If you're cold, put on a hat!

(Not to contradict Brenda's wise tag line. I've just been a bit hat crazy lately.)

I have a lot of catch-up to do. I'm ashamed of how long ago I finished some of the hats in this post, but let's just say that I've been doing a thorough test-drive of some of them before blogging. You know, just in case...

I'll start out with the hats knit from yarn I bought, and then go on to hats knit from yarn I spun, along with information about the handspun. Thank the Fiber Goddess for Ravelry, which has become my supplemental fiber brain. At least I'm a bit better about putting information in there than I am about blogging in a timely matter, so that something is recorded somewhere when it's time to blog!







This is the Peek-a-Boo Cloche by Mona Schmidt, from the book Lace Style. The original pattern calls for a sportweight yarn (one of the Louet yarns, maybe?), but when I decided to knit this the colors of leftover Knitpicks Palette sitting in the drawer (from the Fair Isle with Vertical Stripes, from oh so long ago) were calling to me. Palette is a fingering weight, and not a very robust fingering weight at that, but I decided to give it a try. The lining of the hat is knit first, from the top down, so I figured that I'd know fairly quickly whether the yarn would work, and if I'd have to alter the pattern for a vastly different gauge. My head is on the small side, so I had a good feeling about the project, and it turned out that it worked just fine, without any size alterations. The hat is just the right size for my small head, but I wouldn't want the hat to be any smaller. (So copy me at your own risk!)






This is Habitat, by Jared Flood. (I always want to say that it was designed by Franklin Habit. Yes, I know all knitting men are not the same person.) I wish I had a better photo of it, but the light was just not cooperating that day, and I haven't had a chance to get a better shot. Which is a shame, because Alex wears it a lot. It was a birthday gift 2 months ago, and I'm delighted with how often he wears it, and how much he seems to like it.

The yarn is Harrisville Highland, leftover from Alex's Cobblestone sweater, which he also wears often enough to make me very happy. Maybe it's lucky yarn, or maybe I'm getting better at knitting things to match his size and taste. (I wear the Rhapsody in Brown sweater more often than he does. It's a bit tight on him, and I can't seem to get a more severe blocking to take. It's a little big on me, but in that just perfect way that makes it incredibly cozy.)



And now onto the handspun. This first hat was quite the bargain. I bought the fiber at New Hampshire Sheep & Wool last May, and only paid $8 for the 4 oz. I believe it's Ashland Bay top, but I didn't realize it at the time. It's not a bad thing, though I feel a bit silly in retrospect, buying such widely available commercially prepped top at a local fiber event. It's 100% merino, and I carded it into rolags before spinning. I found that the fiber was a bit flat at first, and a couple of people suggested that I steam it, to put some life back into it, and re-awaken its merino crimp. That did help, and I was delighted with the soft, fluffy, and lofty yarn that resulted.



As you can see, and as I think I mentioned in a previous post with yarn spun in a similar way (commercial top carded into rolags), you don't get a perfectly even yarn when you spin longdraw. Especially when it's from rolags, where the fibers are all jumbled together in a chaotic swirl. But I'm learning that knitted fabric can be very forgiving, and that most of the unevenness in yarns like this disappear when you knit them up. It's kind of magical, and only encourages me to spin longdraw more often. I hope seeing hats made from uneven woolen spun yarn gives some of you confidence to try it out, too.

The yarn is a 3 ply DK weight, 13 WPI, 105 grams, and 342 yards.



The hat is Shedir, by Jenna Wilson, from the Fall 2004 edition of Knitty. I wasn't sure at first that the yarn would work with this pattern, because such delicate crosses would seem to require the most perfect and even of yarns, to avoid getting lost in the texture of the yarn. But it turns out that slightly uneven handspun works well, too. The cables probably would have popped more if I used a worsted spun yarn, which would be smoother. But I like the subtle and soft look that the woolen yarn gives to the hat. This is my favorite hat, and I honestly can hardly believe that I made it from scratch.



These last two hats are also knit from handspun rolags. These rolags are from washed corriedale locks that I bought from Julie (jsandell on Ravelry) a while ago. Having worked with other corriedale since then, and having discussed the nature of these particular locks with her, I think I've come to the conclusion that this is not typical corriedale. In some ways it behaved more like a longwool would, in that it wasn't as crimpy, and had a very smooth feel to it. In retrospect, it was not the ideal fiber for rolags, since I've found that I prefer rolags and longdraw spinning with very crimpy fibers. But I made it work, and enjoyed the experience.



That is about 550 yards of a 3 ply, 9 WPI yarn. It was all spun longdraw from the rolags, and wasn't quite as even as it looked. I don't think it was as even as the merino I spun up for the hat. Next, I dyed it:




This was my first (and only, so far) experience dyeing anything, and I was happy with the results. It turned out darker than what I was going for, but I think the yarn was just perfect this way, so it was a happy accident.

I knit two hats with the yarn. The first hat was too big for the intended recipient, and the hat would just not shrink, no matter what I did to it. A very strange corriedale, indeed, as I'd expect most corriedale to full easily if given the opportunity. I think it was the relative lack of crimp in the yarn.



This too-large hat is from Jared Flood's Turn A Square pattern. It's a beautiful hat (if I may toot my own horn), and I'm sure I'll be able to find someplace to donate it. Heck, I know it won't felt in the wash, so I bet that even charities that don't usually take wool (because of felting fears) could make good use of it!

I decided that my second try at a hat for Jan would not only be on smaller needles with slightly fewer stitches, but would also incorporate more of a ribbing-based pattern, for optimal fit flexibility. I decided on the spindle stitch pattern from Charlene Schurch's book More Sensational Knitted Socks.



The hat fits her perfectly.


I do have one other hat that I've knit in the past few months, but I'm not blogging about that yet. That hat was also knit from fiber that I prepped (on combs) and spun myself, and uses a beautiful Barbara Walker stitch pattern. I did a ton of work designing a way to decrease the top of the hat in an unusual and interesting way that flows out of the intricate stitch pattern, and am probably going to submit the pattern to the Twist collective, for consideration for their Fall issue. Writing up that proposal is on my to-do list for this long weekend. I really wish I could share the photos with you, because I am immensely proud of the hat. This one was also for a co-worker (a Secret Santa gift), and luckily fit her perfectly on the first try. More on that another time, I suppose.


My spinning wheel has been incredibly busy so far this year. I have finished spinning the yarn for a sweater. That's how busy. More on that soon, I hope.


Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Sophie was born the day after my last post, and is indeed an extraordinary little person. She has beautiful red hair and at least one dimple, and is so incredibly charming in photos that I fear I may be bowled completely over when I get to meet her in person. To my delight, the sweaters are a bit big on her, which means she gets to grow into them and wear them that much longer.

Snow Day

It's my birthday, and the wintry mix outside meant that I got home from work early. What a treat! (I do enjoy work, but I also welcome surprise birthday early closings.)

As I wrote a few days ago, I have a long backlog of projects to share with you guys. But since this is a special day for me all around, I'm going to temporarily skip over the stuff that's done and write a bit about my two long-term ongoing projects, both of which I find quite pleasing and exciting.

I am delighted to be working on a sweater again, after a very long break from sweater knitting. Too long of a break, really. A few months ago I bought Lisa Lloyd's book A Fine Fleece, and promptly fell in love with just about every project in the book. It's a fantastically beautiful book, and everyone reading this should buy a copy. Immediately. (And if times are tight and you can't afford to splurge on a book, go look for it at your local library.) The idea behind the book is to provide knitters who spin with patterns for their own handspun. Each of the projects in the book (most of which are sweaters) are knit in both a commercially available yarn and a handspun yarn. The projects are tasteful and wearable, and full of just the right amount of texture. I have chosen, as my first project from the book, the Staghorn aran. I'm knitting it out of Cascade 220 Heathers, in the Sapphire color. Here's an old photo of the back, about halfway done:



I just finished the back, and have started on the front. Arans take a long time to knit, with all of those cables, but I'm not yet bored or tired of knitting on this sweater. And best of all, it should be done in time for there to still be cold weather here in New Hampshire. Here's an artsy detail shot:



Really, this book deserves a more thorough review, because it is that good. But I don't have the book in front of me, and I admit that I haven't read through all of the text yet, because I still haven't finished completely drinking in all of the patterns and the pattern photos. But it is rare for me to find a pattern book where I am so gaga over so many of the patterns. I can be very picky. And, well, I pick this book. It's probably my favorite pattern book, and that's saying a lot.


I did feel a little bad that my first sweater from the book was in millspun yarn. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with millspun yarn, but it seemed a shame to have this book full of information about how to best use my handspun for a beautiful sweater, and to be taking the easy way out. But then Amy started the January '09 quarterly spin along in the Spinner Central group on Ravelry, and I knew my sweater's time had come. The goal of the spin along is to spin yarn for a cabled sweater during the first 3 months of 2009. I had all that beautiful corriedale that I washed, and decided to jump right in.

I'm not being as thorough about my yarn planning as many of the other participants of the spin along. I haven't chosen a sweater pattern, and don't plan to until my yarn is done. I am letting the fiber be what it wants to be, and will figure out what the yarn is best suited to later. I did know that I'd want to spin a 3 ply yarn, which is ideal for showing off texture, and I did a small sampling before starting to spin in earnest, just to make sure I liked the yarn I was making.

I'm working with combed top, which I have made myself. Actually, I've probably only combed about 1/3 of the fiber, so I'll have to take some spinning breaks to get the rest done. Here is a photo of just a bit of my combed top:



Isn't it heavenly! Spinning with hand combed top is much different than spinning with commercially prepped top. It is lighter and fluffier, and much easier for me to draft. I often pre-draft commercially prepped top, at least a little bit, because I find it unpleasant to work with very densely packed fiber. It would never even occur me to pre-draft my hand combed top. It is perfect as-is. I honestly wish I could send every spinner in the world a little muffin of combed top, so they could experience it first-hand.

I finished my first bobbin a few days ago. Here it is, in all its glory:




I'm not sure how many bobbins I'll have in the end. I estimated 9, but it's hard to tell, because I honestly don't know how much fiber I have. I think I bought 3.5 pounds, but that was before it was scoured. It loses weight in scouring, and then there is a lot of combing waste. It might turn out to be a bit less than 9, but at the moment I really don't care. Mostly, I'm enjoying the spinning. I was concerned that I would get bored spinning this much white fiber, and while there's still plenty of time to get bored with the project, I'm cautiously optimistic. Most of my spinning projects are only 4 oz, total. Yet this first bobbin felt like a beginning, not an end. I'm about 2/3 of the way through my second bobbin, and I'm still very excited about the project. No boredom, yet!

In case you're interested in some technical info., I'm spinning my singles to match up to the 28 wraps per inch line on my spinner's control card. I don't find my spinner's control card to to be that accurate (I usually get a different wpi than it says I should for a given thickness of yarn), but that doesn't matter much. All I need to know is that my singles should match that particular line, so I can periodically check to make sure my singles are fairly consistent. I have three kinds of bobbins: the regular Schacht bobbins, WooLee Winder bobbins, and high speed Schacht bobbins. I plan to only spin on my regular Schacht bobbins, and re-wind all of my bobbins onto other bobbins for storage. I'll probably ply on my WooLee Winder bobbins.

I don't know if I'll be keeping the yarn white, or if I'll dye it. The idea of a white sweater makes me a little nervous (I'm not good at keeping clothing stain-free), but I'm not sure if I could dye a sweater's worth of yarn evenly, and I don't like the idea of having to alternate skeins every few rows of a knitting project. I probably should have dyed the fiber before I combed it, but it's too late for that. And I'm very reluctant to dye my combed top, because I suspect that it would lose a lot of its airiness if I did.



That's my exciting new stuff. I hope you all are also delving into exciting new things at the beginning of this new year. Or at the very least, enjoying the not so new things you may be working on.

You are in for a treat.

You are in for a treat, because I haven't blogged for 5 weeks, but I have continued to make things. Yesterday I flipped through my Flickr photos, and made a list of all the things I have yet to blog about. There is so much to share! Some of it still needs to be photographed, which is very hard for me to do in the winter, because I need to count on having a clear day with good sunlight on a weekend day. But I'm getting there, and am going to kick off what I hope will be a collection of somewhat more frequent catch-up posts with some plain old spinning. Yarn I've made, not attached to a specific project, not necessarily with an interesting background story or tales of techniques learned. Just some good old fashioned handspun.


Glowing and Squishy





The last of my small Hello Yarn fiber stash, this beautiful skein is Wensleydale Singles, in the Illuminated colorway. About 9 wpi, 116 g., and 202 yd., I'm thinking it will be great in a simple roll brim stockinette hat. It's very loosely spun, though I achieved that effect by running it back through the spinning wheel in the opposite direction, to take out some of the twist I put in when I first spun it. Worked like a charm! I haven't really thought much about this yarn since I spun it, but writing this up, I'm tempted to cast on for that hat today... perhaps even without swatching. Wild and crazy, I know.



This is the Yarn That Never Ends
(It just went on and on, my friends.)





This is green merino, dyed by Crazy Monkey. I bought 8 oz. of it on a whim, and started spinning it on a whim. For some reason, finishing this spinning project felt like pulling teeth. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the fiber. It was all me. But it's done, and while it's not nearly my favorite yarn, ever, I think it will make great knee highs some day.

I admit, at one point I got so bored spinning it that I decided to spin some of it long draw, from the fold. Which is only a problem because that's not how most of it is spun, so obviously I had given up on any hope of getting a very uniform yarn. But at least it was a fun learning opportunity, bundled up in an inexplicably boring project. It is 17.5 wpi untensioned, 22.5 wpi tensioned, and feels like a heavy fingering weight. The skeins are not equal in size, but total up to 195 grams and 812 yards. More than enough for knee highs!



Yellow Is The Cure





I was feeling in a bit of a spinning slump, and the cure was to pull this Spunky Eclectic BFL top out of one of my fiber drawers. It had been a very long time since I spun with BFL, and I honestly don't know what I was waiting for. I still love the fiber, and the moment I started spinning it, I was already dreaming up the sweater I would knit out of handspun BFL, one day.

The yarn is a 3 ply light worsted weight, 12 wpi, 111 g., 178 yards. I was thinking of knitting a Koolhaas hat with it, though I'm not sure if the colors are too variegated for that. I might just start it, and then continue in plain ribbing (instead of the twisted stitch pattern) if it seems like that would be best.

For the record, the handspun BFL sweater I am dreaming of is in the Spunky Eclectic redwood colorway, and mostly stockinette. Perhaps turned hems, maybe using EZ's Seamless Hybrid pattern as a starting point? BFL tends to be fairly dense when spun up (at least the way I like to spin it) so something plain, without a lot of texture, seems to be the way to go. (Though I suspect there is also a natural colored, hand combed BFL sweater in my future. Grey or brown, with some cables here and there. Must keep my eye out for BFL fleeces this Spring...)



My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Stomach



I bought 4 oz. of beautiful hand dyed purple silk top from Julie Spins. It came in 2 ounce bundles, but I wanted more than that. The idea was to spin each bundle separately, and then ply them together for a 2 ply laceweight yarn.

I learned that spinning silk takes a lot of concentration. Julie's silk is gorgeous, but silk likes to fly away and bunch up and do all sorts of other things that wool doesn't tend to do. But the other good thing about silk is that a little goes a long way. I decided to stop after just short of 2 oz. I will ply this on itself, and I'm sure I'll have enough for something wonderful. The other 2+ ounces will sit around for a while, until I figure out what to do with it. At the moment, I'm thinking that it could be fun to blend with something. I bet a silk/wool blended batt would be easier to spin than straight silk. I don't have a drum carder, but I have been saving up pattern sale money for a while now, and perhaps I'll eventually use it (once I have enough, which could take a while) to buy a Strauch Petite. Or maybe I'll use it for heating fuel later this winter. We shall see!




Happy new year to everybody. It's nice to be back, and I just know that 2009 has to be better than 2008. (My year starts out with my birthday, then inauguration day, so things are looking up already!)

Five Things That Make Me Happy

1. The pooling thread on Ravelry. This thread is full of really interesting and often quite beautiful photos of pooling and flashing in knitted and crocheted projects. Not only is it an informational thread, where you can get a better idea of how certain yarns may act in certain kinds of projects, but it's just plain good eye candy. You'll be amazed at some of the stuff yarn does, seemingly all on its own. Now that I think about it, some of it is even kind of creepy...

2. The Yarnspinner's Tales podcast. This is an incredibly informative podcast, though it should come with a warning label, because I'm convinced that it was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of me learning how to process fiber. The first couple of episodes don't have the greatest sound quality, but it improves, and you should listen to all of them, anyway. If you have even the slightest interest in spinning and/or fiber processing, you should subscribe to this podcast immediately, and make sure to download and listen to all the back episodes.

3. Rolags and iMovie. I've learned how to make truly soft, squishy yarn. Fuzzy wuzzy cuddly yarn. And I also learned how to document it. Or rather, I documented it in the roughest of manners, using the built in camera on my MacBook, and doing the barest minimal in terms of editing. I made the rolags out of commercially prepped merino top, that was hand dyed by Freckleface Fibers. These videos show you how I did it:








(It's not really that loud when I card it. The mic picked up mostly the high pitched noises, which makes it sound like I'm mashing the teeth of the cards together. They lightly touch, but I'm not scraping or digging them into each other.)


And here's how I spun it:





And here is the lovely yarn:








366 yards
87 grams (after sampling, and not splitting it evenly)
13.5 wpi (DK weight)

This yarn is not as even as what I'd get with worsted / short forward draw. That's the nature of longdraw woolen spinning, and I'm at peace with that. Mostly. Actually, I didn't realize how comfortable I was with my technique and what I was producing until I made this video, because it forced me to stop scrutinizing every tiny detail of the yarn, and notice that I was mostly doing a great job, and mostly doing what I've see in other longdraw videos on YouTube. It was a great confidence booster, and I suggest video for everyone. It's really interesting to see your process from an outside angle.

I plan to do this a lot more in the future. Of course, it's a bit dangerous, because it's so quick. Doing short forward draw worsted style spinning, it's not too hard to keep up with knitting the stuff I'm spinning. Woolen spinning is so fast that I could never knit it as fast as I spin it. I admit, I've already been thinking about buying a pound of hand dyed merino top for a sweater. The yardage you get with woolen spinning is so great that that's all I'd need for something fairly plain, and maybe even for something with more texture. I LOVE this!


4. My stash. I love my stash because it's limited in size, yet has so much potential. There's some blue Cascade 220 for an aran, a couple of skeins of Noro for an awesome mitten design idea, a couple of skeins of mostly solid sock yarn, because that is somewhat of a staple yarn for me, and a whole bunch of handspun that is special because I made it. This is not a collection of stuff, but a collection of future endeavors and untapped creativity. It is a collection of potential energy, waiting to prance across my needles. The best kind of collection!



5. You guys. Thank you so much for the comments on my last post. I was a bit scared to post what I did, and almost immediatley had second thoughts about it after I did post it. I don't crave or even particularly want attention. At least not for negative things that none of us have any control over. The spirit and tone of your comments was absolutely perfect. Thank you all for not being too sappy, and for saying a lot of really intelligent things that made me smile, nod my head in agreement, and think a lot. This blog wouldn't be the same without the people who read it, and I'm not really a spiritual person, but I do feel that the energy of the readers makes a difference in a blog. At least for the person who is writing it. You guys have a great energy, great hearts, and great minds. I am a lucky blogger.

Gelukwensen!

Congratulations to wiscjennyann, who won the contest!

I am so glad that I decided to do a random drawing from the get-go, because it would have been awfully hard to choose my favorite contest entry from the bunch. You guys are a creative, ambitious group of people, and it was inspiring to read through your contest entries. Our lovely contest winner actually decided to write an entire blog post about her creative ambitions for the next year, and you all should read it. She writes very eloquently about why learning Dutch will be a creative process for her -- something which I really admire, because I've always found learning languages to be incredibly difficult. (And, uh, I hope the title of this post actually means "congratulations", and not something dirty or mean or weird. I'm trusting Yahoo Babelfish on this one...)





I have been working on two knitting projects as of late. Both of them are gifts. The first one is a Shetland Triangle (by Evelyn Clark), which is a birthday gift for a friend of my mom's. I'm knitting it on larger needles, in Reynolds Whiskey (a sportweight yarn), and it's going to be a beautiful and cozy fall and winter shawl.




I don't have photos of the actual knitting for my other project, but I do have photos of the handspun yarn:





The yarn is about a worsted weight, from a Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sheep 2 Shoe Kit. It's superwash merino, and chain (Navajo) plied. I don't have exact yardage or wpi counts, because I was in a hurry to cast on, and didn't bother. But I'm very happy with the yarn, and only used half of the kit, which means I have more of this lovely fiber to work with! (For the record, this kit was over weight. I'm guessing that my first kit being under weight was a fluke. And again, the fiber is really lovely, comes relatively uncompacted compared to other merino top I've bought, and in my experience so far is very color fast. I really love these kits.)

I'm about halfway done knitting a pair of legwarmers for an almost 4 year old little girl. She's the kind of little kid who I think would happily make such a fashion statement, and I can't wait to see photos of her in them. The legwarmers are very simple -- 2x2 ribbed tubes. They should be small enough to stay on her right now, but will definitely grow as she does. I tried the first one on, and while it's obviously short for my leg, it stretches to fit my calf. Talk about flexible sizing! I'm sure there will be modeled photos when she gets them, and I'll make sure to link to them for you. But more on this project when it's done.


I suppose that's all for now. I'm not sure if it will be in the next blog post or not, but I have been delving into fiber processing, and hope to write a blog post (or ten) about that. It will all be from a beginner's perspective, because I only got my hand carders this summer, and have yet to even receive my combs. But let me know if you have any questions, and I'll either try to answer them, or find links to answers. There are tons of great resources out there on the internet, and between blogs and youtube videos, I feel that I've received a pretty good beginner's education in how to use all of these funny looking tools.


time to knit...

handpainted

I was meaning to post earlier, but then we kinda sorta bought a house, and things got exciting. But now that we're moved in*, it seems like a good time to revisit the blog.

(* By "moved in", I mean the same thing some knitters do when they talk about a "FO" that hasn't been blocked, and still has ends hanging out. Boxes? What boxes?)

We spent a lot of time painting. Alex more-so than me. And we still have a bit left to do, in addition to some finishing I want to do on a built-in storage unit in my office closet. Things aren't all settled and in their place yet, and I don't have any photos of things as they are now, but I do have a couple of photos of my office, from when I just started to move into it. My office with beautiful, beautiful handpainted walls. (It's really too bad you can't use the crock pot method on walls...)





Okay, that second one was just a silly shot. But I love that oil lamp, and it goes so well with the walls. I find the blue very calming, and I'm quite pleased with the colors I chose. You can't tell all that much from the photos, but there are actually 2 different shades of blue on the walls. If you want to copy me (and I highly recommend it, because these are very, very good blues), I used Sherwin Williams paint in the colors "Honolulu Blue" and "True Blue".



I'm going to do a photo dump of other stuff I've been saving up, because it's just been waiting too long, and I need to get around to blogging about it!

First up is my first real longdraw project. I bought 4 oz. of rambouillet roving at the NH Sheep and Wool festival in May. When I say roving, I mean it. A lot of people (sometimes me, I admit) call commercially combed top "roving", but roving technically refers to a carded fiber. This stuff was roving, which made it ideal for that longdraw, woolen spinning.





This skein is 84 grams, 346 yards, and 16.5 wpi untensioned (20.5 wpi tensioned). It's a 3 ply, and I consider it about a sportweight. Notice the yardage! Now, I lost a lot of the singles because of some uneven spinning, and probably uneven splitting of the top. I had a lot of singles left on two of the bobbins, after the first one ran out. If this skein weighed 4 oz., it would have had about 450 yards, which sounds solidly like a fingering weight yarn. But thus is the magic of longdraw woolen spinning -- you tend to get more yardage for your buck, probably because the fibers aren't as densely packed in there, giving you a lighter, airier yarn, really stretching the yardage you can get from a given amount of fiber. I'd heard of this phenomenon, but I didn't quite believe it until I made it happen with my own two hands.

I have tried longdraw and other woolen techniques before, but I never had much success until working with this fiber. I think part of it is the fiber -- rambouillet is very crimpy, and seems well suited to "spinning without training wheels", which is what longdraw feels like. The prep was also important. While I've tried longdraw with drum carded merino batts, it didn't work really well, probably because merino is so fine that carding it doesn't really get it in the same jumbled up state as carding a fiber like rambuoillet. But this is only speculation. There might have also been a learning curve on my part.


My other somewhat recent finished spinning project is perhaps my favorite of my handspuns. (Though it's so hard to choose.) Practice really does help, because this yarn is chain plied (Navajo plied), and I feel that it was my best effort at that technique, to date.





The yarn is South African Fine wool, and was dyed by Adrian at Hello Yarn. It's 94 grams, 300 yards, and 20 wpi, for a fingering weight. Aren't those colors just amazing! I love Adrian's dyeing, and feel like it makes my yarns that much better. You all should try her stuff, though please don't jump in front of me in line when she opens her fiber club back up. ;-) (Really, her stuff is the only stuff I'll haunt to try to snatch up, as it sells out within minutes. Nothing else is worth it to me like her fiber is. And I promise she's not paying me to say this. It's just that pretty and unique.)

There's not much more to say about that yarn, partially because it's been so long since I've spun it, and partially because the colors temporarily shut off all parts of my brain not dedicated to "oooh.... pretty...." when I look at it. It will be socks. Possibly plain stockinette socks, so the colors can just do their thing, completely uninterrupted.


That will be it for now. There is still time to enter the contest (see previous post). I will take entries until at least the end of September 1, but if you feel like entering late, feel free. I'll probably just accept any entries that come before I get around to doing the drawing for the winner. I have some stuff (of the non-pleasant sort) going on for a lot of next week, so look for the entry announcing the winner (and probably some more knitting/spinning bloggy stuff) the weekend after this coming weekend. Maybe earlier, if next week goes better than planned.

And thank you to all of the people who have already entered. You guys have some awesome plans, and it's been a blast reading what you have to say.

Q&A, plying, new spinning, and CONTEST

This is a very long blog post, starting with some Q&A, including a large section on how I ply. If this stuff isn't interesting to you, scroll down for a spinning FO, as well as details for entering a contest for a skein of handspun.

I tend to star incoming emails that contain questions, and I apologize for the times I haven't gotten to them in a timely matter. Or, *gulp*, at all. Blogger doesn't allow me to reply directly to commenters, so things tend to get lost in the shuffle. But here's an attempt to answer some recent questions. I hope the information is still useful to those of you who asked, and not boring for those of you who didn't:

Auntiemichael asked about what WPI charts I find to be most realistic. The short answer is that I like the chart that came with my Nancy's Knit Knacks WPI tool. I don't find it to be perfect, but it's convenient, and pretty close to my idea of what a certain wpi means. Of course, everyone is different, and I think the best way to go about things is to spin a whole lot, do very accurate wpi measurements for everything, and then knit a lot of your handspun.

Segwyne flattered me by asking if I'd ever consider selling my handspun. I could go on and on about my very torn thoughts on this. The short answer is that I don't have any plans to sell my handspun on a regular basis, 1. because I spin too slowly, and 2. because I find the going range of rates for handspun to be dreadfully low, and wouldn't sell my hard work for that little money unless I really, really needed the money.

The long answer is that I would consider selling my handspun if I got faster at it, and if I felt there were an audience of potential buyers who would actually pay a much higher rate for it. I have very, very vaguely toyed with the idea of opening an Etsy shop, as my drawer of handspun has started to fill, and I realize that some of the perfectly good and pretty yarns I've spun might not be things I would adore knitting with. If I did this (a huge if), it would probably be sporadic -- I'd continue spinning for my own pleasure, and just sell things that turn out nicely, but not quite my style. For the moment, I'm very content giving beautiful but not-me yarn away to friends. And I have more friends who need some handspun before I'll really start to think about asking anyone to give me money for it.

Mel wants to know if my Francie sock pattern is toe up or cuff down. Sorry to say (for Mel's sake) that it's cuff down. My socks were to fit my 8.75" foot, and I used less than 3 oz. of the 4 oz. skein of smooshy, or somewhere in the ballpark of 340 yards. So if you're worried about running out of yarn, I recommend a yarn like smooshy, that has generous yardage!


Molly asked if I could give more information about how I ply. I don't currently have a good setup for taking photos or videos of my spinning or plying in action. What I have found to be very successful is careful use of my tensioned lazy Kate. Enough tension that the singles don't come off of it too quickly and get tangled, but not so much tension that I'm fighting with it. I want things to flow smoothly and steadily. This means adjusting the tension as you go, as you will need less tension as the bobbins empty.

Tension in the yarn coming off of the Kate gives me control. It makes the singles behave, as there is little to no slack to get into twisty, tangled trouble. For a 2 or 3 ply yarn, my strategy is to ply a section at a time, letting the twist build up until I like it, and then feeding that section smoothly onto the bobbin. This means strong intake, though not so strong that you are in a tug 'o war match with your wheel! So I tie the ends of the singles on to the loop of my leader, and let the twist build up in the leader, pinching it off, and then running my fingers smoothly up the singles. I have the singles threaded through separate fingers of my left hand, so they don't get in each others' way. The entire process, for me, is unrushed and controlled, and feels kind of like a worsted longdraw technique - my left hand, holding the singles, is back, and my right hand is pinching off, and allowing the twist to slowly go up the singles. I've found it's important to feed the newly plied sections at a moderate or slow speed onto the bobbin, or else things can get messy. Basically, just let the pull of the bobbin pull the newly plied yarn on, keeping a little tension on it so it doesn't fly out of control. This helps keep your bobbin neat, and helps the yarn wind on tightly, so you can fit more of it on the bobbin. Make sure to periodically check out the yarn on your bobbin, to make sure you like the amount of ply twist in it. Yarn can lose some ply twist as it goes onto the bobbin, so you may find that you want to slightly overply it, to compensate.


The technique I currently use for Navajo plying (or chain plying) is somewhat different. I do Navajo plying in two steps. My goal in the first step is simply to get the chains made, with minimal twist, and to get them neatly onto the bobbin. I use my largest whorl with fairly high takeup, so the twist introduced during phase one is minimal. This lets me concentrate on making good, neat chains, instead of fretting about both the chaining and the ply twist at the same time. Unlike a traditional 3 (or 2) ply, I keep my singles on my right, and control them with my right hand, leaving my left hand to control the twist. I do this because I find it easier to make the chains with my right hand. I treadle very slowly, not being afraid to stop treadling when I need to. (This is where having a responsive wheel that you are familiar with helps a lot. Practice stopping and starting on a dime, if you're not comfortable with it already.) My left hand is always controlling the twist, as you would do when spinning worsted singles. I make the chains as large as I comfortably can, without them getting messy, which means my chains aren't super long, but that the final yarn is nicer looking than if I tried to get the chains super big. The key is not letting two of the three "plies" (even though it's really a chained, twisted single, not a plied yarn) to twist around each other, without the third. You want all three "plies" to twist around each other together, not leaving the third one to have to twist around 2 already twisted plies, if that makes sense. I think this is the biggest problem area in Navajo plying, and is why I make my chains shorter than I used to, and why I keep tight control over the twist with my left hand.

When you have chained your singles yarn, and have it successfully wound onto the bobbin, you get to add your ply twist for real. Switch out bobbins, and simply feed the chained yarn through the wheel again, on a smaller whorl (faster ratio), controlling the twist as I described above for a 2 or 3 ply yarn. The chains are already made, and if things are properly tensioned, they should stay nice and neat. This is the boring, easy part. It's obviously more work to ply twice, but unless you're really, really good at this stuff, I think it's the only way to get a really neat chain plied yarn. Because chain plied yarn isn't as forgiving as a traditional 2 or 3 ply yarn, in that the ply twist can't really re-distribute itself beyond the chain it's in, I think it's really important to concentrate on making the plying as perfect as you can from the get-go. There just isn't as much wiggle room with this stuff. Of course, not everyone has the same standards for how they like they're plying to look, and I'm not trying to imply that everyone needs to strive for perfection. I'm just giving you my take on the matter.


I hope that was somewhat helpful, even without visuals. At some point this summer or fall I may try to get visuals to go along with all of that. I've tried to do stuff like this before, and it's really hard to get good photos or videos of your own knitting. But it could be a fun challenge! I also hope that it's not too repetitive -- I know that I've done my Navajo plying spiel at least a couple of times in a couple of different Ravelry groups, but I don't remember if I've done it on the blog. If you've seen it before, I trust that you skipped over it with ease.



And now on to the dessert. First, some more yarn I made:





This is a bamboo/merino blend named Spring Mix, from Muzzlepuffs, on Etsy.
400 yards, 111 grams 18wpi untensioned / 24 wpi tensioned

The mix wasn't all smooth going for me, though I got used to it eventually. It was a pretty good spinning experience, but I'll be more likely to go with merino/tencel in the future, when I want a shiny, silky merino blend. I'm not sure what this yarn will be, but I'm thinking a cowl/smoke ring of some sort. It's very soft yarn, and I think it will be nice to knit with.



And now on to the C. O. N. T. E. S. T.

As I mentioned above, I sometimes find myself with handspun that is perfectly lovely, but just not me. I have one such skein at the moment, don't have a friend I think it perfectly suits, and so might as well use it for a contest! (Not that my friends can't enter the contest -- I just don't think this particular yarn is destined for any particular person, and I prefer my yarn gifts to have a better fit with friends, if that's what I'm using them for.) First of all, the yarn, which you've seen before:



This is a chain plied fingering weight yarn, spun from superwash merino I bought from Crazymonkey, on Etsy. It is 110 grams, 382 yards, and 18 wpi (maybe a bit more). This yarn isn't perfect -- I was definitely still working on my chain plying technique at the beginning of the skein. But still, it's pretty darn nice. Just don't expect a perfect millspun yarn. It is handmade, after all. Here's another view of the yarn.

If you want the yarn, here's what you have to do: Tell me what you are planning (or at least hoping) to do to challenge yourself creatively in the next year. You don't have to have had anything in mind before now, as long as you come up with something that you honestly want to do, and think you honestly will at least try to do within the next year. And when I say creatively, I mean creatively. Stashbusting, and trying to knit a very large, complicated sweater straight from a pattern in a 2 week period is quite the knitting challenge, but I don't know that I consider that a creative challenge. When I say creative, I don't mean quantity, but I do mean quality. Tell me about something you want to design, or are designing. (Be cryptic, if necessary, if you plan on submitting it for publication!) Tell me about the perfect sweater pattern you are planning to completely rework, and why, and how. Tell me about the techniques you want to learn and experiment with. Tell me how you're going to explore, and expand your horizons, and challenge yourself to think and do differently than you have thunk and done before.

This doesn't need to be limited to the fiber arts, or to crafting. I love creativity and innovation, wherever it can be found. Scientists, tell me about the awesome new theory you want to test out, regardless of whether you think I'd understand it. Writers, tell me about the story you're submitting to a literary magazine. Musicians, tell me about your latest composition, or your foray into playing a genre of music completely outside your comfort zone.

Even better, blog about it, and tell me you did. (You do not have to link back to me -- I'm not looking for publicity. Of course, you are free to link to me if you wish. Just no bonus points for it.) I think that being public about your creative aspirations can only make them grow, and can help inspire others.

To enter, leave me a comment on this post. To keep things simple, I will only be counting comments left on this post as entries in the contest. (This does include comments that are links to *specific* blog posts of your own, where you have answered the challenge.) When you comment, please make sure there is a link back to your blog, so I know how to find you if you're the winner. If you don't have a blog, please leave a name that is sufficiently unique, so there is no confusion if you are the winner. I reserve the right to give "extra" entries to people whose answers I really, really like. But everyone who enters, following the above guidelines, will get at least one entry in the contest.

I am moving this month, so am going to keep the contest open until the end of the month. That way I'll be unpacked before I need to find the yarn and send it out. I'll choose winners on September 1, and will do it late enough in the day so that midnight, September 1 has had a chance to make a complete circuit of the globe. (In other words, enter by August 31 your time, and you're in.)

Walking On The Sun

superwash merino, dyed by Spunky Eclectic
104 grams 262 yards
17 wpi (untensioned), 23 wpi (tensioned)
plus a little bit of leftovers that I chain plied, not pictured

It's currently zipping along to California, to live with my friend Jen, who not only makes things with yarn, but who also makes music. (No, really, makes music. As in, dreams up wonderful things, then writes down notes that tell other people what to sing or play. Okay, it may be a bit more difficult and involved than I make it sound, but you get the picture. How cool is that!)



I have a few other things to show you guys, but I'm going to save them, and spread them out a bit. I've gone through a very long period of infrequent but very full blog posts, and am going to try out slightly (SLIGHTLY) more frequent but less full posts. Let's see how I like it!

I also feel like being a bit chatty today, so I'll try that out, too. Summer has really been wearing on me, for a variety of reasons, and I already have autumn on my mind. Aside from the normal stressful things about summer (namely that it's almost always too hot), some good stressful stuff (house buying!) and bad stressful stuff (health stuff) have me thinking a lot about life a few months from now, when the air will be crisp and cool, and the stressful stuff will be mostly behind me, leaving me to relax a bit more.

I have grand plans for the autumn and winter, few of which I'm sure will happen, because I always dream up more than I could do in the time-frame in which I want to do it. (It doesn't help that that time frame is often RIGHTNOW.) I have all of this great handspun that I am longing to see fulfill its destiny and turn into something other than stash drawer filler. (Really, all good yarns deserve to be more than stash drawer filler, don't they? One reason I don't stash a lot is because I find it mildly distressing to see all that great potential just sitting there, mostly hidden, not doing or being anything.) I have yarn for a sweater, and I long to knit a sweater. (RIGHTNOWRIGHTNOW of course!)

I'm also expanding my spinning horizons, and am working on my first longdraw project right now. And I have 8 oz. of washed corriedale, and a pair of hand carders on their way to me, in anticipation of taking my adventures in fiber one step closer to the sheep. Of course, the next step after that is buying a whole fleece, hand carding it, spinning it, and knitting up a sweater from it. And of course, that's probably a sweater I'd want to design.

And then there are the design ideas. I'm not actively working on anything right now (see above, re stress!), but have a few vague ideas I hope to get to eventually, and one thing that I just pitched to Amy Singer in an email, because I think it may be a good Knitty pattern. (Or set of patterns. But I shall say no more, in case she's interested!)

Basically, I want to be doing Big Things right now, but don't have the time or energy. But writing about them makes them all seem a bit more real, so thanks for indulging me. I also hope it gets you guys thinking about the Big Things you want to do, whether you plan to do them right away, this autumn, or even later. You don't have to spill the beans right now, but get thinking, because there may be a contest coming up for some handspun, and you just may have to divulge your deepest, darkest fiber fantasies and goals to me to enter. Just maybe. Stay tuned...

Did I do that?

In today's episode of Bowerbird Blogs, Rebekkah is full of herself. Her head is the size of a moderately large watermelon (seedless), and she is simultaneously incredulous that she actually made those things, and extraordinarily proud of her accomplishments. (But in all silly seriousness, sometimes I think the gnomes invade my house at night and use their gnomy magics to turn everything I make into something a thousand times better.)

First up is my very first pair of handspun socks:



I couldn't be more pleased with them. I blogged about the yarn before, and if you click on the photo, you will find links to the original photos in Flickr, with details about the yarn. In short, it's a 3 ply merino fingering weight, dyed by The Arts At Eagles Find, which is a shop on Etsy. I attempted to get the colors to match up in the plies, for perfect striping, and while that didn't happen, I adore the results.

The pattern is a non-pattern. 64 stitches, 2x2 ribbing, plain old slip stitch heelflap and gusset shaping, with a flat toe. It's my standard, basic sock pattern, and I think it was perfect for the yarn. The yarn is incredibly bouncy, and these socks hug my feet like no other socks I've knit before. They completely justify my habit of falling back on comfort spinning from time to time, which for me is spinning yarn exactly like the yarn I spun for these socks. (Not that comfort spinning is bad, but I like to use my crafts as an opportunity to learn and grow, in addition to relaxation and plain old enjoyment. But the comfort zone, and doing what I already know how to do with ease, can feel so good sometimes.)

Out of curiosity, is there any need or desire out there for a free writeup of my basic sock pattern? I know that there are tons of basic sock patterns out there, many mostly the same, but all of them probably slightly different. I don't know that my writeup of this sock "pattern" would add much to the mix, but I really like what I do, and if there is a desire for it, I could easily write up something for free download. Let me know in the comments if you're interested, and I'll add it to my to-do list. (And if there is no interest, just count this as part of the theme of this post: me being a bit too full of myself!)


Next in this tour of my inflated ego are the socks I knit for my mom:



They're not handspun, but they are my own pattern. I had hopes of giving handspun socks to my mom, but the yarn I originally had designated turned out to be too thick, so I went with millspun yarn instead. It's Socks That Rock lightweight, though I forget the name of the colorway. It works as a great substitute for the Smooshy, which is what the Francie pattern was originally designed with. My mom says they fit like a glove (or a sock!), so I'm quite pleased.


Another thing I'm proud of are my first successful laceweight singles:



This is 50/50 merino/tencel blend in the 1994 colorway, from Muzzlepuffs on Etsy. I learned that the trick (for me) when it comes to laceweight singles is to use a larger (slower) whorl than I'd use for similarly sized singles that I'd ply. Plying undoes some of the twist in the singles, so for a yarn that isn't going to be plied, you want something with less twist in it, to keep it under control. I have a potential disaster of a yarn that I may still be able to fix, and which I hope to eventually blog about. That yarn is overspun, but was a good learning experience in making this yarn.

I absolutely adored spinning this blend. I often find that I can't spin for a long period of time, because I'm prone to getting "yarn burn" in my fingertips. It just hurts to have the fiber running through my fingers for an extended period of time. I take frequent breaks, even with super soft merinos, but I could spin for a really long time with this blend. It just slipped through my fingers like magic. This yarn is going to be a small shawl for a friend, and I adored spinning this blend so much that I immediately went out and bought 8 oz. of another similar blend in pinks and reds, so I can spin for a full sized shawl for myself.

The yarn above is 108 grams, 816 yards, and about 32 wpi. I find it really difficult and tedious to do wpi counts for yarn this thin. And really, for yarns like this I don't think it's important. I mostly know that it's really thin, and that I'll determine needle size by swatching until I like the density I'm getting in stockinette. I've already started the shawl, but will post more about that in the future.

As an aside, I think the colorway name the dyer gave to the roving (1994) is absolutely perfect. I don't remember the exact wording of her reasoning, but I think she chose the name because the colors reminded her of the year 1994. I totally get it. They also remind me of 1994, and I'm not completely sure why. I don't know that I wore those colors all that much when I was 17, but it just fits. Are the dyer and I both on the same weird brain wave, or does that yarn remind anyone else of 1994? I'm really curious.


So that's the update on the stuff I've made recently that I'm overly proud of. I have a couple of handspun projects on the needles, but I'll wait until I have some updated photos of those to post about them here. But I have one more thing to be incredibly proud of. I have some awesome friends. Look at what Syne sent me:



That's her own hand-dyed handspun, one ply silk and one ply baby camel down. I'm not sure how much there is, but one of these days I'm going to re-skein it using a niddy noddy, so I can get a good count. I could only do a halfway decent job in capturing the richness and beauty of the colors in that photo. It's truly spectacular yarn. Syne has quite the talent for color, and I almost feel that I don't even need to knit up the yarn, because just staring at it as-is makes me incredibly happy.

tension

I write to you today from what I'm calling my temperate rainforest. A jungle right outside the windows of my newly put-together "office" space. If I ignore the asphalt out the windows to my left (one of which doesn't have a shade, yet), I look out onto a yard blanketed in green. There is the soothing sound of rain, and a flowering tree right outside my window, drooping from the combined weight of blossoms and water. I've had my little office space set up for a week now, and I can't get enough of it. I just thought you needed to know that.

On my new, beautiful desk, to my left, sit three skeins of yarn. I still find the idea of a millspun, storebought stash kind of boring, but opening up my handspun drawer is a remedy for the dreariest of moods. I made that! I think I always need to keep a skein or three of handspun on the desk, too.

The first skein is a colorful merino, made from fiber bought from Crazy Monkey Creations.





It's 110 grams, 382 yards, and an 18 wpi fingering weight yarn. Because of the bright, contrasting colors, I decided to Navajo ply the yarn. It was my first large-scale Navajo plying project on the wheel (I'd done a bunch of test runs with leftover singles, previously), and I learned a lot. I knew, going in, that my basic strategy was going to be one of divide and conquer. I was going to divide the plying process into three distinct steps: 1. make a chain or two, as long as I could reach, 2. get that chain onto the bobbin (and repeat steps 1 and 2, until...), 3. re-ply the bobbin, adding twist.

The logic of this divide and conquer technique is that Navajo plying can be complicated, and because of the way the chaining can prevent twist from truly spreading evenly across the length of a yarn, it's best to concentrate on twist separatly from plying. I decided, about halfway through the plying that dividing up the act of chaining and the act of treadling wasn't working for me. I was trying to chain too big, which meant I lost control over my work, and allowed twist to enter unevenly into the yarn. I think one of the big dangers with Navajo plying is having twist enter two of the three plies before the third ply is there, to get twisted up with the other two. This leads to a lumpy mess. (Or at least, a yarn that isn't as nice as it could be.) By trying to make really long chains, losing some of the tension on them, and then treadling them onto the bobbin, I was having this twist problem. I solved it by making smaller, more manageable chains with my right hand only, controlling the twist as well as I could with my left hand, and treadling as steadily as possible to keep tension on the strands, and keep them pulling onto the bobbin.

The key with my technique is to use the largest whorl you have, and set your wheel for strong uptake onto the bobbin. I want to call the first step "chain and wind", because any twist that enters the yarn is incidental. The point of that first step is to get your chains made, and to get the yarn safely onto the bobbin. The point of the second step is to add the twist. This way, you can concentrate more fully on each step, and hopefully get a neater result. I'm fairly pleased with the results for this yarn, but it could be improved. I learned that smaller, neater, and more controlled chains might be a better thing than large, messy, uncontrolled chains. I still made the chains as big as I could, but changed my definition of "could" from "as far as my arms can stretch" to "what I can keep under control".

I hope that explanation made sense. The technique works really well for me, now that I've worked out the kinks, and I think that some of the people out there who openly complain about the difficulty of Navajo plying well (with good reason!) might benefit from trying this divide and conquer technique.


My next Navajo plied yarn went much more smoothly.





This yarn was spun from Falklands roving, in the Zinnia colorway, from Fat Cat Knits. A photo of the pre-drafted roving can be found here, and two more photos of the finished yarn here and here.

This yarn was somewhat of a surprise. I knew from the outset that I wanted to Navajo ply, to maintain the gorgeous colors. I didn't split the roving at all before I spun it, to keep the runs of color as long and true as possible. In my head, I thought I'd go for a worsted weight yarn, and so I started spinning my singles for a worsted weight yarn -- a 2-ply worsted weight yarn. Whoops! In the end, my Navajo plied yarn is 121 grams 102 yards, and 9.5 wip untensioned (12.5 wpi tensioned), for a bulky weight yarn. I will explain that untensioned/tensioned thing when I discuss my next yarn, so keep on reading! It's not the yarn I expected to make, but it is downright gorgeous, and I'm very proud of it. It will make a smashing hat.


The third yarn I have for you today was actually spun before the Zinnia Falklands. It was a complete splurge purchase, from a dyer whose work I've been admiring for a while. I needed some easy as pie comfort knitting, and it's pink and purple wool, so I called it girly comfort yarn. While that does bring up connotations of women in flowing white dresses discussing how fresh they feel, I'm sticking with the name.







The fiber is merino, from Freckle Face Fibers. First of all, this was my favorite non-superwash merino, ever. It reminded me a lot of the superwash merino that came in my BMFA Sheep 2 Shoe kit. It was incredibly boucy, soft, and springy. She must get her merino from the happiest sheep in the world!

Because the wool was so bouncy, it surprised me a bit. I originally split the roving into three equal sized lumps, to make a fingering weight 3 ply. But when I did ply-back tests, I found that I had been unintentionally spinning it thicker than I wanted. As soon as it had a chance to fluff and breathe, during ply-back, it sproined out into something thicker than I expected. It was pretty clear that I was spinning singles appropriate for a 2-ply fingering weight, not a 3-ply, so I re-split the roving and went with that. In the end, I had 110 grams, and 372 yards, at 16 wpi (untensioned), and 22 wpi (tensioned).

So this whole tensioned/untensioned thing, huh? For those of you new to this stuff, wpi stands for "wraps per inch". It's basically a count of how many widths of your yarn will fit into an inch, or any other unit you choose to use. I try to do my wpi measurements untensioned, and lay the strands right next to each other, not making any effort to squeeze them in at all, but trying to get them right up next to each other, as closely as they naturally go. Another way to do a wpi count is under some tension. Looking at things like the wpi counts for yarns in the backs of issues of Interweave Knits, or even "suggested" wpi counts for different "weight" yarns on different wpi measurement tools, on Ravelry (whose counts I think are way out there!), and other places, it's obvious that different people are going to get different wpi counts for the same yarn. I think it's like gauge -- there may be an average gauge for yarn X with needles Y, but you've got to find out what your gauge is with yarn X and needles Y for the numbers to be of any use to you. Everyone will do their wraps a bit differently, and just like with gauge, there is always the temptation to "cheat" the numbers a bit, so you get what you think you "should" get, as opposed to seeing what the reality is.

It was the "girly comfort" yarn above that got me really wondering about tensioned vs. untensioned wpi. The yarn, untensioned, has fewer wpi than I'd expect for it. The wpi tell me that it's a sport weight, when I definitely think it will knit up as a fingering weight. Just looking at it on my desk (and I apologize that I don't have a photo with a coin or other small object for comparison, for you guys), I can buy that some people might call it a light sport weight. But I know it's a fingering weight at heart. Part of that has to do with its loft and bounce. The fiber I used was very lofty and bouncy, and the way I spun and plied it left it with a lot of loft and bounce. It's very stretchy, and you can see the diameter of the yarn get smaller if you take a length of it and stretch it taught. This is a good thing for a yarn! You knit it with some tension, and then watch it relax and bloom into place for a nice, firm, elastic fabric. Perfect for socks. But it leads me to believe that there is information to be gained from a tensioned wpi count, because it is under that tension when you knit it.

My tensioned wpi count for the girly comfort yarn is 22, which for me makes it a light fingering weight. How do I reconcile 16 and 22? I don't know, but I can tell you that I had some Socks That Rock lightweight sitting nearby as I did the wpi for this yarn, and according to the way I measure wpi, the STR was 16 wpi untensioned, and 22 wpi tensioned. (That thud you hear is the sound of my jaw hitting the floor!) This tells me that my yarn is very, very similar to STR lightweight, even though it is a 2 ply, and STR is a 3 ply. At the very least, they should be suitable for similar sized needles (though the ply number may affect that), and they are very similar in how stretchy and bouncy they are.

So while I haven't come to peace yet with exactly what untensioned vs. tensioned wpi means for determining a yarn's "weight", it does seem to be a good way to help compare it to commercial yarns. Presumably, the difference between tensioned and untensioned wpi says something about the yarn's stretch and bounce -- the bigger the difference, the sproingier the yarn. And I have a gut feeling that it's safer to call a 16/22 (untensioned/tensioned) wpi yarn a fingering weight yarn than it is to call a 16/18 wpi a fingering weight. I have a feeling the latter would definitely feel like a sport weight yarn. I wish I had the control over my spinning to make one, so I cound test it out, but I'm not there yet. (I suppose using a less crimpy fiber, with less ply, twist would be a start?)

I'm really into this untensioned/tensioned wpi thing (though I'm sick of typing it!), and plan to test this on my old yarns, as I knit them up. I think the second measurement adds a lot of info to the first, and may help explain why two yarns that appear to be the same thickness and yards per pound may act so differently. At a gut level, this is something I already realized. But it's taking numbers to get me to a higher level of understanding, as a spinner who really wants to know and understand what she's making! If you want, join in on the experiment, and start doing both untensioned and tensioned wpi measurements on your yarns, and even more importantly, start reporting them! While what you measure as 20 wpi may be a 18 wpi for me or a 22 wpi for someone else, I think what's important here is the relative measure between tensioned and untensioned. I'm officially starting a movement, so please join me!


(And for the sake of truthfulness, since I started composing this post a trip to Home Depot has been made, and the shade has been repaired and hung. If you still remember what that refers to, after reading through this entire post!)