?

The Sheep Spot newsletter has a great article on different methods to reduce striping in handspun yarn and fabric.

I love the colors and strong stripes of the crochet Tangram Wrap from One Dog Woof.

Here are some simple printable gift tags for when you finish up all that gift knitting.

Ambah O’Brien shared a tutorial for making ombre pom-poms which look like a lot of fun. I’m tempted to make a few as ornaments.

I’ve been enjoying Felicia Lo’s new vlog, Taking Back Friday, which covers her current knitting and weaving projects, yarny events, and her thoughts on making. Check it out.

A nearly invisible knitting increase is a good thing to know. Knit.Love.Wool demos her favorite version in a top down yoke.

How about a pattern for some cute crochet leaves?

The pattern for the Fox Isle Socks is just too cute. It would definitely scratch that color work itch.

Need a little fiber arts inspiration? Rebecca Mezoff shares her favorite sources for fiber art inspiration and the comments are full of good stuff too.

A solid gift guide for the knitters and crocheters in your life. And yourself too.

There’s no doubt in my mind that knitters can come together and do powerful things.

And now for something completely different... is about the other interesting stuff I find online. Sometimes it's photography, art, science, crafty goodness, or a good story. 

Dennis Cherim’s The Coincidence Project is an ongoing series of exceedingly well-timed photos that you’ll have to look at twice.

To help get you into the winter spirit, take a look at First Snow.

Take an armchair trip to Iceland’s impressive countryside.

War and Pieced documents wartime quilts sewn by soldiers from military uniforms. I would love to see this in person.

Sewing and NASA go hand in hand.

Review: Yarnitecture by Jillian Moreno

Yarnitecture is one of the more recent additions to my spinning library. It had been on my radar for a while and I finally bought it after flipping through it at the bookstore. My first impression was that it was a beautiful book with striking photos and a clear layout. The paper felt nice under my fingers, and the book had a nice weight. It felt like an expensive reference book that was pretty enough to hang out on the coffee table.  

When I got beyond that initial skim, Jillian Moreno's Yarnitecture proved to be jam packed with spinning information and help. I would have loved to have this book when I was learning to spin. There’s a chapter about different fibers. It talks about the different kinds of drafting methods with photos and instructions. There’s info about plying, details about spinning balanced yarns, tips for sampling, and so much more. And sprinkled throughout this treasure trove are little side notes to back up the main text. For example, there was a note about leaders, those helpful pieces of yarn that feed your yarn onto the bobbin at the beginning of a project. I learned to spin on a spindle and knew what a leader was and it’s name. But when I got my wheel and sat down to spin, I didn’t know how to correctly get the yarn through the orifice and onto the bobbin. I didn’t know if the “leader” for a wheel was still called a “leader”. How do I look something up online or in a book, if I don’t know what it’s called? A few clumsy google searches told me a leader is a leader and I was able to set up my wheel.

This story brings me to my next point. Yarnitecture is a great reference with photos and step-by-step instructions that covers a lot of the questions and problems a spinner might face. While it’s not the end-all-be-all of spinning references, it gives spinners the knowledge and correct words to ask questions, whether online or in person, and continue learning about their craft.

Earlier I said that I would have loved to have this book when I was learning to spin. What about now that I spun miles of yarn on spindles and a wheel over several years? What if I’ve spun yarn thats reasonably consistent, made from several different constructions, and suited for different purposes? What if you’ve done the same? Yarnitecture still has value to an intermediate spinner because the book’s main goal focuses on spinning yarn for a purpose. Maybe that purpose is making yarn for a particular pattern or spinning enough yardage to make something bigger than a hat. Yarnitecture provides a method and thought process to think about spinning yarn beyond the lone skein. Now I love spinning just for the fun of it as much as the next spinner, but I want to use my handspun too. There’s far too many beautiful skeins just waiting for me to find that one perfect pattern. If I’d put a little more thought into the process at the beginning, I could be wearing and enjoying my handspun instead of keeping it in a bin because I don’t know what to do with it.

And making a sweater’s worth of yarn for myself (and the Bearded One too) is on my spinning bucket list. I’ve never spun that much yarn for one project, but I feel like Yarnitecture has given me a blueprint that I can use to tackle that goal. 

In this vein of making yarn with an end project in mind, Yarnitecture includes 12 patterns for handspun yarn by well-known knitting designers. There are shawls of course, but also a variety of sweaters and accessories. Every pattern includes the usual knitting pattern preamble notes as well as detailed information about how the handspun was spun so you can recreate the yarn. And you’ll actually want too because the patterns are beautiful. I’m very tempted to spin and cast on for the Maya Cardigan by Kirsten Kapor, the Hive Mind mitts by Adrian Bizilla, and the Rigby Cardigan by Bristol Ivy.

Let’s sum up. Yarnitecture (<<— affiliate link!*) is a great book for new spinners just getting into the art of making yarn, and intermediate spinners who are interested in spinning for larger projects. It has clear photos, detailed step-by-step instructions, and lots of helpful information. Definitely give it a look and consider adding it to your spinning library.

*This review contains an affiliate link which means, if you decide to buy through that link, I’ll get a small commission. My opinions of this book are unbiased and totally my own. I wouldn’t recommend this book if I didn't think it had value. Thanks!

Spinzilla Watching

Spinzilla, an epic competitive spin-along to make as much yarn as possible, kicked off on Sunday. The event started in 2013 both to promote hand spinning and raise funds for the NeedleArts Mentoring Program. And whether you joined a team or are spinning rogue this year, I wish you lots of wool, yardage, and happy hands. 

I made a yardage calculator for previous Spinzillas which you can find here. It should take the guess work out of tallying everything you’ve spun, and will also calculate the plying yardage. 

I’ve spun rogue, aka without a team, in 2013, 2014, and 2015, but decided to sit this one out. Just the thought of a week of near constant spinning made me tired. Though it’s been a lot of fun watching other spinner’s progress and yarn pop up on Instagram over the past few days. So much color and yardage! Even though I’m not spinning along this year, Spinzilla has made me realize that I haven’t touched my wheel since the end of Tour de Fleece in July. Eeek! That’s quite a switch after my 100+ days of daily spinning I tackled in the first half of this year. I’ve got 4 bobbins of alpaca ready to be plied and 500+ yards of fingering weight 2-ply to get back to. I really shouldn’t let that sit much longer so guess it’s time to get back to the wheel.  

Tour de Fleece 2017

And that's a wrap! Another Tour de Fleece is behind us. If you spun along this year, I hope you enjoyed yourself and made handspun you can't wait to use. 

While I didn't spin every ounce of fiber I pulled from the stash, I'm still pleased with what I did accomplish. I started spinning just for the fun of it with the rough goal of making a heavier than a sport weight yarn. Definitely succeeded on that count. The first skein of the Tour is a textured bulky yarn and the closest I've come to spinning art yarn in awhile. It's 158 yards of Shetland Wool, Alpaca, and Silk Noil. You can read more about the technicals of how I spun it here. 

The second skein started as 4.2 ounces of hand painted top and turned into 260 yards of aran weight. I split the top in half down the middle. The first ply I spun as is and second I split in half again. It made a nice lazy fractal that I really want to knit. Pretty sure I've got enough yardage to make a small Boneyard Shawl if I knit at a loose gauge. 

I spent the last chunk of Tour de Fleece doing some challenge spinning: 4 oz of alpaca batts. Plus, I got to check "Spin a batt I made myself" off my goals for this year. My previous attempts at spinning alpaca turned out wiry and over twisted, and I wanted to do a much better job with this batch. Obviously, I haven't plied it yet but I'm pleased with what's on the bobbins. It's got a reasonably smooth surface and is still soft. Seems like it's got enough twist to hold together during plying too. I'm cautiously optimistic about getting a soft, cushy yarn that'll do justice to the 10 years I've been waiting to spin this precious fiber. 

What I didn't do much of was play around with my drum carder. I got 2 batches of fiber through for one pass each. Then I hit a snag. The locks I'm working with are a bit felted. Teasing them open helped get them onto the main drum, but a good quarter of the fiber stayed trapped in the tines when I peeled the batt off. Got any tips for picking the fiber off the drum? I haven't found a good solution that doesn't involve teasers and a lot of time. 

Drum carder snag aside, this was a good Tour de Fleece. I enjoyed spinning everyday - even on rest days - and spun just for the fun off it. I joined a few teams and had fun sharing and talking to other spinners. I’m pleased with all my new handspun, and even have a few ideas of what to do with it. So I’m calling this Tour a win. 

How did this Tour de Fleece go for you? Did you learn something new or try a new fiber? Spin a lot or a little? Make yarn you can’t wait to use? 

Tour de Fleece 2017 Challenge

I admit that I haven’t really been keeping track of the day to day calendar of Tour de Fleece. When are the rest days? No clue. I’ve just been spinning every day and having fun with it. The only reason I figured out Sunday was a challenge day was because I happened to check the forums that day. By some random happy coincidence I just so happened to have some challenging spinning.

If you’re not familiar with Tour de Fleece, or Tour de France, there are 3 challenge days when riders tackle mountains with steep grades above 10%. Spinners get to set their own challenges. I was fairly sure that I was going to tackle some sort of art yarn construction. Instead I pulled 4 oz of alpaca batts out of the stash. I haven’t spun a lot of alpaca, and my last attempt had so much twist that it was a wiry, prickly beast. So I’ve been hesitant to try again. Making the mental hurdles even taller is that fact the Bearded One gave me this fiber when we were dating many, many moons ago. I’d had it for several years and it was scary enough to put the fiber through a rented drum carder in 2013! 

Let’s do a little math. The shearing date on the label says 2007. I turned the alpaca fiber into batts in 2013. Now it’s 2017. I’ve had this fiber stashed away for 10 years! To cut myself a little slack, I was only just getting into spinning in 2007 and didn’t truly learn for several more years. Still, 10 years is way too long for such beautiful fiber to be hiding away in my stash. 

The batts are 100% alpaca and one solid color. Since there was no need to preserve color sequences, I split the batt into strips and started spinning. I wanted a smoother fiber and went with an inch worm worsted draft and an 8.0:1 ratio to keep from over twisting the fiber. 

I finished drafting the first batt yesterday, and it was much simpler than I expected. Could be that my spinning has improved in the years since I last attempted spinning alpaca. Could be that my brain made things much harder than they had to be. Sometimes the mental hurdles are the hardest to jump. 

This fiber is special and I don’t want to waste a single bit of it. The batts aren’t all the same so I’m going to spin each one separately and ply them back on themselves. Sure, it’s more work, but I could use the practice. And I can’t help but picture how cute 4 little skeins are going to be. 

And in non-challenge spinning, I finished plying the 4.2 ounces of hand painted green top! I know I said the galactic handspun was the most yarn I’d ever packed a bobbin, but this skein beats even that. I hand wound a good chunk of the yarn onto the bobbin, and don’t think I could get another yard on there if I tried. Really curious about how much yardage is packed on there because I’m tempted to turn it all into a Boneyard Shawl.

The End of #100HandspunDays

Wednesday, July 12th, is the official end of The 100 Day Project. I have spun yarn, swatched with said yarn, and fiddled around with my drum carder to prep fiber to spin into yarn. There was one day at the beginning when I completely forgot to spin something until I was tucked into bed, but the other 98+ days have not lacked yarn or spinning or fiber. 

I started this project with 5 goals that I thought would be easy to do over and over again for 100 days. 

1. Sit down at the wheel and spin! - This part was pretty easy and what I did for most of the project. 

2. Fiber prep counts. So taking a few days (or weeks) to learn how to make batts or practice hand carding is encouraged.  - I didn’t do as much of this as I thought I would. My lofty idea that I’d be churning out batt after silky batt didn’t happen. I did pull out some locks and start figuring out my drum carder’s quirks though. 

3. Work out of the fiber stash and see just how far it’ll go. - I have bought the occasional bump of fiber and gotten samples to spin from classes, but the bulk of my spinning has been from stash. The stash bins do look a little emptier.

4. On busy draining days, reading about fiber, breed characteristics, and yarn construction is a-ok. What good is having a spinning reference shelf if I never use it? - This didn’t happen outside of my usual blog reading, which I do regret. Maybe my next bookshould be Yarnitecture by Jillian Moreno? 

5. Share the day’s spinning on Instagram and in blog posts. I’m using #100HandspunDays to keep things organized.  - I shared some of this project on IG, but my attempt at this really fell flat. I did share a lot about #100HandspunDays here though.  Thanks for following along!

I took Maggie Casey’s class You Can’t Tell A Braid By Its Color and learned about different ways to spin color.

I spun lots of little sample skeins.

My creative mojo came back.

I finished spinning a long purple gradient that had been lingering on the bobbins for far too long.

Then I started a new big project, 500+ yards of fingering weight yarn. Learned to love spinning sample mini-skeins too.

And I spun just for fun with batts and other little stashed treasures.

All these months of spinning made it a lot easier to plan for Tour de Fleece.

I somehow tricked myself into thinking #100HandspunDays ended last Sunday. So these last few days seemed like a surprise bonus. When I thought that the project was over, I was surprised at how strongly I didn’t want to stop. I want to keep spinning and to keep learning more about spinning. Besides from getting me a lot of great new yarn, #100Handspun Days has shown me that I’m not ready to give up on my wheel and making yarn. It’s something I still enjoy and want to do. Sure, there will be times where this need will ebb and flow, but it’s not going to dry up over night or over a couple months. 

Once #100HandpunDays is officially over, I’ll be putting my spinning motivation into Tour de Fleece. The past week’s project has been 4.2 ounces of hand painted top. I split the top in half down the middle and spun the first ply. I split the other half in half again to create shorter color segments for the second ply. Almost finished with the second and then it’ll be time to ply. I’m curious to see how the yarn comes together.

Off to the Races - Tour De Fleece 2017

Tour de Fleece kicked off on Saturday! What’s Tour de Fleece? It’s a giant, international spin-along that runs along side the Tour de France. This is my 4th year spinning with the Tour, and I wholeheartedly recommend joining up if you’ve been on the fence. It can be a personal challenge or a team affair or both! It’s still early and not too late to start.   

I’m not setting a ton of complicated goals this year, but keeping things simple. Spin every day. Work from stash. Spin a few batts I’m going to make on my drum carder. Anything else is a sparkly bonus. 

I tossed my fiber stash out of its bins a few days before the Tour kicked off and it looked like a wooly explosion. There was roving on my desk and couch. There were batts on the floor and chilling in the corner. Hand dyed fiber everywhere. By the end of it, I’d picked what I want to spin and better organized the fiber stash. Here’s what I’ll be spinning for the next few weeks. 

• A giant 8 oz batt. Not sure exactly what I’m going to do with it yet, but it was taking up too much room to keep hanging around.
• 4 oz of Dudley Spinner hand painted top. I fell of the sheep last week and bought this to spin during the Tour. Totally counts as spinning from the stash since I got it before Tour de Fleece right?
• A bundle of 100% alpaca batts I made several (maybe 4) years ago on a rented drum carder. Way past time to see how these spin up. 
• A Fiber Preparedness Kit from Wild Lily Artisan Fibers. It’s got punis, dyed locks, and random bits of dyed roving. Thinking this will be challenge day material. 
• The Epic Green Spin is also on the list. Still working my way through sampling and swatching, but I hope to start the final yarn during the Tour.
• 4 oz of top that just looks fun to spin. 

I wanted to kick of the Tour with something fun and easy so I started with the 4 oz of carded roving. It’s a blend of shetland wool, alpaca, and silk noil. Just looking at all that silk noil, I knew there was no way it would turn into a smooth, even yarn. So I drafted long-draw and occasionally double drafted the larger chunks.

I ended up with 2 almost overfilled bobbins that I plied last night. Not even the bulky flyer with a jumbo bobbin was big enough to get all this yarn on by itself. Once no amount of tension would feed yarn onto the bobbin, I had to do it by hand. It went something like this: ply as long a length of yarn as my arm would allow, wrap yarn around my fingers, turn bobbin to slowly feed yarn onto said bobbin, and repeat. Not a quick process, but I got all the yarn plied. No mini-skeins here! And the bobbin is absolutely packed with bulky yarn. Can’t wait to get wound into a skein and see how much yardage I have.  

I also pulled out the drum carder, and I’m starting simple with this too. The carder is new-to-me and I haven’t used it until a few days ago. Before I get into making complicated multi-fiber art batts, I wanted to see if the carder had any quirks. Last year I bought 4 oz of dyed wool locks to try out the carder, so I started with them. The fiber is slightly felted so it’s more difficult to process than I expected. And taking way longer to process than I expected. I’ve been putting on a little bit at a time since Friday afternoon, and I’m about halfway through the first pass. I’m pleased with what I’m getting off the carder and plan on putting the fiber through at least once more to smooth it out. Maybe by next week, I’ll have a few new batts to spin. 

So that’s how my Tour de Fleece is going. What about your Tour? Keeping your spinning simple or doing something big? 

Intentional Spinning vs. Playful Spinning

I’ve really enjoyed spinning and working on the epic green yarn. It’s pushed me to be more consistent with my drafting. It’s made me be more intentional and focused on the details because I can’t spin 500+ yards of fingering yarn otherwise. On the whole, the project is going well. I’ve finished the first round of sample skeins and I’m in the middle of swatching to see how they knit up. Then I’ll spin another round of sample skeins if I need to make changes. Which means at least another round of swatching before starting on the final skein. Glad I’m not on a deadline because this handspun is not a quick project. 

In the downtime between steps for the epic green yarn, I worked on a few smaller spinning projects too. The main goal of my #100HandspunDays project is to spin every day, and quick projects I don’t have to continually measure and refine let me do that. Plus, I get to play and spin to see what happens instead of working towards a specific result. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playful “spinning for the joy of it” as much as “spinning for a specific project”. Each of those projects scratches a particular spinning itch. Sometimes I want to play and see what happens. Sometimes I want to take notes at every step while I spin a specific yarn for a specific project. These two opposites feed and encourage each other. I’d get bored only doing one or the other. What about you?

I’ve spun a few skeins (and a few mini skeins) when the green sampling wasn’t filling up all the bobbins. The first started as a wild batt that I bought in 2016, and didn’t get a good luck at until I opened it up this month. The colors moved from yellow, to orange, and then pink with random bits of sparkle mixed in. Sunset, anyone? I wanted to preserve the colors so I split the batt into strips, pre-drafted the fiber, and spun it in order. After spinning so much time working towards a smooth, fingering yarn, it was hard to let the fiber do its thing. I picked out the veggie matter, but didn’t do anything else. The ply was thick and thin with random clumps. Chain-plying only magnified those qualities. 

A post shared by April Klich (@aprilklich) on Jun 26, 2017 at 6:54pm PDT

I talked my self out of taming the yarn so many times, and I’m glad I did. The 74 yards of more-or-less bulky yarn are so fun to look at. I’m glad I didn’t take the life out of this yarn. Now I get to figure out what to do with it.

One of my other small projects is much closer to what I normally spin. One ply is a wool/silk blend of blues, purples, and grey. I paired it with a solid grey to get more yardage. The colors are subtle, but the silk pops and catches your eye. I had leftovers of the wool/silk and plied it with itself to make a mini skein. I want to use the two yarns together for a project and the combined 160 yards gives me a lot of options. The pair might make a nice hat or fingerless mitts with extra long cuffs. 

I’m still swatching the sample skeins for the epic green spin (really like what I’m seeing too). I’ve got time to spin a few more small projects, but I’m going to switch things up a bit to prep for Tour de Fleece. #100HandspunDays officially ends on July 4, and one of my goals was to learn to make batts on my drum carder. I haven’t even touched the thing yet so this week is all about playing and making batts. Then I get to spin them when Tour de Fleece kicks off on July 1. Sounds like a good plan to me. 

Working Small and Fast with Handspun Samples

Time for an update on the epic green handspun project. When last we saw our fiber I shared why I bought this particular roving and my plans for sampling and spinning it. You can read more about that here. Our dashing roving has gone through quite a few transformations since then!

Okay, I’m ditching the transatlantic narrator accent, and getting back to business. I’ve learned a few things from spinning samples for this batch of handspun. The end goal is still the same: 500 - 600 yards of 2-ply fingering weight yarn that’ll look good as a lace shawl. I’m glad I started small and tested different techniques. Working fast and small let me refine the methods I’m going to use when I spin the real yarn.

I had 3 questions I wanted to answer with the samples. How should I handle the color to prevent barber poles? How much fiber am I going to need to spin 500+ yards? How do I set up my wheel to consistently spin a fingering yarn? 

To keep the variables to a minimum, I used 5g of fiber for each sample with a more-or-less equal mix of light and dark green. I used the same ratio, 15.5 : 1 on the Schacht fast whorl, to draft and ply each sample. I set the twist and finished each skein with a 15 minute soak in cool water with Eucalan, and hung them to dry. 

Sample #1

This first sample was my control and I did exactly what I don’t want to, spin a barber pole yarn. One ply was dark green and one ply was light green. It’s pretty and I like the variation of the light green ply, but it would only obscure a lace pattern. 

Sample #2

Sample 2 is where I started changing things up. I split the roving down the middle to make smaller sections of color and pre-drafted the fibers. Then I held two strands of the roving together with the light and dark greens together. The photo below shows what this looks like. 

I admit to being a little lazy on this sample because I spun just the one ply, wound it into a center-pull ball, and plied it with itself. So I’m not sure how much of the color variation is due to the dual drafting and how much is due to plying from a center pull ball. It also has way more twist than the other 2 samples because I had to fiddle with the ball to keep the plies evenly tensioned. All these factors considered, I think the color handling moved in the right direction.

Sample #3

I wasn’t lazy this time and spun 2 separate plies. I split the roving in half and in half again to create even smaller portions of color. I gave dual drafting another try, making sure to pair light greens with dark greens as much as possible. The resulting yarn is much more even in tone and color. There are pops of light and dark, but the yarn reads as a semi-solid instead of a variegated. That’s a big difference from the original un-manipulated fiber. It’s also exactly the effect I was going for. 

So I’ve got the color thing figured out. What about yardage and wheel set-up? My math tells me that I have more than enough fiber to spin the required 500 - 600 yards. As for wheel set-up, I’ve got the right ratios and tension to spin a fingering weight yarn so long as I’m careful. If I get lazy, it’ll turn into a sport weight like so many of my other attempts at spinning fingering weight yarn. That tells me I need to get better at measuring my plies during drafting. Jillian Moreno wrote some handy guides on the subject, A Spinner’s Compass: Measuring and Documenting Your Yarn and Keeping Track While Spinning and Lazy, that I’ll be using as guides. I’m specifically looking to measure ply diameter as well as twist and plying angle. So I’ve ordered a spinner’s control card and I’m making up an angle gauge to measure twist. 

There’s still one more step before I move on, swatching my samples. Seeing the yarn in the skein is one thing, and knitting with it is another. I’ll show you the results in the next progress report. 

Estes Park Wool Market

Early this year I started putting together a list of 100 things I wanted to do. There are small things like riding my bike around town and big things like taking a trip to Yellowstone. I am no where close to even having 100 things I want to do written down, let alone completed, but a big chunk of that list is fiber arts related. No surprise, right? Well, I wrote “Go to a fiber festival” and I was finally able to do just that on Saturday at the Estes Park Wool Market.

There were sheep, goats, llama, and alpacas. Some of them really hammed it up for the camera.  

I tempted the Bearded One to come with me with the promise of herding dogs. We were able to see amazing Border Collies at work, and then we got to pet them! They were such a sweet bunch too. This handsome guy’s name is Bruiser.

There were so many venders with beautiful yarn and fiber, and I couldn’t resist enhancing the stash. I fell hard for 200 yards of bulky 100% alpaca spun together with metallic thread. So soft and cuddly. Then I broke from my usual color scheme and bought a wild variegated skein of pinks mixed with dark, muted colors by Traci Bunkers. And I got an awesome wool/bison felt hat from The Buffalo Wool Co. It kept the sun out of my face for the rest of the day. Looks good too. 

The last thing I bought was an orifice hook for my wheel. I’ve only been trying to find one that would comfortably fit my hand for literally years. I found this one at Clemes & Clemes. It’s made of hand turned maple with a long hook and a spot to attach a charm or lanyard. Tried it out when I got home and it’s perfect. 

Wool Market was a great first fiber festival and I’m looking forward to going again next year. Hopefully, I’ll remember to sign up for a class or two before the deadline. I’m also thinking about submitting a skein or two to the handspun competition.     

Saturday also happened to be World Wide Knit In Public Day. I made sure to get my knit on during a side trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. 

Sampling To Spin With Purpose

A good friend of mine has said for years that she’d like to knit with my handspun. I kept the request in the back of my mind, but didn’t really take it seriously until I was able to consistently spin the kind of yarn she liked to use. That would be fingering weight yarn. We settled on 2 choice skeins of 100% cashmere as equitable bribery, I mean compensation, and I got to work.

The first step was finding the right fiber. My friend likes to knit complicated lace shawls and wants to make one with this handspun. So right off the batt, I had a clear set of requirements to meet:

• The yarn should be a 2-ply fingering weight.
• The final yardage should be between 500 - 600 yards.
• The colors need to be similar in tone and hue so they won’t distract from the lace. 
• She likes to work with wool and wool/silk blends.
• Preferred colors are dark blue or emerald green. 

I’m happy to have these very specific requirements, because they take a lot of the guesswork out of the process. Instead of constraining me, knowing the end goal for the yarn makes it easier to spin. I get a clear vision of what I’m working toward from the beginning which is rather freeing. As much as I enjoy spinning for the fun of it, finding something to do with that “just for fun” yarn can be frustrating. 

It took me a few months of looking around online, in stores, and at festivals before finding fiber I thought would work. After getting an okay on the color, I ordered 8 oz of Dreaming in Green, a BFL/Silk blend from Three Waters Farm. I’m not going to need all 8 oz for the handspun, more like 5 or 6 oz. Those extra ounces are for sampling. Before I dive straight in to spinning 600 yards of fingering weight handspun, I need to make sure I am. It’d be an expensive failure if I made 400 yards of worsted weight by accident. Sure, the yarn would be pretty, but not what we want. 

Sampling will help me figure out the right ratios and tension for my wheel. I’ll be able to fine tune my worsted drafting for a wool/silk blend. Equally as important, I can try out different methods of handling color to find what works for lace. Then I can wash and set the twist on the sample skeins to see how that changes the yarn. I’ve spun many a yarn that looks like a sport weight when it comes off the bobbin and blooms to an aran weight after setting the twist. That cannot happen this time.

So I pulled off 2 oz to experiment with. There’s no deadline and I’ve got time to answer any questions that comes to mind. I might even knit a few swatches. Time to get sampling. 

A Handspun Purple Gradient

And done! The extra long purple gradient I’ve been working on since mid March is finally yarn and ready to knit. I tackled the last bit of spinning and plying last week, and got the handspun off the bobbins on Sunday. Then the later skeins got a bath to set the twist before I hung them up to dry. In fact the bigger skeins were still a wee bit damp when I took these photos.

This felt like such a big project when I was in the middle of it. I usually spin 4 ounces at a time and keep it as one big skein. Working with 6 ounces and splitting it into 8 mini-skeins definitely changed things up. There was more upfront prep. More bobbins. More plying. More letting the twist rest overnight. More baths to set the twist (otherwise I would have mixed up the gradient order).  All that extra work tricked me into thinking it was a much larger project than it was.  An additional 2 ounces of fiber isn’t all that much, nor is 6 ounces anywhere close to a sweater quantity of handspun. When I look at the skeins all lined up, they still seem like a big project because I know just how much work, time, and brain space when into making them. Because of that, I’m proud of all 8 of these skeins. They’re the same weight and have the same finished texture. I feel like I can move onto bigger and more involved spinning projects now. Might not be all that long before I start spinning yarn for a sweater. Or a giant blanket.

I really enjoyed spinning this fiber, and I wish I could remember the vendor I bought it from. All I know is that it’s wool and that it was one of the last things that caught my eye at Interweave Yarn Fest 2016. I wish I’d put all the details up on the Ravelry stash page when the info was fresh in my mind. Maybe I’ll find the receipt, but I doubt it. 

Now for the technical details. Since it had been so long since I saw what was in the middle of the roving ball, I laid it all out flat. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to do before, but seeing the complete color gradient made my decision easy. I split the gradient into its 8 major color sections and wound them into nests, making sure to keep the colors moving in the same direction. I wanted to preserve the colors and variation within each section as much as possible so I decided to chain ply. 

I started with the smallest nest of fiber which just so happened to be at one end of the gradient. Then I treated this first skein as a sample to figure out how I wanted to spin the 7 other bigger skeins. You can read more about that process here.

Once I figured out which drafting method worked for the fiber and the finished yarn, the only thing left to do was to get spinning. This fortunately coincided with the start of #the100DayProject where I dedicated myself to making yarn everyday for 100 days. That little bit of daily spinning, even if it was only 10 minutes, really added up. And the 100 Day Project kept me spinning even on busy days when I would have skipped it otherwise. 

A post shared by April Klich (@aprilklich) on May 16, 2017 at 7:36pm PDT

Almost 2 months later, I’ve got about 560 yards of sport weight yarn. I’m sure that number shrunk when I set the twist, but there’s still plenty of yardage to make a cosy shawl. I have an idea in my head for what that will look shawl will like, and I’m almost ready to get that down on paper. I think it’s time to get swatching.  

Bringing Back The Creative Mojo

There’s been a lot of making going on around here, and I have #The100DayProject to thank. I was in a bit of a making rut the past few months. Didn’t really want to knit, spin, or draw beyond the simplest doodle. Reading, video games, and staring on my phone claimed my free time. I don’t regret how many books I read or hours spent playing games, but I knew I’d need a push to get making again. #The100DayProject turned out to be just the thing. 

I had started spinning the big purple gradient in March in bits and pieces. It certainly wasn’t the every day project that it is now. I’m glad that changed because there’s no way I’d have 4 finished skeins and have started the 5th otherwise. Being halfway through with what feels like a rather large project - at only 6 ounces of fiber total, it’s not - is rather nice. I had a sneaking suspicion that would be the case. 

What I didn’t expect was that a routine of daily spinning would bring back my drive to knit on slumbering projects, draw more complicated sketches, and even fiddle around with video editing. At the beginning of March just the thought of that stuff made me tired. Now now. My Sockhead Hat is a few rows taller and my past due gift knitting is almost done. My sketchbook is getting full and I put together a short video of a bobbin filling up with chain-plied yarn. 

I wish I could put my finger on exactly why a daily project recharged my creativity. I’d certainly use the trick to hack my behavior on a regular basis. Maybe it’s seeing daily progress. Maybe it’s because I’m solving puzzles and focusing on the details. Whatever the cause, this high tide of creativity isn’t going to last forever, so I’m going to enjoy it while it’s here. Then I’ll enjoy the low tide too and take a break. When I’m ready to start making again, I’ll pick another daily project and see where it takes me.