Vox’s posts tagged spinning

drop stitch scarf

nobody@vox.com(amber) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:02:11 +0000

made with handspun yarn. here is the pattern.
I cast on 16 stitches with size 11 needles.

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Eventful Sunday

nobody@vox.com(Design Shark) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:25:03 +0000

Today Tammy & I went to the IL side to check out the Strangefolk Festival. It was pretty neat over all. Lots of baby things and things that I call "useless crafts" such as pottery, photography, and general other things that don't serve any real purpose for me to own, pretty or not. Lots of record bowls - the trade mark of any indie craft show. Lots of people (Tammy & I not excluded) reverse-engineering crafty things. Then I came upon that one special booth - Destroyed by Design. She was very friendly and had awesome things. I had a very hard time choosing my 2 items, but I got 2 really neat things that I'll be showing off later, because I don't have my camera right now. But they're really great. Actually, she had my one thing on her site, lookie:

My New Dino Necklace!

After that, we had that always delicious Taco Bell and then went to knit. It was okay, I haven't been around that group lately because life has been in the way, along with a few other unnamed reasons. I got another inch and a half or so of Tammy's sweater done.

Then I came to Scott's, did laundry, watched The Office again, ate Subway, and now writing this blog. Oh. I guess I left out that I got a spindle and some roving at the festival too. I haven't really had the chance to play with it, but it seems neat.

In other news, I'm really tired of hearing about how great everyone's life is going. So, if you could just be sullen a few days to let me get out of this little rut, that'd be great.

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Plots and schemes

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:31:44 +0000

Beginning the first Clessidra toe

As a result of a long-held scheme, I have finally cast on for Clessidra, only a year after buying the yarn! Naturally, I'm converting the pattern to toe-up, and using Cat Bordhi's master numbers rather than the numbers in the pattern, but I am following the pattern part of the pattern, so that's alright. Although toe-up means I'm a long way from the exciting hourglass cables :-(

The yarn is purple Cherry Tree Hill, as seen in my Baudelaires, and the needles are 2.25mm Knitpicks. It's coincidence that these are the same size needles the pattern calls for - my 2.5mm Addis are otherwise occupied, 2mm is too small, and I only have 2.75mm needles in DPNs.

Alpaca rolags

I'm still plotting my MiL's Christmas present - the photo to the right is a pile of alpaca rolags I've hand carded in preparation for spinning them, on the theory that I might as well card in front of the TV to encourage me to spin, and therefore possibly get the whole thing done in time for Christmas. Still, I saw her this weekend and warned her that the price of lovingly hand-crafted gifts was possible lateness ;-)

The colours in these are deliberately not mixed much - I'm carding to tidy up the fibre, not to blend colours, and I'm hoping the eventual yarn (which will be two-ply) will be gently variegated.

But I really don't like hand carding very much, so I'm forming a scheme to purchase a drum carder to make the process easier. Space in the library is, as ever, at a premium, so some book weeding and miscellaneous tidying is called for before I'll allow myself to add to the pile of crafting equipment I'm keeping.

Meta weaving

I finished my mini-weaving project, and wove the resulting braid into a small square of meta-weaving, which I'm rather pleased with. In fact, I'm so pleased that I'm plotting a loom acquisition, or rather, scheming to get R to buy me one for my birthday. Only a little one, but I'm already plotting my first real weaving project. My excursion into buying coloured clothes this spring and summer has left me with a problem now the weather's getting colder: all my mid-layers - cardigans and wraps - are black or purple, and don't go with some shades-of-red clothes I've bought (or the others I may still buy). For a while I've been plotting to ply my burgundy merino fibre with something variegated and autumnal (as yet unpurchased), but my original plan was to knit a wrap with it. However, I'm not actually all that keen on knitted wraps, and much prefer woven ones. The loom I'm scheming for is 80cm wide, which should be plenty big enough for a nice wrap, and I'm excited about the colour possibilities in spinning hand-dyed fibre then weaving it :-)

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and some more spinning

nobody@vox.com(amber) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:00:38 +0000

This is a 2 ply yarn made with a strand of each bamboo/wool & silk/wool fiber:

some 2 ply bfl yarn made with pigeon roof studios fiber:

and some green 2 ply merino. I bought the fiber at a craft show and don't remember her name.

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couple handspun yarn scarves

nobody@vox.com(amber) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Using merino 2 ply yarn and stitch pattern 139 (sunrise, sunset) from Vogue Knitting Stictionary.
cast on 21 stitches. (size 10 needles)

and also using FatCatKnits Merino Roving in "industry" navajo plied yarn. size 10 needles

cast on a multiple of 3 sts
The pattern repeat is just K2, P1 on each side

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friends don't let friends spin on spinny things..

nobody@vox.com(torilynn) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:17:36 +0000

Okay, so I'm finally getting better at blogging on time. Thank God.

Anyway, Lindsey and I hung out today. We usually do every other week or so when she isn't being a little workaholic. :P We sat at home for a few hours, trying to decide what we wanted to go do. Finally agreed that we should go out to eat. Went to a mexican place called El Zarape. Good food. @___@ Afterwards we went to the Creekmore Park around 8pm. We walked over to Sweet Bay, got a Frozen French Silk, *drools* good stuff. xD We went back to the park, and hung out, sat on the swing sets as always. Our favorite thing to do there, we usually have like deep meaningful conversations when were there, but tonight not so much. Just kind of goofed off, really. xD I brought my camera along and we took some photos. We stayed there until around 9:30pm.

And oh.. my.. god. I tried out this little thing that spins you around. At first it was fun, you just sit on it and the gravity just spins you on it's own. After doing it a few more times and going faster, I got do damn nauseas. It wasn't pleasant. Lindsey took two pictures, one of me on it and the second one of me dizzy as fuck trying to walk right after I got off of it. She also made this video of me spinning around, and it wasn't as fast as I was going. The last time I spun on it was the worst. :S Never again..

Some guy even started yelling "faster!" and i was thinking hell no. xD It was just too much for me. I told Lindsey to NEVER let me do that again. It's fun while you're on it, but once your done, the nauseas feeling just HITS you. T___T

MOV09843

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Pilate's, Pole and Spinning oh my!

nobody@vox.com(VB) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:26:20 +0000

I have finally recovered from my boot camp on Saturday and I can't say how jazzed (yes I used the word jazzed) I am for my new work out schedule. Here it is:

Saturdays:

1.5 hours of Pole
1 hour of Spinning
half hour of Abs/stretching

It's 69.00 for 4 Saturdays (I bought 3 at this price so 12 classes for 207.00) after my 12 classes the rate will go up to 140.00 for 4 Saturdays...still not bad for 12 hours of classes. S Factor was 440.00 a session (8 classes a total of 16 hours) my current class at the reduced rate is 139.00 for 8 classes (24 hours) MUCH BETTER even at the regular rate it is only 280.00 for 8 classes with a total of 24 hours!

Wednesdays:

1 hour of private Pilate's at my house with a Cadillac and Wunda chair

60.00 a session

This price reduction is great...it allows me to do private Pilate's once a week and throw in a S Flight Night every once in a while and the price is really only a few bucks more. Not to mention the boot camp incorporates strength and cardio into the workout which I desperately need - hopefully I will be as enthusiastic about all of this next week.

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My butt is BIG so why does my as* hurt...

nobody@vox.com(VB) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:15:38 +0000

Or rather my story of spinning...

So today I had my new classes...Angelas's Sexy Boot Camp at Bespun. 3 hours of classes in a row. 1.5 hours of pole, 1 hour of spinning (uggg the spinning is gonna kill me) and a half hour of abs/stretching.

The Good:

I liked the pole warm up section...it was a little less dance-y and more warm up yet it still had some classic stripper moves/stretches.
We seemed to get a lot of pole time in - there are 7 poles in the class.
Al levels in the class...yet we can work on whatever we want.
There is freestyle dance at the end.
I didn't actually puke while spinning.
It was a good thing I broke down and bought spinning shoes...with my feet clipped in I felt safer...and yet at one point still I was sure I was going to fly off the bike.
they sell water AND vitamin water there.
Parking in the attached structure is validated and FREE on Saturdays!!! YAY!

The Bad

The plus of having 7 poles becomes a negative with free dance at the end...you don't have much space at all
No lap dance chair
No actual stripping in class...UM HELLO what the F - I have such cute stripper gear to wear but I doubt if I will be sporting much in this class beyond the occasional ruffled panty.
AS there were so many of us we did not get a ton of one on one time with the teacher...some but not a lot...however there's nothing really surprising about that.

The Ugly

My ass REALLY hurts from spinning. That F-in bike seat is tiny!!!! The seat is also REALLY HARD. When I say tiny I mean TINY seriously at one point I swear my butt swallowed the seat and it was stuck in my ass :(
I am really going to have to think about investing in some padded dorky looking bike shorts if I am going to get through this...

I asked my friend "My butt is so big why does my ass hurt" she responded "well your not supposed to actually be SITTING on your ass while we spin" WENCH...she's right though - give me a break it was my first time LOL.

All in all I had a good time and I'm glad I signed up for 12 saturdays...If this doesn't help me get in shape nothing will :)

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Spinning

nobody@vox.com(Shelly) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:08:06 +0000

So I took a spinning class for the first time yesterday.

I have been avoiding it because A: I knew it would be a challenge, and B: Riding a bike is boring to me.

But my regular class was cancelled because some kids decided to bust a sprinkler pipe with one of the medicine balls and it flooded out the child center and a studio. How do I know` this? They caught them jokers on video. Estimated damage: 30k. There are some extremely angry parents in the North side of Atlanta.

Anyway. Spinning.

Actually was not that bad. The worst part? That dag seat!!!!! It was not comfortable at all! It made the whole hour pretty rough. Urgh!!!! They make bike pants that have a little padding in the seat area. I may invest because spinning was not bad. And I like the way my body feels today. I feel muscles that I dont normally feel. I like that! I give Lance a lot more credit.

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Spinning?

nobody@vox.com(Dry Ice) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:20:01 +0000

Well, I am absolutely exhausted. There is simply no other way to describe it.

I joined Women's Fitness in Pickering last week, determined to take off all of this weight that I've put on, thanks to lack of exercise and steroids in my chemo. Carrying so much weight is playing havoc with my joints, so I really had no choice. I first joined the club back in June of 2007, just before my cancer diagnosis, and returned to cancel my membership right after I found out. In fact the membership rep at the club who had signed me up intitally, Evonne, was the first person (after my husband) that I told about the cancer - she was very kind, and even offered me a hug! Guess that's one of the reasons I decided to go back - plus, it's a gorgeous facility, women-only, and only a five minute drive from home.

This morning, I decided to head to the gym to work out. When I arrived, there was an instructor who was just about to start a cycling class, and she asked me if I would like to join in. I figured why not? So I did. I explained I was a beginner at all this, and she said I'd be just fine. Of course, I never did get a chance to tell her I am still in treatment for breast cancer, and that I am currently having physio for hip and leg pain. Forty five minutes later, you could have picked me up with a spoon. The instructor Linda was really very good; she took the time to adjust my seat properly, and to explain how the spinning bike works, and why it is superior to a treadmill. I did my best to maintain a pace that was comfortable for me, but the "sprints" were brutal, and the mind-numbing dance mix music that they play while you are spinning is definitely not designed for the ears of a forty six year old who grew up on James Taylor!

For those of you who are not familiar with a spinning bike, here's what it looks like.

Spinning bike

I certainly see the benefits of spinning - you can get into cardio mode in no time at all. I'll see how I feel tomorrow when I get up before deciding whether to try another spinning class...

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Review: a fine fleece

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:57:40 +0000

A Fine Fleece: Knitting with Handspun Yarns

Lisa Lloyd

Frax linked me to Knotions, and although I haven't properly engaged with the site yet, the first thing I spotted was a review for a fine fleece. Without even reading the review in detail, it was clear I wanted this book - even a superficial glance reveals that it's all cables and handspun. I ordered it immediately :-)

It does not disappoint. It's gorgeous - fantastic photography, high quality production values (coloured binding tape is always a favourite), and beautiful page layouts. Well-written, too. As a design geek, a cable knitter and a spinner, this book is clearly aimed squarely at me.

Lots of the jumper patterns are drop-shoulder, which means I won't knit them as-is because I don't like that shape, but since there are several beautiful ones with set-in sleeves, and plenty of non-jumper patterns, and since I rarely knit patterns verbatim anyway, this is only a minor niggle really. I'm considering adapting at least one of the drop-shoulder patterns into a set-in sleeve with the same cable panel.

The book's big schtick is that each pattern is illustrated in both handspun and commercial yarn, showing various possibilities, and there's a lot of interesting discussion about the attributes of different breeds of sheep, and other technical spinning details, but in a way that's accessible (and useful) to the non-spinner as well as the spinner.

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Second spinning oddball

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:34:24 +0000

Oddball 2

I've spent part of today gathering my spinning samples and leftovers, plying the singles, and tying the whole lot together into one big skein. This is the second oddball I've made and although it's still predominantly purple, there's a lot more red and a lot less blue in this one than the first.

I think, like my shop-bought leftover yarn, this will be a lengthwise-knit garter stitch scarf or shawl on big needles. But I shall resist the urge to cast on for it until I've cast off the shop-bought one!

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more handspun

nobody@vox.com(amber) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:50:49 +0000

I've been spinning a lot lately

yarn type: single ply
fiber source: terra bella fiber batt
fiber content: Superwash Wool, Wool Top, Bamboo, Mill ends Wool, Rayon, Sparkle & Glitz
color: icy moon drops
weight: 3.5 oz

this was my first try at cable plying. you make 2 strands of 2 ply yarn and then ply them together. suppose to make a nice strong yarn.

yarn type: cabled 4 ply
fiber source: roving from deep color
fiber content: 75% merino 25% silk
color: pale green & yellow/green
weight: 8 oz

yarn type: cabled 4 ply
fiber source: terra bella fiber batt & deep color alpaca roving
fiber content: batt was superwash wool & wool top. roving was baby alpaca
color: strawberry, chocolate & coffee batt. natural alpaca (chocolate brown)
weight: 7 oz

yarn type: navajo ply
fiber source: fat cat knits roving
fiber content: merino
color: quintessence
weight: 4 oz

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Purple things for me

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:43:55 +0000

Bellatrix FO pics! They look more twisted than they feel, which is ideal. What's not ideal is the obvious colour difference despite matching dye lots :-( Still, perfect matchingness isn't high on my list of priorities, and I love them. And there's enough yarn leftover to make another pair of something else :-)

Black alpaca and purple merino sample

I'm not sure how well this picture has come out, because the colour details are quite subtle even 'in the flesh', but this is my latest beginning-planning spinning project. It's about two-thirds natural black alpaca hand carded with about a third purple merino, and then rolled sideways off the card so the fibres are roughly aligned, then spun and plied. In person this is really quite lovely, with black bits and purple bits and blacky-purple bits, and somewhere around DK weight. I have about 400g of the alpaca and 250g of the merino, so together that should be enough for an actual thing, possibly a gothy lacy shawl.

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Presents for inlaws

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:33:49 +0000

Baby rainbow coriolis

Baby socks: quickest thing to knit ever. Started on Tuesday evening, finished this morning. And the Lorna's Laces rainbow which looks so lovely in the skein and so horrible knitted up actually works in a garment this tiny. Especially on the heel flaps - it makes an actual rainbow! These are coriolis master pattern, not practice sock, because the practice socks are on stupidly-large needles, but using the master meant I had to guess/estimate/research baby foot sizes. I hope these err on the side of being slightly too large rather than slightly too small, but having no experience of baby feet I'm not sure.

Also afoot: plans to knit ChildHood, although probably without the hood, just because the pattern says the hood knits up large and benefits from being tried on, and there's no way that's practical. I think I'll do this with red as the main colour and orange as the contrast. This is, of course, utterly unlike anything I'd knit for myself, but that's the point of having small relatives, no? (She will be a niece, by the way; I'm knitting bright colours because I hate the tyranny of blue-for-boys-and-pink-for-girls, not because we don't know.)

Lilac alpaca for MiL, batches zero and one

And I now have a picture of the yarn I'm spinning for my mother in law. That's batch zero (the small one, before I started carding it, rather bumpy and uneven) and batch one, carded, mostly smooth and nice. It's not actually as much fun to spin as I'd hoped, partly because it's really dirty (much more than it looks) - my hands feel all grubby quite quickly, and unless I cover my clothes, so do they. But I'm scared to wash the fibre unspun in case I felt it, and because drying it after dying took ages and got in the way, so I don't want to repeat the experience. So I'm steeling myself to spin it dirty, and I'll wash it before plying.

The current plan for what I'll knit this into is a garter stitch seafoam scarf or shawl, although I haven't yet swatched to confirm I like the stitch, but I had such fun knitting Bellatrix (which is basically seafoam in stocking stitch), and it gives a nice open texture (also, more area for less yarn!) that it seems a good plan.

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Spinderella

nobody@vox.com(plumdearly) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:25:56 +0000

Remember the story of Rumpelstiltskin? Ever since I read that story as a child, I've been fascinated with making yarn.

I love the idea of making my own yarn and have wanted to take up spinning for a good two years now, but the cost to get started has squashed my dreams for now. However, that doesn't mean that I don't read magazines like Spin-Off and dream that one day, I too will join the ranks of women that knit their garments with their handspun.

In the latest issue, I spotted the insanely cute Ladybug Spinning Wheel. I don't know why I haven't seen this beauty before, but she is really tempting me.

Miss Ladybug

See what I mean? And red is my favorite color too. Too bad my LYS doesn't carry her because once I do decide to take the plunge, I'd really like to try her out first.

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Spinning alpaca

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:24:42 +0000

No photos of this yet, but I've also been spinning the alpaca I bought in Hay and dyed a variegated pinky-lilacy-grey. I started off spinning it as-is, but this turned out to be a pain, so I've now started carding little bits at a time (so as to avoid mixing the colours too much) and spinning the carded fibre instead, which is much easier. It's quite fine, and is going to be two-ply (it'll probably be somewhere around fingering-sport weight) and is currently intended to be a Christmas gift for my MiL, who told my partner that she was expecting 'something spectacular' from us this year after he told her about my spinning and knitting. This isn't actually a demand, so I don't mind going along with it, and the alpaca is in any case too pastelly for me, but I think she'll like it. Depending on how much yarn I produce, I'm probably thinking of a lace scarf or mini-shawl (there's 200g of fibre), although I haven't thought about patterns yet other than to decide I'm going to design it myself rather than follow someone else's pattern - I rather like the idea of telling the MiL that I dyed, carded and spun the fibre then designed and knitted the garment, all by hand. I'm such a show off ;-)

(In other family gift news, it's only just dawned on me that I should knit baby things for my BiL and his wife, who are planning to produce a neice or nephew for us in October. Note to self: research baby knits on Ravelry.)

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Tapping, Hammering-on, Pulling-off as done by John Frusciante

nobody@vox.com(Groove Neuter) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:17:51 +0000

For my next little guitar noodling self-lesson, "Don't Forget Me" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

The girls love the Youtube video for Anthony and John freaking out and spinning.

I dig the non-speed metal application of hammering-on and pulling-off, fantastically on display throughout and in the outro solo.

Don't Forget Me - Red Hot Chili Peppers

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Adventures in spinning alpaca and silk

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:07:48 +0000

So this is what I've been doing with the alpaca...

The first five pictures are various combinations of dyed lilac-grey alpaca and black alpaca. Sometimes carded, sometimes blended together, sometimes spun as-is.

The fourth picture has some silk noil spun in - someone from the Bucks spinning, weaving and dyeing guild at the local alpaca farm's open day gave me a little bit of this. I liked spinning the silk noil, but probably not enough to buy more.

The last two pictures relate to the sewing project I haven't yet blogged about (I'll do it after I've given the gift to its recipient). They're spun from leftover bits of sari silk - one just shredded, and the others carded; the darker one is carded with some of the black alpaca, which may well be the eventual destination of all the other bits of leftover sari fabric. I'm sufficiently pleased with the way this worked that there's a piece of drawstring cord in the finished sewing project which I spun from carded bits of leftover fabric. This is probably a bit excessive, except that I didn't have any other cord or yarn which would go, and I'm pleased that this matches perfectly

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Shopping in Hay and its consequences

nobody@vox.com(triskellian) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:51:52 +0000

Ages ago now, I went to Hay-on-Wye with friend-R. I bought second hand books, as you do in Hay (it's a small village in Wales with dozens of second hand book shops), including some vintage knitting books. I bought them for various combinations of because they're funny and because they're useful - one has marvellous mini-stories about Little Johnny and Little Susie* and how they feel about each other, their clothes, and their mother who knit them. Another, while having deeply humourous seventies-ish fashion photography also contains what looks like good and useful advice about designing and adapting patterns, although I confess I haven't read it yet.

What I didn't expect to buy was yarn or fibre, but buy them I did!

The fibre is undyed grey alpaca, the ball of yarn is Trekking XXL sock yarn in a colourway that reminds me of starlings, and the skein is Opal Handpainted sock yarn, bought by R, and intended for socks for her (I think she wants Coriolis socks, but I'm not ready to knit them again yet). I want to use the Trekking for something for me, but I now have serious amounts of sock yarn in the stash, so I should probably get on with knitting some of it. Counting on Ravelry just now, I think I have about twelve pairsworth of sock yarn in my stash, and that's not counting the leftovers which are probably enough for at least another pair. Although I've made good progress on the purple cable cardigan recently, I'm stalled on it again, so maybe I should cast on for some socks in the meantime. The question is which...

Dyed alpaca

The alpaca fibre is still somewhat in limbo, too. I dyed it with two different shades of purple cold water dye, which may have been a mistake because the colour didn't take very well, hence the pastelly shades it's turned out. I like it though, and it feels lovely. I've also supplemented it with a big bag of natural black alpaca from my local alpaca farm! Yes, I have a local alpaca farm. It's in Great Milton, about eight miles away, and their natural black actually mostly is black, unlike the natural black shetland I've spun before. I've been making various sample cards of the two alpacas, which will be the subject of another blog post soon.

*Names may be misremembered.

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