Oh wow cardigan!

Finally! I digged into my stash of handspun yarns and knitted a cardigan! Jon Dunn-Ballam Easyknits has dyed all fibers except the lilac, and he's also knitted the blue/green yarn. I'm very pleased with this cardi. It's heavy, but it's very comfortable. As always, I didn't have a pattern, I just started knitting and guessed what I had to do on the road. And, as usual, I underestimated my bum... but that's easy to solve with strips at the sides :) I wanted big pockets for phone, spindle, keys, and other necessary things.

When friends' yarns meet

Sarah gave me one of Jon Dunn Ballam's (Easyknits) handspun yarns, and Ingrid (Ingrids funderingar) gave me one of hers. I think they make a perfect couple:

Left Jon's, right Ingrid's

I like the stitch markers, they're like gems in the knitting

When knitting easy things like this hat, I read while knitting. That's Jacey Bogg's Spin Art on the music stand. The tape? It keeps the book open! I would like one of those wire things you can buy for the same purpose, but I never seem to remember when visiting a shop that may have such necessary things.

If I button the cowl I can meet the autumn winds with confidence. The buttons were made by my grandmother a long time ago. I love them! And I do love this hat and cowl. Ingrid's yarn was spun aroung a core of metal wire, so both the hat and the cowl stay in shape besides being warm and soft. I don't know what finer Jon used, but it's also soft and lovely.

Thank you so much, Ingrid and Jon!

Shawl yarn and rhubarb

This is meant to become a Shipwreck:

The skein is not washed, but as I can't wash it yet I show it anyway. It's BFL/silk (50/50) from Ullaffären, a wonderful fiber combination of excellent quality. Sadly Renee doesn't have any more of it. It may be that my yarn is too thin. It's 345 grams, 1340 meters, 3-ply. And it all fitted on to one WooleeWinder bobbin! OK, if it's too thin, I'll spin another yarn from something else. I love spinning, if you haven't noticed ;)

In the garden shy little red hats are showing amongst the withered remnants of the leaves from last year:

I won't clean up around them yet, there will still be cold nights and the small rhubarb babies need their blankets. Beautiful colors!

Sock yarn

My first cabled sock yarn on Hansen Minispinner:

One thread is BFL hand dyed by Swedish spinner and knitter polpo:

I plied with red and dark gray longwool and orange and yellow merino. 225 grams, rather thin.

As you can see we still have lots of snow, but it's melting. At least I hope so.

First skein on Minispinner

This is my first skein ever on my Minispinner. I'm very pleased, even if both spinning and plying is a bit uncertain. It's 200 grams Shetland, about 1130 meters. Custom dyed for me by FridayStudios. I'll knit a Hap shawl. Only have to spin brown and white Shetland to combine with. The yarn isn't finished yet, but I don't think it will change much when washed.

First singles on Minispinner

First singles spun on my Minispinner on the bobbin to the right. Shetland from FridayStudios, custom dyed for me. It's 100 grams, and I have 100 grams to spin for the second singles. I don't know if I'll make a 2-ply yet. The singles is 30 WPI, so a 2-ply would be a nice lace yarn. In the middle a 3-ply BFL-silk, and to the left my first attempt to spin cotton on Louet Victoria.

I'm as happy as yesterday. Oh - the WPI gauge is a gift from a Swedish spinner. I love it!

Swap yarns

I like swaps, you never know what your partner will send you. Two days ago I spun two singles and yesterday I plied, skeined and washed the yarn. I'm so pleased with this yarn! I spun the hand dizzed tops with merino, alpaca and silk uneven, and the commercial merino top even, and got a yarn with character and structure.

The merino-alpaca-silk tops to the left, sorry I don't have a better picture

Merino top

Singles

The finished yarn shows the different fibers in a nice way

I also spun the pink Shetland-Merino-Nylon batt in the photo above:

Now I'm thinking of what to spin to ply it with. Gray would be nice, but I can also imagine other pink shades in a 3-ply and another gray 3-ply for a warm Fair Isle hat.

The swans have been grazing in the fields for a couple of weeks. Soon they will be gone.

In the garden the plants show colors you didn't know they had:

This is a cactus I got from a friend a couple of years ago. She sent it to me in a milk package, I put it in a pot, it grew roots and started growing bigger and bigger. Last summer it was hanging in a rowan for a couple of months. A few weeks ago I got the sad news that my friend had passed away. I call my cactus "Marie" in remembrance of her. Marie has four flowers now.

Rainy day

Det regnar i dag - It's raining today.

My Schlumberga has been out all summer. Now she has moved closer to the stairs, she's coming in soon. But first I'll fix her a bit. She has a lot of debris amongst her branches, and spiders, and other living things with legs. The birds have pooed on her, shame on them. She has to take a real shower, not only sitting in the summer raing. She needs a bigger, sturdier pot, she's very heavy. I got her as a tiny branch from my mother's Schlumberga many years ago.

I the autumn she will explode in pink flowers.

I watched a documentary yesterday. It was about a man they call "Hästmannen", "The Horse Man", in Sweden where he lives. In the film he lived as they did a hundred years ago, only he had a radio in his house. He loves horses, he had three Ardenners, big working horses. He had a few cows also. Later he got ill and couldn't take care of the animals, so they took them away from him. Pics from the film:

There are so many eccentric people in our world. I so wish Hästmannen would be able to have at least one horse, but he really can't take care of them any more. Just look at the pic below where he's trying to harvest in a snow storm.

I finally bought this wonderful book, ten years later than I had planned. It's a treasure. See that sweater with the sheep? There must be all the varieties of Shetland sheep in it. Isn't that awesome? The book was edited by Deborah Robson.

Shetland Flock by Teresa Gardner. Eleven different yarns from nine sheep handspun in the natural colors of Shetland sheep.

Pink!

I have knitted a pink shawl, and I like it! Who could have guessed? Pink is not a color you would think I could wear. Two yarns are handspun merino+bamboo (pink) and merino+silk (reddish). The variegated is Manos Lace, alpaca+silk+cashmere. Needles 2,5 mm. Edging from "A Gathering of Lace" or "Victorian Lace Today", I have forgotten which one. Shawl pattern "The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief" by Orange Flower on Ravelry.

Attic Yarn Number Two and Bog Yarn

I have spun all the orange-green-brown tops. I got three nice skeins. One of them is a bit thicker than the others: consistency, consistency, the very very difficult thing in handspinning... after all these years of spinning I still have to work on that. But I don't think it will show much in the modular pattern I have in mind.

Before I started spinning I had an idea I would use the Attic Yarns Number One and Two together with the lovely Bog Green, but I've changed my mind. They would not look good together, so I'll think of something else for the Attic Yarns.

So the next yarn from EasyKnits' attic treasure will be the Bog Green. It's slightly matted, but opens easily, so I will spin a thin 3-ply for a sweater or cardigan.

                           Top before and after predrafted

You can see how good the fibers are. Bad, matted fibers would not open like this. It's a joy to spin :) I keep thinking of it as meditation.

Värmlandsfår. My Fiber Studies 11

I take part in the SpinDoctor Rare Breed Wool Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged SpinDoctor. The challenge ends June 30th 2011. You find SpinDoctor's podcasts in my Link List to the right.


The Sheep

There are quite a few sheep that belong to the North European short tailed group of sheep. The Swedish Värmlandsfår is one of them. The sheep all came from the region of Värmland. It was a local farmer, Bengt Sonesson, who started gathering sheep of the same type as those in his flock in the 1950s. Today there are Värmlandsfår in smallholders in many places in Sweden, but it is still an endangered breed. There are only about 2000 left.

In the awesome blog Fale Artut you can see both the sheep and wonderful batts, yarns and garments made from this wool. The blog is in Swedish, but there are great photos. My wool samples are from those lucky sheep, thanks to Ingrid in Sweden.

The Wool

The wool is grey/black, brown or white, or piebald. The wool is fine to harsh. It's an interesting wool for handspinners. Depending on what type the fleece is there is a wide range of textiles you can make from it, starting with mittens, socks, sweaters and ending with upholstery.

My Experience

I got two wool samples from Ingrid. The wool was very clean with no vegetable matter. I scoured it before carding.

Sample one, black

Preparation: hand carding

Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria
Spinning ratio: 1:13
WPI in singles: about 28 on my WPI tool
Plying ratio: 1:13

The wool was very silky and felt soft, but when I handcarded and spun it I found that the silkyness hid steel under it. Not that it was harsh, but it's a very strong fiber. It would be a good sock yarn. I spun it woolen into a 2-ply yarn. It sheds small black bits of wool, but that would stop when using it.

Sample two, light brown

Preparation: drumcarding

Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria
Spinning ratio: 1:6
WPI in singles: about 22 on my WPI tool.
Plying ratio: 1:8.5

This wool felt coarser than the black.

I spun a woolen draw, not quite a long draw but about half the length of my arm. I found that the best way was to slightly stretch out the batt and roll it lengthwise and start spinning from one end. The machine carded batt has a direction, so it's good to try the other end if the first one feels awkward. I spun a 2-ply I thought would be good in a hat.

Sample three, light brown


The same prep and ratio as the second yarn. I spun a singles a bit thicker. This yarn could be used in weaving for cloth or a thin blanket. As a 2-ply it would make a thicker blanket.

Sample four, light brown


I plied a few meters of what was left on the bobbin into an overtwisted 2-ply. I folded the yarn in two and let it twist into a 4-strand cable yarn. This would make a strong, thick weaving yarn for a rug.

                        Scoured locks, sample two, three and four

So, what do I think? A fiber with lots of possibilities, an interesting fiber, a fiber that needs to be worked with from fleece in my opinion. Every time I work with fibers like these I think I should have a loom...


Read more

Internet

Värmlandsfår
Allmogefår
Fale Artut

Blue Hour, Light in the Window

This house is abandoned since a few decades. The lights in the windows are reflections from the sun setting in the west. When we first moved to our house we thought someone was staying in the empty house every now and then. But it is empty and slowly falling apart.

Now is the time of the year when the light can be deep blue in the evenings.

My first Spinalong yarn is finished but not washed. I call it Attic Yarn Number Two. EasyKnit tops, gift from Sarah.

Manx Loaghtan. My Fiber Studies 5

I take part in the SpinDoctor Wool Breed Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged "SpinDoctor". The Challenge ends June 30th 2011.


The Sheep

This is a weird looking sheep, like something from a fantasy story :) The Manx word "loaghtan" means "mouse brown". The lambs are born black. The sheep has lived on the Isle of Man for more than a thousand years. Both rams and ewes have four to six horns. It's a short tailed Northern European sheep, but the length of the tail varies. The sheep are small and fine boned. The meat is of high quality.

Manx Loaghtan is classified as "at risk" by Rare Breeds Survival Trust (UK).

                           Picture from "British Sheep & Wool" p. 164
The Wool

Some of these primitive sheep shed their fleece in spring, others have to be shorn. The staple length is 6-12 cm. The micron range is fine to medium, around 30, but some sheep have a more hairy fleece. The tips are often bleeched into light brown, almost cream. The wooly type is very good for handspinning a lofty, soft, warm yarn.

My Experience

The small heap of Manx Loaghtan I had was full of vegetable matter, matted almost felted tips and matted cut ends with neps. When I looked at it I remembered why I put it away in the autumn when I was spinning the rest of the wool from my class in Stirling. "I'll do it on a better day" I thought.

One of the very good things I learned in Deborah Robson's class was that you can find good fibers in a heap of an awful looking mess if you know how to do it. So, despite that the day I thought would be a good day to clear up in the mess started with a morning when I kept hurting my head on all sorts of things like lamps, shelves, and an open door, it ended up as a good day.

Long, soft and nice fibers once you get them sorted. Upper row: lock, combed tops, rolags, scoured fiber. Below combing in progress, and the dog comb I first tried 

Preparation

I first tested combing the tips off with a dog comb and then card what was left. That was not a good idea. Carding the long fibers only teared them to pieces and didn't take out the VM or the neps. I carded two awkward mini rolags. You can see them in the middle of the upper row in the photo above.

I then tried my one row Louet mini combs, and that worked well. I got a few mini tops of lovely fiber, and a lot of waste which I threw away.

Spinning

Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria
Ratio: 1:6
WPI on my wpi-tool: 24 (average)

I spun the carded rolags with a semi-woolen draw (or against twist, I'm not sure what to call it). I got a lumpy, soft yarn that would be nice in a hat if there was enough of it.

I spun the combed tops in the same way, and in this case I think the draft could be called "against twist". I used a low ratio for low twist with a medium take up to trap as much air as possible in the yarn. The tops were very easy and nice to spin. I plied with the same loose twist and got a yarn that looked very soft before washing.

After washing the yarn was more open and lofty. The ply is a bit uneven, have to work on that in the future. The carded sample was lumpy and uneven, which was to expect.

                                     Carded sample to the left, combed to the right
Knitting 

Yarn: the combed prep
Needles: 3.5 mm
21 stitches, 24 rows

The softness of the yarn takes away some stitch definition in relief patterns in the 2-ply yarn. For a garment like a sweater I would spin 3-ply and not so lofty.

The color of the sample yarn varies, which is natural as I combed small amounts of fiber on mini combs. In a sweater this would make a lovely slightly variegated effect.

Conclusion

A lovely fiber! 

Read more
Internet
Wikipedia Manx Loaghtan
Manx Loaghtan Breeders' Group. This site is quite informative.
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
Literature
British Sheep & Wool. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010
M. L. Ryder, Sheep & Man. Duckworth, 2007
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece & Fiber Source Book. Storey Publishing, to be released in May 2011
Nola & Jane Fournier, In Sheep's Clothing. Interweave, 1995

North Ronaldsay. My Fiber Studies 4

I take part in the SpinDoctor Wool Breed Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged "SpinDoctor". The Challenge ends June 30th 2011.

The Sheep

These sheep have lived on North Ronaldsay for very long. They "... are closely related genetically to the prehistoric Palustris" Elizabeth Lovick writes in her informative booklet "A North Ronaldsay Yarn". She continues: "They also have many similarities with the Asian Arkhan sheep in Kazakhstan" and "... to be very similar indeed to the bones of sheep found in the stone age village of Skara Brae on Mainland (about 3 thousand BC) and virtually identical to the remains of iron age sheep found throughout Orkney". The sheep belongs to the North Atlantic short tailed group together with Hebridean, Soay, Shetland, Icelandic and Villsau. It is believed to be the ancestor of Shetland sheep. In 1832 the sheep were closed out from the better lands on the island and forced to live on the shores and live on seaweed for greater part of the year. A sudden change of the diet to normal grazing can kill them (copper poisoning).

The North Ronaldsay is a small and fine boned sheep. The rams are horned, the ewes can be horned, polled or scurred. The meat is delicious.

The Wool

North Ronaldsay is a dual coated sheep. The undercoat is "fine as cashmere" says Liz Lovick, and protects the sheep from cold. The outer coat (guard hair) is long and much coarser and leads water out from the wool helping to keep the sheep dry. The lock is triangular as the undercoat fills up in the cut end making it wider.

Scoured lock from Deborah Robson's class in Stirling 2010. Deb's sample card, my notes

The variety of color includes white, grey, black, brown in different shades. The staple length is 4-at least 17 cm. Some written sources says as short as 8 cm as the longest, but as you can see this is not true. The crimp is open in the outer coat, fine in the under coat. The hand is soft to harsh depending on the amount of outer coat and the age of the sheep.

Earlier the sheep where rooed (wool pulled off) when the sheep shed naturally, nowadays they are sheared.

The wool is used for garments like sweaters, hats, mittens. The fleece can be dehaired for a soft yarn. The outer coat can be used in stronger but more harsh yarns.

My Experience

I spun North Ronaldsay for the first time in August 2010 in Stirling, Scotland, in Deb Robson's class on rare wools. We spun from the locks, or, if we had time we combed, flicked or carded them first.

In the autumn I spun the rest of what I could take with me from that class and documented it. I combed the locks with one row Louet mini combs, threw away the rather matted short undercoat and spindle spun the top I could draft out from the comb. This yarn I will use in a hat.

                          Combed spindle spun North Ronaldsay

While in Scotland I bought white, gray and dark brown sliver from Scottish Fibres. The dark brown could be black, I don't know how black North Ronaldsay can be considering they most probably have tips bleached to brown that obscure the pure black. I took 20 grams each from these slivers for this fiber study. The slivers are carded from whole fleeces, so there is every kind of fibers in them: short soft undercoat, longer coarser outercoat and kemp. The slivers drifted apart very easily and were a bit difficult to spin even, but I wanted even yarns I could use in Fair Isle knit, so I decided to try anyway as part of the SpinDoctor's Wool Breed Challenge.

When you spin fibers from a double coated fleece you have to be aware that you are not getting a smooth merino type of yarn. But you can get a very nice yarn suitable for the weather in a cold, wet coastal area. That's what the sheep have grown their fleece for, and that is what you can use it for yourself.

I also took this as a challenge to spin three similar yarns from different fibers to get suitable yarn for a knitted Fair Isle swatch.

                                   Dark brown, grey and white sliver

Options for all three samples


Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria, standard flyer, ratio 1:8.5
WPI in singles on my wpi-tool: 28 (average).
Drafting: double semi-woolen draft. First I let in a little twist by starting what would be a long draw if I continued drafting, but I stopped when there was enough twist to hold the sliver together. Then I followed up with proper drafting and smoothing of the yarn. I wanted to trap the short fibers in the yarn for a loft, warm yarn, but still keep it fine as I also want to wear the hat or mittens. I don't like thick knitted garments because they are too warm for me.
Knitted swatch: 31 stitches, 24 rows, needles 2.5 mm. Pattern from Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting, p. 57.

As all three samples where spun, plied and washed the same way. I give details only for the first sample.

1st sample: The white sliver. There was much kemp and very short fibers from the undercoat among the longer ones from the outer coat as you can see in the first photo:

             First part of the double woolen draft: I have let a bit of twist enter the drafting zone

Second part of the double draft: I have drafted to the fineness I want and let the definitive twist into the yarn.

There is much twist in my yarn. I had to decide on lower twist for a more lofty yarn or high twist for strength and less pilling. I chose the latter.

I combed a few cm of the sliver to see what happens. Short fibers and some kemp were left on the combs after I had drafted out the top. The yarn was spun with short forward draw and then I let it ply back. The yarn is smoother and looks better, but it is also coarser.

This is what was left on the combs after I combed a few cm of the sliver: short undercoat, some long outercoat and kemp

I took the waste from the combs, added a few drops of water and just rubbed it between my fingers, and it felted. I made a small flower of it. I don't know how good felt you could get from the undercoat treated in such a rough way, first carded in a mill and then combed with hand combs,  but at least you could blend it with something else to get good felt. I didn't try needle felting, but of course you could use the soft undercoat for that technique also. On North Ronaldsay the mill owner Jane Donnelly has a felting press she has used for different kinds of felt.

The plied and washed white sample weighed 15 grams and was 83 meters long.

2nd sample: The gray sliver. There was very little kemp in this sliver, and it felt softer than the white one. But when I spun I could see the outercoat and kemp start rising from the yarn on the bobbin. The fibers were stiff and didn't want to twist into the yarn.

The plied and washed gray sample weighed 15 grams and was 93 meters long.

3rd sample: The brown sliver. This was the easiest to spin of the three slivers. It felt coarser, and I think there was a greater amount of outercoat in it. It was shorter than the orther yarns evn if I measured the same WPI ehile spinning.

The plied and washed brown sample weighed 15 grams and was 72 meters long.

                     Big sample skeins 2-ply from sliver, small skeins 3-ply navajo

This is a fiber and yarn with character. The yarn was a joy to knit.

For a sweater I would spin thicker, or a 3-ply. This thin 2-ply yarn would be very good in mittens or a hat. It could also be used in a sweater, but then I would knit on a machine. Handknitting would take forever! But as you can see in the swatch I really would need to work on the diameter control. Even in this small swatch the white yarn is bulging out to the sides because it is thicker than the others.

Read more
Internet
There is much information on North Ronaldsay on internet. Here is some:
Northern Lace Fiber Adventure 2010
Sheep Isle, North Ronaldsay
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
Wikipedia North Ronaldsay
Use a search engine to find the contact details for the mill on North Ronaldsay: A Yarn from North Ronaldsay Ltd
Literature
Elizabeth Lovick, A North Ronaldsay Yarn. The Sheep, Their Yarn and Their Island, s.a. Northern Lace
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. Storey Publishing, to be released May 2011
M.L. Ryder, Sheep and Man. Duckworth, 2007
Nola and Jane Fournier, In Sheep's Clothing, Interweave Press, 1995
British Sheep & Wool. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010
Wild Fibers Magazine, 2004