You know it's been a busy week when you have to look back at your own Instagram feed to remember what you've done for the last seven days! lol Not every week is this overwhelmingly full, but for now you get to enjoy all the juicy details!
15th Thursday
After I finished writing my blog last week I started working on my mending basket. My husband needed one of his belt loops reattached. I did this by cutting a small scrap of denim from the stash and pinning it to the inside of the jeans. I then used matching blue thread and sewed over the hole, using a denim needle in my machine, in multiple directions to create a new bit of secure fabric. I then trimmed the excess of the patch, then VERY slowly sewed the belt loop down. About half the time I was manually walking the foot to make sure it wouldn't break.
After that I fixed my daughter's leggings. She wore a hold in the knee of one pair and experimented with scissors on another pair. I happened to keep the bottom part of another pair of leggings that I cut off at the knee. I cut out cute shapes and attached them with fabric spray adhesive before sewing them on. The patches on the knees I had to sew by hand as they were too tiny of tubes to fit around my machine.
I also started cutting the drapes for Blur's bed. I planned on just making a tube at 1 end and running
The wonderful ladies of Quirky Bits-n-Pieces sent me some gorgeous Leicester Longwool locks from Deborah's new dye lot to play with. (I'll include the color name as soon as I have it.) You can find all the available color ways in her online Craft Emporium.
As part of the 2016 Creative Team, and as an OCD artist, it is my job to create something beautiful with them. It's easy when I have such lovely materials to work with! The gorgeous colors and luster of these locks inspired me to show it off by making fiber jewelry and the very first step is to corespin over wire!
Fiber mail!
Researching Corespinning
I never do anything the easy way; I'd never corespun before this project! I don't let little things like that shop my inspiration, however, so now I needed to learn the basics of corespinning. I went to my go-to source of YouTube to learn the technical aspects before I started at my wheel. I have made a playlist on YouTube of spinning techniques. Below are the three corespinning videos that I found most helpful.
Bringing in the Wire
Okay, so now I understand the basics of corespinning. But what differences does the wire bring in? In the above videos there was a large emphasis on how to handle the twist of the core but wont wire break? How do I handle that? There are surprisingly few videos on wire corespinning on YouTube but below are the ones I found. I also have a YouTube playlist about Wire.
Hands On
So now that I've done my research it is time for me to get my hands involved. Nothing will replace the knowledge that working with my own hands (or yours!) will bring. What wire you use will depend on what you want to do with it, of course, but for now I'll say that you can corespin over any wire that you can get onto your wheel.
One of the very first things I learned was that we need to have a strong, wire leader! If it isn't strong enough it wont have the umph to twist the wire core. I solved this by dedicating one of my spools to wire spinning. I took off my cotton leader and wrapped some 20 gauge wire around it. The only way I could find to keep the wire from twisting around the bobbin was to duct tape it on. (If you find another way, please let me know!) I used a small piece on either side of the of the center. Be careful about spinning this back and fourth as it will be a breaking point. I've had to replace my wire leader a few times.
At the Wheel: Corespinning
Here's my video showing you what I do from start to finish! I'm using 26g Artistic Wire and some random wool I had in my stash in this video.
Attach your wire core via bending a hook in both the leader and core. If your leader is strong enough you wont need to do anything else. Keep the tension low to none at the beginning. To get the fiber started, I found it very difficult to start over the smooth wire. Spinning directly over the hook, hence texture, made it a snap. If I don't want the lumpy loop at the end, which I generally don't, once the spinning is established I stop treadling. I'll have about an inch of yarn at this point; I gently tug the fiber towards me and off of the hook, then I slip it back up under the hook and pinch it closed a bit more. Now you can crank up your tension setting pretty high to encourage the wire to feed onto your spool; adjust it to your preferences. Depending on your wheel and thickness / softness of your wire, you may need to "feed" the wire onto the spool.
You can work with an art batt for a wonderfully textured yarn; its all kinds of random fun! If you want it smooth, I found it easiest to have my fiber mostly pre-drafted, then I gently cup my wire with my thumb and two forefingers with the wool strand feeding the core from between my fingers.
If at any point you draft too thinly, you can always feed the yarn back up the core and then continue back down the wire core. This is also how I end the spinning when I get to the end of my wire! When I see the end coming I break the wool. I treadle slower and carefully corespin to the end (without going past! a tiny bit short is okay) and then spin back up the wire I've already spun. Then I lick my fingers and gently hold the tip between my wet fingers, still spinning, to felt it a tiny bit with the friction.
The main difference between corespinning and core plying is that the pre-drafted fiber has twist in it. :) That's pretty much it as far as technique goes. You can ply smoothly, or play with a bit of texture. I like plying onto wire with the Wrap and Roll technique.
Me again! This time using 20g medium soft wire and Quirky Bits n Pieces's Leicester longwool.
I've been spinning and plying over wire for several weeks now and I absolutely love it. I see so many possibilities to play with this yarn that keeps it shape! In my next post I'll show you several pieces of jewelry that I designed using core spinning over wire! For now I'll leave you with this teaser.
In my last blog post I was talking about all the crazy things I had going on last year that overwhelmed me. I left off at the end of August just as I was being buried alive in projects...
I have always loved September. For me it represents so many new beginnings; the first day of school, my birthday, it is even Jewish New Year though I've not particular celebrated it that way. September 2015 was all about just getting through the next step, one little bit of progress over the mountain path, carefully as to not cause an avalanche.
Here's what I worked on month-by month:
September
Searched through lots of pattern books for ideas for my design
Hand knitted socks for my sister
Used Jamberry nail wraps to quit biting my nails
Started knitting socks for my daughter
Started spinning this SAPGAP yarn order
October
Working out pattern details
Finished my daughter's socks
Wrote, tested and published this hat pattern
Started socks for my son
Hand spun and mailed out all this yarn
November
Sewed box bags for a fiber festival
Sewed a special order bag and an new cube-sized bag
Hand spun and hand dyed this yarn
Hand knit this adorable dragon
Started a fund-raiser for my ferret's surgry
Finished writing the pattern, and got it test knit
Sent off my Geek-Swap package
December
Make custom-order slippers
Dyed wool
Sewed more bags
Sewed a different style bag
Designed new fiber graphics
Hand-combed LOTS of wool
Learned a new style of art-yarn
Dyed this wool
Went on vacation to visit my family!
January
Designed something I haven't revealed yet
Hand knit a skirt for my daughter
Made a custom order of two hats
Finished this SAPGAP art-yarn order
Finally finished my son's socks
Got my ferret her life-saving surgery
Started an MKAL for my latest pattern
Whew! All that was tiring! That gets us all caught up! My husband is still on swing shift so I am still 99% a single parent. However I am going to be careful as to not overload myself to *that* point again. I am enjoying my freedom of sitting and enjoying an evening of MY choice instead of trying to keep up with that frantic pace. I still have a lot to get done, but at a much more reasonable pace. :D I have lots of exciting things to share with you!
This
yarn marked the beginning of my love affair with spinning. The pencil
roving had glorious color and an intriguing texture that made my fingers
itch to work with it. With my birthday money I bought the fiber from a
friend, and borrowed her drop spindle. With a few pointers we were off
and running. My arms ached but I still wanted to keep going. I loved
the transitions of one color to the next, fascinated with the whole
process. My children watched me wide-eyed as I played with color and
fiber.
When
it was time to ply I had so many variations that I could try. I
decided that I wanted to wind the single into a yarn cake and ply the
center pull with the outside strand and just "see what the color does."
This was the best part! What surprises I was in for. Purples with
purples, purples with pinks, and pinks with pinks. Such a fun way to
blend color.
Then I learned how to set the yarn by "thwacking" it. Haha! Such fun!
Now
it's your turn to pick up the story. Take this yarn home and write the
ending. Will the yarn become a purse? Someone's toy? You decide!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/243428978/handspun-yarn-moody-cloud?ref=shop_home_active_2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Handspun by Rachel's Cozy Knits & Designs Fiber content: 100% wool Color: "Moody Cloud" 2 plys 125 grams, 282 yards 13 wraps per inch, DK weight Spun January 2014 Hand wash in cool water. Air dry.
Ok, I'm back everybody! Sorry for the cliffhanger. Well, maybe I'm not sorry exactly but I'm glad you're back. :P
I left off talking about Tour de Fleece! I had set myself up with several ideas going in:
stash busting
trying new things
washing, picking out vegetable matter, and flick-combing to prepare a bunch of my raw wool for spinning
Play with dyeing!
two SAPGAP trades, one again with the same person I did before, this time with a Merino/Cormo cross and if I finished that I would start up on some alpaca/silk roving from the next SAPGAP trade.
I started off on the wrong foot. I intended to start with the Merino/Cormo fleece but the carder machine I was using broke down. So I had to try to get back out to my local yarn store to rent the big machine. That didn't happen until about a week into TdF.
Let me take a moment to tell you about this fleece. It's amazing. Its the softest that I have spun to date and oh-so-squooshy! If that wasn't a word before, it is now. This is the seconds (it's not even the best stuff off this sheep!) from a sheep named Wilma. There is something special spinning from fiber from a named sheep. I can feel the love that went into the care for the animal. I hope Wilma is happy with how I've been spinning her fiber because I feel that she is now my animal friend.
The first skein I just went for it. I tried spinning long-draw as finely as I could make this fleece work with me - and it took forever. Spinning and plying all day for 3-4 days (I forget exactly now but it was the aforementioned "forever"). I knew I would never finish before my August 1 due date. I shared pictures (the ones below actually) with the person who owns the fleece and she liked it but felt it was too thin. So I set it aside to add to my share and moved on.
624 yards, 100 grams; 23 wraps per inch
Next I tried spinning short-draw and making it a bit thicker and fluffier. It worked perfectly. I hit right in the 17 wraps per inch range which is fingering weight. This style of drafting also allowed the yarn to be even sqooshier. It'll make lovely baby clothes, as she said that's what she wants to do with the yarn.
Unfortunately after I finished this skein I got side tracked by life. My kiddos and home needed tending to. Always going on about the "I need clean clothes," and "I'm hungry," and some such. Then my 14 year old wanted a birthday party. Ugh. I just want to spin! lol
So then I got back to it and got two more 100g skeins done and two singles for another skein as Tour de Fleece came to a close. The next day I plied the two together and washed & set all the yarn to date. At this moment I have to finish spinning this last single, ply the fourth skein, wash, set, dry this last skein and then I can mail them home. :) I'm cutting it close and its making me nervous. I know she'll be okay if it's a day or two late but I like things to be on time.
Here's a purdy picture I took of her yarn modeling my yarn bands I've put up for sale.
So I probably should tell you about these yarn bands. I made these up for my first SAPGAP order and since then I've updated them. Two days I found out that my rent is going up so I had the brilliant idea of selling custom yarn bands & tags. So, I fixed them up a bit more, made a second page for small skein tags and put them in my online shop. They'll make your yarn and roving look more professional and at a measly $5 they'll pay for themselves in no time. Take a look!
Tour de Fleece results:
stash busting Got some stash spun!
trying new things Tried new things! Spinning from the lock and new fiber.
washing, picking out vegetable matter, and flick-combing to prepare a bunch of my raw wool for spinning Eh, not nearly as much done as I wanted.
Play with dyeing! Nope, nothing got dyed. :(
two
SAPGAP trades, one again with the same person I did before, this time
with a Merino/Cormo cross and if I finished that I would start up on
some alpaca/silk roving from the next SAPGAP trade. Didn't get the first one done but I'm okay with the progress I made.
My project Moleskin with TdF numbers
In closing today I'll flash this pretty picture at you. This is
everything I spun and plied during Tour de Fleece. Again, the dates for
those who forgot was July 4 - 26th.
