New Yarn

 

Free Shipping over $35

I've been stealing bits of time here and there, and over the past few weeks I've managed to spin a few more skeins of yarn.  I've made 2 of a white/fawn 2 ply from Annie and Carlyle, one fine and one a little more bulky.  I also made another fine-weight gray from Toby. 

 I have a book on spinning that makes a really profound point, especially for me as a knitter.  She says when she first started spinning, she made all kinds of yarn, and filled up baskets and boxes with it.  But it still seemed like she never had what she wanted, or enough of it, when she decided to knit or crochet something.  She realized she needed to spin with a project in mind rather than just spinning, and trying to find a use for it later.  As a very beginning spinner but experienced knitter, I can already see this is true.  I make a beautiful skein of yarn, and then think "what can I do with this?"  Often, my options are severely limited by the amount - one skein, even mine which I make as big as I can, just isn't enough for much more than a hat or scarf, maybe baby socks?  For myself and my family, I mostly make sweaters, mittens, hats, socks, and such.  Some of those are smaller projects, but they usually need a fine yarn, so what on earth do I do with a small skein of chunky yarn?  

So, I'm trying to spin yarns that I can at least envision what it could be, even if I don't have specific plans to make that.  The gray I just spun is the second of (hopefully) matching yarns that will make me a sweater this next winter.  The finer two-tone yarns are great for the newscaps that I enjoy making, and get so many compliments for the boys.  

I'm also loving the fact that, with a wheel rather than a drop spindle, I can make big skeins.  The drop spindle I use for plying can only hold about 100 yards of medium to bulky weight, and maybe 200 of very fine weight yarn.  Since I have the jumbo flyer - the main part that spins and winds the yarn onto the bobbin - and a jumbo bobbin, I can fill the two regular bobbins all the way, and ply them together on the bigger one for easily 200 to as much as 400 yards of finished yarn.  I haven't tried more than a few yards of laceweight yarn, but when I get around to doing a full skein of that, I imagine it could be easily 600 yards in a skein.  I really prefer working with large amounts of yarn - I'd much rather cut my yarn at the end of a project than have to tie on  another ball, especially for the last 3 rows of knitting or something!  Also, I discovered, when I first started working with Suri alpaca yarn, that it is so smooth and silky that knots won't stay tied!  Within a few rows of knitting, the knot would have simply slid apart, and I had to start dabbing every knot with clear nail polish within 2 rows of knitting, then leave it to dry.  That was just not efficient, and I asked the mill to spin my yarn in 500 yard balls, which I love.  I can't get mine quite that big, but they are usually at least 200 or 300 now, much better than the 100 yds or less on the drop spindle!

I got an unexpected treat at the farmers market this past week - a customer stopped and asked if I had any use for      a spinning wheel!  It is non-functioning, because he accidentally dropped the flyer and it broke - and the wheel was custom-made so I can't just order a replacement off the internet.  But it is beautiful, he thought maybe someone would want it just for decoration, but I'm hopeful I can find a way to make it usable again.  There are some fiber festivals in the area (relatively speaking, of course) that I hope to get to this year, and maybe someone there would be able to help.  In the meantime, it's already serving a useful purpose as a decoy for Malachi - he loves to spin the wheel on my Lendrum, so now he can have one to play with (gently of course!) and not mess up my work in progress :)  Check out the fiber gallery for some more new photos. 

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
To help us prevent spam, please prove you're human by typing the words you see here.