Stick Them with the Pointy End

From the very beginning, I knew that my spinning was ultimately going to result in art yarns. While I feel it is important to develop the technical skills involved in traditional spinning, I really don't have the desire to make handspun yarns that look machine spun. When I first started spinning on my Ashford Traveller I felt very limited by the orifice and bobbin size. I did a little searching and found two options for spinning larger yarns. The first was the jumbo flyer which sold for around $150 and was still a little limiting because of the orifice size and the second was a quill spindle attachment* which sold for around $80 and didn't feed the yarn through an orifice. Quill spindles are traditionally used for spinning lace and cotton yarns, they are very fast. A few years ago, before the production of art yarn wheels, a few people were using the quills to spin giant yarns. I saw a picture of someone using a Traveller with a quill to spin art yarn and I was immediately sold. I ordered the attachment for my wheel, applied the finish, and sat down to spin some fabulous yarn.

What followed was heartbreak. I knew that the ratios were faster than what I was used to, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't treadle slow enough to manage the quill. I spent hours trying to make it work for me and finally gave up. The quill attachment was placed in my fiber box where it has lived for the last four years.

Last summer I decided I either need to sell the quill or start using it. I knew that I would never want to use the spindle for fast spinning so I decided that I need to slow it down. I did a little measuring and then I took the spindle to my dad and asked him to turn me a new flyer whorl with much larger ratios. Because of the way the spindle is assembled, the old whorl had to be broken off which resulted in an argument (my dad didn't want to destroy the original piece.) Finally after two days of me explaining that I can't and won't use it the way it is so even if it can't be restored I am no worse off, he caved and agreed to turn the new piece. I gave him my measurements and he turned me a new whorl with a pin so it could be easily traded out for a faster one (this is called compromise.)

Just for reference:
Ratios of original flyer whorls- 14:1, 19:1, 26.5:1
Ratios of my new whorls- 3.7:1, 4.7:1, 6.6:1

After the new whorl was added, a surprising thing happened- I started using the quill for spinning traditional yarns. I really like the action of spinning onto a quill, you spin at a different angle, one that is more comfortable to me, and there is no brake system so it works more like a drop spindle, a really efficient drop spindle. I am now to the point in my quill spinning where I am ready to move onto faster speeds, good thing my whorls are interchangeable.

Turns out it is good for spinning lace weight yarns.

*Every spinner has had the experience where a non-spinner looks at their wheel and asks where did Sleeping Beauty prick her finger, it's probably one of the more annoying parts about spinning in public. The answer is on a quill spindle though I have never seen one sharp enough to draw blood. It would be much more likely that Sleeping Beauty tripped and impaled herself on the spindle which would have made for a much better story. I think maybe the Brothers Grimm could have done a little more research before leading generations of people to believe that a spinning wheel can draw blood.

Day 27: Extinct Mediums

Another day where I follow the theme, the last time in this challenge. This yarn is a combination of reclaimed scraps and a tape of the Dalai Lama speaking on the four noble truths that I liberated from southern thrift store hell. Despite tape being on a spool, it is remarkably difficult to get out of the cassette in a smooth motion, the entire spinning session was a war with the tape. On the plus side, the yarn is pretty soft and very workable which is something I wasn't expecting.

Day 26: Unicorns

Today's theme is unicorns so I decided to spin a yarn inspired by unicorns. I started with domestic kid mohair top, some handdyed firestar, silver angelina, and some various pink and purple dyed fibers. I sent everything through my drumcarder twice to get the mohair cloud effect and then I spun it around a commercial lace core (handdyed by me.) This was one of the most difficult yarns I have ever spun- I had books, videos, and diagrams to help but ultimately ended up figuring it out through trial and error. I have been spinning a lot this summer (at least 2 hours of every shop shift since May) and I am really seeing an improvement in my technique. I can't wait to see what I am producing toward the end of the summer.

Day 24: Plaid yarn

I haven't been following the theme calendar for the 30 day challenge, but on Thursday I noticed that the theme of the day was plaid. I had been thinking about trying a fabric yarn during this challenge and this was the perfect opportunity. I headed out to the thrift store and found a long plaid skirt for $3. Unfortunately when I got back home I was distracted by the wire and ended up making more wire yarn instead. Today the skirt was taunting me so I cut it into strips, tied the strips together, and spun up a skein of plaid yarn. I am not in love with the idea of fabric yarn, but it was fun to try out.

Day 23: Wire Yarn Take 2

My second attempt at wire yarn, this time using a 24g wire.

Day 22: Wire yarn

A small puff of Monday's batt spun around a 28g brass wire core. I love this so much that I am making a second skein today with thicker wire and scraps of another batt. I think this will likely become a wire bowl.

Day 21: Even more corespinning

I had a big fluffy batt so naturally I wanted to make it into yarn. I know you are probably tired of reading about my corespinning adventures, but as a lover of crazy fiber batts, corespinning is often the best way to show off the blends.

Day 18- More Corespinning

Spun from an art batt that I bought from last years fiber fest, this is a superbulky, thick and thin pile of fluff. I think this winter it will become a hat.

Day 14: Corespinning

At last year's Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Fest I bought a braid of beautiful combed top from River's Edge Fiber Arts. The braid has been in my stash for the last year, taunting me, so today seemed a good time to do something with it. The top is 70%BFL, 30%Seacell and 4oz. Usually I buy a minimum of 8oz, but upon looking at the braid and the price tag I think the price might have restricted me to just one. After looking at the braid and trying to decide what it should be, I decided I wanted it to be a light and fluffy corespun art yarn.

The core is that same rug yarn from the vine project. I ran it through the wheel to incorporate a strong Z twist (so that my final yarn is nice and balanced.) Then I controlled it with my left hand as I wrapped the top fiber around. Sound easy? Well, not quite. The top was slightly felted from the dying process which led to constant drafting struggles (remember my left hand was controlling the core so my drafting movements were limited.) After a lot of swearing and several breaks, I came up with a system that worked. Despite the struggles, I achieved exactly the the yarn I envisioned.

30 Days of Creativity

It's been awhile since I've blogged, quick blurbs on facebook are so easy that the blogging has taken a back seat. Today is the first day of the 30 Days of Creativity challenge which seemed like the perfect opportunity to pick back up on the blogging. I plan to do 30 blog entries to accompany the 30 creative activities, some will be detailed, some might just be a picture and a caption. We'll see how it goes. Most of my projects for the challenge will be fiber based because that is what I do, but I have plans for a couple non-fiber projects. For the first few days of the challenge, I will be finishing up a few larger outstanding projects so that I can clear the queue before taking on new stuff.

First up is the yarn spun from local fiber. I actually started spinning this last week as part of my summer spinning challenge, but today I did the plying, reskeining and set the twist so it counts.

In the end I came out with two skeins totaling 8.3oz, 456yds.

New yarn

Since it is Friday, let's make it a fiber Friday.

This is my latest yarn, corespun from a batt I made yesterday with a silver autowrap. The little rainbow nubbs are recycled sari fiber and though you can't see it in the picture, there is some handdyed firestar thrown in for extra sparkle.

Insubordiknit Nashville

For my birthday this year I decided to go to the Nashville Insubordiknit spinning workshop. There was a closer workshop last fall, but due to shop scheduling problems, that one really wasn't a possibility for me, plus waiting for the Nashville workshop forced me to stop procrastinating about taking a trip down to visit Nieves.

I could go on and on about the workshop and everything we learned, but it is all on Jacey's site so you can just see it there. Jacey was an amazing teacher, informative and entertaining. I was definitely one of the more inexperienced spinners in the group and with the exception of a couple of techniques I had very few problems. My favorite thing that we learned over the weekend was corespinning. I LOVE CORESPINNING!!! I understood the concept of corespinning, it was just a technique that I never bothered to try. The yarns produced by spinning carded fiber around a core yarn are light and fluffy and the technique really shows off the contents of a batt (especially a sparkly batt.) Here are the pictures of my favorite yarns so far.

My first corespun yarn. Jacey gave us some brown carded fiber to learn on. I later went back and autowrapped the yarn with some metallic red embroidery thread (you had to expect me to put some sparkles in somewhere.)

Next is the supercoiled yarn. I spun the single before class with scrap Ashland Bay top that was in the back of the shop. This was a really fun technique, but very time intensive when you calculate the amount of yarn that you end up with (it took me two hours to spin 10 yards.)

Last is the corespun that I spun up last night. I made a super sparkly batt just to practice this technique on my Traveller and I was so happy with the resulting yarn that I carded up a duplicate batt to make another hank of it. Lovely sparklies make me happy!

I heart my drum carder

About a year ago I bought a used drum carder. The lady who sold it to me had no idea the age, make or model, but said it worked great and it fit perfectly in my price range. As soon as it arrived, I blended all of the dyed roving I had on hand and then some. The carder was absolutely perfect, fast, easy, and best of all there were no blades for me to slice my fingers on (if you know me you understand why this is important.) Recently, a friend was doing a little research and discovered that my drum carder closely resembled a Duncan Carder. A few pictures and an email to Duncan and I now know that I have an older model Duncan carder. This doesn't really change my feelings toward my carder, but it is nice to know what it is so I can recommend it to others when they ask.

Now for a few pictures of my most recent batts...

Battered Barbie, 5.7oz

Sticky Rebellion, 4.25oz

Manic Monday, 5.5oz

I will have these batts and many more at the Bazaar Bizarre in Cleveland this weekend so if you are in the area you should stop by and say hi.

Silly stuff

Last weekend Zabet introduced me to FBN Plastics, makers of custom spinning wheel cup holders. Their etsy store contains cup holders made to fit several makes and models of spinning wheels with no drilling. Never again will you have to decide between your drink and your fiber.

Blood Money

How about a little spinning? On Saturday I decided to spin up the Saint & Sinners blood money batt I bought at Wholly Craft last summer. I have to admit that spinning those pieces of paper into the yarn was such a pain that I only spun them into one of the plies. I also decided to felt the yarn a bit when setting it to assure that those little strips don't come flying out of the yarn.


Name: Blood Money
Weight: 1.6oz
Yardage: 70yds, 2-ply
Fiber Content: Colonial and handdyed humane wool from a shelter, shredded US currency, and a bit of sparkle (unlabeled but probably Angelina)