Posts filed under 'Spinning'
Abbey and I had a girls’ day last weekend and exchanged holiday presents. Here’s what I gave her.
These two skeins are 226 yards total and are a wool/silk blend.
I bought 4 ounces of handpainted roving from Fiber Fanatic Roving at this year’s Wool Fest. I plied it with some silk yarn Abbey gave me for my birthday.
Here’s the roving:
And here’s some of the yarn on my wheel:
Last year I spun her almost 400 yards. Somehow I thought I had 16 oz of this roving. But double checking the tag I only bought 4.
I found a wool scarf at the local free pile that I frogged for the yarn. It was single ply and had a nice orange/pink/yellow variegation to it. I plied it up with the silk yarn to make two more skeins.
These two skeins are 200 yards total and are also a wool/silk blend.
She liked the yarn! Next up is her present and our adventure at the movie theater.
December 14th, 2009
I started spinning up the periwinkle roving I bought from Lonesome Stone. It is lovely to spin. A girl could get spoiled spinning their stuff. I’m hitting their booth first thing at next year’s Wool Fest.
I’m challenging myself by spinning pretty thin which will eventually become a 2 ply.
November 28th, 2009
I’m working on my woven piece for next year’s Beyond The Fringe. It’s going to be a long narrow strip with felt and needlework on top. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough blue yarn so I recently spun up more.
This is stash yarn that I plied together. These two skeins are a little over 250 yards.
November 23rd, 2009
I finished spinning up my gray fleece that I bought at the 2008 Taos Wool Festival.
Here’s what I started with:
I got a bit over 300 yards.
That seems kind of small considering the huge bag of fleece I bought. I did spin it into a bulky two ply. The mini skein was leftovers on one bobbin that I spun up Navajo style.
This fleece was scratchy and full of veggie matter so a bulky weight seemed best.
A close up:
How much veggie matter was there? Here’s a pic of my lap while I was spinning this stuff.
I was listening to the Sticks and Strings Podcast. It’s a good show.
Prana is still as cute as ever. Here he is sleeping:
November 4th, 2009
I figured I’d buy a mix of fleece and yarn at this year’s fest. Instead I bought lots of yummy fiber and no yarn at all.
This is West by Southwest handpainted wool roving. It’s course wool so I’m thinking some kind of outer wear garment. Maybe a hat? It’s 4 oz. so I’ll probably pair it up with some other handspun.
The next two bags are from Lonesome Stone. Last year I got to their booth too late and they were practically sold out of their fleece. This year I made sure to get there early.
Both bags are 90% alpaca and 10% merino wool roving. I’ve started spinning the periwinkle roving and it is heavenly to spin. I love it so much!
I bought some dyed mohair locks for my mother and green man art pieces. The vendor Marie, from the Durakai Sheep ranch, was very helpful and gave me some great advice about needle felting.
Sunday I walked around and tried to buy yarn. Here’s what I got instead:
Llama fleece. It’s such a lovely natural color and feels so soft. I couldn’t resist.
I have so much yummy fabric to spin. I’m really grooving with my spinning wheel these days.
October 16th, 2009
I entered my Fisherman’s Shrug into the sweater contest at the Taos Wool Fest. I won third place!
I’m ecstatic! Yay!
October 3rd, 2009
Remember the bag of fleece I washed at Merce’s place?
I’ve started to spin it up.
It has so much vegetable matter! I’m fluffing it by hand, running it through the drum carder three times and lots of it flies off during spinning. And there’s still veggie matter in the single. I’m hoping more comes off during plying.
September 18th, 2009
Lori from the Yarn Store had me spin up some alpaca to sell at her shop. This was my first try with alpaca. It was interesting. The staple is much shorter than wool. I put it through the drum carder a couple of times and that really helped the fiber stick to itself.
I spun up a total of 421 yards.
I’m enjoying experimenting with different fibers. Maybe I’ll try a silk blend next.
I made a mini skein:
A close up:
This alpaca is now at the Yarn Store. It’s pretty exciting to see my handspun in an actual yarn store!
August 29th, 2009
This dress was in the box of childhood mementos my Dad sent me:
I knew as soon as I saw it again that it was getting cut up for the mother piece. I remember not liking this dress. Part of me did but another part thought it was too red. Another instance of my Mother putting her favorite color on me. Bleh.
Prana sat with me while I cut it up. He’s such a sweetie.
The dress is so girly isn’t it? It’s just covered in lace and ruffles.
Here’s the two balls of yarn I created:
I corespun the yarn around some other mother piece yarn I created. Remember my baby blanket post? I used that yarn as the core yarn.
I spun the white dress yarn around the white baby blanket yarn and the red dress yarn around the red blanket yarn.
The white yarn I spun against the acrylic core yarns twist. It’s a loose yarn.
The red yarn I spun with the twist of the core yarn. It’s tighter and has much more twist.
Here’s a better pic of the two yarns.
I’m thinking of crocheting this yarn and somehow attaching it to the womb.
Though I’m happy with the end result I didn’t like the process at all. The whole time I felt resentment and some anger. It felt like I was processing my emotions, somehow putting my anger into the yarn.
This art therapy stuff is some weird shit. I mean I like it and think it works and all…but still it’s weird.
August 14th, 2009
Back in June Abbey and I went out to Merce’s to wash some wool. I bought a whole fleece at last year’s Wool Fest that needed cleaned. Abbey blogged about the day on her blog.
Merce and I get ready to start the washing.
Abbey was decked out in her sun gear and prepped and fluffed the wool for us.
Merce lives off grid too so I was particularly interested in learning her technique. She has three wash tubs, each heated on a propane fueled burner. Candy thermometers are placed on the side of each tub to monitor the temparture.
The first bin is the soap wash, the second and third ones are for rinsing.
Special gloves are used since the temperature is so hot. I want to say it was 150 degrees? Here’s my dirty fleece:
Abbey was teasing me about something so I retaliated with dirty water flicking.
Between tub two and three we put the fleece on a screen to prep it for the wringer.
The wringer squeezes out excess water without felting the wool.
My fleece was dark brown when I bought it at the Wool Fest. After washing it’s now a heathered brown/gray.
Me with my fleece:
Now I get to spin it up!
August 5th, 2009
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