Category: PÃ¥ dansk

Targhee

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

For the monthly challenge of the Danish spinners on Ravelry, I’ve chosen a braid from Spunky Eclectic named “Nova Scotia”. The theme is “North”. I’ve chosen to spin it as a single, not because I’m in a hurry, but because I’ve already tried spinning bits of it as chain-ply and 2-ply, so I wanted to get a feel for the yarn this way, as well as the colour distribution. I had a feeling it would seem “cleaner”, and, well, I just wanted to.

targhee1

It’s a very soft fiber and very easy to spin. It ended up rather thinner than I had planned, simply because I wasn’t paying attention, but too thick to chain ply because I had a feeling it would bloom when I washed it, and I didn’t want a bulky yarn either.

It drifted apart very easily with too little twist, so I went and gave it some more, then let it drip dry after hand-stretching the skein to see if that would get the kinks out. I never weight my yarn as I think it doesn’t give you a correct image of how the yarn is spun. I also very rarely beat it. So my yarns will have to be balanced straight out of the bath! As you can see the skein is balanced but the yarn is still a bit kinky. Will be interesting to see how it knits up, it feels soft and not curly at all. But I’m guessing this fiber looks best plied if you want “perfect” yarn.

targhee2
before wash

targhee4 targhee3

Targhee is an American breed related to both Merino and longwools. It’s about 22-25 microns according to the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook.

To make this fiber Friday a bit more interesting, here’s a shot of a pin cushion I’m making from woad dyed yarn.

pins01

danishDenne uge har jeg spundet Targhee, som er en fiber der kun kan købes i USA mig bekendt. Super blødt og nemt at spinde! Men falder ret nemt fra hinanden hvis ikke man giver det en ordentlig gang sno. Heldigvis gik de fleste af krøllerne af i vask, også uden at hænge vægt i feddet, hvilket jeg er meget modstander af. Det føles blødt og de resterende krøller er ikke hårde, garnet er ret elastisk. Hvis man vil have perfekt garn, er det nok en fiber der egner sig bedst til at blive tvundet, men det bliver interessant at se, hvordan det er at strikke med. Ingen planer lige nu.

Racen er amerikansk og jeg er kun stødt på fibrene derovre. Det er en krydsning mellem merino-typer og languldstyper som Corriedale og har arvet det bløde, elastiske fra Rambouillet og puffer op på tilsvarende måde. Jeg har endnu ikke prøvet at strikke med det.

Og så lige til sidst en nålepude jeg er ved at lave af vaid-farvet garn.

Oven blanket

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

blanket07

I promised an update of my felted blanket with colour changes yarn vs. washed squares as well as in a different light. We finally saw a bit of sun again, giving me a more natural light, well, a light that makes the camera see the same as I do anyway. Just a light cloud cover is even better actually, but sun still beats the flash.

As you can see below, it’s mostly some of the yellows that have darkened considerably after the warm wash.

Edges are done with 2 yarns, as I did not have enough in one. 2 different yellows overdyed with Japanese indigo and Woad resp.

blanket08

Felted blanket

PiaFelting

I decided I wanted another blanket covering the box by the stove, and that it would be a fine way to test some of the plant dyed yarns. The original lid has white cloth on it, not very practical for cats with muddy paws.

The plan is to leave it there and take new pix after summer and after a year, after wash etc. to see how lightfast they are. Especially useful info for the tapestry project!

To make it sturdier I decided on a felted blanket, so I knit some squares very loosely, then threw it in the washing machine with soap flakes which are neutral and should not disturb the colours is my previous experience.

  • Start size: 75×85 cm, rather a lot larger than my swatch had indicated!
  • Size after 60 degree wash: 46 x 47 cm
  • Blocked: 50 x 50 cm
  • Colour development: No loss but some seem to have changed a bit. I guess I’ll have to find those skeins in the box and compare.
  • Yarn used: 185 g

blanket03

I’d expected to have to do another 90 degree wash and perhaps tumble dry AND handfelt a bit on the long side. It must have been the larger size and being washed with other items, because it ended up smaller than I wanted in the first wash. So instead I had to block it a bit. Actually I should have blocked it more, but whatever.

I used the same yarn base for all squares, and they were identical when I assembled them – so it’s quite funny how some now look smaller than the others. It’s fine, I meant it to be a bit random and organic looking. Now to see if I can get used to all that yellow. I’ve been saying that it’s amazing how nearly all plant dyed yarns seem to go well together. Well, they don’t quite. When I’m done with this, suntesting etc. I think it might have a meeting with an indigo vat. Which in itself will be interesting!

blanket04

Of course just now we won’t have any sun to speak of for about a week at least, so the photo conditions are not the best. But could I wait? Noooo….. I’ll have to compare colours to the remaining skeins. But it looks pretty much the same as what I put in the machine. Some plants are there twice, but dyed with different methods or mordants/modifiers.

I’m going to have to follow up later with the actual real colours in proper light, it’s just too dark here inside and out.

Filtetæppedanish

For at komme i gang med at bruge noget af mit plantefarvede garn, besluttede jeg at lave et lille tæppe til brændeovnstaburetten. Den har et lÃ¥g med hvidt stof, ikke sÃ¥ smart til dovne katte med mudrede tæer, men vi har hidtil bare “midlertidigt” haft et spejdertæppe lagt hen over.

Så jeg tænkte jeg samtidig kunne bruge det til at lysteste nogen af planterne og strikkede derfor nogen meget løse firkanter af hver sit nøgle garn, så jeg bagefter kunne filte tæppet uden at ende med et bræt. Jeg har primært brugt de ældste fra 2011 fordi jeg også går og lurer på, om de falmer i sig selv af at bare ligge.

Det blev lidt rigeligt stort i forhold til min strikke-vaskeprøve, men jeg smed det frisk i maskinen pÃ¥ 60 grader med sæbespÃ¥ner og et par hÃ¥ndklæder. Jeg havde egentlig regnet med, at det ogsÃ¥ skulle tumbles og mÃ¥ske vaskes pÃ¥ 90, men det kom faktisk mindre ud af maskinen end jeg skulle bruge! SÃ¥ det mÃ¥tte lige blokkes i stedet. Start: 75×85 cm, efter vask: 46×47, blokket: 50×50.

Farverne ser ikke ud til at have ændret sig i styrke, men nogen virker anderledes, så jeg må nok have kassen frem og finde de respektive nøgler, så jeg kan sammenligne. Sjovt nok er nogen af firkanterne mindre end de andre, altså filtet uens, for jeg har brugt samme garn hele vejen igennem. Men det er helt ok. Nu skal jeg så lige se om jeg kan vænne mig til alt det gule. Ellers ryger det i en gang indigo når jeg er færdig med at teste lysægthed. Der kommer et opdateret billede af de reelle farver, når vejret er til at fotografere uden blitz.

Jeg har brugt i alt 185 g garn.

No more excuses

PiaChit Chat

I have:

Put up a whole bunch of nails around the house to keep my umpteen unfinished masterpieces away from cat claws.

Assembled a pile of canvasses all ready to go in various sizes. Having the frames sitting around in the hayloft for years was obviously one of those times when hoarding is quite ok! And enough canvas for about 30 pictures.

stretcher

Ready, steady, go!

Well, apart from the annoying realization that I can no longer use the staple gun. My hands are too sore and weak to press it all the way in, leaving the tacks to fall out completely or sticking out of the board halfway. I had to call in an assistant after doing just one, and a very poor job of it. 🙁 I don’t know if it’s just because I clipped the hind hoofs of my Arabian the day before, also very hard on the hands when you’re an amateur (and have really small hands to a very large tool). Or if I need to switch to pre-framed $$$ canvas or paper or boards in the future. Didn’t make it any easier that I’d decided to try gallery mounting with the tacks at the back, rather than along the edges like I used to do. Tricky!

I also found some photos of some of my first paintings, acrylic on very large watercolour paper 50×75 cm. Not a complete collection unfortunately, and I suppose I should scan these. You might say I ought to use that until I improve my skills, but I do like canvas. And well, I have the canvas but no paper…. Also you can keep painting over canvasses more times! 😉

k
we actually had this in the dining room for years. When we had one… 100×150 cm or something painted on an old bedsheet.

Funny thing is: I definitely think my taste has improved as well as my skill in the years not painting – INSIDE MY HEAD. This means I have a lot more pressure now, because obviously my muscle skill hasn’t improved one bit in the meantime, but I know I won’t be happy with what I did then. Some of the subject matter yes – but not the execution. There’s maybe I few that I still like and some I’d just as soon paint right over.

It’s not that I have a lack of projects at the moment, I do have a list of things I want to work on, so I don’t technically need a stream of new ideas coming in right now, that are not related to those projects (but if they come, they will be registered of course, can’t stop the flow).

But I still have trouble with the intuitive, playful aspect, just “closing down logic and see what my hand wants to do with a brush”. And I think that is possibly what it preventing me from aquiring the “skill” I feel I need or the ability to be happy with what I produce here and now. My brain really, really wants to know where we’re going before we even take the first step. (and keeps asking “are we there yet?”)

But I’ll keep leaning into it. Today however I have a visitor. Who is probably going to ask: “Why can’t you paint one picture at a time?”

donkeyboy
I have absolutely no idea what I had in mind when I did this decades ago. But Birdie wanted to know how I intended to use my watercolour paper.

danish

Ikke flere undskyldninger

SÃ¥ er der banket søm i alle ledige vægge for at beskytte mine halvfærdige skilderier fra kattene. Jeg har samlet en masse lærreder, nogen gange er det en fordel IKKE at have oprydningsmani, for der lÃ¥ jo lige en hel stak rammer pÃ¥ høloftet og bare ventede pÃ¥ jeg gik i gang igen! Der er jo for en formue i materialer… Ellers kunne man jo male pÃ¥ kraftigt papir, men sÃ¥dan noget har jeg faktisk ikke pÃ¥ lager i stor størrelse.

Desværre var mine hænder for ømme og svage til at bruge clipsemaskinen. Håber det kun er fordi jeg klippede hove på den ene hest i går, for jeg var nødt til at bede om hjælp efter bare 1 lærred, som i øvrigt ligner noget der er løgn på bagsiden.

Jeg fandt ogsÃ¥ en stak fotos af mine første malerier (under en oprydningsrunde 😉 ), desværre ikke alle. Jeg har helt klart ændret smag i mellemtiden og forventer nok ogsÃ¥ en noget bedre kvalitet i udførelsen, hvilket jo er tÃ¥beligt, for mine hænder har jo ikke udviklet deres kunnen undervejs.

Jeg har stadig lidt svært ved at give slip og bare lege billeder frem, og det er muligvis derfor jeg ikke er tilfreds med det jeg producerer. Min hjerne vil åh så gerne vide, hvad vi skal frem til på forhånd. Men jeg bliver ved med at skubbe lidt til muren og fjerne en sten hist og pist, på et eller andet tidspunkt braser den vel sammen.

Fiber Friday Epiphany

PiaChit Chat

Only managed to spin half of the 2nd Rambouillet braid, I think (didn’t check) it matches the first in type pretty well although consistency went out the window along the way. I have another Ravelry challenge this month, so I better get the last half done. Or maybe I won’t actually (keep reading)! Fiber for the challenge is Targhee.

rambouillet4 rambouillet6

As you know I’ve been thinking about how to simplify my hobby life without actually cutting some of them off completely. The other day (while hanging wet laundry of all things!) I also got to thinking about “The Purpose” vs. creativity, my knitting and all things yarny and if they fitted into all this in any way. Why I keep planning to plant dye now that I A. have learned how to do it and B. don’t really have an actual purpose/project for it. I’ve been feeling quite ambivalent about that.

And then it dawned on me, that I don’t really have to focus my yarn habits on knitting. At all. I’d already been contemplating not doing so many garments, but trying to work on smaller objects instead. I only knit sweaters when I learned, then I didn’t knit at all for about 20 years, so when I picked it up again, it was sweaters. And specifically, I like to design them myself, more fun that way than just producing a copy of somebody elses work. Then I learned how to spin, so the next logical step was: I won’t buy more yarn, I’ll spin and dye all that I knit with.

The thing is, I’m not terribly good at sweaters.

  1. I can think up cool stuff, but it’s no way as cool as what many, many other designers can think up. Ergo, I don’t see a “carreer” as a knitwear designer in my cards, really.
  2. I always get something about the fit not exactly right and completely pleasing. I know this can be learned, but is seems I’d have to work very hard and dedicated on it in that case. And it appears more logical to focus on the areas that you already seem to be at ease with than try to develop the ones where you struggle, right?
  3. I often take very, very long to finish sweaters, starting multiple and then leave them all with one sleeve missing. I get bored. It’s not the clickety part of knitting that fascinates me the most, in fact if I could just have the ideas and then get someone else to do the actual work, I’d be totally cool with that…. Or get a machine.
  4. There’s a limit to how many accessories and bags that I use (virtually none), and it’s a lot of effort for just potholders and washcloths. (admittedly, it would reduce both spinning and knitting time considerably if I only did it when I needed new potholders)

What I really want to do is design the yarn. Play with colours and textures in all sorts of ways. And the yarns I think up are just NOT suited for my wardrobe, no little inner gypsy waiting to come out, I really like it plain, classical and casual. And inconspicuous on the street. 😉 Crazy clothes on other people I dig, but it’s not me.

So I ran into this book at the library, and I know I’ve mentioned it previously as a frivolous idea of adding yet another activity. But now I’m thinking – I think in pictures, I want to paint, I’ve been taking photographs for decades – tapestries are really much closer related than clothes. It doesn’t look harder to learn than new knit and crochet stitches.

tapestry

The advantages are plenty:

  1. I can keep using the cheap yarn for plant dyeing instead of worrying about the cost of getting a good, soft type to work with that I can tolerate next to my skin.
  2. Amounts per colour also isn’t that much of an issue, nor with spinning. No need to chug through 800 g of brown Shetland fiber.
  3. I wouldn’t feel too guilty about having a large stash of different yarns just sitting there waiting for the right project, because weaving takes A LOT of yarn. Also removes the time pressure of having xx sweater amounts waiting. As long as I make sure I don’t feel obligated to weave a certain amount per month or year…
  4. A small tapestry loom for starters really is dead easy to construct, so no huge investments.
  5. Thinking in image creation only, I can hopefully arrange them as serial projects more often rather than parallel, better focus through singletasking. Get more done in fewer hours per day leaves more time and energy for chores, horses etc. and no scatterbrain.
  6. And if I do feel like knitting sweaters I can relax and do some of other people’s really cool designs that would make me feel better about wearing them and even pretend to be more fashion conscious. And even buy those yarns perhaps, at least in part.

Less stress on a lot of levels I think (hope). It feels good. Maybe the weaving turns into felting images instead, which removes the time it takes to spin…. It would make my hobbies more unified somehow, the fiber being just another painting medium. What do y’all think?

The effect won’t kick in immediately – I do want to finish my current knitting WIPs (6). But spinning will be different, my approach will be different and I won’t be actually getting ready to weave or even think about tapestry projects. Unless they happen on their own. It’s just there as an option for when I want to work with yarn, not paint or Photoshop.

Synchronicity of the day: 2 hours after I pressed Schedule on this post I see a news flash from World of Wool announcing a workshop with a tapestry weaver. I can’t go since it’s in the UK, but they usually write about felting….

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Rambouillet igen og en åbenbaring

Det lykkedes mig kun at få spundet halvdelen af ugens fletning, men jeg synes den matcher de foregående rimeligt i type og tykkelse som planlagt. Dvs. det tror jeg den gør, for jeg har faktisk ikke hevet dem frem og sammenlignet!

Og så har jeg ellers haft mit strikke- og fiberliv oppe til revision, for jeg har alt for mange aktiviteter jeg gerne vil, ikke når og så får dårlig samvittighed eller stress over. For ikke at snakke om de huslige ting, som jeg så ikke gider fordi jeg mangler energi. På den anden side synes jeg det er svært at vælge noget fra, når det nu interesserer mig! Jeg har ikke lyst til at gå rundt med skyklapper.

Jeg har også spekuleret over, hvorfor jeg bliver ved med at samle farveplanter, jeg har jo sådan set lært hvordan man plantefarver nu, men jeg har ikke nogen egentlige projekter planlagt med det.

Og nu har jeg så besluttet, at det er strikningen som kommer på vågeblus. Jeg havde allerede besluttet at jeg ville begynde at tænke i små strikkeprojekter fremfor trøjer, som er min standard, for det er det jeg bruger mest i den genre. Jeg er nemlig laaaang tid om at strikke en trøje, jeg begynder at kede mig halvvejs og finder på en ny osv.

Det er faktisk ikke selve strikningen der interesserer mig men det at finde pÃ¥. Jeg er bare ikke verdens bedste strikdesigner mÃ¥ jeg nok erkende, og ja, hvis man øver sig bliver man bedre, men nÃ¥r man nu vil 1000 ting er det mÃ¥ske mere logisk at satse pÃ¥ dem man har lettest ved, fremfor dem der skal knokles med og sÃ¥ alligevel kun bliver middelmÃ¥dige? Huer, sjaler, sokker og tilbehør er ikke rigtig noget jeg bruger…

Det jeg egentlig har mest lyst til er at bare designe garnet. Lege med farver og skøre ting som ikke kan bruges i min garderobe alligevel, jeg er mest til det enkle og neutrale på det område.

SÃ¥ faldt jeg over en bog om billedvævning og tænkte, at mÃ¥ske jeg bare skulle satse pÃ¥ det istedet. SÃ¥ er mine hobbies mere ensartede, male, foto – det hele er bare billeder med forskellige medier. SÃ¥ fÃ¥r jeg samlet mit fokus en lille smule?

Jeg vil også kunne have en samling blandet garn i mindre mængder, behøver ikke bruge krudt på at spinde 800 g hver gang. Jeg behøver heller ikke købe dyrt, blødt strikkegarn til plantefarvningen, jeg kan bare blive ved med at lege og eksperimentere med det billige.

Det er ikke svært eller dyrt at bygge en lille væv selv til en start, og det ser ikke sværere ud at lære end nye strikketeknikker.

Hvis jeg så vil strikke, kan jeg slappe af og prøve nogen af de virkelig lækre designs som andre har udtænkt i stedet for at ville lave alting selv fra bunden. Men jeg har endelig erkendt, at det er garnet som sådan der tænder mig, mit hjerte er ikke rigtig i strikningen som process selvom jeg er glad for de færdige resultater.

Bare en ide – som jeg har tænkt mig at afprøve. MÃ¥ske fÃ¥r jeg ligefrem overskud til ridningen igen!?