The challenge for team Suck Less, our equivalent of the mountain day in the “real” TDF, was to spin a mile.

Now, ideally, I would have spun a mile of completed yarn. But that wasn’t going to happen because the only projects I have for singles yarn are weaving, and I need to be more careful than I could be when speed spinning for those. And the chance of my spinning a mile of plied yarn, not so high.

Saturday, I set out to see how far I could get. I sat down at Strider with some lovely open BFL top that I had, and started to spin. Now, normally, most people don’t longdraw from a top prep, but I don’t currently have any roving or batts that I was willing to sacrifice for as speed spinning day. So… I worked from top, which was a learning experience. Especially so, since I’ve never spun much true longdraw before.

It took me one false start and 3:10 to get the first bobbin done. The second bobbin was 2:50, and the third 2:15. Which gave me three full bobbins, and some short breaks for eating, stretching, and drinking.

I started to ply and quickly realized I was having take-up problems with Strider. He just didn’t want to wind on the yarn. I had noticed a little during the initial spinning, but it hadn’t been a problem since doing longdraw I didn’t want much take-up. But I didn’t have time to mess around with it much, so I needed tension on my lazy kate.

So, being a budding Ph.D. as I am, I came up with a highly technical solution…

That’s a computer case. It worked pretty well, but didn’t catch all the bobbins, so the middle one still spun and caused me some issues (the singles from that one liked to make their own little supercoils that then plied in. Ugh).

So, 14 hours from start I had this…

482 yards of three-ply BFL (one of the small skeins is navajo plied).

I also spun an extra 320 yrd bobbin of singles yarn, putting me over the mile mark of singles. And if you include the plying, then I’m 500 yards more over. Woot.

So, I spun a mile of singles, and plied 500 yds of yarn in 14 hours. Not bad. I’m going to say that, at least for me, that qualifies as “Sucking Less.” Though I don’t think I’ll be putting up most of this yarn for sale, as I’m not terribly happy with it. I think I can now use longdraw to make salable yarn, so that’s also a success.

I’ve got some fiber to put up, will get that up tomorrow for everyone. Back to the paper.

~The Gnome

Well, sometimes… Monday comes at most unexpected times. Like 6:00 PM on a Wednesday.

Two days of experiments totally failed, so I was stuck here in lab until 10:00 PM instead of going to knit night and/or spinning, relaxing, and um… eating dinner. It was one of those days, two detours on the way home, it started raining as I walked out to the car, I dropped glass pipettes, dumped the very last of my tea down my front, stuff like that. Oh right, and my lovely downstairs neighbors who can’t park for garbage have decided that the stairs to our apartments are apparently they’re personal storage place. Great evening. Then of course I couldn’t sleep. WHee!

One little thing I did get done (because even though I try to go to bed at 10:00 I had to wind down some, and while waiting for gels and thigns to re-run), was my 2oz spindle cop.

Well that was nice. 2oz (57g) on my Bossie mini, which is only 25g. I learned some about spinning finer yarns on heavier spindles too, which was a good lesson. I also achieved my orginal goal with this cop, which was to have a cop that was larger than the whorl. Only by a little, mind you, but still a goal is a goal. So, here’s a 2oz cop of cormo/alpaca/angora. Half the fiber. Now to figure out how to get it off. I think the straw method might lead to collapse on the upper end.

I’d say this qualifies as sucking less, since this is only my second large cop.

Hopefully more fiber out tomorrow. Drying is slow in this weather. And the late packages are getting shipped today, sorry for the delay.

~The Gnome

Sleeping, who needs sleeping? Oh right, me. Damnit.

Got a little dyeing done, lab’s eating my brain right now, sorry guys. But it comes first.

Spun a little more for the TDF. More of the Polwarth/Silk, which I’m pretty sure is destined for a scarf. I’ve decided to let go of the insane desire for perfection I had on it, and allow it to have the tiny (really tiny) slubs that come from being not perfectly evenly carded and my not having the focus to always catch them. They’ll just make a nice soft texture on the scarf.

And lest you think that’s no progress, here’s the bobbin from the night before. You can see I did spin quite a bit more. About… an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours.

Two things dryeing, two in the pot I didn’t have time to hang this morning.

That’s it for now. Upcoming, Merino/Angora, Silk, Clun Forest, and I think I might dye some Finn tonight.

~The Gnome

So this weekend I went down to Baltimore to spend some time with some good friends down there for July 4th.

Special report:

TDF:
Team: Suck Less
Special Agent Codename: The Gnome

I started off with a TDF warmup lap in the Providence airport, spinning more of the cormo/alpaca/angora on the Bosworth Mini. It’s always fun to see people watch, and the airport especially so, when they have nowhere else to go and many have nothing else to do (how do they DO that?). No one had the guts to ask, so I just sat and spun away. And no, I didn’t have any trouble with security. Not even a little. The spindles were in their bags with their fiber in the water bottle holsters of my backpack.

Then I got to spin at 30,000 feet, though that was much slower since there’s a lot less freedom of movement. But still, spinning at 30 thousand feet on a plane? Awesome, right? The very bottom of the cop started to loosen up a little from the inning and outing of the spindle bag though. An advantage of the holster model, I suppose.

Friday and Saturday I pulled out the new Loki and traded the yak (just not right for the spindle and my skill) and the “Bronze and Wood” tussah silk I dyed myself. I haven’t spun much tussah, and I’ve never spun it on the spindle. I’m liking it.

July 5th morning I spun a little more sillk…

Sunday (July 5th) evening, it was time to fly home, which meant more spinning in the airport. So I added more to the Bossie, managed to stabilize the loose bottom a little, but it’s still looser than I’d like. Trying to decide exactly how far I want to try to push it. The spindle itself is 25g. The cop is now exactly twice that, at 50g. I’m tempted to see if I can add 6g more so it’ll be an even 2oz.

Last night I was a little less adept at the “Sucking Less.” I got some spinning done, but I kept getting distracted.

This is the Polwarth/Silk that I’ve been working on. Still haven’t decided if I want to weave with it or ply it for laceweight. It’s very slow progress, because I’m spinning it superfine.

I’m hoping to make more significant progress on that tonight. I may try to make Saturday my Mile Day (spin a mile in a day), or I may try to spin my Abbybatts (I have peacock, xocolotl, and green green grass) which I plan to use for weaving a scarf for myself (I know, something for me? Perish the thought!).

In Gnomespun news…

Right now I have silk and merino/angora drying. I’ll be picking up several pounds of heathered grey Border Leicester this week, which I plan to set to dyeing… and… oh right, I should be hearing back about the 40lbs of fiber from the mill any day now. ::crosses fingers:: I’m also hoping to get in an order for more of the Cashmere/Tussah shortly. And I need to get a box out to Holiday Yarns, because that was supposed to happen ages ago.

P.S.

Does anyone have “The Doozer Knitting Song?” I must have it. I have it on DVD, but I want to be able to put it on my iPod.

That’s it for now. Back to experiments.

~The Gnome

Purple! I’ve been playing with soft grey-purples lately. For you non-purple fans, don’t worry, I’ve got some super dark green in now, and plans for more green messing.

Lavender Clouds. It’s almost lavender time! I love lavender blooms… Similar to yesterdays Chionodoxa, but a little purpler and less grey.

Lavender Clouds – 4oz – Combed Wensleydale Top

And always a favorite both with me and others… a really nice true amethyst this round…

Amethyst – 1oz x 2 – Combed Tussah Silk Top

Will get these up in the shop shortly.

In the meantime… spindle goodness.

First, a new spindle! One I eyed at Spunky Eclectic’s shop when I was picking up Strider, then again at MA Sheep and Wool… I was being good, saving for fiber, and a benefactor (who wishes to remain nameless) bought it for me! ::squee::

Isn’t it pretty? Ok, yeah, so I have a thing for Bird’s Eye Maple. So sue me! I lurves it. I got it an ounce of yak, which I’ve never spun before, as a “Welcome to the Gnomespun family” present. It has a lot of yak flakes in it. Rrm… not too happy about that, but I think it’ll be ok.

Greensleeves: Loki – 23.5g – 0.82oz – Bird’s Eye Maple – Top Whorl
1oz Yak – Paradise Fibers

And here’s my travel spindle, the Bocote Bosworth (0.88oz) with the Cormo/Angora/Alpaca I got at NH Sheep and Wool.

Still building up the cop, aiming to get as much as possible on there. I’m at 37g now, which is 1.3oz, not too bad! It’s getting tougher to flick spin it, but it still thigh rolls without any trouble. So I definitely still have a ways to go, the cop is still totally tight and stable.

That’s it for now. Have to go work on the resumy/cv and my western blots. This weekend there will be more stuff, more knitting, more spinning, more dyeing, and some time with friends.

~The Gnome