You spin me right round, baby, right round
I've been going great guns on the spinning wheel in the last two weeks. It's crazy how much I can churn out in a short time. I've been learning about ratios and tensions and different drafting techniques, but mostly I've just been enjoying the tactile experience of it.
I've been spindling quite a lot as well-- just before the spinning wheel came into my hot little hands, I'd ordered a new drop spindle from Spinsanity. It's super light and spins beautifully, which means I've been spinning a true laceweight for the first time ever.
Here's what I spun up in the first night I had the wheel: there was a tiny bit left of this teal/blue/purple/black/orange blended merino that I had originally used to make the dread falls in my user icon. I spun that up at spinning group the very first time I sat down at the wheel. Since there wasn't much of it, and I wanted to ply it, I took an equivalent tiny amount of teal merino top that crescentwench gave me, and spun it up. The next morning before leaving for work, I plied them together. It's only about 32 yards, but it's yarn, made in less than 24 hours.
I kept working with that teal merino (which I had almost a pound of!) I spun up about half of the fiber-- basically filled up two bobbins of singles, and then 2-plied them together. I had to divide it into two skeins because I had Teh Dumb and failed to see the obvious, which is that two completely full bobbins of singles are not magically going to both fit onto one bobbin when they're plied together. So I got my bobbin of 2-ply full and then some, then had to break the yarn, wind it off on the niddy-noddy, and ply the remaining singles. The bigger skein's about 238 yards, the smaller one's about 143 yards. I originally thought that I might do a dip-overdye with black to create a gradient of darker greens, but this has a really beautiful sheen all on its own, so I'm going to leave it as is. Eventually I'll spin up the rest of it.
Remember my adventures with fiber dyeing last fall? Remember the copper and green roving that I was so pleased with? Well, I spun it up-- did it all in an evening. I was trying to spin a little thicker, but I was also experimenting with a higher ratio, which maybe wasn't the best combination. I tried to keep the color changes clear, but they were a lot of spots where they blended and it got sort of muddy. At any rate, I 2-plied this to itself, and I like how it came out, though the yardage isn't what I'd hoped for (it's about 63 yards):
I think it will become a neckwarmer or something.
Last night, I put the high-speed kit on the wheel and decided to try that out while trying to spin lace weight. I have some gorgeous superwash merino-tencel blend that has a lovely sheen and will drape well (because of the tencel), so I think it would make a good lace. Also, I'm really practicing to learn how to do this before trying it on another merino-tencel blend roving that I just bought and want to turn into laceweight. Anyway, I'm using the lower ratio on the high-speed whorl, and it's working like a dream so far. The stuff I'm spinning looks like thread (haven't checked the Wraps Per Inch, so I don't know what I'm getting, but it's really fine), and not too much breakage thus far.
So, in the first week of having the wheel, I may have possibly gone nuts and bought a bunch of rovings/fiber on Etsy. Okay, to be fair, I ordered one of them the day I ordered my new spindle, before I knew that I'd be getting hold of a wheel. Still. They're so gorgeous that I've been at a loss for which to start first, coupled with anxiety about messing any of them up. (Hence, I started on something already in my stash.) Anyway, they're pretty and I feel the need to pimp out the fiber crafters I bought them from, so here you go:
Black Magic Woman: batts of black lambswool (so soft!) with gold glitz and bright sari silk fibers blended in. This is from Enchanted Knoll Farms, a small family off-the-grid farm in Maine. She also sent me a little sample of purple wool (merino, I think) with purple glitz combed into it-- perfect, as I've spun it laceweight and am going to ply it with another sample of hot pink merino that came with my spindle, spun laceweight. And I will call it my Magical Unicorn Yarn, because it will be pink and purple and SPARKLY. Wheee. *Ahem*
Day's End: 4 oz of BFL (Blue-Faced Leicester) top, dyed by Fat Cat Knits. This is a one-of-a-kind dye job, with a bit of chaos theory in it: at the end of a dyeing day, she took all the little bits of dye mixes left from doing her regular colorways, and tossed 'em all onto this to see what would happen. I love how rich, yet warm and muted, these colors are. Aimee, my wheel pimp, swears by Fat Cat's fibers, so I had to check them out for myself. I've never spun BFL, but I've heard other spinners speak of it like the holy grail of wools, and indeed it feels as soft as a kitten, kind of like a fine merino but more velvety.
And then there's Fiber Optic. I stumbled across her Etsy site, and the colorways floored me. I love the richness and complete saturation of her colors (no white spaces!), but also the combinations she puts together. I love seeing how the same colorway turns out differently on different fibers, and on roving vs. yarn. I bought two rovings from her before I could help myself. (Curiously, on the latest episode of Lime & Violet, which came out a week after I bought these rovings, they mention Fiber Optic in their yarn pr0n section, and squee over the exact two rovings that I bought. *preen*)
Black Coffee: 4 oz superwash merino top. I love how rich and warm this is-- that it is, in fact, not black at all, but full of browns, plums, and even greens. Interestingly, in her merino-tencel blend, it was much cooler and greyer, but I loved the warmth of the full merino.
Afternoon in Paris: 4 oz superwash merino & tencel. The tencel adds such a lovely sheen to this; it reminds me of an Impressionist painting rendered into stained glass. As I mentioned above, the tencel will make this silky/drapey, so I'm going to try to spin it laceweight and knit something light and lacey out of it. I'd toyed with the idea of making myself a Clapotis, but there isn't enough fiber in this one spiral of roving for that. I'm getting all nostalgic for Paris in part because I may be going there this summer with my mom-- so I thought spinning and knitting things to symbolize Paris would be appropriate.
{As it happens, I was still obsessed with the Clapotis/Paris idea, because I'd want a light shawl/scarf of some sort for the plane and cool summer evenings outdoors at a cafe, so I ended up ordering myself two skeins of Handmaiden Sea Silk in their Paris colorway.}
I've been spindling quite a lot as well-- just before the spinning wheel came into my hot little hands, I'd ordered a new drop spindle from Spinsanity. It's super light and spins beautifully, which means I've been spinning a true laceweight for the first time ever.
Here's what I spun up in the first night I had the wheel: there was a tiny bit left of this teal/blue/purple/black/orange blended merino that I had originally used to make the dread falls in my user icon. I spun that up at spinning group the very first time I sat down at the wheel. Since there wasn't much of it, and I wanted to ply it, I took an equivalent tiny amount of teal merino top that crescentwench gave me, and spun it up. The next morning before leaving for work, I plied them together. It's only about 32 yards, but it's yarn, made in less than 24 hours.
I kept working with that teal merino (which I had almost a pound of!) I spun up about half of the fiber-- basically filled up two bobbins of singles, and then 2-plied them together. I had to divide it into two skeins because I had Teh Dumb and failed to see the obvious, which is that two completely full bobbins of singles are not magically going to both fit onto one bobbin when they're plied together. So I got my bobbin of 2-ply full and then some, then had to break the yarn, wind it off on the niddy-noddy, and ply the remaining singles. The bigger skein's about 238 yards, the smaller one's about 143 yards. I originally thought that I might do a dip-overdye with black to create a gradient of darker greens, but this has a really beautiful sheen all on its own, so I'm going to leave it as is. Eventually I'll spin up the rest of it.
Remember my adventures with fiber dyeing last fall? Remember the copper and green roving that I was so pleased with? Well, I spun it up-- did it all in an evening. I was trying to spin a little thicker, but I was also experimenting with a higher ratio, which maybe wasn't the best combination. I tried to keep the color changes clear, but they were a lot of spots where they blended and it got sort of muddy. At any rate, I 2-plied this to itself, and I like how it came out, though the yardage isn't what I'd hoped for (it's about 63 yards):
I think it will become a neckwarmer or something.
Last night, I put the high-speed kit on the wheel and decided to try that out while trying to spin lace weight. I have some gorgeous superwash merino-tencel blend that has a lovely sheen and will drape well (because of the tencel), so I think it would make a good lace. Also, I'm really practicing to learn how to do this before trying it on another merino-tencel blend roving that I just bought and want to turn into laceweight. Anyway, I'm using the lower ratio on the high-speed whorl, and it's working like a dream so far. The stuff I'm spinning looks like thread (haven't checked the Wraps Per Inch, so I don't know what I'm getting, but it's really fine), and not too much breakage thus far.
So, in the first week of having the wheel, I may have possibly gone nuts and bought a bunch of rovings/fiber on Etsy. Okay, to be fair, I ordered one of them the day I ordered my new spindle, before I knew that I'd be getting hold of a wheel. Still. They're so gorgeous that I've been at a loss for which to start first, coupled with anxiety about messing any of them up. (Hence, I started on something already in my stash.) Anyway, they're pretty and I feel the need to pimp out the fiber crafters I bought them from, so here you go:
Black Magic Woman: batts of black lambswool (so soft!) with gold glitz and bright sari silk fibers blended in. This is from Enchanted Knoll Farms, a small family off-the-grid farm in Maine. She also sent me a little sample of purple wool (merino, I think) with purple glitz combed into it-- perfect, as I've spun it laceweight and am going to ply it with another sample of hot pink merino that came with my spindle, spun laceweight. And I will call it my Magical Unicorn Yarn, because it will be pink and purple and SPARKLY. Wheee. *Ahem*
Day's End: 4 oz of BFL (Blue-Faced Leicester) top, dyed by Fat Cat Knits. This is a one-of-a-kind dye job, with a bit of chaos theory in it: at the end of a dyeing day, she took all the little bits of dye mixes left from doing her regular colorways, and tossed 'em all onto this to see what would happen. I love how rich, yet warm and muted, these colors are. Aimee, my wheel pimp, swears by Fat Cat's fibers, so I had to check them out for myself. I've never spun BFL, but I've heard other spinners speak of it like the holy grail of wools, and indeed it feels as soft as a kitten, kind of like a fine merino but more velvety.
And then there's Fiber Optic. I stumbled across her Etsy site, and the colorways floored me. I love the richness and complete saturation of her colors (no white spaces!), but also the combinations she puts together. I love seeing how the same colorway turns out differently on different fibers, and on roving vs. yarn. I bought two rovings from her before I could help myself. (Curiously, on the latest episode of Lime & Violet, which came out a week after I bought these rovings, they mention Fiber Optic in their yarn pr0n section, and squee over the exact two rovings that I bought. *preen*)
Black Coffee: 4 oz superwash merino top. I love how rich and warm this is-- that it is, in fact, not black at all, but full of browns, plums, and even greens. Interestingly, in her merino-tencel blend, it was much cooler and greyer, but I loved the warmth of the full merino.
Afternoon in Paris: 4 oz superwash merino & tencel. The tencel adds such a lovely sheen to this; it reminds me of an Impressionist painting rendered into stained glass. As I mentioned above, the tencel will make this silky/drapey, so I'm going to try to spin it laceweight and knit something light and lacey out of it. I'd toyed with the idea of making myself a Clapotis, but there isn't enough fiber in this one spiral of roving for that. I'm getting all nostalgic for Paris in part because I may be going there this summer with my mom-- so I thought spinning and knitting things to symbolize Paris would be appropriate.
{As it happens, I was still obsessed with the Clapotis/Paris idea, because I'd want a light shawl/scarf of some sort for the plane and cool summer evenings outdoors at a cafe, so I ended up ordering myself two skeins of Handmaiden Sea Silk in their Paris colorway.}
