Tilt-A-Whirl

My head is all over the place. I've been spinning and accumulating small bits of really good stuff. I think I might have enough Corriedale, spun fine and even, (that Corriedale spins NICELY for me!) for socks:

Can I hear a woo?  And also maybe a hoo?  (sorry, Cate)

And I started a sock:   Cute, eh?  But I don't love it. I don't know what it is about the color combo, because it really SHOULD go together, and I suppose it does, but it's not doin' it for me. I gotta feel the love, people. It's all I'm sayin'. I gotta feel the love. So I'm not doing anything rash like ripping it out just yet, but I'm going back to the drawing board spinning wheel to spin some more colors that might make me a happier camper.

And I started the red mittens with the lovely Portland that I had spun. See how pretty?  I love it. Scratchy as all hell, but I love it anyway. The color is OUTstanding. It'll be perfect for outerwear, and for the intended thrummed mittens. The thrums will be supersoft next to my hands, and I won't feel the scratchy Portland, but I will benefit from the warmth and the durability. HowEVAH.  Go back and look at the picture. Pretty, mm?  Yes. Very. Now take a look at how THIN it is. It's 2-ply that is thinner than fingering, or maybe about fingering-weight. TOO THIN for my mitten pattern. TOO THIN. So I did this:  (and if I've done something that is verboten in the spinning world, because I really have no idea what I'm doing, please don't tell me.)  I took the two plies, and I replied THEM together to get FOUR plies.  It came out looking like a tangled up pile of scratchy shit this:  Soooooo tightly spun, and STILL not overly thick, I'll tell ya. This might be WIRE, not yarn; I'm not sure.  I've washed it and it's hanging, drying under tension. Will I be able to use it?  For something other than scrubbing my pots and pans? *sigh*

I've got to loosen up. And I've got to learn to spin something that is not THREAD. Or learn to love lace a little more, I suppose.

So I got a little discouraged, after all that effort and time with so little to show for it. I also have got a little bit obsessed with hats. Go figure. This hat-hater decides she wants more hats. And I have a pattern for a really nice fishermen's rib hat that has a thick brim again, the thick brim that I've decided is ok for a pinhead, and I was trying to decide between June's gorgeous handspun in green and maybe something else. I was futzing around a bit and then saw the lovely skein of alpaca my Better Pal, Missa, sent me. I don't think there's enough yardage there to make a hat with a thick brim, so, I think, I'd better get online and order more from Missa. Then, this little bag of chocolate brown baby alpaca top that Jen of Spirit Trail sent me just flopped up on its back, out of the bin on the floor like a fish jumping out of an aquarium. Eureka! Let me see if I can spin this, to combine with the stuff from Missa, and maybe I can make a really pretty and super-soft hat that would suit me!  Well, ignore those two or three really fat bits you can see there, because they really are anomalies in this bobbin. Here it is, post-plying and pre-washing:

I slowed down the treadling a lot and concentrated really hard, to try to get it thicker and smoother. It was difficult, and time will tell if I was successful, but I think I did all right. I fear it's thicker than the sportweight stuff Missa sent, but even if it is a bit thick and thin, I'm going to use it anyway. It's just too special not to. But man, this spinning thing is challenging my circuits. Let's hope they don't BLOW.

Meanwhile, no hats were cast on. Mittens were cast on, knitted for a while, and ripped out. Socks were cast on and knitted for quite a long while, and they are abandoned. I totally forgot that I had the gift alpaca lace scarf in the car waiting to be worked on.  Kind of just feels like I was on the Tilt-A-Whirl all day yesterday.

Comments

[Kathy]

Woo-hoo! Beautiful stuff there, all of it. The weight is just perfect for some shetland lace or a light shawl. You know you want to knit lace, right? Everyone's doing it...

[Debi]

There are some fibers which I also can't seem to spin. One is a lovely pinkish roving that I purchased at Rhinebeck last year. Spun up on my wheel, no matter the ratio, it becomes a curly mess that has a life of it's own. But if I use a drop spindle, it spins perfectly. I've come to the conclusion that it's not me, it's the fiber! Well, okay, maybe it's my fault. A little...

Debi P.
www.wildandwoolyfibers.com

[Dave Daniels]

Hey, that all looks great. The 4-ply made me laugh, it looks like one of those art pieces that folks/young kids are making and calling "fiber art"...like a pile o' pasta. And I like the socks colors, olive, berry and yellow. Mmmm.

[Cassie]

WOW, Norma. Your spinning looks fantastic. All of it.

But really, if you think about it, gauge/yarn is always an issue. I can't count the number of times I've swatched and swatched for a pattern with storebought yarn struggling to find something that will work. If you're not interested in knitting with fingering weight, though, I do think its worth the slow-spinning time to work on spinning thicker.

The alpaca looks luscious.

[Gayle]

A double woooo & a triple hooooo to you!! Your yarn looks absolutely gorgeous! What a pleasure to knit something with luscious yarn you've made yourself!
My spinning (spindle only - I don't have a wheel) (yet) is slowly getting better. I told my husband yesterday that we have to get a sheep - that the only thing better than knitting with yarn I spun myself would be knitting with yarn I spun myself from my own sheep...
If the yarn won't work with your pattern - hunt up a new pattern. Or, swatch & gauge and convert your pattern to YOUR gauge (argh - math!! And it's ALGEBRA...)
Let us know how the 4-ply came out. I've been puzzled about 4-ply myself - is it 4 plies all plied at the same time, or 2 2-plies plied together? (Ply ply ply - now I've got "I'll ply away" humming away in the back of my head. Hallelujah, by & by...)

[Carole]

You're spinning stuff that's thinner than you want and I'm spinning stuff that's thicker than I want. Maybe if we get together we'll have the perfect homespun?

[Lola Lee]

Don't worry about spinning fine - i think it looks fine. And certainly, cabling 4-ply is allowed in spinning world. :) I've seen lovely yarn that were cable-plied. This should work out fine for your mittens. I tend to spin fine, which is fine for me since I like to knit at small gauge.

[Betsy]

Don't frog that sock! If you really can't stand it, start decreasing now like for your Dulaan hats and turn it into an instant preemie cap...and take it to Kaleidoscope so you can win the in store prize (leave the Internet prize for me :>))!
(Spent the weekend making preemie caps...it suddenly occured to me that I was making sock cuffs and then hat decreasing...).

[naomi]

The somewhat-thicker alpaca looks great! I'm especially impressed because I haven't been able to get my alpaca-silk to be anything thicker than thread.

[Chris]

When you plied the two plies together, you created a cabled yarn, a wonderful technique! Since it came out too tight, just send it back through the spinning wheel the opposite direction of the final ply twist and you'll take out the extra twist.

[margene]

Practice makes perfect and your doing plenty of that;-)

[Cara]

Wow Norma - want to come down here and teach me to spin? Look at you go!

[Kathleen]

The alpaca is fabulous!!

[Rachel H]

Woo! and indeed, Hoo! Your spinning looks fantastic! Look at you go! Wasn't it fairly recently, like just before Vermont S&W and Rhinebeck, that you absolutely weren't going to knit socks, and didn't think you could spin? Amazing what a couple of fibre festivals can do to a girl. Must get me to (at least) one of 'em next year... (what kind of wheel do you have, btw?)

[anj]

Some ideas for next time (I'll leave the spinning info from people who know what theya re talking about) you could have used 2 strands of the yarn and knit them at the same time making yourself a thicker yarn simply by knitting that way. Or you could ahve carried another yarn (one not so scratchy) like cascade 220.

And the socks you don't love?? I donated most of my first handspun knit projects to dulaan. I know you dulaan all the time, but perhaps this is another way...

But the spinning is going great!!!! I can't wait to see more. You've really got the bug.

[k]

We'll just start calling you Ariadne, and bowing at your feet. At least those of us who don't spin yet.
The socks? Maybe move the berry farther from the green, deeper into the yellow. Too many bouncies all together is making it look muddled.

[k]

We'll just start calling you Ariadne, and bowing at your feet. At least those of us who don't spin yet.
The socks? Maybe move the berry farther from the green, deeper into the yellow. Too many bouncies all together is making it look muddled.

[k]

And now I know how to get my posts to show up twice.

[rams]

Who is this Chris? I keep agreeing with her/him. I actually was going to uselessly ask if you'd plied in the same direction both times and gently and pointlessly suggest plying in the opposite direction the second time -- but simply running it through in the opposite direction is both good and doable. Go forth and reply (instant reply!)

[mamacate]

I'm going to have to Whoo* very loudly here. Look at that spinning. See, there was a spinning genius just locked up inside there. I'm so glad you let her out. Now when the socknitter finds her way out, well, look out world! It's all gorgeous. I've been ripping out old projects left and right, but it did occur to me that those colors might be more pleasing as mittens? Gloves?

*and, as an addendum, additionally: Hoo.

[Laurie]

Rams is right on. You would do cable plying if you followed her directions. It makes a way cool yarn that doesn't look like the picture.

I'm glad you are blazing the alpaca trail on a wheel. Now I can spin up my grey baby alpaca from Toni...after the Polwarth. Your singles are looking really really good. JudyJ and Cindy say that it is hard to go thicker once you have done thinner (stop that!) and I can see what they are saying. But it is possible.

[julia fc]

No problem in spining was ever solved by treadling faster.
When you ply, look at the fibers and make sure that they are laying parallel to the length of the yarn: that way, you won't over spin the two or the four ply. Scratchy can be a result of singles too stiffly spun in the first place. That can really effect the yarn, and turn a lovely fiber into twine. Slow down, like you say. Speed impresses only the amateurs.

[Sandy]

I seem to be able to spin only worsted weight stuff. Going too slow maybe? I have 3# of Corriedale that's been baa-ing at me from the corner now for 2 weeks. It's time to see what I can come up with.

Very nice work there, don't be so hard on yourself.

[Elaine]

Exquisite! Your spinning is fabulous, I love the chocolate brown baby alpaca - I can almost feel it's softness.

[Beth]

I think the colors of the sock will be fine. Color theory says that they should go together, but the pink should be an accent. Maybe do 60% yellow, 30% green and 10% pink, or something like that. I think the less-pink-is-more attitude will be good.

[Joan in Reno]

I was going to say just knit two strands together to get a larger guage, but Anj beat me to it. All those colors are gorgeous and the yarns look beautiful.

[Silvia]

I DO like the colors together! I like the jellybean quality. They'd be nice in the upcoming dead of winter!

[regina]

I have nothing original to add whatsoever, but I'm way impressed with your spinning, and I agree with everyone that the alpaca is gorgeous.come on down to new jersey anytime if you feel like giving some spinning lessons.

[Screwdriver Gib]

Nice balls, sweetpea. Talking to you in one window and commenting in another. What did we do before the internet??? Your spinning is amazing. We need to drink together more. xxoo

[Patti]

Gorgeous spinning. I like those colors together - I think maybe too much percentage of yellow is all?

[Jenn]

I like the color combination for the socks, too, but agree that the pattern isn't doing it. Argyle would be perfect, I think. Green and yellow diamonds with a little pink accent.