November 2006 Archives

Fiber: Blue-Face Leicester, Hen colorway; 4 oz.
Vendor: Hello Yarn
Yield: 192 yards of the prettiest barberpole yarn I've spun in a while
Weight: Worsted to bulky

Nope, I haven't warshed this. I'm avoiding the inevitability of sheepy smelliness.

So ends my spinning for softness and speed journey. I've spun softer and squooshier than I've ever spun before, and I've improved my speed. I can humbly (not) say that there *was* some consistency to my yarn: three of my single-ounce bobbins came within a yard of each other: two at 46 yards and one at 47 yards. Whee! The fourth bobbin, where I consciously tried to spin a finer yarn, came to 53 yards. Not bad, eh?

I love these little bits of color that remind me of Renaissance-era paintings. This batch has more reds, oranges, and pinks in it; not so many blues and greens as the first batch. Nonetheless, it's quite lovely, and the slight difference in color is what makes hand-dyed fiber special. (Thanks, Adrian!) I think that for any beginning spinner it's worthwhile to splurge a bit on colorways that you love, so that the experience of spindling, or spinning, is more enjoyable. The myriad of color combinations you get with barberpole yarn is incredible.

Blogworthy:
◊ Kat is in the Spring 2007 issue of Knitscene! She got 3 patterns *and* an interview. Way to go, Kat!
◊ How to make a lavender basket. Also, how to make lavender wands. I need me a good local (Southern California) lavender source.
◊ It's time to bring back hamsters dancing, don't you think? Crank up the volume!

I've been busy. I've got tons of little projects in my sidebar to finish up! I'm doing overtime on spinning here as well, trying to spin up fiber before starting on my knitalong project. You remember me talking about this, right? Stranded: the Colorwork Challenge will officially start on December 1! The buttons have been made--check back tomorrow--and we're starting to put more content. In addition to the KAL participants, we'll have a number of drop-down lists of resources: online tutorials, books, online stores, and links to various articles. Are you excited? I am!

Fiber: Crosspatch Creations Black Hills Gold (NM series 3, dye lot 5a). The label says "Wool (Kenya [Romney and Montedale] and India Ink [Merino and Romney] crossbreds), Rayon, Bombyx Silk and Tussah Silk." A partial bag, so no idea on how much fiber I actually got.
Vendor: Gifted by Andrea, who in turn got it from last year's SCHG show and sale from Custom Handweaving.
Yield: 282 yards
Weight: A highly-textured worsted

I had so much fun spinning this! It's an eclectic combination of wools from Joan Contraman's two sheep (Kenya and India Ink, such wonderful names) with rayon and silks. The label states that black is the sheeps' natural color, but of course it's not a true black, but a very deep, burnt umber brown. The shiny, slippery rayon and silks in chartreuse, gold and orange flowed at a different rate than the wool, which made it difficult to achieve a consistent single. But then...

To heck with consistency! Oh, that bothered me for... about a second. Fuck the consistency, the twist, the intended project, the blah blah blah, just spin it. Which is what I did: gabbing away at Julia's meetup, discussing the election with friends (where I overtwisted during a heated debate--uh), listening to BF play Spanish music on his guitar. Happy times, happy skeins.

Smell-a-vision would not be good with this. It smelled--and not faintly, nuh-uh--of sheepiness and silkworminess. Oof. Dry, it's perfectly fine, but I'll break out the lavender Eucalan when I knit something out of this!

Touch-a-vision, oh! If only you could reach through the monitor and pet this. If only, if only...

A walk in the morning mist, Topanga, California. 2003.

For those not familiar with Pico Iyer's The Eloquent Sounds of Silence, I give you this link to the essay, which was first published (in print) in Time magazine on January 25, 1993.

I had been going through a rough period in my life when I picked up at random this particular issue of Time at my university library. I was probably frazzled with waiting to be waitlisted into classes; not finding my friends anywhere; not having luck with a relationship; not having eaten at all that day. And so I went to the library to lose myself in books. I don't remember much of that magazine but for Mr. Iyer's essay on the back, but I remember going out to buy it just for that one page.

The sound of silence.

I don't have to point to the obvious conclusion that we're increasingly surrounded by noise practically everywhere. Not just aural pollution, with mobile phones disrupting a nice hike 10,000 vertical feet up in the mountains and gas station muzak, but with visual pollution: radio towers on remote backcountry hills, housing developments encroaching on state parks, stores advertising sales on Thanksgiving Day, for crying out loud. (The Worsted Witch Jasmin is a more informed and persuasive "green" blogger than I--I tend to rant more--so she's worth reading.)

The next 5 weeks or so will be filled with the onslaught (tongue-in-cheek) of families and friends, arguments and reconciliations, reunions and celebrations. It could prove to be exhausting, with everyone clamoring for everyone else's attention. If, on the off chance that you do happen to have some time to yourself, not knitting and not spinning or doing anything holiday related, just personal time, please read Mr. Iyer's thoughts on silence.

Have a wonderful weekend! Comments closed for this post.

Thanks for the response on the series, everyone! It's particularly satisfying to know that people do it in so many different ways. I learned by intuition, and through reading books and sites; I never attended a demo or learned from someone, so your affirmation is appreciated! I've got a couple more lined up on colored fiber, so stay tuned.

I finally got my act together and posted an entry on our colorwork knitalong. Andrea, Mary-Heather and I have decided to host Stranded: the Colorwork Challenge together. It's an all-types colorwork knitalong, so if you've been itching to try some colorwork, here's the knitalong for you. It starts December 1, 2006 and runs for a while (we haven't decided on an end date yet). If you're interested, email your info and project specifics to strandedcolorwork at yahoo dot com.

I love merino. Love it. I love its fineness, its silkiness, its sheen. Look at that brown buttery color too. *sigh* This is the third time I've spun with 100% merino, and it's only gotten better with each time. Granted, my softness/speed project isn't ideal for the fiber--downy fiber is optimal, says Miss Paula Simmons--but merino and I, we work well together.

Fiber: Merino, camel-colored. I haven't a clue on how many ounces, since I gave away samples to various people.
Vendor: Blue Goose Glen
Yield: 202 yards
Weight: Roughly worsted

Did I mention the fantastic color? Camel. This is such a classic color, it goes with practically anything. At first, I envisioned a scarf. But I have lots of scarves. And wraps. I think I may knit this with the pewter-colored singles into a vest. Or a sweater for the niece.

Here's the ugly side of this particular merino batch: I think I felted it. The yarn sticks to itself. The surface of the yarn is slightly sealed, but still soft. I did felt it, didn't I? Gah.

I let it soak in a bucket of lukewarm water, then went away to eat. Fifteen minutes later I went into the bathroom and washed my hands. Then, without stopping to think about it, I pulled out the now-cold merino, drained the bucket, and filled it with hot water from the same tap. I put the merino in it and left the bathroom. Five minutes later when I realized what I did, I ran in, took out the merino, drained the bucket and filled it with cold water. So I dunked the merino in that. I watched as the merino floated slowly to the top, and then it hit me: cold + hot + cold = unhappy yarn. I shrieked when I realized what I'd done, then drained the bucket again and filled it with warm water. Uh. It's felted. But still knittable. Thank gawd!

Perhaps Adrian was thinking of the Blue Hen Chicken when she dyed this colorway as part of my gift order last year. It's mostly reds: brick and brownish and pinkish reds; some smudges of green; flashes of brilliant blue. I wish you could see this up close, as the spun-up yarn is a tantalizing palette of faded, but at the same time still achingly vibrant, colors.

I firmly believe in pre-drafting. When I first started spindling, pre-drafting was just a formality; the spinning was what made yarn! Well, yes, but pre-drafting holds the key to a lofty, consistent single. By not attenuating the fibers, you don't encourage air to flow in and out, your fibers remain compressed, and when you spin, those compressed fibers clump up. My first few handspuns were clumpy; there's a market for that, but my goal was consistency.

At a meetup, I had the pleasure of pre-drafting roving for Julia and Lori while they spun on my wheel. Julia told Marnie, and Marnie emailed me and.... Well, nothing happened for a while. If you think about all the different ways of coloring fiber, either through dyeing or carding, it's apparent that there isn't one solid way to pre-draft to get the results you're looking for in a final handspun. So with this entry I start my series on how I pre-draft colored fiber. Please feel free to add your thoughts at the end of this!

Yarn in three stages: as unspun roving, singles on the bobbins, and plied and skeined yarn. Whenever I spin, I divide my fiber into manageable quantities that I can easily remember. Therefore, you see one ounce of roving. Two ounces of singles, one on each bobbin. Four ounces, or four single-ounce skeins of yarn.

It also depends on what weight you're planning on spinning. I'm still doing my exercise on spinning for softness, so thick and thin yarn will fill up a bobbin much faster than laceweight or sportweight. I've been able to get 4 ounces of merino/tussah singles on one bobbin.

At our first spin-in, Julia gave me a few handfuls of fiber from her stash to sample. I'd mentioned that mine was in fact pitiful (some 3 pounds of various fibers, plus a sampler box) and she came to the rescue, along with Andrea. For a while I just petted my handfuls, gushed over the texture to BF, and pretty much bundled them away. I thought I'd keep them as part of my samples, but how would I find out if I really liked them? Besides, I could always get more, right?

So I spun the lot. (Also? I accidentally washed a red hallway rug with our bedroom rugs. *sniffle*) A little Hue/Saturation, an overlay, and tada! Bedroom rug back to normal. Long live Photoshop!

Fiber: Bamboo, white
Yield: 4 yards
Notes: Long staple, and quite shiny. Spun worsted; short-draw. Feels a bit stiff. Mm. I don't think I like bamboo very much.

Fiber: Pygora (Pygmy/Angora goat cross), brownish gray
Yield: 5 yards
Notes: A mix of silky guard hair and finer fleece. Spun woollen; short draw. Surprisingly easy to spin, but easy to overtwist. I do like this interesting mix of fiber.

Fiber: Spunky Eclectic Blue-Face Leicester in Tahiti (see Julia's handspun here" and here) and natural-colored tussah silk sliver from my stash
Yield: 74.5 yards
Notes: I planned on a marled yarn to extend Tahiti's vibrant colors. The neutrality of the ecru silk made it a good match. The BFL was easy to spin, but the silk. Boy. It was fine, wispy, and kept separating all over my pants. After plying, I had leftover silk singles, so I joined it to the end of the BFL and kept on plying. BFL spun woollen, long-draw; silk spun woollen, from the fold. I do like the BFL; I'll have to do more with the silk.

PS: Wendy noted in Friday's comments that browser Firefox's latest version comes with a spell-checker. Nice.

Okay, so apparently "segue" has been misspelled "segway" quite a few times even before the product ever came out. Huh. Whoddathunk.

Paula Simmons is my hero. She's convinced me to make the softest singles ever.

Fiber: Pewter Super-Fine Merino, 4 oz.
Vendor: Blue Goose Glen
Yield: 322 yards
Weight: Sport to worsted
Technique: Openhand, worsted

Granted, merino's shortish staple made it a bit difficult. Not too much twist before it becomes ropey, not enough that it falls apart. Well, as pretty as those skeins look, I had to tie a few of them up in one or three places.

It's okay to let go of goals and. Just. Spin. This was all about the process. Full on.

First, to spin a soft yarn. Next, to spin a soft single yarn. Then, to spin a soft, consistent, single yarn (my next goal with a 3-ounce batch of "butter-dipped camel"-colored merino, as Mary-Heather described it). Finally, to spin quickly. To do all this and achieve a perfectly-balanced yarn off the niddy-noddy. All in due time. I'm taking it day by day: 15 minutes here, a half-hour there, always making sure to spend some time after dinner pre-drafting the following day's spinning fiber. No tricks, no shortcuts, right Monica?

P.S.: A rant. Is it just me, or does anyone else find misspelled words irritating? Does anyone use spell check anymore? Someone (food blog; no longer subscribe to it) used "Segway", which is a product name, for "segue", which, in the way it was meant to be used, is a verb. How (insert adjective here) can you be? Let's not even go into possessives versus plurals, just spelling. Spelling. I don't mind the typos: things like "yhe" or "guage" or even "duce" because I type pretty quickly and my fingers slip. BUT. If you're using a word you're not sure about, look up the proper spelling and what it means. There's Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.com online. Use it! End of rant.

Would you like to flame me? I've got my comments open. Of course, spinning comments are always welcome. Have a nice day!

On Sunday the Southern California Handweavers' Guild held their annual show and sale at the Torrance Civic Center. I went last year with some experienced spinners, but this year I was the experienced spinner, sheperding Shannon and Mary-Heather around the tables groaning with goodies. This show and sale is small scale, not like the huge fiber fests back East. There were a lot of small vendors selling soaps, books, yarn, fiber, patterns, etc. This year being the 60th anniversary of the guild, there were a couple of women who were honored for their lifetime achievement, and Mary-Heather's going to do a writeup on an incredible woman, Suzie Henchie (sp, MH?).

Say cheese! Photo courtesy of, and copyright Shannon.

I was picky with my haul. What did I want from this sale? Mmm. I knew I wanted to try different types of wool, both sheep and other. I wanted some Crosspatch Creations batt, didn't matter which; I regretted not buying any last year. Here's what I got in the end:

At top left is 4 ounces of moorit Shetland from Stick and Stone Fiber Arts, a lovely brown (with hints of red) mass of fluffiness. To the right is 2 ounces of gray-brown Yak from Peace of Yarn, so downy soft. Then there's the 2 ounce ball of Alpaca/Llama/Wool mix from Cheltenham Cottage. Mariepaule Rossier showed us some handspun alpaca gloves and an exquisite merino/tencel (machine-spun) shawl. The ball is a combination of long hairs and down, so it will be an interesting spinning session. I never got around to asking her what the "Wool" part of the mix was, and what percentages, so I'll just play around.

A roughly 4 ounce bag of Joan Contraman's Crosspatch Creations (yay!) in a "New 2005 Color" Country Quilt. A combination of Romney, tussah silk and silk noil, it looks like an Impressionist landscape. I grabbed the bag from the enormous pile on the table and stared at it, trying to think of a Monet painting, possibly one of his Haystacks or this version of the Rouen cathedral, so lively and yet muted are the colors. This should be a joy to spin. I've found that the Crosspatch Creations Black Gold mix that Andrea gave me was interesting stuff to figure out; maybe that's the whole charm of these particular fiber mixes.

Lastly, I got Paula Simmons' Spinning for Softness & Speed (you know how I feel about this book already), and Nola and Jane Fournier's In Sheep's Clothing: A Handspinner's Guide to Wool. Lately I've become fascinated with sheep breeds and their fiber characteristics, and this bok has helpfully categorized them into Fine, Long and Crossbred, and Down wools. A useful resource, in addition to the links in one of my older posts. I'm also fascinated by their natural colors, which is why you see those above. Capistrano Fiber Arts, which had fabulous colorways, was at the sale as well; I just read Francesca's post that Stick and Stone will be carrying their fibers. Good to know.

At the fashion show I spotted this tall girl modeling a stole and immediately recognized Jillian! We called her and her friend Madge over and had a mini blogger exchange. It was great to see her again, and we would've talked some more, but someone came over to shush us and we had to leave the show. Oh well.

I was in full sensory overload with all the fiber and colors. I was so inspired watching people spin, and seeing Shannon and Mary-Heather's efforts, I've decided that this month I'll put aside the needles. I took a break during Socktoberfest, so I have this need to go back to a more tactile experience before the start of the colorwork kal. I've been in a project slump for the past two weeks, so it's good to have a goal once again.

Blogworthy: Clotilde Dusoulier of popular food blog Chocolate & Zucchini will have her cookbook out next year! This is one recipe book I'm looking forward to acquiring, as I've been reading her forever.

We're back home, smelling of smoke (campfires, great in the cold), reeking (five days of wet wipes--hello, shower!), and tired! It was a great vacation with a few friends. We explored some other areas, and BF and I did our climbing projects. BF did indeed paint, just one sketch in a half hour, as he scrambled to squeeze paints and mix them. I took pictures and read through two books. The first, gobbled up in 3 evenings, was Brian Herbert's and Kevin J. Anderson's Hunters of Dune, the long-awaited series sequel to Frank Herbert's Dune series. It was very, very good. I'm excited about the last book! Next, you *must* get Al Gore's An Incovenient Truth. Now in book version, it's well-designed, with scientific research and data formatted to be more consumer-friendly. I tried knitting a baby sock but gave up to take pictures instead.

This post is picture-heavy, perhaps to make up for the lack of imagery from the first time we climbed at St. George. Enjoy!

The landscape is hilly; we were constantly surprised to find climb-worthy rocks all over the place. The pyramid-shaped wall on the right was an example.

You get pines and junipers at higher elevations. For the most part, though, the landscape was burned out. Forest fire or controlled burn?

The main climbing attraction in southwestern Utah is this: the Cathedral wall in what is known as Welcome Springs. It's brown limestone, full of features.

This is me looking at Raising Cain (12b, but I think it's more like a 12a), one of my successful projects. It's about 60 feet high (BF's estimate), and absolutely fun. The line marks my route; the dots mark where I clip in to the rock so I don't fall too far. Someone photographed me working on it, so hopefully I'll get some good pictures!

So I found a heart, right? Only it was kinda big. And wide. Like, 10 feet wide. Wouldn't've fit in my backpack.

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You can't miss this wall while driving on the 91. Huuuge. Immense. Behemoth.

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The Chuckawalla wall is one paltry minute North of St. George. So, so jealous. Sandstone with excellent features, and perenially sunny.

Sandstone's just rock in the process of becoming sand. Over the course of millions of years, this will eventually dwindle to nuthin'. In the meantime, why not climb it?

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The hills above our campsite, which is barely visible in the lower left, down in the gully. BF would run up there to take pictures and paint.

His one and only sketch. Not bad, eh?

Me at the campsite. Nights were comfortable, not too cold. We did, however, go around the area looking for dead brush and fallen branches every night to supplement the firewood. Can't go camping without a good fire!

One of the more interesting "found objects" in the desert. It's amazing, the shit people toss out in the wilderness because they can't be bothered to dispose of them properly.

The remains of the day: beautfully clear sunsets giving way to a pristine, quiet coolness.

And for the drive to and from, select songs from our mad iPod playlist:
◊ Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack), Audrey Hepburn and Henry Mancini
◊ Speiluhr, Rammstein
◊ Open Your Heart, Madonna
◊ Sinner, Judas Priest
◊ Starry Eyed Surprise, Paul Oakenfold
◊ Silent Lucidity, Queensryche
◊ The K&D Sessions CDs, Kruder & Dorfmeister
◊ Reborn, Stryper
◊ Mayonaise, Smashing Pumpkins

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