Handspun on a Tuesday Evening

+ gratuitous dog picture

Anyone a little tired of winter? I'm certainly getting there. Today the St. Paul mercury raised to a balmy 38 degrees (F). My lunch time walk was pure bliss.

My dogs have been living in their puppy parkas in my relatively cool house, and they're ready to take them off! (Sorry, I need to snap a pic of them. It's too adorable to miss!) Above is a rare moment for Toby-- sans puppy parka.

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Honestly, I haven't quite figured out how to move pictures around in blogger on a mac. One of my favorite professors in college was a modernist who always stated that the only way to truly convey Dadaism in a lecture was to have an assistant project random Dada images for the entire conversation. So, here we go-- a post in Dada form!

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For the past two weeks I've been spinning yarn to knit Deep in the Forest Mittens by Tuulia Salmela. As soon as I saw a pic of these mittens pop up on Flickr, I quickly added it to my "must knit" list. The plan was to spin squooshy fingering two-ply yarn. The trick was that I had different fibers for each of them.

For the background (white) I selected 4 oz of "Kansas Snow" roving from Art Club at Etsy.com, a glorious alpaca/llama/merino blend. This is Nikol Lohr's store, and yes - I did but this gorgeous stuff when I attended Yarn School last fall. The singles were unbelievably soft and squooshy. November kept on pushing them down on the bobbins and saying "wow. just wow." They were soo very different from the superwash sock singles I've been spinning. When I plied it against itself, and the yarn became the absolute opposite of the single. They were plied looser than I ply sock yarns, and I'm still mystified at the final resulting yarn-- a soft, dense two-ply that almost looks like a single. It did fluff up a bit after a soak, whack and dry-- but the plied yarn is a good deal thinner than the single ply. Clearly I have more to learn about this fiber combination. I was aiming for 200 yards per 4 ounces. The Kansas Snow came out to 208 yards in length.

The foreground (brown) is 4 oz. Crown Mountain Farms' superwash merino in "Wild Horses". Oh, is this a pretty colorway! The singles were just as puffy as the Kansas Snow blend, but no where near as squooshy. Once plied, it became a thick, poofy fabulous yarn that I expected the alpaca/llama/merino to end up. Wild Horses measured in at 210 yards once plied.

The really weird thing is that right after I took the picture below I wound both skeins into balls. They both became huge balls of the same size. Huh. After swatching, it looks like they will work perfectly for the pattern. The brown will pop out a bit from the natural white - but I think this will be a nice addition to the forest motif. It calls for 400 yards, so I should be fine-- but I also have enough fiber to spin another 400+ yards if necessary.

Over the weekend another five inches of snow fell. It certainly cleaned things up, but certainly doesn't help you at least pretend that spring is around the corner.

Last fall I spun CMF superwash sock singles in the "Born to Be Wild" colorway. They sat on my bobbins for at least 3 months. Last weekend I thought enough was enough, and I plied them while watching a so-so episode of "Meet the Press". (Oh, how I still miss Tim Russert!) It's about 650 yds of tightly plied fingering sock yarn.

When I posted this yarn to Ravelry in my stash, I couldn't help but call it "Soo Girly". It's not quite my taste, but will make for a great future gift!

Stonehenge Cowl

Was it last fall when I bought this beautiful BFL "Stonehenge" roving from Crown Mountain Farms? I remember Angela loved this roving after seeing it, and bought a bump of it, too. We both starting spinning at about the same time-- Interestingly enough, I think we both preferred each other's received version of the colorway. Mine (above) was pretty, yet muted. Hers had a bit more of a punch, and turned into this truly gorgeous laceweight!

I split the 8 ounces of roving in half and spun them into singles on my Reeves Frame. I did not use the fractal method. The color was spun just as it came.

The singles were tightly plied together, and I was really happy with the resulting sport weight yarn. All in all, there was 475 yards.
After letting the yarn marinate in the stash for a few months, I decided to knit the spiral cowl by Keri McKiernan with it. What a joy to be able to knit with yarn you have made!

After a wet block, it's just perfect.

Roy G Biv

Over the weekend a friend mentioned to me that she thought my blog was in competition with another to see who could go the longest without posting. Heh. Without going into too much detail, the post below was started sometime in December of 2008~ I guess I've been spending waay too much time at work, or something. :) When I'm home and not working on a project I tend to spend too much time on Ravelry, too
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Do you view your yarn-in-waiting as stash or a collection?

I've always had a project or idea in mind when buying yarn. It was always stash- Sock yarn took me in to the "Duh, it'll be socks" mode.

Well, ahh... here's a few socks' worth:

This is Wollmeise sock yarn, and it has clearly brought me right to collection mode like no yarn before! It's an addicting yarn, indeed. The colors are great, and my often-worn Wollmeise socks show NO WEAR. That's right, no wear at all!

For the most part I have greatly reined in purchases of other yarn in the past six months. (Although I could certainly use a full year break!) This was a greatly needed activity because of the Wollmeise purchases *and* new yarn coming off the spinning wheel.

Can you see the tree reflected on the screen? I wasn't kidding about December~ :)

Is it Time?

Last summer I bought a few skeins of Casbah sock yarn at The Yarnery. (Ok, more than a few. There were six skeins in total.) It feels great, makes a great fabric, and washes well. Did I mention that it's cashmere? Ok, just 10%, but it feels like a much higher amount! I've just finished my 2nd and 3rd pairs of socks with the stuff.

The middle skein (pumpkin) was used to knit Slalom, a lovely sock pattern by Elizabeth Warner. (Ravelry link for pattern download) The heel was inspired by Cat Bordhi's 'sockitecture' concept. The purls between traveling stitches increase around the ankle, and the semi-traditional heel turn is a touch higher than a regular sock. You can see the heel flap above-- it's on the bottom of the foot. I modified the pattern by knitting with 1.5 US needles instead of 1s (tight gauge), and I added an extra pattern repeat.

The fit is great, and I love the way they feel!

Over Thanksgiving I spent a few days at the family cabin just like last year. During the first few days I read the second book in the Twilight series (yes, it's teenage literature!), and knit socks.

My aunt Sandy looooves pink, so I chose the skein on the right (above). Since our family is from Germany (Alsace Lorraine region--- the other side is from Bavaria), I thought Suzanna by Stephanie van der Linden on the Germain Creative Sock List (Yahoo group) might be a good choice.

Aunt Sandy seemed to agree. Here she is is in all her morning splendor. (I don't think she would appreciate this pre- hair & makeup pic on the internet, but I think it's great. :)

The socks were knit to pattern except for the instep. I added an extra ten stitches (half a repeat) to create two full motifs instead of 1.5. She really likes them, and I know I'll see them over and over again during future trips to the cabin.

I really love when handknits are appreciated!

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For the past year I've knit with cashmere (blends) a good deal more than kitchen cotton. Is it time to finally change the name of the blog?

para el Diablo del Norte

Apparently I'm about a month behind with blogging.... behold, a Halloween post! (I thought I should sneak this in before I start chattering about Thanksgiving vacation...)

Over lunch in mid-October, I spent a number of days working on this weird piece of yellow knitting. It was sculptural, thus lended to lots of questions by co-workers and friends. This item was knit with knit picks worsted-weight "swish" in the yellowish tone, originally purchased for August's blanket.

Once it was finished, I overdyed the balaclava with Jaquard Acid Dyes in reds with a touch of black. This was a gift for a c0-worker of mine. When you have a serious fan of Dr. Who coupled with a history of being called "el diablo del norte" (which will not be explained here), how could I not resist this project? Also, it was his birthday.

Now I see creepy (yet fabulous) screen saver in neighboring cubicles.

Bokaclava is a fantastic design inspired by a classic Dr. Who episode called The Daemons. Apparently a demon sculpture named "Bok" comes to life and creates havoc.

Ok, so it was a little tight on him. It's one thing to try and gauge the size of someone's head in meetings - and completely another when faced with the actual size of said head (large-ish) with finished garment. Oh well. It is what it is.

This mask certainly created havoc at work. We all fought to see oncoming co-worker's responses to this Halloween outfit. It was hilarious.

Part of me hoped he would take the mask home and wear it this winter. You know, frighten the neighbors to bits when snowblowing the front yard and the like. Instead, it's been hanging out in his office. His future plans: hang it on the wall some sort of display for all to see.

If I were going to knit one again, I'd go for a heavier weight yarn. Aran would be a good choice.

A Post for Pam

In The Skies
Originally uploaded by cashmere dreams

Pam is my "knitting over lunch" buddy on Tuesdays. She has heard me talk about some purple and blue handspun recently, but wants to see the evidence.

Pam, hon, this post is for you.

The roving is from Crown (crack) Mountain Farms. (Click the link to view their fall sale going on right now!)

It's 100% superwash merino in colorways "In the Skies" and "Layla". When you buy this roving it comes in 8.5 ounce bumps per colorway.

To the right is a photo of pre-spun "In The Skies" with Toby. Here he's showing his best, "Can we just go for a walk?" face.

Finally, a photo of the finished yarn. It's all approximately heavy fingering weight. The blue skein has 618 yards. I haven't checked to see how much purple there is.

The Harveyville Project: Yarn School Fall 08

A few weeks ago I went on a little road trip.As I drove through Iowa, the car had to navigate around hundreds of massive wind-harnessing energy-making thingies and Iowan airplane radar rays for hours. (..and, I, umm, narrowly escaped an Iowan speeding ticket!)Ms. Sassy lent her gps for the trek, and it made the 8.5 hour drive long - but effortless.

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I went to Harveyville, Kansas to attend Yarn School - Fall 2008.
Fellow fibernista Nikol Lohr (of Naughty Needles and Art Club fame) purchased four rural schools in the middle of rural Kansas. She maintains the property with Ron, a tattoo artist and music enthusiast. The space is full of fun and interesting details - a perfect storm of creativity and space. (It's worth the drive just to see the school!)

Yoda is a six month old pygora goat from Laura's Pygoras. He's super cute, and he feels like heaven. Yoda and his pack joined us for lunch one day, alongside angora rabbits from Little Angora House on the Prairie.

Waking up on the second morning at Yarn School was an absolute joy. The corridor separating the two Harveyville school buildings was lined with gorgeous columns of dyed fiber.

We all spent hours in the dye studio (a former chemistry room) the day before with Adriane Bizla from Hello Yarn dyeing pounds of wool. ***We all received pounds of fiber to dye upon Yarn School check-in: superwash wool, Mashum, Corredale X, Blue Faced Liester, & a few ounces of sea silk, nylon, and sparkle for dye play. Some people brought yarn and even more fiber to dye, too.

Doesn't Felicia (pictured above ) look adorable in her new roving outerwear? :) She's never without a smile, and sells her dye work online at Sweet Pea Fibers. Over the weekend I had a lot of fun with Molly, who here is upset over a little color loss that morning. She kept on saying, "My carrots and corn ate the peas!".
Nikol set up an awesome batt-making station with six drum carders and buckets of different fiber to play with. I cannot tell a lie. I love the drum carder. Some day I'd like a Strauch!Nikol taught us how to make roving from the drum carder. You need a "diz" (a thingie with a hole in it) to pull the fiber through to create a uniform, consistent length.

Behind Nikol is one of my roommates from the weekend - Christine. I have to say both she and Lisa (unpictured) were great roommates!
Here's a set of batts that I made on the first day of drum carding. I started with a base of bamboo in a topaz color that I brought from home. 100% bamboo can be a pain to spin, so I combined it with random fabulous fibers in autumn shades. I'm really excited to spin these up!
Laid out on my bed was my fiber production from one day at Yarn School. That's right-- one day's worth.

We drove out to Alpacas at Wildcat Hollows Farm to visit the beautiful animals, buy some of their fiber (I purchased raw alpaca), and to eat a fantastic meal. It was a perfect aesthetic experience. The owners of the farm plan on starting two week-long stays. One will be around the time of shearing, and the other during the alpaca birthing period. I have to say, I'm a little tempted to go!

Adriane (below) showed us how to comb fibers. I have to say, the tools are wickedly sharp and a little scary. (Envision miniature pitchforks latched onto your table!) Although, she looks more than happy to comb all day long!

I stayed for an extra day with a dye lab extension. My car was busting with fiber on the way home. The roving below was still drying when I left in the morning.

All in all, I can't recommend Yarn School enough. My fellow attendees were diverse and wonderful people from around the US. We were surrounded by a community of people who more than understand our affliction for fiber. If you are interested in spinning, this would be a great first experience. (There are yarn school wheels to use.) If you are an expert spinner, there's a wonderful experience waiting for you.

I can't wait to go again!