Spinning experiment:

So, in thinking about all the different things I could do with the yarn I bought for a sweater at the sheep and wool festival, one thing I thought of was that I have an ounce of gray Shetland which could work well with what I have to make a tweed yarn, with little gray blips mixed into the light brown.

My understanding of tweed yarns is that they're usually made by having little felty bits (called neps) and adding them to fiber going through a drum carder. All this fiber is already nicely prepped, plus I don't have access to a drum carder, plus I don't really like a lot of fiber prep anyhow, so I got to thinking of how I could get the same color-blip effect by playing with what I had.

I came up with several things that could work:

1) Just laying bits of the contrasting color on top of the main color, keeping all the fibers attenuated. I knew this would have a more striped effect than just little blobs here and there, but I still wanted to see what it looked like.
2) Similar to above, but folding each fiber tuft in half before adding it into the main color. This would add a little lump at the folding point, and keep that lump well-anchored in the yarn.
3) Taking the contrasting color and rolling bits of fiber around in my fingers before laying it on top of the main color fiber. I wasn't sure if these would be well-incorporated with the yarn, but they would provide the blips of color I was imagining.
4) A recent issue of Spin-Off featured cabled yarns spun by subscribers. One of them had a single ply of contrasting color with multiple plies of the main color, which gave the impression of little random dots of color. This would be a more all-over flecked look rather than just blobs here and there, but I wanted to see how it looked knitted up.

Because I was just playing around I didn't use my sweater fiber--I took some Blue-Faced Leicester (white) and domestic wool top (brown) from the many one-ounce bags I bought from Halcyon Yarn for just this type of purpose. They were both easy spinners that made a pretty round yarn, but I wasn't attached to them, which made them perfect for experimentation. The domestic wool top is quite a bit coarser than the BFL, but I don't think that had too much of an effect on the look of the yarn.

I would decide on a style and then spin a bit of it up, mostly at my knitting group. I didn't pay much attention to the grist or trying to get a perfectly even yarn since it's just for fun. They're all two-ply yarns except the cabled yarns, and in all the 2-plies, both plies had the same things done to them (I just spun a length and then Andean-plied). Each skein was about 10 yards.

The first thing I learned was that the blobs of color required a lot less fiber than I'd originally thought. I really only needed a few individual fibers to strongly effect the final look of the yarn, and with my first try (the 100%-attenuated yarn) I was pulling pretty good-sized tufts.

Other spinning-related notes: it's easier to add neps as you spin rather than to the fiber beforehand, though if you insist on doing that, it helps if you wrap the top around the neppy bits. For the folded, attenuated fiber, it's easier to spin if you have the loose ends facing the drafting triangle, vs. the folded end--it gets more involved with the yarn that way. Bits of leftover yarn also make nice neps.



This isn't part of a spinning notebook or anything, I just tied the skeins around the notebook so I could get a clear image of each.

If you can't read my notes, they are, top to bottom:

-small, half-attenuated bits (the ones that were folded in half)
-small neps
-large attenuated bits
-one brown ply in a 2/2 cabled yarn
-one brown ply, screwy 4-ply--semi-cabled, 2 underplied 2-plies, plied in the same direction as the first plying (note: I wanted to make a 4-ply while being lazy and Andean plying everything. It didn't come out as a true 4-ply but it is a neat yarn.
-All dark brown, so I could mark where I changed yarns on the swatch.

I'm swatching now, putting them into the same order so when I lose my notes I can look at this picture and remember which yarn went where. When I finish I'm sure I'll have more to say.

I've been very scattershot with projects right now--I just don't seem to be in the mood to finish anything.

I've been spinning a bit. I'm still having some trouble controlling the alpaca, but I have some easier merino-silk I'm spinning up as a laceweight when I get annoyed. And I'm still sampling to figure out what I want to do with the sweater yarn. I haven't even started sampling with the roving itself or even swatching my samples, but I'm getting an idea of what needs doing.

I'm working on the Fair Isle sweater some again, though mostly at my knitting group. I just don't like dealing with sleeves--I hit them at a point at which I'm can do whatever pattern I'm doing on autopilot, but whenever I start to *go* on autopilot I forget about the sleeve decreases, or the color changes, and I make dopey little mistakes. Lesson learned: do the sleeves first, and avoid patterns where the sleeves need to be picked up from the body.

There are several holiday presents half-done now. I made sure not to promise anyone anything, so maybe some of the yarn I bought will turn into birthday presents instead.

Mostly, I've been thinking about rotational symmetry, because J and I bought the stuff to make holiday cards this year and we're thinking of a snowflake theme. If you like playing with this sort of thing, this virtual snowflake maker is pretty neat (as is the gallery--some people spend a LOT of time on the snowflakes), and this gallery of actual snow crystals is really amazing. I keep thinking about the constraints of actual ice crystals--rotational symmetry, things coming out at multiples of 60 degree angles--and also about the limits of artistic licence that can be taken, like in the snowflake ornaments the Boston Museum of Fine Arts puts out every year, even though they're many steps removed from natural (for one thing, most of them have 8-fold symmetry). J's parents happened to start buying them the first year they came out, and now they have a picture window-full, and I love to look at them. I haven't quite decided which way to go, though I'm leaning towards a realistic-as-possible style. Even when doing creative things, I like having some rules to start with.

A strange little vignette this morning on the bus:

I was sitting in the back part of the bus, which is sort of U-shaped, with seats along the back and against the wall rather than the usual setup with all seats facing forward. Because of the way it's set up, the back of the bus is usually more social. There were three people there who were friends, chatting, and they asked me a little bit about my knitting. I talked to them for a minute or two, and eventually they went back to their conversation, and I went back to knitting and reading an article. (This has been my routine lately, and I can read 5 or 6 journal articles per week this way. It works great for articles I don't need much depth on, just stuff I'm trying to keep up with.)

I eavesdropped on their conversation a little bit, just because interesting words like "parole officer" kept coming up. Apparently they'd all spent a good amount of time in jail (though mostly in 1-2 month stretches), and were comparing stories.

When I got to my stop on campus, I sort of did that "hey, I talked to you, have a nice day" wave you give to people you probably won't ever see again, and one of the guys said "Oh, hey, don't learn too much, okay?"

Perhaps I would have taken this wisdom more seriously if he'd said something like "I got a JD from Harvard, and look where it got me."

Non-fiber people (and some fiber people, too), will be grossed out to know that many people show pictures of yarn they've bought and describe the pictures as "yarn porn". The thought being that these pictures, like porn, will lead you to wanting this seductive whatever that you can never have.

But most of the time this falls totally flat for me. It's string--I mean, it may be pretty, or there might be a lot of it, but I can almost certainly go to one of my local yarn shops and pick up something similar, if not identical. And I go to knitting sites to see what you can produce, or how you can describe it, not the number at the bottom of your checkbook. It's usually just tacky*.

But I have found a situation in which I'm perfectly happy looking at pictures of yarn for an hour, saying "ooh" a lot, thinking about what kind of projects it could be used for, wishing I could touch it and see what it feels like, and on and on.

It's the section of Spin Off magazine devoted to what readers have spun. Super clear pictures, interesting (not "interesting") uses of fiber and color, just lots and lots of fun. I like trying to figure out how people have made the yarns, and it's given me some ideas in my own spinning, how to approach things.

Even if you don't spin, take a peek. This issue it's all cabled yarns, and there are some lovely, lovely things in there.

*It strikes me as considerably less tacky when there's a good description of what the yarn will be used for, how it knits up, what's unique or different about it, etc.

In November, Wisconsin will be voting on a proposed state amendment that would ban gay marriages and limit the rights of all unmarried couples.

I saw an ad this morning encouraging people to vote "no" on the proposed ban, and it took a tack I'd never really thought of. In it, a farmer basically says "I don't believe in gay marriage and I think what they do is wrong, but I'm still voting no, because they don't hurt me, so I won't hurt them."

I suppose it makes sense--the ad isn't targeted to people like me that want all my married friends to have the same rights and responsibilities that I do. It's pretty obvious that *I'll* be voting no. But there's a lot of people out there that are kind of squicked out by the idea of homosexuality, but who haven't given much thought to the matter. They might give some thought to the argument that "those people" doing things in the privacy of their own homes haven't done anything to merit the government giving them the finger. They may be sinful but they're not *illegal*.

Even though I'd rather see ads showing glowing, lovely, happy couples getting married instead of a guy saying he doesn't like The Gays, I hope that the message is effective.

If you were looking here last night and discovered Total Website Death, sorry about that. I have no idea what happened, but whatever it was, they fixed it rapidly and without complaint.



I got 8 ounces of roving from Mo, the co-owner of the Sow's Ear, a little while before I bought the wheel, with the express purpose of using it for wheel practice. It's a nice Corriedale cross; not super-soft, but just the right balance between sticky fibers and easy drafting.

This is a 3-ply yarn, 11-12 wpi (it might *just* edge into DK weight), 500 yards, 7.5 ounces. My original thought was that I was going to do a felting project with it, but phew. Just *look* at it. I'm having a hard time of convincing myself to obscure all that.

So my alternate plan is to knit a heavily cabled Christmas stocking with it. I've had a pattern bouncing around in my head for a few years, and this yarn fits the bill. I'll almost certainly have some yarn left over, but that's all right.

For anyone curious about the speed of spindling vs. wheel spinning: The first roving I bought was 8 ounces of Border Leicester. I finished spinning this up right after my wheel came (I actually did the last half-ounce or so on the wheel). So it took me about a year to make a worsted-weight 2 ply.

I finished this yarn about 3 weeks after I started it. Granted, I spent more time spinning in those three weeks compared to the months preceding, but it was also easier and more enjoyable for me to do so, which also factors into it. I feel more comfortable spindling standing up when I'm at home, and after a few hours my arm and legs get tired. It's not as cozy as sitting on the couch knitting. Spinning on the wheel is as cozy as knitting, and I can go for quite a lot longer without getting tired or bored. I do still use my spindles--I much prefer the spindles for spinning up little bits, and I still like spinning on the bus when I'm in the mood to be talked to or stared at. But I definitely like the wheel too. And it is reasonably portable--I've brought it to a local coffeeshop for my knitting group a couple of times now, and I just need the wheel and a small bag I can throw the flyer and some fiber in. The wheel is quiet, it treadles smoothly, I can spin everything I'm interested in spinning with it. After all my hemming and hawing, it was a good investment.

I've also started to do a lot more experimentation than I did before. I'm not adding doll heads or anything, but I am playing around more with fiber prep and ways of introducing color. And yarns that aren't a plain even 2-ply. Watch this space.

I did a post about my stash 6 months ago, and at the time I said that I'd like to reduce my stash, and "I should be able to put a hefty dent into what I have". About 3 months ago, I described progress as "slowly but surely".

How are things going now?

Fingering weight/sock yarn: 4 out of 14 skeins are gone/used, 3 more are in progress, one is in the planning stage.

Freshman mistakes: 10 out of 17 are in progress (secret multi-person project, technically in progress even though I'm not the one knitting most of it).

Worsted Weight oddballs: 3 out of 12 skein's worth (counting several partials as a single ball) totally used up, 1 more in progress, quite a bit in gift planning/Dulaan project planning phase--I'm in a hat mood right now.

Lightweight oddballs: 0 of 7 useful balls' worth. Totally boring, untouched.

Useful: 4.5 of 13 used in green vest, the blue knows what it's going to be but it'll probably start next year.

What I've bought since:

-15 skeins of black cotton for a sweater for J (totally used),
-about 3 pounds of fiber (8 ounces spun, little used).
-small amount bought for giftmaking, half-used.
-The wheel (plenty of life still in it).

Possible weak spots:My stash is now *just* this side of boring. This may bother me someday. Also, I have to get better about buying fiber for a particular project. You'll notice a good chunk of the yarn stash in April consisted of what I called "freshman mistakes", yarn I bought without a particular plan, in amounts that were wrong for everything, before I knew better. I forgot this lesson when I started spinning, and now I have 100 yards of blue sportweight wool, 150 yards of brown Border Leicester, 500 yards of white corriedale cross DK. And a bunch of one-ounce puffs for sampling. I think my next challenge will be dealing with this stuff, to come up with something useful and nice, and to widen my definition of stash the next time I take inventory like this, because I have a lot of fabric and stuff, too.

Also, I just ordered a bunch of yarn online for presents. But, again, that's yarn with a short-term goal.

Results so far:

+21.5/63, 34% of unused yarn I owned in April used up.
++But 45% of unused yarn I've owned SINCE April used up (in other words, including what I've bought since then).
-I actually have two containers, where I used to have one, because unspun fiber takes up so much space. Plus there's the footprint of my wheel.
+But there's no more craft junk in odd places(knitting bags used as storage space, "decorative" yarn under the table, pile of fabric in my sewing area, etc.) What's out is being used right then, more or less--I'm still sloppy, but I've coralled the worst of it.
++The few yarn purchases I've made have been quite purposeful, projects that got going soon after I bought the yarn. Several weeks later, they made me happy thinking about interesting projects I'd start on in a week, rather than stressed thinking about what I needed to finish before playing with the Shiny New Thing.
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Okay, to me. I'm very happy about the level of movability; things can all get chucked in a moving van now, if/when it's required.

Snow.

Blowing around, outside.

Can you believe it? I sure can't.

(and a side note to Madison-area landlords and the university: I understand you're not legally obligated to start heating buildings until Oct. 15th, but it's SNOWING OUTSIDE. I've been wearing my coat most of the morning while working on the computer. Have a little compassion.)

Over the weekend, my mom and I ended up talking about a subset of my female friends that for whatever reason don't seem to date--or, at least, are utterly silent about their romantic lives-- and I got thinking about the way these things have changed over time for smart, reasonably put-together women.

(side note: So, I'm a reasonably smart and put-together woman and also got married quite a bit younger than people in my social surroundings, which makes me talking about the plight of single women sort of laughable. But it doesn't mean I can't think about this stuff, does it?)

Pre-feminist movement, pretty much anything was preferable to being alone. Part of this had to do with societal views of a lonely spinster woman as an object of pity, but part of this was financial security, as men had access to better jobs, salaries, etc. A woman in a marriage with a dangerous man would have a hard time divorcing him (no-fault divorces in the US only started coming about in 1969), would face financial difficulties, and would have a social stigma that often translated into additional financial problems (like not being able to get a loan).

The feminist movement of the 60's (and also the suffragist movement around the 1890's, 1900's, but I'm not going to let things get that complicated) worked towards making women both more financially AND socially independent. You really can't have one without the other, because the general population won't think their single daughter is fine if all the single women they know can barely survive.

But as divorce laws ease up and the possibilities for financial security increase, it becomes preferable to be single rather than have a really terrible husband.

The rise in the availability of birth control helps with both the financial and social sides of this too, so that the chances of an accidental pregnancy wouldn't lead to a agreed-upon but non-ideal marriage.

And though this is a smaller-percentage problem, the gay rights movement gave more men and women the option of having long-term relationships with whatever gender they pleased, which I'm sure has lead to a decrease in the number of love-free but convenient marriages (though the stats on that are obviously going to be pretty hazy).

All these changes lead to one major change in women's options: being unmarried is no longer the worst thing to be.

And since the 60's I think a lot of the changes have been more generational. I was born in 1979, after Title IX and Roe v. Wade were pretty well entrenched. And I was born in Connecticut, whose governor at the time was the first woman to be elected to that post. I've taken women's studies classes, and I've gotten peeved with them, because so much of what my professor (who'd been smack-dab in the middle of the women's movement) described as happening around women was just stuff I could not connect with. I'd never been told that my gender was a barrier to anything I was interested in. I never thought marriage would be the end of my career. I'm a rarity in my engineering field but have almost never felt singled out due to gender--class, definitely, and being the only American in the room, sometimes, but never gender.

And so for me, and women of my generation, there's little incentive to get into a long-term relationship with someone that we don't really, really like. And I think that finding someone like that becomes more difficult if you're a (for lack of a better word) "high quality woman". A young woman, reasonably attractive, college-educated (or beyond), who has strong opinions, likes to travel, has no major credit-card debt, and makes a good living, has no reason to spend lots of time in bars hoping a soul mate will come along. It doesn't mean she wouldn't like it to happen but it's not a barrier to a happy life. When I was talking to my mom, I mentally ran through a list of people I've met that I would have considered dating were there no J. That list is short. The list of people I would have considered bringing home to meet the family is *very* short. And I can't think of anyone I'd remotely want to marry.

I think this is something that financially stable women of my age understand. Women born before the women's rights movement don't necessarily have that same intuitive feeling, and look at a fine young woman and think "I wonder why she's not seeing anyone seriously? She's quite a catch, lots of men would be happy to have her." (ps, I'm not talking about my mom, here, she was just the one who got to listen to my rant. She knows all about the relative value of being able to do whatever you like.)

The trick is that while many men may be happy to have a "high-quality woman", she's not happy to have that many men. She's looking for HER "catch", too, and would rather have a fulfilling single life than be with someone that would make her life less fulfilling.

So I'm almost done thinking about pi, I swear:

Apple pi. I made it this weekend, after going apple picking and coming home with approximately 4.7 gajillion apples. It came out really nice. (Confidential to Erin: it's especially good for breakfast, a la Farmer Boy.)

And, Fillyjonk's headwear interpretation of pi. Sweet. I actually wore my pi hat today because it was chilly. I almost instantly forgot it was goofy.
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In other news, I've been thinking:

x=1/y

Where x= the amount of personality I invest in an average moment, and y=the amount of stuff I get done. It's too bad my personality is the not-getting-anything-done variety, but there you are.

As y is going to need to get large in the near future (I have a graduation schedule now. Meep!), I have to dial back the x a bit. So things may get a little more temperate here. I'll still post, just... more calmly.

Someone posted their adorable version of the GIR pattern on LJ today.

My site stats went explodeyboom, but also it reminded me that one of these days I should put together the list of links I have to other folks' versions of patterns I've posted. There's a good number--not a ton, but a good number.


The woman that sold me my wheel included a quart-sized plastic bag with a bunch of fun little bits of fiber. These three were from some hand-dyed top (not sure if she dyed it or not). There's only 15-20 yards apiece, but it was fun to see how these things go together, since I've mostly stuck with natural colors. I did them all on the spindle and used the Andean bracelet-plying method, because there was such a small amount.

The bright green one is going to be the top cord-thing for the Sugar On Snow hat. I'm working on spinning some alpaca I have for the main body of it. The alpaca is gorgeous--a dark charcoal color with a few lighter strands running through. It took me a while to get the hang of spinning it, though, because it's just SO slippery. Also, I'm trying to spin it thickly enough to be heavier than worsted weight as a 3-ply, since the hat is knit on 9's. After spending a year exclusively trying to spin very finely, experimenting with other styles is pretty difficult.

What's been working for me is to spin very slowly, checking the twist obsessively until I've been spinning for at least 10 minutes and am sure I have the hang of it (basically, if I'm getting bored with checking I'm probably spinning consistently). To prevent myself from getting completely covered with flyaway fluff, I took the heavy plastic bag the fiber was being stored and and laid it over my lap.

Although the fiber is very fine, I think the staple length is long enough that it does well as a thick single (thick for me, it's *maybe* sportweight in the thickest spots). I did a little 2,3, and 4-ply sample, and it looks great--not very springy, because there's so little crimp, but very silky and cozy. I've got half a bobbin filled, and have been going back and forth between it and some very fine spinning. The alpaca actually takes more concentration, so the fine stuff is my zone-out work.

And speaking of pi, anyone who wants to get me a gift should know that I think this plate is amazing.

A pi-themed hat, a new pattern I made up.




A shot of the top, which amuses me a lot. Something about rotational symmetry is always extra satisfying to me.

Anyways, it was a blast to design and make. There are certain things, like this and the brainslug, which just seem right the second I think of them. And that's the point at which they're so easy it's like drawing a doodle, but with yarn.

There are a few more construction details I put in a Livejournal entry. Enjoy.


The pattern.


The FO.


The inevitable goofing.


The remaining yarn (after ripping out the gauge swatch, even.)

Yarn: Classic Elite Flash, a worsted weight, mercerized cotton. Almost *exactly* 1300 yards.

Pattern: Bernat Raglans (Book #97), Style 4021-97, copyright 1961. It's pretty easy to find on eBay. There's about 15 patterns, 1/4 childrens', 1/4 mens', 1/2 womens, and I'd say almost all of them would look fine today with only minor changes (like changing the color or shortening the collar), though the sizes don't run beyond a modern small to medium/large (not even a large, really). I got it from a friend of my mom's.

Notes: This was the first time I'd done much from a vintage pattern, and I really liked the setup. I didn't find it difficult but a beginning knitter may have; there was an amazingly small amount of handholding. For example, the sleeve instructions said to increase every inch or so, instead of a particular number, and for the neckline, they listed the number of stitches to work but without saying how many stitches should be picked up along each side, as it usually goes in modern patterns. I enjoyed that level of independence, though.

I didn't make any real changes to the pattern, just a slight decrease in sleeve length, and I didn't do the multicolor thing at the neck.

I worked on this almost exclusively in September, and it took me exactly 3 weeks. It made me realize how fast things can go when I *do* work on one project exclusively. So I might try that more often, when it's something that I can knit on the bus.

I'm really pleased with how it came out. J seems happy too, it fits well, and is nice and clean. Victory!