Rubies and Purls

Finished winding!

2006-11-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

Well, today's a very good day. Jhoneil's in town, very yay, as he's such a good friend online, and he's way sweet. Bonus, he's in a giving mood so he sprang for a box of Marie's watercolours. They're these good watercolours from China. I like them cuz I can make vibrant washes and use them kind of opaque, but they only cost like $7.00 a set!

Anyhoo, on track and to the point. I just finished winding that 4oz of JaggerSpun SuperLamb.

I was aiming to wind a center pull ball, but there's just so much of it. It's more like a pull-skein, but will unwind from the outside as I've been assured that's the best way to prevent tangles.

I'm just hoping I didn't put a whole bunch of tangles in while winding.

Oooh, good news! My order of Aqua Moon coloured(added the u as it's how it's spelled in the UK) lace weight cashmere/merino yarn was processed yesterday, or maybe was the day before? All I know is I got the email yesterday :D. Looks like I'll be getting the free sample pack too, even though I do think that was my error in reading, like a bizarre lack of comprehension. Strange since I normally have excellent reading comprehension.

Even if he just puts in the tiny skeins and not the mini, that's cool. If no samples come, I'll be mildly dissapointed, but will understand :D.

Turns out the ColourMart laceweight has more yardage per ounce than the SuperLamb and the SuperLamb's touted as being cobweb weight. Hmmmm. I just bought a set of Addi in 0000 size. I'm working at relaxing my tension while knitting. My shoulder's been giving me fits, with numbness down my arm. I think relaxing my tension will make for even knitting and be good for my shoulder.

I read that tiny needles with relaxed tension is equal to using size 2-3 with a tighter tension. At any rate it's impressive, "look what I knit on 0000 needles!" hehehe.

It's He-e-re!

2006-11-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

It just arrived! My lovely 4oz of JaggerSpin Super Lamb! I'm all giddy. 4 whole ounces of cobweb weight yarn!

Now I see what someone in the Knitter's Review forums was talking about, at least after their cobweb weight from ColourMart UK arrived. Well now, first off it's nice it's really nice. My mom felt the unknit skein and said it felt rough. Um, nope, not really. A cursory neck, ear, inner-elbow, cuddle, reveals it to be quite soft.

So why does she think it's rough? Prolly cuz the first natural yarn I let her cuddle was some Misti Alpaca Lace. At any rate this stuff is actually quite soft and about 1/2 the thickness of the misti lace. I also think it has to do with there being so many strands of it, they almost look like the yarn for crewel embroidery. Heck, they might be the same yarn I don't know.

It's shiny, and all those strands have their own texture. Mind you it's one continuous strand wound into a skein. Oh dear, I forgot to have it wound, no matter, I'll break out ye olde nostie, a.k.a. a section of bamboo, and wind up a nice center pull myself. Whoa baby, that's gonna take some effort. Something like 1400 yards of the stuff. I forget the calculations. Will scan a pic asap.

I really should buy one of those crank style ball winders. Oh well. BBL, after I get this stuff wound and knit up a motif/swatch of the stuff. I think even if I don't quite have enough I can get some more(different color, maybe a nice dark green, mmmmm) from Imagiknit. Still, a single motif will make it so I can calculate how much I need for a single shawl. Lots and lots of yarn overs, and a nice loose vibe to the motif should mean it's enough for a small shawl, but I had better triple check.

Oooh! Working on a field of daisies

2006-10-25T22:42:00.001-07:00

That's just what I'm calling it. It's a shawl of daisies and swirls. Hoping it turns out okay, but I'm winging it, kinda freeform. First time out the gate should be comfy, if not ultra-cute.

Ordered some of that fine merino lamb cobweb yarn from Jaggerspun today. Well, actually it's by JaggerSpun, I ordered it from Bo Peep's. I'm such a pain in the a$$ I double checked to make sure "thistle" is a muted purple. I'm experimenting with a celtic knot inspired design. It's tricky, but I think I can figure it out b4 the yarn gets here.

The shawl I'm working on now is out of Madil Kid Seta. It's a totally awesomely soft yarn, all fuzzy-wuzzy. Of course, what else would u expect from mohair?

ColourMart UK cashmere is next on the list, well, their silk-cashmere blend, love how soft and strong it sounds, not to mention luxurious.

Oooh! Working on a field of daisies

2006-10-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

Got some new yarn!

2006-08-04T00:29:00.000-07:00

Well I did it. I finally broke down and purchased honest to goodness sock yarn. I have to say both sock and lace yarns offer more knitting pleasure for your knitting dollar. I also have to say that if socks or lace scare you; don't let them!

Knitting socks is like sculpting with yarn. Knitting lace is like drawing with yarn. Both are super-fun, and offer hours of happiness. Since sock and lace yarn tend to be of much nicer fibers than your average Drugstore, or variety store carry in their yarn sections.

For socks start with something ultra-simple like the Universal Sock Pattern. If you have experience knitting lace, or intarsia, you can adapt that pattern very easily to fit your fave patterns by changing the number of CO stitches, or altering the lace. Easy-peasy.

Of course lace is by far the easiest of all. Folks will tell ya to print or buy knitting graph paper. I have to say that I have no problem imagining what stitches will look like while using plain old graph paper, and since it's available in tablets and filler paper style, it's my personal fave. Basically it's connect the dots. After you practice with one of the easy free lace patterns, it's easy enough to adapt said pattern or create your own. Just think of it as connect the dots with YO replacing the dots. The sample knitting for my silk yarn is adapted from the fishtail lace pattern. If folks need a little extra lace help, just leave comments. I'll help as much as I can.

Back to my new yarn. 100 gram ball of Regia Jubillee colors in Antigua. It's just lovely. Was thinking I'd cut out the fair isle bits. But that would just mean an absolute ton of russian joins. Yuck. Talk about a chore. So now I'm thinking I'll just knit up Potamus. It's a fave in the sock knitting forums, and now that I have proper yarn, I just have to give it a try. If I don't like the white fair isle stripes, I'll make a dilute dye solution for a pastel flash wherever there's white. Will use teal, and will just make the blues bluer, while muting the white :).

Today was my second time eyeing and feeling up the gr8 big skeins of merino fingerring weight. They're less than 25 bucks each for over 1,000 yards. Have a feeling I'll break down my next visit to the yarn shop :).

Requesting Donations For A Good Spinning Wheel

2006-07-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hi,

It's been awhile. Here's a sample of the silk yarn I spun

I knit a sample of it. It's a very small ball, and I spun it on my homemade spinning wheel, cranking by hand. Sadly the wheel took a big fall, and I'm having a ton of difficulty repairing it.

There's actually quite a bit of yardage in that one small ball(I lost count), but it's definitely fingering weight, since it comes in at approximately 14wpi, that's wraps per inch, for those who don't know. I even made a bamboo nostie for center pull balls, and it works quite well indeed.

It occurs to me that if I had a good beginner's wheel, I could get a real feel for how my homemade/found parts wheel should really run. That's where donations come in.

If you knit, but haven't any interest in spinning, this might be just the proposition for you.

I'm posting a donations button at the end of this post and in the links section. There's an identical button at Spinning On A Dime.

I like knitting with fingering weight or lighter yarn. You get more bang for your buck. Lots more fun knitting, especially when it comes to socks and lace patterns, because you get lots more yardage for the weight. So here's the bargain. For any donation, you'll get a ball of yarn, or a hank of yarn with bamboo nostie + instructions for using it to wind a center pull ball. You'll receive the yarn at cost, and I'll throw in the nostie for free, because they're both easy and inexpensive to make.

It works like this; the ammount of money donated, will first go towards the purchase of a good quality beginner's spinning wheel. As soon as there's enough in the account to purchase the wheel, the donation drive ends. I'll remove the buttons, and notify everyone when the wheel arrives. Any excess in the account will go towards the purchase of fiber for spinning. Not just any fiber but good, quality, fiber. I'm talking silk, super wash wool, and probably alpaca as well. I have been able to find sources of high quality fiber at tremendous savings.

To save even more money, the silk cocoons will be hand processed into silk hankies by yours truly. The superwash wool is an assortment of colors, and from the photos it's a very fine quality wool. It costs less than $1 per ounce. So that's $2 for 2 ounces of superwash wool. I can sort the wool by colors, and easily blend primary colors into secondary colors. I just have to recomb some of it, but it's quality combed top. The alpaca that has me so interrested is $2 per ounce for blanket, and $1 per ounce for neck(and neck is touted as being very soft, so really once I research some more, maybe, just maybe I'll go for neck, and the savings will be enormous).

So what's with all the savings? I want to pass the savings on to the donors. A fair ammount of the money will be out of pocket, but as I said before, only the excess funds from the donation drive will go towards fiber. Example: if a wheel costs $225 - $275 and I get $250 in donations, then I'll have to foot the difference. However, if there is a serge in donations, and there's $25 or so over the ammount for a wheel, I'll put that $25 towards fiber).

Let me boil it down further. If someone is only capable of donating 50¢, I won't hold it against them. To the contrary, they will get at least 4 cocoons worth of hand dyed hand spun silk yarn(it depends on what source is available, one source is far less expensive than the other, you get more cocoons for the same ammount of money). 4 cocoons doesn't sound like much, but I can get 4-5 yards of roving from a single cocoon without trying, much more when I really concentrate on getting a nice, very thin, even strand of silk roving). So 50¢ yields enough yarn for an accent piece, a nice sampling of the yarn/fiber, and enough yarn to snuggle with. It's not enough for an entire garment obviously, but that's hardly the point right?

So here's how it works, and I need to adjust the 411 in the spinning blog; when you make a donation, you're offered the option of including comments. Please include your mailing adress and preferences in the donation comments; if you want the yarn, and I can't imagine why you wouldn't, the mailing adress is absolutely necessary.

Smaller donations will be easiest and quickest to fill, by my simply spinning silk. It's easy enough, if I pay $2 for 20 cocoons, then you get 4 cocoons worth of pure silk yarn, and stretched, hand dyed, and handspun by moi. For larger donations I have more wiggle room with options. 20 cocoons yeild over 2oz before processing, the silkworm is dried inside, and very light. So if you want pure silk yarn for a $5 donation, that's 50 cocoons(when they're $2.00 for 20, prices vary, but I will keep everyone informed as to actual cost). 50 cocoons before processing weighs in at over 5 ounces, and if you're curious, 2 ounces is approximately 50 grams of yarn. If you want a silk/superwash blend, I'll have to do the math, same for pure superwash. Still, I'll keep you up to date and fully informed.

I will spin the first bobbin(which eventually ends up being a ball of yarn) with undonated fiber. That is to say a small ammount of wool I already have, because I thought I could use it for my homemade wheel, before the accident). It's plenty of fiber for me to predraft, spin, and get a feel for the wheel. That way I won't have to get the hang of a new wheel with fiber intended for donors.

After the first bobbin(photographed and posted for posterity and so that you can get an idea of the fineness of the yarn I can spin) is spun, all spinning will be devoted to donors until each and every donor who wants yarn gets yarn. I have friends who don't knit and might make anonymous donations, in those instances I wouldn't be able to send yarn to people who don't want yarn. But if you fill in your mailing adress, you will get yarn.

So what's the catch? Time, it's that simple. I need time to collect donations(that's if anybody even donates in the first place), then I need time to receive the wheel and fiber, then I need time to spin the yarn, and time for it to arrive to you safely. This is based on kindness and trust. If you can find it in your heart to trust me, you can get handspun yarn at cost. Considering handspun yarn goes for $25 and up in yarn shops, this is a tremendous savings, even if it does take longer to receive your yarn than it does when you order something to be fedexed to you.

It's kind of an adopt a spinster program. When spinners adopt a sheep for a year(for a whole lot of $, but well spent I assure you), they get letters from their sheep, and the fleece in the spring. When you adopt a spinster, you get regular updates of the tally, a glowing thankyou in my blog, and handspun yarn. I get to keep the wheel, and everyone breaks even :).

If you're wondering what 4 mawatas worth of yarn can make, I'll even create a pattern. Something sweet, and cute, that you know means you helped me more than you'll ever know, but other people will just think is pretty. Oh, but what if guys help? I didn't think of that, I'll have to come up with something nice for the fellas to knit too. No problem:). I'm good at this stuff.

You get full 411 about the wheel, pics of it, and yarn. Technically I'm not really proposing donations, just loans, paid back in yarn :).

P.S. If you're into astrology, I can spin yarn in colors to match your sun sign/birth stone. If you have a favorite color, I can spin yarn in either a gradient of your fave color, or complimentary stripes of your fave color(remember green matches everything).

Is this really any zanier than trading a red paper clip for stuff till you eventually trade for a house? I think not :D

Silk Stockings

2006-07-07T04:58:00.000-07:00

Imagine:

If I can spin some silk to lace weight or finer(I want to get good enough to spin gossamer and froghair), I'll be able to use it with this Handknit Hose tutorial/information page to make my very own silk stockings.

Tips for Fine Tuning Color When Dying with Food Color or Kool-Aid

2006-07-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

While researching fiber dying on the cheap, I came across phrases like: "Garishly bright colors", "Colors too bright", "Kid's Colors"; and so on and so forth. It's a little disturbing to me, but only because I have a bit of an unfair advantage. I'm used to mixing paint colors for painting pictures. You can see a sampling of stuff I do at My Deviant Art Gallery.

I decided I should share the wealth, and not hog all this valuable information.

Here's the deal:

Dying with Kool-Aid is dying with food color, it's just powdered and mixed with malic or citric acid and stabilizers. That's terrific because you can make a super concentrated dye that won't spread out all over the place.

The point is, you can off-set or neutralize ultra-bright colors with drops of food color. I could link you to a color wheel and try to explain it to you. But it's all so simple to show with words.

Opposite colors neutralize each other. Generally opposite colors are complimentary colors, and they are any two colors that look the absolute best side by side. There's a reason why all the red and green at Christmas time look so terrific together. They're opposite/complimentary colors.

Everyone knows that yellow and blue make green, yellow and red make orange, blue and red make purple. That's it. Those are all your primary and secondary colors.

To neutralize a primary color you simply mix it with a drop or two of it's complimentary secondary color, or vice-versa. Here's a list:

Yellow and Purple

Green and Red

Blue and Orange

The list also works if you're completely stuck for how to make colors pop. Example, wide blue stripes with thin orange stripes(or reverse it). It works because the opposing colors compliment each other, and each makes the other pop!

You can use pure clean colors for your stripes or combos, or you can mix them. By adding a drop of the opposite color at a time, and adjusting back and forth untill satisfied(remembering colors will be deeper before absorbing into the fiber), you can tone down the bright colors. A drop of red added to a large ammount of green mutes the green, and you wind up with a different shade(and experimentation will lead you to just the right shade of green). A drop of green added to red makes a kind of muted red, some call maron, others call it maroon. It's that deep brownish sort of red that's akin to oxblood.

Also you can blend colors by mixing the individual colors of fiber, in varying ammounts. That's related to pointillism. George Seurat would probably have enjoy a pair of green socks that are actually made of individually dyed then blended, blue, yellow, and maybe a bit of red, fibers. One could also do this by making each ply the primary + secondary colors. I described this in an earlier post. One ply of each: red+blue+purple. When spun and knitted would make a purple optical illusion item.

I hope this helps. If you need pics to explain further, leave a comment and let me know. I think I made it all pretty clear though :).

Oooh before I forget; this would work with overdying as well. If a certain shade of red is giving you migraines, neutralize it with a weak wash of green; and so on and so forth. You would have to experiment to find exactly the colors you want, but experimenting's half the fun:).

I think I forgot...

2006-07-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

I think I forgot to include the following 411. I finished 1 sock! Yeah gotta get in gear for the other, but working so hard on my wheel. The sock's made of 100% lace weight baby alpaca, for better or worse. I used an adapted lace pattern. Was so much fun that if my Spinning On A Dime experiments work out, I'll be spinning up some lace weight silk yarn with 1 or 2 continuous lengths of the finest polymer cording, for a gently elastic, sturdy, yarn for attractive socks.

Quickly, in case you don't want to read the whole blog. It's full of diy fiber projects. DIY silk hankies/mawatas. DIY dying(with food color, but will use kool-aid as well).

For the uninitiated, silk hankies and silk mawatas are essentially the same thing. They have a kissing cousin called silk caps. Basically they're just stretched silkworm cocoons. You can buy commercially prepared mawatas(I just love that word), or you can stretch them yourself. I suggest going to wormspit.com for terrific links to wonderful tutorials and silkworm facts(it's my main source for silk 411).

I would only add that if you're a first timer, don't dump all your silk cocoons in the degumming solution at once. They absorb the solution really fast, and can get very squishy and hard to handle. So try a few at a time. The solution's reusable, at least for awhile(I keep smelling it, and it's not smelling rancid or stale, but that might not be healthy, so you'll have to take my word for it).

Also, when you stretch cocoons, don't give up. The first 2-5 are awkward. They don't want to stretch for you, but soon you get the hang of it. At some point you build speed, but at first it's slow going and making friends with the wonderful fiber known as silk.

Self Patterning Sock Yarn

2006-06-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

I've been mulling the concept around in my head since before I saw Opal brand yarns. Before it was for a sweater, and I might have to start worsted weight and work my way down with experiments. I hypothesize, people can make DIY self-patterning sock yarn. All it would take is patience, animal fiber yarn, kool-aid, or food coloring, and some white vinegar.

It's a kool-aid dyeing / food color dyeing experiment and well...

So here's what I will do(cause I love experimenting):

Knit a 2 inch, 2 row swatch. Then count the number of stitches. Then tie a piece of crochet thread just past the final stitch(like touching it actually, but past it). Count stitches, unravel, and measure unravelled length of yarn.

Divide # of stitches by length of yarn(or vice versa, need to experiment). Then draw pattern on graph paper, with each square representing a stitch. Some folks say to use knitter's graph paper, but me, I can visualize pretty well with plain graph paper.

Fold yarn in half, just find the ends and carefully find the center, to fold it all in half. Then use a ruler and graph paper as guide to dye placement. Then with a medicine dropper and highly concentrated dye(full strength food color + vinegar or kool-aid with the tiniest bit of water/vinegar added) use medicine droppers to place the dye along the lenth of the yarn, with 2-4 damp but not dripping paper towels beneath each length of yarn. Leave a small band of white each time to allow for color bleed.

Each time you finish a length be it a foot or a yard, roll the yarn & paper towel up in plastic wrap, it's like a yarn jelly roll. You'll want breaks so make a note of the last color and it's pattern position. If you want solid color cuffs make an allowance for it at the ends and place the dye there.

Place the jelly roll in the microwave and steam it per usual, or even steam it in a pot with a rack, whatever works and doesn't melt the plastic.

Don't forget to mist the sections lightly with water so they don't dry out and even burn in the microwave. Lightly mist or colors will surely bleed.

Knit and pray for the best :).

Pre-Draft~Draft...Am I Spinning Up Fiber or Writing a Book?

2006-06-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

I pre-drafted some of the wool. It goes against some advice, and totally with other advice. But it's only like 1/3 of it, so I don't feel bad and besides if it really makes a difference I'll get to see it in the process :). If I can get consistently thin yarn I'll probably kool-aid or food color dye each ply a seperate color gradient, and then ply them together. So Red+Blue+Purple or Blue+Yellow+Green in a sunset sort of color path:). Of course Red+Yellow+Orange would look spiffy too:D.

I'm still building the wheel. If you're curious you can check out the 411 with no pics yet @ spinning on a dime.

Hitch in My Giddee-up

2006-06-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

I got stuck on building the spinning wheel. So I'm doodling some more. I might just draft my wool and wind it into loose balls just to keep my eyes on the prize. I'm seeing it as having almost a rotary dial instead of the usual rod mechanism. I'm not sure how sturdy it will be, and in the end will probably resort to steel or brass for all the parts that are key to rotation(because of force + weight of course). I'll have to wait and see though. The glue I have welds the plastic pieces together, but that doesn't make acrylic strong as steel(ooh but I wish yeah!). Oooh, I'm nearly finished with the foot of my sock, soon I'll have completed the toe, and will get to try the kitchener stitch for the first time :)).

New Look

2006-05-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

Okay so if you know me, and well, you don't, then you know I'm as passionate about poker as I am about art. I go through long phases of playing poker, long phases of fiber art, long phases of sculpting, and long phases of drawing and painting. So I started myself a little poker blog. Guys say poker blogs are gay. Guys think everything's gay. Well, straight guys do. Confuses the hell out of me why they get like that, but oh well. All the energy I had been putting into this blog and fiber arts I was pouring into the poker blog and poker. Managed to score a couple of free sponsorships. Screwed the pooch with one, and I'm down to about $5.88 at party poker. Was down to like 3 bucks so I'm making a major comeback(I hope). Started with 75 bucks, I'd still have about 75 bucks at party poker had I realized that you don't have to be involved in a rake hand to get same said rake hand(live and learn). Jumped back in with the socks I had been working on. I had my heel flap and was oh so proud of how far I was coming with my super-soft alpaca socks. Then I went to turn the heel and it all went to crap, and forget about rescue lines cause I can't salvage a knit piece to save my life. I guess I could have saved it were it a scarf or sweater, just something simple and familiar but this was a sock, and I just have to pull the whole thing apart and start over. The yarn store walking distance from where I live is on the way to get krispy kremes and the best meat loaf your mother never made. So I grab an extra ball or two of Misti Alpaca lace every time I walk past with $20 or more in my pocket. I need to grab some size 1 needles there the next time I'm nearby because size 1 works better with the Misti Alpaca Lace. My set of 5 bamboo dp needles are size 1 and they're definitely perfect for Misti Alpaca Lace. So I need a pair of needles to make a sweater set with. Realized that 80 stitches cast on is perfect for normal sized socks, and also perfect to distribute between 4 needles, so I adjusted one of my favorite lace patterns to fit it. It had been an 8 stitch repeat, so I just fixed it so it's a 10 stitch repeat, though 20 stitches repeated would be really nice for some garments. Also I have very nearly completed a celtic knot lace insertion pattern, I just have to knit and perfect it and it will be all ready for all sorts of really nice garments. There's the starburst flower pattern I'm working on too. I saw a gorgeous sweater pattern with a flower lace motif in the center of the back. The pattern costs like 6 bucks, and though that's not expensive, I'd rather spend the 6 bucks on another ball of yarn, so I'm coming up with my own pattern. I figured out how to account for my yo's so now I'm making this design. I only wish I could find a super large piece of graph paper, cause then I could so totally kick butt in the lace pattern designs. Oh yeah, I'm convinced I can draw any picture with YOs. So I'm also working on a couple of pisces inspired ideas + a few other astrological patterns. The proof is in the pudding, or so they say. I'm thinking that if tested and working, I'll put them in books and try to sell them through my cafepress store(but honestly I have to shop around my book ideas). I know I'm far from famous in the world of knitting. Oh heck, I'm far from famous in any world. I just think folks might see good value in a book of lace patterns as opposed to only buying pdf files and booklets. I spent the weekend watching b-movies at http://www.cinemanow.com It's free to join, and they have absolutely hundreds if not thousands of movies in the free to watch catalog, and then thousands more if u subscribe or rent. I also spent the weekend trying to turn a heel, failing miserably, crying, then starting over. Sigh.

Oh I just think I'm so Clever don't I?

2006-03-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

So I'm working with the cocoons. Stretching them, then dying, then making roving. Fun, and gorgeous results, but oh so tough on the hands. I still have about 25 cocoons because the degumming solution + stretching such incredibly strong fiber out into roving did a real number on my poor wittle hands:(

Next time I'll slather on a bunch of Burt's Bees right after processing, so as to avoid such amazing irritation. Burned like crazy, was mostly a strong discomfort, but left me unable to finish up with the last batch of cocoons(more than 20 or so at a time and they turn to mush, cause I'm just a beginner).

Anyway, I thought I was being such a genius yesterday morning. I thought, 'I know what I'll do! I'll cut small pieces of acrylic rod. 5 or 6 oughta do it. Draw a circle on the plastic film opposite the working side, and use that to secure the bearing to the wheel(okay, I know it's a cake stand top, you know it's a cake stand top, but for the purposes of this project it's a wheel damnit!). So I forgot all about how I took a cheap pre-stretched canvas and yanked the canvas off the frame to make a frame for stretching the mawatas on:(. Also managed to forget I had a piece of canvas from it on the floor that I'm saving for practicing brush strokes on(waste not, want not), and managed to forget that there were long sharp staples in canvas and standing str8 up! Got me in the knee! So I'm hurting, and look like the victim of the world's tiniest vampire. Only managed to cut 3 pieces of the rod. Need to cut 2-3 more, and can't even get down on my knees to do it(apartment dwellers use the floor a lot for cutting stuff, well if they have ugly vinyl tile like mine they do).

Bright side, I think that I can make a double treadle wheel. Maybe I mentioned it before? I should probably make a miniature mock-up, just to double check, but part of me wants to just go ahead and risk it. I mean if I'm right I'll save time, but if I'm wrong, kablooey, whole thing blows up in my face and I have to start all over. At any rate I think I have the physics down, so that's something :).

Bought some cabochons and extra rods and tubes the other day at the plastics store, now thinking I might need to get more yet, will wait and see. Hoping my flyer and bobbins work out, also hoping I can figure out how to set brake tension on the darn thing. I have some leather, and will probably use it for the brake. Sigh, too much typing, not enough working, gotta get my shite together.

Shouldn't Silkworms be Wooly Worms?

2006-03-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

Whoa baby,

My silk and wool arrived yesterday. Oh, didn't I tell you? I orderred 60 silkworm cocoons and 4oz of quickspin wool. OMFG! The wool's super soft and actually has a nice sheen to it(which surprised me, because I expected it to be coarse and sans shine).

I ordered it all from Mountain Shadow Ranch's ebay store. Lovely lady named Teresa Simons owns and runs the place. She also runs an adopt a sheep program(I think I mentioned it in an earlier post), and golly but I like the idea of getting letters from an adopted sheep in the mail. Alas, I'm nowhere near close to needing the ammount of fleece that comes from a sheep(4oz is alot!, and a sheep yeilds something like 5lbs in total).

I haven't pulled the wool out of it's protective baggie yet(not ready to spin, what do you want from me?). It's packed in tight. It's one of those big food storage baggies. I just know once it's out of the bag it'll at least double in mass. Well I don't know, but I feel it.

Processed some of the cocoons today. The listing promises that at least half of the cocoons in the B2(well it's second quality, but the term at silk dealers is B2) would be excellent quality with only about half of them being stained and or dented. Well I'd say that's not close. Mine well, I processed the dinged ones today. The ones with naturally occuring stains and dents(guessing those caterpillars weren't good spinners). Well there's 20-something that were dinged and the box is still 2/3 full. Teresa at Mountain Shadow Ranch even tossed in a few extra(probably because I sounded so gosh-darned excited in my emails). Anyway, the discoloration doesn't hurt mawata making one little bit, nor do the dents(though I must say the dented ones seem to soak up water faster, something I need to keep in mind for the future).

I dyed them with food coloring after processing them, a process you can read about at http://www.wormspit.com I'd link directly to the mawatas page, but the whole site's positively fascinating. I have to admit I thought it was run by a woman. Can't help it, for every Joe there's about 50 Jo's and for every Michael there's at least 50 Michelles who knit, crochet, weave, and do anything else artsy or crafty. I mean, watch That's Clever sometime on HGTV, for every 100 women there's 1 man it seems. Not fair, surely more men craft, but do you hear about them? No! Meanwhile there's usually at least one guy in a knitting class or spinning class. So I'm sorry Michael for thinking you're a woman. If it makes you feel any better I think you're pretty j/k(sorta, pretty smile at any rate), there hopefully the compliments make up for my thinking you were of the female persuasion.

Anyhoo, back to the mawatas. I dyed them purple and teal. They turned out really nice in a Bob Ross happy accidents sort of way. I like what happened, some of the blue in the purple and teal came out really blue, and some of the red in the purple's peeking through. Very pretty indeed. Tried to make them sparkle like my sparkle cotton crochet thread. Didn't work out so well(I gotta fiddle with the formula some more, and probably should put it on a single roving split into 4 vertical pieces, for a very fine sparkle thread through a plyed yarn), I'm learning.

So now I have a surprisingly big pile of silk roving. I thought 20 would make a teensie pile, I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, it's not the size of the empire state building or anything, but it's quite huge to have come from such tiny cocoons.

My approach to stretching the mawatas into roving? The cat's cradle approach. I hold it like the start of a cat's cradle and pull and sorta turn the loop as it stretches. The thickness is pretty consistent. Not perfect, but not horrid either.

So I was thinking I might spin these just to try out my spindle, but really I do want some relatively consistent yarn to make something out of so maybe I'll just hold my horses and wait till I finish the wheel(but ooh I'm itchin' to start spinnin').

Wheel design has changed. Got some rollerblade bearings and they look to be far superior to the bearing I was going to use for the drive wheel. Now going to use the rollerblade bearings for all rotating parts. Glad I didn't cut a hole for the garage door bearings, then I'd be up a creek for sure.

Figured out how to drill a hole in acrylic by hand without causing it to crack. Going to apply some of what I've learned practicing with tiny acrylic scraps to building this thing(I thought I'd be finished by now, but my mom's in the hospital, and criminy just thinking about your mom in the hospital is stressful so I've mostly been knitting as it's calming).

Okies, I wanted to tell you something else about Mountain Shadow Ranch. They have exotic fibers! Cashmere, Vicuna(and I'll make the little squiggly thing on top of the n later), silk, and other unusual fibers as well. The really unusual stuff is called "ewenique". Puns are good :D.

All done for now, gotta get batteries charged for my digi-cam. I really want to be able to show y'all some photos.

Just Begging :)

2006-03-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

Time to beg :P
edited for content
Thanks.

Still building the wheel

2006-02-25T15:51:00.000-08:00

To start with, I contacted a nice lady who has an ebay store with terrific customer reviews, about purchasing silk cocoons. I wanted to make sure I can get them from her all the time. It turns out I can. :) I still can't get a reply from this place in Canada with incredible prices in US dollars. I just want to find out about how much they charge for shipping and handling; criminy.

However, the lady on ebay lives in Oregon. It's not too very far from California, so combine that with her shipping fees(and she only charges $1.25 shipping and handling per item after the first on combined orders), and I have a sneaking suspicion it's a better deal. 30 B-2 cocoons for $2.99 usd, that's a steal at 10 cents a cocoon(comes down to about a buck a hankie). If 24 averages out to 20 grams then 30's around 25 grams. 2 packages will make enough yarn for a pair of glovelets and be enough for me to learn with. After that I can get as many as I need :D She totally keeps them on hand.

On to the wheel. Right now I have ratios from 3:1 to 28:1. I still have to make the flyers and bobbins though. That's just whorl speeds.

Now I'm focused on the base, center post, and treadles. I figured out a simple way to make the treadles work so that the wheel rotates in the direction of the foot you start treadling with. It should also make stopping and reversing and snap too :D.

So now I have to make the base and treadles(so I have something to build up from, though for now I'm using wood and bamboo for the center post :D).

It should be fairly simple. I have a protractor, and since a mitre box won't work with my material on hand, it will have to do for angles.

This should be sweet when complete ;).

Oh, and light weight too, very portable, but simultaniously sturdy :D.

I need to experiment with a wooly winder type flyer. The wooly winder's patented(at least for commercial sales). It only comes in sizes to fit specific brands; and I've read it can have a very jerky motion. I want to make a similair flyer, but it's hook will glide back and forth :D. I guess nobody ever told it's creator that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line ;).

I should patent my design as well, but I'll make it quasi-open source. What I mean is, I don't want anyone but me to profit from it monitarilly, it wouldn't be fair. However; if someone wants to make their own for personal use, I wouldn't stop them or get mad. :)

My knuckle's sore from the slip of a craft knife. OT but true :( Still, I'll keep plugging away.

Oh, almost forgot...Just managed to get the lace pattern right

2006-02-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

I nearly forgot to post this, and am wordy as heck, so I don't expect anyone to actually read my blog; not word for word anyway.

I figured out what was wrong with my lace pattern and as soon as I get in the swing of things will finish the socks, but first I have to get my spinning wheel prototype out of my system, or at least to a point where I feel like I need a break.

Naysayers be darned :P

2006-02-21T06:02:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Just more of the same except for one big, and I mean really big developement. After studying reams and reams worth of assembly instructions, parts .pdf files and more, I finally think I've figured out how to make a spinning wheel. Tonight I made a simple crankshaft that works smallscale. Now I need to make a larger one to see if it works.

I know I can build a single treadle model(adequate and hey, who's to say not plenty good enough? huh?). What I realy want to build is a double treadle model. Maybe I'll be able to bribe someone into letting me see hi-res photos of theirs from various angles :).

I'm frugal by nature. Refusing to pay $500.00 of money I don't have(heck I don't have even half that for a wheel that won't even fit in my apartment, something to think about); I've decided to not reinvent the wheel, and not pay for a supposedly reinvented one either.

There are only 3 truly key components of a spinning wheel(the rest though important is somewhat optional, because one can pick and choose so much). Obviously the most important component is a wheel. Interestingly enough, a spinning wheel features a bare minimum of 3 wheels. I consider the flywheel and bobbin to be wheels as well as the drive wheel, and one cannot have a wheel without all 3 and let's face it, the whole thing's useless without multiple bobbins! So I count all 3 wheels as a single component. The Mother of All is another key component, but the bobbin and flyer are sort of part of the MOA; and some means of rotating the wheel.

My design features parts easily found at the hardware store, and though I'm not sure, I think the wheel bearing could be fashioned using a skatewheel and bearing. Mine will feature a wheel bearing found at the hardware store for under $10.00. This isn't a production wheel(I don't think it will be anyway), so it doesn't have to be exceptionally efficiant, it need only allow for 2 handed drafting and feeding, something that's at least incredibly difficult to do with a spindle(though I'm making a mechanical spindle while I'm at it).

Nature is the greatest of all inventors. Often humans manage pale immitations, like airplanes, artificial pacemakersl, and the like. Good, great even, but not as great as the originals ;). So why fight it? It's senseless for me, an apartment dweller, to try and ream out thick dowels of wood to make bobbins and flyers. Graciously nature has given the world bamboo. This "wood" is so strong, so smooth, and so beautiful, without any interferance from tools and machinery, that I'll simply use it for making bobbins and the flyer :).

A hook is a hook, is a hook. Why pay a fortune for something that looks exactly like what the hardware store sells for 20 cents? Same thing for springs, they have a wide assortment and okay, they're 40 cents and up, but still?

Wood's easy to come by, and between boxes full of ceylon tea, and planks of balsa and basswood, why pay a fortune for oak or cherry? I can get heavier types of timber from discarded furniture(and indeed, I'm keeping my eye out for a small round table, which I can sand if I have to, for good balance, but I don't need it for the wheel, I just want it for the wheel). Still, for the prototype, I can use lightweight woods because I need to be able to move it all around quickly and easily for adjustments.

It's nearly 7:00am, and after I watch Kill Bill Vol. 2, I'm off to rummage, scavenge, and glean pieces to incorporate into my design. I can purchase all of the parts inexpensively, and I'm pretty sure I'll have a working prototype(in need of tweaks and improvements), by the weekend. Still, I'd love to find a couple of broken kitchen chairs and a wobbly table. The fancy kind, with turned legs and lovely turned spindles on the backs and stuff. The great part is, if it's broken, most folks won't want it, except for pesky woodworkers. Grrrrr, they allways have cordless powertools with them too, the fancy kind by Mikita, hell, they can afford to buy good timber, the bastards :P I'm only kinda joking. Oh, I know, I know, timber's not a decidedly American term. I'm not from Australia, I just think timber sounds so much nicer than wood :).

Back to the drawing board...

I am a Knittrix

2006-02-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

Too bossy to be a knitter, I am indeed a knittrix. Okay, it's a made up word, but you get the idea.

Lemme test some templates right quick...This one will have to do.

Am I a knitter or a knittrix? Since er and or suffixes at least imply the masculine gender, surely I'm a knittress or knittrix.

Okay, will post a photo as soon as I finish this darned sock! :)

But first coffee, and more musing about what type of silk I will purchase for spinning :). Consistently roved silk is gorgeous. But it's more expensive than hankies and caps. Cocoons are far less expensive than hankies and caps, but then I've never spun anything in my life(unless compulsive hair twisting counts:P)

Plan is simple enough. I'll make a hand spindle(have found 2 tutorials for just that project :D). I'll order $20.00 total of silk fiber. That includes shipping&handling. I would order much more, but that sounds like plenty for a beginner.

I noticed that per gram spinning actually is cheaper than buying yarn. Especially in luxury fibers. Sure, I won't have any of that nifty machine consistency, but that's okay, since handmade is better to me(except maybe with lace yarns).

Silk should be ammong the easier fibers for a beginner to spin. The fiber itsself is immensely strong. That's good and bad I suppose. Good since strong means even with inconsistent thickness, it's less likely to break :D. Bad, since strong also means it's easy to wind up with somthing too thin :(.

But while deciding which silk to buy, what variety of moth it should come from, how processed I want it, and what colors to dye it, I'll make the spindle.

I'll make the spindle and spin my mom's poodle's hair into super soft puppy yarn, which I'm evilly tempted into knitting into a dog sweater for him to wear hehehe. It's cool cause his brush is practically a carding brush allready :D. So while grooming him I could be carding the "wool" for his nifty new sweater >:). I'm more likely to make socks or something though.

That and I'll keep knitting these socks. Right now I'm torn though and not even knitting them.

I have a lace pattern I want to use, and am actually in the process of trying different variations on this one sock untill I get the pattern right(trying to find the superfluous stitches in the pattern).

Okay, back to knitting :)