DesigKnit

Sorry for the long silence. There have been some delays getting pictures off of cameras and onto the computer, and then some problems with life being busy and me not sitting down to write, and suddenly here we are with almost three weeks of news to share.

Not much has happened on the knitting front. I’m working on a pair of socks that I’ll show you next time they’re out and the camera is handy. I have finally gotten past the huge tangle that results when you block Misti Alpaca on the needles, rip out six inches, and expect to make a ball out of permanently crimped, felty alpaca yarn.  Thankfully we’re past that now, and the shawl is beginning to creep slowly toward actually being an active project again.

But spinning is where the action has been lately. I am making yarn way, way faster than I can use it.  I finally finished spindling the rainbow roving that I got in Germany. I plied it up a couple of weekends ago, and then hung it out to dry in the springtime sun.

I love the range of colors that I got from this fiber. All of the bright colors mixed gently at the transitions, making a smooth change from grass green to ocean blue to sunset. (Here’s what it looked like before spinning, just as a reminder).

And now:

I ended up with about 475 yds of fingering-to-DK weight yarn. I was hoping for a slightly finer yarn and more yardage, but decided to Navajo ply to keep the colors together. I have no idea what it will become. Right now, I am just petting it.

You may have noticed an improvement in the photos lately; Branden is back in his position of blog photographer, and is very happy to take 20 minutes to get the lighting and angles just right. It’s amazing what a good camera and a little patience will get you. He is also, of course, back in his position as full-time enabler, too.

On a possibly related note, I slipped and bought a new, lighter spindle a few weeks ago. I’ve been spinning up some of this:

It’s a merino/silk blend, and it’s currently looking like it will be a heavy laceweight. I have 2 oz. of fiber, so it should go quite a ways.

Unfortunately, all of this spindling was irritating my shoulder, which is already cranky from the bad ergonomics of my desk at work. I mentioned to Branden last Saturday that I kinda missed my wheel, and the enabler kicked in immediately (he’s been waiting for that moment of weakness for several months now, and didn’t hesitate for a second before jumping on the opportunity). On Sunday, we went to “look” at wheels again, and ended up bringing this one home:

It’s a Kromski Sonata. I liked it a lot the first time that we went looking, and it has stuck in my mind as the “right” wheel for the past few weeks.  I thought I wanted a Lendrum, so I was surprised that I liked the Kromski so much. There were some other wheels that I wanted to try before making any final decisions, so we’d put off the buying for a while longer. When we went back, I ended up at the Kromski again, and so it came home.

I’ve always spun double-drive rather than Scotch tension, and I missed the double drive when I wanted to transfer yarn from one bobbin to another*, but all of the folding wheels are Scotch-only, so that’s what I got. I’m still working on keeping enough tension on the yarn to avoid getting twists in the singles while winding onto the bobbin, but that will probably come with practice.

All in all, I’d say we’ve had a pretty productive first week:

That’s the blue faced leicester that I dyed with my leftover dyes just before leaving Seattle. I love the way the colors are working out, and I think I might just get laceweight this time, if I double- rather than triple-ply. I have 8 oz of fiber, so it should make a good amount of yarn for a project. I’m almost halfway through the spinning, though…I think I either need to slow down the yarn production, or increase the knitting!

*With a double drive you slip the drive band off of the flyer and onto the drive wheel, and then you can wind onto the bobbin without adding twist. There has to be some way to do this on Scotch tension…maybe if I just run the yarn through the orifice and keep minimal tension on it I can avoid adding twist??

I have been pretty successful at avoiding stash enhancement lately. There’s no particular reason, except that I have a lot of yarn, haven’t been doing as much knitting, and just don’t really need more.

But a couple of weekends ago, I did need more.

I bought one skein of bare (undyed) merino to round out my collection of yarn for dyeing.

Donna Brown was in Madison, and gave two full-day workshops on natural dyeing. I couldn’t make it to both (silly things like having a job got in the way…), but I did go to the weekend one, and it was a lot of fun.

First, we started out with silk and cotton fabric samplers:

And then, I played with yarn. This one is dip-dyed in Logwood, Brazilwood, and madder (left to right).

This is my favorite. It was also dip-dyed, in osage orange, brazilwood, and logwood. (Turns out that orange and purple make green…go figure.)

More logwood and osage orange. I wasn’t sure if I loved or hated this one when it came out of the dye bath. Turns out I love it.

Then, I tried some “tie-dyeing.” I had two skeins of laceweight, and I wanted a semi-solid color. I took the yarn, wound it tightly into skeins, and put it in the dye pot. After a few minutes, the outside of the skein was dyed, and the inside was still white. Then, I opened the skeins, and dyed them again for a very short time.

Logwood (again…can you tell I liked this one?)

And Lac.

I also tried some handpainting. This is the only skein I am disappointed with. The others were all immersion-dyed, and all took the dye really, really well. This one was a different brand (that one skein that I bought to add to the collection), and I steamed it to set the dye. I either didn’t do the steaming well, or the yarn was resistant to the mordant/dye for some unknown reason. So, unfortunately, these colors leak like crazy, and have faded significantly in the wash. The dyes, for the record, are Logwood, Fustic, Madder, and Pomegranate.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with this. I might try remordanting it and overdyeing, or I might leave it as is and let it bleed.

Since all but one of the skeins have been in the stash for about a year, this does not count as stash enhancement. More like stash conversion. But the end result is the same…I now have a lot more yarn to use!

I did notice that the yarn feels a tiny bit rougher after dyeing than it did at the beginning, and I think it leaves a small residue on my hands. I think this probably means that it just needs another long soak to finish washing out the alum mordant….it feels a little like your hair after a day in the ocean or a chlorine pool – a ,little dry, perhaps, but my guess is that another wash would take care of that.

Overall, I really liked the natural dyeing. We used natural dye extracts rather than the raw materials (the extracts come as fine powder, so it’s really just like working with synthetic acid dyes). They were simple and easy to use, with no stewing and steeping before the dyeing can begin. The only extra step was the mordant, and that was really no different than the usual “presoak” before dyeing.

I liked the fact that the dye bath actually exhausts and the water runs clear before you throw it down the sink. As someone that thinks daily about which chemicals are and aren’t safe to wash down the drain, I really, really hate throwing dye molecules down the sink. I can’t imagine what kinds of fines we’d get slapped with for doing that same thing in my lab across town, so I always cringe when I do it at home. Yes, I know that it’s about the scale of the waste – there’s a difference between telling a chemical lab that it’s ok to throw bleach or acetone (nail polish remover) down the drain and using it for household purposes – and the chemical dyes are reasonably safe, but still. I liked the fact that the water I threw out was clear.

I’m not sure where I stand on the “safety” of natural dyeing vs. dyeing with synthetic chemicals. I appreciate the tradition, I think it’s fascinating to get dye from everyday things, but I’m not sure that natural dyes are any safer. Nature produces the best poisons, so it’s hard to argue that natural is inherently safe. And, as a chemist, I recognize that many (if not most) of the synthetic dyes are either the same chemicals or closely related to their natural cousins. There’s a good reason for this…nature generally does a much better job of thinking up cool and complicated molecules than people do, and it’s a lot easier to copy and riff off of a natural product than it is to invent something entirely new. So, ambivalent about the safety thing.

On the whole, I like the process, and I like the results. I don’t think I will throw over my acid dyes completely in favor of their natural alternatives, but I can definitely say that natural dyes will make a welcome addition to my fiber toolbox. A glance at the teachers’ color cards is enough to convince me that the palette is anything but limited.

There’s going to be a bit of a frog party ’round here.

Why?

Because I have avoided the shawl for an entire week now rather than just pulling it out and working back through the join, and I am realizing just how silly it is to spend a whole week not knitting because I don’t feel like ripping back and working through the problem.

There’s no need for a week with no knitting. It’s two or three hours to rework the join, and only a little bit of recharting. All I need to do is stop pretending that I’m still undecided and just pull it out, already. So that’s what I’m going to do.

I also realized that the Kauni sweater needs to come out. I’ve been working on it here and there, in guild meetings and knit nights where lace is a little too complicated. Lately, I only knit on it when I don’t have a sock or anything else to work on. In short, I knit it when I’m desperate to knit on something, not when I want to work on this project. I took the sweater on the bus last week, and it hit me that I really just don’t want to knit it anymore. It has slowly slipped into the lost cause of not-fun knitting.

I think I’ve been avoiding the ripping just because there are lots (and lots, and lots) of stitches in this piece already. And, in principle, I still like it. I love the color, I like the stitch pattern, and it’s making a pretty nice fabric.   I’m not absolutely sure that the fit is working out, but it can be tweaked later. And I’d really like to finish a sweater. (It’s been a year since I finished the last sweater that I knit for myself. ) But I don’t want to finish this sweater, so its time has come.

I started a new sock this week. It’s been frogged and re-started three times now.

Seems to be a theme lately.

I’m actually looking forward to the frogging, despite the loss of stitches. I’m ready to be done with the things that aren’t working out, ready to clean the slate and start again on something I’m excited about. Maybe it’s the spring in the air, maybe it’s just my mood at the moment, but I’m ready for a fresh start.

I think it’s time to party!