Scrap Yarn

Getting rid of more scrap yarn...And I found the cutest pattern EVAR at ATERG Crochet's Etsy shop!  Who doesn't need a wee owl to keep company with??  ;)

Lowland Originals has a quick and easy shawl/wrap pattern to use up some of that leftover sock yarn you have lurking about...It's here.  You could totally make this out of worsted scraps as well, for when it's really chilly out.

I love how she's encorporated buttons into this little decoration.  Perfect for a kid's room, or your art room!

Patterns I Love

Great way to use up some of that bag of acrylic your cousin got for you at Goodwill "because you knit, right?"

I bet these could be prettied up a bit with some ribbon and pressed into service as holders for notions, makeup (washable, so yay!), or almost anything!

Free pattern available here!

Selecting A Wheel

If you're contemplating a wheel purchase in the near future, The Woolery has one of the most helpful guides to selecting a wheel that I have come across.

I bought my first wheel secondhand, a Kromski Mazurka.  I actually lucked out, because way back before I even thought about starting to learn to spin I saw this picture online and decided it was my Dream Wheel:

So when I got the opportunity to buy one, I jumped at the chance!  I loved my Mazurka, though I would NOT recommend this wheel for an absolute beginner, just because the tension is very finicky to adjust.  It took me forever to work it out, and I ended up taking off the double drive band and just using it as a single drive, because I could not get the hang of it.

As much as I loved this wheel, it did have a couple of drawbacks: no jumbo flyer, and portability became an issue, since I like to prance about and spin at the coffee shop, friend's houses, or wherever.  So I ended up buying a Kromski Sonata:

Of course I got the jumbo flyer and bobbins, so I could ply up to eight ounces onto a single bobbin, and it folds right up into its own carrier bag to cart around wherever I go!  If I had unlimited cash and space, I would totally have kept my Mazurka as a second wheel, but the versatility of the Sonata made it a much better option for me right now.

Though I still think I am entitled to an Ashford Elizabeth wheel, because ELIZABETH!  It's made for ME!  ;)

Before I decided on the Sonata, I was lucky enough to be able to try out multiple wheels from multiple companies, which I would highly recommend.  I was at SAFF that year, and just went from booth to booth, trying out Kromskis and Ashfords and Schachts to see the best for me on price, portability, style, and how they all actually spun.

I actually learned to spin on a wheel.  I had tried with a drop spindle a couple of times, but trying to keep the spindle going, and draft, and spin, and not drop everything on the ground every two minutes was too much for my teeny brain.  One of the best things I did once I finally got the hang of spinning was to buy a giant bag of Shetland at one of the local fiber festivals--I think it was about a pound and a half, not the best roving in the whole world, but I just sat down and spun and spun and spun and spun until I really had a good handle on how the whole process worked.  It really consolidated things my teacher had showed me, and got the muscle memory good and solid so that I had all the movements and everything down pat.

If I had all the money in the world, I would love to get one of Majacraft's Little Gems:

Or Golding's wheel with the little sheepies on it!!

Or a Jensen, just because it's a freakin' Jensen!  :D

Once you learn to spin, it's totally an addiction, and you need ALL THE ROVING! and ALL THE WHEELS!

I don't have a problem, I can stop any time I want.  ;)

Roving Pr0n

THIS.  :D

Raxor's Etsy shop is just full of gorgeous space-dyed merino, tussah silk, and mulberry silk, and a whole bunch of silk yarn for the knitters too!

YARN!

Dancing Leaf Farm on Etsy has some really incredible colors...Seriously, look.  LOOK.  :D




She dyes both yarn and roving, though when I last checked, there seemed to be a bit more roving than yarn...This is not A Bad Thing, but you non-spinners out there had better get to shopping quick!  Though most of her fiber seems to be merino or plain Australian wool, her colors are just amazing.

Yarn Math

Scrap Yarn

If you're anything like me, you have 5,641 balls of scrap yarn cluttering up your yarn room.  I am loathe to just pitch yarn because...well, it's YARN!  So I started scrounging around to see what ideas I might be able to find on constructive ways to use up that last little bit of sock yarn, or the worsted left over from the pillow I made for Mum, or whatever...Just how many scrapghans can you make, really?  ;)


Even good ol' Red Heart has some cute ideas:

If you have a bit more than just a hundred yards or so, or maybe if you have some handspun that's gathering dust, check out this bag on the Kathryn Ivy blog...I love it!!

Indigo Muse Knits has a pattern for fortune cookies!

And I could NOT resist this Rav pattern by Saartje Knits:

For the ecologically minded, you can save up all the tiny bits and pieces cut off after you finish weaving in the ends, and put them out for the birds building their nests this spring:

Spin, Span, Spun

I love Polwarth.  Not as much as I love My BFL (TM), but it's a really nice spin.  This is some Blue Moon handpainted that I bought at Rhinebeck a couple of years ago, 9.5 ounces...The colorway is...erm...the colorway is handwritten on the label, and a little bit illegible.  I think it says "Sock Gabe DHD"...At least that's what it looks like?  :/

But it's SO FREAKIN' PRETTY.  I admit it, I squeed a little bit when I saw it.

The colors aren't photographing very well; it's a little bit more muted than this picture seems to show, but you get the idea...

And here it is plied into a nice sock weight...Since it was almost 10 ounces, I should get a whole lotta yardage out of this!

Organiza-SHUN

When I'm not busy studying or playing Plague, Inc. on my phone, I spend way too much time cruising Pinterest...Luckily, I have managed to convince myself that this is productive time, since I have found some really neat patterns, ideas for future projects, cute shoes, and awesome color schemes in case I buy a house one day.  Hooray for rationalization!!  :D

But while I hear other students on the bus planning their spring breaks in Cancun or Panama City Beach , I have plans to spend that time doing some serious organization, particularly in my Art Room O' Doom.

I already have a little date book I carry around with me to organize my schedule, but since I am a visual person, I thought that hanging something like this in the kitchen might help things along a little bit:

This has some really good tips...Sometimes the most obvious idea doesn't always occur to me, and the whole separating your WIPs from your stash?  ZOMGS, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT BEFORE???  I might have already finished that sweater's worth of olive merino if it wasn't sitting in a tote with all of the other stuff!  ;)

I absolutely love how she's displayed her finished shawls here, and the whole yarn room has such a finished look to it, while still being a viable (and beautiful!) workspace.

Then there's this...

Not so sure I want to sit around winding yarn onto old TP rolls, but maybe there's something to be taken from the concept?  Or not...  ;)

Things People Would Never Say

Wherein I Express An Opinion

So...Knitpicks, huh?

If you're one of the folks who got burned, this blog right here has some very helpful information on how to check your various credit reports, state law, and internet security.

Like everybody else in the Knitting 'Verse, I have been a big fan of Knitpicks for years.  When my Knitpicks catalogue arrived in the mailbox, I would almost literally squee in delight and race home to check out all the pretties.  As a Kromski owner, I was ecstatic when they started carrying their products, and while I have not bought any fiber from KP, I was very happy to see the expansion of their product lines into spinning and weaving.

I have ordered from Knitpicks on multiple occasions, and was always impressed with their customer service (and I am Seriously Picky about customer service, so I do not say this lightly).  Shipments were always very fast, arriving well before the expected arrival date, and I never had any complaints at all about the quality of my items.

A good friend of mine has done some designing for Knitpicks, through their Independent Designers program.  I was really impressed with the deal KP had with their designers: the artists kept the rights to their designs, a huge amount of support, advertisement online and in the catalogue, etc.  Hell, any time my buddy wants free yarn to work on a design, they send it right off!  FREE YARN, PEOPLE!!!  :D

And then this whole debacle.

Now, I know the website wasn't "hacked".  It seems to have been worse than that: private information was left in files on an unsecured server, and the perpetrators basically just helped themselves to folks' credit card numbers.  That is bad enough, but it seems that the information theft actually began on December 21st, was not even detected until January 25th.  Knitpicks did nothing to alert customers to the possible danger until February 17th.  Many people found out about it via Facebook and Ravelry, or their credit card company/bank, rather than from the company they were so fond of.

I just don't get it.  I received at least two emails from Knitpicks during this time period, and the theft of credit card numbers was never mentioned.  KP claims that snail mail letters have been sent "to those affected", and though I have seen dozens of people talking about this on Rav and FB, noone seems to have received one of these magical letters.  The Knitpicks blog post that finally showed up days after the news about the fraud broke seems to be problematic at best.  On reading it, it really struck me as a Cover Your Ass post rather than an actual apology or attempt to deal with the situation.

By 'situation' I mean Knitpicks' negligence and disregard for their customer's online safety.  No website is 100% safe, any site can get hacked/taken down.  That's really not the point.  The fact that it took KP a month to even figure out that information had been stolen is very worrying to me; the fact that they took another month to even TELL their customers about it is infuriating.

I love Knitpicks' products.  Their yarn is some of my very favorite to work with.  I had been saving up money from my Poor Stoodint Budget because I really, really, REALLY wanted a set of Harmony Wood Interchangeables.  I had been lusting after those for several years, literally, and had finally started trying to set aside the bucks to get them.

This is probably all a tempest in a teacup.  KP will revamp their security system, get their act together, and keep on selling yarn.  But I think it will take quite some time before I feel like I really trust them again.  I am really disappointed. Yet another large company just pays lip service to the idea of customer care, and when the shit hits the fan, it's not their fault.  They didn't know! They really do care, really!  No, no, really!

Meanwhile, there's this:                                                                                           And this:

And this and this.

Nobody has ever died because they couldn't buy some yarn.  And I get to choose where I buy it.

Geekosity

Experiments in Spinning: Wensleydale

So I decided a while back that I would try and expand my spinning repertoire, since I can't just sit around and spin BFL all the time.  I do not plan on discussing the debacle that ensued with the 2 oz. of camel I bought and promptly mangled into oblivion.  ;)

I got this Louet Wensleydale several months ago from Nomad Yarns, since it has a long staple, and I usually prefer that to a shorter length...I was a little surprised at the amount of VM in the roving, since it seemed to be generally well-processed.  There wasn't a LOT, but what was present were GIANT chunks.  There were also quite a number of big black guardhairs, which seemed rather odd.

The singles were a bit overtwisted (entirely my fault):

But I figured it would be fine during plying, and any additional twist issues would come out during washing and setting the twist.

The roving itself was really fuzzy...I like to predraft quite a bit, and split my roving up in preparation for spinning, but it got messy...Very messy.

Note To Self: Don't spin new roving while wearing a black shirt.  ;)

Plying ended up being a total PITA--the singles were way more overtwisted than I thought, and what I fondly believed would become a worsted-weight yarn is definitely chunky-to-bulky weight:

I'd like to try Wensleydale again, I think, with a non-overtwisted singles this time, or maybe something with a Wensleydale blend.  But not for a while...  :/

Here We Go...

Since it's the New Year, and I've been playing with the idea of a new yarny-crafty blog for a while, I figure it's about time I did something about it, so here we are!

I am currently a university student in the Middle Bit of the United States, having escaped life in a corporate cube farm, and hoping to start grad school in the fall...A lot of this blog will be focusing on spinning (my true love), though I am also a crocheter, dyer, and the World's Worst Knitter (TM)...I do dabble in some other Crafty Chick hobbies, like cross stitch, painting, jewelry-making, and vague attempts at DIY, so these may appear from time to time...

While this is a crafty blog, it is MY little crafty blog, and a place for me to art out, blather, show off my work, post others' cool projects, etc.  As such, this is a benevolent dictatorship: comments will be moderated, opinions will be stated strongly, cusswords will be used, and anyone who gets their panties in a bunch will be mocked mercilessly.  :)

This is just a place for me to get my art on, I hope you will enjoy this crazy little corner of the Internet!

E