Barberpole Rose

I bought 4 ounces of Rose Merino/Tussah from Carolina Homespun at this year's Stitches West. I'd been loathe to spin with it, as it's so lovely to look at, but beneath all the (really nicely, thoroughly carded) loveliness was my problem: how to spin this? With multicolored roving you can spin it two ways: lengthwise in skinny little bits or from the fold. With the first half-ounce I experimented with both techniques, and both produced the barber-pole effect. Lengthwise in skinny little bits was fine, but it got a little tiresome having to separate and keep track of the color sequence of all the bits. So out of pure laziness I decided to stick with spinning from the fold. You can also see it this way: I learned a new technique!

My thicknesses vary because I'm still getting the hang of 1) spinning merino and tussah silk, two new fibers for me; 2) spinning from the fold; and 3) trying to get a consistent number of treadles per specific length of fiber drafted. It's kind of cool, a little frustrating, but I need to get through it. I'm as much a process spinner as I am a knitter, I've found.

Following link upon link upon link, I stumbled onto Knitterguy's site. He's posted a series of entries on spinning fine yarn on a Lendrum, sprinkling them with little tips for spinning. Like using Vaseline instead of 20w oil for lubricating moving parts. Very cool.

Thanks to Kitty Kitty, who sent me a link to this site, which talks about yarn thicknesses and counts. Remember my little cone of 18/2 tweedy alpaca? Well, it really should be 2/18: the 2 refers to the number of plies Mr. Tweedy Alpaca Cone has; the 18 refers to its thickness, which means the yarn has been spun 18 times the standard length of 500 yards. According to the site, "The primary standard to determine yarn thickness for wool and acrylic is worsted at 500 yards/pound." If you multiply my yarn thickness by the standard (18 x 500) it comes out to 9,000. Divide this by the number of plies (2) and my yarn comes out to 4,500 yards/lb. Interesting, no?

More random linkage, this time gift ideas:

Kai dental floss holders that look like piranha. I'd love one of those!

Design company and vendor CSA makes really cool PopInk plates; my favorites are the Happy Kitty Bunny Pony and Cannibal Kingdom sets.

I know, this isn't a gift idea, but maybe you could make it the front of a greeting card for all your math and science friends: π (that's pi) to 1 million places. (As an aside, did anyone ever read Carl Sagan's Contact?)