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Bob Shadycharacter posted:So is there a guide somewhere to get a feel for how much fiber to buy for a specific project? Like, if you want to make a hat with bulky yarn you probably need X oz of fiber or to make socks with fingering weight yarn you need X oz of fiber...I get confused. It doesn't help that yarn is generally sold in grams or yards and the fiber itself is in oz. I guess there might be differences in how different people spin too. I usually see how heavy a knitted item is in that fiber type(like socks require about 4 ounces), and then buy that much in fiber + a little extra. I also make a habit of converting weights. The weight is really the key thing; four ounces of bulky will still make you a pair of socks, even though the yardage is much less. ETA: oh hey new page. Have a picture of some alpaca.  Click here for the full 1024x768 image.
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Sep 24, 2010 03:45
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Oooh, pretty! Is alpaca hard to spin? Soooo, today I went to this place called "Minds Eye Yarns" which sells both yarn and fiber. And of course, I ended up buying myself two tops. One is just "wool" and a lovely gray/purple color, the other is Merino and a nice buttery yellow with some orange, red, green streaks. I'll take nice pictures when there's sunlight. And, I started spinning some of the gray stuff! And practicing my navajo plying on the spindle while you go! And IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. Holy crap I love it when I suddenly just get something like that. The plied yarn is apparently something around 14 wpi. Pretty good for my third attempt, yeah? SO EXCITED. I'm gonna make a hat! I think.
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Sep 26, 2010 01:03
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Oh wow, I think...I might have to buy some fiber. I love crocheting (so relaxing!) and I learned how to spin a long long time ago, and loved it when I learned, I just never had a chance to continue. But this...oh god-my entire family knits and crochets, so I know I'll be able to get rid of anything I spin...and I have a feeling it'll be even more crack-like than crochet.
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Sep 26, 2010 07:12
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:Oooh, pretty! Is alpaca hard to spin? Awesome! I'm so glad you found somewhere to get some fiber, and that you're having fun. It's really great once it clicks, isn't it?
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Sep 26, 2010 15:39
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FelicityGS posted:Awesome! I'm so glad you found somewhere to get some fiber, and that you're having fun. It's really great once it clicks, isn't it? It's awesome! Although I already had to break off and start over because my singles broke while I was plying. Booo. EDIT: Ok, I decided to end the navajo ply on the fly experiment. I kept breaking the yarn. I totally get the concept though, I think I'm just not quite spinning consistently enough or...something. I'm just gonna do singles for a while and practice that. And today I learned "Don't Spin Purple Yarn While Wearing a Red Sweater". At least, not a long sleeved red sweater. My spindle ate some fiber from my sweater! Bob Shadycharacter fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Sep 27, 2010 |
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Sep 26, 2010 19:06
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I'm trying to justify spending $70 on a spindle. The reason I would even consider spending this much is because I tried one of these spindles at a craft day and it was AMAZING. Anyone have any experience with Bosworth Spindles?
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Oct 4, 2010 02:39
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Spiteful posted:I'm trying to justify spending $70 on a spindle. The reason I would even consider spending this much is because I tried one of these spindles at a craft day and it was AMAZING. Anyone have any experience with Bosworth Spindles? Oh my god, Bossies are BEAUTIFUL. They're so amazing, and I've only ever heard good things and done good things with the few I've got to try. I covet getting one for me one day.
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Oct 4, 2010 03:50
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Hehe, that was enough to push me over the edge. I emailed them and I must say that they are super helpful and I think its cute that you actually speak to one of the Bosworths :3 In other spinning news I am currently spinning a 50/50 mix of merino and alpaca. Alpaca by itself can be pretty fragile so this addition makes it a dream to spin.
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Oct 4, 2010 05:45
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*cough* It's only page two. I hope this thread hasn't died for good.  I've got a kinda 'is this in good taste?' question. It is okay to spin Firestar fiber and ply it with another spun fiber? Or is firestar and the like just for blending into other fiber/s for extra sparkle? I've got this awesomely soft carbonized bamboo that's a neat dark grey, but it's looking a little plain on it's own. Advice?
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Oct 15, 2010 02:37
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The general rule of good taste in spinning is as follows: does it make you happy? Personally, I'd recommend just adding a sprinkle here or there. Firestar can be incredibly scratchy (I'm pretty sure it's a synthetic), and it doesn't necessarily take well to being by itself. Don't take my word for it, but do sample spinning it by itself to see if you like it before you put all that work in. Something you may like it to ply the gray with something colourful. It helps make the colours pop, and it also can make neutrals look pretty snazzerific too. I just don't have anything new to post, school is taking over everything, and I need to start holiday knitting.
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Oct 15, 2010 08:03
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I went to the yarn store that has a bucket full of little samples of roving again this weekend. And I was sorting through them and my best friend/roommate said "OOOH I LOVE that teal color", so I bought two little bags which is two ounces. It's spinning up so EASILY. It's brown sheep wool top, according to the label (man, none of those things are really well labeled, the last one I bought had nothign but a pricetag on it, and I had to make the store lady look it up in her little book). I dunno, I might have to go back and get more though, because something tells me two ounces isn't really going to be enough for a hat? She wants to make a beret. All I wanna do is spin and post in this thread but I didn't want to spam you guys.  I tried to post some pictures last week but I couldn't do it right for some reason.
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Oct 15, 2010 12:22
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:I went to the yarn store that has a bucket full of little samples of roving again this weekend. And I was sorting through them and my best friend/roommate said "OOOH I LOVE that teal color", so I bought two little bags which is two ounces. I was lucky enough to snatch up one of the September Phat Fiber sampler boxes - it had a couple dozen 1 oz fiber samples from different Etsy shops, and a couple of them even included some pretty jeweled stitch markers and a decorate-it-yourself felted bracelet. They go really fast, though... you have to pounce on it as soon as the sale opens up. http://www.phatfiber.com/thismonth1.php Novelty yarn spinning class tomorrow at my LYS, wheee! 
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Oct 16, 2010 03:21
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FelicityGS posted:The general rule of good taste in spinning is as follows: True, that. It hadn't occurred to me that maybe firestar might be too weak to spin into laceweight. Thanks for your advice! I guess I'll just find someone to dye some fiber bright yellow and spin that too. Then I can make something bumblebee colored 
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Oct 16, 2010 03:56
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Come on little thread, live! Liiiive! OK I'll help. Here's what I'm working on right now (well, not RIGHT now). It's "brown sheep wool top" that I got in little 1 oz baggies. I bought four of 'em, and split one into three equal parts and added each of those to the other three, the idea being to make a three ply yarn (my first three ply yarn!). I had been working on the Navajo ply while you spin technique, but I kept breaking the darn yarn while pulling loops through, so I decided to try a more traditional thing. I wish I knew what the heck KIND of wool this was, because it spins so incredibly easy. The color is more of a shocking teal in real life, very arresting but I can't get a good picture of it to save my life as the sun has gone away from New England and won't be back till May or so. This yarn is going to be a present for my roommate/best friend, as she saw the color while I was digging through a big bucket of yarn baggies and freaked out over it. She's gonna make a hat.  Click here for the full 2048x1536 image. I feel like a drat genius for putting the toilet paper tube around the core thing from my ballwinder so it doesn't collapse under the weight of all those singles. It looks so much nicer! What's everyone else spinning, eh?
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Nov 1, 2010 13:52
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Mine has no purpose except to have more 2-ply fingering weight yarn around for when I do colourwork. I can spin thicker, I just have determined I really like 2-ply yarns (it's easiest to do on a spindle). Click here for the full 1280x960 image. The spindle is my first one, whose been named Ivy. The fiber is merino of some sort, wouldn't recommend it despite the colours, it's a bit felted in the dye process. I'm making it work, though.I wish the toilet paper fit around the core of my winder, but it doesn't
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Nov 2, 2010 19:37
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FelicityGS posted:Mine has no purpose except to have more 2-ply fingering weight yarn around for when I do colourwork. I can spin thicker, I just have determined I really like 2-ply yarns (it's easiest to do on a spindle). Aw boo! I have all these awesome plans for making like a spindlekate and then using the ballwinder to actually wind on (for that one I just held it in there with my fingers since it's a little loose, figure I could sorta shim it with some fabric wrapped around the core or something) God knows it'll probably go horribly wrong like 99% of my bright ideas. That fiber is lovely! I like the colors, sherbert-y. I like two ply too but I think it's more obvious when it's uneven whereas 3-ply is more forgiving so right now 3-ply is my friend. Plus my whole reason for spinning was to spin yarn for socks and I think 3-ply wears better.
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Nov 2, 2010 20:44
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3 ply is really the way to go for socks, it does wear stronger. I let it slide with my Shetland from the lock, because it's long staple, but anything else I'll triple ply. I do a lot of colourwork, though, for mitts and stuff, so 2-ply is really my friend there. It does show when it's more uneven, which is a bit of a bother, but it just gets to me to learn how to do more even. Plus, on such teeny needles, it doesn't matter. I should see if shimming would work, that would be cool. I want to make a little crank to put on the end of dowels, so I can just wind it from spindle to dowel in my shoebox kate.
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Nov 3, 2010 03:11
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Yeah mine doesn't quite fit, it's a little loose so I figured maybe wrapping something around it. Maybe a rubber band or two for more traction. It's like my dream come true not to have to wind off by hand, it hurts my shoulder like crazy! Plus I can't get a good rhythm going because the singles are wrapped around the spindle at different points so every turn is a slightly different length if I'm making any sense.
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Nov 3, 2010 16:26
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You are, I totally get it. I hate winding off. I'm curious about just dropping the money for one of the Golding Lazy Kates, where you push the cop from the spindle onto a dowel, but I want to ask on Rav first to hear some feedback on it.
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Nov 3, 2010 19:12
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I keep hearing about people pushing the whole cop off onto a dowel or even a drinking straw and I just have this gut feeling that I would loving drop it at the exact wrong moment or...something. I'm too hapless for that to work for me.
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Nov 3, 2010 19:18
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I get pretty freaked out about it to. what happens if the guts of the cop get stuck on the spindle shaft? All that work, ruined!
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Nov 3, 2010 20:13
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FelicityGS posted:You are, I totally get it. I hate winding off. I'm curious about just dropping the money for one of the Golding Lazy Kates, where you push the cop from the spindle onto a dowel, but I want to ask on Rav first to hear some feedback on it. I actually just got one of those a couple of weeks ago and it works fine with my wheel bobbins so far. I'm about to try it with my larger Louet top-whorl as soon as I finish the last few feet of alpaca fiber I have left.
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Nov 4, 2010 00:06
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:I keep hearing about people pushing the whole cop off onto a dowel or even a drinking straw When I was doing a "3-ply on the fly" (navajo plying while spinning on a spindle), I would just build up the cop until the spindle started to wobble, then pull the whole thing off, as-is. It would hold together long enough for me to wind it onto a box that was EXACTLY one yard around. It was a fuzzy fluffy wool though, I wouldn't do it with silk
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Nov 4, 2010 04:02
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If I get some of the crappy pictures from my phone I will. For now, settle for 2 of the 3 fiber goods I got while I was out. CriaFest is a festival/workshop a local alpaca farm does each fall when they have their new crias. You get to visit the farm and meet all their alpaca, which is a great deal of fun. They're so cute! (I was really scared of alpaca until I met them, when I realized they aren't nearly so big as I thought they were.) Naturally, I had to buy some fiber. This one isn't from their alpaca--they only breed cream coloured ones. It's 8 ounces of naturally brown gray, which is the loveliest colour ever.  Click here for the full 1280x960 image. From their alpaca (Ralampago, specifically, whose a sweetheart and adorable), I got a box (3 ounces) of fiber. It's super duper soft and fantastic. She puts them in what looks like pink cake boxes, which really, it looks so awesome that if it were edible I'd eat it. (I cannot recommend eating alpaca fiber, they're rather hairy.)  Click here for the full 1280x960 image. I have a second box on the way when she gets Vaquero's fleece processed--he's even softer than Ralampago and I don't even know how that's possible. But he is. Plus, Vaquero has a wonderful luster to his coat, so that's pretty exciting.
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Nov 7, 2010 18:25
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I will have pictures soonish, once the yarn is dry, but I FINALLY finished spinning and plying the silk two-ply for my mom's xmas/birthday scarf. The only problem? Only 165 yards plyed. Damnit. How do you make a scarf out of only 165 yards? (varies between laceweight and heavy fingering weight)
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Nov 7, 2010 23:02
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Hmm. I tried to teach myself to spin with a drop spindle a good many years ago, but I never quite got the hang of it. I enjoyed it but I don't seem to be as patient as I used to be! So a few questions: - How long does it take you guys to spin up, say, enough single-ply worsted-ish weight yarn to make a hat out of, or a scarf out of? - Do you recommend top-whorl drop spindles for beginners? Any particular favourite idiotproof model? - I remember trying to spin cotton with a small table-top spindle thing that my sister brought me back from Africa. It came with spun cotton yarn attached so I know it ought to have worked but I could never, never get the yarn to not fall apart as soon as it lost tension. Does anyone here work with cotton? I don't even know if I'd want to anymore, but I always wanted to know why I couldn't do it!
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Nov 9, 2010 00:32
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Etheldreda posted:Hmm. I tried to teach myself to spin with a drop spindle a good many years ago, but I never quite got the hang of it. I enjoyed it but I don't seem to be as patient as I used to be! So a few questions: I don't know much cause I've only been doing this for like, less than two months but I can definitely tell you that cotton is not easy to spin! It's got very short fibers so you have to get a LOT of twist in it VERY fast. It's usually spun on a supported spindle because that way the yarn you're forming doesn't have to bear the weight of all the yarn you've already made + the weight of the spindle. Get some wool! I don't think top whorl or bottom whorl matters all that much really, just try to get a decent spindle that's not too heavy and not too light either. Heavier = spins longer, lighter = breaks the yarn less I suppose, it's helpful to start somewhere in the middle. But like I said I'm a total noob! Oh and it took me about a week to spin more than enough two ply worsted/bulky (ok, frankly the weight was all over the place, probably even fingering in some places) for a hat. I don't think it would be enough for a scarf though.
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Nov 9, 2010 00:40
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I've spinning for a while, and I'm exclusively drop spindle. I find top whorls a bit easier to learn on, but bottom whorls are fun too, and are more easily turned to support spinning if you wanna try that. Cotton is super short staple, so you have to put way more twist in it very quickly than you would wool, which is probably why you had trouble. I don't spin single ply worsted (cause I don't use things that are bigger than DK), but I imagine it would take me about 16-17 hours over several days to do the same for a hat in fingering weight. I've also been spindle spinning and optimizing my process for about 2 years now, so I'm a little faster than if I were just learning When I was learning, I made enough for a big lacy scarf in about a week, just spinning here and there--it was super thick n thin, but by golly, it got the job done and my mom loved it.
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Nov 10, 2010 00:47
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I just learned to spin today! I've been a knitter for awhile, and after seeing all the pretty yarns I could make with spinning I decided to give it a try. There was a nice lady at the yarn store who works at the same company I do, so she came over and taught me drop spindle on our lunch break She even lent me the spindle and some roving to practice on! Which brings me to my question, how do I know when it's time to take the yarn off the spindle and make a ball for plying? I've got a decent cone going that's about the size of the whorl at the biggest part, is that the clue?
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Nov 12, 2010 05:16
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MarsDragon posted:I just learned to spin today! I've been a knitter for awhile, and after seeing all the pretty yarns I could make with spinning I decided to give it a try. There was a nice lady at the yarn store who works at the same company I do, so she came over and taught me drop spindle on our lunch break I've found that when the cop gets too large, the working thread will start slipping out of the notch. It also gets to be much more difficult to keep the spin going. Congrats on learning to spin - it just gets more awesome!
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Nov 12, 2010 13:46
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MarsDragon posted:I just learned to spin today! I've been a knitter for awhile, and after seeing all the pretty yarns I could make with spinning I decided to give it a try. There was a nice lady at the yarn store who works at the same company I do, so she came over and taught me drop spindle on our lunch break That's usually when I pull it off. Sometimes the yarn will break a lot too, just as that extra "hey take me off now!" Congratulations on learning, you're going to have so much fun/relaxation now.
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Nov 12, 2010 16:39
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Hi. This is not my yarn, but I just wanted to post a bit of porn in this thread.  ^^knitted up  SO PRETTY~! It's done by moonroverspins. More here
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Nov 20, 2010 06:19
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Oh my god! It looks like a painting!
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Nov 20, 2010 12:45
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The little white bits kind of make me think of caterpillars, and it frightens me. (But that is fabulous yarn, omg)
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Nov 20, 2010 17:54
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^^ It looks like a seascape! Oh look - more yarn! (apologies in advance for phone pics)  The colorway is called Parrotfish and it is bamboo and tencel silk. It took me forever to get the hang of spinning this - I basically had to shred it to fluff to get it to draft properly. I left it as singles and am in the process of turning it into a shawl for my mother-in-law's Christmas gift.  Some unnamed merino/mohair roving I picked up at a fiber fair in July. It's kind of an orange and greenish-gray so it looks pumpkiny to me.  Here spun into singles and awaiting navajo plying. I tried to stay as close to laceweight as possible so that I can aim for a triple-ply sock weight. So far, it's soft and squishy and drafts like a dream, but it wasn't cleaned very well - I have to stop every 20 seconds or so to pull a friggin' shrub or tree limb out of the roving. I'd be glad for suggestions on what I should turn this into!
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Nov 20, 2010 23:54
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Wedemeyer posted:Hi. This is not my yarn, but I just wanted to post a bit of porn in this thread. I WANT IT SO BAD HOLY poo poo. I dug her up on Etsy but it's all batt. http://www.etsy.com/shop/moonrover At least I'm pretty sure.
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Nov 21, 2010 08:00
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Captain Stinkybutt posted:I WANT IT SO BAD HOLY poo poo. I dug her up on Etsy but it's all batt. I looked, and they are all such pretty batts. Now I want one
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Nov 21, 2010 17:20
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FelicityGS posted:I looked, and they are all such pretty batts. Now I want one If it's not her and someone else just has the same handle and likes yarn (?) then yes, they are very pretty batts.
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Nov 21, 2010 20:41
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Captain Stinkybutt posted:If it's not her and someone else just has the same handle and likes yarn (?) then yes, they are very pretty batts. Yeah it's hers. Her flickr profile links it to moonrover. http://www.etsy.com/transaction/15155570
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Nov 21, 2010 21:52
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Wedemeyer posted:Hi. This is not my yarn, but I just wanted to post a bit of porn in this thread. Holy poo poo e: I want to knit and then frame this. Wandering Knitter fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Nov 22, 2010 |
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Nov 22, 2010 01:00
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