Knerdy Knitting
where spelling isn't as important as awesome

So I haven’t written, but I have an excuse. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I’M GOING TO LONDON IN THREE DAYS! Yes, I knew about this for a while. It only became real to me today. There will be much posting after the trip, most likely involving London yarn stores. Because, did I mention I’m going to London? BECAUSE I AM!

Even though going through mohair by hand is lots of fun (see Goats), I wanted to go faster. So one of my goals at OFFF was to get a pair of hand carders. It turns out they are fairly expensive, but I found one pair that was half the price of the others. They were used, apparently for “Dark Wool” as they have a masking tape label to that affect attached to them, and their former owner is deceased. Her friends were selling some of her things at their booth.

Just as mortality inspires other forms of great art, mortality affects knitting and knitters. No, we do not knit little stuffed Death dolls. (Though that is a good idea.) But a common was to describe a yarn stash is that it exceeds life expectancy — that there is no way the knitter will use all this yarn before her death. And what starts out as a joke can become very real. I have only been a part of the knitting community for a short time, but I have been to two “give aways” following a fiber artist’s death. In both cases I didn’t know the knitter personally and the relatives of the knitter were trying to give things to someone, anyone, that would use them. I knit, and so they gave me yarn. But I also eat, and they didn’t push silverware on me with nearly the same intensity.

Knitting is such a huge part of knitter’s lives. It becomes more than playing with string, more than the pragmatic need to keep our loved ones warm. It is a reflection of ourselves and our lives. When our lives end with projects unfinished it’s like cutting off a song half sung. Even non-knitting relatives recognize this and feel the hunger to see the projects finished. Nature abhors a half-knit sweater.

After I die (…and I will die in the middle of lecture when I’m 96… all my students will get automatic A’s due to the trauma…) I’d like to think that Pirate Boyfriend would bring all my yarn and needles and books to Wednesday night knitting. That people would fight over the hand painted sock yarn and try to figure out from my Ravelry queue what projects I was intending for what yarns. I’d like to live on in the stitches that they make. I would like a Knitting Wake, where my yarn is divided and my patterns scattered to the four corners of the earth and the spirit of my knitting is laid to rest.

Because if you don’t, I am so haunting your asses.

“What kind of spinning wheel do you have & where did you get it? I’m thinking about buying myself a spinning wheel for graduation in a few years, but if I get excited enough I might have to make it a late going-back-to-school present for myself. :)” — esperry

Rather than answer in the comments, I’m making this its own post.

Cynthia in my studio. (Squeeee! I have a studio!)

My spinning wheel is named Cynthia.  Say hello, Cynthia!

She is a Secret Ashford Traditional.  This means that she looks exactly like an Ashford Traditional, but has no identifying marks to prove it.  I suspect a former life of crime.  She’s single treadle, single drive, and when I got her she came with seven bobbins.  She’s exactly what I wanted in a starter wheel — easy to spin with, easy to fix, and quite cheap.

I had been checking Craig’s List for about a month looking for a wheel when I heard about Cynthia.  I even went to a couple people’s homes and looked at their wheels.  One was so rickety that I was afraid I would break it.  Another didn’t even have a footman — and they offered to throw in the pole that turned it into a lamp for free.  Craig’s List is a great way to know what kinds of prices are reasonable for used wheels, and a used wheel the way to go for a first wheel.  New wheels are hella expensive, and who wants to spend that kind of money before you know what you really like in a wheel?  It’s like buying a grand piano before you even take lessons.

I heard about Cynthia from Vicki at my LYS, Fiber Nooks and Crannys.  I was griping to the owner about how none of the wheels I had been looking at have panned out, and Vicki mentioned that she was thinking of selling her starter wheel.  She was selling it in my price range, and I practically gave her a check right then and there.  But I am nothing if not restrained, so we arranged a time for me to come in and see it.  I mean, see her.

Because Cynthia isn’t just an “it,” she is a lady.  A cankerous old broad who isn’t afraid to jab you with her cane.  So I must give her the proper respect.  And when I do, she spins beautiful, beautiful yarn.  Which is exactly what I want in a spinning wheel.

How could I resist its power?

Sunday morning at OFFF, I discovered in short order that (1) my class was actually in the morning, (2) my instructor was running late, and (3) my class was going to be moved to the afternoon. This left me and Cynthia with no knitting, no fiber, and no car keys to obtain either one. Clearly I was fated to make one last purchase.

I chose some yummy superwash merino dyed up beautifully by Maisy Day. So what if there was less then 2 ounces? It called to me. So I hung out with the PDX Knitbloggers and began to spin. This was when I only knew one method, so I used the largest ratio, short draw. As usual, it came out slightly underspun and very sproingy. (Yes, that is a word.) Spinning all morning I finished the entire two ounces and got about 60 yards after it was plied.

So it’s beautiful, sure, but what can you do with 60 yards? Not much. Even little projects seemed to require more yarn. What I really wanted was a pair of mitts, but no go. So clearly I had to make up my own pattern.

I started with Fetching, the extremely popular Knitty pattern. Even these little mitts called for too much yarn. So I went up two needle sizes, cut out one of the cable twists at the wrist, and made the hands slightly shorter. It worked wonderfully, and I even had ten yards of yarn left. I used this to pick up around the wrists and knit another two rows; without these rows the mitts were pretty but not long enough to be useful. Now they are both! Knitting them up took about a day.

Being so small and slight (both in size and in woman hours of work), I call them Slightly Fetching. And I’ve been wearing them nearly constantly ever since.

Aren't they Fetching?

Except it doesn’t eat people, it’s just purple. I got about 10 ounces of beautiful, beautiful Lorna’s Laces top wool in the colorway Black Pearl. Did I mention it’s beautiful? It’s squishy, with lots of shades of purple, a little blue, and a little brown. So of course as soon as I thought I was a decent spinner (that is, after a month of spinning) I started with this. I spun it that only way I knew how; short draw at the ratio the wheel was at when I got it. This made a nice, soft, fluffy yarn, slightly underspun. It’ll be great for this pattern here (a warm cabled hat), but not this pattern (a streamlined 20’s style hat.) This would be fine, except I was trying to make the second one.

At the spinning class I took at OFFF, however, they taught me crazy new techniques. Like how to use the ratios on my wheel. Basically, this means that I can treadle the same speed and get more twist. A lot more twist. So I went home and tried it out. Same wool, same wheel, same draw. But this time I used a different ratio. And I got much finer, tighter, more even yarn. It’s like magic! Except it’s actually using tools correctly. See if you can tell the difference….

Ok, so maybe the pictures don’t show it well. But believe me, the one on the right is much twistier.

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival was a blast!  It was also three weeks ago. But there was so much to say about it that I hardly knew where to begin. When this is the case, I usually say nothing at all. To guide me, I’m going to make this a photo essay, just talking about some of the pictures I took on Sunday. This has the advantage of allowing me to actually, you know, write about OFFF. It has the disadvantage of ignoring Saturday, as I forgot my camera that day. Also, the beautiful loot acquired at OFFF will be discussed in a forthcoming post. On to OFFF!

We arrived early in the morning. Ok, so it wasn’t early when we got there. But Canby is an hour and a half away, so we had to leave Corvallis at 7:30. Which is early. This way WildThingsRun could make it to her all day class on natural dyeing.

There was some mix up about when my class was to start. We assembled, but through a mix-up the instructor wasn’t there. This is us all waiting in a circle with our spinning wheels. The instructor, Laura Cunningham, offered the class in the afternoon to compensate. It was increadible! I learned how to spin with a long draw, and from the fold, and how to use the different ratios of my wheel to make really fine worsted yarn. Before I could only make loosely spun aran weight doubles. Now the possibilities are endless! And I know how to adjust my spinning to the kind of fiber and to the kind of fabric I want to create. It’s awesome.

You know what else is awesome? The PDX Knit Bloggers! They had chairs and a canopy, and were very warm and welcoming. While waiting for my class they let me leave things there (like Cynthia the Spinning Wheel), and I even got to spin some with them. I’ve joined their yahoo group, which is also awesome.

No fiber festival would be complete without fiber animals. There were all kinds of sheep, all kinds of goats, rabbits, and alpaca. They were all beautiful and soft and fluffy. And you could buy their fleece, if you so chose. I did not so choose, through enormous strength of will.

All in all, it was a wonderful time. I got to sit in the sun and in the grass, spinning and carding and knitting. They even had a stage where people sang folk songs about fiber. How happy does that make me? Answer: pretty dang happy.

Just a small sample of all the cables.

When I saw this pattern, I instantly thought of my Dad. He’s way into yoga. Particularly, the kind of hot yoga promoted by Bikram. I call it his Nazi Yoga. It’s the same thing every day. It’s in a really hot room. One day he even collapsed during the session.

And it’s a vital part of him keeping happy and healthy.

So I picked out a mercerized cotton yarn called Plymouth Yarn Fantasy Naturale Solid. It’s in a really nice blue — his favorite color — and is machine washable. And I began to knit. And knit. And knit. It’s a bag. I thought it would take a couple weeks or so. A month at most. But it’s been a month and I’m only two thirds of the way done with it. I blame the cables.

I have a little practice with cables, but after this project I’ll have a lot. It’s a three by three cable twist, first to the front and then to the back. And it takes for-freaking-ever. If I had known, if I had the experience to know, I would not have started this project. But now I’m two thirds of the way done and Dad knows I’m making him a yoga bag for his birthday. Which was two weeks ago.

It’s always a little sad when something I do for fun becomes something I have to do. Knitting should not be work. But then again, knitting shouldn’t be 27 inches of cables. So there you go.

So my spinning wheel made a strange thunking sound. I say “made” because I fixed it. Through the Power of Science. I’m like that.

Every time the treadle came down it would make this strange thunking sound (STS). It was a little disconcerting, every time my foot came down hearing this sound. But it came that I would just spin to the Ramones instead of Vivaldi and the STS fit right in. I didn’t think anything of it because it always made that sound. The woman I bought it from said it always made that sound. I thought that it was normal to have a STS.

Then it got louder. Then the footman (the stick between the foot treadle and the big drive wheel) would fall suddenly when the treadle went down. At OFFF, Amanda and I tried to figure out what was wrong. We determined that the leather strap between the treadle and the footman was pulling funny, making the footman and the treadle slap together on the downward stroke. Ah ha! Problem solved!

So when the wheel stopped working entirely, I knew what to do. Thought I knew what to do. I tightened the screws to the leather piece. This did nothing to help the wheel. “Oh shit,” I thought, “My wheel is broken. I must contact the local yarn store (LYS)!” Then I remembered the kind of people found at the LYS. The chance of finding someone that knows I am an Autumn — highly likely. The chance of finding someone that knows what a Philips screwdriver looks like — less likely. I was on my own.

Those that know me can attest that I have a tendency to Freak the Fuck Out. This was nearly one of those times. I was going from “broken wheel” to “never fixed wheel” to “never spin again” to “dying alone in a ditch.” That’s my style. I was near tears. But my years of training as a physicist came through. I can solve any mechanical problem with the Power of Science!

I carefully went through the scientific process of making theories from observation.
How is the wheel behaving strangely? — The treadle won’t spin it.
No really, describe the problem fully. — Ok then, sometimes when the treadle goes down it doesn’t spin with the wheel.
No, really really describe the problem. — When spinning the drive wheel with the treadle, although the drive wheel is always spinning clockwise, sometimes the top of the footman falls counterclockwise.
Well when you put it like that, it seems the footman and the drive wheel aren’t connected. — That makes is sound so easy.

Somehow, the pin that connected the drive wheel to the axle had gotten worked loose. I pulled the axle apart. The hole for the pin with completely filled with grease gunk. This part hadn’t been working for a while. I cleaned it out, wiggled everything back into place, and tried treadling again. It worked! First try, and it worked! Thanks, Science!

So what can we learn from this little story? That my scientific training is more powerful than my Freak the Fuck Out biochemistry. Which is a nice thing to know.

In a slight deviation from knitting, here is a sample of my cross stitch powers.

I point at Ten Ninja

Because Diesel Sweeties is awesome.