Final Romney skeins

So, here it is, the results of my efforts. The Romney has been plied, washed, and hung to dry/set the twist. The final skeins have the following total lengths:

112 m (122 yds)

292 m (320 yds)

633 m (692 yds)

It was a tedious process to skein this yarn – that was a total of 567 loops around my two-yard niddy noddy. My arms ached, but at least the process is done. I’ve already begun spinning fine mohair singles!

I’d like to play with the freshly processed Corriedale – it’s amazingly soft and the colors are really neat. I just have to figure out what to make for my sister-in-law and so will know what type of yarn to spin – scarf and hat, mittens, shrug, dense shawl to fight of the winter cold… in a place where they actually get SNOW!!! (Eh, sorry. I’m really sick of sunshine and heat. Did I mention it rained this past weekend?) And that superwash isn’t spinning itself.

We’re going to Pittsburgh for my niece’s wedding the first week in October, so I need something to keep me occupied on the flights. We’d planned to go to Lincoln City, OR at the end of October to scope out potential retirement areas (I like to plan early), maybe do some glassblowing, and just relax. Since we're using our timeshare bonus week, and started planning really late, there's no room at the inns in the area and we're "stuck" in Tahoe, CA. Yeah, ... that's just too bad, such a sacrifice, all those trees, water, ... I LOVE TAHOE! Anyhow, I figure by the end of October, the trade show will be over and I can try to decompress and get healthy.

Speaking of mohair, I plan to scour the remaining raw stuff so I can consolidate my junk. I want to put the last of it in the new plastic containers from Target, rearrange my office, and put my fiber stuff in there. I’ll need to get a flat panel monitor (or two) for my laptop so I can turn my desk to face the walls where the cables exit. Then I can make space for my sewing machine.

Fine spinning

Last night and part of this morning I spun the Romney. It's exceedingly easy to spin, maybe because it was a fairly long stapled fleece and the roving still has the oils from the processing at the mill. I didn't attempt to go for a specific weight of yarn, and for fun, tried to spin as fast as I could. At least two hours of spinning later, I now have a bobbin full of naturally heathered single.

In addition to how to ply, think I actually learned something else very useful at yesterday’s class – how to spin uniform, lace-weight singles! I thought my mohair was pretty nice, but this is just amazing. There are small sections that are thinner and thicker than is shown in the close up, and there's the occasional slub or two, but greater than 90% of it is about the diameter I pulled over the rulers. After I spin another bobbin of the Romney and ply it, I'm going back to the mohair to see what I can produce. (Yes, I have both a metric and archaic scale in the picture for you! The smaller ruler is divided into 10ths and 100ths of an inch, whatever that is. Didn't want to use a coin as reference, not everyone carries my currency in their pockets.)

This has all been done on a double-treadle Canadian-made Lendrum folding wheel. I used to have an Ashford (NZ) Traditional. I go places with my wheel, usually driving a Miata, and having that thing riding shotgun in traffic with the top down, was kinda unnerving. My new wheel fits in the trunk, with room to spare for lazy kate, fiber, and my bag. Since I've had such success with the standard flyer, I think I need to try this again with the fast flyer and see what I get. Lendrum also sells a very fast flyer, but I’m unable to imagine that I’d need anything other than what I currently have to make lace-weight yarn. (Maybe it eliminates the need to treadle like a squirrel on crack, but it does require its own bobbins. For the record, I hate special bobbins.)

I'm not really into the look of traditionally built wheels. Turned wood isn't my thing – I like a Spartan simplicity that's functional, then pretty. Translation: the Babe (US) PVC wheel, though functional, just doesn't make me happy. In some other life, I'd like to have the Schacht (US) Matchless Spinning Wheel (double treadle, of course). It’s sturdy, spins oh so smoothly, and would never fit in my car. The Louët (Holland) wheels are very nice as well, though I believe they were originally designed for medium to bulky yarns. I keep seeing refurbished ones on eBay from someone in Holland, but the shipping to the US makes them a little less attractive. Those little Majacraft (NZ) wheels are intensely cute – especially the Little Gem. I also like that you can adjust the height and position of the orifice, swap out the whorls, and that they flyer arms are ceramic. Maybe when we visit NZ, one will follow me home...

If you wondered what the difference between a regular flyer and a fast flyer is, it's all about the whorls. Notice that the regular flyer (still on the wheel) has three grooved rings where the drive band can go. The largest is about the same diameter as a hockey puck. On the fast flyer, the largest is about the diameter of an apricot. The smaller the flyer wheel, the more rotations it makes each time you treadle. I was using the highest ratio (rotations : treadle) on the regular flyer. Now I'll try the Romney using the lowest ratio on the high speed flyer – smaller even than the smallest wheel on the regular flyer. The concept very similar to the gears on your bike, though I'm one of those odd people who insist on using the larger gears, even while attempting to ascend a hill.

There are so many wheels out there, and no one place has them all to try them out... well at least not near me. If I had tried out other wheels before I got this one, I might not have made the purchase. (See, this is where the Internet fails me.) My Lendrum is less stable than the Ashford I had. The drive wheel, flyer, mother of all, ... the main workings of the thing, are centered between the treadles, so as you use it, it wobbles a little. The Ashford had three, widely spaced points of contact with the floor, and you treadle beneath and between those contact points. Since mine was a single treadle, there was even less movement introduced while treadling. I do think that I'll get an additional wheel someday, and maybe even change the type of portable wheel I use, but don't tell my husband. He already cringes when a box appears on the front porch.

What did I learn today?

Today was my first spinning lesson. Ok, so maybe I should've had my first lesson when I started spinning, but hey, I finally got around to it... four years after the fact. All I know about spinning (and knitting), I learned from the Internet. It's a great resource, but some things can be refined only with personal instruction.

I think I "got" how to ply. This is two-ply, lace-weight mohair, and it's plied evenly throughout the skein. Usually, I have over plied and way under plied sections, but this looks like I know what I'm doing. I also worked on improving my singles - making them more consistent, and figuring out what drafting style I should use to yield what end product. It appears I naturally have a modified long-draw, but I need a short draw to keep an eye on things. With practice, I think I'll be able to do yarn of a specific weight on demand. Just gotta keep at it.

I'm trying to do more sock yarn-like yarn so I can... knit socks. (Check out the latest Spin-Off for a whole bunch of neat info on sock yarns! Love the new format and articles!) Since I'm on this lace kick, my natural tendency to spin finer yarn is actually paying off. I think hearing someone other than my spouse tell me my yarn looks fine and that I'm doing what I should be doing was very good for me. She has over 25 years of spinning experience, so she may have some idea of what she's talking about. She encouraged me to keep up what I'm doing and make small modifications - which seemed to have big changes in my yield.

Now what I need is a knitting class! Seriously. It was only this summer that I figured out how to purl correctly, and the first few years I knit only twisted stitches. I'm sure that I'm not knitting/purling yarn overs correctly - I make a hole in the fabric, but when they're stacked yos (appearing at the same place +/- in the fabric over the course of several rows) they don't appear like in the pictures. Mine are horizontal strings while in pictures, they seem to be gently crossed strings. (Yeah, I'll have to take a picture.) This hasn't really been an issue until the edging on the cape I'm still working on. It just looks different, less graceful, than the picture. I know, the level of detail I'm looking for may live on the Internet, but interacting with a human for this info could be useful. (This from the person who loves ATMs, web forms, and email because I don't have to interact with humans!)

How'd I get here?
I don't think I mentioned how I got started on spinning and knitting. My mother was a masterful crocheter - with a pattern, I don't think anything was beyond her reach. When she died, I decided to take up crochet - maybe I thought someone in the family should keep it up. She'd taught me eons ago, but it never interested me. When I tried again, I found it was too easy and restrictive. It is all written out in a pattern and it didn't seem to have the creativity of knitting. So I figured I'd do the "making knots in string with two sticks" thing. My first completed item was a sock. Perfectly serviceable, full of errors, but it was mine. I was hooked.

When I started shopping for nice sock yarn, I realized that the self-striping ones and ones with snazzy fibers were kinda pricey. I figured I could make my own yarn. I bought some fleece on eBay, a drop spindle, hand cards, and quickly upgraded to an Ashford Traditional wheel. (Drop spindles are not my thing.) Spinning on my own, I made some pretty lumpy, fat yarn - especially since I was pretty bad at fiber prep. (And from the post below, you'll see that I'm not afraid to send fleece to the fiber mill!) Not getting what I wanted, I was frustrated, but kept going, kept knitting, ... and found other hobbies. When I eventually came back to spinning, I found that I'd magically improved to the point where I could make lace-weight yarn, not just a few meters, but a whole bobbin full. And after today's lesson, I can make even more consistent singles and ply like I've always wanted.

I wish I had taken up knitting and spinning while Mother was alive. She always used acrylic yarn or cotton so that the complete item was washable, but I'm sure she would have loved having home made yarn to play with. There is this thing called Superwash, so she could have had the best of both worlds: custom yarn that was washable. I like making animal and plant fiber into yarn. It's almost exotic since I grew up with items crafted from synthetics. I think Mother would have enjoyed knitting, or at least receiving a knitted something. She aways said that knitting was too difficult, but I think she sold herself short.

I wish I had more time to work on my knitting and spinning techniques. With all that's going on at work, I can't even relax when I get home. There's too much in my head, and then there's when I have homework to meet deadlines. I really need to workout, to lose weight, but also to siphon some of this stress. Now that I'm feeling better, I should start biking and dieting - don't want to look like a tourist when we go to the UK! I also plan to spin and knit at work - to not only relax, practice, and get stuff done, but to try to draw others into the fold. I started a spinning/knitting email group at work, but I know only one other person who knits (and spins), so the dialog would be pretty limited. I figure I can sit outside at lunch time with a hobby or two and see who bites.

Zwool, how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways!

Three-way swirl, colored Corriedale x and white Corriedale from my sister-in-law. The white fiber seems to form a glowing halo around the darker fiber, and it looks like the swirl was random, so as I spin up the roving, the yarn will change color. Oh this'll be so fun!

This is so good, let's see it in detail! It's just amazing! I didn't realize that they would blend it like this - I just figured they'd dump it all in at once, so this is thrilling for me. (And yes, I am easily amused.)

Scoured Shetland - I've had this laying around for a while, and I needed it scoured. There are burrs and grass in it, but I can hand pick it out. I figured the mill wouldn't want to take time to do that, and I really didn't want the VM crap evenly distributed throughout the fleece. (Just an observation: they must have some huge washers out there in Michigan. This is the contiguous fleece, not the small handfuls I can do at one time.)

A-may-Zing! Romney roving - I love this so much I've even bird's nested some already! This is more fiber I've had around for a while - purchased directly (via the Internet) from the shepherdess. It had some grass in it, and I just didn't want to deal with the aggravation of scouring and hand-picking it, so off it went to the mill.

But lest we forget our humility, please observe the bag of Shetland. What do you see? Let me zoom in for you.

Yes, condensation! Living in the air conditioned paradise I call my family room, I forget that, when you take a plastic bag of dark fiber into the hot sun, water condenses on the inside of the bag. Why is this bad? Mold, felting, and just plain skanky smell. I'm smarter now, and might even remember that at some point.

I dumped the fiber and am now airing out the bags in the kitchen and the sheep fiber is hangin’ with the mohair.

This is why we need to remodel and clean out the garage. If we had a patio room, I could spin there. If the garage were cleaned out, I could move crap from my office into the garage and move my craft stuff into the office. (Heck, it’s supposed to be a home office, why is it not holding the home business?) I could then clean out the dining room of craft stuff and consolidate in the newly refurbished office (just needs stuff that’s not mine removed and some rearranging). I have this fantasy that, if we can clean up and do the remodeling we’d planned at the beginning of the year (before we both though we were going to lose our jobs and before I caught every cootie on the planet), I’d have more space. Only time, and the completed remodeling, will tell.

I think John may be at the brink of approving the bathroom redo - it'll have to be done after we get back from Oregon (he has to take vacation, we have an unused trip to take, and I really like Oregon) and before we go to the UK. It’ll be nice to have a shower I can clean and sinks that operate properly. Since we’re well in to this rant here’s my list of “wanna have done:”

• Solid surface in kitchen
• New oven/stove (aluminum)
• New kitchen sink (aluminum) and snazzy faucet
• Patio room on back of house
• Solid surfaces in master bath
• Redo master shower
• New sinks/faucets in master bath
• Paint trim on house

The longer we wait, the more stuff ends up on the list. Well, that’s part of the joy of home ownership – in for a penny, in for a pound… of flesh!

Skunked!

As the title proclaims, me, my husband, my house, and Kona stink of skunkass. At 0230 Friday morning, she wanted to go out. My husband obliged, and moments later she ran back in foaming at the mouth. As I came down stairs, I almost gagged. I washed her face and mouth with tomato juice (I know it doesn’t work, but I’m out of good vodka anyhow), and though in the small hours, the Internet provided us with this recipe:

• 500 ml (1 pint) hydrogen peroxide
• 1 small box baking soda
• 4 L (1 gallon) warm water
• Two generous squirts dishwashing liquid

For some reason, I had over a liter of peroxide in my refrigerator (which $230 USD later is now working again, thank you) and about 2 kilos (5#) of baking soda waiting for this emergency. And if you were going to ask, I still have about 20 L (5 gal) dishwashing liquid, too. Hey, I plan in advance.

We washed Kona in the mixture, washed her in dog shampoo, and I retired to bed. John has to be at work by 0630, so he stayed up with Kona and went shopping for air fresheners. I tried putting a perfume saturated tissue over my nose, but that didn’t hide it. I tried a Salonpas patch, and that worked as long as I had it squarely over both nostrils – kinda tricky if your goal is to fall asleep. I eventually got some sleep, though my nose was pretty tingly in the morning. Now my house smells like air freshener and skunkass… and so do I. I was able to keep the house open all day yesterday and after work on Friday, so the stench has diminished. Makes me happy I’m still congested, and I didn’t take decongestant until I was on my way to work.

The skunk must have been on the top of the wall in the back yard and was able to direct a shot at Kona’s head with disturbing accuracy from over 2 m. Today I tried getting the last of the stink off of Kona by rubbing orange cleaner directly on her head (which she seemed to like), but when I rinsed, she got agitated and again smells like a chemical fire. I think we may try Nature’s Miracle skunk deodorizer later today… or just peroxide and more of the orange stuff. Ah, and the stinky little beast is now sitting next to me.
At least her head is pointed away.

Anyhow, back to string
Last week I had a sinus and bronchial thing, and my face hurt almost like when I broke my nose (the second time). I was tired, couldn’t breathe, dehydrated, and kept wanting to faint. With that going for me, I not only did I not make it to work, but didn’t do much knitting. I did a few rounds on my sister’s sock in the MD’s waiting room and at the pharmacy waiting for antibiotics and Albuterol (Salbutamol), but may have done only two rows on my cape. Sad being too ill to knit or spin.

I made some progress on the cape yesterday but you can’t tell by looking at it. I have maybe four rows to go before I’d need to CO for the edging. I just want it to seem “done” before I put it down to do work for work today.

And I got more mohair online. eBay is a wonderland of fiber, and I found someone selling adult mohair at a very reasonable price. I assume it’ll be coarse. If it’s not, I’m up, and if it is, I’ve been thinking of doing a latch hook rug anyhow. Either way, I win.

Knitting, dying, and fuzz processing

It's been about two weeks since I last posted (sorry). Life often gets in the way of fun. My most recent “life in the way” thing is that my refrigerator is holding steady a little above room temperature. Items in the freezer are still rock solid, so I’m guessing it’s a fan or flapper valve issue. Monday the repair guy will tell me.

I've had time to work on my circular shawl, and I’m just about at the half way point as far as length goes. This does not mean I’m halfway as far as total number of stitches. It’s gonna take forever from here – it’s 56 stitches per section x 12 sections. And then I still have to do the lace edging. Nice progress though.

I have some examples of what mohair looks like during the scouring process.

First some raw mohair:
Actually prettier and easier to work with than raw fleece. Sheep have fluffier fuzz, and it seems to attract filth and VM (veggie material). The mohair is slick like silk and the locks are very well defined, so maybe that allows the filth to fall off.

Now scouring:
I go through the raw mohair to remove second cuts, obvious VM, and any filthy locks that would be annoying to scour. Then I heat water in my dye pot on the stove to between 60° C (140° F) and 77° C (170° F). I dump the water into the sink and add Dawn dishwashing liquid until very blue (I know, I should do a water to detergent ratio, but I’m lazy). I sprinkle the locks over the surface and watch that it sinks. I put another pot of water on the stove and entertain myself for a while (at least 30 mins).

When I’m no longer entertained, I dump the second pot of hot water in the other side of the sink, don my nitrile gloves and cotton liners, and squish the locks a bit under the water – just a bit! My limited observation has shown that the less crimp/coil in the locks, the more likely they’ll entangle and yield a huge fuzz ball. When done squishing, I pull out some locks, squeeze them free of water, and drop them in the fresh water. Repeat until all mohair is removed (this gets kinda complex because the scour water becomes opaque and I have to dredge for fuzz).

After the mohair soaks in the fresh water for about 30 mins, I take it out and squeeze out the excess water, put it in mesh bags, and let it soak in the washer a la the “scouring in the washer” method. Another 30 mins later, I hit the spin cycle, retrieve my bags, and fluff up the mohair on a towel to dry. (This is some I dyed in the wool as well as the new kid mohair I got this past Monday!)

Since the drying photos were so grainy (my camera didn’t do the flash thing, but there wasn’t really enough light in the laundry room), I took some of the Jacquard dyed locks outside so you can see just how bright the color is and what a crazy sheen the mohair has.

I’m planning to dye a few more lots and blend it with another color to spin. I spun some of the more coarse mohair with a definite overspin so that when I ply it, it won’t disintegrate. I really like the fine singles I’m getting, but I think it might be more stable/strong if it were plied.

I’d like to make another item out of Victorian Lace Today – the Cap Shawl. It takes 1700 m of yarn, so I’ll be spinning for quite a while. I might cheat and go to the yarn shop in Encinitas and get a couple hanks of their mohair, but it might be too fuzzy and quite pricy (I’ve said it before, they’re really proud of their stuff). Then again, Rowan Kidsilk Haze isn’t cheap.

Remember how I got some seacell from eBay? It came in the other day, and is very similar to the other non-protein “silks” (Ingeo, bamboo) only it smells a bit like low tide. I’m gonna pretend that will wash out at some point. And the other fiber I forgot to mention is flax (linen). I assume that ramie and hemp would feel about the same, and cotton would be kinda difficult with its short staple.

Non Fiber Stuff
So I might be getting a cold, or maybe the first hints of bronchitis again – a sore throat for a week, an earache for a few days, and some coughing. I really want to take a nap, but the mohair and knitting are such fun. There are a variety of stressers at work, and a few at home, plus I’m trying to lose weight (dieting for a week, but too lazy to exercise), so I have no idea why I would be getting sick all the time.

My passport finally came in! Everyone says it doesn’t look like me – of course not! I actually did my hair and wore makeup for the picture! Figured if I were going to be trapped with that for a decade, it might as well look nice.

And here's Kona:

She's not dead, she's just baking in the sun. Right now, she's savoring the air conditioned bliss of the couch, but I'm sure she'll wake soon and want to bake again.