handspun handknit

So as I’ve finally started turning out reasonably usable-looking yarn, I’ve also been able to start making things from it – my dreams of making a floaty laceweight wrap in purest handspun camel/silk are still a fair way off, but in the meantime I’ve made a couple of things I’m quite chuffed with.

Firstly, I’m currently working on a drop stitch scarf (very similar to the one that was in spin-off a while back) made from hand-dyed BFL from the lovely john at easyknits.  I met him and his stall of gorgeous offerings at the brighton knitting safari (which I haven’t mentioned at all so far but was fabulously organised by peri, and has also been blogged about by annie here and by wibbo here). This delicious fibre is called ‘harkness green’ (after cap’n jack harkness, no less) and, though I would have loved the colours even if it hadn’t had a geeky name, I have to say for me it adds a little je ne sais quoi

harkness green BFL

I spun it on my wheel, but as I wanted to keep the striping, I then navajo plied it on my spindle as I still can’t quite get my head round the rhythm of doing it on a wheel! Another on my list of things to learn…

navajo plied on spindle

I’m about 2/3rds of the way into the scarf – it shouldn’t take me long to finish really, but I’ve temporarily set it aside to get cracking on xmas knitting. I didn’t think I was going to be doing much this year but have had a couple of late requests – and that happens so rarely I want to make sure I get them done!

scarf in progress - finished, blocked version will look much nicer!

I’ve also knocked up a lengthways garter stitch scarf for a friend for her birthday:

beautifully squooshy

My favourite so far, however, is my swallowtail shawl – I spun this ‘petrol spill’ BFL from the fabulously talented spindlefrog on etsy and plied it with a very similar colourway of hers called ‘dragonfly’:

petrol spill

and I got about 510m of roughly 4-ply weight:

petrol spill plied with dragonfly

and then I made the swallowtail shawl (the pattern can be downloaded free, from evelyn clark’s site). I added 4 repeats of the budding lace (main body of shawl) but then got worried I was going to run out of yarn and started on the lily of the valley bits.

sooooft and squishy!

I skipped the nupps and used beads – partly because I was worried I didn’t have enough yarn, and partly because I’d found the perfect petrol-spill-coloured beads to go with this colour!

old beady

It could maybe have done with being a bit bigger – but it’s the perfect size to wrap around my neck as a scarf, which is what it gets used for anyway. Plus, I had enough yarn left over to have done at least a couple more repeats – typical!

don't worry, the fire doesn't work

Of course, I still have about a billionty mini-skeins sitting around… I think I’ll just keep hanging onto them until I get round to knitting a big crazy blanket of some kind. However, judging by the lack of progress on my sock yarn blankie since I started spinning, this may take a while!

you’ve come a long way, baby

I don’t write, I don’t call… another huge gap in blogging so thought I’d do a post on my spinning!

I started spinning earlier this year (may, june? can’t remember which) and promptly became utterly obsessed. I got myself a drop spindle kit from here, watched the DVD (and some on youtube) and off I went! My first few attempts really resembled yarn barf, which I lovingly referred to as ‘Beckham-spun’ (Thick & Thin – yes, I am hilarious!):

yarn turd

Reassured by the SuperSeriousSockKnitters group on Ravelry that everyone’s first yarn looks like this, and that in time I would come to wish I could make ‘art yarn’ like this again, I stuck at it. Practice-practice-practice made for better, if not perfect spindling, and I started being able to spin stuff that looked like I might actually be able to knit with it:

almost usable

I was determined to stick with the spindle, but the one in the Learning kit was reasonably heavy at 50g, so I went for a quick pootle on Etsy (dangerous!) and came away with a handmade one, at 33g and then later another pootle over to a UK seller (I can’t remember who!) left me with a 44g one. A trip to the P&M Woolcraft stall at the Singleton show with Annie left me clutching a much-desired Bosworth featherweight – 14g! The Bosworth in particular is a dream to spin with – so perfectly balanced and such a long spinner, and so light you can spin frog hair with it.

However, after a few months playing with the spindles, I came to realise that I really wanted a wheel. Now – I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of spinning, and don’t really see a wheel as an ‘upgrade’ to a spindle, as such, but it was clear to me that: 1. my left shoulder was getting seriously painful from spindling, and 2. as a result I was never going to be able to make enough yarn to actually do anything much with, and 3. well… I just wanted a wheel and a new way of spinning

I did A Metric Buttload of research on wheels – first wheels, second wheels and so on – there’s loads out there on t’interwebs, and Ravelry was great as usual – I joined several spinners’ groups and spent months reading posts about people’s likes and dislikes. In the absence of (back then) really knowing any nearby spinners I didn’t want to go running off to eBay and end up buying something I thought was a bargain, only to find it was missing bits, stuck together with varnish so it was unusable, purely decorative, etc etc.

At the Singleton show I got to try out an Ashford Traveller, and really liked it. I’m not a huge one for the turned wood look though, and whilst it seemed like a lovely little wheel and loads of people love it (and importantly, it was the right size for my tiny flat!), I’d also read of a fair amont of people who fund it limiting after a while and wanted to upgrade. As I’d already decided that spinning was now a lifetime hobby, and my parents always maintained you should get the best tools you can afford at the time, I decided to start looking at the sort of wheels they’d ‘upgraded’ to, and found myself looking at the Lendrum DT. Well, when I say looking, I mean buying ;P

I don’t seem to have taken many pics of it so here’s the best one I have so far, complete with cat, who has also been asspinnerated (and floor, which could do with a hoover):

isn't she clever?

I love it! It does everything I want it to, and there’s so much room for me to get better. It’s foldable (fits down the side of the sofa if I need it to) and carryable (if you have the carry bag, which I couldn’t afford, but I plan to make one…). It comes with the fast flyer which is great, as that’s (more-or-less) for putting more twist into your yarn – so good for things like fine spinning, and fibres like alpaca, and so on.  It has a jumbo head with a masseeev bobbin for plying on – so big I’ve only actually been able to entirely fill it once, it’ll easily take 8oz of fibre. The jumbo head can also be used for spinning ‘art’ yarns as it has a massive orifice (the hole where the yarn gets pulled onto the wheel, nothing vulgar!) and can therefore pull in all sorts of coiled/beehived/dangly locked crap without getting stuck or tangled. Haven’t really tried it for this yet – not a huge art yarn fan – but I would definitely like to give it a go at some point.

So far I’ve only been spinning up small batches of various fluffs, trying out new techniques, and haven’t really knitted much so far from what I’ve spun. Here’s a few pics of ’stuff I’ve spun on the wheel’:

crown mountain farms, '12th planet', 8oz, 12-14wpi, 420m

spindlefrog bfl, 'petrol spill' plied with 'dragonfly', approx 8oz, 14wpi

my first 3-ply! white nz lambswool, hand-dyed with food colouring, 220m

handspun 2-ply 50/50 bfl/mohair blend, natural white/cream, 248m, 100g

anyway, that’s enough yarn pr0n for now – next post will be a couple of things I’ve actually made from my handspun!

dyeing to show you…

I’ve been dyeing wool for spinning – and getting a bit carried away with it, it’s so much fun!

I happened upon this tutorial on Wooly Wormhead’s site, and it looked so much more do-able than I ever thought it would be! I had a fair bit of undyed/natural coloured fibre hanging around (for my feather & fan shawl – still need to spin some up to finish it!) so I decided to get out some food colouring and vinegar and give it a go.

I should have taken more progress shots, really – maybe next time – this is all I have for now

roving laid out to dry/drain on towel before hanging on dryer

laid out to dry on laundry dryer thingy

I really like the results! I’ll definitely be doing more dyeing – I love seeing the way the colours come out, and then spinning them up is a whole new experience! I’m spinning up the ‘Mallard’ one now – it got a teensy bit felted so is coming out a bit ‘rustic’, but that’s fine. As I was half-expecting to come out with a load of brightly coloured but felted boiled wool I’m still chuffed to bits!

You can tell how carried away by the whole thing I was – I even gave them names and braided them like ‘proper’ rovings!

'Something Wicked' - 96g white NZ lambswool hand dyed

'Mallard' - 85g oatmeal BFL - hand dyed