So we meet again... Everyday Yarn Challenge Sept 2009!

Last April I participated in the Yarn Everyday Challenge hosted by blondechicken on Ravelry. I found it to be really challenging and everyone's enthusiasm was contagious. While I wasn't quite able to make it to the end of the month, I really enjoyed seeing everyone's progress.

Fast forward to mid-August and I felt the urge for another spinning challenge. I started with one goal but feel that is best to revise it to spinning everyday with a total of 15 finished yarns by month end. Here is my first and second day's worth of spinning.

Other fiber artist on Ravelry you are more than welcome to join in the fun, just post in this Ravelry thread. You don't have to join the group, its just a place to share. Everyone is welcome, the more the merrier! =D

Everyday Yarn Day 2

So, I thought since I was trying to push myself to spin more it should be a natural connection to blog more as well. One of the *many* things that I regret not doing more of is writing. I don't know why but I could write a mean paper. On the other hand, I like blogging because it has a bit more personal and informal touch. So I will try to write everyday to show what progress I made in the spinning challenge (and anything else that comes to mind.)

Day Two's yarn was more of an unfinished object than it had any right to be. It was originally spun at one of our Second Sunday gatherings and I had every intention to ply it with thread. Then I got home and started wishing that I had core spun it... should have thought of that before I went to town though. So I took this off the bobbin, wound it into a ball and wondered if there was a way to unspin it into a thread and make it a corespun yarn. After that I just forgot about it. Until today.

Today I was searching through my "misc" bin of fiber related goods. Basically, its a big bin of things that I have used or purchased that hasn't found a permanent residence anywhere. (Or as my mom would say... that I hadn't put away.) I looked at a bunch of fibers that one of the ladies was destashing at the spinning group and realized that I still had this ball of blended, glitzed, thick and thin handspun. Then I sorted through another bin and found some embroidery thread. SCORE!

Now for the result...


The top yarn is approx 49 yards (pre-set). The bottom was what remained when I ran out of thread so I just plied the remaining yarn back on itself. It's a little tadpole of love. =D

(At the end of the month I will try to upload better pictures of my yarns. I usually end up spinning at night so my pictures are not as nice as I would like them to be.)

Handspun Undone.. kinda

Just recently I finished spinning up some commercial Wool/Soysilk Blend. I was very excited about it because I it felt like it was taking forever to spin. I was impressed with how much yarn was produced. Okay, I don't know what the yardage is yet but I think its a fair amount. I was planning on using the yarn to knit the Morning Surf scarf on the cover of the recent Spin-off thinking how I wanted it to be relatively lacy. But then I chickened out as I often do when it comes to knitting something thats not simple knit purl knit purl. So I went online to find another pattern and picked this. Its probably a little more complicated (since I dont know how to PSSO) but I think it will be perfect for this yarn. Besides, I have this month's spinning meet up and I'm going to take the pattern and have someone show me how to do it. They are such nice people in the group.

Speaking of, just this past week I set the twist on the yarn and to my disappointment the color ran. Ick! Okay, when I say ran I don't mean just a little dye. What I am talking about is the OH NO my water is no longer clear its (insert color here.) In this case my water was a dark orange color. The water wasn't hot it was luke warm. The yarn wasnt sitting in the water for hours it was there less than two minutes... not more than five, before I took it out. The only reason I took it out then was because I didnt want the color to bleed on the lighter fibers in the yarn. Seriously... disappointed. A major commercial brand should not bleed when the fibers are set. My husband commented that the water looked like Kool-Aid.


*SIGH* Okay, but its not the only thing I did this week. I spun the roving that I purchased at Knitch from Gale's Art. (She has an etsy store.) I wanted to keep the colors true so I split the roving into four long pieces and spun them with the expectation to do a two ply. That way the long repeats she created in the roving would ply against itself and make a somewhat self striping yarn with defined blocks of color. When I finished I pretty much changed my mind and decided to Navajo Ply. (See a theme here ;P) I am seriously no good at it. Every time I do a Navajo ply I end up with a very dense yarn. I believe the culprit is that I am treadling too fast on the ply. I think. I'm welcoming any opinions or advice to the contrary. Oh and when I set the twist on this fiber... Just a small light green tint in the water. Yea for well prepared fibers from small business owners!

And a quick note in unrelated (i.e. real life) news. We are finally getting some of our stuff moved into the new place. And yet again I realize two important things.... I hate packing and I hate moving. It's even worse at the moment because my husband is injured and can't lift more than 5 pounds and only on one hand. Of course this would be the optimal weekend to have these issues since the father in-law could only help us move all our big stuff like dressers, bookshelves etc on his trailer THIS weekend. That's just our kind of luck though. Bah! I can't wait til this is over.

Yarn and Traveling

The weekend always goes by too fast for me. I spent the entire week at work being the only person processing cash for my department/division. I deserve a longer weekend dagnabit!

As weekends go this wasn't a bad one. It wasn't quite the excitement of last Sunday but it was definitely welcome to being at work this week. On the yarn front I finally finished that wool/soysilk blend I purchased a few months ago. It was a very long time coming in my opinion. I think what finally did it was the new wheel I get to borrow. I was able to fit the bobbin from my Babe unto the S51 and finish spinning my single. Then I took a Louet bobbin and plied the two singles together. I ended up putting the remaining single into a center pull ball and plying it onto the same skein as well. Hefty!

There were a few casualties though. I tangled a portion of the center pull ball and lost some yarn. It was almost 1/2 ozs worth of yarn. Fortnately, I was able to pull the tangled center portion out of the ball and salvage the remaining yarn to ply with. I really hadn't thought that the yarn was thin enough to tangle but it's certainly a lesson learned. I did end up with some knots in my yarn which I am not to pleased about. I try to make my plying work out without the use of knots but it wasn't happening this time. It's not much of a problem though. I am not selling this yarn, I intend to find a nice light/lacy pattern that will best utilize the finished yarn. (If you know of one send me a clue!)

The book in the picture is a recent purchase as well. It's one of my "To Do's" in the fiber world now that I will be moving into a house. We have this utility room which will serve as storage once everything is sorted out and it makes me feel much safer about trying natural dyed methods.

The other fun thing from this weekend was our spur of the moment trip to Knitch. We had traveled to Forsyth to take a look at a furniture liquidation store and some sofas. Then I convinced my husband (and son... though he didnt have much say so) that we should go into Atlanta and see if they had more of the black merino fiber from the last trip. Unfortunately they did not. Of course I didn't come away empty handed, not after driving in the car for that long. So I picked up some roving from Gale's Art called Rose Garden. I also got some Gaywool Dyes. It appears that since the last time I was there Knitch has decided to start offering some dyes. I think the price is more than I wanted to spend on dyes but it will be a good chance to try another brand. I only picked up two colors though so I will have to make sure to work them in as needed.

(Side Note: I opened up a poll on how often a blog should be updated. I'm doing a little market research and would really appreciate the input even if you just happened here by accident. Thanks!)

Want to Navajo Ply? Ask Rexenne

I was searching around the web one day, as I do most days when I get off from hell work and came across a conversation on Craftster's Spinning Board. (Perhaps I spend too much time on that site.) This particular conversation was about chained plying also known as Navajo plying. In otherwords, you take one single and make a 3 ply yarn from it. Now, this is not my strong point. I'm not know for plying my yarns and when I do it's a 2ply from a center pull ball more often than not. HOWEVER, I found a really good video on YouTube some weeks back that did a great job of explaining the process. Plus you get a slow motion replay to show you exactly what steps to take.



I want to work on doing some video tutorials in the future (re: fleece sorting) but for now I rely on those who come before me. I've heard many good things about Rexenne on the (now defunct) Spinning Fiber community via LiveJournal. I had just never taken the time to sit down and watch one of her YouTube videos. I'm certainly glad I did though.

So heres to all you spinners who are looking for some direction/assistance/refreshing on the art of Navajo Ply. Enjoy!