winter slowdown

i've not been particularly active in the creation area lately. however, i skeined the cream cashmere i'd been working on these last few months. comparing it to others i've spun, it's the finest in size. which is why it probably took so long to spin. the results are so soft and pretty though, so it was worth it. happily, i've got some warm grey cashmere fiber to spin up in my hoard. because these fibers are so fine, i feel as if i should only spin them up laceweight.

following in jean's footsteps, i went through all of my handspun and labeled each skein with the fiber type, yardage, and year created. i'm glad i decided to do that, as i had trouble remembering when and what for a couple of them. luckily, i've been fairly good at documenting my spinning on this blog.

spin, spin, spin

yay! i completed my first ravelry 'tour de fleece' a couple of hours ago. all in all, i was able to spin a sampling of dyed bombyx silk brick, 25 grams of treenway silks dyed tussah roving, 25 grams of bombyx silk noil, 25 grams of treenway silks tussah noil, and a half sheet of mulberry paper. the mulberry paper connects with the silk theme, as silkworms eat mulberry leaves.

the interesting thing about these types of silk (the exception being the bombyx brick) is that as a single they are somewhat course feeling, but once plied, become soft and light. as well, the bombyx noils contrast more when blending with carders than the tussah, which is a finer noil.

as if a steady stream of spinning for the last 23 days wasn't enough, i've started carding a bombyx silk noil and green colorgrown peruvian cotton batt to spin this week. striking while the irons hot, and all that.

topsy turvy

spinning away on my drop spindle; this time tussah noil. it's drafting thinner than the bombyx noil, so the singles are finer. i've decided to play it safe and to divide up the fiber into two balls to ply together, rather than risk a center pull ball tangling. it should be interesting and nubby when plied, hopefully tomorrow. tour de fleece is over on the 22nd, so i should concentrate on finishing this up. fingers crossed!

the rumpelstiltskin condition

some of my recent drop spinning. the larger skein is paco-vicuna cria, a breed of alpaca. it is so very soft, a warm cream with a tiny bit of tawny variation (which was easier to see as a single). it spun up fairly well, with some nubby spots where i hadn't combed it well enough. i had gotten 1 oz of raw fleece, and after removing the guard hairs and vegetable matter it came to about .9 oz, 165 yds plied. the name of this alpaca is vesper. though the undercoat is a nice warm cream, the guard hairs were a reddish blonde, so it made it easy to pick them out.

the other skein is a three-ply pakucho color grown cotton, with two strands of rich cinnamon chocolate and one strand moka chocolate. this is my first three ply, mostly because these were two left over balls of singles and i had more of one than the other so i figured the best use of them was to triple ply. i haven't boiled it in baking soda water yet, so the colors aren't as deep as they can be.

i still have no clue what i'm going to use all this yarn for. for now, i'm just happy spinning it.

off the loom

i'm trying to work on my backgrounds, and thought the grey color of the aged wood would help the creamy color of this scarf pop better. but today was a bit sunny, and no matter how i hoped for some clouds to filter the light of the sun it was all in vain; so i think the contrast is a little too much. better luck for tomorrow, i hear there'll be rain! but hopefully not before i can take more photos of my freshly woven scarf.

inlay and boil, boil, boil

beginning work on a new weaving. i wanted to try out an inlay technique where the ends are left free to create a pile; i haven't any clue what it's called, i just saw it somewhere and thought it looked neat. i hope the piece will turn out well, it's hard to really know until you remove it from the loom.

this piece also gave me an opportunity to use my new obi shuttles which i bought while in kyoto. one thing is for sure, they make doing inlay incredibly easy. and they're just so gosh darn cute!

i came across a passage in an old dye book about using mistletoe to get a deep green. in town there's a group of juvenile trees which have mistletoe growing low enough to cut without needing a ladder. so today, while grocery shopping i collected some mistletoe. then, after separating the leaves from the branches, i boiled the stems for an hour. tomorrow i'll boil the leaves, then i'll compare how much dyestuff i get from them. i think three different dye experiments will be good to do; the stems, the leaves, then a 50/50 combo of both. for once, i think i'll do a lightfast test as well; if the dye passes that, and creates a lovely green, i'll be happy.

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.

i'm seeing plaid

one of the projects in weaving i completed, (if fulling is the last step in a woven piece, then i completed it yesterday) a german bird's eye twill. this was an interesting piece which i titledworldly camel, as it contains camel down yarn, handspun bamboo, cotton, and baby alpaca.

the warp was an experiment in using different colors and creating stripes. with the weft, i repeated the spacing of each warp color to create an asymmetrical plaid. i wanted to get as much out of the warp as possible, so the overall length of the piece is longer than planned; but that's okay as it makes a wonderfully soft wrap.

i like the strong blue lines, it makes the neutral cream and brown really pop. i had fun weaving this piece; even with the couple of weaving errors i can spot. herringbone, or as it is known in weaving lingo, twill, is one of my favorite patterns. overall, none too shabby for my first wool piece and my fifth weaving piece. i have three towels which were projects from an issue of handwoven still on a friends loom, and two beginner pieces finished, one a rag rug table runner, and the other a scarf, which i gifted to my mother.