Spit Splice

Pro: An invisible, smooth join.
Con: Coffee.

Dye Day

On Monday, I dyed a whole mess of fiber. Roving and sliver for the shop and a rainbow of wool for me.

I couple of months ago I purchased Kay Petal's Felt Alive online class to learn to make felt dolls. I have yet to get started, because I needed to dye wool. I'm all set to go now.

The orange with blue/teal spots was supposed to be just orange, but some blue was hiding on my plastic wrap. Rather than being ewww and turning brown, it's very lovely. Same with the yellow next to it...still pretty, but I need it to be just yellow, so I pulled the blue spots out.

I also dyed some of that rainbow for more of these: Go, go Gadget Head! It's a retractable tape measure.















Soon to be a rainbow of bugs in my Etsy shop!

CASHMERE!

Okay! I finished my CASHMERE sample. It's 10 grams and 37.5 meters. I swatched it: bottom of swatch done on size 8s and top of swatch done on 10.5s...getting about 18sts per 4" in 2x2 ribbing on both, but think top would stretch a lot more in not connected to smaller bottom.



Am thinking of making Snow White by Ysolda. Can't decide if I would be too warm...or if I for sure have enough fiber.

Still wondering if I should brave dyeing it.



In the mean time, my swatch graces my desk and I pet it.

A lot.

What kind of sweater am I?

You Are a Turtleneck Sweater

You are sophisticated, streetwise, and even a little cynical. You are quite cultured, and you don't fall for gimmicks or trends easily. You are naturally chic. You have a urban, cosmopolitan style. And you know that the secret to looking good is not trying too hard! Does that sound like me?

Tree-Shirt Releaf!

You buy a shirt, Zazzle plants a tree! Use code: PLANTATREE09

Plus, I just posted this awesome shirt designed on organic cotton.

Luxury Fiber

CASHMERE! That's right. All caps. C-A-S-H-M-E-R-E!!

All for me! To spin! For ME!

I have 6oz of pure CASHMERE and 6oz of 50/50 CASHMERE/Silk!!

The CASHMERE is NOT easy to work with. Capital N-O-T! I looked up some pointers, gave it a stern talking to, warned it that it would be reduced to Cashmere if it didn't behave better and it is getting a little easier- at least it is not falling off the lead every two seconds. The fiber is very short and has absolutely no will to stick to itself. So, the pointers are to use a fast whirl and slow intake- lots and lots of twist. Ridiculous amounts of twist. And, then some more twist. I also find that I need to keep the drafting triangle very small- drafting hand stays very close to fiber hand. Also, also, it is counter-productive to "smooth" the twist into the fibers- this just makes it fuzz up more...it is better to draft and let go so the twist snaps in quickly- making sure to have a firm grip in fiber hand, so the strand doesn't break.

The silk is not nearly so frustrating, but it is a lot lighter in color. I will need to dye it before spinning if I don't wish to have a barber pole yarn.


It is no longer fantastic fluff. :( However, petting my bobbin, it still seams like the softest thing I have ever felt. I shall spin a small sample to ply before continuing to reassure myself that it is not going to be a horrible over twisted, super expensive snarl.

Silly me. I was thinking the hard part would be deciding what to make with it.

Sit and Spin Coils

Leading up to buying the Sit and Spin DVD I was trying to learn coils on my own. My first attempt was sad. :( A lot of the coils just look like under-spun fluff that might fall apart. And, knitting up a sample just looks like thick spots.








After watching the Insubordiknit DVD, I now realize that this was not the ideal fiber for this project...which, BTW, is Kiriko Moth's Morning Glories colorway.




So, I was super excited when Kiriko repaid me for fiber with some Caribbean Blue merino! It is freaking gorgeous! I thought it would be a great opportunity for practice and for others to try some art yarn... Everybody wants to know if you can knit with the super coils, so I decided to make some of the colorway a nice even yarn and some of it with coils, so that there would be lots of yardage to play with this perfectly matched yarn. I still have lots of Claudia's Handpainted left and it just happened to be a perfect match for this roving! The smooth yarn is Racing Striped and the coils are plyed with the silk. The big picture is that they are beautiful and I kinda just wanted to keep it on my desk to pet.


The close ups are a little less fantastic and not really what I was hoping for. Some of the coils are just blobs. But, some of them were just what I pictured.








Kiriko loved it and couldn't stand to see me sell my less than perfect yarn at a discount, because she so thourouly loves this color. So, she stole it back and made a must-see-cowl. I am getting closer to the perfect coils. And, now Kiriko owes me more fiber!
Mwa ha ha ha!