Summer Fun

Summer went by so fast. I spent a lot of time spinning. The first thing I spun after my year of not spinning was cashmere. What was I thinking? But, I'm happy enough with how it turned out and it made me keep picking up the spindle. It is the darker brown skein in the photo.

 We had a wonderful time at Pennsic. Of course I bought roving - Cheviot, a breed I hadn't spun before (the white wool in the photo). I like it very much. I had to buy a new spindle, too, so I could spin it right away. Since  I am always busy at Pennsic, most of my spinning was done around the campfire at night. I don't recommend it. While it was enjoyable, it was difficult to see what I was spinning, so the result is not a consistent gauge. The small skein is Shetland, spun for embroidery thread. The tan is a Romney/Corriedale mix. I've started to S-spin/Z-ply it to use for twine knitting, which I learned (again) this summer.

The other fun things I learned at Pennsic were a cutwork embroidery technique, cooking Viking-style food,

 how to drape a dress so it fits perfectly, 

and making medieval stained glass.

We ended the summer with a trip to Cape Cod. Here is the moon rising over the harbor in Provincetown:

Beer Lover's Sock

Sock one is done!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The only part I had trouble with is the heel. That is the yarn I spun from the locks. With combed or carded wool I can spin any thickness my heart desires. Spinning from the locks, with a fair amount of lanolin still in the wool, it was difficult to spin as fine as the rest of the yarn. It took most of the yarn I had spun to finish it, so I will have to spin more white before I reach that point in sock #2. It is also significantly thicker, and therefore difficult to knit on size 1 needles. I will make sock two the same, but if I do this again, I will spin it all with combed or carded wool. I will say that my husband is very unlikely to get holes in this heel.

Here is my general pattern:

Using size 1 needles, cast on 68 stitches. Knit 5 rows of 1-1 rib. Change to the Jacob wool and knit one row. Increase to 72 stitches. Knit for 2 inches. Begin knitting gold stripes. Each wide stripe is 5 rows; each narrow stripe is 2 rows. After 3 wide stripes, begin decreasing. Decrease one stitch at the beggining and one stitch at the end of a row, every 5 rows, until 64 stitches remain. vary the stripes according to the yarn you have. Knit until the sock is as long as desired. This one is about 12 inches. Using needles 1 and 4, knit a garter stitch heel. Turn the heel and decrease as usual until 64 stitches remain. Continue knitting, changing yarns as needed, until the sock is the desired length. 

If you don't like beer, it could also be the chocolate and caramel lover's sock (that would be me).

Sock Progress

Here is my sock so far:

I’ve used up almost half of my yarn, except for the mixed gold that I am saving for the foot. The knitting is going pretty quickly, so I’ve decided to make knee-high socks. I’ll need to knit about 4 more inches, so I am spinning up more of the brown Jacob wool. It is tightly spun at 32 wpi (12.5 wpc) and the plied yarn is 15 wpi (6 wpc).

I had different amounts of each shade of gold, so I varied my stripes as I went along. Each wide stripe is 5 rows and about half an inch wide (1.2 cm). The last part of the leg will be mostly brown with one or maybe two thin gold stripes. I’ve decided on a garter stitch heel, using the white yarn, because it will look a little like the bubbles in a beer head.

Beer Lover's Socks

This is the time of year when I am frantically creating Christmas gifts. I've been knitting up a storm (but you'll have to wait to see what I've made). Meanwhile, I was in need of gold thread for embroidery. I happened to be in my local yarn store (Trumpet Hill), and came upon a beautiful bit of gold, hand dyed merino roving. Just the thing! It was dyed in several shades of gold, from light to quite dark. The first thing I had to do was separate the colors. I have a friend who does this all the time, but I had never tried it before. It was a little trickier than I had expected. Here is what I spun - some light gold thread for embroidery, and some dark gold, spun a bit thicker, for a sprang project I have in mind:

I probably should have put a bit more twist in the embroidery thread, but it will work.

While I was separating the colors, it struck me that the colors looked like all the kinds of beer that my husband likes to drink, from a lovely amber or October fest, to a tasty pilsner. I decided to spin it up and make him a pair of "beer lover's" socks for Christmas. Here is where I am so far:

His favorite beer is Guinness, so I added some dark brown Jacob, and some tan Romney/Corriedale yarn to the mix, and started the sock with a wide brown stripe for his favorite stout, with a little tan for the head. The rest of the stripes will be narrower. I've forgotten what breed the white is, but it was spun from the locks. I will use it for the heels, because it will be sturdier than the merino.

By separating the colors, I wound up with four fairly solid shades of gold (the little balls), plus two small hanks with mixed colors, where the colors changed in the roving. I cast on 68 stitches for the ribbing, then increased to 72 stitches for the leg. I know this will work because I've made socks for him before. I'm using size 1 needles. I'm not sure yet how tall the socks will be. I've weighed the balls, so I will stop when I have used up half of each ball. I will use the mixed yarn and additional Jacob yarn for the feet, and maybe some white for the toes. When I finish the first sock I will let you see how it turns out. It may take a little longer than usual because I can only knit when he isn't around.

Today is worldwide spin in public day.

So I did.

At first I thought it would be nice to work on finishing up the silk/alpaca blend I've been working on. It shines so beautifully in the sun. But it was very windy here today, and it was difficult to control the roving without my distaff. So I made a new plan. I had a few mystery locks that a friend had given me, and I decided it was the perfect day to spin in the grease. It was just enough to fill the comb. I combed, spun, plied, and washed. Here is my little skein, drying in the garden:

 You can see my alpaca roving on the chair; later I brought it inside to finish spinning.

 The nice thing about spinning in the grease is that the fibers don't fly all over. (Of course alpaca doesn't have grease, so it tends to be fly-away not matter what.) Also, I find I can spin a finer thread, although I spun this at a gauge to be able to add to some yarn I spun for knitting, as a little accent. I like the feel of the  lanolin on my hands, but it did make the spindle shaft a bit sticky. No problem, it washed right off.

Kingdom Gifts

What happened to February? The bitter cold and copious snow slowed me down. In late January I was asked to create a gift to be taken to the King and Queen of the Outlands. They have Viking personas, so my first thought, given the very short time frame, was nalbinding mittens. Although I was asked if I could create the gift starting from the raw fleece, I knew I couldn't wash, comb, spin and stitch in just 3 weeks. So, using my trusty #6 whorl I spun up enough commercially prepared Shetland top to make mittens for the Queen. Lady Arnlief offered to help with the nalbinding. I gave her the Jacob yarn I had spun for the Ribe mittens, and spun a bit more, just to be sure she had enough, and she stitched mittens for the King. We met the deadline, and the mittens went off to Estrella War. Here they are:

The white mittens were made using the Vendel stitch. The brown mittens were made using the Oslo stitch. The yarn for both pairs of mittens was spun at the gauge of the Ribe mittens.

Now I have to start from scratch for my Ribe mitten project. Not that I mind an excuse to spin.

a spinning experiment

I've completed spinning trial #1, in an effort to get a feel for the difference between spinning on a modern spindle vs a medieval spindle. As a reminder, using my "moosie" (36 grams with a 22 cm shaft) I spun 155 meters at 10 wraps/cm. I stopped spinning when the total spindle weight was 81 grams and the thread tended to slip off the shaft.

For the medieval style spindle I used my #6 whorl and the Ribe style shaft. The total spindle weight is 26 grams, and the shaft length is 30 cm. The purpose of the experiment was only to test the amount of thread which could be held by the spindle.

I began by spinning a thread at a gauge of 14 wpc. When the total spindle weight reached 35 grams I needed to add a second half hitch to the shaft to keep the thread in place until the spindle reached the ground. At 45 grams the second hitch began to slip occasionally, and I had to be more careful tying it on. At 52 grams it was very difficult to keep a consistent thread diameter. The spindle spun backwards before I could draft more than once. When the total spindle weight was 53 grams, I stopped. The result measured 170 meters of thread. However, by the end my gauge had changed to 12 wpc. It had happened so gradually that I hadn't even noticed. When I spin for a particular project, I generally make a little sample to help me keep a consistent gauge and twist. I did not do that this time. But, the ordinary medieval spinner probably didn't do that either. While there is a visible difference in the size of the thread at the beginning and end, I do not believe it is enough to make an appreciable difference in the finished cloth.

In retrospect, I would have had a more consistent thread if I had stopped spinning when the spindle weight reached about 50 grams. That would have given me about the same amount of thread as the modern spindle.

I forgot to take a picture before I took the thread off the spindle, so here is what I spun in the first trial, and the beginning of the second trial.

Another Question to Explore

I've been spinning up the merino/silk and alpaca/silk roving that I purchased at Pennsic this year. I love them both, and I am looking forward to having enough yarn spun to make something beautiful. Which got me thinking.

I am using my "moosie," a modern top whorl, rim-weighted spindle (made of moose antler) to spin this yarn. I fill the shaft with as much yarn as will comfortably fit without reducing the efficiency of my spinning - about 155 meters. I am spinning at 10 wraps/cm, the optimum size for this spindle. I will knit with this yarn.

Here is what I have spun so far. The spindle is full and ready to be plied. While it may look like there is more room on the spindle, at this point the weight is such that it is difficult to keep a consistent thread size (81 g vs 36 g when empty), and if winding the cop is not done carefully, the thread tends to slip while spinning.

If I were spinning with one of my Ribe reproduction spindles (a lighter weight and longer shaft), how many meters would comfortably fit on the spindle? Assuming I will spin to weave, how many spindles-ful will I need to make a useful piece of cloth, say .5 meter x 5 meters with a sett of 10/12 ends/cm? (Two spindles-ful from the moosie would make a piece approximately 10 cm x 20 cm.) And while I am at it, how long will it take me to spin that much?

King's and Queen's Arts & Sciences Competition

Saturday was King's and Queen's A & S competition. I went to the event to support my apprentice sister who was being inducted into the Order of the Laurel. Of course that meant, to keep the surprise, I had to enter the event. So, I entered my spinning experiment.

It made such a plain display compared to the work of all the other amazingly talented entrants. But, as I discovered last year, it is great fun to get to talk to people about what you are passionate about (whether that happens to be thread or subtleties - you should have seen the amazing dragon!). I was lucky enough to have a table in the sunlight. The best thing of all was that as I began to explain what I was testing - the impact of spin direction on cloth design - even before I was done, people's face would light up and they would pick up a sample and say "oh, I can see it!"

This is Icelandic, my most obvious sample, but it was usually a white sample that people picked up.

As I worked on the project I had begun to wonder if the effect was really real, or if people beside me, or experienced weavers would also see the change between S and Z threads. It really made me happy when people whose expertise was pottery, or woodworking, or metalsmithing, could also pick up on the subtle change. 

Unlike other years, the King and Queen narrowed the field down to 5 finalists with a wide range of talents, before choosing their champions. 

In the end, I was chosen as this year's Queen's Champion. It is a great honor, which I hope I can live up to.