non-spinning yarn stuff

Just a little update on what I have been doing the last few days... that's not spinning yarn.

Saturday night we had a guest over in the form of my 11 yr old nephew. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because it keeps the 9 yr old son busy, bad because I am convinced that boys can't play together without getting on each others nerves. So, my kid went to bed about 10:30 which is late for him but not so early that he misses time with his cousin. The 11 yr old went to bed an hour later. So from about 9:30 till 12:30 I did some dying.
This is the result. I am trying to stay away from to many pastel like colors and get more saturation but I didn't have any luck that day.

I have discovered that so far, my new baby blue dye is breaking funny. Its really annoying because it creates spotting on the yarn/roving. I purchased two packets so I may need to open the other and see if I get the same effect. Also, instead of hand painting I may need to opt with a soak in a pot. Just in case the dye is not mixing well. I'm not sure why it would since all my other dyes used while hand painting mix up fine.

I also got some carding done. I don't have a really good picture since I wasn't planning to take any. However, my husband was playing around with the camera and got several fiber pics (after he took my spinning pictures.) So in case you can see through the clear plastic enough, thats my new batt set. Its pink and black with sari silk and bamboo and glitz and some regular silk as well. That's pretty hard to see but I will be sure to upload more pictures in the future.


In the store, I went through and remeasured the yarn that had been dyed in block coloring such as "Parakeet." Surprisingly that yarn was listed at 114 yards and it was actually 132 yards. However, most of them were roughly the same yardage as listing. The only difference is that instead of using the word "approx" the measurements are more exact.

So, on a final note I wanted to mention that I got some samples sent in for the April PhatFiber box. I didn't mention it earlier because I had some restraints that made me unsure if I was going to be able to make it. (Now, lets just hope the PO doesn't have issues.) I hope to contribute on a regular basis or at least bi-monthly. Since it was my first time I only sent in a few but next time I will be more experienced in what I need to do to get more samples made. If you happen to make it here after getting a box, be sure to leave a comment. I'd love feedback!

Fiber not Yarn...

...because we all get tired of talking about the same thing over and over and I plan to do a lot of yarn talk this month with spinning everyday.


So here are the first two batts I carded on my new (old) carder. Well, not the first but the first I plan to put in the store. The batts are purple-ish pink and have gold glitz and sari silk in them.

My other fiber treat is a picture of my washed cheviot fleece. I purchased this sometime last year but I just sorted it this week. This is some of the nicer, crimper fleece washed up in hot water. There is still a little vegetable matter in it but I'm hoping to work through that with additional processing. I think I will take some and carder it up bit to spin. The carder is coarse cloth but I think it should be enough to open up the locks before spinning.


Hopefully I will have more to post later today but now I must go watch a soccer game!

Samples, Goals and Yarn Everyday Month

It's April!
Guess you didn't need me to tell you that but I thought I would mention it. Especially since it is an extra special month for me. Those signed up for the newsletter will get details later. ;D

So, past the fabulous news that we have started the 4th month in 2009, I thought I would do some updates. First I have pictures of my goodies that will be sent to a sampler box in the next couple of days. I only have 20 but that is because I underestimated how much would go into making each of the samples at "sample-size." Included are 11 skeins of hand spun yarn in the color "Faded Forestry" and 9 tadpoles of roving in either "Strawberry Lemonade" and "Ladybug." LadyBug is actually made with dark gray dyes though it probably appears black in photos.



In making my samples last month I started to think about my goals for April. Last month I tried to log my time so I knew when I was productive. It's harder than you would think when you don't have anything to schedule your time around. Funny thing to me is that before I was laid off I would excuse myself because I was always too tired after work to do anything. So I sort of built myself into a no win situation by that logic. Last month I tried to log time... completely ineffective. This month, I am challenging myself to do it as one of my goals. I plan to log 40 hours a week just as if this was a day time paying job. The plus side is I set my own hours (yay!) and I can work weekends if and when I want. I started today and have already gotten in 3 hours including photos, spinning and carding. Now, if I can just get it lined you so that I am using the time most effectively. Either way, 40 hours is better than the maybe 5 hours a week the last few weeks.

One of the ways that I am trying to challenge and motivate myself is by participating in the Yarn Everyday Month. It's a group over on Ravelry that was started by BlondeChicken. Her original goal was to spin some everyday as motivation for herself but she invited others to join. I am so glad she did. I need to do this and I just always found a reason not to. (Really, I guess my goal for April is to stop making reason why its okay for me not to do what I want to do. Yea, that's it.) So on a successful note, I spun a corespun yarn from a technicolor batt I made on my new(to me) carder. Its just a coarse carder but I wanted to be able to continue offering *some* batts until I can afford to get a larger (costly) carder. So this was my first batt to see how everything would work. I think it will be fine for arty/novelty batts and I already spent a little time carding a beautiful purple based batt tonight. But this isnt about that... its about this:

One Batt, 34 yards, corespun on a #10 weight crochet thread. I have no name for it but will be loading it on Ravelry and Flickr with other photographic proof of my spinning today. =D

More Batty Goodness!

Here are the batts I promised a couple of days ago. Since then I have begun carding a multicolor blended batt. It has no glitz in it but thats okay. What I do know is that it is the perfect color combo to go with Mystic Dreams. I wasn't sure what to make with that yarn but I know it wanted to be something sorta hip and funky. Unfortunately I am not the hip and funky type. Plus it was knit a scarf or crochet a shawl. A very tiny shawl at that.

So after talking to my spinning group I decided to make Mystic Dreams into a crocheted handbag. We got to talking about it and figured 132 yards of bulky isnt enough. So I was going to make some black three ply for the bottom and the handle. Instead I have to figure out how to incorporate this blend. Do I try to create a cabled yarn with 3 black and 1 multicolored strand? Do I do a black navajo plied yarn for the bottom? I don't know. So many options!

I do however know that these batts are lovely. On the left is "Technicolor Yawn" and "Overload in Red." On the right is "Overload in Yellow" and "Mixed Berry." Mixed Berry is the one that is going to be spun and paired with Mystic Dreams. I'm having a lot of fun with the batts as always, though sometimes I wish they werent so time intensive. You really can not multi-task and card at the same time. I did list "Rebirth" (below) in my Etsy store as separate batts and will probably list the two "Overload" batts as well. I may even make more to add to the listings later. On a happy note. I did make a sale today. Yay Froggy! I guess that is my prerequisite "one-per-month" sale. I'm super thrilled about it though. It's still a really good feeling.



(P.S. - It looks like we will be moving in the next two months! Woot! Goodbye apartment living, Hello rental house! Keep your fingers crossed cause five years is too long here.)

Carded Batts and Rebirth

I took a minute this weekend and listed some mohair locks in the store. It's the last of the locks that I had on hand but I feel fortunate in that I had spent the previous weekend dying up mill ends that would be better off carded. Sadly, I don't have pictures of those quite yet. I think I will try listing some on Etsy and see how it comes out. I'll be sure to post a picture before that though.
Now on the other hand, I have a picture of one of my carded batts for you to view. This batt is called "Rebirth".

On the left is the original batt made of wool fiber dyed in pink and grey, loaded with glitz. On the right is the new batt with fuchsia dyed wool, mohair, and alpaca, undyed carded bamboo, more glitz, sari silk along with the original dyed fibers and glitz. I had two of these batts but by the time I added all the additional goodies I ended up with four. So far I have carded 2 red batts, 2 yellow batts and a multicolor batt in addition to this with plenty more wool to go. I'll probably work on getting 2-4 carded a night and start listing some mid-week. Once I start listing some on Etsy I think I will get back to spinning up the plain handspun for Mix and Mingle yarns. All I've got to do is get a little schedule working. Some days its just very difficult with work, kid, husband and everything else. (On a bit of a positive note, we might be in a position to move from this crappy apartment. I mean basically the best chance we have is this one so keep your fingers crossed! Hopefully we will know a little more by the end of the week.)

Fibery Tidbits

I have been working on spinning up some plain wool yarn to dye into more Mix and Mingle colors. I really like how they have come out so far and they seem to have gotten a good response (i.e. views) on Etsy. I start with what I can get for the time being. I finally caved recently and got an order of the Sheep Shed Mill End Grab bags. Monetarily the price can't be beat. However, as is the case when purchasing things like fleece you do more work trying to prep then you do with the more expensive already processed "nice" roving. Case in point; I purchased four pounds of mill ends grab bag i.e. whatever they send me. Roughly a pound of the mill ends are colors including black, brown red and a little blue. Then there is another pound thats mostly batts that have been cut off the machine. Then of course there is the regular mill end roving bits and the mohair mill end roving bits.
Yes, there are a lot of mill end roving bits.


So after just a few hours of spinning I was already through the easy to use roving mill ends. Next would be the easy to use batts. Unfortunately almost all of the batts had cut ends. Fortunately, I had the experience with some of the cut ends from the roving and manufactured a plan. I took all the batts and carded them into ... well, batts. I basically recarded the wool which there by eliminated the hard to deal with blunt cut ends and made the wool soft and bouncy and easy to draft. Yay me!

The other thing that I did was to divvy up the rest of the undyed bits and started dying them. I have green and yellow that I did this past weekend. I will also have purple and hot pink which I am doing today. The plans for these bits are to card them up with all the variations of colors, texture, glitz and anything else I feel like putting in there. I'm really excited about this but wish I didn't have to wait for the other wool to dry tonight. Where is an air-only dryer when you need one!

Fluff of the Gothic Nature

I swear I must have some fascination with Goth's and/or Royalty. I loosely carded this black merino and bag of fiberpuffs that I purchased from Knitch and all I could think of was variations on the name Royal Goth, Purple Goth, Gothic Royalty etc etc etc.... I really have to branch out some. Maybe inspiration will strike me and a new name will come into mind.

So, I carded these last night. A total of 11 batts in all. My carder is a Strauch Petite so its not really meant to card real bulky items. It will pull on the teeth and bend and break them. I just carefully turned the handle and when the fibers started to collect on the licker-in drum I took the bat off. One run through... thats it. If I wanted a nicely blended fiber then it would be put through several times. Fortunately there is no real need for that. The fiber puffs are made for good texture and tons of bulky.

Of course, by the time I was done with the carded I was ready for bed. I must be coming down with something. I left work early Friday feeling bad, had a sore throat Saturday, exhausted all day Sunday and woke up feeling pretty crappy today. Still, I dragged myself to work. Thats what you do when your sick and don't have much sick time and live in a one income family. You work. My Dad's always worked and my parents have been two income all my life so I guess I get my work ethics from him. Didn't help much since I ended up home today as well.

But seriously I am hoping to spin this up tonight or at least get started. I still have the Ashford Country that a friend in my spinning group loaned me. I asked if she would be interested in selling it so if all things work out it may be mine permanently. I also have my eye on purchasing a small floor loom. The price is right, the size not so much for living in an apartment. I feel bad though. I am totally ready to expense money that I don't need to. More than likely we can get something worked out on the wheel but I have my doubts on the loom. I've told my husband I still want to get the Sonata and a loom and its not just an "I want I want gimme gimme gimme" sort of thing. I really enjoy these things and there is always something new to learn about fiber arts. That's really what keeps me going. I love to learn and I like watching things change and experiencing how it changes. Even if you do the same project ten times, when you use different fiber, yarn, needle size etc... the project comes out a little different. I just really enjoy the why's and how's of things. That's probably the best way to put it. I'll leave it at that.

Who's afraid of Batts?

Here are a couple of batts that I carded over the weekend. I had lots of fun but ran out of glitz. (Oh Noz!)

On the left is Spring Green. ( I just made that up as I wrote it.) It is pre-dyed fiber I bought from Wild Fibre in Savannah. It's layered with dark green, yellow and a lighter, celery green. It also has bombyx silk and glitz. I used a rhyme and reasoning to make the green outer layers that were blended with silk and glitz. The yellow was an inner layer that was carded with silk and the lighter, celery green was carded with glitz.

The middle batt is a one-off sort of combination of fibers. It came out to over 1.5 ounces on my little Strauch Petite. Normally, I can't get more than an ounce comfortable on there but this was apparently packed dense. The colors are a blend of the dark green in the first batts, Louet's Jade roving and a roving that I unsuccessfully dyed a while back. (It had a greenish tinge with brown on the outside, like it was picking up residual dyes.)

The last batts will be called "Boysenberry." They are a combination of purple roving (wool I assume) that I bought from someone a couple of years back and Coopworth locks that I combed to open up before carding. The Coopworth was purchased at SAFF and was a nice purple and purplish-blue. These also included tons of purple glitz. Sort of mono-toned but not really. I really enjoyed drum carding this weekend but it took a little time to get the rhythm going. I'm hoping to get more carding or some fiber dying done this upcoming weekend.
Oh! Have you heard about Sock Wars? I saw something about it yesterday so Google it. (Or come back tomorrow and I will write about it. (For those like me to lazy to Google anything right now.)