The Weekend

Ah yes. Another year, another Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. What a time. The day before the festival, I helped one of the vendors, Jennifer of Spirit Trail Fiberworks, set up her booth. She had an armada of helpers, most of whom I recognized from years past when visiting her booth. Myself and one other person were the new faces.

Set up only took a three hours, and we were done. She had things pretty well organized, as expected for doing this festival and a number of others for a few years now. As a thank you, I got a little something-something, which you will see later when I show my haul. Yes, this little piggy went to market!

Later that day, I went back to help set up the skein and garment competition after the judging. As a special bonus, Mr. Penney came along to help out. After seeing the goings on with the set up, I think Mr. Penney is really wanting to provide his organizational skills to the task. Either that, or never come back again. One or the other.

Finally came Saturday, the opening day of the festival, and I took a half day course with Charlene Schurch on new toe-up heels for socks.

This is what we made. Don’t worry, it is not supposed to fit anyone. And I would be worried if it did fit someone. The heel at the bottom is the reverse French heel and the heel towards the top is the unwrapped short row heel. It was a great class, and if you have the chance to take a class from Charlene, I would advise you to do it.

After class, I met up with my friend Bonnie and we grabbed a little lunch and went on our way, shopping. Oh, and did I shop. Look for me on an upcoming episode of Hoarders! I’ll just tell you which booth I purchased what you see below. If you really want to know what it is, I should have it up on my stash page on ravelry soon. Also, the name of the photos will give you a pretty good idea of what the yarn and/or fiber is.

First, Spirit Trail Fiberworks, some purchased, some being the thank you from Jennifer.

Next, Fiber Optic, which, to my and apparently their own surprise, had their own booth this year. Apparently, they were asked on Saturday morning if they could replace one of the vendors that dropped out at the last minute.

And, then came Sanguine Gryphon.

Next up, Cloverhill’s booth, which had Wullenstudio, Dragonfly Fibers, and many others.

I finally joined the club this year and made a purchase from Brooks Farm to knit a sweater. (Actually, I had made a purchase of mohair from them many years ago, of which I made my nieces scarves.)

And my regular purchase of Romney and mohair blend from the Barefoot Spinner.

What you don’t see here is the Romney x Corriedale fleece that I purchased at Triple R Farm because it immediately went to Zeilingers to be processed.

What happened to the Romney fleece that I purchased last year from Triple R Farm?

I went back to the festival Sunday afternoon to pick up my entry. More on that the next time.

I Know There’s Something Going On

Posted on 18April11 by textillian

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Last time, I promised you that I would show what else I had going on besides the rugs; and true to my word (if a bit late), here it is. Let’s start with Benedict.

I am on my second of the six skeins of baby alpaca and am just about to start decreasing for the armholes, so I know that I should be good on the amount of yarn that I originally purchased. Woohoo! My calculations were correct!

Benedict isn’t a difficult knit, but it is a long knit due to all of the cabling. It is a six row pattern, and it takes me about an hour and a half to do one pattern repeat. Yeah, this may take a while, which is why it is nice to have something that goes a bit faster.

This is Wullenstudio‘s colorway “YMCA”. (I am the one that contributed the name. Thank you. Thank you very much.) I am doing one of my old standby’s, the basketweave rib. This stitch pattern seems to work well no matter what the yarn’s color patterning is because of the combination of garter and stockinette. As of this writing, the first sock is done, and I am about to start the second.

Now, knitting has not been the only things going on. There has also been spinning.

You have seen both of these before in their single state. Now they are plied and complete. Both are from Dragonfly Fibers. The first is silk and camel in the Bad Moon Rising colorway. It is four ounces, and I still have another four ounces of this colorway to spin, as well as another six ounces of silk and camel in the Titania colorway to go along with it. The other yarn is Sea Monster (silk, merino, and seacell) in the December Baby colorway. You are looking at a total of eight ounces that is pretty close to worsted weight. Both of these yarns will be used for weaving.

This is merino and bamboo that I got as part of Fiber Optic‘s “As the Whorl Turns” fiber club. Each month, Kimber makes three colorways using a country as inspiration, and as a member of the club, you get to select which one(s) you would like to purchase. What you see is the February selection, Jai Ting, from the inspiration country, China. I have this single Navajo plied, but I have to go back and fix it up some, as it is a bit overplied.

With that said, I have quite a bit of spinning in my future, as I have participated in several clubs, including Dragonfly Fiber’s winter mini club:

With what you see here being Admiral Benbow colorway in Bigfoot roving (BFL and silk), With a Cherry on Top in Sea Monster, and Winter Wood in Polwarth roving.

My March selection for the aforementioned Fiber Optic “As the Whorl Turns” club is this:

The inspiration country is Scotland and this colorway is called Thistle in BFL and silk.

Last but not least, I am also a member of Spirit Trail Fiberworks club, with the first two shipments being these:

The first one is February’s colorway in Polwarth. The second one is March’s colorway in merino and silk. April’s colorway just arrived today. It is a beautiful combination of deep blue and purple on silk and cashmere roving. Yum!

All of the dyer’s I just mentioned will be at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in some shape or form. Wullenstudio and Dragonfly Fiber can be found at the Cloverhill booth. Fiber Optic can be found at the Fold‘s booth. And Spirit Trail will have their own booth.

Speaking of the festival, if you need to find me, this is where I will be.

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)

Posted on 31March11 by textillian

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Been quiet around here, hasn’t it? Well, I have been trying to keep from publishing until I got these off of the loom.

And they finally are off the loom.

Hallejulah!

There is still a few things left to do before I am completely done with them. But they have gone through the initial cycles of washing and drying for fulling. Now, I just have to cut them apart and sew in the hems. After that, one more time through the washer and dryer.

I think the part that made this project such drudgery was the ironing. One night at knitting, I was talking to Sheila about the rugs and did a quick calculation in my head. While it wasn’t 500 miles, I did do over 300 yards of ironing for just these two rugs. Sheila’s reply when I told here the amount? “You probably shouldn’t have done that calculation.”

On Saturday, I finished up the ironing for the rugs and that night, Mr. Penney and I went to Border’s after dinner. At Border’s, I happened upon Betsy, the president of the local weaving guild. When I told her about the rugs and the ironing that I finished up that day, she was astonished that I did all of that ironing. “I usually just twist my strips so that enough of the right side of the fabric shows.”

Now, ya tell me.

That will have to be something I will have to try the next time. If there is a next time….

Next up, everything else that I have been working on.

Tight Fit

Posted on 22February11 by textillian

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Yeah! I got another pair of socks done.

It seems like it has been forever since I have completed a pair of socks, and after trying on the first sock of this pair, I was almost going to rip them out and try again. I had a devil of a time trying to get the sock past my heel because the ribbing of the leg was so tight. I am glad I didn’t rip out though because, of all of my socks, these stay up on my legs the best. Yes, there is a little effort in getting the socks on; but once they are on, they are on!

The sock yarn is Dragonfly Fibers Djinni Sock in the Bad Moon Rising colorway. I love this colorway, so much so that I have the same colorway in her camel and silk roving which I started spinning last night. I was able to start spinning the camel and silk because I finished spinning the singles of this.

This is Sea Monster roving in the December Baby colorway, again from Dragonfly Fibers. What you see on the bobbin is a four ounce braid that I spun up a couple weeks ago, and the actual roving before being pre-drafted is taking up the rest of the picture. All it takes me is about four hours to pre-draft and spin a four ounce braid of this stuff. The fiber content is 50% silk/30% merino wool/20% seacell. Once I get into a plying mood, I will be making a two ply that I will use for weaving a scarf or shawl, depending on the yardage.

With having a long weekend, I finally got the first slip stitch sock done.

This sock is off the needle now after doing 25 rows of 3×3 ribbing for the cuff. It is great when a plan comes together, and that is what is happening here. The yarn is Shiela’s sock yarn in Green Tamborine and WItchy Woman. This is taking a little longer than anticipated because of all of the slip stitches. Eight rows of the slip stitch pattern equates to about six rows of stockinette in length. Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind for later.

Ok, now brace yourselves. You are about to see something that you haven’t seen on this blog in a while. Are you ready? Here it is. Continue reading →

Being Boring

Posted on 30January11 by textillian

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So, when I last talked about the rugs I am weaving, this is how they looked.

I wove in a few more strips since then and decided that I did not like the results. It was boring me to tears. Unlike the warp-face rugs that I had woven before, the weft strips were going to be the main focus of these rugs; and I was going to need a fabric more exciting than a solid quilting cotton whose color is called “tea stain.” (Honest, that is the name.)

So I went back out fabric shopping and came back with these.

I got five yards of the salmon colored one (which is brighter than photographed here) and three yards of the paisley. Rather than get back out the rag cutter, I just cut the strips using a rotary cutter and quilting ruler. The main thing I had to worry about there is folding the fabric correctly so that all of the layers were on grain and that there were no wrinkles in the fabric. That process went fairly quickly.

There is one hitch in using these prints as the weft for weaving, and that is that there is a right side to the fabric and a wrong side, and the difference is fairly pronounced with the ones that I picked. I needed to do something to the strips of fabric so that the printed side of the fabric would show up most of the time. To take care of this, I ironed each strip in half.

As you may have guessed, this is a tedious task. But by taking this extra step, I can count on the right side of the fabric being what shows up most of the time in the final weaving.

And the weaving is underway with the new fabrics. I am liking the results much better, so much so that I have finished weaving the first of the rugs. Unfortunately, for how I am doing the striping in the weft of the rugs, I don’t have enough of the salmon colored fabric to complete a second rug. Hopefully, I can get another five yards of it, otherwise I am going to have rugs that coordinate, rather than match.

Lucas with the Lid Off

Posted on 16January11 by textillian

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Knitting is still going on here, especially with my weaving undergoing a re-group. More on that in the next post.

My first new project of 2011 turns out to be my first completed project of 2011.

This is Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Maltese Fisherman’s Hat from Knitters Almanac. I used two strands of Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca throughout. Even with using two strands, the gauge only wound up being 11 stitches per 3 inches. The instructions are for 11 stitches per 4 inches. Luckily, most of the numbers were divisible by 3 in the pattern, so it was a simple matter to changing things over to meet my gauge.

I had to do this in quick order, because it is for a friend that is, literally, closing up shop and moving to Portugal. Yeah, wild thing to do! He wanted a traditional hat that is worn over there, and this Maltese hat was pretty close to the description, so I went with that. It took about all of 8 hours to knit. I used size US 10.5 needles (6.5 mm), which felt odd to me, being that I am usually working with 2.25 mm and 2.5 mm needles for socks.

And I am still working with those small needles, though.

The first of the ribbed cable socks is done, and I have cast on for the second. I went to the trouble of twisting the knit stitches when doing the tubular cast off, since the whole rib is worked with twisted knit stitches. Now that I see how it looks, I am not sure if that addition effort for the cast off was worth it. Maybe it will be more noticeable after the sock has been washed.

I am also still working on the slip stitch sock.

I did a short row heel because it solves a multitude of problems in doing things with a slip stitch pattern that I am just not sure how to do (like increases and decrease). Short row was always for the plan for me here, anyway.

I would like to know how to handle the change in colors in the round.

There is more than subtle change where the start of the round is. I am not to worried about it, but it would be nice if there was a way to avoid this. Since this is a slip stitch pattern, I have my doubts about whether a “jogless” jog would work here. Any thoughts?

Strip

Posted on 3January11 by textillian

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So, what was I doing New Year’s Eve?

Well, during the day I was cutting strips with my rag cutter. I dug it out so that I could cut up the eight yards of fabric that I am using as the weft to weave the rugs that were being put on the big loom at the end of the last post. Those rugs are my parents’ Christmas present. (My family is used to getting I.O.U.’s for gifts.)

The rag cutter basically works like a pasta maker. You turn the crank to feed the fabric through against the guide to get a consistent width strip cut by the rotary blade that is sandwiched between two rubber discs that press again a large metal cylinder, that is actually connected to the crank. The blurry picture below gives you an idea of what it looks like in action.

This took an amazingly long time. It was close to three hours to do the eight yards of quilting cotton in 1 1/4″ strips. I tried folding the fabric to cut more than one strip at a time, but that actually took longer because of having to keep the fabric together so that all of the layers would press up against the guide. This is probably one of the reasons why I don’t make rag rugs that often. The last time that I used the rag cutter was when I made these rugs about ten years ago.

The cutter was also making an awful grinding noise during a portion of the turn of the crank. It was a concerning noise to me, and an irritating one for Bogey and Mr. Penney.

This tool is probably meant more for rug hookers that rag rug weavers. The rag cutter has the option of placing several blades together, and rug hookers generally use thinner strips (about 1/4″ wide as opposed to 1 1/4″ wide) of thicker fabrics (woolens rather than quilting cottons). I bought the cutter back when I thought I needed every weaving tool ever created. I am long over that period now.

In any case, all of the fabric is cut up.

And weaving has commenced.

I am unsure about how I feel about these rugs at the moment. I am kind of wishing I picked a darker fabric as the weft, but that may just be the fluorescent lighting in the basement. I have seven yards of warp on the loom, and I only have to get two 40″ long rugs off of it, so I should be able to try other fabrics without re-warping the loom if I think I can do better. Weave on!

We Need a Little Christmas

Posted on 24December10 by textillian

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Miss me? I have been busy, and the blog keeps sliding down the priority list. As an update, I am still working on the ribbed cable sock in Bad Moon Rising colorway of Dragonfly Djinni.

I moved over to doing these in Magic Loop, as the small 12″ circular needle becomes difficult to work cables in once I get to the leg of the sock.

Since we were having guests over for dinner earlier in the week, I had to do some cleaning up, and the easiest way for me to clean up roving that is “lying around” is to spin it! Yes, for me, spinning yarn counts as cleaning. Doesn’t it for everyone?

In any case, this is what I spun up.

Both bobbins contain four ounces of Dragonfly’s Sea Monster roving, which is 50% silk, 30% merino wool, and 20% Seacell (which is made from seaweed, thus Sea Monster.) The colorway in my had is Oberon and the one still on the wheel is Indian Corn. I picked them both up at the trunk show Kate had at Cloverhill back in November. The fiber spun up super fast. It was the easiest time I have had spinning something with silk in it. I am planning on using the singles together to weave a scarf, but that weaving is going to have to wait a while.

I have to admit, I wasn’t really in the Christmas spirit this year. To try and kick start that spirit, I started these:

This is a slip stitch pattern that I heavily modified to fit the stitch count of the sock. The yarn is Sheila’s Wullenstudio sock yarn in Green Tamborine and Witchy Woman. I was wondering whether the red was going to be too strong for the green, but now that I actually have things underway, I can relax because I think they are working out together just fine. And I can happily say that I am in the Christmas spirit.

Good thing, because I have a lot of work to do.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Return of the Mac(k)

Posted on 28November10 by textillian

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Last time, I told you that I needed to get a new drive band for my wheel that I do my plying on, as the one that was on there was stretched out. Lucky me, I happened to have had one lying around, so I able to make the replacement and get back to plying and not have to wait for one to be shipped to me. Hurray!

Now, I have Bluefaced Leicester in blue and green ready to use.

As well as eight ounces of merino/angora/cashmere.

The bottom bobbin that you see above is the start of my plying and contains no knots. The one strand broke for some reason, and that is when I started the middle bobbin. When I ran out of yarn on one of the bobbins that held the singles, I wound the remainder of the singles on the other bobbin into a center pull ball and plied the strand against itself for the top bobbin pictured. It sounds like a lot, but it only took a couple hours. I have no idea of the yardage that I have there, but it should certainly be enough for a scarf.

Know what else is done? The Hark the Heraldic socks!

I am wearing these socks as I write this, and I can tell you right now that these socks are going to get a lot of use. The fit, the color, and the pattern are all working.

I am thinking of writing the pattern up. Yes, I like them that much that I might just write them up unprovoked!

With that pair of socks done, I started another pair of socks, this time from someone else’s pattern. From Think Outside the Sox, I chose the pattern Hexagons.

You may notice that the hexagon that I knitted is not closed up in the center. Why? Because, while it didn’t take me long at all to knit up that little bit, most of that time was spent doing the cast on, rather than knitting. It dawned on me that most of my time for making this sock was going to be spent casting on, rather than doing knit stitches. This spelt doom for this sock. While I don’t really hate casting on, I can’t say that I want to spend a good portion of my time doing it (or weaving all of the ends that will result.) So the hex is gone. Oh well, it all can’t be roses and sunshine.

Instead of Hexagons, I am thinking of doing the Drip Candles pattern from the same book. I think the gradient of colors will work out well in this pattern. and I can weave in the ends as I knit. Still thinking though. Always thinking.

Escape

Posted on 19November10 by textillian

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There are a lot of reason why I am into my fiber crafts, but one of them is that they provide me a means to, at least for a short while, take my mind off of my problems and think about something else. While I am knitting, spinning, weaving, or sewing, I get to escape what I can’t seem to get to leave the forefront of my mind any other way; so even if I am working on a project that I am find kind of laborious, I will still be grateful for the relief it gives me from having to think about other, more pressing things for a bit.

On that note, the dreaded socks are done.

Knitting socks two-at-a-time just isn’t for me. I can see where this method would be helpful to those that have problems reading their knitting and not wanting to take any notes, or those that suffer from “Second Sock Syndrome”; but I don’t have either of those problems, so what I gained from this method was some frustration. Different strokes.

The yarn itself, Miss Babs Bamboo Baby, was pretty nice. It did seem a little splitty to me, but I am not sure if that was just because of the yarn or had something to do with the fact that I was using my very pointy Addi Lace Turbo needles.

On the spinning front, I have reached some milestones!

I finished spinning the singles of Spirit Trail Fiberworks’ merino/angora/cashmere blend. That is eight ounces that you are looking at there. I am trying to decide if I will just ply the bobbins against each other, or do my usual plying from center-pull ball for each bobbin individually. I am leaning towards the former, just because of how fine the singles are.

And plying is happening with past singles that I have spun.

The BFL in Everglade that I got from Fiber Optic at Maryland Sheep and Wool is done, and I am working on plying the BFL in Sapphire.

I am having issues with my wheel here. The drive band is stretched loose so that there is not always traction. Big problem. Looks like I am in the market for a new drive band.

Back to knitting,

when one sock ends, another begins. This is the start of a ribbed cable sock in Dragonfly Fibers Djinni. The colorway is Bad Moon Rising. The most difficult part of this sock is keeping track of which row I am on so that I know when to do the cables. Otherwise, it is pretty simple.

Kate of Dragonfly is having a trunk show at Cloverhill this Sunday, so you know that will spell trouble for me….

Not that there aren’t already other things planned for me for this weekend.