DesigKnit

It’s nice to take a moment to look at growing things. In the depths of winter, it is all too easy to forget that new life will return in the spring. This is the time of year when I start growing sprouts on the kitchen counter, both to supplement our winter diet of mostly root vegetables, and to remind myself that new life will spring up in no time, once given the chance.

In a week, those seeds will be tiny little green plants. It never ceases to amaze me.

I also take comfort the growth of my knitting. It may be cold, but a little fiber makes for cozy cuddling. Slowly but surely, Branden’s sweater is growing. (I’m really glad that I’ve had the spinning to distract you with while I work on this project; “I knit another 2 inches of stockinette” makes for boring blog posts.) I finished the two 25 inch long sleeves last week. They are long enough to wrap a cat in:

Doesn’t she look warm and happy?

The swatch is also growing. (Can you believe the bias in that feather and fan??)

It’s really interesting to compare the width along different sections of the swatch; I have only varied the stitch count by one (to switch from even to odd number of stitches), so that variation is almost entirely due to the difference in horizontal stretch of the patterns. (With the exception of the section just to the left of the feather and fan.)

As you suggested, I blocked the lacy section to see what I thought of it before continuing. Turns out that I was wrong about the stitch type; it’s a modified faggoting stitch (yo and k2tog), not a brioche (yo, k2tog, sl wyib). Just in case anyone was wondering.

I blocked it pretty severely, but this yarn has bounce, and it’s pulled back together again since the blocking. I like it for all the reasons that I stated before. The pattern works, but it doesn’t sing. I think this yarn can do better. So, I went back through the Walker books. Now that I have a better idea of the things I’m looking for in a pattern, I’ve narrowed it down to about 6 candidates.

Fluffy Brioche stitch:

Walker says that this is an especially light and airy brioche, and I have to agree. It’s a beautiful fabric, and keeps the drape that I liked in the faggoting pattern. I think I would go up a needle size, though; the ssk’s are hard to knit on these needles, and the fabric would benefit from being a tiny bit looser. I love the little “Y” shapes:

I also tried the Vertical Lace Trellis pattern, another yo-decrease mix (I really don’t like the word faggoting, though it is the technically correct term, and has no negative connotations in this context). I really like the zigzag texture on this one, but it is a very solid, stable fabric, without the drape that I liked in the others.

It shows off the yarn beautifully, though.

A side shot shows the pattern texture much better (same order as above):

From this angle, I think I like the last (fluffy brioche) the best.

I have 4 more patterns to try, but I ran out of yarn. I’m officially a third of the way through the handspun. The swatch is currently 21 inches long, so I should get a reasonable-length scarf out of three balls. I want it to be wider than it is currently, but the increased width will probably just account for the large amount of yarn used in the stockinette-dense sections.

Now, I need to go wind another ball so that I can keep swatching. (At this rate, I’ll be knitting this scarf at least twice…)

I’ve finally done it. I always look at fiber festival announcements and class lists, and I always think that it might be fun to go. I’m not a crowds-full-of-strangers person, and so it’s hard for me to be super-excited about a big room full of people, even if they are of fiber-inclined. Add to that the cost of classes and the (high) probability of stash enhancement, and my practical side usually steps in and talks me out of it. Sometimes I manage to think I’m going up until a few days before, but I always end up deciding not to go.

Of course, as my dissertation gets closer and closer to being done, I’m starting to realize that I won’t be here in a year, so many of the things that I’ve put off for “some other time” had better be done soon, or they won’t be done at all. And really, it is a shame not to take advantage of the large fiber community in Seattle. (I know, I should have been doing that all along. I tried for a while, but after 2 knitting groups that dissolved or just didn’t fit, I kinda gave up and went online.)

So, I just registered for Madrona. I even signed up for a class, and the banquet (so now I can’t back out at the last moment, as I usually do). I decided to pass on the “spin for lace” class, because my wheel is not of the portable variety, and I don’t really want to lug a full-size wheel around Tacoma in February. Too bad, though…it would have been fun.

Instead, I am taking an all-day class with Cat Bordhi. You have all heard me lament about the fact that I love handknit socks, but don’t like making them. So why, you ask, would I sign up for a 6 hour class on socks? Well, I figure that Cat is probably the person to get me over the lack-of-sock-love, if anyone can. Even if that fails, I still think she’ll be a fun person to think with.

Two weeks. Tacoma. A fiber festival. And maybe a new-found love of socks?

On Friday, I turned the BFL singles into this:

I was careful when spinning to keep the colors as separate as possible, so I have very long color repeats on each single. Since there were small variations in the amount of each color and the thickness of the yarn as I spun, the color changes don’t always line up, and so I get long sections where the three plies are different colors, as well as some where they are all the same. It’s definitely not the most even yarn I’ve spun, but it is pretty.

There’s a huge difference before (right) and after (left) setting the twist. For starters, the “after” yarn actually keeps the twist, instead of un-plying itself as the “before” yarn tends to do. It also blooms significantly in the bath, going from 12 wpi (before) to 9 wpi (after).

It’s interesting to compare the BFL and the Coopworth. I spun them both with the same method, from combed top. The Coopworth is a shorter staple, has much tighter crimp, and makes a very thick, fuzzy yarn. The BFL is a smoother wool, almost silky, with a long staple and long, loose crimp, and it keeps a lot of shine in the final yarn. I think it will have much better stitch definition, and I expect (much) less pilling from the BFL.

Of course, I wanted to play with the yarn once it was dry. The question is: what to knit with it? It’s still a heavy yarn, so it wants big needles. I love the look of a marled (barber pole) yarn, but I have a very hard time coming up with ways to knit it. Most patterns obliterate the twisted look, and it seems like that’s a special part of the yarn that’s worth keeping. Too much texture in the stitch pattern makes for a confused piece, because there’s already so much going on in the yarn itself. I also don’t have much yarn (~250 yds), so openwork would be good to help it go as far as possible.

I started out with a plain stockinette fabric, which I love. (This surprised me, as I usually feel that stockinette does not do justice to a marled yarn.)

I think I might like the reverse side even better. Unfortunately, a few inches of this dense fabric had already made a significant dent in the first ball of yarn, and I only have 3. Not a good sign.

So I added some holes to take up space. I like the braided look of the purl rows, but I don’t like the rigid columns of holes, and I didn’t think that this pattern really worked with the yarn.

So, I added even more holes, by trying a brioche-related stitch:

I like this because it preserves fairly long stretches of the yarn, so that I can actually see the details of the plying. On the other hand, there are so many long segments that it can look confused, and just generally too busy. I like this stitch better when it’s stretched out.

It feels wonderful, too. Since the yarn is loose and open, it really lets you feel the silky smoothness of the fiber. Still, I wanted this to be a warm, thick scarf, and the brioche is almost too open. I really like it, but I’m not sure it’s the perfect stitch. I wanted to see what else I could get out of the yarn. Next, I tried a feather and fan:

Visually, I think this stitch pattern works best with the yarn. From a distance, the brioche can just look tangled and random, but the feather and fan is a more solid pattern, and it keeps the purl-braids that I liked in pattern #2. The problem? It has serious bias. I was using only k2togs for decreases, so I think I could eliminate the bias issue by balancing out my decreases, though that usually isn’t necessary in this pattern. A slightly less tractable problem is that it also takes a lot more yarn (fewer yo’s means more yarn per square inch, and a much shorter piece).

Hmm.

Branden and I both agree that the brioche feels the best, but that the feather and fan looks better. The brioche might block out nicely, but I have a feeling that it won’t hold the blocking particularly well.

So, I’m not sure yet what to do with this yarn. It’s enough for a scarf, as long as it’s an open pattern. There may be some biasing (though it behaves as though it’s a well-balanced yarn in everything but the feather and fan), so a firm fabric is probably advisable, or at least a pattern that balances its increases and decreases. I dunno. What do you think? Keep swatching?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?

Jocelyn asked for a video of my spinning technique in the comments a few posts ago, so Branden and I took advantage of some rare sun last weekend to shoot a brief segment.

(I’ve had this whole post written and ready to go for a week, but we were having video compression issues. Sorry for the delay, but hopefully the problems are all sorted out now…)

Before I show it to you, I need to add the disclaimer that I am a new spinner, I don’t have formal training, and I don’t honestly know much about what I’m doing. I’m just playing with yarn, and doing what feels right to me. So, this isn’t a tutorial…go to more experienced people for that!

After reading a little more about drafting techniques on Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog, I think I am doing some kind of variation on an American supported longdraw.

When drafting, I just increase the length of my drafting zone at the same rate that I add twist, so that I have the same (low) twists per inch throughout the draw. When I finish the draw, I have to feed the yarn into the flyer slowly, because this is where I actually add the real twist. If I let it in too fast, I don’t have a stable yarn. If I want more twist, I just let it in more slowly.

The video is shot from the front, by the flyer, which makes it seem like your attention should be on my left hand, but it’s actually the right that’s doing all the work. The left is just there to pull against for drafting, and to keep the yarn from rubbing on the orifice while I do a right-side draw. All of the thickness control is done by the right hand, by varying how hard I hold the fiber, and how far back I am on the staple.

If there’s a dense spot in the top, I sometimes get a thick spot in my yarn, but there isn’t much twist in the longdraw, so it’s easy to pull thin again. This happens once about halfway through the video. To fix it, I just grab the two ends of the thick section, separated by about two staple lengths, and pull gently. If there’s too much twist to move the fibers, then I roll the ends between my fingers to let some of it back out again, and continue pulling until it’s the thickness I want.

So, that’s how I spin. How about you?