Category Archives: Spinning

This Christmas

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Well, another Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (or as Mr. Penney likes to refer to it, “My Christmas”) has come and gone. I helped with the set up of the skein and garment competition again this year. It seems to be taking them longer and longer to get the judging done, which means setting up the show is starting later and later.

Mr. Penney went with me the first day. What was only supposed to be two hour turned out to be four hours, but Mr. Penney was a trooper and even carried my bag! I did get to see a lot of people that day, including Roseann!

Here is the first day’s loot.

Not too bad, huh? Well, I did go back Sunday to see the vendors that were just too busy on Saturday to even make it into their booths and also to get my entry from the skein and garment competition. Well, restraint kind of went out the door.

Yeah, I am kind of stocked for a while (like I wasn’t before).

BTW, my entry in the skein and garment competition got a first place. My class was handspun and handwoven blankets, afghans, shawls, and scarves. I didn’t get a good picture of it in the competition, but here it is resting comfortably in my chair.

Next time, I will got into how I made it and how the color interaction class that I took with Su Butler affected it.

Copyright 2012 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Beautiful Monster

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There are times when I make things just to see what will result. This was one of those times. I started by using the Sea Monster from Dragonfly Fibers that I spun a while ago.

The last few weaving projects that I have done with handspun singles, I have woven as twills to avoid tracking. This time, I wanted the tracking, so I went with plain weave for the weave structure. I used the higher contrast yarn (purple and yellow-gold Indian Corn) for the warp and the yarn with less contrast (green and blue Oberon) as the weft, because I think it is more pleasing to see stripes along the length of a scarf, rather than the width. I used a dummy warp (basically, scrap thread to extend the warp length) to try and weave as much of the handspun warp as possible.

Sett at 12 e.p.i., the weaving went pretty well, though I did have problems at the end. The problem? I didn’t trim away the extra yarn after tying the handspun onto the dummy warp, and the extra yarn got all tangled up in the warp once the warp had advanced to where the knots were exposed. After untangling the warp after each weft shot a few times, I decided that I was done weaving and cut the scarf off the loom.

After twisting the fringe and fulling, I hung it up to dry. And I was disappointed. Feeling it as I was hanging it up, it felt like I had just woven cardboard.

Fortunately, the scarf dried fast; and once dry, it felt so much softer. That was a relief.

One of the things that I wanted to find out was how much of the warp yarn I would have left over when starting out with four ounces of warp and four ounces of weft so that, possibly, I would know for future projects how to divide up my spinning fiber when I am about to spin for a project so that I will have as little left over as possible. I wound up with one and half ounces of the weft yarn left over after weaving this scarf, though I am not sure how much I can rely on that number because to the tangling problems with the dummy warp.

One thing that I wasn’t counting on was seeing how the color interaction worked. With parts of the weft being green, and other parts being blue, the effect with the purple and yellow was interesting.

With the green weft, the weft and the warp are kind of distinct, while for the blue…

the weft yarn kind of plays with the purple and emphasizes the blue in the purple. This weekend I will be taking a workshop with Su Butler called “Color Interaction for Handweavers.” I am looking forward to it!

Copyright 2012 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

In Bloom

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It is not often that I see something that someone else has made and want to make it, but when I saw Roseann’s Azalea Center Piece, I knew I wanted to knit the pattern myself. I immediately purchased the book the pattern was in, The First Book of Modern Lace Knitting, as well as The Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting.

Several years later, I spun this yarn from Kate’s Dragonfly Fibers Sea Monster roving.

It was an incredibly fun spin; and at the time, I thought I was going to use it for weaving. As time went by though, I thought the yarn might be too thick to weave a scarf of the proportions that I would want. It occurred to me that this might be the yarn to knit the Azalea in.

Originally, I thought I was going to three sections of the pattern as a shawl, but after trying out that way, I saw why others on Ravelry only had only knit two sections of the pattern as a shawl. So, rip out and start again.

It was a quick fun knit, though I will not use these bamboo needles again for something like lace again. The joins between the wire and the needle is not smooth, and the yarn did not slide over the join well, causing some of the stitches to “skip” over each other, causing me to be watchful of how the stitches were situated before knitting them.

With the knitting done, I blocked it.

I gave it to my mother for her 80th birthday.

Kate just had an open studio yesterday. It was a fun event, and as you may have guessed, I got more Sea Monster!

Copyright 2012 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Reversible Cable Scarf

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I didn’t originally plan this to be my next post, but I wanted something upbeat, and this project is that for me.

The yarn is a yarn that I spun from Fiber Optic’s BFL/silk roving dyed in the Espresso-Crimson-Gold gradient. The pattern is based on something that I saw in a kntting magazine back in the 80’s for a baby blanket. In fact, I did a similar design for some scarves that I knit my nieces about 15 years ago.

Here is the “pattern” if you are interested in making your own. Pattern is in quotes because I am just going to give you general guidelines for how to do this rather than specific stitch counts and such so that you can do this with any yarn you wish, and do as many cables and such as you desire.

The reversible cable is done over a 1×1 rib (knit one, purl one). For this scarf, the cable is over 12 stitches. You will probably want the stitch count for each cable to be a multiple of 4, because of when you actually get to doing the cable, a multiple of 4 stitches will keep the cable looking the same on both sides of the work. (A knit/purl pair on each leg of the cable. (1k + 1p) x 2 = 4 sts.)

To do the cable, slip half of the stitches for the cable onto a cable needle (or whatever spare needle you might have on hand. I frequently use a double point that happens to be lying around). Knit one, purl one for the other half of the stitches for the cable. Now, knit one, purl one the stitches that you slipped onto the cable needle. All of the other rows of the cable are just knit one, purl one across.

Now how often do you do the cabling twist row? Generally, if I have a cable that is X stitches across, I will have the cable repeat every X rows. In this case, since the cable is 12 stitches across, I did the cabling twist every 12th row. The first cabling twist happened on the 9th row, as I like to have cables start 2/3rds in. (You might think I miscalculated there, but while I am doing the twist on row 9, the twist appears between rows 8 and 9, so the row 8 is actually the end of the cable. Row 9 is the start of the next cable repeat.)

As for what to put around the cable, I used Irish moss stitch. On the version that I made for my nieces years ago, I used seed stitch. Garter stitch would be another good option. Here, I used 12 stitches on either side of the cable (so the scarf was a total of 36 stitches). Do whatever is pleasing to your eye. In general, I like tend to like have my stitch numbers relate to each other somehow, partly because it makes it easier to remember things, and because I am an engineer that study pattern recognition for my graduate work. TMI, I know.

One final note for the pattern, I slipped the first stitch and purled the last stitch of each row to give me a nice edges. For things like garter stitch and seed stitch, I don’t always do this, however.

And finally, on a personal note, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers in the past week. They are very much appreciated

Copyright 2012 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

And So It Goes

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Well, it has taken me long enough, but I am finally updating my blog about the gradient spin along that Kimber of Fiber Optic had over on Ravelry. There were a lot of beautiful yarns spun up by people, some of whom even knit up the yarn in the time of the spin along. (Talk about over-achievers!)

When Kimber announced the spin-along, I immediately knew which of the gradients I was going to spin up.

Kimber had started offering pre-orders on a gradient every other week, and I believe this is the first one that I got in on. But while having the gradient picked out, I wasn’t sure how I was going to spin it, just what I was going to spin it for: to weave a scarf as a practice for a bigger project later on. Then it occurred to me, I could do something similar to what Deb Menz does in her book, Color in Spinning.

So, I took the fiber and divided it into four strips along the length, so that each strip had the entire gradient. Then, I took each strip and divided that into the four, this time along the colors so that each piece was only part of the gradient. I took those four pieces and pre-drafted them together, resulting in this.

When spun up as a single, the color comes out kind of random in the yarn.

In time, I spun up both braids, and then plied.

I do like the resulting yarn, though if I had to do it again, I would have done the first splitting of the fiber into more pieces (maybe six or eight) for shorter “color bursts”. I am pretty sure that I will be weaving with this yarn, as I have tried knitting with it, and while it looks and feels great, stitch patterns have a hard time fight against such a big mix of shades and tones.

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Meantime

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The shawl hasn’t been the only thing that I have been on these last couple months. I have briefly stopped work on the vest to start a sweater from the same book

The pattern is Ansley from the Jane Ellison Queensland Collection. The yarn that I am using is Mas Acero from Brooks Farm that I got this past spring and MDSW. One thing that I did not pick up on with the yarn until now is that the shade changes from one end of the skein to the other. I am not so sure I like that. But I will keep going with it, doing the sleeves next, and if need be, ripping out the back and reknitting it so that the color progression matches the rest of the sweater.

And now that the bobbins are free from the shawl yarn, I can do some more spinning again.

I finally plied up the silk/camel in Titania from Dragonfly Fibers. I just have two more two ounce braids to spin up in the Bad Moon Rising colorway, and all of this silk and camel will be ready to go on the loom.

And as a little treat for both me and a friend, I spun up this.

This is Siren Song UNSPUN! in the Equinox colorway from Fiber Optic. Being a pencil roving, it spun up really fast. It was the first time spinning this particular roving from Kimber, and once fulled, it was extremely soft. I just gave it to a friend of mine last night as a gift. She has just learned to knit lace, so maybe this will find its way into a shawl or something.

Kimber is also having a gradient spin-along on Ravelry. This is the gradient that I am spinning.

It is the olive to slate gradient. I will let you how I am spinning it the next time. Warning, it may seem like crime what I have done with it….

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Race for the Cure 2011 post-show

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Race day, which was two weeks ago now, was a brisk but sunny day; and as usual, my stomach was turning before the event. The nervousness starts on the drive to the event, as the last few miles take an eternity to drive because traffic is so backed up. Granted, I have learned my lesson with that, but the traffic back up seems to get worse every year. A blessing and a curse, I guess.

Once the car was parked, I got myself to the starting line. I didn’t get a spot as close to the starting line this year as last year because I really don’t like worming my way through all of those people, jockeying for position. They all just kind of look at you like, “And who do you think you are?” And somehow, the response, “The one that is going to beat you to the finish line!” doesn’t seem appropriate.

Not jockeying for a position closer to the starting line turned out to be a big mistake, because my time (24:31.4) was close to a minute slower than last year. And all of that lost time was in the first mile, trying to get out from behind people who decided that maybe they will just walk instead. While the 1 mile clock said 7:00 when I past it last year, it said 8:15 when I passed it this year. Oh well, live and learn.

The actual race isn’t the primary reason for being there anyway.

Everybody there was racing for someone.

I wrote down who I was racing for.

Thank you all for your sponsorship to help me do this.

Now for the shawl.

It is completely finished and ready to go to the winner of the drawing, Joan Hajek.

It took me a while this year to come up with a project to make. Part of the problem is finding a project with some kind of pink in it that I will actually like doing, because I am not a pink person. Surprise! Then, in July, I got the last shipment from Spirit Trail Fiberworks fiber club. Of course, the thought of this shawl didn’t occur to me until the night that Irene hit us when I saw the notice that Jennifer had post on Ravelry that she had 10 ounces still available of the colorway. While the storm was raging away on us, I was messaging with Jennifer to get the rest of the superwash BFL. Good thing we didn’t lose power until later that night!

After spinning the fiber up, I had to figure out what pattern I was going to use to weave it. Since I was using the same yarn for both the warp and the weft, I wanted a pattern that didn’t instantly scream “PLAID!!!!” After playing around with different drawdowns (weaver-talk for how we figure out a weaving pattern), I settled on the one below.

It is what is called a progressive twill, which basically means a basic twill pattern that gets its starting point shifted over to a different set of treadles with each start of the repetition. I thought the long diagonal would be longer than any color repeats, and thus play down the plaid a bit. (BTW, I have nothing against plaids. It was just not something that I wanted to go for here.)

Overall, I think the idea was kind of successful.

On the loom, the shawl was sett at 15 ends per inch, with a weaving width of 16″. Coming off the loom, the shawl measured 14.5″ X 59″. After fulling, the shawl measures 13.25″ x 54″. None of those measurements include the fringe. I believe a good bit of the draw-in, take-up, and shrinkage is due to using wool singles, which have a great deal of energy to release. A plied yarn in a less elastic fiber probably wouldn’t have shrunk down so much.

Again, thank you all for your help and support. I already have next year’s fiber on order!

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com.

Kinky

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Woohoo! Socks are done.

The toe and the heel of these socks are from Charlene Schurch class I took back at the MDSW. For the toe, I used Becker’s magic cast on, rather than knitting a rectangle as the basis for the toe. I think I am going back to the rectangle method, as the magic cast on gives two little points on the toe when the sock is actually on the hoof. For the heel, it is a matter of increasing a number of stitches, than knitting a trapezoid for the bottom heel, followed by picking up stitches along the sides of the trapezoid and gradually knitting in the increased stitches into the back of the heel. That works pretty well, so I may be doing that again.

Not that I waited to be done the socks to start this, but last month I was spinning up July’s shipment from Spirit Trail Fiberworks‘ club.

It is superwash BFL that I spun up as a single at around 24 epi. When I saw a notice on ravelry that she had more of the roving available, I contacted her (during Irene, no less) and snapped up the rest of it. Once it arrived, I spun that up to match the initial shipment so that I had a total of 18.6 ounces of singles.

With that much of one yarn, a woven shawl sounded like a good idea, so the last 10.6 ounces spun got wound into a warp, and the warp is currently being put on the loom.

The yarn is kind of kinky right now, which is making it a bit of a pain sleying the reed, but it is not too big of a deal. I think I might add a dummy warp to the end of all of these warp ends so that I can use as much of the warp as possible.

Who am I weaving this shawl for? More about that later.

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Keep On Truckin’

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It’s been a while since you have heard from me, again, hasn’t it. Every time I think about posting to my blog, I think, if I just wait until X, I can include that in the post as well! The last of those items on the X list happened today, so today I am posting.

First off, I finished some spinning. Both of these fibers are from Fiber Optic.

The first is the 50% superwash merino/ 50% bamboo blend that I got as part of her “As the Whorl Turns” club. It was great to spin, as it was pencil roving and required no predrafting on my part. The second is the BFL/silk that I got from her at MDSW dyed in the gradient from gold-crimson-espresso. It spun incredibly fast. Both need to be blocked yet, since I plan to knit with both of them, but that can wait.

Next up is a toy that I knit for my great-nephew’s first birthday.

The pick-up truck pattern and yarn came as part of a kit from Knitpicks. It was a great project, though sewing the tires on with the black yarn really was a test for my eyes. Here is the little guy after opening up the gift.

He seems to actually like it! And, he will still be able to use it no matter how much of a growth spurt he has.

Finally, the socks in the slip stitch plait pattern are done.

This are part of my gift to Mr. Penney for his birthday, which is today! They are in his favorite color (and that was no accident.) The yarn, Sanguine Gryphon‘s Bugga, was great to work with. Luckily, I have more of this in my stash, so more socks will be on the way (like that was ever in question.)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Penney!

Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com