Hedgehog Fibres

I got a 16 yard sample of 100% worsted silk in color "Sunbaked" from Hedgehog Fibres in one of my Phat Fiber boxes. This was my first experience with silk. It's beautiful yarn and much softer than I expected silk to be. I'm contemplating knitting a worsted version of my Music and Lyrics shrug when I'm done with the lace version, so I swatched the yarn in the Ostrich Plumes pattern. I think the drape of silk might keep the shape from being too chunky and the lace pattern would keep the silk from being too heavy.

It's simply decadent yarn. Perhaps because it's a worsted single, I didn't really feel that it was overly inelastic. It was definitely nicer to knit than cotton and it's SO soft. I keep picking up the swatch and petting it. The color changes were just subtle enough to entertain me without detracting from the lace stitch. I can see why people love silk and the sheen has to be seen in person to truly appreciate it. I felt like I was knitting with spun gold.

(Click on photos to enlarge, especially the close-up)

It's called a drop spindle for a reason..

My new drop spindle arrived today from Butterfly Girl Designs. It's a 2.2" Murano foil glass whorl with a 10" hardwood shaft and weighs 1.4oz. It's my first spindle and I picked it because the flower shape has notches, it has a smooth shaft to make it easier to slide the cop off if I want to and it's wide and heavy enough to spin something more than laceweight. I could probably use a heavier one too, but laceweight spindles seem to be the rage lately.

I pulled out the Copperpot Woolies Corriedale again tonight and got right down to it. I owe this fiber everything, because it is so easy to draft and I had an ah-hah moment when it all started coming together. I have to be careful to draft a fairly thin triangle because the spindle is too light to handle thicker fiber. If I let too much through, it would backspin and unravel. I only dropped it a couple times, but my heart stopped each time. The whorl is glass and I have hardwood floors. I put a fleece blanket under my feet to cushion the blow in case it happened again. I'm still working on the rhythm of spinning, drafting, letting the twist up the strand and then winding on. I can't quite figure out what to do with the fiber since I do better with a longer piece of roving than a little stub. It'll come to me, but the Corriedale is really helping make this easier.

So without further ado, my very first drop spindle-spun yarn. It's about fingering weight through most of the cop with a few heavy worsted areas. I'm quite proud of it for a newbie attempt and I can see what all of the fuss is about.

Copperpot Woolies

More fiber came in the mail today! I ordered 4oz of Corriedale combed top in color "Big Sky" from Copperpot Woolies. It is soft, sleek, lofty and an absolute dream to spin. It drafts almost without any help, which is good because the colors kept me entertained and it was hard to pay attention. My wheel was misbehaving tonight, which makes me want a new flyer more than ever. The bobbins are old and don't spin freely on the flyer, but I want to wait and get a jumbo flyer if I'm going to shell out for bobbins. However, I was able to mostly fill a bobbin with fairly even fingering to worsted weight singles. I had hoped to try Navajo plying with this, but my singles aren't fine enough. I saved the second half of the fiber for practice with my drop spindle when it gets here.

I will definitely be ordering again from Copperpot Woolies. I still can't get over the colors and the softness and the sheer joy of working with this wool.

It's yarn!

I hauled out my wheel, oiled it up and had another go tonight. I don't know where my sudden mojo came from, but I spun two bobbins of fingering to worsted singles from this delicious braid of BFL.



I really liked the colors but I didn't want to muddy them up by plying. It inspired me enough to attempt singles. I had pulled the roving lengthwise into pencil-diameter strips that only needed light tugging to loosen the fibers. If I try to draft from thicker strands, it's anyone's guess what will happen. It worked great and I was able to concentrate on letting the twist into the fiber evenly. I smoothed the yarn as I went and the BFL was lovely to work with.





Right now the singles are cooling their jets on my ball winder. I emptied my bobbins and I want to let the twist relax before I finish the yarn. It's on the winder so the center won't collapse. I'm treating it like another bobbin, just one that's easier to deal with, especially when I wind the hanks.

I gave the Targhee fiber a whirl but the short staple length was beyond my abilities. I'm going to sit on the merino and other short staple fibers until I get a little more experience and I may try them on a drop spindle instead of the wheel. My spindle isn't here yet, so I have a little time to wait and get some knitting finished. My "Music and Lyrics" shrug has been hibernating for a while, so I pulled it out tonight and rekindled the romance. I forgot how much I love Malabrigo lace.

Sweet Pea Fibers

After getting my Phat Fiber box, I wanted to support some of the artists, so I placed a couple of orders. My first one arrived today from Sweet Pea Fibers. I ordered a "What Would You Make" fiber sampler. It's six bundles of fiber, each about 1/2 oz or so.



What would I make? Good question. Some of this is so pretty, I'd rather roll around on it than spin it. They're nice sized bundles and should give me a decent feel for how the different fibers and preps behave. I'm really glad I ordered this.

Hand-dyed Blue-faced Leicester, Merino and cultivated silk in soft blues and greens, with a touch of yellow. This is one of my favorites because the colors are so clear.



Hand-dyed 80% merino, 20% tussah silk in a pretty chartreuse/lettuce semi-solid. The photo really doesn't capture the color accurately. It's very soft and smooshy.



Hand-dyed merino top in brown, purple-pink and mixed greens.



Hand-dyed Targhee combed top in deep blues, brown and orange.



Mixed wool, cultivated silk, sari silk, angelina and firestar. This is a puff of pinks, salmon, orange, yellow and white that is difficult to photograph accurately. It's full of little sari silk threads and should make an interesting textured yarn once spun up.



Mixed wool, mohair, firestar and angelina in a scrumptious blend of pinks, pale blues, purple, teal and red. It has shiny gold and burgundy firestar mixed through it and it's my favorite of the bunch.



There was also a little bonus batt of hand-dyed wool, tussah silk, nylon sparkle and angelina in very bright pinks and golds with a tiny shot of teal.



I'm oiling up my wheel tonight and hopefully will be able to get some spinning done. Now that I have a plethora of fiber to play with, I plan to enjoy myself and get some good practice in.

February Phat Fiber is here!

Alas, my samples didn't make it in time for the box, but I was still able to get in on the February box sale. The boxes were mailed on Tuesday and mine arrived yesterday (Thursday). I didn't expect it until today or tomorrow. It was so great to come home and see that white box sitting on my doorstep. I've been rummaging through it and it's all so lovely. The samples are generous and I love all of the pink. I'm a new spinner and still learning about fiber. It's so educational to have all of these fibers in the form of yarn and unspun fibers in one place. The big BFL roving feels like a cloud compared to the slightly coarser corriedale and this will be my first experience with alpaca. The yarns let me feel how different plying methods (or singles) feel and I'll get to experiment with how they knit up. The Targhee wool yarn is new to me too.



The fiber, clockwise from left includes:

100% BFL roving in color "Scarletta" from Infinity
1 oz 50% merino/50% tencel roving in color "Black Nightie" from Natural Obsessions
0.2 oz Corriedale Roving in color "Raspberry Truffle" from Aurora Fiber Arts
Merino roving in color "Stranger" from hedgehog fibres
A Mini Bon Bon of merino roving with a dollop of mohair in color "Cherry Chakka Latte" from Natchwoolie
Black wool roving with deep red nylon firestar and Tibetan rayon sari thrums in color "Embers" from Wild Hare
Alpaca, merino and mohair batt in color "Wine and Chocolate" from Silver Sun Alpacas




The yarn clockwise from upper left includes:

40 yds 100% merino sock yarn in color "This is Not About Love (Fiona Apple)" and a Dove chocolate heart from Dyed by Danido
Handspun BFL singles in color "Kissy Face" from Vines (which is exactly what I want to learn how to spin)
100% handspun wool in color "Key Lime" from Cool Climates
30 yds Merino sock yarn in color "Flutterby" from Wild Child Yarn , which is a part of Serenity Tree, a conglomerate of work-at-home-moms.
Superwash Merino sock yarn in color "Blush" from Sweet Pea Fibers
Worsted Merino in color "Purple Batik" and Superwash Merino sock yarn in color "Peony" from Liberty Fibers
20 yds worsted Targhee wool in color "Snork" from Northern Lights Fiber Co.




Extras include:

Pattern - "Under the Rose" fingerless mitts by Wendy Ganong
Pattern - "February Flower" knit flower by Katherine Vaughn Designs
Pattern - "Flashdance Leg Warmers" by Diane Kostecki
Small KIP bag from Ruddawg
Valentine heart stitch marker from Designs by Tami (a genius with polymer clay)
Green and black beaded shawl pin from Yarn Candy by Melissa
Fudge from J.D. Melaine

I can't say enough good things about Phat Fiber. It's a unique collective and I really think the benefits to the contributors far outweigh the cost of sending in samples. Because of the blog and the samples I got, I've favorited so many artisans on Etsy that I really need to win the lottery.

Phat Fiber February Box Samples

I mailed out my samples to Phat Fiber yesterday and hopefully they'll make it in time for the February Box. I designed them for the theme of "Romance and Chocolate". I had a ton of fun making them and they were inspired by my mom. She loves Valentine's Day and sparkling things.



These are paper ornaments adorned with glitter, rhinestones, pearls, stickers and oil pencil. I made beaded hangers for them and each one is sealed with Mod Podge for a glossy finish. I raided my sister-in-laws scrapbook paper supply, so each sheep is different. I feel like they have different personalities depending on the paper, the bead and the finish. I may be biased, but I think they're really cute. I hope the box recipients like them.









To anyone who thinks artists lead a glamorous life, here's a shot of my workspace.



That's my kitchen table. I haven't eaten on it in weeks. One chair holds my box of acrylic paints and I usually have stuff on the countertop too. I finally stocked up on a big variety of art supplies, which meant that I had everything I needed to make these except the paper, beads and stickers. I tried to go beyond simple paper and glue so I could have fun with different techniques. The sheep took longer than I expected to make, because they had to be cut out, glued, dried, adorned, sealed, dried again and then pressed. I also had to make each beaded hanger to match the paper. I'm very high tech. My drying rack is a back scratcher propped up by two cereal boxes. My press is a folded sheet of parchment paper under two phone books. It's fun though. I get a kick out of solving problems and finding ways to do what I imagine.

My old blog is finally moved here to Blogger. I couldn't get the German terminology posts to format correctly, so I still have to play with those. I'm excited to have an easy link to Etsy from here and it's so much easier to work with. I still can't find the perfect template, but this one will do for now.

Illustration Friday

Thanks to a link to Ursula's Art blog by Liz at Primoriginals, I found a site called Illustration Friday. There's a weekly theme and anyone can join to illustrate it with any media they choose. It's really cool, since sometimes it helps to have a kernel of an idea to jumpstart a new project. This week's topic is "Time". I have a couple ideas and we'll see if I have the actual time to complete one before Friday. Even if I have to wait a couple weeks to really get started, I'm looking forward to participating in the group.

I am very busily finishing a bunch of goodies for the February Phat Fiber box and I need to mail them out tomorrow. The box goes on sale on the 16th, so I am really down to the wire. Because of the theme, I don't want to hold them for the March box if I can help it.

If the sun decides to shine tomorrow, I should get some decent pictures before I send them off to their new homes. Fun!