Fiber Geekery

Dyeing 101

2012-02-13T17:11:00.000-06:00

I recently signed up to take Candied Fabrics Dyeing 101 online class on fiber reactive dyes. I use these dyes to dye yarn for my weaving projects, but have never really gotten as comfortable with them as I am with the acid dyes for wool and other animal fibers.

The focus of this class is mixing primary colors to make the colors you want. I think the instruction is excellent. Candy has both videos and a written PDF for each lesson and there is a Q&A where she is quick to answer questions.
.
In our second dyeing session, we mixed the primary colors in as many ways as possible using a total of ten whole parts. Each mixed color is x parts yellow primary, y parts blue primary and z parts red primary, where x,y,and z are whole numbers that sum to 10. There are a total of 66 swatches in this set of samples.

It took me maybe three hours to prepare and label all the swatches, about four hours to do the dyeing in another session from the labeling and the washing and rising and ironing probably another three hours. The time commitment for this is significant, but look at the valuable product! With this and the knowledge gained from the gradient exercise, I should be able to make yarn colors I want for my weaving.

Turquoise, Light Red, Lemon Yellow, white swatch is one I missed

Of course, I put my own twists on this. I used the same flagging tape that I use on my handspun skeins to label each swatch. I also cut the swatches twice as big so I will have some fabric leftover to play with once we assemble our "Candiotic Table" which will give us a valuable permanent record of our color recipes.

I also did the actual dyeing in a bowl, and dropped each swatch in a plastic bag for curing, discarding the little bit of leftover dye and fixative. This let me fit all my swatches into one plastic shoebox for curing in a warm place. I actually batched the swatches in a cardboard box with a heating pad to be sure they stayed warm and really cured well.

When it came to rinsing out, I washed each swatch and put it back into the plastic sandwich bag and added a little water for the initial soak. I put the bags in the plastic shoe boxes to catch any leaks. This did not take hardly any space and seems to have worked well.

Our next assignment is another 66 swatch set with different primaries. I have my swatches labeled with a different color of flagging tape to be sure they don't get mixed up with the first set, and hopefully, I will dye them tomorrow.

Dyeing 101 - Graidents

2012-02-13T16:54:00.001-06:00

I am taking an on-line self paced dyeing class offered at Candied Fabrics to finally really get confident with the Fiber Reactive MX Dyes.

In this class we will be learning how to mix colors from primaries with the big product being permanent reference tables of recipes for colors. I have wanted to do this forever, and while I know I could do it without a class, it is not something I would do without an assignment.

Our first dyeing exercise was to dye gradients. I chose to dye five sets of quarter yard gradients in Deep Yellow, fuchsia red, light red, new black and sky blue. (Dharma Trading Company) With these sets, it will be easier to know how much dye to use when looking for a particular color tint.

My swatches are marked with flagging tape - the same thing I use to label my handspun skeins. I slightly modified Candy's excellent instructions in that I let the fabric batch in plastic bags and poured off any excess dye, after dyeing in a bowl. I started using this technique after I read the book Dyeing To Quilt, and it has worked for me and takes less batching space than Candy's method.

The class has both a written lesson and videos that accompany the web pages. There is also a Q&A with each lesson and Candy is quick to answer any questions that pop up.

The other thing about this class is that you can start it any time and work at your own pace. I am glad to be in the first group though, because the other students help keep me motivated. This is really a lot of work so it definitely needs time set aside to get the full benefit.

Next up is mixing three primaries for sixty six colors.

True Blue Warp

2011-05-17T15:57:00.001-05:00

I have a weaving class coming up soon at the Contemporary Handweavers of Texas on Color that Moves. The instructor, Betty Vera, sent out loom warping instructions a couple of weeks ago.

The instructions have seventeen different warping options with many types of fabric. It was really hard to choose which one to weave, but I finally settled on an undilatating twill with several shades of colors in the warp.

When I went shopping to try to find yarn (online of course because the nearest weaving store is 50 miles away), I soon decided that I was not going to be sure that what I bought would be what I had envisioned. The only way I could see to get the color control I wanted was to get out my fiber reactive dyes. I thought I would document the process I used in hope that it will help someone else.

For dyeing yarn with fiber reactive dyes, I have been happiest with a direct application method where the dye concentrate is poured directly on the soda ash soaked fiber, massaged in, then left to cure. I tried a vat method a couple of times and I just was not as happy with the dye process.

Sample Stock mixtures with paper towel color testers

The best brief write up I have found on this method of direct dyeing is in Weaver's Craft, Issue 15. Jean Scorgie, the author, calls it "Kitchen Dyeing". It is adapted from an out of print book for quilters called Dyeing To Quilt. I was able to snag a used copy of this book from Amazon. My fiber reactive dyes are from Dharma Trading Company. I love their website and fast shipping.

For my class warp, I decided I would dye eight values of Cerulean Blue. I did a test run on some thrums by mixing a small amount of dye, and then diluting it - just to verify I was going to like the colors.

Once I was sure I liked the Cerulean Blue color I had made, I wound two ounce skeins of my yarn, chained and tied itm, soaked it in soda ash solution. I mixed my dye with 4 teaspoons of dye powder to one cup of water. This is a stronger solution than the Weaver's Craft issue calls for - by double, but I wanted my dark blue to be really dark so there would be plenty of contrast as the values got lighter.

Weaver's Craft suggested 1/4 cup of dye solution to one ounce of yarn, and so I mixed 1/2 cup of stock for each of my two ounce skeins.

To do the eight values, I started with 1 cup of the pure stock. I had eight containers. The first container got 1/2 cup of stock for the first skein of yarn. Into the second container, I poured 1/2 cup of the pure stock, then I added 1/2 cup of water - diluting it by half. I poured 1/2 cup of this diluted stock into a third container, and set the other 1/2 cup aside for the second skein of yarn. I contiuned this for all eight skeins. The last container ends up with 1/2 cup of stock that is discarded. Each value has half as much of the pure stock in it as the value that preceeded it.

I dyed strips of paper towels by dipping them in each dye cup. When the dye drys on the towels, the color is pretty close to the actual dyed yarn. This gives me a reference I can file away for later.

I started with the lightest value. I placed the skein in a deep plastic container, then poured the container of stock over it and massaged the dye into the yarn.

In the past I have had problems with light spots in my yarn. To combat those spots, I set a kitchen timer and massaged the yarn in the dye soultion for two full timed minutes, squeezing it out and puting it back in the dye several times. Later I discovered my rubber gloves had a hole in them, so I am still sporting blue finger tips that make my nails appear bruised. Guess I better get those gloves in the trash!

When the two minutes were up, the skeins had all absorbed all of the dye solution, and I placed each one in a zip lock plastic bag. The two minute massage pretty much eliminated the white spots in the yarn, so I will be doing this every time I dye like this.

Fiber reactive dyes like to be cured in a warm but not hot like an oven place. So, I put all the bags in a plastic box and set that box down inside of a cardboard box that had a heating pad in the bottom, then let them cure for 24 hours.

The next day, I rinsed out the yarn until the water was mostly clear. (If someone knows how to make the rinsing go faster I would love tips). I hung the yarn to dry and now I am winding cones so I can wind my warp.

Finished Skeins of Yarn with Paper Towel Color Swatches

I think this yarn is going to make a pretty warp. I am very excited to see the fabric it makes.

Calculate Twice, Weave Once

2011-04-22T11:03:00.002-05:00

The Fort Worth Weaver's Guild is having a napkin exchange. The napkins are supposed to be 18" x 18" square. We turn in four napkins and get four back that are not our own.

Strickler 8 Shaft Patterns number 315-4

I have been fretting over this project for a few months, and when the deadline drew closer I got busy and wove mine in a twill pattern from Carol Strickler's book of 8 Shaft patterns. The draft is on page 85 of her book and is number 315-4.

I wanted to use yarn that I had on hand, so I chose 8/2 cotton. I have very little weaving experience so I warped my loom with six yards of warp for a test warp just to get dimensions and learn the pattern - which is the most complex twill I have woven. On the test warp, I wove seven little towels that will work for finger tip towels or small dish towels. These will go in the Guild Sale in September and if they don't sell, then I will have some Christmas Presents all done!

Two of each weft color - one for me and one for the exchange

Armed with before and after measurements of my test towels, I put on a new warp with 501 warp ends, 20.9" in the reed, sett at 24, for a finished width of 18 inches. I calculated the number of pattern repeats needed to reach 18 inches. I figured I needed about 11 repeats - which would leave the towels a tad long - but better long than short.

When I wove the napkins, for some reason that I can not explain, I carefully wove 12 repeats. My finished napkins are 18 inches wide as forecast, but they are 20 inches long :-{

No matter. I am turning them in anyway. If it bothers someone, they can rip out one hem and cut them off to square them.

New labels

On the napkin warp, I used a tip from Lorelei in the Guild for flatter folds at the hemline. I wove 8 picks of poly-cotton serger thread, then the hem area for 10 picks, then I threw a double shot of a contrast yarn to mark the fold of the hem. After I hemmed the napkins, I pulled out the contrasting thread at the fold and the result is a much flater hem because the cloth as a place to turn.

All the napkins got one of my new labels from Sterling Labels. Makes me feel like SomeBody!

I always learn something new with each project. For this one, I won't forget to not trust my memory when I want something to come out to an exact length.

Public Service Announcement

2010-09-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

Remember this?

Well, I fussed over the yarn pile for about a week, and finally managed to put one project together that is now on my loom. It is some sort of wrap - I am not sure what kind yet. That is yet to be determined.

The burnt sienna color yarn is an wool-alpaca blend that I got from Zeilinger's Wool Mill several years ago when we were in Michigan. The pink is Romney from my friend Rusty's sheep.

The Romney dye color is a light red - I think I probably used Jacquard Scarlet diluted. The pink has a slight orangy tint.

When I washed the wool-alpaca blend yarn after I spun it, a lot of dye came out of it, and the result was the alpaca in the yarn got dyed just about the same pink as the Romney yarn turned out.

I wanted a drapey fabric, so the yarn is set at 5epi. and I am beating it to square. Beating is actually not an accurate statement. Placing is more like it. The weaving is going really fast since the fabric is so loose and it is plain weave.

And now for the Public Service Announcement.

Do not, under any circumstance, spread your handspun yarn all over the floor and leave it for a week.

I am not sure what the exact yarn gestation time is, but in a week it breeds.

What came out of three plastic tubs, will now only fit in four.

I think I am walking backwards.

I Can't Hear You

2010-09-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

Handspun sorted by color - Sept 2010

Yesterday, we had torrential downpours of rain. I was determined to go to my regular spinning group, so I braved the elements and loaded up my wheel and spinning basket and set off. I did not get very far though, because the roads going north to the highway I needed all seemed to be closed.

I decided to comfort myself by getting out the three full tubs of my handspun yarn to see if I could put together something to weave a shawl with - since my loom is standing empty for the moment.

I spread out the contents of the tubs, and separated everything by color in the middle of the living room floor. I thought if I got it all out, maybe some of it would speak to me and tell me what it wants to be.

Well, it is still there. I must be deaf.

It's Not Easy to Be Square

2010-08-22T19:37:00.001-05:00

One of the Weaving Guilds that I am a member of - the Dallas Handweavers and Spinners Guild, is sponsoring a study group on the Overshot Weave structure. As a fairly inexperienced weaver, I joined the group in hopes of learning something about the weave structure that most people think of when they think of handweaving.

Since I have never woven an overshot project, I decided I should weave a sample just to try the structure out. So, I picked out a design from the book Weaving Designs by Bertha Gray Hayes.

I looked through my yarn stash to see what I had on hand that would work for my little sample and came up with 8/2 cotton. I found several different cotton possibilties for weft.

3/2 Cotton Weft

After some research, I found that an overshot warp should be set like the yarn would be set for a loose plain weave. For the 8/2 cotton, I decided on 18 epi. I put a short warp on my loom - just two and a half yards about 12 inches wide.

Once the weaving began, I quickly discovered that obtaining a nicely squared pattern was not going to be easy. According to the texts I read, the overshot pattern weft should be about the weight of two strands of the warp.

The first weft I tried was the red 3/2 cotton in the first photo. While it looked pretty, the pattern is obviously far from being square.

Next I tried two strands of 5/2 cotton in blue. This was better, but still not square.

In my stash, I had some green 16/2 cotton , so I used 4 strands of it as weft figuring that would be equal in weight to two strands of 8/2 cotton. The result was better but still not square. I started beating my weft in more firmly. I beat as hard as I could. The pattern got closer to square, but still it was not there. You can see in the photo where I started off beating not as firmly and toward the top began beating harder.

At this point I was a bit frustrated. I started thinking of things that might make the weft beat in better and decided a temple would do it. So, I used my temple to keep the warp spread to it's maximum width - by this time I had switched to two strands of navy 8/2 cotton - and the result was almost square. But, it was still not square enough.

More frustrated, I got out my Peggy Osterkamp books, and found out that my weaving method is not what she recommends. I had been told when I started weaving to always beat the weft in on a closed shed. That's what I have always done, and so far it worked.

Peggy Osterkamp's recommended way to weave is that you beat - or rather place your weft - on an open shed, then immediately change to the next shed. The theory is that you place your weft with the beater while the warp is as wide as the reed makes it be, then before you move the beater away from the fell, change to the next shed.

Peggy's recommended weaving sequence is throw the shuttle, beat the weft, change to the next shed the push the beater away from the fell. Peggy also recommended a very tight warp.

I decided to give these suggestions a try.

I tightened my warp. I tried out the new weaving sequence - very slowly. I found my weaving rhythm really out of sync, but I made myself keep on going. It was worth the effort because my design is finally square.

I am still out of sync, rhythm wise, but I am not sure you can ever really get a rhythm in an overshot pattern. The treadles are constantly changing and the shuttles are changing as well. I suppose time will tell about that.

Sometimes, I learn really unexpected things when I am trying to learn something else.

Now I wish I had made that sample warp a little longer.

Adieu Knitwords

2010-06-29T10:35:00.000-05:00

I was saddened last week to learn that my favorite Machine Knitting Magazine, Knitwords, is ceasing publication.

This was a fabulous magazine for machine knitters. It contained fashionable sweaters for all ages and machine types featuring many techniques. It was a labor of love for the publisher, Mary Anne Oger. The love showed in every issue. I have them all, and refer to them every time I make a sweater on the machine.

The limited good news is that Mary Anne plans to be available for seminars. I hope she will continue to design and publish. She has so much talent and so many creative ideas for machine knitting.

Machine Knitters have so few resources left. For magazines, we have exactly two - Country Knitting of Maine News and Views and Machine Knitting Monthly from the UK.

I urge machine knitters everywhere to support the remaining publications. I would hate to loose them too. We need inspiration for the machine knitters today and those to come.

First Warp for Ellie's Loom

2010-06-10T16:18:00.000-05:00

Ellie's Loom is warped and I am finally weaving.

The first warp is one that I had been planning for my 4 harness Le Clerc. It is yet another project from the Fall 2009 issue of Handwoven Magazine. The "recipe" is on page 44 and is titled "One threading, four patterns, four towels". I had already dyed the contrasting yarns so decided to proceed as planned. This is my fourth project from that issue of Handwoven, and I have more planned. (This may be the best issue ever)

The towels are huck variations. They appealed to me because huck is a new weave structure to me (most structures are since I am only a beginning level weaver), and with four different towels on the same warp, the bore factor should be conquered.

Learning to get along with Ellie's loom has been challenging. I think anytime a weaver deals with a new loom there is a lot to learn about how to get along with it. Everything is strange. The braking system, where to tie up the harnesses out of the way to thread, how to wind the beam where to tie the lease sticks and the list goes on.

Things went pretty smoothly until I started tying up the treadles. The Herald Loom was shipped with wire tie ups, and when I got the loom it had about eight - not enough for my project.

The wires that were in treadles showed signs of being bent with pliers. I got suspicious that Ellie must have had big problems with the wires jumping out of the holes in the lams. Perhaps this is the reason the loom has never been warped.

I researched on Ravelry and Weavolution and found out that indeed, the big complaint about Herald looms is the wire tie ups. Other weavers hated the loom because of the wire tieups. They experienced lots of problems keeping them attached to the lams. Another big disadvantage of the wires is that the treadle height cannot be adjusted, and since the treadles sit on a slant, the back wires or ties are necessarily shorter than the front one's.

Based on this information, I decided that I would most likely change out the wires for ties. I started researching my options. Texsolve cord was recommended. My investigation into it revealed I would have to spend about a hundred dollars to get enough cord to make every connection on the loom. At that point, I was not going to invest a lot of money in a loom that perhaps would not even work, so I needed a cheaper solution than Texsolve.

So, I went to my trusty references from Peggy Osterkamp. Peggy is a total genius. She knows everything about weaving. Her books cover absolutely every problem and question that I have ever had about weaving. I think any weaver with no support needs all of her books.

Peggy recommended tying up treadles with a snitch knot and cords. That is what I did but I used shoe laces for the tie cords, and some nylon cord for the snitch knot section.

I cut a length of cord that is about 10 inches long. I threaded a pony bead onto the cord (to prevent the knot from pulling through the hole), then folded the cord in half and tied a double overhand knot in the two ends. Next I took the loop and let the bead slide down to the knot. I threaded the loop through the hole in the treadle and made a snitch knot that I put my shoe lace ties through. I then adjusted the height of the treadles, looped the end of the shoe laces like the first half of a bow and the treadles were tied up.

After correcting a few threading errors, I am finally weaving. I have employed my poor man's temple for the waffle weave - alligator clips, cord and fishing weights!

Weaving is proceeding. I think I am going to love the loom and I sure love weaving in the airconditioning as opposed to my old studio in the unairconditioned garage.

Ellie's Loom

2010-05-31T11:31:00.001-05:00

First a little history:

Sometime probably in the late 70's or early 80's there was a weaver named Ellie who bought a new 45 inch 8 harness Herald loom with a sectional beam. I am sure Ellie dreamed of all the wonderful things she would weave on that loom.

Life must have interfered, because she never go around to weaving on her new loom. It never had a warp.

This year, Ellie, whose memory is failing, moved to assisted living. The unused loom remained behind, stored in a garage with only rats and mice for company. The harnesses collected a little rust.

Ellie's close friend and neighbor began the hard task of cleaning out Ellie's house. The loom went up for sale to another weaver.

------

Over the last several years, I have been teaching myself to weave. When I started, I thought I would never get a 4 harness loom threaded properly. I marveled that anyone would ever want more harnesses.

However, time in the chair has cured most of my early problems with crossed threads and missed headles. So I decided that if a loom appeared with more than 4 harnesses and if it were inexpensive enough to get passed my strong tightwad nature, I would buy it.

I was at knitting group one day talking about this to some other weavers, and I told them that I was convinced my new loom would find me.

Then, over a week ago, there was a posting to both Weaver's Guilds that I belong to that there was an 8 harness loom for sale. The price was right but I hit delete on the emails because I just had no time to investigate the loom. I was going out of town for several days so the timing was just all wrong.

My friend Kay, of Cordova Studios, also knew that I was looking for a loom, so she kindly forwarded me the email announcement which I saw for the third time. I hit delete. I was just too busy to look into it.

I thought about it all weekend while I was gone. I finally decided that if the loom was still available when I got back (and I thought that was unlikely) that I would check on it and go look at it. So I did.

The loom had not been sold to my surprise. No one had even looked at it. When I saw it, I knew my loom had indeed found me.

It took me a day to get it cleaned up. My husband has adjusted the brake. I think it is ready to warp.

I am now re-reading all my weaving publications, paying attention to all the new possibilities that 8 harnesses bring. I think it will keep me busy for a long time.

Now to get a warp on it!

Basketweaving - Not the Underwater Kind

2010-05-19T19:49:00.000-05:00

Today my Spinning Buddies, the Texas Twisters met at Nancy's house to learn to make a Spinning Basket. This basket is perfect for wool and even has a lazy kate built in as well as a tool holder and a small basket for trash or maybe hand cards or wool combs.

Nancy had everything well organized. We started by measuring all of our materials. The first photo shows Laurie and Joanne working on measuring and cutting the reeds.

Next we made the bottom of the basket. Here is a photo of Nancy showing Maxine how to get started. We lined up the reeds for the basket bottom with the right sides facing down.

Then we wove a couple of reeds on each side of the handle to get it stablized and centered. Finally we wove enough reeds to complete the bottom of the basket. Then we checked to be sure the corners were square.

Once the bottom of the basket was woven we twined around the edges to keep everything squared up. Then, we started up the sides of the basket. The first couple of rows was the most fiddly part I think. This photo is Laurie starting to weave up the side.

As we got higher up the sides, we added in some colored reeds to make each basket our unique work of art. No two are alike and each is beautiful.

We worked hard, but could not finish the entire basket in one day. Basketweaving, like most crafts, takes a lot of time.

Here are photos of some of the baskets as they were at the end of the day. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of all of them.

First is Sharon with her basket. She used red and blue reeds in her basket.

Here is Peggy's Basket. Peggy has one row of red reed, and I think she plans to add in some green reeds as she gets farther up the sides.

Kay used green and purple in her basket.

And here is my basket. I used two shades of purple and one round of a rose pink in my basket.

We still have to add the upper basket on and finish the top edges. There is also another small tool basket to make that is attached to the side near the handle.

I hope we get to finish this next week. It is going to be beautiful and so much fun to use!

Dyeing without a Dyepot

2010-05-02T21:19:00.001-05:00

This weekend I attended a three day workshop with Holly Brackmann called Dyeing Without a Dyepot. The workshop was sponsored by the Fort Worth Weavers Guild. I was one of about twenty attendees and I loved this workshop.

Holly is the author of the book The Surface Designer's Handbook: Dyeing, Printing, Painting and Creating Resists on Fabric. The book covers many types of dyes for all sorts of surfaces. It is an excellent resource.

The workshop focused on one type of dye, that I don't think anyone attending the workshop had ever used before. This dye is Pro Transperse Transfer Printing Dye which is used to transfer patterns to polyester and other synthetic fabrics.

The dye is applied to a peice of paper or transfer medium (an interfacing for example) and then is heat transferred to the fabric. The result is a bright, permanent transfer. In the photo, Holly is showing the dye as it appears on the paper on the left and after it has been heat transferred to the fabric on the right. Dull unidentifiable colors become bright and vibrant with a little heat and time. The fabric remains soft and supple and the fabric can be washed.

There are all sorts of possibilities with this dye, and the workshop explored many of them. The dye comes as a powder and is mixed into solution with boiling water. At that point it will keep, but may settle and needs to be mixed if it has been sitting for several hours. The dye can be directly brushed on paper, or it can be thickened and used with screens or stencils.

Once the paper is dry, the dye is transferred to fabric by heat setting it. To heat set the dye, hte fabric is put face up on a lightly padded ironing board, then the transfer is placed face down on top of the fabric, followed by a piece of parchment paper. Next heat is carefully applied. The longer the dye is heated the more color is transfered - but caution is needed since the polyester fabrics will melt if they get too hot. We did a lot of ironing this weekend!

We learned how to take a photocopy and turn it into a heat transfer by applying dye then ironing it onto fabric. The dye adheres to the black in the photocopy and the images are stunning. We also experimented with fabric crayons, and learned that some tissue wrapping papers are used dispurse dye transfers that can still be used!

We explored using many objects as resists to the dyed paper. One popular resist was a feather. A sheet of paper was painted with the dye and allowed to dry. Then the resist object - in this case a feather, was laid on top of the fabric, followed by the face down dyed paper. The result was almost like an X-ray.

In many cases, the resist object would pick up enough dye to allow it to be used as a transfer, so it is possible to build up colors and effects.

We thickened the dye with a thickening agent, and applied it to our paper with homemade stencils and with screens for screen printing. The thickened dye can also be applied directly to paper, then objects can be drug through it to form all sorts of lines or patterns.

The transfers can be applied to sheer fabrics too. Dramatic effects can be achieved when a sheer layer with transfers on it is placed over an opaque layer also with transfers.

We learned how to apply foil decorations to some areas as accents to the rest of the piece.

It was a great weekend of learning and fun with more ironing than most of us had done in a long time. Certainly we all have a new trick or two in our bags.

I can not wait to see what some of these very talented women will create in the coming months with the things we learned in this wonderful workshop. We also have an new appreciation for a type of fabric many of us rarely use in our crafting - polyester.

Grrreat Tiger Wool gets Gold!

2010-02-28T17:58:00.000-06:00

Sock blanks are lots of fun to dye, but the knitted results are often not predictable unless the blank is painted in broad stripes. That is, unless the blank is dyed using a method I read about in the Grrreat Tiger Wool Experiment group on Ravelry.

Blanks dyed using this method have a predictable thin stripe of one color with other colors between the stripes. This is achieved by painting one side of the blank in a solid color, and the other side can be painted in a different color or several colors.

This photo shows my Go for the Gold Socks in progress on top of the dyed sock blank. Notice the blue on the blank has turned into thin regular stripes on the socks.

There are many other possibilities with this method. Faux fairisle can be put on the non-stripe side, or you can have the faux fairisle interrupt the striping for a ways. There are lots of photos in that Ravelry Group to get more ideas from. Check out the thread called Experiment #6

The distance between the stripes is determined by the width of the blank and the width of the solid area. To get a complete stripe, the solid area needs to contain a complete round of sock yarn. For me, this is just under 30" for a 60 stitch sock. Thirty inches translates into 40 knitted stitches at the stitch and row gauge I used to make this blank, so, my solid area needs to be 20 stitches wide down one side of the blank to get one solid row. The wider the blank is, the more rows of knitting I have between the solid stripes.

Now that I know the math, my next sock blanks will be machine knitted with this dyeing method in mind so I can get wider spacing between the stripes.

This was a really fun way to dye a blank, and the resulting socks got me a Gold Medal in the 2010 Ravelympics Sock Hockey event.

I dyed another blank at the same time and have those on my needles now. They will be knitted in the Skew Pattern from Knitty Winter 2009. Skew should show off this type of sock yarn to great advantage.

Weaving from the Viking Era

2009-12-31T20:28:00.000-06:00

My third project from the Fall 2009 issue of Handwoven Magazine is off the loom and has been distributed as Christmas Gifts to a few special relatives and friends. The Viking Era Twill Towels were a big hit and were some of my best weaving to date.

There were six towels on the warp, and I wove them with alternating weft colors so I would know where one stopped and the next one started. Half the towels have a light blue weft and the others have a cactus green weft.

The towels are from 2/8 Cotton set at 24 epi. This made a firm fabric which should be perfect for the job they need to do.

My towels finished at 15" wide rather than the 16" that the author got. The finished length was also shorter - about 22" after hemming each end with a 5/8" hem rather than the 24" long for the original.

It did take me a bit to get into the rhythm of the treadling. I found I had to pay close attention to what I was doing to get the treadling sequence correct and to catch the floating selvages properly. That meant no podcasts while I wove, so I am woefully behind on a lot of my favorites.

My Husband still does not understand why anyone would weave dishtowels. I have told him that they are wonderful to use. Besides, they are a great way to explore weave structures, yarns and setts.

All in all this was a fun project that inched me along the learning curve to being a real weaver.

Getting Footprinted

2009-11-22T13:11:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of attending a hand knitting seminar with the inspirational Cat Bordhi. Cat is known for her innovative designs for scarves, bags and socks. It was Cat's first book on socks - Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles - that actually got me to try socks again after a disaster on double points that left me with two socks, knit the same, but totally different in size.

Cat's latest book - Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters, is about yet another new approach to socks. The socks involve no math, no short rows and no partial knit rows. Every row is knit in the round. The fit is perfect!

The socks are personalized for the wearer, and the initial sock is developed as a foot map - or footprint template is created. Once the template is developed, it can be used over and over for more socks for the same person.

In class, Cat coached us as we developed our templates. Most of us found that we needed fewer stitches for our feet than the traditional sock pattern calls for. My Socks That Rock yarn, knitted on size zero needles, needs only 48 stitches to fit my foot.

My leg opening needs 60 stitches. It would not be easy to do this with a standard sock pattern, but in a Footprint Sock it is no problem at all! This also explains why some socks give me such a poor fit.

Footprints socks are cast on at the toe, with a very simple cast on. The toe is increased, and when it is big enough, the foot is knit straight to the first increase point. This point varies from person to person based on the topology of their foot. Some people's foot gets thicker toward the ankle very quickly, while others, like mine have a gradual slope.

When increases are needed, they are done randomly or in a pattern on the sole of the sock. This leaves the top of the sock free for whatever designs the knitter wants to incorporate. The number of increase points and increases varies from person to person. The increase points and reference lines are marked on the template by trying the socks on the template. Subsequent socks only need to be tried on the template to see where the increases and other maneuvers are needed.

Once the increases are complete, the socks are knit straight to the leg opening point. This point is at the center of the leg. The correct sock length is found by trying on the sock and stretching it at the sides until it reaches the center point of the leg.

At that point, the row is marked on the top of the sock with a marking thread. One more row is knit, and a second marking row is added. The leg opening is later cut, stitches are picked up and the leg is knit up from the opening.

Knitting continues to the heel point where the heel is decreased in a similar manner to the toe. The opening is closed later with a three needle bind off.

In addition to the easiest toe ever, Cat showed us a very stretchy bindoff that will be useful for not only socks, but for any bindoff that needs to be very stretchy. This bindoff will get lots of use, I am sure. Cat has videos of this bindoff and other techniques in the sock on YouTube.

I confess, I probably would not have tried this method for making socks unless someone made me sit down and do it. Putting this much effort into what amounts as a "sock swatch" is not my nature.

In class, I managed to get my initial footprint knitted almost to the leg opening point. Last night, I knitted almost to the heel decreases. Once the footprint is done, I can open the leg and add the cuff. Then I have to do the second sock - not my strong suit for sure. The next pair of these will definitely be done two at a time.

I have to say that so far the fit is the best ever! I think I am going to love these socks.

Saving Mr. Greenjeans

2009-11-09T15:44:00.000-06:00

In 2008, I made a sweater published in Knitty called Mr. Greenjeans. I knitted it from my handspun yarn. I started trying to wear it, but it kept slipping down my shoulders. The fit was terrible, and so I decided to give it away. I promptly just forgot about it. The decision was made, and that was that. It was in the give away pile, however, I am very slow to actually get the box together and give something away.

Last week, at my Monday knitting group, one of the ladies brought in a sweater, knit sideways from garter stitch. The yarn was beautiful, but she was really unhappy with the fit of the sweater. She said when she put the sleeves in, that it was just weighted down, and the fit was terrible. We discussed ways to fix it so she could wear it.

The problem was all the weight of the yarn stretching out the garter stitch - which likes to grow and grow and grow. It needed to be stabilized, so we suggested crocheting a neckband to give the neck stability and stop the garter stitch from stretching. We discussed how in sewing, that a lot of stabilization is put in the neck and shoulder area, since that is the foundation that the garment literally hangs from. Sweaters don't get this stabilization, but unless the yarn is very light weight, they need something. Machine knitters often crochet a chain across the back neck, and apply the neckband over the chain. The chain helps keep the back neck from stretching.

A couple of days later, I was still thinking about that pretty sweater, and I thought that perhaps adding a slipstitch row of elastic thread would help it. Then I had an a-ha moment. That was what Mr. Greejeans needed. Maybe that sweater could also be saved.

So today, I went digging in my sewing notions and found some black elastic thread. I slip stitch crocheted with the elastic through the row where I added the neckband on the inside of the sweater. I actually did two slip stitch rows on top of each other. Then the neckband seemed a little floppy, so I did the same thing about two rows down in the ribbing from the top. I put a stitch in each purl stitch and skipped the knit stitches. In the photo, you can see where I put the elastic. It does not show at all from the outside.

I tried the sweater on, and was delighted with the new fit. The neck is now stable and I think the growing problem is solved. Mr. Greenjeans has been saved.

Drop by Drop

2009-11-06T19:38:00.000-06:00

For several months, I have been planning a warp for the Summer and Winter Kitchen Towels in the Handwoven E-Book "Top Ten Towels on Four Shafts". In fact since June, five skeins of yarn have been scoured and waiting on the cabinet in my utility room. The time has long since passed to get them off the cabinet.

The thing that has stopped me is the number of colors of yarn that are required. The towels use five different colors of 5/2 cotton plus white. I had exactly one of those colors - white.

When I started weaving, I decided I would try to dye many of the colors called for, since I do not want to add to the large supply of yarn that I have already. The problem is I have no formal art training, so my color mixing knowledge relies heavily on what I learned from finger paints in kindergarten.

For this project, my challenge came in mixing some colors that were close to the colors used in the original pattern - although I am sure other colors would be equally pretty. I really struggled over how to mix some of the colors especially the "California Gold". I had the yellow part down, but was not sure how to get the gold part. I also needed to mix a "Dark Turk" color and a coral color.

From my earlier fiber reactive dye experiments, I learned that the mixed dye solutions can be painted onto watercolor paper, and the dried samples are pretty close to what the actual dyed cloth or yarn will be. Someplace, I also saw that a coffee filter can be substituted for the paper. So, I decided to mix a gradation of the colors between two colors in 9 steps, and try out the coffee filters as a place to preserve my samples.

I used a watercolor mixing palette, and put drops of Deep Yellow in the indentations with an eyedropper. In the first indent, I put one drop, in the second two drops and so forth all around to the last one which got 10 drops. Next, I used Chocolate Brown dye solution and in the indentation with one drop of Deep Yellow, I put 9 drops of Chocolate Brown. The two drops of yellow got 8 drops of brown and so on around. I did not put any brown in the indentation that had the 10 drops of yellow. So each basin had a total of 10 drops of dye, giving a simple formula that can be used to mix larger quantities of that same color.

Next I used a paint brush to paint little samples of each color all around the coffee filter. Now I have a good idea about how to get that California Gold color, or rather my interpretation of it, for the warp for the towels. I also have samples of the colors that can be mixed from these two colors and a rough idea of how to get the color I am aiming for.

I repeated this sampling with the rest of the dye solutions I had mixed up. Now I have lots of color samples to use for a quick reference the next time I dye yarn or fabric.

I dyed the yarn which had been scoured and skeined for three months. It is now curing in my hot water heater closet. I will be rising it in a couple of days, so soon, I will be ready to wind the Summer and Winter Towels Warp. I also dyed some muslin for my She-Knits Autumn Mystery Bag which is felted and waiting for a lining.

This was a fun exercise. It made me think of the art classes I did not get to take. I really do have a lot of colors hiding in a few jars of dye powder.

Drop in the Bucket Stash Busting

2009-10-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Fall 09 Handwoven magazine contained at least four projects that appeal to me. The first one, the Budget Bamboo Shawl is off the loom already. Since the weaving weather is very good for being in my non climate controlled studio, I have rushed to get another project on the loom from the Fall 09 issue.

The new project is the Stash Busting Placemats which is now warped and the weaving is in progress. The sad thing is that I don't think my stash will actually see a big reduction. In fact, I think I have a net increase in stash since I did not have the 8/2 cotton used in the warp for these mats - so that FORCED me to go shopping closeouts at Webs.

However, I did uncover a cone of Cotton Flake in my stash that is going to give these just the look I wanted. I love the colors of this flake. The mats, in progress, are looking just the way I envisioned them. They are going to make a nice gift for someone on my Christmas list.

For the warp of these, I used one strand of navy blue and one strand of chocolate brown. In the weft I have 2 strands of navy blue, one strand of chocolate brown and 3 strands of the cotton flake. Laura Fry, the designer, used two strands of Cotton Flake in her sample, but I wanted mine a bit more hefty so I have opted for 3 strands.

The pattern did not really talk about how many picks of plain weave to use after the hemstitching, so I chose 3 for a total of 6 picks of plain weave. The pattern is a broken twill and I really love it. It is making a nice fabric for a busy yarn, so I will probably use this draft again

I have one mat woven and am ready to hemstitch the second one.

I am already queuing up the next project from this Handwoven issue. I can mind weave really fast. Too bad the weaving goes much slower or my stash might actually be in trouble!

Off the Loom

2009-10-13T15:23:00.000-05:00

My Budget Bamboo Shawl is complete! It is off the loom, fringed, washed and pressed.
It was a fun project - one of those that made me want to do more weaving. The finished fabric is soft and very drapey.

It wove very quickly. I analyzed the tie ups and draft and discovered that I really only needed 3 treadles tied up. I rearranged those so that when my shuttle was on the left, I used the far left treadle, and when my shuttle was on the right, I used either the fourth or sixth treadle depending on where I was in the weaving sequence.

Other treadles were tied up in the draft, but they were for weaving some alternate designs with the same pattern. I decided to stick to the treadling sequence used for the sample in the magazine, after I looked at the alternates in my weaving software.

I bought 6 balls of the Aunt Lydia's Bamboo Crochet yarn and used most of 5. It took almost all of 3 balls for the warp, and 2 balls for the weft. I tried to pay attention to the 15 ppi which meant a light touch on the beater.

I did make a few weaving mistakes that I did not catch while I was weaving. I would have unwoven a ways to correct then if I had seen them. I will chalk this up to being a beginner - although with each project complete, I am farther along the path to being a real weaver.

I don't think the mistakes will matter in the long run, and I will improve next time.

As far as I know, I am the only one in our Weave Along who is done with the shawl. I don't think the others have their warps on the loom yet.

I am planning my next project already. I have my sights set on the Stash Buster Placemats in the same issue of Handwoven (Fall 2009). I really love this issue of Handwoven. After the placemats are done, there are still 2 more projects in that issue of the magazine that I want to try.

These projects will all end up as Christmas presents. I just hope I can get done before the cold weather hits because then my '"weaving studio (a. k. a the garage) " becomes too cold to use.

Blame it On Charlene

2009-10-01T15:54:00.000-05:00

In September, Peggy, Kate Faye and I went to the Cajun Lagnaippe Fiber For'em. This is a nice little fiber festival held at a camp in southwest Louisiana.

The For'em features lots of great classes including Weaving, Bobbin Lace, Sock Machine Knitting, and Machine Knitting taught by Yours Truly. The teacher of the Beginning Weaving Class, Charlene, had this bamboo shawl as one of her samples. She wove it from the directions in the September/October 2009 Handwoven Magazine, called the Budget Bamboo Shawl.

The shawl is made from Aunt Lydia's Bamboo Crochet Cotton. It is woven in Bronson Lace (new for me). The yarn costs less than $15. It is available at Wal-Mart, JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby.

Charlene had deviated from the pattern and used a cream color for the warp and white for the weft, and the subtle difference gave the shawl lots of depth. Kate, Peggy, Faye and I all loved it, so we decided we would all weave it in a Weave A Long or WAL.

So, we all got the yarn and two Wednesdays ago at spinning we began winding our warps. I was able to finish winding mine, and I believe that Kate and Peggy have theirs wound too.

This week, after finishing my Scarf Jail Scarves (that is a whole nother story), I began warping my loom. The loom is a very old Le Clerc Nilus that I think was made in the 1950's or 1960's. It was a school loom, and I am sure could tell lots of stories if it could talk.

I am a process person, so I am always looking for a new twist on stuff. Never mind that I am a beginning level weaver with less that a dozen warps under my belt. Last year I ordered the Singing Weaver's (Nadine Saunders) Warping on a Shoestring video, and I also ordered Peggy Osterkamp's Warping from the Back Video, as well as her book on warping. So, armed with all this information, I decided to branch out (since I am so NOT an expert on warping from the front of the loom) and break out my new raddle to put this warp on from the back using a combination of Peggy and Nadine's techiques.

Nadine uses shoestrings for lots of things when she weaves. She ties the warp to the back apron with shoe strings, and she also ties the warp to the front apron rod with shoestrings. It takes a bunch of shoestrings for her technique and I had shopped Ebay and ordered mine last spring from someone who had some close outs (can't imagine why red and green plaid sparkly shoe laces would have been on close out). I think I paid less than $10 for 40 pairs. You can see them in the photo and even see the glitter!

So, the photos show my warp going on the loom from the back with the raddle in place (Peggy O does this a little differently and I might try her process next time). It also shows my completed tied on warp and glittery shoestrings!

A gadget I got, that I highly recommend is the Auto Reed Hook. This tool is a must have - though a little expensive, it is well worth it. This was the first time I had used it. That hook cut my reed threading time by 2/3rds at least. I LOVE it. If you are a weaver, put it on your Christmas list.

So today, I tied the warp on to the front beam with the shoelaces and a snitch knot a la "Warping on a Shoestring". I found it very easy to remove the knots and correct the two crossed in the reed threads, and I believe I am now ready to weave the shawl.

As a side note, two errors in the threading is the least I have ever had! I must be improving with time in the chair.

The next thing to conquer is hemstitching since the shawl is hemstitched on both ends, and you start with the hemstiching before the weaving.

I will be weaving on the shawl tomorrow!

Peggy, Faye, Kate and Marlene get busy! I want to see your progress. This is a Weave-Along, not a Weave-Alone!

Charlene, see what you have started?

Shade Tree Knitting Machine Mechanics

2009-09-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

A very common problem with Brother and Knitking knitting machines is as they age, the fairisle button becomes glued to the thread lace button by old oil and grease. My favorite machine has been suffering from this malady, and with no knitting machine service people in the area, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I thought maybe someone else might benefit from this information, so I am breaking my blogging silence.

Now one thing that does work on this problem every time I am aware of is to remove the carriage from the machine and warm up the center bottom of the carriage with a hairdryer for about a minute, then retry the buttons. Repeat a couple of times if needed.

I have used the hairdryer, with success, on this particular carriage. The problem is that the gunk rehardened and the button restuck, so more drastic measures were called for. My Bulky machine had the very same problem, and I used the hairdryer on it. After nine months the buttons are still working properly, so the hairdryer is the first thing I would recommend.

If you want to try this, you are on your own, I just want to make that perfectly clear. I am not going to accept any responsibility for your results.

Things can definitely go wrong, and if you are not 100 percent confident, then you best leave this for the experts. We still have a handful of folks in the Machine Knitting Repair business, and I suggest you send your carriage to them if you are not mechanically minded.

I have NO Knitting Machine Mechanics training. I have been thinking about doing this for literally months and have studied everything I could find on the subject, including the 930 Service Manual and the one website I found with photos of something very similar on a different machine.

So, if you are still with me, here is how I unstuck my fairisle button:

I used a flat head and Phillips screw driver, a container to hold the screws and parts, a container for some mineral spirits also known as paint thinner, a bristle brush, some news paper, some paper towels, Q-tips and Formula 409 cleaner.

I removed the carriage and the presser plate. Then I unscrewed the handle. My machine has a motor drive, so the handle is attached by a bracket. For most machines the handle is held on by long screws.

I turned the tension dial to past zero to help line everything up later. I made sure the Hold button was all the way at the left. The release button should be at the left naturally.

Carefully, with the flat blade screwdriver I pried up around the center white disk. This disk is held on with delicate plastic feet, and I was very careful with it. If a foot breaks, it will not stay in place and I would be guessing about my tension. I also know a lot of this old plastic is very fragile.

Next I removed the screw in the center of the tension dial and lift the dial and the small center disc straight off.

I turned the carriage over and removed the two screws that connect the cover to the business part of the carriage. On every carriage I have examined these screws are gold colored, but that may not be true always. There are lots of screws here and removing the wrong one would mean a trip to the repair person, so I was extremely careful.

Next I poured a little mineral spirits into a small container (I was in a well ventilated area), and applied it to the center area and edges of the carriage. I worked with all the buttons. I let it sit for a few minutes, then wiped off the excess and repeated. I kept working with it, and soon the farisle button button was unstuck! Then using the Q-Tips, I carefully wiped off the gunky areas of the carriage. I did not want to knock anything loose!

So, all that remained was to reassemble the carriage cover and knobs and switches. There are a couple of tricky bits here. First thing I did was to wipe off the interior of the cover with the Formula 409 and a paper towel, just to get all the sticky residue that I could
Next, the hold button and the release lever go back into place on top of the carriage. Then place the cover over the carriage insides and reattach with the golden screws.
I checked all the levers and buttons to see if they were working, and found out the intarsia feature would not engage, so I had to take the golden screws back out and try again. The next time everything worked. I have a photo here so you can see the placement of the levers.

Next I replaced the tension disc. Since I turned the dial as far as it would go before I started, I knew the position was correct.

The small disc that goes under the screw was a little tricky to get back on. The "bump" goes up, and The notch goes at the bottom. The notch will line up with the red line on the center plastic disk when it is snapped carefully back on. I was careful to line up the notch first then gently snap in the disk. I was still worried about those fragile feet!
All that remained was to reattach the handle and I was done with this repair!

I hope that my experience helps someone else. It was not too hard to do, and since we Brother/Knitking People are now on our own, we have to help one another when the repairs are fairly simple.

The Art of Front Loader Felting

2009-05-23T16:32:00.001-05:00

If you get one of the new High Efficiency front loading washing machines, you will notice that your clothes are suddenly a whole lot cleaner and seem much dryer when they come out of the wash than they did when all you had was your top loader. The new machines use a lot less water than the top loaders and they are much more gentle on your clothes. They have a computer in control that evaluates the load and decides how much water to use and how much washing is really needed.

When you tell your knitting friends who do not have a front loader yet, about your new acquisition, I bet the first thing you hear is that it is nice for you to have a modern machine, but to forget felting your knitting ever again - unless it is something that you don't want felted!

Well, friends, do not despair. You can felt in your front loader, but you will have to be more determined than before. Felting in the front loader is even more of an art than it used to be in the top loader, because the first thing you have to do is outsmart your smart washing machine! Things probably won't felt in 5 minutes like before - it may take one or two complete cycles to get the look you want.

I would tell you to start by reading the book that comes with the machine so that you understand all the settings, but my experience is that the books are totally worthless and do not cover how to take control of your washer. For example, my washer - an LG brand - will spin out without spraying water if I just turn it on, and select the spin speed I want then press the start button. This is not documented anywhere in the book that came with it. Someone on the Internet made this discovery and shared it on one of the lists I read in response to my whining.

Felting wool requires heat and agitation - and your agitation does not count. Since the washer computes how much water to use, if you just put your item to be felted in, with nothing else, don't expect much felting to occur - unless the wool felts super easy. So, find out how to run your load with really hot water. One item is not going to create much agitation either.

Get yourself some felting helpers to build a load that will definitely cause some agitation as well as adding weight to the load to fool the computer into thinking that you have a big load - and thus need more water.

I have some items that I keep just for my felting loads. My recipe consists of one dozen tennis balls. The photo shows them in a mesh bag, but I dump them loose in the machine when I felt. Add to the balls, one pair of old jeans (or more) a pair of flip flops, one old towel (or more) and an optional pair of old tennis shoes. Now you have an agitating load!

The next thing you have to do is experiment a little - remember this is an art and all front loaders are not created equally plus different wools felt at different rates. The best thing to do is to make a swatch (this is not a dirty word!) and felt it using the concoction you have assembled to do the deed.

Wet your swatch and don't squeeze out too much water. I have found that a wet swatch felts faster than a dry one. I guess it is because no wash water is wasted getting it wet, and you get a fast temperature change - one of the felting keys.

Put your swatch in a zippered pillow cover then into the wash. Don't forget to add a little soap , Dawn or Synthropol (not detergent since it contains whiteners). Set your machine on hot or Sani-Wash and let her rip! The swatch needs to be at least 6 inches wide and long so you are getting something to work with.

In my front loader, I can usually get a satisfactory felted item in one wash cycle for most wools, but for others it takes two cycles. I have found I have to use the Sani-Wash cycle to get really hot water most of the time. I also pick a long cycle, although some people say that it is the temperature changes that cause the felting to occur, so a shorter cycle might work too.

Felting time does vary with the wool used. I had one commercial yarn that felted well in my machine with half of a normal hot wash cycle. A long hot cycle would have ruined this project. My favorite handspun wool takes two to three Sani-Wash (extra hot and long) cycles to make suitable felt. So, experience is the best teacher, and when in doubt, swatch and felt the swatch.

Once your item is felted to your liking, pull and stretch it into shape over a box and or towels or other stuffing that makes it the right size. Then let it dry.

If you want to read a good felting reference, I suggest either of Kathleen Taylor's books on felting - Knit One Felt Too or I Heart Felting. She has some great information about swatches and felting in both of those books. She does not have front loader specific stuff though.

Good luck with your felting projects!

Rockstars and Space Bags

2009-05-05T19:29:00.000-05:00

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is the largest Fiber Festival of it's kind in the United States. Since shortly after I began spinning in 2003, I knew I wanted to go. This was my lucky year.

I have a spinning friend in Virginia, Julie, of Julie's Handspun Yarns, who I get to see rarely. Julie invited me to come and stay with her and attend the festival. I felt so lucky to have a guide and I left the planning up to her. I felt so lucky to have an experienced guide for the festival. I wanted to be sure I did not miss anything important, and I know Julie would be sure I didn't.

So, the Thursday before the festival, I caught a plane and headed to Virginia. Very early Saturday morning, we left Julie's house and headed for the Festival.

We arrived before the official opening time, and went on in. This was a good thing, because we were able to go to the big Exposition Center before it got too crowded. We bought a beautiful silver merino fleece that won second place in it's class in the fleece judging. We split this fleece and sent it to be processed.

We wandered through the barn and managed to get through about 1 more barn before the crowds got so big, you could not stir them with a stick. There were lines for T-Shirts and lines for Socks That Rock yarn which we did not get in. We decided that we were not waiting in line for those.

Most of the booths were so crowded that there was no way to get in. We did score a washed and skirted Coopworth fleece that we split. I have not spun Coopworth before, but it looks really nice.

I went to the Ravelry Meetup, and got to meet Mary Heather, Jess, and Casey. The lady in the wine colored sweater is a Ravelry friend - Llamalady (Barbara) that I also got to visit with. It was really fun to get to actually speak with someone I felt like I knew from the Ravlery She-Kints Group.

The day passed quickly. My friend Cindy was there working at the Jacob Sheep Conservancy Booth, and she wanted to go to dinner with us, so we were waiting for her to "get off work". This made us hang around later than we would have.

I was falling down tired so I found a bench outside of one of the barns and sat down. Being Texan, I made small talk with another lady sitting on the bench. I asked her what she bought and one thing she had was Socks that Rock sock yarn. This yarn is famous for the wonderful colors it is dyed in. I have never knit with this but have been hearing about it for a couple of years. By this time, late in the day, the lines were all gone. So, I got Julie and we headed to the Fold's booth.

The Fold had lots of Socks that Rock Yarn left at full retail, and they had a basket of seconds on sale at a good price, but only 4 skeins were left and the colors were, shall we say, ugly. So we shopped around their booth, and while we were making up our minds they put out the seconds they had held back for Sunday - two huge bins - and we got first choice! We got the Socks that Rock Yarn at a good price and we did not have to wait in line at all!

The next day at the Festival, it was raining and it never let up all day. This was good for us, but bad for the vendors since it hurt the crowds. The day starts with the Sheep to Shawl Competition.

Julie is a member of the Tidewater Treadlers Sheep to Shawl team, so we were there very early to get ready. I had never seen a Sheep to Shawl competition, and it was lots of fun to watch the sheep - a black Hog Island Ewe - get shorn, and then have the spinning and weaving commence.

In a Sheep to Shawl Competition, the loom arrives with the warp on it. The sheep is shorn and the spinners start spinning the fleece in the grease. Once the first bobbin is done, the weaving starts. The team has a short length of time to spin the weft for the shawl and get the shawl woven. It is important that the spinners keep up with the weaver.

The team is judged on several criteria, including their weaving accuracy, spinning quality, costumes (the Treadlers compete in Colonial dress), adherence to the size specified for the shawl and their teamwork. Once the shawls are completed and off the loom they are washed before being judged. After the awards are announced, all the shawls are auctioned off.

The Tidewater Treadlers had won the competition three times before, and they added win number four to their record this year. They also won a special award for the best spinners in the competition.

While Julie was spinning, I took the Umbrella and went to Jennie the Potter's booth to meet Knitting Rockstars Amy Singer from Knitty and Heather Ordover from the Craft-Lit Podcast. These two ladies are so nice in person - just the way I expected them to be.

I did some shopping and got Finnsheep roving and superwash Blue Faced Leichester roving as well as a few other treasures.

Once the Sheep to Shawl Competition was over, Julie and I bought another fleece - this one from a Columbia Sheep, and we took that to be processed. On the way back, we noticed there was no line for T-Shirts, so we stopped in and got one. Our patience - or lack of it - regarding waiting in lines paid off for us again.

Because of the rain, we really did not get to see all the booths at the festival. We missed the skein competition as well as the handmade garments. We also missed the sheep dog trials as well as lots of other stuff I am sure. I guess that gives me something to look forward to when I manage to go back.

Monday morning, it was back to Texas for me. I was very concerned about getting all my loot in my suitcase and I would have never made it without Space Bags! That suitcase was stuffed to the gills. I was very worried about it popping. I am sure the TSA did not open it, because I don't think it could have been closed again.

I arrived home bone tired and very happy. This was the most fun I have had in a long time. The only thing that would have made the trip better would have been more sleep!

Colorful Cotton Lint

2009-04-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

My friend Peggy gave me 2 pounds of ginned cotton lint last fall to experiment with dyeing. I have not done too much cotton dyeing so every time I do it, I have to wing it a bit. The MX Dyes are not my friend - yet anyway. I was sure that I did not want to spin the undyed lint though. That would be way too boring!

I found instructions for dyeing the lint and also for dyeing cotton sliver at the Cotton Spinning Website.

Joan Ruane runs this site, and she is an expert cotton spinner. She has instructions for dyeing the lint or sliver with both the MX Dyes and also with Natural Dyes on her website and she also has a DVD on how to spin cotton that is available there.

I sort of combined Joan's instructions on dyeing lint with her instructions on dyeing sliver, as I wanted multi-colored lint to spin rather than a solid color.

Here is what I did:

Scour the Cotton - put a pot on the burner and fill it about 3/4 full of water. Add a little dish soap. Break up the lint and immerse it in the water, forcing it under. Bring the pot to a simmer and let it simmer for 15-30 minutes or so. A lot of dirt will come out.
Rinse the Cotton and squeeze out most of the water.
Soak the wet lint in Salt water for 10 minutes - Here I switched to the instructions for dyeing cotton sliver. I used Joan's instructions of 1/2 cup of salt dissolved in one gallon of water and let my lint soak while I mixed my dyes and activator solution.
Mix dyes - I used Joan's recommendation of 1/4 tsp of dye powder to about 3/8 cup of water. I mixed the colors I wanted - a green, a purple, turquoise and navy blue in separate bottles.
Prepare soda ash solution to activate the dye - I mixed in another container 1/4 cup of soda ash to 3/4 cup of hot water. This should be enough soda ash solution for 6 colors of dye stock, so I was good with my 4 colors
Squeeze out wet lint and put it on plastic sheet - at this point I took the wet cotton lint from the salt water solution and squeezed it with my hands until it was fairly dry. I lined my concrete mixing tub (a useful Home Depot or Lowe's item) with a few sheets of newspaper and a large sheet of clear plastic from a partial roll my friend Laurie gave me. A garbage bag or a couple of sheets of saran would work. I then spread out the wet lint on the plastic in the tub.
Add activator to dye and apply - One at a time I added 1/8 cup or 1 ounce of activator to each dye. Then I applied that color at random on the lint until it was gone. The activator needs to be added to the dye, then the dye needs to be used quickly. I have read that after 45 minutes, it is technically exhausted or has lost a lot of potency.
Wrap the dyed fiber and leave in a warm place for the dye to work - Unlike the acid dyes, the MX dyes work at warm room temperature and do not like to get too hot. It was a fairly cool day so, I put my plexiglass cover on the concrete container with the wrapped dyed fiber and left it in the sun for a couple of hours. Then I left the dyed fiber alone until the next day before I began rinsing.
Rinse and rinse and rinse - Here is something that I find frustrating about the MX dyes - all the rinsing required. I have found that the item or yarn or fiber needs about 10 rinses in cool water before the water is semi-clear. I rinsed out the fiber
Scour the rinsed fiber and set the color - Next I put the fiber back in the pot of water with some Dawn and brought it up to a simmer for another 30 minutes to set the color.
Rinse out the soap, squeeze the fiber out - I had the bright idea to put the dyed lint in my front loader and spin it out. I put it in a mesh bag, but the heavy cotton that was full of water made the machine very unhappy. Next time I do this, I will remember to split it over several bags.
Dry the fiber - I put dyed lint in a mesh bag and gave it a dryer cycle which left it pretty wet still. Then, I let it dry over night and gave it another dryer cycle and it was slightly damp, so I put it in a mesh hamper that would let the air get to it and hung it to dry another day.
Tease, card and spin - I have started making punis from the fiber. It is going to be so much fun to spin my colored cotton!

Here is my pile of cotton fiber with some of the punis I have made so far. I will probably card all of it before I start spinning.

I am still not as comfortable with the MX dyes as with acid dyes on wool. This session helped some, but I guess I need more practice. Fortunately I have another pound and a half of cotton lint.

Now, I want to get out the bamboo roving I have and try dyeing that!

Clothes for Hand Cards

2009-04-26T15:00:00.000-05:00

I have wanted to protect my hand cards from the elements for a while. I usually keep them tied together to protect the teeth, but that seemed like not enough. I am about to embark on a large, for me, carding project, and my cards are going to have to do a bit of traveling, so they really needed some clothes.

Today, I thought of a quick way to make them a cover in a short amount of time, and at the same time reuse something old.

You can do this for your cards too. It just takes minimal sewing skills, an old pair of jeans - preferably from a man, because you want wide legs at the bottom, and about 1 1/2 yards of 1 inch wide grosgrain ribbon. You will also need a sewing machine and an iron, but I suppose you could do without these things and have something a little less finished.

Here are the steps to make a cover for your cards:

Lay the jeans out on a table or cutting board. See if one of your cards will fit into the bottom of the leg. Mine just fit in my husband's old jeans. If they don't fit because the leg is too small, you just will have to hem both ends. Move the cards up until the jean leg is wide enough to hold the card and whack off the hem there.

See how deep the pockets need to be. For my cards, one pocket needed to be about 6 inches deep, so for the two pockets, I needed a minimum of 12 inches plus some ease for folding.

Cut off the leg of the jeans at 2 times the depth you need plus about one inch for a hem. If you need to hem both ends, then allow another inch. For my cards, I cut the leg of the jeans at about 13 1/2 inches, giving the pocket a little more depth. I would err on the side of too deep rather than not deep enough.

If you find your jeans are way too big for the cards, then you could take up the inside leg seam to fit your carders. Also, jeans taper down to the ankle, so one end of your tube will be a little larger than the other one. This did not bother me, but if it bothers you, then adjust the inside seam to straighten things out. If your jeans are just not big enough, then, I would take both legs, and cut them at the desired length. Open up the seam that is not topstitched, and then sew the two legs together to make your tube at the right size for your cards.

Take the piece of jean leg and hem the end you cut. I just serged the raw edge and pressed under about an inch, then sewed around the opening with a straight stitch on my machine.

Fold the tube in half with the hems together. Locate the center and mark with a pin. Sew the center of your ribbon through all layers at this point with your sewing machine.

Now still with the hems together, open the pocket up and sew the insides together along the hem. Leave the outsides of the pockets free. This will keep your pockets together and keep things from flopping when you put in your cards.

You now have 2 pockets, one for each card. Put in your hand cards, wrap the ribbon around the handles and tie in a bow.

I hope this makes sense to you and that your cards get clothes.

DogGeekery

2009-04-14T11:27:00.000-05:00

A warning. This is only remotely fiber related, but I feel I must share something with you all.

Today has not been a great day so far. We are in the middle of getting the house ready for a party on Saturday night, so things are getting cleaned that have not been clean in YEARS. This is silly, I admit. No one coming to the party cares. They like us for the way we are and not the way we should be.

So, this morning, my Sweetie removed some construction stuff from our back porch that has been there since 2002. I felt he would appreciate some help and I was worried about him injuing his back with the heavy stuff. So, I went out to help him.

We uncovered many treasures. One of them was a dirty laundry basket that had stuff in it that all went to the garbage. I thought I could use this basket for another purpose, and it was dirty. I brought it in and left it in the utility rooom sink filling with soapy water. I promptly forgot this so the water kept running. I was preoccupied with helping. My mistake.

So, when I discovered the sink had run over and spread water all over this end of the house (here is the fiber part) and into the knitting room running under the Pergo floor, I was not happy. I admited my mistake quickly, and my Sweetie ran for the shop vac and started vacuuming water up.

He was not too happy with me for being a dummy and forgetting the water. I wasn't too happy with me either. We cleaned water for a while and then he said some of our dogs had run outside when he came in. Then he realized he forgot the gate was open as he was using the tractor to take out the trash from the porch to the front of the house.

Kharma has a way of getting even doesn't it? He realized that he forgets things too and that took some of the heat of of me for being an idiot.

So, things went from bad to worse in a hurry. We dropped the vacuum and left the wet floor and went outside, praying our dogs had not gone far.

Now, if you have dogs, here is the part where you need to pay attention. Our dogs are all chow hounds and our yard is large. They can be selectively deaf to their names. but from the time they are little, we liberally give them cookies or treats every time they come to us when they are called. When they are babies, we always have cookies in our pockets, and even as adults, when we call them from the yard, they most often get a treat for coming to their names. They know coming to us will NEVER get them in trouble. If we need to scold them, which is very rare, we go to them. We don't ask them to come to be punished.

So, we live at the end of a dead end street. The dogs had been out at least 15 minutes. They are whippets and could have been far away.

We went into the yard, called their names and said the magic word "Cookie". They were all across the street which at our house means they were over the length of a football field away.

All of them came running like they were catching a rabbit. I am so, so grate full. I can not even imagine how much worse the day would have been if one of them was lost. Of course, they all got lots of treats.

So, I encourage you, if you have dogs, to always give your dog a treat for coming to his name. We call it "pay to play". You never know when it might come in very handy. We are drying things out and hoping the floor can make it through one flood. I hope I don't ever do that again.

Next time, I will try to get things back to fiber, but today this is DogGeekery.

Wildflower Whiners Retreat

2009-03-15T08:25:00.000-05:00

This weekend is the wonderful Wildflower Fiber Spinning Retreat. Unfortunately, I could not go this year due to other obligations. I was not alone. Several of my Spinning Buddies in the "Texas Twisters" also could not go. So, we decided to have our own retreat which we called the "Wildflower Whiners Spinning Retreat".

Our retreat had lots of the fun elements of the real Wildflower Retreat - food, spinning, workshops and laughing without the drawback of not sleeping in our own beds!

There were six of us, Joanne, Laurie, Maxine, Marlene, Terri and me and we gathered at my house on Saturday morning. Everyone brought their wheels. Joanne brought a wonderful cake, Laurie brought cream cheese, jelly and crackers and I made Lemon Bars. So we ate and had coffee and spun.

After lunch we had our "workshops." Marlene bought her Portuguese Knitting DVD and so we watched that. To knit "in the Portuguese way" you tension the yarn through a pin or around your neck. The yarn is wrapped with a flick of your non-dominate hands thumb (left thumb for all you right handers) and it rests either on top (for knit stitches) or underneath (for purl stitches) of your needle. This method of knitting requires much less hand stress than knitting English or Continental style.

Laurie and Joanne tried it out while the rest of us kept spinning. There were some fits and starts. Joanne thought she was doing the knit stitch, but it turned our she had learned the purl stitch. There was lots of laughing about this.

At the real Wildflower Retreat, Cindy and Rita took a workshop on Viking Knitting where they made bracelets. They texted us a photo of their bracelets,so of course we had to send them photos of our Portuguese Knitting Workshop!

Our second "workshop" was the Patsy Zawistoski DVD on Spinning Cotton, Silk and Flax. It made me want to get my cotton sliver out and spin it. That just may be the next thing on my wheel since I was able to finish plying the fiber we dyed at the Winter Fiber Fun Retreat yesterday.

After everyone left, I searched YouTube for
Portuguese Knitting and found several good videos of the technique. I spent the evening learning how to do it - left handed of course! I managed several rows of the kitchen towel that I am knitting. While I might not totally switch to this technique, I am glad to have it in my bag of tricks and will keep trying it.

We had a really fun day. It was so nice to be able to get together with good friends and share the crafts that we are passionate about.

It did help make up for not being able to go to Wildflower this year.

Winter Fiber Fun - Roving Dyeing

2009-03-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

My friend, Mary at Fancy Fibers, organized and ran a wonderful retreat in February, 2009, at a local camp. It was loosely organized for all types of Fiber Folk to come and do their thing and just hang out for the weekend.

She planned only a few classes for the retreat. One of those was a fiber dyeing class that I ended up teaching as a last minute fill in when the original teacher had to cancel. The roving was merino superwash supplied by my friend Joanne of Terrific Fibers

The class had about 14 people in it including several first time dyers. I was very concerned about keeping the dye where it should be and off of where it should not be, and I am happy to say we were succesful with that effort.

We covered everything well with plastic and newspapers, then laid out our soaked rovings on plastic wrap. We painted these with dye stock, then sprayed them with vinegar and wrapped them tightly. We rolled them up jelly roll fashioned. We labeled them with some plastic tape and markers and put them in roasters to steam.

Each of the rovings turned out beautiful, and the fiber spins like butter.

Mother of Invention

2009-02-22T08:22:00.000-06:00

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, I think that is true.

I have a love hate relationship with the Design A Knit software program also known as DAK.

Love:

Original Shaping

Stitch Designer

Knit from Screen

Hate:

the Copy protection that makes it difficult to move it between my computers and makes it impossible to install on a computer with no CD or diskette drive

the "life" system that makes me dependent on ONE person in the US in case of a life lost

the expense of the cables. I have many knitting machines and the cable expense for all of them runs into more than a thousand dollars

the fact that the software does not keep up with the times and has not had a new release in a very long time and every upgrade costs more and more money

I have become dependant on Original Shaping and the Knit from Screen function. I use these for almost everything I machine knit, and I would not be adverse to using it for my handknits. I have a computer that is pretty much dedicated to DAK. It really runs nothing else, so I don't have to worry about losing my DAK "life" from some innocent file cleanup.

Last summer I used DAK to design a little bolero top that I planned to knit on my LK150. It was based on a design from my favorite machine knitting magazine Knitwords. Of course, I planned to use a different yarn, and so a different stitch gauge and also a different machine with no automatic patterning meaning every single row has some sort of manual intervention.

I thought I would just knit the bolero from the Garment Notation print out of DAK. The top was to be knitted sideways with curved front edges so there was a lot of shaping involved. What makes this little bolero is the lacy stitch design. On the LK150, settings have to be changed manually on most rows to make the design.

Normally, I would color code the settings and changes as a stitch design, merge that with the garment design and knit from screen so with every row I could see what to do with each needle on each row. However, I do not have a DAK cable for the LK150 (which has no electronics or anything fancy). I also do not have my DAK enabled computer nearby so that I can see the screen and advance the knit from screen manually. (Advancing manually sounds hard but really is not that time consuming especially since the end result is what you designed.)

I gave this three attempts before giving up. I tried knitting it from the Garment Notation print out, but with pattern manipulations going on every row and shaping on many of them, I got too confused. I tried charting it in a spread sheet with the same result.

Fast forward to Christmas: My husband received a netbook computer - a small laptop with a small screen that does everything wirelessly. It has no CD or DVD drive and of course no diskette drive. It weighs just over two pounds and is ideal for traveling. And, it fits perfectly on the back of the table my LK150 is attached to. However, there is no way to install DAK on it without buying an external CD drive. These are expensive.

So, this got my wheels turning. How could I use the netbook to display the DAK screen from my DAK computer, preferably for free?
Windows Messenger to the rescue! Windows Messenger has many cool features. One of them is Application Sharing with Remote Control. Best of all it is FREE!

I set up an additional Windows Messenger account so I could message between the computers. Next, I shared my DAK session to the netbook and am able to advance the rows remotely with Knit from Screen. I tested this with a sweater which is the first I have ever knit for me on the LK150, and it worked fabulously. Next, I did an Intarsia Design on the LK150 and that also worked really well.

This setup is allowing me to knit things that I would not have tried before on my little simple machine. Maybe I will try that bolero again ....

Hunting Magic

2009-01-31T14:02:00.000-06:00

My friend Hillary brought 2 cones of a really beautiful purple boucle yarn to Knit Club last month that she was destashing. I normally can resist yarn since I have a 2 lifetime supply, but not when it is the perfect shade of purple. I grabbed those two cones and brought them home.

The yarn has a heavy boucle, but the carrier thread is thin. I thought at first it was 100 percent cotton. Boucle yarns often present problems with knitting machines, and if the yarn had not been such a beautiful color, I would have left it for someone else to have fun with.

I swatched the boucle on my standard gauge knitting machine at tension 9, and the machine knit it, but complained the entire time. I went ahead and designed my sweater thinking I would knit it on the standard, but when I cast it on and knit a few rows, I immediately started having lots of problems with stitches not knitting properly. The more I knit, the worse things got. The standard machine was not going to work out.

So, I decided to move the project to my mid-gauge machine, which is an LK-150. It is a nice 6.5mm plastic machine designed for DK weight yarns. It will also knit some heavier yarns as long as they are not too bulky. Because it is plastic, I feel it is sort of fragile. You really can not push it with any sort of abuse without running the risk of breaking the carriage. One of these days, I will get a Studio/Silver 860 but for now, this machine is my only mid-gauge.

I swatched at tension 3 on the LK-150. The carriage did not glide, but it did knit without too much complaining. When I blocked my swatch, I determined that the carrier yarn is not cotton, but is a synthetic either acrylic or nylon and the drape after blocking was just wonderful. I became more determined to get at least a sweater out of the purple yarn.

When I started the actual sweater, the LK-150 was still not real happy with the yarn. I knit slowly but every row was a struggle. The machine would knit the yarn, but it was complaining every row, and I was afraid I would break the carriage or the machine if I continued. I almost gave up and would have except that the color was beautiful and the drape on the blocked swatch was just what I like.

Then I remembered a a tip that my friend Carol gave me to lubricate Bond machines. Yes, I have a Bond machine and I CAN knit on it, but it is not one of my favorites. Carol, on the other hand, LOVES her Bond and has knit many gorgeous sweaters on it including lots of intarsia ones. If you browse the photo archive at the DFW Machine Knitters Guild website, you will see lots of samples of her work,

Carol advises using a Silicone Cleaning Rag from the Hunting Department to lubricate both the bed of the machine and the carriage. This really makes the Bond machines knit much easier. Bond owners really should discard the wax that the machine manufacturer recommends for lubrication and only use this rag - it makes so much difference. I think that a lot more Bond knitters would be successful with just this one tip.

I got out the Silicone Gun and Reel Cleaning Rag that I bought at Wal-Mart and rubbed the bed of the machine as well as the underside of the carriage with it. I took extra care to get down into the needle channels on the carriage as well as the bearing surface for the rail. I like a rag rather than a spray because you use so much less. There is no overspray and the product goes exactly where it is needed.

The difference after the Silicone Rag was absolutely amazing! The LK-150 carriage now glides over this difficult yarn without so much as one complaint.

So, I thought someone else might benefit from this little bit of inexpensive magic. Look for this in the Hunting section at Wal-Mart. I know my rag was less than $5 and it will last a long time. Be SURE that the package says "Safe for Plastic" as some lubricants can dissolve plastic machines.

If you have a plastic bed knitting machine of any brand, try this out. I think you will be amazed.

Christmas Sweater for Izzy the Iggy

2008-12-31T20:35:00.000-06:00

I planned no knitted gifts for Christmas 2008. However, the best laid plans don't always work out.

The Monday before Christmas, my daughter called me and during the conversation told me that her Italian Greyhound, Izzy, was cold and in desperate need of a Christmas sweater, because ALL of her Doggy Friends had Christmas Sweaters, and Izzy needed to keep up with the in crowd.

When she got Izzy last spring, I knitted her a blue sweater, but the need was for a RED one for the Holidays.

Well, what is a Mom to do when confronted with a need like this? Of course, off to Michael's I went in search of Christmas Red yarn. I bought a skein of Red Lion Brand Wool Ease for the body, and used some off white Wool Ease in my stash for the collar. I used size 6 needles. I started it on Tuesday, and did not finish it until Christmas Day, but if Izzy was disappointed, she never let on.

I used the same sweater pattern as last spring the Italian Greyhound Sweater Pattern that was posted by an Iggy owner some time ago. The original website is gone, however the pattern has been made available in an archive. I just hope it does not go away. It is truly a nice pattern, even though it is brief and has no illustrations.

This little pattern is simple 1x1 rib and fits an IG well - which is not true of most dog sweaters and this breed. The ribbing stretches easily to allow the sweater to be taken on and off without stressing the dog, and it also does not bag.

I would love to develop a machine knitted pattern, but this pattern is one that does not directly translate to the machine. You begin it at the collar and knit it to the tail in one piece. I took the time to draw a schematic this time that I can use to develop a machine knit - but it will have to be in pieces and then sewn together.

Izzy no longer has to hang her head in shame. She is as festive as her friends! The crisis has been averted!

Putting on the Heat

2008-12-16T15:55:00.000-06:00

As our knitting machines age, a very common problem for the Brother/Knitking machine carriages is to have the MC button that controls the fairisle selection stuck to the thread lace button below it. These sticky buttons are caused by grease oil and gunk that hardens inside the carriage.

Today, I got out my Knitking Bulky 270 to do a little fairisle on a Christmas Gift and the buttons were stuck hard together like they had been welded. I got out the machine lube and sprayed the underside of the carriage. I turned the carriage upside down and waited a while. When I came back, the buttons were just as stuck as before.

I pondered on this a while, very frustrated. I was ready to knit my project and did not want further delays. Suddenly, I thought about the hair dryer.

I decided to try warming up the gunk to see if the button would release. I held the running hair dryer to the underside of the carriage for maybe a minute to warm all the gunk up. The next time I pressed the button it had been freed!

I am a very happy camper.

Swatch Abuse Takes a Turn with Cotton

2008-12-12T11:53:00.000-06:00

Here in Texas, cotton is King. I love to wear it. It is cool and very practical. I live in my jeans and T-shirts for much of the year.

I think one of the nice things about jeans, is that when you put them on out of the wash, they may not be too comfortable at first, but wear them a while and they fit like a glove as the cotton stretches when it is worn.

Knit sweaters from cotton can be a big disappointment. Just like the jeans, you put them on, and they begin stretching mostly sideways until you are wearing a sack, or can not even keep the shoulders where they belong. It does not matter if the sweater is hand knit or made by machine the stretch happens unless you have done something to prevent it.

For years, when machine knitting with cotton, I have combated this tendency by plaiting a thin strand of a more stable yarn - like a 2/30 acrylic - on the wrong side of my cotton sweaters. This stable yarn helps keep the cotton from stretching. However, the plaiting yarn does change the hand of the fabric and also makes the garment less comfy sometimes.

A while back I was reading an old Spin-Off magazine. I have no idea which one, but I think it was from the middle 90's. There was a photo of a handspun cotton sweater and for some reason I stopped and read what the author had written about it. Often I just skip over reading this type of information, but for some reason I did not this time.

The author wrote that her cotton sweaters never stretch out to where she can not wear them. The secret she said is in how the original swatch is treated before the gauge is taken.

She advised knitting the swatch, then stretching it width wise several times firmly. She then washed it in hot water and dried it in a hot dryer to encourage it to shrink all it was going to.

When the swatch has been washed and dried, do not take your gauge yet. Instead, grab the swatch and pull it hard horizontally several times, stretching it as much as you can. Set the swatch aside for a day. Now measure the swatch and calculate your gauge.

I wanted to make the Take A Turn Sweater from Mary Anne Oger's Knitwords magazine. I absolutely adore this magazine, and I think all Machine Knitters should be subscribers to it. Mary Ann is currently offering this pattern for free on the website so you can get a sample of the types of patterns in the magazine.

I went into my stash, and grabbed the first cone that was a color I loved. This turned out to be a 2/16 cotton yarn in a beautiful blue. I decided to try out the knitting with cotton hint from the old Spin Off magazine to see how it worked rather than plait the cotton as I usually do.

I used the yarn triple stranded on my Knitking Compuknit IV standard gauge machine. I cast on 60 stitches at tension 8 and sampled the hem technique used in the pattern. Next I put in some waste knitting and made a standard tension swatch. I put in some more waste knitting and sampled the cable technique used in the pattern. Then I stretched, washed, dried and stretched the swatch as advised in the article. Finally, I measured the swatch and calculated my gauge.

I almost always use Designaknit to chart my sweaters in my gauge, since I never use the yarn called for in the pattern. I decided since there were lots of cables to keep track of, I would create a stitch pattern that exactly fit my sweater marking all the cable crossings. I was really glad I took the time to do this for this particular sweater.

When I laid out the sweater on the stitch pattern, I discovered that the cables were falling off the shoulders of the sweater. I should have expected this, because I had stretched the cotton swatch sideways resulting in fewer stitches per inch than on the original garment.

The pattern called for seven stitches between each cable pattern. On my sweater, I rearranged this to five stitches between each cable pattern to make everything fit. I made three quarter length sleeves, and decided to add some additional cables on the bottom of each sleeve not called for in the pattern.

When I made the sweater, it seemed really long coming off the machine. The sweater pieces were stretched, washed, dried and stretched just as for the swatch. I then assembled the sweater using the yarn from the unravelled swatch. I also used this preshrunk yarn in the neckband trim. I think using unwashed, unshrunk yarn would cause puckers in the sweater once it was washed.

I have worn the sweater now, and I am happy to report that the wide neckline in the sweater does not fall off my shoulders. It certainly would have if I had not abused the swatch prior to taking my gauge. The sweater does not grow and grow and is as comfy as an old sweatshirt. I will be using this technique for knitting with cotton from now on.

Baby Blankets Completed!

2008-11-22T11:43:00.000-06:00

.
This was a really fun project, perfect for my level of weaving expertise - which is not much. I think this is the fifth warp that has been on my loom since I have owned it.

Since the yarn was not expensive ($15 for everything) and there was no sizing pressure, I could just relax and enjoy the entire process. I am so glad that Leigh inspired me do do this. We all need to have this sort of project that is not intended to be impressive, but just to enjoy. In fact, I am so tempted to go out and beam up another couple of blankets while the weather is temperate. Pretty soon, I won't be able to weave because it will be too cold in the ~~weaving studio~~ garage.

Project Data:

Width in reed: 36"

Warp length: 3.5 yds

Finished width before washing: 32"

Finished length before washing: 90"

Yarn: Bernat Baby Coordinates, Self Striping in Pink and Purple, 404 yds per skein = 5.25 oz, Sport Weight, Yarn weight symbol 3

Number of skeins used: 5 for weaving, 1 for edgings.

Sett: 8 epi

Warp ends: 292 last 2 dents doubled on each side for selvage.

PPI: half at 8 and half at about 12

Weave Structure: Plain Weave

Breakthroughs: It is possible to get a warp on the loom without missed dents and crossed threads. This is a first for me and I hope a trend.

Lessons Learned:

Watch PPI when beating. Aim for balance.
When using a patterned yarn, pay close attention to the way the shuttle bobbins are begun and stopped to avoid uneven patterns or striping in the final woven project.

When I finished weaving the length for the first blanket, I noticed I was really eating up the weft yarn. I finally realized that my PPI was about 12 instead of being an even 8 to match the sett. So, on the second blanket, I made an effort to beat more lightly and get to about 8 PPI.

I was then worried that the first blanket was going to feel like a board when it came off the loom. After washing and drying, I can not tell that much difference between the two. Both are nice. When I examine the second one I can tell the PPI is looser, and the hand is more drapey, but the first one is fine as well. The babies who get them should be very snugly.

The crochet edgings are done and I have blocked both blankets. It has been a while since I crocheted, and I had forgotten the rules for spacing the initial row of single crochets.

On the first blanket, I got the single crochets too close together. When the rest of the edging was added, it rippled a little bit. So, on the second blanket I stretched the sc's out a bit and when I got finished the edge was pulling in a little.

This was all fixed with steam. Both of them look wonderful after blocking. The edgings took almost an entire skein of yarn. Crochet really eats it up.

Edging Patterns:

.
Blanket 1: Base row 1 - Begin in the middle of one side,SC around blanket edge, 3 SC in corners, sl ends together c2, turn. R2 - HDC around 3 HDC in corners, sl end together. Ch 3 turn. R3 - *Skip 2 st, 3 DC in next st. Repeat from * around. At corners add a ch 1 between the DC clusters and make them come out close to the corner. Join with a sl st. Ch 1 Do not turn. R4 - Crab stitch around putting 1 st in the top of each DC from the row below and 1 in corners. To crab stitch, work sc from left to right - opposite the normal direction

Blanket 2: Base row 1 - Begin in the middle of one side,SC around blanket edge, 3 SC in corners, sl ends together c1, turn. R2 - Sc around with 3 SC in corners sl ends together. R3 - HDC around, 3 HDC in corners, sl ends together, ch1 turn. R4 - SC around, 3 SC in corners, Sl end together, c3 turn. R5 - 2 DC in same stitch as Ch, (sk 2, Ch3, 2DC in next S). Repeat between () around. Fasten off.

Let the Weaving Commence

2008-11-18T16:24:00.000-06:00

Inspired by Leigh over at Leigh's Fiber Journal, I decided to weave some baby blankets out of good old acrylic yarn in plain weave.

I am not a very experienced weaver, and I figured it does not get much simpler than this. I think this is the fourth warp I have put on my loom so every one is a learning experience.

The yarn I picked is Bernat Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes in a pink and purple self striping colorway. The stripes are fairly long, so I figured the blanket will at least not be too boring. I bought 4 skeins of yarn, and may need another one. It is plentiful if I do so I am not too worried about it. I plan to finish the edges in crochet like Leigh did with hers.

I made the warp three and a half yards long and plan to get two blankets out of it. The warp used about two and a half skeins. of yarn. I am using a sett of 8 epi. I have spent the last week in spurts in my weaving studio (aka the garage) putting the warp all across my 36 inch 4 harness loom. I have to time my weaving to days when the temperature is pleasant. Fortunately, the weather here in Texas is beautiful right now.

I am a very slow warper, but that does not mean I don't have mistakes. The last time I warped the loom it took me about 10 hours to straighten out all the crossed threads and threading errors. I must be getting a little better at it, because this warp had no crossed threads at all. (of course this time I threaded the loom 1-2-3-4 all across) I was able to tie on and start my weaving.

When I warped the loom, the warp colors got randomized, because I still can not hold the warp and thread the reed in order - a la Debbie Chandler's instructions. (did I mention I am a self taught weaver?) I have a random number of pink then purple threads all across the warp. If I had been going in order, I suspect it would have been about 3 threads each color in a straight pattern but we will never know.

Today, I finished tying the warp on and started weaving with the self striping yarn. What I had not thought of was winding the shuttle bobbins with a plan. The self striping yarn makes even stripes, and before I realized the consequences, I got one stripe that is not the same size as the others. I don't think the baby will care though so I am leaving it in.

Now when I wind the bobbins, I have a definite starting and stopping point on the yarn pattern and I think the rest of the stripes will be about the same size based on how hard I beat. I have not quite mastered keeping that even yet. I think it is another case of more time needed in the chair.

The baby shower is 2 weeks away. There is nothing like a deadline for motivation.

My Head Hurts

2008-11-16T19:00:00.000-06:00

I've spent the last two days at a Spinning Seminar with none other than Spinning Diva, Patsy Zawistoski, and my mind is about to burst with all the new knowledge I have gained. The photo shows only a few of the samples from the weekend.

On Saturday, we spent the day learning how to spin several types of Novelty Yarns. If this had been the only thing offered, I might not have signed up because I really don't like lumpy bumpy spinning. Instead of being boring and uninteresting, like I half expected, it was a wonderful day. Spinning those lumpy bumpy yarns was way more fun than I ever imagined.

We learned what kinds of yarn we normally spin - soft, medium or hard. My normal spinning is soft it turns out. That was a surprise to me. I would have thought it was medium at least. We learned how to make a sample for our records (now maybe I need to actually keep some) and we learned how to Miss America ply for short, quick samples. This is similar to Andean plying and saves having to locate a ball winder when you only have a little yarn to be plied.

What kind of yarn you spin is important to some of the techniques for the novelty yarns. Different yarns require components that are spun at certain hardness's.

Next we learned how to make a cabled yarn. I had read the procedure for this before, but had never tried doing it. Cabled yarns are a four ply made from two two ply yarns. Some of the plying is done "S" and some is done "Z". It is really important to have the right amount of twist in so your yarn does not fall apart.

As the day progressed, we learned to make bumps in our yarn on purpose. We made core wrapped yarns where the core was a sewing thread and the same thread was used as a binder. The other fiber was mohair locks. Now I know what to do with some of the mohair I have accumulated. We also found out what happens when you ply a single with woolly nylon serger thread.

All in all the day of the seminar I was NOT looking forward to was wonderful. Would the seminar day I wanted most be disappointing in comparison?

Today, the seminar was on "Silk, the Queen of Fibers". Patsy started out talking about the different types of silk we might find to spin and told us about how they were prepared. She then passed out part of a silk cap for us to spin samples from. We spun some Cinnamon Tussah Silk, and plied that with the silk cap single for another beautiful yarn.

Patsy had us spin from ten different types of silk preparations. We learned how to evaluate each type as far as ease of spinning and what type of speed worked the best on each one. We talked about possible uses for each type of silk. We prepared some silk cocoons for spinning. We had lots of fun blending various silk waste products with wool. Patsy had some cut silk waste, some short waste and some sari silk waste and showed us how to blend them into plain wool for a unique and special yarn.

Patsy had a wonderful record card for us to keep our samples on. The card ends up with samples of each of the original fibers plus the end resulting yarn. It is really a great reminder of what we did and what we learned. I wish I was disciplined enough to keep this record for all my spinning. The cards for the novelty yarns end up with the yarn recipe on them. Often, I never look at workshop materials once the workshop is done. I know that is not true for this workshop though. We ended up with very useful stuff.

Some of todays knowledge was not silk specific, but will be a help to all my spinning. Patsy taught us the proper way to evaluate the wraps per inch of a yarn or single. She gave everyone a stick for this and told us how to mark it. We learned how to count the actual number of revolutions a particular whorl will give when spinning so that can be part of the records for the yarn. We learned how to make a sample card so we can keep a yarn consistent no matter how long it takes to spin. We learned how to ply a yarn that has spent too many days on the bobbin and seems to have lost it's twist. We talked about the different types of wheels and tensioning systems. We learned about the differences in Scotch Tensions and why some brake bands are fine if they are fishing line and others require a soft string.

So, I definitely was not disappointed today either. Patsy is a wonderful, organized instructor. I guess her experiences teaching preschoolers are a big help for teaching spinners. She carefully explains the "why" in her instructions. She is not a "my way or the highway" type instructor at all. If you have a chance to take any spinning seminars from Patsy, clear your calendar so you can go and run don't walk. This was a totally awesome weekend, worth the headache from all the knowledge that was pounded in.

Kettle Dyeing for Turkeys

2008-11-11T19:45:00.000-06:00

I thought it might be useful to document my latest fiber dyeing escapade. I am terrible about taking notes or keeping dye records. Everyone who dyes fiber does things a little differently, so perhaps someone will find this interesting.

Last week, Wal-Mart had their electric turkey roasters on sale for $22. This is the sort of thing I had been waiting for. I had been wanting a new dye pot, and this seemed like the perfect choice.

The Turkey Roaster is sort of like a large crockpot, but better since there are more temperatures to choose from. This roaster will never see a turkey or food, since it is contaminated with dye.

Last weekend I had to try it out. I kettle dyed some bats of Romney wool. It is always hard for me to decide what colors I would like to use. I decided I need some more neutrals, since I don't have much neutral yarn.

I have one color of Jacquard Acid Dye called Chestnut that I had never tried - perfect for my neutral theme. I filled the roaster about half full of water and added about 1/2 cup of vinegar then left the water to heat. I filled another bucket with water and put the fiber - a bit over 8 ounces - in to soak while the water heated up.

I had an auxiliary thermometer to monitor the water temperature. I have found it is very hard to tell how hot the water actually is without the thermometer. When the water reached about 195 degrees, I added my dye - 1 cup of one percent Chestnut dye stock - and stirred to distribute the dye. I squeezed most of the water out of the fiber. Next I put the fiber into the dyepot and pushed it gently down into the dye. I adjusted the temperature to keep the pot hot but not boiling, covered the pot and left it for about a half hour. Then I turned it off and left it until it was completely cool.

At that point, the fiber had taken up all of the dye in the pot. I removed the fiber and put it into some warm water to rinse out the vinegar, then squeezed out the water and left the bat to dry.

I repeated this a couple of times over the next 2 days, using the same water and vinegar that was in the pot. The water was clear, so there was no problem with getting the colors mixed. Once I used about 1/4 cup of the same Chestnut dye which resulted in a pretty dark gold.

The other time I used black dye. My black dye stock is a 5 percent solution since I usually want strong color when I dye with black. I only used 1/4 cup of the strong dye stock. The fiber did not use all of the dye after the 30 minutes in the hot dye water, so I added additional dry fiber on top to take up the excess dye.
The fiber that was at the bottom of the pot is a dark charcoal. The fiber from the top of the pot is a beautiful silver gray. If I wanted really black fiber, I would need to overdye the charcoal again with black.

Kettle dyeing does not produce an even color. The fiber has dark and light spots. This works out fine though when the yarn is spun it has nice color depth.