I Heart Judith

I ordered Judith Mackenzie McCuin's dvd The Gentle Art of Plying with some money I got for my birthday this year. I finally got a chance to watch and I got so much information out of it! I loved the way she described how to hold her hands to ply and just getting to watch how she spins was helpful.

One of my favorite things I learned was how she joined the yarn in while plying. I had no idea how to do that, and watching her break the yarn, add new in, and smoothly spinning it through was wonderful. She uses joining to change colors, to add in plies or start a new bobbin. If I ever get a chance to take a class with her in person, I'll definitely be in! Her teaching style is right up my alley too. She seemed very open to other ways of doing things, while at the same time describing why you would want to do it the way she's telling you. I'm always receptive to that kind of explanatory non-rigid style of teaching. Obviously there are many ways to do something, but if you're good at what you do, I want to know why you do it that way. But not have you tell me it's the only right way.

My spinning wheel is coming out tomorrow for some serious spinning. I'm going to start with one of the batts I got for my birthday from Shelly. And Shelly, you totally need to see this video!

Tricks and Trades

Yesterday was spinning day at Common Threads! I'm working on a SeaWool (Ocean) Fiber from Creatively Dyed Yarns that Cupcake gave me for Christmas. It's exactly what I like to spin - a silky, slippery, colorful fiber.

I've also finished the curtains using my knitting machine. It was really neat seeing them hang in the window when I walked in.

It's funny how different it felt to use a knitting machine. I put beads on with a crochet hook 30 stitches apart, every 10 rows. It really slowed me down putting the beads on. The two curtains took about a week to make. If I had hand-knitted them, it would've take months. The perspective changes when using a knitting machine.

They are a little uneven, but I think some blocking would help. I did block them, but they got a little ruffled up in the ride there. I think they like to hang free. I finished them around the edge with a crochet chain stitch.

St. Patrick's Day was fun this year. As always, we remember to wear green. But this year, I told Son #1 how one year, I caught a leprechaun. My story was about setting out a trap of fake gold, and sitting perfectly still to wait for the leprechauns to show up. When they finally did, I grabbed one around the mid-section with my hand. He spoke some sort of Irish to me, then bit me on the hand. I dropped him and he ran off, along with my fake gold I had set out. So both the boys and I setup up a little leprechaun trap the night before to see if we could catch any.

We made a bunch of gold coins out of yellow beeswax and put them inside these little birdcage tealight holders I had found at Michaels. We left a few out on the table, so they would have a trail to follow to the actual "Pot O' Gold". It was really fun to put this together with them. They loved talking and asking questions about Leprechauns while we were working on it. And the leprechauns did come! They took all of our beeswax gold, and left two lollipops and a note that read "Dear Son #1 and Son #2, Thanks for the gold, see you next year. Love the Leprechauns". We came home and it was there and they went nuts! I didn't know the Leprechauns left candy, I've only been bitten by one. :)

Our next project will be with this wool I picked up at the Vista Farmers market today. I plan on doing some felting with them, possibly making some eggs for Easter.
It's from a farm in Fallbrook called Rancho Borrego Negro. I met the lady that lives there completely randomly at Stitches West. I snuck into the end of a friend's class and saw her working with some Wensleydale locks. Of course I had to get a feel and asked her if they were from her own sheep and she said yes. That's when she told me she was at the Farmer's market almost every Saturday morning with her fiber and handspun. I was able to visit for a few minutes last weekend, but this weekend I spent a little more time and walked through slowly, checking everything out. Shelly went with me and we have some planning to do! So many great things to look at. Organic food, plants, flowers, clothing. And there was live music that we both had to get the CD's before we left.

Spinning Around

Goal for 2008: Find spinning friends. Check! Today Common Threads launched the addition of spinning wheels and spinning supplies by hosting a little spin in. I dropped the kids off at nana's house and was down there shortly after they opened to join in the fun. I had a great time!
I was very excited to hear that Common Threads is carrying the Louet Victoria wheels, because of course that means they'll have supplies (like bobbins) for mine. When I first showed up I took in all of the beautiful fibers they had displayed around. I saw this really pretty merino & tencel roving that was hand-dyed by a local dyer named Natasha. She was really nice and after talking to her for a little while I found out that she is also a bellydancer. I was very happy to find a spinner and a bellydancer all in one person! I sat and spun with her, and her partner in fiber Geri, for a couple of hours and made this.
While we were sitting in the front of the store, there was another group in the back room also spinning. It was Lori and her spinning group from Orange County. I had met Lori when I went to Cat Bordhi's sock class and was inspired by the beautiful yarns she had brought with her to knit. She had told me that she had a fiber arts studio named Capistrano Fiber Arts and that she teaches and sells fibers. I was able to spend a little time today with her and her friends before I had to leave and it was decided that we would try to meet at least once a month at Common Threads to spin together. I'm not sure exactly when the first meetup is, but it will most likely be on a Friday. They said that Friday was a good day for them to drive down in the morning around 10 am, and they would leave around 3 pm to beat the traffic home. So Nancy (the nice owner of Common Threads) is going to reserve the back room for everyone and we'll get to spin together. Woohoo!

Time sure flew by for me today. It was 3 pm before I knew it and time for me to leave. What a fun day!

My Fiber Frenzy

One of my goals for this year was to be more knowledgeable about my spinning and be able to have more control over the finished product. I wanted to know how to ply, and what to do with the yarn after I had plied it. This was the first dyed roving I had spun (pre-lesson).

On Tuesday, January 15, 2008, I met a wonderful woman named Lila Sturges from Country Spun Fibers. I've been wanting to get some pointers on my spinning and have been looking for other local spinners. CC from Thread, String and the rest of it had suggested I look Lila up to see if she was teaching and forwarded me her name and phone number. That was a couple of months ago and as one of my new years goals was to expand my knowledge of spinning, I decided to look her up. She was a wonderful woman, very encouraging and knowledgeable. I learned how to hold my tension while plying two singles together, how to wind off the yarn onto a niddy noddy, how to tie up the hank, and how to wash and hang it with a weight. I enjoyed her lesson and I bought a bunch of different kinds of fibers so I could try a couple of things.

Here are the new arrivals:

70% Merino, 30% Tussah Silk - Sandstone (8 oz)


Baby Alpaca Top - Silver Streak (4 oz)

Colonial Wool Top - Multi Color Navy (8 oz)

Colonial Wool Top - Dyed Black (4 oz) and Bamboo Top (2 oz)
I had bought and started spinning this Amethyst Merino Top before I had my lesson, and finished it after I had my lesson. I'm really glad I got to learn about plying before finishing this, I think it looks a lot better than it would have. I still need a lot of practice but feel I'm on the right road.
I'm getting so excited about my spinning projects that I had to buy this Sheep 2 Shoe kit. Since Socks that Rock are my favorite yarn, it would be so great if I could learn how to spin up something like it. So I'm anxiously awaiting shipment of my kit so I can learn the secrets.

Project Wool - The best weekend ever!

This weekend when my Best B came over to celebrate my birthday, she brought me a dream come true. For awhile I've been thinking about what it would be like to process my own fleece, dye it, spin it and use it. I read about it, dreamt about it and waited for my chance to try it. For my birthday, she brought the opportunity to my door. When she first arrived, we sat down to have a late lunch and she let me open my present. It was a set of Ashford hand carders and 3 bags of wool she had cleaned and dyed. There was also three jars of Jacquard dyes in Red, Blue and Yellow. I was so excited I could barely contain myself! I was immediately taught how to hold the carders and pull the wool through and comb it. Then she showed me how to roll the wool off into a rolag so I could spin it.


We had been planning to dye yarn for awhile and so after lunch we started our dyeing experiments. We started with 4 hanks of Knitpicks Bare fingering weight yarn, that had been soaking for about 8 hours. We mixed some bottles of Kool-aid in the kitchen and went to work in the front yard.

This is me and Son #1 painting stripes on our yarn with a bottle mixed with 4 packets of Grape Kool-Aid.

This is what we steamed the yarn in.

Here's B and Son #1 painting the yarn half with 1 bottle mixed with 6 packets of Lemonade and 4 packets of Strawberry and half with 1 bottle mixed with 4 packets of pink Lemonade, 1 Black Cherry Kool-Aid and 1/8 tsp Blue Jacquard Acid Dye.

Here we are folding it up for the steamer.

This yarn was done with 1 bottle mixed with 6 packets of Lemonade and 4 packets of Strawberry Kool-Aid, 1 bottle mixed with 2 packets of Lemonade Kool-Aid, and 1 bottle mixed with 4 packets of Strawberry.

This is me and Son #2 squirting yarn with 1 bottle mixed with 4 packets of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid.

Here they are in all their glory, hanging out to dry.

My patio smelled so good from all of the Kool-Aid.

Then we decided to go in and rest for a little bit, all of that excitement takes a lot out of you. So I carded and spun some of the wool she brought me in my present. I wanted to see what it looked like so I knitted this. I was just playing with a few twists and did a little stockinette and a little garter. I think I'm just going to spin up the rest of the fiber to finish this up, then after blocking, hang it on my wall as a happy memory.


The next day we got up and went kayaking around Carlsbad Lagoon. This was not my idea, it turns out my Best B is ambitious in more than just her knitting. I was a little hesitant at first, but had a really good time and it wasn't really that difficult. We didn't tip over or get stuck and I would definitely do it again. Afterwards we stopped at one of my favorite places for brunch and came home to continue the fiber madness. All my boys were out for the day so it was just the two of us and we decided to do the dirty work of sifting through the mega box of fleece her brother had sent her. We knew it was going to take a lot of time as the person who had done the shearing had never done it before and was basically doing it to give the fiber. The sheep that the wool had come from were not kept well and we knew that our work was cut out for us.

Yes, that is poo. And hay and other things. We figured that it was about as bad as it can get, and if we could pull this off we could do anything.

This is what the wool looked like as we pulled it apart and examined it. This was the good stuff.


As of right now, it's in the garage in a bucket soaking. Tonight I will change the water out and soak it again for another day and see what it looks like tomorrow night.

After sifting through the fleece and getting enough to soak, we decided to try the Acid dyes while the kids were out of the house. So we dyed two more skeins of yarn . One was Chocolate Brown and Pink and I'm going to call that one Neopolitan, and the other was Blue and Yellow which I think looks like a Canary. This is the money shot with our weekend of dyeing in one spot.

Yup, a girl couldn't have asked for more. I am so grateful to have a best friend like my Best B at my side for all of this stuff. She has been a wonderful teacher and inspiration.

My First Handspun Yarn

I just love spinning. The picture above is of the bobbins of singles that I've spun before I plied them together. The one below is after I plied the two together.

I bought a wraps-per-inch tool so I could figure out what weight my yarn is but it's so inconsistent that I don't know how much I can count on any number I come up with. At any given spot it goes from almost lace weight to a DK weight in another spot.

Since this is my first yarn I've ever made, I was thinking about just knitting a plain stockinette sampler with it so I could just have it as a decorative thing. I think it'll be fun knitting it, but I don't think it would be very easy to make a wearable out of it. I would love to be able to hang a square of it somewhere and have it to look at. I'm not sure if I want to dye this or just leave it in it's natural state yet. I'm leaning towards natural so when I do knit it up, I can really check out the stitch definition.

Lots of Fun!

Pattern: Victorian Lace from the Six Sox Knitalong
Yarn: Lang Jawoll in Pink
Yardage: 55 grams - I started with two skeins (each 45 g) and have about 35 g left.
Yarn Source: Stash
Needles: Size US 1 (2.5 mm) Knit Picks circulars
Estimated Time to Complete Project: 1 month
Modifications: Went toe-up instead of cuff-down, used Figure -8 cast-on then increased, followed Wendy's pattern for the slip-stitch heel flap as a guideline for gusset and heel flap.

The best thing I liked about this pattern was the Mini-melon stitch. It was adapted from Victorian Lace Today and is a really fun stitch.

I was able to get a lot of the leg done on Sunday when I went to the San Diego Stitch 'N Pitch and finished them up yesterday.


From left to right: Cupcake, Me, and My Best B. Sunday was a fun day. I love being with my friends and knitting. It was a nice day to be at a baseball game although the Padres got their bats and balls handed to them. The score was 9-0. Ouch.

Monday was also a good day because my lovely Victoria arrived.

I've been practicing everyday, trying to get more consistency and getting to know the wheel a little better. I know I'm not very good at it, but I sure am having fun trying. I feel very peaceful sitting there spinning and I know it will feel even better when I start improving.

Next, I'm going to finish up the Twisted Flower. I've only got about 2 inches to go before grafting the toes so I'm very close to being finished. After that, I'm going to make the Zombie Wristwarmers from Magknits for my #1 son, and probably some for me too!

Victorian Lace and Victoria

I think I might actually get these done in time to submit them to the Six Sox before the end of the month. This is my second pair with this group, the first being the Horcrux socks. These socks were written with a top-down pattern but I knew I was going to be cutting it close to the deadline so I decided to go with toe-up. It's just easier for me that way and I like to try them on as I go. I usually use a short-row heel with my toe-up socks but I found this pattern on Wendy's blog that uses a gusset and slip-stitch heel flap. She also has one with a gusset and plain heel flap. She said, "For a short row heel, I knit until the foot is 7.25 inches long. For my plain gusset heel sock, I knit until 7 inches long. For my slip-stitch gusset heel sock, until 6.75 inches long. So it’s one-quarter of an inch difference in each of them for me." I decided to use the slip-stitch heel flap so it would more closely match the original pattern. I had to change the numbers up a little bit so I kind of took a leap of faith that I could change it without messing it up. It worked! Thanks Wendy!

Speaking of leaps of faith, I've been thinking about spinning for a couple of weeks now. I decided to learn how and this last Thursday took a spinning lesson. I got a little drop spindle and a bag of top.I started practicing with it and decided that it is something I definitely want to do. I would love to be able to spin yarn for whatever I want and be able to make any kind I want. So I decided to get a spinning wheel. I've been kind of eyeballing them ever since I decided to learn to spin. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. This is the one that caught my eye:It's from Louet and she's called Victoria. It's a portable wheel that weighs in at around 6 lbs. It folds up flat and comes with almost everything I'm going to need to get started. I thought about all the reasons I should and shouldn't get this wheel but nothing could sway me away from getting it.

And this beautiful skein of hand-dyed yarn was at the yarn store down the street from my spinning lesson and is destined to become my Pomatomus socks.
That's it, what a day!