Six months of crafting update

[unicornduke]

Time has passed but I'm now getting back into the swing of things

Vague goals for crafting from the last time

• spin yarn - I have been spinning, both on my supported spindle and on my little electric wheel that lives on the top of a small shelf next to my desk. This setup works decently, the spindle I take with me and spin on register and I've filled it just about, so I need to wind it off. I've completed a pound of merino spun as a fine 2ply and started an 8oz spin. I desperately miss my CPW but it's just too big to have in the house currently.
• knit sweater - I have worked on this, I'm most of the way done with the sleeves, I need to try it on and see how much farther I have to knit.
• get loom up and running- I did this! It took me forever. I chose a simply herringbone to get it back in tune and then worked on everything an hour at a time a few times a week. The weaving is now going quickly which is nice
• sewing project - I'm making progress, now to the actual sewing stages. I was stymied for several weeks by my mom's iron leaking water everywhere and I really needed to iron the pieces I was working on, but new iron has been acquired. I've been piecing the fronts together and dealing with how fiddly the fabric is. I should have fulled it more but oh well
• fleece processing - I have made a significant dent in the fleece, I'm almost done, just need to dedicate some time to it
• other - I fixed my skein reel, which fell off the truck tailgate during the move and broke in half. It's not a beautiful fix but the reel is now usable so I was able to skein a bunch of yarn and measure it. I also soldering the connectors on my electric wheel's pedal that had broken apart, easy fix. I canceled my subscription to Ply magazine, despite my joy of spinning, I didn't find it super useful. It was a lot of writing that boiled down to: yes you can do this thing and here is exactly how you do it. which. I just do the thing and don't worry about it. I think people need a lot of permissions with spinning to really get out of their comfort zone and most of the stuff is pretty intuitive (for me). Instead I subscribed to Weft, which I'm enjoying a lot more since handweaving has a lot more technical details and tips/tricks to make it faster and easier. Plus ideas!

Merino spin!
1 pound of purple merino, it had little streaks of other colors in it which was nice. I picked this up at the weavers guild bucket sale, it was originally from Ashland Bay. I spun it as a 2ply and it was very fine. 2494 yards. I haven't washed it yet but hopefully soon. The colors are very difficult to get an accurate photo





I skeined up these yarns, 1109 yards of superwash BFL, 8oz, 2ply, that's the multicolored pinkish brown (not my colors, will go in the sale bin but nice to spin) and 433 yards of 2ply Romney/Wensleydale from Foster Sheep Farm, naturally dyed with marigolds (by her, not me). Plus the purple



The cotton is going decently. It will take me an age to get through all of it but it's happening. I've filled in the spindle a lot since this photo, mostly just turning the temporary cop at the top into a permanent one and winding on a lot. I will empty it soon.



Weaving! It took me relative ages to get everything set up but there was a lot to do. I had to clean the stuff that had been stored in the loom, reassemble it, then turn it around. I beamed on the warp before I turned the loom around which worked really well, I'll need to push it far away from the wall to beam on the next warp. I've got a lot of green warp and blue and gold weft. I only warped up 7 yards because I didn't want to do a super long warp, I've got enough for another 5 yards, so my plan is to try something new when I get to the end of the warp and tie on the next warp before beaming on again. It'll be the same pattern and everything. I chose a vertical herringbone, which was irritating to thread in the heddles because the pattern repeat wasn't intuitive (4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1 3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2. so annoying to remember!) but it makes for very easy weaving since I can just walk the treadles and don't need to change directions of walking at all. I'm still missing things from my loom somehow, I can't find some S hooks, so I improvised. I made a ton of adjustments to the ties holding everything up. But now I'm weaving and it's great. The colors aren't super accurate, the shed is terrible for good color photos.


Goals for the next month or two:

• finish knitting the sweater because then I can wear it. I really want to wear it
• spin!
• weave!
• sew!
• pull out, clean and finish the great wheel while the weather is nice
• process fleece

Comments

[graydon]

That purple merino is amazing!

Sometimes it helps to stick a "white card" or "grey card" in the field of view; a version with colours in it especially. Not all phone cameras will notice but it will make post-processing consistent even if the camera doesn't notice. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Light-White-Balancing-Accessories/ci/12260/N/4077634549

(This may be much more complicated than you're interested in dealing with.)

That's a lot to get done over six months in which you moved and undertook farm management.

[unicornduke]

I've thought about doing the cards but it's too much effort mostly. I just end up taking everything outside once it's all finished for The Good Photos. Got some good stuff done! And still making progress on things now which is nice.