Oh my Gosh, Look what my sister bought me

It's almost 2 pounds of Merino from Village Spinning and Weaving in Solvang, CA. Beautiful colors (Sandalwood) - can't wait to try it. Thanks Sue-

Won a contast and got some cool yarn -

Wow, I guessed in a contest at swankyhanks and won some yarn.

Isn't pretty? I'm told this is sock yarn but don't have a pattern for it. But I'm going to see what I can find on Ravelry or Knitting Daily.

Back to Double Drive

I tried the Scotch tension and failed miserably. We went camping at the beach this week and I took the wheel along. Gave up and moved the tension back to double drive and did very well with the Corriedale. Maybe I need to be more relaxed to spin because I really didn't encounter any problems this time. We're going again for Labor Day so I'll take it along to the mountains. Camping and spinning are kind of fun together. Mostly I just sit and enjoy the scenery and fire - this way I get in some good spinning time too.

Scotch Tension? Help!

Ok, I changed my wheel to scotch tension because I was getting frustrated with my spinning. Can someone help me with an opinion as to which is easier for a new spinner? It seems to be even more difficult this way. Should I switch it back to the other method - don't know what it's called. I really want to get back to this - maybe I need to put it down for a while.....

Spinning, again

I sat down at my wheel again this week and feel that I've totally forgotten everything I learned. Rats! I was working on some Merino and I just can't seem to pick it up again. I keep breaking my thread and having to start over again. Very frustrating.

I haven't tried switching to Scotch tension because I didn't know how to do it, so I went to my fiber shop today for some instruction. I also bought some new fiber, Corriedale and Blue Faced Leicester which should be easier to spin.

There's a 6-week spinning class offered through our Parks & Rec. that I'll sign up for in the fall. I think I need to actually spin with someone watching over me to really get it. I tend to over spin and some of my yarn comes out in little kinks.

Guess I shouldn't have stopped for the weaving - don't know if it's something that you need to do for a while before it sticks with you - or if I'm just having a difficult week. Maybe it's the heat....

Oh No, I have a stash!

I've recently heard people talking about their yarn stash - I decided to go through mine to see what I've got. Not sure of the best way to store the yarn. I like having it out where I can see it but I'm afraid it will get dusty and dirty.

I'm also wondering, do we need to worry about things like Moths with all this wool around? I have some in baskets and some on shelves next to my loom. But I want to do what ever is necessary to protect the yarn. An article in the recent Handwoven magazine showed various stashes stored on open shelves but these might be people who will be using their yarn much more often than I will. Any thoughts?





I also made up some fiber cards with a small sample and information about each yarn. Couldn't find an existing system for doing this at my local Michael's so I used the plastic sheets that I think are used for needlepoint. Anyway, I cut them in to strips of various widths and it seemed to work well.

Wool & Soy Sweater

My niece recently had a baby boy - here's Samuel. He's about three months old now but he'll be a year old at Christmas. The family is traveling to my area for the holidays so it's time to knit, knit, knit.

I'm making this sweater for him from the
Debbie Bliss book Family Knits.





Things are going well, I have the back done and most of the front which has a sailboat pattern on the chest. I chose to use the wool/soy yarn that I had used for my first pair of socks because it's so soft and feels like it will be very warm. Unfortunately I've just learned from Christine that this yarn has a problem with felting up - I'm going to go ahead and finish it. Hopefully it will work - otherwise I'll skip this yarn in the future.


Here's the sweater so far -

Knitting - Socks

There seems to be a buzz on the internet and in the podcasts about knitting socks. I found this Patons varigated yarn that is 70% Wool and 30% Soy. The colors were beautiful and it feels very soft and warm so I decided to knit socks on the plane while traveling to Cancun.

Now I understand. Knitting socks are satisfying because they are portable, and relatively quick to complete. I finished this pair on the trip and started another which has led to a budding Knit Picks obsession....Oh no!

Bamboo Yarn

Here's the beginning of my bamboo scarf -

I've been reading a lot about Bamboo Yarn and couldn't resist trying it out. I decided to make a Bamboo scarf because the yarn is supposed to be very soft and have a beautiful drape when finished.

Now for my excuse to buy more weaving equipment {grin}. I really wanted to use the floor loom to make some rag rugs and have been cutting old cotton jeans and tee shirts into strips. I also read about making rag rugs by recycling plastic bags from the grocery store. Since I wanted to put a long warp on the floor loom and leave it to make a few rugs over time - I REALLY needed a table loom to weave my Bamboo scarf. Don't you agree?

Well, I purchased a small Ashford table loom that weaves to 24" and calculated the warp for a Bamboo scarf in Black with Grey stripes. The string Ashford provided for the apron rod broke almost immediately from the pressure of tightening the warp but it was fairly easily fixed and the weaving has begun.

I like the portability of this new loom but obviously prefer the treadles on the floor loom. I might order the stand w/treadles for this loom before my next project.

If you look closely at the photo there's a small error in the upper left. I've made a few of these and had to revise my style of throwing the shuttle. Hopefully that will prevent these in the future. I've unwoven back to correct the errors as I find them. After doing that a few times it makes me much more careful about checking my work as I weave.

First Project

Honeycomb Dish Towels

So - time to start my first project. After speaking with my Navajo weaving instructor at Stick and Stone Fiberarts, I decided to weave dish towels using this pattern: http://www.leclerclooms.com/pattern/9706.htm

These towels were woven using 5/2 cotton yarn in white and blue. This was a very good pattern to start with because the pattern was very easy to follow but it provided a pleasing honeycomb design.

I learned some lessons about following warping directions exactly - and ended up wasting some yarn through mis-counting and tangling. Since I later ran out of white, I switched the pattern to blue/blue which turned out nice also.

I don't know if warping correctly comes with practice or if I just need to be more careful - I threaded the heddles carefully and sleyed the reed slowly and carefully. Part way into my weaving I discovered a couple of mistakes in threading the heddles that was messing up my pattern. At that point the weaving had begun and the yarn was completely wound on the back of the loom. I didn't really know what to do to correct it so I just kept weaving. Luckily it doesn't really show in this pattern but it was disappointing. If anyone has suggestions on how to avoid this - or how to correct this after weaving has begun, I'd really apprecicate your help.

Other than the threading problem the weaving went smoothly and I'm happy with the result. What do you think?