Start of the spinning year

When I started writing this post – last Thursday – I had not yet spun one jot so far this year.  I know- I’m a lazy spinner.  Roc day was almost a week gone already…  That evening, I sat down to reacquaint myself with the project on the wheel (Shipwreck, part 2), and spin for the first time this year.

I managed to spin up a fair amount of corriedale roving (colour: Ominous, my own dyework), for the second ply of the second half of the Shipwreck Shawl (make sense? Suffice it to say that the singles spinning is more than 3/4 done, and the plying half done…

That’s not the only spinning related news I have for you, though.  Anyone who is already a reader of Knit! magazine (the one that used to be Yarn Forward) will know that the last few issues have featured spinning-related articles.  And the most recent issue (Issue 45) features spindle spinning – and ME!

There are two articles in there: one is about the history and background of spindle spinning, the other is about me and my spinning.  Both are written by Camilla Hair, who interviewed me for the articles back in November, I think.

My hand-woven, spindle spun silk shawl gets a mention – and a rather pretty photograph – too!  It’s an amazing buzz to see yourself – and your projects! – in print in this way.  I’m not sure I’ve come down from cloud 9 yet…

Saturday Giveaway: 6 months free in the Wheel of the Year club

OK!  Entries are now closed for this week.  Thanks for the absolutely storming response: 54 entries!  Please come back tomorrow night for the announcement of the winner.

xx

OK…  You might have guessed that I’m just a wee bit excited about my upcoming club.  That’s the official ad banner up there, by the way – my first ever Ravelry advert!  You might see it on the forums over there, if you hang around in the right places…  I’m so ridiculously proud of it: J and I collaborated over cider the other evening, and this is what we came up with.

Anyway! This week’s Saturday Giveaway is extra-special.  I’m giving away six month’s membership to the club to one extremely lucky person.  The winner will get to choose whether they want to receive sock yarn, lace yarn or spinning fibre.  If you’ve already purchased a place, I will refund you the six month membership amount – or you can belong to two club options, if you prefer.  If you want to extend your six months to a full year, I will send you a specially amended PayPal invoice for the difference.

As per usual, entries for this competition will close on Tuesday (September 27th) at noon, GMT.  The winner will be announced on Wednesday evening.

The year turns on…

…and I’m running a brand-new club!

Today, at 09:04 UTC marks the autumn equinox (in the Northern hemisphere) – the point where the earth’s axis leans neither towards nor away from the sun, and the day when day and night are the same length.  I love the ‘changing’ seasons – spring and autumn – perhaps the best, with their promise of new things to come.  And at no time are our days changing faster than around the equinoxes.

In the northern hemisphere, our days are rapidly shortening as we slide further and further towards winter again.  We feel the promise of crisp mornings, chilly fingers soothed by a mug of coffee, apples, baking and – joy! – woolly sweaters.

In the southern hemisphere, the earth will be wakening, sap will be rising, the planting itch will have gardeners barely able to sit still.  After months of layering up clothes and always knowing where your gloves are, thousands of people will be tempted to take off a layer just a little too soon, to feel the sun on their backs even though the air is still fresh with the last breath of winter.

It has been a year of change for me already.  I’ve left my safe, predictable desk job to dye yarns and fibres full-time.  And now, I’m launching my first club – the Wheel of the Year club, celebrating the magic and excitement of our shifting seasons in fibre-y form.  I’m offering it in three flavours – spinning fibre, sock yarn or lace yarn.  It will run for a full year (a six-month option is available, too), starting at the end of October, and will include eight (or four) wonderful, seasonally inspired, hand-dyed deliveries.  The deliveries will be sent out around the equinoxes, the solstices, and the dates in between: more details are on the FAQ page.

It probably goes without saying that I am very, very excited about this new adventure, and I hope to see a few of my bloggy friends there, making the journey with me.

For now – enjoy these equinoctical days!

Swatching…

I am up in beautiful North Yorkshire for the village show (*my* village show!) this weekend, but I thought you’d like a quick peek at something I’ve been playing with in the meantime…

Knitting for Joy

Years ago -years and years ago- I bought a couple of job lots of Debbie Bliss Maya (now discontinued).  It’s a fun yarn: variegated, slightly thick-and-thin singles.  One lot ten skeins worth – is this wonderful, winey mix of reds and purples:

For ages and ages, I’ve known I want to use it for Myrtle from Jane Ellison’s ‘Noro Knits’:

This is going to be such a different kind of knit to anything I’ve done recently: it’s not my handspun.  It’s not my dye job.  It’s not my pattern.  The needles feel like broomsticks: 5.5mm is gigantic compared to the 2.5mm sock needles!  It’s stockinette, and moss stitch.  It’s a large garment, but it should still be a quick knit.  This will be a fun knit; an easy knit; a knit for the pure joy of knitting (and the excitement of a new garment, and quite a large dent in the stash, too).

Of course, it’s not going toing to be quite as easy as that.  The Maya knits to a different gauge than any of the suggested Noro yarns.  And I don’t, technically, have quite enough yarn to knit the pattern as written.  So I will have to do some maths (though there is little shaping to worry about), and I plan to make a provisional cast-on, knit the body up from about hip level, and, when I’m done with the rest of the knitting, knit the the body down from the provisional cast on, to be as long as possible.  I’ll probably omit the side-seams from the garment to help with yarn management – or maybe not.

How to find me at Woolfest

Yes!  I’m going!  For real and for true!

It’s been an insanely busy week – not only did J manage to fracture his elbow whilst I was away last week, he also came down with some sort of 24 hour bug.  Whilst it wasn’t the full-on stomach bug that some poor folks have been battling (you know who you are!), he felt distinctly queasy, had a headache and a stiff neck, couldn’t stand bright lights, and slept for almost 24 hours straight.  After checking he didn’t hit his head when he fell, my main worry was meningitis, so I spent 24 hours keeping a surreptitious eye out for any nasty rashes.  Fortunately, though, he’s now as right as rain (barring the broken bone, anyway), and has cleared me to go play with the sheepies in Cumbria.

So!  I hope to arrive early to mid afternoon (2pm or later) tomorrow.  I will be staying for the evening spin-in, and will be back on Saturday for at least the morning.  You will be able to recognise me because I will be carrying this bag:

Also, I look like this:

Errm, except for the camera stuck to my eye.  Also, I’m six feet tall, so I tend to stand out from – or above – the crowd!  And my glasses are the ones in the photo on the banner for my blog.

So!  If you see me, come and say hi!  I’m really keen to meet anyone else who’s around.  I’m not going to give out my mobile number here, but you can find me on Twitter as  @yarnscape.  I’ll keep checking in through the day, I promise!

69) My First Flax

I mentioned back in this post that I'd dressed my Traveller with a strick of flax for the Tudor demo.  With the costume taking right up to the last minute to finish, I didn't get time to practise much on the flax spinning before the demo, though I had made sure I could basically make it 'go', just so I wouldn't embarass myself too badly.  Here's what my newly-dressed distaff looked like, in case you've forgotten:

  (Geodyne is right, by the way.  It looks huge because it is huge.  Actually, the cone for holding the flax could have done with being a bit bigger still; it was a bit short for the lovely, long, line flax I had.)

The day after the demo I sat down to have a proper play with the flax, and within half an hour I had improved so much that I could spin it from the distaff one-handed, with either hand.  This isn't *quite* such a difficult feat as it sounds, because the fibre is held and, to a certain extent, controlled by the distaff and the binding, and all your other hand has to do is draw fibre down at the appropriate rate and thickness.  I wish I'd figured this out before the demo, because it looks very impressive!  I'm not sure I could manage the trick of spinning on a 'gossip wheel', though.  A gossip wheel (or double-flyer wheel), has two flyers, which allows you to spin two threads at once, one hand each.  Very cool:

Anyway, flax is traditionally spun wet.  That is, you dampen your fingers (rather than the fibre) as you spin, which allows you to smooth down the fibre and produce a better thread.  I had decided to spin at least some of this first strick dry, because of the logistical difficulties of adding a water-pot into the demo, and also because I didn't want to have to keep wetting and drying my hands as I demonstrated various other things.

About halfway through spinning the strick, my first bobbin was full.  It was also very, very hairy looking:

…which was the point at which I started to add some water into the equation.

I never really got the hang of spinning one-handed with wet fingers, though I think a better-prepared distaff would have helped.  I needed one hand to draft (dry), and another to do the smoothing.  It seems that flax is sort of sticky when damp, and trying to draft with wet fingers was mostly messy.

The second bobbin, spun damp, was much less hairy looking:

Hardly perfect, but a definite improvement.

I rewound each bobbin into two sections, and plied them against themselves (i.e. wet with wet; dry with dry).  Interestingly, the flax spun dry seemed much more brittle; I lost count of the number of breakages I had when rewinding and plying.  I don't think I had a single one with the wet-spun.  That alone is probably more than enough to make up for the inconvenience of spinning with wet fingers!

After plying, I compared the two methods:

(The dry spun yarn is in the top part of the photo; the wet spun yarn is below)

Both yarns seemed much less hairy than I'd expected when looking at the singles, and they were remarkably similar.  There is a definite difference though; more evident in person, but reasonably clear when looking at separate strands against a dark background (my jeans).  First, the dry spun:

Next, the wet spun:

So, what's next?  Well, the yarns should be scoured before they're really considered 'done', to remove the waxes and other stuff still left in the fibre.  I'll probably weave these samples into a cloth of some sort; teatowels or breadcloths, perhaps.  Given the way the yarns behaved in plying, and the fact that it's so much hairier and will catch on the reed, I'll probably use the dry-spun as weft.

I could also knit the wet-spun into a top similar to Gretel, from cocoknits.  The texture of the yarn would be perfect for this sort of semi-sculptural cloth.  But then, I have several more stricks, so there's no need to fret; I can always spin more.

Yes, this has been my first flax, but I don't think it will be my last.

This weekend: shop updates!

OK, folks!  I’ve been absent a lot over the last month, and there have been no shop updates for a while.  Now, though, the busy time is over (who am I kidding; I have loads to do.  It just isn’t the sort of stuff that gets written on the calendar!) – so I can get some new yarns up in the shop!

First up will be the DK weight pure silk I blogged about here.  These skeins are the first ones I dyed for this yarn base, and I deliberately selected ‘slight seconds’ (that is, knots!), so look out for real bargains!

After that.. Well.  Perhaps some DK wool, now the cooler weather patterns are being launched?  Or some Aran weight Blue Faced Leicester?  I also have some batts, suitable for spinning or felting, that I need to photograph and list; the choices are many!

In the meantime, you can see all my currently listed yarns in my Etsy shop.  See you again soon!

Pssst…

Yarnscape is live on Etsy!!

I always seem to save my big announcements for the solstice, eh?

I’ve decided to do a phased release of my yarns, so today I’ve listed Footsie (my sock yarn) and Bunnylace (angora/wool laceweight yarn) colourways.  I’ll announce future releases here on the blog, but you can check out all the remaining details at my shop!

Recipe: All-machine white sourdough bread

This is a recipe for white sourdough bread that I have worked out over
the last couple of months.  It allows me to make a tasty, well-risen
loaf with minimal effort and using my bread machine to do almost all the
work.

A few notes

• I am using Carl’s sourdough starter,
  which was given to me by a friend last New Year’s Eve.  An awesome gift
  indeed.
• This recipe makes a big loaf!  It weighs about 1 kg, or
  two pounds, when done.  It’d be pretty easy to scale back to a half or
  two thirds of these quantities, though, and I will probably do that
  myself in the future, especially since my other half doesn’t much like
  sourdough. 
• This bread doesn’t keep spectacularly well.  A bit of oil would probably help in this regard, or some powdered milk added along with the flour of the main recipe.  But it doesn’t worry me, so I don’t add it.
• I keep a minimal quantity of sourdough starter in the fridge, which takes a day or so to work up to baking quantities.  This means you never have to throw any out, but it does mean that you can’t bake immediately.  If you start a loaf on Thursday evening, you will have fresh bread an hour after you wake on Saturday morning.  Or you could use this method continuously, by re-starting the process with your new minimal starter on Friday evening, and have more fresh bread on Sunday…
• Lots of people say you shouldn’t use tap water for sourdough.  I do, and I haven’t had any problems.  But then, my tap water isn’t particularly heavily chlorinated.
• By ‘flour’, in this recipe, I mean ‘strong white bread flour’.  Specifically, I’ve been using organic white bread flour from Glebe Farm for my bread, but use whatever is good (and ideally local) for you.

My bread machine

There is nothing particularly special about my bread machine, apart from the following capabilities, which make this recipe possible:

• A dough-only cycle, which mixes ingredients, kneads the dough and lets it rise.
• A bake-only cycle, which just turns up the heat.
• A timer functionality, which allows me to specify when I want the selected program to end.

Feeding:

• Evening 1: Transfer starter from the fridge to ‘feeding
  jar’ and feed with 0.5 cups of flour and 0.5 cups water.
• Morning 2: Feed starter with 1 cup flour and 1 cup water.
• Evening 2: Starter should now be really active and bubbly.  Feed
  with 1 cup flour and 0.5 cups water, transfer 2 tbsp to a clean storage jar,
  and transfer the rest to the bread machine bucket. 
• Feed your reserved portion of starter 1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp water, mix well and pop it in the fridge.
• Go straight to the
  main recipe.

The main recipe:

Add the following to the top of your just-fed starter, but do
not stir it in (the bread machine will do that for you in the
middle of the night…):

• 2 cups flour;
• 1.5 tsp salt;
• 1.5 tsp sugar.

Set your bread machine to start its dough cycle sometime overnight,
so the dough is risen and ready to bake when you get up.  I have found
that three to four hours’ rising time is ideal for this recipe, so I set
the machine so that the dough cycle will finish around three in the
morning, ready for when I get up at around half six.  You may have to
experiment a bit to find out what works for your starter, with your
flour, in your kitchen.

When you get up, you can immediately start
the ‘bake’ cycle on the machine.  An hour or so later you will have
wonderful, fresh sourdough bread, with minimal effort.