Plying adventures

This is another skein of self-striping yarn.



The colors are green, pink and lilac. The sections are very short, but after winding with a smaller radius the stripes show up:



I used Navajo plying, and even though I spun the singles with long color sections, the stripes are still short. I still have a problem figuring out how to measure each section while spinning. In addition to the length issue, I got slubs at the end of some of the ply loops. I think that can be fixed by overtwisting the singles before plying.

Other than these two issues, Navajo plying is a much easier way to obtain self striping yarn. And though a three ply yarn is thicker, it is also stronger. I wouldn't use it for socks, though. Those little loops would probably bother me.

I now have six skeins the winner can choose from. The contest is open until tomorrow.

Transformation

From self striping yarn (top of the swift) to tweedy muddle:



I wanted succesive stripes of blue, pink and lilac, but my two singles were not identical and as I kept plying the colors kept mixing. Hey, but there are almost no slubs!

I need to come with a way to measure the length of each section of yarn so I can make an exact duplicate when spinning a second singles. Otherwise I'll have to switch back to Navajo plying which produces a thicker, three ply yarn.

The contest is still open and anyone can make a suggestion about what to knit with this handspun yarn. So far I've spun five hanks to choose from.

Another view

That's the same hank from last post. Winding it on the swift in spiral lets you see the color bands: orange, green and yellow.

Which made me think I should probably do the same with my first two hanks. Even if they are not self-striping, the colors show better:
 
        

And here's the latest self-striping hank I've spun, with bands in pink, orange, yellow and purple:



I'm still getting color overlap in some regions, but I'm improving. Also, the yarn is coming out less slubby.

I've received a few interesting suggestions about what to knit with these hanks. The contest is open until Sunday, so go ahead and suggest something. I'll send the winner any hank he or she chooses.

Self-striping yarn

That's what this hank is, though this picture makes it look muddled and dull:



I used yellow, orange and green rovings to make this hank. I spun two singles with more or less equal lengths of each color in the same sequence, then plied the singles together. It's not perfect, in some sections the colors overlap, and I think the best way to prevent this is by carefully measuring each length before changing colors. Or maybe I'll get better at splitting rovings and spinning them more evenly. Now I know why self-striping yarn is pricier than variegated yarn.

Keep sending me suggestions on what to knit with these colorful hanks. I'll keep on spinning so that the winner will have a few more hanks to choose from.

A contest

I've been blogging for over two years in English and one year in Spanish, and I've never held a contest. So here it is: Send me your ideas about what can be knitted with my handspun yarn samples and whoever has the most useful or original idea will get the prettiest one. Here are my first two hanks:

    


These are very small samples, not even enough for mittens. I don't want to knit potholders (that's what I did with my first spinning attempts), so go ahead and suggest something. The yarn is very uneven, with varying thickness and occasional slubs. I'll be spinning more hanks this week and posting pictures here, so the winner can choose his/her favorite. Leave your suggestions in the comments or using the contact form until next Sunday, April 30. On Monday I will announce the winner.

By the way, the hank on the right was originally dyed green and purple, but the blue leeched out of both colors leaving yellow,  pink, and a little green. Because I really wanted some purple, I tried other things. I had used the conventional oven before. Why not use a toaster oven? I also added lots of vinegar and more or less got purple.





There was, however, a little chromatographic effect thanks to the wool acting as a wick. Pink gets absorbed faster than blue, so the roving had a pink hue on the outside and a  blue hue on the inside.



I know the picture is terrible, but I hope it shows more or less how the outside (bottom) of the roving looks like compared to the inside (top). Interesting, no?

I have now a closetful of colors and I can't wait to spin them all.



Oh, and I while those batches were baking, I gave someone a haircut:



I saved a bagful of dog hair, you know, just in case I run out of wool to spin.

Pink and blue

As planned, I spent the day dyeing.  While I didn't get results as lovely as Felicia's, I did enjoy the process:



I prepared some vinegar water (one spoonful in a liter of water) and soaked the roving. I zapped the whole thing in the microwave for a minute while I dissolved the dye tablets in 1/2 cup of warm water. Then I used the medicine dropper to add the dye to the wool.  Then I zapped it some more until the pink dye was exhausted. The blue dye didn't take as easily as the pink one, and some was still bleeding out after I was done, so I rinsed the wool a couple of times.



I wrapped the roving in a towel and squeezed as much water out as I could and hung it to dry. You can already tell there's more pink than blue in the roving:



Because this was my first batch, by late evening it was dry and I could give it a try:



It's like spinning with cotton candy!

It works!

Of course it does. Making that lazy kate was not rocket science, but still I am thrilled.



I can now ply those two batches of singles and keep working on the doggy rug. But first, some sock progress:



That's a toe-up jaywalker, but with only 52 stitches. I'm increasing from the stitch below to create a slanted increase and prevent holes. I'm also making a different double decrease, with the central stitch on top. The colors are all wrong, but that can't be helped. The spouse went to Spain yesterday and, as planned, took the camera with him. I miss him already... Tomorrow's my onomastic and I'll be completely alone. I'm getting prepared to spend the whole day dyeing fiber. It's been a while since I dye anything, and it sure is lots of fun. I'll use some Easter egg dyes that I got for 75 cents. Wish me luck!

Tired of yellow

Yes, that's how I feel. So I'm not working on either the baby cardigan nor the flip-flop socks. I know there's lots of blues on those socks, but still. I did keep spinning, and working on my lack of extra bobbins.  I have a yarn winder, of the type that produces center-pull balls. In order to fit a paper tube on the cone, I wind a few turns of waste yarn first:



The paper tube then fits snuggly on the cone, and I can wind my single ply yarn on it:



Notice that I'm not winding directly from the wheel. I made myself a lazy kate with a cardboard box and a knitting needle. That ought to be the laziest lazy kate of all. If all works well, I can fill up that bobbin again with more singles and then ply from two paper tubes using my cardboard lazy kate. Neat!

But I still feel the urge to knit. I always do. So I started yet another pair of socks with self-striping yarn that I dyed ages ago. See how I don't like yellow? That was the original color of that yarn. Sorry for the lousy picture, I'm using a webcam because the spouse will take the camera with him in his trip to Spain:

Another toy

Now that I am being more productive with my spinning wheel, I got a swift from ebay:



Hopefully this will make my life easier when winding those hanks that I hang up to dry to set the twist. Not that I've been doing that lately. For the rug, I've been knitting directly from the wheel without setting the twist.

When I got the wheel most people in my family thought I was crazy (Why spin yarn when you can readily buy it at the store?) and I had a really tough time getting it to work. Later, I discovered that one of the spools must have belonged to another wheel. Reading all those spinning books I sometimes regretted my decision (they all tell you not to buy an antique wheel, especially if you're a beginner and you can't try it first). But I'm glad I didn't get an expensive brand wheel or a PVC Babe wheel. Mine is prettier than a Babe, and through patience and practice I've been able to make good use of it.

Do I recommend it to others? Why yes! You do save a lot of money, even though you have to pay for shipping. Just go to ebay.de and look for a "Spinnrad". You'll be surprised at the prices.

Here's another picture showing my second pair of flip-flop socks so far:



Of course, the baby cardigan is still in stand-by.

Rippit, rippit...

I sort of pretended it was not happening, even if after a few rounds it was obvious that the sleeve was way too big. Just look at it:



Of course I'm goint to rip it. There's no other choice. I kept telling myself that it only looked big  because I was holding all the stitches in one needle. I'm like that. I also discovered that what took me a week to spin could be knitted in a couple of hours. I was about to make a picture of the rug when someone decided he wanted to take a nap just then:



Well, excuse me doggy, this won't take long:



That's better. I alternated one row of variegated yarn with one row of regular yarn, so I got a total of eight rows instad of four with color effects. It helped that I'm using a circular needle, that way I was able to alternate yarns without having to break the strands at the end of each row.


I will celebrate my onomastic a week from today, and it saddens me that my husband will not be with me. As a child, I used to resent that it was always cold on my birthday, and my friends weren't around anyway, so I was always more enthusiastic about my onomastic. Nowadays I just celebrate it by dining out, but I'll be alone this year. So what did the spouse do? He ordered me some flowers and arranged them to be delivered on my onomastic. Trust the flower people to deliver them more than one week early:



Now, wasn't that sweet?

Trapped by a sock

I'm now in love with Fixation.  I couldn't stop knitting.



But don't think that kept me from working on the baby cardigan. As much as I dislike this boucle stuff, I finished the back, joined the shoulders and added buttonbands and collar. I even picked up stitches for one of the sleeves, which will be knitted in the round using straight needles.



I didn't invent this technique. Urraca had shared this link with me before, and recently I saw it again in MagKnits. In both cases, the tube is closed at the ends, but I'm guessing that can be modified to knit a regular tube. So yes, I'm anticipating a lot of suffering when it comes to decreasing and casting off. You'd think I know better than to experiment with boucle yarn but I sometimes like a challenge.

Talking about challenges, here's one I'm particularly happy about:


I spun those singles using my new Turkish spindle, but I plied them with my spinning wheel. Up until now, I had only used my spinning wheel for making single-ply yarn. This was the first time I was actually succesful at plying with it. And it's Navajo plying, which is, at least in my experience, more difficult than plying two singles. The only problem was that my center-pull ball got tangled as I was approaching the end of the yarn:



I need to start thinking about a solution for my lack of a lazy kate and additional spools.

More socks coming

When I get tired of a project I usually blame the color. Looking at the same color bores me after a while. But  in this case it's not only the color, it's the texture of the yarn that's killing me. So I put the baby cardigan aside and thought about what to knit next (the doggy rug is still in stand-by while I spin a little more). I was so happy about my flip-flop socks that I dedided to make another pair. I think I'm getting along with Cascade Fixation by now, and it should be a fast knit now that I'm acquainted with the broadripple pattern.


I realize that this is not a very different color choice compared to my last pair of socks. This is still within my usual blue-green spectrum. But at least there's a lot of yellow in this colorway. I'm planning to follow the same pattern with a few changes. I'll make the big toe a litte wider and I will use ribbing at the cuff instead of the broadripple garter stitch.

Now I need it to stop raining. Mind you, I love the rain, the sound of it and the smell of it. But you can't wear flip-flops with this weather.

I said it was a small sample

I keep forgetting that unspun fiber looks bigger than the yarn you get from it.  I made a single ply alternating the black shetland with the fiber sample that came with my spindle (called California red roving, though it is cream colored). Then I Navajo plied the single and got this little ball of yarn. I am very pleased with the color separation. Regular plying would have muddled the colors.



If I use it for the doggy rug, it's probably worth no more than three or four rows. This is the doggy rug so far:


Any suggestions on what stitch to use for three rows using my two colored yarn? Maybe I shouldn't even bother, but I cannot think of anything else that could be done with this little sample.

Diane asked me the name of the pooch. It sounds very similar to "cows", though it is actually Chaos, in Spanish (spelled Caos). When people ask, I always tell them the name is "Cows". Which is, at least phonetically, the name he responds to, even if it means a different thing.

My new toy

Oh, yes, I succumbed to the temptation. I was really enjoying my makeshift Turkish spindle, enough to make me buy the real thing. So I ordered one from The Bellwether.



The spindle came with a small cream-colored fiber sample, which I may use for the doggy rug. Speaking of which, it isn't growing much. That's because I'm spinning really thin singles (which takes a long time) and plying them Navajo style. I found these two instructional videos, one with a wheel and one with a spindle. Truth be told, my first attempts were so messy that I won't even make a picture, but they will in due course be incorporated into the rug.

At least my knitting was more succesful. Here's a picture of my finished socks:



I hope the weather improves, because even if it's warm enough for sandals, it's been raining a lot. I also managed to rescue the baby cardigan and completed both fronts.


It helps that I'm not reading while I knit anymore. My husband finally submitted his dissertation: a total of 332 pages. Whew!

Looks like a finished sock

Well, almost. Only the big toe is missing:



The poor baby cardigan is a mess. I almost had to rip all the way down! I hope I don't make anymore mistakes, because ripping is a nightmare. I'm also thinking I'll stay away from boucle yarn once I'm done with this project.

Warning: defiled yarn

I ran out of handspun yarn for the rug, so I picked up the baby cardigan, and kept on reading. Let me remind you, this is boucle yarn, full of little swirls and loops that get tangled with themselves all the time.  So if you make a mistake and have to rip back a few rows....



...you get snarls. And if you pull the snarls you get an ugly mess. And if you pull the ugly mess gently, little by little you eventually get your boucle yarn free from itself. Only it's changed. As in "defaced":



So I'm breaking yarn and joining a new strand. No big deal. Picking up those stitches is going to be a different story.