Inspired by old work

Taking out the yarn left overs from many years ago reminded me of the joy I derived back then from spindle spinning, especially yarn that I plied 'on the fly', and it has inspired me to take out the spindles.

I purchased some green gradient Merino last year at the NH Sheep & Wool and I'm spinning it on my Golding spindle.

As in 'the old days', I'm Navajo plying it and doing so 'on the fly'. Navajo plying goes by a few different names: N-plying, Navajo plying, chain plying. "Chain plying" is the most descriptive of the three, but not very exciting or colorful as the other two names if you ask me. It creates a 3-ply yarn. Chain plying "on the fly" is a way of spinning a single thread and plying it right away. Great for instant results. Navajo plying is super useful as a method for isolating colors in a multi color preparation.

I wind my singles temporarily at the bottom of the spindle until I've spun about 2 or 3 yards, then I wind it off the spindle onto my hand from whence I will ply it. (Clicking the picture will enlarge them.)

The following picture shows how the plying works. The "Single" is passed through the loop to form a new loop which causes 3 singles to lie next to each other. These three are spun counterclockwise to ply them together, and the process continues, creating an ongoing chain of large loops. I do like to create quite large loops, a yard long if possible.

I am planning to make a hat with this yarn when it is all spun up.

The Golding spindles are very beautiful but the one I have is heavy so as soon as this one is full I will switch to one of my Kunderts, my favorites of all, and they are very light.

Speaking of hats. There is still plenty of yards of old yarn left and I've picked some out for a hat. There may not be enough of these to knit the entire hat and I'll have to dig into the bag of scraps again. I'm sure something will work out. Here I am swatching for gauge: I hand painted the yellow/green and blue/purple silk/wool blend. It's a very soft, luscious yarn.

I've got more Hollyhocks than ever this year. This one is over 8 feet tall!

The scarf got frogged

I had a change of plans for the scarf.

Since the yarn is a bag of left over hand-spuns from years ago, the supply is limited. But after looking at what I'd knit and seeing what was left in the bag, I decided that I could probably make something that wasn't simply 'scrappy', that there was probably enough of certain colorways to make a scarf that looked planned.

So I frogged what I had and started over. In order to make my favorite colorways last, I cast on fewer stitches. The new plan was a narrower scarf that I could consider chic. And the plan worked. Apart from 2 different multi-color yarns, the next abundant was some orange Harrisville wool that I'd spun, also 3-ply in the Navajo fashion.

I'm done with the knitting and have started adding fringe to the ends. I like the result, it doesn't look like something pulled out of a bag of scraps. At least to me it doesn't. I'm sure I will enjoy wearing this in the fall and early winter.

Another unfinished project I ran across while puttering around the spare room is a set of leaves that I knit.... oh.... four or five years ago, probably. All the knitting was done at that time, but the leaves need to be composed into a shall. Before the construction can begin all the loose ends need weaving in, and every leaf, no matter large or small, has 9 loose ends! It's tedious, but it must be done. I want to get this project finished!

The pattern for this shawl is called "Autumn Leaves Shall" and it appeared in "NORO Silk Garden, The 20th Anniversary Collection" (c) 2016, Sixth&Springbooks. It is designed by Anna Stoklosa.

I used a mix of NORO and other yarn, including Lambs Pride, when knitting my leaves.

An old yarn

I came across a bag of yarn scraps upstairs in the spare/craft room last week as I was puttering around. It is the ends of yarn I spun 10 to 15 years ago! Much of it was also dyed by myself in my Brooklyn backyard.

It was nice to run across this yarn. Not a bad spun yarn if I do say so myself. Most of it is 3-ply as I was heavily into Navajo plying at the time and spun of lot of yarn using that technique. Most of it is also spindle spun. These yarns were spun all over the city, at bus stops, parks, atriums, etc.

So I decided to make something of these scraps, a scarf for winter yard work. Nothing fancy, size 8 needles, just 20 stitches wide, seed stitch because it doesn't curl and looks nice.

I'm glad I ran across this yarn, it reminded me how much spinning I did back then, and like I said, it's a pretty nice yarn. I think I'm going to have to revisit Navajo plying, it's been years.

I did a bobbin's worth of spinning on one of my wheels this week but it was far from successful. I'm trying to figure out the best way to spin a short, soft, lofty mixed fiber. I spun from the fold but ended up with insufficient twist and too many thin spots. I'm out of practice. Today I spun another sample after carding some of the fiber and spinning it long draw. This test looks better and perhaps I will spin another bobbin using that technique this week. Tour de Fleece begins Tuesday but I'm not signed up for it. Not sure I can commit to daily spinning right now.

A visitor last week. Deer are a rare sight on my property.

Yesterday, mama bear and two cubs were out back. Melts my heart...

A little bit slow

 

It is a little bit slow at the moment but I did get the tapestry backed and hung on the wall.

I took out the wool applique quilt of flowers I made last year and sandwiched the backing, batting, and top so as to start quilting, but I haven't started quilting yet. There are a couple large house projects that need doing and I feel I need to attend to those before getting engrossed in a large sewing project.

However, I dug out some knitting needles because I want a new dishcloth.

This yarn is called "Scrubby" and I find it at Walmart. It makes the best dishcloths. 100% Polyester. Not expensive. It's great at scrubbing and doesn't scratch. It also last a long time. I've been using my current one for months!

I had a foray into the spare room a few weeks ago, mainly to straighten it up (it really needs a professional!) and I came across a small hooked rug pattern that I've decided to hook. In my opinion, small patterns like this do not work so well on such a loose weave as this burlap; there just aren't enough holes to get the detail in. But it's coming along OK so far and it should be fine. I love hooked rugs and I enjoy hooking them. Maybe I'll set my sites at making something considerably larger this fall.

In gardening news, the Egyptian onion patch is out of hand again. I'm tempted to remove it entirely, to be honest. In an effort to make something of what's there, I harvested a bunch of onions a few weeks ago and decided to dehydrate the greens. I think these will work well in dips and soups, etc.

Happy Solstice!

The last stitch

The last stitch went into the needlepoint project on Thursday; it is done!

I'm glad I decided to jump into it again, back in January. To be honest, there was a hint of possibility that I would tire and decide to put it away again, but once it got started I was into it. Many hours were spent re-viewing several old Britcom series that I especially enjoy. The experiment of hanging the frame from the ceiling, although a good idea and exciting, didn't pan out over time because the sofa was too low. Having sat for too long a while with my knees almost higher than my pelvis was taking it's toll.

It was fun meeting the challenge of coming up with yarn matches when the supply started running out and I was yet unsure how much I wanted to order. In the end, I ordered all the dark green for the thin border all around the tapestry, At 162 strands (36" long) that made up the bulk of my order. The remaining 70 strands consisted of a few different shades of green, a bit of burgandy, a bit of gold, and a bit of yellow.

My stitches improved during the course of working on this project. Stitching with a doubled yarn has a few challenges that single threads don't. Keeping the two threads lying nicely needs constant attention. It doesn't look good when one thread is directly on top of the other in the stitch. But one nice thing about doubled thread is that the thread never pulls out of the needle because the thread is looped. The pillow that I'm working on now is single thread and when the working thread becomes shorter than four or five inches, it has a tendency to get pulled out of the eye of the needle.

On the next sunny spell lasting at least a few days I will soak it and block it. I want to sew a backing onto it before hanging on the wall.

Revisiting the irises

The yarn on order arrived this week. I've finished stitching the main pattern and I'm now working on the outside border. It's goes pretty quickly and I expect to be finished sometime in the coming week.

Scrolling back the tapestry on it's frame, to access the borders, I've come across the Irises that I "made work" a while back due to the pale yellow yarn having run out. Although happy enough with the choice to use a gold-ish color to stitch the shadow areas of that Iris, I have not been thoroughly pleased with the out come; I thought it looked a bit 'messy'. The contrast was too stark and obvious, in my opinion, and not in keeping with the Medieval look and feel of the pattern.

When I placed the order for extra yarn, the Iris had been out of mind for a while and it did not occur to me to order a few threads of the pale yellow. Never mind. But as I pondered the situation this morning, I decided to have another look at my stash of yarns. I had found some light gold tapestry wool at the thrift shop a month or so ago, and as is my habit, took it home for my stash. On closer inspection, this color would seem to work better than the darker gold I used.

So I tore out the gold. Finished needlepoint does not frog easily, let's just say that. It takes patience and great care and attention not to cut into, or dislodge any stitches that are to remain. But I got the gold removed and stitched in the lighter yarn.

Oh, I think the result is a huge improvement and now I'm happy in a settled way. The difference between the pale yellow and the pale gold is very slight, almost unnoticeable. So much better. Mind you, I would have been fine keeping my original 'make do' had an alternative not been available. Glad I took the time to revisit this Iris.

The original "make it work" solution (I can see from the date of the picture, this was March 17th!):

How it looks now with the lighter, closer, match:

Yarn on order

The tapestry is at a standstill until the yarn I ordered last week, arrives. I hope it will be here any day now. In the meantime, it stands propped against a cabinet.

So I'm tackling another needlepoint which was started a few years ago. As you can see, it has a lot in common with the large tapestry. Same designer (Candace Bahouth), same colors, same flowers, and a similar border (although totally abstract). The design is called "Meadow Garden" and it will be a pillow. The scale of it is quite different, obviously. It is worked in a single yarn at 10 stitches to the inch.

The spring weather here has completely collapsed. We've had rain for almost a week and that is to continue through tomorrow. I noticed this morning that we have another 3 days of rain forecast for next week. The rain is good but it has created challenges for getting the yard cleaned up and the garden in order. It's also been quite cool. So much so that I haven't started any seeds indoors yet; it's just not warm enough. I may have to bite the bullet and buy nursery plants this year because soon it will be too late to start tomatoes and what not.

Lots of ticks this year so far and yesterday was officially the beginning of black fly season. The black flies will mostly disappear in a few weeks and the tick situation usually abates somewhat after the initial spring fling.

Wild flowers are making a show though. This week saw the Trillium and Violets and Wild Phlox make an appearance. The Rhododendron is blossoming now. It looks like we're at least a few weeks out from having Lilacs.