What I've Learned

So far, as mentioned in previous posts, I've read Spin Control (speedily) and just over half of The Intentional Spinner. I promised a bit of an update about what I've learned so far and I think that's overdue at this point....
The Intentional Spinner has a very detailed explanation of each of the popular methods of spinning including worsted/short draw, woolen/long draw, semi-worsted, and semi-woolen.  From Judith's (the author) descriptions, I've determined that I'm a very confused spinner. I tend to jump from one method to another at random as I spin. I think I stick to worsted most often, but Judith's explanations also include fiber requirements for a yarn to be true worsted or true woolen. I don't know enough about the fiber I've used so far to know what I was doing there. Hence the confused spinner.
I think since my past results have fallen closest to worsted, I would like to figure out how to do woolen, but I'm unsure if any of the fiber I currently have would do well spun woolen (assuming I can figure out how to spin woolen consistently).

I was hoping to go to my local Holiday Fiber Festival to pick up some more roving to start practicing spinning and possibly spin some gift yarn for my knitting buddies, but alas, apparently they don't sell roving or top at the Holiday Fiber Festival - only finished items made out of it. Disappointing. I did pick up way more yarn than I can technically afford right now, so I've got a lot of knitting to do and not much spinning.

So what did I really learn? I re-learned what I already know: That I can't stick to one thing without getting distracted to save my life. But this time, I'm blaming it on the lack of spinning fiber. Since I don't exactly have much to spin, I don't want to waste what I have, so I'm allowing myself to focus on knitting for awhile instead of spinning. Which means that I've been posting on my other blog instead of this one about knitting since this blog is intended mainly for spinning. *looks at posted content* ... I said mainly, I'm not perfect.

And just to spin off topic a bit more... Along the writing vein of my last post I also learned something from my friend, Magz: Apparently keyboards were originally in alphabetical order, but were changed to the seemingly random order that they are in today when typist became too proficient and actually typed faster than the machines of the day could handle. It was someone's bright idea that mixing the letters up would result in people typing slower. Obviously, that only worked for so long before people once again got used to the order that the letters were in and began typing just as fast. That did get me thinking about just how someone chose the order that we're so familiar with today on all keyboards... makes me wonder if it really is completely random. If anyone reads this and knows or has an interesting guess as to how someone came up with the order of our keyboards, please share!

Reading and Writing

So, I've been working on reading through The Intentional Spinner: a holistic approach to spinning yarn, which is a very slow read. I've so far made it about halfway through the book and I just reached the first bit of explanation about actual spinning. The first half is about fiber - its characteristics and origin. Interesting and potentially useful in the future, but still not something that draws me in and makes me read faster in anticipation... Though I did laugh out loud when I found out that there is actually illegal fiber in the US. That's right - there is fiber that is actually illegal to own. At first glance that's completely ridiculous and hilarious (makes you wonder what kind of people run the fiber black market).  But then, it goes on to explain that it's illegal because people kill the endangered animals in order to get the fiber. Not so funny.  In fact, the very opposite of funny.
Also very stupid.  I never have understood poachers and the like and their lack of logic. "This animal has something of value on it. Let's kill them all and take that something of value right now regardless of the fact that the valuable something will no longer be available after that." Does it not at least make more sense to start breeding this valuable animal and increasing their numbers by a higher amount than you kill so that you always have a supply of this valuable thing?  (or just not kill them at all and find something else valuable...)
Regardless, I am learning quite a bit about fiber from the first book. However, my deadline is fast approaching - in other words: the books are due back at the library. I managed to renew The Intentional Spinner (Yippee.) but someone else has Spin Control on hold, so I have to return that today. :-(  So, last night, I decided that I would quickly thumb through Spin Control to try to get an idea of how useful it might be... The dang book sucked me right in! I finished reading it almost completely in just about an hour. Of course, most of that was speed reading and skipping small sections after ascertaining what they were about, but the point is: That book does draw me in and it is an easy read - and it's going to be damn useful while I learn to spin.
I already learned from it that my spinning wheel is an Irish tension single-drive wheel - which I had no clue about before. Also, I've decided that I'm going to get some scrap fiber (is there such a thing?) and test my wheel's tension settings and pull in ratios - which I also had no clue about before... well, technically I did know there was this thing called tension and it affected something and you changed it by twisting the little knob by the orifice with quarter turns... but I didn't really understand why or how and I definitely didn't listen to the silly "quarter turns only" advice. *recalls twisting the little knob 15 or so times or just popping the strap off completely*
My new objective is to get to know my wheel by testing it through all of its tension and ratio settings. I'm still not sure what I'll do about the scrap fiber... If I can figure that out I might be able to get started this weekend.
In other news: My brother is doing NaNoWriMo which to me is very exciting! I've been hoping he'd stop being lazy and procrastinating and get a story out already. He's a great writer, but (similar to me) has a hard time finishing anything longer than a short story.  I'm hoping he sticks with it and has at least a 50,000 word start to a longer novel to show for it by December. Also, I'm really hoping that he asks me to help him edit it come December... I like editing good writing and also that means I get a sneak peek at what he could be trying to get published!
My brother's goal to complete NaNoWriMo got me thinking... and I have been considering writing something to be published (and hopefully make a decent amount of royalties...  I only laughed at myself a little there...). So, for about a nano-second, I thought "I could do NaNoWriMo!" then I hit myself on the head and said "Don't even try!!!!!" I think trying to master my spinning wheel while working a full time job while getting distracted by knitting and still having a bit of a life on the side is bad enough. However, I'm still tossing the idea around in my head about doing my own version of NaNoWriMo... or more like NaRaStWriMo which translates to National Random Stuff Writing Month (so constructive, I know) which would allow me to just work on the 5 or 6 story ideas I have already going (some of which are fan fiction) and count blog posts as word count as well... That I might actually have a chance at completing. It's not some fantastic accomplishment and I could never even make any money in the future with about 80 percent of it, but it would be a start, right? And I might get something written in one of the original story ideas that I've had floating around forever...
I don't know and this isn't meant to be some sort of declaration of "I'm going to write 50,000 words in one month if it kills me!" because I've discovered that declarations like that just kill my self-esteem before I even try to meet my insane goal. Perhaps I'll just stick to my current goal-ish objectives and "Hey that sounds like it could be fun" ideas for now and leave the crazy grandstanding goals to people who actually thought about it before Nov. 1st... or 2nd at this point (though I did write around 4000 words yesterday by chance before I even was reminded of NaNoWriMo). No! I keep trying to convince myself that I have a chance...

WIP Wed- Er, FO Frid- Wait... What is today?

I've been trying to post this for weeks now. I missed the last two Wednesday's postings even though I did have things to show off.  Then I thought I'd do a FO Friday, but I missed that too... a couple times... So, I bring you my second WIP and FO update... this time on a ... What day is it?

Only a couple days after my last post I finished up the purple and green scarf made out of the yarn I spun. I finished it just in time to wear to the AppleUmpkin... though I didn't see the booth that I purchased the wool from last year, so I was unable to show it off to the people who raised the sheep and prepared and dyed their wool. :-(  Also, it rained at the AppleUmpkin so we had to cut it a bit short, but the scarf did it's job and kept my neck perfectly warm and dry! I'm pretty sure there's still some lanolin left in at least the green fiber.

As you can see, after getting it wet and letting it dry while still tied up, I now need to block it all over again. It's quite wrinkly...

I really do love the colors and texture of this scarf.

Speaking of the green fiber - what was left has mysteriously gone missing... I've looked everywhere and either Seth hid it from me hoping I wouldn't pull the spinning wheel back out into the living room (that didn't work) or my craft room has consumed it. Most likely, it's the latter and that pretty green fiber will only be found when I clean my craft room.  ... Cleaning the craft room is on my list but so is decorating for our Halloween party this weekend, perfecting my spinning, and cleaning out and organizing my bedroom closet. Somehow I feel like those other items either take priority due to imminent demand or will take a very long time to complete... I'll eventually find the green fiber, I hope.

I've got one more half FO to show off.  I've completed one of the fingerless gloves from last post as well. Even though I'm still working on its mate, I'm still counting it as an FO (or a half FO). Afterall, I did all finishing work for it already! That's got to be a new record for me!

It looks better on than it does just sitting there. It fits perfectly!

I do wish the stitches were a bit more even in places, but overall I'm very pleased with the finished product.  I'll have to work on this slipped stitch colorwork method a bit more to determine what exactly I was doing wrong and how to fix it. In the meantime, I'll wear these and no one but me (and possibly other knitters) will even notice anything wrong with them. I've already gotten multiple compliments on the finished one!

Also, I love the new cast on and bind off methods I learned in this pattern and the new way to work the finger holes makes me very happy.  It's so much easier this way and they even look cool.

Another notably cool feature is the colorwork on the thumb gusset.

On to WIPs:
I pulled out the fiber that came with my spinning wheel. I still don't know what fiber it is, though reading The Intentional Spinner has given me a few ideas. This fiber is so soft, it's amazing! I read a post on the Knitty blog which makes me think that I may just need to strip, predraft, and/or fluff it to get a better result. It has been shoved in a plastic bag for who knows how long as that was how it was when I got it.

I decided to see how fine I could consistently spin it and this was my result after plying. Not bad, though I was hoping for a bit more consistency again.

This was sort of just a test run for the fiber, so I didn't spin all of it. Here's how much I spun. I still need to get the supplies to be able to easily measure yardage and weight. They're on my Christmas list this year.

I've also decided that I need to make a trip to my local Holiday Fiber Fair when it comes along, since I really don't have much left to spin. I used up most of it already... :-( Luckily, the fiber fair is Nov 10th so I don't have too long to wait.

Another WIP is one that I actually started without the intent to ever finish. Though it does look pretty neat, and I'm considering making it into a quick scarf. (I seem to have a scarf obsession at the moment... I never had this problem before...) I don't have a picture right now, but I'll post one later if I decide to finish it.
It was a sample I used to show my new sister-in-law what happens if she drops a stitch while knitting her scarf. That's right! I've converted another one! Hannah is now learning to knit and is working on a striped scarf. I'll try to convince her to let me post a picture of her FO once she's done too since it looks so good.  Seriously, you won't even believe it's her first ever knitted project; it's that good.

And since this chunky yarn was out (what Hannah and I used). It called to me and told me to quickly make a very basic wrist warmer when Magz was over last. (I owe her like 20 or more wrist warmers since I've told her at least every Christmas and Birthday that I'd make her a pair) I knit up a very quick and very basic wrist warmer and tied in the ends all in about 15-20 minutes. I only made one though and I already gave it to her that night, so I don't have pictures... *some random person shouts "Pictures or it didn't happen" and I hang my head in shame at forgetting to get a picture of my awesomely quick work*

I also picked up the needles of an old infinity scarf I started as a mindless knit and I've made some progress on it. I'm thinking I'll bind off soon (using the new stretchy bind off I fell in love with) and use the rest of the huge ball of yarn to make some arm warmers/mitten/gloves and a hat possibly.

The yarn I'm using for this project is just something acrylic that I picked up from a chain store, but it caught my eye something fierce and it's really soft too, so I'll excuse it for not being woolen or handspun or dyed just this once.

Also, in order to free up the needles I used for the dropped stitch sample I mentioned above, I finished this scarf. It was some crazy raggedy fabric-like yarn that caught my eye years ago and became a half finished scarf for my Renaissance outfit.

It's incredibly long since I just used up the entire ball of yarn and fairly thin as well.

Last but not least, on my needles is the second half of my FO fingerless gloves above. I'm not far into this one yet, but it's going quite smoothly considering I've already knit one. Also, it's still interesting since I'm still trying to work out how to make my stitches more even. This is a good thing since that means that I may actually finish the second one!

Also, Magz took home her WIP first hat ever and I was hoping to see some results from that, but expected questions first. I wasn't overly surprised when the next time she came over she said hadn't gotten past the casting on. After all, she's only made a couple scarves so far. So, she is now working on her first ever swatch so I can teach her about gauge as she knits her hat.  I'm pretty happy that she's actually listening to me about gauge. Sra never did. :-P

Whew, finally got all of that out. I'm sure I forgot something, but it'll just have to find it's way on to my next update. Also, the promised update about what I learned from my spinning books should be coming soon. It's taking me longer than expected to read them. I kept getting distracted by actually knitting and spinning and then planning for my Halloween party took up too much of my time. ...I know, excuses, excuses! So, update on Objective A very soon! I swear!

WIP Wednesday

I always have way too many WIPs going at any one time. In my experience WIP simply stands for "Work In Progress" but for me that definition includes waaaaay too many projects, so for the purposes of my sanity, I use WIP to refer to projects I've worked on recently. Usually the last 4 or 5 projects or what I've worked on in the last week or so. Below are pictures of some of my WIPs:

I picked up some pretty purple fiber at Appleumpkin (local fall festival) last year and I've been hesitant to use it even though I got a huge ball of it.

I finally got over my nerves and started spinning it. I'm really glad I did! It spins really well.  I think I did a pretty good job of keeping it even and I thought I was keeping it pretty thin until I plied it...

I plied it with some green fiber that I also picked up from the same booth at last year's Appleumpkin.  The green fiber was a bit more challenging to work with since it had some black and white sections (very small sections).  I like the random additions though.  Plying two "thin" singles together ends up in a bit heavier yarn than I expected, but I still love it.

Here's a close up of it.

 I had to immediately start knitting with it. Here is my partially finished scarf in seed stitch.

This close up of my knitting shows that my spinning still needs some work. I'm fairly sure that I spun the singles in the wrong direction to begin with then plied it in the wrong direction (to be used for knitting).  As I knit, the yarn was unwinding. I've started re-spinning it on my thigh as I go before knitting it... It still does the job though and it's still gorgeous!

This is a quick mindless stockinette in-the-round scarf in crochet thread that I started because I need some more scarves (I freeze at work) and because I needed something mindless to knit while reading. The seed stitch scarf above is technically mindless knitting as well, but because it's knit flat I have the tendency to pause at the end of a row without realizing it while I'm reading. When my project is just in the round, I just keep knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...

Another picture of the yarn from my previous post "Waiting..." Here it is off of the bobbin. Again, I know it needs some work, but it looks like it'll make a really comfy blanket (a small one though as I don't have much yardage) or something. I'd say scarf but... *looks at above WIPs* Something tells me I have enough scarves in the works right now... Plus my coworkers tease me more when I wear the big cushy ones all day.

Here is the left-over single after I plied the rest. My bobbins were uneven.  I soaked it in warm water then hung it to dry as I found out that some people do that to set the twist in a single.  I haven't played with it much yet, so I don't know if it worked or not. Unfortunately, I'm finding that I don't like this yarn spun up as much as I liked it before it was spun up... Not really sure why. Usually I like the yarn as much as the fiber, if not more... Not sure what I did wrong with this one.

And here is my most recent addition to my WIPs. It caught my eye... somewhere... someone else's blog perhaps? Anyway, it's Knitty pattern Phalangees and so far I'm loving it. It's actually a lot simpler than I originally pegged it for. You only use one color at a time and you switch colors every two rows. So far I learned a new cast on - Twisted German Cast On - which I love. It may just become my new favorite cast on!  And I'm looking forward to learning the lazy way to make fingers.

Here's that project again. And behind it is actually my last project. The books I requested at the library came in! I'm now working on reading The Intentional Spinner: A Holistic Approach to Making Yarn and then I'll move on to Spin Control.  The third book hasn't come in yet.
Coming soon: An update about what I've learned from my books!

Waiting...

My conviction to not continue spinning until I knew what I was doing only lasted as long as it took for Seth to cave and help me get my spinning wheel out of the disaster that is my craft room. I'd post pictures of my craft room, but it'd only scare you.  Organizing that mess is definitely on my to-do list.  But first on my to-do list is showing my latest attempt at spinning.  First, I'd like to say that the unevenness is (mostly) intentional.  I was trying to create one of those fluffy yarns that go from really big and chunky to really thin randomly throughout.  Whether there's actually supposed to be a method to the madness, I have no idea, but in the end, I think I got what I was aiming for... I think.
Below is a bit that I had already on the bobbin that I'd gotten annoyed at and sorta went completely crazy on.  It's extremely uneven.  Even the plying is uneven. By the way, this is two ply since that's the only thing I know how to do at this point...

And again, below is what I plied tonight.  It's slightly more even, though I was still going for the uneven look, so it's not that even either. I obviously still have to take it off the bobbin and wash it (not sure how to do that correctly yet) but I'm itching to make a nice fluffy scarf out of it. It's starting to get chilly here lately and I need more scarves to keep me warm!

I apologize for the photo quality. I'm taking these pictures on my phone camera. It's the only camera I have.  I can tell you right now that the color isn't right in these photos. The yarn looks very grey in the pictures but it's actually an off-white and the colors going through it are a bit brighter in person as well. Perhaps along this journey I'll learn a bit about photography as well as spinning...

Objective A

Objective A is to educate myself, so I know what I need to do when I run into a new problem. I stopped at my local library after work today to do some research and pick up a few beginning spinning books - best to start with the basics. Unfortunately, my mini-mission was not successful. My local branch has no spinning books... :-(  Not to be deterred, I ordered a couple to be sent over from other branches and they should be here for me to pick up in the next few days.
Unfortunately, it was my intention to avoid actually doing any more spinning until after I'd already thoroughly educated myself in at least the basics.  I may be able to do the basic act of spinning, but I've tried to read blog written by more advanced spinners and I find myself completely lost in the lingo.  Bumps, Nestlets, BFL, and mentions of separating colors and spinning as a long gradient (you can do that?!) had me feeling way over my head in no time. I feel like I'm wasting precious fiber by spinning it before I know what I'm doing, but without my educational books here, I'm not sure if I can hold off... or even if I want to try to hold off, really...
Anyway, the books I'm waiting for are:
Carding, spinning, dyeing: an introduction to the traditional wool and flax crafts by Elisabeth Hoppe
The intentional spinner: a holistic approach to making yarn by Judith MacKenzie McCuin

Both of these books were mostly picked at random from the library's catalog, so I'm not sure if they're any good. If anyone reading this has any suggestions for a good spinning book, please leave a comment with the book title and author if possible.
I also just added "Spin control: techniques for spinning the yarn you want" by Amy King to my request list simply because I liked the title... I should stop there. I think 3 books at a time is going to be more than enough.

Beginner's Luck

All through my childhood and continuing into adulthood, I've always had a unique ability to be good at almost everything I try - at first. Many people call this ability beginner's luck and most who have heard of it either think it's just a joke and doesn't really exist or think of it as a blessing - something good.  And although in the past, I've enjoyed being able to pick up a new skill with ease, I've finally begun to see this beginner's luck as the curse that it is.  I've seen countless hobbies and interests come and go as I try out something new and breeze through whatever it is only to come to a grinding halt after it's no longer a "new" skill.

Call it superstition or say it's all in my head, but the fact remains that by experiencing so much beginner's luck only to run into hurdles too big to handle after such initial success at such a young age has led me to have some very bad habits that have followed me into adulthood.

In short: I find myself slipping into the role of a quitter.

I saw it through my dancing "career" in elementary school as I won a first place award almost every time I entered a new category in dance or baton... then suddenly found myself unable to do even the simplest of routines without messing up. Then again I saw it in sports - particularly track & field - when I started the season enthusiastic and breaking records in shot put and at least able to finish races (I've never been any good at running) only to have a breakdown partway through the season when I collapse before I can finish a race and start throwing the shot put the wrong way with no understandable reason why. I even saw it some in high school and college classes when I would understand a concept way before anyone else and get close to perfect grades on the first few tests. But then halfway through the semester, the teacher would say something like "By the way, remember that difficult concept from the beginning of the semester? Well, it actually goes like this instead. We just taught you that way to help ease you into it... oh, and to confuse Samantha." ...Okay, so the last bit was probably never said, but the fact remains that everyone else in the class would respond with an understanding nod as the teacher completely changed everything he'd just taught us. Meanwhile, I'm pulling out my hair and flipping through the textbook trying to understand why everything I thought was true is suddenly false.

When I started to notice it encroaching on my hobbies, I drew the line.  Well, not at first... I went through a whole strew of failed hobbies, one of which included drawing lines.  I remember drawing/painting something really neat never to be able to duplicate it again. I stopped drawing quite quickly after I noticed that all of my drawings seemed to be getting worse instead of better.  That's really the hardest thing about having beginner's luck. My whole life has been in reverse of everyone around me. When learning something new I start out good while everyone else gets a slow start. I impress everyone right off the bat. Then as everyone - including me - practices more, we start converging. Everyone else is catching up to me. Now they're as good as me. The problem is... I'm noticing that as they get better, I'm getting worse and before long I'm the one that looks like I don't know what I'm doing and they're well on their way to looking like a professional.

When I really think about what's happening, I can see what my initial successes have done to my mindset. I've adopted some idea that I shouldn't have to work at anything, that if I have to work at it, then it's not meant to be. That's not a conscious thought on my part; I think it's completely ridiculous. I know that anyone has to work hard at something to be good at it. I just make excuses and pretend - even fooling myself - that I did try hard and it was something else that caused me to fail or give up.

All of that being said, the important thing is that I've taken notice of this horrible habit of mine and I plan to stop it.  It almost made me stop something that I was really enjoying: Spinning.

I was told that I was a natural when I first started spinning on a wheel. I had no problems at first and after that first time of spinning with no problems, I was almost afraid to try again because I had already decided that I was just going to get worse and worse.  I did get over it and spin a bit more, but I have been having some problems as of late. They're mostly minor issues, really. But I'm still worried that I'll abandon spinning before ever really giving it a chance.

So, that is why I've started this blog. It's going to help me accomplish my mission of becoming an expert hand spinner. Hence, Mission: Spinning.