Jobo Designs

After spending much time trying to hone my spinning skills to be able to spin thinner and thinner singles… I thought I should shake things up and see if I could spin some chunky yarns too!  It has been said that after one has learner to spin fine that thick can be challenging, so I was expecting this to be an interesting spin, and likely a fast one – since fatter singles would use up a braid of roving much faster than drawing it out into an infinitely tiny thread!

I decided to make a mostly white braid, using a technique from the “Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook” where you apply drips and splotches of dye onto pre-soaked roving in a cold pour method.  I literally soaked my Merino Top until it was thoroughly wet (2 hours or so) and then spread it out on plastic wrap and then used a syringe to apply little droplets of purple and teal green over the wool and then steamed in the wrap in the microwave for a bit.  The result was a blend of purpley / bluey dotted roving, which as suspected yielded a pastel blend yarn.

Don’t you wish this was Scratch-N-SQUISH!!?

I tried to spin a consistant, fatter than usual, low twist single.  I used the attachments for my wheel that would give the lightest possible amount of twist, and specifically watched my technique to make sure I was not holding on too long to the forming yarn and making the twist too tight.  (for you spinners-in-waiting aka the not-yet-addicted remember that fat singles don’t need as much twist to hold themselves together as thin tiny ones)  The result is a very soft, very large and poofy skein of yarn that looks like it would be really heavy, but is actually a lot lighter than it looks.

You can tell in the close up, my spinning is a little bit uneven, but you can see the airyness and lightness of the finished yarn.  The blues and purples blend together and mix with the often whitish single and make a watercolor-style blend.  I spun the sections of color randomly, so the colors come and go at will.  The finished 2 ply yarn averages out at approximately 7-8 WPI (so fairly chunky) and from the 5 ounces I dyed, I yielded almost 300 yards!  So that’s actually enough yarn to make an actual project… hmmmm what to make.

Any ideas anyone? 

Happy Tuesday All!  I hope you are ready for another installment? I've been just *dyeing* to show you this? hardy har!

Ashford Dyes

Over the last year I have been experimenting with dyes and dyeing wool? So far I've tried natural dyes like Onion Skins, Blueberries, and some other Plant extracts.  Then I tried using Wilton's Icing Colors, which worked ok, but it really wasn't possible to mix colors or try working a color wheel because the dyes would separate and not take evenly.  Apparently cake frosting and wool are not at all similar? (go figure?)   My next attempt came with Landscape Dyes, which are easy to use because they require no acid to be added to the solution, but I have been less than impressed with the range of colors I have been able to achieve with them.  It seems that they are a "one-shade" dye.  I thought about trying to dye wools in a color wheel style exercise, but I am not convinced it will be worth my time, since the colors don't really seem all that saturated.

I want my next step to be with these:  Ashford Dyes

After doing some research about the different types of dyes out there, I think I have officially settled on this brand for several reasons?  First off, I like that there is a limited number of colors, and that they are readily mixable and titrateable.  Some other dye brands have wider ranges of colors available by the pot, but I really want to go back to basics here and start with a good Red, Yellow and Blue just like I had when I first learned to paint.  Secondly, Ashford dyes are pure and concentrated - hopefully I will be able to achieve nice saturated dark colors!  I prefer dark/rich color to pastels any day, and dream of Navy and Deep Plum and Burgundy.  Last of all, and perhaps one of the most important points, I know that other dyers use this product and achieve professional looking, light-fast, fade-resistant, Vibrant colors.

Another nice companion to the dyes is this book:

The Ashford Book of Dyeing, now available in a revised new edition, which gives explicit instructions and recipes to use the dyes properly, and outlines dyeing techniques and methods suitable for various dyeing mediums.  Since I am particularly interesting in mixing my own colors, I am very interested in the exercises and demonstrations in the book :)

Expect to see more dyeing experiments in the new year? if Santa doesn't come through, I might have to invest in some of these Myself!

Over the weekend, I finally had a chance to tidy up the rest of the Fiddlehead Mitten yarn.  I had finished the green singles last week, and had been letting them rest for a bit so that they would be easier to Navajo ply.  I had also completed a bobbin of creamy natural white, also needing to be plied.  I also needed to set the twist on the finished skeins.  Since there really wasn?t that much left to be done before the cast on, I just went for it and got started.  Funny how the promise of casting on a new project can get a knitter so excited?  I plied like there was no tomorrow?

It was a chilly but sunny day, so I did my washing of the finished skeins (I suppose washing is a misnomer, I mostly just rinsed in hot water with a few drops of Apple Scented Dawn, probably not enough soap to be considered a washing?)  With the light breeze, the skeins were dry in no time.  I think I really achieved the feel I wanted with the woolen-spun yarns.  The skeins were light and bouncy, and very soft.

I took them over to my Mother?s place on Saturday morning and she helped me wind the skeins into balls, and I was off to the races with the knit up :)

The idea of an ?i-cord cast on? was completely new to me.  I will admit, the last time I made an i-cord was probably when I was 10, using one of those little red tube contraptions with the 4 pegs and a little tool to flip the loops over? So really I had kind of forgotten that it was a knitting technique to begin with. Adrian?s instructions were nice and clear :)  Do not fear the i-cord cast on? give it a try!  I will certainly be trying to come up with new ways to use this cast on in the future ? it makes a nice neat cast on edge that doesn?t roll up or look sloppy.  I thin it will keep the bottom of the mittens from looking stretched out too after being worn for a while

I am finding the pattern very straightforward to follow, and clearly written so far.  I was afraid that knitting these would take me way to long and that they would get in the way of my necessary holiday knitting.  Not so, thankfully!  I knit the entire first mitten (minus thumb) on Saturday, and finished the cast on for mitten number two before I went to bed.  Sunday I knit the majority of the second mitten while watching movies with the Husbeast (who was also amazed at the speed of progress)

During the spinning progress, I had been concerned that perhaps the slight uneven-ness in my spinning might show up as uneven points in the knitting, but I am quite happy with my results.  Overall, the cream yarn and the colors meshed together quite nicely, and the gauge throughout the mitten seems fairly consistent.  (It?s a little hard to tell from the pic above, the way the photo was taken, things are a little skewed? some of my photos turned out a little too blurry to use unfortunately, I?ll have to be more careful with the finished mitts pics)  The dyeing job also worked out as planned ? a Rainbow of slightly heathered yarns in a progression of colors.

Hopefully this evening I can finish the top of Mitt #2 (before I forget exactly what I did with the first one) and maybe spend some time spinning up the rest of the lining (I think I have enough done for one lining, but not the second complete one. 

Yay! This project is turning out as planned :)