Spinning batts

As I posted recently, I just purchased a set of Hanks In The Hood batts from Paradise Fibers, so this week I decided to finally break into them and see what they're all about. I decided that with the Cozy Stripes, I really wanted to produce bulky, felted singles.



This was a good idea in theory, except that between my wheel and the fiber, it was a battle hard won. My singles ended up far more thick and thin than I would have liked; I was fighting to draft smoothly. I don't think that the preparation is to blame, I think that I was just trying to force something on a fiber that it didn't want to be (with a less than stellar wheel...how I miss my Lendrum...)

I realized that I needed to pre-draft as carefully as possible, leaving almost nothing left to do when I was actually inserting the twist.

This is how I handled the batt to deal with the color changes. Here are the last two colors unrolled on the couch (so sorry, the photos were taken last night in artificial light, so please excuse the bad colors and crappy setting).



First, I split the batt as cleanly as I could just before the two-color overlap.


Then, I drafted that out lengthwise (in this picture I would have grabbed the top and bottom of it from this angle), making it pretty much as thin as I would need it to be for spinning the bulky singles.

Next, I split the batt where the color overlap ends and it becomes solid purple again.


I made this into a rolag, and drafted that out into a long continuous strip, pulling from both ends...



Until it looked like this:



Then I lengthened out the remaining solid purple bit, and rolled them all into tidy bundles:



There's probably other ways to do this as well, but that's what seemed to make sense for this particular project, and for the way that I wanted the colors to come out (with Noro-like transitions between the solid, rich tones of the individual colors).

Once I was done spinning, I gently felted the skein in a few alternating soaks in cold and hot water, with a little bit of squishing involved (enthusiastically executed by the three-year-old this morning).

Here are my results. Definitely knit-able (or crochet-able), but as far as consistency in spinning, not up to my usual standards.



I would love to crochet this into a flower-motif scarf (I find the vintage 70's combo is almost ugly, yet strangely inspiring), but I don't think that I have enough yardage for anything crocheted (this is just under 23 yards).



So....what do you suggest that I do with it?



Usually, I would have sat down immediately to knit this up as soon as it was dry, but instead, I got out my tiny Golding LeFleur spindle and spun some metallic thread out of some green blend Firestar (100% nylon).



(It's almost impossible to capture metallic colors on camera.)

Then I spun some fingering weight singles out of this stuff:



(The grey is actually a green, but...well, I'm having color troubles this week, it would seem.)

It's Hanks In The Hood "Moss", and I wasn't sure how I would feel about the layered colors.

As it turns out, it's alternating colors as I spin, which is quite fun!



I'm spinning this as fingering-weight singles on my Golding Celtic Knot, and I will then Andean-ply it to be a dk-weight two-ply.

The original plan was to three ply it with the thread, but....well, I don't really know what I was thinking. The colors are shockingly bad together, see?


Anyway, I'll use the thread as a binder for something else, but I'm not sure what yet. At the moment I'm really enjoying the color changes in the batt, and it's proving to be a much more enjoyable experience alltogether than the Cozy Stripes spun on my HitchHiker. Funny, I never thought I'd hear myself say that (or "see myself type that"?) about spindle spinning...

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Where the hell is Matt?

How is it that I've never heard of Matt before? More than likely, it is because I, like my friend Becca, never, ever click on video links (many apologies). However, since it was on Becca's blog, and she happens to be one of the funniest people that I know (and one of the funniest bloggers), I decided to click...and now I know who Matt is. So no pressure, but if you want to be in the know too (or just want to make fun of me for being so behind the times that I've never heard of the guy), check out the following video (NOTE: this clip is entirely family friendly and non-offensive to the general public):




You can find out more about him at WhereTheHellIsMatt.com. (If you do go there, be sure to click on the "about matt" section, which is hilarious).

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Independence Day (and more puppy pics)

For those who enjoy such things, here are yet more pictures of the puppies -- an yes, they're Golden Retrievers, as some of you have already guessed.









My sister Hannah and I cooked and baked for our Independence Day dinner as my parents and the rest of our siblings were en route from their vacation in New Jersey (they spent an extra week there after the two of us and my three children came back home to New York.)  My one brother who's in the Army and another who lives in the South flew in as well, so we could all be together (for the first time in a few years!)

Daisy helped me with the baking:








We made pound cake (pictured above, in batter form), zucchini bread, strawberry shortcakes and honey whole-wheat bread.





(The only people missing from this picture are Greg and I)

Happy Independence Day to all of the American readers out there!

I am working on some spinning, which I'll be able to show you in my next post.

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Cute pups and children...and lots of fiber!

After a fun week, we're finally back in NY.  The rest of my family is still in NJ to visit relatives, but we went back home to help take care of these brand new little cuties:



(I took this yesterday when they were three days old -- today they look the same, only fatter.)

On one of the last days down at the shore, we all split up to do our own things.  My children and I went to a nearby playground, although that was short-lived; the sun was beating straight down on us, and there wasn't any shade over the swings and such, so then we visited a convenience store, where we picked up some milkshakes and lollypops.   We went back to the house to enjoy our snack in the shade of the porch off of our room.



I got two new spindles in the mail (I've been wanting Golding spindles for a long time now, and I finally broke down and brought two).



They really do spin better than any others I've tried.  I'm telling you, there's nothing like a Golding spindle, and it's totally worth the price.  To me, every other brand I've tried is just pure frustration, but the long spin time on the Golding spindles makes it a joy to use.

I taught my littlest sister Rachel to spin:



(They're still in NJ for the rest of the week, so I left her with about a pound of fiber and the larger Golding to practice with.)

Here's the finished Rosebud Corriedale (Spunky Club), 8oz, spun on my HitchHiker:


(The top skein turned out a bit more marled than I would have liked, but such is the nature of things when you take chances with a two-ply.)



To spin these, I didn't split the wool at all -- just pre-drafted it out "full strength" to preserve the longer color runs.  I was able to fit 4 oz on each bobbin, and then just plied them together.



It's a bulky two-ply.  I gave it a rough wet-finishing to plump the yarn up an toughen it a bit; this will be mittens and a hat for Daisy, so it needs to be as resilient as possible.

And...I picked up the needles again!  I'm working on my Auburn Camp Shirt again, but before I started, I had some untangling to do (sadly, Daisy had gotten a hold of my working yarn and clapped it about three times, rendering it almost hopelessly knotted up).  I don't know why I waste so much time untangling when I could just cut the yarn and make it so much easier for myself, but I just can't bear waste, and I hate weaving in ends that much.  (Although really we all know that in the time that it took me to untangle that ball, I could have easily woven in about a hundred ends...but let's not speak of it.)



Two final beach pictures, just because they're cute:



My sister Grace and Daisy -- squatting baby pictures are pretty much the best thing ever, I think.



My boys "keeping warm" on a blazingly hot day.

One final fiber shot -- I had a $40 fiber credit at Paradise Fibers, so I spent it on something that I've never bought before: batts!



Pure Merino from Hanks In The Hood.  I see some fun spinning in my future...

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Alive and well down the Jersey shore

Thank you so much to everyone who's offered their congratulations. I'm still struggling with being tired and there are a lot of foods that I can't stomach yet, but having other people cook helps a lot. (It seems sometimes that the longer I look at the food, the less appealing it is, so if I actually have to prepare it start to finish, chances are I'm just going to eat a piece of fruit.)

Several of you asked if my husband would be home for the baby's birth. The answer is yes, I hope so. He plans to be home for R&R at Christmas, and hopefully all of the dates work out properly so that he can be there. He's such an integral part of my birthing process that I can't imagine him not being there. So I can say, "Hopefully, yes."

Something that may shock and astound you: I have not knit in over a week. In fact, I'm pretty sure the last time I picked up the needles was to finish up my (as yet unblogged) Loksins socks two Mondays ago at the fiber group I attend whenever I'm home. I know, strange. Instead, all that I want to do is spin.

Here I am spinning this morning.

I love the look on Daisy's face. She'd been happily sitting out there on the deck with me eating her breakfast, but just before the picture was taken she lost all interest in being pleasant.

I was working on the Rosebud roving that you saw on my wheel two posts ago -- it was going very slow as I learned the idiocyncratic nature of the HitchHiker, but now things are moving along at a much faster clip. It's still not nearly as efficient as my Lendrum back in Germany, but I did manage to finish up all of the Rosebud today, and now I just have to wet-finish it. If it's warm enough for the skeins to dry quickly tomorrow, I'll be able to take some pictures.

We've been having a rather lovely time here down at the New Jersey shore. A friend lent us their beach house, so we're within walking distance of the ocean, and have been going there every morning after breakfast.

Some of my favorite shots so far from the week:












(My sister Joy)


(My two youngest brothers Christopher and Joel, forever in search of trouble)


(Joy and my very pregnant sister Hannah)



Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some finished skeins to show you! (Oh, and maybe those finished Loksins...)

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A little (tiny) announcement

Yes, my friends, we have managed to add yet another little person to our family, due to arrive on December 24th. This explanes the slacking off of blog posting (even though I'm rounding the corner of week 14, I'm still nauseous and tired), and general lack of anything to say (empty -- or maybe too full -- pregnancy brain).

We're spending this week down at the Jersey shore, so fun, sandy pictures to follow!

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Home once again

Since last we spoke, I've bought a new wheel,



(Currently on the wheel is the latest offering from Spunky Club: Rosebud, destined to be a worsted/bulky two-ply for Daisy's winter hat and mittens)



Moved back to the States for the summer (three days spent in the AirForce terminal, waiting for seats on a cargo jet),



Got some new stash from The Loopy Ewe,


The Dyeing Arts Superwash Merino: Sandstone


Creatively Dyed Seawool: Independence

Was gifted with a huge bag of raw Alpaca fleece from my local fiber friends here,


And Max turned three.



(I made the ugliest crumb-topped coffee cake in the universe, but it was actually very delicious, and was polished off entirely in one go.)

I also finished two pairs of socks and a sweater, but you'll have to wait for the next post.

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