diy tools

i've been seeing a lot of mentions about a "blending board" on ravelry and in spinning magazines. it's a bit of a free hand fiber blending tool, allowing you to "paint" with fibers. i have a set of hand carders, but find that when i want to blend a variety of fibers and colors that it blends too thoroughly and in tiny batches. apparently, this board tool gives you a large surface and more colorblocking capabilities.

so, after a little research, i decided to make one rather than buy a finished product. it's basically a cutting board and a foot of drum carding cloth. hammer in a couple of nails, and it couldn't be any easier to start throwing bits of fiber on, tapping them down with a nail brush, and pulling them off with two dowel rods. the pulling action blends the fibers a tiny bit, and you end up with several rolags, ready to spin. i have to finesse the pulling bit, but overall, i'm really pleased with this tool when i want to make colorful spinning fiber. here's a photo of my second attempt, which i've decided to name unicorn barf:

pom pom!

while wandering around the local yarn store, i happened upon a set of pom pom makers. usually i'm not all that interested in such tools, but this time was different. maybe it was the pastel colors, or a blog post i recently read, or maybe that they were made by clover. whatever it was, i picked them up.

when i got home i grabbed a bag of thrums i'd been saving (leftover warp ends from weaving), and started wrapping. this little doodad is really easy to use, and fun actually. i made a big one in old gold, then a little one in yellows, then inspiration struck! i could make pom poms for the tips of my spindle cosies! a couple of pom poms later, and i'm still fascinated. i see a future collection budding. pom poms, who knew?

fluidity of motion

i've been spinning some cream cashmere, and progressing slowly, having only started it back in october. but, a few days ago i completed the singles, weighing in at a little under an ounce. plying is usually more alluring for me, as you get to see your work as it will look when finished. it goes quicker too; only two days.

spinning is something i do when waiting, while having a slow time at work, when i need to give my emotions a rest, and something to set time aside to do. i can't say for sure how many hours it takes to create a skein of yarn, there's no log book i record time in; it's more fluent than that.

as well, it takes longer to create a finer thread. i had the dropsies several times; and had to, at the end, freeze my spindle to get the shaft unstuck from the whorl. for now this yarn will remain a lovely dumpling, as i am far away from my skein winder. although it is easier to use it in this form to knit with, i like seeing the skein; it brings truth to the way the fiber rests, and is how i full the yarn.

spinning, spun, sampled

too much drama overflowing from work into life; must dam it up. enough said about that. after teaching a beginner drop spinning class the other day, i was asked if i could spin display samples up of all the spinning fibers a shopkeeper friend has in her store. i thought that would be quite nifty and give me a chance to spin fibers i would normally not.

over two days, i spun wool, alpaca, cotton, bamboo, silk, tencel, merino, hemp, flax, yak, and camel, from laceweight to bulky, worsted, slubby, navajo plied, and what have you. some stood out better for me than others, and those which are my least favorite to spin because they make your hand feel like it's been licked raw by a cat, are still on my dislike list. i think i am currently in love with color grown cotton, though.

challenging silk

as i've been doing a bit of spinning lately, i thought it would be fun to join the tour de fleece on ravelry this year. there's a wildcard team for jenkin's turkish spindlers; and as it's my spindle of choice, i joined them.

focusing on silk and different preparations of it, i've spun up some dyed bombyx brick, 25g of dyed tussah roving, and now some silk noil. the silk noil is the really interesting one, as it's spun similarly to short staple cotton. popcorn garlands come to mind when i look at it. i think i'll keep it as a singles. i have another bag of tussah silk noils which is smoother, no vegetable matter, and looks to be a longer staple length. which i plan on spinning up after this noil.

i love drop spinning; it helps me focus, work through my emotions/thoughts, and forms a kind of meditation practice for me. now if only it burned a significant amount of calories...

towering above them all

well, i received my newest spindle a lot faster than i thought! arriving in the mail on monday, i was able to ply the 1.4 oz of yak/silk singles i had just finished; it would have been a very near thing if i had to ply it on the lark (winding the plied yarn onto the whorl creates a lot more air between layers than singles, so the same amount is nearly double the volume when plied). the swan's shaft is maple, and the whorl is cocobolo. i won't have to make a spindle cosy for it though, as it's a little too big to make travel easy. so, i've started work on a cosy for the kuchulu instead.

guanaco challenge

the other day i decided to give myself a handspun challenge; finely spin up guanaco, wild cousin of the llama. last year i got ahold of .5 oz of rich copper guanaco fiber. from my reading the deep color leads me to believe they came from an older animal; which you could never tell as the fibers are incredible soft and feel like the finest cashmere.

it wasn't necessary to card the fiber, just spin off of a fluffy handful. it was very easy to get a smooth and even strand. because of the inherent structure of the fiber it is very warm and i had to squash my desire to make a fluffy, slubby yarn, as it would have done a disservice to the fibers' nature. apparently, the warmer the fiber, the finer it needs to be spun; qiviut, bison, cashmere, vicuna, and guanaco falling into this category. as these fibers are also a bit pricey, you could spin a lot of yardage keeping this in mind. the half ounce spun up to about 172 yards which i then plied together, giving me 86 yds two-ply laceweight yarn. i haven't a clue as to what i'll make with it, so for now it stays in my spinning basket along with the bison and qiviut i'd already spun up.

submitting

here's the yarn stash i'm taking to the georgia national fair. it is a nice assortment of colors i think. there are definitely some which i will be keeping (they're so pretty, it would be hard to part from them), and some i will post to etsy when the fair is over. other entries you may have seen before if you read this blog; mini quilts, lap quilt, various cushions, weavings, smocked pin, beaded pin, etc.

yarn finds

it's fantastic when you find habu yarn on sale. i managed to get three balls of a-5 silk, and one of a-64 linen paper, all in a muted yellow green which is so pretty. happy!

weekend fun addendum

i spun up two of the batts i carded at the workshop. the batt formerly known as clown vomit was plied with a white alpaca. it was a definite learning experience. i spun it on my ancient flax wheel (which is quite the finicky beast when it comes to spinning anything thicker than fingering, and you can just about forget spinning fat and thin singles) and it may have taken me a few hours. i try not to think of it. the plying was done on a drop spindle (again, the ancient ones' fault, as it absolutely refuses to spin counter-clockwise). not that i don't enjoy plying on a drop spindle, but it is a little awkward to try any fancy art plying. but, in the end, i really like the color play and softness of the yarn.

after borrowing my good friend's schacht matchless spinning wheel, i spun up the purple batt, plied it, and was skeining in about an hour. wee! it's quite lovely, and i really like the flashes of purple silk and amethyst corriedale locks. another lesson learnt; it is true that you shouldn't mix differing lengths of fiber when creating a batt, as the longer fibers all but disappear while spinning (much like a corespun, with the longer fibers acting the part of the core).

a snowball?

well, i managed to squeeze all of the alpaca on the drop spindle, and it doesn't look so much like a drop spindle as a softball with an antennae (or a jack in the box head). i wound it off, skeined it, and fulled it, and now have a lovely bundle of white alpaca laceweight.

i've been playing with the idea of dyeing it a soft aubergine with cochineal, but figured perhaps the white plainness may work in my favor. maybe. just guessing really. not going on any data to back this hypothesis up. we'll know in a month though, won't we?

the muslin sacks are all sewn up, corded, and tagged. it's a good thing i thought of labeling, as they're mostly indistinct from one another. i feel almost like a bank robber with sacks of money; hey, it's what they look like to me.

after picking up some color grown cotton roving yesterday, i'm down to two empty sacks. hmm. luckily i have enough cord and material for several more, and they're quick and easy to sew up.

the way of shifu

i think, perhaps, i am finally understanding how to spin paper. so far, my efforts with a drop spindle have gone awry; there's nothing like spending time carefully cutting paper into 2mm strips only to see it break apart every three inches when you start to spin it.

then, after putting it aside for a bit, i came across a comment about using a bobbin winder. so, having armed myself with some medium weight handmade paper, i set about winding it on a bobbin winder and was successful. here are the results of the first success, wound onto a kiwaku.

the things we find

i was undoing a hat which, once completed, was too small for my head. i didn't feel like gifting it, as i'm greatly enamored of the yarn, so i unknit it to be put aside for another project. while pulling the rows out a form took shape and i suddenly saw a jelly fish!

cushions, pincushions, pins and...yarn!

i've added some of the yarn i've been spinning to my etsy page. there's so many gorgeous yarns throughout etsy, i think mine may become quickly lost! it would be great if there were local craft shows in savannah, i could think of a few people who would want to share a booth.

i did some logwood dyeing today, and have a bit of fiber soaking in a jar of lichen dye. when i look at the dyebath after the first batch of fiber is dyed there is still so much dyestuff left in it, but the next batch of premordanted fibers come out in such pale shades, even though i soak them overnight in the cooling water. i completely don't get it. it's like this for all of the dyes i've been using; cochineal, kamala, osage, logwood, madder, teal. i hate having to dump the remaining stuff in my compost if it's still usable, so i wish i could figure it out. i think perhaps a posted question to the natural dyes group is needed.

creativity in the face of the dismals

well, what have you been up to anastasia? hmm, maybe not as much as i thought. you'd think being jobless would free up a lot of time to just focus. but then you want to buy the materials with which you've envisioned a piece, and find that there is a downside to being without a job; a serious lack of funds. then you think, "what about that stock of stuff i've been building up for the last few years?", and you find that your tastes have changed somewhat.

or perhaps, i just like the thrill of ordering something, the suppressed excitement of knowing that something is in the mail, the joy of finding a package waiting for you on the doorstep, the exhilaration of opening a box, and admiration, which lasts ever so slightly in the passage of time, of your new acquisition before the urge to order something else takes hold of your senses. ugh. i think i have a problem. or, rather, an addiction. join the club.

then, there's other things which arrive in the mail which aren't so welcome; bills. with the lovely bit of financial reality i receive in the mail every month, i'm beginning to realize that i can't be as free with my heart's desires, that the old piggy bank ain't giving out one more dime. i could be over come with bleakness and dive into a deep pit of despair and depression, or, i could start looking closer to home for material to work with. you know, *cough* the cats, or something.

which brings me to my latest undertaking, spinning cat fiber yarn! i'm calling it turkish van fiber. sounds fancy, huh? well, they are decadently soft, these two kitties of mine. and they really love getting combed, plus they come in three colorways, auburn, black, and white, which mixes up to a greyish yarn color once carded. so, i've spun the cat hair onto a bobbin, and plied it with wool left over from my felting days (which weren't all that many now that i'm being honest with myself), and created a lovely mottled french grey yarn which is surprisingly soft.

i'll admit it though, i really enjoy spinning, and keep wistfully gazing at the pages of ox, alpaca, linen, peace silk, vicuna, qivuit, and guanaco fiber available these days on the internet. but, thankfully for my sagging wallet, i haven't pressed the purchase button yet. sigh. i want a job. a workroom assistant to a costume designer would be nice, or to work in a couture house sewing by hand for hours, or attaching sequins to a stage outfit, any of those would cause me to hyperventilate with happiness. oh, i don't know, one can dream i guess.

an old one but a good one

my mentor and friend bonnie lent me one of her spinning wheels on friday. it's a lovely old wheel which has a lively history. while visiting england, she stayed with a friend who was in her eighties. this grand lady knew bonnie was a spinner, and decided to pass onto her this spinning wheel. she told her the story of it's provenance; when she was a girl of sixteen her scarborough beau crafted it as a gift of love. sadly though, he soon died, and they did not marry. bonnie brought it back on the plane, and her husband soon had it in tip-top shape. i'm very honored that my friend let me start my spinning on this wheel, and i was able to spin some soft grey alpaca on it today.

this is my first spinning wheel spun yarn, it's a white/color specked merino/silk and grey alpaca. the merino blend i had spun on my drop spindle several weeks ago, and i thought would go lovely with the soft grey of the alpaca. i'm very pleased with the end results!

textural yet delicate

i came across a really neat cone of cotton slubby thread and also a jade green cone of pearl cotton at my local yarn store; i love slubby textiles. looking at these thin yarns i really wanted to weave a scarf from them along with a grey bamboo yarn from my habu stash which i could pack for my trip. when i got home i plotted out some warp stripes with the green and grey against the cream, figured out a good width and length and had at it on the warping board.

needless to say the first warp was a disaster; all of the slubby threads stuck to each other like velcro. so this particular thread would be a weft yarn unless spaced with a slicker material. good to know. i salvaged as much as i could, placed them on bobbins and rethought my plans. when in doubt, fall back on pearl cotton.

the second warp went off without fail, and i was able to thread up, get tension, and start to weave. i kind of plan as i go when it comes to the weft threads, i like the sudden thought flashes that happen when i do this. taking notes along the way helps though. and keeping a record along with samples of yarn used.

i like how it came out, wrinkles will only add to it's textural appeal, and it's really light; so perfect to pack for travel.

my newest hoard

this was the third year that scad had their art materials trade show. initially i wasn't going to stop in at the vendors' tables; but when i took a gander at their list of vendors i quickly changed my mind. habu textiles was going to be there! i've never really bought any of their yarn before, thinking it was all rather odd, but i felt an overwhelming urge to go and see what they had to offer. if i remembered correctly they had a plethora of natural fibers and interesting materials. as i am currently enthralled with oddities and natural fibers i decided that i really needed to check them out.

i arrived a half hour early and snuck in to see where their table was located. i found it, took a quick look around and then was kicked out until the doors opened at eleven. luckily the table was located right in front of the entrance door.

oh wow! i would be in extreme trouble if i lived anywhere near to the new york city store. all the raw silks, linens, hemps, naturally dyed fibres; i was in heaven! it took about 45 minutes to gather two basketfuls of loveliness, but they were all so incredible. one oddity i picked up was a bag of golden silk worm cocoons from the curricula of indonesia, they are so beautiful and i can think of several ways to incorporate them into my work.

i learned that the next day the owner of habu textiles, takako ueki, would be giving a lecture about her wares. it was delightful! the information she had was interesting, plus she brought with her some amazing samples of cloth. with my newly acquired knowledge, i headed back to the table and picked up some more yarns including a paper yarn dyed with indigo.

i've decided that i am going to pick up weaving. i've done some research and am planning to save up for a schacht baby wolf loom. i really, really, wish that i could find a secondhand one, as they are quite pricey. maybe i'll stumble on one yet! but if anyone out there knows of one for sale please let me know!

while goofing off

i have these two pieces of stitched fabric that i discovered in a scrap bin at school. the color mixture isn't something i would merge, as they aren't my favorites; but, there's something appealing about them.

awhile back i knitted gauntlets with this heavenly alpaca yarn and couldn't bear to toss the ends. looking at the stitched scrap i remembered the bits of yarn, and they went together so well that i had to find a way to merge them into something.

i haven't made a pincushion in awhile so that was the choice. i used some lovely striped tasmanian wool for the back, and sewed on some buttons from my collection. one of my favorite bits of cloth in this pincushion is the metallic linen; the sheen isn't captured well in the photos, but the button reflects similar qualities.

not your average case

so, while viewing some fascinating textural images on flickr, i was inspired to weave something; not having a loom at the moment and never actually doing it before only being a small bump on the road. but, hey, i've read about the main technique somewhere before, and have seen it done.
grabbing my embroidery frame out of cold storage i proceeded to hammer straight pins into the dowel rods. moments later and voila! a frame on which to weave.

i can see why weavers created patterns; it was monotonous at times but actually really relaxing. it put me in mind of a movie from my childhood, the three lives of thomasina.

taking the finished piece off of the frame was tricky and i'm sure there is a clean way to do this, but i forged ahead anyway. the poor little cloth (because that's what it was at this point, and really amazing too; that whole yarn to cloth part.) was kind of worse for wear but had me thinking about a pouch. several stitches later, a trip to the store for a zipper and a button, cutting, ironing, stitching, and sewing by hand and i had a cute little pouch to store my new business cards in. it's a little asymmetric, kind of wedge like, but really charming all in all; and i like it because i made it from scratch on a whim, which is pretty cool in my eyes.

ah, yes, the cards. they turned out very nice. eventually i want letterpress ones, but i really don't know of the design yet.