And this week...

I was just very amuzed at the several commenters who seemed to believe a couple of posts back that I'm terribly prolific. Dear friends, you are very kind but deluded... my fault entirely.

All that stuff I listed was worked on slowly over several months. You see I have Startitis. Terrible disease. Wish I could develop a nice case of Finishit that would drive me to complete all unfinished projects before losing my mind and starting another. BUT alas, on any given day I have at least four or five projects going.

This week I have finished nothing:

1. The doll I pictured in the last posting. He now has a little sweater vest, a hat with a feather, flesh colored arms, and a bottom lip. He is, however, lacking clothing from the waist down and I still need to figure out how to give the poor fellow some eyelashes. I've noticed he also appears to have suffered from a terrible case of acne at some point so I need to give him a little facial surgery to smooth that out.

2. I am still working on the purple socks. I have turned the heel and am working my way up the ankle on one. The other is resting in the knitting bag waiting for me to remember it is there so it can keep up with it's sister.

3. I have messed around with a little of the white alpaca fiber. It wants to spin really thin but I've only messed around with it on a couple of different spindles and haven't tried it out on the wheel because...

4. The teal tussah/merino is still on the wheel. And just the first part of the first bobbin, I have not gotten appreciably closer to finishing it. And I noticed yesterday when I sat down at the wheel for about 5 minutes, there was actually some dust on the wheel. I have obviously been neglecting it.

5. BUT I've been working on the blue baby blanket. I've finished the second skein and have decided it's now time to try and ruin it by making a border from a third skein that I am knitting AROUND the outside of the entire blankie. The corners are YO, k, yo and I hope this works to keep it reasonably flat. IF not, there will be some serious frogging. I had to put it on a giant circular to make this work. I may end up switching it off to two long circulars.

6. And I have been working on my Shrug. I got the pattern at Knitting Addictions in North Carolina in June and have been searching for the right yarn since then. I knew I wanted it out of homespun. I knew it had to be bulky. BUT I did not have 330 yards of bulky in my collection. But my friend Taryn did and so I traded her a couple of skeins of sock yarn for her first wheel spun. Technically, I finished this last night. But I when I tried it on, it had 3/4 length sleeves which I don't like. So I picked up some smaller double-pointed needles and picked up around the end of one sleeve and am now lengthing the arms about 6 inches. The main needles for the project are size 17. It really was a quick knit and easy to do while watching the tube when I was feeling brain dead in the evenings.

7. I also cleared a spindle (so I could play with the alpaca) of some really lovely dark brown Corridale that I've had forever. I like it spun far better than I liked it in roving. I wound off onto one of the wheel bobbins and plan to spin up another spindleful over the next few weeks then ply them together. It should come out a nice worsted weight. No idea at this point how much yardage I will have in the end.

8. I met a real live weaver yesterday. There is a new art studio that opened up in Heathsville (Studio 202) and I went up to see what was up there as the sign said something about jewelry and fiber art. She has two floor looms and is working on warping the larger one. The smaller had the beginning of something lovely and linen. In her back room was an Inkle loom and she showed me straps and sashes and bookmarks she is making and mentioned that she might offer an inkle weaving class this winter. I told her I was most certainly interested if she did. I also offered to participate in or teach a beginner spinning class.

9. The cotton lace shawl was never touched this week.

10. The merino lace shawl was never touched this week.

11. I thought seriously about how to knit some pillow covers for my house out of my stash. Haven't started anything but cabled, knitted covers would look really cool (until covered with dog and cat hair). I also bought and day dreamed over a couple of the sweaters in the Fall Interweave Knit Magazine. I purchased and looked at the Interweave Felt Magazine. Unfortunately, I spent entirely too much time surfing the internet for felted dolls/sculptures and found surprisingly little related to what I'm doing with this elf.

And I keep looking at roving for sale... everywhere... and I am struggling not to break down and buy more. I MUST spin up at least some of what I have before I buy more. And The Fall Fiber Festival is coming around again in October. What is a girl to do?

Thinner grey yarn finished

I've been very remiss in posting. I normally post on the weekends (in case anyone has noticed) but had company this past weekend and never had the opportunity to sit down and focus on my selfish desires.

Last night Ken and I racked (again) the elderberry mead (to get it off the lees and keep it safe until I can get around to sterilizing a flock of bottles). We tasted it, of course. It's going to be wonderful! It's like an elderberry pie in a glass. But it needs to age. I'm hoping to hide it away somewhere for a year once bottled. I fear my hubby will raid my stash and drink it all before it's really ready, however.

The other mead, the one with my attempts to use lime, is quite vile. It will be sacrificed to the compost. I'm thinking I might do that this weekend and start a batch of Sweet Melissa Mead since the Sweet Melissa is coming up in abundance and my last batch of that was very popular.

On the spinning front: I finished 210 yards of fingeringly weight 2-ply 100% grey (fancy) alpaca. This was made with the washed version of the Fancy. Very tweedy. Very pretty.

It's not very soft, however. I draped it around my neck while running water for it's setting bath and it was downright scratchy. I'm hoping that the prickles are coming from vm that I missed and can pick out when knitting OR that the whole thing softened in the bathwater. I did spin it at a higher ratio and plied on a slightly lower ratio... but I suspect it is overspun regardless and may just be very FIRM yarn.

The next batch is going to be a blend of wool (from MDS&W) and a touch of mohair with the alpaca with the aim of creating sock yarn since I've now got the right weight. The overspinning for sock yarn might not be a bad thing either. I will need just over 400 yards for a pair of socks.

Ken wants to know when I'm going to spin enough to "make something". I told him I've made tea cozies and hats and baby booties but he indicated he thinks I should be aiming already to make enough for something like a sweater. I just smile at him. Enough for a sweater will require about 3 pounds of fiber and probably 3 months of spinning -- on the same project. I'm not sure I'm ready to do that. Right now I'm having too much fun experimenting.

But I do have that much fiber in a really beautiful teal stashed away for that eventuality.

Alpaca spinning

I finished spinning and plying the first half of the Fancy alpaca fiber. I got 196 yards from it. It is very, very nice. When the skein is dry I am going to weigh it to see how much fiber it actually consumed.

I learned several things from this first go round:

1. Some folks say you don't need to wash alpaca first. If you plan to put it through your drum carder, you do need to wash it first. I am looking a big cleaning job to get all the dirt out of my poor carder.
2. Alpaca is really nice stuff to spin.
3. VM missed in the prep work, really slows down the spinning. Better to get as much out as possible before you sit down at the wheel.
4. If I slow down my treadling, I get softer yarn (ah ha!)
5. Plying really does hide many issues.
6. Second cuts suck and should be removed prior to spinning or they make nubs.

Bird Nests

There is a Nor'Easter bearing down on us. The weather folk are predicting torrential rains, dropping temperatures, some late snow and winds gusting to 40 mph.

I moved my car so it is not under any trees.

I'm going to the store shortly to get some lunch meat and bread and powdered milk. If we lose power, we can at least eat. I will also fill my car with gasoline and bring in the camping cook stove and get the sleeping bags out of the front room.

I'm also going by the blacksmith shop to see if my wool combs are ready. Ken said they called last week but I had headed off to get my alpaca fiber so wasn't able to hook up with them last Saturday.

But, while standing at my front door looking out at the yard thinking that I really should go out and cut some fresh flowers before they are FLATTENED, I noticed the birds.

The poor little things are flashing about madly grabbing up nest material. They were trying to bite off bits from some plastic yarn we used last year to tied up some plants to no avail. So I took some of the fiber trash out and scattered it about the garden and hung some from the trellis.

The finches just love the alpaca second cuts. They are stuffing their little mouths FULL of the short little tuffs of fiber and flying off to tuck in. There are some small sparrows who are after the longer fibers (the stuff that is so full of vm I can't even deal with it). I guess they figure they are getting a little grain snack to go with the lining material.

It will be interesting to examine the abandonned nests we find next Fall and Winter to learn how they used all these things.

A Goal

I'm spinning up this experimental batch of wonderful heathered grey alpaca fiber and I've come to realize some things.
First and foremost: If my handspun yarn was homemade bread, I'd be eating bricks. Beyond that, I'm learning:

1. The more fiber you have on hand, the more willing you are to experiment with it


2. The more fiber you have on hand the more ruthless you can be about tossing out bits that are trash, leaving you with "cream."


3. I want to learn to spin a loftier and softer yarn.
   

To the end of #3, I started doing an analysis of my favorite commercial yarns. An easy, familiar one to pick on is Knit Picks stuff.

1. It is four ply


2. Each skein is 50 grams (that's about 1.8 ounces)


3. Different fiber contents yield different yardages... for example: Merino Style (100% Merino Wool) is 123 yards per skein. Gloss, made of 70% Merino and 30% Silk, on the other hand, is 220 yards per skein. While Wool of the Andes (100% Peruvian Wool) is 110 yards per skein.

Right now my handspinning is using 3 to 6 ounces for 100 yards. Talk about chunks! My skeins are like bricks! And the yarn is NOT as soft as I would like. So I have to do better.

So,I pick apart these various commercial yarns (unraveling the individual plies) and I find that each individual ply is actually pretty fine. Each ply individually is also pretty dense and it appears the fibers are carded, not combed. Each ply is a bit smaller in diameter than I can currently spin on the wheel (I'm getting better but have a way to go.

I will eventually get there because I can see that I am improving. I can spin that finely on a spindle, so I will get there on the wheel if I keep working at it.

It would be nice to get a lot more yarn out of a lot less fiber.

More so, it will be very nice to get lovely, soft, lofty yarn.

I'm glad I have a lot to practice on.

Alpaca fiber

This is some nice stuff.

I'm working on the "fancy" alpaca first.

It's dirty. My fingers are black when I'm done spinning a few batts.

It has VM... it's annoying but I'm getting better at picking the stuff out.

Most annoying are the many second cuts. I plan to call my source before too long (certainly before May when they plan to shear again) and advise her that she needs to strongly encourage her shearer to avoid second cuts.

I'm dealing with the static electricity by layering the fiber with dryer sheets. I stuffed some dryer sheets in the original bag with the fiber. Then after I pull some locks out and remove as many second cuts as I can and as much VM as I can, I layer the locks between the dryer sheets in a basket near the drum carder and leave it overnight.

The second day, I run it through the drum carder (usually twice but sometimes three times if I think it needs it). I'm getting batts between 3 and 4 ounces. I'm rolling these up in little nests and laying the nests between layers of dryer sheets.

It is utterly amazing how much dirt comes out of this stuff. Lots of dust is left behind in the drum carder (the vaccuum cleaner helps with that).

I shake the batt gently before I roll it into a nest and more dirt and vm comes out. Then, when I spin, I put a cloth in my lap. Wow... lots and lots of dirt and vm come out.

Just for experimental purposes, I washed two of the nested batts. This is going to be gorgeous yarn. I just hope the dirt comes out of the spun stuff.

Alpaca Heaven

First, my apologies for not posting before now. It has been too long.

Second, today was one of those days when miracles really did happen.

First of all we had snow this morning. And it's APRIL! Over two inches came down and we lost power about 8 a.m. It did not come back on for about three hours but finally came back. The weather folks are predicting a hard frost tonight (20 degrees) which will probably kill all the fruit tree blossoms, but with luck the other spring flowers will survive.

I took a picture of the tulips in the snow, but it was so dark, and the wind was blowing so hard, you couldn't tell they were tulips, much less that they were in the snow.

It's now 5:24 p.m. and all the snow is gone. It got up to 45 degrees today.

This is a good thing because I made a very special trip in the early afternoon.

I met up with Heather and her husband in Saluda (about halfway between our two homes).

Heather and family raise alpacas. Heather crochets but does not knit and she does not yet spin. For the last five years she has been shearing her alpacas and her llama and storing the fleeces. That's five years of six alpaca fleeces, folks!

We met via a mutual friend who knew this would be a very special match. Heather and hubby arrived in Saluda shortly before I did (and I was a half hour early!). Their vehicle was stuffed with bags of fiber. I came home with about half.

The deal is that my other friend (T) in Pennsylvannia who also recently learned to spin and I are going to spin up this fiber. We get to keep half. The other half (once spun) goes back to Heather.

So here are pictures of what I came home with (and I honestly didn't bring all of what she brought simply because I didn't have room) and she said she only brought along about a third of what she has at home. And last month they bought another seven alpacas and will be shearing in May. That's 13 alpacas and one llama, folks!

If she is happy with what we spin for her, T and I are set for life!

Here are some pictures:

Cria locks and looking into the bag of the Cria fiber. 1.5 pounds.

Black fleece and black lock (This stuff is almost blue it is so black). 1.5 pounds.

Fancy fleece and fancy locks (two versions) (2 pounds)

Fawn Fleece and locks (about 4 pounds)

White Fleece with locks (about 2 pounds)

Llama Fleece bag and locks (about 5 pounds)

Okay, T, tell me which bags you want to tackle.

The batt spinning

I got a new camera! My son went with me and helped me find the right one. Had we lived closer to the store (a two hour drive) the store was ready to hire him because he did such a good job of listening to me and helping me (and the salesman) find what I needed. Unfortunately, he doesn't drive yet. Perhaps I will become brave enough to start teaching him this summer.

In any case, here are pictures I took yesterday of work in progress.This is some of the grey batt from the folks from whom I bought that wonderful fawn colored alpaca roving. This batt is a blend of alpaca and angora and a bit of wool.

This picture shows the luster of the fiber better even though it's slightly out of focus.

This came from a large batt -- about 2 feet wide and 3 foot or more long. I divided the batt in half (one half for each bobbin), then I just broke it into pieces about six inches wide and started spinning. It is very silky feeling. I'm just hoping I didn't over spin it.

The next step is plying it.

You gotta feel this

There was a time in my life when I cooked a lot more than I do now. And sometimes the smells of what I was cooking were seductive. I used to wish I could share the smell over the telephone or the internet.

Now, I have a new desire. I wish I could find a way to let folks feel some of the fibers I'm discovering.

The first one is cashmere that I purchased from Hollyspring Homespun. It is a cream colored blob. Really doesn't look like much. A delicate, cloud of pure decadence in a long wonderful length of roving. Merino feels like steel wool next to this stuff. Really, you have to feel it to truly appreciate it. I'm afraid to spin it still because I tend to over spin and I don't want to ruin it. I will probably end up blending it with something to give it fiber length.

What's really remarkable is that she and her husband raise the very goats from which this stuff comes. Just up the road from her shop. Cool, huh?

The second tactile wonder I've recently purchased came from Kearney Country Alpacas in Ruckersville, Virginia. They have a very simple website still under construction, but they do have email and a phone number and are the nicest people. They also attend the Sedalia Spring Fiber Festival and the Fall Fiber Festival.

I found them at the latter. I purchased the brown alpaca roving from them that I spun and plyed to make my mom and my sister's hats. I ran out of the alpaca roving and felt driven to order more, so I found their email address and wrote to ask if they had more.

In no time at all, Mary Kearney wrote me back. She was patient throughout the theft incident and waited while I got my finances straight, and I finally ordered 8 ounces more of the brown alpaca. I must tell you, that of all the alpaca roving I fondled at the Fall Fiber Fest, theirs was the softest, yummiest alpaca and came in a variety of colors. At the time I could not resist buying four ounces. After all, it was only $10 for 4 ounces. And by using it as one of the plies in the hat yarn, I got two hats out of the four ounces.

Anyway, while we were figuring out the logistics of paying by check, mailing addresses and such, Mary mentioned that she also had a nice grey blend that I might like.

She said it was blend of alpaca, mohair and angora (about 10% angora). She is selling it for $10 for 5 oz. I wasn't sure but thought she was awfully nice to let me have 8 more ounces of that wonderful brown alpaca roving for just $20, so I sprang for that extra $10.

Darn good thing she's not a drug dealer.

I have not the slightest idea what I'm going to do with this stuff but whatever it is, it's going next to my skin. A lace camisole maybe? In any case, I'm going to have to get my hands on more of this blend. I wonder what would happen if I just showed up at their booth at Sedalia and bought all of it? I really don't want to share it. If other folks find out about it, they might sell out and then I couldn't get more when I needed another fix.