Tag Archives: spinning

full.

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fullbob

In so many ways. Boh and I went out to the lake on Friday night to see a friend who was away all summer, and is heading off to grad school this week. Last night, I attended a mellow housewarming gathering here in town with some of my favorite people. Today, Boh and I are headed home to celebrate my grandma’s birthday with a backyard barbecue.

And, of course, that bobbin of dark, undyed, local jacob is FULL. I’m working on my long draw, and I’m hoping there’s enough twist in these singles. I couldn’t get 2 full oz. on the bobbin, which gives you a sense of how airy and lofty this yarn is. Later on this week I’ll spin up the other 2+ oz. and ply them together.

We’ll be back tomorrow night. Hope your Sunday is filled with good food and family too.

why hello, skein.

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LOVE.

238 yds. of squishy 2-ply worsted weight yarn, from 4 oz. of falklands wool in five plum pie from Hello Yarn.

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I navajo plyed what didn’t fit on the first bobbin — so here’s 28 more yards of practice yarn. This is still overplied, but I’m getting into a rhythm with this technique. It is really hard to slow down my feet!

zucchini pickles

Also, zucchini pickles! I made these on Thursday, but the recipe said they’d turn a lovely shade of chartreuse after a day in the fridge. I know the green of my kitchen is tough to beat, but the zucchini really is absorbing the color of the brine. I’m taking these to a backyard bbq later today!

five plum pie.

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First off, if you clicked through from Joy the Baker’s site because you, too, wondered if roosters wear shoes, welcome! I don’t have any pictures to prove it, but I did use my oven continuously yesterday (zucchini bread, granola, roasted potatoes). And I was barefoot.

(I won an awesome set of Baggu bags, and I can’t wait. In fact, I’ve been doing some serious winning lately, as I was the lucky commenter selected in Jodi’s blogiversary contest over at A Caffeinated Yarn. Yay!)

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Amidst all the oven use yesterday, I did manage to get a lot of spinning done. I finished both bobbins of the Hello Yarn Fiber Club falklands wool in Five Plum Pie, and late last night, I decided to do a little bit of plying.

full bobbin

Which turned into A LOT of plying. That bobbin is so full that it no longer turns independently of the flyer. I’ll have more pictures of this 2-ply when it is done drying, but I’m really happy with how nicely the colors lined up. Instead of breaking the roving into 2 pieces, I stripped this in half lengthwise, and was carefully to spin them the same way to keep the color progression. In a lot of places, the colors match exactly, and the transitions between colors seem gentle and subtle. Also, not that it needs to be said, but this stuff was incredible to work with — smooth, even, and solid without being compressed. I fully understand the HY hype.

Public Service Announcement: Have you seen this navajo-plying video over at Spin-Off? I found this link through the Spunky Club on ravelry, and I feel moved to share. For folks new to navajo-plying, this video makes it really easy to see how it works and what it looks like. For old pros, the video demonstrates a particular way of holding the yarn and pulling out the loops that is easy on the shoulders and very rhythmic.

For those following my bat saga, Boh and I were winged-visitor-free last night. Here’s hoping it stays that way!

sweet peppers and plum pie.

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(Hint. Only one of these things is actually in the kitchen.)

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sweet peppers

These are hands-down some of the prettiest peppers to ever grace my kitchen with their presence. Everything else from this week’s share (carrots, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, dill, basil, cilantro, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, endive, lettuce and garlic) went right into its place in the kitchen, but these needed to be photographed.

five plum pie

And here is the plum pie. Five Plum Pie, to be exact. This is the first colorway I received as a new member of the Hello Yarn Fiber Club in May 09 — 4 oz of falklands wool. I finally feel like my spinning is consistent enough to start playing with my slowly growing HY stash. I’m aiming for a squishy 2-ply, probably a dk to light worsted in weight, and right now I’m thinking that I would love a new cowl and/or set of mitts for fall…

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It was too humid to do much of anything during the day yesterday, but once the evening arrived, Boh and I went over to see dog and people friends, eat delicious pizza and farm veggies, and take a lovely evening walk. (We also polished off a whole jar of dilly beans. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I opened one of the pints a few days shy of its 2-week pickling period. I need to pick more beans!)

beans and a skein.

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dillybeansprep

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Three more pints of dilly beans on the shelf.

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Boh, worrying about something. (What’s new?)

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166 yards of light worsted 2-ply falklands wool from 3 oz. of the silent undergrowth colorway from AVFKW. This stuff is soft, squishy, shiny, and all-around delightful.

Off to pour another cup of coffee…

slow.

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Do you have those days that seem to take forever to progress? Yesterday was that kind of day. I tried to fill the hours, but the time refused to pass.

All of that changed just before evening, when I ran into a friend on the street, finally started another book, met friends from out of town for a great dinner, relaxed with the dog, and (wait for it) chased our friend, the bat, out of my apartment with a broom around midnight.

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An incredible lightning storm and the ruminations of my brain kept me up quite late last night, so the morning’s cup of coffee must again feature prominently in today’s post.

More glimpses of yesterday:

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I finished spinning and plying the AVFKW falklands fiber in the silent undergrowth colorway, but I couldn’t capture the depth of the browns and greens with yesterday’s overcast sky (even with the change of background.) The skein is still hanging to dry — I’ll try again tomorrow.

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A bit more of the toe of my second vanilla sock, and a particularly concerned Boh. It must be Monday…

the silent undergrowth.

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Boh and I took a walk through the campus arboretum yesterday, accompanied only by the sound of the wind and the hum of bees conducting their business.

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A collection of nut trees lines the road to the central part of the sprawling, manicured landscape. Tucked into a string of walnut trees, this particular cluster caught my eye. This tree, like the others, had a small tin tag pegged to its trunk: Japanese heartnut. The name made me smile.

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When we returned home (our muscles sufficiently stretched), it was time to start a new spinning project, and this fiber seemed appropriate to the moment: The Silent Undergrowth, 3 oz. of Falklands from AVFKW. The colors are hard to capture on camera, but there is a lovely depth to the range of browns and greens in this fiber.

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Also, here’s an update on my alpaca test-knitting:

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I’m approaching four inches on the body, and while this will not be a quick knit, I love how this feels in my hands.

Also:

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I love this dog.

Happy weekend, all.

know your parts.

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know your parts

My new favorite shirt: Know Your Parts, from AVFKW. It was a little chilly yesterday when Boh and I stepped out for our morning stroll, so I grabbed Mara, and snapped a photo in the mirror:

mara and t-shirt

I love my Mara, and I realized something incredibly practical about this shawl (and who knows, maybe all wool shawls) — the wool grabs a bit, which means that Mara stayed put on our stroll — a particularly important detail when you’re walking the dog and holding keys, phone, leash, and a certain pup’s “business,” if you will.

indigo plyed

I wore my spinning wheel t-shirt while spinning the second bobbin and plying the 2 together. (See that transition?) I still noticed a difference in the saturated versus the more lightly colored fiber, but this bobbin was easier to spin. My troubles might have something to do with needing to adjust to the incredibly long staple length of the wensleydale.

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126 yards of 2-ply wensleydale from AVFKW in the Intergalactic Space Travel colorway. There is something a bit otherwordly about the sheen of this stuff, don’t you think?

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Boh certainly seems to like it.

Time to pour another cup and get to work. Happy Friday!

lucy in the sky, skeined.

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My apologies, up front. I have A LOT of pictures of this skein of handspun.

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Just one more. Okay?

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3-ply, 325 yards of almost 4 oz of Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino in (wait for it) Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I didn’t measure wpi, but it is definitely sock yarn, slightly thicker and squooshier than the blue Spunky Club sock yarn I finished a few weeks ago. I say “almost 4 oz” because I stopped plying when I could not fit any more yarn on the bobbin, rather than when one of the bobbins ran out.

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I navajo plied one of the leftover bobbins, and here’s how it looks, unwashed. The trick really is to just slow down. I did this while listening to NPR’s coverage (downloadable!) of Billy Bragg at the Newport Folk Festival, and I found myself treadling very slowly along with his guitar.  There’s something really quite graceful about navajo plying, and I’m excited to keep practicing.

I have more spinning to share — my wheel was looking so empty that I just had to start a project. Or two.

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This is the last of my AVFKW shetland in Fruit Loops — 68 yards of singles. While the rest was done on a spindle, I spun this on the wheel. Not sure what the collection of singles skeins will become, but I’m quite happy with the lot of them.

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And this. I only intended to start this last night, but I ended up spinning a whole bobbin’s worth. This is AVFKW Wensleydale in Intergalactic Space Travel, dyed with indigo, which, as expected, turned my fingers a gorgeous shade of blue. I’m still learning about how dye and fiber react, and with this stuff, I could really see how the saturated spots were different (and more difficult for me to spin) than the lighter sections. I’m aiming for a worsted-ish 2-ply with this, but it might turn out more thick and thin, as the coarser, more saturated parts were making it really tough for me to get into a rhythm and find some level of consistency. I’m really interested to see how this yarn feels once it has had a good soak, as the indigo really changes the feel of the wensleydale.

savoryzucchinibread

(One of these things is not like the others…) A friend from my high desert knitting group emailed me this recipe for a savory zucchini-cheddar bread, and I baked a loaf yesterday afternoon. I used monterey jack instead of cheddar, and upped the dill to make up for my dwindling supply of parsley, and whoa. My go-to zucchini bread is more of a breakfast loaf, but this makes it possible to have zucchini bread at every meal. So delicious.

Three weeks until the semester begins — I can’t believe it. Time to get to work!