All finished! Now to keep track of how often he wears them, in what shoes, how often they're washed etc. and, maybe more importantly, when the first hole appears!
Thursday, 21 April 2016
Monday, 18 April 2016
The Postman Came Knocking
Well, what on earth could this be? A late birthday present? Gift from an admirer? Or the result of a twitchy finger! One of those moments when your finger hovers delicately over the "Buy Me" button while your brain says "No, you've got three already!" Funny how your finger suddenly gets an irresistible urge to twitch at just the wrong moment. Guess which won?
Maybe you need a little clue - this is what was in the packaging :-
No ideas yet? Need another clue?
You must be getting the message by now!
I'm sure I don't need to spell it out.
Oh, OK! I admit it! I've just bought my fourth spinning wheel! A Louet Victoria travel wheel which comes with it's own handy backpack just in time for the arrival of our new camper van next week!
Here she is in all her glory :-
Lovely little girl, and so light I can lift her with one finger! She only takes a minute to unfold and start using and the same amount of time to refold and pack in her carry bag, and there's no need for any tools either - just a few clicks and you're there. She spins like a dream - I couldn't wait to get started so I'm spinning some super-soft alpaca on her. Looking forward to all the lazy, sunny, summer days to come when we drive off into the sunset!
Oh, I nearly forgot - there was another box in that package. I wasn't lying when I said it could be a late birthday present. Look what I got from my eldest wicked stepson and his lovely wife :-
These are cotton carders specially for preparing all the cotton I've grown in the last few years and not gotten around to spinning! Fun times ahead!
Maybe you need a little clue - this is what was in the packaging :-
No ideas yet? Need another clue?
You must be getting the message by now!
I'm sure I don't need to spell it out.
Oh, OK! I admit it! I've just bought my fourth spinning wheel! A Louet Victoria travel wheel which comes with it's own handy backpack just in time for the arrival of our new camper van next week!
Here she is in all her glory :-
Lovely little girl, and so light I can lift her with one finger! She only takes a minute to unfold and start using and the same amount of time to refold and pack in her carry bag, and there's no need for any tools either - just a few clicks and you're there. She spins like a dream - I couldn't wait to get started so I'm spinning some super-soft alpaca on her. Looking forward to all the lazy, sunny, summer days to come when we drive off into the sunset!
Oh, I nearly forgot - there was another box in that package. I wasn't lying when I said it could be a late birthday present. Look what I got from my eldest wicked stepson and his lovely wife :-
These are cotton carders specially for preparing all the cotton I've grown in the last few years and not gotten around to spinning! Fun times ahead!
Friday, 8 April 2016
Engineered Sock Yarn
This is a project I've been meaning to try for quite a while. I wanted to design a yarn that would be tough enough to wear as socks for more than a month or two. Having read various books and articles I decided a 3 ply would be a good option with some mohair included for strength - time to go stash diving!
The mohair is the one in the centre, and I chose some Bizet sheep fleece (feels quite sturdy!) - on the left, and some gorgeous cria alpaca (first shearing) to add a bit of softness and comfort (on the right).
After blending these on my drum carder I was ready to go. One quite important (I think) thing was to spin two plies to the right (z-twist) and the third ply to the left (s-twist).
The odd man out is up there on the left on the natural coloured bobbin. Surprisingly, this took at least twice as long to spin as the other bobbins, possibly because I'm not used to spinning s-twist yarns, but more likely I was being very careful not to put too much twist in this one so it was quite slow going. I put extra twist in the other two bobbins so that they didn't lose too much twist when plying.
The three bobbins were then plied together to the left (s-twist) - the low twist s-spun yarn picked up more twist, thus adding (I hope!) more strength to the finished yarn.
This was never going to be the softest yarn I've ever made but I reckoned that feet maybe wouldn't notice in the same way as your neck would notice a rough scarf. I was actually quite surprised at how un-scratchy the finished article was, especially as I'd previously spun a skein of the Bizet by itself and it was quite scratchy. The alpaca and mohair must have calmed it down a bit. I'd be happy wearing this on my feet!
After a nice hot bath to remove the lanolin, I separated the skein into two (one for each sock) and dyed them, one on top of the other, so both would take the dye in approximately the same way. I used acid dyes for this - turquoise, orange and bright yellow, but the colours are a bit subdued because of the colour of the fleece, and they have blended a bit where the colours overlapped.
For my first attempt at engineered sock yarn, I decided to try them out on "The Resident Engineer" who has relatively normal feet (he was quite pleased that I said part of him was normal!) The plan is to write up a chart so I can record how many times they're worn, how often they're washed, and how they're coping with wear as we go along.
A tougher test would have been to make them for my feet, but I decided to wait until I'd tried them on normal un-scabby feet first. If they don't last on those, there's absolutely no point in making any for me!!
Here's the first sock - I quickly realised I wouldn't have quite enough yarn for these (hubby has quite large feet) so I spun up some more and dyed it dark grey for the heels and toes. By the way, the colour scheme was chosen by himself and he was very pleased with the result. Now I've got to be quick knitting up the second sock as he wants to wear them!
The mohair is the one in the centre, and I chose some Bizet sheep fleece (feels quite sturdy!) - on the left, and some gorgeous cria alpaca (first shearing) to add a bit of softness and comfort (on the right).
After blending these on my drum carder I was ready to go. One quite important (I think) thing was to spin two plies to the right (z-twist) and the third ply to the left (s-twist).
The odd man out is up there on the left on the natural coloured bobbin. Surprisingly, this took at least twice as long to spin as the other bobbins, possibly because I'm not used to spinning s-twist yarns, but more likely I was being very careful not to put too much twist in this one so it was quite slow going. I put extra twist in the other two bobbins so that they didn't lose too much twist when plying.
The three bobbins were then plied together to the left (s-twist) - the low twist s-spun yarn picked up more twist, thus adding (I hope!) more strength to the finished yarn.
This was never going to be the softest yarn I've ever made but I reckoned that feet maybe wouldn't notice in the same way as your neck would notice a rough scarf. I was actually quite surprised at how un-scratchy the finished article was, especially as I'd previously spun a skein of the Bizet by itself and it was quite scratchy. The alpaca and mohair must have calmed it down a bit. I'd be happy wearing this on my feet!
After a nice hot bath to remove the lanolin, I separated the skein into two (one for each sock) and dyed them, one on top of the other, so both would take the dye in approximately the same way. I used acid dyes for this - turquoise, orange and bright yellow, but the colours are a bit subdued because of the colour of the fleece, and they have blended a bit where the colours overlapped.
For my first attempt at engineered sock yarn, I decided to try them out on "The Resident Engineer" who has relatively normal feet (he was quite pleased that I said part of him was normal!) The plan is to write up a chart so I can record how many times they're worn, how often they're washed, and how they're coping with wear as we go along.
A tougher test would have been to make them for my feet, but I decided to wait until I'd tried them on normal un-scabby feet first. If they don't last on those, there's absolutely no point in making any for me!!
Here's the first sock - I quickly realised I wouldn't have quite enough yarn for these (hubby has quite large feet) so I spun up some more and dyed it dark grey for the heels and toes. By the way, the colour scheme was chosen by himself and he was very pleased with the result. Now I've got to be quick knitting up the second sock as he wants to wear them!
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