Here are the crochet ravings of me, the projects I do, and items related to the site. I apologise Im not a great blogger, I have good intentions but get easily side tracked, especially by my crochet hook.
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Posted By Liz on July 27, 2014
So. I’ve spun up 200g into singles
so I had 2 bobbins then spun them together to make 2 ply.
and when the remainder was spun up now I have 2
I haven’t counted wraps per inch or anything but it does look pretty even huh
Posted By Liz on July 25, 2014
Ok so
I took a small hank and soaked it
Started adding some drops of colour. Supposedly hot pink and violet
Now given the amount of yarn those drops would have been enough in my days of cooking with mother. But no. I added about 6 more squeezes in each quarter
There are some better patches but all in all weak. Pah.
Maybe these new gel dyes are just pants
Posted By Liz on July 25, 2014
So along with Knitcrate I also joined a fibre one. This months is blue faced Leicester fleece dyed like summer sky. Here’s my first single from it
This was got from Wildcraft and I’m really pleased with it. In fact it’s given me the confidence to try the activity I’m about to go do. And hopefully show you later
Posted By Liz on July 25, 2014
Ok so, lots of posts to happen today. This is the first
I was pleased when my nice Mr postman handed me a parcel and without any inspection I knew what it was.
After all, that’s fairly distinctive huh. It was my July Knitcrate parcel. Now I opted for the indie parcel with int/adv add on. What does that mean well. They have a bunch and if you add on others you get the yarn patterns etc of the other crate without dups of the goodies. So I got 2 lots of yarn and patterns in mine
So what can you see? Here’s a link to the Indy crate and the int/adv crate
They do a number of crates take a look. Knitcrate
I also ordered some silverspun yarn which has silver in it so you can use touch sensitive devices it’s awesomely soft. I expected the silver to scratch. But not only is it super soft it actually works on my phone and iPad
Posted By Liz on July 21, 2014
Ok, so she doesn’t know it yet, but this shawl is for her.
Before blocking (damn you phone you made the picture look in focus!!!!)
A closer view of the main pattern
Blocking (yes that is my couch throw, or it would be off white on white, i tried that before. Didnt really show on any photo…)
Posted By Liz on July 20, 2014
Looks nice, but its over twisted in a lot of places, and well, its made it a bit tough almost feeling like garden string.. Shame really. This is from the free fleece I got
Posted By Liz on July 18, 2014
So, theres stupid names for everything in spinning, sure you get used to them, but if you were trying to invent names im not sure you would ever come up with the ones in use.
Ok
2 results of spinning, worsted or woollen and no, this has nothing to do with thickness or fibre used, see, confusing huh.
Worsted basically means you inched it out and smoothed it down, it will look as shiney as it can and be as non fluffy as it can and quite solid.
Woollen basically means it has almost been allowed to do what it fancied, you usually gather uo some extra twist and let go and pull back on the finre supply hoping it doesnt all just poof. This keeps the yarn fuzzy, light and stretchy
Of course there are then the bajillion shades in between, but, thats the two extremes.
So why do you care? Most of us probably never really paid attention to which way the yarn twist is, (clockwise or anti clockwise, known as S and Z twist), do you really even care necessarily how many singles went into it and were plyed up, or, whether someone inched out the fibre or kinda let rip..
Mostly no, you dont give a flying fluff.
If you like the yarn, and to you its worth the asking price on the label, or, you have the knitted/crocheted/weaved result and just know you like it, heck, half the time at the end result you might not even have looked to see what fibres are in there, or given it a second thought.. I know i never did really, unless it was hand made, then there was idle curiosity, but never a burning need to care
So, worsted spinning is quite hard wearing as the fibres are packed in and smooth yarn and so are really good for socks. Woollen being light and fluffy wouldnt take that kind of wear, but would be ok for say jumpers.
Worsted as I said is done almost literally inch by inch, technically it can be more for longer fibres but still, its small shunts. So, its a little like walking in inch increments, sure you get there and will have total control of all facalties, but, it might take you a long long time. You often heed to treddle (make the wheel go round) slowly as heck 1 inch doesnt need a bajillion revolutions, maybe even only the one!!
Woollen basically being a leap of faith and just letting the twist and hopefully the speed you pull back your arm work together to make an even ish amount, but it basically means treddle a few and then let rip, and now you have like an arms length done. This method is also partly faster because you can treddle up fast as youre almost holding it in place so slow or fast makes no odds, and then let it pull onto the bobbin, so because you can treddle a lot faster, and you see yarn made arm by arm length it does grow faster but also feels faster its also like trying to fill a paddling pool with a cup vs a large bucket.
The leap of faith is very much that. Heck, really, considering how easy it is for you to not have enough fibre or twist, or too much twist when working with an inch… Now you are allowing the laws of chaos to grab the fibre not you saying “here use this bit”, but you just pull back, praying the twist is enough and and and..
So, this ugly monstrosity is my first ever fully proper long draw woollen method result.
Theres a chunk in there that if it had more twist, well, it couldnt, its terrible. It came from unwashed free alpaca fleece that i was given which they must have worked in coal mines. After drum carding it 4 times, my hands were black as soot after spinning, so, ive washed it after.. Again washing before maybe better, but impatience got the better of me, i have now washed a chunk of the same fleece to try the same with an earlier wash in the process, but neither look that clean.
This is a single, eg not plyed, and by default is not a balanced thing, hence its wiggly.. But isnt it fluffy???
Posted By Liz on July 14, 2014
Remember the superfine merino i got that had been treated to make it ridiculously soft and fine, and wasnt overly happy with it. Well, it seems as a 2 ply, knitted ip as below it comes up incredibly soft. I mean outstandingly soft.
To the point I want a shed load of it to make a cardigan
Posted By Liz on June 28, 2014
So, I spun through a film and wound off to niddy noddy… After taking off niddy niddy my single did have life… A little too much life
So, a hot set wash and here it is drying out next to my not on radiator
I apologise for crummy pictures!
