Back from Blogation ... see what kept me away

I'm sure there's a whole blog vocabulary out there - so here's one from me "blogation" i.e., blog vacation. Yep, I've been "gone" from my corner of the blogosphere -- so busy with shows & etc. What etcetera, you ask?

Thursday, there was the loading of this beast (a Patrick Green Jumbo Exotica 4-Way Carder, to be precise!)) onto a 16 foot moving van with its new owner (waves at Ruth!):


And the loading of the Patrick Green Powered Picker into my trailer:


In fact, my two neighbors helped me unload the picker from my trailer into my garage, not an hour ago! I'll be selling the picker and my Patrick Green Rover -- there's one interested party so far, but if you are interested, contact me and I'll let you know if it goes through or not. I'd prefer that they go as a pair, and I'm asking $14000 (okay, before you gulp -- new, the pieces would be $30000 -- so that's over half off, buying them used!) It's best if you personally come and pick them up, because crating and freighting charges can be really, really, really expensive.

ETA: The equipment has sold. Thanks for your interest!

Here's the Rover, front, right-hand side, and back views:





There just aren't enough hours in the day -- process wool? blog? order fun new spindles and fibers and tools and books? work on the website? fill orders (!yay!), catch up on bookkeeping? So for now it looks like it's just me and my supercarder -- if anyone has suggestions for a machine bigger than a supercarder, smaller than a rover, let me know -- I'd so love to keep processing wool, but the rover is just more than I need.

And thanks, I'm glad to be back too!

How do you stop yarn from slipping around the whorl?

When my top whorl spindles get full, even with a notch, at times the fiber (okay, usually wool, grin!) will slip out of the notch and slip around the whorl a bit.

These days I always use an X wind-on -- the cop stays more stable, and builds up a roughly football shape. This lets me wind down to the bottom of the football and then come straight up from the bottom, through the notch and through the hook. That lets me spin a bit longer.

When I wind on the next length, I unwind a little bit so it's winding on the fattest part of the cop rather than lengthening the cop by winding new yarn on to the bottom each time.

If I'm trying to stuff even more on, I might through a half hitch around the hook. Yep, you heard me -- on my top whorl spindle, I'll put a half hitch on the hook. Then I can stuff on another few yards.

Now, if the spindle doesn't have a notch, you could add one (ouch, I hear you say!). Okay,if you don't want to do that, another way to add a "yarn stop" is to start spinning (when the spindle is empty) by hooking the hook into the fiber supply, spinning a length, and then with that length on the hook, wind down, around the shaft, and then back up through the hook -- the first few inches then act as a natural yarn stop for the new yarn to rest against, stopping its tendency to unwind when the spindle is full.

Someone once suggested that I add a velcro dot (the side that things catch on) on the side, top, or underside of the whorl to hold onto the yarn as a notch-substitute (haven't tried that one, though).

(based on a post by me on spindlers, 11June07)

How do I ply set singles?

You can figure out how much twist singles yarn need if you decide to 2-ply them later, even if you've already set the twist in them.

Two ways:

First, with a short piece and a sink of warm water:

Take an 8" length your single that has had the twist set in it, fold it on itself and knot it together at the open end, and put it in a sink of warm water. "Milk" the folded yarn strand along its length so that as the yarn gyrates, it twists around itself along its length (plying in the warm water, basically). The warm water re-activates the twist in the yarn, twisting it along its length to show you how much plying twist this yarn wants to have a balanced 2-ply. Save this sample and compare your plying to it as you spin for a balanced ply.

Second, "just by looking" ... as you ply, look very closely at the singles. The plies are balanced when the fibers all run parallel to the length of the yarn. It takes _really_good_light_, really good eyes, or a magnifying glass to check this closely. If the yarn has some variegation, that can help, as you are looking for the curly twists of color to straighten out along the length once it is plied.

Note that your plied yarn will appear to be way over plied -- don't let that worry you! Just wash and set the twist as you did with the singles, and it should all come out balanced as long as you've matched up to your samples or watched the straightening of the singles' fiber as you went.

(from a post by me on spinningfiber/livejournal)

Happy Half-iversary!

Vicki on Simple Knits celebrated her 6-month anniversary -- wow! she has a great blog, I hadn't realized it was as new as mine (okay, 1 day older). So, here's to half-iversaries!

Now, I know June postings from the belle (that's me!) have been slim, it's just that being on the road twice this month -- packing and unpacking the shop 4 times (!!ouch, I hadn't thought of it that way!!) -- really puts a dent in my typing time and definitely puts a dent in my camera time!

Meet Anna Louise. This is our new-to-us 10yo kitty. She likes spindles. If she had opposable thumbs, she'd probably spin them herself, not just batt at the shaft when it gets within reach (grin).

Right now, I will simply tease you (and myself) with upcoming topics ... What's a Fiber Sandwich? What's Silk Salad? and How do you Needlefelt a Pin? If I run out of time, though, I'll be posting a few picture-less entries to keep the information flowing. Whew! That should see us well into July, along with getting back to working on thebellwether.biz, after Black Sheep Gathering ... see you there!

How do you wind on a Turkish Spindle?

You can wind onto a Turkish spindle however you like! But if you want advice, or need a pointer, then read on.

The goal is to make a tidy ball of yarn that keeps the spindle balanced and is ready for plying, storage, or skeining, as appropriate.

The really simple mantra I didn't learn for Turkish wind-on is: over 2, under 1. This isn't, topologically, speaking, a ball -- it's a ring. But, Wool Being Wool, it works -- the wool hangs onto strands below, and it all hangs together. It also has the nice feature of having a flat bottom, so it sits nicely and behaves while you're pulling the center out for 2-plying a center-pull ball.

Okay, but I didn't learn that. Instead, I used my childhood ball-winding skills. My mother still winds all her balls by hand, has never had a ball-winder or nostepinne and wouldn't use one if I gave it to her! She enjoys the rhythm of hand-winding a ball. Her balls are perfect, round orbs, not too tight and not too loose. It took me 40 years to make pastry anywhere close to flakey like hers. When I'm not spinning balls on my Turkish spindle, I use my ball winder!

Pictures being more concise, this is what I do:



I like this wind-on: left and right of the center pole, around and around, then change direction 90-degrees and go around and around that way for a while.

The bottom view (as you can see) looks the same as the top view.

And, I barber-pole my yarn up the shaft so I can thigh-roll my Turkish spindle if I want to, too ;-)

The completed yarn cake? Here you go:

Ahhh -- a full spindle -- oops, time to ply ;-)

My Turkish (a Spin-Dizzy Traveller), just emptied of its ball of yarn. I'd "just" ply this right back on but decided to spin another ball full and ply the two together, for a change.

By some odd quirk of fate, spindle and yarn-cake weigh in the same: both are 0.9 ounces.

Now, if someone can point me to an on-line survey tool, I'll fire up a survey -- until then, put your answer in a comment here or email me -- how do you wind onto your Turkish spindle? the ball shown here, the over-2/under-1, or some other way? Thanks for sharing!

Have you ever re-spun yarn?

A while ago I promised some news on my respinning project. And lately I keep running across other "re-spinnings". So, have you ever re-spun yarn? And would you like some ideas for that?

Quite often, I ply with thread; that's a repurposing of a commercial strand with handspun. And, it's fairly common.

Recently (okay, about a year ago) I "re-purposed" some 3-year-old (bought for the purpose, though!) loosely plied, very fine 2-ply wool -- I added more ply twist while also letting it grab at some rainbow-dyed kid mohair locks. Then, I reverse-plied it with some metallic thread, to even out the additional ply twist and add a bit of glitter among the riot of color. It was a fun, short experiment -- the skein's not that big -- so I plan to use it as an accent in a larger project someday.

About 2 years ago I bought a lovely pile of purple merino 2-ply handspun -- I know, I keep buying handspun, and here I am a spinner. My excuse? I know the value of what I purchase. Anyhow, I decided to knit a sweater -- this yarn has been wanting to be a sweater since I got it! And there's a lovely backless halter (think -- add a shrug -- then it's a twinset/sweater) in Dominitrix. But it requires a thicker yarn. I love this purple merino. So, I tried cabling it. Too tight -- I got steel wool! and too fine -- no thicker than the original 2 ply. So, I've set about un-plying it. Once I have two bobbins full of un-plied 2-ply (two strands, no plying twist in them), I re-ply two bobbins together into a nice, bouncy, thick four ply. It knits up like a dream into the gauge needed. Aaaah. Besides, it'll take purple merino to get me past all that K1P1 ribbing with my sanity intact!

That (^^^) up there (^^^) is the re-spinning project: turning handspun 2-ply into re-spun 4 ply.

If you have really fine commercial yarn, there are a variety of repurposings you can use to make it thicker.

Ply it with some handspun -- you can make a nice gimp yarn, where you hold the commercial yarn taut and let the handspun go up-down-all-around.

If you have one of those automatic I-cord makers from whoever makes them now, zip a bunch of the really fine yarn through that to make "tube yarn" -- Noro came out with some tube yarn a few years back, it was great fun to knit up, and was about a heavy worsted yarn.

Aha -- they are called embellish-knits now. here's Joann Fabric's offering.

I once made yards and yards of i-cord on my i-corder, but it was worsted weight yarn to start with -- it was for the lettering on a sign for our guild's booth at the county fair.

If you have a handy child or just alot of time on your hands, another thing to do is make a whole skein of crocheted chain. This will thicken up the yarn considerably, as it will be about 3-4 strands thick along with the roundness of the chain stitches helping to keep it open.

Both I-cord and crochet chain "yarns" felt up nicely too, into interesting textures.

What respinnings or other re-formations of yarn have you done? Share your ideas in the comments too, and thanks!

I've been meaning to add -- the [Bookmark] icon at the end of my posts is a useful tool from addthis.com that will let you, the reader, bookmark the post with Del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati, Stumble Upon, and a host (28 more!) of other services besides.

Bellefeathers! 7 June 2007

Whew! It is now the June show season for The Bellwether ... my booth, shown above, at NwRSA was a 4 hour set-up in 100 F heat. Thank goodness I got to park the trailer in the shade for unloading. Both of my classes were well-attended and enjoyed: "Woven Beret" and "Spindle Mania!" I'm still in wonderment that I managed to teach two classes and run a booth -- the help and encouragement of friends was just wonderful!

This does mean I'll have to ask for a little forebearance -- keeping the web site in sync with show sales is always a bit of a challenge!

Also it means this "shop news" report is fairly short ... I've been taking off sold items, rather than listing new ones. If you are interested in Natalies, rest assured there will be more by the end of June. Brandt is delivering the next batch at Black Sheep -- including two Pink Ivorywood Natalies! But ... Pink Ivorywood is very pricey now, and these special Natalies will be $62.50. If you'd like me to hold one for you rather than "booth" them at Black Sheep, contact me before June 20th.

Here's a great sighting of the Keychain Sock Blocker kit in use on Knit for Joy! Terrific to see the scale of the keychain against real socks! Thanks for sharing that, Cindy!

Did you see the Crosspatch Creations handspun item in the Summer 2007 Spin-Off? oooooh -- that was with her special SOAR blend; stay tuned for the unveiling of the special NwRSA blend, "Deep Waters Blue Sky" after the next issue of the Rhyme Times!

If you aren't a regular reader of the whole blog, be sure to check it out, for recent popular posts on Spinning From a Batt, Spinning From the Fold, and Spinning a Good Looking 2-Ply Yarn. And, thanks for subscribing to Bellefeathers!

How do you spin from the fold?

Janet emailed in this question (thanks, Janet!)

Me, personally, well, to be quite honest, I don't spin from the fold all that often. But Abby has done a terrific example on this in her "how to spin a batt" pictorial on flickr (remember mine? LOL great minds think alike! Mine features a V join, not spinning from the fold.)

The basic idea is to break your batt, roving, sliver, or top into staple-length long pieces. Staple-length is the length of individual fibers in the batt/roving/etc.

Spinning from the fold is done to help put air back into worsted-type preparations like top or even carded batts, which tend to have the fibers more aligned than not. It can be very useful with long staple fibers such as silk and longwools, since it cuts the effective "staple length" for spinning in half. (So don't try this with cotton, ha ha).

Since spinning from the fold is to re-introduce air, it is best when accompanied by long-draw or at least semi-long-draw style spinning: don't compress as you spin. If you must pinch, pinch lightly, and don't squeeze the length of new yarn, or you'll squeeze out all the air you just introduced.

So, once you have your staple-length-long segments (usually about finger-width, too), you fold one in half over the top of your index finger (you pick which hand, I use my left, and I'm a righty), and start drafting from the front middle, the top of the fold at the end of your index finger. The fiber is folded in half as it is drafting, and it pulls the fibers behind it out so they all stay folded in half -- once you get the hang of it!

When you are near the end of one segment, you add in the next.

Be sure to see Abby's pictorial. There are also some great instructions on spinning from the fold and a closeup on ispindle.com. This is on a spindle, wheel techniques are similar.

I hope to try this myself on one of Abby's batts soon. I've been spinning my first batt from her more worsted style, compressed and tight, for socks. But the second one, I want to try introducing a more woolen, airy aspect to it, and Janet asked, so I must revisit my spinning-from-the-fold skills (grin).

Questions? Comments? Post away, they are always welcome!