Not Quite Right

I promised to post a picture of the green yarn I plied up yesterday. As it turns it, it's not quite right--or at least not the way I intended it to be. This is actually two skeins: a two ply and a navaho ply. Here's the story . . . On Sunday, when I'd finished plying, I went on to spin some merino. I wanted it to be very fine--suitable for lace--so I used the smallest whorl on my spinning wheel. That means that I get lots of twist for every time I pedal the wheel. I mustn't have been quite focussed when I got home, because I didn't change the setting and sat down to spin the rest of the green. It wasn't until I went to ply it last night that I noticed that it was too tightly spun. There are lots of creative ways I could have solved the problem, but I didn't feel like doing anything creative. I just plied it up to balance the yarn as it was. You can see in the centre of the pic that one of the strands is smaller and tighter than the other. I had a bit of that tightly spun single left, so I navaho plied it to use it up. Now I need to find a good use for some overspun navaho plied yarn--it's a bit like very pretty fancy string! Hmmm, maybe a bag strap or something would be good.

Navaho Plying

So, I just googled "Navaho Plying". It's all there! You don't need another explanation from me. Go have a look and have fun:)

More or Less

Today's post is dedicated to the colour blue--more or less. I'm still trying to spin my way out of accumulated piles of fibre. Last night I had a look at another bag of wool tops. They were mostly shades of blue. I'd obviously put them together for something or other some time back--I'm not at all sure what or when. I decided to just go with the flow. I added a few more bits of colour to bring the quantity up to about 100g. Then I split up the colours; distributed them randomly in a pile on the corner of my big table and started spinning. Here's how it looks this morning: Everything from light pepermint through to purple--and I've just spotted a stray strand of red in the pic that shouldn't be there at all. I'll navaho ply this bobbin-full, probably tomorrow.

I was going to give an explanation of Navaho plying, since I fielded a few questions last time I mentioned it, but I got myslef into a total twist with words trying to explain the process. So I've deleted that paragraph and instead leave you with a promise to expain it another day.

Colour Improvisation

It was close to my usual bedtime when I got home yesterday--my usual bedtime is quite early by most people's standards. But I needed some time to settle and reflect. My spinning list included more "fat singles". I wasn't in the mood for that. Instead I pulled out a bag of coloured tops I had prepared some time ago. I took out some colours, added others and played around for a while with combinations. I ended up with this "bush spring" improvisation. Colours of new growth and leaf litter--one of the things I love about our Australian natives is the red of the growing tips. Rose leaves have the same feature. I've spun short lengths of each colour. I distributed the colours fairly well through the mix, but I haven't arranged the order of the colours--that's as random as I could manage. My plan is to ply it back on itself--navaho style--to keep the colours as separate as possible.

Autumn Tones

Despite what my cold toes are telling me, it's not winter yet. We have two weeks of Autumn left.

I spun up this merino yarn last winter.It was easy spinning while my friend S was here to visit from Canberra--something that didn't require too much concentration. The variety of colours kept me interested. Then came the challenge of plying. The different colours are close enough that they would have been ok just as a two-ply yarn, but I decided to emphasise the colour variation by Navaho plying it. Then I wound the skein, washed it and put it aside. Somehow it never quite made it into a box, so last week I found it in the mass of stuff on my big table. Did I put it away? No, I thought I might have to do something with it. Now it's found its way onto my needles: a simple garter stitch to let the yarn do the talking. I'm enjoying watching the colours appear in turn: blending and contrasting. Meanwhile I'm hoping the weather will take its inspiration from my yarn and give me a bit of warmth and contrast. We've had several days of grey drizzle. I'm ready for a change.

Autumn Navaho Yarn

Both the calendar and the weather have definitely passed Autumn. It's the first week of July and we're getting maximum temperatures in the mid-teens. The First Editions tops I spun up on Sunday are warmer, though:

I'm happy with the way the colours have remained distinct in my spinning. If you're interested in the technique, look carefully in the middle of the skein. You can see how the spun single is folded back on itself to make a 3-ply yarn.

Today's task is to thread at least some of the warp for my double weave project. We have class again on Saturday and I'm already behind with my Summer and Winter block weave. The threading is fine and fiddly, so best done in natural light. I'll try to make it a priority this morning.

Geelong

My friend S and I drove out to Geelong yesterday afternoon for the Scarf Festival. I've taken a few pictures of scarves that intrigued me which I'll post in coming days. The pleasant surprise for the afternoon, though, was the waterfront at dusk. As for spinning, I got through 100g of one of the First Editions merino blends. I stripped the tops down to keep the colours as distinct as I could, and this morning I've navaho plied it. Right now the yarn is soaking in a bucket of warm water to set the twist. It was a case of wanting to do a bit of spinning just for the joy of it after a fairly intense session on Saturday working with Angora, Cashmere and Camel fibre.

Choc-orange Challenge

I've just finished the Summer Challenge for my 3D5S group. The meeting was last weekend, and I didn't get there, but I had this project in mind and it turned into a personal challenge, so here it is: Choc-orange silk evening bag, with hand-spun wool cord. The choc-orange chocolate, courtesy of Ernest Hillier, a local chocolatier, no longer exists. I ate it as my reward as soon as I'd taken the photo. I wanted to catch some of the richness and sweetness of this particular chocolate combination, along with the extra tang that the orange provides.

3D5S--3 dimensions, 5 senses--is an inspiration group. We organise outings to inspiring places and then respond to our experiences in our art work--mostly textile art, but anything really. The break-up outing last year was to a chocolate cafe, hence my inspiration for this piece.

The summer challenge each year is to make a 10cm by 10 cm something in response to one of our group outings or a summer holiday experience. The challenge is designed to be quite broad in it's scope and in previous years I've made samples or fairly rough prototypes. This year I decided to make a real thing. I'm happy with the way the orange and brown silk interact in the bag and I quite like the cord I've made, but I'm not sure that it's strong enough for the bag--visually not physically. So I think I'll keep playing with that aspect. What I've got at the moment is a 6-ply cord--singles spun and overplied, then navaho-plied back the other way. The part I navaho plied was just the last bit left on one bobbin, the rest I've made as a 4-ply, but that definitely was too fine. I'm going to try twisting the cord--doubling it--one more time just as it is. If that doesn't satisfy me, I'll ply in an orange thread and see what that does to it. I wonder if that means I can buy myself some more lovely chocolates to eat as I continue to explore the possibilities:)