Category Archives: spinning

breaking news.

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I had to. I couldn’t help it. I cannot focus on the paper I am writing because I am so distracted by the idea of a spinning wheel. It is all I can think about. What kind? How much can I spend? Where will I put it?

I know this isn’t supposed to be an impulse purchase, but I think I’ve just made a great choice: The Lendrum DT Complete. I’ve been reading and re-reading reviews, comments, shop descriptions, and this is the best fit for me for the price.

For others agonizing, here’s why I picked the Lendrum:

(1) Small, but heavy enough that reviewers say it doesn’t “feel” like a travel wheel.

(2) Can travel. Because I’ll likely need support, and that means going to the local guild.

(3) Can be tucked away into its bag — my apartment is teeny.

(4) intuitive. The videos at Paradise Fibers’ website show how simple it is to put together and use. I like the way the kate is designed, I like how the bobbins come off the flyer, I even like the little storage place for the orifice hook.

(5) it is maple.

(6) it comes finished, so i can spin immediately, don’t need to go find the right stain or oil, and don’t have to agonize over whether the money to get a finished vs. unfinished wheel is worth it.

(7) scotch tension. good for beginners, and it makes sense to me. which matters.

(8) the Complete models come with: a tensioned kate, 4 bobbins, a bulky flyer and head, and a high speed flyer. when i realized this, and did some quick calculations in the realm of what these elements would cost were i to get a different wheel, i got out the credit card.

(9) it is SO pretty.

(10) it will be here AFTER i finish this paper, which means i should be able to focus now. eeeeee!

time to write, i hope.

ETA: Of course, the second I finished posting this, I got a call saying that Lendrum DT Complete are backordered. So…I called every shop I could find online and found a Lendrum DT without the plying head or fast flyer – last one in stock. It ships tomorrow. (!!!!)

handspun and cast iron.

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I should be writing. In fact, I should be writing A LOT, but instead, I’m feeling the need to dash off a quick post. I’ve written a few paragraphs for the paper this morning, so I can justify this. Right? Right. Also, it could be argued that talking about late nineteenth/early twentieth century cast iron is incredibly relevant to my work. Maybe I’ll footnote my recent ebay acquisition (just kidding):

castiron

castiron2

Isn’t she beautiful? I have been lusting after a workhorse skillet like this one, and in addition to how delicious my eggs have been this week, I really love that this new-to-me kitchen staple has a great deal of history — made in the period I study, for starters. (But enough about that. I have to save it for this paper, remember?)

Also, because end-of-the-semester paper writing is rather traumatic, I decided I needed something squishy and soft to pet nearby. I used my new niddy-noddy to skein up my Spunky Club organic merino in Twilight, and then I washed it to set the twist and hung it to dry.

twilight niddynoddy

twilightyes

I am in love. 250 yards of 2-ply that my eyeballs think is a pretty even light worsted, with some subtle dk weight interludes, spun on my Spinsanity spindle and plied on my heavier Louet spindle. Still drooling over wheels, folks…

Back to it!

plying, frying…

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gradingwithboh1

Apologies for the post slowdown over here. This is pretty much what’s been happening at casa del barefootrooster: work. (Or napping, if you’re Boh.)

I did manage to start plying my Spunky organic merino in Twilight, in between paragraphs (may is the month of paper writing) or particularly bad/cheesy sentences.

twilight-plying

I also have some rather exciting food to share. We had dinner with friends last week — they brought the burrito fixings, and we made the tortillas and some modified (flour) tortilla chips. I was so excited to finally make something from The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, by the legendary Diana Kennedy. Flip through one of her cookbooks the next time you’re in a bookstore and you’ll know what I mean. Kennedy is a fantastic storyteller, and you really get a sense for what it meant to build a life in Mexico. (For more, check out The Splendid Table episode where they go to Mexico to hang out with Diana. I want to be her.)

tortilla1

Tortilla dough, with tortilla chips (made by frying freshly made tortillas) in the background.

tortilla2

Homemade chips! While these were frying in the pan, we were trying to figure out why they weren’t like normal tortilla chips. After several minutes of puzzling, the boy and I exclaimed, “Corn!” at exactly the same time. These were more like pita chips, I’d say, but still delicious.

tortilla3

Flour tortillas. These were incredible, and oh-so-simple. They even retained their flexible-ness long enough to be turned into next-day breakfast burritos! I’ll be making these again. Soon.

Since it seems we have a theme, here’s one more bit of frying from this week’s kitchen adventures:

stirfry

Tofu, kale, carrots, onions, ginger, garlic, brown rice. I’m planning to eat the rest for lunch.

One last bit of super fun news — I won some gorgeous AVFKW silk over at sockpr0n. Thanks, Aija! I can’t wait to play with it!

returning to brompton.

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It felt so good to finish 28thirty (thank you for all of your kind words) that I decided to take a look at my grad school cardigan (alice bell’s lovely brompton), so named because I was not actually IN grad school when I began this sweater in January 2008. I envisioned myself wearing a cozy cardigan, drinking my morning coffee, and digging into exciting books. I’d say that’s pretty accurate, although I’m not sure I realized when I started this sweater how fast I would have to read, and how not-so-exciting some of the books would be.

When I dug this particular WIP out of its tote bag, I found that I had knit and seamed one button band, and had begun knitting the second. This week, I’ve knit and seamed the second button band (and boy, has my seaming improved!), and begun on the first sleeve.

brompton1

brompton2

I’m pretty sure I can block the wonkiness out of the first button band, but my biggest worry is that it will be too big.  I’m a bit slimmer (or so I’m told) than when I started this sweater, and I’m not sure I totally understood things like size, ease and fit. I’m going to pay particular attention to this as I work the sleeves, and hopefully after blocking I’ll have a drape-y, good-for-layering cardigan. Fingers crossed!

spunkyjan

I also finished spinning the second half of my January Spunky Club Fiber in Twilight. I’m planning to turn this into 2-ply, and I’m anxious to see what kind of yardage and wpi I end up with. For my next project, I’d like to think more carefully about what kind of end product I want, and maybe try a new kind of plying…

Alright, time to get to (school) work!

pie and daffodils.

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delicious

daffodils-whisper

An oatmeal pecan pie and a fresh bunch of daffodils (with my whisper cardigan hiding in the background). The sun is shining brightly (and ever so warmly) on us today, and I am thankful for the coolness (literally) of my basement/first floor hybrid apartment. (The house is on a hill, so even though my apartment has full windows on 3 sides, it is technically the basement.)

Also, this guy wants you to know that he is on full alert:

guard-dog

And he has good reason to assume the guard dog position! Today I got off the wait list and into the Hello Yarn Fiber Club, which means that the already-full blue bucket of fiber behind Boh will soon be overflowing…

Enjoy the sunshine! I’m off to class.

[miso] sick.

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Yep, hard to believe, but I get even cornier when I’m sick. I’d be willing to categorize this particular sore throat/headcold combination as “sick-as-a-dog” if I didn’t have a perfectly healthy canine snoring peacefully on the couch behind me. I wish he’d stop rubbing it in.

miso

I’ve consumed a couple of quarts of miso today, and I’ve also worked on ingesting as much superfood as possible — which means I even mashed up a few cloves of garlic and threw them into a homemade lemony salad dressing in order to up my allium intake. Hot showers, lots of herbal tea, a pre-bedtime mug of Therma-Flu (which I’m working my way through as we speak) — and some pouting to the boy round out the day’s medicinal treatments. I WILL be better tomorrow. I have to be. I’m so bad at being sick.

I did a very little bit of knitting today — when the full on head cold developed, it became hard to look down without also encouraging the snot to pour out of my nose. I did, however, discover that head colds go nicely with spinning. Standing makes it easier to breathe, and I felt less silly with something to do while standing in order to inhale less laboriously, which prompted me to start the second half of my January Spunky Club fiber:

twilight-part-2

Apologies for the busy and somewhat blurry photo. I didn’t have the heart to wake and move Boh off of the more plainly colored couch.

Alright. Fingers crossed that I wake rested and find my health returned.

about 5 bank accounts, 3 oz and 2 vehicles*

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twilight-2oz

This is more like 2 oz.

Of fiber from the January Spunky Club.

Not anything illicit. I’m just saying.

I’m realizing that 2 oz is about all I can fit on the spindle at one time. Despite what this picture seems to reveal, I’m really happy with the evenness of this yarn. the last 10 yards or so are more irregular (and what you can see here) and I think it has to do with how heavy the spindle gets. When it is approaching full, my technique seems to emphasis the “drop” in drop spindle!

*This is Dr. Dre’s answer to the previous line, and the name of the song: “What’s the difference between me and you?” Given that the song lyrics and music references I normally post situate me solidly in the land of americana/folk/alt country, I’ll provide a little more context. This album was popular during my freshman year of college, and somehow it became clear that a friend and I knew all the words. (While this isn’t my favorite song, I have a serious memory for useless information like song lyrics.) He is getting married next year, and there have been jokes about demonstrating this particular skill at the wedding. If you know the song, you probably realize that it is pretty intense/violent and, shall we say, representative of the genre. Despite all of this, it makes me think of said friend whenever it comes up on itunes, and I smile. Music is good for that.

Plus, now that I operate in ounces — of a very different kind than Dr. Dre —  it is allowing me to creatively(?) post on my spinning progress this week…

first handspun FO.

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handspuncowl1

handspuncowl2

I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, as my first plied handspun is definitely a thick-thin yarn. After perusing a bunch of cowl patterns on Ravelry, I settled on something similar to the malabrigo cowl I made a few months ago. I was aiming for a drapey fabric, and figured I’d knit til I ran out of yarn.

I cast on 75 stitches, worked a purl row at some point to counter the roll over, and then knit, knit, knit while catching up with a friend on the other side of the world, listening to This American Life, and even last week’s CraftLit episode. I increased by 9 stitches at a few different points in the middle, worked a decrease row (also 9 st) somewhere, another purl bump row, an increase row, and then at about 14 inches, a purl row close to the bind off. I was worried about getting it over my head, initially, but those fears were totally unfounded. I LOVE this cowl — and not just because it represents my first foray into the spinning side of things. I stayed up an extra hour last night in order to finish this — here’s the token “hold the camera up to the mirror” picture marking my victory:

handspuncowl3

It’s a good thing you can’t actually see how bleary-eyed I was at this moment — but we all know how certain projects induce a kind of “must…finish…” zombie-like state.

In conclusion: hooray for handspun! (And I will finish that baby sweater by Friday. Really.)

you don’t meet nice girls in coffee shops.

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Last night I heard Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin and Buddy Miller sing Tom Waits, Bessie Smith, Johnny and Jack, Judith Miller, some gospel music and a bunch of their own stuff. It felt like looking down on something special, to see these individually incredible songwriter-musicians make and enjoy their music together. Makes it sort of hard to return to regular life, so instead of jumping right into the reading I should’ve done last night, I’ll show you a little bit of spinning I did yesterday.

spunky-jan-fiber

This is my first batch of fiber from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club — 4 oz of organic merino in colorway Twilight.

boh-spindle

Boh’s not so good with the spindle. (Yet.)

spunky-progress

The blues and greens look particularly beautiful against the colors of one of the books I’m reading this week — prompted me to get out the camera this morning.

Time to have some more birthday cake for breakfast and get back to the pile of reading…

birthday weekend.

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I have a whole slew of unrelated (or maybe loosely connected) photos: knits in action, kitchen adventures, knitting mistakes… Hmmm. I promise NOT to name this post something about the letter K.

Friday:

bolero-in-action1

Bolero Jacket in action. I feel like I read a lot from folks about how sometimes knitting is not super wearable, and my blog gets lots of visitors who are looking for advice on wearing things like legwarmers, so I’ve been a bit more mindful of snapping photos when I am actually wearing things I’ve made (not that I consider myself remotely fashionable). This sweater gets a lot of wear around the house, and steps into real life when the weather is variable enough to warrant a heavy sweater but not a winter coat — this works best for me with a big puffy vest. I wear this when I need to bring a bit of comfort with me — in this case, the discussion of a tough book.

fork-for-scale

Friday night, we made pizza and lemon tart (from deb at smitten kitchen, of course). No pictures of the pizza. Note the fork for scale in this picture. I also discovered some serious errors with my increasing on the BSJ I’ve been working on — I literally had 6 ridges left to knit when I realized that my increases (for the fronts of the sweater) were uneven. I don’t even have the heart to photograph the problem, nor could I stomach ripping back. I just put it aside, dug through the stash, and cast on for a baby version of the bolero jacket.

Saturday:

biscuits1

moroccan-stew

Moroccan Stew (from deb) and biscuits (a la Mark Bittman). Also, a new spindle arrived:

newspindle

I LOVE this spindle. I spun the sample fiber it came with immediately, and may need to dig through my fiber stash to start something new so that I can put it to work. The spindle is from Spinsanity, and it spins wonderfully. Hooray for birthday presents to myself.

Sunday (actually anniversary of my birth):

birthday-cake

Homemade birthday cake, not baked by me. Honey-Rosemary Cake with Lemon Frosting, from Apples for Jam. This is incredibly delicious, the kind of cake you can eat several pieces of during the day and not feel like you’re overdosing on sugar. I intend to have some for breakfast after I post this.

replacement-sweater

And since this purports to be a knitting blog, here’s the progress I’ve made on my replacement baby sweater. Just about halfway done already — what a difference worsted weight yarn makes. I’ve had enough distance from my BSJ to take a look, and I imagine I’ll rip back and keep going — it may go to this baby, or to the next. Lots of folks in my life are adding to their families this year!

Hope you all had lovely weekends. Sadly, you don’t get to stop reading when it is your birthday, but I did slow down a bit. Time to have some of that cake and prep for class!