I make stuff! Yay stuff.

First I spun up some nice shetland in the colorway “Moose.” Longdraw so it’s fluffier, two-ply, about worsted weight.

Then I looked at a bunch of different patterns, and decided that while they were nice… none of them were ideal. So instead I pulled out my crochet hook and started freehanding…

And made a shmoo body and then an extra piece to make the nose all moosey. At this point I’m fairly dubious about my own skills. But I forge my way forward and make some arms and legs.

Ok, now I’ve got all the bits… except… oh wait, it’s supposed to be a moose… where are the antlers!? Time to pull out fiber for more spinning. Undyed shetland, this time…

Spin it up, make a plying ball on a TP tube, and ply it up…

Aand crochet it up into antlers…

Ok, now we hope to all the petty pewter gods that putting the pieces together makes a moose… First, stuff the nose and antlers and sew them on…

And from the side…

Ok, I guess I can breathe. I was really unsure about the antlers and nose until I actually got them on. But now I think this might actually work!

Time to repeat the process with arms and legs, still crossing my fingers that shmoo-moose still looks cute with legs and arms. ::crosses fingers::

Yay! It actually worked! He’s even pretty cute! Hrm… but something’s still missing… what could it be? Oh wait, I know, magnetite! I know, you’re thinking, what? Magnetite? What the heck?

See? Magnetite! Little magnetite eyes! Meet the finally completed Ignatius J. Moose!

Isn’t he adorable? I say yes! Yay for projects working! I was pretty worried, I’ve never done anything like it before. Simple stitches, but all freehand, with stuffing, and then sewing things together… different process! Neat!

That’s all for now!
~The Gnome

Some more actual blogging.

So you might have noticed in one of the recent updates, a yarn I hadn’t talked about here.

So I use an older stove to do my dyeing on. Periodically it gets cranky and throws a temper tantrum, basically heating to “high” no matter what temperature it’s set at. This ends up boiling the fiber.

Boiling doesn’t completely ruin the fiber, but it does make little felty bits around the edge. Felty bits make it not particularly salable, for obvious reasons. So, instead, I decided to spin it myself since I haven’t spun much rambouillet. 8oz is a pretty big spin for me too.

Now, I’d have liked to spun this longdraw to really take advantage of the fluffy springiness of the rambouillet, but with the felty bits it wasn’t really possible. So I spun it a short-leaning point-of-twist draw.

Two moderately full bobbins of singles. Still plenty of space on them though. Time for plying!

Of course 8oz is more than fits on a single bobbin, even on the SR30.

Making a big and a small skein.

All finished, with a moderate fulling.

622 yards of yarn! Yay.

And my current spinning project, 1k yards of BFL for a commission.

Since this is for someone’s specific project I actually made myself a reference card.

I’m spinning short draw for this because the person wants shine over halo. Allowing in some amount of thickness shift, here’s the first 8oz, plied with a bit of singles left.

8oz plied, have to spin a little more to get to 1k yards. About halfway there. Yay!

I’ve missed spinning more. It’s fun. Gobo likes my spinning too.

And now gratuitous springtime shots. Double flowering bloodroot.

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome

So, an actual blog post!

Remember waaay back in early January when I took two scarves off the loom and started weaving again on the warp that was left?

Well, I wove and wove and wove (with lots of LONG breaks, focus, I lack it sometimes) and…

I was very proud of my forethought when I dressed the loom at the very beginning of putting it all back together. My back apron easily reaches to the harnesses, limiting loom waste quite well! Only had about… 8 inches of waste.

And once it was cut off the loom…

Yay! Now it’s time to cut them apart, unweave the extra weaving, and take out the sticks. Then I twisted the fringe on one scarf, and hemmed the other, getting them ready for “wet finishing.” Wet finishing means a lot of things, depending on what your desires and goals are.

I prepped these two scarves a little different. Both got soaked in hot soapy water.

Both also got shocked back and forth into cold water a few times for a weak fulling effect. The colorshifting herringbone scarf also got a far more… thorough fulling.

Actually made me sweaty. Whacked, thrashed, banged, scrubbed… fulling fabric is much harder than fulling yarn, which I suppose makes sense, given that fulling yarn is much harder than felting fiber!

Finally satisfied, I hung them up to dry…

And once dry, they’re almost ready!

Now I just needed to trim off the ends hanging out from where I changed strands (I use a totally paranoid method for changing strands more suited to something being used for like sail cloth or something).

And then they’re all done!

Both are the zephyr wool/silk warp in black. 230 ends.

The more gently fulled scarf was the primary goal of this draft. It’s the most technically complicated of any of the four. Two colors, spindle spun and spindle plied myself from batts blended by the incomparable Abby Franquemont.

I made a more complex pattern on the ends…

One of the hardest parts was figuring out how to do a color change without needing to weave in a billion ends. I took a page from knitting, at the suggestion of my fabulous sock making friend from the UK, and stranded it up the side when not in use, allowing me to use two colors at once without actually switching.

If I had it to do again I’d probably make the colorchange slower and longer, but I’m pretty happy with it!

The second scarf’s weft is BFL, and was mostly an experiment in how the color changes that came with the (beautifully dyed) fiber worked with the weaving. Spun on my Ashford Traditional, unplied, but set with a light weight to make it easier for weaving (also resulting in a less active final fabric than the previous singles weaving).

The color changes came out beautifully with the direct translation to weaving.

Similar to knitting, since I wanted to focus on the colors, I went with the simplest pattern this weaving draft can produce, a simple herringbone. I like the way it came out.

Again, I’m pretty happy with it! Originally I planned to use the fabric for sewing spindle bags and a Kindle cover, but I think that would ruin the beauty of the color changing. So it will stay a scarf. I do need to pick which scarves I’m going to actually keep, though. I’m at four, and I really don’t need four.

So, that’s one of my latest finished projects! Yaaay.

This is another thing I’ve finally started. And no, it’s not a sock.

So, a real blog update. More to come I hope!

Finally, gratuitous puppy in the rain!

That’s all for now

~The Gnome

The shop is, as always, here

A shop update! With an entirely new to the shop fiber, coopworth! Also an answer to a question at the end of the post.

Fibers: BFL, Shetland, Polwarth, Perendale, Coopworth, Corriedale, Jacob, Rambouillet, and Dorset

Colorways: Rusalka, Springtime, Fiddler’s Green, Sparrow’s Wing, Cupcakes, Sunburst, Spring Flowers, A Heady Brew, Stonework, Waterfall, Soft Tidepool, The Tide Turns, Moose, Walnut, Garnet Shadows, The Salmon of Knowledge, Crocus, Bluejeans, Shadows of the Green, and The Shore at Fife.

Handspun Yarns: Snowstorm, Rust, Sandstorm, Midnight Magic, Across the Sea, and Sunrise

Question: Diane asks – A question related to the protein fibers – do you know how the presence of the medula (sheep) vs a hollow core (alpaca) effects the dye take up? I’m assuming there are just fewer sites for the dyes to attach to but didn’t know if that was a simplistic explanation.

Answer: Not simplistic at all. The big difference is that alpaca scales are much shorter and less numerous than on wool. This provides less binding locations, but also makes the fiber less likely to felt and feel more silky.

That’s all for now, more coming!

~The Gnome

Weaving! I lurves it.

Ok, so you’ll remember it took me some… adventure to get started weaving on my very first all-by-myself project on a loom I had to get set up by myself etc.

And possibly you’ll also remember that I did finally get things working and wove one scarf and started on a second…

Well… I did it! Finally. I have, I think, two scarves worth of warp still on the loom, but since this was my first, I really wanted to take the two done scarves off and finish them to make sure they were going to work. The next scarf will be using some of my most precious handspun, so this was an essential, if terrifying step.

So, I finished the first two scarves, ~60″ each on the loom (measuring them on the loom is so very much fun!)… now what? I have two (I think, maybe more?) scarves worth left on the loom and my warp was nice and even in tension, so I don’t want to just cut it off…

Step 1: Weave a break. About an inch plus of plainweave in a light millspun, packed very tight.

Step 2: Stick in a big solid stick, wider than the warp, and weave a second break. Another inch of tight plainweave.

Step 3: Hope to whatever deities you believe in that this plan is going to work and cut between the scarf and the break… Terrifying.

Step 4: Stand back, breathe, calm, it hasn’t exploded in flames yet…

Step 5: Wrap the first break under the bar and tie it all back onto the front apron rod using a wrap-tie so it’s easy to keep balanced.

Step 6: Lay the two scarves out. Stare at them in amazement for a while before cutting them apart.

Step 7: Twist the fringe on the first scarf. Hem the second scarf, make note to make double long plainweave for neater hem next time.

Step 8: Wet finish… um… what? Back up. Google a bunch. Read. What is this finishing thing? Oh, ok. Well that seems simple enough… stick both scarves in the tub in really hot water with some shampoo (couldn’t find my Dawn). Let soak.

Step 9: Swish around similar to setting a handspun yarn. Shock with a sink of very cold well water. Swish first scarf minimally, swish second scarf more to full more. Panic as a bit of black comes out and makes the white look silver.

Step 10: Dry. Breathe again when you realize the bleeding in the second scarf was a feature of crappy light.

Step 11: Iron.

Step 12: Look upon what you have wrought. Be amazed.

My first two scarves. Both designed by me, same threading, slightly different treadling.

7.25″x56″ (plus 4″ fringe)
Zephyr Wool/Silk Warp and Weft
Twisted Fringe

7.25″x55.75″
Zephyr Wool/Silk Warp
Polwarth/Silk Handspun Doubleshot-Singles Weft
Hemmed

Scarves. I has them. Weaving… I have fallen fast and hard. Next two scarves will be playing with color. First, another one in handspun, precious handspun, theoretically involving a color shift mid-scarf from blue to green, and a fairly complicated treadling. Then, a scarf with super simple treadling and a more dynamic coloring… assuming I don’t change my mind by then. Which… who knows?

I love weaving. It is dangerous. And wonderful. Beautiful and terrible as the sea.

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome