Spinning, plying and stepping out

 I've been spinning and plying industriously, as far as I can, considering my arms start whining about it after about an hour, but okay, I can work with that.  And here's where we are, with today's plying on the big spindle, which is good for plying, except that these two yarns were finer, and it might be better to back off to the medium spindle, because the thread broke a time or two.  Not a problem, I can splice when I'm knitting, to I just knot it and carry on.

But, to raise the tone of this blog a trifle, there's a wonderful textile museum in DC, part of George Washington U, which you can see more about here:  Textile Museum

It's closed to visitors now, but it's putting some great offerings online via Zoom, and if you go to that link and scroll down a bit, you'll find them.  I've signed up for the Saturday morning one coming up, about carpets and auctions and history.  Just register, and they'll send you an acknowledgment and if you ask them to, a reminder email before.

I have been at presentations of theirs long ago when people could do this, and one was particularly lovely, where their carpet expert did a spot appraisal program in a posh back yard in DC, forget where, where people laid out their rugs on the grass to get them explained to them.

These rug folk take no prisoners. One kicked aside one rug, saying, this is a cheap modern knockoff, get it out of here! to the abashed owner, who slunk away.  But another tiny little tattered item I'd noticed, they focused on with great intensity, asking the owner where he'd got it.  It was in his family for ages, a silk prayer rug, evidently used for prayer for decades hence the wear, and the appraiser sternly told him to pick that up off the ground right now.  Never allow anyone to step on it.  Mount it properly on a wall if you're not using it as a prayer rug, and it's one of the best specimens I've ever seen. The owner looked a bit stunned, but very pleased about this, probably thinking, hm, better get an insurance rider on this.

The early days when rugs were used in tents in the desert, they were walked on, but over soft yielding sand, not hard floors, and either barefoot or with soft slippers, not the brutal hard shoes we trot about in now. They were treated as artworks and respected.  If you know anything about the hand production of these works, you'll see why they were expensive and cared for.  Wonderful work, with all kinds of mythical and cultural references in them. 

Anyway, I'm hoping for great things on Saturday from the presentation.

First results of plying

 Plying is a great visual experience, as you work, you see the colors flying past. This is the second time only that I've done it, and I'm starting to develop beginning skills.

Plying is done by attaching two spun single plies of yarn then spinning them together using the spindle in the opposite direction from the way you spun the singles. So since I spun clockwise, I  ply counterclockwise. There are various cute bowls and boxes, with cute folksy names,  to feed the yarn for plying but I didn't bother, just let the yarn balls lie on the floor, yarn behind my wrist, while I stood to ply. You have to stand because plying is lightning fast and the spindle is down to the ground, yarn plied,  before you know it. And gosh is it a shoulder exercise. By the time this was done, my arms refused to go up and down any more!

I noticed at first weird little tails appearing and realized that the two plies were not taking up at the same speed, one was plying back on itself, so I paid more attention to that, to get them paying out together  evenly and managed to do better. No tails after that.

Views of the yarn to show you the various colors happening. Once they're wound into balls the colors tend to vanish. But it will be interesting to knit, or possibly weave, i have a new idea, and see them reappear.

As you see, chunky yarn and it's wonderfully soft and warm. It will take a long time, and keep me occupied, always a good thing. And I'll improve my plying just as I'm improving my spinning.

I already have a good idea of the design of the top, rectangles with dropped sleeves, and the front and back will be partly knitted diagonally. I'm also thinking of the option of creating a cardboard loom to the bodice shape I made for the Joanne jacket and weaving on there. There's plenty of time to consider that, since this is slow and labor intensive process. And the top can be a knit and weave combo. 

But first I have to produce the yarn. It's so good to have a continuing project going. Good for your spirits at a difficult worrying time.

Danger, Spinster at Work

Last evening and today were a learning curve in spinning. Totally rusty skills, coupled with undimmed ambition, not a great combo.

I noticed last night that my whole left hand kept freezing, it's like trigger finger, except all of them. I can work it back into use, but I had to stop. And I noticed the spindle was hardly spinning, just a lazy revolution or two. Hmm. Maybe we were both tired.

Took a look at all three spindles, realized that the whorl, the wide bit, had slid up the shaft a bit. Pushed it down half an inch, and today it's spinning merrily. So for once it wasn't user error. The center of gravity needed to be adjusted.

If you want a totally scholarly insight into the physics of spinning, go right to Abby Franquemont, Respect the Spindle.

There's a reason she's so respected herself. Knowledgeable, nondogmatic, great spinner and teacher. You can see her teaching on YouTube, too.

I tried spinning two colors together, not bad for starters.

Then tried plying them, and you see the hopeful little heaps in the pic. It was about spinning z and plying s, just for practice.  It looks humble but there's a good bit of learning since yesterday. And this lumpy, I mean artisanal, yarn, will work in weaving or maybe Tunisian crochet.

I also, to continue now that I'm back from signing a petition at the door to get my dems on the ballot again, watched a few videos last night about the Turkish spindle, and I really fancy a  try.

There are the classic wooden ones, works of art, and there are 3D printed ones in all sorts of colors.

And yes I am reading a book club choice, Spinster by Kate Bolick. Spinning doesn't come into it, but her female inspirational women do.

We all need a bit of inspiration now and then.

Dyed and Plied and thoughts of weaving creeping in

Since my spinning is more about making raw material for weaving, the attention I've been paying to better consistency and fineness of yarn is about artisanship more than about immediate use.

But the plying, or playing, adventure has continued and now I think a weaving needs to be made.  I plied together two yellows, one from turmeric, very strong color, with a subtler one, from I think yellow onionskin.  I also used up the rest of that fluff I showed you yesterday, and plied it, correctly this time, with the fluffy blue, which is why there are two balls of that in the pix.

And, since readers do like a bit of insight into the creative (!) process, I thought you'd like to see what's up on the future weaving scene.  I was thinking about the landscape possibilities of the colors of yarn I've woven and dyed in the last few weeks, and have some ideas here. 

But, rather than force them on you, would you like to take a look and see what the colors and their placement and relationship seem to say to you, about subject matter? as you see, I moved them a bit from one pic to the other, looking for balance.

You'll notice that the red and white variegated yarn is about the same sort of thickness as the yellow variegated one.  This is funny, because the red and white are what's left of spinning I did ages ago as a beginner, after dyeing the roving with KoolAid, and that was the best I could do for singles.  Quite ropy!  then the yellow one is now two of my singles plied together.  So it's a quick visual of how I improved my single spinning.  And I'd welcome any reactions to this very raw beginning of an idea.

Plying goes incredibly fast compared to spinning, and I keep on being left behind by it, needing to wind on before I realize it. And I found that though I can ply with my left hand, to get the z twist I was supposed to do yesterday and forgot, I have a lot of trouble winding on with my left. I'll keep doing it, though, to get the skill up.  

And then I found I can in fact spin either s or z with my right hand, now that I come to try it, yay.  This is very useful. So I ended up spinning z with my right hand.  All this is handy for many purposes in life, aside from spinning.  Always good to keep up dexterity if you can. And to avoid over using one part of your body and having to compensate for it.

Anyway, I was upstairs poking around the studio looking for looms (in my case this means cardboard bits with notches cut in them, for small works, picture frames for bigger ones).  Simple rules. I found that my favorite has some weaving on it, in gold foil thread, so I left it alone, and it might be incorporated into what I'm going to do, we'll see.  Anyway, I found the cardboard backing of a large drawing-paper book, opened up all the notches and now have a new loom ready for action.  I'll warp it with cotton crochet thread, strong and easy to handle.  Before I warp it, I will just see if I can manage a Fibonacci ratio in this work, always good for results. That's where one side is in a ratio of 1:1.6 to the other side. As in a 5x8 or 3x5 index card, nice immediate balance.  This is more likely to be 8x13, though.

I usually like to weave tapestry, which is where the warp threads, the vertical ones, are completely covered by the weft threads, the horizontal ones.  The other sort of weaving, where both are equally important, is fine for functional items, such as most of our clothes, but doesn't appeal to me for art purposes.  I've made purses and belts with the regular tabby weaving, but to make more visually interesting work I don't think you can beat tapestry.

And I usually create it the way I do all art: alla prima, meaning just plunge in, no calculating or presorting or sketching or any of that.  Not my style at all. It's surprising what images emerge from weaving done this way, where you just let things happen and go with what seems interesting.

I might look at my transparencies, too and see what suggests itself from there.  So this is my Solstice thinking!  Happy Solstice, everyone, and the nights will creep back a little from now on.  Except for friends in the antipodes, where summer will start to retreat before too long. Always hard to imagine you steaming hot when we're whining about ice!

How I Overcame my Fear of Plying and Lived to Tell the Tale

Years ago, when I was first trying my hand at spindle spinning, someone asked me if I'd plied any yarn yet.  I was so far from even creating yarn at that point that I just gave a hollow laugh.

But now, slightly better at spinning, and now that the Coopworth is finished, and I have merino left I was wondering what to do next.  The merino has sort of lost its loft, so I carded a bit, and made a fluffy mass to spin with, and while I was at it, thought hm, why not make a fun yarn, for knitting or tapestry or anything really.

And, since I had a ball of fluffy fun yarn someone gave me, very soft, seemed compatible with the merino, I took the last ball of merino I'd spun, and figured that I could ply on the spindle by attaching the two yarns together to the spindle and going from there.

It worked amazingly well, considering I'd been thinking plying was very technical and needed all kinds of gizmos and wheelie things and boxes with little doors on them (don't ask, seen all these thing in action on YouTube).  

I now realize that spinning, like gardening and cooking, can be done very simply or can require all kinds of toys to make it work, but that's strictly the choice of the maker. 

I just let the balls of yarn bob about at will while I plied, not worrying too much about exact distribution of twist, it's meant to be a fun yarn, and liking this a lot.  I can ply my own different colored yarns, too, now that my singles are not so hefty.

It would have worked even better if I had remembered two things: to ply in the opposite direction from the spinning, and to observe what the twist on the blue yarn was, s or z.  I spin s, so should have plied z, if I'd remembered.  Fortunately, the fun yarn is forgiving also fluffy enough to hang onto my own yarn if it tried to unwind itself.

The picture shows you the carded fluff I had made the yarn from, but I had no yarn left to show you, so I'm just showing the raw material, along with the blue fuzzy yarn.  I imagine you can spin and ply at the same time if one of your plies is already complete, but not in the hands of this spinner.  Unless you wanted a very chunky art yarn in the ply, really roving plied as if yarn,I guess.  Well, that's for another day.

Currently in the dyebath: the rest of the spun Coopworth, same color as the last lot, and my fingerless gloves knitted from same, just to see if they will look good.  I might need to felt them slightly to reduce the size, since they came out rather generous even for my big mitts, being really a man's pattern.  Or maybe they'll shrink at little overnight in the dyebath.  We'll see tomorrow when they emerge.

All kinds of weaving ideas are coming at me as I spin, not really being a spinning to knit sort of person. And the new plying adventure looks very much like a sparkling sea or maybe dappled sky...stay tuned.  And three plies of some of the green and gold and maybe I'll dye some yarn with black walnut, for shrubbery or foresty sort of effects..more ideas coming at me than I can do at once, how unusual for me(!)