Where did all the time go?!

I am busy. I am sooooooooo busy. I am in one of those phases where there is so much to do of incredible importance that my brain just fries and I have to take the evening off because I can't decide which of the ridiculously important things is more important to do before the others.

There hasn't been much knitting recently, because if I haven't been working on part-time job A (site & user support for 3 websites & PA-ing for my boss) then I should be doing part-time job B (being a lecturer and running 3 courses - term starts Monday, but my summer has been spent planning and preparing), and if I'm not doing that I should be working on my PhD (ha! Like that's had a look-in since July), and if I'm not doing that I should be doing at least one of the 5 other things I've committed to in a fit of "can't-say-no"...

It's all fun, but it leaves little knitting time.

This evening I thought about my to-do list, felt a bit overwhelmed, and decided to watch TV and knit instead. (Tomorrow I will break things down into manageable tasks and get stuck in). I had previously got some knitting done last weekend during a 3-hour car journey, and finished the sleeves for my Fairly-Easy Fair Isle, so today I joined them to the body and have got started on the yoke.

I realised I never posted any photos of my mammoth Kool Aid dyeing session!

Here's the finished objects - don't they look cute?



The original yarn is 50% wool, 50% acrylic, so the original colour is still visible a little, giving it some depth. I think the core of the yarn was acrylic, and the outer part was wool, because they all have bright blue halos!

And the original colours. I like the fact that the original colours are all different, although I'm glad that the dyed versions go with each other a lot nicer than the originals do! But the fact I was able to use differently coloured originals and dye them with the same dye (blue kool aid) means that should they fade, I can just over dye the whole thing. (This picture shows the original yarns and the finished results sitting on top of the body of the cardigan, which is a dark navy blue).



It's not just yarn I dyed ;)



And here's the colours knit into the cuff of the sleeve:



I think they go really well together, but have decided when I do the yoke that I will leave out the green. I think I'll stick to blue and purple for the yoke, because I'm not really a lime-green person (or really a colourful person!). I have to keep remembering that although it's fun to knit with the three colours, and they are all pretty, I need to have a finished product that I'm going to wear.

Put it this way, I realised that I would not buy that cardigan (with green in the yoke) if I saw it in a shop.

However, the splash of colour on the cuff is lovely, and I really like how the blue and purple go together, so I'm confident that the yoke will be fine, and I'll like it. Here's where I'm up to so far (this photo shows the back):

Yet more blithering

It's not a good week to not have the camera! Luckily I've remembered that I have photos from an old secret project which has finally been sent to its recipient, so I can post those soon.

Today has been a fun fibre day. Let me put it this way: my fingers are blue.

And no, I don't mean with RSI numbness. I forgot to wear gloves during some very hands-on Kool Aid dyeing ;)

Today I went to my first Guild meeting. There is a little bit of a story to this, which I think I have previously been too embarrassed to write about. There was a summer fete style event back in June, which I went to, because my friend had been the year before & said there had been spinners. So I packed up my [empty] spindle (at this point I didn't have the Bosworth, and had only spindle spun about 15 yards altogether!) and some merino top, and went to find the spinners. Well, it was a hot day, I was nervous, I was babbling... and I was completely incompetent at spinning! I hadn't pre-drafted, my hands were sweaty, I was being watched by lots of people, I kept dropping my spindle (as in, drop it and it rolls under a table, kind of dropping it). And my babbling was about how good at spinning I was, so I really was setting myself up for humiliation. Uh-huh. It was one of those days.

(This is why I was so thrilled that I didn't suck at spinning in front of the Majacraft designer and the spindling tutors at Woolfest! I had previous form for looking like a prat).

What I should've done was taken a pre-spun spindle or my Ella shawl, rather than trying to join in.

Anyway, today was a lot more relaxed. It was the first session after a summer break, so it was just a 'bring a craft & show'n'tell' type event. Seeing as I am not very good at meeting new people, it went well! (I think I brought the average age of the room down to about 79 ;) ). I got some spindling done on my Bosworth (my spindles tend to get neglected), showed off my half-completed Swallowtail, and got to see an Inkle loom in action.

When I got home I ended up knitting more of my cardie. I'd been talking about dyeing earlier, and all my yarn has arrived, so all that was left to do was guess-timate how much yarn I'd need to dye. I did this by knotting a marker onto the live yarn at yard points, and seeing how much I was using for each row.

The dyeing has gone OK, I think. Not quite as consistent as I hoped, but that's my fault for using drink as a dye! I ended up with an ounce of each colour yarn (hot pink, yellow & 'camel') which I wanted to overdye with blue Kool Aid to get purple, green and blue. 12 sachets of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and I think I've probably saturated it as much as it will go. The yarn is 50% acrylic, so I knew it was never going to be completely overdyed. I might reskein and use one further sachet on each to make sure I've got as complete coverage as possible. I've certainly got good coverage on my fingertips!

Buttercup Lake Yarn

Here I am, being a good little Bee with the latest in this week's pile of FOs!

This one is super old - from back at the start of the year! I dyed it at the start of January, spun it at the end, and plyed it in February.

I had dyed the top for my Chapter Two yarn, and my Chapter Three, and I much preferred the Chapter Two - I think because it had more than two colours in it. So when I received my bumper pack of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool Aid, I decided to use just it and some Pineapple... and blend them in the middle.

The resulting skein is blue, yellow and green - really bright and summery, hence the same.



Of course, like most of the skeins I dye, it's not really my colours! But I can certainly admire it :)



Breed: Cheviot
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural white fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (2 sachets Pineapple; 3 sachets Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade)
Weight: c. 100g
Yardage: 119 yards
WPI: c. 13
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2

I was actually quite shocked when I got the final yardage - I had thought that it would have been a lot more! It certainly doesn't feel super thick, but it is deliciously round and squishy.

I'm not really a yellow person, but the little curls of green are gorgeous!

Annoyance is...

... binding off your hand-dyed, hand-spun, hand-knitted shawl, and discovering you're just a couple of inches of yarn too short.



(green arrows mark the rest of the stitches to be cast off; pink arrows mark the remaining yarn. Le sigh).

The idea of unknitting the stretchy bind-off is far too depressing to contemplate, so I found the coil of crappy singles I spun from some grey wool which was either Jacob or Massam Mid Grey, unspun a bit from the end, respun it finely, plyed it, and dyed it. (ankles be damned - but I did switch chairs).

The way the dye has taken up (MUCH more vibrantly than the shawl) suggests it's MMG rather than Jacob, but it won't be too noticeable. I hope. Luckily as it's only about 20 inches of yarn it dried almost instantly, so I should still be able to finish and block the shawl tonight.

Here's the colour difference: (presumably a combination of way more dye per square millimetre, and almost certainly a different breed. The base colour was very very similar though)

Camera Obscura

Sadly no photos, since Mr Bee took the camera away with him this weekend, and has left it at a friend's house. We won't get it back until next Friday - and that's only if he remembers. Frustratingly I took some good photos of my present, but didn't have a chance to take them off the camera. Oh well.

In other news I dyed the remaining undyed fibre I have - less than 2 ounces of grey Jacob top. I used 3 sachets of blue Kool Aid, in the hope of getting a dark blue shade. It hasn't quite worked - it's more a mix of light-grey-dyed-bluey/green and dark grey, but I'll have to see how it spins up.

Oh, and I asked for information the other day on SpinList about Haldane Lewis wheels. No one else appears to have the same wheel as me (although others know others with one), but there are people with other Haldane wheels, and one woman with an earlier version of the Lewis, which has lots of exciting twiddly bits.

I also decided to contact Haldanes themselves to see if they had any bobbins. When I first got my wheel (in Feb 2006) the Haldanes website listed spare bobbins and whorls for the Lewis. I decided to buy 3 more bobbins and all other whorls when I finished my thesis. By the time I'd finished they'd sold out of both (they're discontinued)! Doh! But Haldanes have been very nice, and are selling me 3 'modified Ashford' bobbins, which should be fine, plus another whorl which they managed to find.

Because I'm in the middle of moving I'm having them shipped to my parents' address, so it will be March before I can pick them up...

I've had to move my blog over to 'new blogger'. There don't appear to be any changes except it's added 'GB' under my name. If it wishes to list my location, I'd much prefer 'UK'*, since GB is rarely used nowadays, except on car stickers. I can't actually see where it got 'GB' from either; probably my time zone.

I do want to try the labels/tags thing though. I may wait until I have a other-types-of-hand-movement free day to spend going through my old posts and adding them.

* 'Great Britain' is England, Wales and Scotland (i.e., the name of the actual island on which I live); the 'United Kingdom' is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland (full title is the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'); the 'British Isles' is the geographical term for everything, including the Republic of Ireland.

Chapter Three Yarn

My chapter three yarn was, unsurprisingly, the carrot which I used to make me write chapter three of my MPhil. Again, this was Cheviot top which I dyed with Kool Aid, and then couldn't spin until the chapter was finished.

I only used two flavours of Kool Aid this time. I'd used three for the chapter two yarn, and those three yielded a huge range of different colours and shades. Unfortunately, the two colours for chapter three (Changin' Cherry & Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry) only really made Changin' Cherry and Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry colours (light blue and orangey-pink). So this yarn is either all blue, all pinky, or one ply of each. There are variations in shade, but it doesn't have the sheer depth that chapter two does.



However, the good thing about me liking, but not adoring, this yarn is that I'm much more likely to want to knit something out of it! And at 200yards it's more likely to be a usable garment. I'm envisaging some kind of open rib scarf. I want to do something more interesting than a plain knit, but I think cables or lace would be too busy, what with the colour variations and the occasional thick'n'thin bits.

Breed: Cheviot
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural white fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (Changin' Cherry & Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry)
Weight: 100g
Yardage: 200 yards
WPI: c. 14
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2

Chapter Two Yarn

My chapter two yarn was the carrot I used to make me write chapter two of my MPhil, back in late summer (yes, this photos are a long time coming). This was my first attempt at using Kool Aid to dye with; I dyed the top at the beginning of the chapter, but wasn't allowed to spin it until the chapter was finished:



I absolutely adore this yarn. The skein looks a little tatty because I ended up just sitting and petting this yarn for nights on end (yes, I need a cat). I've always thought people who stroked yarn were a bit doolally, but I understood it with this yarn. It was comforting to just sit and hold this beautiful item that I'd created.

I love the way there are so many different colours, and each inch of plyed yarn is a new wonder. I have no idea what I'll knit with it since it's less than 140yards long. It's so beautiful in the skein, I don't know if I want to spoil it!



Breed: Cheviot
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural white fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (Grape; Tropical Punch; Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit)
Weight: 2 oz/ c. 60g
Yardage: 139 yards
WPI: c. 15
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2

Whaddid I miss?

Poor November. Poor December. Poor January. I can't believe I let them go by unposted. I'll have to fake something so they don't feel left out. I didn't realise that I hadn't posted in such a long time.

So, news.

I finally finished my MPhil, and handed it in in December. That end-of-September-2006 deadline? Turns out that it was actually end-of-September-2007. I kid you not. The MA students had a September 2006 deadline, but the MPhil students are supposed to spend a year researching, and then have up to a year to write up the thesis. I only discovered this when I asked for an extension and discovered that technically my course hadn't ended.

However, since I'd been under the impression I had to be finished my September, I'd applied to start my PhD from October... So I had to finish my MPhil relatively quickly to fulfill the conditions of the PhD.

As I was finishing my MPhil I realised that the 'only' pain I was getting was a constant burning in my right wrist. The reason why it took me about a month to realise that my elbows and forearms were feeling better was because this burning pain has no cause that I can divine, and no cure. Ice doesn't help it; anti-inflammatories don't help it. All I could do was go to bed and hope it had gone in the morning.

After I handed in my thesis we went away for a week, so I did no intense hand-movements at all. When I came back I was relatively pain free! Then I only had a couple of days at home before we went to see our parents for Christmas - so again, no hand movements. By the time we came back I'd been pretty much pain free for most of December, BUT I hadn't been doing anything.

So I was pretty much too scared to start doing things again, because being pain free, finally, after over a year, was too nice a state to be in. So now I'm just taking things slowly, trying not to overdo things. I've been attending an exercise class in the physiotherapy department of the general hospital, working on strengthening my body (I've become very weak this past year), and I've also restarted yoga. But - as the weekly physio lectures stress - I also have to pace myself, and not overdo things. Now I've been relatively painfree for two months I probably underdo things too much, since I'm so wary of setting off the pain again.

I have been knitting and spinning, and - tada! - I've finished one of my WIPs. I've finished the Lace-Up Opera Gloves, but need to get ribbons for them. It took about 2 months to finish them (I'd already knit one last year) - I did a maximum of about 4 rows a day, and I didn't knit daily. I keep a note of what I do each day, partly so I don't overdo it, and partly so that I'm always sure where I'm up to - when you can only knit about 100 stitches a day, you don't want to waste hand movements unknitting!

I'm currently working on Branching Out. This is the piece that gave me tennis elbow back in the summer, so I'm taking it really carefully. And I only knit if I've been painfree that day, and I try not to knit too much on days that I type a lot. I'm doing around a maximum of 10 rows a day (ie., a full pattern repeat), but these are spaced out throughout the day. I'm a little concerned I may run out of yarn, but since it's a scarf that shouldn't be too dreadful - it's already neck warmer length.

Spinning wise, I dyed my final 100g of white Cheviot top with Kool Aid - I went with some of my blue and some of my yellow, mixing them in the middle to get green. One of the reasons why I prefer my Chapter Two yarn over my Chapter Three yarn is that it has more colours and shades mixing together. The Chapter Three yarn is basically blue and pink, whereas Chapter Two has pink, purple, blue, white, red... Each inch is a new delight of colour combination, and so this is why I used three colours this time. I spun the singles last weekend, and will probably ply them this weekend. It may be garish, and heavens know what I'll do with it, but it's all fun.

I also spun back in December, when we got back from our trip. I spun and plied all in one evening - I'd stop every now and then and think 'No pain! Keep going!' That's my secret spinning, from my secret dyeing, and so won't be revealed just yet.

In non-fibrey-new, our landlord has said that he is going to sell the flat, so now we're in the process of moving and will be out by the end of the month. We'll be moving to the city that I go to university in (right now I have a 45 minute train ride), and we've found a lovely house. Unfortunately, it's also for sale so I have a horrid feeling we're going to have to move again in 6 months. But 6 months in that house should be nice, I hope. Now I'm just spending most of the time sorting and packing and clearing, and trying not to overdo things!

And finally, today my postman delivered some voice recognition software, courtesy of Tauret (Hope - thank you so much :) I'm so sorry I haven't sent my half of the swap out yet). I haven't tried it out yet (this post has used up most of my typing time for the day!), but I'm hopeful that it will allow me to do a great deal more in future. We'll see :)

Oops, where did October go?

I do apologise fair reader; I hadn't realised that a) I really hadn't posted for a while and b) Blogger burped at some point during the posting of my last message and stuck it up thrice. Naughty Blogger. (and naughty Bee for not noticing for a month).

In recent news...

* My blue Kool Aid has arrived - 50 sachets for me to play with different shades of blue, and try to make green with all those sachets of 'pineapple'.

* Chapter Three spinning? Done and dusted my friend! Ages ago in fact, at the end of September. I'm not as totally madly deeply in love with it as I am the Chapter Two yarn, but it's still pretty (photos to follow of course).

* I've done some secret dyeing which is next in the spinning queue, which is why the blue Kool Aid is a-waiting.

* I have had a new pain in my wrists that ice nor anti-inflammatories cure (so probably not inflammation then, as my physio pointed out) which is finally easing off now after about a week. However, it's the part of my wrist that I know can ache (as in 'ooh, I've done a lot of work today' aching, rather than severe RSI aching) when spinning, so I'm not going to spin while there's even the slightest chance this pain hasn't gone away. It's also the reason why I've been focusing my typing on my thesis, rather than t'internet.

* Latest 'argh, I hate my body' pain is a severe pain in my jaw which I've had for about 2 months now. Neither dentist nor physio can figure it out, but it's most likely due to my Crappy Upper Back (TM) rather than my teeth. My CUB is apparently the root cause of ALL the pain I have had in the past year. Great.

* Had an appointment with my physio who has now said there's not much more she can do, and is referring me on to someone else, who sounds a bit like a personal trainer for people who can't do things like hold open a paperback without having pain or pick up a shopping bag. So like me then. I haven't had a letter through yet, so I'm not sure exactly what it will be like.

* My introduction to my thesis is done! And I'm aiming to have the conclusion finished by tomorrow afternoon, and then I'll just need to rework the iffy bits. The end is in sight...

Blimey

I've just finished chapter three. I really didn't expect to have it done by today. You know what that means? Chapter Three Spinning - hoorah! I'm going to spend the season finale of Lost predrafting tonight, but I'm not sure when I'll spin it.

The out-of-date Kool Aid arrived today. It worked out at 12.5p a sachet, which is much better than the 47.5p I paid for the first lot. And the colours aren't dreadful, although nearly half the sachets are 'pineapple'. This is unfortunate, but not a disaster and I figure I can mix that with blue sachets to make green. That works, right? Now I need to order some more fibre!

My wrists are... hot. Elbows aren't too bad (I now wear a padded elbow support all the time because I'm so clumsy and keep knocking my elbows on door knobs/cupboards/walls/door frames, etc, and it was beginning to affect my tendons), but my actual wrists are... hot. Not full on burning bracelets yet, but if I'm not carefull I'll get there :-/

I think I might have tomorrow off. I'm probably seeing my supervisor about feedback re chapters one and two on Thursday, so it makes sense not to start the introduction/conclusion until I've found out how crap the chapters are.

So no typing tomorrow. Not even blogs :-0 And if anyone has any experience of using Dragon Voice Recognition software please let me know!

Nothing much to report

Chapter three is still not finished, so there has been no spinning. Although it's now over 4000 words long, so the end is in sight (unless it turns out that by putting all my quotes in both English and Latin - which seeing as I'm using my own translations I've been told to do - I'm 'articifically inflating my word count' and have to write more. I am desperately hoping this isn't the case). It bad when the stuff in brackets is longer than the proper stuff, right? Anyway, I've felt like I've been on 3000 words for ages. I've been reading on people's blogs recently that they get to this knitting void where they knit and knit and knit and their knitting gets no longer: that's how I felt with this; so it was such a relief to hit 'word count' and see 4000.

Every now and then I pensively touch the chapter three top and hope it isn't too felted. It's massively felted. I can hold it with my hands 10 inches apart and pull and pull and pull and get no movement. If I attack bits at a time I can draw it out so I'm trusting that when stripped into thin lengths it will draft easily. Of course, the way to know would be to finish chapter three, but that probably won't happen until Wednesday.

By the way - Friday's deadline? Got an extension. Well, no technically, I didn't. I discovered that research students are supposed to spend the allotted time of their course researching, and THEN write up the thesis, and that it is only 'exceptional' people who hand in their theses early (the allotted time of my course is 365 days, and Friday would have been 363 days - that means had it been finished by then, I would be 'exceptional'. Ha!). I also discovered that I'm supposed to fill in a form three months before I hand in my thesis. Oops. Apparently it won't be a problem.

I intend to finish within two weeks though. Partly because there's a weeklong literature festival I want to go to in the second week of October, and partly because I have my next physio appointment in mid-October and want to have done some knitting before it so that we have a clear idea of what my hands can and can't do.

I've also bought 170 packs of Kool Aid. It hasn't arrived yet so I'm not holding my breath: 50 of the sachets are coming from America so I'm worried about customs, and 120 are an 'assortment' which may well turn out to be lemonade, lemonade, lemonade and 'invisible' raspbery. Let's hope not, eh? Tomorrow I'll order more top - I'm thinking of about 300grams of different breeds of sheep. For example, I didn't really like the Dorset Horn as it had long guard hairs in it, but the Cheviot is quite nice, despite being cheaper. I just have to decide what I want to do with it all!

Dyeing for Chapter Three

I've written the first 1500 words of chapter three today. It was a bit of a slog as I'm still not quite sure how chapter three is going to turn out - I'm pretty much just writing until I get to 5000 words and then hoping there's a coherent point.

To make the process move along a bit faster, I decided to make myself a new carrot, since I love my chapter two yarn so much. I split my remaining top into half, and decided to dye the first half once I'd finished writing for the day.

I did think, when I started the process at 9:30pm that maybe I should wait for another day, but I am nothing if not impulsive.

I decided to try Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry, since this has a gorgeous deep claret coloured packet. Unfortuantely, the colour of the actual Kool Aid is more like that of the Tropical Punch, so a strong reddy-orange. I couldn't decide which colour to put with it, since I only had an orange, a pink, a green, two other reds, and a dubious sounding colour-change one. I plumped for the Changin' Cherry: 'watch the green drink mix turn into a blue drink!' (apparently it tastes like 'red cherry' but a) I wouldn't know and b) I doubt it).



I think this camera just hates photographing pinky/orangy/reddy colours, since the RRC is all washed out, while the blue CC is pretty accurate. I tried to get a really strong claret colour (which, really, wasn't going to happen with orangy-red dye, no matter what colour the sachet) which is why it looks like I used less RRC than CC. I think the main reason why I'm not getting strong colours is because I'm not using enough dye. Everything I've read says use one sachet per ounce, and I had 2 ounches of fibre... Hang on . OK, apparently I had 3.5 ounches of fibre (=100g) which might explain it. I'm such a moron and really should've left this until another day!

This dyeing process was actually a little different to the previous one, despite the fact that I did the same steps. For example, this one didn't make exploding noises in the microwave (I was considering putting it in the proper oven since I had it on to make bread, but I realised I'd already wrapped the dyed top in non-ovenable microwave clingfilm). It also made heaps of mess - although the dyed had exhausted by the time the water decided to overflow everywhere so nothing is stained, I didn't have this problem last time.

And the final problem... well, that is my fault. When I came to rinse it I didn't pay attention when adding the detergent (I add a little bit to dyed stuff to make sure any extra dye washes out then), and instead of a 'teeny dash' I ended up with a strong glug. I have now rinsed the top about 3 times and it is still full of detergent :( At the moment I've put it out to cool down so I can continue rinsing in cooler water later. I really need to get the detergent out - I have a feeling that leaving it in for a couple of weeks will affect the colours. Sadly, the more I rinse the top, the more likely it is to felt on me.

Obviously, I just need to get chapter three finished ASAP so that I can spin it up and wash it again as yarn... but since that probably isn't going to happen I'll have a couple more goes at rinsing and cross my fingers.

Other news. New knitty. I don't know why I didn't get the email saying that it was up; I only noticed a few days ago. Sadly I love most of the patterns, especially Intolerable Cruelty (especially Intolerable Cruelty), Tamarah and I like the idea of Sugar on Snow.

Finally, I owe at least three people who read this blog an email. I'm very sorry, and I will get my arse into gear over the next few days. I have this weird compulsion that I never 'have time' to write emails because they take 'so long' and while it's OK to mess about felting dyeing top, I really 'don't have time' to write an email, because I want to dedicate time to it and there's 'no time'. I will try and spending tomorrow's messing around time on emailing :)

Impromptu Lazy Kate #2

You remember the attempt at spinning I made the other month? The stuff that looked, uh, crap?

Well, never one to let things go (the hoarding thing, remember?) I decided to try and unwind the mega-over-twists onto some toilet rolls and see whether I could ply it. Lazy Kate #1 (aka - our towel rail) worked well, but I had to attach the toilet rolls to the towel rail *before* winding on the yarn. Since I already had my yarn wrapped on toilet rolls, I couldn't use the towel rack.

Sticking with the laundry theme though, I realised that with some long knitting pins (hey! They finally get some use!) I could use our smaller washing basket:



It worked jolly well, and I was able to turn that overtwisted snarl into a respectable small skein (get this: there were only FOUR INCHES left over after plying). I shall use this as a tester for my next Kool Aid experimentation session.

And I shall use Lazy Kate #2 for plying my current Kool Aid spinning. In a way it's good that I don't have a camera right now. Otherwise there'd be [more] pictures of the dyed top; pictures of the particular colours which appeared during the predrafting process; the glorious coiled nest of predrafted fibre I made prior to spinning; pictures of the bobbin every 5 or so minutes as a new colour combination appeared... well... let's just say that this post would otherwise have been a real pain for anyone on dial up.

The colours are beautiful. I know they looked clashing and muddy in the photos below, but they're not. The 'muddy' sections are a deep burgundy, and because the Tropical Punch is actually reddy rather than muddy-orange, there is no clashing. I hope it all plys nicely - I've decided to go with 2-plying rather than Navajo plying, so there is going to be a barberpole effect, but I've tried to aim it so that the colour sections will kinda match up (ha!).

I split the top in half - one for each ply - then predrafted into smaller strips, and spun the first half on Saturday. It spun so nicely - no felted bits at all. My spinning is getting more consistent, and I realised that often I was spinning totally by feel and not looking at what I was doing. I managed a respectable average of 27 wpi (go me and my terminology). Then yesterday I wound off onto a toilet roll and predrafted the second half. The second one wasn't quite as effortless as the first: I think I over drafted occasionally (in my defence, I was watching Lost and not always paying 100%) and as tonight wore on (maybe spinning past 10pm is not the best thing to do) the yarn kept breaking. *Hopefully* this won't be too much of an issue whilst plying. Hopefully.

Rambles

Today I've been doing quite a bit of weaving with, *fingers crossed* no apparent discomfort (ahem, I'm putting the twinges down to typing, OK?). I have very nearly finished the second half of the scarf, and since we have heaps of videoed stuff to watch, may well get it finished tonight. Then I just have to deal with how to attach the two halves together. Hmm...

One of my new black'n'blue Oh So Goth (as long as you cover over the sports company logo ;) ) tennis elbow bands arrived today. The seller forgot to put the other one in the parcel *rollseyes* These are a different design to my other one. My original one is just a padded band, whereas this new one has a 'tendon pad' which pushes into the skin quite a lot. It's taken some getting used to (in that I nearly emailed the seller to say forget about the other one, I want a refund), but I've been trialling it this afternoon and think it'll be OK. If the worst comes to the worst I can try and hack the tendon pad off the second one and see if it's any better. I've also ordered some heatable/freezable straps, which - if they work - should be a better way of icing my arm rather than balancing ice packs on it.

The dyed top is pretty much dry now - I put it by the window this morning to catch some sun. Some bits seem a little felted :-/ but I'm hoping if I pre-draft well enough and take it slowly it should spin OK. It's all a learning process anyway. I may try and hold out until at least tomorrow before I start it though. How about trying to keep it for a 'congratulations I've finished chapter two' present? I hate chapter two. I've been writing it for aaaaaaaages and just want it finished! I can't believe I've signed up for a PhD (got my confirmation letter today) when I'm whinging about writing a 5000 word chapter :P

OK. I'll try and use the beautiful top as my carrot. No spinning until chapter two has been sent to my tutor. Eek!

Dyeing

It's so exciting! My 10 sachets of Kool Aid arrived yesterday, so I popped out to get things like microwavable tubs and cling film. Being an English person and having never seen Kool Aid before, I have to say I am unsurprised at the rising levels of kids in North America diagnosed with ADHD, if this stuff is common: I felt hyperactive just smelling the sealed packages, never mind adding A WHOLE CUP of sugar and drinking it!* E-number-licious!

I searched the interwebs for instructions for dyeing, and ended up following an amalgam. First I soaked the yarn and roving in hot water with a dash of vingar. Then I applied the Kool Aid! I wasn't sure what the colours would turn out like, and didn't want to 'waste' my packets, since I paid a fortune for them (worked out at basically $1 for each sachet - I'm sure these are usually around 10cents in the US). As such, the colours might be a little weird together, because I had to guess.

First I trialled the Tropical Punch, which is in a blue packet but comes out bright blood-orangey-red (this is on the thick yarn I spun at the weekend, in the last post):



Obviously, the colours photograph badly, they're not as washed out.

Then I tried a little bit of Tropical Punch with... ah, crap. The name is on the top of the sachet which I ripped off and chucked away... *rifles through bin*... Grape. Grape comes out a lovely purple, but the weaker the solution the more bluey-grey it goes.



In person the colours look a lot less weird together, but I admit I could've chosen better. This is the yarn I had 'challah hanked' a couple of posts ago.

With both the yarns I put the yarn in a plastic tub with the dye (even the two-tone one had both colours in the same tub - one at either end; I didn't measure how much water I used, and I think I could've used more) and microwaved it (yay! Knew the microwave would be useful for more than just the monthly hot-bean-bag warm up). It sounded terrifying in the microwave - lots of pops and explosions, but didn't set on fire.

With a leetle bit of Tropical Punch and quite a bit of Grape left I had a go at dyeing rovings. Or top. Actually, I think it's top**. I had a 2 ounce length which I laid out (folded into thirds) on some microwavable cling film. I found applying the dye very awkward, as it seemed to just suck it all up at the bottom, and I was left with loads and loads of white between the dyed places, and the dyed places themselves tended to take the dye underneath but not at the top layer.

So I decided to sacrifice another sachet, and went for Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit, which was a pastel pink and actually a very good choice. It goes beautifully with the Grape. And actually, the Grape goes nicely with the undyed white bits too. I was able to squeeze more out of the dye already applied by adding some water and gently squishing it all down (I hope I haven't felted it :-0). I ended up with about 4 splodges of Grape, two of Tropical Punch and the rest is the SSS.

I then wrapped the clingfilm round each third and popped it in the microwave. As I couldn't really see if the dye had exhausted, after a couple of goes in the microwave I took the clingfilm off, and zapped it once more. It looks so exciting (seriously, it doesn't look this bad normally)!



Look! Look what colour the Grape goes sometimes! Beautiful blue...



And here they are all laid out to dry.



I was a little nervous that they might drip dyed water, since we have a crap plastic bath and I was worried it would stain. But once the dyebath exhausted absolutely NO dye was given off at all! The rinse water was totally clear (even though I used warm water with detergent). Amusingly, I was thinking about how my bath at my parents' was so great, being enamel, that it never stained, no matter how much red/pink/purple/blue hairdye you washed down it. Only to get a message from my mum today to say that that wonderful bath is currently in the front garden, and my dad is redecorating the bathroom. Oh well! Given that they've already got the kitchen sink for me in the shed (no, I'm not joking. It's a double sink and they were getting rid of it, so I asked if they'd hold onto it on the offchance the housing market collapses, I get to buy a house and have enough left over to redo the kitchen) I don't think they'll keep the bath too :P

Back to the wool! Dyeing is loads of fun! I have 7 sachets left and have just had to stop myself placing an order with an American company for 100 more :P I only have 2 dyed ounces of top left, LOL! I think I can wait before I get any more.

I want to spin the dyed top sooooooooooooooo bad. It's there, taunting me every time I go in the bathroom. Luckily it's still wet otherwise I'd be spinning it right now ;) I have no idea whether it will spin up nicely, or ply nicely, but it means that practising spinning will become more fun. Can't wait to get to the bluuuuue bits :D As for the yarn... I'm just sad that I can't do anything with it. The two-tone one could possibly be a skinny drop-stitch scarf (the Tropical Punch skein is too short to be anything really), but will I ever get to knit it?

Enough! I've already had my weekly intensive two-hour crying pity-a-thon this morning; no more!


* I know. I'm being facetious. I apologise.
** Note to Mancunians: While it is also 'great', 'top' is used here as the technical name for the long wad of fibre as pictured in the photos.

I can never keep to things

Personal deadlines fly by (what? You mean the first draft of my entire thesis was meant to be finished by 31st August? And that was two days ago you say?), and I, erm, can't keep off the fibre!



Pretty much just after I made that entry the other day on pain, I plyed the singles which have been sat on the bobbin for a while. Oops. I used the Andean plying method, even though there were lots of fine singles, and it worked just fine (and it didn't hurt either :) ). I do need to buy more bobbins though - I thought I'd spun loads and loads since my bobbin was quite full and the hank reeeeeeeeally long, and am pretty devastated that preliminary calculations suggest it's only 33 yards long.

This is my cheapy cheapy wool that I'm using for practice, since it's only £1 per 100g. I bought 300g of it, but there's only about an ounce (=30 grams) in that skein. It's my first attempt at trying to make a skein look pretty, using this method on the Two Sheep blog. Not too bad for a first try.

I've decided to leave the yarn in a hank/skein (please please - someone tell me the difference!) mainly because I don't want to risk stretching it by winding it into a ball and leaving it for yonks because I can't knit it up (plus: winding stuff hurts my arms). Also, I've finally decided to suck it up and buy some Kool Aid from ebay to try dyeing. I emailed the ebay people at the beginning of August to ask about getting brightly coloured sachets, and they said they often get requests from dyers, LOL! I'll try dyeing this skein, but I also want to dye the rest of the top that I've got since it's going to be reeeeeeeeeeeeally boring spinning 270g worth of white white white white white top. Since Kool Aid dyeing requires no further mordants, and is safe (apparently!) to drink, I'm assuming that it's a relatively environmentally friendly form of dyeing, and I won't be polluting the water courses.

AND I need to get the guts to post to one of the spinning mailing lists asking for help with my wheel. Someone somewhere must have a guide to using the Haldane Lewis!

And I'm outta the zone...

It turns out that they're repeating The West Wing from the beginning on More 4, so I did do some spinning on Sunday evening. It, erm, didn't start off too well:



I have no reason why it suddenly went into over-twist hyper-drive. So I changed the drive band, using a different type of string. This one is a lot sturdier. I had been trying to use the smaller whorl setting to spin a finer yarn, but it obviously wasn't working!

After a while I got back into the groove and managed a respectable bobbin:



It always looks so neat on the bobbin doesn't it? However, it will have slubs and kinks in it. I need more practise! As it was, my arms didn't hurt, but after about 90 minutes my back ached under my right shoulder blade. Two days later and it's OK; I guess I should try to spin for 30 minutes at a time more regularly, rather than just going at it every now and then (maybe every West Wing!). I'm considering getting some kool aid to dye with, might make spinning lots of white wool slightly more interesting!

I'm really tempted to buy more bobbins for my wheel. Because it's kinky when taken off the bobbin it's always hard to ply my yarn with an Andean bracelet, and winding on to those toilet rolls is so time consuming. We'll see.

Finally the weaving bug took hold of me yesterday and I just had to get my small bead loom out and give it a try:



Not too bad eh? I'm tempted to buy a kid's loom on ebay, one that comes with a heddle, and see what happens. It would be cool if weaving were relatively quick and pain free...

I'm just interested in why I can't see the warp threads - how does one make, say, a tartan pattern? Perhaps the weft threads need to be thicker so that they don't all squish don't into each other and cover up the warp. I haven't managed to find a 'how to weave' website that's as clear as 'how to spin' ones are.