New year, new yarn

Well, I finally finished spinning that little 4 oz bag of alpaca/wool that I started waaaaay back in November. I’m not that impressed with my yarn.  I got 278 yards of 2-ply:

You can see that the two plies aren’t very even.  I need to make a better effort when it comes to consistency.  I also need to work on plying – I just get so confused when I read articles about calculating the angle of twist and how I’m supposed to be able to see that without some scientific apparatus. 

Even though I divided my fiber in half and spun each half on its own bobbin, I had kind of a lot left over on one bobbin.  So I rewatched the navajo ply video and finished up the remaining singles.  Remember, navajo ply creates a chained 3-ply yarn.  This should look “rounder”: I have only 30 yards of this.

I spun the singles on my 10.5:1 whorl and plied them one size bigger (9:1).  I read somewhere that you should ply on the next whorl size up, so I tried that.  Not sure it made a huge difference on the two-ply.  It did make the navajo ply more manageable.

I’m resolved to keep on doing this until it gets better.  I think I’ll spin up those little bags in the spinner’s sampler I got at the farm show.  Since they are samples (1 oz each), I guess I’ll navajo ply so I don’t have to worry about dividing and then having leftover singles.

I keep reminding myself that I’ve put a LOT more practice into knitting than I have into spinning, and what I’m getting is still fairly beginner-level handspun.  I just need more practice.  Gotta get back on that horse. 

And I also want to start knitting more with my handspun.  I think that will help, as well.  My sock knitting improved considerably once I started wearing my own socks rather than giving them all away.  One gives oneself the most honest feedback!

Two balls in

I spent most of my Thanksgiving holiday knitting selfishly (and happily!) on my Vodka Gimlet.  Here’s how it looks after a little more than two balls of yarn:

Yeah, not that impressive when it’s still on the needles and shown on a nine-year-old.  But it serves as proof that I’m finally off and running on this project!

I also dusted off the spinning wheel and started making some yarn.  This is an alpaca/wool blend I got from The Spinning Loft in Michigan (by mail – but wouldn’t it be great to visit there one day?).  I believe it’s this: Louet Eastport Sliver in sea foam green.  And for my knitting readers, “sliver” is pronounced with a long “i” – rhymes with MacGyver. I have neglected my wheel for too long and need to address my fiber stash!  Last year, S1 got me a gift certificate for this shop, a nice generous one that was enough to buy a rare breeds sampler.  But I ended up chickening out and not buying it, because the fiber required carding or combing and I don’t have those tools.  Instead, I just bought a range of other things, including some breed-specific prepared fibers.  All have been marinating in the fiber basket for far too long.  I’m interested in taking Deb Robson’s Rare Wools workshop at MDSW 2012, but I won’t feel worthy unless I spin a fair bit of my stash before then.  So, to the wheel!

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival
West Friendship MD
May 3–6, 2012

A two-day workshop on "An In-Depth Look at Rare Wools." On Saturday and Sunday mornings, I’ll also be doing half-day walk-arounds in the barns! (The Sunday one will end in time for the Parade of Breeds, which I don’t want to miss, either!)

Here’s the link to Deb’s teaching schedule if you’re interested.

I’ve worked a bit more on Boy 1’s Crazy Brown Socks, but I’ll share those with you again next week.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.  What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food?  My “musts” include pumpkin pie, that horribly processed green bean casserole (just open cans and heat!), mashed potatoes and gravy, and a dab of cranberry sauce.  I like the good sauce, but I also like the canned stuff I was raised on, ridges and all.

What kind of cat carries your golf clubs?

Today’s post title is a nod to Billy Jonas’s most excellent song, the title track of his CD, “What kind of cat are you?”  We listened to this CD nonstop all the way to, through, and from North Carolina.  My kids adore it (thanks to Kristina for bringing it to our attention!).  Seriously, you have to read the lyrics.  Better yet, don’t read them – listen to the song first (see link at top), so you can try to answer the clues.

Anyway, one of the “cats” in the song is the kind of cat that carries your golf clubs – a CADDY.  I’ve been meaning to tell you that we saw llama caddies on our trip.  We left our campsite one day to go to the Carl Sandburg home in Flat Rock and drove past a golf course.  S1 and I both did a double-take as we rolled past – were those llamas or alpacas carrying people’s golf clubs?  We thought we were seeing things.  I asked our campground host about it later in the day, and he just smiled.  “It’s Tuesday – Tuesday is Llama Day,” he said.  So there you have it – some people are using llamas to carry golf clubs around.  NC truly is a fascinating state.  I didn’t get a photo myself, but luckily, the NYT has covered this llama caddy phenomenon – here’s their photo:

Camelid segue… I don’t have any llama fiber to tell you about today, but I did finish my Jacob-alpaca yarn – close enough? My batt was labeled 3 oz, but my finished yarn is 2.5 oz (71 g).  That’s 140 yards of 2-ply.  You’ll notice if you look closely that this is pretty uneven.  The fiber contained a lot of lanolin, and the Jacob drafted quite differently from the alpaca (the pure white spots are alpaca).  It was sticky.  I decided not to fight it and just spin it as it wanted to be spun.  The yarn bloomed a bit after setting it in a hot bath.  The result is quite fluffy and pettable.  It will probably work well as a hat.

I’m so stoked that I finished this in 2 days – I spun all the singles on Saturday and plied on Sunday.  What’s next from my pile?

Hint: something purple.

I made some yarn!

Jacob Alpaca 3-ply
Originally uploaded by JLW in PA

Clearly, the novelty of being able to make my own yarn has not yet worn off. Here is my latest batch off the wheel, a 3-ply Jacob Alpaca blend. I bought the roving from the Toots LeBlanc booth at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle (they had a small market set up to support the Nordic Knitting Conference). I remember that trip so fondly!

I spun this worsted style because that's the only style I know so far, but after reading further in The Intentional Spinner, I now wish I had tried woolen spinning with this fiber. I'll just have to try that next time!

I tried to spin finer and succeeded, though not consistently. I tried to spin more tightly and didn't succeed so well, I guess, because my plying twist was more than my singles twist. I could tell because when I let go of the end of the plied yarn, it untwisted a bit. The yarn relaxed some when I set the twist in nearly-boiling water, though. In all, I have about 260 yards, weighing 5.8 oz.

This yarn might be a good candidate for some cozy gloves or mittens. It's not super soft (due to the Jacob, a "primitive" or "unimproved" sheep breed). It seems like a hardy Nordic yarn, like the kind of thing they might have made in Independent People. Have you read it? Steven turned me onto it and I really loved it. It's on my mind again lately because I'm finishing The Tricking of Freya, a novel that is set in New Iceland (Canada) and Iceland and which references the type of people depicted in Independent People.

So, I have to go now, because I think I might be able to finish Freya tonight! Off to read...