FO: Fructose Hat

Don’t let the green leaves in the background trick you. I finished knitting and blocking this hat just in time to wear it for the weekend’s snow. 

When I moved to Los Angeles, I only brought one hat knitted hat with me, the Slouchy Babe. That was fine for awhile because it never got cold enough to wear it. Then I moved to San Francisco, the land of fog and rain, and actually needed a hat. Slouchy did it’s job admirably, but I got bored of only wearing one hat. But not bored enough to actually cast on for another hat until I moved again. Road trip knitting is a definite necessity after all. Alex Tinsley’s Fructose had been near the top of the queue for awhile and I already had the yarn picked out, a sparkly handspun single. I cast on the week before the cross-country drive and stashed it in my purse for the trip. 

Fructose turned out to be the perfect project. It was simple enough to let me knit while checking out the scenery and easy to come back to after navigating or putting it down for the night. I knit while we drove across stormy Donner Pass. I knit round after round across deserts, salt flats, plains, and mountains.  Sometimes I took it out just put in my lap and stare out the window. I put a few more rounds on it after The Bearded One and I were unpacked. Then I couldn’t knit for 2 frustrating weeks which is why it took a month for me to finish. The hat’s worth the wait though. It’s warm, cosy, and cute too. 

I spun the yarn, a blend of Columbia and green Firestar, during the 2015 Tour de Fleece. I only had 2 oz of fiber so I decided to keep it as a single. It’s definitely not my most consistent handspun but the thick and thin created great texture within the ribbing. Going to file that trick away for the next time I knit with wild or wild-ish handspun. I haven’t given up on the #handspunchallenge and this hat is only making me want to knit with more of stashed beauties.

When I cast on I was a little worried that the sparkle from the Firestar would be overwhelming. It’s not though. The Firestar adds mottled color and only up close does the glint of the fiber come into play. Glad I didn’t shy away from it and skip the sparkle. 

Pattern: Fructose by Alex Tinsley

Yarn: 138 yds of sport weight handspun

Needles: US 6 (4 mm) circulars

Dates: March 5 - April 8, 2016

@Ravelry

Interweave Yarn Fest 2016

Normally I hear about an interesting yarn/spinning convention/festival, find out it’s a day’s drive away, decide NOPE, and do my best to forget about it. Not this time. I’ve been looking forward to The Interweave Yarn Fest since I realized I’d be able to go without needing to spend a day in the car or book a hotel room. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take any classes this year - and a few of them were really tempting - but that didn’t stop me from doing a little stash enhancement. 

I walked into the marketplace with a vague plan. I was looking for yarn and buttons for 2 projects and new types of fiber to spin. There was no shortage of yarn or fiber, but after doing my first walk around it was all fiber that really caught my eye. Then I got caught up in a whirlwind of yarn fumes until I escaped out the front door. I stuck to my shopping list, but looking at all of my fiber purchases now, I’ve realized that I bought something that satisfies every reason why I love to spin. 

I love trying my hand at spinning new fibers. I’ve spun lots of wool but only a few ounces each of cashmere and alpaca. So, one of my goals for this year is to expand my fiber repertoire, and now I’ve built the stash to do it. I’ve got yak/silk, llama/silk, and merino/silk. Apparently, I really wanted to spin silk this year and didn’t know it until now. The blue roving is 100% mohair. I even splurged on an ounce of ultra soft paco-vicuna. Looks like I’ve got a pretty full year ahead of me.

I love spinning color. I was walking by the 100th Sheep booth when I spotted this amazing blue and rust colored roving. There was no way those colors weren’t coming home with me. The 6oz of blended roving looked amazing spun up and I couldn’t resist it either. Note: The ball of roving is a big as my head.

I love learning new yarn constructions and new techniques. The handy Fiber Preparedness Kit packed full of punis, dyed locks, and roving seemed like a good way to branch out from my usual 2-ply. As for the firestar, there’s a drum carder coming my way and I want to make some sparkly batts. 

The market was also full of handspun and handspun-looking yarns. Inspiration and motivation was everywhere you looked. There was handspun with beads and coils. There was handspun that showcased color. There were absolutely gorgeous crepe constructed yarns that I want need to learn to spin. 

I love fun spinning and batts are fun spinning. This absolutely giant 8 oz batt (Ysolda’s Mousie for scale) fit the bill perfectly. I can’t wait to start tearing into that thing. 

I only bought 3 skeins of yarn and none of them were for projects on my list. One of them was a secret gift and the other two, well, I’m a sucker for beautiful grey -  Stone Walk by Western Sky Knits - and a good gradient - white to purple by OgleDesign. Enough said. 

Now that the yarn fumes have faded, I’m happy I went. I came home with yarn, fiber, ideas, a ton of inspiration, and even a pair of earrings. Looking forward to going back to Yarn Fest next year. Until then I’m going to keep an eye for other fiber events to go too. What are your favorite festivals?

My Favorite Chain-Plying Trick

I love chain-plied yarn. I love how plump it is compared to 2-ply yarn. I love how it keeps the clear distinct color of the single and fiber. I love how I can take one single from one bobbin and ply it into something that looks like it came off of three. 

What I don’t love is stopping in the middle of chain-plying, and not because it breaks the rhythm. If you’ve never chain-plied yarn before, the process is a lot like making a crochet chain. Make a big loop from a single piece of yarn, use your fingers to pull another loop through the first, then add twist. Repeat until every single yard is plied. Making a new loop and pulling it though the old one allows you to work with 3 strands at a time instead of 1. The result is a plump, cushy yarn. Nifty, right?

The problem comes when you need to take a break and let go of the open loop. All the twist comes along and closes the loop which needs to be open so you can pull another loop through and keep plying. I always hated untangling that twisted mess, so I waited to chain-ply until I had long stretches of uninterrupted time. Sometimes the single had to sit on the bobbin for awhile until that Netflix marathon came along. Thankfully, I figured out a way around that on my last chain-ply project.

I couldn’t fit all 4 oz of fiber on one regular bobbin and had to finish drafting the single on a second. There was no way I could hold the loop open, get up, reach over to the lazy kate, find the end of the single on the next bobbin, sit back down, and join the two ends together. I don’t have enough hands for that. I needed something to hold the loop open for me and my favorite cup came to the rescue.

I slipped the loop over the bottom of the cup and put it on the table. Voila! The working loop stayed open and the next loop in the chain hung out of the way. Plus, that next loop could still be adjusted for length. Wish I thought of this earlier. Now I can ply for smaller chunks of time, take more breaks, and give my arms a rest.

If you’re getting to up to grab something to drink or calling it a night, a toilet paper tube or any lightweight tube works just as well. I’m keeping a cardboard tube in my spinning kit from now on for this exact purpose.

Happy spinning!

Spinning Noro Rainbow Roll Part 2

This is part 3 in a series reviewing Noro Rainbow Roll and Imperial Yarns Bulky 2-Strand Pencil Roving. Here’s Part 1 and Part 2. 

When last we left our intrepid handspun, it was still on the bobbin and plotting it’s escape… I’m pretty sure the grand plan was to look really pretty so that I’d have to skein it up. Well, it worked because I couldn’t resist anymore. I used a swift to wind the skein and popped it off to get a better look at the yarn. The neps and clumps of wool, which has been the determining factor for how the yarn was spun , were still visible but didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. In fact, the neps along with some uneven tension they created during plying gave the handspun a bit of rustic charm. The chain-plied single was both distinct and rather plump. Plus, It didn’t look all that different from a yarn drafted with a more conventional method.

I quickly measured the wraps per inch, and dunked it into a cool bath with Eucalan for about 20 minutes. The water had a slight blue tinge, but the yarn didn’t leave any dye on the white towel I used to squish out extra water. Then I snapped the yarn across my arms a few times to even out the twist. Those steps are all part of my usual yarn finishing routine. On a lark, I decided to also give the yarn a few good thwacks against the shower wall with the thought that it would make the neps less visible. Then I hung the yarn to dry overnight. 

There’s a reason I only sometimes “thwack” handspun, and this yarn is a perfect example why. Thwacking definitely made the neps less visible but it also changed the yarn’s surface. The distinct “plies” relaxed which means that a lot of the finer details were lost. The bloom also gave the yarn a bit of a halo - great for hiding neps but at the cost of making the yarn a little prickly. I’m not particularly sensitive to prickle, so I could still wear this yarn next my neck, but it wouldn’t be my first choice for a cowl. The yarn, and the roving it used to be, was definitely softer before it got a good thwacking. If you like the character neps can add to a yarn, just snap the yarn to even out the twist and hang it up to dry. 

There was one other change to the yarn after finishing, wraps per inch. Before getting a bath, the WPI averaged 7-8 which put into into the aran-bulky range. After washing, the yarn was definitely a bulky weight at 7 WPI. Pre-bath measurements also told me that I had about 158 yards but I’m sure there’s less now that the yarn has plumped up. If I’m doing my math correctly, that would mean I turned 294 yards of pencil roving into a 474 yard single.

Since we’re talking about a chain-plied yarn, here’s where two of the chains linked together. This bulky change is actually an exception in the skein because I was able to find it. In spite of the thick and thin nature of the single, the joins between links are generally invisible. It probably helps that I made fairly large chains, usually 18” or longer.

The other good thing about making long chains while chain-plying a single with a distinct stripe pattern is that it helps colors shift from one to the next without muddying them. While most roving is one long length that’s been dyed, Rainbow Roll is a combination of pre-dyed wool carded in stripes. Check out these photos of Noro’s yarn being made to see what I mean. Sometimes the color is solid and other times a heather where colors overlap. Chain-plying helped blend those two different kinds of color.

I got so caught up in how to deal with neps, that I forgot to mention vegetable matter earlier. There was some VM, but not much and it was easy enough to pick out. I also noticed a small amount in the bottom of the sink when I took the yarn out of the bath. The roving definitely didn’t feel dirty while I was spinning it. 

Now that I’ve got a fresh skein of handspun in the stash, what’s my verdict? Sometimes being stubborn is a good thing. Figuring out how turn a nep-filled roving into yarn without hating every second of spinning it became a puzzle I had to solve. I’m absolutely thrilled with the yarn Rainbow Roll became, but I know the process required to get there isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It was frustrating before I found a solution and afterward the spinning never did go to autopilot. Nor was this the kind of project where I could do anything I wanted. The fiber called the shots 100% and completely changed my original plan. If you want autopilot spinning where you’re in control, pick something else and save the Rainbow Roll for knitting or weaving. Just don’t tug too hard. If you're up for some focused spinning, Rainbow Roll will certainly fit the bill.

Spinning Noro Rainbow Roll Part 1

This is Part 2 in a series reviewing Noro Rainbow Roll and Imperial Yarns Bulky 2-Strand Pencil Roving. Here’s Part 1. 

Today I plied, but I’ve been spinning the Noro Rainbow Roll every day since February 23. It’s been an experience. 

I gave the fiber one last look before sitting down at the wheel, and noticed neps, small clusters of fibers that have tangled into knots, on the outer rim of the roving. At the time I wasn’t sure if the neps were localized in one spot due to handling or were present in the entire batch. The only way to find out was to get spinning. 

My original plan for this fiber - it was what I had in mind when I bought the Rainbow Roll - was to spin a fingering weight single to preserve the color repeat and then full it to improve durability. I found the end on the outer edge and started drafting from the outside in. Once I was a few feet into the roving, I could tell that I was going to need a new plan. The neps weren’t localized to one spot. They weren’t caused by rough handling or improper storage. These neps were created when the roving was carded. At first I thought it might just be in a particular color, but the neps were consistent and constant throughout the entire 3.5 ounces. Picking them out, a fairly common thing to do with neps, wasn’t an option for several reasons. One, the neps were very close together and often several to an inch. Two, when there weren’t neps there were clumps of wool and picking them out would mean pulling the roving apart. 

If you’re weaving or knitting or felting with the roving, neps aren’t a big deal. They can add texture and interest. If you’re trying to spin fiber filled with neps, it’s just a giant pain in the ass. Wether you’re aiming for a smooth worsted style yarn or an airy woolen style, neps muck up drafting. The first 2 colors I spun from the roll are an annoying combination of weak blobs of wool and tightly spun thread. Definitely not the fine single I had in mind. My frustration was growing which meant I had just two options - quit or completely change gears. 

A video posted by April Klich (@aprilklich) on Feb 25, 2016 at 4:06pm PST

So, I changed gears and decided to modify how I drafted. My initial drafting method was to draft fiber from the roving and then let twist enter said fiber. On a complete lark I decided to reverse this process. I let the twist into 6 or so inches of pencil roving, and then pulled on the roving to even out the single. It actually worked. The single was more consistent, and the neps seemed more like an intentional texture than a hinderance. Don’t misunderstand, the single was still on the wild side. I’d just found a method to work with the roving that didn’t make me want to quit. Good thing there’s lots of different ways to make yarn, huh?

I finished drafting the yarn on Friday and let it rest over night before plying. What drew me to Rainbow Roll in the first place was the color and I wanted to maintain that clarity as much as possible. The best way I know to keep distinct color is chain-plying. So I set up the bulky bobbin and flyer and got to work. Once I found my rhythm, plying went very quickly - less than two hours and I was done. Well, done with the more consistent part of the single. The bobbin was literally full at the same time I started into the weak early section. Seemed like the perfect time to call it quits.

I haven’t skeined the yarn yet or given it a bath to set the twist, but I’m very happy with what ended up on the bobbin. It’s colorful, soft, bulky, and has a certain rustic charm. I want to knit it and wear it which is a far cry from the frustration of when I first started spinning it.  

Review: Comparing Noro Rainbow Roll and Imperial Yarn Bulky 2-Strand Pencil Roving

Pencil roving makes up just a fraction of my fiber stash, but it’s something that fascinates my spinning brain. Maybe it’s the color. Maybe it’s all the possibilities of what can be done with it as soon as it’s in your hands. Spinning of course, but also knitting and weaving. Maybe it’s that I can go into autopilot when I work with it since it’s generally an easy spin. Pencil roving isn’t the easiest thing to find since regular roving and top are much more prevalent. So, I always keep an eye out which is how I’ve come to have stashed two different but intriguing pencil rovings - Imperial Yarns Bulky 2-Strand and Noro Rainbow Roll. In the interest of spinning, let’s do a little head-to-head comparison. 

I went to Atelier Yarns for the first time a few weeks ago. The shop was well stocked and the Bulky 2-Strand was right up front, though I would have found it if it were in the back too. There was a mix of colors - naturals, solid colors, and a selection of heathers. I fell hard for the indigo heather, a mix of purple, navy blue and teal green. The roving was pleasantly soft, but what made me buy the roving was the yarn that tied up the bundle. The 2-ply was made from the same roving and had a deliciously rustic look. I wanted to spin that same cushy yarn.

The Noro Rainbow Roll came into my stash thanks to the internet. I saw it online while I was browsing Eat.Sleep.Knit for gift yarn. My first thought was, “I can get Noro’s gorgeous, long color repeats without fear of interrupting knots, and spin it into a fingering weight single that won’t come apart if I pull too hard? Gimme.” That’s pretty much how it ended up in a box at my door.

The Rainbow Roll and Imperial Bulky are packaged differently. The aptly named Rainbow Roll came wrapped around a cardboard tube in a wide roll which shows off the different colors and their repeat. Imperial Bulky comes wound as a cake like you’d get off a winder. 

The rovings handle color very differently. Rainbow Roll, this is color 1009, is uniformly dyed into colors that follow a repeating sequence. Some colors, like the bright blue, appear to be a solid, while other colors, like the light blue and green, have a heathered appearance. The Imperial Bulky, Indigo Heather, is evenly heathered throughout its length. Note: Imperial Bulky also comes in solid colors. 

One more note about the color. On the whole, the Rainbow Roll appears to have more vivid, vibrant colors than the Imperial Bulky. 

What about vegetable matter, AKA VM? Both have some VM, but not much and it all appears to be in small pieces. From looking only at the outer layers, there appears to be more VM in the The Imperial Bulky, but I won’t know for sure until I actually get into the cake. 

Now, let’s touch ‘em. Both pencil rovings are made from 100% wool (neither specifies a breed on the label). I find the Imperial Bulky to be the softer the two, but only barely. I would wear both of them around my neck. How soft they are as yarn, will come down to how they’re spun.

The yardage and put-up of these bundles is where the two rovings start getting very different. The Imperial Bulky is 4 oz/113g and 200 yds/183m. However, as the name implies, The Imperial Bulky 2-strand, is 2 strands of pencil roving that are intended to be knit together to form a bulky yarn. The recommended gauge on the label is 12 sts and 16 rows = 4 inches on US 13 (9mm) needles. What one could do, is separate the two strands - easy since the two aren’t twisted together at all - and get double the yardage with a smaller gauge. 

When the individual strands of both rovings are held next to each other, they appear to be the same thickness.

Rainbow Roll is 3.53oz/100 g and has 294yds/270m of roving. The Rainbow Roll label has no suggested gauge or needle. What the label does say, in part, is this, “This product is not a yarn and is not twisted…” The Rainbow Roll Ravelry Page does categorize the roving as bulky. A quick skim through project pages on Ravelry shows that most people used needles ranging from the US 7 to 13. 

It is only one strand, which isn’t big deal if knitting or weaving, but makes it harder to get the colors match when spinning 2-ply yarn. You could definitely break the roving into separate repeats of color. You could spin a single and chain ply it. Or you could just spin it and let the colors fall where they may.

As long as we’re talking numbers, what about the price? I paid $20 for the Rainbow Roll and $18.95 for the Bulky 2-Strand. Seems pretty similar at first glance. However, Rainbow Roll comes to $0.068 a yard and Imperial Bulky is $0.094. Still reasonable; however, if you’re working with one strand of Imperial Bulky instead of 2 at a time, the price goes to $0.047 because there’s now 400 yards instead of 200.        

Part 2 of the comparison focuses on spinning the roving. I might love spinning them. I might hate spinning them. But spin them I will…for science! The Rainbow Roll is going on the bobbins first, and I’ll be sharing the details as I go.

P.S. The next few weeks are going to be all over the place (literally) for me, so the posting schedule is going to be a bit different. Instead of long, detailed posts, I'm going to be posting short snippets a few times a week. Thanks for sticking with me!

Giddy Up Handspun

My first handspun of 2016 is officially finished! I’m thrilled with how it turned out, but I have to admit something.  Sometimes I buy fiber because I like the look of it and want to try working with something new without much thought to what the finished yarn will look like. That’s definitely what happened when I bought the roving that became this single. Doesn’t always work out, but it did this time. 

I loved the smooth single I saw on the bobbins and didn’t want to fuzz it up during finishing. So, the yarn got a good 20 minute soak in cool water. I snapped the yarn over my arms to even out the twist, but skipped giving the yarn a good thwack it again the shower wall - didn’t want the halo that can come from thwacking. Then I hung it up to dry. The single did plump up a little after it’s bath, but it still has a smooth surface which helped the seacell keep its luster.  

Time for my second admission. If I saw this yarn at a shop I’d think it was pretty, but I wouldn’t buy it. Why? Simple. I’d have no idea how to make the most of it. Not going to let that stop me this time though. I’m sketching and swatching up a storm. The good thing about making all my sketches on post-it notes is that I can put them all up on the wall and see what sticks. I might not use the single for the eventual design, but I’m glad to have the challenge.

Fiber: 4 oz Spun Right Round Blended Roving - Giddy Up

Yardage: 526 yds

Plies & Weight: Sport Weight Single

Start - Finish: January 21 - February 14, 2016

@Ravelry

The First Handspun of 2016

I made a lot of grand plans and overarching intentions for 2016. All of them were inspiring at first, but every one of them became overwhelming at January marched on. I couldn’t decide where to start, which step to take first, or even what project to work on. I needed to clear my head. Spinning has helped me focus in the past so I thought I’d try it again. The wheel came out of the closet and got a good dusting and a bit of oil. Next, I went rummaging through my fiber stash, and pulled out a blended roving from Spun Right Round. 

I’ve never spun anything quite like those 4 oz, and they turned out to be the perfect project to kickstart the year. Instead of single chunk of dyed fiber, this roving was a combination of orange, teal, and navy merino with shiny, white seacell. The colors weren’t blended into a heather - more like they hung out next to each other. I probably could have separated the colors, but where would the fun have been in that? If anything, the roving was comparable to a batt with big chunks of solid color.

I split the fiber in half at the mid-point, and started spinning without an end goal in mind. I just wanted to spin and let the fiber call the shots. The first few yards that went on the bobbin made it pretty clear that would be no plying. I was drafting back and forth like a typewriter which mixed the colors together two and three at a time. White twisted up with orange. Teal pulled in navy and seacell. Plying the single would only muddy the colors and hide the distinct combinations. The single was interesting enough by itself. Plus, those first few yards were thick and thin. The single did get more consistent as I went along but I let the thick and thin happen without fussing over the differences.

I wish I could say that I used the process of spinning as some sort of daily meditation. I did no such thing. I throughly enjoyed spinning it for 30 minutes before stepping away from the wheel for weeks. It wasn’t until I read the Singles issue of Ply cover to cover that I felt the urge to get spinning again. The enthusiasm in the magazine is rather infectious after all. I sat down, got drafting, and didn’t stop until every last gram was on the bobbin. Well, not the stray seacell that stuck to my pants and my hands, but you get the idea. 

When I started spinning, I did so with the intention of having no intention. There was no plan, no deadline, no blog post. There was nothing that tied the process of making yarn to anything else. I was able to spin for the joy of spinning and play with fiber. Now I’m going to let you in on a little secret: it made me happy - like playing with kittens happy. This project was a great antidote to stressing out about everything, good and bad, that 2016 has in store. 

Next time you get wrapped up and stressed over future plans, try making something for the fun of it. Ditch the deadlines and the self-imposed rules. Stop imagining all those future projects. Jump in and see what happens. You can be retrospective when you’re done, just like I’m doing with this post. Happy making!  

Notes About Spinning Cashmere

Brave readers, it’s time for the next installment of adventures in spinning cashmere. In the first entry, I wrote about my attempt at drafting the singles and overcoming the idea that spinning cashmere would be as hard as everyone made it sound. At the time, I was working on the second single with the idea that the true test of whether or not I could spin cashmere would be in the plying. If the singles fell apart every couple of feet, then I’d failed. If the singles stayed together, then I could actually spin cashmere without screwing it up. 

Did the singles pass the plying test? If you haven’t already guessed from all the pictures, yes! Seeing all the plied yarn on the bobbins was a relief because I wasn’t sure I was going to pull it off until they were done. There were a few times with the singles pulled apart on me, but I didn’t need all the fingers on one hand to count them. Whew. 

The final test came with the finishing. Would the skeins be the lofty, airy yarn I set out to spin? Before the skeins went into the bath, they looked a little limp - plenty of plying twist in them, but limp all the same. Finishing the skeins with a soak and a gentle thwack changed them for the better. The yarn plumped up to a beautiful, airy body and texture. Soft too. Oh, so soft. Of everything I’ve spun, this was the hardest to let go of. If the fiber hadn’t been sent to me to spin and then send back, I probably would have kept the yarn as a pet. Have I mentioned how soft it was? Mmmm…

Enough with the daydreaming, onto the technical details. Now that I know that what I did to spin this cashmere actually works, I can share my notes in good conscience. They still come with the disclaimer that I’m still a newb when it comes to working with this luscious stuff though. 

I didn’t actually read up on how to spin cashmere before I started the singles. My idea to spin cashmere woolen came from a cotton spinning demo with Stephanie Gaustad when she visited the Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild. (Side note: Fiber guilds are great resources and worth joining.) My biggest takeaway was Gaustad’s comment that people thought spinning cotton, a short staple fiber, was hard was because they tried to spin it the same they they spun grabby, long-stapled fibers. Instead, she recommended woolen spinning because the twist would move into the fiber supply and keep things from falling apart during drafting. 

I decided to try this idea with the short, slippery cashmere. So, I used a woolen drafting style and let the twist come into the fiber supply. To keep the twist from locking up the fibers, I set the take up low and used a larger whorl. There’s usually at least good foot and a half between my hands and the wheel’s orifice, so this distance let more twist enter the single before it went on the bobbin. As for plying, I didn’t do anything beyond the ordinary tensioning andbalance checks. 

I did do some research on how to finish cashmere but didn’t turn up much in my cursory internet search. I was working on a deadline, remember. Ended up following my usual steps for finishing a woolen yarn. First, the skeins soaked in cool water with a little Eucalan for about 20 minutes. After the yarn came out of the bath, and I squeezed out as much water as possible first with my hands and then by rolling the yarn up in a towel. I evened out the twist with a few good snaps around my hands before giving the yarn a few gentle thwacks against the shower wall. Gentle is key here since I wanted the plies to open up but not develop a halo. Then I hung them up to dry, and the wait proved to be the hardest part of finishing. The last step, which I heartily recommend, is petting the yarn like it’s an adorable kitten. So soft... 

Fiber: 2 oz cashmere top

Yardage: Mama ~240 yds and Mini ~25 yds

Plies & Weight: 2-ply Sport; Mini skein plied on itself

Start & Finish: November 28 - December 15, 2015

@Ravelry

Easier Plying From A Center Pull Ball

I always forget how long it takes to ply a skein of fingering weight yarn until I’m halfway through. Silly me thought I could ply a skein over the course of 2 days. Took a bit longer than that. When I was almost finished, there was still a good chunk of yardage on the second bobbin. There’s no sense in letting cashmere singles wallow on the bobbin especially when I need to mail the finished skeins by the end of the week. Plying the leftovers from a center pull ball seemed like the best and quickest option.

Thankfully, the single held together during winding. I was about to pull the ball off the winder when I remembered a tip: slide the center pull call unto a toilet paper tube to keep it from collapsing on itself and tangling. I’ve lost plenty of yardage to tangled center pull balls and really didn’t want to lose a single yard of cashmere. The problem was that I was fresh out of toilet paper tubes. Instead, I folded a piece of regular printer paper into a strip and loosely rolled it up. Then I slipped the ball onto the paper directly from the winder.

The rolled up paper worked so much better than I expected. As I pulled out more and more yarn, the roll expanded to fill the center hole and kept the ball from falling apart. There were absolutely zero tangles, and I was able to ply every bit of the single. The only thing I’d do differently next time - and I will be using this trick every time I ply from a center pull ball - is to make sure there’s an even edge on the outside of the roll to keep the single from snagging.

Spinning Cashmere

2 ounces of cashmere ended up in my fiber stash innocently enough. A friend of mine asked me if I would spin it for her and, of course, I agreed. She’s an awesome friend who deserves handspun, and I wanted to spin cashmere. It’s a win-win in my book. When the cashmere arrived it was as soft and lovely and amazing as I expected it would be. Then the doubt set in. Sure, I knew how to spin yarn, but most of my experience was with long-stapled, grabby wool. Everything I’ve read about cashmere told me it was slippery and had a relatively short staple length. Plus, I hadn’t figured out how to spin fine singles on my wheel yet which was what the cashmere would require. So the fiber sat for I don’t don’t know how long.

It wasn’t until my successful attempt spinning a 3-ply sock yarn during Tour de Fleece 2015 that I started seriously thinking about spinning the cashmere. Spinning that sock yarn meant that I’d finally figured out how to draft a fine yarn. That was half of the hurdle was gone. Now, only the fear of messing up the fiber - because I repeatedly read that it was hard to spin - was holding me back. I didn’t want to waste my friend’s cashmere. If the fiber had been mine, it’d probably still be sitting in fluffy little bundles. It’s not mine though, and I’d been holding on to it for long enough. The only thing left to do was start.

My end goal is to spin a 2-ply fingering weight yarn. Getting the wheel set up in the beginning with just the right amount of tension and twist took some fiddling. The first setting put twist into the fiber but didn’t pull it onto the bobbin. The second adjustment had too much twist and not enough uptake. The third attempt, on a larger whorl setting, was just right with enough twist and enough uptake.

I want the yarn to be lofty and airy so I went with a woolen style draft where the twist comes into the fiber supply — only a little twist though since I’m aiming for a fingering weight yarn. Then I waited for the spinning to be hard. I working my way through the second single at the moment, and I’m still waiting for the spinning to be hard. Has it taken more patience and attention? Definitely, but spinning cashmere isn’t the insurmountable challenge that I’d created in my head. Just goes to show that the only way to know that something is “hard”, is to not let fear hold you back and try it for yourself.

I am by no means an expert at spinning cashmere. Not even a little. I’m just fumbling along and finding what works. Are my singles perfect? No, but they’re fairly consistent and holding together. Fingers crossed that the pair doesn’t fall apart during plying - then I’ll have to take back that whole ‘I can spin cashmere’ thing. Stayed tuned for adventures in plying.

How I Won Spinzilla

I started Spinzilla a day late on Tuesday by spinning 1 ounce of a batt. Wednesday, I spun the second ounce and finished the single. I let the twist rest Thursday and Friday. Saturday, I wound the single into a ball to ply it back on itself. On the last day of Spinzilla, I plied and had a lovely new skein of handspun to drool over. 

This year I thought I’d spend a few minutes spinning everyday until the end of the challenge. Enjoying spinning and not rushing the process was the name of game. I also wanted to spin through my stash of batts which, while not large, is enough to play with. Didn’t really happen like that. Certainly enjoyed the spinning and process, but I didn’t spin every day or clear out my batt stash. I spun just the one batt, and an awesome batt it was, into 130 (390 yards with the plying credit) yards of worsted weight 2-ply yarn. 

That one skein was all it took to win Spinzilla. I definitely did not top last years winning total of 20+ miles spun by a rogue spinner, but I did change the rules. Instead of spinning as much yarn as I could in week, I had fun spinning a batt; added a great new skein to my handspun stash; and got excited about spinning again. The weekend before Spinzilla, my bobbins still had leftover singles from Tour de Fleece on them. Other projects - daily drawing, finishing the Norma Blanket, and yoga - took over my time. Spinzilla brought me back to my wheel after a long drought. Now that I think about it, that long drought is probably the reason I wanted to revel in the process instead of pushing to spin, spin, spin. Now that Spinzilla is over I’ve got plans for for new handspun to make, and spinning is going to be a regular part of my routine again. In the end, 390 yards was all I needed to win. 

What was your Spinzilla like? I hope you won too.

In The Middle of Spinzilla

We’re three days into Spinzilla and I still haven’t finished filling my first bobbin. The fiber, a batt from Fairytale Fibers, is lovely, so why am I not filling all my free time with spinning? Simple. I don’t want to rush my spinning. I know Spinzilla is a challenge to spin as much yarn as possible, but there are other priorities higher on the list this year. I want to enjoy the fiber. I want to enjoy the process of spinning. I want to enjoy the ritual of sitting down at my wheel. I can’t do any of that if I’m rushing to make miles of yarn in a single week.

That said, I’m not ditching the challenge part of Spinzilla. Just redefining it. Instead of spinning all the yarn, I’m spinning all the batts and the wilder stuff I’ve got stashed away. There are batts, mini-batts, and mashups of fiber. This is the week I step out of my comfort zone and spin something with texture. Maybe even art yarn which I want to make, but have no idea what to do with afterward. If I happen to spin a mile of yarn doing it, great. If I don’t, that’s great too.

The rest of my goals for the challenge are pretty simple. Spin every day. Don’t hurt myself. Have fun. These are things I can do. 

What are your Spinzilla goals?

Updated Yardage Calculator for Spinzilla 2015

Spinzilla is next week! The deadline to sign up for the annual challenge to spin all the yarn is this Friday, October 2. You can join a team or spin Rogue if you just want to challenge yourself. Spinzilla costs $10 to join and the money goes to support the NeedleArts Mentoring Program which teaches kids spinning, weaving, knitting, crochet, and spinning. Signed up? Great!

I've spun Rogue since Spinzilla began in 2013 and I'm doing it again this year. In 2014 I wanted to spend more time making yarn and less time totaling yardage so I made a spreadsheet to do the math for me. I've made a few improvements to this year's version and it still calculates plying credit. The first is that the calculator will now tell you how many miles you've spun. The other improvement is actually a second calculator that converts meters to yards and gives all the same information as the first calculator.

To use this spreadsheet, please click "File" in the main menu under "Spinzilla 2015 Yardage Calculator". To use in Google Docs, click "Make a copy..." To download for use in Excel or as an Open Document, click "Download As".

Thanks and Happy Spinning!

How To Measure Wraps Per Inch

The usual method for measuring a yarn’s wraps per inch, commonly abbreviated as WPI, is taking the yarn and wrapping it around a WPI gauge or a ruler. Count the number of times the yarn wraps around the gauge and that’s the WPI, which is used to determine a yarn thickness*. The problem with wrapping yarn around a gauge is that it’s easy to stretch the yarn and get a skewed number. Jillian Moreno recommends rolling and moving the gauge instead of wrapping the finished yarn. I like to do something different.

My handspun isn’t always as consistent as I would like it to be. So, instead of measuring a short 6-12” segment of yarn which might be wildly different from another 6-12”, I measure WPI after the yarn is in a skein. I pull away a few strands from the rest and fit them into the gap on my gauge. If there’s space, I add a few more. If it’s crowded, I take a few out. The yarn isn’t stretched at all. Plus, the WPI is a more accurate average of the entire skein, and it’s a lot to harder to fudge the numbers. 

I got my gauge from Girl on the Rocks a few years ago and it’s been a great tool. 

One more thing. There’s not a lot of agreement on a standard WPI for yarn weights, much less an industry standard. Some sources match up and some don’t. This post from Ask The Bellwether offers a good explanation of the situation and includes tips for matching handspun to commercial yarn. Even though there's no agreed upon standard, I like measuring the WPI of my yarn since it makes it easier for me recreate or match a yarn later. 

3 Weeks of Tour de Fleece and 3-Ply Sock Yarn

Check out Tour de Fleece Week 1 and Week 2.

Tour de Fleece is a most excellent challenge. One year I might set out to spin enough yarn for a sweater, but I’m pretty happy using the time to learn about spinning. I planned to work through Drafting Worsted to Woolen but never got past the short forward draft. No complaints because I want to spin smoother, more consistent yarn which is hard to do with long-draw. Besides from the bump of orange merino I started with, I didn’t set aside any fiber beforehand. I dug through my stash and grabbed what caught my eye. Not the most efficient way to rock Tour de Fleece but it worked for me. In three weeks, I spun a worsted-weight 3-ply, a thick and thin single, and a 3-ply sock yarn.  

The first 2 yards were great but the sock yarn was this year’s challenge. I’ve been wanted to spin sock yarn for years and who knows how long I would have put it off if not for the Tour. Unlike my usual modus operandi, I didn’t go a lot of research before hand. I’ve been working towards spinning finer and finer yarn for the past few months and decided to just do it. I looked up sock yarn constructions in The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs and went for an opposing 3-ply construction because I’d never spun that style of yarn before. 

The other yarns spun up quickly and I suppose this one did too. Each of the 3 singles took about 3 days to draft. I reminded myself every time I sat down at my wheel that the third single had to go in the opposite direction so I wouldn’t forget.

Plying happened over during the last two days of the Tour. Sunday was pretty much a marathon plying session filled with lots of tv and I got finished yarn at the end of the day. It’s actually sock weight too! Putting it together was interesting because the yarn looked like one single wasn’t evenly tensioned with the other two. My guess is that putting more twist into the opposing ply of the opposing ply sock yarn is the reason. We’ll see how it relaxes after I give it a soak to set the twist.

At the end of the tour I’d spun 10 ounces of fiber which turned into 7 plies, 4 skeins of yarn (plus leftovers), and 875 yards. Not bad for three weeks of spinning. My short forward draw is much improved, and I’ve got the confidence to spin more sock yarn. Learning and improving my craft  are the reasons that I look forward to spinning during Tour de Fleece every year. The yarn doesn’t hurt either.

Still Rocking Tour de Fleece

I feel like I spun so much during the first 9 days of Tour de Fleece and so little last week. I took a break on the first rest day and then another the next day but I’ve been spinning (and binge watching Gilmore Girls) every day since. My only project has been the sock yarn I started on the 9th day. As fine as the singles are, I’ve been making good time and finishing one every 3 days. I started the third yesterday which means I should have just enough time to finish it, and ply them all together by the end of Tour on Sunday. Fingers crossed. Or not, it’s hard to draft that way. 

I didn’t spin a sample since I only had 4 ounces and decided to make sock yarn on a lark. So, it might be a little too thick to count as fingering weight. That’s fine by me though since I like heavier fingering weight yarns for knitting socks. Especially when I’ve promised said sock yarn to size 14 feet.

My thick-and-thin Columbia/Firestar single couldn’t take up space on my last bobbin any more so I skeined it up. I just couldn’t get the idea of keeping it as a single and striping it with another single. Maybe it’ll be a hat or maybe a shawl, but it’s going to turn into stripes. Before that I have to set twist and I hope it’ll plump up into more than the sport weight it averages now.

Happy spinning during the final days of Tour de Fleece 2015!

Rocking the First Week of Tour de Fleece

The first week of Tour de Fleece is over and Monday was the first rest day. Instead of spinning anyway, I took the opportunity to empty my bobbins, inspect my new handspun, and prep for the next week of making all the yarn.

The first yarns off the bobbins were these two skeins of Ashland Bay Merino in Apricot. I’ve had the image in my head of a smooth, lustrous 3-ply since I bought the fiber several months ago and am so happy that I was able to pull it off. Thanks to watching Drafting From Worsted to Woolen I was able to consistently use a short-forward draft without getting lazy and switching over to long-draw. Slow as it was, the short forward draw allowed me to spin finer singles which means this is my first 3-ply worsted weight yarn.  My other attempts have all ended up bulky. I even got some decent yardage, 192 yds, which is more than enough for a slouchy hat. 

The mini skein, another 40 yards, is a leftover single plied with itself. It’s 2 plies turned into a mostly sport weight yarn. 

I dipped into some of my stash acquisitions from Stitches West. This uneven single started as two ounces of Columbia wool and Firestar pencil roving from Carolina Homespun. When I started spinning, I was sure I wanted it to be a fat single. Unfortunately, only the last half of the single is anything close to what I was going for. Can’t decide if I should leave it as it is or ply it for a more even yarn.

Here’s my current yarn-in-progress and it’s also my biggest challenge this year. Since I’ve gotten more comfortable with the short forward draw over the past weeks (and liking the resulting handspun), I’m attempting to spin my first skein of sock yarn. Why wait for the challenge day to do something difficult?

This yarn will also be a 3-ply but I’m trying out an opposing ply construction, two of the singles are spun in one direction with the third spun in the direction of the plying twist, that I found in The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson on page 129. The extra twist that goes into the opposing single during plying is thought to add durability and elasticity to the finished yarn. The fiber I’m using is 100% Cheviot wool, which my reference say is fairly durable, but I’m hoping this construction will compensate for the lack of nylon. I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent the rest of the Tour spinning this one skein of sock yarn, but I’m going have fun doing it. 

What are you spinning for Tour de Fleece? 

Handspun Flight of Fancy

So much of my handspun starts simply with the urge to spin and these skeins were no exception. I had no end project in mind and went digging through my fiber for the first thing that caught my eye.. The winner was 4 oz of Falkland top from Cosy Makes. She no longer dyes and this bump was one of the last she sold to clear out her stock. It was also the last bit of her lovely work in my stash so I wanted it to be more than mindless spinning.

I had a few unwatched Craftsy classes on spinning (still do) and picked Jacey Boggs’ Drafting From Worsted to Woolen. What better way to keep my mind on the fiber than to learn how to spin better. Those 23+ minutes I watched about worsted spinning were golden. My singles were smoother and more consistent. Plus, they were finer than I usually spin which is something I’ve been working towards for a few months but haven’t quite figured out yet.

The singles sat until I decided it was time to empty the bobbins for Tour de Fleece. Plying was easy, and the first single only broke once. Once it came off the bobbin though it looked like I hadn’t put enough twist, despite frequently checking that the twist was equal. Thankfully, the fiber relaxed a lot after a long soak and let the twist do it’s thing. The finished yarn is plump and soft with plenty of twist. It’s not as shiny as the singles, but that’s probably because it’s Falkland, and the fact that I gave it a few good thwacks across the shower wall. 

The grand yardage total came to 514 yards between the main skein and the plied leftovers, but that was before setting the twist. After last week’s experiment remeasuring the yardage of finished yarn, I’m sure that I have far less than that to work with. I’ll figure out the exact number when the yarn tells me it’s time to knit it up. 

The Specs:

Fiber: 4 oz Cosy Makes Falkland - Flights of Fancy 

Drafting Method: Short-forward draw

Construction: 2-ply fractal

Weight: Sport - Worsted

How Setting The Twist Can Change The Yardage of Handspun Yarn

I’ve been trying to knit more with my handspun as skeins move from being a finished project in their own right to knit-able yarn. The length of time for this transformation varies. For the skein that became Dotted Rays that was about a year and a half.  Recently plied and freshly skeined, I had about 512 yards to work with. That’s about 200 less than the 700 required for a small Dotted Rays Shawl. I plowed on anyway with the thought that I could bind off at any time; the pattern is fairly forgiving that way. After blocking, the shawl was absolutely beautiful but it seemed small. Did the skein really measure 512 yards? 

Had I stretched the yarn when I was winding it?

Did the yarn plump in the bath when I set the twist, gaining in diameter but losing length?

Did plying twist affect the yarn differently after I set the twist in a bath?

Had I just miscounted the wraps?

There’s no way to know for sure now, but I have other skeins to put to the test. The guinea skeins you see before you were spun during Spinzilla 2014 which makes them perfect candidates. Since the challenge of Spinzilla is to spin as much yarn as possible in a week, I was meticulous in measuring the yardage of these 4 skeins. The kicker, the yardage was measured before I set the twist in a cool water bath and snapped between my hands. The plied skeins also got a few good thwacks on the shower wall.  None of the skeins were felted or weighted during washing or drying.  

Here are the steps I followed to remeasure their yardage:

1. Check to see if the skeins still fit around the swift. 3 of the 4 skeins were wound to have a circumference of 72”. The fourth, the hot pink single, was wound to a 60” circumference. I used the same windmill-style swift that they were all wound on to remeasure. 
2. If a skein did’t fit over the swift, I loosely rewound it to its original circumference. If I stretched the yarn, I wouldn’t be able to get an accurate number.
3. Count the number of wraps and do the math to get the new yardage. 

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Fiber: Mountain Colors Targhee - Gold Rush

Initial Yardage: 286 yds

Drafting Method: long-draw

Construction: 2-ply

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Did it fit on the swift? Nope.

Yardage After Setting The Twist: 238 yds

Yardage Difference: 48 yds or 16.8%

Notes: This skein wasn’t even close to fitting on the swift at 72”. Of the 4 skeins I measured, this one had the most drastic and unexpected before and after. 

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Fiber: Mixed Blue Faced Leicester

Initial Yardage: 184

Drafting Method: long-draw

Construction: 2-ply

Did it fit on the swift? Nope

Yardage After Setting The Twist: 168yds

Yardage Difference: 16 yds or 8.9%

Notes: Rewinding this skein was a trying process because I had to spend an hour untangling it. While sorting the strands, I thought it might not have fit because I didn’t put it on the swift correctly. After measuring and finding a 16 yd difference I know it wouldn’t have mattered how I put in on the swift.

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Fiber: Abstract Fiber Targhee - Laurelhurst

Initial Yardage: 330

Drafting Method: long-draw

Construction: 2-ply

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Did it fit on the swift? Nope

Yardage After Setting The Twist: 316 yds

Yardage Difference: 14 yds or 4.24%

Notes: I can’t really pinpoint the exact reason this skein of Targhee didn’t lose the same amount of yardage as the first skein. It could be how the fiber was prepped and dyed, the length of my long-draw, or plying twist. 

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Fiber: Spun Right Round Polworth - Color Bot

Initial Yardage: 133 yds

Drafting Method: short forward draw 

Construction: Single

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Did it still fit on the swift? Almost.

Yardage After Setting The Twist: 128 yds

Yardage Difference: 5 yds or 3.6%

Notes: Compared to the plied skeins, the single lost very little yardage which I’m chalking up to how it was drafted and the fact that is was’t plied. The single was spun with a short forward draw from combed top which resulted in a smooth and dense worsted style yarn. Had the single been spun long-draw, my guess is that the lighter and airier yarn would have more potential to lose yardage while setting the twist.

The lack of plying twist is probably the main reason the single only lost 5 yds. Plying compresses the singles as it wraps them together because now they’re positioned at an angle instead of a straight line.  

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The numbers of my test are all over the place with one skein losing just 3.6% of its yardage and another losing 16.8%. What’s the same across the board though is that all 4 of the skeins “shrunk”. The skeins that lost the most yardage were plied which points to plying twist as the main force behind the change. Another possibility is that I simply wound the skeins too tightly around the swift and they relaxed to a much smaller circumference. There’s no way my yardage counts would have been correct if that’s the case. 

Realistically, it’s probably a bit of both. I haven’t done the best job of always loosely winding my skeins. Some I couldn’t put them back on the swift if I tried. I’m not saying this to discount how setting the twist changes the plying. Finishing a yarn affects its surface, diameter, final twist, workability, and, yes, even yardage.

I wish I could just give you a formula to estimate how much a skein will “shrink” after setting the twist. That’s just not possible. I spun all 4 of those skeins in a week, 3 with similar methods, and none of them lost a consistent amount compared to another. Calculating how yardage changes after setting the twist is something that has to be done on a skein by skein basis. But is it worth doing every time? Probably not. 

So, what’s a spinner to do? 

Wind skeins loosely. Plied yarns with high twist are going to be stretchier than skeins with less twist. You’ll get a better estimate of yardage this way.

Don’t take the measured yardage before setting the twist as a definite number. It’s a high estimate. 

Spin a sample. I’ll admit that I don’t do this but I’m usually not spinning for than 4 oz at a time or for a particular project. Sampling before before spinning a large quantity or because you want to make a specific kind of yarn lets you test your methods and figure out how much you need to spin. 

Spin more than you think you need. You might need those extra yards. 

When you’ve finally work with that one precious skein of handspun, pick a pattern that calls for less yardage than you have. This is assuming that you haven’t measured the yardage after setting the twist. Plus, there’s less chance you’ll run out of yarn 6” before binding off the last stitch. 

If you’re working with a lot of yardage, it might be worth using a McMorran Balance or a scale instead of counting wraps. Either device would let you calculate yardage by weight instead of relying solely on wraps and skein circumference.