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  • March Crafting Update and April Goals

    March Crafting Goals

    • Spin something (so many options!) and ply the one thing still to go, skein, wash and label all the yarns – spun three things! and skeined, washed and labeled all the yarns
    • Finish tablet weaving – Done! and started another
    • Process the alpaca fleece (3.3 pounds!) – worked on it!
    • Crochet the mittens – worked on these a little bit
    • Weave the plaid – finished! will make a separate post about it shortly
    • Knit the sweater – worked on it! sleeves are going faster now

    SO many things done this month! Lots of pictures

    Spun this month, I started with 2.85 oz of Icelandic that I bought at Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Festival) back in idek 2018 maybe. I enjoyed the festival but there were So Many People so I haven’t been back. I started spinning it fine but it was slightly felted and difficult to spin fine so I switched it up. I spun it thick on my Eel Wheel 6 and then took the fine spun bit and plyed it with the thick stuff for a little bit of spiral ply yarn. The rest of the thick yarn I left as singles and agitated it slightly when I washed it to hopefully felt it a tiny bit. 130 yards of thick singles, 38 yards of spiral ply, somewhere between worsted and bulky weight.

    The skein on the right needed to be skeined and washed from February. It is Corriedale from AngelLocks Fiberworks, it was pin drafted roving that was annoying to spin at first. I chain plyed it and it is slightly lighter than fingering weight. 4 oz and 426 yards

    Three skeins of yarn on a mesh grey chair. From left to right they are white singles puffy yarn, white spiral ply yarn where the thicker ply puffs around the thinner ply, and purple to grey gradient yarn that is smooth.

    Singles for weaving! I spun this Romney lamb yarn up as singles to weave on the big loom. My plan is to try and do it the hard way without sizing the yarn to see if I can. If it works, then I don’t need to size it. If not, I haven’t lost much. It’s 3.5 oz and I don’t have yardage since it’s going right off the bobbin to the warping board, with about half going to be warp and half weft. It’s from a local farm here. It’s definitely in the lace weight range (which is a silly yarn weight range because it goes from 20 wpi to as fine as anyone can spin, which is a huge range of weight but whatever), 36 wraps per inch which factors into my warping considerations.

    A slightly blurry photo of brown fine yarn on a wheel bobbin.

    Singles finished last night, Montadale from Solitude Wool, 4 oz. It was a carded preparation and incredibly short stapled. It is very down like wool, high spiral crimp and lots of bounce. It was a wonderful long draw spin, so much so that I was able to spin unsupported for most of it (using only my right hand that drafts the fiber, left hand I used to pick vegetative matter and eat chocolate chips). I think I’m going to spin up some purple roving I have that is very similar in feel and ply them together. Very rustic but is a lovely yarn. I did play and win bobbin chicken, which was very irritating last night as I was so close to finishing it but had to wind the yarn onto the bobbin by hand.

    Fluff

    A creamy white roving sits on a mesh grey chair, it is very fuzzy looking.

    Staple length

    The photographer's hand is holding a blob of fluff that is very short.

    The yarn!

    A creamy white yarn on a bobbin. There is so much yarn that it barely all fits on the bobbin.

    Skeined and washed yarns. The grey is 10 oz of combing waste from my grey Romney fleece that I carded and spun. It’s a three ply and much more even now that it’s been plyed, which I did do in March. It is worsted weight, 514yards.

    Two puffy skeins of grey yarn sitting on a grey mesh chair.

    I think I spun this in January and February but didn’t post about it. I’m not entirely happy with the colors, I wanted them to match up but I think I spun the braids from opposite ends so the colors didn’t quite line up since they weren’t quite symmetrical. This is from Llady Llama Fiber Co and it is on a Targhee base. 8 oz of fiber, 2 ply and 1194 yards. It’s fingering weight ish. It’s actually still drying but I got it out for glamour shots. I adore the colors LLFC dyes.

    A skein of yarn unwrapped and laid out on a grey mesh chair to show off the blue, black and grey color variation.

    Finished tablet weaving! It is from handspun Coopworth (dark brown) and Lincoln (grey) from washed fleece that I combed and spun extremely fine with a ton of twist specifically for tablet weaving. I also spent a lot of time taking the Coopworth from skein to a ball so I could actually warp from it, 2300 yards takes a while. When Dreaming Robots puts out the cone winder in December, I’m getting on immediately because the weaving yarns really should be on cones for ease of warping. This weaving is based on Snartemo II from Elewys of Finchingfield that I changed to have symmetrical border cards. The biggest issue I had with weaving was that the yarns were so high twist they wouldn’t really hold knots very well. It’s about 2.5 feet long.

    A very fine tablet woven band with W and M motifs sits on a grey mesh background.

    Finished weaving the plaid! I’ll make a separate post about it because I want to write down all the details while I remember them and it’s a lot of stuff. It also still needs to be wet finished.

    A grey, tan and white plaid fabric is folded up.

    April Goals

    • Spin something and ply the Montadale
    • Work on tablet weaving
    • Get Romney on the loom
    • Knit sweater
    • Process alpaca fleece (I want to try and get this done quickly to start another fleece for an event but we’ll see)
    • Crochet mittens
  • February Crafting Update and March Goals

    February goals

    • Spin something after the current project (and skein, ply and label all the yarns sitting around) – Spun 4 oz of fluff to yarn and chain plyed it, finished and plyed the 8 oz of targhee, skeined, washed and labeled all the yarns
    • finish tablet weaving project –  I don’t think I worked on this at all, oh well
    • start processing a fleece – just started combing an alpaca fleece today! Combed one load, spun it on a spindle and need to ply to see how I want to spin it. Leaning towards 2 ply for warp
    • crochet on the mittens – worked on it! got past the thumb hole on one, getting close to thumb hole on the other. I like these a lot
    • weave on the plaid – worked on it! Might be halfway
    • knit sweater –  finished the body! bound it off last night and picked up the sleeves. need to divide my yarn ball and then decide which brown will be the rest of the sleeves

    Pictures

    Skeins of yarn that were sitting around, light grey and brown/black for tablet weaving. Those were sitting on bobbins in the way, so I skeined them to clear them off. I want to get a cone winder at some point because they should be on cones. The blue is the chain plyed merino, finally washed.

    30 oz of 4 ply Romney, skeined and washed. It did puff up in the wash like I was hoping, so it’s about worsted weight! Woo! I still haven’t decided what pattern I’m going to make, but I’ve got so many options including the gansey book I bought recently.

    Fluff to finished yarn in a month, usually I forget to take good pictures of the fluff but I remembered this time. The balcony has great lighting for photos. First photo colors are most true to real life.

    March Crafting Goals

    • Spin something (so many options!) and ply the one thing still to go, skein, wash and label all the yarns
    • Finish tablet weaving
    • Process the alpaca fleece (3.3 pounds!)
    • Crochet the mittens
    • Weave the plaid
    • Knit the sweater
  • January Crafting Update and February G

    January goals

    • Finish tablet woven band, it’s very tiny and will take a while, start another? – worked on it!
    • Crochet something? maybe mittens or socks – started mittens! 
    • Warp on new big loom project – Navajo Churro handspun yard for plaid twill for a big pillow – warped on and weaving!
    • Spin stuff – just started spinning grey romney fleece combing waste that I carded, want to spin something else next – finished the combing waste, spun 6 of 8 oz of grey/blue/black targhee roving, plyed the 30oz of romney fleece and the carded merino
    • Finish processing alpaca fleece – done! in a bin for storage
    • knit sweater – worked on this until I messed my left wrist up by shoveling wet snow followed by kntting then landing oddly on that wrist then shoveling more snow. not smart but it’s almost recovered

    Mittens from Moorit Magazine Issue 1, really great patterns, I’m working from a chart. Going to start the second one shortly so I don’t end up with only one mitten.

    A purple and white mitten is sitting on tan pants. The pattern is stripes near the wrist of the mitten and triangles where the palm starts.

    Weaving! It’s taking a long time to weave each repeat because I only have one boat shuttle so the others are on dowels. But it’s nice weaving. I also bought two books for weaving with 4 shaft looms so I’m pretty excited about all of the possibilities.

    A grey, black, tan and white plaid fills the photo

    30oz of Romney fleece plyed! it’s a 4 ply so I can get some actual thicker yarn. I need to skein and wash it, hopefully will poof up some more. Earmarked for a cardigan/hoodie/gansey. Not sure on pattern yet but something nice.

    Four big bobbins of squishy grey yarn.

    Carded Merino rolags that were chain plyed to keep the colors together. Chain plying will never be my favorite but it was fine.

    And an alpaca fleece all carded up!

    February goals

    • Spin something after the current project (and skein, ply and label all the yarns sitting around)
    • finish tablet weaving project
    • start processing a fleece
    • crochet on the mittens
    • weave on the plaid
    • knit sweater
  • Ooops

    I kinda forgot about this blog. These things happen. I’ve been posting things elsewhere so I’ll be bringing those posts over in the next week or so and hopefully going forward I’ll also be posting them here. Woo!