WnS Ep. 219: Local Wool Find, Knit City & #SSS

Dear Spinning Circle,

Live Stream: Saturday, October 16th @ 8am Pacific // 11am Eastern

Direct YouTube link here.

Thank you for being here today, especially those who were able to make it to the Live Stream. I appreciate your time spent here in this place with me. You are most welcome. I hope you feel most welcome because you are welcome here.

Enjoy the show!

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There is a lot going on in our community! It’s a lot to cover and remind you of each week. Have a look here for more info!!

If you are curious about what happens in our community, please click the links below, reach out to me: rachel @ welfordpurls (dot) com, or reach out on Instagram/Ravelry/Slack (if you are a Patreon member, @welfordpurls_admin)

On & Off the Needles

Finished – Knitting

WPI Toque by Rachel Smith – specifically designed for handspun but used for this commercial yarn; 3.5mm // US 4

In Progress – Knitting

Catbells by Megan Nodecker – Westcoast Colour Local Wool find at Knit City 2021 “Homegrown” 100% Langley wool – CVM/Merino/Romney cross; 5.00mm // US 8

Community Inspiration // Participation

For September, Jenny Wren was selected from YouTube’s comments section from random number generator — send me your mailing address, Jenny, and I will pop the final camelids blended set in the mail for you!

Spindle Spun Summer (SSS) – coming to any end! We are pivoting to continue spindle spinning for the remainder of the year to Spindle Spun Sweater Spin (SSSS) — Ravelry Thread here

Kelly offered 100g NC Cheviot – Samantha Guerin – post no. 16 (yardage thread)

Marce offered the following:

1. Beginning Spindle Kit with mini spindle & fluff – Suzanne Reyes – post no. 11 (yardage)
2. Beginning Spindle Kit with mini spindle & fluff – Hanna – participant 87 (Slack)
3. 4oz hand-dyed braid – Lulu – post no 147 (Rav thread)

Diana offered a Hound Design Spindle & a rainbow roving – Christine65 – post no. 5 (yardage)

Rachel will mail out the following to our last names drawn:

1. Rolag set – Liz Hoffman – participant no 53 (Slack)
2. Rolag set – mjm – Mary Jo – post no 174 (Rav thread)
3. Rolag set – Robin – post no. 129 (Rav thread)

Here are a few of the amazing final spins from people participating:

Samantha shares via Ravelry/Slack: My first skein of spindle spun yarn is finally washed and measured! Since I plied on my wheel, my yardage for SSS is for the singles only.

Crystal shares via Ravelry/Slack: I find myself gravitating towards my support spindles more than I have my wheel lately. There is just something about them that just soothes my soul. The blue yarn, which is the perfect shade of denim, was spun from rolags from Creative Ripples by Lisa. The fiber content is interesting – merino, flax, viscose, and bamboo. I wasn’t sure about the flax as I was spinning it, but it certainly adds a bit of tweediness and luster, which I’m loving. I’m still working through my peachy gradient minis from Cedar Hill Farm. It’s gonna be awhile before I’m finished with the whole set. As for yardage, the blue skeins came out to 694yds and the minis came to a total of 719yds, which brings the total yardage spun on my spindles to 2,826. I think I can officially call myself a spindler now.

Ange shares via Slack: Yesterday I spotted this really sweet little hand crafted ceramic bowl in a local thrift shop for just 50p and thought it might work as a spindle bowl. When I got it home I realised it is also the perfect size for storing a rolag, which for some reason is just delighting me (the small things, eh?) Am looking forward to playing around with the bowl to see if it will work by spinning up a couple of rolags I recently pulled off the blending board, inspired by my favourite birds. Not sure what the resulting yarn will be like in these colours but it’s fun to play.

Breed & Colour Studies – Jacob

Suzanne shares via Slack: Finally had some time to begin my spinning for the #jacobcolorstudy. My plan is to try different combinations of all of the batlings from the Crafty Jaks kit. I am also spinning some plain grey Jacob top from The Woolery that I had in my stash. Not sure what I will do with resulting skeins, but I hope to combine everything into something fun!

Barb shares via Slack: Finished my Bright Tomorrow Shawl from Jacob breed and color study. Spun singles and felted them lightly by running the wet yarn through my fingers twice, then skein to dry. Structurally sound and about 21 wpi and 18 tpi,  Used triangle beads, as suggested in the pattern. I have leftovers in all three colors. It was fun from beginning to end, except the DAYS of bind-off.

Zero to Hero // #sweaterspin #useyourhandspun #spinallthethings #weavewithhandspun

Amanda shares via Slack: I thought you guys might like to see my new shawl I finished as part of the Sweet Georgia Mystery KAL “Quiet Bay”.  The Rya sheep fleeces were rescued from a local farm in April.  The fibres in this shawl were (mostly) the downy undercoat which I dyed during the School of Sweet Georgia Natural Dyeing Study Group in the Summer.  I carded a bunch of different colours together, and marled a bunch of these singles to produce the 3 heathered-but-solid colours used in the shawl.  I clearly didn’t block my gauge aggressively enough as my finished shawl has a wingspan of 3 metres!  It isn’t what most people would call next-to-skin-soft but it will make an excellent outerwear/blanket shawl.

Julie shares via Slack: One more skein of natural white on the wheel for the StephenWest MKAL. Everything Jacob. Half from my fleece before my shoulder stopped wanting to comb. So halfway to #zerotohero I guess? All dyed in my little pot except the natural grey, blended on the combs.

Sue shares via Slack: My little Shetland spin is all finished. The original braid was royal blue and orange, with a bit of blending between the two. The smaller skein was all spindle spun on supports over several months. It has lots of glorious blue in it. The larger was wheel spun. The fibre for the first singles was divided into narrow strips. For the second singles I broke the whole width of the braid into chunks and spun each one in strips. My goal was a nicely blended skein. I’m happy with the results.

Sample Spinning // PLAY

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct. – Carl Jung

Elise shares via Slack: So tragedy struck and my husband lovingly took it upon himself to toss my (first handspun, recently finished) socks in the washer after I wore them around the house during my COVID isolation. They never even got to see the light of day before shrinking down to an impossibly small felted heartbreak. He’s only encountered our commercial yarn superwash socks before so he really thought he was following the rules as long as he didn’t put them in the dryer. I can’t really be mad about it but am genuinely grieving the life these socks never got to live. Any ideas for a way to craft them in to something useable or to give them a new life?

Weaving

Diana shares via Slack: On the show today, Norah was in the background weaving on Rachel’s 16” SamplIt loom.I’ve been looking for a project to feature my spindle spun yarns and the idea of weaving it into a soft cloth was born. Thanks Norah!

Thank you so much for joining me today!

Until then, Happy Spinning!