The Whirligigs

Sample skein and a swatch

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:56:00 +0000

Call me corny but I just thought it would be so cute to make a baby cardigan that matches my husband's Irish Moss sweater by Alice Starmore. Whenever I saw pictures of whole families wearing the same hand knitted sweaters on the pages of pattern books, I cringed. But I think this is a little different. For starters, the baby garment will be a cardigan, not a closed sweater, and the colors will be completely different (my husband's is brown), never mind that no one looks at the parents when they see the cute plump baby.

Anyway, here's a close up of the sample skein I spun up 3-ply of that clown-wig color combo. See, it's not too bright at all. In fact, it's a very mossy green.

I made a little swatch using US size 4 needles to see how the cabled patterns would look like with this yarn. I like 3-ply yarn better than 2-ply for cable knitting because it really shows off the stitches, especially on patterns that rely heavily on twisted stitches.

I noticed the colors on the two pictures above look a little different from each other. The best match to the actual yarn I'm looking at next to my computer is a mix of those two.

The yarn is SO incredibly soft. I can't stop petting the swatch. I decided that I like this color combination, so now I just have to comb the rest of the dyed locks (some 300 grams) together in the same color ratios.

Hope yall have a great weekend!

Big update - Cormo fleeces!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:58:00 +0000

Warning: this post is very dense on pictures.

My apologies for not posting anything here for over two weeks! Today I am going to make up for it in a big way.

A couple of weeks ago I received two beautiful Cormo fleeces from Sue Reuser at Cormo Sheep & Wool Farm in California. They arrived in this box, which looked pretty small for two fleeces weighing a total of ~8lbs.

notice the cute little white paw on the right

Anyway, after I opened the box, the mystery was solved. They were vacuumed packed! Very cool.

I bought these two fleeces because they have great length and crimp and because one of them is named Ho!

I am first going to show you Ho's fleece and then the other, which is a hogget fleece (the first shearing for that sheep).

So here are some pictures of Ho's entire fleece and close ups.

and I learned from Sue that scanned locks come out sharper and with more detail. So here're Ho's locks close up. I tried to take representative samples of the entire fleece. Look at the perty crimp!

the two locks on the right have been washed and the one at the bottom was flicked with a dog comb, notice how white it turned

In the time since I last posted here, I've really gotten into 3-ply yarn. Ho's wool is amazing to comb, so soft! And spinning it is wonderful too!

3-ply super soft Ho yarn

As an aside, last year, during the NY Sheep & Wool Festival, I got this book:

and finally last week, I decided to put it to good use. I happen to have a huge stash of dry porcini mushrooms and I used about 5 grams (that's a tiny amount for those of you who love Boletus edulis and think it's a sin to use it in the dye pot) of it to dye Ho yarn with Alum mordant. And here's how it came out:

It's a lovely nutty beige shade, kind of like the inside of a chestnut. The skinny skein on top is undyed Ho yarn.

Ok, now on to the hogget.

It has a very peculiar look to it at first glance. Sue told me she washes the lambs before putting jackets on them. But the fleece was overall very clean. There were more seed heads and grass bits than in Ho's fleece, but not too bad. Doesn't it look so comfy to sleep on?

And here are the scanned locks:

locks to the right have been washed and the bottom one was flicked with a dog comb

the neat thing about this hogget fleece is that after washing it, it felt so incredibly soft. It was already soft to begin with, but now it's like nothing. What I mean by that is that when you pet the combed top, you really can't tell when your hand actually touches the wool! It's that soft!

and here's 3-ply of hogget yarn:

I thought this hogget wool would be perfect for baby/children's clothes. So I am saving it all for that purpose. I want to make a little green Aran cabled sweater with some of it. I really like the Jamieson's shetland yarns for their depth in color. There are these specks of contrasting colors amidst a more subdued color. The only problem with that yarn is that it is itchy! No good for baby clothes. So I decided to dye my own version.

Now I know these colors look scary, all bold and clashy, like a clown's puffy wig.

But once you comb them together you get a much subdued range of colors.

And for those of you who know how shy Spooky is, here's a picture of him literally resting his head on the combed top and sleeping.

That's it for now! I still have to spin that sample top and once I do, I'll post it here. I am really happy with the fleeces I got at Cormo Sheep & Wool Farm and you should go check out their website some time. Cormo is a beautiful and wonderful breed. It's my favorite breed!

Weekend dye job

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:40:00 +0000

Since this weekend weather was so pleasant, I decided to heat up the dye pot with some merino top.

I went all crazy with the colors because I just wanted to spin something not monochromatic for a while (my exploding stash includes things in greys, whites, browns, blacks, blues, pinks, reds, and oranges, but none mixed!). So this was the result. I kind of like it the way it is right now, don't know how I will feel after I spin it tho.

I also over dyed some merino/tencel blended top that I bought a while back and didn't like the color (it was "honey"). This looks better, and I already started spinning it into singles yarn. I will try to make a swatch to post up here soon.

Lots of different things going on

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 15:33:00 +0000

Since last week's post I've been sort of scattered brained, doing a bunch of different little projects. So today, I'm just going to post them up.

First off, there were the dyed blanks for the French Market Bag (FMB).

the colors are very bold but that's what I wanted because when felted, the bag really looks neat with contrasting colors.

I've been knitting this on and off, as it is kind of boring to do. My favorite part is when it's all done and ready to felt. This bag is a modified version of the FMB. I found that I like it much better with a rectangular, rather than a square, bottom. Also, I like it with long handles. When I learn how to post PDF files, I will put up the instructions for this modified FMB.

I also finally found the other half of the merino/silk top that I had begun to spin in June.

Somehow it got put away with some tool boxes and it was not until we were unpacking some more boxes (slowly but surely, we will unpack all of our stuff, even if it means a whole year after our move) that my husband found it. Anyway, there's a lonely bobbin-full of merino/silk singles waiting to be joined with another singles to make super soft and shiny 2-ply lace-weight yarn.

And lastly, I found the perfect fun little project to use up my leftover sock yarn. It's the Nautie! It's just so cute and fun. AND, you can finish it in one sitting! So I got excited about taking pictures of it:

I have a bunch more of leftover sock yarn that will probably become other Nautie strains.

Knitted blanks and some combed top

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 05:03:00 +0000

I decided to go with the knitting machine option for prepping the yarn for dyeing stripes. It just seemed so much faster than using the warping board. I knit all four skeins of Cascade in less than an hour! They are 35 stitches wide, which gave me plenty of room for dying and did not take up the whole length of my table. The yarn is now skeined and hanging to dry, will try to take some photos of it tomorrow.

In the mean time, here are some other things I did:

I combed about 75 grams (> 2.5 ounces) of the Merino x Corriedale fleece I bought a while back. I still need to comb another 40-50 grams more for the project I want to start, but this was fun. I haven't combed any wool in about a month and had almost forgotten how much fun it is! This wool will be used for my husband's Zigzag scarf, knit the long way. I made a swatch of it months ago and my husband liked it. It all started when I got the Spring issue of Spin Off magazine. I really wanted to try out the energized singles scarf idea mentioned in the magazine. My husband hates cables, or worse, lace, for himself, so the Zigzag pattern was pretty innocuous.

Oh, I also finished spinning singles of that Merino/Tencel blend from Bonkers. I think this one will be for Mrs. B. I like the color changes in it. It would also make a nice Zigzag scarf... hmm, I think I got zigzags on my mind.

Dyed silk singles

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:57:00 +0000

At the beginning of this year I dyed some Tussah silk top and some Polypay fleece together in the same pot. I wanted a blend of silk and wool (20:80), which I accomplished by combing. I made 2-ply fingering weight yarn (~200 grams) for my friend's birthday. It came out nice with a touch of shimmer, but alas, no recorded picture of it to post here.

But anyway, I had dyed WAY more silk than I actually used for that project. So last week I spun the rest by itself. There's ~50 grams of it here and about 350 yds.

shiny variegated pink silk

I've been noticing that I dye a lot of my fibers pink... I think I should force myself to look the other way and choose a different shade. I really like pink, though I don't think it goes particularly well on me. Anyway, don't know what I want to do with this yet. I would love to weave something in silk, but that will have to wait until I get a little table loom... which means a really long wait.

On a different note, I bought some plain worsted weight wool to make another (I already made 4!) French Market Bag. My favorite bag was one I made with some Noro yarn. So I am psyching myself up for "warping" it on my board. I want to make a sort of stripey pattern with it and for that I need a very long skein. I saw in Monica's blog, Two Left Needles, that she used a knitting machine to create a fabric on which she painted the stripes. I like this idea too, and maybe I will dig out my old childhood knitting machine for this purpose. Do any of you have a preferred method?

Will post pictures of whatever happens soon.

Lots of New Fibers!

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:41:00 +0000

My first try at spinning was at a friend's house last year in late summer. It was there that I met her mother, Mrs. B., who is a spinning and weaving instructor. Mrs. B. kindly asked if I'd like to try out her Schacht Matchless wheel. I immediately accepted the offer as I've always wanted to learn how those neat wheely-machines worked. In retrospect, my first yarn was weird looking: lumpy and uneven, with skinny and thick pieces all over. But I still loved it and boy, was I excited about it. It had a very authentic, homegrown feeling to it. I made a tiny baby hat with this yarn, which, when I find out where it is, I will post it here. Later, she lent me one of her wheels indefinitely until I either got sick of spinning or fell in love with it. Of course the outcome was the latter one and never has there been a dull moment in spinning for me. Mrs. B. has not only been my spinning teacher but also a dear friend. She's one of the kindest people I know. And here's one example (of many, many, many) of her kindness and generosity. When I got sick with shingles, Mrs. B. was at the Convergence conference in Grand Rapids, MI. There, she got me a ton of beautiful fibers to play with.

50:50 Merino:Tussah Silk fleece and 70:30 Lambswool:Alpaca fleece from Ursula's Alcove, 50:50 Tussah Silk:baby Camel Down top and 80:20 black Alpaca:Bombyx mori Silk top from Shadeyside Farm, 50:50 Merino:Tencel top in Emerald Forest and Obscure Rainbow by Bonkers, black Alpaca:Silk top, and Alpaca top in grey, brown and beige from Alpaca with a Twist.

The only condition upon receiving this wonderful gift was that I spin half of it for her--which is a most welcomed pleasure. As I said before, I love to spin, and spinning for Mrs. B. is like a learning experience and honor all at once. I am very excited! All these fibers are incredibly soft, especially the alpaca tops. I am now trying to decide what weight yarn and whether to spin singles or 2-ply for the Merino:Tencel blended top. I love those colors!

Also, believe it or not, the only drop spindle I've ever used was a CD-spindle. So Mrs. B let me try out her new Golding Ring Spindle. It was amazing! It keeps on spinning and spinning...so nice! She lent me a Jonathan Bosworth spindle to play with for now. It's also very nice but I still prefer the Golding spindle, which has now been added to my wishlist.

With all these new and wonderful goodies around me I almost forgot to mention something I had forgotten to write up in last week's entry: the material I used for the placemats were linen for the warp and cotton for the weft. Here's a picture of the cut out mats with the edges tucked in and pressed, but not yet sewn (needed to go buy new heavy-duty sewing needles for my machine!).

Placemats and dyed lace yarn

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 01:35:00 +0000

A long time ago I began weaving placemats to give to our cousins as a gift. And finally, today, I finished them. Here's a picture of the mats still on the rigid heddle loom.

and here's a picture of the mats cut off from the loom:

I haven't yet sewn the edges of each mat but once that's done the mats are going into the washing machine and dryer. Hopefully they'll come out alright.

On another note, I dyed some lace-weight yarn a couple of days ago. It's a variegated light lilac color. The picture shows the yarn a little darker and less pink than it actually is.

I know I start way too many more projects than I should or have time for, but I specifically dyed this yarn for knitting the Light Up My Life Scarf by HeartStrings FiberArts . I have only knit a tiny bit of it, but here's a peak of how it's coming along.

Washing fleece is better than watching bad soccer game

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:51:00 +0000

07.18.06 edit: I had forgotten to mention in this post what exactly it is I do with the washing machine. I actually only use it for soaking the wool in then to spin dry, but I never agitate. If you're interested in how I wash my raw fleeces, please go to my How to Wash fleece post.
-Ana

As hard as I find to believe it, I have shingles... for those who don't know, the chicken pox that most of us got as children don't all die off when we get better. Instead, they take refuge, or make themselves a comfy home, somewhere in our nervous system. Then, for some reason, maybe stress, maybe something else, they decide to get out and cause trouble all over again. The best description I've come up with for how it feels to have shingles is this: it feels like a gallon of tetanus shot vaccine is constantly being pumped into your body. There's a lot of pressure, and that horrible burning-twisting pain. Anyway, for some reason, the pain is bearable in the mornings so I am partially functional--good enough to deal with World Cup soccer and some wool, mostly they help take my mind off of the pain.

We are down at my mother's for the weekend and since it's a rare treat to have access to a non-coin-op machine, I brought down my last 2 remaining raw fleeces to be cleaned up. Plus, the weather is nice: hot and sunny and not raining.
So yesterday morning I picked through the Jacob fleece for washing in my mother's washing machine before the England vs. Portugal soccer game (which, btw, was won on penalty kicks). I really wish I had a washing machine at my place... anyway, here's a binful of dry and clean Jacob fleece:

In the afternoon, I put off picking through the Merino fleece just so I could watch the Brazil vs. France soccer game. You see, for a Brazil soccer fan, this was a very important game. Not only was it the quarter finals, but the last time Brazil played against France in a world cup, it lost miserably to France. It was a very strange game because Brazil had been playing really good soccer until that one game in 1998. So anyway, yesterday was Brazil's chance to prove themselves superior to France's soccer team. But you know what?! They really played terribly once more and lost, not even on penalty kicks or overtime, they just plain out right lost.

80 minutes into the game I just gave up watching the game all together and decided that picking through my merino fleece was time much better spent, not to mention much more satisfying. So, by the end of the day I had all of my remaining raw fleeces all washed and clean.

Moorit Merino fleece hanging under the sun to dry.

Mom and I placed the leftover wool skirting by her flower bed. I am hoping the bird living on the cherry tree by this bed finds it and uses it for her nest.

Before I got too busy to take care of them, I used to have quite a large collection of passionflower plants. These tropical flowering plants are my favorite all around. Their vining habit is great for covering entire walls or window frames and their flowers are beautiful. Here's a picture of a passion flower:

I gave this plant to my mother probably five years ago and it is huge. She puts it outside during the summer and once she even planted it in the ground, where it grew to gigantic dimensions. Now it sits, happily, in a big pot with a very sturdy wire frame to support it.

On a different topic, a few weeks ago I dyed some sock yarn for my mother and forgot to photograph it. So now that I am here at her house, I took a photo of it.

Hope yall have a happy 4th!

Multicolor tops all spun up and a sitting cat watching soccer

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:38:00 +0000

I've been accumulating pictures in my digital camera and finally, today, I put them where they belong: here!

First, while I was watching the World Cup two weekends ago, I spun up this multicolor merino top I dyed some crazy colors.

My husband and I kind of like the color combo even though it's really bright. Anyway, I left this as singles because I wanted to try out the energized singles scarf I saw in the Spring issue of Spin Off. But since the big move I haven't been able to find a lot of things, including this magazine. So, I made it up from memory. But with all things vaguely thought out and planned, the scarf pattern didn't turn out quite as I had envisioned. I still like the way it though. It looks and feels autumn-cozy.

Last weekend I decided that it was about time that I started doing something with the multicolor merino top I bought at WEBS in the fall of last year. So again, while watching the Cup, I spun it. Hey look who was sitting up and watching the tele with me!

(he's rooting for Brazil)

I want to make a quick lacy scarf with the wool (which, by the way, is Ashland Bay Sandalwood). So I made 2-ply yarn, heavy fingering, at ~350 yds for 100 gr.

and below is a close up:

It's fun to watch soccer while spinning. One thing lab work has taught me is to multitask. I try not to look at my hands and wool and just get a feel for the twist and the yarn that's being spun up. That way I get to see all that's going on in the game AND practice spinning by feel. It's very Zen (the spinning, that is, NOT the soccer--the latter is very stressful sometimes).

Moorit merino doily

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 03:13:00 +0000

I decided to use my sample skein of that pretty moorit merino fleece on a small project; a lace doily. I got the pattern from A Gathering of Lace book. I wanted to make sure I was spinning the correct weight for (eventually) a lace shawl.

This exercise was actually very useful since I now know that I want to spin a little thinner yarn for the shawl and add a bit more twist to it. The yarn above is probably at the borderline between lace and fingering weight. Anyway, the doily was a quick and fun way to learn some more about spinning and how homespun knits up. I also wanted to see how this specific moorit color would look as a lacy product. I like the colors even more now!

Another thing I did some time ago was to knit up the multicolor merino/mohair (50/50) yarn. I made a sock. Sorry about the bad lighting in the pictures...

The yarn is kind of irregular. I was sort of careless about spinning it (actually, I was in a hurry to get it done in time to catch a plane!). I think 50% mohair might be a little too much for my taste. But the sock is nice and shiny from it. I still have to make the other sock, though I must confess that I don't really feel very excited about that.

Merino multicolor top and mohair

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:27:00 +0000

Today I took a little break from work and visited the Mind's Eye Yarns shop for the first time. They are having a 25% off anniversary sale and I bought four ounces each of these:
from left to right: multicolor merino top in Hollyberry, hand dyed mohair, and multicolor merino top in Cassis.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with these when I bought them. I just really liked the colors. I remember seeing the multicolor tops at the sheep and wool festivals but was too distracted by the fleeces to take the time to look at processed fibers. Anyway, I am going to make socks out of the Hollyberry and hand dyed mohair. In fact, I spun about 25 gr of each and plied them together. The yarn is now soaking in hot water in my bathroom sink. I took a picture of the pre-plied yarn, but alas, it is night time and no sun shine lights up my yarn, just ugly yellow incandescent light.

Oh btw, the pattern for my brother's sweater is from Wendy designs: His and Hers Guernsey Style Sweaters. I used a little less than 2 lbs of roving, worsted spun, 2-ply at 12 wpi, and size 6 Addi turbo needles for a medium-large sweater.

Brother's sweater

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Tue, 30 May 2006 17:21:00 +0000

I finally got a picture of the sweater I made for my brother.

The roving is a merino-romney/rambouillet-finn mix that comes from a hogget fleece. I bought the roving from Linda Jacobs at Jacobs Art last year. It is really soft. My brother hates cables (actually, I don't know of any guy who likes them) and I refused to make him a plain sweater. So the above was the compromise; a textured sweater. It's basically a simple combination of purl and knit stitches. I got the pattern from my friend Matt's mom after I saw him wearing the sweater she made for him. I will try to post the actual pattern reference soon. I did change a bunch of things about it though since I wanted the sweater to fit perfectly and my brother likes raglan-cut sleeves.

And as a bonus, my brother also sent me some pictures of my cats! So here they are. I formally introduce you to

Cayman, who's been in a couple of pictures here already. He's a real big cat whose lean weight is 18 lbs. But let's not talk about his weight right now, we're working on his diet. He's very aggressive (but still very affectionate) and loves water. We think he's part wild cat.

And this is our Spooky. He is the youngest and smallest one (though still a normal sized cat, he just looks small when he stands next to Cayman). He's very sweet and always says hi with a big kiss. He's very shy though, so you'll probably not see him in many pictures.

Moorit merino fleece

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sun, 28 May 2006 20:40:00 +0000

Yesterday we went to the Massachusetts Sheep & Wool Festival despite (again) the bad weather forecast. But lo, not a drop of rain fell on us or our fleece. I think the festival was well attended and there were lots of kids. The angora rabbit booth was a hit with the children who got to hold them for as long as they wanted to. And there were lots and lots of sheep to pet and watch. The 4-H kids did an awesome job shearing their sheep--some looked like perfect peach fuzz!

I scouted the entire festival for a good fleece and indeed I found one very early on during my search. This is a beautiful moorit merino fleece. Not even the prize winning fleeces at the festival come close to this one. I am quite enamored of it. Here are two pictures: one of the rolled up fleece and the other of a bird's eye view of the fleece:

that's Cayman up there, one of my two cats. He loves sheepy smells!

The fleece comes from Foxhill Farm in Lee, MA. They told me that their fleeces won 7 prizes at the Maryland S&W Festival, including (I think) the grand champion ribbon. They also have a lot of very nice cormo rovings and yarn, which I had to stop myself from buying since the fleece was very expensive.

Anyway, back to the pretty moorit merino fleece. It is super soft and very crimpy. I tried to take photos of it, but because it was night time, I don't think the pictures do the fleece justice. But here goes:

and here's a close up picture of some of the locks:

As I always do, I immediately washed a few ounces of it once I got home. And today, I combed about 30 grams for spinning a sample skein.

I am thinking I'll probably spin this lace-weight since the wool is so crimpy and then make a lacy shawl. We'll see what happens. I keep day dreaming about what to do with it.

Speaking of lace-weight yarn, the reason I haven't spun up a sample skein of this wool yet is this:

a 70:30 merino:silk combo. I love this merino wool too (though not at much as the one above). It is custard moorit color, which once I washed matched really well with tussah silk, so I combed the two together and now I am staring at a shimmery creamy yarn. This will most definitely become a lacy scarf, especially since I only combed enough for that. I ordered a fast bobbin and whorl too, so hopefully once I get it, I won't take so long to spin this stuff.

Hope yall have a good long weekend!

Jacob fleece

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Tue, 23 May 2006 16:35:00 +0000

As I mentioned in yesterday's posting, I got a fleece at the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. The whole event was a little sad since the weather was harsh and very few people showed up. It was especially sad when I looked at the vendors' license plates and saw that folks came all the way from Michigan, Missouri, etc. Knowing how the profit margin in the sheep & wool business is so slim, these events really count if they are successful and really hurt if they're not.

I did my little share of shopping however. I bought a soft and crimpy Jacob fleece. It's about 65% white and 35% black.

Since the weather was so cold and wet that day, I really could not feel the fleece too well in my fingers. And even though the nice sheep lady offered to unroll it for me, I cringed at the thought of a nice clean (almost no VM) fleece touching muddy wet ground. So I just poked around in the bag in which it sat and tugged a few staples to check for any weakness. The fiber seemed good. So I bought it. It was only a couple of pounds anyway.

When I got home I immediately washed a few ounces of it (yes, ounces, since we moved to Cambridge we had to sell our nice washing machine and now I have only a big sink to work with... if any of you have tried washing wool in a portable washing machine--i.e. those that hook up to the sink faucet--please let me know how that worked out, I'm thinking about buying one).

I did notice that there were bits of stubby kempy hair, not too much, just sporadic clumps here and there. Anyway, here are some photos of the processed fiber. I apologize for the poor picture quality, but alas, the lighting and camera need tweaking and there's no time for that right now.

The staple length was very short for combing, but I really don't enjoy handcarding that much, so I combed the 2.5" staples, which is very annoying too, btw, but at least it goes faster.

Jacob wool is very interesting because the spun up yarn always fulls nicely and becomes stretchy and squishy, but still holds its shape well. Jacob is not next-to-skin soft, but I think it would make a great outdoor cabled sweater. Since there's only a couple of pounds of it, I'll probably make something for a little person--hmm... who could that be?

The big move is done!

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Mon, 22 May 2006 14:39:00 +0000

So my husband and I relocated from one little town in Connecticut to one busy city in Massachusetts. I'm now trying to get used to loud traffic noises in the morning while at the same time enjoying the benefits of city life. Basically, I can now walk to the grocery store, to the vet, and to the train station as opposed to having to drive to all of those places.

I've also been working very hard on my thesis, which is actually the reason why nothing has been posted here for over a month. But two weekends ago I did go to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival, despite all the flood warnings and got a fleece. So tomorrow I'll post a few pictures of the before and after processing of it.

Oh, BTW, I did finish a sweater for my brother (made of homespun) during this absence period, of which I unfortunately took no photos, hoping instead, that my brother, the photographer, would to take some nice pictures of it for me. Well, time has gone by and no pictures yet... so another thing I'll do is bug him about that.

Sorry for so much writing and no pictures for today... I promise that tomorrow's posting will be better!

Merino x Corriedale sample skein

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 03:21:00 +0000

singles and 2-ply yarn made from the grey Merino x Corriedale wool posted previously.

Merino x Corriedale

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 04:25:00 +0000

So Suegene inspired me to wash my grey Merino x Corriedale fleece; well, at least half of it. And continuing with my theme of lots of pictures and few words, here they go:

this is the fleece all rolled up!

and now unrolled--note the variegation.

and these are close ups of two of the different colors present in the fleece.

of course I had to comb a sample of this wool, which by the way, is wonderfully soft. So above, is about 20 grams of a mix of three different shades of grey. The rest of the washed fleece (~2.5 lbs) is drying next to my gas stove. One day, when I am done combing the CVM wool, I will deal with this batch... but tomorrow I'll probably spin from this sample ball.

Latvian mitten

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:02:00 +0000

Today's post will be very short--need to do lots of reading tonight. But here's a picture of what I was working on last week. It's one mitten from Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis.

The yarn comes from the Merino x Corriedale: Rambouillet x Border Leicester (50:50) wool I posted on March 11.

CVM fleece

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:46:00 +0000

I've been busy processing this really nice California Variegated Mutant (CVM) fleece.

CVM is a color pattern of Romeldale sheep, which in turn is a breed that originated from crossing Romneys and Rambouillet. The CVM coloration is quite rare and there are not many places that sell these romeldale fleeces. The fleece itself is quite soft and fine with tiny crimp. After I opened up the fleece, I neatly packed my four mesh laundry bags with the wool locks.

This process took probably over two hours to go through! But it was well worth it. And here's a snapshot of the washed locks. The fleece had basically three main colors: light grey, medium grey, and moorit-grey.

Most of my spare time this week was spent combing this batch of clean CVM wool. And this is what I have so far:

which is just over one pound! (Yes, that is a cat at the top of the photo, his name is Cayman and he likes to sleep ALL day) I really liked the variegation in the fleece, so I tried to carry that over to the combed top and the spun yarn. Below is a sample skein of the CVM wool. I really like the variegated pattern in it. This wool is going to be used for a sweater, so I am spinning worsted for worsted-weight yarn.

Ene is done!

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:21:00 +0000

I finished Ene yesterday and blocked it last night. I couldn't find any pins, so I used the only thing I had plenty of around the house, paper clips. Yes, you read correctly, paper clips make fine substitutes for pins when there are none to be found. The only small annoyance is that they are blunt and harder to stick down into the towel I was using to block it.
Here are a couple of pictures that I took this morning before leaving for school of the scarf all stretched out. The beach towel is the biggest one I have and still I ran out of room.

I tried to take some pictures of the finished scarf this night, but the lighting right now is awful and I could not get any descent image... so maybe tomorrow I will post some photos of the freed scarf.

Ene's scarf

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:36:00 +0000

I am working on the Ene's scarf by Nancy Bush (SCARF STYLE, Interweave Press) for my mother's birthday.
I am almost done with the last repeat of Chart 3. This scarf is nice in that it starts at its widest part and progressively narrows down to 18 stitches. So knitting each row is pretty quick now. Here's a snapshot of the scarf so far.

I need to finish it soon too, because her birthday is this weekend!

On another note, this is what I was spinning last night.

I am denying myself the pleasures of both combing wool and spinning top... even reading papers on mitochondrial genomes... in order to finish Ene...

Dyed fleece

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 00:11:00 +0000

I thought I'd post some pictures of wool that I dyed in the past few weeks. I have only used Wash Fast acid dyes so far, but I really like the vibrant colors they produce.
Below are two images taken from two separate dye jobs of a Rambouillet x Border Leicester fleece. The colors look similar, but the one on the left is a much darker blue (almost ultramarine) while the one on the right is more of a sky blue.

And here are some pictures of various combed tops from a 50:50 mix of Merino x Corriedale/Rambouillet x Border Leicester fleeces (except for the right-most frame, which is natural color Merino x Corriedale). I added the R x BL for extra shine and strength because these little balls are going to become little Latvian mittens for me!

And for completeness, here's a series of photographs of some sample skeins I spun up.

The two skeins at the bottom right derive their color from a mix between two colored fleeces, and below is a picture showing the mixing.

The darker skein was a 50:25:25 mix of orange : light blue : dark blue fleeces. I placed the solid color combed tops in the picture above only for reference. Unfortunately I did not photograph the mixed color combed tops before I spun them...
I think, for my mittens, I'm going to use the dark red and blue. I am currently working on a gold mix that looks just about the right color to go along with the other two. I will eventually post the beginnings of the mittens.
I the mean time, if you're in the North East coast, enjoy the mild weather: go outside!
Good night!

American Textile History Museum and some other random stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:27:00 +0000

Here's another posting about a museum.
This one is pretty nifty. It's the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA and a real treat to visit. The first thing I noticed when I came in was of how clean and sharp it looks. There are motion activated lights everywhere and a lot, and I mean A LOT, of spinning wheels and looms! I won't try to describe what I saw, instead, I'm posting some pictures we took, which should give you a taste of the place and hopefully you too will visit this wonderful museum.

... and some other random stuff...

Jaywalker socks!
Yes, everyone has to make at least a few of these wonderfully comfortable socks.

The pair on the left I made for my Ma and the little bitty pair on the right is for me. I used US0 needles instead of US1 and handpainted merino yarn. I changed the pattern a little so that the socks would fit snuggly around my feet.
Oh, and here's a picture of a baby hat I made with the leftover yarn from my socks. I made it very thick and cozy.

... random skeins ...

These are made of various different wools I've collected and gathered here for some reason which I cannot remember now, but I liked the color progression. In case you're interested, from left to right they are: merino x corriedale, cormo x targhee (3), shetland/mohair, shetland/icelandic, merino, merino/silk, border leicester x rambouillet, merino x corriedale, and polypay. Wew! All skeins shown here, except for the shetland mixes, I processed from raw fleece. I dyed the shetland/icelandic with Wash Fast acid dyes and the shetland/mohair was dyed with tea by a nice lady, but all the rest are natural.

New Bedford Whaling Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:35:00 +0000

Some weeks ago my husband and I took a trip to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. It was a really rainy day, so it was perfect for a museum trip. What I did not expect was to find these on display!

A whale bone basket and knitting needles.

And various really neat swifts.

There is also a rather large model ship on display and the mounted bones of a 48 ft sperm whale that washed ashore in Nantucket in 2002. Some nice paintings depicting the very dangerous profession of whaling really makes one admire and respect the fishermen who faced, daily, such a demanding and life-threatening job. I am however, relieved that whales are protected from such industry, though the petroleum, coal, and gas industries of today pose environmental and human hazards competitive to or even greater than whaling posed in 1800s.