Easy Bunnywool Mittens
Topic: Handspinning

Spinning and knitting with angora in the winter is the most sublime pleasure. The winds are raging, but dressing in angora keeps one comfortable out in it all. These Easy Mittens (the free pattern is available here) suit every year, and I keep making them for new sets of cold hands that appear in my life. 

There is a spinning class this weekend here at Countrywool and we will blend angora with merino and cormo wools and then spin the yarn for a neckwarmer that will match the yarn in these mittens. Can't wait!

Two days work...
Topic: Handspinning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've cleaned off all fibers-in-process on my drumcarder and wheels to get to the angora on the left, but have come up with a neat game plan for the shop. I am spinning skein sizes with projects in mind, and will sell them with a pattern. 

Starting at the left: 

• 100% angora for mittens 
• (Cotton Candy pink angora for my second cousin's Christmas mittens ...doesn't count)
• Cormo wool and angora for Pointless Gloves
• Romney wool and angora for Handspun Countrywool Socks
  

Back to the drum carder. I just heard that my regular Tuesday Knit Night buddies will be coming to me this week, so I can keep going! 

Spinning Frenzy!
Topic: Handspinning

The wind has been a blowin' lately in Columbia County, and I am truly cold.  I sink my hands into the rabbits' coats in the barn and am instantly warmed. To that end, I am spending a lot of time at my drum carder these days turning this:

 

 

 

 

 

to this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

and then at both my Norm Hall AND Ashford Elizabeth II wheels making this:

I am on a mission to create enough handspun angora to restock the handspun yarn shelf in the shop. 

I have roughly 10 pounds of angora to spin through. Will post pictures as I go. Watch this space!

Spinning Challenge for 2007
Topic: Handspinning

Next week is shearing week and I promise that pictures of rabbits will be forthcoming, but before that...

Next year's knitting retreats will feature a Countrywool original circular and seamless Faroe sweater design, (which is in process). The hat above will in all likelihood be the pattern for the child's version.

Here is info on the Cape Ann Faroe Sweater Knitting Retreat in March 2007. (There will be another one in November 2007 at Round Top, NY. Details will emerge early next year).

Faroe sweaters have traditionally been worked in natural sheep colors. So the challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to spin enough yarn for said sweater, in 3 natural colors, to total 2+ pounds (depending on size desired). I suggest mainly wool for its durability, but you may add any other natural fiber to the wool base to make it uniquely your own. You will have plenty of time to get your yarn spun if you start now. I am working up a Yarn Spec Sheet, with a sample of the size to spin for, which you may request by e-mailing me from the link at: Countrywool.

If enough of you request it, I will hold a Saturday workshop in late July all about Spinning To Size.

Those attending any Faroe Sweater Weekend Knitting Retreat next year, who bring all handspun, natural colored yarn for their sweater project, will receive a $50 gift certificate good at Countrywool to spend or gift away.

Handspun sweater...done (really) at last
Topic: Handspinning

Hallelujah. And just in the nick of time. Next Monday this sweater travels to the judges at the fair.

That last reserved handspun skein (and here I was lamenting about making too much yarn!) was an almost-match for the other sleeve, so I am as happy as I can be about this sweater. I had to hang it to get all of it in the picture, and my lovely shaping pleats are obscured, but you can see the color shadings very clearly this way.

I posted some knitting details about headbands on BareNeedle if they intrigue you.

The heat here has finally lifted and I have been out in the barn with the bunnies the last few days. I cleaned and scrubbed floors/bowls/cages and brushed a few coats. I check for bot flies every few days and when I see rabbits looking odd, so I cuddled a few fur faces, manhandling entire bodies looking for odd lumps just to be sure. And all was well, as it usually is.

I have also ended the self imposed RCD/RHD quarantine and we welcomed our first visitors yesterday. Consequently, two bunnies have moved out (that was quick!) and just two are left for sale right now. One wee white doe (nameless at 5 months) and Gretel, who has been my most prolific fiber and bunny producing doe. She is black with a silver coat, just over 4 years of age, and I want her to retire to an indoor life where she will be coddled and fussed over.

So what do you do with odds and ends of handspun yarn?
Topic: Handspinning
My handspun sweater is done, done, done, and is drying as I type. Its appearance on the blog will be forthcoming shortly. I have a slew of yarn leftover, which I can be only grateful for as I desperately needed an entire skein to use for the alternative sleeve.

I had started a headband with the first yarn I thought I wanted to use for this sweater, and then added in 15 yards of the second on a whim, and then used a partial skein of the final yarn to finish it off for wearing.

You can clearly see the early yarn mix on the bottom (browner and just two ply); the less brown but still too light mix in the middle...also a two ply; and the final more blue-gray 3 ply I settled on for the sweater, on top.

I love headbands, They are probably, hands down, the most useful garment I knit. Our winters here in the Hudson Valley can be brutal in January and February (although it's hard to believe when you stand in the noon sun in August). I like to walk daily in winter and hats are OK, but HEADBANDS are better. I usually have one lolling around my neck (in all angora) and one snugged up over my ears and forehead. The wider they are, the better, for they cover more skin. They are useful when the air is so cold it burns your skin, for you can pull the neck one up to cover nose and mouth and simply breathe through it. I am knitting them a minimum of 5" wide now, as well as a tad on the small side, for they stretch into shape and narrow their coverage a bit once on.

They are great for gifting and use up small amounts of precious handspun. 50 yards of bulky is all you need.

What's wrong with this picture?!?
Topic: Handspinning
It took me three days to get up enough courage to face what was going on, and then a whole day of whining to my knitting friends, but now I can handle what I have to do to this sweater:

I know there is variation in most of the handspun yarn I've made for this project, but the skein that made the sweater's right sleeve is much darker (and fuzzier!) than the rest of the sweater.

Luckily, I have another skein that is very close to the one I am using for the almost finished sleeve, so I am confident(?) I can rip and reknit for a better over-all appearance.

The reason for the snafu? Two fold...I used less plying twist in some of the skeins (by mistake) AND I did not blend all the angora together first before I started blending the dyed and undyed wool with the undyed angora. Thus, the bag of bunny wool I used for that skein was a lot darker than the rest because THAT BUNNY was darker.

Spin and learn.

I still have 2 weeks left, so that third sleeve will be done on time for the Columbia County (Chatham, NY) Fair entry. Come and see it there!

...knitting right along
Topic: Handspinning

I have knit quite a lot this week on the sweater, and I hope to have the first sleeve done by tomorrow night. This is "my" first handspun angora sweater, and although I spun this yarn very tightly, and 3-plied it to have it wear well, it is turning out to be quite fuzzy while I am knitting it. Seeing that it is only 35% angora, and first clip bunny at that, I am rather pleased :) The Cormo and Corriedale wools I used are not as soft as the angora, and with the amount of twist I put into the yarn, it had a less-than-poofy hand when I started. Once knit, this fabric is as soft as cashmere on the surface.

When Trish was here she remarked how little the halo showed up in the first picture I posted, so I experimented with a patch of sunlight to see if I could portray it better:

Knitting with handspun angora is an act of faith. The bloom that you WILL get after the garment is knit and worn will far surpass your expectation when seeing the freshly spun yarn.

And the countdown begins...
Topic: Handspinning
Shelia (of new blog fame!!!) wanted to know if I finished spinning and plying all the yarn for my handspun sweater.

Yup:

AND...I am almost to the underarm in the knitting of it:

I've learned a lot so far.
1. No matter how well you weigh your fiber, when you include angora you have to mix and remix all the batts together to get identical results. My yarn has a lot of (not unattractive) variation, and I am holding my breath that it will please the judges next month atThe Columbia County Fair.
2. My Norman Hall wheel likes to put a lot of twist in the final yarn in double drive even at the lowest twist ratio. This is all well and fine and my handspun/handknit sweater will wear very well as a result of this, but I want less twist on a day-to-day basis. I will explore the scotch tension setting next on the wheel, and maybe even call Mr. Hall to see about another whorl (!).
3. My 8 (!) skeins had a variety of yards/ounce variation. I stacked them up from 37 yards/ounce to 67 yards/ounce and am using them in order of thickest to thinnest, with the thinnest doing all the edging details. I had a couple of plying anomalies when I forgot to change the ratios I had decided on for plying, and those skeins are looser. Hmm. I have 3 extra skeins around and one became the gauge hat for the sweater calculations. That, too, will be entered at the fair.
4. This sweater will be seriously warm. I can't wait for January so I can live in it!

Production spinning on a Norman Hall wheel
Topic: Handspinning

I've been spinning since 1992. I have spun on Louets and Ashfords, and have tried out many other wheels, but the day I sat down in front of a Norman Hall Traditional wheel I felt transformed. Maybe it was the wood, or maybe it was the flyer on the right, or maybe it was the HUGE (to me) drive wheel or maybe it was the smooth flow of fiber as it could RACE through my fingers. Whatever the reason, I had to have one. Mr. Hall had a waiting list, and I got on it. Luckily my friend Carolyn who is WAY ahead of me in her fiber tool acquisitions, decided to drop out of the running and made me (happily!) her slave for life by offering me her spot. So, my wait was three years instead of five.

My oak wheel arrived last fall and I promised myself I would spin a whole sweater's worth of yarn on it before I began to even THINK I understood what it could do. As good luck would have it, my friend Shelia-with-no-blog (what's up with that?!) also acquired a walnut Norman Hall Traditional and we have been each other's support group as we get to know the wheels.

I can spin for about 5 hours on this wheel before I get tired. I am very, very pleased to have this in my living room. I am almost 1/3 of the way through the sweater's worth of yarn project and I am beginning to get a good feel for what it can do. For instance, I know a very full drum carded batt of 2.2 oz. can be spun onto a single bobbin, and that 3 of these bobbins can be plied together to make a 6.6 oz. skein of yarn that fills a bobbin just about completely. This is very useful information for me as I plan a project to have the biggest unbroken skeins possible.