New Spinning Toy!

I would have posted this earlier, but I was having too much fun playing with my new toy.

I got a Kromski spinning wheel!!!!!! Nuff said.

I have been wanting one for a while because I really liked the quality, and they have gotten alot of great reviews from some of the sites I have visited. However, I was having a hard time getting the money together, but I was more than suprised to recieve it for my annivessary gift. I think I really need to thank someone big time now.

I wasn't even scared when I saw the box sitting in the living room, and remembered my complete lack of skills at carpentry. The DVD that came with this beauty was a HUMONGOUS help though, and it took me about two hours to assemble my Kromski Minstrel.

It turned out beautifully too. I it a really sturdy and beautifully made wheel. True quality and fine craftsmanship here.

The oriface is taller than my Ashford Traditional, which required me to find a taller chair.

I'm still doing a happy dance all over the house.

Now I am off to spin some awesome yarn.

FatCatKnits......Yummy!

Today I got a package in the mail, and my son was all over the fibery goodness inside it. I raided the website at FatCatKnits.com and plan to shop there again soon. All the fibers were wonderfully colored, and so soft and fluffy, I can tell already that I am going to enjoy spinning them and knitting them into something wonderful.

By the way, if anyone needs a spokes model, hs is for hire.

Adventures In Handspinning: Moreno/Tencel Part 2

As you can see, I finally got around to plying my Moreno/Tencel yarn, and I love the colors. I made it into a 3 ply yarn which gave me smoother blending, and a nicer twist in it. I shot for a DK weight and ended up with a very light sport weight, or heavy sock. I will in the future practice more at achieving the yarn I want, and try more short draft techniques.

I did however, end up with ALOT of this yarn, 3 skeins of about 152 yards each. i couldn't believed my luck.

Spin to Knit: Mitts

For the first time since I began spinning this last summer, I am finally making yarn for a project. Usually, I spin the yarn and then set it aside, just in case I find a good project to knit later with my handspun yarn. Frankly I would hate to go through all that work just to find that I really did not like the pattern after all. It would feel really wasteful.

However, when I found this fun little kit for spinning and then knitting a pair of fingerless mitts at the Sunset Fibers booth at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, I just couldn't resist! And I loved the colors as well.

When I got home, I grabbed my little Drop Spindle, spread the directions out on my work table, and ran into a snag. The directions called for me to spin the wool at 20 WPI. But what does WPI mean? Is that fingering weight, sport, worsted, or lace? How do you measure that and do you need a special tool for that? I Googled the term and found that there is more than one meaning for that term, and none of them seemed to be related to handspinning. So I contacted a person through Ravelry who could do amazing things with wool and wheel and asked her what WPI meant and how to measure this. I was a bit supried to learn that it was not that complicated of a concept at all.

WPI meansWraps Per Inch, and this is measured by wrapping the yarn around a standard ruler (See above) and then counting how many times, within one inch, the yarn can be wrapped around the ruler (Note: I did not spin the yarn in the photo, I just needed a yarn that would stand out on the blue ruler). A very cool way to measure the weight of your handspun yarn, especially if you are spinning for a paticular project.

Armed with this information, I began by spinning a test strip of yarn and found I was right on for the weight. I continued to spin the yarn, and noticed that one ounce of wool spins up pretty quick! I am now, more than half way through the wool, and beginning to get a bit sceptical that I have enough yarn for both mitts.

I will just have to wait and see.

Adventures In Handspinning: Moreno/Tencel

Recently I handpainted my own blend of 50/50 Moreno and Tencel but, after seeing the results I became uninterested in spinning it. I honestly think it was the purple that I added to the greens and blues that threw me, because something just seemed amiss when I really looked at it.

However, the need to empty out my little spinning basket, combined with just being tired of staring at it, drove me to throw it on the ashford (Traditional) and spin it up.

And then A very funny thing happened.

I began to love the colors, even the purple.

I love how smothly the transitions between the colors blended, and how nicely the tencel feels as I work with it. It is so soft, and easy to draft, it almost wants to draft itself as I work. It is so pretty as a single, I can't wait to see how it looks when I spin it and make it into two-ply yarn.