Dying Experiment

For my last four ounces of Cotswold, I wanted to try something different. I had liked the way the center-pull ball plying worked, and had done some interesting dying with a bit of my Bella Wool, and wanted to try combining the two.

In the Blue

With the Bella Wool, I spun the yarn, skeined it, and dyed it wrapped as a skein. I got some interesting results. The outside of the skein was covered nicely with the green, but when I opened it, I saw some interesting pockets of white where my tight twisting had kept the dye from reaching. It created a nice tonal effect that I liked and wanted to try again.

Second Blue Dying

With the Cotswold, I had a plan, or at least an idea of what I wanted to do. I realized that as you wind the yarn around the spindle of your spindle, you are creating a center-pull ball. Once I was done with my singles, I just slipped the whole cone off my spindle and soaked it for a while to help the dye penetrate farther.

The overall goal was to get a three color yarn dyed with two colors, you know because blue and red make purple. I decided that I wanted to use what I had done with my green Bella Wool and use those blank spots to reserve space for to second color. So I stuck my cone of singles into a pot of blue.

Final Blue Coloring

I figured that the dye wouldn't reach all the way to the middle, but since the center had been around the spindle there would be some coloring there as well as from the outside. As I started plying I found this was not the case (by the way, don't ever ply wet yarn; I was a bit too anxious to get this project done and tried it...it ate the finish my spindle). The outside and the tips dyed nicely, but the inside was just too dense (maybe next time I'll wind it around something thicker first and then dye it). So as I was plying, I decided to put the yarn back in the dye as the initial dying hadn't exhausted the bath. This gave me blue throughout the remainder of my yarn as the cone was much smaller and less dense due to plying from the center as well.

Skeined for Red Dying

In the Red, I did turn it over half way through

Once this was complete and the yarn all plied, I moved onto the red. Here I did exactly what I had done with the Bella Wool. I wound a skein and put it in the dye. But I forgot that with the Bella Wool, I had about 50 yards and now I had over 100. The outside dyed beautifully and did just what I wanted, but the inside was virtually untouched by the red...I could have re-twisted it and tried again, but honestly, it was around 11:00 and I was ready to be done with it all.  Plus I did want to preserve some of the plain blue.

Final Color, this skein doesn't photograph well...

Who knows, maybe I will redye the red before I use it, but as it is now, I have blue-red-purple-natural (there were some spots that just never got dyed, and I'm ok with that) through the outer half or so of the yarn and the inside is just blue and natural. Though I am still debating if I don't want to just wait and see how it knits as you can always dye knit fabric as well as yarn, but I can't fight the feeling that if I made a scarf or something (not what this yarn is intended for, but you get the idea) that it would end up half red and half natural...We'll see I guess. I'm not ready to use this yarn yet, so I have some time to think about it.

Cotswold: Complete!

All the yarn, and the bag, I've made from my Cotswold

I finally finished my Cotswold! I had purchased a pound from a really nice little farm in Upstate New York, Nistock Farms. The purpose of this yarn was to learn to spin, but I had no idea how much a pound is.

Roving Dyed: Moss (All green) Yarn dyed: Grass (With Yellow)

 I spun it all on my big low whorl spindle, which I finally weighed and it's 5 ounces, no wonder I had trouble with fine spinning.  I was able to spun probably about 600 yards out of all of it, making an initial attempt that turned into a case for my Kindle, and then two skeins that were dyed post spinning and and two dyed as roving.

Roving Dyed: Indian Paintbrush

 The two dyed as roving were difficult as I learned that Cotswold felts extremely easily, making drafting a challenge, but I worked through and came up with some nice yarn.

The two dyed post spinning were much easier to spin, as they had not been fulled and the dying served to set the yarn. I think this is probably the approach I will take in most situations.  

Yarn Dyed: Berry Patch

I also predrafted my last four ounces of the undyed and found that to be an interesting experience. It was certainly easier to draft the second time, but I pulled the wool apart several times, even falling apart as I held it to spin, creating the need for more joins, and I didn't like the psychological effect of having so much additional length to spin, even if the length was considerably less dense. Maybe that is one of the things that would change when working on a wheel, or maybe I just need more practice...

The predrafted fiber is on top. It is clearly loftier, but I didn't particularly care for the changes it caused in my process.

Now that I have all this yarn that is really not ready to be next to anyone's skin, I am working it up to be a satchel type bag with the greens for the bottom, sides, and strap and the reds for the front and back. We'll see how it all works out!

Motivation Issues

I am the type of person who goes through intense and cyclical phases. When I was a kid it was food. I didn't have weight issues, either too high or too low, but there would be weeks when the only thing I wanted to eat would be Spaghetti-O's. I would eat other things because I was about 10 or so and knew about nutrition and mostly didn't want to cause a problem for my parents...Anyway, this would continue for about two or three months and then I would move on to other food. I never ate so much that I got sick or anything like that, and I still really like Spaghetti-O's and actually would often prefer them to chocolate most of the time.

I really do have a point. Like my food phases, I have hobby phases. When I first quit my job and moved 600 miles while my husband was on a temporary assignment, I spent a great deal of time quilting. I made two quilts for a charity group called Quilts for Kids, an organization that collects crib sized quilts for children in the hospital for extended periods or other needy children and families, a twin sized quilt for my daughter, a psuedo queen sized quilt for myself and my husband's bed, and a lap quilt for my mom, as well as various sewing crafty things, like a pencil roll for my niece and a car holder for my nephew.

I watched, and still do watch, a lot of Leah Day's video's to work on free motion quilting. I was working on getting through her designs, but then I got into my spinning. I found the other day that I got my first, low whorl spindle in December of 2012. Things went slowly for a while, but I would always get excited again when I would get some new fiber, like my first Cotswold- which I'm still not through, I got a pound- four ounces of Merino, eight ounces of BFL, and then the Cotswold/Border Leicester mix fleece- we won't go there.


As I've said with my knitting, I like the beginnings and ends of projects. All projects, or even stages of projects. I will very eagerly spend a few extra hours quilting to finish a top, spinning to finish the wool, or knitting through a piece of a project, even if there are more steps to come after.

The problem I am currently in is that despite having only about half an ounce left of the Cotswold left, I predrafted it, making it look much longer, and failing to excite my "almost done" enthusiasm. I know that kind of smacks in the face of what I just said, but I think the issue is that spindle spinning just takes so long. I enjoy it, but after talking to a wheel spinner, spindle spinning takes four to six times longer. I spend an hour or so spinning and don't seem to be any nearer the end.

I also still have the vast majority of my fleece left with no end in sight, although I have great plans for all of it, but I have to get through what is currently on my high whorl.

It also doesn't help that there have been many, let's call them disruptions lately. I finished grad school, traveled 800 miles to visit family, and when we returned our cat got out and is now missing. All within a week. Nothing too monumental or utterly devastating, but together, they have shaken things up and I just can't settle into a crafting mode again. We also have friends coming over tomorrow night for dinner because apparently the only way I can make sure my house stays clean it so invite people over (Sorry to any friends who are repeatedly invited over, but yes, you are used as motivation to clean).

So despite having several projects going, and being very close to the end of my Cotswold, I have little motivation to spend intense time crafting. Another issue may be that I have been spending my time reading. Since we returned home on Tuesday, I have read Uglies and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld and have begun Specials and am about halfway through that. If you don't know, there are more than 400 page books, and I read slowly.

Hopefully, I can push through and spin a few hours a day until I get into the groove again. Hopefully, I will finish Specials soon and can find a book about spinning or knitting to get me back in the mood to craft.

What about you? Do you go through crafting cycles? Do you have projects sitting off to the side waiting for inspiration to strike again? What do you do to make sure you finish your projects? I'd love to here your ideas! Hopefully, this will get us all a bit more active and start working again, even if only out of a feeling of obligation (though I only expect that to work for me, if even then).

Good luck and I hope you finish something soon!

Finishing a Shawl

So after knitting about six hours a day for two days, I finished my shawl!!!

Nice shot of the back lace panel.

 I finished it at about 11:00 at night and as soon as I was done I put it over my shoulders. It was pretty small, but then again compared to national averages, so am I so I figured it would be alright. Then I blocked it. I was a bit concerned about the blocking process since I had never done it before, but things went well.
I have a special salad bowl that I use for fiber. I mostly use it to soak wool before I dye it and rinse it afterwards, but I figured I could use it to wet block my shawl too.
So I filled the bowl with cool water and let the shawl soak over night. I realize I probably shouldn't have let it sit so long, but I really didn't have a plan for pinning it, and I figured that if the super wash wool couldn't handle sitting in still water for a few hours, we would have other problems.

My four year old really likes to stick my pins in things.

But everything worked out. When I took it out of the water, it looked like the shawl had almost doubled in size. When I had finished it the night before the lace was pretty squished and hard to read. You could tell it was lace, but you really had to stretch it to see the pattern. I was a bit unsure of the added beads to begin with, but I really was liking them as I saw everything opened up.

Pins holding the side edge in place.

I didn't have any blocking foam to set the shawl on, but I did have an unused foam mattress pad. It actually worked really well. The waves on the surface allowed the shawl to have much more of its area exposed directly to the air, and it dried really fast.

I consider this first endeavor into blocking to be a success. I really enjoyed ending with a real product as well. I have always been one of those knitters who doesn't follow patterns and ends up with a bunch of scarves because of it, but this experience went really well and I love having this elegant piece to add to my closet. Plus it is one of my favorite colors.

Almost done

I love the ends of knitting, when you first cast on and are so excited to get going on a project, and then after hours and hours of stitching away, that point when you are so close to the end you can just taste it. Once again you are eager to spend hours at a time on a project because you can see the end.

I have five more rows until I begin the border of this shawl. Then comes the blocking, yeah we'll see how that goes...never actually done it before. I've spent so much time on an actual project instead of something I just make up, I really don't want to mess it up now.

I guess this is how a sheep feels...

On July 27th, I got my hair cut. I got all of it cut. After all was said and done, my cut hair measured 15 inches.

My wet, pony-tailed cut off hair on my cutting mat to measure its length. Turns out the long ones are 15 inches and the short ones are 13.

Here is the picture of my hair before I left.

When I was in fourth grade, I got a hair cut I didn't like, so after it grew out and got trimmed up, my solution was just to never get a hair cut again. The result was hair that I sat on in college. So my second semester of college I got 10 inches cut off for Locks of Love. My hair was still well past my shoulders.

Over the years I have continued my lassiez-faire approach to hair care, but it has resulted in beautiful hair that makes great wigs for cancer patients. In the past 8 or so years since I donated my hair the first time, I have donated my hair again, and we are now at donation number 4.

I am not the type of person who is highly concerned with the exact lay of my hair on a day to day basis, though there is nothing wrong with that type of person, it's just not who I am. Generally I just let it hang long, and when it gets really long, I throw it up in a bun (that's 12 years of ballet that I will never lose :)). Eventually it gets long enough that it starts being in the way. My family pulls it as we sit on the couch, it starts to get stuck to high chair brackets, I plan my showers around how long it takes to dry, etc. So at this point, and it seems to be when my hair is 15 inches past my chin, it's time to cut it off and start over.

15 inches shorter. My head looks so small.

Knowing myself and how proactive I am about hair care, I have decided to dedicate my hair to Locks of Love for the next 10 years. This means I will continue to live as I do, but I won't get layers, length altering cuts, or inflict massive damage onto my hair. It takes about 2 to 2 and a half years for my hair to grow to the desired length, at this point, I will cut it off and send it away. So I figure that over the next 10 years or so, I might be able to donate it 4 or 5 times. We'll see. And hey, by then I should be one heck of a spinner too (check out my first post if your confused)!

Before I go, I want to emphasize that my decision, like giving to any charity, is a highly personal decision. Any group that you may choose to support will be glad to have your help, this is one that works for me, though I would love to hear about any groups that you help!

Knit Lit

Because I have nothing else to do get a bit ADD when I have a lot of projects going, I spent two days last week reading a book by Veryl Ann Grace called Murder Spins a Tale: A Flock and Fiber Mystery.

It's a cute book about a widow who owns a yarn shop specializing in spinning, a small but diverse flock of fiber animals, and two Great Pyrenees up in Washington state. The book describes her day to day life, taking care of animals, feeding her divorced little brother, and then solving the mystery of the murdered town doctor. It seemed fairly reminiscent of Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who" Mysteries, but for me, that a good thing as I liked them and Braun is now deceased (in Braun's stories there is a middle aged bachelor solving murders with the help of his two cats). Neither one is Dickens or Shakespear, but I did finish Grace's book in two days, both nights staying up past 2 am reading. It was a nice book with good plot twists, and despite an Amazon review that stated the murderer could be guessed within paragraphs of the character's introduction, I was still waffling between suspects for three fourths of the book.

Grace clearly knows her knitting and spinning. She included several large sections about either activity as Martha, the main character, was teaching a beginning spinning class throughout the story and recommended several real books to her fictional characters.

Grace is only one of many who write in this genre I am going to dub Knit Lit. There are several others, such as the Crabapple Yarn Mysteries by Jaime Marsman, Yarn Retreat Mysteries by Betty Hetchman, and Knitting Mysteries by Maggie Sefton to name a few. Not only do these books provide a cozy but compelling mystery, some even include a knitting pattern and/or a recipe. And of course there are others who write crochet and quilt themed mysteries.

From my point of view, sometimes you just need a light and easy book, a jell-o book as my mom would call it. Sometimes you want to be thinking about fiber without working your hands. These books are a great combination of the two.

How about you? Have you read anything good lately? Let me know, maybe we can read something together.