My New Life

I just moved into the nicest place I've lived in for a long while.  My dad took video because he is a nerd.  Pardon the mess.

Law school, yo.

Woodruff is the guy that endowed the scholarship I got to be able to come to school.  Luckily there is a statue for me to take my picture next to.

This would be my inauguration of my new apartment into the world of using-your-bathroom-for-wool-related-activities.  This time, though?  I don't have to share my bathroom with anyone other than the yarn!!

Different Strokes

Let me be clear: I am really not good at this whole spinning wool into yarn thing yet.  And since I only have a drop spindle (i.e. no spinning wheel), I am excessively slow at the whole process.

But this, of course, does not stop me from feeling immensely clever every time I make something.  Take this for example:

Close-up. Single ply, fat/bulky 100% Merino from Abstract Fiber of Portland, OR in colorway "Snapdragon"

This past weekend, I took some roving of the same color way...

This is roving....essentially a long, dense, prepared strand of fiber that you use to spin with.

and spun it slightly differently.

First ply done and waiting on a paper towel tube.  Second ply being spun on my crappy, crappy, needs-to-be-replaced-with-this spindle.

Look what happened!!!

I'm a friggin' genius!  Or at least as smart as a gifted seven-year-old.

See how even though I started with the same raw material, it came out utterly different. 

This is not something new to spinners.  Had I plied it differently (perhaps a chain ply, that I am going to pretend I already know how to do for the sake of argument), it would have looked even different still....actually I am tempted to go back for a third round of this fiber to do exactly that. 

Thrilled, I tell you!  Thrilled!

The Knowing Knitter Answers Your Crafty Questions

I got this comment from a reader and thought I would pull it into a post for those of you following along on Google Reader:

Dear Knowing Knitter (who is about to get her MPH),

What is the etiquette of working with yarn while sneezing due to a head cold, particularly if your project is for someone else? Should it be avoided?

<3 Curious Congested Coldy Crocheter
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Dear C.C.C.C.,

If you are going to give your item a nice bath when you are done with it anyway (I usually do, because I carry projects around in my purse with me where they tend to get a little dusty.  Also, a little bath/blocking always makes wool items look a little more even and pretty), then go ahead and keep crocheting and wash your sneezes out at the end.  Yarn crafts have the tendency to make you feel better and build immunity (that's totally made up, but I can't imagine that it isn't true....)

The real question is, why would you want to crochet when knitting is a far superior craft?!?!  ;-)

Sincerely,

The Knowing Knitter

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Also, I friggin' love the idea of answering questions for my readers (all five of you).  Beware that I am a snarky lady.  And I totally intend to make up my own questions if you don't ask any.  You've been warned.  Send questions to sheepishlyambitious@gmail.com.  Ha!

Knitting and the Scientific Method

Yarn Science Lab Report

Purpose: To dye yarn a pleasing, not-so-ugly color using Kool-Aid drink mix.

Hypothesis:  Kool-aid dyeing will end in sweet-smelling, brightly-colored yarn and probably permanently neon orange hands.

Materials: Yarn, Kool-aid, warm water, soap, bowl, microwave

Procedure:

1.  Consult the Internet for directions on how to dye yarn with Kool-Aid.

2.  Wash the yarn in warm water and a little soap.  Rinse it out and let is soak for a while.

3.  Cover hands in plastic bags because you don't have gloves.

4.  Add (sugar-free) Kool-Aid and water to a microwave safe bowl (about one packet per ounce of yarn)

5.  Put the wet yarn into the Kool-Aid mixture and add enough water to cover the yarn (apparently it is the ratio of dye to yarn that matters and not the amount of water)

6.  Heat the bowl of yarn and dye in the microwave for two minutes at a time until the water is clear/all the dye is sucked up in the yarn.

7.  Rinse the yarn out in warm water.

8.  Hang the yarn to dry.

Observations:  Obviously not enough dye here.  I should have doubled or tippled the amount I used.  Luckily, I was using non-handspun for this experiment, so I don't feel bad that is turned out weird.  I will be redyeing it, though.  But probably red, instead of orange, because, honestly, who likes the color orange?  (JK, folks, jeesh.  I realize that some people think orange is a perfectly legitimate color....I just don't understand why).

Also, this whole thing is soooooo easy.  Because Kool-Aid is so acidic already, you don't have to add anything to the dye to get it to stay in the yarn well.  This should be very color-fast if the final garment every gets washed (and hopefully won't dye anyone's whites a Kool-Aid color).

Finally, the colors are super bright.  I am not sure how easy is it to mix colors, but I might experiment with toning down the brightness just a lil' bit so that I don't look like an elementary school coloring project.


Conclusion: Hypothesis was partly confirmed and partly rejected.  The yarn is not THAT ugly and certainly is bright-colored.  In this case, the yarn smells like orange popsicles....mmmmm....I did not, however, end up permanently dying my hands orange.  I count this among the good.  Overall, good fun.  I am going to try redying this yarn and dying the homespun purple next.  Woot!  (yea, I just said woot in a lab report....I totally just failed you Mrs. C).

Weekend Update: Work that Spindle

I am not entirely sure what I did this weekend; it just ended very abruptly without me actually accomplishing anything.  I went to try outs for the DC Vagina Monologues on Sunday.  The rest of the weekend I spent spinning all kinds of crazy.  I am most in love with this:

Hand spun on my spindle.  I am going to pretend that I MEANT it to be "thick-and-thin" instead of me just not being able to spin it very evenly.

The wool was 100% Merino from Abstract Fiber of Portland, OR in colorway "Snapdragon" (the prettiest thing I've ever seen, I think)

4 ounces as fat as I spun it only came out to 80 yards, so there aren't a ton of amazing things I can knit with it. Maybe more of these??

But I have this belief that maybe I could use handspun yarn to make something else.  I am trying to figure out how to combine it with the silver/glass jewelry work that I usually do.

Bad pictures (my camera hates night-time) and not quite what I was thinking, but it's a start...

Yarn Factories

Awesomeness abounds when you find a link to a Dirty Jobs episode where the lovable Mike Rowe heads to a woolen mill to figure out how fleece is made into yarn.  This doesn't seem all that dirty to me, but maybe I have low/high/weird standards.

Heads up: I am headed to The Art League this weekend to learn how to do this, too (in a class called, terrifyingly, The Crash Course to Spinning), but my experience is going to be a lot more frustrating as I will be skipping the machines and doing it by hand.  Also, I just checked in with the school and they tell me that I am the only person who signed up for the class and that the teacher is still willing to hold the class....which means I get a two-day private intensive lesson.  It thrills me that I will be able to learn my own pace and ask as many questions as I want without annoying the crap out of other people.  But it also makes me super sad for this poor lady when she finds out that her only student knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about spinning (and is a horrible student...I hate being not-good at things and taking instructions from other people, two skills required for learning...)  I promise to report back on that endeavor.

Anyhoo!  For more about factory yarn making see the Fingerlakes Woolen Mill's cool explanation of the process as well as the Thrifty Knitter's visit to the Midstates Wool Growers Warehouse.