Spindlitis

This is a sample pack of roving from Bartlett Yarns. Will likely make a cap of it. Just a fun thing to spin.

I received the latest spindle order yesterday. This puts me up to six Bosworths! I am making up for lost time. First up, two skinny Cherry maxis and one skinny Cherry mini.

The cherry midi is 18 grams. I need to test it out on finer fiber. The two maxis will be my go to plying spindles, although they are light enough to use for regular projects.

And this batch are my butternuts! I don’t know why I have this fascination with butternut wood, but I do.

I have a regular Butternut maxi with a walnut shaft, a regular Butternut Midi with a walnut shaft and the skinny Butternut Midi with a walnut shaft that was my first purchase. I just like the lighter whorl with the dark shaft. There’s an interesting difference in the skinny versus regular midi. The regular has a slightly slower spin but longer. It’s likely due to the slightly heavier whorl. There’s a six gram difference between the two. I’m expecting the two Midis to be my workhorse spindles. I already reach for the skinny Midi for any new project. The Maxi is a nice plying spindle, when I need something heavier. I have to keep the weight down on it, but it works fine if I ply about two ounces at a time.

And this is my first finished yarn!

This is the dyed corriedale I was spinning on the cherry Midi. I plied it on the butternut maxi. It’s three ply and I used my plying stick to ply. The plying stick is so much better than tennis balls. I wrap the singles on it, like I’d wrap on a nostepinne. When you ply, the twist will run up the yarn to the point where it’s touching the stick. It stops there. The stick is lightweight and easy to hold. I can set the project down and pick it up later, without getting anything messed up. It fits my style of spinning.

I’m trying to finish a couple of knitting projects that need to be done by the weekend. Abraham’s birthday is tomorrow, so the baby sweater needs to be finished. And his mom’s birthday was last week, so I’m giving her the socks I started. I’m close to finishing those. When I get those two projects done, I’ll be ready to start knitting handspun socks. I’ve finished a couple of skeins of hand dyed yarn and the grey corriedale is about halfway finished. I want to spindle spin one of the six ounce bags of roving I bought for socks. These yarns are thicker than commercial sock yarns, so maybe the socks will be a bit faster to knit.

First up, my cool new tool. It’s a plying stick.

I learned about these on Sarah Swett’s site. It’s like a nostepinne and replaces the plying ball. The ridges hold the ball on the stick. You wrap the singles together on the stick, just like you would with a nosty. Then you ply off it. This one is walnut. And here’s the link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/262781967/plying-wandstick-made-to-order?ref=shop_home_active_2

She also makes lovely tapestry bobbins and nostepinnes.

Next up is some finished yarn. I posted this on Rav. This is the spindle spun fractal, Three Waters Farm colorway Spring By Way in Finn.

I divided the fiber in half, then split one of those into four sections horizontally. I put each piece in a bag, labeled AA to AD. The second section was split into four long vertical. These went into the bag, after the first four were spun. It was easy to see which color to start with since these all started at the same end. Next up, the two singles wrapped on a ply ball, in the correct order:

Finally, the plied yarn. I plied this on the new Bosworth Maxi.

No idea what I’ll make with this but the colorway is wonderful.

I also plied up some Bam Huey. I received a sample of this with a Jenkins spindle. I like it, so ordered 4 ounces. I believe it’s BFL. This is another project that disappeared for awhile. The main part had felted slightly and the pieces I’d spun  were out of order. So it’s not a great looking gradient.

And I’m spinning up two ounces of dyed Corriedale. They call this teal, but it’s more sea green to me. This is the Bosworth cherry skinny maxi. I have found that I love the skinnies!

Last is Hipstring’s Flannel Jammie on my Bosworth butternut skinny midi. I don’t normally like merino, but this is really a nice blend. I think the colors are perfect.

I am getting closer to starting the sweater project. Still trying the new tools out and I have one more spindle order to place. And I am working on something new for this site. More on that to follow.

So I took 50 grams off a 21 gram spindle yesterday. I probably could have put more on it, but that’s all the fiber from this sample.

I’m spinning some fleece samples. I bought these after reading In the Footsteps of Sheep. I thought it would be great fun to spin up some of those breeds and knit the socks from the book. I did get these samples washed and combed, but the book has been packed. And the samples did get scrambled, so I think I will just ply up some three ply and knit socks of some sort.

When I picked up this Butternut Skinny Midi, I really didn’t know much about the spindle. I had no idea exactly what the difference was between a standard Midi and the skinny version. I was just aiming for a spindle at about 20 grams and I wanted butternut. This spindle really has been a great choice! It has a great spin and I can just keep packing fiber onto it. I am assembling a team to spin up sweater yarn. Yes, I could use the spindles I already have. This is my Bosworth team. I am never going to be the person with just two spindles. And even though I’ve tried to see the financial benefits to going with the standard spindles, I still want what I want. So….new order going in soon. My plan is two Midis, two Maxis and one Mini (just because.)

I have two bumps of carded roving, processed way back in 1998. These are from a sheep shearing, where I learned to skirt fleeces. I’m planning a sweater for me out of one of these (likely the brown one.)

I just grabbed some of the roving and spun it as is for the lower sample. On the top sample, I combed it with my Viking combs. I prefer the feel of the bottom one, but I’m doing cables. These are just two ply. I’m going to do a few more samples to be sure.

This is the Shetland/CVM roving that I used for my shawl. I love this stuff, but won’t be using it for this project.

This is the grey. I think these were Border Leicester crosses, if I’m remembering correctly. I did this as a thin three ply. I’ll try sampling this a bit thicker and see how it feels. This is a bit too coarse as spun.

And I started the baby sweater. I like this pattern and the yarn is really nice. I’m not a merino fan, but this is a nice squishy superwash yarn. The blue leans a bit more turquoise than this picture shows. I’ve never done a top down raglan baby sweater, but it’s fun. It will have a shawl collar and I ordered some maple wooden buttons for it.

Lots of spinning this weekend!

I am on the third section of the spindle fractal. I’ll post a tutorial, as soon as I finish it and ply it. It’s working out pretty well.

These are just bits of fiber. The white are some Falkland samples I got from Rosemary Wilkinson. The green is from Bam Huey and I need to find the rest of that fiber as I was trying to do a gradient. The brown is leftover Stone and Amethyst. I pulled out the Rose support spindle to play around with. It went pretty well, once I remember to do a long draw. I’m going to start spinning with that spindle at least once a week, until I’m good at it.

This is some Targhee in the Durango colorway from Greenwood Fibers. It’s on an Aegean I picked up at Black Sheep last year. I’ve been taking my spindles outside, when I take the dogs out. (I have springers that are unhappy if I don’t go outside with them.)

This is the latest wheel project. It’s 8 ounces of Falkland in the Sandpiper and Tribe colorways from Greenwood Fiber. This will be another double marled yarn, three ply this time. I’m going to make Lon some handspun socks. I really love double marl yarns. If you are going to try it, I’d recommend using the same fiber for both colorways. I had problems drafting on my other project.

This will be a baby sweater for Abe’s first birthday. I need to start this soon. I also have a kit to knit a teddy bear. I’m thinking about using the leftovers of this yarn to do a bear sweater or scarf.

This is a three-ply crepe yarn from Dorset Horn. It’s part of my sock yarn testing. I had some issues drafting from the first section. The twist kept running into the fiber. I finally figured out a way to draft it. I’m not sure if I did a good job on this or not. I have more sock yarn fiber to try, so will see if it looks better on my next project.

This is Targhee in the Twilight colorway from Greenwood Fibers. I just ordered another eight ounces. I’d like to do a sweater out of this. I am thinking about a double marled yarn, but haven’t decided if I want two or three ply yarn. I really want to break up the colors. Still thinking about what I want to do.

And..I had my spindles packed away, as I was clearing off my desk. (I found there is a secret drawer lock and I had to take the top off to get the drawers open again!) I rearranged the office yesterday and decided to put the spindles back out where I can see them. I really need to make a nicer storage area. It’s nice to see them all again.

Working on all sorts of spinning projects right now. On the wheel, I’m doing Dorset Horn in a crepe yarn. I’ve spun the two S singles and plied them as Z. I’m now working on the Z single to finish this off. I had some issues drafting the first third of the roving. The twist would run right into the fiber and lock it up. Had to spin sort of an inchworm motion to prevent that. I didn’t feel any springiness to the yarn until I did that Z ply. I’m curious to see how this turns out. I’ll dye the yarn after I finish it, for a sock project.

I’ve been missing my high whorl spindles, specifically my Hatchtowns. I do love my Turks and I like the way I can use coarser wools and get a nice fluffy yarn with the Turk. These two Kaaris are probably my favorite spindles, especially the one with the mouse chews on the shaft. I’m just spinning some fiber I’ve stumbled across, with no purpose in mind.

I finished the last of the big strip of the fractal spin. I’ve just started the B strip, which was divided into four thin strips lengthwise.

And I am trying to finish the socks as I really want to start knitting handspun socks. I’ll start another sock yarn spinning project on the wheel, as soon as I finish the Dorset. I think I’m going to try another double marled yarn, this time with two braids of Falklands.

It just dawned on me that I’ve never posted my very nice Jenkins Aegean spindles here. (Might have put them on my other site.) Since I’ve actually been spinning with them today, here they are:

This is my crabapple, 17.9grams, with some Blue Faced Border Leicester:

And this is an Ambrosia Maple, 17.23 grams, with Greenwood Fibers Durango colorway, Targhee:

Guess which one I’m having more fun with! I didn’t like my first Aegean. There was something about the weight that just didn’t work for me and I sold it. But I like both of these, a lot. They feel like real workhorses. I would still like to get a Swan someday. Every time I go to a fiber festival and go to the Jenkins booth, I plan to buy a Swan. And I come home with something else.

Little Knits has had some great sales for sock yarn. I love those self patterning sock yarns. It’s such fun to watch the pattern appear. So I have a fair amount of sock yarn and have been doing socks on a regular basis. To show you that an old dog can learn new tricks, I have been doing magic loop with German short row heels and toes.  I’ve done another pair for me:

A pair for Quinn’s birthday:

And am working on another pair for Lon:

When I first moved here, I had about ten pairs of hand knit socks. Then I stopped knitting them for some reason. I did a few fancy pairs, but I just don’t like wearing them as much as I like these simpler socks. For less than $8 a pair, I have socks that will last for years and keep my feet warm and comfortable in cold wet weather.

I managed to make it to OFFF, but didn’t get to see much. I just got too winded. I managed to pick up a new Jenkins spindle, a lilac Finch:

I really love the little thing and I’ve put it to work all ready.