Spinning and a winner

When I was last at the beach, I toyed with the idea of bringing along my sewing machine. I decided against it, even though I don't get nearly enough time playing with fabric, because I thought it would be too hard to know what to bring with me in terms of fabric and thread. Instead, I opted for my handy-dandy spinning wheel, an Ashford Traveler, which is really designed for portability.  I popped a few extra bobbins and some roving in a bag, and I was good to go.


I haven't been spinning much lately and I really enjoyed getting in the groove of making yarn. One of the rovings I played with happened to be a roving that I dyed a few weeks ago. It was a gray-brown fleece and I played with adding some color to it, while preserving a good bit of the natural color.

I was pleased with the way it came out, and am trying to figure out what it wants to be knit into. I suspect it will knit at around aran-to-chunky gauge, so scarf or hat or mittens, maybe.

If you're interested in playing around with some similar rovings, with some of the natural color peeking through the dyed colors, I've got four batches up in my Art Fire Studio.

Two are shetland wool; two are coopworth. And for the next four days, use the code "FRIDAY10" for ten percent off your order (one time per customer).

WINNER

My last post was a review and giveaway of Hunter Hammersen's new book, The Knitter's Curiosity Cabinet. The random number generator selected Bonnie C., of Indiana, as the winner.  I've sent you an email, Bonnie, so make sure it doesn't get caught in your spam filter.)  Congrats to Bonnie and thanks to Hunter for making the giveaway possible!

New roving blend: 75% BFL/25% silk

On Friday morning, I updated the BBF shop with a spectacular new roving blend: 75% blue-faced leicester wool/25% silk.

Lotus: soft dreamy sages and pale blue-green

The batches are around 4 oz. and believe me, when I say that they are so soft and luscious, I am trying really, really hard not to grab one and start spinning it myself.

Firecracker: red, gold, orange and a hint of olive

This week, I'm hoping to dye some more of the Stella Sock, which by accounts is a lovely and soft yarn to work with... and there are some more new bases on the horizon, just to keep things interesting!

Plum Blossom: mauve-wine with some sage

BFL-apalooza at BBF

Today I've updated the Black Bunny Fibers shop with some great blue-faced leicester yarns and rovings. You'll find 100% superwash BFL sock yarn:

Red Light

Electric Navy

a terrific, tightly-twisted blend of 75% BFL and 25% nylon:

Patina

Cabbage Rose

some batches of superwash BFL roving:

Ribbon

and some non-superwash BFL roving:


Go get 'em while they last! (It's the last update before my big studio sale on Nov. 22d...)

A little spinning, anyone?

I blew the dust off my wheel, inspired by Rhinebeck, and have been playing with this:


It's a sample of a limited-edition roving, called Border Blend, up for sale on the BBF website. I just listed something like sixteen different 4-ounce batches; each is a blend of 40% border leicester/40% mohair/20% silk. The different fibers give the colors complexity and I can vouch for the fact that it's lovely and easy to spin, too. There's a little something for everyone, colorwise, whether you like blue/grays


or deep greens



or even a pumpkin-y orange.

A real live FO

I can finally show you a project I worked on this past spring. As part of Ted's Fiber to Scarf Exchange, I received a mass of Louet Northern Lights top in the mail from a mystery sender. Made of 100% wool and space-dyed, the colorway was called "Marmalade": golden yellow, dusky orange and sage. Part of the fun was not knowing who sent me the fiber and being given purposely vague instructions (unisex scarf).

You have probably heard me say that I'm still a fairly new spinner and when I spin, I need to let the yarn take me where it wants to go (generally it wants to go in the thicker direction) rather than to decide "I'm going to spin a four-ply DK and knit X pattern with it" ahead of time. I was delighted to find that his wool spun very easily. The spinning was fast and enjoyable, and made me feel like a much more experienced spinner than I am, with fairly consistent and smooth singles.

Here's a photo of the singles on the bobbin:



and here is what it looked like after being plied:

and after setting the twist:



and after putting it into a ball:


I ended up with a yarn around chunky weight without major variations between thick and thin. I chose the Irish Hiking Scarf pattern by Hello Yarn, making one modification: I omitted one of the cables, so that my finished scarf had two instead of three. I needed to do that given that my handspun was thicker than the worsted weight yarn called for by the pattern.

I really enjoyed this pattern. It was fun and easy to memorize but gave a very professional looking result:


It was especially satisfying for me to do the whole thing, beginning to end, from spinning to selecting a pattern, to knitting the scarf, and to be pleased with the way the yarn came out and the way the yarn looked knit into the pattern.

I was highly amused to see that the recipient of my scarf was (drumroll, please) Ted himself. I suspect he assigned me to himself in case I blew the deadline. Which I did, but mostly because I couldn't find my blocking wires and didn't want to send the finished scarf unblocked. I hope he will forgive my tardiness. It took me a little while to get over the notion of sending my beginner's stuff to someone who spins as exquisitely as Ted, but since I consider him a friend and an absolutely wonderful person, I gave up obsessing over it.

You can see some of the other finished scarves (including the gorgeous one I got from Katherine) at Ted's summary page here. (He has a few more to add, I think, in addition to mine, but I know he's been on vacation and had some computer mishaps so check back in a little while to see the rest.)

All in all, I heartily enjoyed participating in this project and would gladly do so again. I felt a great sense of satisfaction at having done a project from beginning to end and also felt that it was a good way to appreciate how much my spinning has improved over time. A huge thank-you to Ted for doing all the thankless work of collecting roving, mailing it out and keeping us all on track.

Ogling

One of the most gratifying things about BBF has been the chance to see what people do with the yarns and fibers that I dye for them. For example, we all know Mindy, regular commenter here, and she has done all sorts of wonderful things with her massive stash of BBF yarn and fibers, such as this lovely skein of handspun



which is presently for sale on her Etsy site. Here are some pix of two other skeins she did which I believe have already sold.





Recently I discovered Pauline -- or should I say "Pauline discovered me"? -- who sells handspun yarn on Etsy, including some BBF rovings already spun up. She graciously gave me permission to show you some of her handspuns, although I have to warn you that these particular skeins are already sold.





Speaking of roving, here's what my living room looked like for the last few days:



The first shipment of the BBF Fiber Club is in the process of going out the door. The fiber I used is unbelievably fluffy and lofty, so it's going out in stages. Again, I get nervous when I ship stuff out; this yarn is from a family-run farm and not something super-processed by a big wholesaler, so I hope everyone likes it. I'll keep you posted...

Belated Blogiversary

Can you believe I forgot my own Blogiversary? November 6th was the second anniversary of Go Knit In Your Hat. Once again, thanks to all my loyal readers. You mean more to me than you realize. (insert fahrklemt noises)

Home Despot

We are making the transition to Big Kid Beds and Big Kid Rooms. You see, the twins had to leave their cribs a few years ago due to a certain Little Miss climbing out and hanging precipitously on the rails. We tried low "toddler beds," which were a great transition, but the twins are growing so much that they no longer are comfortable. Thus we needed to get them real Big Kid beds.

On Saturday, furniture for the Big Kid Rooms was deposited in our house. This means that Tom and I had to clear a path for the actual moving of the furniture (way more difficult than it sounds in our house). With the Germ-a-pa-looza we've been having (did I mention that Elvis' strep CAME BACK?!), of course the rooms themselves are a mess and not painted.

This weekend, I continued the wallpaper stripping in N's room (didn't I blog about starting that like, five months ago?! so sad I'm still doing it) and Tom did patching and sanding in G's room. I was told by my husband that I could not help paint because I am "not careful enough." I will let you be the judge; here are two unretouched photographs of the wallpaper stripping. Guess which part of the wall I worked on, and which one Tom worked on (hint: mine is the one with the paint swatches on it; his is the one with the huge gouges out of the drywall):






Not careful indeed.

Handspun Alert

If you happen to be looking for some lovely roving to spin, you will find some at Mindy's Etsy site. She very kindly gave me some to play with when I saw her at Stitches. It's the border leiciester/mohair blend that I sometimes dye except Mindy does completely different fabulous things with it and blends it together in these hazy soft colors that are lovely. Here is what I am spinning:



It's called Genevieve's Mountain Haze, and it's got pretty pale purple running through it. The coolest part is that Mindy takes amazing care of her goats, and the "Genevieve" is the name of her goat that the fiber came from....

She also gave me some of her handspun yarn to play with and I am trying to get her to list more on Etsy because it's so lovely:


If she knows what's good for her, she'll list some on her Etsy site soon....

BBF Club Update

Thanks for your emails about the BBF Sock and Fiber Clubs! I had an excellent response for my trial run. I was able to accommodate everyone who wanted to be in the Fiber Club and had to draw names for the Sock Club. (I let G. draw the names; she felt quite honored.) As soon as I'm done posting this, I'm going to email everyone who submitted their name to tell them if their names were drawn or not.

Next Black Bunny Update

Look for an update Wednesday morning, mostly laceweights with a few odds and ends, and hopefully some roving.

Blogiversary Present

Showing up on Amazon.com!

Catching up

This week will be a week for catching up, while trying very hard not to get further behind. N. did indeed have pneumonia (we had the pleasure of a chest X-ray early last week), in both lungs, and Tuesday night we came ominously close to a hospital admission. The docs gave him another night on the second oral antibiotic and thankfully he turned the corner that night. Now, less than a week later, his cough is nearly all gone and he's fine. The amazing resilience of kids.

I'm glad N. is better in time for Halloween. I've always loved Halloween -- even before those creepy big-box costume stores appeared, trying to turn every eight-year-old girl into corporate America's collective Lolita fantasy -- and I always enjoy making costumes for my kids. My piece de resistance thus far was 2005's Fish Costume





but I have high hopes for Elvis's choice this year: The Parrot. His sister G. wanted to be a ballerina (cool, I thought, I can buy a tutu!) except she insisted on being a BLUE ballerina. Do you know how hard it is to find a blue tutu? N. decided to be a wizard. Even though he doesn't really know anything about Harry Potter. Go figure. As long as there aren't pupiks hanging out or a real excess of bad taste (Tom wistfully mentioned a Lisa Nowak costume, complete with a jar of Tang, a roll of duct tape and a pair of Depends), I'm flexible.

This


is a skein of Black Bunny DK-weight merino, along with a card of glass buttons I got at Stitches East. It's for a baby shower gift, for someone who loves orange. I'm going to be dyeing up some more BBF DK-weight in the coming weeks, which is machine washable and perfect for little baby sweaters, so look for it.

But first, I'll be posting a Black Bunny Fibers roving update tomorrow morning. I've got 6 batches of roving, including a lovely border leicester/mohair blend.




Inspired by Rhinebeck, I blew the dust off my wheel and produced this:



(from a Blue-Faced Leicester roving from Black Bunny). I'm definitely getting more consistent; I just need to work on spinning a bit thinner. Everything I produce seems to be aran-weight or heavier.

Last, I would be remiss if I did not mention that today is my mom's birthday. I can't believe she's seventy-seven. She's in great shape and excellent health, but it still scares the bejeesus out of me that her age sounds so, well, old. She doesn't read my blog (she doesn't know what a blog is) -- which probably explains why her heart is still in such good shape -- but Happy Birthday, Mom. You're the best.*



*Also happy birthday to Owen....

No-Bull Book Review: The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters

After the success of their dyeing/handspinning/sockknitting book of five years ago, the "Twisted Sisters” -- a group of handspinners that originated in Portland -- are back with The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters: A Knit-to-Fit Workshop(Interweave Press 2007; MSRP $24.95, currently $16.47 by clicking on this link). The Twisted Sisters' first book showed, in glorious color photography, their methods of dyeing fiber, spinning it via spindle or wheel, then knitting the resulting yarn into socks. Their follow-up book tackles the more difficult problem presented by using one’s handspun yarn to knit sweaters.




The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters is not a traditionally-styled pattern book, and you’d best know that going in. This is not the kind of book where you flip to the pattern section, find your favorite, figure out what commercial yarn you’re going to use and immediately cast on. If you’re looking for such a book, and want a very straightforward, you-follow-the-pattern-exactly-as-written experience, you’ll be disappointed. Very disappointed, since there isn’t a single complete “pattern” in the book in the way we usually think of them.

That's not to say it isn't a good book, though. The aim of the book is more ambitious, and is best explained by the fact that the group who inspired it consist of spinners (extremely talented spinners by the look of the yarns) who want to knit beautiful garments with the yarn they've created. As Vogel explains in the Introduction:

[A]s handspinners, most of us had to adapt either our yarn to fit a pattern or the pattern to fit our yarn. So we agreed to meet this challenge. Knit an original sweater by altering a basic drop-shoulder pullover – expand, shrink, shape, and decorate it to meet your practical requirements and express your personal style.

You’ll learn several important things about the book from these sentences: the main goal is to allow a handspinner to adapt handspun yarn for knitting into a sweater; the basic sweater style is a drop-shoulder pullover (although variations are included, which I’ll get to later); and the sweater that you knit will be custom-tailored to meet your measurements. And the book admirably arms the reader with the information required to do those three things. Looking at it chapter by chapter:

The first chapter of the book is called “Yarn and Fabric,” and it discusses some of the basics that any knitter will benefit from knowing: yarn weight (including the Craft Yarn Council’s new system for standardizing (ha!) yarn weight, wraps per inch and gauge); a discussion of drape; a brief section on knitting with variegated yarns; and a section on calculating yardage. Especially helpful is a chart which lists the traditional yarn weight names (e.g. worsted), yards per pound, wraps per inch, gauge, and a comparison of the kind of fabric the yarn will make when knit at regular, tighter-than-normal and looser-than-normal gauges. Very experienced knitters may know all or most of this; less experienced knitters should find this information extremely helpful if they haven’t encountered it before.

The next chapter introduces the “Knitter Fitter System,” which is basically consists of (1) a list of important measurements (“Fitter List”) and (2) a general guideline or map (including schematic) for the sweater (“Sweater Map”). This chapter is brief, the meat of it contained in the two pages of the Knitter Fitter System. (There is also a brief discussion of ease.)

Chapters 3 and 4 walk the reader through the construction of sweaters, first up/down, and then side-to-side, using a basic crewneck pullover pattern with drop shoulders as the example. These chapters tell you how to calculate some of the measurements you’ll need to knit your custom sweater, with charts and diagrams. Chapter 5 covers variations on the crewneck: making it a cardigan, different necklines, different sleeve configurations (so if you hate drop sleeves, you can check out the sleeve and shoulder variants) and edgings. Tips – like using selvedge stitches or how to incorporate stitch patterns – are sprinkled throughout these chapters. There’s a lot of valuable information packed into these chapters, even though they fill only about 30 pages.

The remainder of the book is devoted to the Twisted Sisters’ projects. Ten specific projects are shown in detail, each with color photos, designer notes and description, a completed Fitter List and Sweater Map, along with a general list of steps in knitting the sweater. These are intended to illustrate some of the ways that you can tweak the basic sweater to meet your own individual taste and needs – for example, knitting a turtleneck in one piece from back hem up to the shoulders and down the front, or adding all-over cables,

or by working from cutt to cuff with a v-neck and added length. They aren’t really intended to provide you with a written-out pattern for the sweater so you can duplicate it – unless you just so happen to be the same size as the original maker (although even if you are, many of the yarns used are handspun or handdyed, so cookie-cutter knitters may well be out of luck).

Last, a “Gallery of Inspiration” shows photographs of additional sweaters (photographed flat rather than on models) to show even more variants.

In terms of the basics, the book has all the quality that one would associate with Interweave Press: lots of color photographs: plenty of charts, tables, drawings and schematics; good technical information; a glossary of techniques used, nice photography; quality paper; easy to read type and sufficient white space on the pages. The book is paperback, about 144 pages, with color throughout. Many of my usual benchmarks just aren’t applicable here: for example, since the goal is for the knitter to create her own custom-sized sweater, there are no size ranges and the potential for sizing is really limitless so long as you are willing to do the math. All the garments shown are for women and kids, but theoretically there’d be no reason why you couldn’t apply this fitting information to men. The photography is clear and pleasant but this really isn’t a book that relies on extensive fashion photography to set a mood – it’s much more pragmatic in nature (and I don’t mean that as a criticism, simply a reflection of this book’s unique approach).

So…. how to tell if you should buy this book?

If you have trouble finding patterns that fit you well, or are in a size that isn’t often covered by commercial patterns; if you would like to know how to create your own designs but aren’t sure where or how to begin; if you are a spinner who’d like some ideas for how to use your handspun in creating sweaters or even just to get some inspiration from what other spinners have done; if you are a new knitter and/or don’t feel you adequately understand sweater construction or the math that goes into calculating a pattern; then I think you are likely to benefit greatly from reading and using this book.

On the other hand, if you are a very experienced knitter, if you already have several comprehensive books in your knitting library that cover sweater construction and design, if boxier garments with variegated or multiple colors/textures of yarns don’t appeal to you, or if you simply don’t want to mess around with creating your own designs, then you might want to take a pass. Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters is an excellent book, full of helpful information, but their approach – while informative and valuable – won’t be everyone's cup of tea.

If I could only use the Vulcan mind meld to figure out how to spin like that...

MIA: One Tooth Fairy

My kid was very, very brave. The dentists got together and decided to callously spend even more of our hard-earned money avoid future dental crowding by pulling three teeth instead of one. One of the teeth was fused to the jawbone, and you can figure out for yourself what that meant in terms of the extraction. But we are feeling a bit better today and are sure to go to school tomorrow.

Shockingly, although two teeth were left under the pillow (one was retained for showing in school), the Tooth Fairy failed to take them and leave some cold hard cash in exchange. Such callous cruelty! (The Tooth Fairy was exhausted and sound asleep herself, relieved all was well with her eldest child.)

We decided that perhaps more than one tooth would be too heavy for such a wisp of a thing to carry. We are going to try again tonight, one at a time.

In the meantime, I leave you with a shot of some spinning I did over the last week or so. It's a batch of Black Bunny (blue-faced leicester)



that didn't make it through my stringent quality control process.