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the (342), and (234), for (113), socks (61), from (61), that (57), was (56), but (51), with (50), wool (49), com (47), fiber (46), handspun (39), this (39), can (38), fleece (37), you (36), one (31), not (31), 2009 (30), yarn (30), more (29), have (27), merino (26), knit (25), 2006 (24), #spinning (24), even (24), knitty (23), knitting (23), like (23), hat (22), really (21), etsy (20), out (20), will (20), sock (19), simple (19), 2007 (19), may (19), warp (19), fibers (18), verb (18), see (18), silk (17), them (17), they (17), were (17), just (17), been (16), end (16), all (15), warm (15), woven (15), about (15), weaving (15), know (15), used (15), also (15), mohair (15), superwash (14), pattern (14), colors (14), mittens (14), only (14), than (14), into (14), though (14), what (14), enough (14), had (14), when (14), use (14), baby (13), plain (13), fancy (13), sheep (13), scarf (13), love (13), 2008 (13), think (13), make (13), she (13), white (13), don (13), year (13), started (13), 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ed and finished november 2009 i fell in love the minute i saw this on kristi s blog look closely it s a 2 spiral that winds its way around the hand and arm i am a sucker for innovation and this is ossum knitting these i kept thinking that i want a spiral knit sweater now i m not a cool enough knitter to figure that one out but seriously i d make one i lengthened mine kristi s version is a more traditional armwarmer length and chose a shorter dye repeat with wonder boy original knit in wisdom yarns poems sock a long striping yarn like noro i chose to lengthen them because lately i ve been wearing my handknit kneehighs under my jeans in the mornings i drop my son off to school quite warm and almost like secret garters under denim in highschool i think these will serve under a jacket with a light shirt quite nicely with our cold mornings and warm afternoons i retained the original caston s for my size and only used a change in needle size to add width and extra spirals for length a us 3 for the above and upper forearm a us 2 for the middle arm and us 1 5 for wrist and hand i think if you wanted you could also decrease stitches while spiraling if you wanted to use the same needles throughout the nice thing about sock yarn though is that it is forgiving knit on a range of small needles when you re not worrying about abrasion and feet and shoes i want to knit another pair of gasteropoda from a long repeat handspun i can t help but think how awesome they ll be spun knit from a dyakcraft formerly grafton batt and what a great choice for small leftover bits of sock yarn but i do like these a lot it s like a maybe poisonous snake squeezing me aside from the spiraling construction which is effortless no finishing what really got me was the gusseted afterthought thumb i m not familiar enough with mitten construction to know if this is new or not but it s really cool i want to figure out how to use it for traditional afterthought mittens now yay for a nice shot of the colorway and sheen of the yarn too for my last mitt project i knew i wanted to use handspun specifically the baby llama from the verb ultra fiber club shipped in august there were three distinct colors so i sketched up a stranded design using 3 colors 2 colors per row tetris stylings the baby llama on its own didn t have enough body to stand up to mitts so i swapped in some lana cash dark grey for one of the colors i m glad i did when i saw this colorway it immediately reminded me of bohus knitting for some reason and i spun the llama drafting against twist for lots of halo paired with the matte commercial yarn the halo pops off like it does in bohus collars against the body yarn i love these they may actually get the most wear for being practical tho i m sitting here wearing the gasteropoda to type this they are super warm but very very light the pair weighs one ounce 30 grams the afterthought thumb i kept very short so i could grip things easily i can drive without taking them off unlike the fullon lovely end of may mittens i also loved using three colors i usually only use two and while i m not aching to start some true 20 color fairisle three was nice phew if you thought that was a lot of mitten action be sure to pop over to verb for keeping warm s ravelry group to see all of the entries and vote the threads are all stickied to the top til next week and as if that wasn t enough self promotion brand new stitch markers in my etsy shop hubei turquoise carnelian peridot lapis coral garnet in nugget shapes i guess i have been busy etsy your place to buy sell all things handmade zero etsy com still adrift tho til next time posted by aija at 9 49 am 88 comments labels a verb for keeping warm end of may hat end of may mittens gasteropoda armwarmers spinning supersonic mitts monday october 05 2009 lambtown 2009 another year another lambtown just like last year my experience this year was quite different from the last and also quite wonderful i went more to be able to take my son and gander at fiber animals and the fair atmosphere than to purchase fiber and mission accomplished still with the freedom bit tika was able to join up with us and this may have been the best part of my kid s day my son loves her can you tell well minus the bouncy house and train ride so number 3 pretty high for a 5 year old surrounded by animals and food they had a lot of kid friendly activities i never paid attention to before including the sheepdog trials and pony rides we missed both but don t tell the kid i think he s forgotten by now lambtown was also moved from july to october and it was so much nicer weatherwise than the past two years more coordinated overall as well very nice to see our local fiber expo growing lambtown had a large alpaca contingent this year with calpaca running concurrently which was fun to see including an alpaca fleece judging which i didn t watch i did get to watch the fleece judging of course this year s judge was martin dally i have to say he was the best judge i ve had the pleasure to watch so far it s not that the others were bad it s more that martin is almost a showman in offering information about judging and buying fleece i was also super impressed that he was the judge for the open and fiber sheep show also missed i took a few notes and am going to add them to the end of the post feel free to skip them but i don t want to forget so it seems like a good place to store them the judging this year was split into three divisions 1 colored handspinner s wool 2 handspinner s white wool and 3 market white wool the field was definitely smaller than monterey s and did not include breed classes it makes sense for monterey to have so many categories since they have so many to judge for sale and want to accommodate as many as possible then again the breed class judging is almost a disservice to handspinners reluctant to use that word because of the issues heather and i saw with it at the monterey judging in 2009 the fleeces in the breed classes aren t judged on external problems with the fleece second cuts vm as it isn t not a fault in the breed standard but a bugger for handspinners buying fleeces the question of handspinner s wool came up during the judging to the eye many handspinners and market wool fleeces can t be told apart for example the stunner i purchased cormo from cormo sheep and wool farm market wool fine 64s or finer 17 22 microns doesn t really scream market commercial wool eh more like a sheep that has never missed a meal and has a name unlike others with numbers and that forage for food a distinction between the traditional market wool and handspinner s wool category according to dally i spoke to a shepherd who said that if it were done correctly she d only enter one fleece in the whole show since she only raises fine combing coated handspinner s fleeces as it is though shepherds can choose to enter 2 fleeces into each class of each division and rams aren t allowed in the market wool category traditionally the market wool category was shaped around what commercial buyers of wool wanted big productive sound fleeces not necessarily the showstoppers in the handspinner s class we heard from another observer of the judging that fifty years ago shepherds used to select for heavy lanolin producing sheep to get the weight and placing up in the market wool category this was the first time i saw an honest application of the category even though my market wool was silky and bright white at only 5 it couldn t compare to the first place finisher at 8 that was less white and had a slightly shorter staple it has always felt a little sketchy to me seeing true handspinner s fleeces entered into the market wool category even though the buyers at lambtown and monterey aren t industry but individual handspinners it was good to see dally making the distinction and the winners of each division made sense from that standpoint you can see the differences here l to r colored handspinner s fleece handspinner s white fleece and market wool white champion in front res ch in back for each the handspinner s category were showy but not necessarily large and definitely well skirted the market wool winners were definitely larger and were discounted less heavily in judging for less dramatic skirting though the winners were both well skirted and the colored wool was just gorgeous as always after the judging tika the kid and i went to see the sheep shearing competition admittedly we cringed watching blood be drawn several times it would be interesting to see shearers work on handspinner s fleeces the shearing competition only judged on speed not keeping them intact i know sue reuser has invited people to come to the shearing at her farm at the beginning of the new year it ll be an interesting trip also interesting angora bunny shearing much sweeter and with no complaints like the sheep if only i were so easy til then notes from lambtown fleece judging martin dally wool over 30 microns will feel prickly to the skin because at that diameter the individual fibers don t bend pick up a bag of fleece and drop it on the table a thump means a less productive fleece that has a lot of dirt and vm the dirt will add weight to the bag and make it fall louder and harder denser fleece will hold dirt and vm at the tip less dense wool will show dirt and vm further down the staple less dense uncoated wool will be less productive as it will let in and hold more dirt vm throughout the staples touch two different fleeces with two hands if you can feel a softness difference between the two that means there is at least a 3 micron difference between the two yellowish looking white fleece can sometimes be attributed to carotene in corn feed and soybeans the yellow color comes out in the lanolin which coats the wool and can be washed out not the only source of yellow but a washable non staining one the japanese love the look of crimp in wool hahahaha it s genetic australians less so the japanese are also the buyers of the very finest wool produced they use it in undergarments fine wool fleeces that have a shine to them aren t lustrous used exclusively for longwools but are said to be silky a problem in uncoated fleeces is that the lanolin cannot travel to the very tips of the locks coated in dirt vm and those tips will be less soft than the rest of the staple because it lacks the lanolin protection from the elements resulting in uneven hand or broken tips in worst cases a ram will produce a 10 heavier fleece than a wether as testosterone affects wool production and rams are generally larger bodied than castrated males and more but my handwriting s terrible next year eta 10 6 found more notes color banding within a staple color changes that are easily delineated straight across a lock of wool is generally a mineral issue namely copper either the sheep was gestating or lactating and the amount of copper intake changes due to stresses of motherhood on the wool or the copper supplements in the feed changed does not always indicate unsound wool the term for uneven fleece growth in general is cauliflowering and should be selected against when breeding the term quilting is used for jacob sheep as the black and white sections of wool may grow at different rates and different micron counts a crossfibering is the term when a individual fibers cross when growing in locks more of an aesthetic issue but non crossed locks will show better and place better in larger competitions 7 pounds of pressure is what is needed when pinging a lock of wool to determine soundness if it can withstand 7 pounds of pressure then it is strong enough to withstand milling processes and spinning pinging any lock of wool too hard will rip it even though it may be sound posted by aija at 1 51 pm 17 comments labels lambtown raw fleece thursday september 17 2009 yvonne shawl from cocoknits it feels like no time has passed at all even though it had been too long same breath but it feels like ages but really nothing s changed now it s only the distance without a foil my son started school and it s been a blur i didn t even realize i hadn t written until taking these pictures today yvonne shawl by cocoknits handspun 3 ply from scoured combed corriedale lamb tour de fleece spinning started finished after the tdf srsly it s a blur us 6 40 addi natura i wouldn t have even taken pics today except for the fact i need to weave in one end and send this and the remainder of the skein to schacht i was thrilled to learn yesterday that my 2 handspun skeins as well as the tablet woven band made on my flip were chosen as finalists for the 40th anniversary contest schacht spindle held the actual entries are due in co next week and as distorted as i ve been i need to get them out the door before i forget i say one end to weave in because the whole shawl took under 2 skeins two giant skeins this is the big one i entered 5 5oz 925 yds that s my hand that came out of one bobbin blushing the skeins really did get this wonderful texture after i really aggressively fulled and shocked them hot water cold water hot water cold water agitateagitate moremoredontstop smack against the walls too fun and knit up into a beautiful felted tweed type cohesive fabric looking closely you can see the hopeful shots of grey in the brown in the occasional one of three plies the welt pattern gives this simple shawl a really interesting depth as well it really is a simple shawl but so lovely i know i should have modelled pics but i really do like it on me even if i hate looking at myself i m ox wide across but the exact same shawl looked just as great on adrienne when she tried it on at the workshop on both of us there remained movement when worn a hint of ruffle or grace at the edge echoing the staggered increases a ridiculously simple and effective pattern i keep thinking that this would be a great beginner project so much better than a scarf just knit and purl with lots of practice the first rounds would be closer to the body and hidden the cast off edge is the display side and after so many stitches any new knitter would have to have improved not to say more experienced knitters wouldn t enjoy it it replaced my walkaround socks mindless knitting project for those times when my hands just couldn t be still and needed something to touch the real joy was the yarn though working with my handspun and in so visible a project i can see how consistent my spinning was with every bit pf progress and it thrills me because that s just what i was trying for a definite lesson learned that i am applying to my current fleece to sweater project i ve finally picked it up again my gorgeous painfully true black sweater from trueblack fleece marble peaks ranch breeds for true black corriedale and corrie x rambouillet sheep they show and win ribbons for both sheep and fleece an anomaly among shepherds and i just love the black fleece i won at last year s auction the same one i used in the english combs com...
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