sweetgeorgia

Spinning New Fibres

What is it about new fibres that is intimidating? I bought little bags of ingeo, firestar, bamboo and soy silk last year on Salt Spring Island — did I spin it? Nope, not really. I dyed up a bunch of soy silk and started spinning it, but didn’t really like the feel… until…

Last Wednesday, through the Greater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners Guild, I attended the “Spinning New Fibres” workshop led by Kim McKenna (who designed the Salt Spring Island colourways for Treenway Silks). From 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, we spun everything from Viscose Rayon, Tencel and Bamboo to Ingeo, Soy Silk and Silk Latte. Most of the day was spent spinning samples of white/cream coloured fibres, making blends with merino and comparing samples. By the end of the day, we started playing with the coloured fibres in our goody bags and were mixing different coloured merino wools with various kinds of Firestar, Flash and Angelina. My blends were all made with my little Forsyth mini-combs and spun, worsted, directly from the comb.

Each of these “new” fibres has some interesting or beneficial feature. Although 100% handspun “Blending Nylon” or 100% “Fake Cashmere” might not be appealing, blending a bit of it with wool makes the final yarn stronger. Soy Silk on it’s own isn’t really fun to spin, but blending it up with wool makes it easier to spin and produces a loftier yarn. Even adding a bit of Viscose to a blend gives the yarn a slight glittery, shimmery look.

One interesting point though — for the same weight of fibre, natural silk is still less expensive than Silk Latte, Ingeo and Bamboo.

And speaking of new fibres, my Gotland fleece arrived already! I washed a little lock of it last night with some Dawn and hot water and it’s super clean and shiny. The fleece isn’t really smelly at all — I checked several times! Yum.

Edited to add: I was so excited about uploading these photos that I forgot to mention my favourite blends! One of my favourites was Ingeo — it seemed to give loft and structure. Good for blending with wimpy fibres (like adding crispness to alpaca). I liked the merino/Silk Latte blend — smooth, drapey, shiny — but expensive compared to real silk. And my absolute favourite — the deep chocolate coloured merino plus auburn alpaca plus copper flash. Yummy like dessert!

Happy thoughts.

Today is a day in desperate need of happy thoughts. So, I bring you some happy colours for a yucky Friday…

And of course, I couldn’t get enough of Jo’s fabulous sheep illustration, so I had to make it permanent somehow. So, here are the pottery pieces I painted about two weeks ago with the sheep:

That’s it. Hope your Friday is going better than mine!

Getting raw.

Treenway Silk has their 2006 fleeces listed now and I just bought one. This will be my very first raw fleece — it’s 2.3 kg Gotland ewe fleece that is “cream with light grey tones”. What better marketing for this fleece than to have it featured in the “Lord of the Rings”? Shall I spin and weave this into a cape for myself? Hmm, the possibilities…

Edited to add: Wow. Here is a way better link to the use of Gotland fleece in the costuming for Lord of the Rings.

Your mileage may vary.

Last week, the frenzy surrounding Stephanie’s Knitting Olympics got me thinking — what would be challenging for me to knit in 16 days? And really, the answer would be “anything”. Even a single sock would be challenging for me to knit in 16 days — the challenge being finding the time to do it.

But during my decision making process, I considered knitting up Starmore’s Grant Avenue… which led me to consider buying the Virtual Yarns kit from Alice directly… which led me to thinking about buying yarn for Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Fair Isle Yoke Sweater (from the Opinionated Knitter)… which led me to think that I really (really, really) should knit something from my stash… which led me to pick up the Fair Isle Cardigan that I’m already working on.

Is it depressing when your mileage is measured in millimetres per hour?

No, no, not depressing at all. I love making each and every stitch, spreading them out on the lovely ebony Holz & Stein circs and watching the colours ebb and flow. The cardi is nearly 300 stitches around, so yeah, it’s going to take a while. But no rush. No 16-day deadline.

Easy Friday.

Carin at Bumble Bee Knits tagged me for this meme and has made my Friday post so easy. Thanks Carin! Check out her nearly done “Deli” cardi… so pretty!

Four jobs you have had in your life:

1. Pharmacist at London Drugs for three years.
2. Photocopy girl at the UBC AMS CopyRight photocopy shop (I made awesome photocopies, ate chili cheese dogs and listened to The Smiths all day. Best. (university) Job. Ever.).
3. “Normal Job” Dodger. The summer when I turned 15, I started a business doing sewing and alterations.
4. Seamstress for a “costume” shop in New Westminster.

Four (random) movies you could watch over and over:

1. Fight Club
2. Infernal Affairs 1, 2 and 3
3. Harry Potter
4. Hero (the one with Jet Li/Tony Leung/Maggie Cheung)

Four places you have lived:

1. Vancouver (a house in Kitsilano when I was born)
2. Toronto (an apartment downtown when I was 4 years old)
3. Toronto (a house in North York, until I was in grade 7)
4. Vancouver (the same house in Kitsilano, except it’s ours now)

Four TV shows you love to watch:

1. Buffy
2. The O.C.
3. Angel
4. Battlestar Galactica

Four places you have been on vacation:

1. Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice)
2. Paris
3. Japan
4. New Orleans

Four websites you visit (almost) daily:

1. Knitter’s Review
2. Bloglines this counts for 315 other feeds
3. Epicurious.com
4. Again, Bloglines should count for more than one, eh?

Four of your favorite foods:

1. Cheese in all shapes, sizes and colours
2. Za Jiang Mein
3. Blue Brie and Proscuitto Baguette sandwiches and Masala-spiced Carrot soup at Finch’s Caf?¬© (get thee to Pender & Homer).
4. That Trumpet Royal Mushroom Risotto with sidestripe shrimp, spinach, and lemon parmesan broth that I had at C Restaurant last Sunday, by way of Dine Out Vancouver

Four places you would rather be right now:

1. Somewhere beachy
2. Drinking my morning coffee in Paris
3. Sleeping in my bed
4. Spinning at home, by the window

Four Bloggers you are tagging

1. Jasmin at Worsted Witch
2. Erin at Knitting RN
3. Logan at That Logan Chick
4. Kim at The Woolen Rabbit