Author: <span>Sheetar</span>
Spinning

SpinOlution Lazy Kate

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I felt the need to post a little overview of how awesome the SpinOlution lazy kate is now that I’ve gotten a chance to give it a test run.  I have the Mach 1 spinning wheel and LOVE the look of it as well as how effortless it is to treadle and spin.  While the wheel is relatively new to the spinning world, it’s a fast favorite for those of us that have one.  I bought mine with two bobbins and finally got around to ordering four more along with the lazy kate from Jessica at  Midnight Designs.  Jessica was AWESOME through the whole ordering process and was so quick to get back to me – I couldn’t have asked for a smoother transaction.  So, if you’re looking for a wheel, fiber, yarn, accessories, check out her store!

Anyway, back to the object of the post – the Lazy Kate from SpinOlution.  There are four spots for bobbins and it can either lay flat on the floor or stand up to display what you’ve spun.  

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To remove a bobbin, push the pegs through to the outside of the kate ‘wall’ and follow the groove in the wood to pull the bobbin up and out.

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Those pegs help tension the bobbins and keep them from spinning when they’re not being actively pulled for plying.  There is a rod that holds the bobbin with a washer at each end and a plastic spacer to fit into the bobbin end that has the ‘key’ space for fitting in the wheel.

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It works like a charm and I couldn’t be happier.  Now I just have to finish this spinning project and post that up.. next week, I swear!

Hats, Spinning

Thorped

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There’s this great thread on Ravelry that shows a project from roving to spun yarn and the finished object.   It’s without question my favorite thread on Ravelry and is really inspiring for a spinner to see what people spin with what fiber and what patterns they’ve adapted to their handspun.   REALLY creative people   there.  

Sometimes, you get a batch of fiber and you just know what it’s going to be – like Michelangelo said about his sculpture, “I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free.”   This may sound a bit strange (if it does, then Michelangelo was strange and that’s a club I don’t mind being a part of), but you knitters know what I’m talking about.. The  times  when the yarn speaks to you and tells you precisely what it  wants to be.   It’s just like that with roving and spinning fibers.   The finished article is in there somewhere, waiting to be let out.   Sometimes it just wants to be yarn.   Sometimes it wants to be a finished object and you just KNOW it the second you lay eyes on the colorway and the texture of the fiber.

So, here’s my most recent Spun-to-Finished entry  and the first one for the blog.

Fiber:
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Superwash Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) from dkKnits – January installment of the fiber club.
Colorway: Burnt Blueberry Baa’Hill (baa’hill.. baaagggellll.. get it? :-P)

Yarn:
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8wpi, Heavy Worsted, 167 yards, navajo plied, spun on my Spinolution Mach 1 wheel.

Finished Object:
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Pattern: Thorpe
Needles: US #8 (5mm)
Trimmed with a bit of leftover Cascade 220 Superwash.   I have NO idea of how to  crochet, so I used a helpful video on YouTube.

In other news, a family friend sold her sheep farm and moved recently, bringing with her A LOT of fleece.   I graciously offered to take some off her hands and came home with just about five pounds of raw wool from Border Leicester mix sheep.   There was about 1.5 lbs of black fleece and  about  3.5  lbs was white.   I decided to mix them together to save on processing and shipped it off to Zeilinger’s for cleaning and to be drawn into roving.   I hadn’t heard anything back in a few weeks, but sure enough, today, a box showed up on the doorstep containing my roving.   Dog for scale, but there’s a ton of it.   I believe this roving is begging to be a sweater.   It hasn’t decided on a color yet though, but I’m sure it will let me know once it’s ready. (The dogs are North American Standard Mutts by the way, weighing in at about 50 lbs each)
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Daily

Bound by Nothing

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I went out last night to see a friend and his band, Bound by  Nothing,  play at The Trocadero in Philadelphia, PA.   I hadn’t been out to  a rock concert  in a LONG time.   Back in high school, a group of local kids had bands and would play at an American Legion hall at least once a month.   I remember going and LOVING having my hearing destroyed every time.   Not sure what it was about it.. but I know it kept a lot of us from getting into trouble and allowed the kids in the bands a fun creative outlet and a little bit of local fame.   These bands were all heavy metal or goth or something along those lines – back in high school I had dyed my hair green and wore an old green army jacket and black combat boots with ripped jeans, so they all really fit in with what I was into at the time.

So, last night.   Ahhh I need to go out and do that more often!   Tickets were $15 and totally reasonable.. some of the bands were great, some not so great, but honestly, it didn’t matter.. it was just about being there.   Oh, and going to support my friend and his band.   They rocked the house and had everyone cheering at the end of their set – it was the first time I had seen them and I was pretty blown away.   It was also great to see a bunch of friends that I don’t get to see very often and kick back at the bar upstairs with them.   One quick photo from the night..

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Daily

I love winter

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It’s just SO pretty that even though I just spent an hour shovelling, I’m still in love. The weather people said we got just about 8 inches for this snowfall which is pretty unusual for our area outside of Philadelphia. I spent last night spinning since I just haven’t been in the mood to really knit, and hopefully the UPS man will bring me extra bobbins and a lazy kate so that I can get some serious work done. Looks like today I’m going to be sitting at home and spinning away too – not complaining 🙂

Oh and on Superbowl Sunday, AtomicKnits and I went out to Woolbearers in NJ to meet Carol Sulcoski and check out the store too. It’s an AWESOME store with a really huge selection of sock yarn and other yarns. The day before, the town had this Fire and Ice festival with ice sculptures being made – the store had one of a lamb outside. Too cute. Carol is really great and it was fun to meet her, get the book signed, and see the socks in her book, Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn, all laid out.

And now, a few photos of the snow, because it’s pretty..

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Okay and one of my boy  – the best model a photographer could ever want   😉
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2009 Knitting, Finished Objects, Resolutions, Socks, Spinning

Project updates

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January end-of-month update:
The knitting resolutions  haven’t all been met (already, I know!).
1.  Clear the WIP queue from last year by the end of the month.
Didn’t happen!  I did clear out a bunch of things, but there are still two open WIPs from last year.  Not bad though..

3. Knit one pair of socks per month
Got that one!  One pair of socks per month is definitely manageable and I still have time to knit other things.
Pattern:  Little Child’s Sock
Designer:  Nancy Bush
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm)
Yarn:  Knit Picks Imagination  in colorway “Wicked Witch”
–Ravelry Project Link–  
 
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Nancy Bush can write a pattern like nobody’s business.  It was so well written out, line by line, you just can’t but help be in awe of the time that must’ve been spent writing it out.  The book, Knitting Vintage Socks,  is becoming a fast favorite.  The yarn is super soft and fun to knit with although the variegation obscures the pattern mostly.  And see all that color pooling?  I know it’s something knitters strive to fight against, but I just love it.  It almost looks like tye dye on the stockinette part of the leg.

4.  Spin four ounces of roving per month.
Didn’t quite make this one either.  I got about an ounce of this superwash merion from Crown Mountain Farms (colorway “Sunshine of your Love”) done for the spin and knit along at Ply by Night on Ravelry.  I’ve really gotta spend more time with the wheel in the evenings and maybe alternate nights between knitting and spinning.  Plus, there’s a fun project coming up for next month with roving from dkKnits that I’m pretty antsy to get started on!
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Photography

Photography Workshop results

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This past weekend, I went to a photography workshop run by Scott Church in Lancaster, PA.   I had been to his workshops before and they’re absolutely invaluable for a beginning photographer.   He goes over the basics (f-stop, ISO, shutter speed) and then goes on to explain how he does things and what’s important in his line of work (the model is always right, making people comfortable, framing, etc).   After the basics are covered, the attendees go out around the location with models and shoot as much as they can with help from Scott.   For me, the opportunity to learn new things and be able to work with models and get that first person experience is what really makes the class worth every penny.   I mostly have done photography of flowers, landscapes, architecture and other such immobile things in the past – branching out to portrait and model photography is something entirely different since the subject matter isn’t usually just sitting around, waiting for you to stop by.   Before I get to the picture, I’d like to post here that if you need a portrait, family photo, a little racy photo or two for the significant other, please let me know – while I’m building a portfolio, I work cheap (ie. free) and would be happy to work with you if you’re in the Philadelphia area.   Now, one quick photo of Lorianna from yesterday.

 

ETA 27Jan2009 – One more.. This is Tony Gibble

2009 Knitting, Finished Objects, Resolutions, Scarves

Clapotis and resolutions

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First, I have an FO for you.  Meg, the dyer at Twisted Fiber Art, does such an incredible job dyeing striping yarns and her colorways are so gorgeous.  Plus, the Clapotis pattern is such a great all-purpose scarf pattern and is so easy to adapt to any type of yarn.  This one took a little while to finish since I kept it on the needles as my mindless knitting project.  I tend to try and keep one easy project on the needles as a travel project to take with me everywhere that I don’t really have to think about or need to refer to a pattern much.

Pattern:  Clapotis
Designer:  Kate Gilbert
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm)
Yarn:  Twisted Fiber Art Shiny  in colorway “Portal”
–Ravelry Project Link–

Now, onto knitting resolutions!  The Selfish knitters group on Ravelry have a thread for New Year’s Resolution knitting and Atomic posted some knitting resolutions on her blog too.    I decided to post a few resolutions since I’ve had them in my head anyway.  I kept it simple on the thread and posted just the first three, but thought about expanding it here and expanding it to include spinning as well.

  1. Clear the WIP queue from last year by the end of the month.
  2. Knit two sweaters this year.
  3. Knit one pair of socks per month – I had thought about doing the 52 pair challenge, but I think that’s a touch too ambitious, especially if I want to work on other projects too.
  4. Spin four ounces of roving per month.
  5. Dye more yarn and roving.
  6. Knit at least one pair of stranded socks.
  7. Finish holiday gift knitting throughout the year instead of all at once in December!
  8. Participate in another test knit.
  9. Work on an original pattern.

I think that gives me plenty to work on.  I also want to be a little more careful with my stash acquisitions and either buy on sale, something unique that cannot be found elsewhere, at festivals, or with a specific project in mind.  When I started knitting this past may I sort of got out of control and bought everything in sight.  It’s time to get a handle on it and knit more, buy less!

Finished Objects, Scarves

Beauty in Repetition

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Arguably the easiest knit I’ve ever done and SO beautiful.   This took me a whole two days to knit since I could not put it down.   I didn’t find one knot in any of the four skeins although there was plenty of vegetable matter throughout.   I suppose that’s the big problem I have with Noro – it costs enough that you’d think it would be a quality yarn with no VM.   I’m tempted to go and spin up something similar and make another scarf like this since it’s SO gorgeous and so easy to do.   The ‘base’ skeins I used were mostly black with some dark blue and green mixed in.. I suppose I could’ve picked better companion skeins or maybe started at different points so that I didn’t get the one really dark patch and the one really light patch, but the beauty of the project is that you never know what’s going to happen with Noro colors.   Also, no two scarves can ever EVER be the same since no two skeins of Noro that I’ve ever seen start and end at the same color.   That makes these Noro striped scarves like snowflakes, right?   😉

Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf
Designer: Jared Flood
Needles: US 7 (4.5mm)
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden  in 264, 246, and 252
–Ravelry Project Link–