Tagged with techniques

Spinning Revelations from Black Sheep Gathering

Bobbin of handspun yarnSo I’m going to talk about spinning, a lot, probably in nauseating detail if you’re not interested in spinning. If you don’t care about my spinning revelations, you have my permission to skip this post. I promise not to be offended.

If you’re a spinner, or you want to be, and you ever get the chance to take a class from Judith MacKenzie? Do it.

That recommendation isn’t unique to me; it originated from The Knitmore Girls Podcast. (Similarly, if you’re looking for one knitting and spinning podcast, I recommend that one.) When I was signing up for Black Sheep Gathering back in April, I had enough funds for one class, and I picked the “Yarns Recycled: Reuse and Reduce” workshop, which seemed particularly relevant to my interests, since I have a stack of secondhand sweaters rescued from Goodwill lurking in my craft room, purchased with the intention of taking them apart. Now, I’ve been collecting these sweaters for a while, and I’ve taken apart exactly one, and it was a giant pain. At the time, I didn’t even have a ball winder. Now that I do, every time I thought about it, I considered how much of a pain it is just to wind a single skein, and went, “Oh, I’ll do that. Later.” Later, of course, never arrived.

It never occurred to me to use my spinning wheel.

That’s right, guys. You can take apart sweaters, including unplying them, with your spinning wheel.

I know, right? It seems so obvious, in hindsight. That’s how you can tell it’s a brilliant idea.

Judith is full of things like that, little off-the-cuff comments that leave you flabbergasted, somewhere between, “Why didn’t I think of that?” and “How did she think of that?” Of course you’d use your spinning wheel to take a sweater apart. Of course you’d go to the Goodwill and look for cashmere sweaters. (That one, I knew.) Of course you can unply the yarn, so you can re-ply it (with itself! with something else! with your own handspun, guys!) to your desired thickness. Of course you can then drop your new yarn in the dye pot and turn it into something more attractive.

Some other useful information:

  • Tools for disassembling a sweater: magnifying glass, good light (a magnifying Ott light is the best of both worlds), scissors (or a seam ripper if you’re careful and brave), crochet hook, darning needle.
  • Sleeves always start from the cuff.
  • There are some good tutorials out there for taking apart commercial sweaters, but two things you want to look at before you bring them home are the seams (make sure they’re not surged) and the sturdiness of the yarn. Sweaters with cables are going to have sturdy yarn, because machine-knitting cables requires a certain amount of strength. Also, cables produce a lot of yarn, as anyone who’s ever knitted a cabled sweater will tell you. This works in reverse, too.
  • If the seams ARE surged but you love the material, you can cut the sweater up and use it for fabric, or shred it and add it to your drum carder, assuming you have one. (I do not, alas.)
  • When you’re disassembling a sweater, spin in the same direction that it was plied. (Yes, you want to add twist.) When you’re separating the individual plies, you’ll be spinning in the opposite direction. (So typically, when you disassemble the sweater you will spin counterclockwise, when you separate the plies you will spin clockwise, and when you re-ply it with whatever you’re plying with, you’ll ply counterclockwise again. I hope this makes sense.)
  • If you’re not reducing your sweater yarn to its component plies, you will want to ply it clockwise. (In other words, if you’re disassembling a fine-gauge sweater and then plying it with your handspun, make sure you spin your singles counterclockwise.)
  • I promise all of that will make sense when you’re actually looking at the sweater, but here’s the basic concept: Add twist when you’re turning it from sweater to plied yarn (because if the sweater is an unplied singles, removing twist will turn it back into fiber), subtract twist when you’re turning plied yarn to unplied yarn, and add twist again when you’re plying it with something else.

Then she handed us a cashmere-silk blend to spin. Which was amazing. Spinning cashmere, by the way, is an insanely slippery business. Don’t relax, because when you do, it’ll get away from you and break. A lot. I think I spent more time standing up and re-threading my singles than I did actually spinning. (This is probably not true. But it certainly felt that way.)

After we spun that, and took apart a piece of cashmere sweater, and plied the two together, she gave us all a little bit of baby camel/silk blend to spin. I don’t think I’ve ever touched baby camel fiber. Unsurprisingly, the three-ply yarn I produced was not very good, but the experience was incredible.

Somewhere in there, I figured out that my default spinning technique is a modified long-draw, which produces a semi-woolen singles (appropriate for what I was spinning, even). I sort of knew that intellectually, but I also figured out how to spin worsted, which has eluded me since I first started spinning. I figured out how to adjust my wheel in ways that I’d never thought to. Just being in the room with Judith, and watching her spin, and listening to her talk, put me in a headspace where I could think about and observe (and improve!) my spinning in a way I’d never managed before. Also, being in a room with a bunch of other spinners made me feel much better about my own spinning ability.

Confession time: I’m super-smart. I don’t say that to brag, or make anybody feel bad, or anything like that. My intelligence isn’t something I did anything to have; it’s as much a part of me as my height or my eye color or my skin tone. I’m fair but I don’t sunburn easily, I can’t see more than six inches in front of my face without my glasses, and I absorb information like air. I didn’t earn any of these traits, they came with my body.

What this means is that a lot of things that other people have to work for come very easily to me. I didn’t have to study until I was in college, and even then, not very much. I’ve gotten compliments on my writing since I was in second grade. Again: this is not intended as bragging. I don’t think being smart makes me a better person. In fact, 9 times out of 10 I’m genuinely surprised by being better than someone else at something – “Remember, xyz thing? Wait, you don’t remember that? But…we read it for class… and I know you did the reading… and… oh. Never mind.” (I have had lots of conversations like that. Also conversations like, “Oh, you just do this thing like that. It’s easy. No, really, it’s totally easy.” And it’s not, for them.) What it means is that I am easily frustrated by things I’m not naturally good at. I don’t know how to work hard to make myself better, because I’ve never really had to. I win the race because I start 25 yards in front of everybody else for the 50-yard dash, not because I’ve trained for years to become an amazing runner.

Usually, physical things are hard for me. I’m a terrible dancer. I can’t turn a cartwheel. I could never win the actual 50-yard dash, even with a 25-yard head start. I consider it somewhat amazing that I’m a good driver, because I’m prone to running into doorjambs and corners when I’m just walking. I drop everything. Knitting, however, came easily to me, and maybe I’m casually dismissive of my own ability to knit in the same way I’m casually dismissive of my ability to remember things. (Um, so, if you’re not where I am after two years of knitting, and you feel like I lied to you about how easy it was? It’s probably not you. It’s probably just me. Sorry?)

Similarly, when I sat down at the rigid heddle loom for the first time, my weaving teacher was stunned at how good I was at it. (Again: not bragging. It’s not anything I did.) She made jokes about how I must have ancestral weaving memories.

Spinning was not like that.

Spinning is one of the few things I’ve not only had to work at, but wanted to. I get impatient and frustrated and walk away from the wheel for weeks at a time, but I enjoy doing it, and I know I’m getting better. The intro to spinning class I took, though, my other classmate was a spinning natural. She took to it like she’d been doing it all her life. The other people I had to compare myself against (not many) were all ridiculously good at it. So being in that classroom, with other people who were having the same problems I was, made me feel like I wasn’t a dunce after all. (I hope that little confession doesn’t make you think less of me.)

Near the end of class, we learned how to spin paper. Specifically, sewing-pattern paper.

Apparently there’s a lot of historical precedent for turning paper into clothing, including a fourteenth-century jacket from Japan that was created out of rent receipts. Spun and knitted (or woven) paper is machine washable and dryable. Theoretically, you can spin out of any kind of paper, but sewing patterns are particularly good for it. They’re made out of banana fibers, and they’re very sturdy. Also, I have yet to walk into a thrift store that didn’t have a ton of sewing patterns available for very little money. Cut it into long strips. Here’s a trick: if you want it soft (like for a garment or accessory), crumple it first. Ball it up in your hand. If you want it sturdy (like for a basket), don’t. Overlap the end of one strip and the beginning of the next, for a continuous strand. You can also ply paper with other things – cashmere from rescued sweaters, handspun singles, commercial yarn, whatever suits you. Pretend you work for Habu Textiles, and go crazy.

If you have any questions about all this, feel free to drop me a line (rippingback at gmail dot com) or leave me a comment, and I’ll try and explain better.

Or, if you get the opportunity, take a class from Judith. It doesn’t matter what class; being in her very presence is apparently enough to level you up as a spinner.

Friday Gauge Check: Entering April

It’s time for our Friday rituals, the ceremonies of escorting one week out and preparing the next one. Which, around here, is the Gauge Check, where I take a look at my week and figure out where I’ve come from and where I’m going. Sometimes there are goals, sometimes I just talk about what’s going on in my life and my crafting. You are all welcome to join in in the comments.

You guys, I am so tired right now.  It’s been a long day – a good one, absolutely – but a long one.  If I had more energy, I’d tell you all about going to “Alpacapalooza” (I am not making that up) last Saturday, which featured a lot of alpacas but not nearly as much unattached fiber as I’d hoped.  I ended up picking up a singular skein of yarn and some fluff suitable for needle felting, and that was it.  It was kind of disappointing, but I reminded myself that I do have a bag of alpaca roving that I picked up at the Alpaca festival I went to in Arizona.  Alpacas are pretty cute, though, I must say.

We also saw The Hunger Games, which was absolutely fantastic – really everything I wanted the movie to be.  The only casting complaint I had was Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch, and only because I didn’t think he looked seedy enough – a couple of days’ growth of beard and an askew collar does not 24 years of alcoholism make – but his acting was enough to win me over.  I can’t say enough good things about everyone else, especially Cinna; he was perfect.  Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss had the perfect level of inexplicably likable hostility.  Effie made me want to punch her (which is appropriate), Prim was adorable, and I wanted to put Rue in my pocket and take her home.  I’d read the book, Jack hadn’t, and both of us really enjoyed the movie, which is exactly what you want from an adaptation.

Registration for Black Sheep Gathering opened on Saturday as well, and I managed to snag a spot in Judith MacKenzie‘s “Yarns Recycled” workshop.  There are still spots open in several worskhops (although not any of hers), so if you’re thinking about attending BSG this year, I’ll be there  (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESOEXCITEDOMG)!  If workshops aren’t in your budget, it looks like there will be lots of other things to see and do.

Crafting-wise, I spun more of the pink “cotton candy” roving.  It seems to be spinning more woolen than worsted, which is interesting – it’s not drafting very smoothly, but as Jack pointed out, cotton candy isn’t particularly smooth, so it really works for the concept I’m playing with.  I expect to finish working through it next week, since there really isn’t much left.  After that, it’s on to the blue.

The knitting for the Through the Woods hood is complete!  The finishing… is not.  I hope no one’s surprised; I’m certainly not.  Next week, though, I really do want to get it blocked and seamed (just in time for it to start warming up, of course).

I only did another couple of rounds on the Enya socks, but that’s because I was busy with the first two projects for the Year of Good Intentions.  “First two?” I hear you say. “I thought you were going to do one a month.”  Well, I was.  And I am!  The trouble is, after I put up my book list, I discovered one more book hiding in my yarn basket – Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn.  After some consulting with Jack, I determined that I would add one more project to the list, but this one would be for him.  You may remember that during the Rose City Yarn Crawl he found a skein of gorgeous green and black handpainted sock yarn in the colorway Deep Forest from Blissful Knits, so I cast on the Copper Penny Socks by Nancy Bush. Since I’m using green yarn, I’m calling them the Oxidation Socks.

I also swatched for the Gnarled Oak Cardigan, which looks like it’s going to be knit on US 4 needles.  Let me stress the importance of washing and blocking your swatch, folks, because my original swatch, on the US 6 needles the pattern called for, went from 20 stitches per 4 inches to 16 when it hit water.  The gauge on US 4 is still not perfect (my first inch was 6 stitches to the inch, the other three were somehow exactly 5, WHAT DOES IT MEAN)  but it’s close enough that I can math it a little and make it work.  The sweater’s supposed to have positive ease, and it is a cardigan so it will have to go over clothes, so it’s okay if it’s a little big, I think.  (Tell me these aren’t famous last words.)  Maybe I’ll make the sleeves first.

This week I’ve had – I suppose you could call it partial startitis?  I want to cast things on, but I’m not sure what!  Is this just me?  Have you had this problem?  Hopefully that will shake itself out this week, or if it doesn’t, maybe casting on the Gnarled Oak Cardigan will help.

Today, though, I took a class at Knit Purl from Takako Ueki of Habu Textiles on reading Japanese patterns, and let me tell you, it was like a revelation.  These patterns make so much sense!   It starts with a schematic, and you follow arrows, and it’s just amazing.  I hope to put together a post next week to talk about it in more detail, but I have to figure out how to describe the system without having a pattern to talk about – she walked us through the pattern for this, and it’s under copyright and not a free pattern, so it’s not like I could just tell people to download it.  (If I were a rich girl, though, I might order that kit in wine.  I’m kind of in love with the construction.)

That about covers the week – or at least, everything I can think of.  Check your gauge, or tell me about the wackiest festival you’ve ever been to (can it beat “Alpacapalooza?”) in the comments.

Bonus Knitting Lesson: Backward Loop Increase Explained

As I may have mentioned, I am working on a pair of the Simplicity Socks from Melissa Morgan-Oakes’ Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks. This is my first attempt to do a) toe-up socks b) on a circular needle c) two-at-a-time. I did the Beer Gloves and the Hermione Gloves using the Magic Loop technique, but I’ve only done socks on DPNs, and only cuff-down. The only problem I’m really having with any of these techniques is my tendency to pull the first stitch on each needle too tight in an attempt to avoid laddering (thereby tightening the stitch on the cable to the point it doesn’t want to go back on the needle), but it’s something that tends to improve as I get more of each object knit.

What I was actually struggling with – to the point I had to rip them back and re-cast on – is the backward loop increase.

Now, the backward loop increase is not the same as the “make 1” increase, despite the fact that they’re noted the same way (M1L/M1R). The backward loop increase seems to have been innovated, or at least explained, by the late great Elizabeth Zimmerman. I have yet to have the good fortune to read any of her books, but from what I’m given to understand, the woman stands to be nominated for knitting sainthood. Perhaps this is why no one has stopped to expound on or add pictures to her explanation of the backward loop increase. Perhaps this increase is blindingly obvious to everyone but me.

In the glossary for my sock book, Melissa Morgan-Oakes explains the (left-leaning) backward loop increase as follows:

For a left-leaning backward loop increase (M1L), make a backward loop onto the right needle so that the working yarn points toward you.

As far as I can tell, she’s pretty much quoting Elizabeth Zimmerman verbatim.

There’s also a handy picture. (If you haven’t seen the picture, just google “backward loop increase.” The same picture is used everywhere.)

I looked at the picture. I looked at the instructions. I looked at my yarn, and my needle, and the picture again. And I said, “How the hell do you do that, really?” Couldn’t figure it out. Now understand that I taught myself to knit almost entirely out of books. Occasionally I would dive into YouTube to find a video, but usually just looking at the diagrams was enough. I’m good with diagrams, particularly with diagrams accompanied by written instructions. But I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to make the yarn on my needle look like the yarn in the picture. In the diagram, the end of the working yarn is on the inside, between the already-knit stitches and the loop, and I could not figure out how to wrap the yarn around the needle so it did that – at least, not in a way that left the yarn in place to knit, rather than purl, the next stitch.

YouTube it was, then. It took two different videos for me to figure it out. (This one was the more useful one.)

When I figured out what I was missing, I felt… really dumb, actually. It was blindingly obvious, but there was no way that, reading the written instructions, I could have ever worked out how I was supposed to do it.

Okay, Elizabeth. I know you’re a brilliant woman, and an amazing knitter, and your writing shook the world. But I’m going to take a moment to elaborate on your incredible description of the backward loop increase, for those of us who need a little bit more help. I realize you’re all about thinking about knitting, rather than just blindingly reading a pattern, but this is not a pattern, honey. This is a technique. And knowing how to do a technique correctly is important.

Here’s the backward loop increase.

Make a loop on the right needle. If you’re making a left-leaning increase, bring the loop over the top and around, so the end of the yarn is pointed away from you. Now, slide the loop off the needle. If you’re an awesomely amazing knitter like the gal in the video, you can shove it up against your fingertip and hold it there; if you’re more like me, you can pinch the bottom of the loop to hold it into place. Now, either with your fingers holding the pinched loop, or with the tip of the needle if you’ve got the loop against your fingertip, turn the loop around and slide it back onto the right needle. (ETA: Fellow knitter Becca suggests wrapping the loop around your finger, rather than your needle. Another excellent suggestion.) Now, you should have a loop in place where the yarn is pointing toward you.

If you’re making a right-leaning backward loop, do the same thing, only backwards – bring the yarn under and over the top, so it’s pointing toward you before you turn it around, so the loop you end up with is pointing away.

I know, right? It’s so simple, once I figured out what (vitally important!) step I was missing. I don’t know if any of you will ever need to use the backward loop increase, but there it is, for the edification of future internets. Also, because I figured if I stopped knitting and made a post about how to do it, I’d remember it better, because explaining something always increases your understanding of it. Of course, if I do happen to forget, I have it written down right here.

Happy knitting, kids.