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 June 28, 2014
I bought some carders and it came with some spare fluff.
So I thought today I would have a bit of an experiment with it. The fluff isn’t in best nick, it’s kind felted together in places, but… It’s turning into
Which actually looks way nicer than I expected it to.
Posted By Liz on June 16, 2014
Heres a full description of some fluff I bought
Which basically says Marino treated and stretched to be finer, now, I will grant you it is mahoosively soft.. Yeah staple length of squat.. Spoils it really
Posted By Liz on June 6, 2014
So, I hanked up my bobbin, and the yarn weighs 120g, and I believe measures 165 yards.
Posted By Liz on June 4, 2014
The more I look at that lace weight crimpy yarn, the more I like it
Anyway, over the last couple of days due to work and migraines I spun up some fibre I got in a kit from craftsy which us offered as an extra to their spindling class. I wanted the bottom whorl spindle, and the fibre to go with is always welcome.
After plenty of consideration, such as to how I was going to spin it and get what I would want, I chose to simply spin each of the 3 fibres onto 3 bobbins.
This gives me many options
1 ply all 3 together to make a like 3 shade yarn
2 Navajo ply each in turn making a semi gradient yarn
3 make other singles from something else to add to the mix above, such as black zwortables or white Marino and extend the first 2 option, or make 3 lots of 2 ply etc
At the moment and my original plan was the 3 ply, if it seems a bit thin or looks funky I can always undo and try something else.
What do you think?
Posted By Liz on May 31, 2014
So, I bit some ryland fleeces from a guy at work, and while waiting for that black Marino to dry, I was not in my best wait for it to dry mood, so, I decided to try it in the grease. Eg, not washed first.
As it turned out, this may not have been a wise move, but, all the same, practice is good.
So, on the bobbin it looked like this.
Pretty cool.
I had managed to spin a fairly fine thread I thought any way, so, I didn’t fancy spinning a second bobbin, so I tried.. Andean plying.
Now, the theory of this is great, in essence you normally use your hand, or a tool to replace your hand and you wind what only can be described as a loop around the back. In principal then, you can grab both ends and ply together ending at the middle.
So, I used a tool, just as well as I got invited out for a dog walk about half way through winding it onto the tool. It looked like this
Again, looks pretty good. I had pre tried the tool on a peice of yarn to check what happens and how it worked. However, the instant I release what should be the 2 ends of the loop, it was clear it’s wasn’t going as planned.
This resembles a curled up hedgehog, it didn’t unwind like it should. This resulted in annoyance, some loss of thread where it tangled beyond my ability to free it.
However, I have now plyed it, and washed it. A lot of the crimp has come back, hence I feel a wash first might have been a good idea, but, I have what must be a lace weight yarn. It just looks a bit wibbly
Posted By Liz on May 30, 2014
So. They may seem a big naff, and one is marginally bigger than the other, although I’m sure a hit enough wash would fix it…
Here is my first ever items knitted from me made wool. This was the first goal I set myself, as they don’t take a lot of wool to make and are quite forgiving to make too. This pair you will note has a proper thumb on it, why?because I could
Posted By Liz on May 27, 2014
OMG how long can it take for a hank if yarn to dry, seriously, it’s not like I was putting it out in the rain!
So, the bobbin of Ryeland fleece I got from ugh at work has grown while impatiently waiting, it’s growing well and even and might even produce a lace weight yarn, I’m tempted to try andien plying bug I am worried that the grease will stop it from working and just tie it in a huge knot
However, my hanks were dry, in the end. So, time for yarn cakes…. Yeah, I remembered why I hate hanks now… My swift took a dive off the table, threw the hank off and here was the result
Yeah, lots of swearing had.
3 hours of untangling later
The other 2 hanks went ok, so I have 2 bigger ones and one smaller one.. Now I can finally knit something with them… I wonder what to make..
Posted By Liz on May 25, 2014
Ever found in some situations you have the patience of job, and in others even seconds can seem too long, ok, maybe not seconds, but you find you have very little?
For me, it seems waiting off stuff to dry is not something I have much patience for.
Stupid hanks were washed yesterday evening squeezed as much as I could, did this kinda ping things where you put it over your fingers on each hand and snap it out to release water a big more.. This moring I hoped it would be dry… Nope the bottoms were sopping wet.. Grr.. Opened doors to garden left in breeze (well as much as it could get) and sunlight for well a few seconds anyway that were possible this afternoon…
Is it dry yet? No.
Grr
So, in my impatience I decided to try the fleece I got from a guy at work. I didn’t wash it, drying would be frustrating as well as I wasn’t sure how well it would wash so was just trying it, as is, well after carding anyway, so.. How did that go? Well, it’s pretty amazing stuff.
For scale, the bobbin is 11cm long…
Initially I just carded it, but was finding odd lumps, so, I took to giving it a quick comb with the dog comb and voila, way way way less lumps and… I seem to be managing a lovely even fine thread. The plan is to make a bobbin ful and try what’s called Navajo plying which you basically make a loop and pull the single through and ply, and keep going till you run out.. I have no idea how it’s really going to turn out, so, I will decide when I’m done.
Oh, and because it’s fresh from the sheep, I will, sigh, need to wash it after.
I will say one thing for it, holding a small bunch of it in my hand makes my hand lovely and hot! So, I can imagine really taking to this fleece and wanting to make a jumper or cardigan out of it.
Posted By Liz on May 24, 2014
So. I finally filled my third bobbin, and set about making a 3ply yarn.
I suffered quite a few issue with the threads breaking, which was annoying, as it’s hard to evenly twist things when one goes ping and you can’t really unwind the other two cos they are fixed to the floor.
My first 3 ply bobbin
I knew I was unlikely to have perfectly the same amounts on each bobbin, but was surprised at the difference left
Finally my bobbins with my 3 ply yarn on. Next I get to wind them on a niddy noddy
It felt like it was fairly even once plied, but, it doesn’t look so much on the bobbin.
