Yarn, redux December 4, 2008
Posted by jeninmaine in spinning.Tags: creatively dyed, handspun, Joy, ladybug, merino, schacht, seacell, wool, yarn
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I took some new shots in better light – the direct sunlight ones were too glinty.
Get up close and personal with my plies.
As the yarn turns. December 3, 2008
Posted by jeninmaine in spinning.Tags: creatively dyed, handspun, Joy, merino, shetland, wool, yarn
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I soaked, thwacked and twist set that pink one-ply. It came out a lot fluffier and I’m not really sure I like it as it’s over spun just about everywhere. I guess I could call it an energized art yarn ;)
Then, there was kind of a fiasco with that (expensive!) Creatively Dyed fiber I spun up – I got the 7-odd ounces to fit on my bobbin, just barely. Then I wound it off into a cake so I could make it into two-ply, only it got hopelessly tangled multiple times where it was coming out of the center of the cake. Craaaaap. I guess seacell likes to stick to itself because it was a mess.
I untangled the first two or three train wrecks but quickly realized that I was going to destroy all that work if I didn’t change my plan. So I tucked in the mess, tossed it in a bowl and Navajo plied it from the outside strand.
This is the second time I’ve Navajo plied anything substantial and I got better at it as I went. I think this came out okay – it was a major bummer practicing a skill like this on something that cost me so much money but, oh well, live and learn.
To keep in the groove (since it’s so easy for me to get distracted and summarily disinterested) I immediately started in on some Shetland top I got from a UK eBay seller. It’s somewhat rougher than super-soft merino but the staple length is huge so I can pretty much go on auto-pilot while spinning it. It’s great for practicing long draw drafting, which incidentally goes a LOT faster than what I’ve been doing.
I think I like the idea of spinning sturdier yarns, ones that can be used for durable outerwear and won’t pill to high heaven as 100% merino tends to do. People love how soft merino is and the yarn is gorgeous, but no one thinks of what happens to the yarn after it’s knitted up into a garment and actually used. So, yeah, I guess I’m trending toward utility rather than skein attractiveness at the moment. Pictures when I’ve got em.
Weekend yarn November 24, 2008
Posted by jeninmaine in spinning.Tags: creatively dyed, Joy, ladybug, merino, schacht, seacell, wool
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Not a lot to report. Weekend was okay.
I did get a bit of spinning done which I am happy about – I measured out that pink one-ply and it came to 233 yards. I can’t really say what weight it is as it varies quite a bit. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to ply it or just leave it as a single, but Joy convinced me to twist set and thwack it to get all those kinks out and leave it as a single so that’s what I’ll do. I’m not completely happy with it but it’s a nice color.
I also spun about 7 ounces of that Creatively Dyed superwash merino and seacell fiber – I have about half an ounce to go and I’m hoping to cram it on the bobbin somehow. I’m very happy with how the single is spinning up, I think it’s going to be really neat once its plied.
Tons of crafty and kid photos. November 19, 2008
Posted by jeninmaine in bebeh, dyeing, Etsy, kidlet, Ravelry, spinning.Tags: baby, bebeh, creatively dyed, cute, dyeing, Etsy, fabulosity, jeninmaine, Joy, kidlet, kids, loopy ewe, Ravelry, roving, spinning, wool, yarn
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I finally have a good bunch of photos of what I’ve managed to work on lately.
First, let’s start with a cheesecake shot of the yarn I had laid out on the table.
Ahh, yarn. It looks kind of neat like that, and even neater knowing I made all of it.
Here’s all the yarn packed up and ready to be shipped out. The white box is half a dozen whoopie pies from Labadie’s – because I’m sorry but a whoopie pie just isn’t authentic unless it’s from Labadie’s. I find it funny that on their website they sell them for $24.95 a dozen (plus shipping) but if you buy them from the retail bakery they’re $0.50 apiece for six or $5.00 a dozen. Nom.
Here’s the box! All told it was about nine pounds, so if you take out six whoopie pies that’s still a lot of yarn.
Joy received the box just fine today, whew! Here’s some excerpts that made me laugh. D is her coworker:
Joy: OMG YARN!
YARN IS HERE!
Joy: D is rolling around on the floor in my office.
Joy: WHOOPIE PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Joy: Woot!
Joy: OMFG YOUR HANDSPUN.
O.k. I’ll stop yelling now.
Joy: D is freaking out.
Joy: O.k. so D is kind of totally fucking freaking out. (this one made me guffaw for reals)
Joy: Hehe, so the mail guy is standing there and he puts the box down and I grab it and make a run for it and he hollers “Wait! Wait wait wait! I have to scan that!”
I lurve her. :D :D :D
Moving on – some of you may remember the big fluffy pink and orange batt I cranked on Joy’s drum carder.
Last night I wanted to do some spinning and that batt was speaking to me. It said, “Spin me slubby!” Now I’ve never spun a slubby yarn on purpose, I tend to be somewhat anal retentive and as a result can’t relax and spin anything that isn’t as close to perfectly uniform as I can get it. Which frankly pisses me off about myself. So I tried really hard and managed to spin the slubbiest single I’ve ever spun. I think it came out really pretty – I’m not sure if I should ply it or just leave it the way it is.
I think I like it – it was definitely a LOT faster just going to town on it and I enjoyed the process. I’ll have to do this more often and get better at it.
I also buckled down and finished the teensy bit of that purple merino I’ve had sitting around forever, it was literally about half an ounce left sitting in the basket.
I plan to ply this with another single of the same thing. I’m not sure if I’ll spin another 4 ounce bump or just ply this one on itself, in any case I’ve set it aside to work on later so I don’t get burned out.
I ALSO also practiced Navajo plying. I had a couple hundred yards of single on a bobbin with no home so I cleared that off and tried to get the hang of a new skill. It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t post detailed closeups, so here you go:
Okay, that last one looked good but here’s the reality – I had a few trainwrecks. You can see I even got my own HAIR in it. Nice.
Overall though I think I’m starting to get it. I need to slow down as the resulting yarn is extremely kinky. Maybe I’ll ply something else around it and make aht yahn.
Last but not least, what is to come! I got some amazing, AMAZING rovings from The Loopy Ewe that were made by Creatively Dyed – what a fantastic customer service experience and what incredible rovings!
Ugh, they’re so pretty I can hardly stand it. 70% superwash merino, 30% seacell fiber. These are 8 ounce rovings, too, which means they’re HUGE.
Be Mine:
So In Love:
I have a second bundle of So In Love since I adored this colorway so much – last night I slivered it up to get it ready to spin. I discovered that it twists and kinks very easily due to being so soft and floaty, it was tough to split it the entire length but I managed all right. I can’t wait to see how it spins up!
So, that’s it. I hope that was enough photos for you fiber enthusiasts. I do have one last photo – I had placed my wheel in front of the window to take photos, then moved it over when I was done. I looked down and thought it looked kind of artsy and the light was better so I took a few shots of it next to my table. The plaids of my cheapo Goodwill tablecloth and my tattered fug chairs clash a bit but overall I like it.
Erm, ignore that Cheerio.
Last but certainly not least, I was browsing some of my other Flickr photos and came across two of my kids that I thought bore comparison. My finest works in progress:
fin.
i make things - a "makey-thingy" blog 