Post Festival- Alpaca Batt

 In for installment two of Fiber Festival Recap. Today I'm going to talk about the Alpaca/Faux Cashmere/Angelina batt I got.

It's 0.7 ounces of fiber. I wanted to try spinning a batt and liked the colors and amount of this choice. I got a small batt because I didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of something I didn't like spinning from.

I started by unwrapping it and pulling off a section, but that left me with a lot of shedding Angelina and having to connect sections of fiber more than I wanted to. So about half way through the batt, I just started spinning from the entire batt. It wasn't really any different, I just had more in my lap.

I spun the whole batt as one single and then made a center-pull ball to ply it back on itself. I really need a ball winder, because every time I do my own center pull balls, I end up with a bunch of knots (but a swift is on my to buy list first).

I think I got between 50 and 75 yards of two ply that I have been knitting into a phone cozy on size 1 needles.


Phone Cozy
Materials
50 Yards of sock weight yarn
Size 1 dpns
1 markers
darning needle

Body
Use Judy's Magic Cast on to cast on enough stitches to span the width of your phone and placing markers at ends. (My Samsung Glide took about 25-30)
Knit 3 rows.
Knit 1 and increase 1 tbl, K to end of needle, K until last 2 stitches, Knit front and back, K 1, repeat on other needles
Knit length of your phone.
Cast off front half of stitches.
Continue st st across remaining stitches, ssk first stitch on all RS rows until three stitches remain.
Continue in I-cord for 5-6 inches.
Bind off these stitches.

Flower "Button"
Cast on 40 stitches.
Work in st st for 4-6 rows ending on a WS row.
K2tog to end (20 stitches).
P2tog to end (10 stitches).
K2tog to end (5 stitches).
 Cut a long tail. Using darning needle, thread tail through the remaining 5 stitches and pull tight. This will curl your flower into a spiral.
Use rest of tail to sew flower onto desired location of cozy.

Weave in ends.
Block if desired.


Wrap I-cord around flower to secure cozy.

More Dying with RIT Black

 I did a dying experiment this week. I grabbed a skein of what was supposed to be a novelty ply (pigtail yarn...yeah not going to talk about that) and decided to go for it.

Novelty yarn, not Bella Wool

I had a plan to spin the rest of the Bella Wool and get a gradient effect from breaking dye, like when you would draw a sharpie line of a paper towel and put the tip in water at school. So step one would be spinning the yarn, step two would be knitting the hat/scarf/whatever, and step three would be dying, but I decided to sort of skip ahead to make sure my plan would work. It's a good thing I did.

 The only black dye I have is RIT, but I had seen all this stuff online about how people tried to dye with it and got purple instead, so I figured there was potential for breaking. Above is a shot of a few drops in the water. You can see the purple tint to it. But I wasn't sure if it would be enough dye, so I added more, apparently too much. By the time I put in the yarn (yes it was dry) you can see the solid black below.

 I only left it in a few minutes so I wouldn't over dye the wool, but again I was a bit off in my calculations, or maybe there was just way too much dye in the dye bath because this is what I got out.

Clearly, it's not broken, but by leaving it skeined I did get some interesting tonal variations. Those probably would have been greater if I had left it in the bath longer, but over all the effect isn't bad, just not what I was looking for. Oh well, at least I know that this isn't the way to break RIT.

Post Festival- Angora/Wool Blend

 Here's a bit about what I got at the festival. I have to hand it to my husband; as we were driving up, he asked me how much I was planning on getting. I thought I was going to make some comment about the upcoming move and his desire for less stuff, but he totally surprised me when he said that since this opportunity wouldn't come around too often, I should just get as much and whatever I wanted.

I only ended up with three fiber items. In hind sight, there was some alpaca yarn that my husband was drawn too that he kept coming back to that I wish I had gotten, but overall I was just so overwhelmed by it all that it was easier to just look and not buy.

The white in the photo above is the Angora/Wool blend I got. There was an ounce and it was so soft. I'm not sure what kind of wool it was blended with. My guess is Merino judging by the fiber length and feel of it. I have spun it up and have about 100 yards of a lace weight single. I'm still not sure if I want to ply it or what I intend to do with it, but it was nice to try something new and it felt wonderful.

Up to this point I have spun everything on the lowest ratio on my wheel (6:1), but since this had a much shorter staple length than what I normally spin, I moved it to the middle ratio (10.5:1). It spun up really well. I am still over spinning the yarn. Of course if I ease up on the tension I get the pigtails, but I have been getting coils of yarn as I spin that stay in the yarn even when it's plied. I didn't want that in the Angora, so once I was done putting in too much Z twist, I ran it through my wheel with an S twist to get rid of those coils. I was worried that wouldn't leave me enough twist to ply it, if I want to, but I think it'll be alright as I still got quite a few pigtails when I skeined it.

I also got a beautiful painted Tencel/Wool blend and a Alpaca/Faux Cashmere/Angelina batt, but those will be for another day.

Fiber Festival

 It's taken a while, but I am finally getting up photos from the fiber festival I went to at the beginning of the month. The whole family came along, which meant that while we saw everything, it all went pretty fast. For some crazy reason it was 85 that day, and my wonderful trying-to-be-indepedent 4 year old decided that she was going to wear sweats before we left home and didn't want to change, so we tried to make the day as quick as possible for her sake.

Now on to the photos. Above are some adorable Angora rabbits, I didn't catch what kind, but I was able to get some Angora/Wool roving and it is so soft. I love rabbits of any kind. I love that surreal sense when you know your touching their fur but you can't actually feel anything because they are so soft! I am waiting for the day that the husband lets me get one, but he insists that won't happen until our cats are gone, which will be a while.

 Here are the alpacas they had. I was surprised at how small they were. I had read they were about 100-150 pounds smaller than llamas, but I guess the llamas I had known were really big. These guys were only about three and a half feet or so at the shoulders.
Now technically, we do have enough of a yard for one alpaca, but as they are herd animals, and we live within city limits, I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

There were also sheep dog trials going on throughout the day. We watched two dogs do their stuff. it was amusing enough. The little one liked it enough, but by this time the husband had had enough of the heat, trying to keep our daughter entertained while I looked around, and probably just being outside, so we didn't hang around too long.

There were all sorts of sheep breeds there. It was nice to see some up close and interesting to see the different sizes and varieties. The Merinos they had there were huge compared to these little guys.

Unfortunately, the tent where the sheep were was pretty packed and we walked through pretty quickly, so while I got a few shots, I wasn't able to make notes of the breeds.

I love the sheep with speckled faces!

 This amazing spinner was doing a live demonstration, and no that's not a ball of wool in her lap, it's a rabbit. She was pulling tufts of fur directly off the rabbit, spinning them, and talking to the other people around her all at the same time...I want a rabbit.

Here are the big guys. We managed to get a peek at them before we headed out, and they were pretty neat. One of them, I thing the brownish one on the far right, was "humming." It was fun to hear what noise llamas make, although it's not a happy noise and one of them kicked the fence while we were there. I think the heat and people where getting to them.

Not this guy though. He just ate and did his thing.
I just love his color too.







All in all, I would love to go to another festival. There were so many great vendors with great fibers and yarns. There were several demonstrations going on about knitting, crochet, spinning, and weaving. There were classes, and kids activities. It's too bad it was so warm, hopefully next time will be a more laid back experience.

New Obsessions

So I have two new obsessions. I found two patterns that I am really excited about. Here are the pictures...

Here is Kaleidoscope by Sarah Sutherland. I tried to buy yarn for this, but (un)fortunately I got lace weight instead of sock weight. I picked this pattern as a first sweater for myself. It looks pretty basic, but still contains a few good style elements, like buttons and shaping. The obsession part comes in with the yarn mix up.

I finally got brave enough to try spinning my alpaca fiber, and decided to try spinning for this project. Wow, I'm only about 1/2 an ounce in and it is definitely making me take a closer look at my spinning. Hopefully I will get enough yardage out of the 8 ounces for this...







This is Moscow Coat by Blue Sky Alpaca. I don't think there is much need to explain my obsession here. This coat is amazing.

The issue is that, as you can see, the coat is very long, and the suggested yarn is over $20 a skein. Not quite in my budget. So now I am looking around for substitute yarn, hoping to find something that will be comfortable, warm enough for Upstate New York winters, and strong enough to last for many many years. The whole coat is done in bulky weight yarn, so let me know if you have any suggestions.

Yay Consistency

Sorry I have been a bit lax on posting, we're moving at the end of the month and have been a bit busy preparing...

Not anything major to report. I just have to brag a bit. When I got my Prelude, Paradise Fibers included $40 of free fiber. Part of my order was 8 ounces of Jacob wool. I spun the first 4 ounces the week I got my wheel, back in September, and the second 4 ounces over the weekend.

I had the idea that I would then order enough to spin for a coat. Then I went searching for patterns and got a new obsession that I will share later. Anyway, once I was done plying, I was wrapping my new yarn on my Niddy Noddy and I started to wonder how much yarn I had gotten on my first skein. So while the new one was soaking, I got my other skein and counted the wraps, and...

Both were 165 yards! I was so proud of myself, and still am. Kind of wished I could get more than 165 yards out of 4 ounces, but at least I did the same thing on both skeins.

Prelude Workouts

I'm sure all this treadling is good for my calves...right? And at least if I'm spinning, I'm not snacking.

So without further ado, here is the Prelude!

Oh my! Things are going so much faster. In my first week, I spun through 12 ounces of fiber. It took me almost 6 months to get through that with my spindle, though I wasn't spinning as often with the spindle.

To get things started on my wheel, I sent two skeins of scrap yarn through and onto my bobbins. It was really nice. After I had spent a whole two minutes using just the treadle, I knew I needed to do something with my hands, but I knew I wasn't ready for real spinning, enter left over yarn. I started with some thicker cotton, which probably wasn't great, but it was a great chance for me to figure out the Scotch Tension on my wheel. As I said the cotton was probably not the best choice, because the thickness of it made it necessary to have the tension higher than normal, closer to where it would be if you were plying. Though maybe it was good, since it was very clear that my tension was not working in the beginning. Once I got that worked out, i had no problems with the rest of the yarn, or the next skein I sent through.

My husband hates how I measure my crafting time, but it took me three episodes of Doctor Who to put my wheel together, run through my scrap skeins, and start spinning real yarn, so that's about 2 hours and 15-20 minutes (and no the show didn't distract me, as this was about the fifth time I've watched what is loaded on Netflix...I just need to find a way to dye my yarn TARDIS Blue and we will be in business).

First skeins on the Wheel!

I just started spinning the Norwegian the night I put the prelude together and just kept spinning. I'm not really sure how much I spun by weight, but from that spinning, I got these two skeins. I wasn't planning on doing two, but once I started plying, I realized that plied yarn obviously takes up more space on the bobbin (I was a bit excited and didn't think it through ok?) So I had to stop once my bobbin was filled up and start again, hence the two skeins.
 I still had quite a bit of single left on one of my bobbins, so I wound it around a bobbin I used for my spindles, and let it sit for a bit.

I worked in batches. I started with some white Norwegian wool. It's a nice long wool that drafts nicely and works well as either a fine or chunky yarn, though a bit too rough for next-to-skin (shall we say NTS) use.

After my two skeins of Norwegian, which took me about 2-3 days between all the other things that go on in a day, I decided that I needed a bit of color. Since I'm still not brave enough for the alpaca, and certainly wasn't then, I grabbed the Jacob.

Completely full plying bobbin

 The Jacob is another nice wool with long fibers, but again not NTS quality.

This change gave me a nice chance to really work on my consistency. Initially, I was working on thread thin singles, but I kept having issues when I broke my draft or had to disconnect for some reason. Despite a section being perfectly sound when I spun it, once I lost my tension, all the twist escaped, and my previously spun yarn kept drafting apart when I would try to start up again. I just went back to spinning at my default thickness, but keeping it more consistent, which went pretty well. I had wanted to spin a bit thinner so I could ply more singles together, which I guess I can still do, but as is, I am getting a 2-ply that is just slightly thicker than sock yarn.

I did learn my lesson about sectioning the fiber before spinning, and separated the Jacob into four 2-ounce sections. The bobbin at the left shows 4-ounces spun and plied.

Since then. I have spun the rest of the Norwegian, trying for a chunky, which I plied with a thin making a pretty decent spiral for my first time, as well as plying the dyed Bella Wool I had spun on my spindles, making it a 4 ply.

I can tell I'm getting better, but I need a spinner's control card. It is a small card that has lines of different thicknesses which relate to yarns of different weights.

For right now I am spinning the rest of my Bella Wool, though that does involve "combing" it, though not in the traditional sense. The "combing" is slowing me down quite a bit, so we'll see what gets done before the move at the end of the month...especially considering the Fiber Festival this weekend.

Norwegian on the wheel on what I think was day 2

Grr...

It's October 1st. I figure that means I get to wear my knitwear, right. Just a couple problems with that.

1. All of my wearable knit items are accessories, hats, gloves, scarves, but no sweaters,
2. It's currently 80 degrees outside,
3. Apparently I have the worst skin a knitter can have.

Here's the story. Before I knew what the temperature was, I threw a commercial cardi over my tank top (I knew it was pretty warm and shouldn't layer too much) and since the cardi was grey, I figured I could throw on my grey and white mobius scarf made from Cascade Eco Duo. This yarn is 70% alpaca and 30% merino. By all accounts it should be amazingly soft right? Well I had it on for about 60 seconds before it started itching.

I always figured that my issues with sweaters were just due to the awful acrylics being made in the early 90's. But since I always found sweaters itchy as a kid, I didn't really wear any until I started working. Even though I knew how to knit at this time, I was spending my time and energy on classes, subbing, and eventually working, so I still didn't knit anything myself, and I was no where near using natural fibers at this point, so all my sweaters were commercial acrylics, but over the 20 years I spent not wearing sweaters, manufactures had solved many problems and I didn't have any problems anymore. Every now and then my mom would get me a nice merino sweater, and I think she even got me cashmere once or twice, but they always felt itchy, so I wore them infrequently and only with a camisole or tank top underneath...

It seems that my wool issues are fairly confined to my torso as I can wear wool gloves, socks, and hats with no problems. This makes me think that chances of a local allergy are very slight.

I have always had very dry skin, and have noticed fewer problems with natural fibers when I use lotion for several days, but this is not a strong suit of mine.

Maybe this has contributed to my lack of sweater knitting. I have knit a long sleeved shrug out of commercial yarn from Michaels, and the fibers started pulling apart and feathering while I was blocking it. This experience has left me resistant to knitting an entire sweater out of acrylic yarn.

So I'm a bit frustrated by my skin's lack of cooperation today. I'd love to hear about anything that has helped any of you with sensitive skin issues, or with acrylic blocking tips.

Until next time, I'm going to ignore the thermometer and bundle up with my knits and maybe some ice cream.