New Yarnz March 31, 2009
Posted by jeninmaine in Crafty, Etsy, spinning.Tags: Etsy, hand-dyed, handspun, i make things, jeninmaine, knit witch, merino, spinning, superwash, wool, yarn
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Here’s the Knit Witch roving done up and made pretty for the camera:
handspun worsted to chunky weight
100% superwash merino | machine/hand wash
3.6 ounces | 11 wpi | 228 yards
(No name yet)
This skein hasn’t been washed or thwacked yet, and already it’s balanced. I’m very pleased about that – I tend to choke up while plying and really twist the heck out of it and end up with, to put it nicely, an “energized” yarn. With this bundle of roving I made a conscious decision NOT to try and get it thin-thin-thin and perfect and NOT to overspin it. There’s a few small bits that are thin but overall I tried to just enjoy the sensation of roving through my fingers. When plying I did the same thing – a conscious effort NOT to ply it as much as I thought it needed to be plied, which is always too much because I’m too much of a high-strung perfectionist worrywart. It was hard to do, I felt like I was working against my innate desires. I’m super happy with the result, though. I could see myself knitting with this yarn, it’s very fluffy and lofty, it’ll be nice and warm.
This isn’t even all of the roving as I broke a ply toward the end so I’ve got just under half an ounce of single sitting in a bowl. I figure I’ll ply that up as a skeinlet later. Still, 228 yards isn’t too shabby.
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.