grabbing podcasts for knitting accompaniment

Feeling contrary about Tour de Fleece. Might just not spin while it is on. I habitually take November off from writing just to make sure I do not look like one of those NaNoWriMo people— plus, November? really? Like no one ever has any plans that might conflict with a big project around then. My opinion about spinning in July is pretty similar since my apartment does not have air conditioning, but it has been fairly clement.

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Not much knitting going on either. I have been trying out new podcast grabbing software, but so far I have not found anything I like. I can knit while watching the podcast news on my computer, but the video versions take 20+ minutes to download so it would help if they were waiting for me. However the Juice software does not allow other video players than WMP (evil! hiss!) so it is far from seamless to use.

I suppose it would be more “on topic” if I said I would listen to knitters’ podcasts if it was more convenient. It really is very inconvenient to play them directly within the browser with the minimalist controls on board. However, it is unlikely that I will actually listen to knitting-related podcasts regardless of convenience. Perhaps I just have not found the right ones, but so far they have all been things that take more time to listen to than they would to read. Worse yet, they are frequently accompanied by whining from the podcaster about how much time it takes to edit the sound files. So I wonder why the podcaster bothers when it would be easier for everyone if it was transcribed.

Of course I am the email over phone kind of person and the books over movies kind of person. But when I got Netflix, I started to like movies. There really were things out there that were better than the books because the visuals added a lot to the experience. Plus there were movies that were completely different than any books I had ever seen (independent and foreign films especially). So if you know something that would make podcasts easily accessible and are willing to send pointers to content, I would appreciate it.

Pledge to Polish Furniture

When I run across new conversations where someone wants to buy a spinning wheel, I cringe.

When I bought my wheel, no one wanted to say anything negative about any of them. I got so I understood the vernacular, when I would ask about a particular wheel and someone replied, “A lot of people like those, but you should try your wheel out in person; there’s no way to tell what will work for you without trying them.” That should be taken as a warning that the wheel is extremely fiddly and hard to use or limited for advanced work.

Now, more than 2 years later, there are still people asking their own questions on various unrelated groups instead of reading what advice has already been given in the appropriate venues.

Since I bought my wheel sight unseen because there were no other options, several stores have started carrying spinning equipment. I should be pleased, but mostly I think it is too late to win my customer loyalty.

I still think some of the wheels out there are vastly undeserving of their popularity and a surprising number of people do not investigate maintenance requirements or look at the engineering. They focus on the woodworking and pay no attention to the lack of bearings or high-friction action of the wheel.

Generally I am happy with my Fricke wheel. It barely needs attention between spinning sessions and the spinning action is effortless and smooth. There is that funny business with the screw, I admit, but most other Fricke owners have had no trouble with it. I love the enormous bobbins.

If I had to buy a wheel again, I would probably buy the same one. Because price and performance are much more important to me than looks. If I got to have a dream wheel, I think I would prefer even less wood because widening the materials search would broaden the success of the engineering. I would love to have a wheel that was counter-weighted to prevent backspin, for example. I might like to have gear shifters so I can change ratios without stopping. I would definitely want the bobbins to have an external winding setup as well as something like the WooLee Winder. But what I most want is the ability to swap bobbins without unscrewing or unstringing anything.

Somehow I just do not see my preferences mattering to any newbie spinner who is looking at Kromski wheels.

It is only “progress” if everyone else was standing still.

Well. I certainly lack in content.
I finished spinning the first batt. I started with a layered batt that was gray, grey, then red. I ended up with singles that were self-barber-poling. Plied together it just looks mottled. Not a big problem, but significantly less attractive than expected. Also the mystery wool felts like water was Crazy Glue™.

Overall my first experience with batts suggests that drum carders do a nice job pre-drafting but the batts themselves then require manipulation before spinning (pulling into strips, then tugging lengthwise) and uneven batts mean it is hard to get equal amounts on the singles’ bobbins. (My scale measures down to half grams, but it only claims a 2g accuracy. Variance in bobbin weight (unladen) is about 2g between manufacturer and leader differences. When the whole batt is about 40-50g, that is a huge inaccuracy level.) I just do not think it is worth hundreds of dollars to get a drum carder when it does not solve the problem of dense roving. So far nothing has solved that problem. Diz is a [cursing goes here, elided for politeness and so you can keep your illusions that I might be a lady.] waste of time. Hand cards are for people with more time than an unemployed apartment-dweller. I had really hoped that a drum carder would be the right tool to fix the really compressed combed top I keep getting from online sources. But it looks like the only cure is to predraft manually and laboriously. There ought to be a tool, but I have not yet found it.

Spun half the next batt into singles. It has three layers, white, grey, and one of those Ashland Bay heathery blends in a peachy color. It is a crap sandwich. Whatever that grey stuff is, it is nasty. This is not spinning up well. I get sections that are grey, sections of the mottled peach, and swaths of all white. The fibers draft very differently. I started spinning the second half into singles last night but it kept breaking and that is so frustrating that I get better results if I just stop for a while.

I went back to using the larger drive band on my Fricke and the larger diameter whorls, the overall spinning part goes slower, but I spin more often because there is a loose enough whorl that I can keep the band strung. I really can spin for 5 minutes then go on and do something else. It is not that stringing the band is hard, but the more stuff upfront so I can be situated, the fewer starts and stops I want to have.

My recently replaced screw is still not holding. So I still have to tighten it all the time. Not as often as Kromski owners have to oil, but often enough that I am annoyed. I keep the screw driver in the oil bottle clip because I use the screwdriver about 6-8 times more often than the oil. I think it is time to write to Fricke.

I bought a copy of Wendy Johnson’s sock book. There were 6 socks that I wanted to make and she collected all the various techniques I had found online and put them in one coherent book. Plus the book does not constantly refer you to other pages like Cat Bordhi’s book (which is more like a Choose Your Own Adventure than a book— it really is completely useless unless you have memorized all the heel and toe machinations on your own, and then you realize a sock is just heel and toe machinations with maybe a bit of stitch-motif thrown in for visual interest when you are not doing toe and heel parts.) I had borrowed the Johnson book from the library and was very pleased that each pattern is self-contained although there is a section in the book outlining all the toe and heel options.

Some knitting done on the Leuca sweater. I carry it around with me in my Lantern Moon “Molly” bag. So if distance makes a sweater knit itself, mine will be starting its own mittens soon enough.

current spinning

This is what I am spinning now (unknown fiber batt carded at Yarn School):

From yarn school fiber

These are the upcoming spins (unknown fiber batts carded at Yarn School):

From yarn school fiber

fiber club received

June 22, 2009, June fiber club shipment arrived. It is a pretty blue, turquoise, brown hand dyed SW Merino+tencel.

From Fiber Club

Pattern included is for “Santa Clara” wrap which wants Size E beads (not included). Size E means “seed bead” in 5/0 or 6/0. It took a lot of effort to find that out.

I think I would like to make this and bead it. But I also know myself and I am really ridiculously over-committed knit-wise. This will not even make it onto my radar until next year.

I think I would like to work in parallel with another knitter. I could spin and have something on the needles, but there would be someone actually using the majority of the yarn on a more regular basis. If you know someone like that, or are someone like that, please contact me. We can work something out. I am not wanting all these things knit for me, I do not have recipients in mind most of the time, but yarn languishes around here after it is spun. Sometimes I know what that yarn wants to become and I would dearly love to see it happen. Sometimes it is just yarn and could use outside inspiration. I am in Oakland, CA it would need to be someone nearby, but I am completely serious.

The two-month birthday party is finally over.

Finally! I finished spinning and plying the birthday fiber. I finally just left the remaining colored single on a “storage bobbin” because I cannot face doing more with it. There is about 5% left, so that is within the realm of consistency with other projects.

The plied yarn is actually about as awesome as I had imagined. Pictures forthcoming (but later).

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The dyer who did my birthday fiber (which was a gift from SeedlessGrape) left a comment while I was at Yarn School (so it took me forever to pull it out of the mod queue) saying something about how I should share the end results. I am not sure how I feel about that because I was not satisfied, overall, with the fiber. It is extraordinarily impolite to complain about a gift and I do not mean to cast aspersions or imply ingratitude on my part, but the base fiber used was absolute crap. It claimed to be merino, but from the texture, you might think the source was a box labeled “S.O.S.”. The dye work, which I can now appreciate much more than before, was good. The dye went all the way through the mini-braids, there was no accidental whiteness, there was no bleeding of colors, there was no odd dye detritus incorporated. But it was not excellent because several of the mini-braids were somewhat felted. There is no excuse for that when so little massaging is needed to get good dye and rinse penetration.

The colorways were not appealing to me. Every one of them had some good and some really horrible colors. As an array of 12 mini-braids, I found it obvious that this would become a rainbow project, but even so, every blue-trending colorway does not need some chartreuse or khaki and every red-trending colorway does not need fuschia. There was no single braid that I would have been glad to see a whole 4-ounce braid of even though most of them were white-free. I cannot understand why high-contrast colorways are so popular, but this dyer certainly understands her market.

It was a nice gift, no question, I got to try fiber from a new dyer, my first order from an Etsy seller, and it shouted what it wanted to become. But I will not be ordering from them myself, even if the dyer manages to get out from under the auspices of Etsy, because bad colorways and crap fiber sold as “merino” caused me to be dissatisfied overall.

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Since then I have been spinning batts from Yarn School. Assuredly these are easy spins, but I am having a lot of trouble seeing what makes people gung-ho on batts. I guess compared to the amount of pre-drafting I need to use the usual combed top (everyone must store it in Space Bags or something) there really is a time and effort savings. It makes me wonder why fiber processors are not making higher class combed top. I know a lot of people who would pay extra if it was nicer when they got their hands on it.

Rainbow Yarn Genesis

I pushed forth and spun the rest of the birthday fiber.
I actually went and found the fiber I wanted to ply it with.
I did go and spin that plying fiber.

I lost the end when I was first spinning the plying fiber and the single broke, so I laboriously rewound it onto another bobbin after creating a pair of ends to pull from. Then I started another bobbin for the rest of the singles spinning. I lost the end again when the single broke, so I added the last half ounce onto the the other bobbin so I could finish the spinning and then search for the end.

I found the end of the main bobbin (~3oz) of plying single pretty easily. When plying I got all the way through to about the orange section before I ran out. I could not find the end of the extra bobbin for love or money. I spent an hour picking at it, combing it with a clean toothbrush, taking it outside and picking at it some more. There was NO END anywhere. I realized I had nearly felted some of the single, so I picked a loop and created new ends. These did not unroll. I picked another loop and split that. Would not unspool. I kept doing this over and over and over again. I have NO IDEA what happened, but I cannot, even after pulling off yard-long lengths that would cover several stadia’s markings, find the be-damned end that would actually allow me to unwind this bobbin onto a spare.

I am so frustrated. I would just cut it and spin more ply but I am 80% of the way through the plying and that is a hard place to stop.

The plied yarn itself is interesting. I really like the effect. The birthday fiber was 12 mini-braids of hand-dyed colorways, but the colorways tended to be cools+neutrals or warms+neutrals (with the occasional contrasting color) so I lined them up to create the longest possible stretches of the same colors. I will have hundreds of yards of yarn that progresses from purple through blue and green to tan to orange to reds. It is plied with an oatmeal natural wool so there will be a lot more of the resulting yarn, and also so the yarn is toned down some.

I really want to make a Mobius scarf from this. I think it will be phenomenal. But I also know that this yarn’s genesis has been so irksome that I would prefer if someone else had to do the actual knitting. Volunteers?