I first encountered pencil roving not long after I'd learned to knit, way back in 2009. At the time I used it to make a very nice tea cosy, that went to a new home as part of a swap. The photo of said cosy is utterly abysmal, it's in my Ravelry projects if you really want to see it! When I was browsing through the selection of new things available at one of my suppliers last spring I came across some more pencil roving. This time in something other than merino, and I remembered being told you could spin with it. After all, it is one of the final steps in commercial yarn production. I ordered a sample skein, because I sample everything before I release it in to the spinning wilds. I try out everything I sell, before I sell it, and usually send samples on to other people to try out as well. I was slightly intrigued to see what would happen if I dyed the roving, and would the effects of dyeing make it unspinable. The sample turned up, I dyed it, spun a quick chunk on a spindle and was pleasantly surprised. It drafted just fine. I also took a bit off the giant skein (200g), and made myself a teapot cosy (again!) for my 1 person tea pot. It took well under an hour, got to love big yarn and big needles! I do have copies of the original tea cosy pattern I made, with kind permission of the designer, it makes a cosy for a 4-6cup pot, and you should get 2 cosies out of 1 skein. The rest of the skein of roving I thrust at Mum. She's one of my trusty test spinners, and is very good about telling me what she likes and doesn't like! She is a good spinner, but probably wouldn't call herself a "spinner". Unlike me who always has a spinning project on the go she spins occasionally. I left her to get on with it, with no more instructions than " spin in the opposite direction to usual" The pencil roving already has twist added to it, otherwise it would drift apart in the skeining. The trick to spinning it easily is to remove some of that twist, then draft to the thickness you want. The roving already has Z twist, so if you spin in an S (anticlockwise) direction you take out the existing twist and get to make the roving in to the thickness you want. Two days later there were several skeins of navajo plyed yarn draped from the bannisters. 200g makes a surprisingly large amount of yarn! One day later a knitted item appeared... we won't go in to said knitted item. We all have moments of madness where we delude ourselves about the size and shape of said item, and plough on regardless of the inner voice in our head telling you that said item will never fit the human form. Having made Mum find said item for this photo the decision has been made that it needs frogging as the yarn is too nice to waste on something unusable. Because the roving is in such thin strips I can dye it using my usual short blasts of colour, and they come out even shorter than they would from spun up combed top. It lets you get lots of colour in to an item but you don't get a stripey effect. If you want more blended shades then a conventional 2-ply would mix up the different colours. Fast forward a few months, I've had pencil roving for sale on the stall at the shows throughout the summer. At the end of Woolfest my friend Katharine, who was helping me on the stall, suggested that it would look fantastic woven up. She took one of the leftover balls and made this. Originally she intended it to be a cushion, but I've fallen in love with it as a bag. She's even got enough leftover to do herself something of the same size. Just plain weave on a rigid heddle loom, but sometimes keeping things simple is for the best.
As you might have gathered I've become a bit of a fan of this stuff, because it can do everything! I've even seen some very nifty looking slippers made from a skein of it. There are 84 pages of knitting patterns on Ravelry that call for 130m and under of Super Bulky yarn, so it's great for very speedy handmade presents. There's a fresh batch of pencil roving dyed, and waiting for the camera, it will go up in the shop later today. I have spent the past 2 days taking dreadful photos. You see I bought a new camera, the old one was 4 years old, and not even very expensive then. I'd developed a very specific set of techniques to coax it in to taking good photos of the shop stuff, but it was rather uncooperative taking shots outdoors, particularly in the grey welsh winter. I also never bothered taking it places because it was large and heavy. New camera definitely takes better photos, and has more options to adjust things manually, but taking product photos is quite a specialised task, and not something that many people have to do. Dark and gloomy, not true to colour, and too blurred at the back. I took around 250 like this yesterday, and that was in my light box, with 2 daylight lamps providing illuminations By the end of today, after a bit more trial and error, and fiddling with umpteen settings I've been achieving this. Not all the photos are fantastic, but they're as good as what I was getting before, and over time they'll get even better. The dyeing is probably the easy part of my job, one of the perks of bring a sole-person business is that if a job needs doing you'd better learn to do it yourself!
From product photography, to accounts, to graphic design, I've slowly gained the skills that let me do all of it. This post works rather well with the article I wrote on measuring the length of your skein of yarn.After all, once you've finished spinning a skein of yarn the most useful thing you can know about it is how much you have, and how thick it is. Armed with that information you can go on to the advanced pattern search on Ravelry and find a pattern that will allow you to use every last metre of your yarn (all the options you need are on the left hand side). Measuring yardage is pretty straightforward. There's a bit of counting, and some very simple maths, but it's not really something that's open to debate. Yarn thickness however, is something of a dark art. As you get more experienced you do get better at eyeballing a piece of yarn and declaring "DK weight", but sometimes it's nice to check, and of course, eyeballing requires a bit of experience. I'm sometimes asked if there's not a chart a spinner can use to work out yarn thickness. There may well be, but I'd not trust it any further than I could throw it. Yarn thickness is effected by so much more than just the number of metres for any given weight. Hand spun always tends to be denser than commercial yarn, so most of the time a commercial yarn of around 400m/100g will be fingering weight (The term 4-ply might be more common in the UK, but isn't a great term to use as plys are the number of individual strands twisted together to make the yarn, a 4-ply can be any thickness). In handspun, if you have that much yardage per 100g you've often spun something thinner than fingering weight. Though not necessarily, it partly depends on the fibre used, and the style of spinning. Woollen yarn contains lots of air, so will have more yardage for a given weight at any thickness. Something like silk, where the fibres are tightly packed together will be much denser, so a lower yardage for a given weight at the same thickness. This is true no matter wether you're a spinner or not. Commercial yarns succumb to exactly the same effect. Socks That Rocks Lightweight is definitely a fingering weight yarn, but it's tightly spun, and tightly plyed structure only give it 250m/100g. In contrast Jamiesons & Smith Shetland Jumper Weight is a more woollen style yarn, lightly spun, lightly plyed, packed full of air. It has a whopping 456m/100g. Yarn thickness is measured using something called WPI, which stands for Wraps Per Inch. The idea is you wrap your yarn around a gap measuring 1 inch, and count how many strands you can fit in. It works pretty well for thin yarns, if you can manage to count how many strands you've got, not always easy when there's 50+ of them packed in that gap. For thicker yarns I've always found it an impossible technique to do accurately and consistently. I don't think I'm alone either, in an elderly Spin Off I once ready an article where many people were challenged to measure the wpi of a variety of yarns, their measurements differed wildly. By wrapping you often pull on the yarn, so it reduces in diameter, and then there's the "to-pack or not-to-pack" debate. This is a tradition wpi gauge, wrapped tightly, and with as many strands in there as I could fit. In total there are 16 of them squashed in there. Take a look at the same yarn, no longer under tension, and it's a very different beast. Even to look at, it doesn't look like a yarn that should measure 16wpi, and be a Sport Weight. Now admittedly the example above is an extreme one, but even if you relax your wrapping slightly, the act of winding the yarn in to a gap applies tension, and distorts the measurement. For years now I've instead being comparing my yarn to a line of a known thickness. The lines are based around divisions of 1 inch, so for example a line that measures yarn of 8wpi, will be 1/8th of an inch wide. I find it gives me far more consistent results. I used to have a little bit of printed card hung on my wheel, but now I can replace it with one of these. Laser cut, on ether cherry veneer, or acrylic plastic. It's got a wide set of lines on it for comparison purposes, and a reminder of how certain wpi measurements match to the names given to commercial yarns. To use you just overlay your yarn on top of the tool, and match it to the right thickness. Here's the same yarn I was measuring above. It just covers the 8wpi line, which compared to commercial yarns I've handled feels right, just on the border between a heavy Aran, and a skinny Chunky weight.
You can even attach it to your wheel and use it as a checking tool while you spin to help keep your singles a more consistent thickness. WPI Guages are available in the shop here. Another June, another Woolfest. I love Woolfest, it was the first of the UK wool shows, and I've been nearly ever year since 2008 as a visitor, and more reccently a stall holder. This year they celebrated their 10th anniversary, and put on a show that was one of the best ever, much helped by some generous weather! As ever I completely failed at taking photos at a show. This is the best I could manage, taken using my phone first thing on Friday morning before the "hordes" arrived! And lots of lovely fluff.
Setting up at Woolfest always brings it's own challenges. For the rest of the year the building is a working cattle market, so when we arrive on Thursday the pens have been freshly hosed down, the stall spaces are not compltely square as there are gatesfolded back against walls, and there's a post to work around. However, with a bit of immagination, and some creative thinking it's incredible to see the concrete and metal rails being transformed in to a colourful extravaganza of wool. I did make it off the stand for short periods, mostly to chat to people with whom I've been working for a while. It's a great chance to make plans for the future, and to discuss new things they're working on. All being well there might be some very exciting new fibres from UK flocks heading my way in the coming months. I get to take a couple of months off from show preperation over the summer, then it's time to think about Yarndale, as I'll be back up in the north of England before too much longer. It's nearly that time of year again, when wheels turn, and thousands of miles are covered. It's very much become a part of the seasonal pattern of things that when the cyclists are making there way around France (and this year the UK as well!), the spinning community keeps them company. In essence the Tour de Fleece is very simple, spin something for every day that the cyclists ride. And that's it, no more, no less. Of course, many use these 3 weeks to do something a little bit extra. They might try a new fibre, or maybe a new technique, they'll aim to spin more than they've ever spun before, of spin thinner than before. However, in it's most simple pure form, the idea is to use the first 3 weeks of July to spin stuff! We have our very own Tour de Fleece team in the Hilltop Cloud group, just like the main event it's low key. You can post as much, or as little as you like, and spin whatever you fancy (so long as it's Hilltop Cloud fibre, or fibre you've prepared yourself). However, this year I dyed us some spcial colourways, on my lovely Superfine Shetland (though you can of course join in with any HTC fibre). There was an element of mystery, as the only clue for the colours were some graphics showing some jerseys as worn by the cyclists in the peloton. I'm hoping this way everyone got a colour they liked, though of course, me being me, the end braids of fibre were a little bit more interesting... (If you've not received your fibre yet, and want to keep it a surprise, stop reading now, spoilers ahead!) So here are the colours I dyed, and the inspriation behind them. A- Team Death Star. Mostly black, with a few flashes of bright blue. Loosely inspired by the Team Sky jersey colors of the current champion Chris Froome. They're nicknamed Team Death star as their Big Black Coach is full of all the latest gadgets, and when they first came on the scene a few years ago, as larger than all the other team buses. Also, like The Empire, they take over and win just about everything. B- I was slightly sneaky with this one, Team Climbers. This one used the colour of the jersey's worn by Team BMC, however, for me BMC stands for the British Mountaineering Council, hence the name! The jersey's are mostly red, with a few flashes of black, as is the fibre. C- I just had to do a colour inspired by one of the French Teams, so here are Team FDJ, who also use a 4 leaf clover as part of their logo, so this colour is Team Lucky. D- This one is a slightly abstarct take on a jersey, but it's a team I was desperate to include, and a colour I knew you'd all like. Team Kwick-Fit, inspired by Omega-Pharma-Quickstep, who happen to be the team of my personal cycling favourite, Mark Cavendish. Their jerseys are mostly black (again, there's a lot of black in the peloton), but I already had a black colourway, so I picked out the natty turquoise accents instead. Of course, this could also be inspired by Team Astana, but I'm less than a fan, so we'll pretend that this colour doesn't match their jersey's at all. E- Following on from the team of Mark Cavendish, we're on to the colour he'll be hoping to wear. The Green jersey is the competition for the Sprinters. These are the guys who are fastest on the flat, at the end of a stage they go flat out at 50km/h in a sprint for the finish line, aiming to pick up points depending on how high they place. The highest number of points gets to wear the Maillot Vert. So this colour is green, with a few hints of tarmac grey, as all too often the sprint for the line ends up in riders piled up on the tarmac, surrounded by bits of splintered carbon fibre. F- How can you resist a team who wears pink! Lampre-Merida are based in Italy, and their jersey feature more than a splash of bright pink. The Italians must have a thing fo pink, as the winners jersey in their big cycle race, the Giro d'Italia, is a very fetching shade of pale pink. so here we have Team Rosa G- My first introduction to the Tour de France was via the Tour de France Knitalong, the first year I started knitting. We were all placed in team, and I ended up in team AG2R La Mondiale, and I've had a soft spot for them ever since. They combine Brown with pale blue in their jerseys. and so does this colour. The team sponsors do something to do wth finances, and given this is the most sedate colourway I've dyed, it's called Team Bankers. Finally, the big one, the ultimate prize, the jersey awarded to the winner of the race. The Maillot Jaune, this is the prize for the rider who completes the overall course in the fastest time. The best all rounder if you like, they need to be able to climb mountains, and do well in time trials, and stay out of trouble when the sprinters come out to play. I know bright yellow isn't a colour that many like, so I tempered it by using some inspiration from another iconic Tour image, the riders going along roads passing through fields of sunflowers, so the yellow is paired with the browny shade from the centre of the sunflowers. Even if you don't have any of the special edition colours I hope you'll join us in spining along, the tour starts on July 5th.
That's what it feel like anyway! All of this, everything I need for the stall at Wonderwool, stock, display stands, boxes, cloths, all ended up in here. Otis is packed completely full, floor to ceiling of stuff. There was a slight nervous moment when I wasn't certain if it would all fit...
And thankfully it didn't rain, in fact I am rather warm and sticky, slightly cooler temperatures would be nice for tomorrow when I have to do the entire process in reverse. Those of you who follow me on twitter, or are members of the Ravelry group will know that my baby chickens are hatching, there will be pictures when I get back, as they deserve a post written when I'm capable of coherent thought, prepare for an overload of cute fluffiness, even teenage boys have appparently been reduced to soppiness by the sight of them! I woke up this morning, put the kettle on and drew the curtains. A small colourful round object was sat in the middle of the drive. I went out and picked it up, looked up the drive, and spotted more of them... There was a trail of woolly eggs, leading me up the drive. The trail went past the bee hives, and shed storing the equipment, then took a left through the orchard. I had to move the eggs off the bench so I could sit down for a rest, I should have had my mug of tea before venturing out! The Woolly Bunny had evidently worked her magic in the apple trees as well. The bunny had even been to visit the chickens, I tried asking Frooome what she looked like, but he was keeping very close beaked. The trail then led down the steps, past the "bus stop"/Hawaian Beach House, and across the drive. Through the arch, and down in to the vegetable garden. Somehow she got inside the polytunnel, and took a close look at the Peach tree. Finally the trail led up the steps, and in to the dyeing caravan. Where magically all the stock for Wonderwool had appeared. don't think much of her stacking and organising though...
In reality my eggs are giant balls of British BFL pencil roving, that will be on the stall at Wonderwool. I bought a test quantity a few months ago, as I wanted to see how it dyed, and wether the dyeing would make the fibre too hard to spin. I was really pleased with the result, despite being such a thin strip of fibre the drafting is easy, and I love the subtle variegated effects I can acheive. You could also knit straight from the ball using chunky needles, each ball is apparoximately 130m, here's a link to a Ravelry pattern search for that weight yarn, and yardage, there are over 500 patterns in the database! I dye the fibre in giant skeins, which would be a nightmare to work from, so my Dad has very kindly spent the past few weeks winding them in to balls so that they're ready to use. There's at least 200g in each ball, and they will be £18 each. If you can't make it to Wonderwool, then fear not, there is more base fibre in stock, I will be dyeing some for the online shop very soon. As for the caravan, if only the Easter bunny had magiked all that fibre, it's been lots of hard work over the last 2 months, in total I've dyed and carded well over 40kg of fibre. Once all the stock for Wonderwool is emptied out, the final bedroom is being stripped of it's bed, and some more shelves installed. It's always at it's worst just before a show as I have to put all the dyed stock somewhere, I'm hoping to bring very little of it back home! Whilst I am becoming a little frayed around the edges by preparing for it, can I also say how much I'm looking forward to Unravel! It's the start of the show season, and I do love going to shows, I get to meet people who have been buying online, and see what they've been making, and talk to them in person about all the exciting things I've been coming up with. New this year is the Friday preview, last year the show got really crowded on the Saturday, so this sounds like a great opportunity to browse in a slightly more leisurely fashion, and it includes a free drink, and an entry to the raffle they're running featuring prizes from the stall holders.
Of course if you can't make Friday, or want more than 3 hours shopping the show will still be running on it's usual Saturday and Sunday. This year I'm in the Barley Room (head upstairs and it's the main room you come to), and with a bigger stall than last year so there will be lots of things to ooh and ahh over. I also have 2 complementary tickets to give out, they're valid for either the Saturday, or Sunday, or for the full weekend (but not the Friday preview). If you would like one of these tickets please leave a comment here, making sure you don't do it anonymously so I can get in touch with you. Entries close at midnight (GMT) on 25th January, and I'll contact the winners for them to claim their ticket. They also run a fantastic competition, last year the entries were really beautiful, the theme this year is Colour Work, maybe you've got something made from the Birds or Queens Collections that you could enter? If Cav could choose what to be I suspect she'd be a parrot... Mum is currently campaigning for her to become a house chicken. I suspect she'd be less passionate about this if it were her house she'd be living in. Cav however is perfectly happy to be picked up, will perch on my hand or arm, and as you can see on my shoulder, even while you're walking round. She particularly likes being hand fed, as that means she gets to eat as much as she likes without being bullied by the other chickens. Cav is bottom of the pecking order because she's different, and of course you can't tell the chickens not to be mean, their brains don't work like that. You'll see why I'm talking about this in this way if you carry on reading...
This year the Winter Olympics are being held in Sochi, Russia. As usual alongside the Olympics there will be the Ravellenics (formerly known as the Ravelympics), while the games are being held there's a giant celebration of all things yarn over on Ravelry. There are some who feel that Russia shouldn't have been given the Olympics due to it's human rights policies, and more reccently a law that was created regarding gay rights. However, like the Beijing Olympics in 2008, it's going ahead, and at this point there is nothing that is going to change that. I made the decision to sign up for a Hilltop Cloud team at the Ravellenics games on that basis. However, shortly after I signed up this post appeared, which made me regret my decision. I nearly sent the organisers a message requesting the team was removed, but then I did a bit more digging, and came across this post, whihc made me feel slightly better. Go read it, the person who wrote it is far more elquent than I could ever be. So for now, there is still a Team Hilltop Cloud to craft alongside the Olympics. I'll be spinning a rainbow, if you'd like to join me, either crafting rainbows, or not, that's completely your right to choose, I'd love to have you. The Hilltop Cloud thread is here. After all, we are not chickens. Eventually I will have something else to talk about, but for now bear with me, things are busy round here and there's little else going on but sleeping, carding and eating. Luckily I have friends who are kindly doing things that I can blog about! This is one of the new luxury wool free blends, a mix of 65% Silk, 35% Kid Mohair. Spun up it turns in to a very grown up subtle kind of colourway, greeny gold, with hints of turning leaf. And here's the clever bit... You can turn it in to your own version of a Brushed Mohair yarn. It's not quite as fluffy as most of the commercial yarns, as they have a far hgher mohair content, but it has a lovely delicate feel, and just enough fuzz, but not so much that you'll lose all the stitch definition. You can however leave it as a smooth sleak shiny yarn, and knit something with drape that's more silk like, but with slightly more body than pure silk. The pattern is Darling, Darling, Stay with me, and is great for handspun, a few customers have now knitted it and every version looks lovely.
The new blends should be heading in to the shop just after the New Year. |
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Beautiful fibre you'll love to work with. Established 2011 VAT Reg- 209 4066 19 Dugoed Bach, Mallwyd, Machynlleth,
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