WnS Ep. 164: Catching Up on Projects

ONGOING Yarn Substitution Content – May – August 2020 – view the trailer here & INTRO video here

Be sure to sign up for the Wool n’ Spinning Newsletter at welfordpurls.com. 

For a softcover copy of How I Spin: A Sock Study, check here & e-book link for patrons (>$5/month) here

Unbraided: The Art & Science of Spinning Colour – EBOOKS available here & book orders can be made here. 

Community Participation

For August, tell us about your biggest accomplishment in spinning – not necessarily your favourite spin – but your biggest accomplishment. Episode thread here.

Breed & Colour Studies

Helena (@helenatknits, post no. 67) shares: I took the plunge last weekend, split my batt in half and spun it in the gradient. I’ve ended up with a 2 ply fingering weight ish yarn (haven’t yet checked wpi). I found this fibre really nice to spin and I’m looking forward to finishing it off this weekend. 

Book Club – #booksbooksbooks channel on Slack

As a community, we are delving into a Jane Austen Book Club. We will be reading Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen. Reading can begin anytime and @bethy40 (Becca) in our community will be coordinating Zoom Book Clubs for us to meet within to discuss chunks of the book at a time. 

We are currently reading How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. We have one more meeting for this book before we will be moving onto our next study book. The next meeting will be Friday, August 21st @ 12noon. Please see the Slack channel for the Zoom links as they are posted.

Made with Love – ALONG

Community-wide call to everyone in the community to participate in our Crafty Jaks Along to honour some of the people in our community! Cast on date: April 1st, 2020 with cast off deadline July 31st, 2020 – Random drawing will be next show in mid-August!

This is a time to do what we do best and get creative. This is the time to make and lift up others – please read Rebecca’s blog post to learn more about this Makealong and event if you would like to learn more about the creation of this amazing event. #mwlalong 

#zerotohero Make-Along 2020

Megan (@lykkemeg, post no. 196) shares: This is my sarah-dippity meets marie wallin skirt! I loved the idea of mixing weaving and knitting. Yarns: brown sheep spun sport is the main brown color. the other colors are either pallette or jamieson’s spindrift. The woven panels are done in plain weave on my rigid heddle loom. The knitted panels are the pattern from Mousa by Marie Wallin in her book Shetland. I used sew on snaps to secure this wrap around skirt. I put a little piece of bias tape behind them on the wrong side so they didn’t poke through the cloth. I cut the weaving and secured the edges with bias tape. These were both amazing patterns to combine into something warm, wearable and comforting!!

Spinning Growth

Sharon (@frogstitch, post no. 190) shares: I intended this to by my Zero to Hero project for the year, but I have learned so much from it that I am putting it in this thread. This was Shetland wool, naturally dyed at a class I took several years ago. I carded it up and tried to put the rolags in succession to make a gradient. I did not always achieve that perfectly. I learned that in the rolag form the light hits it differently than when it is compacted in the spinning. I learned how to chain-ply because I wanted to keep the colors running in sequence and avoid barber-poling. In hindsight I would have extended my yardage by doing a 2-ply, even with breaking the bobbin when the colors stopped lining up and “wasting” some yarn. Stocking stitch also would have made the shawl bigger. It is quite small – more like a shawlette. The biggest disappointment is the harshness of the wool. I am not sure if it was a lower quality of Shetland or was ruined in the dyeing, but it was brittle/crunchy in the carding. Even soaking the skeins with hair conditioner did not alleviate the course texture. The main take-away for me is that you can’t ever have a finished project that will be better than the quality of the wool going into it. I have even entertained the idea of frogging it, knitting it over in stocking stitch and alternating the hand spun with rows of a comparable grist black alpaca. I love the look of the Amish quilts with the black backgrounds which make the colors sing. But with over 2 dozen SQ of yarn in my stash I need to just call it a day and move on…….

Finished Objects – Knitting with Handspun

Always in my Heart by Isabell Kraemer

• Crafty Jaks Tough & Tender in ‘Ocean’ & Targhee/Bamboo/Silk in ‘Pesuta’ (fractal) handspun
• 4.00mm/US 6 needles

 Works in Progress – Spinning & Knitting

 Punta Top

• Lendrum Saxony – 18:1, Scotch Tension
• Filed away burr on flyer – spinning beautifully now!

 Albini by Orlane Sucche – on HOLD for more spinning

• Disdero Ranch 100% Shetland 3-ply
• woollen prep – pin-drafted roving, spun semi-worsted (continuous backwards w/o smoothing)
• swatch gauge: 19 stitches x 4 inches

Pink Velvet by Andrea Mowry

• Jamieson’s Spindrift coral & unlabelled dark teal (200 yards)
• 3.5mm/US 4 needles – swatch pending

Sauvabelin Sweater by Jessica Gore

• Custom Woollen Mills fingering (swatched to sport weight, rustic)
• 3.75mm/US 5 needles = gauge

Thank you so much for joining me today! 

Until then, Happy Spinning!