Spring Flower Fever has struck!

I've been overjoyed at the spring flowers everywhere. Perhaps it's because the deer ate my hibiscus buds just before they bloomed, and 'trimmed' my rhododendroms severely this winter, but I NEED some color and scent this spring. My Easter azaleas (Husbeast and sons know that I love spring flowers and buy me some each Easter) are in the ground and have survived several frost warnings. A good friend brought me a bunch of blue hibiscus yesterday to cheer me after the deer damage to my own. And the one flower the deer don't seem to like for dinner are the wood violets that cover large portions of our lawn. So I went a little crazy in the studio last week and tried to reproduce some of my favorites, although I'm not quite sure how to mimic hibiscus flowers. Here's my results, available in my Etsy shop:

Wood Violets

 

Azaleas

And the thick 'n thin yarn spun from one of the batts, which will also appear in my Etsy shop as soon as I print a label with weight, suggested needle size, etc.

Azaleas yarn

And don't forget the Great Lakes Fiber Show in Wooster, OH. Tomorrow, April 30, is the last day to sign up for workshops and there are some great classes this year.

Fractal spinning the easy way!

I was reading some Ravelry posts about spinning handpainted or dyed roving and noticed discussions about fractal spinning. This is a method of dividing the roving so that the colors and spun in differing lengths. Usually the roving is split in half and the first half is spun up. The second have is split into 2 or 4 or however many you want strips and spun up. These two differently spun singles are then plied--the lengths of color will not match each other, giving a richer color distribution throughout the plied yarn. And I realized that two of my sock batts would make fractal yarn! I came up with this concept because I was tired of the blended and/or striped sock batts I'd been making (yes, I spin up my new ideas and knit socks for myself before I put the batts up for sale). If you pull these batts into strips and spin them in order or Z-strip them for spinning, you will create the same fractal effect as handpainted roving. And my batts contain purple, which is ALWAYS a good idea!

Spectra

Zombie Party

Article about my batts in Yarnmaker magazine!

Well, I can finally stop keeping secrets! The latest issue of Yarnmaker, a spinning magazine published in the UK, contains an article about my batts entitled "Beautiful Batts and Husky Hats". Elizabeth Lovick, who is a wonderful designer/spinner, purchased some of my Siberian Husky blend batts, spun them up and knitted a great hat. I've known for some time that the article was coming but couldn't say anything until press time. I'm just so excited about this! And now I must go card more batts......

Our Idaho adventure and Posy Toes spinning

We returned home last weekend and had a ton of stuff waiting for us--unpacking, washing laundry, mowing the overgrown lawn, making more arrangements for FIL to move in, etc, etc. I took a good number of photos for artistic inspiration and hope to have a new line of fiber batts based on the hot springs, geyser pools, and lichens that abound in Idaho. For a relatively dry state, I'm amazed at the amount of color that nature manages to squeeze out of the environment. Here's a teaser:



Work progresses on the Posy Toes Caladium batts. I've got almost a full bobbin.



I usually spin half the fiber on one bobbin, half on another bobbin, and ply them against themselves. I'm still trying to decide if I want a 2-ply like the others or if I want to Navaho-ply these to preserve the color gradations because I like them so much. Making a 3-ply would mean changing the sock knitting pattern as the yarn will be considerably thicker. We'll see.......

How to spin my Posy Toes batts--Caladium

First, let me apologize for the photo quality--it was a rainy dreary day and I had to shoot inside with incandescent light--ugh!

For the third and final technique, I chose the Caladium colorway (none in my shop presently--I think they're still packed from the move!). It's a deep green/teal/ruby batt that I love and that will go with many things in my wardrobe. The technique for spinning these is a semi-woolen technique. Start by rolling the batt into a sausage shape--widthways if you want striping, longways if you want more of a blend. I want a bit of striping so have gone widthways.

You then begin to attenuate the roll, stretching it out in stages until it's a fat roving. I usually start at one end and gently pull the roll with one hand while holding the roll with the other. Keep enough distance between your hands that the wool will slide easily--it shouldn't be a tug-of-war!



Once you've gone from one end of the roll to the other, start again and work back to the beginning. This way, you achieve a more even thinning of the fiber roll as we all have a dominant hand. If you continuously start from the same end, that hand will overtake the non-dominant hand and eventually pull the roll apart completely (yep, did that once or twice!).



You will continue thinning the roll till it's the thickness you like. I like mine to be about 1-1/2" wide because I will spin with a long draw to trap air in the yarn and that's my preferred prep for the technique. If you haven't done the long draw, you probably want to practice before spinning sock fiber until you're comfortable with the preparation and the spinning technique.



Finally, I'll roll the lengthened batt into a ball of roving. Actually, since my batts come three-to-a-bag, I split one of them in half so that each ball of roving is actually 1-1/2 batts-worth of fiber.



Next, doing the actual spinning......

How to spin my Posy Toes batts--Snake Plant

The Snake Plant socks are finished! I have 80 yards left of the yarn, and realize that I never posted the total yardage. And now I've either lost the notes or packed them in some box somewhere. Oh well....

At any rate, they are thick, soft and spongy to walk on. I think they will do well in my Birkie clogs this fall and winter. Too thick for dress socks, tho. But it's nice to know how this particular method works up. Notice how different the striping is on the socks? That's due to the haphazard way in which I just grabbed a handful of fiber and spun it up.

I'm working my way through the Sweet Peas fiber. I have one sock started and the second bobbin ready to ply. Will post pix next week and talk about yardage, wpi and all the other techie stuff. In the meantime, here's a panarama (left to right, back of the house to front of the house) of my studio 2 months ago when we moved my fiber/yarn boxes in. I've added a dissembled loom, a carding table and some more boxes since but at least I have all the books on the shelves and the sock fiber unearthed so I can make sock batts for Etsy. Just have to figure out which fiber will be stored in the knee walls and how to know what's stashed in which cubby.

It's done! Well, sort of....

We've managed to mostly complete the move, and we're still married to each other and actually still talking to each other. Which I understand from friends is rather unusual. Never again. I will die in this house, or pay someone else to pack and move/donate my stuff.

But now we have to UNpack all that stuff, and still go through the junk we left behind to see if there's anything we still want, then clean the house and list it. I will be glad when it's all finished. Some things we learned:
1. Start WEEKS earlier than you think you need to. Although I was working mostly by myself, I should have started this packing back in February.
2. Never underestimate a salesman. One moving company salesperson sent me a contract which I never signed. Figured he'd get the message. Nope. His company showed up an hour after the one we'd signed with, but the crew was more than happy to go home that hot humid day.
3. Never believe the moving agent. If they say it's okay to NOT pack the freezer/refrigerator, they really don't mean it because the truck driver WILL make you pack both before they'll even consider putting them on their dolly.
4. Hire a moving company who hires professional truck drivers. Joe backed that truck into our driveway with inches to spare, because he thought about what he wanted to do and knew how to do it. Joe, here's to you!
5. Pack yourself a lunch. Otherwise, you'll be stopping at the local coffee shop for a quick muffin and brew. The truck crews usually pack/buy their lunch and eat it while in transit to the new house, and you won't have a spare minute to stop for a McNasty burger.
6. Swallow a dose of your favorite pain med and/or sleeping pill before going to bed that night. You'll be so tired and overwrought that you won't sleep without them.
7. WIPs make lovely packing material. They cushion the breakables and lighten the load. However, prepare yourself for the rude awakening when you realize just how many WIPs you really have!

When all is said and done, I'm glad to be here even tho the work isn't finished. Even tho we've named the rabbits here Hassen and Pfeffer and named the deer Stew, Burger and Little Stew, and named the groundhog #%&$* because she and the kids leveled my garden--it's still a great place to live. And I can't say enough good things about South Hills Movers--they were professional, supportive, thorough and hard-working.

I have begun to spin the second Posy Toes batts for the series I was writing on spinning my sock batts. The first batts were spun and one sock is completed. I'll continue the series soon--I need to download photos and figure out which box I stuck the sock knitting into. I know I was packing the CDs when I used it for packing material...wonder if it's in the Living Room boxes.....(wanders off to check)

Temporary hiatus

I haven't posted for 12 days, shame on me you say? But, but, but.....I have a good reason! We've stepped into high gear on finishing the 18-month-long renovation and getting ready for the upcoming household move, and I can't seem to keep a straight thought in my head any more. Had to send the hubster out to threaten the carpenter today because I was busy chasing down the last 2 cans of matching paint for our interior trim--company changed their line of paint when I wasn't looking, humph! I certainly shouldn't be at a spinning wheel trying to make fine evenly spun sock yarn if I can rarely drive one block without thinking of 3 things I forgot to do and almost driving into oncoming traffic!

So.....posts on spinning sock yarn will be sparse or nonexistent for a bit. I'm cleaning, painting and packing boxes. But I'm definitely thinking about how to spin the next batts. I just can't manage it right now. Will hopefully post pix of packing/moving soon!

How to Spin My Posy Toes Sock Batts: Snake Plant colorway

I started on the Snake Plant colorway last week and am about halfway through the 3 batts. I'm spinning them by grabbing a handful and spinning from the side of the handful. In the above photo, I've unrolled one batt in preparation for yanking off a couple of handsful--notice my favorite sheep watching over the proceedings. I decided to work across the batt for no other reason than it's easier to tear the handful away if I move in that direction.


I'm hoping that by using this method I will be able to mix the pale tan color more thoroughly with the green and deep teal colors. It's not that I don't find a green-and-tan stripped sock to be appealing, it's more that I have already started knitting a pair of green stripped socks and just don't want duplicates in my sock drawer. (There's already enough confusion in my life without my willingly adding more!)

This is a shot of my spinning technique--fluff out the handful and spin from the side:


This technique is yielding a semi-woolen yarn which is thicker than my usual sock yarn. However, since many of the fibers are no longer parallel within the yarn, the sock should also be warmer.


I'm hoping to be finished with the spinning and twist-setting in the next 2 weeks. Then it's on to knitting the actual socks to see how the yarn behaves.