Category: Spinning

Spinning · Tour de Fleece · yarn

TdF Day 2

Jen

The little irony from Day 1:

1. I really need more practice to get good at spinning silk.

2. I did not enjoy spinning silk well enough to get more practice.

I don’t think I shall be continuing the silk caps for this year’s TdF. Or if at all. I spin because it’s fun and relaxing and that little blue hank there was neither fun nor relaxing to make. So, onwards.

Also for today, here is that yarn I was working on the day the movers came to load our stuff.

I’m rather a bit happier with this one, I must say. Both hanks need a wash and set before they are well and truly “finished”. But for now they are close enough.

Today I hope to finish the Alpaca from the Martha’s Vineyard trip a couple of years ago, and possibly I will ply up the silk/qiviut blend which has been taking up one of my bobbins for a while now.

fiber · Spinning · Tour de Fleece

Tour de Fleece starts today!

Jen2 Comments

Holy crap, you guys! I can’t believe it’s almost July already! Where did the first half of the year go? Well. Moving, I guess. And getting ready to move. Hrm. Well, you know what they say about time flying and having fun and all that. Anyway! Today is the start of the Tour de France, which happens to coincide with the start of the Tour de Fleece! Isn’t that a weird coincidence?

I played along with the TdF back in 2010 and spun up some lovely yarns, plus I had a lot of fun. Not sure why I didn’t do it last year, unless it had something to do w/ my still kind of wonky energy levels. Well, anyway, this year I decided to give it a go again. This time I’m playing with Team Sherlocked (an homage to my new favorite show).

My goals this year:

1. Spin every day

2. Finish the yarn I was working on before we moved. (In this case all it needs is a wash, but I’ve been putting it off because I am lazy.)

3. Finish the alpaca I’ve been working on. This might be a challenge  because I kind of got bored with it. I’ve got a little more than half a bobbin of it and still a huge amount left to go.

4. Try to get finished with (or at least spin some of) the Romney fleece. This will definitely be a challenge because a) there is a crapton of it and b) I don’t really care for it that much (sad, I know).

In spite of having a clear idea of what I’d like to get done over the course of the TdF, I went ahead and started doing something else entirely.

Aren’t the colors pretty? These are the silk caps I got from A Touch of Twist at the CT Sheep & Wool festival a couple of years ago. I’d originally planned to just straight up knit them without spinning the fiber, because Yarn Harlot. But now I’ve moved to Florida and I can’t see that I have a real need for cushy little hand ovens. But I could definitely use a lacy little shawlette to keep the AC chill off my shoulders and so that is the plan.

Also I have this little 4 oz Polwarth braid from Woolgatherings which I really can’t wait to sink my teeth into. Isn’t it pretty?

I am really going to have to remember to buy more than 4 oz the next time I visit her shop. I can tell that I am going to want to spin this stuff forever.

life · Lolly · Spinning

Box City

Jen

Wow, this week has gone by so quickly. I’ve been so crazy busy what with the upcoming move. There was so much to do! Today was packing day! The crew arrived around 9 this morning and, after a flurry of packing, our house looks rather a bit like a Minecraft game. BOXES EVERYWHERE! Of course, poor Lolly is freaked the fuck out. She spent the day cowering under the bed so she is highly suspicious about this sudden appearance of all these boxes.

While they were working, I decided to ply up last week’s singles. First (last night) I wound the single into a center pull ball:

Isn’t it pretty?

And then this morning, I did an Andean ply.

Sadly all my spinning stuff is packed away so finishing it will have to wait until we’re settled in down there, but the spinning work is done. Tuesday the movers are coming to empty our house into a truck and then we head to Florida! I can’t believe moving day is almost here! w00t!

Spinning

Spinning Friday

Jen1 Comment

I brought my wheel to Park Day today and after several false starts, I finally got a good rhythm going with this fiber which Santa brought me a couple of Christmases ago. Isn’t it pretty?

After watching my friend Weaver at her wheel a couple of weeks ago, I was inspired to spin the roving without breaking it into little pieces first so that the colors would be drawn out into long stretches. (I’m sure there’s a name for this, but I don’t know what it is. I might have to track down a copy of this book.) Anyhoo, now I have to figure out what to do next. Navajo ply is one option, although I’m not sure my single is appropriate for that (not consistent throughout, and not teeny tiny). If I had been thinking ahead when I started this, I would have split the roving in half and spun it onto two different bobbins, but sadly, as is my wont, I wasn’t thinking ahead and instead crammed all 8 ounces of it onto a single bobbin. (As you do.) Another option would be to do an Andean ply, but would the inevitable marling break up the long stretches of color and defeat the purpose of spinning it the way I did? Or I could just leave it as a single, although I know there are a couple of super thin bits which would benefit from plying. What to do, what to do… Hmm…

fiber · Spinning · stash

Weaver Is Evil

Jen4 Comments

Seriously, y’all, my friend Weaver is evil. She has been on a bit of a spinning jag lately for a while now and last week posted a link on her Facebook to this etsy shop. And even though I have quite a bit more spinning fiber than I want to move to Florida right now, I went ahead and ordered anyway. Just a little, only 4 oz. But what a gorgeous 4 oz. it is:

4 pretty ounces of Polwarth top. I’ve never spun Polwarth, so it’ll be a fun learning experience too!

Spinning

I maded some yarnz!

Jen6 Comments

A couple of months ago, Kris (aka The Painted Sheep) had a destash, from which I scored a lovely Blue Moon Fiber Arts sheep 2 shoe kit. Of course, I don’t know anything about spinning for a specific project, so I disregarded the instructions completely and made 110 gorgeous yards of fluffy yarn for a hat (or something):

I finished it up last night. Isn’t it purty?

Knitting · life · Spinning · Tour de Fleece · yarn

Catching you up

Jen5 Comments

Sometimes you go so long without making a blog post that re-entry is awkward and difficult without an “I’m sorry I haven’t blogged” sort of statement. Generally I try to avoid those because, hey, blogging is a hobby and sometimes I have time for it, and sometimes I don’t. Suffice it to say that not only was July a very busy month, but I have also spread myself rather thin in the social media sphere. I have two blogs, a ravelry, a tumblr, a twitter, and a Facebook and trying to figure out how to integrate them all (or even in part) has been tricky. I mean, I don’t want the tumblr (or the Ravelry) to replace blogging and I don’t want the twitter to replace Facebook. I want them all to sort of support each other. But I haven’t quite managed to solve that puzzle yet. [sigh]

So, what have I been up to, besides not blogging, raveling, tumblring, twittering on occasion, and Facebooking? My last couple of weeks, let me show you them.

1. The Tour de Fleece got finished:

It was seriously fun and I am definitely going to do it again next year.

2. There was a Webs excursion:

I didn’t get much this time. I was mostly along for the ride with a friend who was buying yarn for her holiday knitting.

3. There has been knitting progress:

(click each photo to be taken to the Ravelry project page)

And that’s it, you’re all pretty much caught up now. How has your summer been so far? Keeping busy?

random · Spinning · Tour de Fleece

More Random Stuff

Jen5 Comments

1. The Tour de Fleece is still going and I am still spinning. I made a nice fat hank of Corriedale yarn and started on the Romney fleece.

2. Corriedale is nice to spin, but I still prefer BFL.

(oh how I miss the Kanye Interrupts meme.)

3. There are 6 lbs. of the Romney fleece. I’ve spun exactly 2 ounces and I am already sick of it.

4. You cannot spin at the beach. At least, I haven’t figured out a way to do it. Perhaps w/ a drop spindle, but I don’t fancy sand in my fiber, so no.

5. We’ve been at the beach a lot. But, evidently it’s jellyfish season and since E4 appears to be allergic to their stings, we might not go back for a while.

6. I’ve started the rewriting process on my NaNo. It’s pretty terrible, but not as terrible as I thought. And I think I know where I’m going to start. I think.

7. I was going to work on it this morning, but I spent too much time making the Kanye Interrupting Sheep image and now I have to do houseworky things. Stoopid never ending houseworky things.

Knitting · Meh. · random · Spinning · Tour de Fleece

Random because that all I’ve got right now

Jen6 Comments

1. My energy levels have been all wonky lately, hence the quietness of The Blog.

2. I am working on it w/ my Doctor, but in the mean time, I’ve been spending a lot of time on tumblr. If you aren’t familiar with tumblr, it’s kind of like a step up from twitter. If twitter is a micro-blog, then tumblr is a mini-blog. I’m still trying to get the hang of it, but ya’ll? I really like it. Check it out. You have to be a tumblr follower of mine to leave a comment (which means you have to have a tumblr account) or you can just subscribe to my tumblr rss feed. Either way is cool, but you know how I love the comments.

3. I was playing around with Plurk for a while, as a possible replacement to Facebook, but not enough none of my FB buddies were similarly motivated to follow me over to Plurk, so I give up. I will focus on Twittering and Tumblring instead.

4. Speaking of Twitter, I gave in. I guess now that it’s not in the news every two seconds, it’s more tolerable. The only problem is I find I get that stupid Fail Whale a lot. Twitter, if you’re going to be the “in” thing, please get some more servers! Which reminds me. I am troubled that it isn’t immediately apparent how Twitter makes money. There aren’t any ads that I can see. So, where are they getting the scratch for that operation? It’s a mystery.

5. PEOPLE!! TOUR DE FLEECE STARTS TODAY!!! Are you participating? I’m on Team Hoar!

My plan, since I am new to Tour De Fleece, is to just spin every day and get through as much of my fiber stash as I can. Granted, I am a new spinner, and my stash is not as enormous as it could be, but I do have a fair amount of fiber. Right now I have some Spunky Eclectic Corriedale on my bobbin. When that’s done I’ll move onto the Romney fleece that I’d had processed a while back. There’s a crapton of that, but if by some miracle I get through it all, I will move onto the alpaca and then the quiviut blend that I picked up at the Sheep and Wool Festival in April. GO TEAM HOAR!

6. I started a new sock:

Hopefully, this sock with this yarn will get finished this time.

7. I finished a scarf for E4.

Yes, it is a fun-fur scarf. Yes, I knitted it against my will. But, before you knock the fun-fur scarf, keep in mind that the whole thing only took up about an hour of knitting time. Maybe less. And, when people see the fun-fur scarf, they think you are a god damned genius.

8. We are dog sitting.

My friend and her family went out to Salt Lake for 3 weeks to visit family. Things are going well on this end. Sandy is a very good dog, but she still finds the cats to be terrifying, stabbity creatures. Doozer is still being kind of a jerk, although Lolly has warmed up to her quite a bit. No pictures of them all together, though. It usually doesn’t end well.

9. I’ve printed my NaNo 2009 for a reread/rewrite. I think this could be a good book, ya’ll. But it needs some work. A lot of work. And when I say “a lot”, I mean a LOT. Interested in being a reader? Leave me a comment. I’d love some feedback on it.

And that is all. The Blog is now updated. How’ve you all been?

Spinning

Excitement, I has it!

Jen6 Comments

Guys, remember this?

My first fleece, purchased from the CT Sheep and Wool festival back in April. I was going to process it myself, but soon realized that I was in way over my head. So, back before Christmas, I shipped the whole shebang to the Still River Mill to be washed and carded. Lookee what came in the mail:

And this is what’s inside:

Each box has 3 bags full of clean, fluffy rovings:

That spin up quickly and easily:

It was a little over 7 lbs when I sent it, and I got back a skosh over 5 lbs. I cannot tell you how glad I am that I didn’t try to wash out the 2 lbs of wool grease and other shit that was in there. But, FWIW, I’m still in way over my head.