Yvaine

Link to new aranbrew.com site.

I love Neil Gaiman. Though you guys already know this after the presenting Neil Gaiman with a crocheted bee incident. I've read almost all his books at this stage. I do like to space out the reading of Gaiman as when I've finished them all I'll be bereft. I still have Good Omens left to read. A recent read was Stardust which I really loved, it's a great all ages story. I watched the film too and loved that as much as the book which is rare for me. I prefer books to film versions of books and also if I've read a book I know what happens so why see a film of it too? Stardust was an exception as they really captured the spirit of the book and there was some great acting too. I loved the section with Robert De Niro most of all.

Anyway all this rambling brings me to the Yvaine shawl that I mentioned briefly here. I saw this pattern when I used Ravlery's snazzy search feature to search for patterns that used about 330m of sport weight yarn. It's really useful to be able to search like that especially when knitting with handspun as you only have a limited amount of it. You can't go and get more of the yarn if you run out.  Yvaine is a versatile pattern and I thought it would suit the texture of the handspun well. Also since there is no lace or patterning I could just keep knitting until I ran out of yarn. There are supposed to be moss stitch panels on the shawl but I was lazy and just did some garter ridges instead. I have a problem with moss stitch even when knitting it in a rectangle shape I usually get it wrong. I tried a row of it but couldn't work out how to deal with moss stitch and increases so I just left it. I think it looks fine without the moss stitch. I finished it this week so that's another quick knit. At this rate though I think there might be another force at work. I think after all this time and practice I might be getting quicker at knitting. It certainly seems so. I'm pretty happy about that as I've always been a slow knitter. Even as a kid I didn't get my regulation tea cosy done in time for parents night, I think my Mum finished the last few rows for me!

I liked this pattern a lot, it taught me how triangular shawls are constructed, it's always nice when it clicks in your brain how it works and I'm pretty sure I could knit a shawl with no pattern now. This project perfectly filled the gap between finishing my Easkey wave wrap and going on holidays next Thursday. We're off to Chamonix and the Alps and I can't wait. The Yvaine shawl is blocking so hopefully I can get some nice photos of it with mountains in the background. I've picked up a nasty lung infection of some sort and that's why I'm here blogging instead of busily packing for the trip. I'm on antibiotics and strong painkillers so I'm ensconced on the sofa. I've started watching Doctor Who though so that's cheering me up. I've also made a sneaky start on a project I was saving for the holidays, the Rasta Kitty hat from Aoibhe. Maybe I'll finish that in time for wearing on my trip to the Mer de Glace.

Knit Nation, London, July 2010

Knit Nation. I wish every nation was full of knitters, then we would have world peace, solutions to all problems and lots more smiling happy people in the world. There would also be a lot more sheep but then that's a small price to pay. I'm just back from Knit Nation in London and I had the most fabulous two days and I'm now sure that knitters are the nicest people.

I got a plane early on Friday morning to Gatwick and got some trains and ended up arriving at Imperial College, the Knit nation venue just in time for the opening of the marketplace at 11.00. Most of the knitters in the queue made a beeline for the Wollmeise stand. I decided to join them for a look. I heard an Irish accent and recognised Jo from Celtic Memory Yarns. I said hello and we chatted while she was deciding what colours to buy I hope you got some you loved Jo! I bought two skeins just in case they all sold out but I needn't have worried as there was loads. Wollmeise is a phenomenon, the web shop sells out like lightening every time there is an update. Having seen all the colours all at once I will say that some of the hype is definitely justified. The colours are bright, clear and well separated. Having tried some dyeing myself I can appreciate that it's amazingly well done. I got two skeins. One is a beautiful autumnal skein called Paul which may grow up to be a clapotis. The other was a mostly purple yarn called grapes for sheri. I have no plans for it yet but I seem to be on a shawl roll recently so it may end up being another one. 

I then went to the p/hop. P/hop stands for pennies per hour of pleasure and is raising money for the wonderful Medecins Sans Frontieres. Various designers have donated patterns and you donate money based on the hours of pleasure you get from the pattern. At the stand I met Clare who I have known online for some time, she helps out p/hop in the UK. I love meeting people that I know from the web though it can be funny as you try to explain who you are. Maybe there will be new etiquette books explaining how to deal with these situations.  Clare very kindly offered that I could stay with her Friday night so thanks a million for that Clare. At her place I had the privilege of meeting the black cat, if you follow Clare's blog or twitter you will have heard of the black cat that visits her. He's a funny cat who came over and immediately demanded attention from me.

At lunch I met Sinead who had been at a sock knitting class with the famous Cookie A for the morning. We did some yarn shopping and got some food. Then it was off to meet yet another generous and fabulous knitter, L. On Ravelry I had complained that I didn't know I needed a wheel for my class and L offered to lend me hers as she was taking a class that morning and didn't need the wheel for the afternoon. So a big thanks to L if you're reading this. I could have done the class with no wheel but it was much better to have one.

The class teacher was Judith Mackenzie McCuin and she is a spinning genius. I learned more about spinning in the three hours of this class than I have in the last few months of spinning combined. Judith explained all about how spinning wheels work and all the tricks that you can do to make them work at their peak. She then explained how to make the spinning wheel do the work for you. Most spinners produce a default yarn meaning that they draft and treadle at a certain rate which then produces a certain weight yarn. I definitely do this and recently I've been trying to produce different yarn and was advised that I would have to treadle faster and draft finer to produce a laceweight yarn and I wasn't very successful at it. Judith says that you can't change your default yarn and when you get to that stage that it's a good time to learn what she teaches so it seems I took this class at the right moment.

She got us to use the wheel to change the yarn we produced so by changing settings on the ratios and brake band we were able to get different weights of yarn as you can see in the picture. I didn't change how fast I treadled or how fast I drafted to produce all these different yarns I just changed the wheel set up. Well it was like a light bulb went off in my head. It was like I didn't really know how to spin at all before this class. I now have a much better understanding of how my wheel works and how to use it. It was a fantastic class and well worth going to London to take it. Judith is a legend. 

After all that excitement it was time for dinner and pints with Sinead and Viola. We had great fun in the pub and there was even Fuller's London Pride on cask for me. After that I met up with Clare and some knitters I know from twitter so it was great to met them in person.

Now to shw you all the rest of my shopping loot. The marketplace was really well set up just like the whole event. It all ran so well and so smoothly. Well done to all the organizers and volunteers. I got my two skeins of Wollmeise. I got a skein of green laceweight from Krafty Koala. From Juno Fiber Arts I got some dyed Wensleydale and Teeswater fiber, I haven't tried either before. From Baby Long Legs I got some lovely smoky blue BFL fiber. From John Arbon I got some undyed yarn so I can play around with some dyeing. I also got an issue of Inside Crochet which you can't get in Ireland for some reason and a Knit Nation bag. The Loop bag was free. I also met the lovely Ysolda Teague and tried on some of her designs. I got a snap with her in her fun photo both too. 

On Saturday I dropped back into Knit Nation for a bit before I went to meet A from Impy Malting. I made a detour to the Hummingbird bakery for a delicious cupcake and some coffee. Impy and I had a great chat over some tasty beers at the Market Porter. It's great to go out with someone local like Impy, I'd never have found these great beer pubs on my own. I really liked the Harvey’s Bitter being in the mood for light hoppy beers at the moment. I don't know why but dark complex beers just aren't my thing at the moment, maybe it's the weather. The pub was busy but we got a seat and talked life, beer and knitting. Us knitting, brewing, beer blogging girls have to stick together you know.

We then headed to The Rake which is the beer pub you always hear about on UK beer blogs. They have a cool selection of beers on cask and many in bottles. I looked at their bottled selection and was surprised at how many of them are available in pubs in Dublin like The Bull and Castle, The Porterhouse and L. Mulligan Grocer and the quality off licenses. I always think that in the UK you can get lots more beer than here, it just shows how much the selection in Dublin has improved in recent times. For US and Belgian beer we're actually pretty well served. Of course we don't get as many English ales or cask beers which is a pity. Sadly I couldn't stay long and being sensible left for my train back to the airport in plenty time. Thanks Impy and hopefully I can return the favour with beer tour of Dublin soon. All in all it was the most fabulous two days. Knit Nation? Definitely. 

More photos of the trip are here. I apologize for the quality of some of them. Usually this is where I say I took them on my phone not my camera but this time the reverse is true. My camera isn't focusing properly and seems to be crap with knitting things, maybe it's the colours. The ones I took when I got home with the phone are much better. 

A storm gathers

I mentioned I was knitting the storm cloud shawlette in a recent post. Here's the last row being cast off using my own handpsun art yarn. I had 10cm of the mohair left over and about 30cm of the artyarn. I love when a project uses up all the yarn. I tend to hoard the small scraps left over after a project and then end up not using them.

I've seen a lot of strong opinions about art yarn on the internet and Ravelry. Some people really dislike it. They argue that it is really hard to knit or crochet with art yarn. I've even seen people press the disagree button and tell people that their project using their art yarn isn't nice.

I think these people need to lighten up, stop being mean and learn to think outside the box.

Of course art yarn isn't traditional spinning, of course it looks a bit mad but then that's the whole point. People spin for fun these days just like they knit for fun. You don't have to spin or knit, you can just pop to the shops and buy a pair of socks. I'm very thankful for that. I spin quickly but I knit very slowly so I'd never manage to make myself enough socks. When people don't have to do something out of necessity I think they have more freedom to be imaginative and creative. Spinning is an old art form and while it's very nice to spin a traditional woolen laceweight long draw it's also nice to go mad and spin some crazy ass yarn with poms poms and glitter sticking out of it. Art yarn keeps spinning modern and vibrant and I think it will help ensure that people remain interested in the craft.

If you want to see more art yarn check out the websites of these fabulous fiber artists Jazz Turtle, Studioloo, Pluckyfluff, and Insubordiknit.

Art yarn makes a perfect accent in a project. I think the purple shawl would have been much less interesting without the odd row of colourful handspun breaking it up. The shawl is fantastically fun and I think I will wear it over a plain t-shirt during the summer. It's also really warm, that must be the mohair. When I visited Cushendale I was told that it's hard to find really top quality mohair and they had to search for a while before finding the mohair yarn they dye in such lovely colours.  

I've been somewhat in hiding the last few weeks as I was finishing my project for college. I have a quick break today but I'll be back studying for my exam next week. After that I'm free and looking forward to a summer filled with knitting, spinning and dyeing.

Ravelympics Winter 2010

Who am I to fight against weird internet memes? The knitting Olympics has been run for many years by the Yarn Harlot. Then Ravelry got in on the act setting up the Ravelympics. The idea is that you cast on at the opening ceremony and finish a whole project by the closing ceremony challenging yourself in the process. I was on holidays during the last olympics so I didn't quite get my mittens knit on time and missed out on a medal.

This time there would be no mistakes, I had put in the training and I was going to get a medal if it killed me, well perhaps not kill but major RSI was a risk I'm telling you. I decided to do two challenging projects, one spinning and one a lace shawl.

The lace shawl would be the famous and fabulous Ishbel by Ysolda Teague. I cast on the day the olympics started in The Bull and Castle pub with a pint of Galway Hooker to steady the nerves. I was there to meet the wonderful Irish members of the all conquering Ravelry group, Lazy, Stupid and Godless. I love that group of crazy beatchs. I got to meet my fibre dealer Laura Hogan too, go to her Etsy shop and she'll sort you out with a fiber fix. Kneehigh brought a date, her Mmmmalabrigo scarf, she knows how to show yarn a good time. The distractions of great conversation, a rugby match and beer were all too much and I had to start it about five times before I figured out what I was supposed to do. I then had trouble with the purl yarn overs so I put the knitting aside and concentrated on the fun day out part.

It transpires that I'm not the only one who had problems with the yarn overs and this helpful post explained the problem. I used the large holes solution and that worked perfectly. The yarn is a lovely merino, cashmere, nylon mix from Old Maiden Aunt that I dyed myself during the course I did with Lillith in Scotland last year. The stocking stitch part went really quickly and then I got into the lace. I haven't done much lace knitting before so doing a big project with charts was a challenge. When I figured out how the charts worked I found the charts much easier to follow than written lace directions. In future I'll definitely be doing all lace from charts. I really enjoyed knitting the lace. I made a couple of mistakes but I noticed them and was able to either tink back or in the case of a missing yarn over a row down I used this handy method to fix it.

I knit most of the shawl while actually watching the Winter Olympics on BBC2. I love the winter games, as a kid we had Eurosport and I got obsessed by watching ski jumping on it and I still love it. This time I really fell for the new discipline of ski cross. The first set of obstacles are called Wu-Tangs after the Wu-Tang clan, bringing some much needed gangsta to proceedings. I also got to dream about being as cool as Amy Williams and throwing myself at race car speeds down an ice slope on a glorified tea tray. In fairness the closest I'll get to emulating the athletes is by trying my hand at curling in Chamonix later this year. Here's the Ishbel blocking on my bright blue yoga mat. When it's dry I'll take some glamorous shots of it and post them up. I've been looking at it not quite able to believe I knit it in just over two weeks. I love it.

 

The spinning part of my Ravelympics was a challenge too. I wanted to spin up the lovely merino/tencel fiber that I dyed as part of my dyeing course at Old Maiden Aunt. I had ideas about what I wanted this yarn to be. The fiber is a grey/purple mixed with white. Tencel being a plant based fiber doesn't absorb the acid dyes one uses on wool based fiber so it stays white which gives a fantastic effect.

I wanted to corespin the fiber but my last corespun yarn ended up very over twisted and not looking too happy. There's a great group called Novelty and Art Yarn Spinners on Ravelry where I found a link to JazzTurtle's fantastic blog post about core spinning. I tried her technique and it worked much better this time, it's almost balanced in the end. I wanted this yarn to be bulky and thick and think. I also autowrapped the yarn with black lurex thread. Autowrapping is a fun technique where you leave a thread to do it's own thing while you're spinning so it wraps around the spun yarn at the wheel's orifice. The yarn ended up bulky weight and I have about 70 metres of it. I think it will look fab as a funky hat or cowl. I might combine it with some left over black Hulda from my Owls jumper. I named the yarn Bill Compton as I've been watching rather a lot of True Blood lately. I think it suits, it's dark and twisted and all that.

Spinning some art

When I first got interested in spinning the first book I got was Lexi Boeger's Intertwined. I hadn't even got a spindle yet but the yarns in this book were so cool and unusual that the book was great just as a coffee table book. I checked out the art yarn spinners group (RavLink) on Ravelry and loved everything I saw there. People like Studioloo, Insubordiknit and Velma Like Velvet have made some really inspiring stuff.

Since I'm getting better at normal spinning I thought I might have enough skill to attempt an art yarn without it turning out looking like something the cat got at.



I got a lovely batt from Rockpoolcandy for my birthday but was too scared to spin it in case i made a mess of it. I finally decided to core spin it, this involves drafting the yarn sideways and wrapping it a core yarn. Ask The Bellwether has a great tutorial about how to do this. It turned out well for a first go, the batt was really lovely and I hope I did it justice.

I loved the results of the core spun wool I decided to try out another technique from Intertwined this time supercoils. Having loads of alpaca fleece to play with is handy for trying out things like this. I had this green merino which was too green for me so I carded some of that in with the alpaca. Mixed with white alpaca it turned a pleasing minty green colour. I also used pieces of lilac merino for the coil parts.



Supercoils are fun and look fantastic when the yarn is done but they take ages to do. The yarn also has a normal part to it as well. When I finished the coil part I navajo plied the remaining single. I'll knit it up into a scarf so there will be normal fabric then all the mad supercoiled parts.

Here's some more spinning. This time normal stuff. It's this merino I got from Scottish Fibres, it's lovely and soft but I wasn't so keen on the colour of the roving. Magically when spun up and navajo plied the colours mixed and I now like it. I think this yarn would make a nice pair of mittens or a hat. It's worsted weight and there's about 84 metres of it.



More photos here.

One of my crochet projects and I have broken up. The seasilk shawl and I just weren't getting on. I wasn't sure if we were compatible for the long term partnership needed to finish it. If we could just get through a couple more pattern repeats then my doubts over whether the yarn suited the pattern would go away. My feelings about the drape not showing off the silk well enough weren't real were they? There were too many doubts, I wasn't sure. I started looking at other patterns, ones with more drape, ones written especially for seasilk. So we split. It was for the best. The shawl was frogged before I was too far in, too committed to it to turn back. The yarn is now being turned into Montego Bay Scarf.

Blog News:
The lack of blogging recently was caused by me needing to upgrade my picasa account so I could have more pictures. I'm also hoping to upgrade the template and make it all look a bit prettier in the near future.

From washed fleece to spun yarn

I think this is the funniest picture ever. So cute and look at his funny hair! I'm still busily washing alpaca fleece. I decided to wash the second batch of it in cold water which worked fine to get it clean and it ensured that the fleece didn't felt.

I had kept the locks intact when I washed the fleece so the technique I used to prepare these for spinning is flick carding. In flick carding you grab hold of a lock, hold it by the end and brush out the end of the lock to open it up and make it fluffy. Then you turn it around and brush the end you were holding. This keeps all the fibres parallel and is good for spinning worsted yarns.



I then made rolags using the rest of the fleece using hand cards. A rolag is cigar shaped roll of fibre that has been separated and straightened out by the hand carders. I had tried making rolags before and they didn't turn out too well. I think raw fleece is much easier to make rolags from.



First you charge the carder by putting the fibre on it. The fibre is all over the place at first. Then you brush the fibre by drawing one carder over the other. Keep doing this until it's all looking lined up like in the second picture. Then I transferred from one carder to the other. The Joy of Handspinning website explains this really well and has handy videos too. Then you roll the fibres into a sausage shape. The fibre gets all separated and airy when you do this.

I made a basket of rolags and then spun them on my spinning wheel. Rolags are best for spinning using the long draw technique. There's a good video of it here on youtube. It's cool that a new technology like the net and youtube is used for teaching old techniques like spinning. Anyway long draw looks kinda like magic. I tried it before using the rolags I had made that weren't great. Because the rolags weren't good I couldn't get the hang of long draw at all. The thread kept breaking and I couldn't get enough twist in.

This time with the proper rolags long draw clicked for me. Now the single wasn't the most consistent and it wanted to get very very thin but it did mostly hold together without breaking so I'm getting enough twist in. I need more practice but at least I can do it. It's a very fast technique so it's worth sticking with learning it just for that. With a bit more practice I should be able to do it so that I get the thickness I want in the single. Long draw produces a woolen style yarn which is a lovely light lofty yarn with a bit of fuzz and halo to it. It seems to suit the alpaca really well.

I decided while I was learning new things I might as well try plying this yarn differently than usual. So I navajo plied it. This is a funky technique where you can make a three ply yarn from a single by sort of chaining the yarn while you put the plying twist in. I love plying yarn and this technique makes me like it even more as it's so much fun. Kinda like crochet with a spinning wheel.

Anyway after all that it's time for some shots of the finished yarn. It's just a first test skein so it's got it's wonky bits. It's very soft and fuzzy. It might make nice hand warmers or something. I've been learning loads since I got this fleece. Probably much more than I would if I'd just kept buying prepared roving. I wouldn't have had to learn how to use the hand cards and I would probably have just given up on learning long draw. I'm looking forward to learning more and ending up with lots of lovely alpaca yarn.





Though this post would be a good addition to fiber arts friday run by the lovely Alpaca Farm Girl. Check out her blog for even more cute photos of alpacas.

PS: I'm away on my holidays for the next two weeks so I'll see you all when I get back.

Smug Spinning Satisfaction

With my first ever yarn from my spinning wheel I had to make something and decided on a get the skinny scarf a free pattern from interweave crochet.

It's a really nice easy pattern and the scarf itself is perfect for wearing with the weather at this time of year. No sign of summer sun in Dublin yet. It spirals a bit but I've decided to call that a design feature. I'm so happy I've ended up with something wearable at end of the process of spinning the fibre and then crocheting it into something. Though as I do more crafts I find it's the process I enjoy as much if not more than the end result.

Spinning and Twirling

The Fat Bottomed Santa left a Learn to Spin kit under the tree for me.



It's the Golding Learn to Spin Kit. I did give Santa some help by suggesting a few kits but this one was top of the wish list. I'd heard a lot on the Ravelry Spindlers group about Golding spindles and so was delighted to get one. It's a Tsunami 1.9 oz top whorl spindle. It's a middle weight spindle and top whorl means the flat disc bit (the whorl) is at the top when it spins.

There are loads of websites with great information about learning to spin. A really good one is The Joy Of Handspinning, it has videos too which are great for learning how to spin which is hard to describe in words. I Can Spin also has good videos. Interweave's Spin Off magazine has a lot of very helpful free PDFs. Abby Franquemont's blog is very entertaining and she seems like the kinda person who has forgotten more about spinning than I'll ever know.

I'd read a lot about spindle spinning so was really looking forward to trying it out properly this time. My previous attempts to spin with a heavy homemade bottom whorl drop spindle were terrible. I couldn't get the hang of it at all. I was ok with the spinning wheel but not with the spindle. At the moment I can't afford a spinning wheel and I want to see if I really like spinning before I get a wheel.

The spindle came with Spin It by Lee Raven which is a great introduction to how to spin your own yarn. There was also 2oz of grey Coopworth wool roving to spin.

I found that the secret to spinning on the drop spindle was to draft the roving before spinning. I split the roving in two then in two again. I then pulled each of these lengths out before spinning them. I practiced and to my delight I started getting the hang of it. I started with the park and draft method of spinning where you spin the spindle and stop it by parking it between your knees. You can then let the twist run up into the fiber at your own pace. By the end I was able to draft while the spindle spun and dropped.





There's a photo of my singles on the spindle. I wound the twisty singles off the spindle into a ball. I then spun the other length of roving into singles as well. Since I got this far I decided I might as well try ply the two singles together as well. A photo of my low tech solution to not having fancy things like a lazy kate is below.

When you make the singles you twist the spindle clockwise. When you ply the two together you twist the spindle counter clockwise. Something magical then happens, the twisty singles become well behaved 2 ply yarn that doesn't twist.



I wound the finished yarn off the spindle onto a picture frame, a low tech solution to not having fancy things like a niddy noddy. I tied it up then soaked it in hot water to set the twist. After it dried it was different than before it was soaked. The yarn became even less twisty and softer with a nice halo of wispy bits.







There's more shots of my yarn, mine! It's a bit uneven in places but with practice hopefully it'll get more even and consistent. I have no fiber left now and I want some more. I can feel some shopping coming on. I've resolved this year that I won't buy any more yarn until I've used up the stuff I have. But making my own yarn is different... isn't it?

Hopefully I can get a good selection of different fibers to try out. Currently on the list to try is blue faced leicester, merino, silk hankies and alpaca. I'm really excited to try spinning silk. Silk is my favourite yarn and silk mawatas are much cheaper than silk yarn.