PSA for Fat Girls (and guys)

Watch this, even if you’re thin and think you’re hot.

It ROCKS.

Handspun!

I had a lot of time on my hands last week, and I had my spindles and the roving that my friend Annie dyed tucked into this very handy accessory:

I finished all my singles while hanging around in the hospital waiting for my sister G to get better. It amazed many a nurse and nurse assistant, to see me sitting there whirling away. I think G got tired of hearing “Wow, how do you DO that?” (Not to mention the nurse who thought I should sell my neverending Jaywalkers on ebay. Yeah, right.)

Anyway. Now that G is on the mend and I’m back at home, I tried my hand at plying on a spindle.

Here’s my homemade Lazy Kate:

A closer look at the cop:

And the finished yarn:

I have about 60 yards at 12 WPI and I’d like to make Annie something with it (it’s definitely more her colors than mine). Any suggestions for what I can do with such a diminutive, but special, yarncake?

Magic

As some of you know, I’ve been wanting to learn how to spin on a wheel. Hand spindles are a lot of fun, but for sheer production volume and long spin times there’s no comparison really. I’ve tried my hand at a few different wheels now, and truly, they are like children. Each one is different and each one comes with its own personality. They are all special and wonderful in their own way…but they are not all alike. (This reminds me - don’t ever get me started on the current US educational system - but I digress.)

A few days ago I brought home a foster child - I mean, wheel. I had no idea whether we would click or not, but Tvini was kind enough to offer me the use of a really nice wheel for a while and I wasn’t about to turn that down.

I’m not sure if it’s because I was at home in my own living room, or just persistence, or maybe it was the hours I spent poring over Teach Yourself Visually: Handspinning. But this time it worked! IT WORKED.

I used this:

And some of this:

To create this!

And that’s the best definition of magic that I know: using your skill and mind to bring about a change in accordance with your will.

P was also really sweet…when I marched into his study with my arms raised over my head in victory, he immediately broke into Queen:

“Weeeee…are the champions……of the WOOOOOLLLLL!”

Hee.

Many thanks to Turtlegirl for her patient instruction, the Knitting Diva for her encouragement, and Tvini for her generosity.

Documentary Evidence!

CrimsonPurl has an awesome post about the dyeing party. The woman should be a photojournalist, really.

Go check it out!

Spindles and Roving and Yarn! (Oh my!)

We had a great time dyeing this weekend. I was too busy being a host to be a good blogger, so I don’t have a lot of pictures of the actual event, but I’m sure some other FWB (folks who blog) will talk about it, and when they do, I’ll link.

The big news of the weekend, though, was Preston’s growing ability with the spindle making craft. TurtleGirl was pretty happy with the one he made her (go look!) and I am thrilled with the one he made for me:

Isn’t it Pretty?

Here’s another view of it, along with the whorl he made last night after everyone else went home:

He’s getting pretty good, and I am getting used to the smell of burning wood!

We also made some pretty gorgeous stuff while dyeing. This is what I had left at the end of the day after everyone went home. It started to rain, and someone (not me!) had the brilliant idea to get out my drying rack. My family room was very colorful after that:

The stuff that looks like a muppet pelt is Cristi’s Corriedale top. It looks really cool in real life. (Looks pretty cool in this photo too, but it really doesn’t do it justice.)

Can’t wait to do this again!

My New Pretty Things

Number one most favorite new Pretty Thing, courtesy of Cristi who brought it back for me from MDSW:

Isn’t it Beautiful?

It’s a Golding Tsunami. It’s perfectly balanced and even a beginner like me can spin a long time. See, my yarn is looking so even.

Side View

Now, you might want to know, besides all the handdyed roving I’ve been showing you lately, what am I going to spin on my pretty new toy? Why, this:

From left to right: Lavender, Old Money, Boxwood, Briar Rose and Sleepy Hollow. I just love her color combinations, the yarn is soft and gorgeous, it’s not horribly expensive, and her customer service was fast and competent. Next time you need a a little luxury roving, consider ordering something from her!
And now, in closing, a Gratuitous Cat Picture:

“Yes, I am King of the Fiber. Now be quiet, I’m napping.”

Pippin’s all pretending to sleep in my knitting room chair — the Obligatory Orange Fiber Kitty!

Talk to y’all soon. I have to go spin now.

Filed under Spinning | Comments (3)

MyGyvering and Gardening

Thanks to Preston, last week I went from having one spindle to three.

I had purchased the smallest of wooden toy wheels a few weeks back, but it turned out the dowels and whatnot didn’t fit and I just couldn’t pull it together. Later, my darling man found the larger wheels and some nice hardwood dowels that would fit both sizes, and with some sandpaper, a teeny drill bit and a little ingenuity, he made some very serviceable lighter weight spindles. (I was hoping the smallest one would let me spin the merino-silk, but no, I am still not worthy. So I tried some plain merino from Sakina Needles, which is luscious, high quality stuff. The result was “eh.” It’s possible the little guy is just too light. It doesn’t spin for very long.)

Top: Amethyst Romney. Bottom: Merino Briar Rose colorway, spun rather poorly. But see that little ball at the bottom? That’s how the Iris Romney spun up on the middle one. Want a closer look?

Iris Romney Handspun

But that’s not all!

He took me from having half a swift (found at the thrift shop for two dollars)

Half a Swift Is Better Than None

To a working model.

But a Whole One Is Better Than Half!

Total cost of parts: maybe $15? Lots cheaper than a new swift anyway.

And from having a bare backyard, to having the start of a promising little garden!

Herb Bed

Lantern and Hosta

Our “Water Feature”

I helped a lot with the garden. But just LOOK what the evil squirrels did to my nasturtium seeds:

VANDALISM!

Those seeds must taste pretty good, is all I can say, because there are two large hickory trees in my yard and the squirrels are very well fed indeed. The bastards.

There’s not much other news in Jetsyland except this – rumor has it that I’ll have a really pretty new toy to blog about in the next few days!! Stay tuned.

A Really Full Weekend

Jetsy and her family were hopping and bopping!

On Saturday we went to a plant sale with some friends at the ever-spectacular Winghaven. That place is like a little verdant jewel box tucked inside a tree-lined, tranquil Charlotte neighborhood. It’s one of my favorite places to get away without having to actually go away. Just look:

It also helps that it’s less than a mile from my favorite Local Yarn Store. After we selected some greenery for the yard and wandered the pathways for a bit, I sent my boys off with our friends and detoured to the shop. It was well worth it - not only did the marvelous Jane Prater teach me her garter heel method AND I got to pet, ogle and purchase some of the long awaited Noro Sock Yarn (NSY)…but also, I entered a drawing for some free NSY and WON!! Yay. Free yarn makes me very, very happy. Free GORGEOUS yarn makes me quite giddy.

Later we met back up at our friends’ house and ate really rich and excellent African food. (They were in the Peace Corps in Ghana and brought back a love of the culture and cuisine.) I don’t remember the names of anything, but the groundnut stew and green soupy stuff were great. The fried yams were yummy too - but the one thing that’s pretty unforgettable was the pink fufu.

Yes, pink fufu is something you eat, although apparently the color was added in later (I think it makes me feel better that the color is artificial…but then again, the natural color is sort of weird too).

Fufu is doughy stuff made out of yams that you plop in the bowl and use as a scoop for the stew. We tried to convice the kids it was a form of edible playdough but they weren’t buying. D took one bite and did his dramatic (and disgusting) Face of Doom and Spit it Out maneuver. Oh well. Someday he’ll discover there’s more to dinner than pizza and nuggets.

So that was a very full and fun Saturday, but Sunday was even better. Why? Because Sunday was Fiber Day!

A few friends got together at Tvini’s place with crockpots, rubber gloves, acid dyes and miles and miles of fiber, and we had a blast!! Check it out!

First you have to get the wool soaking wet and then you can apply the dye. Vinegar has to happen somewhere in there, too.

Then you steam it for as long as it takes to get the dye to “take up” — maybe half an hour?

Look at Cristi’s Bamboo roving! I can’t wait to see what it looks like dry and fluffy.

P dyed this roving and I spun it! I was very, very pleased with how it turned out and I’m glad there’s a bunch more of this colorway, which I’m calling Amethyst.

I dyed this one - I’m calling it Iris and as soon as I have an empty spindle…it’s turning into YARN!

I’ll leave you with one more picture of pretty fiber hanging out to dry. So many colors! So much fun!

Fiber Content Matters

The other night we had friends over and one of them hadn’t seen Ratatouille* yet. So we all cuddled up with our various comforts — pillows, footstools, glasses of wine, and in my case, my drop spindle. I rummaged through my very modest stash of roving and pulled out this lovely green stuff:

Pretty Roving

Started winding and fwap, it fell apart. Tried again with the same result. Pre-drafted a little more careully, and it fwapped even faster. Discouraged, I peered at the label.

Oh. This was the stuff I got as inspiration, “not for beginners” but just too lovely to pass up at the shop where I took my spinning class. It’s a merino silk blend. It’s definitely too soft and squishy for a beginner with a heavier-than-ideal spindle, but I spent a moment petting and appreciating it before I tucked it away and spun these instead:

Singles

They are both corriedale, with which I’m feeling much more competent now. You sure can see the difference between the white, which was spun first, and the red. By the time I was working with that, I was really getting the feel of drawing. See what I mean?

Closeup

I’ll resist the urge to ply these two together, though. It would be just a little too barbershop/candycane for my taste.

*(Warning! Spoiler alert) I really love this movie, but I don’t care if you do run them through an industrial dishwasher, I don’t want an army of rats cooking my dinner. Sorry.

Knit, Spin, Knit

Before spring break, I took a class with the marvelous Jane Prater on scrumbling, or free form knitting. It was an afternoon well spent. It wasn’t so much that I learned new techniques, but I did learn different ways of thinking about knitting and got really inspired to do some free form knitting as art — like, art you would hang on a wall as opposed to wearable art. I’ve painted before and am not a stranger to “fine arts” as opposed to craft (though I sneer a little at the clear distinction between the two perceived by some), but although I’ve been thinking about fiber as a medium for fine arts for a long time (since I started playing with yarn, probably) I’ve never just done it. Until now. I’ve made a modest start. Nothing I’m proud enough of to show you, but you can mosey over to Jane’s blog if you want to see what I started out with.

Now I’m thinking about largish pieces. Representational, abstract, impressionist…there are many possibilities within the technical limitations of fiber. I’m leaning toward landscapes, with my usual folk art tendencies, but we’ll just have to see what comes off the needles.

While on vacation, I took a drop spindle class at a Tallahassee yarn shop. The instructor was nice enough to make arrangements to give me a private lesson while the shop was closed, and I got a lot out of it. Of course, having spun two bits of roving and plied them together doesn’t make me a spinner, but I’m encouraged by the early results. It isn’t that beautiful, but I love it. And even better, I love the process of it. The feel of the fiber slipping across my wrist and fingers, the sensation of drawing the wool — trying to feel the breaking point and stopping before it gets there (or, more often ending up with the spindle in my lap and a fluff of wool hanging uselessly from my hand, but that’ll get better).

This is a mini-skein of Corriedale (white) and Blue-faced Leicester (brown) plied together. It’s the yarn equivalent of a four year old writing her name with backward R’s, but I’m still pretty proud of it.

My First Yarn

And here’s what it looks like knit up. I just couldn’t resist, although it wasn’t really enough yarn to make anything truly purposeful.

Handspun Scarf