A good day to ply!

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

It’s nasty out there I tell you, mean and nasty! Wind directly from Siberia – I didn’t even stop to take extra pix for you to describe the misery just right, here’s my oversize hamsters coming in for breakfast.

snow

I’m force feeding the woodstove as fast as I can and moved the wheel over to ply that braid I spun the other day. Plus some odd singles I had sitting around, purpose forgotten.

First I needed to make an extra lazy kate however, for my weaving bobbins converted for spinning, since their center diameter is too small for my regular kate. Good thing we have this gizmo, also used for making all the holes in my blending hackle.

boreFirst I thought it had frozen to death, but it sped up as I let it run a bit. Voila, one piece of wood and some nails, good enough to go. Yes, I’ll make a base for it, so I won’t have to clamp it to the table, but never mind that now. We also don’t need to mention that I’m officially too old to read a rusty drill in a dark garage without my glasses, so the holes are too big… I can find another piece of wood I’m sure. It still worked with wobbly nails and no clamps, at least for transferring the singles onto a proper bobbin on the wheel.

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Bottom of the board with indents for nail heads and all

kate2The one on the right was lovely as fiber and then I did a really poor job of spinning it. Don’t like it much as plied yarn either, but I guess sometimes that’s the way of it.

All done and washed. The Rambouillet is incredibly elastic and squishy, I don’t know if the former is a good thing in yarn, but I love the feel of stretching and bouncing it. I’ll spin the other braid in the same way.

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And well, it was also a good day to dye, as I had enough to try a bit of snow dyeing. More on that later!

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Guess who doesn’t care about the weather…

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Tvindevejr

Ja, jeg behøver jo ikke fortælle jer danskere hvordan vejret har været de sidste par dage, så jeg har bare tvangsfodret brændeovnen og ellers flyttet rokken tilpas tæt på, så jeg kunne få tvundet det jeg spandt forleden.

Jeg vidste jeg havde nogen 3 mm tykke søm, der lige passede i de små, billige spoler, men havde overvurderet min egen evne til at gætte diameteren på boret; så det blev lidt vakkelvorent, da jeg lige hurtigt ville lave en spoleholder. Men jeg fik da flyttet garnet over!

Singlen til højre er jeg meget skuffet over i forhold til fibrene, og jeg er ikke blevet gladere efter tvinding, men sådan kan det jo gå. Jeg kan vel bruge det til et eller andet en dag, måske bare bamsefyld.

Rambouillet garnet er helt utroligt elastisk, jeg ved egentlig ikke om det er en god ting, men jeg kan godt lide følelsen, så jeg regner med at spinde den anden fletning på samme måde.

What Is Your Spring Wish

PiaChit Chat

Jamie asks this at Wishcasting Wednesday: What Is Your Spring Wish.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m experimenting with intention, affirmations (more on that later in the week) and making them public. Which in itself is an exercise in accepting/daring to show vulnerability because half your readers will probably think all this is ridiculous.

So, my spring wish is no less than “inner peace and an untethered heart”.

Play along according to the rules on Jamies page if you like.

filmscan017

More fiber stash bashing

PiaBooks & reading

I haven’t been spinning since my fat singles adventure, but this week I thought I’d get out two braids of Rambouillet that I bought summer 2011 from CJ Delights.

rambouillet1

I’m hoping they will take up less space as yarn, although braids are actually quite dense, but I also decided to use them for practising consistensy, so I’m just spinning and spinning from one end to the other, planning to make a chain-ply. I’ve got 3 batches of Targhee from Spunky Eclectic that are destined for the same fate.

Normally I’ve been able to put 100 g on my small bobbins, as you can see I’ve started to pack it down one end, but then I realised I had nearly 60 g of fiber left and gave up, started a new bobbin with the rest. I hope this means my yarn is getting fluffier = more yardage, but I’m not really organized enough to have kept solid records of everything I make.

rambouillet2

And then today I read Woolwinding’s review of “The Spinner’s book of Yarn Designs” and was tempted to buy that and use my assorted fibers for something fun – but there’s time. Another time. (although the page says they only have 6 left, and not, as they usually add “…but more on the way”. ACK – what if they get sold out. Sigh. You have no idea what my Amazon wish list looks like. I need some cash. Wanna buy yarn?

Lageroprydning

Spinder Rambouillet denne uge, som jeg købte for et par år siden. Sådan et par fletninger er egentlig ret kompakte, men jeg håber alligevel at jeg kan frigøre mere lagerplads ved at lave fiber om til garn. Så jeg bruger de her købte, færdigfarvede fibre til at øve mig i ensartet spinding.

Jeg var lidt overrasket over, at spolen var så fuld kun halvvejs gennem den første fletning, normalt har jeg let kunnet have 100 g på, men her er altså kun godt 60g, så jeg valgte at starte en ny frem for at kæmpe med at få det til at være der. Jeg kunne sikkert godt, men jeg har jo rigeligt med spoler.

Det er dejlig blød og bamset fiber, men det er jo også en art merino. Minder måske egentlig lidt mere om Polwarth? Det er længe siden jeg har spundet Polwarth.

Vodka

PiaPlant Dyeing

…is what my kitchen reeks of as we’re speaking.

perikum1From this jar which I prepared in August and then completely forgot about, filled with flowers of St. John’s Wort. I suppose technically they can’t rot infused with alcohol, but the colour is definitely not the brilliant red it was in September.

I know Rita Buchanan says you don’t get interesting colours with the alcohol solution, but I didn’t find enough flowers per day to make boiling worthwhile. I also didn’t have any mordanted yarn, so I did a reverse, first I entered an unmordanted skein and left on the woodstove for a few days, then I put mordant in the jar with another skein, left it on the stove, then decided to boil it in the oven for an hour or so.

And that is why my house stinks. Just wait until I pour it into the sink…. I guess it’s a good thing I’m home alone and not expecting company! (ok, the kitten in my lap just farted – that didn’t help any, but if he keeps it up perhaps nobody will suspect me of drinking at least)

Well, they’re not alike. That counts for something, right? First on top.

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