Yarnspinners Tales

Yarnspinnerstales podcast episode 15 is posted and is all about carding and spinning cotton. I encourage you to go to the website and click on some of the links there, even if you do not listen to the podcast. I have links to videos, both on the website and on YouTube relating to this topic. There's a great video showing how to hand card cotton and create a puni, as well as video of spinning cotton with a support spindle, charkha and regular spinning wheel.

In one segment of the podcast I explain in detail how I carded dyed cotton lint on my Patrick Green drum carder with the fur drum. The pictures below go along with that explanation. Be sure to understand that the only reason this worked is because I had a drum carder with teeth about as fine as a cotton hand card. This process would not work with a wool drum carder.

I was very pleased with the final results of this fiber experiment. The cotton batt was cohesive and spun well with whatever spinning method chosen. The only draw back to the task is that the cotton lint had to be hand carded once to open it up. But that's true of any fiber before being put through a big drum carder. It just seemed like double work because so often wool fiber can just be picked open after washing and laid on the drum carder's feed tray, where as the cotton actually had to carded, it could not be picked open. Still, it's not a bad way to handle a larger amount of unprocessed cotton fiber.

This first picture shows the cotton lint after I had hand carded it once. I did not card to remove all of the lumps, I carded with the intention of opening the fibers. After one or two passes on the hand cards I just gently rolled the cotton off of the cards and laid them in a pile.



The next photo shows one of those hand carded batts being laid on the feed in tray of the drum carder. I found it fed into the carder best if the batt was laid so the fibers were perpendicular to the drum, which feels like it would tangle the fiber more, but really allows the teeth of the carder to do it's work, pulling in bits of that batt. If I laid the batt with the fibers parallel, the fiber would feed in too fast, in clumps.

I've been washing a fleece these last two weeks. And of course, you can find all sorts of things trapped in the fleece by the sticky lanolin. Hay, straw, burrs, corn and this...
No it's not a japanese beetle. It looks like one, only on steroids. I have always just called them that, the beetle on steroids. I think it's real name is the June fruit beetle.

I have these at my house, and I purchased the fleece in the state next to me, so I am sure they are local there too. It's hard to get a photo of the very shiny green shell but they are startling to see. Startling too, to be swishing your hand through the fleece in the rinse water and feel something about the size of a pecan. I'm amazed it stayed so intact, it was hard to dislodge from the fleece and you can see the strands still sticking to it.

All in all, I'd rather find nothing in a fleece, but given a choice, I'll take this critter over live moth larva, or sticky burrs.

CW

The June Spin In podcast was posted last week, but I like to put a reminder link in this blog for those listeners that are not subscribed to Itunes. Plus I have photos that I wanted to post for the two sheep breeds (cormo and montadale) I talk about in the podcast.

Cormo is a breed developed by crossing corridale and merino sheep. So it has many of the same characteristics as merino and is a very soft wool. It's harder to home process because of the higher lanolin, but wonderful to spin, especially in the lock.

Here's a photo of the locks from my breed sampler file:




I talk about how I like combing the cormo better than carding and that after combing I pulled some fiber through a diz and spun that. I also spun fiber straight from washed locks and I found that my singles from both methods were spinning to about the same WPI.

Labels: cormo, montadale, sheepbreeds, spinning

Normally I don't brag about stash. In fact, normally I hide it in as many places as possible. In my latest podcast though, I talk all about the Seasocks 08 cruise to Alaska. I did not talk too much about the shopping done on the trip, and I had one listener ask me specifically if I bought Qiviut. So I promised I would be putting pictures on the blog of all the wonderful yarn goodies from the trip, both free and purchased.



I actually did not buy 100% qivuit yarn. I chose instead a brand called Qiviuk, which is 45% Qiviut, 45% Extrafine merino, and 10% mulberry silk (isn't all silk mulberry silk? after all that's all the silkworms eat, right?) The yarn store was in Ketchikan and had lace scarves knitted from both 100% qiviut, and this blend, and I decided on the blend because it was softer. And I want a knitted scarf that I will wear and not just look at. So I purchased two 1 oz balls with about 218 yards in each ball.



This is what $124 plus tax yarn looks like:



Believe me, I can hold the ball up to the screen and it is almost the same size as what you are looking at in the picture. They are tiny balls of thin yarn. I am going to enjoy making every stitch of whatever I decide to knit from this yarn, but I also will be a long time thinking about just what that pattern will be.



Photos from here on down are the rest of the stash from the trip.



First tools, all free.


The Pony sock needles were in our goodie bag. The two very tall and hard to photograph items that look like gigantic cigarette cases are needle cases, for long straight needles. Each person making a purchase at the yarn store in Victoria received one as a gift (there was a stitch marker too, I forgot to grab that for the photo shoot). Since my daughter claims she will never ever ever knit with long straight needles, she gave me hers. So now I have two. The stitch marker on the brown case has beads spelling the word SEAM and they were a gift from Heather Ordorver's class on sock heels. And the collection of markers were my door prize one night made by Rycrafty.etsy.com, a set of five with one of them uniquely marked for a beginning of the round marker.



Here's a photo of a sample skein of linen yarn given to each of us by Amy Singer for her No Sheep for You talk.

It irritates me when hubby is right. But especially when he is right about my knitting. How does he know? He doesn't knit!

He amazes me when I have three unlabeled handspun skeins on the table and I teasingly ask him to identify the fiber contents, and he does, right the first time. So I have to give him credit for paying attention to my fiber doings.

Here's another time he was right. Several weeks ago, while cleaning out a chest of drawers, I came across a skein of recycled silk, not handspun but purchased when I made a scarf from that yarn for my daughter. I marveled that I had what looked like a full skein, not remembering I had that yarn at all. I thought knitting a scarf for me would be a relaxing, TV watching project so I grab knitting needles and cast on.

I had about six inches knitted when one night hubby looked at my knitting and said, 'if you are making a scarf, you are not going to have enough yarn'. I think I actually glared at him, and continued knitting. But the seed of doubt had been planted, and I kept looking at the 6 inches knitted, and the remaining yarn. Later, I casually mentioned, 'Oh well, maybe I'll rip it out and make it narrower.'

However, I could not get the idea out of my head that I would not really have enough for a nice scarf. That's why I had this evidently partial skein of yarn, I had to have used some to make my daughter's scarf a nice length.

So I started looking around for another ball of yarn to use. Should I buy another skein of the same yarn for $12? Well, then I'd be in the same stash predicament, I have some of it left. No, it be better to go into the stash and find a complimentary yarn to alternate with the silk.

I thought about a handspun skein I have that is a silk/angora blend, and it probably would have made a neat scarf. However that skein is a true white and I just did not want a white stripey scarf.

Then I found the remainder of the chenille that I had used to knit a chemo cap. I had also knit two pairs of slippers from the skein, but it had been a large skein and appeared to have about the same amount left, as the silk. I frogged the started scarf, and cast on again, and ended up with this:


I'm very pleased with how well the colors matched. In real life the chenille 'pops' more in the fabric of the scarf, and cuts down the beautiful shine of the silk, but all in all, it's a fun scarf, and easy knit, and uses up two balls from my stash. I couldn't ask for more from a project. I will knit until one or both of the skeins are gone. I wonder how close the yardage will be for the two yarns.

And no, hubby is not a knitter. Closet or otherwise. He is just good at those analytical, problem solving type of things. I just hope, when I am working on a bigger project, he catches any problems before I have too much knitted.

CW

Life is nothing but a bowl of cherries:

and more cherries:

Labels: cherries, locust, piecherries

I finished the socks that were given me some problems in the previous post:



All in all, I am really pleased with the yarn, and I love the way the socks fit and feel. The bit of stretch adds a cushy comfort that I like. I wore them when we ran errands yesterday.

I ended up with remaining yarn on three balls, so now I have to figure out what to do with that. Given the stretch of the yarn, I am thinking I will make me a pair of house slippers. I find that slippers knitted in a worsted weight yarn and not felted, makes for slippers that ebb and flow. You wear them, they stretch, you wash them, they go back to the right size.

So I am thinking of taking the same 'granny slipper' pattern, and knitting with a size 2 or 3 needle and this yarn, and maybe I will have slippers that stretch, but then stay on good.

And I can recommend this yarn for knitting, if you are using circulars, or straights such that you can pretty much keep the stitches where they are suppose to be. The only time there's a real problem with the yarn, is when a stitch is dropped.

Project details:

Yarn: Soxx Appeal by Knit One Crochet Too Two partial balls of green and one of contrast color

Needles: Two circulars, size 2, with the occasional use of DPN size 2

Pattern: Bramble Soxx a pattern created by a local designer for the local yarn store

Time to knit: Embarrassing long