Fiber Musings

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Tag: Handspun Page 8 of 10

Spin-In Wrap Up

By

On 7 Apr, 2009

In Spin

wisi-raffle-basket

I won this basket of goodies from the raffle at the Whidbey Island Spin-In on Saturday.  On Saturday, I won both a door prize (a “handle” for my ball winder in cocobolo and padauk) and the raffle.  My friend, Karen, walked away with both raffle prizes on Sunday, along with the door prize on Saturday.  We had quite the bounty.  My basket contains 3 skeins of yarn, shetland roving, finger roving, a big ball of handpainted fiber, the navajo spindle, and a large bar of dark chocolate.  Yum!

lace-weight

165 yards of lace weight yarn that I spun with my new Watson Wheel.  I spun this over the course of the weekend as part of my “get to know Marie” spinning.  I have no idea what the fiber is because I just dug into my spinning basket for something, anything, and something that I was likely to finish over the course of the weekend.  It’s a longhaired something.  BFL?  I split it in approximate half, lengthwise, and spun them up separately before plying the 2 bobbins together.

Scarf

By

On 26 Nov, 2008

In FO, Knit

The fingerless glove used up about half of spun yarn.  I could have made another pair of fingerless gloves, but I was bored.  So, I decided to make a bow-knot scarf to make a matching set.

I’ve lost track of how many bow knot scarves I’ve made.  It’s one of my favorite quick knits when I need a last minute present.

The Good and the Not-So-Good

By

On 25 Nov, 2008

In Spin

First the good…

Chameleon Colorworks Purple Rain/Eggplant 2-ply lace weight yarn previously posted.  Here it is in all its glory, post wet finishing and a light block on the skein winder.  Post wet finishing, the resulting skein measures out at 1156 yards (approx. 2300 ypp).  I lost about 12 yards in the wet finishing.  Not too bad.

Now, the not-so-good…

I was itching to spin some mohair boucle.  I found a small bag of mohair locks that had been dyed in peacock blues, greens and purples.  Lovely to look at.  Until I started to prepare it for spinning.  It was tacky.  It was so tacky that I couldn’t fluff the locks.  I zapped it in the microwave with a sprinkle of water to warm up the grease.  Better, but I had to work fast, and reheat periodically.  Spinning it was interesting.  On the one hand, my hands were well lubricated from the grease, but the yarn was still gummy.

Okay, a hot bath of the yarn should take care of the gummy stuff, right?  Nope.  Boiling water and lots and lots of dish soap later, all I got was a faded skein of yarn.  The color continued to come out in each bath, and the fiber remained tacky.  (I don’t remember where I bought the mohair locks from, since there were no tags in the bag.  I wish I did so that I won’t make that mistake again.)

Lower left, the remaining mohair singles.  Upper right, mohair skein, post however many baths I did.  You can see how much of the color had washed right out.  Both piles went out with last night’s garbage.

Page 8 of 10

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén