Spindle WIPs

I've had a mild attack of project guilt, so I've decided to finish my current spindle WIPs (works-in-progress) before starting any more new yarn.  So I'm taking stock of what I have started and what remains to be done:

"Almost" August challenge (Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore) yarn
Current status & plan: both singles are spun and need to be wound on bobbins; I plan to use my wheel to create the final 2-ply yarn. 

Next steps: Untangling first single and reloading it on appropriate bobbin; loading 2nd single on bobbin, plying on wheel, then finishing yarn & calculating skein statistics

English Garden wool sample gossamer yarn
Current status & plan: singles are spun; I plan to create a 4-strand cable yarn from this wool sample.

Next steps: Load singles on bobbins, then spin two 2-ply yarns, reload on bobbins and spin final 4-strand cable yarn, then finish yarn & calculate statistics.  Still need to decide if I'll spindle this whole yarn or use my wheel for any of the plying.

Mixed greens yarn
Current status & plan: moss green single is spun and wound into plying ball, mixed green batt single is spun and wound onto bobbin, emerald green single is not yet finished; I plan to create a 3-ply yarn using one strand of each single and will ply the yarn on my wheel

Next steps: finish spinning emerald green single & wind on to bobbin, reload moss yarn on to bobbin, ply singles together, then finishing yarn & calculate statistics

Starting yet another spinning project

One of the best characteristics about spindle spinning is how easy it is to grab an empty spindle & start a new project.  The other side of this coin is how easy it is have multiple ongoing projects.  Even when I know it would probably be better to finish up works-in-progress rather than start something new, what do I do?  I start something new, of course.  (see #10 on my 25 things list... I told you it explained a lot.)  While I might have been able to resist a new project, the lure of trying my new yellowheart Dragonfly spindle was too great for my willpower.

I have one last drum-carded batt from my Custom Fibers class and I decided it had waited long enough to meet its yarn destiny.  It's a blend of emerald and moss greens (BFL and Colonial wools, respectively) with a bit of copper firestar thrown in for a flash of sparkle. 

I grabbed my new spindle and started happily spinning away.  The batt was very soft and drafted extremely well, allowing me to spin the wool very quickly:

I am very pleased with this new spindle - it's nicely balanced and spins for a long time.  As I was spinning, I brainstormed what I wanted to do with this yarn, and I think I will make a 3-ply out of it.  I have the moss wool in a very thin single, then I have this mixed yarn, and I have plenty of the emerald green wool that I can spin for the third strand in the plied yarn.  The mixed & emerald singles will be similar gauge, but the moss single is much thinner.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the different thicknesses will create texture in the final plied yarn.

I wound the mixed greens yarn on to a storage bobbin (which fit perfectly, and I appreciated that moment of serendipity) and started spinning the emerald green wool with the spindle:



Pssst! Don't Do This

Pride goeth before the yarn becomes a tangly freaking mess that will likely mean my "Almost" August yarn will now be finished in October, not September.

Here is the flow of events:

1.  I read Alden Amos' treatise on spinning, paying particular attention to his thoughts on yarn management, including reloading yarn on storage bobbins.

2.  I buy a bobbin winder.

3.  I decide that despite all advice, it's unneccessary to worry about overloading a bobbin.  I am a fully capable adult who can easily manage a  very full bobbin.  I reason there are no spinning police, so I'm safe with this decision.

4.  The spinning powers-that-be decide I must be humbled. My penance will be spending a ridiculous amount of time rewinding the yarn on to an appropriately sized bobbin:

5.  I vow to never repeat this bobbin winding transgression and buy storage bobbins with 3" high sides.

Gossamer Yarn

I've been slightly obsessed (is that like being a little pregnant?) with using my new small 0.6 ounce Dragonfly spindle ever since I bought it. It is easily my smallest, lightest spindle and it has been very entertaining to spin ridiculously thin yarn on it. It doesn't seem right to say it's yarn, since it's more like thread. Right now I'm spinning a beautiful sample of dyed wool top with this spindle and I'm spinning about 80 WPI (wraps per inch).  What does this mean?  In other words, how many yarn diameters add up to one inch, therefore my yarn diameter is approximately 0.0125 inches wide.

According to iSpinToolkit, one of my favorite iPhone apps, 80 WPI is classifed as gossamer yarn, and if I had a pound of fiber spun at this gauge, I would create more than 10,000 yards of yarn. In comparison, a worsted weight yarn is around 12 wraps per inch and you get about 1,000 yards from a pound of fiber. Needless to say, I feel very sassy about gaining this skill level with my new spindle. While the 80 WPI gauge is for the single and I intend to create a plied yarn with it, the finished yarn will still be very thin and delicate.

New Dragonfly Spindles

I spent a couple of hours on a Saturday morning this month at Detta's Spindle, which is a treasure chest of wheels, looms, spindles, accessories, fiber, books, and everything else you can think of.  It is easily one of the nicest ways for a fiber artist to start her weekend. 

You may have noticed that I love my cherry wood Dragonfly spindle, which I bought at Detta's several months ago, because I use it all the time.  I'm using it now to spin the second single of my Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore yarn.  My spindle is a beautiful, balanced, handmade tool that was created by John Hunter, the owner & expert woodworker of The Dragonfly Workshop.  I love that he is a local woodworker based in Bloomington, MN. 

Well, it was impossible for me to walk away from more Dragonfly spindles. I have added three more to my collection, and I love the wood colors and the different sizes/weights of these tools:

Vital Statistics:
Large spindle - I'm not sure what type of wood is used, but the whorl is very smooth & dense & maple shaft; 3 3/4" whorl, 13" length; 4 1/8 ounces
Medium spindle - yellowheart whorl & walnut shaft; 2 7/8" whorl, 9 1/2" length; 1.6 ounces
Small spindle - big leaf maple burl whorl & walnut shaft; 1 3/4" whorl; 6 3/4" shaft; 0.6 ounces

Fortune Cookie

Hmm, did I order more handpainted wool?  Maybe I sleep-shopped?

Glorious September Vacation

I returned recently from a 4-day weekend in Hayward, Wisconsin.  My parents have rented a cabin there for the past four years and I've been lucky enough to spend long weekends with them during their WI getaways.  Mom & Dad always bring Grandma with them, and it's wonderful to spend time with family away from regular daily life.  My husband and his grandfather also spent the weekend in Wisconsin, and I think it's great to have everyone together from multiple generations.  The dogs, of course, absolutely love the cabin, the woods & the lake.  Out of all the paid vacation time I've used this year, this past weekend was the first one that truly felt like a vacation, where I could rest my mind and my body for a few days. 

Packing for the trip put a big smile on my face, since I had four pairs of handmade socks to bring with me.  Happiness is wearing handmade socks on vacation:

I think the strongest memories of this weekend will be the time I spent on the small fishing boat with my Dad and Grampa, where my job is to play "anchor girl" and ooo-&-aaah over the pretty fish they catch.  I lower & raise the anchor as needed when they pick a good fishing spot, and then I sit back, relax, and just breathe.  This is probably what made the weekend feel most like a vacation - I actually had a handful of hours with no phones, distractions, or demands.  You can hear the breeze through the trees, the occasional call of birds, and the water lapping against the side of the boat.  The air is fresh, the light is beautiful, and it feels really, really good to be alive. 

And here is proof that spinning yarn on spindles is perfectly mobile - you can spin anywhere.  I got several yards of Corriedale-silk blend fiber spun while relaxing on the boat.  This photo is deceptive, since there is a wicked amount of multi-tasking going on.  I'm holding up the spindle for a photo with one hand, taking the photo blindly with the other, and my foot is keeping tension on the anchor line to make sure the boat stays in the general location where the fishermen want it:

My husband's main hobby is photography and I know that he got a lot more photos than I did over the weekend.  I haven't seen them yet, but he always has beautiful shots, and I can't wait to pick out my favorites.  There are amazing colors and textures that I know will inspire my fiber & textile projects.  I want to explore methods of expressing my love of the northern Wisconsin lakes & woods in fiber.  I keep a little black book (literally) of my fiber ideas, so that I don't lose them when they suddenly occur to me, and there is now a page dedicated to my brainstorms for September vacation inspired yarn.

Spindlers October Challenge Anticipation

I'm still spinning the second Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore single for my "Almost" August Spindlers challenge, and I'll definitely finish that yarn this month. I'm excited to see how the plied yarn turns out with the heathered striping effect I'm trying to achieve. The next two months' challenge topics have been announced, and even though September's topic of Myths & Mythological Creatures sounds very, very fun, I know that my September calendar doesn't have enough breathing room to add this challenge to my to-do list. However, I anticipate October will be available for me to enjoy the challenge, which is Best Friends.

I must be hungry or stressed or something right now, because I immediately starting thinking about comfort food best friends, like peanut butter & jelly or grilled cheese & tomato soup. But in the long run, I'm not interested in using a food-based inspiration, so I prodded myself to think of other favorite Best Friends pairings. And one of my favorite comics, Calvin & Hobbes, popped into my head. Bingo! My vision is to create a 2-ply yarn using a thicker black and orange single plied with a thinner yellow, red & black single. I think the thicker Hobbes single should be striped, while the thinner Calvin single will come from a multicolored roving, so that it has more mixed and unpredictable bits of color. This should be a very fun & colorful yarn to create!

Favorite new tool

I wound off Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore single #1 using my new bobbin winder last night. And I kept thinking, why the hell didn't I buy one of these before?? In a smidgeon of the time it takes to wind a single into a plying ball, minus the cramped fingers of this activity, plus the benefit of being able to keep even tension at a distance on the winding yarn to equalize twist in it, I had a beautiful bobbin of yarn!

"Almost" August Challenge - making progress

For this spinning project, I’m using what is becoming my go-to spindle, my Dragonfly cherry top-whorl. I originally thought I would aim for a 3-ply sock weight yarn, but the fiber told me that wasn't its true destiny. It is drafting so smoothly and thinly that the yarn is becoming a self-striping 2-ply yarn and will likely be more of a lace weight. The finished yarn will have heathered stripes, gradually transitioning between the colors, with the stripes mirroring each other over the length of the yarn. Instead of socks, I predict that I will eventually treasure a rectangular Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore shawl. I predict the shawl will be gorgeous… and I know it will take much, much longer to make than a pair of socks. It would seem my 2011 New Year’s resolution & project list is starting earlier than usual.

Even though I didn’t post about this spinning project at the beginning of the month, I did start spinning the fiber on August 1st. On that day I was under the delirious notion it would be possible to start & finish this yarn in a mere 31 days… nevermind the high priority & overlapping work deadlines, medical appointments, family reunions & road trips, houseguests, and oh yeah, regular life & housework. So 23 days later, I’ve managed to spin about half the fiber:



There are a couple of awesome side benefits of knowingly missing the August Challenge deadline… I do not have to follow the rules and therefore I will use my wheel to ply this yarn, rather than using a spindle for the entire project. Also, because I know I am getting a lot of yardage out of this fiber, and I wasn’t very jazzed about the time it would take to wind each single into a neat plying ball, I justified the purchase of a Schacht bobbin winder, which just arrived this past weekend in the mail!

Spindlers August Challenge - almost

This month’s Spindlers Challenge is National Parks and I absolutely love this inspiration. However, even my rose-colored project glasses cannot blind me to the fact that it will be impossible for me to finish this spindle-spun yarn in August. Between a crazy-busy job, two family reunions in two different states, and other assorted appointments this month, I’ve had to sacrifice my “free” time to responsible choices like washing dishes and taking the dogs to the vet and other such things. But I will still enjoy this topic and use the challenge to make a good yarn, which will be finished in September.

My National Park choice was simple for me. Check this out… it’s Indiana!



See, there really is more than corn in Indiana. I grew up in northwest Indiana near the southern shore of Lake Michigan. This is a picture from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I immediately knew that I wanted to create a yarn that honored what I love about this place – the blues of the water & sky, the powdery sand, and the green of the dune grasses.

I purchased a beautiful 4 oz piece of handpainted top from woolgatherings on Etsy.com. She was inspired by a drive along the Pacific Coast Highway, but when I saw the fiber, I was reminded of spending time at the Lakeshore:

The fiber is a blend of combed BFL and tussah silk, and I love how the luster of both fibers is like sunlight shining on the lake. My original plan is to make a sock weight yarn with this fiber, so that I can have Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore socks to treasure.

Spindlers July Challenge

I decided to take the July theme, Adventures & Discoveries, as an invitation to challenge myself to use the same fiber and spindle to experiment with making different kinds of yarn. I have plenty of variegated grey mill ends wool for this challenge. My “default” yarn seems to be emerging as a light fingering weight 2-ply yarn, which I really love, but I don’t want to fall into a rut with my spinning. Challenge is good for the brain and the fingers!

My materials:

I purchased the fiber from Detta, and the spindle comes from zebisis.

I spun three different kinds of singles - very thin with high twist, thick with low twist, and I tried thick-and-thin drafting, too. Here is a close-up of the different singles texture:



I decided that I liked the thicker single as it was, as well as the thick-and-thin single. I plied the thin single in two different ways - first in a 2-ply and then I tried Navajo (or chain) plying it for a 3-ply. The finished yarns:



So, what discoveries did I make with this challenge? I discovered that I really need to practice Navajo plying, because wow, it's hard to smoothly handle the yarn and keep the spindle turning during plying. I discovered that I have a pretty nice "default" yarn. And lastly, I discovered that I really like making a thicker, low-twist single yarn. It's very soft and it doesn't take much time to create a lot of yarn!

Pretty Thin Yarn

My latest spinning project uses my mossy green Colonial wool (dyed the fiber myself in that awesome Custom Fibers class) and my cherry wood spindle to see how thin & consistent I can spin right now. I'm feeling pretty sassy about it - I'm definitely improving my drafting skills. Plied back on itself, the yarn is still lace weight!

Victory over the Hound

It took time and patience, but I managed to save my yarn after Oliver stripped the plied yarn off the spindle and mangled, er, played with it.


Vital Statistics: 1.75 ounces; 80% Merino (red) and 20% mixed (green) blend; avg 18 - 20 WPI or light fingering weight; 204 yards

I punished this yarn pretty hard during the finishing process, shocking it with hot and cold water and agitating it a bit. I had used more of a semi-woolen drafting style, and I wanted to make sure the plies clung together. The yarn is nicely rustic and very soft. I predict a pretty lace scarf will come from this yarn.

As for naming this yarn, perhaps I'm inspired by the season and our vegetable garden, but the color suggests Vine-Ripe Tomatoes to me. Maybe the yarn will help the tomato in the photo ripen as fast as possible!

Bad Dog. Very Bad Dog.

As I told Oliver, when I caught him enjoying this great "toy" he found this morning, it's a good thing he's already neutered.

To give credit where it's due, I'm reluctantly impressed that a creature without opposable thumbs can manage to strip the cop off a spindle so neatly.