More on playing with sticks, and onion skins :-)

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! Last week I talked about playing with sticks and strings in my new fad backstrap and tablet weaving, this week I have been playing with sticks of a different kind :-)

I made these DIY turkish spindles during the Tour de Fleece when I had to be on the road for a few days, then I just neglected them after I got home. But recently my wheel has developed a clanking noise and I can see that the brackets holding the spokes are becoming loose, I sent an email to Ashford asking for advice but in the meantime I daren't use it in fear that it may get worse. So I'm back to these sticks, the one on the left was made of cardboard decorated by Elli my youngest son:

I've been spinning on these interchangeably, the theory is that they will finish around the same time so I don't have to wait to ply. As you can see the progress is not great, especially when you are used to the speed of the wheel. But I'm perservering, not that I have much choice at this moment... I think I'm about halfway. The spinning is quite fine so I'm hoping for a nice lace weight :-)

Now you all know I like to play with all kinds of stuff that can be used for dyeing, this week I'd like to share my latest experiment with onion skins. I've been wanting to do this for quite some time but kept getting distracted, I was prompted by the fullness of the little tin I used to collect onion skins - that was a couple of weeks ago.

At that time I happened to have some leftover white wine on hand... how can you have leftover wine you might ask? That's because I prefer red, but I use (cheap) white for cooking. Remembering reading somewhere that alcohol could enhance the colour in dyeing, or was it for mordant? anyway I chucked the leftover wine in the soaking pot and left it for a few days. The colour/pigment gradually came out and got stronger each day, I then drained the juice and marinated my yarn (alum mordanted) in it, and just left it... Oh OK I forgot about it... a week later I suddenly remembered about the yarn marinate and was surprised to find the water clear. So I gave the yarn a rinse, no colour came out, and ta da!

Who could have thought a handful of brown onion skins could give such vibrant colour? I didn't even need to use heat, just some time... it must be the white wine ;-)

That's me for the week, what have you been up to?

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I've Got Wheel!!

At the beginning of the week I was feeling a little sad, because my spinning class was coming to an end and I was going to hand back my borrowed wheel. Then everything changed quite suddenly... I have been on the look out for a secondhand wheel without much luck, on Tuesday afternoon I searched again on eBay and found a listing for a vintage Ashford traditional that looked in reasonable condition. So I clicked on it to read the description, to my surprise and delight, the seller only lived 30 minutes away from me, and she welcomed anyone who wanted to go for a test drive! I immediately contacted her and cajoled her to let me have a go the same evening, she agreed. The rest, as they say, it's history... someone was looking after me that day ;)

Introducing Charlotte- my first wheel, isn't she beautiful! Charlotte came with a lazy kate and seven bobbins, she's in very good condition and spins smoothly. When I brought her to my last class my teacher told me that the style of her maidens suggests that she's circa 1965-1970, she and I could be sisters :)

Charlotte also came with the original assembly instructions and some leaflets:

I haven't had the chance to read these yet, but they look rather interesting don't you think?

My knitting has suffered a great deal in the last month or so due to my new found love, but I'm still chipping away (slowly) at some WIPs. I did complete a new project though, mainly because I needed it for show and tell, it's my first homespun item:

It's a simple crochet scarf, the pattern is free and can be found on Ravelry. I only had about 140 meters / 150 yards of the yarn so I just kept going until I almost run out, then did a simple shell border on each end. It came out rather cute I think :)

I really must catch up on more knitting next week, if Charlotte will let me ;)

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Dyeing Experiments - A Chance With A Spinning Wheel: Part IV

In this week's spinning class we experimented with rainbow dyeing, in a nutshell it's just cooking the yarn/fibre in a frying pan with just enough water. I say cooking in a loose term, simmering would be more actuate. Of course you need to add dye to the yarn or fibre, we used Landscape Dyes that come in powder form and just sprinkled whatever colours we fancied on top of the yarn/fibre, then you just stand back and watch the transformation take place.

The colours I used were Cyclamin (purple), Citrus (orange) and Sandstone (deep yellow). I had no idea how it would come out, the colours in the pan were quite deep and I was having doubts while watching but once rinsed and dried the colours just took on a new life, it's amazing!

In my excitement I forgot to take photos of the process, I might write a separate post for Rainbow Dyeing at another time with instructions.

I also tried a little KoolAid dyeing in my slow cooker: 

A valuable lesson learnt from this exercise was that do not tie the skein too tightly unless the tie-dyed effect is a desired outcome ... you can see where the tie had been the colour is much lighter, there are actually uncoloured spots if you peel back the top layer. But I'll call it a designer feature, like my thick and think yarn ;)

After last week's lesson I was eager to experiment with mixing different fibres, the skein above is plied with 1 strand of merino and 1 strand of merino/tussah silk blend (first carding by myself). The merino silk blend was so easy to spin, the long staple from the silk makes it easy to spin very think yarn and I just love the luster from the silk. Another experiment I did was combining a silk hankie and a corriedale top, I'm not sure if the little bumps are part and parcel with silk hankies or if I was doing something wrong, but there were quite a few of these in the otherwise very smooth and almost cobweb like strand. Thankfully once plied the little bumps are not very visible.

It's the school holidays here and our teacher is away so there will be no class next week, but that won't stop me from spinning - just as soon as my finger feels better, burnt my right middle finger last night, it's not serious just a bit sore. I might stick to knitting for a few days :)

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A Chance With a Spinning Wheel: Part II

They say time flies when you are having fun, that is certainly the case this past week. Remember last week I said that in this week's spinning class I was going to learn to ply and scour my yarn and fibre? Well, I did just that and now I can present you my very first finished handspun, drum roll please... tah dah!

I learnt to ply two singles in the opposite direction to the one they were spun to make a balanced yarn, oh I love plying, it's so much faster than spinning! And then because my yarn was spun from the greasy wool I also learnt to scour and wash it to get rid of all the grease and grime. The transformation was amazing!

Project:  my first hand spun on a wheel
Fibre:   raw corriedale fleece
Yardage: 98 meters / 107 yards (2 ply)
Yarn weight: DK (11 wpi)
Amount: 70g / 2.5 oz

I am so pleased with my first hand spun, it's not perfect but I love it and just can't stop petting it. The next question is: What should I do with it? What should I make? And there's another point, I'm not sure I want to dye it - that's part of the lesson plan in a later class, but I really quite like the natural colour, it's so yummy... decision decision...

On a slightly down note, my attempt at scouring the raw fleece did not go quite so smoothly. I prepared my fleece as instructed, like this:

... then I scoured it, washed it and laid it out to dry:

 

 

For some reason the stains on the tips did not quite come out, I don't know if this is because I didn't use hot enough water or not enough detergent, but there it is. I spoke with the lady who runs the class, she told me not to panic and that she's going to scour some of this fleece over the weekend and see how it will come out, "maybe it will look better once flicked" she suggested. I think she's just trying to comfort me, but let's hope so! I'm waiting for the fleece to dry so I can find out whether I'd made a complete boo boo of this beautiful fleece.


Wish me luck!

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!