Art Yarn to Hat

I've never spun "art yarn" before, but now I can tell you it was fun and I'd like to try it again sometime!

I started by blending several different fibers together with just my fingers.  I did a very chunky type of blend to let the different types of fibers really stand out. I started with a reddish variegated wool batt that had some sparkly metallic fibers blended in. Then I added some snips of recycled sari silk loom ends in red, burgundy, and turquoise. Then I cut up some leftover lavender eyelash yarn I had and threw that in. I also added a pile of curly wool locks that had been individually dyed several colors such as gold, red, orange, peach, pink, blue, and turquoise. 

The next step was spinning the yarn.  It was really fun to watch how it all came together as I was spinning.  I was careful to leave the curly ends of the wool locks hanging out from the yarn for interesting texture.  I  plied the yarn into 2-ply for extra durability.  

Here is the finished skein- fun stuff :)

I made myself a crochet hat that is roomy enough to wear even when my hair is up without getting my hair all messed up.  This isn't a great picture of the finished product, but it'll have to do!  I do enjoy wearing my hat and I've even had a few compliments :)

My First Attempt at Knitting Lace

When I knit stuff with my handspun yarn I don't usually follow any kind of a pattern because it just seems like too much effort to figure out how to get the two into sync. That means I've never relly tried any knitting that is very complicated- or interesting.  So, I decided I wanted to try following some kind of a pattern and I decided on a lace pattern for a scarf I saw in a book.  I had one ounce of Tussah silk and one ounce of soft merino wool.  I tried to spin them as fine as I could and then plied them together. 

Tussah Silk

Spun Silk

Spun Merino Wool

Silk and Merino Plied

The silk is shiny and the wool is more matte. 

After I was done spinning my two ounces of fiber together (that's not much!) I decided I wanted to dye it.  I ordered some commercial synthetic dyes online and mixed up two colors to come up with this teal color.  

I let one half of the skein soak in the dye for awhile before I put the rest in to give the yarn a little bit of a variegation in the color.  

It came out a nice color... and I started to knit.  I of course had to change the pattern because I knew I didn't have enough yarn to make the scarf as wide as the pattern indicated.  :P

I enjoyed knitting the lace pattern, but I usually had to wait until the kids were busy to work on it, because I have trouble counting stitches and carrying on a conversation at the same time (you know how kids are with their out-of-this-world questions when you are trying to concentrate on something)!

Levi wanted to take a picture of me knitting, so here it is :)

This is what it looks like.  As you can see it didn't turn out overly "lacy", so I probably should have spun my yarn even thinner.  Live and learn! It is soft and not itchy at all and it matches my eyes, so I guess it turned out satisfactory for what I put into it.  

My Other Heirloom Antique Spinning Wheel

About 15 years ago I also inherited a spinning wheel from my great-great-grandmother who came from Sweden (on my mothers side of the family).  This is the first spinning wheel I ever used and the one on which I learned to spin. It was a tad rickety, but I was able to spin quite a bit of fine yarn. This is a photo of me spinning on the wheel when I was a teenager.

 After my parents were convinced I was into spinning we bought a brand new spinning wheel for me and this one was put into storage.  It has survived at least 4 location changes since then, but not in the best of condition, as the wheel portion fell apart into about 15 pieces.  My dad recently dug the spinning wheel out of the attic in the barn and sent it home with me.  I decided to see what I could do with it.  

Besides the spinning wheel being all broke apart, it was covered in a thick goopy layer of green paint that was worn off in spots.  I decided to try stripping off the paint before I reassembled the spinning wheel. I used a gel paint stripper and steel wool to remove the paint. I was able to remove most of the paint, but there is still a slight green tinge to the wood.  Then I oiled the wood with a mixture of linseed oil and mineral spirits. 

The wheel was originally assembled using only wood pegs, so I used wood pegs to assemble it again.  I only used glue on the 4 spots where the outside curves of the wheel join. I am by no means an expert at this sort of thing, but I am pleased with the outcome. 

Half of the flyer (the U shaped piece with the hooks) is missing, but the wheel still works okay without it. 

There are quite a few hooks missing too!

This piece is made out of leather- the metal orifice looks hand formed. 

Most of these grooves and many others on the spinning wheel were completely covered up by paint, so it looks much prettier now. 

Well worn and patched with wire!

The backside

I was able to spin a bit of yarn on this wheel, but it is a bit of a challenge to get it adjusted exactly right, as the wheel isn't perfectly circular, so it will be around mostly for the charm :)

Restoring my Antique-Heirloom Great-Walking Spinning-Wheel

If you've been following my blog, you might remember this picture from a previous post. It is a picture of my great-great-great grandmother and her spinning wheel.

Since I was a teenager, spinning has been one of my favorite hobbies, so I was thrilled when I was so lucky as to inherit this spinning wheel.  

I was aware that there were a few pieces missing, but I decided to have a go at putting it together. I found out that all three legs were missing as well as three important pieces on the head. I was pretty disappointed, but then I had and idea.... I went out to the barn, found some wire, and made up what I thought the three missing pieces might have looked like.  

I was actually able to get it to hold together enough to be able be spin some yarn.  That really made my day! :D    Here I am spinning some yarn. The spinning wheel is sitting on the piano bench, which works for now.

Here it is in action:

I found an old book from the library called Spinning Wheel Building and Restoration by Bud Kronenberg.  In this book I found a photo of an antique spinning wheel very similar to the one I have.

The caption for this picture says it may have been built by the Shakers. 

If you look closely at the above photo you can see that I have circled the three pieces that are missing. The one on the top is a wood piece.  In this book I was surprised to find out that the other two missing pieces (they hold the spindle in place) were apparently made out of corn husks or leather.  No wonder they are missing!  Since I took these pictures I cleaned up the spinning wheel and gave it a good coat of oil.  It is amazing how much better it looks now!  I just wish I know how old the spinning wheel is- it has to be at least 120 years old, but it is probably a bit older than that.

So, I have a project on my hands- figure out how to make the three legs and some leather parts!

How To Knit a Hat Without a Pattern

This project started with some soft chunky white handspun yarn of mine that has been laying around for a while.  I decided to make a hat for my daughter Kira with it, but I guess I didn't want to go through the bother of finding a pattern, so I just started knitting.  I don't know if that is a good thing or not! 

Anyways, I knit a small swatch to see how many stitches per inch my yarn/ circular needle combo made.  Then I figured out the circumference of her head.  This was how I figured out how many stitches I needed to cast on to make the hat the right size.  

I knit in the round for several rows and then decided to switch to knit 2, purl 2 for a ribbed effect. This made the rim roll up, which was fine with me. Also the ribs are much more stretchy than just plain knitting, so that seems to make the hat size a little more flexible.  When the hat started looking long enough I started decreasing it (knit 2 together) until it closed shut. I didn't decrease in any particular fashion, just however I felt like it at the moment :P  I actually had to do this part like 3 times cause I either I kept trying to decrease it before it was long enough or I was decreasing too fast.  

Once I was done I tried it on Kira again and decided it could still use some more length by the ears, so I picked up some stitches on the inside of the hat and started knitting ear flaps.  I also added a little crochet flower made with naturally dark wool for interest.  

She likes to wear it (cause "Mommy made it."), but honestly next time I should probably try a pattern and see if I can learn some more interesting stitches  or something.  I am not overly thrilled with the results, but it was just an experiment anyways (that's how I like to learn), so what can you expect!

Socks for Mike

Several years ago when I lived in Montana, a lady I met gave me a small bag of black wool from her sheep.  I finally decided to make something with it this year. I thought it would be a nice color for a guy to wear and I've never knit anything for my husband, so I decided on a pair of socks.  

First I carded the wool into rovings in preparation for spinning.  

Then one afternoon I grabbed my pile of rovings, a cup of coffee, and sat down to my spinning wheel. 

This is the finished yarn.  The color is natural black/brown/gray from the sheep.  

I didn't have a lot of fiber to work with, so I spun a fairly fine yarn so there would be enough yardage. 

Then I measured Mike's foot, picked out some needles, and knit a small sample to determine how many stitches per inch my yarn/needle combo made. Then I figured out how many stitches I needed to put on my needles to make a sock that would fit, and started knitting.

I knit this sock from the toe up.

Then turned the heel, knit some more and added a cuff. 

The socks always look more finished after you wash and shape them.

Here they are on my feet- a little big for me, but you get the idea.

The socks fit Mike and the project kept me entertained for quite a while, so that is good!  :)

If you're interested in knitting socks from handspun yarn, I recommend The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook by Lynne Vogel.

Crochet to Fit Hat

Here's some more of that chunky yarn I'm trying to use up.  I decided I wanted to make a hat for myself with it.  

I didn't have a pattern for such thick yarn, so I just picked up a crochet hook and started crocheting.  First I crochet a chain long enough to wrap snugly around my head and then I joined the chain so it formed a circle.  After that I just kept crocheting around and around until it was about 2/3 the way up my head and then started decreasing like crazy until it closed shut.  I also added a crochet flower in a contrasting natural color. 

I decided to crochet it, rather than knit it,  because I think crochet is so much easier and faster- you only have 1 stitch to think about at a time, and you don't have to worry about dropped stitches.  Crochet does have some disadvantages though.  It is not as windproof as knitting for one-  I think I will be adding a headband of fleece material around the ear area on the inside of the hat.  Other than that, it had been a fun accessory to wear this winter :)

  

The Unplanned Hat

At one time I had a whole bunch of different wool samples in my stash.  I didn't know what to do with them all,  so one day I just decided to spin them up.  I was going to be smart and spin chunky yarn so that I could get projects done really quickly.  Well, I can get things knitted up quickly, but it's kinda silly to start a project when you don't even know what it's going to be when you finish it!!! I'm still trying to find ways to use all that chunky yarn!  

I just read a book called The Intentional Spinner by Judith MacKenzie McCuin.  It is the best spinning book that I've read in terms of how to plan your project out from start to finish- so that it turns out like you intended.  I got the book at the library, but I think I might have to buy it!  I 'd like to start being a little more "intentional" about by fiber arts projects!  So anyways, here's how this project went:

This is the chunky yarn I spun.  I decided that it was a nice natural color for a guys hat and so I picked up some needles and started knitting.  All was going well until I ran out of yarn and it was still like 3 inches too short!  I didn't have any other similar yarn that I could add a stripe with, so I decided to cinch in the bottom and make it for my daughter.  

Here it is.  I added a little flower out of angora rabbit yarn.   Cute?  Maybe, but it was really too chunky and heavy and she didn't like to wear it for more than a few minutes.  

A few days later I decided to give crochet a try.  Crochet is a lot looser than knitting and so there was enough of the yarn to make a full adult sized hat.  And I did find some thick white yarn  for a stripe of extra interest. I didn't use a pattern to make this, just made a crochet chain long enough to fit my head and worked on up from there, decreasing randomly until it closed shut.   

So there's the finished piece.  I gave it away for a benefit auction- hopefully whoever got it thinks it was worth it  :D