My spinning class on Saturday got off to a great start! Of course there were the usual beginning bobbles and fluffs, but by the end of the class everyone was making yarn! I'm so proud of these ladies - they're truly wonderful and such good sports!
My ramblings last week appear to have borne something or other. I did indeed break down the spindling process to minimal bits, starting with fondling and dissecting the spindles, then moving on to the fiber itself. We pulled a single fiber to check length, pulled a couple more to check how easy it was to break them, pulled and twisted a few to see what difference that made, etc., etc., etc. Baby steps? Sure! But everybody learns to walk with baby steps!
We stopped with park and draft, and everyone promised at least 15 minutes of practice each day. For those who emailed me directly to ask, we're using Louet Octo spindles and Louet's BFL top. This is a nice top, with enough tooth to help beginners along, yet enough sheen and softness to keep knitters' fingers happy.
I do like Louet's fibers, although I'm not as crazy about their spindles, and the Octo spindles are a perfect example of why. These spindles came in very rough. Careful sanding was required before they could be used, so as to smooth the many rough spots without affecting the balance. Luckily, the spindles arrived enough in advance of the first class to allow this to be done.
On the plus side, the spindles could be individualized with permanent markers in various colors and a couple of coats of beeswax and lemon oil made the sanded wood feel warmer and much more pleasant in the hands. The spindles function well, with excellent balance and a long spin time. Also on the plus side, the hooks are very sturdy and seem to travel well. However, it makes me a bit unhappy to purchase a fixer-upper that isn't labeled as such.
Saturday we'll travel a bit further along the road to fiber addiction, taking a look at the various ways to wind a cop, plying options, and moving from park and draft to drop spindling. We'll talk about finishing yarn - washing, weighting to dry (or not) and some of the commercial fiber options out there. Creating new fiber addicts is so much fun!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Spindling Class Begins Saturday!
A note to any of my students who read this prior to the class: you WILL succeed in learning to spindle - as long as you're willing to give yourself time to learn. Muscle memory isn't built in a single two-hour class, or even in three. It's built with patient practice, a little bit every day. It's akin to learning to play a musical instrument; in order to become proficient you must not only study theory (learn about fiber), but practice playing (spindling). Everyone knows that learning to play an instrument takes some time. So be gentle with yourself, and grant yourself the time needed to learn. The reward, as with music, is a lifetime of pleasure.
Now to the blog entry! I'm teaching a spindling class beginning on Saturday. My LYS is offering it because there's a lot of interest - partially engendered by my sitting and spindling or wheel spinning at Thursday evening work sessions and before or after my knitting classes. Not to mention showing off fiber purchases!
I'm looking forward to the class, especially since all the students have become fiber buddies, either through taking a previous class or sharing time at the shop. While I teach spinning one-on-one on a regular basis, it's been a couple of years since I taught multiple students simultaneously, and those classes are always fun. (I work hard to make them fun!)
I've been thinking a lot as I go about the studio and house getting everything ready. Not about the tools or the fibers, or even the instructional materials - I've been thinking about spinning itself. Turning it around in my mind, so to speak. Since I already know and like these folks, I'm investing a lot of myself in this class (even more so than usual). I truly want them all to succeed in learning this new skill so we can share that as well as our knitting and crochet. My thoughts have ranged widely, dissecting past classes and trying to incorporate lessons I've learned from teaching so many through the past fifteen-plus years. Since writing things out helps my thought processes, here goes!
The basis of spinning is deceptively simple - start the spindle going, pinch, pull, release the prepared fiber until the spindle is at the floor, then gather that make on your hand and transfer it to the spindle shaft; begin again. Children get it in no time - my grandchildren could spin usable yarn by the age of five, and my then pre-teen children were spinning wonderful yarn well before I was. Adults, on the other hand, find it more challenging. Perhaps because we've already built long-standing muscle memories for other skills; perhaps because we're not as tuned to our bodies as children. I have no idea. I simply offer it as an observed fact.
I've tried in several ways to communicate that to my students, with less success than I would like. They watch me demonstrate, listen to the steps, then many get discouraged when their muscles don't perform perfectly the first time - or even the tenth. Reminders that spinning requires muscle memory and practice to build that memory fall on already-discouraged ears. And at least one or two decide that they 'can't' spindle. (These are usually the same ones who want to spin enough to go ahead and invest in a wheel, practice even more steps on that until they have the muscle memory built, then come back to spindling a couple of years later to find that it isn't nearly as difficult as they thought. More on these students later.)
Perhaps it has to do with our initial monetary investment. A good spindle costs $20 to $60 - a couple or three of hours of work at most local jobs. So we expect to learn in a similar proportion of our time. A good wheel runs several hundred dollars or our salary for a week or more of work. So we work longer at mastering the instrument in which we've invested more hard-earned dollars. We have to justify the spending. I'm not sure this explains the motivations of everyone who gives up on spindling and goes on to wheel spinning, but I have seen it happen in about half of the cases of people who decide they 'can't' spindle.
Some students do spend the time to develop the muscle memory for the basic steps, but are unhappy with their beginner yarn. After they learn to spin, shouldn't they be producing perfectly even singles within a few hours at most? Explanations that practice is the only medium by which a beginner reaches intermediate or master status again fall on ears un-tuned to that wavelength. The spindle they bought gathers dust for a while, then gets put into a yard sale or tossed out with the trash during spring cleaning. Such a shame.
Still other students decide that spindling is too slow. They master the muscle memory, and make good yarn. But they don't comprehend the contemplative nature of the dance. The meditative pace of preparing fiber and then spinning, dyeing and finishing yarn distresses them rather than providing a sanctuary. Sometimes these students persist and eventually tune into the melody of history and nature, becoming dedicated spinners and even teachers themselves; sometimes they go back to buying all their yarns because spinning is 'just too slow.' Again, a shame.
The students who come to learn the dance, on the other hand, are frequently the ones who stay with spindling. Their expectations are simple and varied - to learn something new, to learn to use a tool they find fascinating, to make a connection with history or to make their own yarns from their own sheep. Or perhaps just to inject some calm and a semblance of control into their life. These students aren't always the ones who learn the fastest - sometimes they struggle long after the class ends. But they see something in spindling that appeals to them at a level they can't always express. They are the students who start out as spinners, requiring only the skills and practice to succeed.
Of course, there are the occasional students who pick up a spindle, hook it into fiber they've instinctively pre-drafted, give it a twirl, and begin to spin perfect lace-weight singles immediately. It truly is instinct for these lucky few - they seem to channel the spirits of spinners who have come before them. They make a teacher look good, and tend to earn the envy (at least) of their fellow students (grin).
I tend to feel for the other students when a student like this appears in a class. I struggled a bit myself in the beginning. And didn't have the luxury of doing so in private - I learned to spindle at a public demonstration, by demonstrating for the public! So all my first over-twisted singles, dropped spindles when I compensated by under-twisting, and lumpy, misshapen beginner yarn were observed by a couple of hundred strangers who all felt free to comment on my mistakes. After that sort of public humiliation, I simply HAD to learn to spin. So I practiced doggedly, learning mostly on my own, but watching other spinners at every opportunity. I was one of those spinners who 'couldn't' learn on a spindle, by the way. But when I invested a week's salary in a used wheel, I forced myself to practice until I mastered it all.
Upon coming back to spindling, I found something I had missed in wheel spinning - a level of contemplation and calm I found essential to my well-being. Now I spindle and wheel spin, and love both for different reasons, even though the final product, yarn, is identical in both cases. So identical that I frequently can't tell later which way I originally spun the yarn!
Hoping for a high level of student success as well as even more fun, this time I've broken the instruction down into the most basic single components. We'll complete one stage before we move to the next. We'll begin with fondling, investigating, and tearing apart a little fiber, then move on to basic drafting. We'll add finger-twisting, then hooked-stick twisting, and then team spindling. Only after we've done all those will we actually tie a leader onto a spindle, loop prepared fibers through, and begin park and draft spindling one at a time. This may not (probably won't) all happen the first week, but hopefully by the end of the third week I'll have seven new spinners to add to the fold, and three weeks of happy memories on which we can all build!
Now to the blog entry! I'm teaching a spindling class beginning on Saturday. My LYS is offering it because there's a lot of interest - partially engendered by my sitting and spindling or wheel spinning at Thursday evening work sessions and before or after my knitting classes. Not to mention showing off fiber purchases!
I'm looking forward to the class, especially since all the students have become fiber buddies, either through taking a previous class or sharing time at the shop. While I teach spinning one-on-one on a regular basis, it's been a couple of years since I taught multiple students simultaneously, and those classes are always fun. (I work hard to make them fun!)
I've been thinking a lot as I go about the studio and house getting everything ready. Not about the tools or the fibers, or even the instructional materials - I've been thinking about spinning itself. Turning it around in my mind, so to speak. Since I already know and like these folks, I'm investing a lot of myself in this class (even more so than usual). I truly want them all to succeed in learning this new skill so we can share that as well as our knitting and crochet. My thoughts have ranged widely, dissecting past classes and trying to incorporate lessons I've learned from teaching so many through the past fifteen-plus years. Since writing things out helps my thought processes, here goes!
The basis of spinning is deceptively simple - start the spindle going, pinch, pull, release the prepared fiber until the spindle is at the floor, then gather that make on your hand and transfer it to the spindle shaft; begin again. Children get it in no time - my grandchildren could spin usable yarn by the age of five, and my then pre-teen children were spinning wonderful yarn well before I was. Adults, on the other hand, find it more challenging. Perhaps because we've already built long-standing muscle memories for other skills; perhaps because we're not as tuned to our bodies as children. I have no idea. I simply offer it as an observed fact.
I've tried in several ways to communicate that to my students, with less success than I would like. They watch me demonstrate, listen to the steps, then many get discouraged when their muscles don't perform perfectly the first time - or even the tenth. Reminders that spinning requires muscle memory and practice to build that memory fall on already-discouraged ears. And at least one or two decide that they 'can't' spindle. (These are usually the same ones who want to spin enough to go ahead and invest in a wheel, practice even more steps on that until they have the muscle memory built, then come back to spindling a couple of years later to find that it isn't nearly as difficult as they thought. More on these students later.)
Perhaps it has to do with our initial monetary investment. A good spindle costs $20 to $60 - a couple or three of hours of work at most local jobs. So we expect to learn in a similar proportion of our time. A good wheel runs several hundred dollars or our salary for a week or more of work. So we work longer at mastering the instrument in which we've invested more hard-earned dollars. We have to justify the spending. I'm not sure this explains the motivations of everyone who gives up on spindling and goes on to wheel spinning, but I have seen it happen in about half of the cases of people who decide they 'can't' spindle.
Some students do spend the time to develop the muscle memory for the basic steps, but are unhappy with their beginner yarn. After they learn to spin, shouldn't they be producing perfectly even singles within a few hours at most? Explanations that practice is the only medium by which a beginner reaches intermediate or master status again fall on ears un-tuned to that wavelength. The spindle they bought gathers dust for a while, then gets put into a yard sale or tossed out with the trash during spring cleaning. Such a shame.
Still other students decide that spindling is too slow. They master the muscle memory, and make good yarn. But they don't comprehend the contemplative nature of the dance. The meditative pace of preparing fiber and then spinning, dyeing and finishing yarn distresses them rather than providing a sanctuary. Sometimes these students persist and eventually tune into the melody of history and nature, becoming dedicated spinners and even teachers themselves; sometimes they go back to buying all their yarns because spinning is 'just too slow.' Again, a shame.
The students who come to learn the dance, on the other hand, are frequently the ones who stay with spindling. Their expectations are simple and varied - to learn something new, to learn to use a tool they find fascinating, to make a connection with history or to make their own yarns from their own sheep. Or perhaps just to inject some calm and a semblance of control into their life. These students aren't always the ones who learn the fastest - sometimes they struggle long after the class ends. But they see something in spindling that appeals to them at a level they can't always express. They are the students who start out as spinners, requiring only the skills and practice to succeed.
Of course, there are the occasional students who pick up a spindle, hook it into fiber they've instinctively pre-drafted, give it a twirl, and begin to spin perfect lace-weight singles immediately. It truly is instinct for these lucky few - they seem to channel the spirits of spinners who have come before them. They make a teacher look good, and tend to earn the envy (at least) of their fellow students (grin).
I tend to feel for the other students when a student like this appears in a class. I struggled a bit myself in the beginning. And didn't have the luxury of doing so in private - I learned to spindle at a public demonstration, by demonstrating for the public! So all my first over-twisted singles, dropped spindles when I compensated by under-twisting, and lumpy, misshapen beginner yarn were observed by a couple of hundred strangers who all felt free to comment on my mistakes. After that sort of public humiliation, I simply HAD to learn to spin. So I practiced doggedly, learning mostly on my own, but watching other spinners at every opportunity. I was one of those spinners who 'couldn't' learn on a spindle, by the way. But when I invested a week's salary in a used wheel, I forced myself to practice until I mastered it all.
Upon coming back to spindling, I found something I had missed in wheel spinning - a level of contemplation and calm I found essential to my well-being. Now I spindle and wheel spin, and love both for different reasons, even though the final product, yarn, is identical in both cases. So identical that I frequently can't tell later which way I originally spun the yarn!
Hoping for a high level of student success as well as even more fun, this time I've broken the instruction down into the most basic single components. We'll complete one stage before we move to the next. We'll begin with fondling, investigating, and tearing apart a little fiber, then move on to basic drafting. We'll add finger-twisting, then hooked-stick twisting, and then team spindling. Only after we've done all those will we actually tie a leader onto a spindle, loop prepared fibers through, and begin park and draft spindling one at a time. This may not (probably won't) all happen the first week, but hopefully by the end of the third week I'll have seven new spinners to add to the fold, and three weeks of happy memories on which we can all build!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Those Fingerless Mitts I Mentioned...
Those were truly a fun project - and one from which I learned a lot (again) about spinning for a specific purpose! But let's start at the beginning of the story. Picture me climbing into the passenger seat of a very high full-size van en route to do something undefined at that strange place where I earn the money I put into necessities like fiber and yarn.
My partner in staving off tedium threw a red blob in my general direction. "Hey, you knit, right? Can you make these? I go through about five pairs a winter cleaning out the barn."
Well, that's a challenge! What are these necessities for the horsey...good grief - these are just fingerless mitts!
"Why on earth do you go through so many?" I questioned.
"Because hay and pitchforks are tough on dime-store mitts," he replied. "These are crap!"
I took a closer look. While probably not literally dime-store mitts (anybody got a dime-store around these days?), they weren't what I would expect to see as working wear. Loosely-spun and -plied acrylic yarn, knit at a gauge that, while perfect for a sweater, isn't too good for something you're planning to wear while actually working. The palms were abraded by the pitchfork handle, the ribbing at wrist and fingers too short and also abraded, and the backs of the hands picked almost to pieces by the hay.
I cogitated for a couple of weeks. It is summer, so I had plenty of time. Every once in a while, my brain would throw out a question for my partner in the effort. "Does color matter?" "Put your hand down on this piece of paper and let me draw around it." I threw a couple of swatches (knit in the round from various handspun samples) in the right general direction and asked, "Is this OK, or is it too prickly?" We both withstood the teasing that came our way from our co-workers.
The result of this was a two-ply sport-weight yarn worsted-spun from about 2 ounces of gray Corriedale top purchased from somewhere or other several years ago that's been marinating in my stash. Bradford count on this was low for Corriedale - about 52 - so it was a good, sturdy yarn. I did try three-plying, by the way, but the mitts were more like armor (too stiff and too heavy for East Tennessee), so I dropped back to two-ply. Firmly spun and firmly plied. Final yarn is 16 wpi. Then I started swatching again, wanting a firm fabric that wasn't so stiff it wouldn't move with the hands. A final gauge of 6 sts and 8.5 rows per inch on size 2 needles worked out quite well.
These are simple, fingerless mitts. Patterns abound, and I won't post another one here. I did "modify" them to fit the needs of the wearer with longer cuffs (3.5 inches to slide under a barn jacket) and tighter fit (negative ease of about an inch) to keep them from sliding around on the pitchfork. The gauge was firm enough to keep hay from scratching through the mitts. I kept it simple despite an impulse to make a button-back mitten over the fingers.
I tossed them on my buddy's desk last week. He was totally delighted! But he's a Minnesota boy who appreciates warm, well-made knitwear. Otherwise, despite the intriguing nature of the challenge, I wouldn't have bothered. Just goes to show that a challenge (and appreciation) can come from the most unlikely places...
Monday, August 10, 2009
Teaching thinking knitters...
I'm having such fun right now! A new LYS has opened up right down the road from my home, and I'm happily teaching my first knitting class in almost a year. Socks are fun to teach, fun to learn, and such a wonderful summer project! I have five wonderful students, all at different stages of their knitting life, and they're providing both a challenge and a camaraderie that I've been missing recently. Work has just been interfering too much with my fiber life!
I'm a bit of a shock to these lovely knitters in several ways - hopefully a pleasant shock, but nonetheless a shock. I announced first that we wouldn't be using a pattern for their socks - they would have to create their own pattern. At least two of the students had taken the class specifically because it would include design elements, and the newest knitter is wonderfully courageous, so that's settled. Next was the announcement that I didn't care what knitting method they used; any system that gets a knitted fabric is fine with me.
We talked about fiber. My Fiber 101 lecture has been given here before, so I won't repeat. Some of these students have been knitting for decades, but strictly by pattern, and know surprisingly little about the raw stuff of yarn itself. One of my goals for this class is to teach them how to intelligently choose a fiber. Yes, this is a sock class - but this is basic information that all knitters should learn, and too many of them don't! Superwash has different characteristics than untreated wool, nylon and acrylic blends have yet other characteristics, and a good gauge swatch will tell you so much more than you think at first glance!
The next shock? Measuring their foot as an aid to assist in creating the sock design. The difference in six (with my own) individual feet was a surprise to everyone in this time of standardized sizes. Almost everyone will have a different cast-on number, some will need to decrease down the leg, others will need additional gusset decreases to fit properly...light bulbs started to pop, and I became almost giddy!
The final shock for this class? To look at their gauge swatch as a method of playing with different design elements. Swatching as play? Absolutely! It's the best place to try out the different ribbings you might want to use, see how those flow into the leg patterning you want, see how things change between the patterning and the stockinette you'll use on the bottom of the foot, check out if your stitch pattern will show up in the yarn...of course you're playing!
Many thanks to Sandy and Robin for opening Clinch River Yarn Company - a lovely haven for knitters in the East Tennessee area. Please visit their website at http://www.clinchriveryarns.com/ for directions, hours, class schedules, newsletters and updates. New yarns are arriving for fall, new classes are being formed, and a welcoming, peaceful fiber oasis is in the process of creation. Please stop by - they would love to meet you! My thanks to them for giving me an opportunity to do what I love most - teaching!
I'm a bit of a shock to these lovely knitters in several ways - hopefully a pleasant shock, but nonetheless a shock. I announced first that we wouldn't be using a pattern for their socks - they would have to create their own pattern. At least two of the students had taken the class specifically because it would include design elements, and the newest knitter is wonderfully courageous, so that's settled. Next was the announcement that I didn't care what knitting method they used; any system that gets a knitted fabric is fine with me.
We talked about fiber. My Fiber 101 lecture has been given here before, so I won't repeat. Some of these students have been knitting for decades, but strictly by pattern, and know surprisingly little about the raw stuff of yarn itself. One of my goals for this class is to teach them how to intelligently choose a fiber. Yes, this is a sock class - but this is basic information that all knitters should learn, and too many of them don't! Superwash has different characteristics than untreated wool, nylon and acrylic blends have yet other characteristics, and a good gauge swatch will tell you so much more than you think at first glance!
The next shock? Measuring their foot as an aid to assist in creating the sock design. The difference in six (with my own) individual feet was a surprise to everyone in this time of standardized sizes. Almost everyone will have a different cast-on number, some will need to decrease down the leg, others will need additional gusset decreases to fit properly...light bulbs started to pop, and I became almost giddy!
The final shock for this class? To look at their gauge swatch as a method of playing with different design elements. Swatching as play? Absolutely! It's the best place to try out the different ribbings you might want to use, see how those flow into the leg patterning you want, see how things change between the patterning and the stockinette you'll use on the bottom of the foot, check out if your stitch pattern will show up in the yarn...of course you're playing!
Many thanks to Sandy and Robin for opening Clinch River Yarn Company - a lovely haven for knitters in the East Tennessee area. Please visit their website at http://www.clinchriveryarns.com/ for directions, hours, class schedules, newsletters and updates. New yarns are arriving for fall, new classes are being formed, and a welcoming, peaceful fiber oasis is in the process of creation. Please stop by - they would love to meet you! My thanks to them for giving me an opportunity to do what I love most - teaching!
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Learning...
Many thanks to everyone who has continued to visit this blog, and leave me lovely comments about what they've learned or enjoyed.
What have I been up to, and why has it been so long since my last post? Well, things change during our lives, and sometimes they change in most unexpected ways. As you can see from the photo above, I've done a little travelling this last year. Italy was an education in many ways, and my time there was much too short. It was a work-related trip, and I did indeed work hard for the first portion of the trip. But the second portion was pure pleasure - a solitary trip across from Genoa to Venice via Trenitalia and four days in a beautiful city before another crossing delivered me back to Genoa for the flight home.
The trip grew out of a change in my daytime job. A promotion of sorts and much-changed responsibilities and duties have kept me learning steadily. I'm finally (16 months later) beginning to feel that I know more or less what's expected of me, and have a routine in place to meet those expectations. The change has been good for me, letting me stretch myself in unexpected directions, and changing my focus. Change is indeed a good thing at times in our lives... I have no time to be anything but grateful about our recently emptied nest!
From a fiber standpoint, I've been learning, and applying, some...not new lessons, but new applications of old lessons. When you have little time for spinning and knitting, you tend to make that time count. I've concentrated on project planning as the path to that. I don't have time or energy to expend on failed projects right now. That sounds a bit arrogant, I suppose, so let me explain. I've gone from 10-20 hours per week for knitting and/or spinning to less than 4. Failed projects are certainly learning experiences, but analysis is often required to extract that learning. Analysis takes time. Since I'd rather spend as much time playing with fiber as possible, I've concentrated on designing "successful" projects. How on earth do I guarantee (within limits, of course) that a project will be successful?
Planning.
I think about what I want, first of all. I've been working on lots of sweaters this year, mostly for summer or three-season wear. I've actually only completed one, but I have three others at various stages from barely cast-on to finishing up sleeves. I'm quite pleased with all of them. Let's see if I can go back through the planning process so you can see what I'm talking about.
East Tennessee's central valley is a moderate climate. We have little in the way of snow, and temperatures range from a high of the upper-90's in July-August to the upper 30's and low 40's in January. Humidity levels are quite high during the summer, and compared to someplace like the desert southwest, fairly high year-round. That means we wear lots of cotton, some linen, rayon, and silk, and lace- to sport-weight wool. Even lace-weight alpaca is for the rare one or two days per year it actually stays in the teens and 20's - except for caps and gloves. But cotton is a year-round option. Wool-cotton mixtures are three-season wear.
My usual routine is work, gym and home, with occasional forays for an evening out for dinner, at a theatre performance or concert. Making my own gym clothes...doesn't appeal to me. Occasions for "dressy" clothes in my life are few - it's a relaxed part of the country where even high-end restaurants find jeans and a nice top, perhaps with the addition of a jacket, sufficient. My work clothes are, for electrical safety reasons, non-conductive natural fibers. Mostly that translates to khakis and a knit t-shirt during the summer and jeans with a t-shirt topped by a sweater or vest in the fall, winter and spring. The clothes I wear to work, with minor changes in accessories, will go pretty much anywhere I do.
Like most others, I live within a definite budget. While good yarn isn't completely outside my means, I do have to shop carefully. Some of the changes I talked about involve income changes linked to the current economic recession. While our overall income has dropped only a bit, any drop makes a difference. I still get sticker shock from paying as much for a week's worth of food for two people as I used to pay for a family of five. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I want value for my dollars. So I think about which yarns will give me the look and weight of fabric I want while still standing up to more than a single year's wear. And while I don't mind hand-washing, I must admit that I love machine-washable convenience for most of my everyday clothes.
Styles that will carry over multiple years are another part of the planning. I don't knit that quickly, so I look for well-fitted, timeless styles that flatter my body, in colors that suit me well. How do I know what colors and styles suit me well? Folks, I'm well into my fifties. By now, I've learned what colors work with my skin and what colors don't. Ditto styles - collars, silhouettes, lengths. If you haven't figured that out yet, schedule a shopping trip with a really good (and truthful) friend - or almost any female teenager. Try on a variety of styles and colors, asking for an opinion each time. You'll learn a lot in a hurry. Oh, did I mention you should leave your tender feelings behind on this expedition? Never ask for an opinion if you don't want to hear it...
By the time I'd worked my way through this process a handful of times with my daughter and/or mother, I had a pretty good idea what works on me. I have an hourglass shape that is short-waisted and heavy-breasted. Sounds great - but I'm only 5 feet tall. So standard natural waist shaping with ribbing works well on me; so does a high hip-length with close shaping at waist and bust. Princess lines are good on me, as are v- or crew necklines. I stay away from tunic-length tops unless I plan to wear them as a dress substitute; boat necks don't flatter me at all; and turtlenecks only work as a layering item. Even then, mock turtlenecks are better. Cowel necklines...don't work.
Waist shaping is easy, and can be incorporated not only on the "side" seams, but also at the back (center or 3-4 inches either side of the center), included in the stitch design (cables, ribbing) or however you can make it work. While I've tried vertical bust darts once, I didn't like the look with the other pattern elements in that design, and ripped it back out to go back to my usual short-row bust shaping. (I'll try it in another design, though.) Sleeves...I wear almost every style of fitted sleeve (short bell sleeves aren't good with a heavy bust), but fitting sleeveless styles so they don't gap can be a challenge. I usually meet it with a set of decreases between the high bust in front and lower shoulder blade in back, oriented on a tangent to the binding.
So now you have my personal "standard" styles, and some guidelines about the type of fiber I will find most wearable. So it's time to shop for either fiber or yarn.
I do like cotton, and I like to spin cotton. However, my previous knitting projects with my handspun cotton were only moderately successful. The yarns pilled and wore too fast to suit me, even when spun with a great deal of twist and plyed to balance. The cotton yarns I like to wear are soft, but with body enough to stand up to wear - in other words, multiple plies. I don't really have any desire at this time to spin 8-ply cotton yarns. That may change, but right now it doesn't appeal. There are plenty of commercially-spun possibilities available, and some of my favorite include cotton/silk and cotton/linen blends. I've also used cotton/modal and cotton/rayon blends with some success. Cotton is practical for my climate, offering year-round wear, and if lace, fingering or sport weight, moves well on my body. So cotton is almost always a component in yarns I choose.
I'm a spinner - I LOVE wool. It breathes, it moves, it cushions, it bounces...a wonderful fiber. But in this part of the country, it's at best mid-winter wear. Oh, you can get away with a fingering-weight wool vest from perhaps mid-November through mid-March (more likely mid-December through mid-February), but whatever you're wearing underneath had best be summer-weight! I already have a couple of sweaters that fit this bill, and a Fair-Isle vest on the needles...wool is out. I want something I can wear a lot.
I like knitted linen...the texture, the colors, and the drape always scream "summer" to me. And unlike woven linen, knitted fabrics don't wrinkle whenever you glance their way. It's only soft after considerable washing, though, and I promised myself after my last knitted linen project I'd never knit something big from it again - my hands hurt for months, both during and after I'd finished. Perhaps a blend of linen and cotton?
Silk...is there anyone who doesn't love the feel of silk fabric? Whether textured or smooth, knitted or woven, crunchy or soft, silk is the fiber I feel defines the word decadence. It's fairly easy-care, in lace or fingering weight you get a lot of knitting for your fiber buck, nothing else drapes like it, clings like it, moves like it. It's one of my favorite fibers to spin, especially from caps or handkerchief preps. Dyeing silk is pure pleasure. Silk is always on my list of possibilities. But designing with silk yarn takes careful work to make sure the cling and the stretch which sometimes comes along with wearing is controlled. I'll never forget the handspun silk t-shirt I knitted early in my knitting life. It hung straight from the bust, and the longer I wore it, the longer it became. A mid-hip length with a crew neckline was a knee-length scoop-necked dress after only 3-4 hours! But I've learned a lot since then, and silk is definitely a contender.
All right, I have some ideas about design, and I've narrowed my fiber choices some. Now comes the next big decision - purchase fiber and spin it, or buy yarn and get straight to the knitting?
I love spinning. The feel of my feet moving in a gentle rhythm with my hands, fiber slipping through and gathering on the bobbin...it's was these moments of peace that got me through raising three teenagers. Fiber is less expensive than yarn, which is always nice for the fiber/yarn budget. Time spent spinning is always pleasant, spinning the yarn myself lets me completely control the design process...time to explore some options. I'll start with the fiber stash.
Let's see...I have plenty of silk caps. I could dye either before or after spinning, and it would be fun to spin the yarn myself. But it will take a lot longer, meaning I'll not wear the top until at least next spring, and time spent spinning will definitely cut into my overall fiber time. What about silk yarn? Hit the internet and yarn catalogs. Ouch! Silk would definitely need to be spun from fiber already on hand. Final decision: it's a great idea for a project, and I'd love doing it, perhaps spinning during the winter or during our vacation in the fall. But for now, let's put a handspun silk sweater on the back burner.
That pretty much leaves cotton. While I can certainly spin cotton (and do!), I still have the drawbacks outlined above. It's a much less expensive yarn purchase, wearability is great, you can usually machine wash and frequently machine dry. Let's see what's out there...nothing online strikes my fancy. I'll wait. An impromptu day-trip led to a 'crawl' of yarn shops that aren't quite local, and... Oh, this is nice! A variegated "ocean"colorway in fingering-weight 8-ply cotton that's fairly soft, yet with enough body for ribbing and/or lace designs. Not too dear, since 100-gram skeins are about $18 each and I can do a short or cap-sleeve design with three skeins. Even better, I'm getting a definite "picture" of a sweater that would be wonderfully wearable on me.
Needless to say, I bought the skeins. No guilt at all, since my DH was along on this trip and absolutely pushed me into it (he loved the colors). Now for a swatch! The size 4 mm needles recommended on the skein band gave a terrible fabric - stitches too big and floppy, fabric sleezy, washing and blocking just made it worse, gauge for me was 4 sts/inch instead of the recommended 5.25-6. I ravelled it back out to save the yarn and cast on again - to a size 2.75 mm needle! Within a dozen rows, I knew I had to find a happy medium - the swatch was waaaaay too stiff! I moved up to a 3.25 mm needle, and found the right balance. A nice fabric, gauge 5.25 sts/inch, stitch definition in the pattern I wanted was lovely, with lace holes that were just right. Washing softened the hand, 'set' the stitches, and made the final decision easy.
The 'picture' I'd formed in my head wasn't complicated. A high-hip length top, with a modified horseshoe lace pattern at the bottom, and 2 purl stitches between lace repeats forming ribs up the fabric. Sleeveless, or cap sleeves? Cap sleeves, if there's enough yarn; if not, I can wear it as a top in the summer and a vest the rest of the year. Waist shaping, short-row bust shaping, and a slightly-scooped neckline. Neck finishing...probably pick up and knit a 'collar' of the lace, or just an i-cord edging. Let's see when I get there. A little basic math later, and I cast on and began knitting from the bottom in the round.
The knitting on this one is going quite well. I did tink back about a dozen rows when I decided that the vertical bust darts just wouldn't work within the ribbed patterning (yep, this was the one!) and that I'd be better served by my usual short-row bust shaping. I'm through that now, and almost ready to start the decreases between the bust and armholes. It fits beautifully (yes, I do consider time spent transferring a couple of hundred stitches to a ribbon, then trying on the garment in process, and slowly slipping all those stitches back to the needles time VERY well spent), the colors aren't pooling unpleasantly, and it just feels good!
Of course, I won't be wearing it too soon...I got a request for a pair of fingerless mitts from a friend who does a lot of barn work, and that sidetracked me into designing a wool yarn for those, and now I'm knitting. I don't usually knit for someone outside the family (and not all of them!), but this particular friend both knows and appreciates the effort.
So now you have it - what I've been doing, and perhaps a few things to think about next time you start a new project. Hopefully I'll get back to posting on a fairly regular basis now... Till next time!
Monday, March 03, 2008
Baby Sweaters and EZ and Me…
About three years ago we went through one of those periods at work where it seemed that everyone was having a baby. You know what that’s like – you get one person making an announcement and next thing you know there are five, and you’re seriously debating the merits of bottled water as an alternative work-time liquid!
Since three of the people bursting at the seams were friends of mine, I started looking at baby sweater patterns. I had managed to pretty much skip that part of the “becoming a knitter” process – at the time I probably should have made a couple, I didn’t have anyone around who needed a baby sweater! Needless to say, one of the first things I found was Elizabeth Zimmerman’s lovely baby surprise jacket (BSJ) in garter stitch. I was intrigued, and decided to knit one just to give it a try. Next thing I knew I was casting on for my fourth! These things are not only fun, they’re quite addictive and wonderfully magical! The sweaters were received with great awe, and I was hailed as something of a magician myself.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had begun a tradition. I work, day in and day out, with about 200 people. So babies, while not an everyday occurrence, are still born at least a couple of times a year. I’ve now become almost bored with baby sweaters. I’ve tried different patterns (from various sources), in various yarn weights, and enjoyed all of them – they’re fast and pretty. But I still prefer, for simple, fun knitting, the old reliable EZ standby.
In order to liven up that old standby for the newest arrival (a girl), I decided that I ought to be able to insert some lace into the pattern. Heaven forbid I should do an all-over lace stitch, though! Actually, I was afraid to do a lace fabric. I wasn’t too sure how the twists and turns would look when the whole thing was finished, and I also was a bit nervous about keeping the pattern aligned during all the decreases and increases. Not to mention what an all-over lace pattern might do to the shaping of this gem!
So I hit the world-wide web and Googled “baby surprise sweater in lace.” I couldn’t possibly be the only person who had ever thought of this, right? I came up empty. There were all sorts of hits for the BSJ, of course, but none of them seemed to include lace! I gave up and emailed Meg Swanson. Just in case some of you are brand-new knitters, I’ll explain that Meg is Elizabeth’s daughter as well as a gifted designer in her own right. I asked if she had seen any BSJ’s that included lace patterning, secure in the knowledge that she could probably point me in the direction of a dozen or more. Imagine my surprise when she responded that while she thought she’d heard about one, she hadn’t really seen anything!
Obviously, I was in trouble. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, wanted to knit this BSJ, didn’t really have time to knit it twice and…got out the paper and scissors. I drew (badly) a diagram of the BSJ before seaming, sketched in the areas where I wanted lace to show up, and started trying to work them into the instructions. After a couple of hours and most of an eraser, I thought I had the start of a procedure that would give me something acceptable. Below is a picture of the finished BSJ with lace insert.
As you can see, I had some challenges. I chose a simple Shetland flower pattern as an insert, trying to arrange things so that it provided an edging around the sweater. The sleeves and back were perfect, and the bottom worked out well. But the inserts on the fronts didn’t work out quite as I had hoped. They look pretty, but didn’t quite make it all the way down either side of the buttons from collar to hem, which was what I had visualized.
However, I now have some additional ideas for the next iteration. There’s another baby on the way at the end of the summer, and I’m hoping for another girl. This time I actually DO want to try an all-over lace pattern, probably in a simple garter-stitch lace that will echo the construction lines of the sweater itself. I think it will work! Elizabeth, thank you so much for this incredible design – and for empowering knitters everywhere with the gift of supportive exploration!
Since three of the people bursting at the seams were friends of mine, I started looking at baby sweater patterns. I had managed to pretty much skip that part of the “becoming a knitter” process – at the time I probably should have made a couple, I didn’t have anyone around who needed a baby sweater! Needless to say, one of the first things I found was Elizabeth Zimmerman’s lovely baby surprise jacket (BSJ) in garter stitch. I was intrigued, and decided to knit one just to give it a try. Next thing I knew I was casting on for my fourth! These things are not only fun, they’re quite addictive and wonderfully magical! The sweaters were received with great awe, and I was hailed as something of a magician myself.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had begun a tradition. I work, day in and day out, with about 200 people. So babies, while not an everyday occurrence, are still born at least a couple of times a year. I’ve now become almost bored with baby sweaters. I’ve tried different patterns (from various sources), in various yarn weights, and enjoyed all of them – they’re fast and pretty. But I still prefer, for simple, fun knitting, the old reliable EZ standby.
In order to liven up that old standby for the newest arrival (a girl), I decided that I ought to be able to insert some lace into the pattern. Heaven forbid I should do an all-over lace stitch, though! Actually, I was afraid to do a lace fabric. I wasn’t too sure how the twists and turns would look when the whole thing was finished, and I also was a bit nervous about keeping the pattern aligned during all the decreases and increases. Not to mention what an all-over lace pattern might do to the shaping of this gem!
So I hit the world-wide web and Googled “baby surprise sweater in lace.” I couldn’t possibly be the only person who had ever thought of this, right? I came up empty. There were all sorts of hits for the BSJ, of course, but none of them seemed to include lace! I gave up and emailed Meg Swanson. Just in case some of you are brand-new knitters, I’ll explain that Meg is Elizabeth’s daughter as well as a gifted designer in her own right. I asked if she had seen any BSJ’s that included lace patterning, secure in the knowledge that she could probably point me in the direction of a dozen or more. Imagine my surprise when she responded that while she thought she’d heard about one, she hadn’t really seen anything!
Obviously, I was in trouble. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, wanted to knit this BSJ, didn’t really have time to knit it twice and…got out the paper and scissors. I drew (badly) a diagram of the BSJ before seaming, sketched in the areas where I wanted lace to show up, and started trying to work them into the instructions. After a couple of hours and most of an eraser, I thought I had the start of a procedure that would give me something acceptable. Below is a picture of the finished BSJ with lace insert.
As you can see, I had some challenges. I chose a simple Shetland flower pattern as an insert, trying to arrange things so that it provided an edging around the sweater. The sleeves and back were perfect, and the bottom worked out well. But the inserts on the fronts didn’t work out quite as I had hoped. They look pretty, but didn’t quite make it all the way down either side of the buttons from collar to hem, which was what I had visualized.
However, I now have some additional ideas for the next iteration. There’s another baby on the way at the end of the summer, and I’m hoping for another girl. This time I actually DO want to try an all-over lace pattern, probably in a simple garter-stitch lace that will echo the construction lines of the sweater itself. I think it will work! Elizabeth, thank you so much for this incredible design – and for empowering knitters everywhere with the gift of supportive exploration!
Monday, January 14, 2008
Post-Holiday knitting and notes on my own design process
I’ve been busily knitting since the holidays – mostly several versions of Knitty’s Ice Queen in Kid Silk haze of blue and bright pink, followed by the wimple below in a pattern of my own devising. “How can you possibly make up your own patterns?” is something I hear all the time from both knitters and non-knitters. So I thought I’d detail the process that led to this leaf-lace wimple, and share the resulting pattern.
I had decided on a wimple for my mother for Christmas back in early November, and had cast on in a basic Shetland horseshoe pattern. Yarn was doubled lace-weight natural-colored cashmere on size 4 needles – I wanted something light-weight and very warm that she could wear with anything. My mother exercises in all kinds of weather, and even in East Tennessee it can get cold. So I did three repeats of the horseshoe pattern; then did simple double yarn-overs placed at the point of the horseshoe until I hit 18 inches, when I did five more repeats of the horseshoe pattern and bound off after 3 rounds of garter stitch. Pretty, warm, and won’t crush my mother’s hairdo. I washed, blocked and wrapped it for the holiday one Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving.
Enter my current student intern. She saw the wimple I’d done for my mother just before it was finished, and fell in love with it. So I thought I’d make one for her in blue kid mohair to match her pretty blue eyes, and went yarn shopping at my local LYS. I splurged – there’s no other word for it – on two skeins of blue and two of bright pink Kid-Silk haze. Came home and decided to cast on for the intern’s version in another lace pattern I love – feather and fan – and got a couple of inches completed that very day.
Within the next day or two, the winter Knitty was brought to my attention. I enjoy this on-line ‘zine for knitters, and have used several designs from its talented crew as a starting point for my own creations over the past couple of years. But I hadn’t knit something entirely from the magazine as yet. As you may have gathered, I’m just not a pattern knitter! Ice Queen changed that temporarily.
I had already completed quite a bit of the intern’s version, and went on with my original plan. She loved my own feather and fan version, by the way, and couldn’t believe I had made her something for the holiday. I do enjoy knitting for those who appreciate it! But I still wanted to do the Ice Queen in the pattern as shown – the decreases intrigued me, and I thought they’d solve the one problem I’d run into – the face is a bit wide. I thought I’d prefer something more snuggled up to keep the breezes out.
I had already decided that I’d like another wimple for myself. My winter leather coat is warm enough, except for the leather right around the neck that leads into the collar. That gets cold! I usually use a scarf to cover my neck in that area, and wear a hat. But I don’t really like stocking caps – they flatten my hair in an odd fashion, and I’m now working in an office where day-long hat hair is a bit too informal! So I used the pink mohair-silk and cast on as directed in the Ice Queen pattern. Knitting went very quickly (especially without beads!), and I had my own Ice Queen finished in time to wear on Christmas Eve. Talk about garnering compliments – everybody loved it!
We were heading for the Midwest to see two of the children just after the New Year, and I needed a car project for the half-time my DH was driving. My daughter has beautiful blue eyes as well, and loves pretty, feminine things. I had one skein of the blue Kid Silk Haze left – and two ounces of beautiful Czech beads in the right size to make pinpoints of starlight when the light catches the knitted fabric! So I cast on (can you believe it of me!) another Ice Queen – this time in a beaded version! I finished it up during our visit, and she does indeed love it.
But before we ever left home, I was tinkering with another possibility. I wanted the same general shape, wider at the shoulders to as to anchor firmly under a coat, but tighter around the face to keep the ears warm. I liked the picot edging in both the beaded and unbeaded versions of Ice Queen – it was simple to work and an effective, pretty edging. But I was finally (and almost-certainly temporarily) tired of feather and fan. I wanted to try another stitch!
I had bought a ball of Mongolian lace-weight that had 400 yards of pure softness in a lovely light gray that would work much better than the fuchsia pink with my red wool coat! I had spent one evening at my daughter’s dining room table sketching lace patterns out on graph paper, figuring out ways to get the decreases I wanted, and finally settled on a Shetland leaf-lace pattern. I took the cashmere along on the trip, knowing I’d also need a project for the car on the way home, and cast on as we headed east. So my Leaf Lace Wimple pattern is below:
Leaf Lace Wimple Pattern
Yarn: Lace-weight cashmere, 55 gms = 400 yds
Suggested needle sizes: US 3 for main body, US 1 for face edge, circular, 24-inch
Gauge: 4.5 – 5.0 stitches per inch
Cast on 11 repeats of 14 stitches – 154 stitches; join into round and knit one round.
Follow pattern as written, knitting even rows, and repeating rows 49 through 60 (green shaded rows) until length from cast-on is approximately 20 inches (about 100 rows), ending on row 52 or 60 of pattern as shown. (Click for a larger version of the chart.)
After the final repeat of either row 52 or row 60, K3P2 around for two rows.
On the third row, K3, twist 2 purl stitches around.
Bind off with either a picot bind-off pattern (like the one from Knitty’s Ice Queen pattern) or another decorative BO. Go back and crochet an edging on the shoulder end, or pick up stitches and repeat the picot bind-off.
Wash and block and enjoy! And here's a photo of my own version - apologies for the shortcomings of the model are hereby tendered!
I had decided on a wimple for my mother for Christmas back in early November, and had cast on in a basic Shetland horseshoe pattern. Yarn was doubled lace-weight natural-colored cashmere on size 4 needles – I wanted something light-weight and very warm that she could wear with anything. My mother exercises in all kinds of weather, and even in East Tennessee it can get cold. So I did three repeats of the horseshoe pattern; then did simple double yarn-overs placed at the point of the horseshoe until I hit 18 inches, when I did five more repeats of the horseshoe pattern and bound off after 3 rounds of garter stitch. Pretty, warm, and won’t crush my mother’s hairdo. I washed, blocked and wrapped it for the holiday one Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving.
Enter my current student intern. She saw the wimple I’d done for my mother just before it was finished, and fell in love with it. So I thought I’d make one for her in blue kid mohair to match her pretty blue eyes, and went yarn shopping at my local LYS. I splurged – there’s no other word for it – on two skeins of blue and two of bright pink Kid-Silk haze. Came home and decided to cast on for the intern’s version in another lace pattern I love – feather and fan – and got a couple of inches completed that very day.
Within the next day or two, the winter Knitty was brought to my attention. I enjoy this on-line ‘zine for knitters, and have used several designs from its talented crew as a starting point for my own creations over the past couple of years. But I hadn’t knit something entirely from the magazine as yet. As you may have gathered, I’m just not a pattern knitter! Ice Queen changed that temporarily.
I had already completed quite a bit of the intern’s version, and went on with my original plan. She loved my own feather and fan version, by the way, and couldn’t believe I had made her something for the holiday. I do enjoy knitting for those who appreciate it! But I still wanted to do the Ice Queen in the pattern as shown – the decreases intrigued me, and I thought they’d solve the one problem I’d run into – the face is a bit wide. I thought I’d prefer something more snuggled up to keep the breezes out.
I had already decided that I’d like another wimple for myself. My winter leather coat is warm enough, except for the leather right around the neck that leads into the collar. That gets cold! I usually use a scarf to cover my neck in that area, and wear a hat. But I don’t really like stocking caps – they flatten my hair in an odd fashion, and I’m now working in an office where day-long hat hair is a bit too informal! So I used the pink mohair-silk and cast on as directed in the Ice Queen pattern. Knitting went very quickly (especially without beads!), and I had my own Ice Queen finished in time to wear on Christmas Eve. Talk about garnering compliments – everybody loved it!
We were heading for the Midwest to see two of the children just after the New Year, and I needed a car project for the half-time my DH was driving. My daughter has beautiful blue eyes as well, and loves pretty, feminine things. I had one skein of the blue Kid Silk Haze left – and two ounces of beautiful Czech beads in the right size to make pinpoints of starlight when the light catches the knitted fabric! So I cast on (can you believe it of me!) another Ice Queen – this time in a beaded version! I finished it up during our visit, and she does indeed love it.
But before we ever left home, I was tinkering with another possibility. I wanted the same general shape, wider at the shoulders to as to anchor firmly under a coat, but tighter around the face to keep the ears warm. I liked the picot edging in both the beaded and unbeaded versions of Ice Queen – it was simple to work and an effective, pretty edging. But I was finally (and almost-certainly temporarily) tired of feather and fan. I wanted to try another stitch!
I had bought a ball of Mongolian lace-weight that had 400 yards of pure softness in a lovely light gray that would work much better than the fuchsia pink with my red wool coat! I had spent one evening at my daughter’s dining room table sketching lace patterns out on graph paper, figuring out ways to get the decreases I wanted, and finally settled on a Shetland leaf-lace pattern. I took the cashmere along on the trip, knowing I’d also need a project for the car on the way home, and cast on as we headed east. So my Leaf Lace Wimple pattern is below:
Leaf Lace Wimple Pattern
Yarn: Lace-weight cashmere, 55 gms = 400 yds
Suggested needle sizes: US 3 for main body, US 1 for face edge, circular, 24-inch
Gauge: 4.5 – 5.0 stitches per inch
Cast on 11 repeats of 14 stitches – 154 stitches; join into round and knit one round.
Follow pattern as written, knitting even rows, and repeating rows 49 through 60 (green shaded rows) until length from cast-on is approximately 20 inches (about 100 rows), ending on row 52 or 60 of pattern as shown. (Click for a larger version of the chart.)
After the final repeat of either row 52 or row 60, K3P2 around for two rows.
On the third row, K3, twist 2 purl stitches around.
Bind off with either a picot bind-off pattern (like the one from Knitty’s Ice Queen pattern) or another decorative BO. Go back and crochet an edging on the shoulder end, or pick up stitches and repeat the picot bind-off.
Wash and block and enjoy! And here's a photo of my own version - apologies for the shortcomings of the model are hereby tendered!
Friday, November 02, 2007
Dribs and Drabs
Dribs and Drabs
Work is interfering with my fiber life to an incredible degree right now, and I don’t like it! However, work is necessary to pay the everyday bills as well as underwrite the fiber things, so I can’t complain too much.
I have made two interesting fiber-related trips in recent months. First, there was The Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-Silverdale Washington area over Memorial Day week. The primary reason for the visit was to see the two older children. A secondary reason was to have a ‘family’ vacation – Mom and Dad were going out to see the older children and their spouses. But another secondary reason was to find some of the fiber-related things in the area that I’d missed on my trip in January!
We had a wonderful time! We visited Mt. Ranier in a snowstorm, saw our first black-sand beach, and wandered the Peninsula during various times that week. Sage Book Store in Shelton (beginning spinner Sage herself!) showed us the way to Fancy Image Yarns, where I bought the makings for a fall sweater. Allyn Yarn Shop yielded a spindle and some lovely hand-dyed merino-silk roving.
Poulsbo was beautiful, and if you ever get the chance to see this quaint Norwegian-village transplant, you should grab it. A lovely way to spend a morning or afternoon of shopping or just browsing, including at least one yarn shop – Wild & Wooly (http://www.wildandwooly.com/) on Front Street!
Next was a business trip to Albuquerque (for the Particle Accelerator Conference 2007). I found Village Wools (http://www.villagewools.com/) on my last day in town and stocked up on some lovely bamboo roving, various wools, including a lovely purple fine-wool, and a locally-made drop spindle from mesquite wood! I can’t believe how heavy it is – about three times the weight of most of my spindles!
Jut off the wheel and onto the needles is some lace-weight merino-clun forest cross dyed in rainbow pastels plied with another single of natural kid mohair. This was spun with a shawl in mind. I’ve started the Shetland Garden shawl and am currently at the beginning of chart F of that pattern.
Just off the wheel and needles is some slightly less than fingering-weight in the same merino-clun forest cross that was made into a baby sweater for a brand-new baby girl among my work friends. I usually do an EZ baby sweater, but this time Sharon Miller’s lace-trimmed garter-stitch baby sweater in her Heirloom Lace book seduced me. I enjoyed the knitting – garter stitch is soothing – but kept changing my mind about the edging. The one in the book didn’t thrill me, and I decided to try to find something that wasn’t so directional – starting at the center neck back, knitting around to the center back, then going back and picking up stitches just to do the whole thing over and graft things together doesn’t sound like fun to me. But I bit the bullet and did it anyway, and now I’m glad I did – the finished sweater is nice!
Work is interfering with my fiber life to an incredible degree right now, and I don’t like it! However, work is necessary to pay the everyday bills as well as underwrite the fiber things, so I can’t complain too much.
I have made two interesting fiber-related trips in recent months. First, there was The Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-Silverdale Washington area over Memorial Day week. The primary reason for the visit was to see the two older children. A secondary reason was to have a ‘family’ vacation – Mom and Dad were going out to see the older children and their spouses. But another secondary reason was to find some of the fiber-related things in the area that I’d missed on my trip in January!
We had a wonderful time! We visited Mt. Ranier in a snowstorm, saw our first black-sand beach, and wandered the Peninsula during various times that week. Sage Book Store in Shelton (beginning spinner Sage herself!) showed us the way to Fancy Image Yarns, where I bought the makings for a fall sweater. Allyn Yarn Shop yielded a spindle and some lovely hand-dyed merino-silk roving.
Poulsbo was beautiful, and if you ever get the chance to see this quaint Norwegian-village transplant, you should grab it. A lovely way to spend a morning or afternoon of shopping or just browsing, including at least one yarn shop – Wild & Wooly (http://www.wildandwooly.com/) on Front Street!
Next was a business trip to Albuquerque (for the Particle Accelerator Conference 2007). I found Village Wools (http://www.villagewools.com/) on my last day in town and stocked up on some lovely bamboo roving, various wools, including a lovely purple fine-wool, and a locally-made drop spindle from mesquite wood! I can’t believe how heavy it is – about three times the weight of most of my spindles!
Jut off the wheel and onto the needles is some lace-weight merino-clun forest cross dyed in rainbow pastels plied with another single of natural kid mohair. This was spun with a shawl in mind. I’ve started the Shetland Garden shawl and am currently at the beginning of chart F of that pattern.
Just off the wheel and needles is some slightly less than fingering-weight in the same merino-clun forest cross that was made into a baby sweater for a brand-new baby girl among my work friends. I usually do an EZ baby sweater, but this time Sharon Miller’s lace-trimmed garter-stitch baby sweater in her Heirloom Lace book seduced me. I enjoyed the knitting – garter stitch is soothing – but kept changing my mind about the edging. The one in the book didn’t thrill me, and I decided to try to find something that wasn’t so directional – starting at the center neck back, knitting around to the center back, then going back and picking up stitches just to do the whole thing over and graft things together doesn’t sound like fun to me. But I bit the bullet and did it anyway, and now I’m glad I did – the finished sweater is nice!
Also on the needles is a vest for a Christmas gift from some commercial yarn. Lovely blue color, and a simple pattern – Mona Schmidt’s Tweedy Vest pattern from knittingdaily at Interweave Press. Changed the yarn, of course, which changed the gauge and needle size, so the initial set-up was a challenge, but now the pattern is modified and the knitting is going quickly.
Otherwise, I’ve been working – on actual paying work, as opposed to fun stuff! One new thing that has proved a distraction from fiber fun – a new plucked psaltery - is taking up some time. I’ve also decided to get the house organized, and that’s turning into a major endeavor. It’s amazing what five people can accumulate in 20 years, especially if all of them are pack rats! But I still knit a bit most days, and a half-hour here and there does add up to finished projects! I haven't forgotten my teaching promise when I started this blog, either - but life does sometimes interfere! I'll get back to more explorations of spinning and knitting design soon!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Fiber for Knitters
I received an email the other day from a local knitting group asking me to talk to a group of knitters about spinning. They didn't really want a spinning demonstration (it couldn't be that easy!), but rather a discussion of what knitters need to know about fibers to help them make more successful projects.
So I started looking at what I call “Fibers 101,” a course that I’ve added to this blog in the past (see http://fiberlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/fiber-101.html and http://fiberlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/fiber-101-continued.html), with a view to revising that material for these knitters. I didn’t find much that needed to be changed.
So I went off to do my presentation, said my piece, handed out copies of the material to the 20 or so attendees, and invited questions. That’s when the true learning experience of the day took place - for me!
I’ve commented in the past that many young folk don’t get any sort of fiber education. First, let’s define “young” as less than 40 years of age. To my mind, anyone over 40 had a pool of cultural knowledge on which to draw that included some basic fiber knowledge of the “cotton comes from a plant and wool from an animal” sort. At least, I thought they did! But obviously we’ve been an industrial, non-agricultural society for longer than I believed.
The knitters in this particular group ranged in age from 14 to over 70, but most of them were between 25 and 50. So the large number of questions regarding the harvesting of various animal fibers came as something of a surprise. I did NOT expect the old, “Do you have to kill the sheep to harvest wool?” chestnut from this group – although I got it. Also unexpected were questions on which animal produces polymid (???) and why cotton, flax and silk fibers were all shorter than any animal fibers (again, ???).
Needless to say, I backed up. Obviously, I had thrown a lot of information at these folks quickly, and some of it just hadn’t sunk in. I explained that animals may be killed to harvest fiber, but usually aren’t, because top-notch fiber produced year after year pays for the cost of keeping that animal alive and in good health. I again went over the various types of manmade fibers, including polymid, and talked about the relative lengths of cotton, flax and silk fibers. And assumed we were finished with those sorts of questions.
I was ready to move on to why you choose woolen-spun fibers for baby sweaters and fuzzy shawls and felted mittens, and worsted-spun ones for gloves and outerwear sweaters and soft, fine wools, and how to look at yarn labels to find out this sort of information. I had quite a few samples of current yarn labels to help. I also wanted to expound on the affordability of fibers versus yarns, and the satisfaction you get from doing a project from the fuzz to the finished object –adding to the ranks of new spinners is always fun.
But the next questions were about the high price of natural fiber yarn, and why acrylics weren’t considered to be superior to any natural fibers. I mentally threw up my hands at this point, consigning all my carefully-prepared yarn labels and handspun natural fiber and yarn samples to the storage bin in which they normally live. I then spoke passionately about the feel, breathability, insulating properties and environmental friendliness of natural fibers; the ease of finding a perfect natural fiber for any project and the satisfaction of using natural fibers. I tried to explain a bit of the cost factor as a return on the investments in land, equipment, livestock, feed and health care needed to produce those fibers. I’m not sure anyone bought the message.
I suppose what I’m asking is whether I’m completely outmoded in my liking for natural fibers? Are most knitters these days primarily interested in manufactured fibers, or was that strictly this particular group of relatively-new knitters? And is there a correlation between the length of time you’ve been knitting and your fiber preferences? I’d like to have some feedback on this, gentle fiberpeople, before my next “Fiber 101” presentation. Which is set up for early June…to a local group of museum curators…who are probably going to be primarily interested in the pre-polyester era… Do I sound as confused as I am at this particular moment in time?
So I started looking at what I call “Fibers 101,” a course that I’ve added to this blog in the past (see http://fiberlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/fiber-101.html and http://fiberlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/fiber-101-continued.html), with a view to revising that material for these knitters. I didn’t find much that needed to be changed.
So I went off to do my presentation, said my piece, handed out copies of the material to the 20 or so attendees, and invited questions. That’s when the true learning experience of the day took place - for me!
I’ve commented in the past that many young folk don’t get any sort of fiber education. First, let’s define “young” as less than 40 years of age. To my mind, anyone over 40 had a pool of cultural knowledge on which to draw that included some basic fiber knowledge of the “cotton comes from a plant and wool from an animal” sort. At least, I thought they did! But obviously we’ve been an industrial, non-agricultural society for longer than I believed.
The knitters in this particular group ranged in age from 14 to over 70, but most of them were between 25 and 50. So the large number of questions regarding the harvesting of various animal fibers came as something of a surprise. I did NOT expect the old, “Do you have to kill the sheep to harvest wool?” chestnut from this group – although I got it. Also unexpected were questions on which animal produces polymid (???) and why cotton, flax and silk fibers were all shorter than any animal fibers (again, ???).
Needless to say, I backed up. Obviously, I had thrown a lot of information at these folks quickly, and some of it just hadn’t sunk in. I explained that animals may be killed to harvest fiber, but usually aren’t, because top-notch fiber produced year after year pays for the cost of keeping that animal alive and in good health. I again went over the various types of manmade fibers, including polymid, and talked about the relative lengths of cotton, flax and silk fibers. And assumed we were finished with those sorts of questions.
I was ready to move on to why you choose woolen-spun fibers for baby sweaters and fuzzy shawls and felted mittens, and worsted-spun ones for gloves and outerwear sweaters and soft, fine wools, and how to look at yarn labels to find out this sort of information. I had quite a few samples of current yarn labels to help. I also wanted to expound on the affordability of fibers versus yarns, and the satisfaction you get from doing a project from the fuzz to the finished object –adding to the ranks of new spinners is always fun.
But the next questions were about the high price of natural fiber yarn, and why acrylics weren’t considered to be superior to any natural fibers. I mentally threw up my hands at this point, consigning all my carefully-prepared yarn labels and handspun natural fiber and yarn samples to the storage bin in which they normally live. I then spoke passionately about the feel, breathability, insulating properties and environmental friendliness of natural fibers; the ease of finding a perfect natural fiber for any project and the satisfaction of using natural fibers. I tried to explain a bit of the cost factor as a return on the investments in land, equipment, livestock, feed and health care needed to produce those fibers. I’m not sure anyone bought the message.
I suppose what I’m asking is whether I’m completely outmoded in my liking for natural fibers? Are most knitters these days primarily interested in manufactured fibers, or was that strictly this particular group of relatively-new knitters? And is there a correlation between the length of time you’ve been knitting and your fiber preferences? I’d like to have some feedback on this, gentle fiberpeople, before my next “Fiber 101” presentation. Which is set up for early June…to a local group of museum curators…who are probably going to be primarily interested in the pre-polyester era… Do I sound as confused as I am at this particular moment in time?
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Playing Catch-Up!
“Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you…” is one of my husband’s favorite remarks. Lately it’s been apt for me, particularly since I feel that the bear has been winning most of the time!
I’m oh-so-slowly spinning up 5 ounces of merino-clun forest rainbow space-dyed roving from a dye-in last fall. Progress is being measured in yards, rather than my usual multiple ounces. I’m still deciding whether to Navaho-ply the resulting singles or two-ply them with a black merino or more of the undyed merino-clun forest (which would also have to be spun). And I’m knitting three projects from commercial yarn, all of which are also going at a pace a snail could beat easily.
The knitting projects are:
A hat, scarf and glove set for my husband from Plymouth Boku wool and silk blend in their Color 11. He chose the color himself, by the way, and I’ve been tempted to take the yarn away from him – the color is beautiful! The hat and scarf are done, the first glove is done, and I’m at the point of starting the gusset increases on the second glove. The resulting FO’s look lovely, and wash up into soft, wonderfully-wearable garments, but I don’t care for the feel of the yarn while knitting it. It seems very rough, and I have had to force myself to work on these very necessary items. I’m not sure if it’s just me, or the yarn itself – after washing and blocking everything feels soft and lovely!
A “Shoulder Shawl” lace shawl from Victorian Lace Today from KnitPicks Elegance alpaca-silk blend yarn in Wild Rose. The shawl is turning out slightly heavier than I expected, but looks beautiful, and the drape is perfect. I started the edging as shown in the book, but didn’t proceed with it. The joinings were utterly counter-intuitive and I didn’t care for the garter-stitch lace edging on the stockinette-stitch ground in the least. I thought I’d be smart and finish it off with simple garter-stitch rounds picked up from the edges – now I need to rip out and come up with a better idea, since it binds terribly. Perhaps a row of purl between each “pattern” row of the edging given would fill the bill. Or I may simply choose another edging, either from that book or from another.
A summer short-sleeved sweater from a cotton-silk-nylon blend – Classic Elite’s Classic Silk - in Rhubarb. Lovely, soft fabric with a beautiful drape on size 4 KnitPicks circular needles. This one is also going slowly, although not because I don’t like working on it. I injured my shoulder recently by working long-term at a work-station that was configured for someone else, and the recovery is hindering my knitting, spinning, blogging and almost everything else!
I’m oh-so-slowly spinning up 5 ounces of merino-clun forest rainbow space-dyed roving from a dye-in last fall. Progress is being measured in yards, rather than my usual multiple ounces. I’m still deciding whether to Navaho-ply the resulting singles or two-ply them with a black merino or more of the undyed merino-clun forest (which would also have to be spun). And I’m knitting three projects from commercial yarn, all of which are also going at a pace a snail could beat easily.
The knitting projects are:
A hat, scarf and glove set for my husband from Plymouth Boku wool and silk blend in their Color 11. He chose the color himself, by the way, and I’ve been tempted to take the yarn away from him – the color is beautiful! The hat and scarf are done, the first glove is done, and I’m at the point of starting the gusset increases on the second glove. The resulting FO’s look lovely, and wash up into soft, wonderfully-wearable garments, but I don’t care for the feel of the yarn while knitting it. It seems very rough, and I have had to force myself to work on these very necessary items. I’m not sure if it’s just me, or the yarn itself – after washing and blocking everything feels soft and lovely!
A “Shoulder Shawl” lace shawl from Victorian Lace Today from KnitPicks Elegance alpaca-silk blend yarn in Wild Rose. The shawl is turning out slightly heavier than I expected, but looks beautiful, and the drape is perfect. I started the edging as shown in the book, but didn’t proceed with it. The joinings were utterly counter-intuitive and I didn’t care for the garter-stitch lace edging on the stockinette-stitch ground in the least. I thought I’d be smart and finish it off with simple garter-stitch rounds picked up from the edges – now I need to rip out and come up with a better idea, since it binds terribly. Perhaps a row of purl between each “pattern” row of the edging given would fill the bill. Or I may simply choose another edging, either from that book or from another.
A summer short-sleeved sweater from a cotton-silk-nylon blend – Classic Elite’s Classic Silk - in Rhubarb. Lovely, soft fabric with a beautiful drape on size 4 KnitPicks circular needles. This one is also going slowly, although not because I don’t like working on it. I injured my shoulder recently by working long-term at a work-station that was configured for someone else, and the recovery is hindering my knitting, spinning, blogging and almost everything else!
Monday, January 29, 2007
Winter Knitting - Gansey Workshop!
Winter Knitting – Gansey Workshop!My winter (post-Christmas) knitting has been perhaps a bit unusual for me. Socks, socks and more socks, along with a sweater or two! It's been COLD in East Tennessee much of the last month - I mean the kind of cold that takes me back 40 years to my childhood.
On the bright side, this should kill off some of the beasties and might mean that you can actually stand to be outside without insect repellent on occasion this summer. On the down side, most of my warm hand-knit socks hadn’t survived last winter’s wear all that well, being of sock-weight wool and having been worn way too often in steel-toed shoes. So when those first few really cold days hit post-Christmas, I felt it. And going out to Washington State didn’t help; the coast around Seattle is quite cold this time of year, with snow on the ground most days and the wind off the water biting.
I did get to visit a couple of yarn/fiber shops while on the peninsula at Poulsbo – Amanda’s Art Yarns and Fibers for some yarn and a bit of fiber, and Wild & Wooly. Both stores were fun, and I immediately started some socks from the lovely worsted-weight hand-painted mohair/wool yarn I bought at W&W. Lovely, muted colors of green, pink, taupe and orchid, much like the area itself this time of year. Amanda’s was a bit of a disappointment, as there wasn’t as much in the way of fiber as I had hoped and no spindles to be found anywhere – but any day you spend several hours poking around a small, waterfront town with more than one fiber shop is a good one!
I returned home and to work just after the New Year, plunging into total insanity at work. In addition, something (the stress?) caught up with me and I had the most incredibly bad month – lots of pain and one cold after another culminating in a massive respiratory infection. I have basically gone to work and then come home and piled up under a blanket for most of January!
On the up side, I’ve been playing around with Liz Lovick’s Gansey Workshop on the EZasPi Yahoo group. Why is a group dedicated to EZ’s Pi shawl in all its incarnations doing a Gansey workshop? Because it sounded like fun and it’s an absolute shame not to take advantage of a group member of Liz’s stature! I love this group – I’m always learning new things from them. The workshop sounded like such fun, and Liz has a wonderful knack for teaching. So I bought several (13 each) skeins of red and cranberry Wool of the Andes from KnitPicks along with several of the new Options needles (yes, I know I don’t like metal needles – more on this anon) and started practicing gansey patterns.
The first project was a pincushion. No big deal, no problem – it was done in a couple of hours and blocking on the ironing board. Sewing took just a couple of minutes, and now it happily holds my blocking pins close at hand.
Liz, being her usual wonderful self, posted several possibilities as second projects. Cushion covers looked nice, but I just made a cushion cover for my couch, using up most of my stash of naturally-colored handspun leftovers in the process, and didn’t want to make another right now (repainting is on the list of spring projects in my household). The socks looked quite intriguing, and I already had the yarn for the sweater plus some extra, and that dearth of warm socks – a matching pair of socks was just the ticket!
Liz’s instructions were for sock-weight yarn, calling for 64 or 72 stitches at a gauge of 8 stitches per inch. On size 1 needles the worsted-weight WOTA I chose had a gauge of 6 stitches per inch. 64 stitches would have fit my DH, perhaps, but not me! So I went to work to modify the pattern. It’s always easy to change modular patterns – just shuffle the modifications between the separator stitches. On this pattern, there were three main elements – a 7-stitch diamond motif at the center front leg, flanked on either side by a double-line of 7-stitch zig-zags. Between each element (the diamonds and zig-zags) were three lines of basic K1P1 ribbing. All I did was remove the 7-stitch zig-zag elements from the back, adding an extra purl stitch to take up the 2 extra stitches. Voila! A 48-stitch repeat with the central diamond motif at the center front and center back. And the resulting socks look rather spiffy, if I do say so myself. The extra purl stitch on each side only shows up if you get your nose down and look for it, and nobody is going to get that close to my socks!
Another thing that this pattern did was push me out of my usual top-down comfort zone. The pattern was written for toe-up with a short-row heel, and it had been quite a while since I’d done that. All in all, I enjoyed the experience and like the fit all right. But my current pair, cast on just last night, is again top-down in sock-weight yarn. I wanted a mindless sort of project for between-times, and I can do these in my sleep!
Now that I’ve got my feet wet, so to speak, I’m considering the gansey itself. Being, as I’ve stated before, vertically-challenged and fluffy, horizontal bands don’t appeal to me. But vertical bands with moss- or seed-stitch between motifs has definite possibilities. I love the idea of various-sized bands of diamond shapes, and perhaps some very narrow cables in one or two places. I’m also considering knitting this in the round and then steeking it into a cardigan. Despite our current cold spell, I know I’ll get severely limited wear from a pull-over here, but can see myself wearing a cardigan quite a bit.
Other than socks, I’m plugging away on my EZ Fair Isle-yoked sweater. I finished up the boring stockinette stuff this weekend, have joined the sleeves to the body, and have only one more row to go before starting the colorwork. In a fingering-weight yarn at 6 stitches per inch, I’m currently dealing with 420 stitches in a single round, so the going is a bit slower than I like. And now that I’ve typed that out, I’m beginning to wonder about the math. I’ll definitely put the whole thing on a ribbon and try it on before I get any further along…
Oh, yes, the Options needles. I know I've said my piece about metal needles before, and I still don't think they're a good idea for beginning knitters. But for experienced knitters (and I now consider myself experienced), they can be helpful. The same slide that drives a beginner crazy helps a veteran fly along. And I've been pretty much converted to one or two socks on a single long circular needle - it makes them so portable! So the two things together have helped me see a use for metal needles. However, I still use my beloved bamboo and wood needles for most of my knitting, especially lace. I've modified the points on most of them so that they're nice and sharp, perfect for lace stitches. Curiosity was involved in the Options purchase - everyone has been raving about the points on these needles, and I thought it was worth a try. So far I've been happy enough - the nice sharp points and cords with no real memory are nice to have around!
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Spinning for Socks – A Short Course of Instruction
In Praise of the Humble Sock
What article of clothing is arguably most humble?
The “lowest” of all - the sock.
Eaten by dryers, mate-less cast aside, maligned by hurried owners,
Living in the rear of drawers and atop “to discard” piles,
Socks survive.
Stuffed into shoes, boots, and sandals,
Scuffed shoeless over floors, driveways, sidewalks and yards,
Tucked into gift boxes as a last-minute afterthought,
Maligned when absent, but needed,
Socks thrive!
Wool carefully chosen from saddle of fleece,
Lovingly washed, dyed, and combed,
Carefully spun smooth and strong, as carefully plied,
Knitted tightly, with heels expertly turned,
Gussets and toes decreased just so,
Socks pride!
From colors muted to startling bright,
From wools and cottons plain to silks and mohair boucléd.
In stitches simple and fancy, ribbings easy and hard,
Socks triumph!
Pamela Kite
December 19, 2003
What article of clothing is arguably most humble?
The “lowest” of all - the sock.
Eaten by dryers, mate-less cast aside, maligned by hurried owners,
Living in the rear of drawers and atop “to discard” piles,
Socks survive.
Stuffed into shoes, boots, and sandals,
Scuffed shoeless over floors, driveways, sidewalks and yards,
Tucked into gift boxes as a last-minute afterthought,
Maligned when absent, but needed,
Socks thrive!
Wool carefully chosen from saddle of fleece,
Lovingly washed, dyed, and combed,
Carefully spun smooth and strong, as carefully plied,
Knitted tightly, with heels expertly turned,
Gussets and toes decreased just so,
Socks pride!
From colors muted to startling bright,
From wools and cottons plain to silks and mohair boucléd.
In stitches simple and fancy, ribbings easy and hard,
Socks triumph!
Pamela Kite
December 19, 2003
Why on earth would anyone make socks from the sheep out? There are probably as many answers to that question as there are spinners and knitters who’ve ever done socks as a project. But some of those answers fall into distinct categories we can enumerate:
Socks require only about 4 ounces of fiber. That makes spinning for a pair a relatively short project, easily completed in a weekend or slightly more of precious spinning time.
For spinners with short attention spans, again 4 ounces (a single bobbin on most wheels) is a ‘doable’ amount. It doesn’t take forever to spin that amount, unlike spinning for a sweater, which can seem to take forever!
Spinners who have ‘dignified’ day jobs can let their jazzy side out to play with socks. Those who would never wear lacy, frilly things to work can wear lacy, frilly socks. They’re hidden beneath trousers, and almost never seen, but make the spinner feel secretly girly!
Socks are great sample projects for new fibers and spinning techniques. A couple of ounces of an exotic fiber you bought to play with can become a sock top, matched up with wool heels and feet for wear.
Socks are great for playing with color, too. The requirement isn’t all that great, either in terms of supplies or time, but you aren’t ‘wasting’ either – you’ll have a pair of socks to wear when you’re finished playing!
Handspun, handknitted socks can be designed for a specific wearer. Those of us who have feet that are an ‘odd’ size can fit ourselves and the specific tenderness of our feet precisely.
All right, these are some of the reasons you can have for spinning and knitting your own socks, or those for someone close to you. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about sock history for just a second, and then get into how to choose a good fiber for the sort of sock we want to make and talk about some knitting guidelines for socks in general.
A Short Sock History
Foot coverings were originally called “leggings” and were wrapped lengths of fabric or hide. Wrappings didn’t like to stay put, though, and even tying string around them wasn’t a great deal of help. Then someone decided that foot coverings could be sewn from woven fabric. Seams generally went down the center of the top and bottom of the foot. These footlets were generally quite short – more or less anklets that could cushion wood or leather shoes, and are shown flopping over the tops of these shoes in paintings and drawings.
Sometime before the 5th century A.D., shaping legging fabrics to fit came into vogue. By 1500 feet were added to the leg covering, and ‘hose’ were sewn to fit each individual beginning around the same time. These were mostly for the wealthier members of society, however – peasants simply went barefoot or wore the short, floppy anklet versions.
Knitting was something of a revolution for sock-making. A fabric that actually could be made to stretch and fit more than one person! This was much too useful an innovation to be kept close in the European knitting guilds, and spread quickly. Now everyone with access to wool could have socks to help keep feet warm and cushion uncomfortable shoes!
Knitted, combined foot and leg coverings called stockings date back to at least the mid-1500’s, and quickly replaced sewn leg and foot coverings. By 1840, the term ‘sock’ had come to mean a man’s, boy’s or young girl’s foot and lower-leg covering.
Socks were a frequent first in-the-round knitting project for children. Comfortable socks are firmly knit, well-shaped fabrics, and making them with a neatly-turned heel was something of a milestone for young knitters, who then could go on to make more complicated pieces between seemingly endless pairs of socks. Sock-knitting was a more-or-less continual thing in families through the first half of the 20th century in less-developed areas of the world, including many areas of the United States. There are still areas of the world where the ability to knit stockings is considered a necessary skill.
Fiber Choices and Spinning Options for Socks
First, you can use any fiber to make a sock-shaped garment. Want to use singles superfine merino spun at 6 epi and knitted at 3 stitches per inch on size 6 needles? Go for it. Nobody will stop you. There are no spinning police and no knitting police. Enjoy wearing them, or hang them on a wall. They’ll definitely last longer on the wall, but again, wear them if you like. That, you see, is one of the benefits to doing it your way. You can do it your own way!
But if you want to spin for long-wearing, comfortable, warm socks that will keep their shape, choose a medium to medium-fine fleece like Romney or Border Leicester, Finn or Shetland – anything between 46 and 60 on the Bradford scale. Generally, you’ll choose a fleece for socks that is medium-soft, medium-long, and medium-crimpy. But if you go strictly by the breed characteristic you may neglect some good choices. I’ve spun Lincoln lamb with a count of 54, and it made wonderful, heavy sock yarn. Down breeds like Suffolk and Dorset are springy and almost impossible to felt. Some individual down fleeces are too coarse for anything but rugs, but some are perfect for socks! So don’t rule out ‘coarser’ or ‘meat’ fleeces until you check them personally. They may be exactly what you’re looking for!
You’ll definitely want to spin a worsted yarn – or as close to it as possible. For the best wear, yarns for socks should be made from aligned fibers, spun and compressed tightly. If you plan to choose fleeces with socks in mind, also plan to comb the fibers. With a medium fleece you can get away with a semi-worsted yarn – but worsted will wear better. In purchasing fibers for socks, look at top first. Leave the beautiful carded batts and rovings for sweaters and shawls and hats.
What I normally use in a class (or for my own socks) are three different fibers: first, a garden-variety domestic wool top with a Bradford count of 56; and second an 80/20 blend of wool and kid mohair top with a Bradford count of about 54. I also use small quantities of 64’s wool and silk in an 80/20 blend, also in a combed top preparation – lovely stuff, and at the outer realm of possibilities for socks, if spun quite carefully.
Start spinning the 56’s wool while we talk about some sock alternatives, both in fiber and spinning technique. For the newer spinners in the group, we’ll also touch on choosing and preparing raw fleeces. For now, set your spinning wheels in such a way that you can spin this 56’s wool to somewhere between 24-30 wpi singles. My suggestion is to start at a ratio of about 9:1, with light take-up. Aim for about 12 twists per inch in your finished singles. Tinker around with your wheel ratio and take-up until you get this grist. If you can spin it comfortably with a 6:1 ratio, that’s fine.
What grist [b]do[/b] you want to spin for sock yarn? It depends on the fleece. Socks will wear best if made from a tightly-spun yarn. But sometimes a single push of the treadle can make the difference between a firm yarn and a harsh one. I know you get tired of hearing ‘sample’ but you really do have to get over it. Look at sampling as shopping – you wouldn’t buy a soft-spun singles superfine merino wool for socks, so don’t spin one. Or look at sampling as exploration. You’re charting the potentialities of this particular fleece or top. However you look at or rationalize sampling, don’t neglect to do it. We learn by exploring.
Let’s talk about how fibers wear. Socks, in particular, wear mostly through friction – either the friction between the sock and the shoe, friction between the sock and the foot, or as a combination of those two. Some additional friction and temperature variation from the laundering process is also a contributing factor. The best way for a spinner to combat those sources of friction is to spin a firm, fairly high-twist yarn of multiple plies. Why? High-twist yarns are more compressed and have more twists per inch of each individual fiber than low-twist yarns. And the more plies you have, the less each individual fiber and ply are abraded and the better the wear.
Think back over your sock spinning and knitting experiences. Which yarns have given you the best wear? Which were almost indestructible? Was it the single-ply, low-twist, fine-fiber yarns, or the four-, five- or eight-ply yarns of wool and nylon or mohair?
I’m not suggesting that we try to hand-spin fingering-weight eight-ply merino blend yarns. Of course it can be done, and you may choose to do it at times, but it would tend to make those 4 ounces into a month’s rather than a weekend’s spinning. But 3- or 4-ply, even 4-ply cabled yarns are well within the realm of practicality for that hypothetical weekend. And they’ll give amazing wear from medium wools, and decent wear from fine wools.
My personal favorite sock yarns are cabled. Yes, I know I have to spin more singles yardage in order to cable the finished yarns. And I’m aware that I have to spin finer in order to end up with a sock-weight cabled yarn. But my knitting time is limited by the other things in my life. It’s much better in the long run to make socks that will last awhile, thus leaving more knitting time for things like sweaters and lace shawls and gloves and hats. My usual sock fleece or top is around 54-56 count. I haven’t found nylon to be particularly necessary in medium wools, although I have been known to blend it into the finer 58-62’s fibers. I usually spin this medium wool worsted-fashion at about 36 wpi as singles. This is not the time, however, for the smallest whorl on the wheel. I’ve learned that the best ratio for spinning this fiber firmly, without going over the line to harsh, is about 10:1. Yes, I sampled several fleeces and prepared tops to determine this. The socks are available for inspection whenever you want to drop by.
I spin the singles clockwise (Z), and ply the first time counterclockwise (S). Then I ply the resulting two-ply yarn again, clockwise. I end up with a nice sock-weight yarn of about 18 wpi and 10-14 tpi.
For the newbie spinner - What is a proper job of preparing a raw fleece for sock-spinning? There are all sorts of guidelines available online and in books, but simply put: First ruthlessly skirt and then clean the fleece. Process it for socks by combing, or by carding and removing the batts from the cards in such a way as to make a semi-worsted preparation. Spin it worsted-fashion with a high degree of twist to a grist of approximately 24-30 wpi. Two- or three-ply the singles, again with a fairly high degree of twist, to a finished yarn of about 16-18 wpi. Cable if desired.
I said earlier that you can use any fiber for making a sock-shaped garment, and that’s true. The alternatives for long-wearing, comfortable socks are a bit more limited, but there’s still plenty of leeway for the adventurous spinner-knitter. Let’s take a look at some of those alternatives to the norm, though, and why you might want to use them.
“I don’t like medium fibers – they’re scratchy and make my feet and ankles itch.” Sound familiar? It isn’t because the speaker’s being over-sensitive or unappreciative of your skills and talents – some people truly do find medium wools uncomfortable (my grandchildren included). So reclaim that pair for someone else and figure out another alternative. If medium wool’s too scratchy, can you make socks from finer wools? Sure you can! You can make socks from any fiber, remember?
Softer fibers like merino, targhee, rambouillet and other merino crosses with Bradford counts in the 60’s can be used for socks with some thoughtful spinning and knitting modifications. You won’t get quite the wear from these that you will from a good Romney fleece, but they’ll be less prickly on tender feet and ankles. Blending these fine fibers with either tussah or bombyx silk will help wear, as will blending them with fine kid mohair or a bit of Lincoln or Wensleydale lamb fleece. Even ‘fake cashmere’ made from nylon will increase the wear for these fibers. And you can always blend some of that Romney or other medium-staple wool into the mix as well! Proportions will vary somewhat, but the usual recommendation is about 80 percent fine wool and 20 percent reinforcing fiber.
All right, you have that 80/20 blend. Now how should you spin it for decent wear and so that you don’t have to pull out the size 000 needles to knit the socks?
You’ll want to set up your wheel a little differently for fine fibers, of course, once you’ve zeroed in on the grist of singles and amount of twist you want. I usually go up a bit in speed when spinning finer fibers for socks. And you’ll definitely want a worsted preparation, which can be a bit tricky if you’re blending your own fibers – but persevere! If you want to try it, grab some 64’s merino blended with nylon or silk and set the wheel for a ratio of about 14 to 18:1. Set take up so it’s minimal – you want about 16-24 tpi on these singles. And try for singles in the 35-45 wpi range for a finished 4-ply cabled fingering-weight yarn.
You’ll want to use size 0 or 1 needles for these soft yarns to give better wear. If you’re a loose knitter, you may have to go to 00 needles. The idea is to counteract wear by knitting tightly. So aim for 8-12 stitches per inch. Swatch in the round until you have a very firm fabric with little or no movement in individual stitches. Check your gauge and figure your sock pattern accordingly. And remember, the idea here is wearability. Think process knitting. Even at 12 stitches per inch, most of us will have less than 100 stitches in a single round.
One last note on fine fibers: Plan to hand wash the socks carefully. And expect some felting with wear, especially on the bottom of the foot.
Now that we’ve talked about finer fibers for socks…Let’s talk about hand-painted tops for just a minute. They’re so gorgeous! How do you spin and ply to keep those lovely colors bright and unmuddied? You actually have two options, and variations within those options. Again, you’re in charge – make a choice and follow through!
Most commercially-painted top is made up of several colors, and the colors are blended in lengthwise stripes. Those stripes are pretty well-defined. It is possible to vertically strip each stripe apart and spin each strip as a different-color singles. You’ll have a few fibers in the neighboring color(s) in each strip, but they won’t show up enough to matter. Then ply the singles normally and knit as you would for any stripe pattern, changing the colors at the points of your choice.
All right, all right – I know this takes a lot of the fun out of things. You bought that top because you liked the way the colors flowed and blended. And it doesn’t help at all with the top or roving that you painted yourself in six- to ten-inch blocks of color! I did mention that there were at least two ways to spin multi-colored top, didn’t I?
For those color sections that are greater than the length of a single fiber you can, again, tear them apart and spin singles from each color, plying the singles and blending at the knitting stage. OR, you can spin them as they come (or after vertically pre-drafting a yard or more of the color changes for shorter color repeats), letting the colors fall where they may at the singles stage. Then Navaho-ply the singles slowly and carefully to make a three-ply yarn with beautiful color definition. Again, it’s up to you, the spinner. Learning Navaho-plying isn’t difficult, and the ‘bumps’ disappear in firmly-plied yarn. I’ve never felt a bump in my Navaho-plied socks, and I have pretty sensitive feet. If the Navaho-plied yarns are still gossamer-fine (possible if the top is a 64’s merino and silk blend), cable those yarns together for a thicker finished yarn.
The Knitting
When it’s time to knit, I choose needles that are about the same diameter as the yarn. That means 0’s, maybe 1’s, and only sometimes 2’s. That gives me a gauge of somewhere between 7 and 10 stitches per inch. You want a firm fabric for the same reasons that you do in finer wools – it will wear longer, with less pilling and felting. It will also feel better on the bottom of your feet – no uncomfortable rubbing of purl bumps after a couple of hours. You have to remember that you’re working with handspun – do a large (24-30 stitches and rows) circular gauge swatch and measure over at least 2 inches in at least 2 different places on the swatch. As spinners, our yarn is subject to some variation. As knitters, we can easily allow for that.
If you prefer to make toe-up socks, a gauge swatch is still a valuable reference, as it can keep you from having to frog and re-work the toe cast-on several times. You can start out with the needles that give you the fabric you want. Remember, you need a firm fabric.
The other variable is fit. You can check the previous reference on this blog for fit hints. But socks that slide around on your foot will require much more extensive and frequent darning than those that fit closely, regardless of the fiber you’ve chosen. Socks, in case you haven’t already figured this out, require negative ease. For those who haven’t run across this term before, I’ll explain briefly.
When you’re making a sweater, you want to add anywhere from 5 to 18 percent of your skin-level circumference in order to arrive at your finished dimensions. In addition to ease, this is because sweater fabric is thick, taking up some room (up to three inches total in bulky yarns), and sweaters insulate better if they aren’t skin-tight. Socks, on the other hand, need to be skin-tight in order to provide the cushioning your foot requires without taking up too much room in your shoe or sliding around as you walk. So you want your sock fabric to be slightly stretched during wear. My own rule of thumb is to subtract an inch’s worth of stitches from the circumference. In other words, a 10-inch circumference will require 9 inches worth of knitting. Another suggestion is to subtract 20 percent from your as-measured circumference to arrive at a cast-on number.
In Closing
Your mother probably told you that everybody is different, and she was right. Every sheep is different, too. While there are general breed characteristics that mean you probably wouldn’t choose Lincoln or Churro for a baby layette, there are also exceptions to the standard. Shepherds can and do breed for softness, fineness, crimp or luster in their flocks. And cross-bred sheep can show the best of several ‘parent’ breeds. My favorite sock yarns come from Shetland-Romney crosses that belong to a friend.
If you follow the above instructions you [b]will[/b] make well-fitting, long-wearing socks from your handspun.
What about making socks from luxury fibers? I really haven’t tried much of that. I did put angora cuffs on a pair of socks – the angora felted long before the wool, and I had to cut it off and re-knit the cuffs from wool. I made one pair of socks (at my father-in-law’s request) from a 50-50 wool-yearling mohair blend. He loves them, and is still wearing them six years later. But I thought then and still think that the fabric is just too scratchy! My next experiment (when I get around to it) will probably include some alpaca, simply because I’m on an alpaca ‘kick’ lately. But right now I’m happy sticking to wool for my socks.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Helpful (sometimes forgotten) resources for the knitter/spinner
We aficionados of the information superhighway tend to look online first for information. And we frequently find it – along with a bewildering array of misinformation! So where does the average spinner and knitter look for advice on that beautiful cashmere or qiviut or superfine merino fiber or yarn? How do you learn how to do a gauge swatch, and what information you should get from it, and how to translate that into the sweater you want to make for yourself this winter (hopefully without frogging the whole thing six times)? How do you duplicate the stitch pattern you saw in the LL Bean catalog – you can’t buy it, it’s only offered in men’s sizes and your three year old can’t wear anything that big for at least a decade!
We do indeed have multiple online resources. Various knitting and spinning lists are incredible treasures of first-hand experiences with almost any yarn or fiber. Even in the middle of the night in the US, it’s broad daylight and you can get an answer in a hour or so from someone in Australia or Europe. On-line forums with searchable archives are another 24/7 resource – I always learn something new from places like the Knitter’s Review Forum.
Yes, the information superhighway is an excellent resource. But what if you’re in the midst of a power blackout, or (horrors!) your teenager has the computer tied up working frantically on the mid-term report that should have been started six weeks ago? Of course you pay for the ISP, and you could claim seniority and owner privilege, but if said teenager flunks that course you may still be supplementing his/her income two decades from now because no college would take his/her application! Mental picture of yourself still working to support that child and his/her family at the ripe age of 85 intrudes…nope, I’m not going to do that. What other resource might you be able to reach?
Look on your bookshelf! Even if you don’t own many knitting or spinning books, you probably do own at least one or two. Some are staples for beginners – almost anything by Elizabeth Zimmerman, Sally Melville or Maggie Righetti will handle basic knitting questions, and spinners can look to Anne Field, Lee Raven, Alden Amos or Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. Chances are you own at least one basic book in your chosen craft, and often those basic books can answer almost any question you have, as long as you read thoughtfully.
And if you never purchase books, but do occasionally pick up a magazine like Knitter’s or SpinOff or Vogue Knitting for inspiration, check out those issues for the answer to your question of the moment. While nicely-indexed binders organized by year are wonderful, if your collection isn’t quite so organized, a fast perusal of the covers will bring back a memory of the sort of material that was included in that edition. Or you might find yourself re-discovering a technique that didn’t interest you at the time, but which is absolutely perfect for your current project!
Another sometimes overlooked resource is the expertise found in our local guilds or knitting shops. Most guilds have directories that include contact information for help between meetings, and guild meetings, even informal ones, are always opportunities for a bit of one-on-one instruction from someone else who’s got practical experience with whatever is giving you trouble. As for knitting shops, they’re almost always gathering places for knitters and spinners who simply go there to work in congenial company. While you’re working and chatting, you can ask a question.
So next time you have a question and the internet isn’t available, check out some of the ‘locally available resources’ in your immediate neighborhood. You might find exactly the expertise you need!
We do indeed have multiple online resources. Various knitting and spinning lists are incredible treasures of first-hand experiences with almost any yarn or fiber. Even in the middle of the night in the US, it’s broad daylight and you can get an answer in a hour or so from someone in Australia or Europe. On-line forums with searchable archives are another 24/7 resource – I always learn something new from places like the Knitter’s Review Forum.
Yes, the information superhighway is an excellent resource. But what if you’re in the midst of a power blackout, or (horrors!) your teenager has the computer tied up working frantically on the mid-term report that should have been started six weeks ago? Of course you pay for the ISP, and you could claim seniority and owner privilege, but if said teenager flunks that course you may still be supplementing his/her income two decades from now because no college would take his/her application! Mental picture of yourself still working to support that child and his/her family at the ripe age of 85 intrudes…nope, I’m not going to do that. What other resource might you be able to reach?
Look on your bookshelf! Even if you don’t own many knitting or spinning books, you probably do own at least one or two. Some are staples for beginners – almost anything by Elizabeth Zimmerman, Sally Melville or Maggie Righetti will handle basic knitting questions, and spinners can look to Anne Field, Lee Raven, Alden Amos or Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. Chances are you own at least one basic book in your chosen craft, and often those basic books can answer almost any question you have, as long as you read thoughtfully.
And if you never purchase books, but do occasionally pick up a magazine like Knitter’s or SpinOff or Vogue Knitting for inspiration, check out those issues for the answer to your question of the moment. While nicely-indexed binders organized by year are wonderful, if your collection isn’t quite so organized, a fast perusal of the covers will bring back a memory of the sort of material that was included in that edition. Or you might find yourself re-discovering a technique that didn’t interest you at the time, but which is absolutely perfect for your current project!
Another sometimes overlooked resource is the expertise found in our local guilds or knitting shops. Most guilds have directories that include contact information for help between meetings, and guild meetings, even informal ones, are always opportunities for a bit of one-on-one instruction from someone else who’s got practical experience with whatever is giving you trouble. As for knitting shops, they’re almost always gathering places for knitters and spinners who simply go there to work in congenial company. While you’re working and chatting, you can ask a question.
So next time you have a question and the internet isn’t available, check out some of the ‘locally available resources’ in your immediate neighborhood. You might find exactly the expertise you need!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
I’ve Really Been Around – Honest!
I’ve been playing with a fairly new obsession recently, and my blogging has suffered as a result. I got an Ipod! A 60-gig video Ipod! Now, if you know what’s coming, you can just cruise on away – you won’t hurt my feelings a bit! There will be some fibery content below – but mostly just unbridled enthusiasm for a very old idea (everything old is new again…and if you’re old enough to remember that line, you may think I’m nuts to have joined the digital music revolution)!
Not only do I have my 1000+ (and growing – ITunes is almost as good a budget-wrecker as a fiber festival) collection of songs all in one place now, along with all of my photos for the past 3 or 4 years (I can’t believe there are more than 1,500 edited photos), but I’ve discovered podcasts! There are actual, honest to goodness knitters and spinners putting out regular shows, complete with some wonderful music - all about fibers and knitting! These have me completely addicted. Now instead of knitting while watching whatever my DH has on the television, I’m putting on my earphones and knitting away to the dulcet tones of different podcasters!
These podcasts take me back to the days of radio. Yes, Virginia, there were still a few radio shows broadcasting when I was very young, and I must admit to a fondness to the re-releases of many of the old shows on CD’s these last few years. I love listening to the old Jack Benny shows, and have heard many of the Burns and Allen gems for the first time on these CD’s. My DH loves “The Shadow” and several other shows, too, and we put these in the car CD player and thrill or laugh the miles away as we travel.
Which podcasts do I like best? I’m still exploring. I admit that I’ve downloaded all the Cast On episodes, and love Brenda Dayne’s voice and choice in music. But I’m also working my way through ‘samplings’ of several other podcasts, and love seeing what’s new on ITunes and in other places from week to week.
What am I working on while listening? Ah, now we’re getting into the interesting stuff! The alpaca and silk shawl is coming along – more slowly than I would like, since I’m having trouble right now getting either podcast-listening, spinning OR lace-knitting time (work is intruding on my play-time), but I am trying to get at least a few rows done each day. The leaf design is lovely, and while it requires attention, still moves along at a fairly decent clip.
My mindless knitting project right now is an EZ Fair Isle Yoke sweater for myself from the pattern reprinted in “The Opinionated Knitter” – simple stockinette stitch until you get the body and sleeves knit, then Fair Isle patterns in the yoke. I had 2600 yards (six skeins) of lovely, creamy fingering-weight wool and dyed two skeins a beautiful variegated purple, pink and blue colorway. I’ll use at least one of those for the Fair Isle patterns, and the cream wool as the main color. I considered dyeing the main color a very pale pink, but decided against it before starting. The longer I work with the yarn, though, the more I’m beginning to think that a pale pink might be really pretty. I may put the body and sleeves on a ribbon after knitting and kettle-dye the already-knit portions with another skein of yarn to finish up the knitting. I’d rather not over-dye the variegated colors – they’re exactly what I want right now. Although the dyeing may be a little tricky, I’m too far along to happily rip out, dye and re-knit the cream yarn now! I really don’t want to do sixteen rows of K2P2 rib on size 0 needles again! I’ll get photos up when it actually looks like something other than a large mass of cream stitches. As for what I’ll do with the leftover wool…I’m thinking a hat to match the sweater might be fun, as might gloves or mittens. We’ll see what inspiration strikes when Christmas is over!
Time to run - supper is going to burn if I don't!
Not only do I have my 1000+ (and growing – ITunes is almost as good a budget-wrecker as a fiber festival) collection of songs all in one place now, along with all of my photos for the past 3 or 4 years (I can’t believe there are more than 1,500 edited photos), but I’ve discovered podcasts! There are actual, honest to goodness knitters and spinners putting out regular shows, complete with some wonderful music - all about fibers and knitting! These have me completely addicted. Now instead of knitting while watching whatever my DH has on the television, I’m putting on my earphones and knitting away to the dulcet tones of different podcasters!
These podcasts take me back to the days of radio. Yes, Virginia, there were still a few radio shows broadcasting when I was very young, and I must admit to a fondness to the re-releases of many of the old shows on CD’s these last few years. I love listening to the old Jack Benny shows, and have heard many of the Burns and Allen gems for the first time on these CD’s. My DH loves “The Shadow” and several other shows, too, and we put these in the car CD player and thrill or laugh the miles away as we travel.
Which podcasts do I like best? I’m still exploring. I admit that I’ve downloaded all the Cast On episodes, and love Brenda Dayne’s voice and choice in music. But I’m also working my way through ‘samplings’ of several other podcasts, and love seeing what’s new on ITunes and in other places from week to week.
What am I working on while listening? Ah, now we’re getting into the interesting stuff! The alpaca and silk shawl is coming along – more slowly than I would like, since I’m having trouble right now getting either podcast-listening, spinning OR lace-knitting time (work is intruding on my play-time), but I am trying to get at least a few rows done each day. The leaf design is lovely, and while it requires attention, still moves along at a fairly decent clip.
My mindless knitting project right now is an EZ Fair Isle Yoke sweater for myself from the pattern reprinted in “The Opinionated Knitter” – simple stockinette stitch until you get the body and sleeves knit, then Fair Isle patterns in the yoke. I had 2600 yards (six skeins) of lovely, creamy fingering-weight wool and dyed two skeins a beautiful variegated purple, pink and blue colorway. I’ll use at least one of those for the Fair Isle patterns, and the cream wool as the main color. I considered dyeing the main color a very pale pink, but decided against it before starting. The longer I work with the yarn, though, the more I’m beginning to think that a pale pink might be really pretty. I may put the body and sleeves on a ribbon after knitting and kettle-dye the already-knit portions with another skein of yarn to finish up the knitting. I’d rather not over-dye the variegated colors – they’re exactly what I want right now. Although the dyeing may be a little tricky, I’m too far along to happily rip out, dye and re-knit the cream yarn now! I really don’t want to do sixteen rows of K2P2 rib on size 0 needles again! I’ll get photos up when it actually looks like something other than a large mass of cream stitches. As for what I’ll do with the leftover wool…I’m thinking a hat to match the sweater might be fun, as might gloves or mittens. We’ll see what inspiration strikes when Christmas is over!
Time to run - supper is going to burn if I don't!
Friday, August 18, 2006
Fiber 101 continued
And now for the promised second installment. Thank you all for your kind words - you're generally a much more appreciative audience than my family or the engineers and physicists for whom I work!
We covered protein fibers last time - basically anything that originated with an animal or insect. I'll talk about cellulose next, and give some very basic information on the man-made fibers. These are springing up so fast that details are out of date before you can publish them - even on the web! I do think it's interesting that so many of them are attempts to imitate silk. As a confirmed silk addict, I've yet to see any of the synthetic fibers completely measure up to the original, but rayon, soy, ingeo and tencel all have their good points. Interestingly, silk is usually less expensive to spinners than many of these imitations!
I close with some things that I think about when beginning a new project. Take a look, see what you think, and let me know what you think yourself!
Cellulose Fibers
Cotton
Cotton lint is the surrounding material for the seeds of the cotton plant. Cotton comes in hundreds of varieties and dozens of natural colors. There are many varieties available worldwide. It is a fine-diameter cellulose fiber that is fairly short, with individual fibers ranging from ½ inch to 2 ¼ inches in length. The longer Pima, Egyptian and Sea Island fibers are the luxury standard for cotton. Most of the cotton grown for household uses in the United States is Acala, a short-staple, fine, shiny fiber with little natural wax.
Cotton requires a long, hot growing season with plentiful rainfall. It is also quite hard on the soil; cotton fields should be rotated with nitrogen-rich crops in a minimum one year of cotton and three years of legume or alfalfa ratio. These requirements make cotton a tropic or sub-tropic plant. Cotton can be grown in East Tennessee, but you’ll only harvest about one year out of four – the other years frost will get the crop. (It's also illegal at this point to plant cotton in East Tennessee - we're in a buffer zone for the boll weevil.)
These growing requirements made cotton a ‘luxury’ fiber until the invention of the cotton gin in the late eighteenth century. It’s hard to believe that this staple of our day-to-day clothing was ever more expensive than wool or linen, but until the late 1700’s this was so. The cotton gin and mechanized spinning, however, made cotton fiber and yarn much more affordable.
The labor-intensive cotton agriculture business was one of the main economic justifications for slavery in both the pre-civil-war United States and other countries. Until after World War II all cotton had to be harvested by hand. It is still harvested by hand in much of the world. Having grown a dozen cotton plants each of the past three years (with no crop to show for it yet), I can testify that the idea of acres of these plants is much more work than I want to try!
Cotton can be spun into singles of thicknesses ranging from finer than a human hair to fingering-weight. It is usually spun rather fine and plied to the desired diameter, since larger-diameter cotton yarns tend to wear badly – they get quite fuzzy very quickly. Cotton wicks moisture away from the skin, making it an ideal fiber choice for hot climates and seasons, and the very fine yarns can be woven or knitted into gauzy fabrics that are quite comfortable even in hot, humid weather.
Cotton is heavier than the same yardage of most wool yarns (wool as in sheep’s wool). This means that it should be knitted or crocheted at a tighter gauge, with a smaller needle, than a comparable-diameter wool yarn. This will avoid having the fabric stretch from its own weight. Gravity can’t be fought, but you can compensate for its effects! Cotton has no crimp, and so little or no stretch. This means no recovery with washing, and the necessity for making all the stretch necessary for a garment a part of the fabric structure. Mixtures of cotton and man-made fibers have a little more stretch, but aren’t as cool to wear. Wonderful yarns are made from cotton and silk in combination, but this yarn also needs to be swatched carefully and mindfully.
As knitters, you may find cotton rather harder on the hands than wool, especially if you have a touch of arthritis. The lack of stretch means that you’ll need smaller needles than those needed for comparable weight sheep’s wool. And a non-stretchy fiber makes forming the stitches slightly more difficult. But cotton can’t be beat for summer sweaters and shawls, or light baby clothes!
Most cotton yarns can be machine washed and tumble-dried quite successfully. There are some exceptions out there, though, so check the yarn label carefully!
Flax/Linen, Hemp and Nettle
All three of these are bast fibers, with similar properties and identical methods of production. The fibers are retted from the plant stems in a long, labor-intensive process. Flax is the name of the plant from which linen thread is derived. Hemp and nettle are becoming more common, but are still not yarns you’ll find at the usual local hobby or big-box shop.
These are the longest of the natural fibers except for silk. Individual fibers range from the very fine fibers of plants grown in rich soil to very coarse fibers from plants grown in poor soils. Linen especially is easy to grow in almost any region. Many people plant flax in gardens just for the lovely blue flowers, and don’t even know that they have a good source of fiber along with the flowers.
All three fibers are processed in the same way. I’ve grown flax several times and obtained wonderful fiber, but I live on river-bottom land. Seeds are sown thickly in a well-tilled plot in mid-spring. A fence is frequently put around a flax patch to keep the plants upright, and chicken-wire or a string grid mounted up the fence and across the patch at vertical intervals of 6-12 inches. The tall plants will grow through the interstices and stay relatively straight. The chicken-wire also serves to slightly discourage rabbits.
After the plants have flowered and seed pods formed, they’re pulled from the ground and laid out to dry in the sunshine. After drying, the stalks are carefully threshed to glean the seeds. Then the stalks are either stored until spring or retted immediately.
Retting involves rotting the woody part of the stems to loosen them from the fibers. I fill a large tub with water and sink the stalks, weighting them just enough to keep them under the water level. Water is changed every couple of days. It normally takes about 2 weeks to rot the woody stems sufficiently to be able to pull fiber loose. The stems are removed from the water at that point and again dried out.
The retted and dried stems are broken loose from the fibers with a flax brake or a wooden scutch and sword. Then a handful of stems at a time are combed through successively finer hackling combs until you have the longest, finest fibers. These are spun for line linen. The waste – short or broken fibers – is used to spin tow.
All bast fibers have several things in common. The top-quality yarn of each type will be very smooth and strong. The tow yarns will be very hairy and prickly, much like burlap sacking. The yarns have good body, but no stretch – all the ‘give’ in the fabric must come from its construction. The good news is that knitted bast fabrics don’t crease and wrinkle as much as their woven cousins. All three fibers are cool, wicking moisture away from the body and drying quickly. Linen, especially, is quite absorbent, able to retain more than four times its weight in liquid.
Nettle is absolutely the finest of the bast fibers, but is also the most costly. It is difficult to grow, difficult to process, and large amounts of plant materials are required to make a small amount of yarn. It is, however, almost as shiny as silk and quite fine in diameter. It is the supplest of the bast fibers as well, and the drape of a nettle fabric will be similar to silk.
Linen is next, with the best linen fibers rivaling nettle for fineness. It is somewhat easier to process (you don’t have to deal with the nettles). Linen comes in many grades, and you’ll want to shop carefully. Dye lots are especially important with linen threads, since not only the individual dye-pots but the crops themselves vary so much in color from year to year.
Hemp is becoming more and more popular. It isn’t as costly as either of the other two, probably because it is the easiest of the three to process. Don’t make the mistake of thinking all hemp is like that used for teenagers’ beaded bracelets. High-quality hemp yarns are smooth, supple and shiny, almost identical to line linen of the same weight.
All bast fiber yarns should be knit only after careful swatching. Linen is lighter than cotton, but still heavier than wool yarns of similar grist. Stitches and fabrics will stretch while wearing. However, linen (or any bast fiber) is especially suited for summer sweaters, fine laces, and household items. Knitting is similar to cotton, with the accompanying caveats about the possible difficulties on the hands magnified, since bast fibers tend to be rather stiff until washed a few times.
Care is simple, and similar to other knitted items. Bast fabrics should be either hand or machine washed in warm water, spun quickly to remove excess water (or rolled in a towel), and laid flat to dry. Lace items should be blocked quite severely. These are the only knitted fabrics that will benefit from ironing. Hard pressing with lots of steam should be a part of the finishing for any bast fabric. And that same sort of pressing will revitalize many older linen fabrics.
Bast fibers are some of the longest-lasting fibers. There are examples of linen and hemp fabrics in many museum collections; some are dated as among the oldest textiles found to date.
General notes on cellulose fibers
All plant fibers are much more difficult to dye than protein fibers. Scouring with harsh chemicals so that dye can penetrate the fiber shaft is necessary. Cotton is the easiest fiber to dye in a home setting. I suggest Rit dye for experimentation, and Procyon-brand substantive dyes for intensive exploration. But dyeing large amounts of these fibers takes dedicated equipment and a certain amount of care. I recommend Google and your local library for additional information.
Man-Made Fibers
There are two main classifications of man-made fibers – those made from petroleum-based chemical products and those made from various recycled or waste agriculture products. There are many new and exciting fibers in the second category, but the most common fibers right now are those in the first category. Let’s take a look at them first.
Petro-chemical fibers
Nylon and polyester and acrylics (the oldest polyamides) are the first of these that come to mind, since they’ve been around the longest. The various microfibers are newer versions. These fibers are all created by dissolving petro-chemicals or their derivates in a specific mixture and then forcing the liquid through spinnerets under high pressure. The liquids are extruded into jets of air that dry the resulting fibers quickly, and are then spun in a similar fashion to fine cotton. The currently-popular microfibers are produced in this way, but the individual fibers are much smaller in diameter than those of 1960’s polyester.
These fibers have several things in common. They’re easy-care, machine-washable and dryable, sturdy and don’t wrinkle. They’re stretchy. The older ones don’t transfer heat and moisture well, so they’re hot to wear, but the newer polyamides are more breathable, and indeed have been engineered to imitate natural fiber properties as much as possible. This has improved wearing comfort. In order to enhance their wearability, or add easy-cleaning properties to natural fibers, the two are frequently blended. You will see many microfiber or polyamide blends with wool, cashmere, angora, mohair and cotton. These are normally quite successful from a knitter’s or crocheter’s standpoint, since they offer washability and improved wear while retaining the luxurious feel of the natural fiber.
Superwash sheep’s wool is now most commonly created by coating the individual wool fibers with a polyamide. While this increases the diameter of the wool fiber slightly, it does provide machine-washing capability. You should be careful not to tumble superwash wools on high heat, however, since the coating isn’t always as heat-proof as you might wish.
Care for polyamides is normally listed as easy; machine wash in warm water and tumble dry on low or medium heat. Caution is advised with ironing or high heat, as it can melt these fabrics! You might also want to think twice and check the label for flame resistance before using them for infant’s wear.
Recycled fibers
These are the exciting new fibers I talked about earlier. They range from ecospun, which is basically recycled soda bottles, to soy silk and ingeo, both of which are made from the waste products of soy and corn plants. More are available all the time – one of the latest is made from bamboo fibers and is a good substitute for linen, but with more of a cotton feel.
Ecospun could just as well have gone in the petro-chemical category. It is the name given to fibers made from recycled plastic bottles. Some is shredded quite fine and blended with natural fibers to add washability and extend their wear. Some is simply reprocessed into one of the extruded fibers discussed above. I've had good luck adding this to wool for socks - it increases wear almost as well as nylon.
Tencel is one of the newer fibers made from petrochemicals. It has been engineered for breathability and excellent wear. The feel is rather like silk or supple suede, but Tencel has more stretch and less tensile strength than silk. It is an acceptable substitute for silk, though, and costs less. It is also a good choice for brushed fabrics like ultrasuede.
Soy silk and ingeo are both made from processing byproducts or waste. Technically both are cellulose fibers. They have the shine and smoothness you expect from silk, but should be dyed with cellulose dyes for the best color. These fibers are showing up more and more frequently on yarn shelves. I have spun both, and find the fibers very similar to silk in hand and behavior. They breathe better than most synthetic fibers, and can develop a lovely slight halo with wear that feels rather like suede.
Care labels on yarns should be checked carefully – some of these yarns are machine-wash and tumble dry, some require hand-washing. Tencel, soy silk and ingeo all block well, with only a slight tendency to stretch while wearing.
Choices are yours
Fiber choices abound. Knowing as much as possible about the characteristics of the various possibilities can help you choose the best possible yarn for your project. What follows is a short quiz that might help when you’re assessing the fibers and yarns for a new knitting or crochet project. I go through this almost automatically, and it has never let me down - when I've answered the questions honestly rather than getting carried away!
1. What are you making?
2. Where and how will it be used?
3. What care requirements do you have?
4. How much wear will the item receive?
5. Is this to be a classic part of your wardrobe or a currently-stylish accessory?
Once these questions are answered, you have a starting point. The next questions might be along these lines:
6. How much do you have or want to spend on yarn?
7. How do you want the finished fabric to feel?
8. How do you want the finished fabric to look?
9. How much time are you willing to spend?
Only then should you look at things like color and design. We’ll discuss a couple of possibilities to give you a feel for how your thought processes might go on a project.
Project 1: I want to make a purse for a young friend. She’s very stylish, loves vintage fabrics and is likely to wear classic, well-tailored clothes. She is currently a college student, but will graduate soon and enter the job market as a professional. All right, let’s take a stab at the questions.
I’m making a purse. It will be lined. It needs to be sturdy so that it can be carried, with a long handle – preferably one whose length can be adjusted in some fashion. It should stand up to rather heavy wear, but is probably not going to be used for more than a couple of seasons. Being able to wash it in the machine would be a plus, but isn’t absolutely necessary.
At this point I’m looking at several possibilities. Cotton, linen, hemp and wool would all wear well, and all are at least hand-washable. Felted wool would be quite sturdy and water-resistant as well. You could brush it clean, and the colors are great. Cotton would also be nice, and comes in bright colors. I’d need to choose a lining carefully and knit on small needles, though – I’d also have to allow for stretching. Hmmm, I’m leaning toward wool, but let’s keep going. Linen and hemp would work well, but are harder to clean and knit than wool and cotton.
I don’t want to spend a great deal on this, either in money or in time. That pretty much lets out linen and hemp, both of which are more expensive choices than cotton and wool. I’d like the finished fabric to be touchable, something you enjoy tucking under your arm. It should look classic, even somewhat elegant. Cotton tends to look beat-up and old more quickly than wool.
All right, I want a worsted-weight or bulky wool in classic colors – plum, burgundy, cream, dark green or black. I’ll knit the bag and then felt it, and line it with some vintage upholstery silk I have in my stash. Straps can be knitted I-cord, felted at the same time as the body of the purse and then sewed on with the lining. It will take about $25 in materials (if I don’t have anything I need in my stash already) and a maximum of a week of knitting time, with an extra evening of finishing and sewing.
That wasn’t so hard! Now let’s try something a little more challenging for Project 2.
I need a sweater to wear for work. It will need to go with my usual gray, black, tan and brown slacks – preferably with any of them – and be wearable in at least three seasons.
For three-season wear I can use cotton, silk, linen, or light-weight wool. Alpaca and cashmere blends might be a little warm for spring and fall, though they would feel wonderful. It needs to be relatively easy-care, either machine washable or easily hand-washable – no dry-cleaning. It will get quite a bit of wear, since my work clothes tend to be worn about once a week. So wear points like underarms and necklines should be abrasion-resistant. That pretty much lets out silk, which abrades quickly. I don’t want to spend the money for 9 or 10 skeins of line linen, even though it would work well for the project, and I don't particularly want to knit linen. It needs to look somewhat dressy – nice business attire for wearing on those days when I have meetings with folks from outside my own groups. But I want a touchable, comfortable fabric.
Either wool or cotton will work for this. If I choose wool, it should be in no more than a fingering-weight yarn, and lace-weight would be better, with multiple tightly-spun plies to resist abrasion. Short sleeves would be best; ¾ sleeves are acceptable. Cotton would also work well, but I’d need to allow for the stretch from the extra weight of a cotton yarn. Let’s shop for this with an open mind. Look at the sale bins first, and then go on to the shelves. This will be a classic, and I’ll wear it for several years, so I can afford to spend a bit more time on it. A natural or pastel color in the red or blue-green color families will work best with my usual dark slacks.
Are you beginning to see how it works? Let’s try one last project, simply because it’s something you’ll do sooner or later. You need a gift for a new baby. This one should be really special (for your own child or grandchild). You want to do something that will be used for the first year or so, but only on special occasions. However, since babies are basically messy creatures, you need to allow for that. Let’s say you decide on a baby blanket in a lace stitch with a lace border (I did say it was special). Your choices are many. Wool is classic, and can be bought as superwash to make care easier. Cotton may be a good choice for a baby in the South or Southwest, and is probably the easiest-care choice. Silk is also a possibility, either alone or mixed with either wool or cotton. It gives a drape and shine you won’t get with either fiber alone, and can be a little bit warmer than cotton alone. You don’t want to use a fuzzy mohair or angora, even in the wintry Northeast, since those fibers tend to make babies sneeze. Tencel is also possible.
This is going to be a lace structure, so the thread should be firmly spun and a minimum of two plies in order to show the pattern to best advantage. Smaller needles will be required to make sure baby fingers don’t get caught, so it will take a bit of time to knit.
Surprise! You can use cotton, wool or silk, tencel or a blend of any of these. If the mother won’t take proper care of fine sheep's wool, use superwash merino or a superwash/silk blend. Be sure you get something whose label says it’s machine-dryable! Cotton can be bleached to get rid of any particularly messy stains. Silk can’t be bleached, but a solution of peroxide and water will do a great job of whitening stained areas.
Traditionally, natural white/cream is used for this type of thing, but you can suit yourself. Generally speaking green and yellow are not the best choices for very young children – they make them look slightly jaundiced. Lavender, blue, pink or even brighter colors like red and royal blue are better choices for colored yarns.
Now that you have a good general knowledge of how each fiber will behave in a yarn, you can experiment with more confidence. By all means make choices ‘outside the box’. But do it knowing what allowances will have to be made for those choices! And have fun along the way!
We covered protein fibers last time - basically anything that originated with an animal or insect. I'll talk about cellulose next, and give some very basic information on the man-made fibers. These are springing up so fast that details are out of date before you can publish them - even on the web! I do think it's interesting that so many of them are attempts to imitate silk. As a confirmed silk addict, I've yet to see any of the synthetic fibers completely measure up to the original, but rayon, soy, ingeo and tencel all have their good points. Interestingly, silk is usually less expensive to spinners than many of these imitations!
I close with some things that I think about when beginning a new project. Take a look, see what you think, and let me know what you think yourself!
Cellulose Fibers
Cotton
Cotton lint is the surrounding material for the seeds of the cotton plant. Cotton comes in hundreds of varieties and dozens of natural colors. There are many varieties available worldwide. It is a fine-diameter cellulose fiber that is fairly short, with individual fibers ranging from ½ inch to 2 ¼ inches in length. The longer Pima, Egyptian and Sea Island fibers are the luxury standard for cotton. Most of the cotton grown for household uses in the United States is Acala, a short-staple, fine, shiny fiber with little natural wax.
Cotton requires a long, hot growing season with plentiful rainfall. It is also quite hard on the soil; cotton fields should be rotated with nitrogen-rich crops in a minimum one year of cotton and three years of legume or alfalfa ratio. These requirements make cotton a tropic or sub-tropic plant. Cotton can be grown in East Tennessee, but you’ll only harvest about one year out of four – the other years frost will get the crop. (It's also illegal at this point to plant cotton in East Tennessee - we're in a buffer zone for the boll weevil.)
These growing requirements made cotton a ‘luxury’ fiber until the invention of the cotton gin in the late eighteenth century. It’s hard to believe that this staple of our day-to-day clothing was ever more expensive than wool or linen, but until the late 1700’s this was so. The cotton gin and mechanized spinning, however, made cotton fiber and yarn much more affordable.
The labor-intensive cotton agriculture business was one of the main economic justifications for slavery in both the pre-civil-war United States and other countries. Until after World War II all cotton had to be harvested by hand. It is still harvested by hand in much of the world. Having grown a dozen cotton plants each of the past three years (with no crop to show for it yet), I can testify that the idea of acres of these plants is much more work than I want to try!
Cotton can be spun into singles of thicknesses ranging from finer than a human hair to fingering-weight. It is usually spun rather fine and plied to the desired diameter, since larger-diameter cotton yarns tend to wear badly – they get quite fuzzy very quickly. Cotton wicks moisture away from the skin, making it an ideal fiber choice for hot climates and seasons, and the very fine yarns can be woven or knitted into gauzy fabrics that are quite comfortable even in hot, humid weather.
Cotton is heavier than the same yardage of most wool yarns (wool as in sheep’s wool). This means that it should be knitted or crocheted at a tighter gauge, with a smaller needle, than a comparable-diameter wool yarn. This will avoid having the fabric stretch from its own weight. Gravity can’t be fought, but you can compensate for its effects! Cotton has no crimp, and so little or no stretch. This means no recovery with washing, and the necessity for making all the stretch necessary for a garment a part of the fabric structure. Mixtures of cotton and man-made fibers have a little more stretch, but aren’t as cool to wear. Wonderful yarns are made from cotton and silk in combination, but this yarn also needs to be swatched carefully and mindfully.
As knitters, you may find cotton rather harder on the hands than wool, especially if you have a touch of arthritis. The lack of stretch means that you’ll need smaller needles than those needed for comparable weight sheep’s wool. And a non-stretchy fiber makes forming the stitches slightly more difficult. But cotton can’t be beat for summer sweaters and shawls, or light baby clothes!
Most cotton yarns can be machine washed and tumble-dried quite successfully. There are some exceptions out there, though, so check the yarn label carefully!
Flax/Linen, Hemp and Nettle
All three of these are bast fibers, with similar properties and identical methods of production. The fibers are retted from the plant stems in a long, labor-intensive process. Flax is the name of the plant from which linen thread is derived. Hemp and nettle are becoming more common, but are still not yarns you’ll find at the usual local hobby or big-box shop.
These are the longest of the natural fibers except for silk. Individual fibers range from the very fine fibers of plants grown in rich soil to very coarse fibers from plants grown in poor soils. Linen especially is easy to grow in almost any region. Many people plant flax in gardens just for the lovely blue flowers, and don’t even know that they have a good source of fiber along with the flowers.
All three fibers are processed in the same way. I’ve grown flax several times and obtained wonderful fiber, but I live on river-bottom land. Seeds are sown thickly in a well-tilled plot in mid-spring. A fence is frequently put around a flax patch to keep the plants upright, and chicken-wire or a string grid mounted up the fence and across the patch at vertical intervals of 6-12 inches. The tall plants will grow through the interstices and stay relatively straight. The chicken-wire also serves to slightly discourage rabbits.
After the plants have flowered and seed pods formed, they’re pulled from the ground and laid out to dry in the sunshine. After drying, the stalks are carefully threshed to glean the seeds. Then the stalks are either stored until spring or retted immediately.
Retting involves rotting the woody part of the stems to loosen them from the fibers. I fill a large tub with water and sink the stalks, weighting them just enough to keep them under the water level. Water is changed every couple of days. It normally takes about 2 weeks to rot the woody stems sufficiently to be able to pull fiber loose. The stems are removed from the water at that point and again dried out.
The retted and dried stems are broken loose from the fibers with a flax brake or a wooden scutch and sword. Then a handful of stems at a time are combed through successively finer hackling combs until you have the longest, finest fibers. These are spun for line linen. The waste – short or broken fibers – is used to spin tow.
All bast fibers have several things in common. The top-quality yarn of each type will be very smooth and strong. The tow yarns will be very hairy and prickly, much like burlap sacking. The yarns have good body, but no stretch – all the ‘give’ in the fabric must come from its construction. The good news is that knitted bast fabrics don’t crease and wrinkle as much as their woven cousins. All three fibers are cool, wicking moisture away from the body and drying quickly. Linen, especially, is quite absorbent, able to retain more than four times its weight in liquid.
Nettle is absolutely the finest of the bast fibers, but is also the most costly. It is difficult to grow, difficult to process, and large amounts of plant materials are required to make a small amount of yarn. It is, however, almost as shiny as silk and quite fine in diameter. It is the supplest of the bast fibers as well, and the drape of a nettle fabric will be similar to silk.
Linen is next, with the best linen fibers rivaling nettle for fineness. It is somewhat easier to process (you don’t have to deal with the nettles). Linen comes in many grades, and you’ll want to shop carefully. Dye lots are especially important with linen threads, since not only the individual dye-pots but the crops themselves vary so much in color from year to year.
Hemp is becoming more and more popular. It isn’t as costly as either of the other two, probably because it is the easiest of the three to process. Don’t make the mistake of thinking all hemp is like that used for teenagers’ beaded bracelets. High-quality hemp yarns are smooth, supple and shiny, almost identical to line linen of the same weight.
All bast fiber yarns should be knit only after careful swatching. Linen is lighter than cotton, but still heavier than wool yarns of similar grist. Stitches and fabrics will stretch while wearing. However, linen (or any bast fiber) is especially suited for summer sweaters, fine laces, and household items. Knitting is similar to cotton, with the accompanying caveats about the possible difficulties on the hands magnified, since bast fibers tend to be rather stiff until washed a few times.
Care is simple, and similar to other knitted items. Bast fabrics should be either hand or machine washed in warm water, spun quickly to remove excess water (or rolled in a towel), and laid flat to dry. Lace items should be blocked quite severely. These are the only knitted fabrics that will benefit from ironing. Hard pressing with lots of steam should be a part of the finishing for any bast fabric. And that same sort of pressing will revitalize many older linen fabrics.
Bast fibers are some of the longest-lasting fibers. There are examples of linen and hemp fabrics in many museum collections; some are dated as among the oldest textiles found to date.
General notes on cellulose fibers
All plant fibers are much more difficult to dye than protein fibers. Scouring with harsh chemicals so that dye can penetrate the fiber shaft is necessary. Cotton is the easiest fiber to dye in a home setting. I suggest Rit dye for experimentation, and Procyon-brand substantive dyes for intensive exploration. But dyeing large amounts of these fibers takes dedicated equipment and a certain amount of care. I recommend Google and your local library for additional information.
Man-Made Fibers
There are two main classifications of man-made fibers – those made from petroleum-based chemical products and those made from various recycled or waste agriculture products. There are many new and exciting fibers in the second category, but the most common fibers right now are those in the first category. Let’s take a look at them first.
Petro-chemical fibers
Nylon and polyester and acrylics (the oldest polyamides) are the first of these that come to mind, since they’ve been around the longest. The various microfibers are newer versions. These fibers are all created by dissolving petro-chemicals or their derivates in a specific mixture and then forcing the liquid through spinnerets under high pressure. The liquids are extruded into jets of air that dry the resulting fibers quickly, and are then spun in a similar fashion to fine cotton. The currently-popular microfibers are produced in this way, but the individual fibers are much smaller in diameter than those of 1960’s polyester.
These fibers have several things in common. They’re easy-care, machine-washable and dryable, sturdy and don’t wrinkle. They’re stretchy. The older ones don’t transfer heat and moisture well, so they’re hot to wear, but the newer polyamides are more breathable, and indeed have been engineered to imitate natural fiber properties as much as possible. This has improved wearing comfort. In order to enhance their wearability, or add easy-cleaning properties to natural fibers, the two are frequently blended. You will see many microfiber or polyamide blends with wool, cashmere, angora, mohair and cotton. These are normally quite successful from a knitter’s or crocheter’s standpoint, since they offer washability and improved wear while retaining the luxurious feel of the natural fiber.
Superwash sheep’s wool is now most commonly created by coating the individual wool fibers with a polyamide. While this increases the diameter of the wool fiber slightly, it does provide machine-washing capability. You should be careful not to tumble superwash wools on high heat, however, since the coating isn’t always as heat-proof as you might wish.
Care for polyamides is normally listed as easy; machine wash in warm water and tumble dry on low or medium heat. Caution is advised with ironing or high heat, as it can melt these fabrics! You might also want to think twice and check the label for flame resistance before using them for infant’s wear.
Recycled fibers
These are the exciting new fibers I talked about earlier. They range from ecospun, which is basically recycled soda bottles, to soy silk and ingeo, both of which are made from the waste products of soy and corn plants. More are available all the time – one of the latest is made from bamboo fibers and is a good substitute for linen, but with more of a cotton feel.
Ecospun could just as well have gone in the petro-chemical category. It is the name given to fibers made from recycled plastic bottles. Some is shredded quite fine and blended with natural fibers to add washability and extend their wear. Some is simply reprocessed into one of the extruded fibers discussed above. I've had good luck adding this to wool for socks - it increases wear almost as well as nylon.
Tencel is one of the newer fibers made from petrochemicals. It has been engineered for breathability and excellent wear. The feel is rather like silk or supple suede, but Tencel has more stretch and less tensile strength than silk. It is an acceptable substitute for silk, though, and costs less. It is also a good choice for brushed fabrics like ultrasuede.
Soy silk and ingeo are both made from processing byproducts or waste. Technically both are cellulose fibers. They have the shine and smoothness you expect from silk, but should be dyed with cellulose dyes for the best color. These fibers are showing up more and more frequently on yarn shelves. I have spun both, and find the fibers very similar to silk in hand and behavior. They breathe better than most synthetic fibers, and can develop a lovely slight halo with wear that feels rather like suede.
Care labels on yarns should be checked carefully – some of these yarns are machine-wash and tumble dry, some require hand-washing. Tencel, soy silk and ingeo all block well, with only a slight tendency to stretch while wearing.
Choices are yours
Fiber choices abound. Knowing as much as possible about the characteristics of the various possibilities can help you choose the best possible yarn for your project. What follows is a short quiz that might help when you’re assessing the fibers and yarns for a new knitting or crochet project. I go through this almost automatically, and it has never let me down - when I've answered the questions honestly rather than getting carried away!
1. What are you making?
2. Where and how will it be used?
3. What care requirements do you have?
4. How much wear will the item receive?
5. Is this to be a classic part of your wardrobe or a currently-stylish accessory?
Once these questions are answered, you have a starting point. The next questions might be along these lines:
6. How much do you have or want to spend on yarn?
7. How do you want the finished fabric to feel?
8. How do you want the finished fabric to look?
9. How much time are you willing to spend?
Only then should you look at things like color and design. We’ll discuss a couple of possibilities to give you a feel for how your thought processes might go on a project.
Project 1: I want to make a purse for a young friend. She’s very stylish, loves vintage fabrics and is likely to wear classic, well-tailored clothes. She is currently a college student, but will graduate soon and enter the job market as a professional. All right, let’s take a stab at the questions.
I’m making a purse. It will be lined. It needs to be sturdy so that it can be carried, with a long handle – preferably one whose length can be adjusted in some fashion. It should stand up to rather heavy wear, but is probably not going to be used for more than a couple of seasons. Being able to wash it in the machine would be a plus, but isn’t absolutely necessary.
At this point I’m looking at several possibilities. Cotton, linen, hemp and wool would all wear well, and all are at least hand-washable. Felted wool would be quite sturdy and water-resistant as well. You could brush it clean, and the colors are great. Cotton would also be nice, and comes in bright colors. I’d need to choose a lining carefully and knit on small needles, though – I’d also have to allow for stretching. Hmmm, I’m leaning toward wool, but let’s keep going. Linen and hemp would work well, but are harder to clean and knit than wool and cotton.
I don’t want to spend a great deal on this, either in money or in time. That pretty much lets out linen and hemp, both of which are more expensive choices than cotton and wool. I’d like the finished fabric to be touchable, something you enjoy tucking under your arm. It should look classic, even somewhat elegant. Cotton tends to look beat-up and old more quickly than wool.
All right, I want a worsted-weight or bulky wool in classic colors – plum, burgundy, cream, dark green or black. I’ll knit the bag and then felt it, and line it with some vintage upholstery silk I have in my stash. Straps can be knitted I-cord, felted at the same time as the body of the purse and then sewed on with the lining. It will take about $25 in materials (if I don’t have anything I need in my stash already) and a maximum of a week of knitting time, with an extra evening of finishing and sewing.
That wasn’t so hard! Now let’s try something a little more challenging for Project 2.
I need a sweater to wear for work. It will need to go with my usual gray, black, tan and brown slacks – preferably with any of them – and be wearable in at least three seasons.
For three-season wear I can use cotton, silk, linen, or light-weight wool. Alpaca and cashmere blends might be a little warm for spring and fall, though they would feel wonderful. It needs to be relatively easy-care, either machine washable or easily hand-washable – no dry-cleaning. It will get quite a bit of wear, since my work clothes tend to be worn about once a week. So wear points like underarms and necklines should be abrasion-resistant. That pretty much lets out silk, which abrades quickly. I don’t want to spend the money for 9 or 10 skeins of line linen, even though it would work well for the project, and I don't particularly want to knit linen. It needs to look somewhat dressy – nice business attire for wearing on those days when I have meetings with folks from outside my own groups. But I want a touchable, comfortable fabric.
Either wool or cotton will work for this. If I choose wool, it should be in no more than a fingering-weight yarn, and lace-weight would be better, with multiple tightly-spun plies to resist abrasion. Short sleeves would be best; ¾ sleeves are acceptable. Cotton would also work well, but I’d need to allow for the stretch from the extra weight of a cotton yarn. Let’s shop for this with an open mind. Look at the sale bins first, and then go on to the shelves. This will be a classic, and I’ll wear it for several years, so I can afford to spend a bit more time on it. A natural or pastel color in the red or blue-green color families will work best with my usual dark slacks.
Are you beginning to see how it works? Let’s try one last project, simply because it’s something you’ll do sooner or later. You need a gift for a new baby. This one should be really special (for your own child or grandchild). You want to do something that will be used for the first year or so, but only on special occasions. However, since babies are basically messy creatures, you need to allow for that. Let’s say you decide on a baby blanket in a lace stitch with a lace border (I did say it was special). Your choices are many. Wool is classic, and can be bought as superwash to make care easier. Cotton may be a good choice for a baby in the South or Southwest, and is probably the easiest-care choice. Silk is also a possibility, either alone or mixed with either wool or cotton. It gives a drape and shine you won’t get with either fiber alone, and can be a little bit warmer than cotton alone. You don’t want to use a fuzzy mohair or angora, even in the wintry Northeast, since those fibers tend to make babies sneeze. Tencel is also possible.
This is going to be a lace structure, so the thread should be firmly spun and a minimum of two plies in order to show the pattern to best advantage. Smaller needles will be required to make sure baby fingers don’t get caught, so it will take a bit of time to knit.
Surprise! You can use cotton, wool or silk, tencel or a blend of any of these. If the mother won’t take proper care of fine sheep's wool, use superwash merino or a superwash/silk blend. Be sure you get something whose label says it’s machine-dryable! Cotton can be bleached to get rid of any particularly messy stains. Silk can’t be bleached, but a solution of peroxide and water will do a great job of whitening stained areas.
Traditionally, natural white/cream is used for this type of thing, but you can suit yourself. Generally speaking green and yellow are not the best choices for very young children – they make them look slightly jaundiced. Lavender, blue, pink or even brighter colors like red and royal blue are better choices for colored yarns.
Now that you have a good general knowledge of how each fiber will behave in a yarn, you can experiment with more confidence. By all means make choices ‘outside the box’. But do it knowing what allowances will have to be made for those choices! And have fun along the way!
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Fiber 101
This is something of a new adventure for me. I’ve been teaching fiber-arts for quite a while now, and rather than have my ramblings pieced out all over the blog, I’ve decided to post some of my more formal class materials here, in sections.
I was talking to my son earlier this week. We’d been on a dorm-furnishing shopping spree, and run into some folks in the store who were doing the same thing. Since the other college-bound student was a pretty girl, my teenaged son was happy to strike up a conversation. That conversation sparked the comments outlined below.
He was astonished at the lack of general knowledge his fellow freshman showed about what she was buying. She knew nothing about thread counts on sheets and towels, why cotton would be the best choice for most of those items, and had no clue that flannel sheets might be uncomfortable between August and October, March and May in East Tennessee. Or that jersey or silk sheets might be downright cold during our rainy, humid winters. “How can she not know this stuff, Mom?” he asked. “She’s bright – she’s a physics major – so how can she be so dumb about the little stuff?”
I had the unenviable task of explaining to my deluded offspring that many people weren’t raised with fiber artists as one parent and one grandparent, didn’t have a spinning wheel or loom in every public and most private rooms of their family home, and hadn’t learned spinning, weaving, crochet, tatting and knitting as a child. This basic knowledge regarding fibers was part of his childhood education. Since he was a gregarious child with a wide circle of friends, they also picked up much of this knowledge from either him or from me. But the majority of teenagers don’t have a clue – and guess what? Most adults don’t, either!
My new students frequently lack this basic knowledge base. It is no longer part of our cultural heritage, and if you don’t go looking for the information, you may very well be the sort of shopper who never really thinks about why wool is sold in the winter and cotton in the summer. Bur for those who are now curious, I’ll begin a tutorial about the basics – call it Fiber 101.
Fiber 101
Let’s talk about the raw stuff of fabric, whether that fabric be woven, knitted, crocheted or felted. At public demonstrations I often comment that “everything starts with the yarn.” That’s absolutely true. And a good understanding of how a yarn is made, and from what, will let you know the best fiber to choose and how to care for the article made from the resulting yarn.
First, let’s define some terms:
Fiber is the raw stuff – straight from the animal or plant.
Yarn is the spun fiber; the difference is in the added twist from the spinning process. That twist gives the needed friction to extend short fibers into long yarn.
A textile is the finished fabric, either knitted or crocheted to shape or as knitted, crocheted or woven yardage to be cut and sewn.
Fibers fall into two main categories – natural and man-made. There are some exciting new fibers that are probably best categorized as recycled, and we’ll talk about those later. The vast majority of our clothing and household textiles are still made from either cotton, wool, linen or silk or some combination of these with a man-made fiber. Where do these natural fibers come from and why are they chosen for a particular fabric? We’ll explore the differences and choices.
Within the two main categories of natural and man-made fibers are sub-categories. Natural fibers have two sub-categories – protein fibers and cellulose fibers. Generally speaking, protein fibers come from animals and cellulose fibers from plants. Man-made fibers also have two main sub-categories – petroleum derivatives and recycled fibers. We’ll discuss both, starting with the protein fibers because they have such a wide range of possibilities and challenges for the fiber artist.
Protein Fibers
Wool
Let’s talk about wool first. Wool is, in broad, a generic term for the outer body covering of any quadruped. These coverings are primarily constructed of protein arranged in a linear fashion - hair. In general conversation wool means the outer covering of a sheep. But in a broader sense wool can mean part or all of the outer covering of a sheep, llama, alpaca, rabbit, dog, cat, cow, horse, goat, musk ox, bison, yak or New Zealand possum, among others. You can find yarns from any of those animals except cats and dogs in any well-stocked yarn store. Each type of outer covering has different end uses, usually dependent on the fineness and length of the individual fiber. As a general rule, most of the animals listed above are raised only partly for their fiber, which is harvested each year by shearing or rooing (plucking or combing). With the exception of the New Zealand possums, which are terrible imported pests in that habitat, and buffalo or bison, which are being raised for meat, animals are not generally slaughtered for their fibers.
Wool is further divided into fleece and down. Fleece is usually the outer coat, but in breeds where the outer coat is quite coarse (horse, bison and cow), it can also be the term used for an inner coat. In general, fleece contains fibers from 2-8 inches in length and is of varying diameter, which can be measured on either the Bradford scale (mostly used for sheep’s wool) or in microns. Down is always an undercoat, and generally consists of fibers that are quite short – ¼ to ¾ inches in length – and fine, with diameter commonly measured in microns.
Fleece runs the gamut from rough and hard-wearing (think rugs and seaman’s sweaters and upholstery) to soft and fragile (think soft kid mohair or angora sweaters and fine-wool baby layettes). Insulating properties are good, and can be modified easily by spinning the fibers in either an unaligned or aligned fashion.
Unaligned fibers are used for woolen yarns. In general woolen yarns are not as long-wearing, but are very warm. The tangled fibers trap body heat and hold it within the spaces between fibers. Aligned fibers are termed worsted yarns, and are usually smoother, harder and longer-wearing than woolen yarns. They can be more easily worn in a wide range of temperatures, since the closely-aligned and compacted fibers allow heat to dissipate more easily.
There are a couple of other characteristics of fleece that can be exploited to create specific textiles. Fulled or felted fabric can be created by the application of any two of the following: heat, soapy water or agitation/abrasion/pressure. Fulling and felting will cause fibers to lock more tightly together, creating thicker, sturdier, less elastic fabrics. The process will also shrink the dimensions of the original textile. Some fleeces felt easily. Fine-wool sheep, alpaca, mohair goat and angora rabbit come immediately to mind. Simple wear can felt these fibers. Some fleeces are more difficult to felt; down-breed or long-wool sheep, Highland cattle, horsehair, and llama are examples.
Sheep’s wool is naturally flame-retardant. This makes it an excellent choice for items that will be worn in a camping environment, and anywhere you’ll be around a flame. Fine sheep’s wool is also a good choice for baby wear, since it’s a natural insulator, comfortable in all but the very warmest weather. Sheep’s wool has another interesting characteristic that makes it especially good for cold, wet weather. It will retain heat even when wet. This is what makes wool an especially good choice for wearables like socks, gloves and hats.
Down is normally the inner coat of an animal, although the term is sometimes used (in error) to describe short, very fine plant fibers like those from cat-tail and nettle. Down is usually very warm and not particularly strong unless plied. The fibers are generally too short to spin in anything but a woolen fashion – worsted 100% down yarns are a practical contradiction in terms except for hand spinners. Individual fibers are largely hollow, which accounts for their warmth. Unlike fleece, which is mostly (though there are exceptions) harvested by shearing, down is normally harvested by rooing or combing the short fibers from the coat. Most animals’ down is harvested from live animals, but this isn’t always safe. Bison, yak and buffalo down is either gathered from their environment or harvested from animals slaughtered for meat.
Some downs will felt; some will not. These differences appear to have more to do with individual animals than with breed differences. Downs have a low resistance to abrasion and usually become quite fuzzy with wear. This characteristic can be enhanced or modified by blending down with other fibers.
Fleece and down can be cleaned in the same way. A 10-minute soak in hot soapy water followed by two or more rinses in water of the same temperature will clean these fibers nicely. You may want to add a splash of white vinegar to sheep’s wool fabrics to restore the pH to a more normal level. Wools should be laid flat or blocked to air-dry. The heat and tumbling action of an automatic dryer provide the two necessary components for felting. Remember that sheep’s wool sweater you accidentally threw into the washer and then the dryer?
Bradford Scale for Sheep Wool
Type of Wool
Extrafine merino
Superfine merino
Fine merino
Standard merino
Medium wool
Coarse wool
Braid (very coarse) wool
Spinning Count
90’s
80’s
70’s
64’s
54-62’s
44-52’s
30-40’s
Micron Count
13-15
17
19
21
22-28
29-35
over 40
Silk
Silk is the other protein fiber. Silk is the continuous filament extruded by bombyx mori to form the cocoon in which the larvae transforms into the adult moth. Various elementary and middle-school children have described this as gross; I find it quite fascinating. Bombyx mori are native to all continents, and their favorite food is mulberry leaves. However, the species must survive, and so the larvae will feed on almost any available foliage. The type of foliage determines the color of the cocoon, and the strength of the fiber extruded for that cocoon. Mulberry leaves make for the whitest, finest cultivated silk fiber.
Silk cocoons are gathered and a tithe is reserved to hatch and mate for the next cycle. The other 90% of the cocoons are either baked, heated in a large skillet or plunged into boiling water briefly to kill the larva and prevent hatching. The emerging moth creates holes and tears in the cocoons which break the continuous silk filament, making the cocoons useless for high-end applications. However, wonderfully textured yarns are spun from the hatched cocoons.
Silk cocoons are reeled for the strongest, shiniest yarns. I’ve reeled silk a few times, and you may enjoy a brief description of the process. After breakfast I put very hot water into a crock pot and turn it on low. You want the water to remain just below a simmer in order to dissolve the sericin (the glue extruded by the silkworms that make the fibers stick together). Boiling water will explode the fragile silk filament. Chuck in 30-45 cocoons (about an ounce) for an afternoon’s reeling. After a couple of hours, when the cocoons have begun to soften and get mushy, I place the crock-pot on the kitchen counter just beneath the cabinet. I next suspend a canning jar ring or macramé ring above the top of the pot as a guide. Stirring with a chopstick or toothbrush will start the filaments unraveling from their cocoons, and you’ll guide anywhere from a dozen to 20 filaments through the canning ring guide. They’ll stick together nicely – the sericin is still on them – and look like a very narrow ribbon. Now you need some space, because you want those filaments to have a chance to dry before they’re wound onto the reel. I have a long, narrow kitchen with the dining room at one end. So I put the crock-pot at the far end of the kitchen and fasten the reel to the dining room table. That gives about 20 feet, which is plenty of space for the drying.
Once the setup is complete I carefully and slowly crank the reel, pulling and basically unrolling the filaments from those 12-20 cocoons until I reach the point where filaments are breaking. Then I join in more cocoons from the crock-pot. By the time I’ve reeled all the cocoons, it’s time to start supper and I have about 10,000 to 15,000 feet of rather crunchy, very thin and fragile silk ‘ribbon’. I carefully remove the reel from the table and shift it out of the way for the evening. Next day I’ll remount it in the studio, about 5 to 10 feet behind my spinning chair, and spend several hours ‘throwing’ the silk, or adding twist. The extra twist not only enhances the shine, it makes the thread stronger. Then I’ll ply that yarn back on itself two or three times to make a strong, very shiny, very thin yarn for weaving, knitting or needlework.
There are alternative methods of silk preparation, and each alternative makes a very different-appearing yarn. Simply soaking, then drawing out the cocoons and spinning will make a textured yarn with a great deal of shine. Or use the cocoons from hatched moths and the waste bits from the reeling process, cut into short pieces and carded, to make a textured, slubby silk noil yarn.
There are other substitutes that are acceptable food for bombyx mori, although the cocoon fibers spun by these moths will be various shades of tan, gold-brown or brown, depending on the type of leaf and the amount of tannin contained in the leaves. Silk worms fed leaves other than mulberry are used to make tussah silk yarns. The various processes for harvesting are identical, but the individual filaments are normally stronger and thicker than those of mulberry-fed silkworms.
Silk doesn’t felt, and should be washed in the same way as wool fibers unless the dyes used on the yarns are not color-fast. In that case you’ll want to hand wash and rinse in cool water and mild soap, finishing with a splash of vinegar in the final rinse. Hang or lie flat to dry, depending on the weight of the fabric. Silk will stretch in a looped fabric, so make large swatches and hang for a day or so before measuring.
General notes on protein fibers
Protein fibers dye easily with many household colors and a vinegar or citric acid mordant. Dyeing protein fibers is a great deal of fun, and easily done with food colors or unsweetened Kool-aid powder. Additional details and instructions can be found easily by typing “wool dyeing methods” into Google.
Sheep’s wool fibers have various amounts of crimp. This crimp is renewed whenever the wool gets wet, and gives sheep’s wool a good amount of elasticity. For this reason wool is frequently mixed with other fibers that don’t have this type of memory, including other wools like mohair, angora and alpaca, but especially with down and luxury fibers. Since mohair, angora, alpaca and all of the down fibers are also luxury fibers, this can make for more affordable fibers and yarns. While 100% alpaca or kid mohair yarns feel wonderful, they can present problems when used as the only component in sufficient yardage for an entire worsted-weight or bulky sweater. The sweater grows throughout the day’s wearing, and is really too warm to wear except outside on sub-zero days. Mix the luxury fiber with anywhere from 50 to 80% fine sheep’s wool and you have a fabric that is just as soft, much less heavy, and much more wearable than that same fiber alone. And it won’t break the budget! If you must have 100% luxury fibers, plan for the time to make the garment from fine-gauge yarn. The garment will both look better and feel better while you’re wearing it.
Most ‘wool’ yarn that you purchase will be sheep’s wool, and most of that is merino with a Bradford count ranging between 62 and 64. The exception is usually found only in weaving yarns, where you may run across rug wools with Bradford counts in the 30’s and 40’s, and also suiting or tweed yarns with Bradford counts in the upper 40’s and 50’s. Spinners generally learn a great deal more about this end of the sheep’s wool scale, but knitters and crocheters normally deal with one or another grade of merino. Don’t be fooled into thinking that merino is merino is merino. There are at least four distinct grades of merino, and each feels very different. Check out that Bradford scale again for some clues.
Be careful when using ‘superwash’ fibers. Generally, superwash is a treatment given to fine sheep’s wool in order to make it resistant to felting. The individual fibers are either coated with a polyamide or soaked in acid to eliminate the scales that make wool fibers lock together. Superwash treatments will NOT apply to any other fibers that are blended with the wool, however. A friend was heartbroken not long ago because she threw a hat knitted from a superwash wool, silk and kid mohair yarn into the washer and dryer. The superwash wool and the silk didn’t felt, but the kid mohair did! It’s now a very odd-looking hat. And some superwash is machine washable, but not machine dryable. If in doubt, check the label or hand wash!
Superwash wools are sometimes highly recommended for baby items, and can indeed make easy-care and snuggly, warm baby items. Be sure to check the labels for flame-resistance, however. A polyamide bath can sometimes change the normally flame-resistant structure of sheep’s wool. You don’t want to dress a baby in something that could burn them badly!
Next we'll take a look at cellulose fibers - probably next week!
Thursday, June 29, 2006
A Spinning Tutorial – some notes on spinning for a specific purpose
I’m presently teaching a local spinning class. It’s been going on for a while now, and the students are past the beginner’s usual over- and under-spun bobbles. They’re at the point where they’re comfortable with the process of making yarn. Each of them has his or her ‘default style’ of yarn, I’ve noticed. Some have spun fairly even, fairly fine yarns almost from the beginning, others spent weeks on trying to smooth out their lumpy, bumpy yarns before they settled on sport- or worsted-weight singles.
Surprising, to me, was the fact that those on drop spindles started spinning even yarns more quickly than those with spinning wheels. After reflection, though, I can see why that might be so. A spindle gives you time to think about the process, and lets you slow down each step to a crawl, if necessary. Park and draft has a lot going for it as a beginning spinning method, and is much easier to do on a spindle. Of course it’s possible to do park-and-draft on a wheel! But those with wheels have a tendency to keep treadling, I’ve noticed, trusting that it will all work itself out in the plying (which it frequently does).
Last meeting the question I’ve been waiting for arose, as usual from the most adventurous member of the group. “How do I spin the yarn for an entire sweater?” she asked. So we began working on the next step in spinning – spinning consistent yarn for a specific project. I thought you might be interested in some of what I told the group.
Spinning just for the sake of spinning is fine. You’ll do a lot of that in the beginning, and you should. Practice makes perfect, and the more practice you get as a spinner, the better spinner you’ll become. But sooner or later you’ll decide you want to spin enough of the same thing to do an entire project in your handspun yarn. So where do you start? Naturally enough, you should start with the project!
I got some wonderful advice when I started working on consistent spinning. My spinning mentors (I was lucky enough to have two really good ones) both agreed on the best way to manage it. So I ordered three pounds of 54’s roving from a good supplier and started spinning, aiming for worsted-weight singles. I’ve described that process before – it was quite a challenge for a dedicated frog-hair spinner like me! No, I don’t need three pounds of yarn for a sweater. I only need about 18-20 ounces. But it took at least 40 of those 48 ounces of fiber to get the 24 ounces I targeted as my needed amount for a sweater. The first two 4-ounce bobbins varied widely, from my ‘unconscious’ frog-hair to bulky-weight ‘compensation’ singles. I don’t think I spun so much thick and thin when I WAS a beginning spinner! But I finally settled into the groove, and eventually found that spinning worsted-weight singles was even pleasurable! The sweater wasn’t one of my successes (and I need to re-knit it one of these days), but the spinning lesson was perfect. The upshot of all this digression? Order or have on-hand at least twice the total amount of prepared fiber you’ll need for your chosen first project. If you’re using a raw fleece, you may need as much as four times the amount you’ll need, depending on how much waste you have in the washing and preparation processes. So an entire 8-pound Targhee fleece may be just enough for a single next-to-skin sweater!
And before you cringe, you won’t have to continue that way. Now I try to make sure I have about 10-25% more prepared fiber than I need for a project. The ‘extra’ gives me sampling yardage, ‘changing my mind’ yardage, or ‘I have to have a matching _____’ yardage. But you still need to allow for processing/preparation waste. My own rule of thumb is to buy at least twice as much raw fiber as I’ll need prepared for the project, and it’s always worked so far.
All right, you’ve chosen your project; now it’s time to choose your fiber. That’s one of the most important choices you’ll make. Guidelines for fiber types for specific projects are exactly that – guidelines. You can ignore them if you choose – there are no spinning police. But you really should take a look at them; they’re guidelines for a reason. Let’s run through some of them, and the reasons behind them.
Outerwear sweaters, mittens and socks generally use medium fibers with a Bradford count from 48-54. Yes, you can use superfine merino, but there will be trade-off – you won’t get the wear you will from 54’s, and you’ll have more pilling, even if you 4-ply the yarns. Medium-staple fibers mixed with alpaca, silk, or even tencel can add drape, warmth or shine, if you prefer. Angelina can add sparkle. The nice thing about most of these medium fibers is that they have a certain amount of natural shine, and they generally take dyes beautifully. Spun medium-fine and plied to balance, these are the workhorses of the spinning world, giving long wear and beautiful results to knitting projects from lacy 2-ply cardigans to cabled 4-ply Aran pullovers.
Next-to-skin wear other than socks, like warm sweaters, gloves, scarves and hats usually call for finer fibers, those in the 60’s Bradford range. That’s a compromise. You’ll get some pilling, and you’ll need to watch areas like underarms for wear, but you won’t have to wear a shirt under the sweater, and your hands will stay warm even playing in the snow. These are perfect places to blend exotics. A 60/40 mixture of Rambouillet or merino and alpaca will keep you toasty warm even if you’re exceptionally cold-natured and adding 20% of angora or kid mohair to your wool may have you stripping to your undershirt indoors.
Certain types of projects require specific wools. Shawls can be made with wonderful drape and softness from an alpaca/silk blend. Soft, cuddly fibers are a natural for shawls for babies and special occasions, and can be wonderfully comforting anytime. Generally, however, spinning shawl-knitters choose something with a less-pronounced crimp for their finest wedding-ring shawls. Why? Merino is great for many uses, but I seldom choose it for a shawl. That lovely crimp blocks out to almost 40 percent larger than the unblocked size. And two weeks (or one humid day) later, the shawl will again be the unblocked size. By all means use merino for a shawl – but plan to knit the shawl to the size you want it to be when worn. Shetland, that staple for fine shawls, has less crimp than merino – in fact, its crimp is more like that of the average medium wool – and is almost as fine in diameter as merino. This gives lace a crisp hand, and blocking holds until the next time you wash and block, even in high humidity. So check out the recommended fibers for your project, and figure out why they’re recommended – then make your own decision!
Exotics are wonderful for many projects. Knitters know to be aware of their tendency to grow either lengthwise or widthwise, and spinners can compensate for this by blending them will lovely, elastic, fine wool. You can generally stretch those exotic (and expensive) fibers at least four times further than you thought by blending them with wool in a 25/75 proportion by weight. The look and feel and drape will be present, but the wear may be much improved. However, there is little more sinfully luscious than a 100% down fiber scarf tucked around the collar of your winter coat, or a 100% silk shawl to throw around your shoulders in frigid summer air-conditioning. My own favorite winter hats are made from 100% alpaca. One is a rather whimsical wide-brimmed felted creation of burgundy-dyed handspun, and the other a snug, natural brown-colored double-layered stocking cap with a lace inset that’s almost too warm in East Tennessee!
All right, you’ve chosen your project and your fiber. You’ve probably also chosen your preparation – worsted prep (combed fibers) for harder-wearing items like socks and barn sweaters, woolen-prep (carded fibers) for warm hats, mittens, and sweaters. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can spin carded fibers into something that’s ‘good enough’ for a project that should use worsted fibers. It may spin well, knit nicely, and look great at first, but you won’t get the wear you would from equally well-spun worsted-prep fibers. Preparation matters. It matters in the spinning, in the knitting or weaving, and in the finished item. Properly-prepared fibers spin easily and pleasantly. Poorly-prepared fibers fight you every step of the way. So take the time to do proper fiber preparation!
And don’t think that buying commercially-processed fibers lets you out of preparation completely! Top must sometimes be split lengthwise to spin easily, and it will always need to be fluffed up and pre-drafted to some extent. Roving should also be loosened up and pre-drafted a bit for easier spinning. Skipping this step in the interest of saving time is one of those things that will inevitably bite you.
Are we finally to the spinning? Not quite. Before you sit down to start spinning your 2 pounds of fiber (or more), take a minute to think about what kind of yarn you want. If you’re going to do a knitted and fulled project like my floppy alpaca hat or those wonderful, ubiquitous FiberTrends slippers, you’ll want a fluffy, bulky singles or 2-ply yarn spun from worsted-prep fibers (think about why). If your project is a tightly-cabled fisherman sweater, your desire will be for finely-spun worsted singles that can be 4-plied into a lovely, round yarn that will make your stitch details pop! The requirements for socks will vary, but generally will be finely-spun worsted singles that can be either 3-plied or cabled for abrasion resistance to a fingering-weight yarn.
Now that you know what sort of yarn you want to spin, set up the wheel or choose a spindle. Learn to use your whorls – they’re your friends. Yes, you can spin cotton on a 6:1 whorl. But you’ll spin it more easily and pleasantly at a 20:1 ratio. Conversely, if you want lace-weight Shetland singles, you probably won’t want to spin at a 16:1, but at a 6:1 ratio. That way you’ll have time to pay attention to your drafting triangle and stop when you find a slub that’s trying to sneak into your lovely, even yarn. And you won’t over-spin your singles to the point where your 2-ply will corkscrew back on itself!
As for choosing a spindle…the general guideline is to choose a lighter spindle for finer yarns. There is one extremely good reason for this – a heavy spindle can literally snap gossamer yarns! But you do use a fairly heavy supported spindle to spin extremely fine singles. The difference is whether the singles themselves or the table/floor/spinner’s leg is supporting the weight of that spindle. I have a couple of very light-weight spindles that I can use to drop-spindle cotton as long as it’s Sea Island, pima or something else fairly long-stapled. Those same spindles don’t work well at all for acala or upland cotton unless I support them. But then they usually aren’t heavy enough to turn well against the resistance of that support. So for upland or acala, I use a takli, which is a lousy drop spindle, but a great supported spindle.
Spinning wheels are general-purpose machines. Spindles are more specialized hand tools, and spindlers will have their favorites just as chefs have favorite knives. As spinners we need to understand the possibilities and limitations of our tools’ abilities. However, an adventurous spinner will push those same tools to their limits, making them do things other spinners would never imagine.
You’ve begun spinning for your project, finally. Now it’s bedtime on Sunday night, and you won’t have a chance to sit down and spin again until Wednesday. How do you make sure you start spinning the same grist next time? A sample helps. Find a sheet of paper and tape a sample to it, or tie a longer sample to your spinning wheel somewhere. You can fondle it before you sit down next to refresh your fingers’ memory of the way the ‘proper’ yarn feels. It may take you a minute or two to get back into the groove of spinning it, but that’s OK. After you feel you’ve ‘found your niche’ again, stop the wheel (or spindle), unwind a bit, and see how it compares with your sample. If it’s pretty close, just leave it. If it’s way off, pull it back off, break it loose, and toss it away (or save it for something else). Then attach your fiber again and start spinning what you wanted. It’s only a bit of fiber, and you’ve got plenty.
Finish all yarn before you start knitting with it. I don’t make many flat statements, so please listen! I know you don’t like waiting for the skeins to dry – I don’t either. But I’ve had the requisite number of disasters to make me fully cognizant of the potential for a repeat catastrophe if I don’t take the time to complete this step. I’m always reminded of a weaving maxim – it isn’t finished until it’s wet-finished. Washing yarn allows for more than cleaning. It allows twist to settle and yarn to bloom, and makes knitting or weaving more pleasant. It allows you to discover in advance that your dyes are running, and do something about it before you put them next to a contrasting border or stripe. It fills the room with the lovely smell of clean wet wool. And it gives you time to make your final design decisions, dig out the proper knitting needles or reed, and look at your notes or pattern one more time.
Conventional wisdom says to spin and finish all of the yarn for a project before you begin knitting. There are indeed spinners who do exactly that. There are far more who can’t wait to get into the knitting part of the project, and who spin only when they need more knitting yarn. Either way will work, as long as you keep careful notes about how you finished your yarn and samples of each step of the process. This should prevent you from starting a center-out round shawl with lace-weight 2-ply that finishes off with a DK-weight knitted border.
Any spinner who has learned how to make fairly even singles can then go on to spin any yarn he/she likes. It’s simply a matter of being willing to play until you find the best way for you to get what you want. There are no short-cuts to the learning curve. Spinners aren’t usually those in search of instant gratification – we enjoy the process, whether it’s the process of creating yarn or the process of creating unique, one-of-a-kind items. That isn’t to say spinners aren’t frequently perfectionists – many of us wear that label along with its sibling, obsessive-compulsive syndrome. In some cases that longing to control all the variables is part of what started us spinning! But many of us who wear those labels have also learned the knack of ‘exempting’ part of our spinning time from our obsessive behavior. I decided long ago that spinning time was play time. And play time is ‘time out’ from trying to be perfect – otherwise it isn’t play! Surprisingly (or perhaps not), I’ve become easier to live with since I remembered how to play. I’ve also become a much better spinner, a more adventurous weaver, and a more adventurous knitter!
Surprising, to me, was the fact that those on drop spindles started spinning even yarns more quickly than those with spinning wheels. After reflection, though, I can see why that might be so. A spindle gives you time to think about the process, and lets you slow down each step to a crawl, if necessary. Park and draft has a lot going for it as a beginning spinning method, and is much easier to do on a spindle. Of course it’s possible to do park-and-draft on a wheel! But those with wheels have a tendency to keep treadling, I’ve noticed, trusting that it will all work itself out in the plying (which it frequently does).
Last meeting the question I’ve been waiting for arose, as usual from the most adventurous member of the group. “How do I spin the yarn for an entire sweater?” she asked. So we began working on the next step in spinning – spinning consistent yarn for a specific project. I thought you might be interested in some of what I told the group.
Spinning just for the sake of spinning is fine. You’ll do a lot of that in the beginning, and you should. Practice makes perfect, and the more practice you get as a spinner, the better spinner you’ll become. But sooner or later you’ll decide you want to spin enough of the same thing to do an entire project in your handspun yarn. So where do you start? Naturally enough, you should start with the project!
I got some wonderful advice when I started working on consistent spinning. My spinning mentors (I was lucky enough to have two really good ones) both agreed on the best way to manage it. So I ordered three pounds of 54’s roving from a good supplier and started spinning, aiming for worsted-weight singles. I’ve described that process before – it was quite a challenge for a dedicated frog-hair spinner like me! No, I don’t need three pounds of yarn for a sweater. I only need about 18-20 ounces. But it took at least 40 of those 48 ounces of fiber to get the 24 ounces I targeted as my needed amount for a sweater. The first two 4-ounce bobbins varied widely, from my ‘unconscious’ frog-hair to bulky-weight ‘compensation’ singles. I don’t think I spun so much thick and thin when I WAS a beginning spinner! But I finally settled into the groove, and eventually found that spinning worsted-weight singles was even pleasurable! The sweater wasn’t one of my successes (and I need to re-knit it one of these days), but the spinning lesson was perfect. The upshot of all this digression? Order or have on-hand at least twice the total amount of prepared fiber you’ll need for your chosen first project. If you’re using a raw fleece, you may need as much as four times the amount you’ll need, depending on how much waste you have in the washing and preparation processes. So an entire 8-pound Targhee fleece may be just enough for a single next-to-skin sweater!
And before you cringe, you won’t have to continue that way. Now I try to make sure I have about 10-25% more prepared fiber than I need for a project. The ‘extra’ gives me sampling yardage, ‘changing my mind’ yardage, or ‘I have to have a matching _____’ yardage. But you still need to allow for processing/preparation waste. My own rule of thumb is to buy at least twice as much raw fiber as I’ll need prepared for the project, and it’s always worked so far.
All right, you’ve chosen your project; now it’s time to choose your fiber. That’s one of the most important choices you’ll make. Guidelines for fiber types for specific projects are exactly that – guidelines. You can ignore them if you choose – there are no spinning police. But you really should take a look at them; they’re guidelines for a reason. Let’s run through some of them, and the reasons behind them.
Outerwear sweaters, mittens and socks generally use medium fibers with a Bradford count from 48-54. Yes, you can use superfine merino, but there will be trade-off – you won’t get the wear you will from 54’s, and you’ll have more pilling, even if you 4-ply the yarns. Medium-staple fibers mixed with alpaca, silk, or even tencel can add drape, warmth or shine, if you prefer. Angelina can add sparkle. The nice thing about most of these medium fibers is that they have a certain amount of natural shine, and they generally take dyes beautifully. Spun medium-fine and plied to balance, these are the workhorses of the spinning world, giving long wear and beautiful results to knitting projects from lacy 2-ply cardigans to cabled 4-ply Aran pullovers.
Next-to-skin wear other than socks, like warm sweaters, gloves, scarves and hats usually call for finer fibers, those in the 60’s Bradford range. That’s a compromise. You’ll get some pilling, and you’ll need to watch areas like underarms for wear, but you won’t have to wear a shirt under the sweater, and your hands will stay warm even playing in the snow. These are perfect places to blend exotics. A 60/40 mixture of Rambouillet or merino and alpaca will keep you toasty warm even if you’re exceptionally cold-natured and adding 20% of angora or kid mohair to your wool may have you stripping to your undershirt indoors.
Certain types of projects require specific wools. Shawls can be made with wonderful drape and softness from an alpaca/silk blend. Soft, cuddly fibers are a natural for shawls for babies and special occasions, and can be wonderfully comforting anytime. Generally, however, spinning shawl-knitters choose something with a less-pronounced crimp for their finest wedding-ring shawls. Why? Merino is great for many uses, but I seldom choose it for a shawl. That lovely crimp blocks out to almost 40 percent larger than the unblocked size. And two weeks (or one humid day) later, the shawl will again be the unblocked size. By all means use merino for a shawl – but plan to knit the shawl to the size you want it to be when worn. Shetland, that staple for fine shawls, has less crimp than merino – in fact, its crimp is more like that of the average medium wool – and is almost as fine in diameter as merino. This gives lace a crisp hand, and blocking holds until the next time you wash and block, even in high humidity. So check out the recommended fibers for your project, and figure out why they’re recommended – then make your own decision!
Exotics are wonderful for many projects. Knitters know to be aware of their tendency to grow either lengthwise or widthwise, and spinners can compensate for this by blending them will lovely, elastic, fine wool. You can generally stretch those exotic (and expensive) fibers at least four times further than you thought by blending them with wool in a 25/75 proportion by weight. The look and feel and drape will be present, but the wear may be much improved. However, there is little more sinfully luscious than a 100% down fiber scarf tucked around the collar of your winter coat, or a 100% silk shawl to throw around your shoulders in frigid summer air-conditioning. My own favorite winter hats are made from 100% alpaca. One is a rather whimsical wide-brimmed felted creation of burgundy-dyed handspun, and the other a snug, natural brown-colored double-layered stocking cap with a lace inset that’s almost too warm in East Tennessee!
All right, you’ve chosen your project and your fiber. You’ve probably also chosen your preparation – worsted prep (combed fibers) for harder-wearing items like socks and barn sweaters, woolen-prep (carded fibers) for warm hats, mittens, and sweaters. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can spin carded fibers into something that’s ‘good enough’ for a project that should use worsted fibers. It may spin well, knit nicely, and look great at first, but you won’t get the wear you would from equally well-spun worsted-prep fibers. Preparation matters. It matters in the spinning, in the knitting or weaving, and in the finished item. Properly-prepared fibers spin easily and pleasantly. Poorly-prepared fibers fight you every step of the way. So take the time to do proper fiber preparation!
And don’t think that buying commercially-processed fibers lets you out of preparation completely! Top must sometimes be split lengthwise to spin easily, and it will always need to be fluffed up and pre-drafted to some extent. Roving should also be loosened up and pre-drafted a bit for easier spinning. Skipping this step in the interest of saving time is one of those things that will inevitably bite you.
Are we finally to the spinning? Not quite. Before you sit down to start spinning your 2 pounds of fiber (or more), take a minute to think about what kind of yarn you want. If you’re going to do a knitted and fulled project like my floppy alpaca hat or those wonderful, ubiquitous FiberTrends slippers, you’ll want a fluffy, bulky singles or 2-ply yarn spun from worsted-prep fibers (think about why). If your project is a tightly-cabled fisherman sweater, your desire will be for finely-spun worsted singles that can be 4-plied into a lovely, round yarn that will make your stitch details pop! The requirements for socks will vary, but generally will be finely-spun worsted singles that can be either 3-plied or cabled for abrasion resistance to a fingering-weight yarn.
Now that you know what sort of yarn you want to spin, set up the wheel or choose a spindle. Learn to use your whorls – they’re your friends. Yes, you can spin cotton on a 6:1 whorl. But you’ll spin it more easily and pleasantly at a 20:1 ratio. Conversely, if you want lace-weight Shetland singles, you probably won’t want to spin at a 16:1, but at a 6:1 ratio. That way you’ll have time to pay attention to your drafting triangle and stop when you find a slub that’s trying to sneak into your lovely, even yarn. And you won’t over-spin your singles to the point where your 2-ply will corkscrew back on itself!
As for choosing a spindle…the general guideline is to choose a lighter spindle for finer yarns. There is one extremely good reason for this – a heavy spindle can literally snap gossamer yarns! But you do use a fairly heavy supported spindle to spin extremely fine singles. The difference is whether the singles themselves or the table/floor/spinner’s leg is supporting the weight of that spindle. I have a couple of very light-weight spindles that I can use to drop-spindle cotton as long as it’s Sea Island, pima or something else fairly long-stapled. Those same spindles don’t work well at all for acala or upland cotton unless I support them. But then they usually aren’t heavy enough to turn well against the resistance of that support. So for upland or acala, I use a takli, which is a lousy drop spindle, but a great supported spindle.
Spinning wheels are general-purpose machines. Spindles are more specialized hand tools, and spindlers will have their favorites just as chefs have favorite knives. As spinners we need to understand the possibilities and limitations of our tools’ abilities. However, an adventurous spinner will push those same tools to their limits, making them do things other spinners would never imagine.
You’ve begun spinning for your project, finally. Now it’s bedtime on Sunday night, and you won’t have a chance to sit down and spin again until Wednesday. How do you make sure you start spinning the same grist next time? A sample helps. Find a sheet of paper and tape a sample to it, or tie a longer sample to your spinning wheel somewhere. You can fondle it before you sit down next to refresh your fingers’ memory of the way the ‘proper’ yarn feels. It may take you a minute or two to get back into the groove of spinning it, but that’s OK. After you feel you’ve ‘found your niche’ again, stop the wheel (or spindle), unwind a bit, and see how it compares with your sample. If it’s pretty close, just leave it. If it’s way off, pull it back off, break it loose, and toss it away (or save it for something else). Then attach your fiber again and start spinning what you wanted. It’s only a bit of fiber, and you’ve got plenty.
Finish all yarn before you start knitting with it. I don’t make many flat statements, so please listen! I know you don’t like waiting for the skeins to dry – I don’t either. But I’ve had the requisite number of disasters to make me fully cognizant of the potential for a repeat catastrophe if I don’t take the time to complete this step. I’m always reminded of a weaving maxim – it isn’t finished until it’s wet-finished. Washing yarn allows for more than cleaning. It allows twist to settle and yarn to bloom, and makes knitting or weaving more pleasant. It allows you to discover in advance that your dyes are running, and do something about it before you put them next to a contrasting border or stripe. It fills the room with the lovely smell of clean wet wool. And it gives you time to make your final design decisions, dig out the proper knitting needles or reed, and look at your notes or pattern one more time.
Conventional wisdom says to spin and finish all of the yarn for a project before you begin knitting. There are indeed spinners who do exactly that. There are far more who can’t wait to get into the knitting part of the project, and who spin only when they need more knitting yarn. Either way will work, as long as you keep careful notes about how you finished your yarn and samples of each step of the process. This should prevent you from starting a center-out round shawl with lace-weight 2-ply that finishes off with a DK-weight knitted border.
Any spinner who has learned how to make fairly even singles can then go on to spin any yarn he/she likes. It’s simply a matter of being willing to play until you find the best way for you to get what you want. There are no short-cuts to the learning curve. Spinners aren’t usually those in search of instant gratification – we enjoy the process, whether it’s the process of creating yarn or the process of creating unique, one-of-a-kind items. That isn’t to say spinners aren’t frequently perfectionists – many of us wear that label along with its sibling, obsessive-compulsive syndrome. In some cases that longing to control all the variables is part of what started us spinning! But many of us who wear those labels have also learned the knack of ‘exempting’ part of our spinning time from our obsessive behavior. I decided long ago that spinning time was play time. And play time is ‘time out’ from trying to be perfect – otherwise it isn’t play! Surprisingly (or perhaps not), I’ve become easier to live with since I remembered how to play. I’ve also become a much better spinner, a more adventurous weaver, and a more adventurous knitter!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Summer Update
Things are hopping at work and at home these days, so the blog has rather fallen by the wayside. Life has a way of interfering from time to time, I’ve noticed. I always make time for some sort of fiber project, though.
I’ve been spinning for and knitting lots of socks lately. It’s my usual summer project, for a variety of reasons, and rather comforting to spin for something so familiar after several months of experimentation with exotic fibers.
Pictures will have to follow later, but I’ve been working on several sock yarns. Medium fleeces of about a 54-56 Bradford count, either generic 56’s from Woodland Woolworks (http://woodlandwoolworks.com/) or some Romney/Shetland cross fleece from a local shearing earlier this spring. Also in the works is a pair of socks from some Romney I spun up and dyed deep burgundy last year.
You know me – I can’t resist tinkering a bit! One of the yarns of 56’s was spun roughly mixed with some silk roving I bought awhile back. How do you rough-mix? Well, you lay out a long length of wool roving on the floor and spread it out. Then you take a strip of silk roving, split it lengthwise into quarters, and spread those quarters out over the length of wool. Pre-draft both fibers together and spin into a thin yarn, then 2-ply and cable for a wonderful sock yarn. Shiny sections will be mostly silk, and since the singles are quite thin (about 36 wpi) those shiny sections get spread throughout the finished yarn. The finished cabled yarn is lovely – cushy and with just a bit of crunch from the silk, and about 18 wpi. It worked up into a nice sturdy sock fabric on size 0 bamboo needles at a gauge of 7 stitches per inch. And the variegated pink dye is perfect – I’ll love these on cold, dreary January days this winter!
The Romney/Shetland cross is being combed on my Viking double-pitch combs. This is a really nice fleece, medium gray in color with a staple length of about 3-4 inches. I deliberately left just a little grease in the fleece when washing, because I knew I wanted to spin it quite thin and cable. And I love the way the yarn fulls when I spin it this way! The singles are done after a weekend-long public demonstration two weeks ago, and are patiently awaiting plying and cabling. They’ll have to continue to wait, I’m afraid, for at least another week – I stepped down off some stairs the wrong way and slightly tore my Achilles tendon last week. So now spinning is going to have to await healing!
This will be something of a whine, so if you want to skip this paragraph, feel free. I am the lucky owner of three spinning wheels – a Majacraft Rose, a Kromski Symphony, and an Ashford Traveler. All of those wheels are double-treadle, because that’s much easier for a back that I did in years ago. I’ve heard so many times (and even said myself!) that any DT wheel can be used as a single-treadle if necessary. And they can - for a short time, and very carefully. But they aren’t designed to work as ST’s, and they don’t like to be used as ST wheels. Now I’m upset because I can’t spin for at least two entire weeks UNLESS I can manage to do so in a ST fashion. Since I’m currently concerned with plying thin yarns (about 45 wpi), a lot of control is needed. And I cannot manage that kind of control in ST mode! I’ve tried – oh how I’ve tried – but I cannot do it. After just a couple of minutes, the wheel starts to reverse direction, my back begins to throb, and I feel like I really need a glass of something! I really do need just one more wheel, thank you very much, and that one needs to be a single-treadle! Maybe if I’m a very good girl Santa will bring me one? Probably not, but I can still wish!
The burgundy socks are an UFO. I started them last summer, in fact, in a feather-and-fan lace pattern very similar to the one in “Socks, Socks, Socks.” But I quickly grew weary of the pattern, and put them aside for the Christmas, winter and spring knitting. Now I need to finish the second sock (I’m almost at the heel), and am making myself do at least two pattern repeats a day. Peculiarly, I’m not finding the pattern quite as much of a slog this time around. I started these socks just after finishing up the Buegler Feather and Fan Shawl from GOL; perhaps I was just bored with F&F?
I gave myself a treat for the cooler September spinning season, and I like the look of the roving so much that I may take it along on vacation in August as a spindle project! I ran across some absolutely beautiful fine black alpaca that was mixed with silk in a 60/40 ratio. Both fibers are naturally-colored, and I have decided on a Christmas project for the yarn. Spinning this should be pure pleasure! But not the type of pleasure I want during an East Tennessee summer of 90-degree-plus days with 90 percent humidity levels! Vacation will be the earliest I’ll touch this, and only then if the ocean breezes cool things off enough to make it pleasurable.
I’ve been spinning for and knitting lots of socks lately. It’s my usual summer project, for a variety of reasons, and rather comforting to spin for something so familiar after several months of experimentation with exotic fibers.
Pictures will have to follow later, but I’ve been working on several sock yarns. Medium fleeces of about a 54-56 Bradford count, either generic 56’s from Woodland Woolworks (http://woodlandwoolworks.com/) or some Romney/Shetland cross fleece from a local shearing earlier this spring. Also in the works is a pair of socks from some Romney I spun up and dyed deep burgundy last year.
You know me – I can’t resist tinkering a bit! One of the yarns of 56’s was spun roughly mixed with some silk roving I bought awhile back. How do you rough-mix? Well, you lay out a long length of wool roving on the floor and spread it out. Then you take a strip of silk roving, split it lengthwise into quarters, and spread those quarters out over the length of wool. Pre-draft both fibers together and spin into a thin yarn, then 2-ply and cable for a wonderful sock yarn. Shiny sections will be mostly silk, and since the singles are quite thin (about 36 wpi) those shiny sections get spread throughout the finished yarn. The finished cabled yarn is lovely – cushy and with just a bit of crunch from the silk, and about 18 wpi. It worked up into a nice sturdy sock fabric on size 0 bamboo needles at a gauge of 7 stitches per inch. And the variegated pink dye is perfect – I’ll love these on cold, dreary January days this winter!
The Romney/Shetland cross is being combed on my Viking double-pitch combs. This is a really nice fleece, medium gray in color with a staple length of about 3-4 inches. I deliberately left just a little grease in the fleece when washing, because I knew I wanted to spin it quite thin and cable. And I love the way the yarn fulls when I spin it this way! The singles are done after a weekend-long public demonstration two weeks ago, and are patiently awaiting plying and cabling. They’ll have to continue to wait, I’m afraid, for at least another week – I stepped down off some stairs the wrong way and slightly tore my Achilles tendon last week. So now spinning is going to have to await healing!
This will be something of a whine, so if you want to skip this paragraph, feel free. I am the lucky owner of three spinning wheels – a Majacraft Rose, a Kromski Symphony, and an Ashford Traveler. All of those wheels are double-treadle, because that’s much easier for a back that I did in years ago. I’ve heard so many times (and even said myself!) that any DT wheel can be used as a single-treadle if necessary. And they can - for a short time, and very carefully. But they aren’t designed to work as ST’s, and they don’t like to be used as ST wheels. Now I’m upset because I can’t spin for at least two entire weeks UNLESS I can manage to do so in a ST fashion. Since I’m currently concerned with plying thin yarns (about 45 wpi), a lot of control is needed. And I cannot manage that kind of control in ST mode! I’ve tried – oh how I’ve tried – but I cannot do it. After just a couple of minutes, the wheel starts to reverse direction, my back begins to throb, and I feel like I really need a glass of something! I really do need just one more wheel, thank you very much, and that one needs to be a single-treadle! Maybe if I’m a very good girl Santa will bring me one? Probably not, but I can still wish!
The burgundy socks are an UFO. I started them last summer, in fact, in a feather-and-fan lace pattern very similar to the one in “Socks, Socks, Socks.” But I quickly grew weary of the pattern, and put them aside for the Christmas, winter and spring knitting. Now I need to finish the second sock (I’m almost at the heel), and am making myself do at least two pattern repeats a day. Peculiarly, I’m not finding the pattern quite as much of a slog this time around. I started these socks just after finishing up the Buegler Feather and Fan Shawl from GOL; perhaps I was just bored with F&F?
I gave myself a treat for the cooler September spinning season, and I like the look of the roving so much that I may take it along on vacation in August as a spindle project! I ran across some absolutely beautiful fine black alpaca that was mixed with silk in a 60/40 ratio. Both fibers are naturally-colored, and I have decided on a Christmas project for the yarn. Spinning this should be pure pleasure! But not the type of pleasure I want during an East Tennessee summer of 90-degree-plus days with 90 percent humidity levels! Vacation will be the earliest I’ll touch this, and only then if the ocean breezes cool things off enough to make it pleasurable.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A Paean to Silk
I love silk, and once in a while I just have to play! The above was the result of a weekend experiment. I dyed, spun and knitted a silk bell or cap into the cell phone cozy shown. It's the perfect size for carrying my cell around the office building where I work, and has enough extra room to tuck latte money inside as well!
Silk is the undisputed queen of fibers. No other fiber has the texture, sheen, strength and drape of silk, whether the fabric is woven, knitted, or knotted. Manmade fibers such as rayon, tencel, and soy are merely attempts to imitate what Mother Nature did with the Bombyx Mori moth – nice enough, to be sure, but still imitations.
In cost, silk is in the mid-range of fibers, with prices for silk top ranging from $40 to $75 per pound. Cocoons, bricks, and bells are less expensive, ranging between $2.50 and $5.50 per ounce. They are a wonderful option for many applications, including learning to spin this fabulous fiber.
Most spinners love to spin silk once they’ve tried it. We mix silk top in different proportions with all animal fibers and even cotton. Sock knitters mix silk with wool for strength and sheen. Weavers and knitters mix it with wool, alpaca and cashmere for the subtle sheen, unmatched drape and to stretch precious fibers. Dedicated cotton spinners mix it with dyed cotton lint to increase the shine and strength of their singles. Some spinners have made a lifetime study of silk in its many forms, spinning soft, textured yarns and harder, shiny ones. I’ve even heard of a couple of spinners who learned to spin by spinning silk!
First, let’s talk about the silk itself. Like most natural products, it comes in a variety of colors and qualities. Both color and quality depend upon the diet of the silkworms. Feed the worms low-quality foliage, and you will get low-quality silk, with weak spots and breaks in the length of the fiber. Feed the worms fresh, healthy mulberry leaves and you’ll get various shades of white cocoons, shiny and containing fine, strong fibers. Feed them different types of oak leaves and you’ll obtain various shades of tan and brown cocoons. Is there a science to the feeding? Of course. A good silk buyer can tell from the shade and quality of the cocoons where the silkworms were raised and whether there was adequate rainfall that season. Since they’ve done the hard part for us, we can simply concentrate on the shade of the fiber.
One caveat, however. If you’re tempted by a really good bargain in silk roving, check it carefully before you put down your hard-earned cash or plastic. Sometimes silkworms are fed a diet that is less than perfect, sometimes the weather is poor during their lifespan. This can result in fiber that is weak and brittle. Silk should be strong, requiring real muscle to break even a few of the short fibers in top or roving form. If you’re looking at bells or cocoons, see if the fibers are broken or if they appear to have thin spots. If the seller doesn’t want to allow you to inspect the silk, or if the color appears uneven, pass it by - it isn’t really a bargain.
Silk comes to spinners in several forms, as I mentioned above. Each has its uses for the fiber artist, so we’ll talk about each in turn. First are the cocoons themselves. You can dye them as cocoons with protein-fiber dyes, soak them for 24 hours in a crock-pot placed on low, pull the cocoons into a length and spin a very textured, heavy silk yarn. Beautiful as an accent yarn in any fabric. Of course, you have to remove the worm, but that isn’t really a problem.
You can reel and throw the silk yourself, which is a great deal of fun, but rather time-consuming. It does, however, make a beautiful, smooth yarn with all the best characteristics of the fiber. These yarns are perfect for weaving, lace-making, or knitting on very fine needles. A single ply (containing the unreeled fiber from 6 to 20 cocoons) can be plied with a single of another fiber for a mixed yarn with characteristics of both fibers. Directions for reeling silk are available in many locations, especially http://www.wormspit.com/.
The second form in which we buy silk fiber is that of a cap or handkerchief. These are fun, too. Silk caps are bell-shaped; handkerchiefs are square (just use the terms interchangeably – they’re the same thing except for the shape) and can be dyed with wool or protein fiber dyes as easily as wool. They will grab the color, giving brilliant results. After the cap is dry, separate it into single layers by inserting your hands into the center and snapping them apart several times around the circumference of the cap until it is loosened and fluffy. Then carefully pull the layers apart. Draw each layer out into a long, untwisted roving. You can wrap this around a paper roll or index card - a nostepinne works in a pinch, too. Then spin this “roving” or use it as is in a knitted or woven fabric. If you choose to use the roving unspun, be aware that the finished fabric will pick easily; a tight gauge will help with this.
The third form in which we purchase silk is probably the most common for spinners. That is silk roving or top. In order to produce this form, the reeled silk is cut into lengths varying from four to six inches. These cut lengths are then run through the same equipment that produces other fiber tops. The final product (prior to spinning) is a thick, unspun rope of aligned fibers. This is probably the easiest form of silk to blend with other fibers. If necessary, the fibers in the top can be cut into even shorter lengths to blend with shorter fibers like fine wools and cottons. While a cotton/silk blend is labor-intensive to produce by hand, it is beautiful in its final form. If doing it yourself doesn’t appeal, there are lovely painted rovings available from various sources.
Silk top forms a strong, slightly- to very-fuzzy yarn. The fuzziness will increase with wear. Why does a smooth fiber like silk turn fuzzy? Because the fibers in top have been cut to shorter lengths. Silk is a very smooth, slick fiber, with none of the scales and roughness associated with wools and bast plant fibers. When spun, these short ends escape the twist and create a halo effect in the yarn. This tendency can be used as a design element and enhanced by spinning the silk softly, which will increase the halo. The halo of soft-spun silk can approach that of angora or mohair. The spinner can also choose to minimize the halo by making very tightly-spun yarns with a great deal of twist. While these yarns will approach the appearance of reeled silk threads immediately after spinning, they will eventually halo as well (although not to the degree of the softer-spun yarns). The spinner is the designer here. Sample as necessary to create the yarn you want.
A little silk can go a long way. An ounce of silk will make anywhere from a hundred to a thousand yards of yarn. Again, the spinner determines the finished grist of the yarn. Some things to consider, though, are the final use of the yarn and the wear it will receive. My personal experience is that high-twist fine yarns show the sheen of the silk fiber best. These singles, with a grist usually between 60 and 100 wraps per inch, can be plied to whatever thickness is desired. These yarns are shiny and very strong, even in singles forms, as long as they have sufficient twist. Go back to your early days as a spinner when spinning silk. Twist is your friend, so use plenty of it! It takes a great deal of twist to keep the fibers in silk top from escaping. Twist also enhances the appearance of the silk yarn. So use your smallest whorl and treadle rapidly, or get out your lightest spindle and use lots of twist, adding even more than you think necessary. The finished yarn will be better for it.
I love to dye silk in any form. Spinning dyed silk caps, cocoons, or top is a pleasure. Silk is a protein fiber, so dyeing is simple. Silk dyes brilliantly with any wool dyes, commercial or natural, and you can obtain beautiful results with even simple dyes like food coloring and kool-aide. Mordants are simple as well - white vinegar or acetic acid give wonderful results. If you choose white vinegar, use approximately 1 cup per gallon of dye bath. If microwave or oven dyeing, simply soak the silk in the vinegar/water bath overnight before dyeing. Watch your temperature in the dye bath, however. Boiling water temperatures will cause the silk fibers to break down and weaken. So keep the dye bath at no more than 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Be sure to rinse your dyed fibers or yarns well, and a final rinse with some white vinegar added will neutralize any remaining dyes. Dry out of direct sunlight.
Silk and animal fiber blends are equally simple to dye. Just be sure to keep temperatures suited to the more delicate silk fibers. Silk-cotton blends are trickier. In home production, it’s usually best to dye the fibers separately and then combine them in the carding stage. The reason is simple. Cotton is a cellulose fiber that must be “scoured” and mordanted with often caustic chemicals in order to accept dyestuff. These mordants will destroy the silk fibers.
You can work around this, however. Silk is very reflective. It will blend well with dyed cottons with no dyeing itself. This makes it possible to blend silk with dyed cotton. Very fine silk singles can be plied with cotton and will almost disappear, with the eye focusing on only the dyed cotton color. You can also choose to dye only the silk, which will create a yarn with a tweedy or mottled effect, with the dyed silk showing as shiny flecks against the cotton. Or, as stated above, you can dye the silk separately and then combine the fibers. Again, spinner’s choice.
Treat all finished yarns and articles as though they were 100% silk. Silk care should consist of hand or very gentle machine washing in mild, neutral pH detergent. Following that with a vinegar rinse is recommended, too. Follow by flat or line drying and a cool iron if necessary. Silk is quite strong in mass, but individual fibers are delicate. The fine fibers will break down easily, and prolonged agitation or tumbling will hasten this process. Treated appropriately, however, silk is quite sturdy, with some of the fabrics lasting for generations. One additional note as to care is in order. Moths like silk as well as wool. So take precautions against infestation in both your finished articles and your fiber. Enjoy exploring the many facets of silk. It is, indeed, the queen of fibers, and will reward your efforts at understanding with many hours of spinning and wearing pleasure.
Details on the creation above? I dyed the silk cap with Wilton cake color in Delphinium, pre-soaking on Thursday night in a vinegar/water mixture and microwave dyeing on Friday after work. Saturday morning I pulled apart the silk cap, made it into a rough roving, and spun the layers into singles on a combination of spindle while I did errands and attended a guild meeting and wheel after I returned home. Sunday I plied the singles Navaho-fashion, mostly to preserve the lovely colorways. Twist in both singles and plies was quite high. The finished 3-ply yarn was between 15-18 wpi. I didn't even wash the yarn to set the twist - just cast on 39 stitches and immediately began a K2P1 ribbing, which I continued to the final four rows. I decreased 4 stitches every row on those last four rows, sock-toe fashion, switching to stockinette for those rows only. Finished up with a 3-needle bind-off to close the end, and made a three-ply cord of some of the remaining silk, stitching it to the top of the small purse with more of the silk.
The ribbing hugs the phone and, since it's about 2 inches longer than the phone itself, snuggles in above the phone to keep it in the purse. Yet when the phone rings, a simple squeeze at the bottom pops it out. The shawl pin decoration was an inspiration with a practical bent - I keep it in the office to wear with one of my shawls when the air conditioning gets to be too much and am constantly losing it in my desk drawer. This way I know exactly where it is when needed!
Monday, April 17, 2006
Catching-up - notes on sweater fitting and tools
I’ve been quiet lately – working on a sweater which I’ve now finally finished and a photo of which is below – and thinking about some things which have been passing through on the lists. This is the time of year when my creative flow usually takes a hike to make room for the yard and garden and spring cleaning. DH is taking care of the yard, and the housework took second place to some dyeing this weekend. So I’m still in full fiber mode, and spinning like crazy.
Part of what I’m spinning is sock yarn (naturally), and I’m also working on a couple of fleeces from stash. One is a Romney cross from this year’s shearing, and one a Suffolk from last year. I’ve got to dye and spin some yarn for a baby sweater, too – mustn’t forget that! If it sounds as though I’m wallowing in fleece, it’s because I am!
The sweater came out as a perfect fit. I did a ton of research and ripped often, but this sweater fits! For those who don’t understand the problem, let me explain. I’m five-foot nothing, 160 pounds, and hourglass- (although generously) figured. With a 46-inch bust and hips, 35-inch waist, and 15.5-inch shoulders, getting that perfect fit takes some doing! I finally resorted to several books (Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ Knitting in the Old Way, Maggie Righetti’s Sweater Design in Plain English, and the Knitty.com article from the summer 2003 edition titled, La bonne tricoteuse – summer knitting and short rows). I also took a look at almost every other knitting book I own. Then I fired up Sweater Wizard and went into full-tweak mode. I found a lovely helper at The Knitting Fiend (http://www.thedietdiary.com/knittingfiend/OrderForms/BustDarts.html) which confirmed my math on the needed bust darts. I added those figures to the exported Word document I got from my tweaking of Sweater Wizard, and started knitting.
I finished up the sweater and wore it. Then I discovered the problems. Too short-waisted, and the neckline wasn’t high enough – I don’t want a ballet-necked wool sweater in winter – and the bottom ribbing was too big by at least 4 inches. On the plus side, the bust and armholes and shoulders were perfect and the sleeves fit, well, to perfection! I grit my teeth and started picking up, then ripping. I picked up the bottom just before the first row of the pattern and knit three inches of stockinette. It worked because of the general sweater design. Then I decreased 20 percent of the total number of stitches instead of 10 percent and re-knit the ribbing. Tried on the sweater, and it now was long enough and the ribbing fit snugly. Time for the neckline. I tried picking up the stitches, but got lost in the shoulder seams and had to graft. So then I simply gathered my courage, picked up the scissors, and cut off the neckline ribbing. I crocheted around the raw edge, picked up in the row below that, and re-knit the neckline – this time 2.5-inches long rather than 1 inch. I washed the sweater again, and will carefully store it for the fall, since now it’s much too warm to wear it (87 degrees on Easter Sunday)!
On another topic: There have been many discussions lately about knitting and spinning tools. Not just the usual types of needle and ‘what spinning wheel should I buy’ things, but questions about other fiber tools. Since I’m far from shy about expressing my opinions, I’d like to chime in here with the choices I’ve made and why I’ve made them.
First, knitting needles. First, I have nothing against metal needles as such. They’re perfectly good tools. But I don’t like to use them because they make my admittedly-aging hands ache. I have a touch of arthritis already, and am a firm convert to the ‘use it or loose it’ school of thought. So I try to use my hands a lot. My job helps, but so do the spinning and knitting and cooking I enjoy.
But wood, bamboo or plastic needles require some care. Plastic will nick and crack, and you have to watch for that. So my preferred needles are bamboo or wood. I have multiple sets of Brittany double point needles in various sizes for socks and sweater sleeves, and love them. I also own and love my Crystal Palace bamboo needles. I store all my needles in a fairly large plastic pencil case that I picked up several years ago at a back-to-school sale for a dollar. Each size has a small plastic sleeve or a small cloth sleeve if the plastic one has disappeared. Every year or so I open up the case, take each set from it’s sleeve, and lay it out on the dining room table. I have a can of paste wax handy, along with a couple of clean cotton cloths. Each needle is waxed and buffed. Needles that seem to be developing cracks are soaked in either olive oil or lemon oil prior to waxing. Needles that are currently being used in a project are removed and added to the table. It takes a couple of hours, yes, but I’m still using some of the same needles I bought more than a decade ago, and some that are more than 50 years old that I’ve inherited from various sources. A couple of hours on a rainy Saturday morning twice a year is much cheaper than buying all-new needles!
What about other tools? Knitting markers, for example, which are so easy to lose. I keep them in small envelopes, as well, sorted by color. If I can’t find the plastic envelopes in which they are purchased, I pick up a couple of fishing tackle envelopes – they’re sturdy and perfect for storing small things. They don’t require a lot of care, but the ones that look like safety pins will last longer if you open them up before storing them. Measuring tapes should be stored loosely gathered or rolled. The plastic tapes we have now say they won’t stretch. But if you leave one in a car on a summer day you’ll find that they will. Cloth tapes will also stretch with use. The only remedy for this is to replace the tapes every few years. Wait for a half-off sale at your local fabric store and stock up. I usually purchase a half-dozen tapes in every odd-numbered year.
Another useful tool is a stitch and needle gauge. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one that has three-inch windows and ¼-mm needle-gauge increments. If you do discover one of these, buy it – even if you have to put back a skein of yarn! The typical gauges have gauge holes for only US needle sizes (no help for several commonly-used mm-sized needles) and two-inch windows. Once you have it, take care to keep it unbent, untwisted, and handy. Mine is attached to a key-ring pull that is attached to my knitting bag. Between uses it resides in it’s own little pocket on the side of the bag.
Blocking tools also require care. If you own a wooden sweater blocker or sock blockers, make sure you care for them as I’ve outlined for the wooden and bamboo needles. Give these tools at least 24 hours curing time after waxing before use!
Now let’s talk about spinning tools. Your spinning wheel was a major investment. If it’s wood, you need to care for that wood properly in order for the wheel to continue to operate properly. Check your owner’s manual. Some wheels require only dusting, some require oiling or other periodic care.
Many of our spinning tools are wood. Cards and combs, for example, require oiling and polishing of the wood components, and cleaning of the metal parts. Carding cloth can be cleaned with a stiff brush (do this outside!) or by carding some completely clean, fairly long fleece. Combs can also be cleaned by using them for clean fleece, but I’ve had good results with alcohol-soaked cotton, as well, taking care to avoid the wood. The best thing to do is clean cards or combs every time you use them. Oiling and waxing the wood parts can be done a couple of times each year.
Hand-cranked drum carders also require care. If yours has a wooden base, care for it appropriately. Clean the licker-in and carding drum as recommended in your owner instructions. Oil where appropriate, change o-rings as recommended. Loosen any rubber/plastic parts when not in use. Making a rule of using only clean fiber will make this expensive tool last longer.
Spindles are frequently wood. These tools develop a lovely patina with use, both from the fiber and from our hands. But they still benefit from an oiling and waxing every six months or so to keep the wood healthy and nourished.
I’ve thrown around the words “oil and wax” quite a bit in the above paragraphs. Before you ask, I use plain old-fashioned paste wax if I can find it. The couple of times I haven’t been able to do so, I’ve used a good furniture wax with a beeswax-based formula. For oiling I like to use extra-virgin olive oil (cheaper) or lemon oil (more expensive). The olive oil will sometimes impart a slightly greenish tint to the wood, but it works well. I pour a good bit into a casserole dish and soak needles and other small tools for a while, then remove them, buff and allow to dry, then wax. Lemon oil is wonderful, but 100% lemon oil is expensive. If you do find a bargain that doesn’t contain alcohol, grab it. Orange oil will also work well.
There are a couple of combination products out there – Howard’s Feed n Wax is good, and will eliminate the oiling step. 16 ounces goes a long way and costs less than $10 U.S. It also works wonders on household woodwork.
We don’t think of our tools as particularly expensive unless we have a collection of rare-wood specialty items. We’ve usually purchased them over a long period of time, and $12 here and there doesn’t make that big a dent in the budget. But take a look around. If you had a fire, what would it cost to replace those tools at today’s prices? $1,000? $5,000? $10,000? Add it up. When you’ve recovered, you might want to take a look at your homeowner’s policy and see if you need a rider. If you do, don’t hesitate – call your agent! Then gather all your tools in one place with oil and wax at hand and protect your investment!
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Historical Spinning
I’ve talked before about “historical knitting” – now let’s shift the focus a bit to “historical spinning,” or some of the ways spinning has changed in Appalachia in the last 100 years.
My grandmother, shortly before her death, saw some of my earliest alpaca/silk blend handspun. She was astonished at the softness, shine and clarity of color. One of the comments she made was “I wish Mother could have felt this!”
I pursued the comment just a bit, but Grandma was weak, and had little to say except that the sheep’s wool spun during her young years by her mother was prickly and rather harsh. The finest stuff was from the neck area of the sheep, and even that was rather stiff. Her final comment was that her girlhood socks always made her legs itch.
I’ve done a bit of back-tracking, collecting recollections and reminiscences from relatives and neighbors, trying to find out what sort of sheep Great-Grandma was most likely to have had access to as a spinner. The best guess to date is a cross of Shropshire and Shetland or Romney. These sheep did fairly well as wool producers and lambs provided a helpful dose of protein for the diet of hill farmers and coal miners. The wool would have probably been a medium type, with a Bradford count in the 50s, especially given the diet of scrub brush and hill grass available in that place and time. So Grandma probably did have scratchy socks!
I’ve seen bits and pieces of the various fabrics made from this wool; as quilt pieces and scrap bits of hand-woven, and bits of the wool as quilt batting. I’ve marveled at the fineness of the singles, noticing that the normal weaving sett appears to be 30-36 ends per inch. That translates into a single of about 60-70 wraps per inch! Remarkable indeed for a medium fleece. That same fleece would have been used for knitting yarns, of course, after plying.
There was little variation in materials for spinning in the Appalachia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local wool and your portion of a bale of cotton purchased every year or two was interspersed with local flax. Those lucky enough to have ‘bottom’ land could trade their extra flax and wool to neighbors or perhaps a local store; others had to make do with what they could raise on the scrubby, sometimes slag-poisoned hillsides behind their cabins.
Spinning wheels were primitive by our standards; hand-made, single-treadle, with hand-carved flyers and a few bobbins of variable balance and size. Flyer hooks were bent nails salvaged from other projects – metal was expensive. Orifices and axles might be salvaged metal, but were just as likely to be wood wedged firmly into leather bearings greased with lard. Treadle tie-ups were sometimes leather strips, most times string. Wheels were noisy, too; conversations while spinning were likely to be shouted over the squeak and squeal of wood against wood. The sophistication of the spinner’s wheel was completely dependent upon the woodworking and metalworking skills of her husband, father or brother. Those with the skill to make ‘good’ spinning wheels, looms and quilting frames were likely to have a profitable sideline to their miner’s paycheck if they could come up with the energy to make tools after a 12- to 16-hour day in the mines. But even then the most profitable trading items would have been plows, harnesses, shingles and buckets.
“Profitable” is a relative term, of course. Cash money was rare in that time and place. Miners were paid in scrip redeemable only at the company store, where prices were high. “Tradin” is the term my great-grandparents and grandparents used for shopping, and is a better term for the actual exchange of goods in that place and time. That type of bartering is now used mostly between craftspeople; little exchange of services and tools is “traded” in the day-to-day scheme of modern living. This has little to do with historical spinning except as background material, of course.
One of the main reasons women like my great-grandmother could spin 60-70 wpi singles from medium wool was that they were expert spinners of that type of wool. Remember the types of fiber available? Cotton was imported from further south, with a 500-pound bale divided up among an entire community. It was precious and expensive, and so saved for ‘special’. Linen was a local crop, dependent upon rains and the disinterest of insects. It was also labor-intensive, requiring time-consuming processing before spinning. Wool was the most readily-available fiber, coming from your own sheep or bartered for locally. In any case, you probably spun the same type of wool year in and year out for your entire lifetime.
Wheels were more specific-purpose than those we use now, having at most two ratios – about 7:1 for wool and linen and 12:1 for cotton. Most had only a single ratio, and the spinner adjusted her spinning to suit. Spinning was an integral part of the daily chores, and the less time spent on each yard the more time available for weaving, cooking, canning and cleaning. High-twist yarns were made, but only for warps and high-wear applications like socks. Those high-twist yarns were carefully segregated from the weft and general knitting yarns, which were lower-twist yarns, normally from lower-quality parts of the fleece.
Oh, and before you ask, I’ll answer the question of whether drop spindles were part of life in Appalachia. My grandmother laughed the first time she saw me use a drop spindle, a year or so in advance of the conversation related earlier. “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a girl!” was her comment. “How good are you with it?” I showed her what I was spinning, and she wasn’t impressed – just surprised that I was using that particular tool. When I laid my top-whorl spindle on the table to reach for the coffee cup, she picked it up and immediately spun a few yards that exactly matched the lace-weight singles I had begun. “You know, when I was little I used to be sure this was magic,” she commented. “Then I learned to do it!”
I was a bit surprised, since I’d never seen my grandmother spin at all, let alone on a spindle! And magic was a word I don’t recall her ever using before – miracle, yes, magic, no! Further conversation revealed that drop spindles were made for all the children at about age 5, just as wooden knitting needles were whittled for all the girls (and some of the boys) at about the age of 6. Once you were a proficient spinner, you could take your turn on the family wheel, but the spindle and a bit of fleece (or a bit of knitting) was almost always tucked into an apron pocket for odd moments. Obviously it isn’t a knack you forget, since my grandmother estimated that it had been about 60 years since she had picked up a spindle. Hers had been carved from apple wood, she said, and was a bottom-whorl with a notch at the top. “Did you keep it?” I asked, anxious to know if this relic of her childhood had survived. “Goodness, no,” she replied. “It’s been gone a long time!” My face must have fallen, because she next said, “Your uncles could probably make you one, if you asked. Or you could whittle it yourself.” Of course I could – although I probably won’t. I would, however, love to have had the tool she used as a child!
Between 1860 and 1920, metal tools were expensive, but a considerable portion of the yearly family income went toward maintenance and any necessary replacements. Clothing was as necessary as shelter and food, and equally home-made. Metal spinning wheel axles and bobbin shafts, metal-teethed cards, and metal pins, needles and knitting needles, among other things, were frequently gifts for very special life occasions like marriage or perhaps graduation (education wasn’t easy to come by and took considerable effort). Those tools were scrupulously maintained. Rust on a needle was a sure sign of a slipshod personality, and as unacceptable in that society as rust on a plow. I’ll always remember my grandfather’s scathing denouncement of a proposed daughter-in-law, “You can’t marry her - she don’t even know how to use the emery bud on a pincushion!” It was the ultimate dismissal.
Dyes were another luxury item. Many dyes were obtained from natural stuff, of course, and the Appalachian Mountains abound in patches of madder and other non-native dye plants planted around old cabin sites. Synthetic dyes were available by 1900, but equally important (and less expensive) were indigo cakes. I still saw them in the country stores in northeast Tennessee when I was a child in the 1950’s and 60’s.
It’s hard now to realize, but dyes were important indicators of wealth and influence. I’ve heard stories all my life about the crimson wool wedding dress worn by a great-grandmother, and how her husband-to-be had sent for the ground cochineal used to dye the wool from his father’s relatives on an Indian reservation in the Southwest. Now those stories draw little attention from my children and grandchildren – we’ve come too far from those rural roots where independence and self-sufficiency were the measure of a family’s worth.
Modern spinners don’t concentrate on a few specific types of fiber to the degree of our ancestors. We’re by and large hobbyist spinners, producing yarn for our own or a limited number of consumers’ use. We can choose fibers from all over the world, in mixtures that would astonish my great-grandmother. The average spinner in a so-called developed country spins fibers every day that were unobtainable luxury even three decades ago – well within our adult life spans.
Our wheels are works of art and engineering, and almost as multiple-purpose as our kitchen appliances. We can spin cotton, flax, wool, alpaca, yak and cashmere on the same wheel, moving a drive band from whorl to whorl to adjust the ratio.
Dyes can be synthetic, natural, or concentrated crystals in several preparations. They’re easy to use; mordants are either unnecessary or available in easy to use forms from the same vendors from whom we purchase the dyes, and the resulting colors are light- and wash-fast.
It is no longer necessary to spin every inch of yarn or thread for every inch of fabric we use each day. So we get less spinning practice than did our forbearers. We have more articles of clothing than anyone except the very wealthy did even a hundred years ago, and spend a considerably smaller proportion of our income to obtain those clothes. So spinning is now a hobby, not a necessity.
Are we therefore less-accomplished spinners than were our ancestors? Yes and no. We tend to be more comfortable with multiple fiber staples, and spin our wealth of fibers into various weights and in various blends for specialized purposes. We seldom concentrate on one or two fibers to the exclusion of any others. This means that we lose the ability to ‘make-do’ with fibers that may not be perfectly suited to our end use. But to my mind, the wide-ranging fiber education we receive balances the scales nicely. We may not be more practiced spinners than our great-grandmothers, but we’re definitely better-educated ones!
We have, as a society, more disposable income than at any time during human history. We treasure our leisure time as an opportunity to pursue our avocations. We tend to spend “extra” money on those same avocations, whether spinning or trout-fishing. Combine those facts with the rapid transit and better communication of 2006, and you can see that the fiber explosion of the past fifteen years or so was inevitable. Spinners, knitters, quilters and other fiber artists both amateur and professional are taking full advantage of this wealth of materials. I am no different from the rest, enjoying the time invested in learning basic techniques of spinning new-to-me fibers like yak, buffalo down, ingeo and tencel.
Eventually, I predict that the pendulum will swing back the other way, and spinners will ‘specialize’ in certain fibers – in fact, some are already doing so. But whatever our individual choice in the matter, we should remember that we live in a time where spinning is a choice, not a necessity, and thus comes under the heading of luxury. Nobody must spin these days in order to clothe a family. We choose to spin for a multitude of reasons. The fact that spinning is now a choice is what moves it from the category of necessity to luxury.
I can’t help but wonder if spinning historians in the future will look at our current exploration of many different fibers as a sort of aberration, unable to fathom why we rush to try every new fiber available. I can hear my own grandchild asking, thirty or forty years from now, “But why didn’t you concentrate on the sheep’s wool, alpaca and llama that were all around you instead of buying exotic fiber from someplace on the other side of the world?” Or perhaps, with advances in cheap transportation, the question will be slightly different – “Why did you have to buy the fiber from a vendor across the country? Why not just go to Tibet (Australia, Indonesia, South America) and buy it directly from the grower?”
The only unchanged thing in the conversation will be the tools we’re both using while we talk – the spinning wheel and the drop spindle will still be the way we soothe our minds and busy our fingers. The quiet click of knitting needles or tatting shuttles will still accompany our evening rituals. Fiber will still be available to spin, and spinners will still exist. Because there is no substitute for the magic of watching fibers slip through your fingers to become yarn. It mimics creation itself, this yarn spun from the ethereal gossamer web of fiber and air. True magic will always be part of humanity, and spinning is absolutely true magic.
My grandmother, shortly before her death, saw some of my earliest alpaca/silk blend handspun. She was astonished at the softness, shine and clarity of color. One of the comments she made was “I wish Mother could have felt this!”
I pursued the comment just a bit, but Grandma was weak, and had little to say except that the sheep’s wool spun during her young years by her mother was prickly and rather harsh. The finest stuff was from the neck area of the sheep, and even that was rather stiff. Her final comment was that her girlhood socks always made her legs itch.
I’ve done a bit of back-tracking, collecting recollections and reminiscences from relatives and neighbors, trying to find out what sort of sheep Great-Grandma was most likely to have had access to as a spinner. The best guess to date is a cross of Shropshire and Shetland or Romney. These sheep did fairly well as wool producers and lambs provided a helpful dose of protein for the diet of hill farmers and coal miners. The wool would have probably been a medium type, with a Bradford count in the 50s, especially given the diet of scrub brush and hill grass available in that place and time. So Grandma probably did have scratchy socks!
I’ve seen bits and pieces of the various fabrics made from this wool; as quilt pieces and scrap bits of hand-woven, and bits of the wool as quilt batting. I’ve marveled at the fineness of the singles, noticing that the normal weaving sett appears to be 30-36 ends per inch. That translates into a single of about 60-70 wraps per inch! Remarkable indeed for a medium fleece. That same fleece would have been used for knitting yarns, of course, after plying.
There was little variation in materials for spinning in the Appalachia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local wool and your portion of a bale of cotton purchased every year or two was interspersed with local flax. Those lucky enough to have ‘bottom’ land could trade their extra flax and wool to neighbors or perhaps a local store; others had to make do with what they could raise on the scrubby, sometimes slag-poisoned hillsides behind their cabins.
Spinning wheels were primitive by our standards; hand-made, single-treadle, with hand-carved flyers and a few bobbins of variable balance and size. Flyer hooks were bent nails salvaged from other projects – metal was expensive. Orifices and axles might be salvaged metal, but were just as likely to be wood wedged firmly into leather bearings greased with lard. Treadle tie-ups were sometimes leather strips, most times string. Wheels were noisy, too; conversations while spinning were likely to be shouted over the squeak and squeal of wood against wood. The sophistication of the spinner’s wheel was completely dependent upon the woodworking and metalworking skills of her husband, father or brother. Those with the skill to make ‘good’ spinning wheels, looms and quilting frames were likely to have a profitable sideline to their miner’s paycheck if they could come up with the energy to make tools after a 12- to 16-hour day in the mines. But even then the most profitable trading items would have been plows, harnesses, shingles and buckets.
“Profitable” is a relative term, of course. Cash money was rare in that time and place. Miners were paid in scrip redeemable only at the company store, where prices were high. “Tradin” is the term my great-grandparents and grandparents used for shopping, and is a better term for the actual exchange of goods in that place and time. That type of bartering is now used mostly between craftspeople; little exchange of services and tools is “traded” in the day-to-day scheme of modern living. This has little to do with historical spinning except as background material, of course.
One of the main reasons women like my great-grandmother could spin 60-70 wpi singles from medium wool was that they were expert spinners of that type of wool. Remember the types of fiber available? Cotton was imported from further south, with a 500-pound bale divided up among an entire community. It was precious and expensive, and so saved for ‘special’. Linen was a local crop, dependent upon rains and the disinterest of insects. It was also labor-intensive, requiring time-consuming processing before spinning. Wool was the most readily-available fiber, coming from your own sheep or bartered for locally. In any case, you probably spun the same type of wool year in and year out for your entire lifetime.
Wheels were more specific-purpose than those we use now, having at most two ratios – about 7:1 for wool and linen and 12:1 for cotton. Most had only a single ratio, and the spinner adjusted her spinning to suit. Spinning was an integral part of the daily chores, and the less time spent on each yard the more time available for weaving, cooking, canning and cleaning. High-twist yarns were made, but only for warps and high-wear applications like socks. Those high-twist yarns were carefully segregated from the weft and general knitting yarns, which were lower-twist yarns, normally from lower-quality parts of the fleece.
Oh, and before you ask, I’ll answer the question of whether drop spindles were part of life in Appalachia. My grandmother laughed the first time she saw me use a drop spindle, a year or so in advance of the conversation related earlier. “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a girl!” was her comment. “How good are you with it?” I showed her what I was spinning, and she wasn’t impressed – just surprised that I was using that particular tool. When I laid my top-whorl spindle on the table to reach for the coffee cup, she picked it up and immediately spun a few yards that exactly matched the lace-weight singles I had begun. “You know, when I was little I used to be sure this was magic,” she commented. “Then I learned to do it!”
I was a bit surprised, since I’d never seen my grandmother spin at all, let alone on a spindle! And magic was a word I don’t recall her ever using before – miracle, yes, magic, no! Further conversation revealed that drop spindles were made for all the children at about age 5, just as wooden knitting needles were whittled for all the girls (and some of the boys) at about the age of 6. Once you were a proficient spinner, you could take your turn on the family wheel, but the spindle and a bit of fleece (or a bit of knitting) was almost always tucked into an apron pocket for odd moments. Obviously it isn’t a knack you forget, since my grandmother estimated that it had been about 60 years since she had picked up a spindle. Hers had been carved from apple wood, she said, and was a bottom-whorl with a notch at the top. “Did you keep it?” I asked, anxious to know if this relic of her childhood had survived. “Goodness, no,” she replied. “It’s been gone a long time!” My face must have fallen, because she next said, “Your uncles could probably make you one, if you asked. Or you could whittle it yourself.” Of course I could – although I probably won’t. I would, however, love to have had the tool she used as a child!
Between 1860 and 1920, metal tools were expensive, but a considerable portion of the yearly family income went toward maintenance and any necessary replacements. Clothing was as necessary as shelter and food, and equally home-made. Metal spinning wheel axles and bobbin shafts, metal-teethed cards, and metal pins, needles and knitting needles, among other things, were frequently gifts for very special life occasions like marriage or perhaps graduation (education wasn’t easy to come by and took considerable effort). Those tools were scrupulously maintained. Rust on a needle was a sure sign of a slipshod personality, and as unacceptable in that society as rust on a plow. I’ll always remember my grandfather’s scathing denouncement of a proposed daughter-in-law, “You can’t marry her - she don’t even know how to use the emery bud on a pincushion!” It was the ultimate dismissal.
Dyes were another luxury item. Many dyes were obtained from natural stuff, of course, and the Appalachian Mountains abound in patches of madder and other non-native dye plants planted around old cabin sites. Synthetic dyes were available by 1900, but equally important (and less expensive) were indigo cakes. I still saw them in the country stores in northeast Tennessee when I was a child in the 1950’s and 60’s.
It’s hard now to realize, but dyes were important indicators of wealth and influence. I’ve heard stories all my life about the crimson wool wedding dress worn by a great-grandmother, and how her husband-to-be had sent for the ground cochineal used to dye the wool from his father’s relatives on an Indian reservation in the Southwest. Now those stories draw little attention from my children and grandchildren – we’ve come too far from those rural roots where independence and self-sufficiency were the measure of a family’s worth.
Modern spinners don’t concentrate on a few specific types of fiber to the degree of our ancestors. We’re by and large hobbyist spinners, producing yarn for our own or a limited number of consumers’ use. We can choose fibers from all over the world, in mixtures that would astonish my great-grandmother. The average spinner in a so-called developed country spins fibers every day that were unobtainable luxury even three decades ago – well within our adult life spans.
Our wheels are works of art and engineering, and almost as multiple-purpose as our kitchen appliances. We can spin cotton, flax, wool, alpaca, yak and cashmere on the same wheel, moving a drive band from whorl to whorl to adjust the ratio.
Dyes can be synthetic, natural, or concentrated crystals in several preparations. They’re easy to use; mordants are either unnecessary or available in easy to use forms from the same vendors from whom we purchase the dyes, and the resulting colors are light- and wash-fast.
It is no longer necessary to spin every inch of yarn or thread for every inch of fabric we use each day. So we get less spinning practice than did our forbearers. We have more articles of clothing than anyone except the very wealthy did even a hundred years ago, and spend a considerably smaller proportion of our income to obtain those clothes. So spinning is now a hobby, not a necessity.
Are we therefore less-accomplished spinners than were our ancestors? Yes and no. We tend to be more comfortable with multiple fiber staples, and spin our wealth of fibers into various weights and in various blends for specialized purposes. We seldom concentrate on one or two fibers to the exclusion of any others. This means that we lose the ability to ‘make-do’ with fibers that may not be perfectly suited to our end use. But to my mind, the wide-ranging fiber education we receive balances the scales nicely. We may not be more practiced spinners than our great-grandmothers, but we’re definitely better-educated ones!
We have, as a society, more disposable income than at any time during human history. We treasure our leisure time as an opportunity to pursue our avocations. We tend to spend “extra” money on those same avocations, whether spinning or trout-fishing. Combine those facts with the rapid transit and better communication of 2006, and you can see that the fiber explosion of the past fifteen years or so was inevitable. Spinners, knitters, quilters and other fiber artists both amateur and professional are taking full advantage of this wealth of materials. I am no different from the rest, enjoying the time invested in learning basic techniques of spinning new-to-me fibers like yak, buffalo down, ingeo and tencel.
Eventually, I predict that the pendulum will swing back the other way, and spinners will ‘specialize’ in certain fibers – in fact, some are already doing so. But whatever our individual choice in the matter, we should remember that we live in a time where spinning is a choice, not a necessity, and thus comes under the heading of luxury. Nobody must spin these days in order to clothe a family. We choose to spin for a multitude of reasons. The fact that spinning is now a choice is what moves it from the category of necessity to luxury.
I can’t help but wonder if spinning historians in the future will look at our current exploration of many different fibers as a sort of aberration, unable to fathom why we rush to try every new fiber available. I can hear my own grandchild asking, thirty or forty years from now, “But why didn’t you concentrate on the sheep’s wool, alpaca and llama that were all around you instead of buying exotic fiber from someplace on the other side of the world?” Or perhaps, with advances in cheap transportation, the question will be slightly different – “Why did you have to buy the fiber from a vendor across the country? Why not just go to Tibet (Australia, Indonesia, South America) and buy it directly from the grower?”
The only unchanged thing in the conversation will be the tools we’re both using while we talk – the spinning wheel and the drop spindle will still be the way we soothe our minds and busy our fingers. The quiet click of knitting needles or tatting shuttles will still accompany our evening rituals. Fiber will still be available to spin, and spinners will still exist. Because there is no substitute for the magic of watching fibers slip through your fingers to become yarn. It mimics creation itself, this yarn spun from the ethereal gossamer web of fiber and air. True magic will always be part of humanity, and spinning is absolutely true magic.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
A knitting update and a rumination on passing 50
This is another EZ Baby Surprise Jacket, done in Kansas City Chiefs colors for the new baby of a fan. I actually work with both parents - Mom and Dad! Aren’t the colors pretty?
Yarn was KnitPicks Merino Style, needles size 3 bamboo circulars, gauge 5 stitches per inch. The buttons are cute - little balloons! The cener one is actually red, although it doesn't show up too much in the photo.
I did enjoy doing this pattern, and even enjoyed it the second time around - unlike my usual "do it once and never again" style! But I'm really looking forward to getting back to some spinning. I'm in the mood to make some more socks - this time from handspun silk/Romney blended together and hand-dyed.
On the knitting front, I think I'm going to make myself a sweater. I decided to frog the Pi shawl - it wasn't turning out to be an enjoyable, engaging project. I may pick up another variation again some day, or come up with a project I like better for the yarn. For now I'm determined to finish up a sweater that I'll actually wear and enjoy. It's time to conquer my remaining fitting demons!
I think firmly turning the corner into my fifties is helping me concentrate. I'm not as worried about completing something just because I started it. If I don't enjoy the process, and am not learning anything from it, I don't seem to feel that it's necessary to finish it. Learning new skills, refining older ones, and enjoying how I spend my time, both at work and at home, is more important to me now. I'm becoming better and better at saying "No," and I no longer feel guilty for doing so. "You really ought to..." and "Don't you think you should..." are my publically-acknowledged least-favorite phrases at long last, and it's wonderfully freeing!
There's something to be said for a little bit of age - if nothing else, you learn to value yourself and to value your time. You also start to realize that you only have so much time remaining. I think that this sense of my own value is the truest sign that I've finally, truly grown up. It's kind of a shame I didn't realize this 20 years ago - but I've still got plenty of years ahead, and I plan to enjoy them! Watch out, world - I'm over fifty, feisty and a certified fiberholic!
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Baby sweaters!
I’ve been working on a baby outfit or two recently. The first shower was last week, and I can now ‘publish’ my work for it without spoiling the surprise. The second installment will come later this month. The picture of the finished cap, socks and sweater is below:
The fiber was Finn top, combed from a fleece purchased I don’t remember when from I don’t remember who. I spun a fingering-weight two-ply on the 9:1 ratio of my Rose, plying for a balanced yarn. The yarn was wonderful – lofty and soft, as Finn should be. The cap was a simple ribbed-edging cap, with decreases at the top. Socks were made from a pattern that the mother-to-be had found somewhere on-line. There’s a story behind them. Momma was one of my knitting students this fall. Our second class project was socks. She wanted to make socks for the baby, but zoned out during the obligatory gauge lecture and didn’t read the material in the hand-out. All experienced knitters know where this is going! Momma does, however, have lovely worsted-weight mohair-blend socklets for the labor and delivery rooms that fit her perfectly!
The sweater will also be readily recognized as Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket. I hadn’t made this pattern in years, and had forgotten just how much fun it is to knit. I got something of a surprise while working on this one. I had hauled it along to work one day, and on the way home stopped to help out with a church supper. One of the older widowers in the group waxed quite nostalgic about the pattern, recognizing it immediately upon seeing it. His wife, who was a good friend of my mother’s, was a prolific knitter who had made the sweater many times for the babies in a large family. He was delighted to see that it was still being made!
Knitting makes so many people who don’t even knit happy!
The fiber was Finn top, combed from a fleece purchased I don’t remember when from I don’t remember who. I spun a fingering-weight two-ply on the 9:1 ratio of my Rose, plying for a balanced yarn. The yarn was wonderful – lofty and soft, as Finn should be. The cap was a simple ribbed-edging cap, with decreases at the top. Socks were made from a pattern that the mother-to-be had found somewhere on-line. There’s a story behind them. Momma was one of my knitting students this fall. Our second class project was socks. She wanted to make socks for the baby, but zoned out during the obligatory gauge lecture and didn’t read the material in the hand-out. All experienced knitters know where this is going! Momma does, however, have lovely worsted-weight mohair-blend socklets for the labor and delivery rooms that fit her perfectly!
The sweater will also be readily recognized as Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket. I hadn’t made this pattern in years, and had forgotten just how much fun it is to knit. I got something of a surprise while working on this one. I had hauled it along to work one day, and on the way home stopped to help out with a church supper. One of the older widowers in the group waxed quite nostalgic about the pattern, recognizing it immediately upon seeing it. His wife, who was a good friend of my mother’s, was a prolific knitter who had made the sweater many times for the babies in a large family. He was delighted to see that it was still being made!
Knitting makes so many people who don’t even knit happy!
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Frog-Hair and Hamster Floss
I love to spin, and prefer to spin fine. Show me or allow me to purchase a very fine Shetland, Merino, or merino cross fleece and my mind happily explores the possibilities while my fingers are busily at work seeing just how fine I can spin this particular fleece. I bought my current spinning wheels based largely on their ability to spin very fine yarns in a wide variety of fibers. I’ve even been known to forsake my wheels entirely in order to spin the very finest of yarns on light-weight spindles.
Why do I have this fascination with fine spinning? Possibly it’s tied together with my love of lace; the most ethereal of knitted laces are made with gossamer yarns that are little thicker than 6 to 8 fibers twisted together into two plies. Maybe I just like the attention it garners at public demonstrations and from other spinners. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much, but I do.
Every spinner is different. We bring different experiences, expectations, tools and physical limitations to our yarn production. I’m not going to take photos or videos of my own spinning method and try to tell you that this is the only (or even the best) way to produce gossamer yarns. I am going to tell you the various steps I go through and the equipment I use to do so. But your methods will almost certainly differ in several particulars. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you like the yarn you’re making, and find it suitable for your purposes. Modern individuals seem to expect a ‘recipe’ approach, and I don’t really do ‘recipes’ for spinning any more than I do for knitting, weaving, or cooking. Still I hope interested spinners will locate these notes, find them somewhat useful, and explore the possibilities further.
First and foremost, choose a fine, sound fleece. No mid-range fleeces (Lincoln lamb, Romney crosses and Wensleydale all have their uses, but in my opinion this isn’t one of them), and no weak spots or sun-bleached tips. Shetland lamb fleece, fine merino or merino crosses like Rambouillet or Targhee, fine Finn…you get the idea. You’ll spend a bit more for these fleeces, and they’ll be worth every penny. If you can find them in combed top from commercial sources, go for it – you’ll pay around $8.00 per ounce, but you can get a 60-inch square shawl from 4-6 ounces of top.
My current fine-spinning champ is a Shetland lamb fleece from a shepherd in Ohio. Staple length is between 4 and 5 inches, fineness is between 13 and 15 microns, crimp is moderate. Unfortunately the sheep wasn’t coated and I lost way too much of this beautiful fleece to burrs and hayseed contamination, but what’s left is lovely. On a 15-gram drop spindle my singles are in the 95 wpi range. On the wheel, the best I can manage is 75-80 wpi singles.
I can hear the next question – how do I prep a fleece for this sort of fine spinning? If you want the finest yarn you have to choose the finest portions of the fleece. That takes going over a fleece almost lock-by-lock. So my first step is to move outdoors and spread the fleece out on an old sheet on an overcast day. I have a deck that’s ideal for this, since the breezes are blocked by the house itself, built-in seating and almost-solid side panels.
I use two sheets and a small laundry basket. Sitting between them, I take a handful of fleece from the skirted fleece and pick through it. Average locks go onto the second sheet; really fine locks go into the basket. If you’ve laid out the fleece in such a way that you can discern the various parts like neck, saddle, back, belly and legs it will go faster. Unfortunately, this isn’t always easy to do, and you will frequently have to simply try your best to get the entire fleece laid out in a single layer. Either way, start at one end of the fleece and work your way through. Take your time. This can easily and pleasantly consume an entire afternoon, so ship the husband and children off for that length of time – they can go fishing or play in the park.
Once you’ve separated the fleece, keep it that way. Store the ‘average’ portion (which may be pretty fantastic, but isn’t the absolute tip-top portion of the fleece) in your favorite container, either washed or in the grease. Take appropriate measures for moth and critter control. Then move on to your basket containing the best of this fleece. You’ll be surprised at how little wool you have in there – if there’s more than 6-8 ounces you have a truly spectacular fleece!
You can, of course, comb or flick the contents of the basket and spin at this point. I don’t really care for spinning in the grease, and find spinning this sort of relatively high-twist yarn in the grease makes it quite difficult to get the resulting yarn clean. But it’s your choice.
If you choose to clean the fleece before spinning, you’ll want to do so in a way that keeps the lock structure as intact as possible. There are two really good possibilities. Many spinners favor laying the locks out on a strip of netting or illusion about 18 inches wide and 36 inches long, folding the netting over the locks to form a sandwich, and running either a line of basting stitches or safety pins through the layers to keep the locks intact. Others roll the netting sandwich, fasten with a rubber band or string, and then wash. I’ve tried both, and had problems with getting the fleece completely clean. That may have more to do with my rather hard water than any failing in the method, since friends with soft water get perfectly good results.
The second way is to do it by hand, lock by lock, and this is my preferred method. The locks are perfectly clean and well-preserved. I set up an assembly line, starting with two large pasta pots of water brought to a boil on the stove. On the counter are the basket of fleece, three dishpans (or one dishpan and the double sink) and a large towel or three at the far end. Laundry detergent is close at hand, along with a candy thermometer and thick rubber gloves.
Put 3-4 inches of the hottest water you can get from the tap into the first container. Mix in enough detergent to make the water feel slippery (I use about 1 cup of liquid detergent). Now add boiling water from the stove until the water temperature is between 160 and 180 degrees on the candy thermometer. Make up the other two containers with water of the same temperature, but without detergent. Now start more water on the stove – you’ll probably need it to replenish as you go along. In order to clean fleece well the main thing necessary is HOT water. So keep it at least 160 degrees.
Put on the gloves and pick up the first lock. Lay it in the dishpan of soapy water. Don’t let it drift apart as it gets wet, though – you want to swish it through the water just enough so that the lock gets clean, but not so much that it begins to felt. Now remove it from the soapy water and do the same thing in each of the rinse containers. Lay the lock on the towel to begin to dry, go back and do the same thing again with the next lock.
Sound tedious? It can be if you’re working on a surface of the wrong height, but as long as your ‘washing station’ is set up properly it isn’t too bad. And when finished you have rows of beautifully clean locks on the towels. I place the towels in the basement on a drying rack made from an old window screen laid across sawhorses with the locks still on them – everything is dry by the next day. Then I pick up each lock and put it back into the cleaned basket, ready for spinning.
While the clean locks are drying is a good time to go over your tools. If you plan on flick-carding (and that’s the best way I’ve found to spin frog-hair), make sure your flicker or dog comb is at hand and clean. Find or make a lap cloth that’s thick enough to withstand the flicking and protect your leg. I use a tripled piece of heavy cotton-twill cloth – one side white, one side medium blue, and an extra layer in the middle – that’s about a yard square. Edges are serged together and corners are rounded. So far it’s worked well, especially if I wear denim or some other heavy twill skirt or jeans. A piece of leather will also work well.
Is this necessary? Perhaps not – but the one time I tried flicking locks without any protection between the flicker and my leg I got a very interesting pattern of puncture wounds and a tetanus shot. It served me right for agreeing at the last minute to do a public demonstration on a just-sheared grease fleece from a local flock.
If you’re spindle-spinning, try out your spindle and do any tweaking necessary. If you’re using a wheel, this is the perfect time for a tune-up. Check all the nuts, bolts and screws and make sure they’re tight. Check the alignment of the drive wheel and whorl – is your drive band traveling in a straight line? Clean the wheel well, polish any finished wood parts, and be sure you lubricate any place necessary – don’t forget the bar that supports your treadles. If you use leather, lubricate that and tighten any leather ties.
Check your tensioning system to be sure it is working well. On double-drive wheels you’ll want to change over to a fine, smooth linen or cotton drive band. Try them out until you find something that will just turn everything smoothly. This seems silly, perhaps, but it will help. Thick drive bands can sometimes be a little too grabby for spinning really fine yarns, breaking the yarn frequently. I’ve had the best luck with size 10 or 20 crochet cotton. I’ve occasionally had to use beeswax on the drive bands, but not very often; first try it without.
On Scotch-tension wheels, try to get the lightest spring available. You don’t want something stiff enough to pull on bulky-weight singles. Check on your wheel manufacturer’s website, or in the hardware section of your local home center. You want something made from fine-gauge wire with about 1/16 inch between each wrap. That will give you the absolute minimum tension on the take-up band. Change your brake band to something very light and fine. I use braided fishing line in a 30-pound test size, and have never had a problem. I change it out every couple of years when it becomes frayed. If your tensioning knob is loose, wrap a bit of fiber around the portion that goes into the mother-of-all or the table to provide some grab, or rough up the surface a bit with a wood or nail file. But be careful with this - you don’t want to overdo it! What you’re after is fine control, not a tensioning knob that no longer fits the hole drilled for it!
Fine yarns have less tensile strength because they have fewer fibers. You need to compensate for that. A large-core lace bobbin puts less strain on fine threads, and a lace flyer orifice is smaller in diameter so that the threads vibrate less as they go through. If you don’t have a lace flyer and bobbin, try some of the following hints:
To make a temporary lace bobbin, pick up some pipe insulation at the hardware store. Cut a length that will fit tightly over the core of your bobbin, snuggling up nicely to the ends. Before you slip it into place, tie a long leader of size 20 crochet cotton around the core. Now slip the pipe insulation over the bobbin core, bringing your leader out through the slit in the insulation. You now have a perfect lace bobbin for an investment of a couple of dollars.
If you have a delta orifice wheel, don’t despair. In my experience Delta orifices actually aren’t too bad for lace yarns. You may need to make no adjustments at all. However, if you start to spin, the yarn snaps every yard or so and you’re using a delta orifice, suspicion is recommended. Look over the wheel again – get another spinner to check it if possible. Adjust take-up, drive bands, etc. and try again. Still having trouble? Check with your wheel manufacturer or a good spinning wheel replacement parts person – you may indeed need a lace flyer in order to spin really fine yarns on that wheel.
Different wheels have different bobbin tensioning systems. I’m particularly thinking about the Louet wheels, but there are almost certainly others out there with a very strong take-up. I don’t own one of them, so all I can advise is to ask questions on the TechSpin list or talk to your dealer. I have seen various hints and tips, but didn’t pay a great deal of attention since they didn’t apply to me. In case you’re wondering, I currently own an Ashford Traveller, a Majacraft Rose and a Kromski Symphony. All are scotch tension or convertible wheels with a double treadle because I like that setup. But that doesn’t mean you have to have one of those wheels to spin gossamer yarn! You can spin fine yarns with any wheel as long as you’re willing to tinker a little and learn how to tweak your own wheel to get the results you want.
Now that your wheel is tuned-up and ready to go, let’s talk about your spinning chair. It should fit not only your body when sitting, but also when spinning. I can’t use a chair with arms, for example – they get in my way. But I do need a chair that’s height-adjustable – all three of my wheels have different-height orifices and ‘live’ on different surfaces, and that means that I do better if I can tweak my seat height. Could I purchase a different chair for each wheel? Yes, but I didn’t. Instead I bought a well-cushioned task chair with excellent, adjustable lumbar support and adjustable seat height and tilt. I move it to whichever wheel I want to use right then.
Be sure to pay attention to the ergonomics of your spinning. When treadling, your knees should remain at 90 degrees to your body. Arm motions should be fluid and as centered as possible. Try to avoid shifting from one hip to another or twisting your spine and you’ll spin with less effort and no backache. Sit comfortably, and don’t forget to get up and move around every 20-30 minutes. I actually set a timer, or make myself get up during commercials if I’m watching TV while spinning.
All right, all the equipment is ready and your locks are dry. Sit in your spinning chair, placing your fiber on one side of your chair (the same side as that of the hand in which you hold your fiber). Put the cover on your lap, pick up your comb or flicker, and get ready to spin some lace-weight yarn.
Grasp a lock of wool at one end – either one. It doesn’t matter too much if you use a dog comb or a flicker. If you’re using a comb, pretend you’re working on a small child’s hair – use smooth movements, starting at the tip and working up to the center of the lock. If using a flicker, don’t brush from lock center to tip – tap the flicker gently with only the slightest of downward strokes, again working from the tips toward the center of the lock. Working this way will break off any brittle tips, work out any tangles, and give you beautifully- aligned fibers.
When the lock is perfectly open, switch ends and do the same from the other end of the lock. I prepare a single lock at a time, spinning immediately after I flick each lock. If you prefer to flick several, that’s fine – stack them on a small table or your lap. But try not to flick more than you’ll spin in a half-hour. They’ll just get disarranged and require flicking again.
You want open, perfectly-aligned locks. If you can’t see your fingers or the lap cloth through the fibers after flicking, separate the lock and work on smaller portions. Remember what you’re after here – no more than 3-8 fibers in your singles yarns. A single lock, which contains well over 150 fibers, will take me somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to spin.
When you’re ready to begin your singles, attach the leader to the lock of fiber by your preferred method. I start out by tying a slip knot in the leader, threading a half-dozen fibers through the loop, doubling them back on themselves and tightening down the slip-knot loop around the fibers. Then I begin treadling gently clockwise, allowing twist to build up in the doubled fibers, and only begin to draft when they have plenty of twist.
That first lock may spin fairly quickly as you adjust take-up, treadling speed and drafting speed. Don’t worry about it; just continue to thin down the singles until you reach the grist you want. I look at that first lock or two as ‘play time’, and explore possibilities. When I’m sure everything is set up properly, I’ll start to consciously reduce the number of fibers in my drafting triangle.
Hold the fiber lightly. You need to have control over the fiber supply, but you don’t want to have to pull fibers from the supply with your other hand, either. The twist should flow smoothly into the drafting triangle.
Warning: Heresy is about to be written! I do not insist that the inchworm method is the only way to produce even yarns. It is the easiest way for a spinner to gain the control necessary to learn the feel of producing fine yarns, but to me it’s a difficult, tension-inducing way to spin. If you see me spinning inchworm method, you can bet that I’m spinning either a new-to-me fiber or a down fiber such as cashmere. I mostly use what could best be called a modified long-draw method. While this may not produce what a technical purist would call a worsted yarn, the yarn I produce looks and behaves like a worsted yarn. With only a half-dozen fibers at most in the singles, it’s almost impossible to spin anything except a worsted yarn, anyway, especially when using lock-flicking as a preparation method.
I’ve heard it said that you can’t put too much twist into these very fine yarns. I don’t agree. The goal for very fine yarn is the same as that for thicker yarns – soft-feeling, well-wearing yarns for use in making cozy, warm wearables. Yarns that are extremely hard-twist have their uses, i.e. carpets and doilies and some fabrics, but I don’t care for wearing them. Control your twist. Depending on the fiber, you’ll want singles with somewhere between 12 and 25 twists per inch. How do you know how much twist you need? Sample.
There’s no substitute for sampling to gain information. Yes, you can check with other spinners, weigh their answers and decide what you want to do, but you’ll still have to sample. Whether you make a small (short) sample or a full-size sample (an entire bobbin or more of yarn) is up to you. These days I tend to feel that my spinning and knitting time is too short for me to spend it working on an unsuccessful project. It’s much better to spend a small amount of time and materials up front sampling in order to get exactly what I want. In the past, however, I was a card-carrying member of the full-size sample club. Like almost everything else in spinning, the choice is yours.
What sort of information can you gain by sampling? Let’s take a look. You’ve spun an entire lock at 25 wpi. This is a Romney lamb fleece, by the way, with a micron count of about 30 and medium crimp. You want to do a lace-weight shawl, with two-ply yarn of about 30 wpi. You’ve put a medium-fast whorl on your wheel which will give you a ratio of 12:1. The singles are measuring 35 wpi, but your two-ply sample is 20 wpi. You’ve got about 6 fibers in your singles, but the yarn is still larger in grist than you wanted. It feels a bit harsh, as well. How can you decrease the grist and improve the feel? This is where sampling comes in. I’d try the following steps, in order, to try to accomplish it.
First, slow down the wheel. A ratio of 8:1 will give me more time to fiddle with the drafting, and perhaps get 4 fibers down to 3 or even 2. That will decrease the grist. A slower speed may also correct the feel of the yarn, softening it up nicely. A half-lock later you discover that this isn’t working. You’re treadling yourself to death in order to get enough twist in and the yarn is drifting apart. That’s too soft!
All right, speed up the wheel. Perhaps you need a ratio of 20:1. You should be able to control the drafting, and the faster speed will help with the treadling. You’ll have to be careful not to put in too much twist, though, and make the yarn harsh again. Let’s finish up that lock. Nope! This definitely isn’t going to work. Too much twist is making the yarn feel like wire. But the grist is about right – 50 wpi singles.
What’s a good compromise? Do you have a 16:1 whorl? If so, try that. If not, go back to the 12:1 whorl and concentrate on your drafting. After the sampling you’ve done, you may find it easier to control the number of fibers in the drafting zone. You should definitely be able to keep the yarn soft.
All of the above is a process you should make automatic when starting a new spinning project. Play with your fiber for a few minutes. See what you can do with it – how much twist will it accept without turning to wire? How little twist can you put in without the yarn drifting apart? What’s the happy medium that gives you a soft, strong yarn? When you get to that happy medium, is the resulting yarn suited for your project?
Now I’ll let you in on a secret – if you have to go through the above scenario and still compromise to get a usable yarn you’ve probably chosen the wrong fleece. How many of you spotted that? It shouldn’t take that much work to get the yarn you want for a given project once you know something about spinning. Romney lamb can be wonderfully soft, but for the sort of yarn you want, a micron count of 30 is too high. You need something in the 20’s, preferably less than 25. Put the Romney away until you want to make a sweater or some socks. It will be perfect for that, probably spun at that 12:1 ratio and three-plied to a grist of about 16-18 wpi. But if you want a fine lace shawl, try for a Shetland fleece with a micron count in the 20-23 range.
Are there other possibilities? Of course. Shetland is traditional for lace shawls because the fibers are generally fine with an average crimp. So you can spin it fine, knit it into a crisp-appearing lace, and block it severely to show off that lace. The lower crimp will help it hold that blocking until it again gets wet. But Shetland isn’t your only choice. Targhee is a good choice for fine yarns, as are Rambouillet, Cormo, CVM, Polwarth, Romeldale, Bluefaced Leicester, Finn and Corriedale.
The queen of fineness, merino, is easy to spin to gossamer-weight. The best merino spins like butter into a singles of more than 70 wpi. The 20-30 crimps per inch factor can present some challenges with blocking finished items, though. If you choose merino, you should knit your shawl to the finished dimensions and block only gently; it will be wonderfully soft. But if you knit the shawl the usual 15-20% less than the finished dimensions and block it out, three weeks later it will again measure the unblocked dimension, especially if you live in a humid climate. The culprit? That lovely crimp. This can be offset somewhat by blending merino with silk, alpaca, or both. But you still need to sample carefully, block, and measure your blocked sample both immediately and several days later. Surprises aren’t too difficult to cope with before you cast on, but can be quite unwelcome after you’ve cast off!
All right, you’ve chosen the fleece, sorted the locks, washed them and let them dry. You’ve sampled and finally gotten about half of your singles spun – almost a full lace-bobbin of 2 ounces. Stop and put that bobbin aside. Set up another and spin again until it’s full. Put both bobbins on a lazy kate, put a very small amount of tension on the two bobbins, and set the kate well behind your chair on the same side as your lead hand.
Yes, I know you can ply from a ball. I do exactly that quite often with yarns larger than gossamer, since I don’t like to have leftover ends. Leftovers mean splices in the knitting, and I don’t like to splice. But in this case plying from a ball is potentially a huge mistake. You’ve spent a month or more spinning 4 ounces of gossamer singles. Gossamer singles are fragile, and have little tensile strength compared to heavier-grist singles. So don’t add the additional stress of winding into a ball and then unwinding again under variable tension to ply from that ball – they’ll break easily and tangle even more easily! Ply from two bobbins instead – you’ll be happier and won’t lose half your singles to tangles. Ask me how I know - but be prepared for a long tale of woe!
Ply slowly and carefully. I’m not normally the type of spinner who counts every treadle for a given measure of yarn, but when plying this stuff it can be quite helpful. Of course small changes in twist can be corrected when skeining the yarn, but the less you must compensate the better. I usually slow down the wheel when plying; if I’ve spun at a 16:1 ratio I’ll ply at 12:1 in order to give myself time to gently pull the singles from the kate and count the treadle strokes.
You’ve spun the singles on lace bobbins. You can ply on lace bobbins, too, or you can give a regular bobbin a try. The advantage to plying on a regular bobbin is that it should hold an entire 4 ounces of plied yarn (unless your wheel is one of those with smaller-capacity bobbins). So you’ll have no splices or ends with which to contend in the knitting. The same rule of thumb applies, though – if you find your yarn breaking every yard or two, switch to a lace bobbin.
Once the plying is finished, it’s time to skein, tie and wash the finished yarn. I use a 2-yard niddy-noddy, release the bobbin tension and stand about 10 feet away from the wheel with the finished yarn coming over the top of the flyer. Of course, the Majacraft has a sliding yarn guide. When using a wheel with flyer hooks, you may be better served to put your bobbin on a tensioned lazy kate before you start making your skein.
Skein smoothly. Standing some distance away from the bobbin allows any variation in the twist to even out, making for a better yarn. Skein ties should definitely be used for these gossamer yarns. If your usual sport-weight skeins are tied in 2 places, double that on lace-weight and put a tie every foot or so on gossamer yarn. Don’t tie tightly, especially if you plan to dye your yarn. But multiple ties will help keep the yarn untangled through the washing process. I use a smooth, high-twist cotton yarn to tie wool yarns because it’s easy to see and slip off when it’s time to untie.
Wash well in really hot water. You want to get out any remaining dirt from the fleece as well as any spinning oil you’ve used and the oils from your hands. Rinse in hot water, remove excess moisture either by using the spin cycle of the washing machine (but don’t let water spray on the skein) and hang somewhere shady to dry. Weighting the skein shouldn’t be necessary, but you may certainly do so if you prefer.
When my skeins are dry I usually abuse them to full, thicken and soften the yarn slightly. This doesn’t involve anything nearly as drastic as it sounds. I take the skeins and whack them on a table edge a few times, moving my hand-hold (and thus the impact point) around the skein. After that, it’s time to wind the skein or skeins into center-pull balls and start to swatch some of the lovely lace patterns available while dreaming of the finished scarf or shawl.
Hamster floss and frog hair aren’t difficult to spin. They are painstaking, and thus not as soothing as spinning larger-grist yarns. But gossamer yarns have their own sort of meditative quality for those who choose to explore them. And the end result of the process is so beautiful that you find yourself looking for fleeces and tops that can be spun in this manner.
Why do I have this fascination with fine spinning? Possibly it’s tied together with my love of lace; the most ethereal of knitted laces are made with gossamer yarns that are little thicker than 6 to 8 fibers twisted together into two plies. Maybe I just like the attention it garners at public demonstrations and from other spinners. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much, but I do.
Every spinner is different. We bring different experiences, expectations, tools and physical limitations to our yarn production. I’m not going to take photos or videos of my own spinning method and try to tell you that this is the only (or even the best) way to produce gossamer yarns. I am going to tell you the various steps I go through and the equipment I use to do so. But your methods will almost certainly differ in several particulars. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you like the yarn you’re making, and find it suitable for your purposes. Modern individuals seem to expect a ‘recipe’ approach, and I don’t really do ‘recipes’ for spinning any more than I do for knitting, weaving, or cooking. Still I hope interested spinners will locate these notes, find them somewhat useful, and explore the possibilities further.
First and foremost, choose a fine, sound fleece. No mid-range fleeces (Lincoln lamb, Romney crosses and Wensleydale all have their uses, but in my opinion this isn’t one of them), and no weak spots or sun-bleached tips. Shetland lamb fleece, fine merino or merino crosses like Rambouillet or Targhee, fine Finn…you get the idea. You’ll spend a bit more for these fleeces, and they’ll be worth every penny. If you can find them in combed top from commercial sources, go for it – you’ll pay around $8.00 per ounce, but you can get a 60-inch square shawl from 4-6 ounces of top.
My current fine-spinning champ is a Shetland lamb fleece from a shepherd in Ohio. Staple length is between 4 and 5 inches, fineness is between 13 and 15 microns, crimp is moderate. Unfortunately the sheep wasn’t coated and I lost way too much of this beautiful fleece to burrs and hayseed contamination, but what’s left is lovely. On a 15-gram drop spindle my singles are in the 95 wpi range. On the wheel, the best I can manage is 75-80 wpi singles.
I can hear the next question – how do I prep a fleece for this sort of fine spinning? If you want the finest yarn you have to choose the finest portions of the fleece. That takes going over a fleece almost lock-by-lock. So my first step is to move outdoors and spread the fleece out on an old sheet on an overcast day. I have a deck that’s ideal for this, since the breezes are blocked by the house itself, built-in seating and almost-solid side panels.
I use two sheets and a small laundry basket. Sitting between them, I take a handful of fleece from the skirted fleece and pick through it. Average locks go onto the second sheet; really fine locks go into the basket. If you’ve laid out the fleece in such a way that you can discern the various parts like neck, saddle, back, belly and legs it will go faster. Unfortunately, this isn’t always easy to do, and you will frequently have to simply try your best to get the entire fleece laid out in a single layer. Either way, start at one end of the fleece and work your way through. Take your time. This can easily and pleasantly consume an entire afternoon, so ship the husband and children off for that length of time – they can go fishing or play in the park.
Once you’ve separated the fleece, keep it that way. Store the ‘average’ portion (which may be pretty fantastic, but isn’t the absolute tip-top portion of the fleece) in your favorite container, either washed or in the grease. Take appropriate measures for moth and critter control. Then move on to your basket containing the best of this fleece. You’ll be surprised at how little wool you have in there – if there’s more than 6-8 ounces you have a truly spectacular fleece!
You can, of course, comb or flick the contents of the basket and spin at this point. I don’t really care for spinning in the grease, and find spinning this sort of relatively high-twist yarn in the grease makes it quite difficult to get the resulting yarn clean. But it’s your choice.
If you choose to clean the fleece before spinning, you’ll want to do so in a way that keeps the lock structure as intact as possible. There are two really good possibilities. Many spinners favor laying the locks out on a strip of netting or illusion about 18 inches wide and 36 inches long, folding the netting over the locks to form a sandwich, and running either a line of basting stitches or safety pins through the layers to keep the locks intact. Others roll the netting sandwich, fasten with a rubber band or string, and then wash. I’ve tried both, and had problems with getting the fleece completely clean. That may have more to do with my rather hard water than any failing in the method, since friends with soft water get perfectly good results.
The second way is to do it by hand, lock by lock, and this is my preferred method. The locks are perfectly clean and well-preserved. I set up an assembly line, starting with two large pasta pots of water brought to a boil on the stove. On the counter are the basket of fleece, three dishpans (or one dishpan and the double sink) and a large towel or three at the far end. Laundry detergent is close at hand, along with a candy thermometer and thick rubber gloves.
Put 3-4 inches of the hottest water you can get from the tap into the first container. Mix in enough detergent to make the water feel slippery (I use about 1 cup of liquid detergent). Now add boiling water from the stove until the water temperature is between 160 and 180 degrees on the candy thermometer. Make up the other two containers with water of the same temperature, but without detergent. Now start more water on the stove – you’ll probably need it to replenish as you go along. In order to clean fleece well the main thing necessary is HOT water. So keep it at least 160 degrees.
Put on the gloves and pick up the first lock. Lay it in the dishpan of soapy water. Don’t let it drift apart as it gets wet, though – you want to swish it through the water just enough so that the lock gets clean, but not so much that it begins to felt. Now remove it from the soapy water and do the same thing in each of the rinse containers. Lay the lock on the towel to begin to dry, go back and do the same thing again with the next lock.
Sound tedious? It can be if you’re working on a surface of the wrong height, but as long as your ‘washing station’ is set up properly it isn’t too bad. And when finished you have rows of beautifully clean locks on the towels. I place the towels in the basement on a drying rack made from an old window screen laid across sawhorses with the locks still on them – everything is dry by the next day. Then I pick up each lock and put it back into the cleaned basket, ready for spinning.
While the clean locks are drying is a good time to go over your tools. If you plan on flick-carding (and that’s the best way I’ve found to spin frog-hair), make sure your flicker or dog comb is at hand and clean. Find or make a lap cloth that’s thick enough to withstand the flicking and protect your leg. I use a tripled piece of heavy cotton-twill cloth – one side white, one side medium blue, and an extra layer in the middle – that’s about a yard square. Edges are serged together and corners are rounded. So far it’s worked well, especially if I wear denim or some other heavy twill skirt or jeans. A piece of leather will also work well.
Is this necessary? Perhaps not – but the one time I tried flicking locks without any protection between the flicker and my leg I got a very interesting pattern of puncture wounds and a tetanus shot. It served me right for agreeing at the last minute to do a public demonstration on a just-sheared grease fleece from a local flock.
If you’re spindle-spinning, try out your spindle and do any tweaking necessary. If you’re using a wheel, this is the perfect time for a tune-up. Check all the nuts, bolts and screws and make sure they’re tight. Check the alignment of the drive wheel and whorl – is your drive band traveling in a straight line? Clean the wheel well, polish any finished wood parts, and be sure you lubricate any place necessary – don’t forget the bar that supports your treadles. If you use leather, lubricate that and tighten any leather ties.
Check your tensioning system to be sure it is working well. On double-drive wheels you’ll want to change over to a fine, smooth linen or cotton drive band. Try them out until you find something that will just turn everything smoothly. This seems silly, perhaps, but it will help. Thick drive bands can sometimes be a little too grabby for spinning really fine yarns, breaking the yarn frequently. I’ve had the best luck with size 10 or 20 crochet cotton. I’ve occasionally had to use beeswax on the drive bands, but not very often; first try it without.
On Scotch-tension wheels, try to get the lightest spring available. You don’t want something stiff enough to pull on bulky-weight singles. Check on your wheel manufacturer’s website, or in the hardware section of your local home center. You want something made from fine-gauge wire with about 1/16 inch between each wrap. That will give you the absolute minimum tension on the take-up band. Change your brake band to something very light and fine. I use braided fishing line in a 30-pound test size, and have never had a problem. I change it out every couple of years when it becomes frayed. If your tensioning knob is loose, wrap a bit of fiber around the portion that goes into the mother-of-all or the table to provide some grab, or rough up the surface a bit with a wood or nail file. But be careful with this - you don’t want to overdo it! What you’re after is fine control, not a tensioning knob that no longer fits the hole drilled for it!
Fine yarns have less tensile strength because they have fewer fibers. You need to compensate for that. A large-core lace bobbin puts less strain on fine threads, and a lace flyer orifice is smaller in diameter so that the threads vibrate less as they go through. If you don’t have a lace flyer and bobbin, try some of the following hints:
To make a temporary lace bobbin, pick up some pipe insulation at the hardware store. Cut a length that will fit tightly over the core of your bobbin, snuggling up nicely to the ends. Before you slip it into place, tie a long leader of size 20 crochet cotton around the core. Now slip the pipe insulation over the bobbin core, bringing your leader out through the slit in the insulation. You now have a perfect lace bobbin for an investment of a couple of dollars.
If you have a delta orifice wheel, don’t despair. In my experience Delta orifices actually aren’t too bad for lace yarns. You may need to make no adjustments at all. However, if you start to spin, the yarn snaps every yard or so and you’re using a delta orifice, suspicion is recommended. Look over the wheel again – get another spinner to check it if possible. Adjust take-up, drive bands, etc. and try again. Still having trouble? Check with your wheel manufacturer or a good spinning wheel replacement parts person – you may indeed need a lace flyer in order to spin really fine yarns on that wheel.
Different wheels have different bobbin tensioning systems. I’m particularly thinking about the Louet wheels, but there are almost certainly others out there with a very strong take-up. I don’t own one of them, so all I can advise is to ask questions on the TechSpin list or talk to your dealer. I have seen various hints and tips, but didn’t pay a great deal of attention since they didn’t apply to me. In case you’re wondering, I currently own an Ashford Traveller, a Majacraft Rose and a Kromski Symphony. All are scotch tension or convertible wheels with a double treadle because I like that setup. But that doesn’t mean you have to have one of those wheels to spin gossamer yarn! You can spin fine yarns with any wheel as long as you’re willing to tinker a little and learn how to tweak your own wheel to get the results you want.
Now that your wheel is tuned-up and ready to go, let’s talk about your spinning chair. It should fit not only your body when sitting, but also when spinning. I can’t use a chair with arms, for example – they get in my way. But I do need a chair that’s height-adjustable – all three of my wheels have different-height orifices and ‘live’ on different surfaces, and that means that I do better if I can tweak my seat height. Could I purchase a different chair for each wheel? Yes, but I didn’t. Instead I bought a well-cushioned task chair with excellent, adjustable lumbar support and adjustable seat height and tilt. I move it to whichever wheel I want to use right then.
Be sure to pay attention to the ergonomics of your spinning. When treadling, your knees should remain at 90 degrees to your body. Arm motions should be fluid and as centered as possible. Try to avoid shifting from one hip to another or twisting your spine and you’ll spin with less effort and no backache. Sit comfortably, and don’t forget to get up and move around every 20-30 minutes. I actually set a timer, or make myself get up during commercials if I’m watching TV while spinning.
All right, all the equipment is ready and your locks are dry. Sit in your spinning chair, placing your fiber on one side of your chair (the same side as that of the hand in which you hold your fiber). Put the cover on your lap, pick up your comb or flicker, and get ready to spin some lace-weight yarn.
Grasp a lock of wool at one end – either one. It doesn’t matter too much if you use a dog comb or a flicker. If you’re using a comb, pretend you’re working on a small child’s hair – use smooth movements, starting at the tip and working up to the center of the lock. If using a flicker, don’t brush from lock center to tip – tap the flicker gently with only the slightest of downward strokes, again working from the tips toward the center of the lock. Working this way will break off any brittle tips, work out any tangles, and give you beautifully- aligned fibers.
When the lock is perfectly open, switch ends and do the same from the other end of the lock. I prepare a single lock at a time, spinning immediately after I flick each lock. If you prefer to flick several, that’s fine – stack them on a small table or your lap. But try not to flick more than you’ll spin in a half-hour. They’ll just get disarranged and require flicking again.
You want open, perfectly-aligned locks. If you can’t see your fingers or the lap cloth through the fibers after flicking, separate the lock and work on smaller portions. Remember what you’re after here – no more than 3-8 fibers in your singles yarns. A single lock, which contains well over 150 fibers, will take me somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to spin.
When you’re ready to begin your singles, attach the leader to the lock of fiber by your preferred method. I start out by tying a slip knot in the leader, threading a half-dozen fibers through the loop, doubling them back on themselves and tightening down the slip-knot loop around the fibers. Then I begin treadling gently clockwise, allowing twist to build up in the doubled fibers, and only begin to draft when they have plenty of twist.
That first lock may spin fairly quickly as you adjust take-up, treadling speed and drafting speed. Don’t worry about it; just continue to thin down the singles until you reach the grist you want. I look at that first lock or two as ‘play time’, and explore possibilities. When I’m sure everything is set up properly, I’ll start to consciously reduce the number of fibers in my drafting triangle.
Hold the fiber lightly. You need to have control over the fiber supply, but you don’t want to have to pull fibers from the supply with your other hand, either. The twist should flow smoothly into the drafting triangle.
Warning: Heresy is about to be written! I do not insist that the inchworm method is the only way to produce even yarns. It is the easiest way for a spinner to gain the control necessary to learn the feel of producing fine yarns, but to me it’s a difficult, tension-inducing way to spin. If you see me spinning inchworm method, you can bet that I’m spinning either a new-to-me fiber or a down fiber such as cashmere. I mostly use what could best be called a modified long-draw method. While this may not produce what a technical purist would call a worsted yarn, the yarn I produce looks and behaves like a worsted yarn. With only a half-dozen fibers at most in the singles, it’s almost impossible to spin anything except a worsted yarn, anyway, especially when using lock-flicking as a preparation method.
I’ve heard it said that you can’t put too much twist into these very fine yarns. I don’t agree. The goal for very fine yarn is the same as that for thicker yarns – soft-feeling, well-wearing yarns for use in making cozy, warm wearables. Yarns that are extremely hard-twist have their uses, i.e. carpets and doilies and some fabrics, but I don’t care for wearing them. Control your twist. Depending on the fiber, you’ll want singles with somewhere between 12 and 25 twists per inch. How do you know how much twist you need? Sample.
There’s no substitute for sampling to gain information. Yes, you can check with other spinners, weigh their answers and decide what you want to do, but you’ll still have to sample. Whether you make a small (short) sample or a full-size sample (an entire bobbin or more of yarn) is up to you. These days I tend to feel that my spinning and knitting time is too short for me to spend it working on an unsuccessful project. It’s much better to spend a small amount of time and materials up front sampling in order to get exactly what I want. In the past, however, I was a card-carrying member of the full-size sample club. Like almost everything else in spinning, the choice is yours.
What sort of information can you gain by sampling? Let’s take a look. You’ve spun an entire lock at 25 wpi. This is a Romney lamb fleece, by the way, with a micron count of about 30 and medium crimp. You want to do a lace-weight shawl, with two-ply yarn of about 30 wpi. You’ve put a medium-fast whorl on your wheel which will give you a ratio of 12:1. The singles are measuring 35 wpi, but your two-ply sample is 20 wpi. You’ve got about 6 fibers in your singles, but the yarn is still larger in grist than you wanted. It feels a bit harsh, as well. How can you decrease the grist and improve the feel? This is where sampling comes in. I’d try the following steps, in order, to try to accomplish it.
First, slow down the wheel. A ratio of 8:1 will give me more time to fiddle with the drafting, and perhaps get 4 fibers down to 3 or even 2. That will decrease the grist. A slower speed may also correct the feel of the yarn, softening it up nicely. A half-lock later you discover that this isn’t working. You’re treadling yourself to death in order to get enough twist in and the yarn is drifting apart. That’s too soft!
All right, speed up the wheel. Perhaps you need a ratio of 20:1. You should be able to control the drafting, and the faster speed will help with the treadling. You’ll have to be careful not to put in too much twist, though, and make the yarn harsh again. Let’s finish up that lock. Nope! This definitely isn’t going to work. Too much twist is making the yarn feel like wire. But the grist is about right – 50 wpi singles.
What’s a good compromise? Do you have a 16:1 whorl? If so, try that. If not, go back to the 12:1 whorl and concentrate on your drafting. After the sampling you’ve done, you may find it easier to control the number of fibers in the drafting zone. You should definitely be able to keep the yarn soft.
All of the above is a process you should make automatic when starting a new spinning project. Play with your fiber for a few minutes. See what you can do with it – how much twist will it accept without turning to wire? How little twist can you put in without the yarn drifting apart? What’s the happy medium that gives you a soft, strong yarn? When you get to that happy medium, is the resulting yarn suited for your project?
Now I’ll let you in on a secret – if you have to go through the above scenario and still compromise to get a usable yarn you’ve probably chosen the wrong fleece. How many of you spotted that? It shouldn’t take that much work to get the yarn you want for a given project once you know something about spinning. Romney lamb can be wonderfully soft, but for the sort of yarn you want, a micron count of 30 is too high. You need something in the 20’s, preferably less than 25. Put the Romney away until you want to make a sweater or some socks. It will be perfect for that, probably spun at that 12:1 ratio and three-plied to a grist of about 16-18 wpi. But if you want a fine lace shawl, try for a Shetland fleece with a micron count in the 20-23 range.
Are there other possibilities? Of course. Shetland is traditional for lace shawls because the fibers are generally fine with an average crimp. So you can spin it fine, knit it into a crisp-appearing lace, and block it severely to show off that lace. The lower crimp will help it hold that blocking until it again gets wet. But Shetland isn’t your only choice. Targhee is a good choice for fine yarns, as are Rambouillet, Cormo, CVM, Polwarth, Romeldale, Bluefaced Leicester, Finn and Corriedale.
The queen of fineness, merino, is easy to spin to gossamer-weight. The best merino spins like butter into a singles of more than 70 wpi. The 20-30 crimps per inch factor can present some challenges with blocking finished items, though. If you choose merino, you should knit your shawl to the finished dimensions and block only gently; it will be wonderfully soft. But if you knit the shawl the usual 15-20% less than the finished dimensions and block it out, three weeks later it will again measure the unblocked dimension, especially if you live in a humid climate. The culprit? That lovely crimp. This can be offset somewhat by blending merino with silk, alpaca, or both. But you still need to sample carefully, block, and measure your blocked sample both immediately and several days later. Surprises aren’t too difficult to cope with before you cast on, but can be quite unwelcome after you’ve cast off!
All right, you’ve chosen the fleece, sorted the locks, washed them and let them dry. You’ve sampled and finally gotten about half of your singles spun – almost a full lace-bobbin of 2 ounces. Stop and put that bobbin aside. Set up another and spin again until it’s full. Put both bobbins on a lazy kate, put a very small amount of tension on the two bobbins, and set the kate well behind your chair on the same side as your lead hand.
Yes, I know you can ply from a ball. I do exactly that quite often with yarns larger than gossamer, since I don’t like to have leftover ends. Leftovers mean splices in the knitting, and I don’t like to splice. But in this case plying from a ball is potentially a huge mistake. You’ve spent a month or more spinning 4 ounces of gossamer singles. Gossamer singles are fragile, and have little tensile strength compared to heavier-grist singles. So don’t add the additional stress of winding into a ball and then unwinding again under variable tension to ply from that ball – they’ll break easily and tangle even more easily! Ply from two bobbins instead – you’ll be happier and won’t lose half your singles to tangles. Ask me how I know - but be prepared for a long tale of woe!
Ply slowly and carefully. I’m not normally the type of spinner who counts every treadle for a given measure of yarn, but when plying this stuff it can be quite helpful. Of course small changes in twist can be corrected when skeining the yarn, but the less you must compensate the better. I usually slow down the wheel when plying; if I’ve spun at a 16:1 ratio I’ll ply at 12:1 in order to give myself time to gently pull the singles from the kate and count the treadle strokes.
You’ve spun the singles on lace bobbins. You can ply on lace bobbins, too, or you can give a regular bobbin a try. The advantage to plying on a regular bobbin is that it should hold an entire 4 ounces of plied yarn (unless your wheel is one of those with smaller-capacity bobbins). So you’ll have no splices or ends with which to contend in the knitting. The same rule of thumb applies, though – if you find your yarn breaking every yard or two, switch to a lace bobbin.
Once the plying is finished, it’s time to skein, tie and wash the finished yarn. I use a 2-yard niddy-noddy, release the bobbin tension and stand about 10 feet away from the wheel with the finished yarn coming over the top of the flyer. Of course, the Majacraft has a sliding yarn guide. When using a wheel with flyer hooks, you may be better served to put your bobbin on a tensioned lazy kate before you start making your skein.
Skein smoothly. Standing some distance away from the bobbin allows any variation in the twist to even out, making for a better yarn. Skein ties should definitely be used for these gossamer yarns. If your usual sport-weight skeins are tied in 2 places, double that on lace-weight and put a tie every foot or so on gossamer yarn. Don’t tie tightly, especially if you plan to dye your yarn. But multiple ties will help keep the yarn untangled through the washing process. I use a smooth, high-twist cotton yarn to tie wool yarns because it’s easy to see and slip off when it’s time to untie.
Wash well in really hot water. You want to get out any remaining dirt from the fleece as well as any spinning oil you’ve used and the oils from your hands. Rinse in hot water, remove excess moisture either by using the spin cycle of the washing machine (but don’t let water spray on the skein) and hang somewhere shady to dry. Weighting the skein shouldn’t be necessary, but you may certainly do so if you prefer.
When my skeins are dry I usually abuse them to full, thicken and soften the yarn slightly. This doesn’t involve anything nearly as drastic as it sounds. I take the skeins and whack them on a table edge a few times, moving my hand-hold (and thus the impact point) around the skein. After that, it’s time to wind the skein or skeins into center-pull balls and start to swatch some of the lovely lace patterns available while dreaming of the finished scarf or shawl.
Hamster floss and frog hair aren’t difficult to spin. They are painstaking, and thus not as soothing as spinning larger-grist yarns. But gossamer yarns have their own sort of meditative quality for those who choose to explore them. And the end result of the process is so beautiful that you find yourself looking for fleeces and tops that can be spun in this manner.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Rules
My husband sometimes asks why I read so many different lists every day – several spinning, one tatting, several knitting and a couple of weaving lists deliver digests to me daily. I’ve tried to explain that I find the camaraderie at least as important as the information shared. Although he’s better than the average Joe at understanding how fiber artists and women network and support one another, he still doesn’t always ‘get it.’ But I truly enjoy the lists – the constant intertwining of newcomers and experience is fascinating and quite inspirational!
I’ve noticed one thing about spinning lists in particular (although all fiber lists show this tendency): newcomers all have basically the same questions and they all revolve around ‘rules.’ Most newbie questions boil down to “What am I supposed to do to get this result?” The long-time spinners on the list all pitch in and try to give them alternatives and options. But the advice is frequently conflicting and ambiguous. Why is it that way? Why can’t you simply give one clear set of directions and make it work every time?
Well, it has to do with the nature of spinning. Spinners aren’t machines, and if you put 100 spinners in a room, furnish them with identical wheels and fiber and tools, and ask them to spin a semi-worsted yarn of 10 wpi, you’ll get 100 slightly different yarns. If you watch how they go about producing that yarn, you’ll also see 100 slightly different techniques of fiber preparation, wheel setup, and spinning technique. I saw this in microcosm a few years back when a group of us did a sheep to shawl. I was the weaver for the six to eight spinners. Combining yarn from each spinner while maintaining a balanced plain-weave fabric was a challenge, even though each spinner was pretty good at spinning to the specified grist!
It’s like doing a presentation or a webpage. Some people like PowerPoint, some like Publisher, some Excel; while others prefer Corel or Photoshop or FrontPage. Any of those programs can get the job done, but different programs are better suited to different types of information. Additionally, some of us are more comfortable with one program than with another. Spinning is similar – there are many ways to get to the same end result, and each spinner chooses the technique best-suited to him/her as an individual.
I’ve talked about the variables in spinning before, but let’s re-visit them. Spinners are all different – different body types, different physical requirements and limitations and advantages. Wheels are also different, and some wheels are simply better suited to certain types of spinning (or spinners). You can adjust and finagle to make them spin other yarns, but it simply isn’t easy to spin gossamer-weight cotton on a wheel that’s designed for producing bulky, low-twist wool yarns. Individual animals are different – one fleece may be very different from another, and quality and fineness can vary from year to year on the same animal. As for plant fibers, different growing locales and conditions also give very different fibers. Try river-bottom flax and then mountain-grown flax – very different grist of individual fibers and very different color in the raw fiber gives a very different yarn to the same spinner with the same prep! Tools other than wheels are different, too – some are mechanized, and thus give a more consistent preparation; but hand tools will give widely variable results depending on the experience and technique of the user.
I can hear you now – “Are you saying there are NO rules?!?!” Well, yes and no. You shouldn’t try to spin long-wearing rug yarn from merino might be a rule. You shouldn’t spin a lacy camisole from Churro might be another. However, IF you look hard enough, there might be an individual Churro which would make a lovely camisole, and an individual merino whose fleece for that year would make great rug yarn. It isn’t likely, but it is possible; which would change the above statements from rules to suggestions.
Spinning is as much an art as a craft. Ask a potter how to get a specific shape and you’ll get several alternatives. Spinning is the same. There is always more than one way to get a given result. While this seeming abundance of alternatives might seem overwhelming to a beginner, get the basics down, shift your focus just a little and it becomes creative and freeing.
What are the basics? Spinning is very simple – get twist into fibers in order to make them hold together. There are no ‘rules’ about how to do that, and any number of techniques can be used to get the same end result – fibers that are held together by friction and compression. Think about all the types of yarn – worsted, smooth multi-ply yarns begging to be used in patterns of cables or lace; fuzzy, thick and thin single-ply yarns demanding to be an accent in sweater or purse; and everything in between. Can you think of different ways to get those yarns? No? Sure you can! How about one very basic difference? You can use either a spindle or a wheel to get exactly the same yarn. No way? Yes, way! It’s easy, it’s fun, and you can try it with any fiber.
Spindles and wheels (and carders and combs and hands) are tools. The only limitation to any tool is the skill of the tool-user – the spinner. I do combination spinning all the time – part of the fiber on the spindle that travels with me everywhere, and part on the wheel at home. I can match almost any yarn spun on one with the other. But there are a couple of limitations for me at this point in my spinning career – for really gossamer-fine spinning of down fibers like cashmere I prefer a supported spindle. I have trouble matching that fineness and delicacy consistently with down fibers on my wheels. But I DO normally use a wheel to ply those spindle-spun singles, both because I can get more on a bobbin than I can on a spindle and because it’s easier for me to control the amount of plying twist on the wheel.
On the other hand, I’ll normally use the wheel to make softly-spun bulky singles. I don’t like heavy spindles, and own only one for a simple reason – using them for more than a few minutes hurts. But I can stop and start my double-treadle wheels easily using a large whorl and slow treadling speed to make a fairly consistent bulky single. It works for me, so I do it this way. But these techniques may not suit you! Your favorite tool for spinning soft-twist, bulky singles might be a Navaho spindle. If so, use it! If the yarn is what you want, you’re spinning it ‘properly.’ Can you refine your techniques and procedures to get the same result more easily? Perhaps. That’s another reason to keep reading and studying and sampling. Another spinner’s method may spark an idea in you!
Spinners will tell you that different fibers require different spinning techniques. You don’t spin cotton in the same way as wool, or wool in the same way as silk. Does that mean you can only spin silk, for example, one way? Nope. You can use silk roving, caps or hankies to spin anything from bulky singles to hair-fine thread with any amount of twist you choose as long as the end result hangs together. You can use any wheel or spindle at any ratio or weight in order to do so. But you WILL have to modify your technique with each tool in order to obtain your desired result.
Can you spin cotton thread on a Country Craftsman? Yes, but it will take longer and require more adjustments on the part of the spinner than spinning the same cotton on a charka. So if you have a charka, why not use it? If you don’t own a charka, go ahead and tinker!
Are there limitations? Only those imposed by the laws of physics and the spinner’s own body. For example, the spinner on that Country Craftsman should be prepared to treadle 5 or 6 times for each inch of cotton thread (at a 3:1 ratio, 5 to 6 treadles would put a reasonable 15-18 twists per inch into the cotton). If she/he doesn’t, the resulting cotton thread won’t hang together because there won’t be enough twist inserted to generate sufficient friction and compression to keep the fibers together. That’s a limitation that the spinner might want to address by choosing to use a different tool. Of course, if part of the idea is to incorporate gentle aerobic exercise into spinning time, this might be a good method!
“So you’re saying that there really aren’t any rules at all?” Well, yes, pretty much. That’s one reason why I said there was an artistic component involved in spinning. There are techniques, suggestions and guidelines, some of which I’ve touched on above (or before) but there is only one hard and fast rule – it isn’t spinning if there’s no twist! If you have incorporated twist into a fiber, it’s spun. That has another ‘twist’ to it (pun more or less intended) – if you like the yarn you’re spinning, you’re spinning just fine! Tell the self-appointed spinning police to go pester somebody else.
Instead of looking at the lack of ‘rules’ in spinning as frightening and bewildering, shift your focus a little. Spinning is a craft, yes, and it does have one rule. But it’s also an art, and in art there are few hard and fast rules – only alternatives and possibilities to explore! So use the tools and techniques you find comfortable. Time and practice will almost certainly present you with alternative tools and techniques, and don't be hesitant about trying them; one of the best things about spinning is its simplicity and the way in which that simplicity encourages individual experimentation and expression.
I’ve noticed one thing about spinning lists in particular (although all fiber lists show this tendency): newcomers all have basically the same questions and they all revolve around ‘rules.’ Most newbie questions boil down to “What am I supposed to do to get this result?” The long-time spinners on the list all pitch in and try to give them alternatives and options. But the advice is frequently conflicting and ambiguous. Why is it that way? Why can’t you simply give one clear set of directions and make it work every time?
Well, it has to do with the nature of spinning. Spinners aren’t machines, and if you put 100 spinners in a room, furnish them with identical wheels and fiber and tools, and ask them to spin a semi-worsted yarn of 10 wpi, you’ll get 100 slightly different yarns. If you watch how they go about producing that yarn, you’ll also see 100 slightly different techniques of fiber preparation, wheel setup, and spinning technique. I saw this in microcosm a few years back when a group of us did a sheep to shawl. I was the weaver for the six to eight spinners. Combining yarn from each spinner while maintaining a balanced plain-weave fabric was a challenge, even though each spinner was pretty good at spinning to the specified grist!
It’s like doing a presentation or a webpage. Some people like PowerPoint, some like Publisher, some Excel; while others prefer Corel or Photoshop or FrontPage. Any of those programs can get the job done, but different programs are better suited to different types of information. Additionally, some of us are more comfortable with one program than with another. Spinning is similar – there are many ways to get to the same end result, and each spinner chooses the technique best-suited to him/her as an individual.
I’ve talked about the variables in spinning before, but let’s re-visit them. Spinners are all different – different body types, different physical requirements and limitations and advantages. Wheels are also different, and some wheels are simply better suited to certain types of spinning (or spinners). You can adjust and finagle to make them spin other yarns, but it simply isn’t easy to spin gossamer-weight cotton on a wheel that’s designed for producing bulky, low-twist wool yarns. Individual animals are different – one fleece may be very different from another, and quality and fineness can vary from year to year on the same animal. As for plant fibers, different growing locales and conditions also give very different fibers. Try river-bottom flax and then mountain-grown flax – very different grist of individual fibers and very different color in the raw fiber gives a very different yarn to the same spinner with the same prep! Tools other than wheels are different, too – some are mechanized, and thus give a more consistent preparation; but hand tools will give widely variable results depending on the experience and technique of the user.
I can hear you now – “Are you saying there are NO rules?!?!” Well, yes and no. You shouldn’t try to spin long-wearing rug yarn from merino might be a rule. You shouldn’t spin a lacy camisole from Churro might be another. However, IF you look hard enough, there might be an individual Churro which would make a lovely camisole, and an individual merino whose fleece for that year would make great rug yarn. It isn’t likely, but it is possible; which would change the above statements from rules to suggestions.
Spinning is as much an art as a craft. Ask a potter how to get a specific shape and you’ll get several alternatives. Spinning is the same. There is always more than one way to get a given result. While this seeming abundance of alternatives might seem overwhelming to a beginner, get the basics down, shift your focus just a little and it becomes creative and freeing.
What are the basics? Spinning is very simple – get twist into fibers in order to make them hold together. There are no ‘rules’ about how to do that, and any number of techniques can be used to get the same end result – fibers that are held together by friction and compression. Think about all the types of yarn – worsted, smooth multi-ply yarns begging to be used in patterns of cables or lace; fuzzy, thick and thin single-ply yarns demanding to be an accent in sweater or purse; and everything in between. Can you think of different ways to get those yarns? No? Sure you can! How about one very basic difference? You can use either a spindle or a wheel to get exactly the same yarn. No way? Yes, way! It’s easy, it’s fun, and you can try it with any fiber.
Spindles and wheels (and carders and combs and hands) are tools. The only limitation to any tool is the skill of the tool-user – the spinner. I do combination spinning all the time – part of the fiber on the spindle that travels with me everywhere, and part on the wheel at home. I can match almost any yarn spun on one with the other. But there are a couple of limitations for me at this point in my spinning career – for really gossamer-fine spinning of down fibers like cashmere I prefer a supported spindle. I have trouble matching that fineness and delicacy consistently with down fibers on my wheels. But I DO normally use a wheel to ply those spindle-spun singles, both because I can get more on a bobbin than I can on a spindle and because it’s easier for me to control the amount of plying twist on the wheel.
On the other hand, I’ll normally use the wheel to make softly-spun bulky singles. I don’t like heavy spindles, and own only one for a simple reason – using them for more than a few minutes hurts. But I can stop and start my double-treadle wheels easily using a large whorl and slow treadling speed to make a fairly consistent bulky single. It works for me, so I do it this way. But these techniques may not suit you! Your favorite tool for spinning soft-twist, bulky singles might be a Navaho spindle. If so, use it! If the yarn is what you want, you’re spinning it ‘properly.’ Can you refine your techniques and procedures to get the same result more easily? Perhaps. That’s another reason to keep reading and studying and sampling. Another spinner’s method may spark an idea in you!
Spinners will tell you that different fibers require different spinning techniques. You don’t spin cotton in the same way as wool, or wool in the same way as silk. Does that mean you can only spin silk, for example, one way? Nope. You can use silk roving, caps or hankies to spin anything from bulky singles to hair-fine thread with any amount of twist you choose as long as the end result hangs together. You can use any wheel or spindle at any ratio or weight in order to do so. But you WILL have to modify your technique with each tool in order to obtain your desired result.
Can you spin cotton thread on a Country Craftsman? Yes, but it will take longer and require more adjustments on the part of the spinner than spinning the same cotton on a charka. So if you have a charka, why not use it? If you don’t own a charka, go ahead and tinker!
Are there limitations? Only those imposed by the laws of physics and the spinner’s own body. For example, the spinner on that Country Craftsman should be prepared to treadle 5 or 6 times for each inch of cotton thread (at a 3:1 ratio, 5 to 6 treadles would put a reasonable 15-18 twists per inch into the cotton). If she/he doesn’t, the resulting cotton thread won’t hang together because there won’t be enough twist inserted to generate sufficient friction and compression to keep the fibers together. That’s a limitation that the spinner might want to address by choosing to use a different tool. Of course, if part of the idea is to incorporate gentle aerobic exercise into spinning time, this might be a good method!
“So you’re saying that there really aren’t any rules at all?” Well, yes, pretty much. That’s one reason why I said there was an artistic component involved in spinning. There are techniques, suggestions and guidelines, some of which I’ve touched on above (or before) but there is only one hard and fast rule – it isn’t spinning if there’s no twist! If you have incorporated twist into a fiber, it’s spun. That has another ‘twist’ to it (pun more or less intended) – if you like the yarn you’re spinning, you’re spinning just fine! Tell the self-appointed spinning police to go pester somebody else.
Instead of looking at the lack of ‘rules’ in spinning as frightening and bewildering, shift your focus a little. Spinning is a craft, yes, and it does have one rule. But it’s also an art, and in art there are few hard and fast rules – only alternatives and possibilities to explore! So use the tools and techniques you find comfortable. Time and practice will almost certainly present you with alternative tools and techniques, and don't be hesitant about trying them; one of the best things about spinning is its simplicity and the way in which that simplicity encourages individual experimentation and expression.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Anniversary Pi News!
I cast on Sunday morning (January 22) while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, and the powers that be cooperated beautifully all day! I'm now on the 5th row of the 288-stitch section and on 30+ inch rosewood cable needles. A picture of progress to date is below:
Details: I finally decided to just do the Pi, incorporating patterns from Sharon's book Heirloom Knitting (http://www.heirloom-knitting.co.uk/). I had the book handy, and the other patterns from the EZasPi Shetland lace workshop were downstairs on the computer, and I didn't want to wake anyone to get them (a sleepover was in progress for my son and a couple of his friends), and I really liked the idea of doing alternating rose and leaf patterns...what can I say? I’ve been eyeing these patterns for awhile now, and this was just too good an opportunity to play!
Cast on was simple - 9 stitches into a knitted tube of worsted-weight cotton on size 3 Brittany glove needles. That tube makes keeping track of the limited number of cast-on stitches easy for me, and taking the tail back through with a tapestry needle after I’ve completed a few rows is easy. At this point I stopped, drank the coffee and ate some breakfast – the cast-on and first 2 rows still looked good on re-inspection. I kept going.
Yarn is natural-colored gray handspun baby alpaca and bombyx coffee-dyed silk, and I noticed on Saturday that it’s practically the same color and almost exactly the same grist as the KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud in the soft gray color. I like the feel of mine better, though (I went with 70 % alpaca and 30 % silk by weight). I’ve spun up about 1200 yards of 2-ply, and hopefully that will be enough (although I think I’ve got most of another 4 ounces of the alpaca and silk blended).
I did stockinette stitch to the 36-stitch section, then began the Little Leaf Lace with a 4-stitch repeat. Only 6 rows are required at this point, so I did a row of knit stitches after the increase row, 9 repeats of the 4-stitch, 4-row pattern, and another row of knit stitches before the next row of increases.
At the next, 72-stitch section, I continued the little leaf lace, with 2 knitted rounds, 2 vertical pattern repeats, and another 2 rows of knit stitches adding up to the 12 rows needed before the next set of increases.
After the 144-stitch increases (24 rows) I changed over to the simple rose pattern, doing only one pattern repeat between knitted increase rows. Very plain with lots of stockinette, and the offset rose pattern provides a pretty contrast and a bit of structure after the very lacy leaf-pattern repeats.
I increased for the 288-stitch, 48-row section late in the afternoon, and continued working 3 rounds of knit stitches before shifting to the Leaf Lace. Plans are to work 3 ½ repeats of the leaf lace (an 8-stitch repeat of 12 rounds) around, ending again with 3 rounds of knit stitches before the next set of increases.
I plan to use the Rose Diamond Lace for the final 576-stitch, 96-row section. It’s a 20-stitch repeat, so I’ll increase 4 additional, evenly-spaced stitches in the first knitted round to accommodate the extra stitches, and do 4 plain knit rows before and after the planned four 22-row pattern repeats.
Gauge to this point on size 4 needles is 3 stitches and 4 rows per inch. This should give a diameter after the 96-row section of 96 inches and a circumference of 301.5 inches, more or less. Since I’m a mere 60 inches tall, this should be more than enough – I may even stop after 3 Rose Diamond Lace repeats. In fact, as I type I’m becoming fairly sure that I will do so – 96 inches doubled is 48 inches sans edging, and I don’t want to drag my beautiful shawl through the mud!
I’m still working on an edging. I may ‘make up’ an edging of simple stockinette points or scallops that include the rose in the widest area, or I may use a Double Scallop Shell edging. Even the Doris edging would pick up the diamond shape from the Rose Diamond Lace, although it would be a departure from the leaf and rose motif. I’ve got quite a ways to go before I get there, so I don’t need to decide right now.
I received two baby shower invitations yesterday, so unfortunately I’ll be sidetracked for a week or so making gifts for them. My shawl will wait patiently, however, until I can get back to it!
Mobii, or how I made a silk purse from a sow’s ear
I’ve been playing with Mobius scarves recently. I’ve made 3 so far, gave 2 away before getting pictures, but held onto the latest and best-suited to my wardrobe. A picture is below:
It’s quite short, being a scant 188 stitches at a gauge of 5 stitches per inch. But I wanted something to hug my neck nicely under my coat, or top a mock-turtleneck knit top, and it fits perfectly for that. So what’s the rest of the story? Well…
I used handspun Blue Faced Leicester that I had originally dyed in light tones of primary colors – red, yellow, blue and green – using Wilton food color. I only had 8 ounces to begin with; as I recall this particular top came as packing material for a drop spindle I bought from Copper Moose awhile back (great spindle, by the way). Lovely stuff that I packed away for the perfect project. I originally thought that the perfect project was as the color component in a pair of Fair Isle gloves, but got sidetracked into Mobius scarves. There might be enough of the original colors to finish up the gloves…
Yes, Virginia, I know the colors above are shades of red. There’s a story behind that, too. I started knitting this scarf from the original colors, edged it with a simple lace, changing colors every so often, and it was really pretty, and would go well with almost any outfit I wear. In order to finish it up, I washed the scarf. Then I discovered that the red and green food dyes were bleeding horribly. Aha! I thought – I’ll just put the wet scarf into the microwave with a bit of water and vinegar and re-set the dyes. That should work. Unfortunately, what happened in the microwave wasn’t pretty. The red set, but the green ran all over everything and shifted the color value of the entire scarf toward ‘very sad.’ It was pretty enough, but would no longer blend with much, if any, of my wardrobe of light clear colors and neutrals. “I really liked this scarf, too,” I mourned, as I hung it up to dry overnight, wondering if I’d ever wear it.
Next evening the scarf was dry. The colors, however, were still quite muted and sad. I liked the pattern of knit and purl variations, loved the lace edging, but hated the colors. Well, I’d tried over-dyeing once. Could I do it again, but in a color that would actually blend with my wardrobe? I started clicking through the color wheel in my mind. I don’t wear much that would go with green; any shade of yellow I could get is out except as an accent away from my face. Blue…the green would go aqua, the yellow green, the red purple and the blue bluer. But I only have one pair of pants and a single top that I could wear with that combination. No socks that would match it. Keep going. Red…red would work. The green would go brown, the yellow shift toward a red-orange, the blue go to purple and the red intensify. It would go with most of my wardrobe. And what do I have to lose?
So I ran a bowl of hot, slightly soapy water and vinegar solution and set the scarf to soak. Good news - there was no further bleeding to skew my dye results. While the scarf soaked I found a nice deep red in my trusty Wilton paste cake dyes (Christmas red, if you want to know). I added a couple of dabs of bright blue to shift the color away from orange-red, then poured over boiling water and added a bit of vinegar. Looked perfect. I removed the scarf from its soaking, placed it in a microwaveable bowl and poured over the color solution – 4 cups of liquid. I then covered the bowl and cooked everything on high power for 6 minutes. At that point it was boiling. I reduced power to 50% and cooked again for 12 minutes to finish exhausting and setting the color. After the microwave dinged, I left the bowl inside for a couple of hours while I took care of the usual evening tasks. About bedtime I went back and pulled the bowl from the microwave. It was nicely cooled down, dye was completely exhausted. I rinsed the scarf and hung it over a vent to dry. Next morning I looked it over. Beautiful! The colors had done exactly what I thought they would, and I was going to wear this today!
I did wear it that day, and it garnered numerous compliments. I’ve worn it twice since, and every time had the fun of confounding one or another engineer. They know what it is – a mobius – but have no clue how I might have made it. Only one electrical engineer has come close to guessing. The geotechnical, environmental, cryogenic and process engineers haven’t come anywhere near figuring it out. I love confounding these folks!
It’s quite short, being a scant 188 stitches at a gauge of 5 stitches per inch. But I wanted something to hug my neck nicely under my coat, or top a mock-turtleneck knit top, and it fits perfectly for that. So what’s the rest of the story? Well…
I used handspun Blue Faced Leicester that I had originally dyed in light tones of primary colors – red, yellow, blue and green – using Wilton food color. I only had 8 ounces to begin with; as I recall this particular top came as packing material for a drop spindle I bought from Copper Moose awhile back (great spindle, by the way). Lovely stuff that I packed away for the perfect project. I originally thought that the perfect project was as the color component in a pair of Fair Isle gloves, but got sidetracked into Mobius scarves. There might be enough of the original colors to finish up the gloves…
Yes, Virginia, I know the colors above are shades of red. There’s a story behind that, too. I started knitting this scarf from the original colors, edged it with a simple lace, changing colors every so often, and it was really pretty, and would go well with almost any outfit I wear. In order to finish it up, I washed the scarf. Then I discovered that the red and green food dyes were bleeding horribly. Aha! I thought – I’ll just put the wet scarf into the microwave with a bit of water and vinegar and re-set the dyes. That should work. Unfortunately, what happened in the microwave wasn’t pretty. The red set, but the green ran all over everything and shifted the color value of the entire scarf toward ‘very sad.’ It was pretty enough, but would no longer blend with much, if any, of my wardrobe of light clear colors and neutrals. “I really liked this scarf, too,” I mourned, as I hung it up to dry overnight, wondering if I’d ever wear it.
Next evening the scarf was dry. The colors, however, were still quite muted and sad. I liked the pattern of knit and purl variations, loved the lace edging, but hated the colors. Well, I’d tried over-dyeing once. Could I do it again, but in a color that would actually blend with my wardrobe? I started clicking through the color wheel in my mind. I don’t wear much that would go with green; any shade of yellow I could get is out except as an accent away from my face. Blue…the green would go aqua, the yellow green, the red purple and the blue bluer. But I only have one pair of pants and a single top that I could wear with that combination. No socks that would match it. Keep going. Red…red would work. The green would go brown, the yellow shift toward a red-orange, the blue go to purple and the red intensify. It would go with most of my wardrobe. And what do I have to lose?
So I ran a bowl of hot, slightly soapy water and vinegar solution and set the scarf to soak. Good news - there was no further bleeding to skew my dye results. While the scarf soaked I found a nice deep red in my trusty Wilton paste cake dyes (Christmas red, if you want to know). I added a couple of dabs of bright blue to shift the color away from orange-red, then poured over boiling water and added a bit of vinegar. Looked perfect. I removed the scarf from its soaking, placed it in a microwaveable bowl and poured over the color solution – 4 cups of liquid. I then covered the bowl and cooked everything on high power for 6 minutes. At that point it was boiling. I reduced power to 50% and cooked again for 12 minutes to finish exhausting and setting the color. After the microwave dinged, I left the bowl inside for a couple of hours while I took care of the usual evening tasks. About bedtime I went back and pulled the bowl from the microwave. It was nicely cooled down, dye was completely exhausted. I rinsed the scarf and hung it over a vent to dry. Next morning I looked it over. Beautiful! The colors had done exactly what I thought they would, and I was going to wear this today!
I did wear it that day, and it garnered numerous compliments. I’ve worn it twice since, and every time had the fun of confounding one or another engineer. They know what it is – a mobius – but have no clue how I might have made it. Only one electrical engineer has come close to guessing. The geotechnical, environmental, cryogenic and process engineers haven’t come anywhere near figuring it out. I love confounding these folks!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
A New Year’s Rant and Some Spinning Wheel Thoughts
“I’m not a fancy spinner, but I only use two whorls – slow and fast!”
The discussion was about the range of ratios a new spinner might want to use on a wheel. I had given a thoughtfully-reasoned response regarding possible uses for the ratios of the wheel she was considering, along with a recommendation that she might want to look at wheels that offered more alternatives. This comment felt like a personal attack from a most unexpected source - another spinner!
My initial response was to fire off a volley of my own, but luckily I cooled off and erased it before posting. So far I haven’t responded at all, and don’t intend to do so on that forum. Rude spinners are luckily few and far between, but to my mind rudeness should never be encouraged by attention! Then I started thinking about the remark, and those thoughts are what I’d most like to share here.
First, let’s make it very clear – I’m not a ‘fancy’ or ‘expert’ spinner. I’m not a ‘professional’ spinner, nor a particularly ‘precisionist’ spinner. I’ve learned enough about spinning, both from study and from experiment, to usually be able to figure out why yarns and fibers combine in a certain fashion, and if I can’t figure it out alone I check my reference books and/or post a query to the fiber lists.
I have gotten to know the possibilities and limitations of my tools in the same way that any other craftsman does. I’m constantly exploring the fascinating possibilities of various fibers, both alone and in combination. I consider myself a ‘mindful’ spinner in much the same way that I’m a ‘mindful’ knitter, tatter, crocheter and weaver. As I’ve said before, my great-grandmothers were spinners – they’d have loved the variety of fibers and textures available now! Their idea of a new fiber was a new breed of sheep's fleece!
I don’t have a vast storehouse of practical experience about every known fiber – although I'm pretty good with several specific fibers. There are so many spinning fibers available these days that we don’t need to completely explore all the possibilities of a single type of fiber – besides, it’s too much fun to try the next one out there! I’m as susceptible to this sort of browsing as any other spinner. I have learned a great deal about spinning certain types of yarn, however, mostly because I’ve wanted to produce specific yarns for a frequently-repeated purpose.
One example is sock yarn; I’ve become something of an expert sock-yarn spinner simply because I’ve been spinning yarns for socks for several years now. If you spin and knit enough yards for a specific sort of project you learn what works best for that general project. If your desire is to make a wardrobe of handspun socks that you can wear for several years, you learn how to spin yarns that will give that sort of wear.
Another example is gossamer ‘thread’ for lace knitting – I love lace, love knitting, and have learned to spin different fibers very fine in order to feed that ‘addiction.’ I’ve learned which wools and wool blends I prefer for shawls, how to reel and throw silk, how best to spin and ply silk and fine wool singles for various lace projects, and that I don’t particularly care for using singles yarns in my own shawls. More importantly, I can repeat my results when I need a specific yarn. Mindful spinners do keep at least rudimentary records.
I’m currently exploring the possibilities of singles wool as weaving yarn, and learning that much of the conventional wisdom is absolutely correct – but that you can push the envelope, too. I love silk, medium-fine and fine wools, and various exotics, so my spinning has concentrated on those fibers. They can behave quite differently in a woven fabric than in a knitted or crocheted one.
You learn by a combination of research and experience. If you don’t learn anything from your explorations, you waste time and perfectly good fiber re-learning things. If you prefer to simply sit and spin whatever fiber in whatever fashion, holding it for a possible later use or just to pet occasionally, that’s fine. It’s your time, your fiber, and ultimately, your money. But please don’t be snide because my choice is different! There is plenty of room in the spinning world for both of us, and we can both do what makes us happy.
Now for an elaboration on what I originally posted to that list. Modern spinning wheels are generally designed to be suitable for a fairly wide range of fibers simply because that’s what modern spinners want. But some wheels are better than others at some things. That’s why we look at things like ratios, and I was happy to see that sort of relatively sophisticated question from a fairly new spinner. It shows that another ‘mindful’ spinner is on the way!
Anyone who has been spinning for awhile knows that some wheels are better suited than others to certain types of spinning. The ‘best’ wheel for spinning cotton is almost certainly a well-tuned charka. I don’t usually use a charka for spinning cotton, because I don’t have a well-tuned one handy (I built my own, and while it works, it takes a lot of tinkering) and do have a high-speed accelerating head for my Majacraft. So I use my Rose to spin cotton, cashmere and other fine, short fibers.
Saxony- or Canadian- or Norwegian-style wheels with large drive wheels are best for serious production spinners because a single push of the treadle gives the most efficient return for your effort. Great wheels can spin large amounts of woolen singles wonderfully well. That’s exactly why I tend to use my Symphony when I want to produce lofty woolen-spun yarns in large amounts fairly quickly. Can I use my Rose or Ashford Traveller to do the same thing? Yes, but not as easily or as quickly. It’s akin to using a pocketknife to cut down a tree – you can do it, but why bother when a good sharp saw is only a few steps away?
So why do I advise a new spinner who has up until now only knitted worsted-weight sweaters to look at wheels that have the capability of spinning gossamer-weight yarns and fine, short fibers? Because people change. A wool sweater knitter sometimes decides to knit a fine lace shawl for a new grandbaby or bride, or a rustic cotton sweater for a family member who lives in the Florida Keys. The new knitting needles for this project are fairly inexpensive (if they’re necessary). A new spinning wheel, however, is a more serious investment. Why not give a bit of forethought to the choice in the beginning?
I can hear you saying it now, “But you can spin cotton or cashmere yarn at an 11:1 ratio!” Of course you can. I’ve done it. But it’s much easier and faster to do it at a 20:1 or even 32:1 ratio. If you’re going to spend upwards of $300 U.S. on a spinning wheel, why not get one that will allow you to do that IF YOU CHOOSE? That’s called contingency planning, and it’s just garden-variety common sense.
Think about other times you plan for contingencies. You need toilet tissue in the upstairs bath today. You can choose to buy only one roll, or you can plan ahead, knowing that the downstairs and guest baths will need toilet tissue later in the week. Why return to the store for a single roll three times, when you can do it all in one trip? Ditto groceries. Why purchase flour for only that day’s cookies when you know that you’ll need it again for pancakes later in the week?
Both of those are rather simplistic, but they’re still valid examples of contingency planning. That sort of thinking should apply to our fiber tools as well as our kitchen and pantry shelves. Spinning wheels should be general-purpose machines. Spindles are specific-purpose tools; a light spindle for a fine yarn, a supported spindle for short, slick fibers, heavier spindles for plying or coarser fibers is the accepted wisdom for good reason. But wheels for hobbyist (not production) spinners are different to my mind. They should, with minimal tinkering by the spinner, be able to produce an acceptable version of any type of yarn. It’s that phrase “with minimal tinkering by the spinner” that gives a hole large enough to drive a great-wheel through. What one spinner considers ‘minimal’ another considers ‘way too much trouble’. That’s why one spinner likes a Babe while another considers a Schacht the only way to go.
The following is directed to any spinners who’ve ended up here hoping for advice on choosing a wheel. You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it over and over again. You should only choose a wheel in person. Drive for three hours each way to attend a spinning guild meeting or visit a store where you can try out different wheels. It’s worth it in the long run. A scary example – I have several spinning friends who bought Schacht castle wheels awhile back. Lovely things, wonderfully adaptable for many different yarn types, portable, don’t take up a lot of room but a nice big drive wheel. I was in the market for a wheel, and asked if I could spin on theirs for a few minutes during a meeting. I tried three different Schachts that day, and had the same problem on all of them – I’d spin for a few minutes and then have a back spasm. Lovely yarn, wonderfully responsive action, but the wheel doesn’t fit my body!
If you absolutely cannot find a wheel to try out (you live in rural Africa or the Aleutian Islands), the next best thing is to ask some blunt questions on the spinning lists. Most of us are glad to help out a beginner – sometimes overwhelmingly so. Make a spreadsheet of your answers that lists the spinner name and email address, wheel recommendation, ratios available, orifice height, etc. Check the list archives and find old posts with information on specific wheels. Get online again and look at pictures and specs on the various wheels – Google is wonderful! Then winnow out the wheels you don’t like for any reason – the reason doesn’t really matter; it's your money and your taste so no justification is required.
Next head back to the list and ask specific questions about your top two or three choices. If spinner A___ raves about the fine yarns she can spin on her (fill in the blank) and you love fine yarns, email her directly. Ask her politely for details about her build and spinning habits. If you’re four feet ten inches tall, fine-boned and thin, while she’s six feet tall, big-boned and fluffy, go back to the list and ask for more help. Find somebody articulate who is about your size and shape, and then find out exactly why they prefer their (fill in the blank) wheel. NOW you have some information on which to base a choice.
Can you make a mistake with this method and buy a wheel that doesn’t fit your body? Of course you can. That’s why you should, if humanly possible, try out wheels in person. We are all individuals, with different bodies, medical problems, spinning styles and ergonomic needs. What works for one five-foot tall fluffy spinner doesn’t work for all five-foot tall fluffy spinners (yes, I’m five-foot nothing and fluffy, in case you hadn’t guessed already).
I’ll hush now. Hopefully I’ve given somebody something to think about, even if it’s only how silly I am.
Here’s wishing you a wonderful 2006, full of fiber fun and family and friends!
The discussion was about the range of ratios a new spinner might want to use on a wheel. I had given a thoughtfully-reasoned response regarding possible uses for the ratios of the wheel she was considering, along with a recommendation that she might want to look at wheels that offered more alternatives. This comment felt like a personal attack from a most unexpected source - another spinner!
My initial response was to fire off a volley of my own, but luckily I cooled off and erased it before posting. So far I haven’t responded at all, and don’t intend to do so on that forum. Rude spinners are luckily few and far between, but to my mind rudeness should never be encouraged by attention! Then I started thinking about the remark, and those thoughts are what I’d most like to share here.
First, let’s make it very clear – I’m not a ‘fancy’ or ‘expert’ spinner. I’m not a ‘professional’ spinner, nor a particularly ‘precisionist’ spinner. I’ve learned enough about spinning, both from study and from experiment, to usually be able to figure out why yarns and fibers combine in a certain fashion, and if I can’t figure it out alone I check my reference books and/or post a query to the fiber lists.
I have gotten to know the possibilities and limitations of my tools in the same way that any other craftsman does. I’m constantly exploring the fascinating possibilities of various fibers, both alone and in combination. I consider myself a ‘mindful’ spinner in much the same way that I’m a ‘mindful’ knitter, tatter, crocheter and weaver. As I’ve said before, my great-grandmothers were spinners – they’d have loved the variety of fibers and textures available now! Their idea of a new fiber was a new breed of sheep's fleece!
I don’t have a vast storehouse of practical experience about every known fiber – although I'm pretty good with several specific fibers. There are so many spinning fibers available these days that we don’t need to completely explore all the possibilities of a single type of fiber – besides, it’s too much fun to try the next one out there! I’m as susceptible to this sort of browsing as any other spinner. I have learned a great deal about spinning certain types of yarn, however, mostly because I’ve wanted to produce specific yarns for a frequently-repeated purpose.
One example is sock yarn; I’ve become something of an expert sock-yarn spinner simply because I’ve been spinning yarns for socks for several years now. If you spin and knit enough yards for a specific sort of project you learn what works best for that general project. If your desire is to make a wardrobe of handspun socks that you can wear for several years, you learn how to spin yarns that will give that sort of wear.
Another example is gossamer ‘thread’ for lace knitting – I love lace, love knitting, and have learned to spin different fibers very fine in order to feed that ‘addiction.’ I’ve learned which wools and wool blends I prefer for shawls, how to reel and throw silk, how best to spin and ply silk and fine wool singles for various lace projects, and that I don’t particularly care for using singles yarns in my own shawls. More importantly, I can repeat my results when I need a specific yarn. Mindful spinners do keep at least rudimentary records.
I’m currently exploring the possibilities of singles wool as weaving yarn, and learning that much of the conventional wisdom is absolutely correct – but that you can push the envelope, too. I love silk, medium-fine and fine wools, and various exotics, so my spinning has concentrated on those fibers. They can behave quite differently in a woven fabric than in a knitted or crocheted one.
You learn by a combination of research and experience. If you don’t learn anything from your explorations, you waste time and perfectly good fiber re-learning things. If you prefer to simply sit and spin whatever fiber in whatever fashion, holding it for a possible later use or just to pet occasionally, that’s fine. It’s your time, your fiber, and ultimately, your money. But please don’t be snide because my choice is different! There is plenty of room in the spinning world for both of us, and we can both do what makes us happy.
Now for an elaboration on what I originally posted to that list. Modern spinning wheels are generally designed to be suitable for a fairly wide range of fibers simply because that’s what modern spinners want. But some wheels are better than others at some things. That’s why we look at things like ratios, and I was happy to see that sort of relatively sophisticated question from a fairly new spinner. It shows that another ‘mindful’ spinner is on the way!
Anyone who has been spinning for awhile knows that some wheels are better suited than others to certain types of spinning. The ‘best’ wheel for spinning cotton is almost certainly a well-tuned charka. I don’t usually use a charka for spinning cotton, because I don’t have a well-tuned one handy (I built my own, and while it works, it takes a lot of tinkering) and do have a high-speed accelerating head for my Majacraft. So I use my Rose to spin cotton, cashmere and other fine, short fibers.
Saxony- or Canadian- or Norwegian-style wheels with large drive wheels are best for serious production spinners because a single push of the treadle gives the most efficient return for your effort. Great wheels can spin large amounts of woolen singles wonderfully well. That’s exactly why I tend to use my Symphony when I want to produce lofty woolen-spun yarns in large amounts fairly quickly. Can I use my Rose or Ashford Traveller to do the same thing? Yes, but not as easily or as quickly. It’s akin to using a pocketknife to cut down a tree – you can do it, but why bother when a good sharp saw is only a few steps away?
So why do I advise a new spinner who has up until now only knitted worsted-weight sweaters to look at wheels that have the capability of spinning gossamer-weight yarns and fine, short fibers? Because people change. A wool sweater knitter sometimes decides to knit a fine lace shawl for a new grandbaby or bride, or a rustic cotton sweater for a family member who lives in the Florida Keys. The new knitting needles for this project are fairly inexpensive (if they’re necessary). A new spinning wheel, however, is a more serious investment. Why not give a bit of forethought to the choice in the beginning?
I can hear you saying it now, “But you can spin cotton or cashmere yarn at an 11:1 ratio!” Of course you can. I’ve done it. But it’s much easier and faster to do it at a 20:1 or even 32:1 ratio. If you’re going to spend upwards of $300 U.S. on a spinning wheel, why not get one that will allow you to do that IF YOU CHOOSE? That’s called contingency planning, and it’s just garden-variety common sense.
Think about other times you plan for contingencies. You need toilet tissue in the upstairs bath today. You can choose to buy only one roll, or you can plan ahead, knowing that the downstairs and guest baths will need toilet tissue later in the week. Why return to the store for a single roll three times, when you can do it all in one trip? Ditto groceries. Why purchase flour for only that day’s cookies when you know that you’ll need it again for pancakes later in the week?
Both of those are rather simplistic, but they’re still valid examples of contingency planning. That sort of thinking should apply to our fiber tools as well as our kitchen and pantry shelves. Spinning wheels should be general-purpose machines. Spindles are specific-purpose tools; a light spindle for a fine yarn, a supported spindle for short, slick fibers, heavier spindles for plying or coarser fibers is the accepted wisdom for good reason. But wheels for hobbyist (not production) spinners are different to my mind. They should, with minimal tinkering by the spinner, be able to produce an acceptable version of any type of yarn. It’s that phrase “with minimal tinkering by the spinner” that gives a hole large enough to drive a great-wheel through. What one spinner considers ‘minimal’ another considers ‘way too much trouble’. That’s why one spinner likes a Babe while another considers a Schacht the only way to go.
The following is directed to any spinners who’ve ended up here hoping for advice on choosing a wheel. You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it over and over again. You should only choose a wheel in person. Drive for three hours each way to attend a spinning guild meeting or visit a store where you can try out different wheels. It’s worth it in the long run. A scary example – I have several spinning friends who bought Schacht castle wheels awhile back. Lovely things, wonderfully adaptable for many different yarn types, portable, don’t take up a lot of room but a nice big drive wheel. I was in the market for a wheel, and asked if I could spin on theirs for a few minutes during a meeting. I tried three different Schachts that day, and had the same problem on all of them – I’d spin for a few minutes and then have a back spasm. Lovely yarn, wonderfully responsive action, but the wheel doesn’t fit my body!
If you absolutely cannot find a wheel to try out (you live in rural Africa or the Aleutian Islands), the next best thing is to ask some blunt questions on the spinning lists. Most of us are glad to help out a beginner – sometimes overwhelmingly so. Make a spreadsheet of your answers that lists the spinner name and email address, wheel recommendation, ratios available, orifice height, etc. Check the list archives and find old posts with information on specific wheels. Get online again and look at pictures and specs on the various wheels – Google is wonderful! Then winnow out the wheels you don’t like for any reason – the reason doesn’t really matter; it's your money and your taste so no justification is required.
Next head back to the list and ask specific questions about your top two or three choices. If spinner A___ raves about the fine yarns she can spin on her (fill in the blank) and you love fine yarns, email her directly. Ask her politely for details about her build and spinning habits. If you’re four feet ten inches tall, fine-boned and thin, while she’s six feet tall, big-boned and fluffy, go back to the list and ask for more help. Find somebody articulate who is about your size and shape, and then find out exactly why they prefer their (fill in the blank) wheel. NOW you have some information on which to base a choice.
Can you make a mistake with this method and buy a wheel that doesn’t fit your body? Of course you can. That’s why you should, if humanly possible, try out wheels in person. We are all individuals, with different bodies, medical problems, spinning styles and ergonomic needs. What works for one five-foot tall fluffy spinner doesn’t work for all five-foot tall fluffy spinners (yes, I’m five-foot nothing and fluffy, in case you hadn’t guessed already).
I’ll hush now. Hopefully I’ve given somebody something to think about, even if it’s only how silly I am.
Here’s wishing you a wonderful 2006, full of fiber fun and family and friends!
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Christmas Report!
The packages have been opened, the ooohs! and aaahs! are over, and now I can talk about the projects I completed! I didn’t post ahead of time because my children, parents and other recipients check out my blog more frequently than I realized until this Thanksgiving! So rather than spoil their Christmas, I just kept quiet. But now I can show everyone what I did this fall!
I did lots of gloves this year. Gloves for my husband, sons, mother and mother-in-law and gloves for myself (see the October 25 posting). I used Knit Picks’ Andean Silk for my husband and my older son, who is currently living in the northeast (courtesy of the US government). I also used another Knit Picks yarn – their merino Sock Landscape in the Cape Cod colorway was the choice of my younger son. I used Debbie Bliss cashmerino for my mother and mother-in-law, and made them each a sinfully soft pair of DK-weight gloves.
Knitting gloves for a person gives ample time for reflection and prayer. I thought about my DH’s large, seemingly clumsy hands that have always been gentle, whether changing a diaper on a small child or helping up a stumbling spouse. My husband is a quiet man who is the center of our family – we all revolve around his laughter and kindness.
My mother’s hands are beginning to show the signs of the arthritis that has become the bane of her seventh decade. RA is a great deal more than a television commercial if you’re living with it every day. Yet she continues to spend her time doing for other people, either family members or members of her church family. Her hands are competent, sturdy and graceful despite the swollen joints.
My mother-in-law has very small hands that belie the strength within her small frame. She taught special education for decades, and is now spending her time serving her family and church family. She only grudgingly gives in to the restraints her body is beginning to impose.
My older son has flown the nest. The Navy suits him; he’s happy and busy and learning new things every day. His hands have toughened since June; the palms are broader, the fingers stronger and new callouses have formed. My best Christmas gift was to have him home this year. It was a bittersweet time, since I realized just how little he still needs us. But he has the maturity, sweetness and grace to pretend otherwise, and I’m so proud of him.
My younger son is straining toward the door. He’s a senior in high school, anxious to go on to his next challenge. His hands are a combination of his father’s and my own – a broad palm with long, tapered fingers that always move gracefully. He’s a graceful young man, with a bit of salt mixed in with his sweetness. He’s both the athlete and the musician of the family, and I can’t wait to see where his talents and drive take him.
I also did purses – one for a young friend, one for my older son’s fiancé, and one for my younger son to give. Those are fun, since fulling the finished knitting hides any ‘mistakes’ and intensifies the colors and textures. They’re a fast knit compared to something more detailed, and fitting is quite flexible. Purple is ‘in’ right now for young ladies, and since I also love purple, these small bags were simply a pleasure to make.
My daughter has definitely flown the nest. She married this year, and her Christmas was given early so that she could spend the day with her new husband. I did a hat, scarf and purse for her from some thick and thin wool novelty yarn. Hopefully it will keep her warm and remind her that we all love her while she’s creating a new family life. I miss the younger and teen-age years, and wish her all the best in her new adult life.
Then there were the sweaters, made for the grandchildren. A tradition seems to be in the making. This year's offerings: A fun alpaca boucle´ with pewter buttons in the shape of a turtle dressed my granddaughter in high style.
My grandson got a more traditional look. I’ve loved Elizabeth Zimmerman’s commonsense approach to knitting for a long time, and decided to make her Tomten Jacket for my toddler boy this year. His young complexion looks best in neutrals and bright colors, so I used Knit Picks’ natural Wool of the Andes, trimmed in handspun brown Shetland wool dyed with cherry kool-aid. The toughest thing was putting in the zipper – machine-sewing zippers doesn’t bother me at all, but hand-sewing in knitted fabric took all my courage! I followed EZ's toddler-size pattern, and can only assume that Elizabeth’s children were larger than my own! However, he’ll grow into it in no time at all.
As for my own gloves – I spent a great deal of their knitting time praying for patience and healing. It’s been a difficult year from several standpoints. My husband still continues to look for work, my daughter has presented us with her own set of challenges, and my son’s departure for the service was difficult emotionally, even though it was a good decision for him. But I look forward to 2006 with hope for a wonderful year.
I wish you all a happy 2006, filled with love and joy and peace and fiber!
I did lots of gloves this year. Gloves for my husband, sons, mother and mother-in-law and gloves for myself (see the October 25 posting). I used Knit Picks’ Andean Silk for my husband and my older son, who is currently living in the northeast (courtesy of the US government). I also used another Knit Picks yarn – their merino Sock Landscape in the Cape Cod colorway was the choice of my younger son. I used Debbie Bliss cashmerino for my mother and mother-in-law, and made them each a sinfully soft pair of DK-weight gloves.
Knitting gloves for a person gives ample time for reflection and prayer. I thought about my DH’s large, seemingly clumsy hands that have always been gentle, whether changing a diaper on a small child or helping up a stumbling spouse. My husband is a quiet man who is the center of our family – we all revolve around his laughter and kindness.My mother’s hands are beginning to show the signs of the arthritis that has become the bane of her seventh decade. RA is a great deal more than a television commercial if you’re living with it every day. Yet she continues to spend her time doing for other people, either family members or members of her church family. Her hands are competent, sturdy and graceful despite the swollen joints.
My mother-in-law has very small hands that belie the strength within her small frame. She taught special education for decades, and is now spending her time serving her family and church family. She only grudgingly gives in to the restraints her body is beginning to impose.
My older son has flown the nest. The Navy suits him; he’s happy and busy and learning new things every day. His hands have toughened since June; the palms are broader, the fingers stronger and new callouses have formed. My best Christmas gift was to have him home this year. It was a bittersweet time, since I realized just how little he still needs us. But he has the maturity, sweetness and grace to pretend otherwise, and I’m so proud of him.
My younger son is straining toward the door. He’s a senior in high school, anxious to go on to his next challenge. His hands are a combination of his father’s and my own – a broad palm with long, tapered fingers that always move gracefully. He’s a graceful young man, with a bit of salt mixed in with his sweetness. He’s both the athlete and the musician of the family, and I can’t wait to see where his talents and drive take him.
I also did purses – one for a young friend, one for my older son’s fiancé, and one for my younger son to give. Those are fun, since fulling the finished knitting hides any ‘mistakes’ and intensifies the colors and textures. They’re a fast knit compared to something more detailed, and fitting is quite flexible. Purple is ‘in’ right now for young ladies, and since I also love purple, these small bags were simply a pleasure to make.My daughter has definitely flown the nest. She married this year, and her Christmas was given early so that she could spend the day with her new husband. I did a hat, scarf and purse for her from some thick and thin wool novelty yarn. Hopefully it will keep her warm and remind her that we all love her while she’s creating a new family life. I miss the younger and teen-age years, and wish her all the best in her new adult life.
Then there were the sweaters, made for the grandchildren. A tradition seems to be in the making. This year's offerings: A fun alpaca boucle´ with pewter buttons in the shape of a turtle dressed my granddaughter in high style.
My grandson got a more traditional look. I’ve loved Elizabeth Zimmerman’s commonsense approach to knitting for a long time, and decided to make her Tomten Jacket for my toddler boy this year. His young complexion looks best in neutrals and bright colors, so I used Knit Picks’ natural Wool of the Andes, trimmed in handspun brown Shetland wool dyed with cherry kool-aid. The toughest thing was putting in the zipper – machine-sewing zippers doesn’t bother me at all, but hand-sewing in knitted fabric took all my courage! I followed EZ's toddler-size pattern, and can only assume that Elizabeth’s children were larger than my own! However, he’ll grow into it in no time at all.As for my own gloves – I spent a great deal of their knitting time praying for patience and healing. It’s been a difficult year from several standpoints. My husband still continues to look for work, my daughter has presented us with her own set of challenges, and my son’s departure for the service was difficult emotionally, even though it was a good decision for him. But I look forward to 2006 with hope for a wonderful year.
I wish you all a happy 2006, filled with love and joy and peace and fiber!
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Gifting Handmade Items – A Manifesto!
It’s the time of year when many of us have either started or completed several handmade items as gifts. I’ve been following several discussions on the Knitter’s Review forum (http://www.knittersreview.com/forum/) with interest and, in some cases, horror. Here’s my own two-cents’ worth on the subject.
Your handmade gifts are wonderful expressions of caring – you’ve thought about what fiber, yarn, color and technique will suit the recipient and you’ve thought about and prayed for that person as you made the gift. You’ve put much time and at least some money into the gift, and anticipated the recipient’s delight upon opening it. You’ve invested a good bit of yourself in this gift, and exercised (and in some cases stretched) your talents to make it.
Let’s leap forward a bit. It’s gift-exchange time, and the recipient is opening the gift. If you’ve chosen the recipient well, you’ll get a delighted squeal or a heartfelt ‘thank you so much’. But if you’ve chosen to lavish your time and talent on an unappreciative person, their reaction may be downright hurtful. What do you do when the recipient doesn’t appreciate your time, energy, talent and money?
Opinions vary, of course. Some say just don’t make that person anything again – buy them whatever you can afford (even if it’s only a token gift). Others suggest that you explain why you chose to make the gift, sure that the recipient will appreciate your effort if it’s only explained to them – slowly, lovingly and using very simple words.
Explanations and excuses abound – depression-era adults or those raised in poverty feel that ‘handmade’ equates to ‘poverty’, and either feel insulted or uncomfortable that you felt it necessary to make their gift. Kind people insist that the ungrateful recipient simply doesn’t understand the effort and love, or is jealous of your skills. Perhaps those are explanations of a sort, but a simple “thank you” delivered in a sincere tone isn’t too much to ask in return for any gift!
Sometimes education does help – it did with my mother-in-law, a product of the Depression. She hid my gifts to her for several years, although she was always polite enough to acknowledge them gracefully. I finally got the message and started giving her purchased items only because she WAS my mother-in-law; then several of her friends saw things I’d made her and raved. Suddenly she wants only handmade gifts from me and brags about my skills to those same friends.
Sometimes education doesn’t help at all – I have one family member who will never receive another gift from me beyond a holiday greeting card. He simply didn’t appreciate the effort or the skill – he’s one of the unfortunates for whom money is the only measure. The only thing you can feel for these poor souls is pity; don’t lavish your time and skill on them again!
I’m probably in the minority but I think that poor manners are exactly that – poor manners. Rather than purchase anything for an ungrateful so-and-so, I’ll strike them from my gift list entirely! Harsh? Perhaps so. But I still feel that it’s the best way to handle it if at all possible. Sure, sometimes you just can’t do that – like my mother-in-law. If I’d stopped gifts to her entirely my darling husband would have been justifiably upset.
I have many people for whom I do make things – most of them in my immediate family, although one or two are especially good friends. I make their gifts because they understand and appreciate the love and skill involved. They are awed and delighted that I make the time in my busy life to do something especially for them. I make these gifts joyfully and with love in every inch.
But herewith find my own personal manifesto! I declare my freedom from guilt! I will no longer force myself to make something for those who do not appreciate the effort, no matter who asks me to do so. And if I don’t have the spare cash to buy a relative something, I’ll simply put a card under the tree and again refuse to feel guilty! The shortcoming is theirs, not mine, and the responsibility for modifying their attitude is also theirs. So be it!
Now where did I put that pattern and yarn…
Your handmade gifts are wonderful expressions of caring – you’ve thought about what fiber, yarn, color and technique will suit the recipient and you’ve thought about and prayed for that person as you made the gift. You’ve put much time and at least some money into the gift, and anticipated the recipient’s delight upon opening it. You’ve invested a good bit of yourself in this gift, and exercised (and in some cases stretched) your talents to make it.
Let’s leap forward a bit. It’s gift-exchange time, and the recipient is opening the gift. If you’ve chosen the recipient well, you’ll get a delighted squeal or a heartfelt ‘thank you so much’. But if you’ve chosen to lavish your time and talent on an unappreciative person, their reaction may be downright hurtful. What do you do when the recipient doesn’t appreciate your time, energy, talent and money?
Opinions vary, of course. Some say just don’t make that person anything again – buy them whatever you can afford (even if it’s only a token gift). Others suggest that you explain why you chose to make the gift, sure that the recipient will appreciate your effort if it’s only explained to them – slowly, lovingly and using very simple words.
Explanations and excuses abound – depression-era adults or those raised in poverty feel that ‘handmade’ equates to ‘poverty’, and either feel insulted or uncomfortable that you felt it necessary to make their gift. Kind people insist that the ungrateful recipient simply doesn’t understand the effort and love, or is jealous of your skills. Perhaps those are explanations of a sort, but a simple “thank you” delivered in a sincere tone isn’t too much to ask in return for any gift!
Sometimes education does help – it did with my mother-in-law, a product of the Depression. She hid my gifts to her for several years, although she was always polite enough to acknowledge them gracefully. I finally got the message and started giving her purchased items only because she WAS my mother-in-law; then several of her friends saw things I’d made her and raved. Suddenly she wants only handmade gifts from me and brags about my skills to those same friends.
Sometimes education doesn’t help at all – I have one family member who will never receive another gift from me beyond a holiday greeting card. He simply didn’t appreciate the effort or the skill – he’s one of the unfortunates for whom money is the only measure. The only thing you can feel for these poor souls is pity; don’t lavish your time and skill on them again!
I’m probably in the minority but I think that poor manners are exactly that – poor manners. Rather than purchase anything for an ungrateful so-and-so, I’ll strike them from my gift list entirely! Harsh? Perhaps so. But I still feel that it’s the best way to handle it if at all possible. Sure, sometimes you just can’t do that – like my mother-in-law. If I’d stopped gifts to her entirely my darling husband would have been justifiably upset.
I have many people for whom I do make things – most of them in my immediate family, although one or two are especially good friends. I make their gifts because they understand and appreciate the love and skill involved. They are awed and delighted that I make the time in my busy life to do something especially for them. I make these gifts joyfully and with love in every inch.
But herewith find my own personal manifesto! I declare my freedom from guilt! I will no longer force myself to make something for those who do not appreciate the effort, no matter who asks me to do so. And if I don’t have the spare cash to buy a relative something, I’ll simply put a card under the tree and again refuse to feel guilty! The shortcoming is theirs, not mine, and the responsibility for modifying their attitude is also theirs. So be it!
Now where did I put that pattern and yarn…
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Making a Spinner
What makes a spinner? Is it the best wheel, the best fiber, the most skeins sitting in baskets, the most classes taken, or what? How about the best spinners? What lets them effortlessly produce miles of beautiful yarn, either perfectly even or beautifully textured?
Do you think obsessing about the details of spinning is silly, and just want to sit down and spin yard after yard of singles as meditation or just for fun? That’s fine if it’s what you want; it’s hard to beat spinning as fiber therapy. Like the other fiberarts, there’s room in spinning for everyone. But if you want to continue to grow and evolve your spinning, this may give you a starting place.
I’ve been thinking over what makes a good spinner lately. I’ve been mentoring a group of beginners, and another of intermediate spinners, and it’s making me take a good hard look at my own spinning, and recognize my strengths and shortcomings. I’ve also been looking back over my evolution as a spinner for hints as to how those shortcomings developed and how I might correct them.
I’m a largely self-taught spinner. I had some wonderful help getting started, but after that first lesson I was pretty much on my own from one guild meeting to the next. So I did a lot of strange, wacky things to get the yarn I wanted with the tools I had, and “re-invented the wheel” more than someone who had the time and money and place to go for weekly classes or a week-long workshop.
Does that make self-teaching the best alternative? No, not necessarily. Like your spinning style, your learning style is individual to you. Was it the best alternative for me? Probably. I was very short of money, but had plenty of time and local sources of good, yet inexpensive fiber. Add in the fact that I’ve always preferred to spin fine, and you’ll see that I could get quite a lot of yardage from a $5 pound of raw wool! I also like to puzzle out things with the aid of a book or video, and find another person quite distracting to the process. So learning on my own was best for me.
I do sometimes wish I’d had the luxury of taking classes in basic and intermediate spinning techniques – I might have progressed faster, and found it easier to spin large amounts of yarn to exactly the same grist. I can do that now, but a class might have made it easier and cost less in time and ‘wasted’ wool.
On the other hand, if you can only learn something by watching someone else do it and asking questions, by all means take a class or ten, rent or buy appropriate videos/DVD’s and plant yourself and your wheel in front of the screen, or watch all the members in turn at local guild meetings. If you want to learn, find the way YOU learn best and then do whatever it takes to get it into your head and fingers.
As for the best equipment - I noticed at my first regional fiber festival that many of what I considered the best spinners used simple equipment. Again, it depends on the person. I love gadgets, and have tried many, and re-sold most of them. I like very fine, worsted-spun yarns. So the drum carder, while a great learning experience for about six months, sat unused in a corner of my studio for the next two years until a spinner came along who wanted one. She likes to spin worsted-weight woolen yarns for sweaters, and loves this tool. I’m sure it’s happier being used regularly.
But even the right tools for the job may not be right for you. I now have two sets of wool combs, down from four. I love the fiber prep that I get from 4- and 5-pitch English combs, but my arms and hands hurt for days after I use them for even a half-hour. (What can I say - my body is aging faster than my mind.) So I do an extra transfer pass on the double-pitch Vikings or the hand-held Forsythe combs and comb pain-free. Sure it’s a trade-off – most of life is, I’ve noticed. This is one trade-off I can live with.
Other gadgets I use frequently are a set of Allen wrenches in sizes for my wheels, an oil-bottle with a long needle, a real flicker instead of a dog-brush, and a small metal dog-comb with a long shaped handle. Gadgets that are occasionally useful include a set of half-size cotton cards and a spinning lap-cover I made from two colors of duck cloth. One side is white; the other is a medium-value blue, and the cloth makes it easier to spin dark or light fibers even in artificial light.
I have copious amounts of illusion netting in a neutral color – not quite white, but almost. Why? To wash those fine fleeces I love easily and properly in bulk. Do I use it? Not very often. I prefer washing a lock at a time. That way I get to make sure each lock is squeaky-clean and get a bonus of being able to fondle the fiber a bit more.
But we’ve wandered afield. What makes a spinner the best? Not necessarily classes, although they can certainly help and should be taken whenever possible. Not necessarily gadgets, although some are useful and some essential, depending on what you want to spin. What about an expensive wheel? Pleeeeease!
I currently own 3 spinning wheels. None are Rolls-Royces or Cadallics, only one might be termed a Buick. All three, to my mind, are steady, reliable and adaptable basic Toyotas. The Ashford Traveller was my second wheel. I didn’t learn the basics on this wheel – I could make yarn after a fashion before I got it – but it was my learner wheel nonetheless. I learned to spin a variety of fibers on this wheel, and learned the basics of keeping a wheel and spinner happy with it. I seldom spin on it any longer, but my 17-year-old son loves this wheel and has appropriated it. He’s not an everyday spinner, but nonetheless likes spinning well enough to assess college dorms by whether they have room for the wheel or not.
My workhorse is my Majacraft Rose. I fell in lust with this wheel when I saw a picture of it. But I couldn’t afford it! I kept spinning on the Traveller, and finally saved enough pennies. At SAFF two years later I sat down at a Rose, pockets stuffed with fine fluff and ready to fall in love. Talk about disillusion - I hated the wheel! Hard to treadle, jerky action, all the worst possible attributes for a dedicated fine-yarn spinner. I’m sure my face presented a picture! I left SAFF that year with a Majacraft Suzie Pro. Same family, but not the wheel I thought I’d be bringing home!
Suzie was a nice little workhorse, and in many ways I became a good spinner on her, spinning many different fibers and grists. I never really loved her, though. She was a tool, but not a partner, if you see what I mean. I still loved the look of the Rose, but couldn’t get past my horrible test-spin. Then I visited another vendor in a town nearby and in conversation described my experience with the Rose. She was horrified, since the Rose was her favorite wheel. It didn’t take long to figure out what the problem must have been. In the chaos of setting up a booth, the SAFF vendor must have reversed the treadle shafts. When we did the same thing on her Rose, it behaved exactly as I remembered.
I left the shop that day without Suzie, and with a brand-new Rose. Yep, I had the Suzie and all her stuff in the van (I was in the neighboring town to do a demonstration), and we traded – my almost-new Suzie for a brand-new Rose (plus a hundred dollars or so). We put it together before I left, so I was sure it worked properly, and I spent almost as much again on fiber to keep my new Rosie happy. I didn’t even look at another wheel for several years after that. Rosie and I were happy, and we spun everything together. My first cashmere (almost drove me crazy until I learned how to spin it), my first gossamer two-ply for my first full-size shawl for my first grandchild, my first worsted-weight singles were spun on Rosie. I never thought about getting another wheel, although sometimes Rosie was a bit modern-looking for demonstrations.
Then, again at SAFF, I saw my first Kromski Polonaise. “Truly beautiful wheel – shame it’s a single-treadle” summed up my reaction. Then they introduced the Symphony. I stopped buying fiber and started saving for another wheel. Syndy (I know, but I name all my wheels) arrived one spring evening about six months later, and I stayed up until well after midnight putting her together and oohing and aahing over her. It’s a good thing it was a Friday evening, because there was no way I was going to work the next day! I played happily for the next several weeks, trying out and breaking in my new ‘toy’. She hasn’t replaced Rosie, but I do sometimes choose a special project just for her. And since she looks like an ‘old-time’ spinning wheel she’s great for public demonstrations!
The best spinner may not have the most expensive wheel, but she will have a wheel that suits the yarns she likes to spin and her own body. Spinning isn’t fun if it makes you hurt, and the wrong wheel will do exactly that. For example, I’ll never own a Schacht wheel. I love the look of it, the design is wonderful, I own a Schacht loom and other Schacht weaving equipment that I love. But after ten minutes on a Schacht wheel my back is screaming. I finally decided that the wheel just doesn’t fit my body.
I’ve gotten sidetracked again! Before we leave this subject, let me add something else. I belong to two spinning groups, one of which has a very large membership. Members own and use everything from CD drop spindles to Golding wheels. One of the best spinners in the group does everything on a Babe professional. And I’ve spun on it – it’s a good castle wheel, with a good range of ratios and large bobbins. She loves it because it travels easily – she’s spending her retirement traveling to all the places she always wanted to see. Tools are important, but the best spinner doesn’t necessarily have the most expensive wheel. More important than the money spent is getting the wheel best suited to your spinning and your body. An expensive wheel is no good if you hurt after ten minutes of spinning on it.
What about quantity of spinning? Is the best spinner the one who spins the most yardage? I can hear you thinking “Of course not!” And you’re right. Pounds and pounds of skeins of lumpy-bumpy yarn are great if that’s what you want to spin. But if that’s all you’re capable of spinning, well, that’s a bit different.
I love exploring new fibers. Give me a brand-new fiber and some time to play and I’m in heaven. But all my explorations weren’t helping me learn how to spin a consistent yarn. I had trouble with that. A spinner friend suggested a remedy. It definitely helped get me over that hump, and in the process I also acquired some discipline. Her suggestion? That I spin enough of only one fiber for a sweater for myself. It made sense, so I started shopping for the requirement and made my choice. That was 32 ounces of medium wool sport-weight singles. I should only need 24 ounces for a sweater, but best to have extra. I bought two pounds of commercially prepared top so that the fiber supply would be consistent, and started spinning. 24 ounces (6 bobbins) and three months later I put back the first bobbin for a felted hat and spun another 4 ounces so the yarn would match. Then I knitted the sweater and wear it proudly.
Practice is necessary for improving any skill, and this episode taught me that it should be directed practice – you should consciously start out to learn something from your spinning. If you’re using a new fiber, buy an ounce or two extra and play a bit. YOU might want to spin a certain fiber very fine and even as a two-ply, but it may have other ideas and want to be thick and thin singles. Learning not to fight the fiber is part of what makes a good spinner.
On the other hand, the most technically perfect spinner in the world with a wheel perfectly suited to her won’t be able to make more than barely adequate yarn with poor fiber. In my opinion, being able to recognize and choose top-quality fiber is one of the hallmarks of the best spinners.
How do you learn what constitutes top-quality? Some learn by raising their own fiber animals, some by listening to and learning from shepherds and exploring fleeces at fiber events. Some short-cut by purchasing only top-quality prepared fiber from reputable vendors; some buy prepared fiber to supplement what they raise or buy from local sources. All good spinners spin samples from a lock before buying a fleece – your fingers are the best judge of fiber quality, and they must be trained. Once trained, they’re your best tool for the job.
Equally important to good spinning is excellent fiber preparation. You can’t spin an even singles from fiber ‘prepared’ by washing roughly (thus half-felting it), then tearing it apart with a drum-carder or hand cards. Poor cleaning and preparation can ruin any fleece. On the other hand, truly excellent fiber preparation makes spinning easy and the newest spinner look good. The best spinners know that, and spend the effort it takes to prepare fiber perfectly! Properly prepared fiber almost spins itself.
Another hallmark of the best spinners is being able to suit the fiber to the project. The best spinners would never choose an adult Lincoln fleece with a 48 Bradford count for a baby layette. They’d go for merino, Rambouillet, Cormo or Targhee with a Bradford count in the 70’s. Socks would be made from Romney or other 54-56’s wool with perhaps a bit of mohair for strength; a gossamer shawl would be made from silk, Shetland or long-staple Sea Island cotton. Can a good spinner make exceptions to these basic guidelines? Of course. But she will let her fingers be her guide, and back them up with quite a bit of sampling before a final decision is made.
Sampling isn’t a four-letter word, so don’t shy away and treat it shabbily! Sampling is mindful exploration – play if you prefer - and the best spinners do quite a bit of it. It doesn’t require a great deal of time or fiber, and yields an incredible amount of information for that minimal investment. So rev up your adventuresome side and play for awhile!
Want to spin alpaca socks for yourself? Think about it, play with an ounce or so and use it to make a pair of baby socks. You’ll eventually need them for a gift even if you can’t use them immediately. Borrow a baby or especially petite child to try them on. Now observe. Do they appear to be comfortable? Too warm? Too slippery? Too prickly? Watch, don’t assume. Now take them off your borrowed child and hand him/her back to mother. Do the socks spring back into shape, either immediately or after washing? Yes, I know what conventional wisdom says. But what does your sample say? Is there a way to spin or knit that will compensate for any observed problems? Is doing that more trouble than the project is worth to you?
To sum up: when you can answer these questions and make these determinations you’re well on your way to becoming one of the best spinners:
1. Do you know how to choose really top-quality fiber?
2. Do you know how to prepare that fiber properly to obtain the yarn you want to spin?
3. Is your chosen spinning tool (spindle or wheel) well-chosen to fit what you want to spin and your own personal ergonomic profile?
4. Is your fiber choice suited to the project you’re making, and do you know how and why to make any necessary modifications to your spinning technique for that project?
Do you need to work on one or more of these criteria? (If you call spinning work – I call it fun.) How can you best learn what you need to know? Do you need a class, or more practice time, or more information about breeds of fiber animals? Should you attend a fiber festival where there will be lots of vendors in order to try out new tools? You’re the only one who can answer these questions. So get to it! Shearing season is coming up and there will be lots of new fleeces to evaluate and spin!
Do you think obsessing about the details of spinning is silly, and just want to sit down and spin yard after yard of singles as meditation or just for fun? That’s fine if it’s what you want; it’s hard to beat spinning as fiber therapy. Like the other fiberarts, there’s room in spinning for everyone. But if you want to continue to grow and evolve your spinning, this may give you a starting place.
I’ve been thinking over what makes a good spinner lately. I’ve been mentoring a group of beginners, and another of intermediate spinners, and it’s making me take a good hard look at my own spinning, and recognize my strengths and shortcomings. I’ve also been looking back over my evolution as a spinner for hints as to how those shortcomings developed and how I might correct them.
I’m a largely self-taught spinner. I had some wonderful help getting started, but after that first lesson I was pretty much on my own from one guild meeting to the next. So I did a lot of strange, wacky things to get the yarn I wanted with the tools I had, and “re-invented the wheel” more than someone who had the time and money and place to go for weekly classes or a week-long workshop.
Does that make self-teaching the best alternative? No, not necessarily. Like your spinning style, your learning style is individual to you. Was it the best alternative for me? Probably. I was very short of money, but had plenty of time and local sources of good, yet inexpensive fiber. Add in the fact that I’ve always preferred to spin fine, and you’ll see that I could get quite a lot of yardage from a $5 pound of raw wool! I also like to puzzle out things with the aid of a book or video, and find another person quite distracting to the process. So learning on my own was best for me.
I do sometimes wish I’d had the luxury of taking classes in basic and intermediate spinning techniques – I might have progressed faster, and found it easier to spin large amounts of yarn to exactly the same grist. I can do that now, but a class might have made it easier and cost less in time and ‘wasted’ wool.
On the other hand, if you can only learn something by watching someone else do it and asking questions, by all means take a class or ten, rent or buy appropriate videos/DVD’s and plant yourself and your wheel in front of the screen, or watch all the members in turn at local guild meetings. If you want to learn, find the way YOU learn best and then do whatever it takes to get it into your head and fingers.
As for the best equipment - I noticed at my first regional fiber festival that many of what I considered the best spinners used simple equipment. Again, it depends on the person. I love gadgets, and have tried many, and re-sold most of them. I like very fine, worsted-spun yarns. So the drum carder, while a great learning experience for about six months, sat unused in a corner of my studio for the next two years until a spinner came along who wanted one. She likes to spin worsted-weight woolen yarns for sweaters, and loves this tool. I’m sure it’s happier being used regularly.
But even the right tools for the job may not be right for you. I now have two sets of wool combs, down from four. I love the fiber prep that I get from 4- and 5-pitch English combs, but my arms and hands hurt for days after I use them for even a half-hour. (What can I say - my body is aging faster than my mind.) So I do an extra transfer pass on the double-pitch Vikings or the hand-held Forsythe combs and comb pain-free. Sure it’s a trade-off – most of life is, I’ve noticed. This is one trade-off I can live with.
Other gadgets I use frequently are a set of Allen wrenches in sizes for my wheels, an oil-bottle with a long needle, a real flicker instead of a dog-brush, and a small metal dog-comb with a long shaped handle. Gadgets that are occasionally useful include a set of half-size cotton cards and a spinning lap-cover I made from two colors of duck cloth. One side is white; the other is a medium-value blue, and the cloth makes it easier to spin dark or light fibers even in artificial light.
I have copious amounts of illusion netting in a neutral color – not quite white, but almost. Why? To wash those fine fleeces I love easily and properly in bulk. Do I use it? Not very often. I prefer washing a lock at a time. That way I get to make sure each lock is squeaky-clean and get a bonus of being able to fondle the fiber a bit more.
But we’ve wandered afield. What makes a spinner the best? Not necessarily classes, although they can certainly help and should be taken whenever possible. Not necessarily gadgets, although some are useful and some essential, depending on what you want to spin. What about an expensive wheel? Pleeeeease!
I currently own 3 spinning wheels. None are Rolls-Royces or Cadallics, only one might be termed a Buick. All three, to my mind, are steady, reliable and adaptable basic Toyotas. The Ashford Traveller was my second wheel. I didn’t learn the basics on this wheel – I could make yarn after a fashion before I got it – but it was my learner wheel nonetheless. I learned to spin a variety of fibers on this wheel, and learned the basics of keeping a wheel and spinner happy with it. I seldom spin on it any longer, but my 17-year-old son loves this wheel and has appropriated it. He’s not an everyday spinner, but nonetheless likes spinning well enough to assess college dorms by whether they have room for the wheel or not.
My workhorse is my Majacraft Rose. I fell in lust with this wheel when I saw a picture of it. But I couldn’t afford it! I kept spinning on the Traveller, and finally saved enough pennies. At SAFF two years later I sat down at a Rose, pockets stuffed with fine fluff and ready to fall in love. Talk about disillusion - I hated the wheel! Hard to treadle, jerky action, all the worst possible attributes for a dedicated fine-yarn spinner. I’m sure my face presented a picture! I left SAFF that year with a Majacraft Suzie Pro. Same family, but not the wheel I thought I’d be bringing home!
Suzie was a nice little workhorse, and in many ways I became a good spinner on her, spinning many different fibers and grists. I never really loved her, though. She was a tool, but not a partner, if you see what I mean. I still loved the look of the Rose, but couldn’t get past my horrible test-spin. Then I visited another vendor in a town nearby and in conversation described my experience with the Rose. She was horrified, since the Rose was her favorite wheel. It didn’t take long to figure out what the problem must have been. In the chaos of setting up a booth, the SAFF vendor must have reversed the treadle shafts. When we did the same thing on her Rose, it behaved exactly as I remembered.
I left the shop that day without Suzie, and with a brand-new Rose. Yep, I had the Suzie and all her stuff in the van (I was in the neighboring town to do a demonstration), and we traded – my almost-new Suzie for a brand-new Rose (plus a hundred dollars or so). We put it together before I left, so I was sure it worked properly, and I spent almost as much again on fiber to keep my new Rosie happy. I didn’t even look at another wheel for several years after that. Rosie and I were happy, and we spun everything together. My first cashmere (almost drove me crazy until I learned how to spin it), my first gossamer two-ply for my first full-size shawl for my first grandchild, my first worsted-weight singles were spun on Rosie. I never thought about getting another wheel, although sometimes Rosie was a bit modern-looking for demonstrations.
Then, again at SAFF, I saw my first Kromski Polonaise. “Truly beautiful wheel – shame it’s a single-treadle” summed up my reaction. Then they introduced the Symphony. I stopped buying fiber and started saving for another wheel. Syndy (I know, but I name all my wheels) arrived one spring evening about six months later, and I stayed up until well after midnight putting her together and oohing and aahing over her. It’s a good thing it was a Friday evening, because there was no way I was going to work the next day! I played happily for the next several weeks, trying out and breaking in my new ‘toy’. She hasn’t replaced Rosie, but I do sometimes choose a special project just for her. And since she looks like an ‘old-time’ spinning wheel she’s great for public demonstrations!
The best spinner may not have the most expensive wheel, but she will have a wheel that suits the yarns she likes to spin and her own body. Spinning isn’t fun if it makes you hurt, and the wrong wheel will do exactly that. For example, I’ll never own a Schacht wheel. I love the look of it, the design is wonderful, I own a Schacht loom and other Schacht weaving equipment that I love. But after ten minutes on a Schacht wheel my back is screaming. I finally decided that the wheel just doesn’t fit my body.
I’ve gotten sidetracked again! Before we leave this subject, let me add something else. I belong to two spinning groups, one of which has a very large membership. Members own and use everything from CD drop spindles to Golding wheels. One of the best spinners in the group does everything on a Babe professional. And I’ve spun on it – it’s a good castle wheel, with a good range of ratios and large bobbins. She loves it because it travels easily – she’s spending her retirement traveling to all the places she always wanted to see. Tools are important, but the best spinner doesn’t necessarily have the most expensive wheel. More important than the money spent is getting the wheel best suited to your spinning and your body. An expensive wheel is no good if you hurt after ten minutes of spinning on it.
What about quantity of spinning? Is the best spinner the one who spins the most yardage? I can hear you thinking “Of course not!” And you’re right. Pounds and pounds of skeins of lumpy-bumpy yarn are great if that’s what you want to spin. But if that’s all you’re capable of spinning, well, that’s a bit different.
I love exploring new fibers. Give me a brand-new fiber and some time to play and I’m in heaven. But all my explorations weren’t helping me learn how to spin a consistent yarn. I had trouble with that. A spinner friend suggested a remedy. It definitely helped get me over that hump, and in the process I also acquired some discipline. Her suggestion? That I spin enough of only one fiber for a sweater for myself. It made sense, so I started shopping for the requirement and made my choice. That was 32 ounces of medium wool sport-weight singles. I should only need 24 ounces for a sweater, but best to have extra. I bought two pounds of commercially prepared top so that the fiber supply would be consistent, and started spinning. 24 ounces (6 bobbins) and three months later I put back the first bobbin for a felted hat and spun another 4 ounces so the yarn would match. Then I knitted the sweater and wear it proudly.
Practice is necessary for improving any skill, and this episode taught me that it should be directed practice – you should consciously start out to learn something from your spinning. If you’re using a new fiber, buy an ounce or two extra and play a bit. YOU might want to spin a certain fiber very fine and even as a two-ply, but it may have other ideas and want to be thick and thin singles. Learning not to fight the fiber is part of what makes a good spinner.
On the other hand, the most technically perfect spinner in the world with a wheel perfectly suited to her won’t be able to make more than barely adequate yarn with poor fiber. In my opinion, being able to recognize and choose top-quality fiber is one of the hallmarks of the best spinners.
How do you learn what constitutes top-quality? Some learn by raising their own fiber animals, some by listening to and learning from shepherds and exploring fleeces at fiber events. Some short-cut by purchasing only top-quality prepared fiber from reputable vendors; some buy prepared fiber to supplement what they raise or buy from local sources. All good spinners spin samples from a lock before buying a fleece – your fingers are the best judge of fiber quality, and they must be trained. Once trained, they’re your best tool for the job.
Equally important to good spinning is excellent fiber preparation. You can’t spin an even singles from fiber ‘prepared’ by washing roughly (thus half-felting it), then tearing it apart with a drum-carder or hand cards. Poor cleaning and preparation can ruin any fleece. On the other hand, truly excellent fiber preparation makes spinning easy and the newest spinner look good. The best spinners know that, and spend the effort it takes to prepare fiber perfectly! Properly prepared fiber almost spins itself.
Another hallmark of the best spinners is being able to suit the fiber to the project. The best spinners would never choose an adult Lincoln fleece with a 48 Bradford count for a baby layette. They’d go for merino, Rambouillet, Cormo or Targhee with a Bradford count in the 70’s. Socks would be made from Romney or other 54-56’s wool with perhaps a bit of mohair for strength; a gossamer shawl would be made from silk, Shetland or long-staple Sea Island cotton. Can a good spinner make exceptions to these basic guidelines? Of course. But she will let her fingers be her guide, and back them up with quite a bit of sampling before a final decision is made.
Sampling isn’t a four-letter word, so don’t shy away and treat it shabbily! Sampling is mindful exploration – play if you prefer - and the best spinners do quite a bit of it. It doesn’t require a great deal of time or fiber, and yields an incredible amount of information for that minimal investment. So rev up your adventuresome side and play for awhile!
Want to spin alpaca socks for yourself? Think about it, play with an ounce or so and use it to make a pair of baby socks. You’ll eventually need them for a gift even if you can’t use them immediately. Borrow a baby or especially petite child to try them on. Now observe. Do they appear to be comfortable? Too warm? Too slippery? Too prickly? Watch, don’t assume. Now take them off your borrowed child and hand him/her back to mother. Do the socks spring back into shape, either immediately or after washing? Yes, I know what conventional wisdom says. But what does your sample say? Is there a way to spin or knit that will compensate for any observed problems? Is doing that more trouble than the project is worth to you?
To sum up: when you can answer these questions and make these determinations you’re well on your way to becoming one of the best spinners:
1. Do you know how to choose really top-quality fiber?
2. Do you know how to prepare that fiber properly to obtain the yarn you want to spin?
3. Is your chosen spinning tool (spindle or wheel) well-chosen to fit what you want to spin and your own personal ergonomic profile?
4. Is your fiber choice suited to the project you’re making, and do you know how and why to make any necessary modifications to your spinning technique for that project?
Do you need to work on one or more of these criteria? (If you call spinning work – I call it fun.) How can you best learn what you need to know? Do you need a class, or more practice time, or more information about breeds of fiber animals? Should you attend a fiber festival where there will be lots of vendors in order to try out new tools? You’re the only one who can answer these questions. So get to it! Shearing season is coming up and there will be lots of new fleeces to evaluate and spin!
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