Unlocking a new skill -- soap!

A friend recently ran a get-together that involved making soap.  Yes, from lye and oils and fats and stuff like that.  This friend has been a professional maker and seller of soap, so it felt like quite a privilege as well as a wonderful introduction into this ancient technology.

After pouring our saponified goo into molds, we let it sit for a few weeks, then cut it into smaller bars.  It's still quite soft!  Now it gets to sit for another month or two to finish curing.

When we first cut the bars, there was quite a cross-sectional color variation, from brown on the outside to greenish-cream in the middle.  Now, a few days later, the color variations are evening out to various shades of cream and brown.

The above bars (the square ones) have clay added.  I like the swirls, though we'll see how it looks after curing.

The round bars have various scents added.  The molded hexagonal bars and all of the bars with clay added are unscented.

I'm looking forward to future adventures in soap making!

More spinning -- Debouillet!

I have finished spinning a 4-ounce batch of Debouillet roving.  It seemed to be taking a long time.  I understand why now.  The 4 ounces of Debouillet (give or take a bit) yielded about 665-670 yards of 2-ply yarn.

The roving had some VM and a few neps and noils.  But it drafted beautifully.  It was relatively short-stapled though not excessively short, very fine and soft, and kind of sproingy/bouncy, a bit like merino though lacking its cottony texture and more like Rambouillet.  Well, duh -- the Debouillet breed of sheep was started with a Rambouillet-Merino cross.  (The Delaine Merino, to be precise, thus the name Debouillet.)

I've spun Debouillet before -- a bit of brown roving that gave me 365-ish yards of a somewhat shiny 2-ply from about 3 ounces of roving.

The white yarn I just spun is more matte than shiny, even though both rovings were from sheep of the same breed.

Dunno what I'll do with the yarn.

I'm not sure what I'll spin next, but hopefully the default yarn from that future batch won't be so fine!  (Default yarn meaning the yarn I naturally spin without having to think about it, which is a function of the roving and the wheel and my mood, but mostly the roving and its drafting friction and how that interacts with the wheel I'm using to spin it.)  I don't mind having fine yarn, but it takes longer to spin than thicker yarn.  And sometimes I want that quicker gratification.  I don't really want to engineer my yarn, either, since I spin for the sheer enjoyment of it rather than to create a specific yarn.  I like zoning out as I spin rather than counting treadles and continuously referring to a reference sample for thickness and all those other things needed to create a consciously designed yarn.

A bit of spinning -- Lopez Island Romney X

I finally spun the Romney-X roving I bought last autumn at Oregon Flock and Fiber.  I ended up with about 375 yards of 2-ply, so rather a bit thinner than the 250 yards of 2-ply I spun from the previous year's Romney-X roving.

It's pretty.  It drafted well.  It was fairly clean, very minimal VM that was easy to pick out.  It was an enjoyable spinning experience, which is pretty much all I ask for most of the time when I sit down at a wheel.  It's a nice medium heathery gray, in case the color in the photo isn't clear.

The vendor I got it from is Island Fibers, from Lopez Island in Washington.  The first time I bought from them, I think they said that this was milled by Skagit Wool.  They said it was from the local sheep, who had mostly Romney genetics with random other breeds in the gene pool.  Whatever it is, I like spinning it.  I have no idea if what I bought last fall is from the exact same bump as I had bought from the previous year, or if it's a new batch from a later clip.

Part of why I spun this is because I got inspired -- I went to Black Sheep Gathering with some friends last weekend.  It was fun.  It didn't seem to have as many people and animals and vendors as I had remembered, but it's always possible I'm getting it confused with Oregon Flock and Fiber since both are in the same location and are similar in a lot of ways.  Or it's just completely random and the day/time I went are not as busy as other days/times.

As always, it was great to see the critters and explore the vendors' offerings, and as always, it's great to run into friends and acquaintances while I'm there.

This time I bought some horned dorset roving, about 4 oz.  I asked the vendor, and they said it's somewhat resistant to felting, which is what I'd heard is a breed characteristic.  So maybe I'll make socks from this.  Or something else that I don't necessarily want to felt easily.  I've spun roving from crossbred merino-dorset, but not purebred dorset.  It should be interesting.

I brought some handspun over to a friend who weaves.  It'll be their first time weaving with handspun.  I look forward to the results.  If it works out, I'll bring over more.  I love using my handspun, but I don't mind if some of it gets used by other people.  Also, maybe it'll inspire me to weave some of my handspun in addition to knitting with it.

There's not much to report on the knitting side of things.  My slowly growing projects are slowly growing and I haven't started (or finished) anything new.  I've been doing a lot of tablet weaving and braiding and what-not, but I don't really write about those things in this blog.

Hmm, what shall I spin next?  Or knit, for that matter?  Though I really do want to finish the sweater I started last year, so the recipient can wear it later this year.  For spinning, I have a bunch of 4 oz batches of roving bought at various fiber festivals as well as some larger batches.  Hmmm.

Musings about Spinning Wheels -- a reproduction wheel from the former USSR

This wheel showed up on craigslist, within a reasonable driving distance and in my price range.  So I got it.

The seller had bought the wheel used many years previously.  She was upgrading to a more modern wheel from a currently active manufacturer and no longer wanted or need this one.  She knew nothing more about the wheel beyond "it works".  I don't remember if there was a driveband on it or not, but since most of the time I end up needing to replace the driveband anyway, that didn't bother me.

I had no idea what the wheel was, so I asked around.

Someone on Ravelry found its twin:  "See SPIN-OFF Magazine Winter 1991 Edition, Page 79, “Spinning Wheel Treasures From Europe Part 1- Horizontal Wheels” by Sharon Hudgins. The wheel is identified as a Russian (Soviet Union at that time) made wheel she purchased in 1984 in Prague, Czechoslovakia."

A few other people soon posted on Ravelry, showing photos of wheels that were very similar.  The author who wrote the Spin-Off article had purchased her wheel in a state-run crafts store that was meant to show off traditional craftsmanship from Russia, I believe.  And given that some other people have similar wheels, there were apparently a lot of them for sale throughout the former USSR and Eastern Bloc countries.

Fun!  So apparently the US isn't the only country that was having a fad for reproduction spinning wheels in the 1970s and 1980s.

This is a very silly wheel but I adore it.  What's silly about it?

It came with four bobbins.  But only one of them works with the wheel.  The other three are too big.  My guess is that a previous owner had some extra bobbins made but the dimensions weren't quite right.  Metric vs US?  Differences in shrink/swell of American vs Czech/USSR wood?  A bit of mis-measurement and/or lack of precision when they were commissioned?  No idea!

The bobbin comes off by unscrewing the metal shaft from the flyer.  I don't think I've ever seen that kind of thing in any other spinning wheel, not that I've seen a lot of spinning wheels.  However, now that I know the other bobbins won't fit, I don't bother changing it out.  I just unwind the spun yarn onto a storage bobbin and go from there, like I do with other wheels that have just one bobbin and/or that have bobbins which are a pain to change out.

The orifice hook is a handmade thing that was undoubtedly added after.  Since most older wheels don't have orifice hooks at all, this isn't a problem.  There's a pretty handmade clay bead that serves as the handle.

The treadle is a narrow board, narrower than many people's feet.  It works perfectly well, though.

The distaff is a different wood from the rest of the wheel.  And as with my other reproduction wheel, it's not that stable and thus not that useful.  I don't use it.

The wheel isn't particularly fast -- I think it's around 1:10 or so -- but there's something about it that keeps me coming back to spin on it for just a little bit longer.

I have no idea if this was made to be a spinning wheel or just a decorative piece.  There are a lot of wheels from that era that were made to be decorative.  Some aren't able to spin.  But some, especially those that were copied from extant pieces, actually do spin, often quite reasonably well.  This one falls into the functional category, whether accidentally or on purpose.

I don't use it often, but it's always a lot of fun whenever I do use it.

Fun with natural dyes

The colors on my pics and on the screen aren't quite right (not rich enough), but it still conveys a lot.

This is my share of the dyed goods from a natural dyeing session I did with some friends last weekend.

My skeins are wool, roughly 100g each, roughly fingering weight.  My friends had their own skeins along with some pieces of fabric in wool and in linen.  It totaled up to I don't know how many pounds/kilograms of stuff.

The wool was mordanted a few weeks ago with alum and cream of tartar.  We weren't hugely consistent in our mordanting technique, as I wrote about in a recent post.  But as you can see, everything took the dye quite well.  The linen, since it wasn't mordanted, was destined for the indigo pots.

The yellow is from marigolds.  One of the group grew marigolds last summer and froze a bunch of flowers.  The dye was extracted with a long simmer and the petals strained out.

We weren't too careful in our dyeing technique.  Mostly, people wetted the yarn/fabric, dropped it in the pot, stirred it a bit, then after a little while took it out, wrung out excess dye, and hung it up to dry.  Then someone else would put something in the pot, etc.

Much later, after we got our stuff home, everything was rinsed.

Anyway, the first yellow that came out of the marigolds was a rich color -- sort of a bronze-y mustard-y russet-y yellow.

Mine is more of a lemon/banana yellow.  Later things dyed were even lighter yellows.  We didn't do any ammonia/water afterdips (or any post-mordanting, or anything at all, really) to modify colors.

The oranges are madder.  We meant to add calcium but forgot, so ended up with more orange than red, though one of my skeins (which was in the dyebath longer) has some areas that are more red.

The blues are all indigo, though the lightest one (next to the orange madder skeins) was dyed light yellow before it had a quick dip in the indigo.

I was trying for an indigo gradient, both with repeated dips (for darker colors), and quicker dips, and dips at various portions of the afternoon, in hopes that lighter colors would happen as the indigo got exhausted.  Well, it never really got exhausted, apparently!  We used indigo extract and will take that into account for our next dye day.  Ditto for the madder pot, which also used extract rather than us prepping whole roots, and which was still giving excellent color all the way through the day.

I wonder if part of why the indigo hit so quickly and well was due to the skeins being mordanted?  Dunno if that makes a difference for indigo.

We will probably get together again for more dye days, both natural and synthetic dyes.  We're also considering a weed walk, where we go after invasive/noxious weeds and plentiful non-noxious weeds to acquire materials for our dyepots.  We'd still use indigo and madder extracts, but we should be able to get a range of yellows and browns and russets/olives etc. from the local flora.  We'll see.

Rinsing off was rather messy.  I still have indigo on my fingernails since I wasn't wearing gloves when I rinsed them.  I did wear them during the dyeing.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my dyed yarn.  Tablet weaving, maybe?  Or other weaving?  Give them away to friends?  Dunno.  One of them (not pictured above) already went home with one of the other dyers, since that person has some Ideas of Things To Try..

Anyway, much fun was had.  It's been a long time since I've done much natural dyeing.  It's always more fun to do dyeing with friends.

A finished item! (the crocheted charity baby blanket)

Ooh, a post for May!  And it's an actual blog-related accomplishment!

The baby blanket I've been working on for a while is finished.  I handed it over before measuring the amount of yarn I used, but at least I got a photo!

It took a while to decide on an edging.  I ended up doing two single crochets in each gap all the way around, and then did a round of reverse crab stitch (putting the hook between the single crochets of the previous round because I'm lazy that way).

It still slightly ruffles, but it's better than some of my other attempts at a border, which either ruffled or pulled in or both (ruffle on the sides, pull in on the ends, or vice versa).

It's small, probably less than 30" square, but reasonable enough.  And it's pretty cute.

I like the variegation combined with the texture and the slight bling of the mylar.  Hopefully the recipient will like it, too.

I could have taken more yarn for another baby blanket, but I took some darker blue acrylic instead and will knit another hat or two for either this charity or a different charity.  Then maybe I'll do another crocheted baby blanket.

(The blanket is going to a local organization that works with women and children.)

My pink shawl is continuing to make progress, yay!

My green sweater is not, boohoo!

And I haven't yet started another project in any of the crafts that I write about on this blog.

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I did get together with friends last week to mordant some wool for an upcoming natural dye day.  We just did alum plus cream of tartar.

Since we all had different backgrounds in dyeing, we all had some different experiences with quantities.  How much alum and cream of tartar does one need?  What is the actual procedure for mordanting?  If you want to refresh a mordant solution to mordant additional goods, how much do you need to add to refresh?  Which alum, in particular, since different chemicals in the same family may share the name "alum" when we go to buy them?

It turns out that there are many answers to these questions.

Which means that it's a pretty forgiving process.

And I guess we'll see what happens when we do Round 2 -- Dye Day!

The longer answer is that every good dyeing book and reputable website (reputable meaning that they sell dyes and mordants and aren't just AI hallucinations or twee misinformation from people without much experience) has a slightly different method with slightly different percentages and what-not.

Anywhere from about 5-20% WOF is suggested for alum, with many clustering around 15%, and with several sources warning that too much (i.e. over about 20%) will mess up the wool.  The percentages weren't significantly different for the different types of alum that are commonly found through natural dyeing supply shops.

Cream of tartar is used to acidify the bath and reduce chances of stickiness and is usually suggested at around 5-6% WOF (and often said not to be necessary or desirable for mordanting silk).

Refresh amounts range from one-quarter to one-half for the alum, with no refresh needed for the cream of tartar, and some also suggested using a hydrometer to calculate appropriately.  Some said to discard the bath if it got cloudy or had precipitates in it, while others said it made no difference.

Time and temperature were all over the place, though all agreed that keeping the bath at a simmer or below was preferable.  Some suggested that the goods should simmer for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and then cool in the mordanting bath overnight, while others didn't seem to care.  Some people had good luck with room-temperature mordanting (a cold soak of several days to a month) while others didn't.

I have heard that the post-mordanting treatment can affect the results, too.  Do you dye right away?  Keep the skeins damp (but not moldy)?  Let them dry and store them?  Put them in the refrigerator or freezer?  I have no idea what effect, if any, these variables would have on the dyeing.  We won't be dyeing for at least another week, so we know these particular skeins will be stored for a while before getting dyed.  I don't think we have enough dyestuffs to require us mordanting up anything more for this round.  And I don't recall anything weird from former dye days where we mordanted in one pot, pulled the skeins out of the mordanting bath, and then dropped them into the dyebath.  So who knows?

I am not a professional dyer and don't care if I have a fully repeatable process or get any specific colors.  As long as I end up with interesting and colorful yarn (or cloth or roving) at the end, I'm fine.

More of the same

I'm still working on the same things as last month.  Progress?  Yes, some.  But not sufficiently different to provide photos.

The center of my crocheted baby blanket is finished.  Now on to the edging!  Two dcs in each hole (starting along one side) doesn't have the right tension.  I'll try 3, and if that is too much, then I'll alternate 2 and 3.

The pink Miami Vice shawl is making progress, too.  I'm still in the last section of lace.  Once I've done all eleven repeats, I'll decide whether to grow the shawl a bit more or to bind off, and also how I want to bind off.

The sweater sits, alas, taunting me.

And no new doilies are on the needles!  Nor any other knitting!  Nor anything on the rigid heddle loom, nor a spinning wheel.

It's been a hard winter, for many reasons, and that has spilled into spring.  Hopefully things will settle down enough that I can be productive again soon.

Time for another progress report!

 I haven't posted since last month, yikes!

Knitting and what-not is still happening, though I've been very busy with things unrelated to having fun with fiber.

I haven't started any new doilies yet.

My travel shawl is still growing.  I'm on the second (and final) ball of yarn.

I'm not sure how much of it will get used as I finish up the actual pattern.  Then, once the pattern (as written) is finished, and if there is yarn left, I'll need to decide what to do.

I could grow the pattern a bit more -- add another band or two in the same style.

I could add a sideways-knit lace border.

Or, if there's enough yarn left, call it good, and then make a pair of socks or fingerless mitts.

I have no idea how large the shawl will be once it's blocked.  It's kind of a weird little shoulder-sized poncho thing at the moment.

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My sweater has had close to zero progress since the last time I wrote about it.  Hopefully I'll return to it soon since I'd like to get it done.

No pics, because what's the point?

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I have started a new project, though!  It's a crocheted baby blanket.  A friend of mine ended up with a stash of acrylic baby yarn, and asked all of us if we'd like to take some yarn to make baby blankets.  The blankets are destined for a local shelter that serves women with children.

I'm holding two yarns together.  One is something like Woolease, mostly acrylic with a bit of wool, in white with a bit of mylar.  I can't resist the sparkles.  The other is some skinny boucle-ish thing in shades of green and yellow.

I'm doing a very simple pattern.  Chain a likely number of stitches.  Then, all rows are dc, ch1, with the dc going into the space of the ch1 of the previous row.  Once the blanket is roughly square, I'll probably do a round or two of dc for the edging, estimating how many dcs will be needed so that nothing ruffles or binds, and then maybe a round of crab stitch to finish off.  If I'm feeling it, I'll switch to a different yarn for the edging -- that same boucle yarn but in yellow rather than green-and-yellow.

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I went to the first local fiber fair of the season this month.  I hadn't intended to buy anything, but, well, 4 ounces of a pretty gray Romeldale roving followed me home.  It's a blend from several different sheep, white and dark, which overall reads as a medium gray.

I guess I'll need to drag out a spinning wheel and do some spinning in order to keep my fiber stash at steady state or better!

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So there's my relatively meager progress report for the past month or so.

Lavori 07/15

 Lavori 07/15 is finished!

This is an 80 round doily (plus crochet cast-off), 8 pattern repeats per round (and 16 PR/rnd in the outer rounds).  The chart is NOT error free.

Chart Errors:

Round 51:  Towards the end of the repeat, there is a | symbol that should be a double-decrease instead.  It's fairly obvious.

Rounds 57-59 end up having an issue, but it's easily fixed.  Instead of what's charted, do the following:

Round 57: (yo, k1b, yo, k3) all the way across.  (This is how it's charted, but the chart omits one repeat, which ends up affecting how to chart round 59)

Round 59: (sk2p, yo) all the way across  (you could do yo, sk2p instead of sk2p, yo, though that'll affect the next error fix)

And somewhere before round 65:  K 6 more stitches at the end of the round before beginning the next round, so that the first stitch of round 65 is directly over the sk2p of round 59.

This was a reasonably fun doily to knit, though it had way more stitches than seemed necessary by the end.  Perhaps it would have been better doing this with either 6 or 7 pattern repeats per round instead of 8.  Dunno if that would have worked well enough, though, since the number of stitches in the early rounds is just about right.  It's the later rounds where things go wild.

I think it is probably a Herbert Niebling pattern, and if not, then it's a design by someone who used motifs that are characteristically Niebling-esque.  Whatever.  It's a cute doily no matter who the designer was.

The thread was from the thrift store vintage stash.  It was 300 yards of something that seemed like it was roughly #30 in weight.  I ran out in the middle of round 79.  Luckily, the leftovers stash yielded some DMC Cebelia that was sufficiently similar, whew.

Hmm, what doily shall I tackle next?  There are a few more small doilies in Lavori 7 that could be quick to knock out.  There's the old French language non-charted text-only doily I've mentioned before, clearly a Niebling design, that could be interesting to puzzle out.  I could pick another big pattern, or do some designs by Erich Engeln or Christine Duchrow or Marianne Kinzel or one of the other greats.  I guess I'll see what appeals, and also what thread I feel like using.

Other than finishing Lavori 07/15, I've been slowly working on my Miami Vice shawl and my Appledore gansey.  There's not enough progress to be worth sharing.  I've mostly been busy with other things.

A new year, a new doily (and a new post!)

This is another doily in Lavori 7.  This one is Figure 15 Sottovaso.  It has 80 rounds and, as you can see, 8 pattern repeats per round with 16 pattern repeats per round in the outer part of the doily.

It is very silly looking.  So I decided I wanted to make it.

It might be a Niebling pattern, given those outer sets of fans, and also given the silly stuff that happens early on in the doily.

The early doily has several rounds of twisted stitches, which isn't all that unusual, I suppose.  I twisted them in the intermediate rounds since it helps define the columns so well.  And then the columns of twisted stitches turn into columns of crossed stitches.  That (complicated stuff early in the doily, including crossed stitches) is more commonly found in Niebling designs than in patterns known to be created by other designers.  So maybe.

The outer sets of fans are the thing where two or three fan motifs are next to each other with a double yarnover between the fans, as I did in the Lavori 07/30 doily and many others.  As far as I can tell (i.e., from a quick glance), there are no rounds that begin and end with yarnovers.

I rummaged through my collection of vintage threads and found something that might be #30, and, if it's a full rather than a partial ball of thread, might have about 300 yards.  If that's not enough, I found another partial ball (I am nearly 100% sure that's it's partial) of similar-weight thread in a color that's not too different.  I don't care if the outer rounds are slightly different in color from the earlier rounds.

Yesterday was the cast-on day.  Fun fun!

As often happens, I get tired of dpns somewhere in the early slog and try to move to a circular needle a little bit too soon.  So the next few rounds were a bit annoying, as I used variations on the two-circulars and the magic-loop methods until I had enough stitches, and more importantly, enough diameter, to fit on my circular with no more fuss.

I don't always end up doing that, but really, I should know better.  But the dpns kept trying to slither out of the knitted stitches, and it was annoying doing crossed stitches and horizontal-running-thread increases and I wanted to be done with the dpns.

I don't have high hopes for this doily given it's less than well defined motifs in the pic above, but we'll see.  Once I get past the section with so many crossed stitches, the rest seems relatively straightforward and hopefully a bit quicker to knit.

Then I can ruminate on what doily project I might feel like tackling next.

My sweater is growing again -- I'm knitting the back above the armhole.  I'm still vaguely dithering about whether I want to put a couple of short rows in there somewhere.  Quite possibly.  Then I can do the front, and I'll probably do a dropped area in the middle to shape the neck area.  Then the shoulder straps!  Those will require a bit more dithering, too.  I also have to decide how many inches to knit for the front and back before the shoulder straps so that the sweater will fit well and so that the sleeves will have a reasonable number of stitches.

My travel shawl is continuing to grow, too.  Soon I'll be done with the current set of eyelets.  Then it'll be time for another round of increases.  I'm getting close to the end of the first skein of yarn.  It's a bit soon, but I'm already thinking a bit about ways to make the shawl bigger if I still have a lot of yarn left after the official pattern reaches its end.

And that's it for this post!

Possibly the final post for 2025

I think this is post number 50 for the year, which of course means number 50 since I returned to posting on this blog after the decade-long hiatus.

Here's another pic of my recently finished doily.  A place I was visiting had round tables so I draped it over to show off what it looks like when it's actually on a table.  The table would have needed to have been a little bit bigger to display it to perfection, but eh, that's OK.

I finished another charity hat.  This one is black, same pattern and needle size and everything else as I normally do.

This might be my last charity hat for a while until I can acquire more free yarn.  I have partial balls left but not enough to make a full hat with.  Maybe I'll use two strands and fewer stitches and crank out a few more.  We'll see.

Other than that, I've been working on my travel shawl when I'm traveling or at meetings or otherwise need to keep my hands busy.  I've also started to make some progress again on the Appledore gansey now that Lavori 07/30 is finished.  I'd like to get it done this winter so the recipient can get some use out of it while it's cold.  I won't include photos since they look a lot like last month's photos.  I really concentrated on finishing the doily these past few months, to the detriment of everything else.

Since this is quite likely to be the last post of 2025, why not do a bit of rambling about the past year, at least for those things that this blog is occupied with?

I acquired another rescue wheel this year, which came with a rescue rigid heddle loom.  So I did my first-ever rigid heddle weaving project.  The wheel is fixed up and spinning, too -- it's a very nice vintage wheel, very basic and plain but quite serviceable and steady.

I've done other spinning this year, too.  And I've also been knitting with handspun.  The fiber stash is roughly steady-state thanks to a bit of stash acquisition that happened at fiber fairs and elsewhere.  The fiber fairs are always a lot of fun and I like supporting local people, so no regrets even though I don't really need more fiber until after I've spun up some of what I got during my post-COVID restocking spree.

I learned how to do sprang and also explored several new-to-me tablet weaving techniques and braiding techniques.  Those are beyond the scope of this blog, though.

I did some knitting, too.  Duh.  Cat beds, travel shawls, hats, and, of course, doilies.  It was a productive year for doilies, ranging from small and quick to large and more time-consuming.  Hopefully I'll continue to knit doilies next year.  I want to knit some fingerless mitts for a friend so those are on my to-do list for "soon", and I want to finish the sweater I'm knitting so I can knit more.  I might want to knit another cat bed, too.

I ended up not knitting any socks this year.  Sigh.  I really do need to cast on another pair, but keep not doing it.  I like knitting socks but I keep choosing other things when it's time to start a new project.

The people I hang out with for knitting are a delight, as always, and it will bring me great joy to continue hanging out with them.  I still want to get involved with some of the local guilds, though in general, I'm not really a guilds type of person, so who knows?

What do I want to do next year?  The usual.  More doilies, more shawls, more hats, more mittens (and fingerless mitts), more socks, more sweaters, maybe another cat bed, plus anything else that strikes my fancy.  See?  The usual.

For spinning -- continue spinning, and continue using my handspun.  I think that some of my handspun would work very well for weaving if I feel like rigging up a loom.  What would I use the cloth for, though?  All I can think of is stuff like blankets.  I have no real interest in table runners or towels or placemats, nor do I need any woven scarves.  I don't want to make clothes from my handspun, I don't think.  Rugs could be fun but I'd probably need a sturdier loom than the little plastic vintage or really any kind of rigid heddle loom.  Hmm.

I'll try not to buy any spinning wheels this year, though no promises should something come my way.  I'd like to sell some of my rescued wheels that I don't use very often -- they deserve to be in the hands of people who will use them more regularly.

Maybe this will be the year I start dyeing again.  We'll see!  And hopefully I'll continue posting on this blog.

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Apparently Barbara Walker passed away about a week ago.  She was 95, so had a good long life, well lived.  She was one of the big names in knitting in the 1970s and 1980s, as women turned their intellectual abilities towards knitting and other similar crafts.  There's a lot to be said about so-called women's work, the feminism of the era, and the way that women who'd been restricted to women's work began to focus on and respect the worth of that work.  It's part of the whole ferment of that era -- feminism, civil rights, curiosity about other cultures, reclaiming old-fashioned skills that had fallen out of favor with mid-20th century modernizing, and everything else.

Barbara Walker is known for her collections of stitch patterns and also for her work on generating top-down templates for knitting various kinds of garments.  Her work in combination with Elizabeth Zimmermann's work were entirely liberating for me and many others.  I couldn't really follow most published patterns since I didn't fit the size range the patterns were in, and I couldn't get help from the store owners because I knit "funny" (i.e. continental style at a time when everyone around me did Anglo-American), and because I didn't like sewing pieces together.  I went looking for a book on how to design your own things, discovered Zimmermann and Walker, and never looked back.

The work of these new voices, along with the then-new interest in historic and ethnic knitting, helped to revitalize knitting in the 1970s to 1980s.  This is part of why knitting was such a big part of the early internet years.  Or pre-internet, depending on what you call things like bbs and delphi forums and early newsgroups and the like.  A lot of STEM majors in the university system were knitters, and of course they took those interests with them as the interconnectivity of the early internet started to develop and evolve.  Everything is of course related to everything, but modern knitting very much is a direct descendent of those knitting STEM majors and other knitting artists who were influenced by people like Walker.

Barbara Walker was also into feminist-focused mythology and tarot and other fun topics in feminism and spirituality, and apparently was active in modern dance.  She had a major impact in several fields.  I won't say it's a huge loss to the community -- she'd slowed down a lot in recent years, and she made her enormous contributions to each field decades ago and then moved on to yet other subjects -- but it's still a huge loss to all who knew and loved her, and she deserves a great deal of honor and respect for her many accomplishments over her very long life.  Everything she published about knitting is just as relevant today as it was when she wrote it.

Lavori 07/30, a few bad pics and a full list of known chart issues/errors/typos

 DONE!!!!!  It's gorgeous, of course.  And it feels really good to know that this project is complete.

I took the above photo while standing up next to it, thus the foreshortening.  It really is circular.

It's about 5' in diameter, give or take a bit, and I used somewhat more than 1500 yards of this vintage #30 cotton thread.

I had no trouble getting it to block flat.

It was a lot of fun to knit -- relatively straightforward with an interesting development of the various motifs, and the intellectual challenge of identifying and fixing chart errors.

It was not easy to find a place big enough to block it that would also be safe from the cats.  If I do another large (or larger) doily, I'll need to think about blocking earlier in the process.

Since I always like to list this info:  there are 202 rounds plus the crochet cast-off, and 6 pattern repeats per round (12 pattern repeats per round starting in round 171).  The chart is NOT error-free.

As promised, here's my comprehensive list of chart errors, along with a couple of other things to note.

Lavori 07/30 Chart Errors, Quirks, Typos, etc.

The chart numbering jumps from round 191 to round 201.  There is no reason for this.  So, although the chart itself goes to round 210 (as charted), it's really only a 202-round doily (as counted).

There's an error at roughly round 165 that affects everything in the hex mesh area all the way through roughly round 191.  I'll discuss that below.

Round 55 -- missing V early in the pattern repeat (it's fairly obvious -- there are a lot of V-1-V maneuvers and one of the Vs is missing)

Round 93 -- missing 1 in the stem area in the middle of the pattern repeat (it's fairly obvious -- it should be O-1-O-1-O, but the second 1 is missing)

Round 97 -- there is an asymmetry on the outer sides of the 5-X-5 leaves.  On the right side, there's a single yarnover.  On the left, a double yarnover.  The single yarnover is the correct version.  Again, fairly obvious when you get there.

Round 105 -- missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat, another fairly obvious error.

Round 113 --  another fairly obvious missing yarnover, just to the right of the flower.  There should be seven sets of double-yarnovers on each side of the flower.  Also, the flower really is slightly asymmetric here; each knit turns into a (yo, k1) to go from 13 to 26 stitches with no extra yarnover at the end, i.e., no chart error in this section of the pattern repeat.

Round 121 -- a missing yarnover in the middle of the hex mesh section to the left of the flower (i.e., there should be a double yarnover there, not a single yarnover), fairly obvious like most of the chart errors so far.

Round 123 --  a missing yarnover directly above the missing yarnover of round 121.

Round 127 --  a missing yarnover between the left side of the flower and the hex mesh section.  It should be (yo, sk2p) after all of the crossed stitches.  This took me a few minutes to figure out -- sure, there's an asymmetry, but I needed to count the stitches in the next round to decide whether I had a missing yarnover on the left or an extra yarnover on the right.  The next round requires two stitches at that spot, so a missing yarnover it is!

Round 135 --  2 errors in this row!  There's an extra yarnover to the left of the crossed-stitch section (the right side of the crossed-stitch section has the correct single yarnover), and also an extra yarnover in the center section of the leaves (there should be no double yarnovers in the leaf motif area, just single yarnovers)

Round 141 --  Missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat.

Round 153 -- Missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat.

Round 159 --  After the first set of leaves (and the skp, k3, k2t that finishes it off), the stitches at the beginning of the stretch of hex mesh are charted as yo, skp, k2t.  This should be symmetric with all the others, and the skp should be a double-decrease (sk2p, left-leaning to preserve symmetry).

Round 163 -- In the first set of leaves, the last leaf has a missing yarnover.  It should be (k4, yo, k-tbl, yo, k4) like all the other leaves in this round.

Round 165 through Round 191 or so -- see discussion, but the hex-mesh motif area has a serious chart error that affects this section of the chart from round 165 through 191 or so.  There are several possible fixes -- my approach is in the below discussion.

Round 169 -- There should be a 1Mv at the beginning of the round.  (In other words, the last stitch of round 167 doesn't get knit in round 168, but rather, moves to the beginning of round 169)

Round 173 -- there's a yarnover on one side of the hex mesh but not the other.  Whether it's an extra yarnover or a missing yarnover will depend on how one chooses to re-chart the hex mesh section of the pattern.  (For my choice to follow the chart as written as much as possible, it's a missing yarnover that needs to be added after the leaf tip at the beginning of the pattern repeat)

Round 175 -- For the second decreasing leaf motif (the one before the outer fans), there is an extra yarnover that shouldn't be there.  The leaf motif should be (skp, k7, k2t) and NOT (skp, k7, yo, k2t).

Round 177 -- Same as 175.  That second leaf should be (skp, k5, k2t) like the other leaves.

Round 179 --  Two chart errors in this round!  The first is the same as 175 and 177.    That second leaf should be (skp, k3, k2t) like the other leaves.  Also, the final growing leaf is missing a yarnover.  It should be (k2, yo, k-tbl, yo, k2) like the others in the round.

Round 201 (which should be labeled as round 193) -- First, note that the round numbering has jumped, with the previous round being labeled as 191.  There's no design-related reason for this; it just is.  Second, there is a missing yarnover at the end of the pattern repeat.

And I think that's it for the chart errors/typos I noticed!  There may well be a few I missed.  The pattern is mostly very logical and symmetric so it can be hard to notice one little missing or extra symbol in an area where it's obvious what one is supposed to be doing.

I also noted that there is some asymmetry where the middle leaf tip transitions into the flower stem.  It didn't mess up anything, so I just left it alone while remarking on it as one of the few places in the doily where things don't seem to be perfectly regular and symmetric.

Discussion of round 165 to 191 in the hex mesh area of the chart

In round 165, the hex mesh areas are different from each other.  One of them fits in with the stitch counts, but won't line up with round 171, when the chart officially goes to 12 pattern repeats per round.  The other lines up with round 171, but doesn't fit in with the stitch counts.

The problem has to do with how the hex mesh motifs line up from round to round.  The ones in the 6 PR/round chart area don't align properly with the ones in the 12 PR/round chart area.

So, some recharting is necessary in this part of the chart until it can gracefully rejoin the actual printed chart.

To summarize what I did, I added an extra chart motif (i.e. like the area with the correct number of motifs for the existing stitch count), and then continued with that extra motif all the way to round 181.  For rounds 183 to 191, I kludged a bit to keep the area looking pretty reasonable while trying to converge with the published chart.  After round 191, I could resume working the pattern as charted.

The above is the chart I eventually ended up using for the hex-mesh area (starting at round 171, in the 12 PR/round part of the chart).  It's not the only possible approach!

In the above chart, the rounds with stars to the left of the round number are where leaf tips join the hex mesh area.  Also, I used a basic symbol for the double decrease on the chart but did directional double decreases as I knit.  Also also, I didn't mark where the hex mesh area starts or ends compared to the beginning/end of the round since it's only important for the first/last pattern repeat, and I didn't mark anything where a double yarnover crosses the beginning/end of round nor where the last stitch of a previous pattern round gets incorporated into the first stitch of the next pattern round.  This chart was for my own personal use and I adjusted automatically without needing to explicitly mark it.

I started this doily in late April, finished the knitting in late November (with a break for angst-ing over how to rechart the hex mesh area in the outer rounds) and finally blocked it yesterday.  It's been a fun journey with a beautiful piece of lace to show for it at the other end.  I like the symmetry of the pattern, and I love the way that carefully stacked increases and decreases are used to warp and scallop various parts of the design.  As is common with a Niebling design, different stitch patterns and increase/decrease patterns are used to add textural contrasts.  I'm very glad that I tackled this project.  Not only is the result well worth the effort, I have confidence and faith that I can handle other large designs I've been interested in.  Will I do so immediately?  I don't know, nor do I know what doily I might end up doing next.  We'll see!

And now....  On to the next project!

Still no doily blocking

My doily weighs a bit more than 110g, which, given the estimate of 18g of thread per 250 yards, puts it between 1500 and 1600 yards.

I still haven't blocked it.  When I stretch it out for an estimate, it looks like it'll be at least 5' in diameter.  This is too big for the boxes I've been using.  So I got out my mats.  This took a while since they'd been in a semi-inaccessible location for a few years and I had to enlist assistance to retrieve them.  They're roughly 1 meter square so should work for a doily that's less than 2 meters in diameter.

Now I'm looking for an area where I can lay down 4 mats (2x2).  I used to live in such a place but that was then and things are different now.  I had hoped that I'd be able to do it in a room where I could close the door.  However, such a space does not seem to exist here.  Next I will try the main living area.  This means I'll need a way to keep the cats from helping, either before or during or after the blocking process.  No sharpening their claws.  No puking on anything.  No lying down on the doily and accidentally knocking out a bunch of pins.  Plus the room will be inaccessible for other uses while the doily is drying.

Dang.

It's possible I could use a room behind a closed door if I do some major furniture re-arranging.  But even then, quite possibly not.  The space is a few inches too narrow and I don't want to try and bend or break the mats.

It's also possible I can tape together some boxes in way that will keep them from bending when I pin out the doily.  I might try that because I'm deeply dubious about blocking in the main living area where cats can wander freely, even if I cover the blocking mats with a sheet or something while the doily is drying.

I don't want to fold it in half or quarters to block it.

We'll see.

This means that I need to think carefully before doing any future large doilies so that I have a good blocking strategy.

I also need to figure out where to store the mats since I'm not putting them back where they were.

Lavori 07/30 progress report (knitting is finished!) plus a few other ramblings

I've been busy so not much has happened lately.

The biggest bit of progress was finishing the knitting of Lavori 07/30!!!!!  (yes, 5 exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind)   It wasn't as quick as I had predicted in my last post.  I made a knitting error in a difficult-to-fix area, several rounds before I noticed its existence.  I took the knitting back, stitch by stitch, until I felt comfortable about trying to fix it.  The fix isn't perfect but it'll be pretty unnoticeable.  But after that, I cruised to the end, all several thousand stitches left to knit.  Several days later, I had a few hours available, and was able to do the crochet cast off.  (hopefully without dropping any stitches, which would be a very unhappy blocking surprise)

I've hidden some of the ends and am not sure how many more I'll bother with.  While knitting, I ended one ball and started the next by tying simple overhand knots.  They're relatively unobtrusive unless I go looking for them.  Heck, I had trouble finding my final end which was poking out on the cast-off round.  There's so much thread and so much else going on that any one little thing is not usually all that noticeable.  Hopefully that's also true of the areas where I imperfectly fixed knitting mistakes!  I fixed a lot of my knitting mistakes perfectly so those definitely won't be visible after blocking.

I'm not sure when I'll have the time to get it blocked.  I'll need a few hours and a fairly large space, and maybe more pins.

I have no idea how much thread I used -- my estimate is in the 1500-2000 yard range, give or take a bit, but I'll need to weigh it to get a better estimate.  I did manage to finish without needing to use any full balls of thread.  That means that I have 1050 yards (3 full balls of 350 yds each) of this Clarks Big Ball #30 crochet cotton (plus a few small partial balls) to use for a future doily.

On the whole, this was a very straightforward knit except for the inaccuracies in the chart.  I'll probably repeat this and bloviate a bit longer about it all when I do the final report after blocking.

Here's a photo, unblocked, showing that I have indeed done the cast-off.

Other than that, I, umm, still haven't done much.  I was fairly motivated to finish the doily and barely touched my sweater.  I still haven't completely decided how to handle the back vs the front, but I want to start knitting on it again so that may well start up again soon.  I won't bother to share a photo since it looks like a generic blob of knitting, nothing too interesting.

The travel shawl is slowly growing.  I made a mistake somewhere in the most recent increase (to over 300 stitches per row), but it was easy to kludge something without knowing exactly where the mistake is.  I was off by a stitch when I started the next set of eyelets, a very quick fix.  Dunno if I have too many or too few stitches -- I'll figure it out later.  Again, it does not matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

I've started to think about future projects but haven't really decided on anything yet.  I don't want to think too hard about doilies until this one is really and truly done.  I should start more projects -- maybe a hat or some socks, fingerless mitts or full mittens, something like that.  And the spinning wheel plus my fiber stash are whispering.  But it's also a busy time of year and I don't always have space for works in progress unless they are small and easily stored away when necessary.

And that's really about it for knitting (and other suitable blog topics) this month.

The latest charity hat and a Lavori 07/30 progress report

Another charity hat is finished and ready to donate.  I'll have to look at the dwindling acrylic stash to see what color the next hat will be.  This one is a nice dark blue.

Lavori 07/30 doily progress -- I'm almost DONE!!!!!!  So exciting!  I have two more rounds of knitting to go (a pattern round and an intermediate round) and then it'll be time to do the crochet cast-off.  After that will come the challenge of finding a place (and the time) to block the doily, but I'll worry about that when I get there.

There are no further chart errors.  I'll give a full run-down of chart errors along with a re-post and re-discussion of my hex-mesh charting fix as part of the final report once everything is blocked and beautiful.

I have approximately 2400-2500 stitches left to knit.  That'll take a few hours, and the crochet cast-off will also take a few hours, and ditto for the blocking.  I believe there's enough thread in the current ball of thread to get me to the end, and if not, then I'll unravel the filet crochet project that I cut off the previous ball of thread, and use that to finish the crochet cast-off.  Dunno how long this will all take, but hopefully I'll be done before December, and if not, then before January.

It's been a big project for me -- nearly 7 months since I cast on, so far.  There was about a 4-6 week period where little knitting got done because I hadn't yet committed to any specific rechart of the problematic hex mesh area, but other than that, I've made slow but steady progress.

So.  That means I do have the stamina for large doily projects and no longer need to feel intimidated by the time commitment involved.  There's at least one >300-round doily (or tablecloth) I've been eyeing as well as many that are in the 150-250 round range.  Dunno what I'll do next.  I'm still very focused on finishing this doily now that I'm so close to the end.  I don't want to get too distracted.

There's not much else to report.  The Miami Vice shawl is growing.  The Appledore gansey is still sitting there, waiting for me to stop dithering about whether to do short-rows on the back or to contour the front neckline or both.  I also need to figure out many inches I'll need to knit to get to the shoulders.  Luckily, the intended recipient is around so I can take a few measurements and also try on the sweater when I get close.

I need more knitting projects, not counting the doilies.  Maybe another cabled hat?  Or toe-up socks with a self-patterning yarn?  Or another cat bed?

I haven't done much spinning lately, nor warped up a new rigid heddle weaving project.  There's a batch of Jacob/llama in my stash that's been tempting me lately.  I've already spun a different batch of Jacob/llama that I bought at the same time from the same person (but different sheep and llamas, probably, given that the roving color is different).  It made some very nice yarn.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this stuff spins compared to that.  But maybe I'll spin something else first.

And that's it for this post.

Lavori 07/30 progress report (converging back to the chart)

I've gotten through all of the re-charted hex mesh area and have re-converged with the Lavori 07/30 chart as written, yay!!!

It's also the point where the chart numbering jumps from 191 to 201 for no obvious reason.  Indeed, there is absolutely no obvious reason at all, so I guess this counts as another chart typo!

I have roughly 10 rounds of knitting left to go, almost certainly less than 20,000 stitches.  The rounds are steadily getting longer, of course.  They're currently hovering at around 1200 stitches per round.  Also, I'm done with the hex mesh area completely.  The only double yarnovers left are the ones between the outer fan segments.  The leaf garlands are on their final leaf.  And the outer fans are growing.

It's kind of fun to watch what happens to the leaf motifs as there are increases on one side and decreases on the other.  Yup, they start leaning rather quickly.  I hope it all blocks out the way it's supposed to.

There is a chart error/typo in round 201!  Well, two, actually, if you count the mislabeling of the chart (round 193 is instead labeled as 201, and that discrepancy will continue for the rest of the doily).  In Round 201:  There is a missing yarnover at the end of the pattern repeat.

Here's my handwritten chart of what I ended up doing in the problematic hex mesh area of the outer rounds.  You can see eraser marks from some of my previous charts.  It's not like there's only one way of handling the issue, after all!  Probably any of my charts would have worked, and even with this one, there are a couple of variations I could have done on particular rows.

Lavori 07/30 partial rechart variation

I started this chart at round 171, when the Lavori chart transitions to 12 pattern repeats per round.  Everything up through round 181 is the same as the published chart except that there is one extra hex mesh motif per round.  Everything after round 191 is the same as the published chart.  So my rechart mostly applies to rounds 183 through 191.

This only shows the hex mesh area, not the rest of the doily.  Also, for some rounds, the hex mesh area is partly at the beginning of the pattern repeat and partly at the end, and I didn't bother to indicate that since I could use my own judgment pretty easily.  There will be 1Mv moves (move the stuff at the end of the pattern repeat to the beginning) every now and then, which again, I didn't indicate, and ditto for the places where the pattern repeat begins and ends with a yarnover.

The rounds I've marked with stars are where leaf tips (which are double decreases) get incorporated into the hex mesh.

The little vertical lines below the center motif, below round 171, are to delineate the central motif so I could keep things relatively symmetric and lined up all the way up the chart.

I tended to do directional double decreases where it made sense, but didn't chart them out specifically.

Dunno if this'll help anyone, but I thought I'd share it anyway.  It might go into my final post on this doily where I also list all the chart errors and typos.

I've already started thinking about future doilies.

-----------------------------

I finished the charity hat I started a few weeks ago.  It's already been donated.  On to the next one!

The above pic shows it with the brim down.  The brim can be turned up to cover the ears, or the hat can be worn as a slouch hat.  Since it's all k1p1 ribbing, the brim can be turned up as much or as little as the recipient wants.

I'm still working on the Miami Vice shawl.  Tomorrow should offer some good travel-knitting opportunities.  I'll have the shawl with me and also supplies to start the next charity hat.  Plus other non-knitting things to do, though I'm pretty sure I won't bring a spinning project.

The sweater is still sitting as I dither over how I want to handle the neck opening (so that the back is higher than the front).

And that's it for me today!

A bit of spinning and the first progress report of the month

I had written that the Navajo-Churro/Icelandic roving that I bought at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival a few weeks ago was calling to me.

So I spun it.

It's not the world's softest yarn, but that's OK!  I had some trouble spinning it -- a bit of VM in the roving, areas that were clumpy vs areas that drafted smoothly, and so on.  But even though I was pessimistic after spinning the singles, plying took care of the irregularities.  It looks and feels fairly even.  I have about 200 yards of 2-ply from about 4 ounces of fiber.

Here's a pic of the roving blob.

The color is a nice medium to dark brown, with some of the fibers being a bit lighter or darker brown.

I'm not sure what I'll spin next.  But hopefully something soon.

Here's the roll-call progress report on other projects, complete with pics for a few of them:

Lavori 07/30 doily -- I have decided how to approach the next few rounds and am making slow progress.  I got sidetracked by other things so haven't worked on this for a few days.  It's exciting to be so close to done but daunting that these last rounds still have a few tens of thousands of stitches left to do.

Miami Vice travel shawl -- I've finished the first set of eyelets and am about to increase stitches again.  The variegation isn't doing anything annoying, yay.  I don't know how far I am in the pattern or how much yarn I've used, but that's OK.  I like this pattern/yarn combo enough to keep knitting.  I'm not sure what I'll do when I reach the end -- add a sideways knit edging?  It'll depend a bit on how much yarn is left and how tired I am of the project by then.  There are hundreds of yards of yarn between now and then.

Appledore gansey -- I've done the underarm gussets and am ready to split the front and back.  I'm dithering about whether to do a shaped neckline in the front, short rows in the back, or both.

Charity ribbed hat -- making progress whenever I need some mindless knitting.  I don't have a pic of this to share.  It's pretty basic, just a k1p1 ribbed hat in a dark green worsted-weight Red Heart acrylic yarn.

Hmm, I don't have enough projects going.

That's about it for the knitting/spinning progress!  I've been doing other things so it's not like I'm only sitting around and twiddling my thumbs.  But they are things that I don't tend to write about in this blog.

Musings about spinning wheels -- reproduction wheels (Midway)

There was a craze for Americana, and in particular, colonial-style decorating in the middle decades of the 20th century.   For those who couldn't afford proper genuine antiques, the market provided new-looking reproductions in the same or similar style.  Reproduction furniture in colonial styles.  Reproduction braided rugs.  Reproduction doo-dads.  Among the doo-dads that could be used to furnish one's rooms were reproduction spinning wheels.  Many were lovely, made from attractive wood that had been nicely finished.

Some, such as the Roxton made in Canada wheel I mentioned in a recent post, were completely non-functional.  But some were honestly patterned after genuine pre-20th century antique wheels.  And some of those actually were usable as spinning wheels.

Country Craftsman and Daneker are moderately well known among fans of vintage reproduction wheels.  Many Country Craftsman wheels are reasonable spinners.  Some Daneker wheels are, too, though from what I've heard, it's more hit or miss with them.

There were manufacturers of kit wheels, too.  A person would buy the kit and assemble the wheel him or herself, staining it or otherwise decorating it appropriately.  Again, some were functional and some weren't.  Ditto for spinning wheel plans, which were fabulous for the home woodworker but weren't always made by people who understood how a spinning wheel produces yarn.

This fondness for spinning wheels of an imagined simpler or more rustic past wasn't just limited to the US.  There are European reproduction wheels, too.

Also, I wonder about the genuine spinning wheel manufacturers around the world that were making wheels then -- how many were aimed at spinners and how many at decorators?

In general, reproduction wheels tend to be a bit cruder than the originals.  The details aren't as refined, and I don't know if that's due to the economics of making these or if it reflected the aesthetic tastes of the times (for simpler or less fussy decorating details).  The ones aiming at the decor market tend to use brass for the metal bits and the placement of hooks on the flyer (if any) can be a little hit or miss.

Anyway, in case it wasn't obvious where this post was going, there are a fair number of these kinds of wheels knocking about on the used market.  They show up at estate sales.  Sold on used doo-dad sites as "sitting in the barn for 20 years or more, and it was here when I moved in".  The sellers tend not to be spinners and mostly thought of these as decor.  And indeed, when I went to look at some of them, they rarely showed any signs of having been used for spinning.

In general, these wheels needed a solid cleaning after being in an unheated outbuilding for a few decades.  They sometimes needed a bit of patience to loosen up parts that were stuck either with grime or with the shrink/swell action of two decades of being outdoors.  They needed a new driveband, and sometimes new bits of leather.  Any distaff that was still with the wheel usually ended up being more ornamental than useful.  And of course they needed lots and lots of oil as I started to spin.

I did not acquire wheels that needed major repairs.  No flyer/bobbin?  Broken flyer or missing/broken flywheel spokes?  Nope, someone else could take on that project.  Ditto for wheels where the flyer/bobbin clearly did not match the rest of the wheel or were obviously non-functional.  I also kept to my very strict budget so I wouldn't be overwhelmed by all the enticing wheels out there.

None of these wheels had more than one working bobbin, and none had orifice hooks or other spinning accessories.  If they had a driveband, it was usually some kind of thick (and ostentatious) rope, as if to emphasize its spinning wheel bona fides.  ("It works!" they would say as they turned the flywheel and the flyer obediently turned, too.)

I do have a few of these vintage repro wheels, but only ones that can spin yarn.  They tend to be a bit finicky but are perfectly usable, and indeed, I do use them.

Probably the first I brought home was a Midway wheel.  I don't know all the history, but the Ohio company that made these reproduction wheel kits also put out a wheel called the Hallcraft wheel.  There might have been a few more brand names, in addition to wheels that were a bit of a mash-up.

It's fairly small, about 3' high and 3' long.  (This seemed tiny when compared with my CPW.)  The ratios are, I believe, 10:1 and 12:1.  It's a double-drive wheel.

This is what it looked like when I picked it up.

Here's another view, from a person who bought out some remaining inventory from the Midway Manufacturing Company and was selling newly-assembled wheels that were similar though not exactly identical.  The distaff is different and mine has darker wood, but they're very similar other than that.

One of my cats chewed on the distaff, alas, but all the distaff ever really did was tip over and fall off, so it's not like I ever used it.

I don't use my Midway very often, but it is a serviceable wheel that makes yarn without a lot of fuss.  What more could one ask for?

I am thinking about selling it, though, or at least loaning it out to a new spinner -- it deserves to go to someone else who is in need of a simple yet functional spinning wheel, and who would use it more often than I do.

Somewhere I have some of the yarn I made on this wheel, but I'm not sure where.  I mostly did small skeins of this and that rather than a large batch of anything..

I have other vintage reproduction wheels but those will be saved for future posts!

Continued doily dithering

Lavori 07/30 doily

OK, I've gotten as far as round 181 (really 182) on the Lavori 07/30 doily.  I've followed the chart but added the additional hex mesh motif in the middle of the hex mesh area.

Next round (183), another set of leaf tips joins the hex mesh motif.  I can do that round the same as the previous rounds, but I also have the opportunity to add yarnovers between the leaf tips and their neighboring leaves, similar to the way the chart had me do on round 173.

The decision I make will affect the next few rounds.

When I look closely at the photos in Lavori 7, it seems like this area has the maximum amount of binding and distortion.  So....  what should my approach be?

As charted (the incorrect way), round 183 has 8 stitches in the hex mesh area.  Round 185 and Round 187 have 8, round 189 has 6, round 191 has 2, and then leaf tips join again but it's all pretty straightforward from there.

One of the charts I drew (and have been following so far) does not add yarnovers.  Round 183 has 12 stitches in the hex mesh area (due to the extra hex mesh motif), round 185 has 10, round 187 has 6, round 189 has 4, and then round 191 has 2 and I've converged back on the same stitch count.

Given that the area will bind and distort when I block it, should I add more stitches so that rounds 187 and 189 have more stitches?  Or will it look stupid to have additional hex mesh motifs in that area, and also make it harder to converge back down to 2 stitches by round 191?   Round 193, which is labeled as 201, adds leaf tips again, which can complicate any approach that has more than 2 stitches for round 191, since I really do want to finish up the doily with the column of O-A-O (yo, sk2p, yo) between the outer fans (and leaves) for the final few rounds.

I will chart out a few possibilities now that I've reached this point and then decide what I want to do.

In other stream-of-consciousness ramblings, I made a knitting mistake in one of the pattern repeats, somewhere 2-4 rounds before round 181, in the area where leaves are growing from a stem.  Ugh.  Maybe I could fix it, but it's in a spot where there are lots of yarnovers, k-tbls, single decreases, and double decreases.  Chances are high that I'd make things a lot worse if I tried.  So...  I chickened out.  I left it alone and continued the pattern correctly on round 181, ignoring whatever was going on in round 179 or 177 or wherever it crept in.  Hopefully it won't be too obvious.  There will be a slight jog in the line of the stem in the one spot.  I don't know exactly what I did, but I think I did a twisted stitch instead of a double decrease and vice versa, low in the leaf where it's just separating from the stem and there are both stem stitches and leaf mid-rib stitches and the leaf's plain knit stitch(es) should surround the mid-rib but not the stem.

Sometimes I catch errors on the intermediate round, and sometimes I just tune out and knit without double-checking.  Most of the time, I can easily fix a problem even on the next pattern round because it's usually something pretty simple.  It gets trickier at places where there's a lot going on and it would be hard to build the section back up again if I drop the wrong yarnover or decrease at the wrong spot and various stitches run even further.  It's also complicated because this area is very scalloped due to the stacked increases and thus it's not always all that easy to follow the line of stitches from round to round.  I don't love this project so much that it needs to be perfect.  Heck, the design isn't perfect and we all know the chart isn't, either.

I am pretty excited to have only 20 pattern rounds left to go.  I think there are roughly 1100 stitches per round, give or take a bit, and it'll only keep increasing from here.  I'm glad I seem to have the stamina to do a 200+ round doily project these days.  Ten years ago I probably would have declined and chosen to do several smaller doilies instead.

I'm not sure what I'll do when this one is done.  Smaller doilies for a while?  And how small -- 50 rounds or 150 rounds?  Or do I want to choose another big one, where "big" is defined as over 150 rounds and probably over 200 rounds, or even over 300 rounds?  That's something to ponder as I eagerly plod my way through the next 20 rounds (and probably still close to 30,000 stitches).  The knitting is reasonably fun and I am genuinely happy about being close to done.  But it's still a lot of knitting.

Travel Shawl (Miami Vice shawl pattern)

I've finally knit all of the yarn that was reclaimed from the Daisies project and am now knitting fresh yarn from the yarn ball.  Yay!  So far there's no unhappy pooling, also yay!  I'm in the first band of the eyelet patterned part of the shawl.

More Travel Knitting (charity hat)

I needed a project that I could easily pick up and put down, no need to reach the end of a row or anything.  It's been a while since I knit a charity hat, so I started a new one.  It's in dark green acrylic (probably Red Heart) and is the usual k1p1 ribbed hat on 80 stitches.

Appledore Gansey

This is still coming along nicely.  I'm very close to the spot where I can start the underarm gussets.  I want to try it on the recipient to make sure it's not too big, too long, too short, etc., before I continue.  I'm nearing the end of my second skein of handspun, which means 325-ish yards once I reach the end.  The next skein I wound into a ball is about 125 yards.  Sweaters with fat yarn go faster and use less yardage than sweaters with thin yarn.  Not that this is necessarily good or bad.  There are trade-offs either way.  But I am definitely enjoying the speed at which the sweater is growing.

A Roving We Will Go (fiber fun)

I went to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival with a friend.  We didn't have as much time there as we sometimes do.  So I think I missed some vendors I wanted to see.  Oh, well!  Also, we went on the last day so the selection was probably not quite as good as it was earlier.  There was still plenty available, of course!  And plenty of cute animals to admire, and sometimes even pet!

I was very restrained (probably too restrained) and only bought a few things.  My friend was also fairly restrained.

I got small batches (4 oz each) of a mostly-Romney roving in medium to dark gray, and a mixed Navajo-Churro/Icelandic roving in mid-brown.  I don't know if that's a cross-bred sheep or a blend, though I think it's a blend, and I don't know the percentages of each.  It  has lovely darker fibers (probably Icelandic outer coat) mixed in with the lighter.  The mostly-Romney is from cross-bred sheep.  The flock started out as Romney but over the years there were occasionally rams of other breeds introducing outside genetics.

I also got a slightly larger mixed Maker's Blend from a different vendor, of various colors of dark-autumn-toned wool with maybe a bit of alpaca.  It was packaged as a mini-bump, so I'm not sure if the colors are all kind of mixed together or if there will be some variegation as I spin it.

The Churro/Icelandic roving is whispering to me so I'll probably spin it up soon.  Chances are that I will do my usual default-spun 2-ply.  I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with the yarn since it's not going to be next to the skin soft.  A hat or a pair of mittens seems likely.  Or maybe I'll use it for weaving or something.

I also want to think about what to do with the Maker's Blend.  If it's variegated, then maybe I should do a chain ply (aka Navajo 3-ply).  Or keep it as singles and then ply it against something else, maybe.  Or keep it as singles, period, and use it that way.

Last year I got what I think was the same gray mostly-Romney roving from the same people.  It's already spun up into a lovely yarn.  It'll be interested to see how this year's roving compares.  That's part of why I stopped and bought stuff from these people once I saw their booth -- I knew I liked their roving from last year.

Here's a pic of the yarn I spun from last year's Romney-X roving.  I ended up with about 250 yards of 2-ply from the 4 ounces.  It was an enjoyable spin, very clean and easy to draft.

There are some other things in my fiber stash I'd like to spin soon. I've been eyeing them but haven't been able to decide what to spin first so nothing gets done.  Sigh.  I do want to have room in my stash for more lovely things by the time next year's fiber festivals start up.  Hopefully I'll settle down and spend time with my wheels as the weather continues its descent into winter.

It's probably about time for another post on spinning wheels...

I think that's all I wanted to ramble about today.