Tour de Fleece: Day 3 - 6oz of victory!

Just a quick post tonight as it is very late. I've finally caught up on my daily spinning goals!!! I was able to spin another 2.5 oz this evening and now this very full bobbin has 6oz on it. Not too shabby. Now I have a fighting chance of getting it all spun into singles AND plying. It's been a good night! Hope yours was an productive as mine :-)

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Tour de Fleece: Day 2

Day 2 Progress - 2.5oz

Today was another pretty full day for me.  I went to go see Pixar's Brave with a couple of good friends after going to church in the morning.  Brave was absolutely awesome!  Pixar does such great work.  There were multiple times in the movie when in some of the wide shots, the animation was so good, the people and scenery looked real!  The storyline, voice acting and music were all top notch as well.  So, if you are itching to go to the movies make sure you check Brave out.  It is a good movie for all ages. 

The title does say Tour de Fleece, so I guess I should talk about spinning huh?  :-)  Unlike yesterday, I got to sit down at my wheel reasonably early in the day and was able to spin for about 3-4 hours altogether, which was really nice.  I got a nice rhythm going and was able to watch Mirror Mirror starring Julia Roberts as I happily treadled away throughout the evening. That was enjoyable movie number two for the day.  I was on a roll!

While I didn't completely catch up on my spinning goals for both yesterday and today, I did make a ton of progress, spinning about 2.5 ounces in total.  Tomorrow I'm hoping to finish up the little bit I have leftover from today's bump of fiber and then attack another one :-)

Below are the trailers for the two movies I saw today.  Mirror Mirror is now out on DVD and Brave just started in the theaters last week.

Tour de Fleece: Day 1

I spent most of today with my husband taking care of my friends' 3 month old son, which I might add, was an awesome way to spend a Saturday together :-)  After that we went to my favorite Italian restaurant, Polcari's, for dinner.  We then wended our way back home where I had to sit down to prep some music I'm singing tomorrow.  Finally around 8pm is was time for me to get spinning!

My spinning setup & Dr. Who on Netflix

Day 1 Progress - 1oz

Because I had such a full day, I wasn't able to spin up a whole 2oz bump of fleece as I had hoped.  Nevertheless, I am a happy camper for actually sitting down to get Elphaba, my wheel, up and running and also reclaim my spinner's mojo.   It always takes me a bit of time to get back into the steady rhythm of treadling and drafting, but it's kind of like riding a bike (ha ha ha, Tour de France, do you see what I did there? Yes, I can hear you groaning at my horrible joke) so you don't forget how so much as need to reacquaint yourself with the mechanics of things.

I was hoping to be able to spin my singles pretty thin so I could ply two or three together to get a DK or worsted yarn for the final product.  So far it looks like that might actually happen - HUZZAH!

Anyway, just a quick update for you.  I'm hoping to get way more accomplished tomorrow.  Although, I've got a pretty full day planned again.... /facepalm.  Anyway, g'night!

Tour de Fleece Update - Day 12 - Higher Ratio Heaven

Not too much to update you on today.  I decided to Navajo ply it and tried out the next smallest ratio I have on my wheel for the first time.  Basically, if you are looking at the middle smaller picture, I moved the drive band (the white string) from the bigger whorl (which is behind it in the picture) to the middle whorl.  By doing this, the flyer spins more times per time I treadle, basically adding more twist to the yarn with less effort.  Neat huh? 

Having the wheel set on the higher ration actually made plying the yarn much easier for me than it has even been before.  Until tonight, every time I plied treadling would become harder and harder as I got more and more on the bobbin as I plied.  I haven't quite figured out why this happened, but by setting the wheel on the smaller whorl, I avoided that problem until the bitter end of the single.  At that point, I really think the problem was that I was trying to put more yarn on the bobbin than could reasonably fit, so I think the flyer was catching and causing some drag that way.

Other than finishing up that yarn, I worked on another repeat of my Mystery Summer Wrap knit-a-long.  It's coming along nicely, but it's not a travel project, so the going is slow.  But it will be worth it.  I'm hoping to finish at least one 21 row repeat tomorrow night after my class, but well see how I feel.  

Hope everyone has a good night and enjoyed the bit of a break from the heat (if not one from the humidity).

So.... you know that spinning wheel? She kinda distracted me for a week, among other things.

So yeah.... my wheel, she made it so I didn't really want to do anything else but spin for the past week.  Hence the distinct lack of blog posts both here and on my photo a day blog.  Sorry!  While I would really like to blame Elphie completely for my little blogging hiatus, there have been a few other contributing factors.

One of my major problems his past week it has been so hot and grossly humid out.  Heat is... not so bad, but whenever there is humidity on top of it, I become pretty useless unless air conditioned.  I just hate that sticky feeling I get in this weather and the only way I know how to deal with it is by taking a shower.  Problem: I can't constantly be taking a shower!  Once night I sat down to spin when I got home and after a few minutes of only treadling and holding the fiber in my hands, the sweat was just dripping of me.  SERIOUSLY?!?!?  I was barely moving!!!! Sigh...

Another reason for my social media sloth was that work has been fairly busy lately.  When I have a really really busy day at work, I basically want to eat dinner once I get home and then go to bed.  Sad.  For multiple evenings this week I have just decided to crawl into bed around 10:00 which is pretty darn early for me.  I usually go to bed around 11:30, but sometimes not until 12:30.  The heat and humidity have just taken all the energy out of me this week.  Hopefully things will become more tolerable this weekend and I can manage to something productive other than spin (although, that's not so bad, is it?).

Speaking of spinning... since getting Elphie last week, I have spun up a few different things.  First I tried out the MissBabs BFL in Rose Garden I talked about and showed pictures of in my last post.  Then I started spinning up a single of a very nice mixture of fawn colored alpaca and silk that my mom got for me a month or two ago.  I have about a pound of that, so it is going to take me quite a while to finish up.  I only did one bobbin's worth because I needed to test out the fiber I was hoping to use for my Tour de Fleece project.  I'll explain the Tour de Fleece in a future post.

I had ordered a 1/2 a pound of Brown Select Jacob roving from Halcyon Yarn in Bath Maine and really liked the color and feel of the wool.  It is a nice dark brown and I thought it would be a lovely color for a sweater I want to make in the fall (once it's WAY cooler!).  So, I spun up a little bit of it on Elphie to try it out and I decided it was perfect.  I was going to order a huge amount of it to ensure I had enough to make my long sleeved hooded sweater which requires 3,500 yards of yarn.  (Hmmmm, I don't do anything on a small scale do I?)  So I went to go place my order only to find out they didn't have the 5 lbs I wanted in stock and it would take 8 weeks to come in.  Sadness....  my 1/2 pound of Jacob will have to be made into something else. 

Ok, now I didn't have a plan.  I had to pick another wool!  After speaking with the very nice and very helpful fiber expert at Halcyon Yarn over the phone I decided to try out some similarly priced and more of a medium brown Shetland Moorit wool.  I just got the tiny package with my 4 ounces of Moorit yesterday and spun some up.  Not bad.  It was rougher than the Jacob, but I hadn't plied it yet.  Maybe that would help make it softer.  I ended up Navajo plying it  which is the process of making a 3 ply yarn out of one single by making a giant crochet chain out of it and then putting twist into the plied yarn in the opposite direction is was originally spun.  It's remarkably simple to do once you understand how it works.

After plying up the first little bit I spun, I decided that the yarn was too thick and I would have to spin the single finer.  So, for the past couple nights I've been working on spinning a very fine single in the hopes of it plying up into the thickness I want.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hopefully I'll have more things to tell you about soon.  Well, hopefully things other than spinning anyway :-)

Everyone, I would like to introduce you to.....Elphaba!

Elphaba is my new spinning wheel.  She is an Ashford Traditional, which is a type of wheel I've been drooling over since day 1 of my interest in spinning.  I found her through a really random connection I made at Wooley Ways in Olden Days at the Wayside Inn last month.  Today I was finally able to bring her home.  Here she is getting the royal treatment.  Not many of my possessions get a padded ride :-)  Another bit of happy news is that she is petite and therefore fits nicely in the back of the car.  She is going to be so easy to bring to knit night! **GLEE**

Here's Elphie just as she's come in the door to her new home.  She is currently residing in front of the yarn cabinet in the hope that she will study all the already finished yarn and take notes for when I ask her to spin for me like a good girl.  I'm sure she is going to give me a run for my money though.

I decided to take the plunge and see just how lame my newbie spinning would be.  Turns out.... pretty lame! :P  Actually, I would consider the bobbin of yarn I made tonight equal in quality to the first hank of spindle spun yarn I made.  So, that's not too bad.  I just am not coordinated with the whole having to draft the fiber AND treadle at the same time.  It's way worse than patting your head and rubbing your stomach....  Towards the end of of the batch fiber I spun, I could actually treadle for a few moments before having to stop or accidentally making her spin backwards.  I also figured out that I really need to sit in a good chair to spin on her and that treadling on two layers of carpet is not a sound plan.  Two good lessons learned in one evening.

This is the yarn I came up with....  in one night.  I can't believe how fast it is to spun on a wheel even with my ineptitude at keeping Elphie spinning and drafting at the same time.  I don't think I ever could have spun 4 ounces in one night on a spindle. I'm really happy with how the single turned out.  I used a braid of Blue Faced Leicester in the rose garden colorway I recently ordered from MissBabs.com.  Her stuff is so gorgeous to look at and the BFL is soooo soft!

So, needless to say, I had a really good day and I am a very happy camper.  I can't wait to be able to spend more time spinning on Elphaba.... but for now I guess sleep is a good idea.  Who made that a requirement anyway?

I've been a very bad blogger

Yes, real life has gotten in the way of blogging again, sigh....  That's alright, a bit of down time usually re-energizes me a bit.  And now I have some cool stuff to share and I should have more on the way shortly.

I haven't had much to show for my knitting lately as much of it is for gifts and I'm also toning the projects down a bit after trying to do way too much in May.  My spinning has been going well though.  I finished up my first ever plied yarn and I adore it.  I even have started making a couple projects with it, so once I finish those up, I'll share those as well.  The roving I used was Louet Northern Lights wool in the Cactus Flower colorway.  You can see some photos of the spindle, singles and plying process by checking out my blog posts here and here. 

This past weekend I tried my hand at spinning soy silk mixed with wool.  That's didn't go quite as well.  The length of the fibers is just so long I couldn't figure out how to pull them apart to spin without cutting the roving.  Once I did that, I did pretty well drafting from the fold and got some thinner singles than ever before.   Unfortunately, the fun ended there.  Once I got to the end of some of the strands they didn't just twist themselves neatly into the single, instead they stuck out in all sorts of weird directions.  I'll try to take a picture of this later.  Needless to say I put that down for a few days and have yet to pick it up again. 

Some other good news I can share is that in a little over a week I will be the proud owner of a my very own spinning wheel!  I am totally excited and can't wait to share pictures of her and name her.  Yes... she needs a name and yes... she's a girl.  Those two things I know. Her name I won't figure out until I start spinning.  My goal is to practice spinning on her and be good enough in a couple weeks to start making yarn for a hooded sweater I want to wear this fall.  It only calls for 3200 yard of yarn.  That'll be done in no time right?  **cough cough**  You can see a picture of the sweater here.  I want to make mine out of a dark natural colored wool, so I ordered a small amount of Jacob and Coopworth to try out before committing to probably 4 lbs of any one fiber.

Other than all of that, since the last time I posted we had a cookout, helped put in the sailboat in for the summer, and harvested our first strawberry from our garden.  Not too shabby for one week.  We got some nice pictures and video of putting the boat in and sailing around the harbor that I'll share later on in the week. For now I'll leave you with a shot of Brian playing cameraman with our Flip.