Making Stuff, Week 9: More Blending

Posted: March 12th, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Knitting, Making Stuff Series, Spinning | 14 Comments »

I was about to write that I didn’t feel nearly as productive this week and thus wasn’t going to have much to talk about, but then I gathered up the pictures for this week’s entry. I guess when you have six different pictures you must have accomplished something, right?

This week was mostly about blending. A few weeks ago you’ll recall that I blended up and dyed a roughly 60/20/20 blend of Falkland wool, alpaca from Benz, and nylon for socks. (You know, I actually suspect it’s closer to a 50/25/25 blend…I lost a lot of shorter Falkland fibers on the first pass and that probably changed the ratio.) As a refresher, here are those socks in progress — I’ve only got the rest of the leg to knit on the second sock and then they’re done.

I absolutely love how these socks feel and knit so far. The gauge is a little big but it’s live-with-able, and they’ll make perfectly fine socks regardless. But I wanted to make a similar blend for socks and spin and knit a pair for comparison, one made with Blue-Faced Leicester instead of Falkland since BFL is so popular for socks. So that’s what I did this past weekend.

Like the other blend I’m pretty sure this is actually closer to a 50/25/25 blend — the first pass on the hackle really weeded out a ton of shorter BFL fibers. I saved that stuff as it will be perfectly fine for carding, but I think it did probably change my final ratio. Like the last sock fiber batch I’m planning on dyeing this as well. I posted a call for color suggestions to the Glorious Grazers fans on Facebook and so far I’m liking the very first suggestion from one Erica Palmer to dye it a royal purple and red combo.

Although I’ve been using Benz’s fleece for a lot of sock fiber lately I’d hate for you to think that his fleece is only good for socks. It’s definitely a higher quality than that. All three of my boys have really great, soft fleece, but I’ve been using Benz’s for socks lately because (a) I’m on a sock yarn kick; (b) I’ve used all of Cinnamon’s from his 2009 shearing; and (c) I tend to save Silverton’s — he has the best quality fleece of the three, in my opinion, and the most beautiful natural color — for finer products.

Moving on to the next blend…remember the dye experiments from last week? I thought those might look good carded up, and I wanted to blend in some fleece from one of my boys for added softness. On hindsight I should have used Benz’s since black would have been the perfect color addition here, but oddly I chose Silverton’s. I think because I wanted the gray to desaturate the green in the batts somewhat. What I got was a really interesting woodland, forest-like batt.

My first reaction when I took them off the carder was, “well, that’s…uh, interesting.” It didn’t immediately fill me with joy like the Blood Orange batts did. But then I started spinning them and my outlook has changed completely — I haven’t taken a picture of the yarn on the bobbin yet but I really love how the orange and tan blends and mixes randomly with the greens. And yes, Silverton’s gray did neutralize the greens somewhat. I’m spinning it to be a 2-ply worsted weight yarn and I should end up with a reasonable yardage. It’ll probably go in the Etsy shop as I’ve been wanting to add more yarns that actually have some of my boys’ fleece in them and only a couple of those are in the shop currently (I’ve sold quite a few to coworkers, of all people).

In the dyeing segment of this week’s work we have a small amount of Merino that I dyed a simple blue. My plan is to blend this in a 50/50 blend with Silverton’s fleece, card it, spin it, and then ply it with a silver thread. I really think that’ll look stunning. I saw some traces of purple in there; I’m not sure if that’s left over from my last dye batch and I just didn’t clean out the pot well or what, but it should just add nicely to the final color.

In the finished yarn category there’s the milk fiber that I finally finished and plied. My thoughts on this were a resounding “meh.” As I said before, it was pleasant enough to spin, at least most of the time — I occasionally found that it drafted a bit like pure soy silk in that you have spots that were super easy to draft and spots where it just didn’t want to slide at all (this is why I always blend soy silk). But it just doesn’t seem to offer anything new to me as a fiber except a lot of baggage since the processing is supposedly pretty chemically intensive. But at least when I look at it now in the spinning supply shops I don’t have to feel it and wonder. Spinning this was like trying on that dress you really love on the rack but are pretty sure you won’t like on you, and then actually being relieved that you were right, it looks terrible on you, and you no longer have to wonder or spend money on something you aren’t going to like. You just know.

The dye job — not mine — was certainly pretty, and if you’re wondering where it came from it’s a sample from the Moonlight & Laughter Etsy shop — she has some really pretty rovings so be sure and check her out.

And finally, in the Featured Yarn category, it’s one of my first attempts at a yarn that is completely out of my comfort zone, an art yarn that really tests my skills, all ten years of them.

Now, don’t laugh.

Okay, you aren’t going to laugh, right? Because you promised.

It’s called “Green Apple Martini & Keep ‘Em Comin’”, and I haven’t decided what I think about it. On the one hand, it’s definitely quite different from the yarns I usually spin. On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s what I had envisioned when I planned this yarn, and that’s really the ultimate test, isn’t it? The mohair is far chunkier that I thought it would be, and there’s simply too much of it, I think. The BFL green base is fine, but even plied with the thread it’s got too much of a…well, plied look.

I know that sounds silly, but I think ultimately what I really want is a low-twist single, roughly worsted weight, one that is fairly even and consistent in thickness except for occasional gradual and minimal changes in that thickness, and with small mohair cherry locks worked in somehow very sparingly. But how to work in those mohair locks without plying the yarn in order to hold them? Maybe what I really need to do is card some mohair and marl it into the yarn in spots. I’m not sure. So I’m considering this a test version of my idea, and so in some respects even if I’m not wild about it it was a success: I learned something about what I really wanted and how to execute on the yarn I’m seeing in my head, and I have some better ideas on how to do that for a 2.0 version. This version is currently hanging on my fiber rack on the wall so I can see it and mull it over visually for a while. Maybe I’ll come to a different opinion about it the more I look at it.

I’m putting in a lot of hours right now at work so my spinning time is reduced for at least a few weeks, but I should still have something to show for next week. And of course, between now and then you should check out all the other fiber arts posts at Fiber Arts Friday on WonderWhyGal’s awesome blog!

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