New Address

Hi again! I've been thinking about using a new name for my blog for a while and I finally did it. In the future, please view my ramblings at Wool & Bull. See you over there! Thanks!

The Camera is Back!

Hi! I haven't been posting because my camera broke and blogging is no fun without pictures. In the meantime, I purchased a NEW camera with twice the power of the old one, but I don't have a card reader for it yet. I suppose there's a way to hook it up to the computer, but it's so new that I haven't figured out all querks yet.

HOWEVER, DH said we might as well have the old one repaired to use as a back up camera and it arrived a few minutes ago by FedEx all repaired and servicable, if not exciting.

Just in time, because I desperately wanted to share the fun I've been having with my fiber sampler. As I explained in previous posts, Susan's Spinning Bunny sells a fiber sampler where you buy small quanities of five different fibers all dyed in the same colorway. That way you get a taste of how each material feels and spins. I'm plying the last one right now, so I'm almost done, but it has been a real blast. There's just enough fiber in each sample to give you a good feel for it, but it's also a very quick spin. There's no time to get bored.

Left to right, the samples are: Targhee, Kid Mohair/Merino, Superwash Merino/Tencel and Alpaca/Merino/Silk. Oddly, the one I didn't enjoy spinning (as much) was the Alpaca/Merino/Silk. It didn't draw as nicely and I had a harder time keeping the diameter even. The Kid Mohair/Merino and the Merino/Tencel both flew through my fingers delightfully.

Now I'm looking for a project to knit all the samples into. . . Something to display the different properties of each fiber. They may all look similar, but you can see the sheen on the tencel and how the different fibers absorbed the dye differently. They also feel different. The Targhee is springy and the Alpaca/silk/merino feels slightly slick. The angora and the mohair samples will also have a little halo once they're knit up and knocked around a little.

While I was waiting to become visual again, I also finished up a lovely scarf I've been wanting to make for a long time. The pattern is from Loop-d-Loop, and I admired it on a lady at Friendship Spinners two years ago. It looks so complex, but it's a relatively quick knit [for SOME people -- I didn't follow the directions correctly, so I had to take it apart and put it back together several times]. I added the seed stitch border at the bottom. I'm thinking it would be a good gift -- even for non-knitters -- I'm looking toward Christmas knitting already.

Last, but certainly not least, I wanted to show you the beautiful gift my friend Lynne got me just for no reason (the BEST gifts of all!). It's for my studio, Wool and Bull, which is slowly but surely coming together. I hauled six boxes of junk out of the basement yesterday (sometimes it's good to have teenaged girls because they attract teenaged boys and teenaged boys can be impressed into hard labor that involves lifting heavy objects like defunct computer monitors). Anyway, the ram is a perfect decoration for Wool and Bull. He looks way more dignified than any real sheep -- I LOVE it.

Visual Aids

Since the last post was really light on pictures -- none -- I thought I'd add a couple here to show you the yarn I'm spinning right now. I sent Susan of "Susan's Spinning Bunny" a picture of the yarn I made with her Targhee roving in her Hibiscus colorway and she put it on her shop's website. Cool!

I started the Merino/Mohair in the same colorway last night and it's a dream to spin. You could tell the Targhee would make a springy cuddley yarn. This Merino/Mohair is more elegant. It has a sheen and a silky smooth feel. I'm finding that I'm unintentionally spinning it more finely than I did the Targhee. This will be a problem when I try to make a project out of the five different samples!

I also can't wait to dive into the hand dyed baby llama Susan sent as the first installment of "Fondle This," the spinning fiber of the month club. It's gorgeous! So much spinning, so little time.

January Update

I taught the self-striping sock yarn class on Roc Day at the Weaver's Guild last Saturday. It went fairly well, considering I'd only done it twice before myself. Strangely, four of the seven people who signed up for the class -- which specifically stated that we would be learning to make self-striping sock yarn -- had no interest in making self-striping sock yarn. Two just wanted to dye sock yarn, but not make it self-striping, and two just weren't interested in making socks at all. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good time and everyone seemed okay with the experience.

In an unexpected preparation snag, Knitpicks didn't send the 8 skeins of undyed sock yarn in time for the class and I was running around all day Friday trying to scrouge up some suitable yarn at a reasonable price. The Knitpicks yarn arrived exactly two hours too late to do me any good and now I have 8 skeins of undyed sock yarn in my stash.

I've been spinning the Five Fiber Sampler I got from Susan's Spinning Bunny. I chose the Hibiscus colorway and I've already spun (but not plied) the Targhee. It's beautiful and I think it will make a lovely springy yarn.

Oh! The Christmas update! I got a lot of yarn-related goodness from the DH. He got me the Knitpicks Harmony needle set and the Sweater Wizard software!!! They haven't come in from Knitpicks yet, but I can't wait! He also got me the the Twisted Sister's Sweater Workshop book.

The Ultimate Stash Container

I finally finished it yesterday. Now I not only have a huge stash, but I have a lovely place to put it -- a place that celebrates the importance of stash in my life. Now my goal is to wrangle it down into the basement/studio and only the roving that will fit in it gets to stay! Although the chest is huge, choosing only the wool that will fit in it will be a challenge.

The stripes continue to be stripey. I can't wait to dye my next pair!

Christmas gets an early start

The stripes keep on coming! I think this technique will work well if I can figure out how to dye. I'm excited!

Today was the Weaver's Guild Christmas party. We had a great crowd and a LOT of goodies to eat. I made springerles like last year. It's almost a tradition because I've got the greatest cookie mold with a lady spinning on it. I saved half the batch to take with me next week to the Friendship Spinner's Christmas retreat at Shakertown.

I've made some more progress on the treasure chest (steamer trunk). The cedar panels are installed in the bottom and I bought some pretty reproduction cotton cloth to line it with. I don't think I'll use it, but I also found some cloth that actually has bees on it that are kind of similar to the pattern on the paper originally lining the trunk. Putting the lining in is the last job and then the trunk can take up residence in "Wool & Bull" and I can fill it with stash.

Yipes! Stripes!

The stripes are coming! If you ignore the poor dye job and the blobs of white wax, you can see stripes! Since my poor dyeing technique and the unfortunate wax decision don't really have much to do with the outcome I was testing -- the striping effect -- I consider this a success!

However, I did have a moment of embarassment as I began knitting. I knitted and knitted and the stripes seemed to be coming out about twice as wide as I expected them to be. Hmm ... What could be causing this? I expected some variation, but twice as much? Surely my math wasn't that bad ... Oh, yes, it was.

I put the pegs 15 inches apart thinking that if a row of knitting used 30 inches of yarn, you would wrap it twice for one row of knitting. Does anyone see the fallacy here? The yarn goes TO the peg -- 15 inches -- and BACK from the peg -- another 15 inches -- for a grand total of 30 inches for each wrap. So, each row of knitting would be only one trip around the peg, not two. Oh, well. The proportions will still be the same.

Self-Striping Socks cont.

I'm ready to start knitting the supposedly self-striping socks. Kate helped me pick some colors yesterday and I dyed the hanks.


The dying process was a little more troublesome than I expected. I think I need to work out a better way to dye the hanks separately while keeping them together. I ended up putting each hank in an old clean spagetti sauce jar and adding dye to the jars. Unfortunately, since I put the yarn in first, it was difficult to stir the dye to blend it and the colors didn't turn out as uniform as they should have. I then put all three jars in a pan in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour. After the yarn cooled, I rinsed it twice in water and synthropol and hung it up to air dry.


There was a significant white space between each hank (about 4 inches) and I dripped a good bit of candle wax at the middle of the white space to prevent the colors from bleeding over. Bleeding over wasn't really much of a problem though, and I ended up with white space and a lot of candle wax that is proving to be difficult to remove. Again, I think I'll have to think up something else next time.


On the positive side, the untangling of the skeins turned out to be fairly easy -- with patience. I laid each skein out in what I hoped was the same position as it had been on the warping board and began to wind it into a ball. With a few snags, much fewer than I had feared, I was able to wind it into a ball and then use my ball winder to make a center pull ball.






Now I'm ready to knit. I hope it makes reasonable stripes. Stay tuned for further developments!