Smatterings

  • fabric

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    It’s all about the fabric.  That is what we are making, isn’t it?  Color, texture, weight, softness, drape, these are words used to describe the characteristics of the fabric we knit.  It’s what we anticipate when we design and or spin a yarn.   How the yarn is knitted,  the pattern stitch and the needle size we choose determines the final fabric.  Before I began spinning, I designed yarns by blending two or more strands of like or different yarns together.  It’s a great way to get interesting textures and colors.  The yarn I’m using for the Everyday sweater is a hybrid.  I made it several years ago.  I had purchased about a pound of mohair heavy, wool blend roving.  It was a mix of dark blue and purple wool, with gold mohair.  As I spun the singles and watched the yarn gathering on the bobbin, I realized that I would not have enough to make the sweater I was envisioning.  I needed to stretch it.  A lot.  I set out looking for a fine lace or fingering wt. yarn to ply it with, thus doubling my yardage.  I tried an orange gold merino 2 py, and a black one.  What I settled on was a very fine wool, baby boucle, in a brightish blue that matched one of the colors in the roving.  The resulting fabric, knitted in a simple stockinette stitch, has enough texture and color to keep it interesting.  The mohair and looped boucle keep it light in weight though not in feel.  It will bloom more when washed.  It is an interesting yarn, creating an interesting fabric.  From not enough, I have more that enough to make a sweater.

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    13 responses to “fabric”

    1. Chery

      Beautiful!

    2. margene

      The fabric is rich with texture and color!

    3. Martha

      Thank you for explaining how you made the yarn. It’s beautiful, and I would never have thought to ply an insufficient amount with something else on my own.

    4. Anne

      Very nice – and I’ll bet it’ll be extremely warm too!

    5. Beth S.

      It’s like the night sky. Really something special!

    6. Manise

      Very vibrant- gorgeous!

    7. cyndy

      I think you are like a painter, but your palette contains wool.
      Lovely Ultramarine blue!

    8. Kim

      I love blue and copper together….very rich

    9. –Deb

      Blue and copper . . . I love it!

    10. Laurie

      My eye can’t distinguish among the plys. Lovely color and texture in that. Interesting that the yarn is the feature, and the stitch can be simple. Do you get bored with st st or does the yarn hold your interest enough? It is going to be a great sweater.

    11. Carol

      Stunning! That must be fun seeing that come to life!

    12. Monica

      Beautiful electric colors!

    13. Theresa

      I love the way the light hits that – gorgeous! And the pattern is simple enough that the focus is all on the fabric, as you intend. Happy Solstice!

  • walk with me wednesday

    Truthfully, I did not walk to see this.  I’m carrying my camera with me, as per usual.  These days, I take them as I see them.  I stop the car, get out and enjoy the views.  I won’t be walking for at least a few more weeks.  I’m optimistic.  I did tear my Achilles tendon, and have done it more than once.  And, there is the tendonitis.  I have a fine ski boot looking thing to wear to bed to keep my foot positioned the way the Dr. ordered. He did tell me that I should wear at least a 1 3/4" heel.  Saying that to the Queen of Birks took courage.  I’m sure he didn’t realize (or do you think he spotted the granola?).  Time will pass.  Keep up your walks, I’ll go with you, enjoying your insights into the landscape around you.

    So here’s my "walk", and in spite of the gloomy weather, I enjoyed it.  Lovely stark stuff.  What’s with all the fog this late in December?

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    Just think of the time I’ll be able to make for knitting. 

    20 responses to “walk with me wednesday”

    1. cyndy

      Oh my…well…at least you found the silver lining to the cloud …and your photographs are still beautiful…feel better soon (and try not to get to restless!)

    2. Pat K

      Beautiful to see the fog. We seldom see that down south here. It’s still clear, sunny, warm down here. And sometimes I really miss the northern weather.

    3. Kat

      Lovely photos. Let that achilles heal, don’t push it. They can be pesky injuries.

    4. Stacey

      Still some wonderful pictures. Sorry to hear about the achilles but you do have a great outlook! So what are you going to knit on?

    5. Carole

      I have a co-worker who tore her achilles tendon. She found that the heels really helped. Love that lost photo, the fog is beautiful.

    6. Ruth

      What a shame about the Achilles – but as you say, plenty of good knitting time ahead! Love the fog.

    7. Lola LB

      Wow . . . what a difference. Usually doctors say to wear shoes with a flat sole as much as possible.

    8. Zarah

      I’m so sorry to hear about your Achilles – it is nice to have more knitting time, but I can tell from your posts that you love your walks, too. Well, all you can do now it give it time to heal!

    9. Adele

      Beautiful pictures in spite of the fog. Are the first two of an old stone wall around an orchard? I love all the lovely mosses and lichens that grow on these wonderful surfaces.
      Hope your tendon heals soon, foot problems are the pits.

    10. margene

      Our bodys can force us to take a well needed break. Take full advantage and heal quickly. Your photos, as always, capture the essence of the season.

    11. Monica

      I love the gnarly trees and fog rising off the water. The pond on my drive in looked similar this morning, I wanted to stop and take a picture. Alas, late for work.

    12. Beth S.

      Does this mean no more greenery-work for you, or can you still hobble enough to do that? Anyway, UGH–foot problems are the absolute worst. I’ve had plantar fasciitis (though it doesn’t compare to a torn tendon, I know) and like the mermaid in the original version of the tale, every step was like walking on knives. Terrible. I hope you heal quickly and get to resume your walks!

    13. Diane E.

      Sorry to hear your heel’s a heel, now heel to the docs suggestions so it will heal quickly. :)_

    14. Anne

      But the fog does make for some gorgeous photos! Take care of that foot of yours.

    15. Manise

      Beautiful photos as usual! Hope the achilles heals quickly. Extra knitting time is always a bonus.

    16. vanessa

      you poor baby! take care of your foot!

    17. lynne s of Oz

      Ow ow ow! Hope it heals up well with as little scarring as possible!
      Sounds like you need Birks with heels on them?
      I might be doing a walk tomorrow (sunday). Hope so! I doubt if it will have any fog though.

    18. Marcy

      Wonderful photos. Thanks!

    19. Carol

      Hope you feel better soon! As always, the photos are stunning!

    20. Dorothy B

      I hope you heal quickly and are able to walk normally again.
      Too bad all the ice melted on your lake. It was so pretty.

  • learning, always learning

    The more things I learn, the more things I need to know and more I find I don’t know.

    Take carding, for instance.  There are some fibers that I have carded that I am very pleased with.  They card up the way I expect them to be.  They are basic, easy wools.  I think that’s why they are successful.   That’s one of the things I think that I don’t know about yet. 

    • A couple Sunday’s ago, Jenny Bakriges challenged each person in the class to take a variety of fibers that she chose and that we, in this case, I knew little about.  We were to card them and spin them for an imaginary project also of her choosing.  I was given a bit of INGEO, a (miserable*) fiber made from corn.  One online description has it as "a fiber entirely derived
      from corn, with the final product a “natural plastic".        Felt like it, too.  The article goes on to state that it has great drape and so on..  It has a melting point of 170 F.  I found this description on a fiber site: INGEO (In-gee-o), which means Ingredients from the Earth, is made in
      the USA and represents a new era in fiber as one of several emerging
      products created from
      annually renewable resources.        It is one of those clever names that hints at it’s origins and sounds good, like Canola oil, a derivitive of Canadian oil, a name having nothing to do with rape seed.  I gathered that it is a recycled bi-product of the sugar industry, corn syrup.  Recycling.. sounds like a good thing.  This past weekend I decided to card it with the green multicolored wool top she included in the challenge bag.  Darn stuff made a mess in the carder, sticking in clumps to the licker.  I carded and spun just enough to say I had, put the remaining into a baggy for later experimentation and went on to my next learning experience.
    • The next project I made for myself showed me that I know very little about carding with silk.  I had small portions of three different tops leftover from the same class.  I had maybe 5-6 ft. of the natural oatmeal colored coopworth, 3-4 ft of the mixed burgundy colored superwash top, and maybe 10" of silk top.  I put onto the carder in layers, sandwiching the silk between the wools.  The first pass gave me lines of the silk, colored and natural.  I wanted a more uniform blend so I separated it into four strips and recarded each of those.  That’s when the trouble started.   I was getting fuzzy balls of what can best be described as wool bunnies jumping off the carder.  I got rid of them as they formed and finished the remainder of the fiber.  The results were a good blend, but the silk had nupped in places.  The resulting yarn is fine, I left the nupps in.  However, I know that I do NOT know enough about carding with silk. 

    I ended up with 100yds of 2 ply yarn from the 1.4 oz of blended fiber.  More for the stash.  I had hoped I would have enough to make a pair of wristers or something… If I’d spin up the corn stuff and use it there would be, but 170 F?? Not for my hands.

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    * could be if I knew more about INGEO, I’d like it.. time will tell.


    10 responses to “learning, always learning”

    1. June

      What kind of carder do you use?
      When I card silk (Strauch Finest), I do a wool sandwich (wool-silk-wool). I put on a light layer of wool, and then I apply a light layer of silk directly to the large drum. I alternate wool and silk until the drum is full. If I want to blend further, I’ll strip the batt and feed it through the normal route a second time. I haven’t worked with ingeo, but it works well with worm silk (tussah and bombyx).

    2. Carol

      I know nothing about carding, but you sure spin beautiful yarn. Time & experience that’s all it takes.

    3. Carole

      I have so much to learn about carding! That Ingeo stuff sounds nasty.

    4. Kim

      silk blends much differently than wool. It is is more resistent to carding and it is easy for the carder to pull big clumps of it as it doesn’t open the same way wool does. You can either put it on the top as suggested above or card very slowly. When you card too fast, the carder grabs the silk instead of opening it.
      Good luck!

    5. cyndy

      Darn! And I was so hoping that you would tell me something about Ingeo that would make me like it enough to use up the rest of the bag I purchased a few years ago…

    6. Dorothy B

      Learning curves like that are no fun. Too bad you didn’t have someone right there with you the whole time to help prevent some of the problems.

    7. Dorothy B

      I just put up my “walk” for Walk with me Wednesday. First one in a while.

    8. Laurie

      I haven’t done mine yet. Soon. I wonder if it has to do with the size of the teeth and spacing, on the carder.

    9. Monica

      I have heard that silk doesn’t like being put through the carder more than once. I’ve yet to try it but I’m thinking of blending up some wool/silk soon.

    10. catsmum

      I have yet to card the silk in my stash but this all sounds like good info … thanks both to you and to the previous commenters

“Our lives are dyed the colors of our imagination.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

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