This week's yarn story is brought to you from my 9 year old daughter Natalie, who has her own tale to tell...
I was coming home from school and saw my mother dyeing with her friends. I asked if I could dye something. Mom gave me some white wool [pencil roving] and asked me what colors I wanted. I picked purple, pink, and blue. Mom already had the dyes mixed up. I painted them onto my wool, lots of purple, a little pink and one dab of blue. We wrapped it up [in plastic wrap] and put it in the microwave.
[Amelia: We use my non-food dyeing microwave, 2 minutes on, 2 off, 2 on, 2 off, 2 on to set the dye, which was Cushing's Acid dyes, mordanted with white vinegar in the dye liquor.]
After a couple of weeks, I spun it on my mom's Journey Wheel. That was my favorite wheel until she got me a Pocket Wheel [so I can have my JW back...says mom!]
Natalie is quite an exploratory artist -- she loves trying new things. Natalie loves spinning pencil roving, because she can "just spin" and not worry about drafting. Though she's getting in more practice with drafting, she'll still pick pencil roving over regular roving, so she can get yarn on the bobbin as quickly as possible.
Spinning pencil roving without drafting can be more of a challenge for the experienced spinner, actually -- we build habits as spinners, and one of them is the feel of the tug of fibers between our hands, i.e., drafting. Spinning pencil roving without drafting is a good way to learn to spin thicker singles. Reset your inner drafting-barometer to zero, and then try to draft less, the next time you pick up regular roving.
The second challenge is putting in a minimal amount of twist so that it is yarn, but not high twist -- especially if, like Natalie, you don't plan to ply. She has a natural knack for not putting in too much twist; in part because we set her wheel at a low ratio, and partly because she tries not to treadle super-speedy.
Natalie enjoyed spinning Summer Candy, and is happy to think that someone may knit, crochet, or weave it into their scarf, hat, tote, or even sweater, so we've put it up on our Etsy shop, By Our Hands. It's Corriedale wool, 19 yards at 6 wraps per inch, 1 ounce. All of her earnings go to her "France Fund", for her planned trip there when she turns 18.
~~ For more on dyeing with Cushing's Acid Dyes, start with the post How do you use Cushing's Dyes? and go on to related posts from there.
For more on spinning singles, see the posts under the topic, SinglesYarn.
I get asked fairly often, "Where can I find a used wheel?"
First things first ... I am not endorsing any particular seller or venue by listing these, just providing the information. Buyer beware, that is the best policy. Also, buying solely based on a photograph is taking a risk. Get out there and see it yourself, or if it's not by you, find a relative, friend, or associate who can see it in person before it's shipped to you.
If you don't spin yet, take an experienced spinner with you to try out the wheel, too. Even if the seller can spin, this gives you a less biased opinion.
I know second-hand can be quite a bit less expensive than new, but consider also any manufacturer's or store's warranties evaporate that way too. Just sayin'. Especially for power equipment (there are electric wheels, after all). If you're handy with tools and glue, though, your standard spinning wheel may be quite fixable or maintainable.
I have not used all of these placed myself to sell or buy used equipment; I've visited them all, sold on some, bought on some. Most of my used sales have actually been in person, at shows, in my vendor booth. So that's another place to check for used equipment -- wool show vendors often have an item on the edge of a table that is second hand equipment for sale; and some conferences, like NwRSA's, have used equipment tables. Check with your local guild, someone may be considering selling a wheel; and perhaps your local yarn shop has a bulletin board for used equipment sales.
Here is a list of handy links for used spinning & carding equipment:
Check out your local Craig's List or use http://www.craigshelper.com/ to search all of the ones within 250 miles of you (handy, that!)
There's ebay too, though then you have bidding to deal with and commercial suppliers selling new equipment as well. Occasionally spinners will sell an older wheel on etsy. Though there are new ones listed there by commercial suppliers as well, so not all prices are second-hand prices.
And, drum roll please, my big tip ... some of these pages have RSS feeds, but not all of them. Set yourself up with an account on ChangeDetection.com so you can monitor the non-RSS pages for updates.
Of course, this works the other way around too -- are you selling a used wheel? these are options for listing it. Pick one local to you, or with the kind of exposure you want.
These websites can also be handy for researching the value of a wheel, for buyers and sellers alike. Consider age, condition, and accessories. I've been told that when selling, offering a price point 30% less than new for a like-new-condition wheel will usually be successful. If your wheel is old, consider discounting from the price you paid for it or its price when it was new. Some wheels gain in value due to their no longer being made, having a high-quality well-respected maker, and availability; others maintain value, and others, well, you know.
I was working on this blog post when the request came for this info on Spindlers today ... Nannette (list mom) added that a number of wheel vendors also accept trade-ins, so will have used wheels. So be sure to check with your favorite local or mail-order vendors too!
Anyone have a Reeves Production Wheel? Treasure it. Not a Schacht-Reeves, those are still being made. I'm talking about an original Reeves. I've spun on one. I'd almost be willing to add an addition to the house to have one ... but they're pricey, so I'm not sure what would cost more, the addition or the wheel. Besides, right now I am suffering from loom lust. (Update 2/25/2010: got the loom 9/9009! working on getting my head wrapped around it still, wow what an amazing piece of equipment!)
It's darned hard to find a good "starter wheel" second hand for under $200 any more, though the occasional $20-$50 garage sale find does still pop up. So we're lucky to have low-priced-new options like the Babe Fiber Starter.
~~~
Did you guess it? Yep, I'll be following up in time to come with, Where can I find a used loom? and Where can I find a used sock machine? Stay tuned.
Oh, and the wheels in the photos? past wheels of mine, all now enjoying new homes.
Looking for knitting needles and gizmos? Besides garage sales and thrift/second-hand/Salvation Army/Goodwill shops, Ravelry's Used Tools & Equipment Marketplace often has knitting needle listings.
Do you have a site you recommend for used spinning items? Let us know in the comments ~ thanks.
~~
posted 29 January 2009 at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/
I've been knitting a few socks lately (as you saw in Sockcess! earlier). There were two things I had to re-teach myself after many months (was it a year? no! say it wasn't that long!) Preventing the hole at the heel, was one of them.
First, when you start the heel, normally you would lift half the needles out of work, and keep half in work for cranking out your short row heel. However, to prevent a hole, you keep one extra stitch in work on each side -- one past the hash mark. This picture shows the left side of the heel, with one needle past the hash mark also down. (Why yes, I am knitting the heel in that picture with the ribber in place -- daring, I know. The ribber is in the "out" position so its needles won't knit, and it "floats", or just goes where it is randomly pushed as I crank left and right, without doing anything. Kinda fun, in a scary sort of way ... This was a happy heel, nothing dropped!!)
Crank from right to left for the first row of the heel (clockwise), knitting all the heel needles and to the back where the needles are out of work. Lift the two leftmost needles. Knit across from left to right for the second row of the heel (counterclockwise), knitting all the heel needles still in play and to the back where the needles are out of work. Lift the two rightmost needles. This picture was taken after lifting the two rightmost needles and starting to knit the third row. Click for bigger to see how the yarn wraps both needles.
When you knit after lifting two needles, both are wrapped by the yarn, as shown in that picture. Only on these first two passes do you lift a pair of needles. After that, the rest of the decreases are done by lifting just one needle on each pass.
Here's a tip from Pat Fly that I didn't forget ... when I've finished the decreases, I increase by putting the first needle in the round back into work, with the yarn coming underneath it. The yarn then wraps around the latch and knits as I come back across. This is faster than wrapping the needle manually each time, and as long as your yarn tension stays sound and you don't put the needle quite all the way down, the yarn will neatly wrap the latch for a faster heel. Click the picture to see the latch more clearly (larger).
This is not quite as fast as Roxanna Baechle's fast heel, where she puts down the last stitch in each row (starting when she lifts the last needle to be lifted in the heel), but I like how it keeps the heel turns closed so this is my preferred "speed heel".
When you are increasing, you stop increasing at the hash marks. So, the outermost wrapping on the needles outside the hash marks on each side is not knit again until you make the first post-heel full trip around the cylinder.
If you still have a hole after doing this, or if you've forgotten to start with the extra needle down, there is one more thing you can do:
When you are ready to go all the way around again, then for each of the final heel stitches, on their hash-mark needles, pick up the stitch below the one on the needle at the hash mark, and put it on the first stitch for the top of the foot (the outermost needles just put back into work, before they are knit). This pulls the knitting across the heel-turning a bit more tightly to keep the hole shut.
The socks at the top were knit for my MIL, recently returned home from a brief hospital stay, from merino/bamboo. I used Soxophone Player's mock rib hem and stockinette foot, as I expect MIL would prefer a smoother surface to her sock and a bit less squeeze than my normal ribbed leg. These were such an easy pleasure to knit, without the ribber, that I may make my own next pair this way. I used the hole-less heel and Pat Fly speed heel methods as described here, as well as the no-dog-ear toe that Gay showed me. What's that, you ask? Stay tuned ... ~~ posted 27 January 2009 at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/
Indulge me ... this is the last (for now...) of the series of posts looking in weaving books for rigid heddle-able patterns. I needed to clear my plate/fill my memory with these three books to better enable my childrens' weaving. Next up on my weaving posts will be the aid I've been asked for, on reading multi-harness weaving drafts and figuring out if or how to do them on the rigid heddle loom (I've been thinking about it, and realize it will take a few posts!)
On to Color-and-Weave. This lovely book actually prints all its "color and weave" in black and white. I thought that was a little incongruous, but as Syne Mitchell pointed out at a great weaving workshop I took recently, black and white makes sure you aren't biased by the colors. You can decide based on the pattern, rather than having your eye drawn to the patterns in your favorite color -- blue or yellow? purple or red?
Now this book is out on CD, with color offered too - so you can decide which you like.
But, on to the list of 2-harness patterns in this book:
p. 18-29, plain weave color sequences -- it's amazing what sorts of patterns you can get just by changing which warp threads and which weft threads are which colors. Horizontal stripes, vertical stripes, herringbone, and on from there -- 6 variations on a page, that's 72 different designs right there!
p. 134 shows how varying the repeat in the weft makes 4 interesting patterns
p. 138 shows how varying the repeat in the warp makes 6 interesting patterns
p. 148 Log cabin, that cool weave-in-weave look we've seen in the other books as well.
p. 177 shows how weft-faced weave can be used for vertical or horizontal stripes. Wow. My son likes the vertical stripes -- perhaps we'll use them in his next project.
This is a fun book that gives you a new way to look at using not only weave structure but color to define your fabric. With 86 designs using plain weave, and so many more for a variety of twills, rosepath, and more it is a great book to start exploring color with no matter where you are along the weaving path.
Margaret Windeknecht also has written Color-and-weave II ... I hope to add it to my library someday too.
Spinning thicker yarns, as experienced spinners will tell you, isn't as easy as the beginners make it look. You need to draft more fibers into the yarn, and keep the amount consistent. That's why most spinners gravitate toward spinning fine -- they draft the fiber down as fine as it will go, for them, and keep it there -- pushing up against their own inner fineness boundary (hint: Marie's is finer than mine!) gives them a consistent result. It works great! Until you want to spin worsted weight, and don't feel like making it a 6-ply. Why do you think the Australian yarn measures are done as ply-counts? yep, the machines all spin fine singles, then they ply up to the thickness desired. Machines don't care how boring plying is.
This yarn, Purpleness, was a dive into spinning a lot of yarn (I had over a pound of the fiber) into a thicker 2-ply. Now, I knew this would be good for a thick yarn because the roving had a ton of texture in it -- overload of silk noil, variety of fiber types/lengths, an all around squoosh-to-the-max roving. It really liked to stick to itself as well (lots of crimp/grab), so it would help me keep the draft solid.
Then, I chose my best thick yarn wheel -- the Journey Wheel (it's a great sock yarn wheel too, don't let me bias you to one thickness for this wheel!). Its "U" orifice lets the thick stuff slide right over, and at its lower ratios, it makes sure I'm not going to put in too much twist even if I want an ankle workout. I cranked up the scotch tension so the yarn would get taken up onto the bobbin as quickly as I could draft it and turn it into yarn, to keep the amount of twist low.
And I spun. And spun. And spun. Did I mention I had over a pound of this fiber, and 9 bobbins for my Journey Wheel?
These yarns are all 2-plies, so once I had some bobbins full, but had two empties to hand, I would ply two full bobbins onto the empty ones - wa-la, two bobbins of singles equals two bobbins of plied yarn. This is where it was hammered home to me -- the thicker your yarn is (and plied yarn, generally, is thicker than the singles it was spun from -- plying with thread aside), the less you can get on a bobbin. So those plied bobbins, were stuffed!
I didn't change any of the settings on my wheel when I plied -- I just checked against a sample to make the plying give me a balanced yarn. The skeins were gently finished in the wash, but whacked to full their surface a bit to help the noils stay put.
I remember spinning this yarn fondly. We were building our new home at the time, living in a tiny rental and making a ton of decisions every day about the house. The Bellwether was being run out of a storage unit, order turnaround was pretty ill ~ I have to thank all my customers from that time for their kind understanding! I had this wool, my Journey Wheel, cotton, and my charka. The wool won hands-down every evening. It kept me going through all of that, and is wonderful to have on hand in my knitting basket.
This yarn feels lovely and soft up against my neck -- it's got Merino cross wool, Romeldale cross wool, silk, and tons of silk noil in it. Because there's plenty for my scarf and more too, some of it is going up on By Our Hands on Etsy along with a fun Heartstrings pattern, "Loop-D-Loop". Check it out - you could knit yourself a scarf with it too!
Another great scarf idea is Fourteen. That's in my Ravelry queue, too -- what's in yours?
Danish Medallions are a hand-manipulated weaving technique usually grouped with Lacy weaves like Leno and Brooks Bouquet. However, they add a layer above your ground weave that lets you make etch-a-sketch type designs, with a little planning.
Okay, so you are daVinci on the etch-a-sketch like this fellow. I, am not.
In most weaving books, they show you little squares made with Danish Medallions and maybe go so far as to make them staggered like brick-work or placed in a simple design rather than arranged as a grid. But in Weaving: A Handbook for Fiber Craftsmen, Shirley E. Held shows that there are other possibilities ... a "heart beat" of short and long pulses. Or a "Crow's Foot" that could be combined with its reverse for a starburst shape.
So, I plan to go on an adventure and see just what I can do with Danish Medallions.
If you'd like to try them out too, here are some articles I've found on-line: Weaver-Manipulated Lace Weaves by Robyn Spady, WeaveZine Spring 2008. On a Rigid Heddle Loom. Practical Weaving Suggestions, vol. 1-69, by Mildred Dexter. Nice diagrams of this technique. Special Lace Threading by Osma Gallinger Tod, undated. An older pamphlet, a bit terse. On a 4-Harness Loom.
~~ The medallion shown at the start of this post is The Good Shepherd, central medallion from the vault of the Grosse Horloge. It is from the Project Gutenberg eBook, The Story of Rouen, by Sir Theodore Andrea Cook, Illustrated by Helen M. James and Jane E. Cook. ~~ posted 20 January 2009 at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/
When I first started spinning, like many other people, I wanted to spin sock yarn. But, I know I knit slow, so when I found out about circular sock machines, I got into those. And, promptly started amassing commercial sock yarns (grin).
Besides, all that commercial sock yarn let me get in lots of practice on the sock machine.
So now, I can present you with: Sock-cess!
These are the socks I envisioned waaaay back there at the beginning.
The yarn is an overplied 2-ply, space-dyed superwash merino pencil roving (yes, from Crown Mountain Farms -- dyed by Teyani, it's one of the retired colorways), rough-finished to a 17-wpi yarn.
Knit on my black 2005-model NZAK with an 80/40 in my "standard long" sock pattern:
wind the skein onto a cone with my cone-winder
25 rows 1/1 rib (including selvedge) with lycra thread
75 rows 3/1 rib
25 rows false heel (replace ribber needles on the back with cylinder needles)
standard short row heel with extra needle at edges to close the corner
foot with 3/1 rib on the top (left the ribber in while I did the heel -- living dangerously, I know!) and the tension left on, 8" from heel bottom to starting the toe (to fit my foot)
standard short row toe with one needle removed to prevent dog ears
kitchenered shut on the purl side
Long-term goals are great, and as they go, this one wasn't even a decade in reaching. My next long term spinning goal involves Shetland and Cashmere, and weaving. I'm in no hurry, but look forward to making progress with it from time to time. ~~ posted 19 January 2009 at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/. Edited 21 Jan 2009 to add the yarn pictures :-) thanks for asking, Nancy!
...I find I am stumped on the step before plying--how to get the yarn off the spindle! As I tried out your technique, I was unsure how to unwind it after the spindle was full. I have the one end around the hook, and one end dangling after being spun. What next? ...
I'll usually fill two top-whorl spindles and then lay them in a tray and wind a 2-strand ball straight from both spindles. Then, I ply from that 2-strand ball. Abby F. had a great article on Spindle Plying on Fiber Femmes a while ago (go and read it, I'll wait).
Now, I have plenty of spindles sitting around to do this with; if you only have one, you'd want to slide the first cop (the singles wound on the spindle) off the spindle, but you're right, to do that, you'd need to snip the beginning-end that's still on the hook. A small pair of sharp scissors could snip carefully right near the hook, take care and you will not damage the spindle.
If you're concerned about the de-spindled cop getting messy during the re-winding, then you might slip it from the spindle directly onto a knitting needle or a straw. That will give it a "core" to hang onto.
If your spindle won't let you slide the cop off, because it's larger on the bottom than along its length, then you'll need to wind it into a single-strand ball to empty it the first time; the second time, you can wind the spindle-full and the ball into the two-strand ball to prepare for plying.
When you're winding the ball, the spindles will bounce around in the tray a little bit, but they can take it. If it worries you, lay a towel in the tray and then put them on top of that -- but watch that the fiber coming off of the spindles, or the spindle hook itself, doesn't get tangled in the towel's fibers.
Once you have the two-strand ball, you ply directly from that. So, it's important to maintain even tension in the strands as you're winding the ball, or you'll end up with little pigtails in your plied yarn where one was longer than the other.
Elizabeth asked me about carding; she has an Ashford fine cloth drum carder, but feels a bit limited by it. She asked,
I wonder if you have any experience with this brand and how far you think I can push it with the crazy batts. I purchased a wall paper brush to smooth the batts because they seemed to come out too coarse for me. I attribute some of that to the type of wool I am using. So far I’ve used shetland, border leiscester, south african fine, and cheviot that all come out very unrefined looking. Commercially prepped rovings of course come out much more professional looking. I wonder if other soft wools scoured right from the fleece still look untamed. I’d love to make this carder work and I’m seeking any advice you might have.
I started out with an Ashford fine too; but it started nepping and breaking the llama I was putting in it, so I didn't have it for all that long before I upgraded to a Patrick Green Supercarder. Do nothing by halves, how's that for a motto ... and an upgrade!
That said, Ashfords are not terrible carders, they're just standard drum carders. The llama was weak, and most likely any carder would have nepped it. My Patrick Green Supercarder nepped some weak merino fleece the other day...but I'm not going to throw the carder out alongside the neppy batt.
Ashford drum carders are actually quite good at arty batts, so there's no reason to get rid of it. My Ashford was in my early days, so I only did plain carding on it (one fiber at a time). But, I did get to use one recently to make some yummy silk salad batts. How textured your batt is is more a function of how far apart the teeth are, than how stiff individual teeth are, I'd hazard to say. The Ashfords' are fairly far apart, leaving room for the chunky stuff, like the sari silk, to stay chunky.
The "best" drum carders for smooth batts, in my opinion, are Strauch, Duncan (no website, contact info listed here), and the Patrick Green Supercarder -- maybe others, but those are the ones I've seen get very nice results. I've seen many makes of drum carder, but by no means all. Oh, and the Patrick Green Supercarder will smooth out most all of the texture, so if you want texture, take it "down" a step to the Strauch or Duncan. That's why I now have a Duncan, too, actually. (Well, that, and it sort of fell into my lap, grin.)
Anyway ... carding advice, that's what you asked for, right ...
Crazy batts are often highly textured things, the ones I've bought on etsy, seen in my classes, and seen out in the wild, are textured and are meant to be, honestly. But if it's the roughness of the actual underlying wool base that is getting to you, I can say that washed locks will never card as smoothly as easily as processed top or roving. And, as far as I can tell from what I've help in my hands, many of the batts on Etsy start from processed roving. Not all, though! Some start from scoured/dyed fleece ... it depends on the maker. Check the details on their listings, they may say from which point they started. Add-in fibers like bamboo, silk, or nylon most likely were processed top or sliver, as that is the most common way to find those fibers.
That's one reason why I enjoy offering Crosspatch Batts at The Bellwether -- Joan starts with wool from her own sheep; dyes them herself, and then cards them herself too. No commercially prepared wool top or roving. Yes, her silk and viscose are sliver, dyed by her and added to the batt in carding.
There are several tips I can offer to help you come closer to smooth wool in your batts:
Open the locks up fully before carding them -- take a scoured lock and spread it open, pulling the strands apart, until you can read a newspaper through it (not that that's how I test mine, but...)
Present the locks, opened up, in line (butt first or tip first, really not relevant, just in line) to the licker-in (first drum)
Card a batt of just the fleece, then break it into strips to make your crazy batts with -- that pre-processing will really smooth out the results, closer to what you get with processed top, without blending your crazy batt, which you probably don't want -- crazy batts quickly turn into tweeds if carded more than once.
Pre-carding the wool may seem like a lot of work, but it makes the carding of the batt go much more quickly, and lets you have a base to sandwich things inside for slippery or short fibers (silk, mohair, cashmere, silk noil...) so honestly it helps more than it slows you down.
You can keep adding fiber onto the carder until you're near the top of the teeth, to make a batt over an ounce on your carder. This is especially helpful with these starter wool batts, the bigger they are, the less time you spend overall doffing wool batts.
The wallpaper brush helps pack it in better for a denser batt. The batt will fluff up when you take it off, so don't worry about matting. If the licker-in starts holding onto lots of fiber, that's a sign that it's reached its limit.
Oh, and, if you have handcards (or can borrow a pair to see if you like this), try holding one of those over the carder as you crank -- it may "season" the batt a bit more than the wallpaper brush for a smoother surface.
Capacity-wise, you're looking at about a 2-ounce limit on a batt on an Ashford, you should be able to get 1 ounce on there at least in materials. It takes a really big tabletop carder like the Supercarder or Duncan's Doublewide to get 3, and if you're lucky 4, ounce batts. On my supercarder I find I get 2 ounce batts pretty routinely, and if I treat them alot, with the "right" wool, I can get a 4 ounce batt. Merino maxed out at 2 ounces, but I carded some Jacob once into a thick, maxed out 4 ounce batt.
I do go through sari silk or other solid add-ins first and open up any "gobs" or major tangles. There were actually knotted bits in my sari silk, they got pulled out for sure, as they would not be good for the machine.
Not that I encourage you to be rough with it, but you'll find the drum carder's teeth are pretty sturdy. The main thing to avoid is putting hard material in, seed heads or tangles of yarn/sari silk can bend or even break off drum carder teeth faster than anything.
Now, in terms of adding the art to your batt, there are a couple of options (at least!):
Take the pre-carded wool batt, divide it into 1/4s or smaller bits, thin the quarter out into a carder-wide layer, "salt" it with your add-in silk/sari silk/garnetted yarn, add another widened-quarter on top, and card that onto the main drum. You may need to go thinner for it to feed in comfortably -- if your carder feels like it's getting stuck between the licker-in (first) drum and the main drum, then the sandwich needs less wool and less add-ins. Keep adding sandwiches until you've built a full batt -- it will be layers of wool/add-in/wool/add-in/wool in the final batt.
One way to get stuff on if you are concerned about teeth damage between the drums, is to feed in a thin layer of wool (so the surface of the big drum has a film of wool on it) and then to apply your add-ins like sari silk directly to the main drum; brush them over the top, and they will "catch" on the teeth of the drum -- let them slide out of your hand as the teeth catch them. Then card another filmy layer of wool, treat the batt with your wallpaper brush or handcard, and repeat until you have a full batt.
As I mentioned in a recent post, What can I do on a rigid heddle loom?, I have been going through my weaving books looking for patterns I can do on a rigid heddle loom. Or, more directly, that my children can do -- one heddle, no pickup sticks. I choose them by looking for patterns that use only 2 harnesses, or if they use 4, use a tie-up that is the equivalent of 2 harnesses; the hopsack in that last post, for example, has one harness on one tie up and the other three harnesses on the second tie-up, that's it. So, I know I can do the pattern with just a rigid heddle - or, as was actually done here, on a 2 harness loom.
Handwoven Scarves is one of the books I purchased to inspire myself when I started weaving. It's lovely. I was a bit disappointed about how many of the scarves are 8 or even more harnesses, at the time, as I had only a 4 harness loom. But looking it over now (and with an 8 harness loom) my only remaining fuss is that some of them are purely inspiration -- no drafts or sketchy instructions. That's all right, though, since I do like to think things out for myself. And I was quite pleased to find plenty of inspiring scarves that are simply plain weave -- rigid heddle material!!
So, what are the scarves that are rigid-heddle-able in Handwoven Scarves? Here you go:
Thick, Thinner, Thinnest, by Erica de Ruiter, p. 16 -- a great variant on Log Cabin. This is so on my to-do list!
Natural and Terra Cotta, by Erica de Ruiter, p. 20 -- same draft, different color treatment -- very revealing for the color-challenged (raises hand).
Rippling Water, by Gisela Evitt, p. 32 -- now this one is on my next up list ... amazing results from a simple plain weave. She spins (I spin! I can do this!) three strands together for weft then weaves a weft-faced plain weave. It's based on an ancient Chinese silk cloth. I'm going to try it with wool and see what happens ... maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. I know I'll learn something from it, either way!
See-Through Blue, by Sonya Hasselberg-Johnson, p. 44 -- aah, gauze. This uses different twists, S and Z, definitely appealing to my inner spinner (who'm I kidding? I'm an out-there spinner if there ever was one. Have you seen my blog? (grin)) I bet you can find yarns like this at weaving supply shops, though, if you aren't a spinner. It's sett widely for the thickness of the yarns to make it gauzey and to let the twists collapse the fabric -- SHR says she was exploring collapse weave with this scarf. So, I'll add collapse weave to my list of things to look into more with these looms.
Painted Warp Scarf 1, by Sara Lamb, p. 35. Definitely an inspiring combination of solid and multi-color stripes in the warp on this warp-faced plain weave (weft is fine and doesn't show much).
Painted Warp Scarf 2, by Sara Lamb, p. 37. Another striping, this time of companionable multicolors. It's striking (a) how much the stripes show while (b) they meld and harmonize at the same time.
Painted Warp Scarf 3, by Sara Lamb, p. 39. I could say, "and more of the same". But wow! sheesh. There are so many ways to play with solids, multi colors, and stripes. The mind boggles. And it's just warp-faced plain weave. I can so do that!
Gray Chenille, by Robin Lynde, p. 62. Chenille -- how fluffy and soft it looks! Tempting, tempting.
Blue Chenille, by Robin Lynde, p. 64. Playing with warp stripes and Chenille? Now that is a lovely combo!
Cram and Space Scarf, by Ann Richards, p. 72. This one is an "inspire" rather than a set of instructions, though it is just plain weave ... the notes are there for me to give it a try, and it's not like the "crammed and spaced" scarves that are all the rage right now, but rather, something very different, starting with a crammed & spaced warp, but rather than cram & space on the weft, she uses stripes of high-twist and balanced-twist silks.
Wrap Around, by Nell Znamierowski, p. 110. A plaid ... no color draft is given, so you're on your own there. But it's lovely, and makes me hunger to weave more plaid.
So, of the 52 scarves in the book, 12 use plain weave ... that seems like a nice chunk, to me! And, it's definitely a book you can grow into, if you think the rigid heddle is just the start of your own loom adventure.
~~ You can find more weaving posts under the topic Weave.
If you're interested in spinning/weaving/fiber-related books, I've started a new topic, called, appropriately, Books! I've been taking a peek over at LibraryThing to see what books others have as well, while slowly adding some of my own to it. Another interesting spot on the internet!
I know, I know, I haven't talked about sock machines in ages. I am happy to report they don't hold it against me (grin). My NZAK just needed a few drops of Forsyth's miracle oil and was soon purring away again.
But, what did I forget? How to knit a fast short-row heel/toe, apparently. I ended up with a terrible toe, all holey and scrubby on my delicate little feet (snort). Well, it didn't feel good, anyway, delicate or not!
So, I rehung the toe. To do this, I cut the sock off with about an inch of waste yarn on it still. The machine still has the second sock and a few inches of waste yarn after it still hanging, though I suppose I could have removed them and started with a bare machine, I didn't.
Then, I hung the stitches on the top (not the end of the toe, but what would be grafted onto from the very last row I'd knit) between the hash marks away from me, and as I did, pulled those needles up and out of work, just like at the start of a toe (since that's where I'd be once I rehung the sock).
I continued on around as I could, following the row I'd started with,hanging stitches and moving the crank to the back where the needles were up, until I had a "toe shape" sticking awkwardly up from inside the needles and needles with stitches all the way around. Then, I tinked (unknit, unraveled, frogged, ripped...) the waste yarn off the toe and tossed it. Then, I tinked the toe itself and wound it into a little ball. That left me with a toeless sock ready to go on the sock machine (yay!!!) and a little ball of yarn (a toe's worth, grin) attached to it.
I threaded the yarn through my yarn feeder, up to my mast, and then down to a contraption on the floor made specially for the occasion.
What would you call it? a Yarn Trap? That's what I ended up with. A dinner plate and a pyrex measuring cup; I've seen the pyrex used that way before for plying yarns. It worked really well in this situation, too.
I knew the little ball would have danced all over the floor, gotten caught by a cat or wrapped around a table leg at just the wrong moment. This way it was in its own slippery but controlled environment, feeding out as I needed it and merrily bouncing around as it unrolled.
It was terrific, and guess what -- it took the same amount of yarn to do the toe right! yay! Socks for me.
For the curious, these socks were knit from Brownsheep sock that I dyed during one of my sock yarn dyeing workshops to be self-patterning.
I started spinning cotton on a tahkli, a little brass support spindle, in order to learn how to spin cashmere (hint: cotton's harder). My other spindles for cotton are an Akha spindle and a featherweight top or bottom whorl spindle (under half an ounce). But I digress. This first skein was spun on a charka. My Bosworth book charka, to be specific. It has a 70:1 ratio, is highly portable, and just amazingly glowly lovely in Cherry and Maple. Portability, utility, and beauty -- what a combination! This skein is cotton with 2% polyester nub. That 2% is the "limit" for what you can have as "noise" in a skein and not list it in materials, but it was done for specific effect here. So, officially, this is "100% cotton". I think it's very interesting to see what 2% looks like so clearly.
This skein is 122 yards, 3/4 ounce, about 18-20 wpi. It's a true 3-ply yarn, plied from three charka spindle-fulls into this one skein.
I've pretty much always spun cotton long draw, not inch-worm. It's so short staple, that inch-worming is more like millimeter-worming, not much fun at that distance, for me. There's a type of long draw called "point of twist drafting" that pretty succintly tells you how to draft -- that's what I do, mostly. Once it's drafted out and initially spun, I might tug a little to see if the thick spots will come out (sometimes they do), then put in the extra twist cotton needs before winding it onto my spindle/charka/wheel.
Because some local spinners spin cotton on their wheels, I've kept trying to go back to that. Finally, after about 5 years, I've done it! And you know what my local friend S said to me when I told her of my accomplishment? "Amelia, why would you do that? spinning cotton on a wheel is hard, you have a charka - use it!" I can always trust S to come right to the point, grin! The skein above was spun on my Jensen Tina II, and then chain-plied to keep the colors distinct. It's space-dyed Acala cotton sliver. Acala is a breed of cotton, with a nice staple length and shine. It was definitely a challenge, but is tightly spun and looks to be a delight to knit or crochet with (or weave!).
It's a small skein, just 74 yards, 1/2 ounce, and 20 wpi so fairly fine. I think it would be a lovely accent in a handknit summer cotton tank, or make a nice color band in a woven handtowel.
It takes alot of twist to spin cotton, so for wheel spinning, you'll want the draw-in tension on your wheel set to almost nil, so that the cotton isn't being drafted out of your hand all the time before it has enough twist to hang together. On the spindle or charka, that isn't an issue.
In terms of amount of twist in cotton ~ if you don't put enough twist in it to make it hang together, it will drift apart when you ply. It takes a lot more twist than wool, so if you are already a wool spinner, be prepared to add what seems like "way too much twist" to the cotton. No, it needn't corkscrew (that would be too much twist). But almost to that point. You want a ply-back test to have a closed loop at the bottom, no opening at all. No O.
I expect I will heed S's advice and stick with my charkas over my wheel, though I may occasionally try it to see if my skills have advanced. Because, I can now spin short staple cashmere on the wheel just fine -- so after a pound of cashmere (or even half a pound -- spinning cobweb that takes a loooong time), it would be worth checking if my hands have learned more about spinning short staple fibers.
Oh and ... cashmere now seems really easy (grin).
These two skeins are "Confetti" and "Rainbow" ... and if they haven't yet been snatched up, you could own either of my creations yourself ... they're up on By Our Hands, my Etsy shop. Mention that you saw the skein here, and I'll add a sample of Soak wool wash, a token of reader appreciation.
~~ For more on spinning cotton, see the Cotton topic.
This interview with "New Spindler" is brought to you from a collection of starting questions I've been accumulating. Enjoy!
NewSpindler: I’m very interested in spinning with a drop spindle. What do I need to get started, besides the spindle and roving?
TheBelle: Those are the two basic ingredients. There are many other things you could have, but those are all you have to have to get started. I usually recommend a 1.5-2 ounce spindle and some medium wool roving (Romney, Corriedale, or similar).
The Bellwether's Learn To Spin Kit contains a great spindle, my little book, and a variety of nice wools to learn with. I've focused on keeping it excellent and affordable.
I love my niddy-noddy and my ball-winder. Although, you can use your arm as a niddy-noddy to make the skein, and wind balls with just your hands, so really no other tools are absolutely necessary beyond spindle and fiber.
A good book or video is always helpful, though there are plenty of on-line resources and nothing like the help of another spinner, if you have a local guild or yarn shop with one handy.
NewSpindler: After spinning one piece of roving, what do I do next. Do I wind that into a skein? Shouldn’t it be twisted with another section of roving to make a 2 ply yarn? What do I need for this?
TheBelle: Once you've spun one piece of roving, if the spindle will fit more (it's not wobbling too badly, not too heavy, not slipping down), then join on another piece to spin a longer length. The V-join is a good one to learn.
The key is to have a staple length (individual fiber length) of fiber unspun on the old and the new pieces, so you can draft them together. The V shape helps make sure your overlap spins clean.
Once you have the spindle full, you can finish it as singles if you don't plan to ply, or you can make a 2-ply. For that, wind the spindle full into a tight ball, fill the spindle again, and wind the second spindlefull and the first into a 2-strand tight ball, to ply from. See this great plying article by Abby Franquemont.
NewSpindler: After I spin a bit, I take the yarn off the hook to wind it. It curls up something fierce, no matter how tightly it is spun. Is it overspun, or is this normal?
TheBelle: The yarn curls up because there's twist in it. That's a "good thing". The trick is to fold a 4" length back on itself and let it curl naturally -- this shows you what your balanced 2-ply would look like. Do you like it? then you have a good amount of twist in there. Is it really poufy and has an open loop at the bottom? then you could add more twist. Is it really tight, so the twist on itself seems almost cork-screwy? then you might want to take some twist out. (Picture from Spindling: The Basics.)
NewSpindler: If I spin worsted weight singles on a 1.75 oz Ashford spindle, does that mean I can't ply on the same spindle?
TheBelle: I spin worsted and spin or ply bulky on a 1.8 ounce spindle, which is close enough to say that your Ashford spindle should do just fine with plying. You'll also find that as you get more weight on the spindle, it may behave "better", since you're turning your 1.75 ounce spindle into a 1.8 ounce, 1.9 ounce, 2.0 ounce spindle as you add the yarn onto it.
NewSpindler: While I am spinning the fiber sometimes gets tangled on the yarn. I've heard of a wrist distaff, but can't figure out how it works. It seems I would need another hand to keep it all going.
TheBelle: My favorite wrist distaff is ... my wrist! I loosely wrap the roving around my wrist so it can unwrap itself via rotation as I need it. I'm also known to wear a roving "boa", or to just work with fairly short, 4"-8" lengths of roving. That way the roving doesn't get sweaty and I don't risk matting it if I'm spinning while I'm tense ... before the alpha rhythms of spinning kick in and I start relaxing ;)
NewSpindler: Finally, I'm confused as to the weight of a beginner's spindle. I have an Ashford, 1.75oz ... I assume it's a good beginner spindle. Recently at a spinning demo the demonstrator said a beginner should use a spindle that weighed less than an ounce. Obviously there are as many opinions as there are spindles, but any opinions with explanations as to why?
TheBelle: I'm not sure why the teacher would say a spindle under an ounce is a good beginner spindle. I generally only recommend them to spindle spinners looking to spin finer yarns. Used to be, "beginner spindles" were 3 ounces or so -- but those also are problematic once you start drafting finer yarns. These days, most beginner kits have 1.4 - 2.0 ounce spindles in them.
The basics of spindle weight is that the spindle weight is related to the thickness of yarn you spin -- lighter spindles for finer spinning, heavier for thicker. My dream team is a 0.5 ounce for laceweight, a 0.9-1.1 ounce for sockweight, and a 1.8 ounce for thick yarns and plying. If you have a spindle that's too light for your yarn, it stops spinning very quickly -- the twist in the yarn counteracts the light weight of the spindle and stops it. If you have a spindle that's too heavy for your yarn, it drags on the fiber as you draft and is likely to show you why it's called a "drop!" spindle.
NewSpindler: I'm allergic to wool. What can I learn to spin with? The Belle: It's possible to learn without wool, just a little harder. How far does your wool allergy extend? My second choice would be llama or alpaca, third choice perhaps hemp. KnittySpin has some articles a few issues back; Amy Singer, their chief, learned to spin with hemp, as animal fibers send her allergies sky rocketting.
In Closing ...
Spindling is fun -- when you are learning, be sure to take breaks. Your hands need time to get the information to your brain, and your brain to process it, so you can make the actions more automatic. 10 minutes at a time, maybe 4 times a day (if you can), and in a few weeks (or sooner, or maybe a few months like me) you'll be spindling away in short order.
Don't have spindle and fiber yet? Let me recommend The Bellwether's Learn To Spin Kit. It has a terrific spindle, a variety of fibers, and Spindling: The Basics. Even Abby likes it (thanks, Abby! that means alot!)
~~ A year ago today ... I was posting about spinning sock yarn. I've done 3 sock skeins for myself since then, but have yet to knit them. However, I've just fired up the sock machine and wound two of them onto bobbins, so perhaps there will be socks soon! The most exciting was the spindled skein, which remains "in skein" for me to continue admiring a while yet. It's just too fabulous :) it's not ready to grow up and be socks just yet. The one in the picture here was wheel spun and eminently sockable now!
In my last weaving post, What can I do on a rigid heddle loom?, Julie asked, "I'm also interested in loom books. My 7 year old budding spinner just got a cricket loom for Christmas and I've never done any weaving!! do you have any starter suggestions so I can help her a little more?" (picture is my own Schacht Flip, weaving in progress by my son)
Hmmm, seven years old ... okay. Since she's spinning, obviously she loves fiber, grin. And your spinning is lovely too (yep, I peeked ... lovely shawl from handspun Optim!). So, first up: don't be afraid to use handspun for weaving. On a rigid heddle, I'd stick with uniform/consistent handspun or commercial yarn for warp, use more textured stuff for weft. My personal yarn stash is big enough that I can find matching commercial warp and handspun weft without too much trouble -- and I identified a huge swath of yarn I was willing to let others use, so my kids have free rein with that. It gives them a lot of choice for their projects.
Second: listen. My son said, "I like played"... after I figured out that "plaid" was a Book Word for him (read but never heard) and got the pronunciation down, the rest was history: a matching solid and multi, stripes in the warp and weft, and we were in business. I freely admit, I "helped" the project along: wound the stick shuttles with consistent amounts of yarn to make the stripes in the weft come out the length that matched the warp widths; did some of the "more boring" weaving in the middle so he could get back to the interesting edge stripes.
(To be sure, true Scottish plaid is woven in a 2/2 twill, but I figured doing it in plain weave wouldn't have the Tartan police after me anytime soon.)
But I let him learn about selvedges, I didn't go back and fix things but gave him all the advice I had on the topic:
You are better off if you don't touch the edges (thanks, Peg!)
Lay the yarn in a half-circle or up at an angle, then beat (thanks, blog-less Melissa)
Keep the yarn loose between the edge of the weaving and the shuttle (this one, I've forgotten who told me first ... )
Beat with the warp open (ok, on a rigid heddle, you can't really do this, but it's on my selvedge list) (thanks, Sarah Swett, that was a great NwRSA presentation!)
Pull the yarn so it folds over the selvedge-edge neatly (this one was from an old weaving book ... terrific wisdom in those old books, succintly put)
By the time the scarf was done, heck, even a foot into it, his selvedges neatened up and it was very nice "first scarf" work.
Terminology's probably the biggest thing. The Cricket Manual has the basics; Handwoven's website has a writeup on terminology along with their other helpful tips on getting started with weaving.
All the other advice I might give is general -- give her options, help her plan projects (always add extra warp -- I'm just learning this myself!). Color-and-Weave CD is a terrific book, and it's out in CD now with color pictures. It seemed so funny, to read a book named "Color and Weave" but have it contain only black and white pictures -- but the old weaving books are all like that. What luxury to have the color pictures in books and online today. I'm glad they did this updated version of it!
That weaving above is my daughter's on the Flip, the warp is 2 strands of each color across, the weft is two shots of each color. We kept the shuttles one on each side, so you send one across and back to its "home base" and then the other across from the other side and back to its "home base". That way, you keep the two shuttles separate and minimize confusion. We hung mini totes on each side to hold the shuttle not in use, too, with the Flip on its stand that worked out really well.
Handwoven magazine may be a bit extreme for rigid heddle weavers, but I noticed the recent issues seem to have useful things. Apparently those crammed-and-spaced scarves are really popular, and eminently do-able on a rigid heddle (here's one from Schacht). And here's have another rigid heddle scarf on Handwoven's website. Then there's WeaveZine, a great online weaving magazine; Weavolution will be along later this year, perhaps many project ideas will appear there. In the meantime, Flickr has a rigid heddle weaving pool, plenty of color ideas to garner from the pictures there!
The Schacht website has some interesting easter eggs too -- Jane Patrick's blog, Violet Rose, features rigid heddle projects from time to time. Their past newsletters contain a variety of weaving projects, some RH, some other looms. And they've started up a new weaver's post too, this first one is about that subject, selvedges!
There are so many ways to play with color, just in plain weave, that more advanced things like pickup sticks or second heddles don't have to be pushed onto the beginning weaver unless she wants to play with them.
Hmmm, seven. I keep trying to think what my daughter would or wouldn't "get" at that age (mine's nine). The warp worksheets are pretty intimidating ... so I stuck with some general guidelines, like, ends per inch for plain weave are usually half the wraps per inch. Expect about 10% take-up in length and width (more if the fiber felts, just like in knitting-and-felting), and expect the Cricket's loom waste to be about 1-2 feet in length.
My daughter spins too, and wraps per inch is something she's used to seeing me do and talk about. I did direct warping with her -- we both loved it -- she's seen me wind a warp on a warping mill before, though, and wants to try that sometime herself. So, I know we will, with some future project. Direct warping is what's described in your Cricket Loom Manual.
I get a lot of mileage from doing things and having her want to do them, too, though -- since your daughter is weaving "before" you, perhaps step in to learn alongside her if it interests you, or just be prepared to help out with the math steps to make sure she has enough yarn for the project. I'd note, woven fabric tends to be thinner than knit, so if you have enough yarn to knit a scarf, likely she'll have plenty to weave one.
I just wove a nice long scarf (pictured) from 2.4 ounces of handspun; knitting the same would have easily eaten up 4 or even more ounces of the same handspun, albeit it would have been a thicker scarf.
Fringe can be interesting to play with in scarves, too -- a simple knot is very do-able, and you needn't hem the woven edge then. I have a fringe twister and love playing with it, but I expect DD will want to braid the fringe on her scarf, as we are all-braids-all-the-time right now. DS took the knot route, as he wanted to do it himself but also wanted it done right away.
One rough way to plan, is, weigh an item like the one you want to make -- then if you're working with a same-ballpark yarn size/density, you'll need about as much by weight, plus say 10-20% for waste/safety, to make one like it. True for knitting, and I'm thinking true for weaving too -- though no-one's suggested that to me (so far).
A fun thing to try is the magic of finishing -- consider combining feltable and non-feltable yarns (superwash, silk, tencel) across the warp for a scarf that will pucker and frill once it's washed. Wow!
Well, all of that is pretty focused on the loom she has. There are also some fun books for other types of weaving you can do with tools you already have -- Time to Weave and Kids Weaving. Both come quickly to mind as fun, interesting books that have projects that could pique both your interests. Weaving Without a Loom has the terrifically fun woven tam shown here, woven on a cardboard template.
All in all, don't push her -- she may only weave now and again, children have a ton of interests. Mine might spin, weave, crochet, felt, or knit in occasional spurts over the course of a year. It's always a pleasure when they pull out their wheels/needles/loom and have a go, but I don't want to make it something they're required to do. I just make sure the tools are accessible to them so they can create when the urge strikes them. They love going to shows with me and showing their skills to others who appreciate it.
By Amelia
. This lovely book actually prints all its "color and weave" in black and white. I thought that was a little incongruous, but as 
... I hope to add it to my library someday too.
, Shirley E. Held shows that there are other possibilities ... a "heart beat" of short and long pulses. Or a "Crow's Foot" that could be combined with its reverse for a starburst shape.
is one of the books I purchased to inspire myself when I started weaving. It's lovely. I was a bit disappointed about how many of the scarves are 8 or even more harnesses, at the time, as I had only a 4 harness loom. But looking it over now (and with an 8 harness loom) my only remaining fuss is that some of them are purely inspiration -- no drafts or sketchy instructions. That's all right, though, since I do like to think things out for myself. And I was quite pleased to find plenty of inspiring scarves that are simply plain weave -- rigid heddle material!!
and 
. Both come quickly to mind as fun, interesting books that have projects that could pique both your interests. 
has the terrifically fun woven tam shown here, woven on a cardboard template.