Tour de Fleece - Day 12

...or, "How we freaked out the spinning muggles while waiting for the new Harry Potter movie to start.."

Yep. Three of us from the HPKCHC groupon Ravelry and some local knitters / spinners decided to brave the lines and hit the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

The plan was to show up at about 9:00pm with chairs, knitting and spinning to chat, craft and people watch. Much to our surprise, the theater was seating each group as earlier movies ended, so we weren't actually outside all that long after all! This actually worked out great though, since we were at the front of the line for our group and scored awesome seats in the first row up from the cross aisle, right under the house lights.

Onica borrowed my Cascade Little Si and passed her Louet boat anchor learning spindle on to a friend of hers who was visiting from Portland. In the end, there were four of us drop spindling front and center with another two knitting merrily alongside. Fun! The only down side? In 2.5 hours, this is all I got done!



This is a pretty light spindle and I am definitely starting to see the impact of the cop weight - a little less balanced, a little shorter spin time and it backspins right away now without the delay that it had when I first started. It is still spinning okay, so I think that I will shoot for 2x the original weight and wind off when I get there.

I am moving right along on the Autumn Leaves baby sweater now, but don't have a new photo to post today. Here is what the yoke looked like just before I put the arm stitches on holders.



I just finished the first ball of yarn last night and the sweater is about 7 1/8 inches long. It is looking pretty cute, but much smaller than I had hoped. It was supposed to be a 6-9 month size, but we tried it on a 10-week old baby at knit night and it was barely even big enough for her. (sigh...)

I'd probably rip it out and restart, but 1)I need to finish it by the end of the month and 2)The only sizing in the pattern is provided by changing yarn and needle size. This would mean abandoning "the perfect yarn in the perfect color" and trying to find some soft, superwash worsted weight wool or wool blend to use instead. Blech! Guess it'll just be a 0-3 month size...

Note to self - find some kind of standard size chart for babies! 6-9 months = ?

Tour de Fleece - Day 6

...or, "A plan is a good thing to have..."

Not that having a plan means you will actually accomplish what you set out to do, but it's definitely a start.

My plan for the day was to lick my wounds a little with some spindle spinning, then hit the wheel again with another run at woolen spinning. I made it through the first part at least, keeping my "spin every day" goal alive.



It may not be obvious at first glance, but the cop on this spindle really is bigger than it was on Day 4. Honest!

Spinning part two was postponed in favor of knitting part two. I started swatching for this baby sweater yesterday and was almost at gauge, but not really happy with the fabric I had produced. After a few hours of denial, I accepted the fact that I probably needed to go up a needle size (as usual). I knit another couple of inches with the larger needle and was much happier with the hand feel of the swatch. Gauge looks about 1/2 stitch off when measured over 2 inches, but spot on when measured over the full 4 inches. Go figure!

Tour de Fleece - Day 5

...or, "It started off okay..."

The day started off quite well. I finished up the Lollipop Cabin Rib Fantastic sample sock I had been working on, then wandered around the yard posing it on anything that didn't move and taking endless pictures. I really love the colors in this yarn, but they are tough to capture! Here are a couple of my favorites:





See the cool toe? It is basically a slip-stitch heel, at the front end of the sock. This is my biggest wear spot, so I was intrigued to see a pattern which incorporates a reinforced toe. I also thought that the way the slip-stitch ribs line up with the ribs in the lace pattern was pretty clever.

Ialiuxh seemed happy with the sock and it was one more thing that I could cross off of my "To Do" list, so I was feeling pretty good at this point.

Since this was Day 5 of the Tour de Fleece and I had just finished my active knitting project, I decided to bring my wheel to Knit Night and spin instead of knitting. That was where things started to go a little sideways...

My TDF plan was to finish up my sock singles (check!), spindle (check!) and work on my woolen spinning with using EKF batts. I started the first batt section at a spin-in on Monday and it went pretty well, lulling me into a sense of complacency. Tonight, I got my wake-up call.

Yep, I struggled all night long to get a consistent grist in my singles. Fending off comments from the peanut gallery about my sparkly batts and what on earth I was planning to do with the final yarn didn't help my spinning or my mood. I think I'll be taking next week off and spinning at home in peace, quiet, good light and my choice of music. Here's what I had on the bobbin at the end of the night:



I may have to back off to a 2ply to get a DK / Light Worsted weight final yarn, since my singles are looking a little thicker (at least in some places) than I had anticipated. I'll have to do some sampling to make sure, probably when I finish the first bobbin (so that I can adjust my color / batt management plan to get a heathered yarn).

Tour de Fleece - Day 4

Otherwise known as "barely there"...

Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I only managed to squeeze in about an hour of spinning tonight since I opted to go to knit night. Had to do it though, 'cause the Lollipop Cabin sample sock needed to be finished and it had stalled out completely after I ripped out the toe last week. (grumble, grumble, unacknowledged errors in Interweave pattern, grumble, grumble...)

So, I raced home and picked up a fairly recent acquisition (Tracey Eichheim Spiders Ultra Light top whorl spindle) and some old roving (The Sheep Shed Studio Superwash Merino) and spindled for about an hour. The Spiders Ultra Light spun like a dream! I had no problem producing a fine even single and the hook worked out just fine. It was more rounded than I am used to and I had wondered if I would have a problem with the singles sliding out of it. Nope! It just may have to go to knit night with me tomorrow too!

Tour de Fleece - Days 1 - 3

Yep, I am skipping right over Black Sheep Gathering to the Tour de Fleece. I had a wonderful time at BSG, but if I pause to write it up and post it here, I will end up missing the TDF entirely. So... I will do a catch up post later on, if time allows.

Tour de Fleece is a spin along started by blogger Star Athena in 2006. Last year it straddled Blogger and Ravelry and this year it has pretty much moved over to Ravelry entirely. Participation has soared with the move to Ravelry, going from 400 spinners last year to 1150 spinners this year. Yikes! That's a lot of spinners!

Basically, every day that the Tour de France rides (July 4 - July 26), we spin. There are some standard teams that are just a part of the tour itself, then a whole host of wildcard teams, most of which are sponsored by dyers / fiber suppliers. Everyone sets their goals at the start of the tour and works towards them throughout the month.

My primary goal was to work on the woolen spinning techniques I learned at NwRSA Conference this year. Of course, after BSG I am also yearning to play with some silk and/or silk blends, but woolen spinning comes first, or actually, second...

Day 1

Grinding away on the third and final bobbin of Briar Rose BFL "Ply by Night" (sock) singles. So close! Quit at 11:30pm to take pictures, with about 24 inches of roving remaining.



Day 2

I was away from the house (and the wheel) for most of the day, so this was a spindle day. Spun up some Shetland/Alpaca roving on my Bosworth Featherweight.



Day 3

Woo hoo! Finally finished the Briar Rose singles...



...and moved on to the Enchanted Knoll Farm "Gold Dust Woman" batts!





The batts from EKF are farm-raised and contain Cotswold, Merino-Targhee X and Tussah Silk with Sari Silk & Angelina accents. I am spinning them long draw, semi-woolen and shooting for a heathered 3-ply DK to Light Worsted weight yarn suitable for a hat, mittens or a scarf.

I only got a chance to spin up about 1/8 of the first bobbin of singles today, so I am not sure yet if I am spinning fine enough to do a 3-ply or if I will have to back down to a 2-ply. I need to sample tomorrow and check.

NwRSA Conference 2009 (Part 2)

My Saturday class was "Spinning Fabulous Alpaca", with Kaye Collins. Kaye is from Fort Collins, CO and holds a Certificate of Excellence in spinning from the Handweavers Guild of America.

This was also a great class and really built on what I learned about woolen spinning in on Friday. Kaye supplied a wide selection of Huacaya and Suri alpaca of various microns and preparations. I found that there was a big difference in the feel, especially when spinning the Suri. I am now ruined for anything other than baby (22 micron or finer) alpaca...

At the end of the class, we got a chance to try some baby lama, camel and a camel/merino blend. Mmmmm, the camel was divine! I actually have some gorgeous black baby lama top from Crown Mountain Farms that I picked up in April at Shepherds Extravaganza, so getting to play with some during class was great.

In addition to the commercially prepared fiber, we also used combs and a drum carder during class to prep and blend our own. We talked about washing alpaca, how to keep the static / fly-away to a minimum while processing it and the best ways to set the twist. Lots of good info there, plus directions for creating a small PVC niddy noddy.

Kaye had us create sample cards during the class which should be a great resource and we also made bolo-style necklaces using longer sections of each fiber spun. As the proud owner of several bobbins of "mystery yarn" from various classes, I though that this was a pretty clever way to record, preserve and use the fiber spun during the class. I ended up with a bolo from my handspun and a wrist distaff from my neighbor's! She had taken Kaye's class on Friday too and didn't want a second bolo, so she made a pair of wrist distaffs instead.

Biggest takeaways from this class:

1. Spinning woolen, especially with a slippery fiber like alpaca, takes a lot more twist than I am used to. In general, I found that I had to jump up TWO ratios in order to get enough twist in my (thin-ish) singles. Even with a two ratio jump, I had to be careful and make sure that I was treadling fast enough to keep up with my hands. (which would really mess me up every time I switched back to worsted spinning!)

2. I really liked spinning alpaca woolen, especially with medium draw (woolen prep) and from the fold (worsted prep). Alpaca spins GREAT over the fold, probably because it is so slippery. I had no problems with it clinging to itself and trying to pull the lock back in line with the twist, which I have experienced with wool.

3. Alpaca prep is similar to wool, but there are slight differences and I came away with some good tips.

4. Ditto on the finishing, which I kind of got a hint of when I spun my alpaca/merino blend for Alpacapalooza earlier this year. I thought at the time that the "poofyness" I saw in my first few samples was a result of my spinning / TPI or caused by the particular fiber blend (50/50). Turns out that it may just have been because of the alpaca itself. I'll need to start earlier and sample more extensively next year to make sure that I don't run into this again.

Whew! NwRSA Conference 2009...

June is upon us in full force! In addition to a serious heat wave, the first week of the month brought the annual Northwest Regional Spinners Conference.

After a frantic dash to Weaving Works for some bobbins, I headed down on Thursday for a long weekend of fun and learning. I had a blast again this year and I think my brain is full! I brought my camera with me, but completely forgot to dig it out and didn't take a single picture. Boo, hiss! This was really a shame, because it was held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, which is a really pretty campus. As I walked back and forth between classes, the dorms and the dining hall I frequently found myself wishing I had my camera with me, but... I'd promptly forget it again the next time I set off.

There were some amazing teachers this year, both local (Georgean Curran, Amelia Garripoli and Eileen Van Bronkhorst) and nationally / internationally recognized (Cat Bordhi, Kaye Collins, Anne Field and Joan Ruane) Classes offered covered everything from spinning to knitting, weaving and felting. Truly something for everyone.

I am still working on "the basics", so I signed up for spinning classes both Friday and Saturday. Most of my spinning to date has been worsted, since my goal was to be able to spin a 3-ply sock yarn. Now that I have pretty much mastered that, I am ready to move on to processing some of those fleeces I've been buying and spinning up some woolen yarn for a sweater (or other larger project).

So, I started the weekend with Anne Field's "Spinning Worsted and Woolen Yarn" class. Anne is an amazing spinner and I really enjoyed her class. She actually spun standing up, on an Ashford Joy! We used combs, flick carders and hand cards to prep Cotswold and Coopworth locks in woolen and worsted fashion, then spun each prep both woolen and worsted. We finished the class by setting the sample hanks and discussing / comparing them.

The worsted (spinning) portion of the class was mostly review for me, with a couple of interesting tidbits.

1. Unlike some teachers, Anne doesn't see anything wrong with short backward draw (vs short forward draw). Yea! She says that most people can do both, but find one or the other to be more natural for them.

2. I've had people ask me if I am left handed when they watch me spin, because I hold my fiber in my left hand and draft & control my twist with my right. I never really understood why they asked or thought that I was spinning "backwards", because it just seemed natural to me. Anne looked around the room, asked who was left vs right handed, then asked who had learned to spin first using a drop spindle. She said that it is actually very common for right handers who learn to drop spindle before moving to a wheel to spin the way that I do, because they use their dominant hand to flick or thigh-roll and control the spindle.

The woolen (spinning) portion of the class rocked! I had been taught two different methods of long draw previously, plus spinning from the fold and been pretty awful at all of them. Letting go and allowing unevenness and slubs into my singles is painful for me, and not just because I've been spinning fine, worsted singles for the past year and a half.

Anne taught us a medium draw, a third style of long draw and spinning from the fold. True long draw is still a bit of a reach for me, but I can see it just over the horizon. Medium draw and spinning from the fold really clicked and are competing for my new favorite spinning method. One thing I found? They are FAST! Once I got the hang of the draw, I either had to pedal faster or hold afterwards to allow enough twist into the single before letting it wind on. I later switched from the smallest ratio on the regular flyer to the middle ratio on the fast flyer to compensate and allow my feet to resume their "normal" pace.

I am still slogging away on the last bobbin of my latest 3-ply sock yarn, a Briar Rose Fibers BFL for the Ravelry Ply by Night SAL / KAL. If I finish it (please, please, please) before Black Sheep, I may enter it there. I'm not sure who is judging the skeins this year, but last year I think it was Judith MM. After Black Sheep, I'll be gearing up for the Tour de Fleece in July. This year I am going to focus on woolen spinning the whole month and practice what I learned at Conference! Hopefully I'll have something pretty finished in time for Sock Summit in August, because I'll be meeting Josette from Enchanted Knoll Farm there.