fiber clubs, or how the weight of too many holds back success

I got the May fiber club shipment today (in case of revisions, today is: 29 May 2009) from Susan’s Spinning Bunny.

This is definitely going to be my last fiber club. I like a lot of the things you cannot get any other way. Most fiber clubs are the only sources for odd fibers, because very few fiber vendors sell non-standard fibers. (Though Paradise Fibers does, and so did Yarn Barn when I was there in person, obviously I just live somewhere with a dearth of fiber-friendly stores. (A boutique yarn store is not fiber-friendly, it’s about looking good through the window.) ) I am not sure why no one sells baby llama. I am not sure why it is impossible to find naturally colored alpaca+silk. But I am extraordinarily picky about dyed fibers. Sometimes I admit that I chose my matching Rav username right around Halloween, but a lot of the sentiment behind it holds true.

Mass production certainly does not help, and that holds true for all clubs. Spunky Eclectic sent out an 80% white thing with random splotches of blue and brown. I bought fiber at Stitches that was still wet. I have seen shipments where the fiber is exposed during shipping. But the worst thing about mass production is how the perspective is wrong. When a dyer is doing umpteen batches of the same thing, there is a tendency to cut corners– leaving lots of white, using dyes straight up instead of blended, fingerprint splotches of other colors… and lousy packaging. Because it is hard to do a mass production, the final quality is usually lower. But each customer only gets one.

You see what I am saying? It does not matter if the dyer does 1000 or 2, each person only gets one. So each recipient can only evaluate one. I am not evaluating how big a project it was to dye 50 pounds of wool and get it shipped out even though there were supply issues and holidays. (The logistics of doing that as one person are a nightmare.) I look at my shipments for any fiber club and I am not seeing an artisan practicing a craft, I am seeing the 8-pack of fat crayons kindergartners use.  

I am disappointed while I know the dyer is damned proud of her*self because something went out the door and on time. (*her because 100% of the dyers I have dealt with and seen are female, but this is not about one person and there is a possibility that there might be men in this field somewhere. In fact, someone recommedn one to me and I will sign up for his club and we will see if I am non-sexist enough to tell you honestly whether his quality is better.)

Overall, I think fiber clubs are a good idea to push me out of my rut of buying the same fibers over and over and over and using the same kinds of colorways over and over and over again. But I hate pink. I hate orange. I hate yellow (until enough black has been added that it is an olive green, then it can be a nice foil for jewel tone colors). It seems like I should do something else with my money because it is extremely unlikely that something intended for a wide audience would exclude half the colors. 

I keep hoping that fiber clubs are going to be more like spin-alongs. But the spin-alongs I have seen prove that a group homogenizes on the mediocre (they always choose lousy dyers and hideous colorways and mediocre fibers— but somehow without saving any money). 

I guess spinning has to be about the yarn because I sure as anything certain am not making any friends this way.

We have cashmere.

I finished spinning the fiber club selection. That would be spinning the singles, plying, washing, drying, and photographing. Today is Saturday and the package arrived only 5 days ago. That was awesomely fast. 

I have about 175m of 2-ply [2.5] yarn. It is a bit thick for “fingering” which is what I was going toward, but it is very fluffy, so it probably will knit like a [2]. That is from 2 ounces.

From Fiber Club

(Click the thumbnail to be taken to the full size picture’s page.)

I nicknamed the fiber, “little thundercloud”, but the spun yarn has a lot better emphasis on the colors, which is all due to my skill and talent, of course. So I think I will rename the yarn to “April’s Little Rain Cloud”. The lace beret project is very likely going to get a name building off “silver lining”.

Six Ways to Sunday

I feel like I need a list here, so things might be random and jumbled, but there are lots of pictures, so you should all feel bribed to keep reading.

• I washed my Wensleydale sock yarn today and it stayed fingering. Probably about 300 yards, or so.
  

  From Stitches 2009 Fiber

• I flayed out a new hank of fiber, one of the Lisa Souza 50% merino + 50% silk. I was hugely surprised by the blinding whiteness in the core throughout. The Lisa Souza Wensleydale had been one of the better dye jobs I have seen recently (zero whiteness), but even the other merino+silk (which was dated from last September) has a pretty solid white core. I find it surprisingly attractive, which is odd since I normally despise white and pastels (except in undyed fiber), but I sent Lisa Souza an email (it included both my satisfaction with the Wensleydale and well-wishes since she’s been very public about her personal issues in addition to the caution about the merino+silk fiber.)
  

  From Stitches 2009 Fiber

• I roped myself into participating more with the fiber club just because it makes me crazy to see it floundering.
• I worked on one sock for an hour today, but feel like I am getting no where…. ribbing is stupid. It takes forever, it looks bad as a texture (in my opinion), and it is physically demanding.
• And I have pictures of the February fiber club yarn.
  

  From Fiber Club

• Finally, I am nearly ready to shelve all the sock projects and just knit something fun. Any suggestions?

Done, halfway, now what should go next?

The first half of the January club fiber is done, spun into 2×2 yarn. I am mostly satisfied. I think it wavers more than I would like in size, but the firm-ness and round-ness of the yarn is really exquisite.  The end result yarn is very tweedy and it is very nice. I will skein it and photograph it soon.  

I should spin the other half of the fiber and over-dye them together so they will match. But that means I cannot change projects and I would really like to.  Not that I know what else I would like to be spinning next, but I just know I really would prefer it not be pink. My Jiminy Cricket half says, “It would be nice to finish the January fiber before the February arrives.” 

In an email, I talked about spinning toward an undyed Fair Isle project, like mittens. I have the fiber. I have recently learned to spin really tiny singles. So I could get a sport-weight yarn pretty easily and that would mean a lot of stitches for patterning. That would be a big project getting 5 colors to all come out similarly, yarn-wise, but what a sense of accomplishment!

Source of Gilgamesh yarn done!

This is the Red Fish Dyeworks fiber, 80% merino/20% silk that I bought at Stitches West last year. I made two yarns, one a triple-ply which is 255 yards of [2.5] yarn, unwashed (so it might bloom a bit). The other is at least 150 yards of two-ply [1.5] yarn. The pictures are of varying quality, but I uploaded exemplars.

SoG slog done!

Yay! Yay! I have finished spinning the singles for my “Source of Gilgamesh” yarn, this is the fiber from Red Fish Dyeworks.

If you want to know why this has taken so long, it is because there is a lot of dismay to spinning for an hour and making no measurable progress in the mounds of fluffed fiber. I am looking for a fingering or sport [2-3] yarn after triple plying. This meant the singles were just next to invisible if the light was poor (like say, a cloud drifted across the sky) and had a tendency to snap. It takes me, on a good day, about 90 minutes of sweaty effort to spin 1/2 ounce. So that is only 12 hours… but not all days are this good. 

Tomorrow I will ply these and I am really hoping it comes out well. 

On the even better side for the finished project, I found the right lacework pattern. I am irked that the designer could not be bothered to say what the stitch pattern is called. (Rav, direct) It has a cable with chevron eyelets. If you know what that is called or have a definitive source for it, I would love to hear from you. I am not making it into socks, but I was looking for the right texture for the head/neck thing I wanted.

Speaking of which, I am ready to to buy a motif book. I want something that covers various lace motifs and how to redesign or manipulate them. I also want it to include the regular knit/purl textures. And it should give a smattering of traditional Fair Isle stuff. It must have good illustrations and preferably charts. If there is an electronic version you are willing to stand up and recommend, that would be fine too. I am really underwhelmed by Barbara Walker’s books, largely because the information is not updated for modern standards and they still want $120. For that kind of money I would expect charts, fabulous photos, and an electronic version that allows sorting by stitch repeat. I want the O’Reilly Learning Knitting Stitch Motifs kind of book, where there is something about how the things are constructed generally, there is a CD included, and a number of examples are given and explained in detail.

Finding the blue something into the deep.

I am blocking my bent scarf today. First real “lace” blocking. Lace being a bit of a misnomer since I just swapped in needles that were 6 sizes bigger every 6th row or so. But that was more interesting than dealing with yarn overs. 

Sock progress has been slower than expected. I am a handful of rounds from starting the heel. But the slog from toe to heel took ages. 

I am looking into my next knitting project and fiber-related things for the year.

Spinning projects are pretty much set. I have that “Source of Gilgamesh” to finish spinning singles for and then its plying. With the fiber club shipment here, I feel some obligation to actually spin it so I can participate— but pink bamboo yarn and a kiddy sweater? Yeah, zero enthusiasm. Who makes unwashable things for children anyway? That has to be on par with giving a kid a one-man band. By the time I finish the SoG yarn, I might need to skip ahead to the February shipment though. I wanted to spin the January shipment and post about it to the Rav group so I could collect praise, but I do not want that enough to interrupt a big and dear project.

Knitting projects upcoming are:

• socks– possibly Leyburns but several people said the pattern is wonky and they had to revise it but I have not found a definitive source and I would like one. Monkeys come highly highly recommended but I just cannot seem to really enthuse over those. 
• Leuca sweater
• hat for me from “Cadberry” yarn — no real patterns in mind but I am thinking something more like a beret.
• neck/hood/capelet thing for me from “Source of Gilgamesh” yarn— I want a cowl thing to have around my neck, but I want it to be able to pull up over my head into a hood. I want it to go around my shoulders and I need it to fasten with buttons instead of being a tube that pulls on like a t-shirt. In other words, even my imagination does not have a good picture  of it. I think what I want is sort of a cross between Little Red Riding Hood’s cape and Romi’s “Ice Queen”. I could easily make the “Ice Queen” flare out and be longer, but it would still have to go over my head. Somehow, even if it was not lacework, I do not think it would fare well from steeking. I want it to be called “Bloo Glooming Hood” and I doubt I will be satisfied until I find something suitable to that title.