Rows Red

Fiber: “Inkwell” wool/mohair blend from Gurdy Run Farm
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 6:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 8oz/226g
Yardage: 576 yd, 2 ply
Diameter: DK
Techniques: Spun worsted.

Inkwell

In an effort to manage my considerable stash, I have taken to limiting my fiber purchases to 8oz lots. 8oz is enough finished yarn to knit almost anything you could want, aside from a full sweater. You could make knee high socks with yarn left over, a hat and mittens combo, a medium size shawl (at least), a baby blanket, a bag… the list goes on. Last year’s Cummington was my first “big” show upon instituting that rule and where I bought this lovely wool and mohair blend roving. Gurdy Run Farm is located in one of the outside tents, and will be one of my first stops when I visit the show at the end of the month.

Romney(?)/Mohair blend, dark and lovely.

It’s hard to find darker colored hand dyed yarn and spinning fiber, especially spinning fiber. It’s not impossible, but black and other deeply saturated dark colors, are a pain in the ass to work with as a dyer. It can be hard to exhaust the dye fully, among other quirks. Last year’s show I was pleased to find more than a couple of darker beauties, and Inwell (as I’m calling it), was one of the last happy purchases of the day.

See? It bled like all get out.

As we move forward in time, at the end of April I needed a mindless spinning project to work on and roving is perfect for that. Unlike top, which is often tightly packed and may require preparation to make it ready for easy spinning, roving can usually be spun as is. It’s a lighter, loftier spinning experience. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that I really REALLY didn’t like the yarn as it was being spun. No matter how much I adjusted, moving to the largest whorl, slowing my treadling, and tightening my take-up, the single just seemed really rope-y and over twisted. Harriet and I were working on similar fibers at a recent knit night and we were both just killing time ‘til our spinning blahs were over and we could move on. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like this yarn.

Inkwell surprised me in the end.

Score! All I had left after plying the two bobbins was a few feet on the one.

MASSIVE jumbo bobbin!

Surprise is the word of the day in this story though, because once I started plying… yup. I was surprised. The perfect amount of twist was coming out of the yarn and it was reverting back to the lofty, soft fiber I had fallen in love with at the vendor booth. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I wound the skein off the bobbin and it hung perfectly straight. It hadn’t even had a bath yet! I had been convinced that the yarn would be one of those rare, gnarly nests, but no. No extra twist, and despite just wanting the spinning to be over with (a sure way to have inconsistent yarn), it is some of the most consistent two ply that I’ve ever spun. This yarn is good enough for competition, and I am deeply satisfied with it.

Very consistent, very satisfied.

Gratuitous Beauty Shot #1

As a bonus, I adore the color. It is rich, with bits of luminescence from the mohair, an inky dark sapphire blue with highlights of denim that gleams. I’ve been asked what I would make out of it, and I’m not sure yet. Big surprise. Steve likes it, A LOT, so I would tempted to make a hat and scar combo for him, but his winter coat is olive. Dark blue man socks are a fresh hell, so I don’t want to do that. I could make a shawl or capelet for myself, maybe? Who knows? For now it’ll be tucked away until it’s time to compete, which could be sooner rather than later if I can figure out what category it fits into at Cummington.

Gratuitous Beauty Shot #2

Tags: FO, Spinning

Fiber: “A Warm Return” 100% Merino from Into the Whirled
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 6:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 4oz/113g
Yardage: 328 yards, “3″ ply
Diameter: Sport
Techniques: Spun worsted, chain plyed.

A Warm Return, from Into the Whirled

I spun this up in about a week, start to finish, but it took me over two to get it up and posted. I blame the Knitting Olympics!

Love it!

Several weeks ago, probably just before or after Christmas, a few of us were sitting around at Knit Night, when we got to talking about fiber clubs. Cris and I went back and forth on what it would be like to start one, bouncing ideas off of each other, and the other spinners in the group. As she is a woman of action, it wasn’t long before the call went out on her Ravelry forum that she was doing a club based on member submitted photographs. The top three would each become a colorway, and away she went! The offering for Jan/Feb was based on a photo of Robin’s eggs in a nest, seen in a woodsy bush. Lots of beige, brown, and blue. As the club is a la carte, and I had the $15 to spare, I didn’t hesitate to join up. When my package arrived in the mail I hurried to finish my current spinning project so I could start on the fiber as soon as possible.

The single, early on.

As always, spinning Cris’s fiber is an intensely pleasurable experience. The merino was fluffy and easily drafted, nary a nepp or compacted fiber in sight. But what really had me mesmerized were the colors. I knew right away that I was going to chain ply this skein, no two ways about it. I wanted those colors to remain vibrant and distinct, no muddying or barberpoleing for this skein. I realized as I started to ply that I hadn’t done a chain ply in forever, months at least. Like riding a bike, it’s not something you forget.

Chain plyed and just how I imagined it would be.

I was dismayed when I skeined it off the bobbin to find that it was a terribly twisty mess. Not sure what I did wrong, I haven’t had a noodle-nest like this in longer than I can remember.

Noodle nest!

Still, a good bath and brutal whacking seemed to settle the situation and it was hung up by the fire to dry. Fresh yarn drying by the fire is a beautiful thing.

A Warm Return, drying by the fire. Very fitting.

Since I only have four ounces, my options are limited. Do I make socks? I really should, it’s the perfect diameter for some cushy, comfy socks. But it’s so pretty! Socks really do seem like the best idea… I have a thing about wearing clashing hand knits together, so making a cowl or hat doesn’t seem doable. I’ll mull on it for a while, but for now, oh… for now I’ll happily pet my skein and coo just a little when no one’s around to hear me. I can’t wait to see what Cris comes up with for the next installment!

I'm pleased with the results!

Tags: FO, Spinning

Fiber: “Baby Doll”, Merino from Bittersweet Woolery
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 6:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 8oz/226g
Yardage: 730 yards, 2 ply
Diameter: Sport
Techniques: Hand dyed by me, spun worsted.

Baby Doll, 100% Merino from Bittersweet Woolery

Quite some time ago, I dyed up an 8oz batch of Merino and then promptly forgot about. Tucked away in the mountainous stash, I rediscovered it when I was populating the new Wall of Wool as we moved into the house. I didn’t spin it right away, but I knew I wanted to get to it sooner rather than later.

Harmonious, in a really girly kinda way.

Since the fiber was old, and had been in tight storage for a good long time, it really needed to be pre-draft. That said, I had less trouble than I’ve had with fresher, more recent acquisitions (and that’s saying something!). Once tugged out it was fluffy and a pleasure to spin.

Gratuitous Beauty Shot

The colors in this top were intensely girly, hence the name Baby Doll. Raspberry red, bubble gum pink, and lavender, it’s very harmonious, even plied and striping as it is. I’ve been spinning a lot of pink and fuschias lately, but I suppose I wasn’t bored because this time it was my own work. Working with my own fiber again really puts me in the mood to dye up some of the top I have hidden away in the basement.

The spinning is fairly consistent, with portions of poofyness. I didn’t take any particular care when spinning these bobbins, preferring instead to stave off second bobbin syndrome by plowing through as fast as I could. When I finished plying it I was astounded by how squooshy the yarn was on the jumbo bobbin. Kinda like cotton candy!

Gratuitous Beauty Shot #2

I’m happy with it, and I really want to find the right project for it soon. I can see it becoming a wrap, maybe even something like a shrug or bolero, only shrugs look silly on very large women like me. Maybe a short sleeved cardigan?

I forgot to take a dime shot for reference, oops.

Tags: FO, Spinning

Fiber: “Saturn”, Blue Faced Leicester from Seekay Craft
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 10:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 5oz/141g
Yardage: 1,252 yards, 2 ply
Diameter: Lace weight
Techniques: Spun worsted, plied from a cake.

Saturn

From the moment I dug through Carolyn’s stock, pre-Jersey, I knew that this BFL would be coming home with me. Never mind that my stash is large. No, never mind any hint of reason. The fact of the matter is that Carolyn dyes rich, moody colors, and I like rich, moody colors. Saturn spoke of the gloaming, that in between, twilight time when shadows are thick in the air. Every time I pulled this bobbin out someone complimented the fiber, people really loved the dyeing.

8 oz of BFL in "Saturn" from Seekay Craft.

I prepped the fiber by stripping it down the middle. I then pulled off a length to work with, opening it up and fluffing it out. With a few gentle tugs down the length the BFL blossomed into a silky, effortless spin. You know the fiber is good when it begs to be spun as thin as thread, and does so with absolutely no effort on your part. Spinning this fiber required nothing but endless patience, an unfortunate byproduct of very fine spinning. It took me much longer to spin the initial single than I would have liked because I was, at the time, only spinning at Knit Night.

100% BFL, "Saturn", dyed by Carolyn of Seekay Craft. Like buttah.

Once I finished the single it sat on the bobbin for a very long time. Being only the first of two 4 oz braids, I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t in the mood to spin that fine (for that long), and by the time I was ready to do something about it, the initial bobbin had been sitting so long that I’d be plying a hyper fresh bobbin against a mellow old bobbin. In lace weight? It didn’t seem like a good idea to me. So what to do? Navajo ply it? Maybe, but I really to have an actual lace weight two-ply in my bag o’ handspun. That left only plying it against itself from a cake.

Like shadows and sunsets.

Have you ever plied a thread weight single from a center pull ball? A tightly packed, massive, center pull ball? Great care was taken, let me tell you. The fact that the center strand only snapped twice is a testament to that care. Amazingly, both times I was able to easily find the snapped end, though I thought for sure the first time I was a goner. It had snapped *inside* the ball. Be still my heart. Thankfully all it took was pulling out a tiny bit of yarn barf to locate it, and all was well.

I see a shawl in my future.

I was afraid of putting too much twist in the single, so initially this came off the plying head slightly under spun. After being passed around, the other Knit Night ladies concurred, and I ran that sucker back through. Strangely, both times Wendy and her husband were at my house. I knew I couldn’t re-cake that skein, it barely fit as a single and no way was it going to be rewound in one go as a two-ply. My solution? Spin it right off my free standing wooden skein winder. It worked like a charm! After being re-spun and given the usual scalding bath, beating, and dry by the fire, the skein passed inspection… no excess twist in sight.

Very, very fine.

I’m extremely pleased with this yarn. It’s everything I could have hoped for, and I’m tempted to knit with it immediately instead of waiting to enter it into Rhinebeck. I think I’ll wait, no matter how tempting it is. It’s not often that I spin a skein where I’m not picking out flaws. The fact that it happened to be made from my friend Carolyn’s roving is the icing on the cake. I bet she’d flip if it placed at Rhinebeck, I know I would if I were her! I have one more braid of this left, and since it’s brighter than the first, I think I’ll try spinning it in a different style for a separate project. The fun’s not over, not by a long shot.

Tags: FO, Spinning

Fiber: “501″ 50/50 Cormo/Kid Mohair blend from Buckwheat Bridge Angoras
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 8:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 116 g/4.1 oz
Yardage: 491 yards, 2 ply
Diameter: Light fingering
Techniques: Re-carded from roving, spun woolen, long draw, plied from a cake

501

Many moons ago, I bought a 1lb bag of my usual screaming-wallet-inducing-poison from Dan and Sara over at Buckwheat Bridge Angoras. This particular bag looked so lovely at first, but upon further investigation, was a weird mass of mostly blue with random stretches of sickly mint green/blue and the rare bit of royal purple. Meh. I sold off a good portion of it and kept several ounces back, unsure what I wanted to do with it.

Gratuitous Beauty Shot 1

When I picked up my used drum carder at Rhinebeck ’08, I didn’t immediately fall in using it. It took me a while to get used to it, and to this day there are fiddly quirks to it that I’m still working out. Eventually, several months later, I thought that perhaps running the weird roving through it would help turn an ugly duckling into a swan. I chronicled this adventure in one of the early Rows Red posts. It was one of the most pleasurable spinning experiences of my entire life.

Cormo/Kid Mohair from Buckwheat Bridge Angoras, ready to be plyed.

The bobbin came out well enough, but then it sat in a bag with the rest of the roving for many, many months. Eventually the roving went somewhere else, and the bobbin sat on a shelf, forlorn. Since I was in a finishing mood over the holidays, I wound that sucker into a cake and gave it what for. Unfortunately, I didn’t alternate batts frequently enough, and there is still a slight barber pole effect. Still, not bad!

Gratuitous Beauty Shot 2

That said, the yarn is luscious and sproingy, utterly divine to the touch. This is the reason I love Buckwheat Bridge, and why I keep coming back. The yarn I make from their roving is such a pleasure to touch, and even better to knit with. And now that I know how much prettier some of their high contrast roving can be when re-carded, I am looking forward to carding some of the colorways that didn’t thrill me on the bobbin as much as they did in the bag.

Somewhat barber-pole-ish, and yet somehow harmonious.

Due to the incredible delicateness of the fiber content, and the loftiness of the yarn, this yarn will most definitely not become anything durable like socks. However, I think it would make a great cowl, or perhaps a hat. I think it could also make a nice gift to a knitter or crocheter in my life.

Richly blue, with lots of depth.

Tags: FO, Spinning

Fiber: “Dark Heart” Romney/Bamboo blend from Triple R Farm (site-less)
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 8:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 203 g/7.2 oz
Yardage: 573 yards, 2 ply
Diameter: Heavy sport
Techniques: Spun worsted 

Dark Heart

There may be some who remember my love affair with the mystery roving I bought last year at Rhinebeck, which worked up into the much adored Dark Star yarn. As I stated in that post, these people were my second stop at this year’s event, and I was pleased to finally know who they were. Triple R Farm has delivered again with my purchase of the Dark Heart Romney bamboo blend this time ‘round. They didn’t have many colors that I liked so I pushed out of my comfort zone and went with this rich fuchsia and I’m very glad that I did. It isn’t garish, as I initially feared, and there’s a depth to the finished yarn that I wasn’t expecting. Rather like the name suggests, there’s a dark heart to the color, and I know I can thank the overdyed Romney for that. 

Gratuitous Beauty Shot 1

Spinning this roving was fairly effortless, but the bamboo was temperamental, as any super slick fiber can be. Being a relatively small component of the blend, the fussiness was kept to a minimum. I could spin this fiber by touch for the most part, but I did have to look down to adjust or take care when I felt the bamboo refuse to thin out.

This came out much more evenly than I thought it would.

Part of my plan with this fiber was to spin it thicker than I’d been spinning lately. I’m just coming off a thread/lace weight spinning project and, while it’s very natural to me to spin that fine, I really didn’t want another long slog this time. Most of the time when I start a spinning project, I just start it. No real plan, just spinning to enjoy the spinning. This time I had a vague feeling that the rich color would be great for a design project I had sketched out recently. The project would require at least sport to DK weight yarn, and what with the move and all… a nice, quick spin seemed just the thing. 

Finishing my plying by utilizing the miraculous yarn cake.

 Never have eight ounces spun up so quickly. Part of that was due to increased spinning time in the evenings leading up to the holiday, and part of that was definitely due to shooting for a fingering weight single. What a difference! Before I knew it, I’d spun up the first bobbin and was working on the second. There was just over 8oz total in the bag, and with a little packing between the two bobbins, I was able to get it all done. Quick as a bunny I started plying, which was in perfect timing for Christmas Day being at my house. By bedtime that night I’d finished loading them on to the jumbo plying head. I ended up with a bit left on one of the bobbins, a testament to the fact that it took me a bit to get out of super thin spinning mode. I wound that off into a yarn cake and worked from both ends so I could finish off every last bit. 

HUUUUGE! Like the Godzilla of yarn. Rawwr!

Exciting was the fact that the finished yarn came off the bobbin completely straight but for a slight curve at the bottom of the hanging hank. Disappointing, however, was the yarn bleeding like a stuck pig when I put it into the scalding hot soak. It took two full baths before I was able to hang in the tub to drip dry with looking like I’d murdered Hello Kitty in my bathroom. Later in the day I moved it to hang in front of the fire, once it was no longer dripping. The slight scent of warm, damp wool and wood smoke was incredibly comforting. 

Yarn fresh from the bath, drying in front of the fire.

I’m pleased with the yarn, very much so. This was a much more relaxed project for me, I wasn’t going for perfect, and deliberately aimed instead for rustic. Strangely, it’s much more consistent than I thought it would be, seemingly despite that fact. Again, the color is just lovely, and the shiny bamboo component means that there are small clear, pure bursts of bright fuchsia interspersed throughout the whole.

Gratuitous Beauty Shot 3

The yarn is sturdy, but not stiff, and has a traditional, somewhat ‘wooly’ texture. Most newer spinners wouldn’t call this “next to the skin” soft, but I know many old school spinners who wouldn’t hesitate to make a sweater out of it. What will the yarn become? All I can say for now is that it will be something to keep my neck warm, and that I will cast on for it sometime in January if all goes well.

I'm happy with the end product.

Tags: FO, Spinning