Twilight

Nope. Not the book. Not even a little.

It's the new yarn I finished this week!



It's an one of a kind colorway from FiberOptic that I purchased at trunk show at Knitter's Mercantile. The name of the colorway was Twilight. The fiber is was one of her pencil rovings, the Siren Song blend, which is 70% merino wool, and 30% seacell. Here's another shot of the seed beads which were spun into the yarn.



The beads are size 8 seed beads, which were strung onto one ply of the yarn. I strung dozens and dozens of beads at once and spread them out over the yarn as I wound it onto a bobbin. I convert my kiwi into a bobbin winder by slipping the drive band into the bobbin groove to wind on yarn. After a few treadles, I'd let a bead wind on with the yarn onto the bobbin. I was completely shocked and surprized that this technique worked! Usually, beads are spun into a yarn as you go, it's a risky business trying to string beads onto notoriously weak and unstable singles. Particularly lace singles, which are thinner, thus weaker. Plus, they have all that extra twist which makes them kinky - that sounded alot dirtier than I meant. Either which way, the moral of the story is to spin a single with lots of twist so that it's strong enough to withstand the weight of dozens upon dozens of seed beads sliding over it.



I acutally wound up spinning three skeins from this fiber, two mini-skeins at 0.5 oz each and one large, beaded skein. The whole project is an interesting study in how I've progressed in spinning. The mini-skeins are solidly fingering weight, while the beaded skein is a very light lace weight, almost cobweb. This photo compares the three skeins. In the middle are strands from the beaded skein, while strands from the mini-skeins are on either side. I was really pleased with how it came out. The singles were spun on my ashford Kiwi, and then plied on my new e-spinner! I wound up sending the yarn through the e-spinner a second time to add twist, since I only added enough twist to lock in the beads the second time around.

Pictures do not do the colors justice. I can't recommend FiberOptic's work enough! That rich, vibrant purple color didn't bleed a single drop when I finished the yarn. You can also find her fiber and yarn on her website at www.kimberbaldwindesigns.com. Her etsy store sees more regular updates during festival season. Her fibers are a dream to spin, her yarns are vibrant and soft, and her colors never bleed.

Now that my bobbins are cleared off, I can start on my color project. I have pictures of my first adventure in color spinning, and I'm totally in love with colors that refuse to be defined.

Spinning my wheel(s)..

Sorry, it's been a while! Life has been delightfully busy, and I've neglected my time here.

A few weeks ago, some friends and I went to a Wool Gathering at Young's Dairy near Springfield, Ohio. If you haven't been, I highly recommend going, even if you live 4 or 5 or 6 hours away. It's a lovely collection of vendors selling everything from enameled jewerly and shawl pins to historical reinactors, wheel dealers, and fiber. Did I forget to mention the yarn? LOTS of yarn, including a ball of cashmere lace for $20 at 1000 yards a ball. That one came home with me.

So did this.

That's right, I've finally bought a spinning wheel. It's an Ashford Kiwi, a beginner's wheel to be sure, but I couldn't be happier with her. That skein hanging on the wheel is my first handspun. It's BFL. I've got high-flying dreams of decorating her, which is difficult to do right now, since I can't bring myself to stop spinning on my wheel. Even a serious cut on my thumb hasn't stopped me from spinning on my wheel. FTW, always cut away from the hand holding stuff. Ask me how I know. Atleast this time, I didn't need stitches. You'd think I'd have learned that by now, huh?

So far, I have worked out a plan to stain the wheel. First, I wanted water based stains and seals. Miniwax makes water-based stains and varnishes, for the record, which dry much faster than the oil-based ones. Plus, there's that whole issue of compatibility. I did my homework and found out that paint on varnish will not stick if you use things with different bases. Not surprising, since oil and water have never mixed well together. I plan on painting on the rim of the wheel after it's stained, but I'll be using water-based acrylics. I'm hoping that all this water based stuff is easy to clean up, given my lack of gracefulness lately. Plus, since it dries faster, it means less down time on the wheel. I'd get started this weekend except for the whole-cut-on-my-thumb issue. I have a slice on my wrist, too, but that one's shallow and I have no idea how I got it.

After getting dizzied and disoriented by the wide variety of supplies at Michael's where I bought my stain and varnish, I decided to lengthen the finishing process by holding off on purchasing the paints. I'll varnish the solid wood parts first, before continuing with the actual wheel. The actual wheel is not solid wood, but medium density fiberboard (MDF), and won't look like the rest of the wood once stained. I think I want to paint the wheel to resemble wood grain after I stain it. Depending on how much I like it, I may or may not decorate it with further stenciling in vines and flowers. Then I'll seal the wheel with varnish to protect the paint.

That's the plan anyways. It's harder to enact because I'm stuck more or less spinning until my thumb heals. Knitting hurts right now, but thankfully, I don't need a thumb to spin.