Addiction

Hi, my name is Anne and I'm addicted to sheep fuzz. All things fiber are appealing to me with the exception of finishing my various projects!

I'm definitely going through a spinning jag right now. The spindles I got in Seattle aren't helping any. Or this fantastic video for a new drop spindle technique. It's like navajo plying but not. I've been using this technique for the 4 ounces of Falkland I got at the same time as the spindle and am loving it. It takes a little while to get the technique down but is great. I've already spun up 2 of the 4 ounces of roving.


In other spinning news, I broke down and rearranged my yarn and fiber stashes. Now they are very much out in sight and all of it is harder to ignore. Well, not ignore, but forget about how much is really there. Thanks to rearranging, I've made it a goal to start spinning up some of it. When I bought my Kromski wheel, the lady who was selling it was also getting rid of her fiber so I bought that, too. So on top of the fiber I had already had, I put much more in. Some of the new fiber definitely wouldn't have been the colors I would have picked so this is definitely expanding my horizons. I've made it a goal this month to spin up between 16 and 24 ounces of the already prepared top (i.e. not any of my raw fleeces) from the stash.

So far I've spun up 4 ounces of 100% BFL (I think I love that fiber) into a 3-ply fingering yarn in a colorway called Watermelon. Now I don't think I would have bought this color in roving form but I really enjoy the finished yarn. The wool is very sproingy and the colors are just fun together. It is a really red red, a strong green, and brown for those watermelon seeds. The socks aren't going to match perfectly but will be fraternal twins whenever I get around to knitting them.

Right now I'm working on a 4 ounce wool/bamboo blend (the percentages weren't written down on the label) in a color called Flirty. The color mix is really growing on me. It has white, light gray, dark gray/black, pink and blue in it. My wheel's previous owner had bought 4 braids of this colorway (16 ounces total). I have a strong suspicion that 3 of the braids were dyed at one time and 1 after. The colors aren't that different but they just appear in slightly different places. What I mean is, 3 of the braids have the dark sections at the ends of the braid but one of them has those dark spots in the middle. Right now I'm spinning up that odd ball braid. The plan is to also spin this into a 3-ply fingering weight for more socks. I may be knitting down my sock yarn stash but I seem to be spinning more up.

In addition to all of this already prepared roving, I've been working on my fleeces. I've been spinning and plying up a laceweight yarn from the tan shetland fleece.


The first skein of this yarn ended up being almost 700 yards. I've already wound it up and cast on for a shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia.


The plan is to try to get this finished for the state fair. Our local fair doesn't have a category for handspinning but the state does. (No, instead the local fair has a category for FROG FIGURINE COLLECTING. Yeah, that's right. FROG FIGURINES. That just doesn't seem like it should be a part of the arts and craft entries.) I'm also trying to get some other projects finished for both of the fairs.

I am also making a shawl for a friend out of some yarn I got last year in St. Michael's, MD. I don't think I ever entered it into my ravelry stash. It was from a nearby dyer and definitely was out of my normal range of yarns. It is a purple with slight variations in hue and a thread of gold metallic running through it. In addition, the yarn is 100% rayon. It feels soft and has a great drape but the yarn fumes must have gotten to me. I've been imagining a shawl with this yarn since I bought it but couldn't find a good pattern. Last week, I realized Michele is going to be leaving soon (duh, I knew that for a year!) and I needed to get a move on with her project. So I decided to do a Swallowtail shawl and immediately cast on. This will be the second Swallowtail I've made and I've come to the conclusion that I love it for a fast pattern. I've been working on the shawl since Thursday (with a lot of spinning time thrown in there) and I'm already to the nupps section. I think another reason for my love of the pattern is that I get to do more nupps. I think I have an addiction.

Oh, would you like to see a rather bad picture of the cotton spindle I bought in Seattle? Here you go. I haven't worked with it yet so I can't tell you what I think about it yet.


Mom and I went to a fiber festival up in Wooster at the end of May. I liked wandering around and seeing everything and everybody. We had some fantastic lamb sandwiches. The vendor also had lamb hotdog (lamb dogs?) but we didn't try that. We did get one for dad but I don't remember what he said about it. I ended up buying a small 1 yard niddy noddy and a skein of sock yarn. Doesn't it look so different wound up?


I already cast on for a sock with it. The spinning, though, has interrupted the sock progress.

Seattle

I went out to Seattle last week for a very whirlwind trip. I flew in Wednesday night, had Thursday there and flew out Friday morning. It was AMAZING how well all of my hotel, plane and car arrangements worked. It was like the whole trip was charmed. I landed a little bit late (stupid Chicago weather) but got to the car counter right before the guy left for a smoke break. Getting the car at the offsite location took a total of 15 minutes and 10 of that was the drive to the car lot and 3 of it was me inspecting the car and figuring out where the various switches were. I ended up with a Subaru Impreza with which I was really impressed.

My hotel room was at an Extended Stay in Lynnwood, a community north of Seattle. We have friends of the family who live there and I was hoping to make things more convient if we could meet up. It turns out that Pam and her family lived 5 minutes away from my hotel. Also, all I had to do to get there from the airport was take I-5 north and the hotel was right there. It was so easy to get down to Seattle, too.

I probably should confess this, being a librarian and all, but I didn't do any research for this trip really. Well, except for the yarn stores. But I didn't even do a google map for the hotel or where I was going in Seattle. I just looked at the little guidebook map. On reflection, I'm really happy I picked up the guidebook on Tuesday when a patron asked me to show them the Alaska guidebooks and I happened to see it. But, like I said, everything was charmed.

I had an appointment in the middle of the day in downtown Seattle so I found a place to park the car (10 blocks away) and remembered the cross streets. I got to my appointment early so I had a chance to cool off from my hike. After it was over, I took a detour to Pike Place Public Market and roamed around for a bit. I got a fabulous thing of mac and cheese at a cheese store/deli and some flowers for Pam and her family. I drove back to the hotel and got ready to meet Pam.

You know the best part about visiting Seattle? Pam is a knitter. Pam knows yarn stores. Pam had a plan and a map of the stores we could get to. Pam is a native and can find her way around so much better than I could. The second best part? The Seattle yarn stores were having a yarn crawl that weekend starting on Thursday. If you were able to get to all 23 yarn stores in the near Seattle area, you were entered into a drawing for a set of Addi Clicks. Pam and I knew our limits, though, and were happy to make it to 4. We went to The Fiber Gallery, Bad Woman Yarn (hysterical name!), Weaving Works, and Pam's LYS, Acorn Street Shop. Because it was a yarn crawl, every store had a free pattern and would stamp your yarn crawl booklet. It was so much fun! I didn't buy and yarn but fell down hard with the fiber and fiber tools. I blame the delightful Weaving Works!

I came home with 4 ounces of Falkland fiber, 1 ounce of cotton roving, 1 cotton spindle and 1 wooden drop spindle made in Kent, WA. I should have never picked up any of the Cascade spindles to try them out. I tried a couple and they didn't click. I tried the .95 oz one and knew it was going to come home with me. Then you can't leave without fiber because what else would you do in the airport? Knit on the 2 different projects I had brought? Ha! Of course I spun in the gate waiting area! I came home with the cotton and cotton spindle because I've never seen those in fiber stores and, the last time I was looking for one, I couldn't find one. At Bad Woman Yarn, I picked up a bluebird needle felting kit. Mom has been watching a bluebird family in our backyard so it was the perfect present for her.

After our mini yarn crawl, Pam and I went up to the ferry landing for Whitby Island and met Pam's sister, Nikki, for dinner at Ivar's, a local seafood place. It was so much fun to see both of them and catch up a bit. Pam and I arrived right as Nikki's ferry was landing and, as we finished dinner, a ferry was arriving. Talk about timing! If we had taken any longer, Nikki would have had to wait until 11.

The next morning, I was worried about getting to the airport and Seattle's notorious traffic. After consulting with Pam, I decided to leave at 8 just in case. It definitely wasn't a problem getting up and out that early because I was still on Eastern time. By 8:30, I was getting ready to drop the car off. Can you believe that? I didn't even hit any sort of slow down. Definitely charmed. All I had to do with the rental car was get out, let the attendant scan the barcode, and get a receipt from him. The ride back to the airport was 10 minutes. By 9, I was in line getting ready to check in for my 11:30 flight. It was fantastic! I had plenty of time for security and getting caffeine. And spinning.

I guess the only downside is that I am back on the terrorist watch list. Have I mentioned this before? About 2-2.5 years ago, I couldn't check in online for a Southwest flight. Now, this was for the return trip. I was able to check in online 3 days before for the outgoing trip. At the airport, I tried the kiosk check-in and it went through all of the steps but, before printing the boarding pass, told me to go to the desk to check in. So I waited in another line. What being on the watch list means is that you can't use the curbside, online or kiosk check ins. You also might get more security. I got copies of my social security card, passport, driver's license, and birth certificate notarized and sent in to the TSA in order to get off the list. After many months later, I could check-in online again for my flights. Suddenly, 2 years later I can't check in online again. It's so frustrating! I guess I will go through all of that again sometime soon.

Bad blogger

I went to Seattle last week but did I take pictures? No. Did I tell you about it before hand? No. Did I have a fun whirlwind trip? Yes. Was there yarn? Yarn crawl, yes, but buying of yarn, no. Buying of fiber and spindles *cough* yes. I'll let you guys know more about my whirlwind trip later this week.

Shock

I'm going to SOAR at the end of October. I just did the retreat option rather than the workshops and retreat. My retreat sessions are going to be:

• Spinning Next to the Skin
  
• Making the Most of Your Hand-held Combs
• Spinning for Socks
• Silk Work Sampler

I'm a little bit in shock.

P.S. Registration is today and classes are filling up fast. The two classes I had originally thought of taking were waitlisted within 15 minutes.

My own NaKniAnyMoDo

You remember NaKniSweMo, right? National Knit a Sweater Month in November where you knit a sweater in a month. Well, some people took it a step further and created NoKniSweMoDo, National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon (i.e. one sweater per month for a year). On the Stash and Burn ravelry group, the members modified that extremely ambitious project into another one, NaKniAnyMoDo. What does that mean? National Knit Anything a Month Dodecathon so you make a goal to knit 12 of anything. For some people that means cleaning out the stash, for others finishing up UFOs and for others working on 12 of a specific project. For me, it means socks.

I love making socks but recently I've been distracted by other projects. This was the perfect opportunity for me to replenish the handmade sock collection and to use up some of my copious amounts of sock yarn in the stash. So I've been working on my one pair per month and have pretty consistantly met my goal.

April's socks were started right before leaving for the Knitting and Spinning Estonian Lace workshop. That was April 22nd and I realized I still hadn't started a pair of socks for the month. I figured having the car trip and some down time in the evenings would be the perfect opportunity to finish a pair. I ended up finishing them on May 2nd, though the majority of the sock knitting was done in April. I didn't get the pair done on April 30th because I thought I was going to run out of yarn and couldn't stand the thought. So for 2 days, the socks sat around. Then I bit the bullet and finished knitting the toes. It turns out I had plently of yarn left (well, a yard)!


Pattern: Pomatomus from Knitty by Cookie A
Yarn: Koigu my aunt gave me for a Christmas present
Modifications: None that I can remember
Notes: Now I remember why I don't like top down socks, you might run out of yarn at awkward times. I really like the way that this yarn and pattern look together. I'm glad I didn't just do a plain vanilla sock with it.

Spinning and Knitting Estonian Lace

Vacations seem to end so quickly especially if you have been looking forward to them for a long time! Last week, I took Thursday-Monday off of work and travelled over to Pendleton, IN. What is in Pendleton you ask? The Trading Post aka den of delicious fiber crack and yarn. The Trading Post hosted Nancy Bush and Judith MacKenzie McCuin for a class on knitting and spinning Estonian lace. Let me tell you right now, if you have a chance, take a class with these ladies. I learned so much! OK, back to me telling you about the weekend.

Thanks to Lucie, you will have pictures. My camera came out only once during the entire weekend and those pictures were awful! Thanks Lucie for letting me steal your pictures!

I drove over on Thursday afternoon with two ladies from my spinning guild. We had asked Susan, the owner of the Trading Post, where she would suggest to have dinner. She recommended Bonge's Tavern in a nearby town. She was planning on taking a group there so 10 of us met up for dinner. The tavern doesn't have menus per se. The waitress listed everything and everyone ordered from that. That dinner had quite possibly the best salad I've ever had. The blue cheese dressing was to die for. One of those dressings that you consider licking the plate just so you can clean up every drop. I ordered the chicken and really enjoyed it. What made the evening, though, was that dessert. (I'm making myself really hungry right now) I split a piece of chocolate and sour cherry deliciousness with a fellow classmate, Karen. Oh, that dessert was good. *Drool*

The next day, everyone arrived at the Trading Post and started carting our wheels and stuff into the shop. Susan has converted part of a barn and hay loft into her shop. I couldn't believe they had moved everything in there the day before! The color of the walls is so bright and cheery. She has put in a small kitchen which was really handy when we ordered lunch and baked pizzas in the oven.

The Trading Post

Isn't the kitchen cute?

Food was a theme for the weekend!

It was definitely chaotic moving everyone in! We fit 30 people plus stuff up on the second floor. After some tweaking and moving around, everyone settled down. Moving from place to place on the 2nd floor could be interesting but everyone seemed really patient with it all. We ended up doing the knitting sections of the class downstairs and the spinning upstairs so stuff wouldn't have to move around too much. This weekend was unseasonably warm for the end of April so you can imagine it was quite warm upstairs! Luckily, the wind blew steadily the whole weekend and we were able to open the windows to get rid of some of the heat.



Taking a spinning class with Judith is a very organic sort of thing. Sure you have times that she shows everyone something (you should have seen almost the whole group doing stretching exercises) but, the rest of the time, you are listening to stories of her life and experiences. If you can think of a job that involves the fiber world, she has done it. If you have a question about fiber, she can probably answer it. If you want a spinning technique explained and demonstrated, she can do it. Everyone said that they were amazed how much their spinning technique changed from Friday to Sunday. It was absolutely amazing!

Judith teaching

One of my sample skeins (I would have taken more pictures of them but they are all white and look the same)

Nancy brought the shawls from her book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, and shawls she purchased in Estonia. Talk about exquisite! You would not believe how delicate and intricate these shawls were. What really got me about them is that the Estonian ladies a) started knitting these just to sell to tourists and b) knit them on 9-10 inch straight homemade needles. That's right, 9 inch needles with 400+ stitches on them. Wow. I loved learning more about Estonia (who knew they loved Sweden so much?) and their knitting traditions. But I think the thing that interested me the most was how Nancy described discovering the Estonian knitting. She said that she came across some watercolor pictures while researching for another book. For her, it was like meeting her husband, you just knew it was right. Nancy said that she just wanted to learn everything that she could about the country and the knitting.

Nancy showing us a shawl

Nancy's swatches, mini shawls, actual shawls and knitting needles from Estonia

The whole goal of the workshop was to spin and knit up a sample shawl (i.e. a wee little shawl coaster) of an Estonian stitch pattern. Nancy had a couple of different options that we could do. Everyone chose one of the patterns to use. We were given some yarn to start out with so we could make the initial swatch. At the same time, we were also learning to spin finer and finer yarn out of a couple of different wools and wool blends. Judith had a Shetland/Rambouillet mix, Falkland, a wool (Merino? should have written that down)/silk blend, tussah silk and mulberry silk (Did I miss anything?). I ended up doing the Lily of the Valley stitch pattern which was a lot of fun and had a lot of nupps (think rhymes with "soups"). I loved the stitch and can't wait to knit a full shawl. This is my little sample.

My mini shawl

I met so many fun people (Hi, Kerry! Hi Lucie!), learned so much, and had such a wonderful time. If you ever have a chance to take a class with these two ladies, don't hesitate to sign up!

The spinning mojo is fine

I haven't been knitting much recently but my spinning is definitely not experiencing the loss of mojo. This upcoming weekend I'm going to a class in Indiana being taught by Judith MacKenzie McCuin and Nancy Bush about spinning and knitting Estonian lace. In preparation for the class, I've been working on finishing projects and cleaning off spindles and bobbins.

The first thing I finished was a bamboo/wool blend I bought at A Wool Gathering fiber festival in Yellow Springs, OH late last fall. The roving was from Creatively Dyed Yarns. I absolutely fell in love with her roving braids and ended up buying three different 4 oz. ones, each with a different, interesting fiber combination. This one was 50% bamboo and 50% wool. Another was 70% wool and 30% seacell. The third was 40% wool, 20% silk and 20% milk protein. Choosing a color (and not blowing my budget all in one booth) was so hard.


I enjoyed spinning the bamboo mix up and it ended up being very fine.


To keep the color changes together, I navajo plied it. But I hate to say it, now the colors underwhelm me. Sure, I like them but they don't have the same beauty as the roving braid did.


I'm not actually sure what I'm going to do with this yarn. I definitely don't have enough for socks unless I was doing an anklet sock or some other short sock. Maybe another Morning surf scarf? The obsession with that pattern hasn't diminished yet. The bamboo and wool might make for a perfect summer scarf for work. Hmmm, I'll have to think.

My next spinning project has been on the spindle since July 08. I guess in the grand scheme of things that isn't that long of a time. I started spinning a silk cap for my challenge day during Tour de Fleece 08.


The silk cap was purchased at Maryland Sheep and Wool 08 as well as the spindle I was spinning it on. I'm pretty proud to have something from last May already spun up.


I have absolutely NO idea what to do with this silk. It is definitely lumpy and bumpy with thick and thin areas. Spinning the silk from the cap was definitely a learning experience. I'm definitely going to have to try it again soon.

Next up, one of my goals for April was to finish spinning up some of the dark brown shetland fleece I've been processing. I showed you guys some pictures of working with it a while ago.


I spun it up to a laceweight/light fingering weight. Did I measure the WPI? Of course not!


I started knitting with it almost as soon as the yarn was dry. I bought Nancy Bush's book about Estonian lace (huh, I wonder why) and really loved some of the shawls in there. Miralda caught my eye so I threw the yarn on the swift and wound it up. So far I'm enjoying the pattern but discovered some issues: a) The cast on number is off by +2, b) some of the charts are wrong and c) I really should swatch before I start a project. Take a look at Interweave's errata page or ravelry's page before you start.


Instead of swatching, I started the project with US 7s and merrily knitted the first two knit rows. Then I got to the lace and decided that it looked stupid. I also didn't know about the 2 extra stitches until I was reaching the end of the first lace row and realized that the charts and my numbers weren't going to match up. I decided to fudge that and just rip back to the center stitch, k2tog on one side and k2tog on the other side of that center stitch. After I was finished with that first lace row, I switched needle tips and kept going with US 6s. I'm being very blase about this shawl! But then again, I really didn't want to cast on the 300+ stitches again.

I've started combing the tan shetland fleece I got at the same time as the dark brown one. This fleece is from a whether (a gelded male sheep) and has an extremely long staple. He must be a large boy because the fleece is 7 pounds. I'm really enjoying working with this one. Before washing it in hot water, I let the fleece soak overnight in cold water. That got almost everything out and, when I washed it in hot water to get all of the lanolin out, the water was almost clear in the first soaking.

Those bookish ones of you might know about the annual Edible Book Festival. This festival is held around April Fool's Day each year since 1999. The premise is that you create an edible creation that illustrates a book, book title, or literary pun. The "books" can be anywhere from complex to simple (as an example I put together three cups of tea for the book...wait for it... Three Cups of Tea). It is so much fun seeing how different people look at books and come up with fantastic edible creations.

Last year at this time I was doing my practicum (aka library internship) at Denison University where they hold an Edible Books Festival each April 1st. My inspiration book was Pompeii by Robert Harris. My edible book was a red velvet layer cake in the shape of a volcano. At the top, I put a shot glass half full of unset red jello and lemon juice. When the judges came around, I added baking soda to the mix and *boom* we had lava coursing down the volcano. (Can you tell I really enjoyed making that cake?) I won the Best in Show and got a trophy and everything!

This year, I wasn't able to get time off to go to the event but I still wanted to make a book. I originally thought of doing the book Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes because it would be simple and my parents wouldn't have to worry about transporting anything complicated to the library. Then I flipped through the book, Hello, Cupcake! , and it was all over. If you've never seen this book, it is a fabulous cupcake decorating book. The authors of it really make you feel like you can make all of the designs in the book. They have one example in the animal section for a flock/swarm of monarch butterflies. Well, you can just see what happened, can't you?


I had noticed the day before that some of the grocery stores had melting chocolate in all sorts of different colors out for Easter. When I saw the chocolate monarchs in Hello, Cupcake, I knew I had my book.

After a few mishaps (who knew you couldn't add liquid food coloring to melted chocolate?) and broken wings, I had a whole bunch of different wing sizes. I decided to make all of the wings and antennae the night before and to put everything together the morning of the event.


Those brown dots are mounds of chocolate that set the wings on with frosting and more melted chocolate. They helped to prop the wings up and look like the butterflies were fluttering. I'm acutally surprised how quickly everything came together. Once I did a couple of sets of wings, everything was much easier. The same was true of putting the butterflies together. Once you did a few, it was simple. Well, some people might say my version of simple is a little skewed.


Dad took my cupcake platter over before the festival/tea was to begin. I managed to get over to the library over my lunch break and got to see the other edible books in person. Everyone was so creative! If you would like to see the other entries, follow this link. Here are a couple of my favorites:

The "sand" is actually raw sugar and the scrolls are made out of phyllo dough

Aren't they cute?! The artichoke is a wolf!

And my absolute favorite. . .

Isn't that funny?! I love the tail. It makes me laugh hysterially.

I had to run back to work before the judging and passed Dad on my way out. He stayed for the judging and eating (who wouldn't?!). The sly guy didn't call me to tell me anything about the results. He was out on an ambulance run when I came home before riding and then was at a meeting until 9:30. It turns out that I had won. . .



. . . Best in Show!


**Eta: I'm glad I didn't do Sushi for Beginners because it turns out another person did that exact book. She made her "sushi" out of rice krispie treats, fruit roll-ups and candy fish. Her's turned out so much better than mine would have. Every time I look at the picture I crave sushi!

Combing Shetland

I thought you guys might like to see some pictures of processing that Mocha Shetland fleece I mentioned a couple of blog posts ago. I invested in a set of Alvin Ramer mini combs a short while ago. Combed fiber seems to spin so much better for me than carded. If you are ever looking for mini combs, take a look at the Ramer combs. He is definitely a craftsman! He even created a holder for the combs that is easy to pick up and safely stows the sharp tines so you can't injure yourself.




The diz was created by drilling holes in a necklace disc thingy that I found on etsy. When it isn't in use as a diz, I do use it as a necklace. It's really nice because that means I haven't had a chance to lose it yet. I haven't figured out how to get a continuous strip of combed top so instead I've been making little balls of top.

You would not believe how soft this stuff is. I can't wait to spin some up!

In which I sound like a farm extension agent

The spring is a really bad time to be all resolved about not buying another fleece. I mean, shearing just started. (I'm betting at this point all of you can guess what happened.) Julia, a woman in my spinning and knitting guilds, sent out a message to the spinning guild saying she sheared and had fleeces available. I was going to resist until a) I remembered that Julia coats her sheep, b) she has CVMs and Cormos and c) I saw the pictures. I mean, how can you resist that? (Sorry, everything is sold now.) This one is the one I bought. I seem to be going through a dark fleece stage.

Romeldale/CVM or California Variegated Mutant is a very interesting breed of sheep. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, "The Romeldale is an American fine wool breed, and the California Variegated Mutant, or CVM, is its multi-colored derivative. Both the CVM and the Romeldale are unique to the United States and are endangered." Romeldale sheep are usually white in color. The CVM emerged when lambs with color started showing up in the Romeldale flock and then Glen Eidman, the original breeder, started breeding for that color mutation. If you would like more information about the history of the breed, this website is very good. The National CVM Conservancy reports that there are fewer than 500 registered CVMs. Interestingly enough, as the sheep gets older, its colors become darker rather than lighter like most other breeds. Julia also said the fleeces get softer. Keep in mind, sticking your hand in one is like petting a cloud (albeit a cloud with hand softening lanolin but you get my point) so it is hard to imagine how the fleece could get even softer. ***eta: I just listened to the 18th episode Yarn Spinner's Tales podcast from August '08 (I'm catching up!) and she mentioned the CVM/Romeldale in her sheep breed segment. It was a very informative segment because she also talked about spinning from prepared top as well as processing a pound of raw fleece. She also had more information about the breed history than I've written here.

Cormos are another interesting breed. They originated in Australia and are a cross of Corriedale and Merino. The breed's name is also a mix of Corriedale and Merino. These sheep are soft and have a micron count of 17-23. What's a micron count you might ask? Well, get ready for a slightly technical discussion. Listening to Yarn Spinner's Tales and researching for this post has definitely been informative. This blog has a very good post about micron counts and Bradford counts. I'm going to be quoting from it for the following information. "One micron is equal to 1/1000 of a millimeter. This means that if the micron count is being used as the system of measurement, a lower number means a finer fleece." Bradford counts, on the other hand, "measures the fineness of a fiber by determining the maximum number of 560 yard skeins that can be spun from one pound of combed fiber." To me, that one seems a little bit more problematic/objective.

Now, you might be wondering, OK, what does this all mean? Well, it gives you an idea how fine the CVM and Cormo fleeces from Julia's flock are. Merino is a good comparison because many people know what that nice wear-next-to-your-skin fiber feels like. The Merino is known for its fine, soft fleece and "has a Bradford count of approximately 60-70, and a micron count of about 24-18." CVM has a Bradford count of ~60-64 and a micron count of ~22-25. Cormo has a Bradford count of and a micron count of 17-23. My Shetland fleeces, on the other hand, have a Bradford count of 50-60 and a micron count of 20-30. The Jacobs have a Bradford count of 44-56 and a micron count of 28-39. Before the Jacob felt soft but I'm guessing that, after working with the CVM, it is going to feel extremely scratchy!

Oops

I remember back in 2007 when I said, "I'm not taking up spinning. I can just see the fiber stash growing exponentially and taking over the house." Silly me. I mean, I was only thinking about prepared roving. I hadn't even considered the fleece stash and how easy it is to acquire *cough* 4 fleeces. Well, 4 sheep fleeces. I'm not counting raw mohair or alpaca. Though the alpaca really shouldn't count because I have less than a pound of it and the mohair shouldn't because it is is only 2 pounds. See I don't have a problem. Not at all. Nope. Not at all.

raw Jacob Fleece

raw mocha (aka dark brown) Shetland fleece

Combed mocha Shetland fleece

raw light tan Shetland fleece (this monster is 7 pounds!)

raw dark gray/black alpaca (only a couple of ounces)

Raw mohair fleece (2 pounds)

But then spring shearing started. . .

To be continued!

Obsessive much?

I've been dreaming of the Morning Surf Scarf. I liked the pattern (here it is free) when I first saw it in Spin-off but didn't think much about it. Then I started spinning up this BFL and it was the absolutely perfect yarn for the pattern. So perfect that you really couldn't find a better yarn anywhere. I didn't dye this specially, the colors just patterned like this.


I was originally intending this yarn for socks. The plan was to divide the yarn into 3 equal sections for a 3-ply. I was going to weigh the fiber but then realized the batteries for my scale were completely dead. So I ignored the 3 separate sections and just spun all of it up and navajo-plied it. Once I was finished with the yarn, I decided I liked the navajo-plying a lot more for this dyed roving. It kept the colors together which really made the yarn beautiful.

I'm just amazed how thin this yarn is. When I checked it on the WPI gauge, it said the yarn has 18 wpi. 18! That is technically a lace weight yarn. Now, I think that is a little off because I might have pulled the yarn a little tight in my enthusiasm but the yarn is definitely a light fingering weight. I had 385 yards of this, hopefully a good amount for a scarf.

Now, I should know better than to start a pattern when sick. I mean, really, nothing good comes of it. The first time I cast on, I couldn't get my numbers correct for the life of me so that first attempt was ripped out. I started again and, this time, the numbers worked and everything was going well until I decided I didn't like the fabric and wanted to go up a needle size to a US 5. More ripping. I started again with US 5s and the correct numbers and flew along. It went so quickly that I had about 5 inches done by the time I went to the knitting guild meeting the next night.

I knit all through the meeting a little bit at home afterwards. The following morning, I looked at the scarf, looked at the remaining yarn and went "Huh. That doesn't look like there is enough yarn left." I weighed (after finding batteries) the yarn, 2 ounces left. I weighed the scarf, 2.25 ounces used. I looked at the scarf length and said, "That is going to be the shortest scarf on the planet if I keep it the same width." So once again, I ripped. Seven inches of scarf was gone in minutes. Ugh.

Once again, I was strong of heart (and high on cough medicine!) and cast on with fewer stitches, US 5s and the correct number of stitches. A couple of days later. . .

. . . I have a finished scarf! I absolutely love the way the colors patterned up. There is only one section near the end where the colors weren't as vibrant and didn't quite pattern up like the rest of it. That is something, though, with which I can live. I hate doing scarves but I loved this one. Go figure.

Pattern: Morning Surf Scarf
Source: Spin-Off Summer 2008
Yarn: My handspun 100% BFL, 18 (ish) WPI, Navajo-plied
Needles: US 5
Notes: <3 this yarn and pattern combination. No modifications to the pattern. Cast on 66 stitches.

Sew many FOs

Hehe, I couldn't help myself. It always amazes me how quickly sewing projects can go. Sometimes they don't but this project definitely did. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased oilcloth by yardage and in finished project form from two etsy sellers, oilclothaddict and RickRackQueen. RickRackQueen has finished projects and some lunchbag kits. I bought a lunchbag kit which comes with enough material to make 2 bags. The lunchbags she was selling with contrasting side panels really looked striking. So when I bought the kit, I decided to get complementary fabrics in order to do the same thing. I also got some pre-made sandwich bags; one trio of which complements the lunchbags.


Oilclothaddict has oilcloth by the yard and fat quarters in fantastic colors and prints. I got a couple of fat quarters and one yard of fabric. One of the fat quarters was this print which I absolutely love.


It's already been used up :)


I've finished 4 lunchbags this evening and cut up materials for 2 more. I'm a wee bit obsessed. Is it too soon to have your Christmas gifts finished? Sewing is wonderful for finishing things quickly.

These sandwich bags are all mine! Anybody else watch Psych?