Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2022 från Spin-Off

Blends—from the familiar Merino/silk top to the small-batch roving with 10 ingredients—are one of the many things that seem to come and go in popularity. Two decades ago, I started traveling outside of my local area to visit fiber festivals and was amazed at how the offerings varied. In one part of the country, there might be dozens of rovings available that included soy silk, SeaCell, Ingeo, silk noil, Firestar, and more. In another region, it might mostly be combed top with tussah available in dozens of colors—no SeaCell in sight. As I crisscrossed the country each year teaching workshops (until COVID, of course), I still saw some of these regional differences despite the changes in our digital connectivity. Fascinating, I tell you! In one guild, everyone might have a…

My Kaffe Fassett cushion is a perfect addition to my colorful living room. Despite its pride of place, you would immediately notice that spinning consistency was not a priority. I needed yarn for Modern Daily Knitting’s 2020 Kaffe-along and was confident I had enough leftover handspun to make a brightly colored version of the Cityscape I-Cushion. After gathering scrap balls and unused practice skeins from over 10 years of spinning, I still needed more. The hideous, handspun striped sweater languishing in my cedar chest provided the rest of the yarn in a wild array of colors. Before I began to knit the front panel, I organized my yarn into color families. This collection consisted of various types of fiber that had been prepared and spun on my Schacht Ladybug using…

1. Hold the two rovings next to each other in your fiber hand. Here, the Herdwick is in line with the yarn, the sari silk to the side.2. Start by spinning a fine Herdwick yarn with a shortforward draw.3. From time to time, tilt your fiber hand so a few fibers from the silk are caught in the twist. Use your middle finger to nudge a few silk fibers into the drafting zone if necessary. You can control the thickness, length, and spacing of the silk additions to create different effects. For a warp yarn, however, the silk inserts should be fine, without slubs that would catch on the reed. If you are using the yarn for weft or knitting, you can create silk slubs, but make sure they are…

• 1/1 LC on RS: Sl next 2 sts to right needle pwise, sl left needle back into 1st sl st pwise from front, pull right needle out of the 2 sl sts, being careful not to lose the sts, then from the back, slide right needle back into 2nd sl st pwise and return it to the left needle, knit sts in their new order; on WS: Sl next 2 sts to right needle pwise, sl left needle into 1st sl st pwise from front and sl both sts off right needle, sl right needle back into 2nd sl st pwise and transfer it back to left needle, p sts in new order.• 1/1 RC on RS: Sl next 2 sts to right needle kwise as if to k2tog, sl…

In spring 2020, when our world began to change, I found myself with extra time on my hands. I had recently acquired a small four-harness floor loom, and although I’d had some weaving experience, I was feeling rusty. I needed to brush up on my weaving skills. Since travel to fiber festivals or workshops was not an option, I decided to subscribe to Long Thread Media, which gave me access to wonderful online videos; it was a great way to continue learning and exploring fiber art techniques safely from home. There were so many videos to choose from, and I wanted to watch them all! I picked a few titles and dove in. Two of the workshop videos became the impetus for this table runner project: Laura Bryant’s A Fiber Artist’s…

Have you ever stopped to wonder what grease is? Spinning terms can often lead to confusion, even for the seasoned handspinner. Grease is a natural part of a raw fleece, but even when working with wool shorn right off the sheep, we do not get in touch with pure grease. Secreted by the glands in the sheep’s skin, natural grease originates from the sheep, as does suint and the fiber itself. What is often called “wool grease” is a mixture of suint, dirt, grease, and more. Let’s take a closer look. Grease Wool fat or grease—chemically speaking, a wax—is produced by the sebaceous glands that accompany the follicles that grow the fibers. A complex blend of waxes, oils, fatty acids, complex alcohols, and more (all the secrets of lanolin’s natural…

When Annamarie Hatcher suggested that we experiment with spinning and knitting silky-variety llama fiber, I was intrigued (see “Llama Fiber: A Realm of Possibilities,” page 74). Although I specialize in knitting and spinning in my work as a professional historic interpreter at Nova Scotia’s Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, silky llama falls outside my usual range of materials. We anticipated using llama in blends with other fibers to spin for our specific goals. We aimed for one blend that would produce a hard-wearing, comfortable pair of hiking socks and another blend for a luxurious, lustrous shawl. To us, these goals represented two ends of a spectrum that would give us a better understanding of the llama fiber and all its possibilities. Silk was a necessary addition for our sock…

Nicole Frost Nicole Frost’s multimedia approach in this virtual offering combines video instruction with a digital book download filled with samples that are sure to inspire. The video portion covers various techniques including striped, ombré, double-carded, variegated, marled, tweed, and fleece batts. The course is geared toward students with some familiarity with the drumcarder, skipping the basics and going directly into the blending process. Frost shows how she preps fiber prior to carding for each technique, and care is taken to give students natural pause points to prepare their own fibers before resuming video instruction on the carding process. Frost is well known for her use of bright, bold colors for her business, Frost Yarn, so it’s no surprise that her class samples make use of her signature neon rainbow…

On a crisp July morning a few weeks ago, I sat amongst the red rocks in my backyard, watching the sun rise and the sheep graze as smoke from a local wildfire began to settle in the valley. I listened to the soft mutters that the sheep made as they ate, and my eyes began to swell with tears as I reflected on the tough year that we had in 2020. COVID-19 swept the globe and at one point the Navajo Nation led in cases per capita in the US—many Diné lost their lives and many Diné flocks lost their shepherds. The smoke, now thick in the air, was a stark reminder that the Southwest is still in a devastating drought. A curious lamb comes my way, she sniffs my…

Designer and pattern Kaffe Fassett, Cityscape I-Cushion from Modern Daily Knitting, Field Guide No. 16: Painterly by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne. Fiber Back of pillow: Three Waters Farm, Blushing Pinks (Blue-Faced Leicester) and Summer Shade (Blue-Faced Leicester); and Shirsty Cat, Smokey Gems (SW Merino). Front border and I-cord Raven Ridge Fiber Arts, Mountain Bluebird (85% Polwarth/15% tussah). Other supplies 20" × 20" Soft Touch pillow insert; Spectrum Warm/Cool 1.75" buttons, purple and teal. Fiber preparation Combed tops, batts, and rovings. For Smokey Gems, I used handcards to mix fibers to bridge colors. Wheel spindle system Schacht Ladybug, scotch tension. Ratio 6.5:1. Drafting method Short-forward draw. Singles direction Z-spun. Singles wraps per inch 20 (back). Ply wraps per inch 13 (back). Total yardage 416 yards for the back; 133 yards for the border and I-cord;…

In my regular visits to the local yarn shop where I often indulge in a little tactile therapy, I have noticed that many luxury blends include “baby llama.” I was intrigued, having the impression that llamas were guard animals that ensured the safety of fiber-bearing alpaca flocks. To satisfy my curiosity, I searched out llama fleeces, with which my friend Barbara Kelly-Landry, my Ashford spinning wheel, and I could experiment. I was a bit shocked to find out that, according to the Llama Canada website, llama and alpaca fibers are sometimes considered the same commercial product in South America, where the species originated. The finer fiber is sold as alpaca and the coarser as llama, irrespective of which animal it came from. THE SEARCH FOR “REAL” LLAMA Some llamas produce fleeces…

Maker: Naturally Knitty in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Fractal Pack with 4 ouces of blended Merino, silk, Targhee, Rambouillet, Dorset, and Polypay. We couldn’t resist featuring Naturally Knitty’s Dark Water colorway and spectacular blending technique on the cover of our Blends issue. Fiber artist Jessica Gutoski creates several types of rolags and batts, including this fractal pack containing a set of punistyle rolags and coordinating batt. Jessica says that the set allows you to “spin two singles (one of the rolags and one of the batt), and ply them together to get a barber-poling fractal(ish) yarn.” With a shop full of beautiful rolag sets, Jessica answers the question, “Why rolags?!” “They are fun little rolls of fiber—easy to transport and spin on the go. They are great for woolen-spun yarns, and I…

Elizabeth Wayland Barber This textile history classic is well worth revisiting in the context of living through (and spinning through) a pandemic. Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years traces the development of ancient textiles back to the invention of string twenty to thirty thousand years ago. As professor emerita of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College, Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber pulls from wide-ranging sources, including ancient Greek poetry, Indo-European linguistics, prehistoric art, and archaeology, for her research. A maker herself, Barber’s approach to history places real value on the knowledge that comes with practicing a craft, mining her sources for milestones in human civilization and women’s key role in it—told through the story of spinning and weaving textiles. Alone in a house with a three-year-old with the world shut down…

This is a tale of sheep in tune with their landscape, a heritage mill, and a textile designer who created unique fabric from an unexpected blend of fibers. The sheep are Herdwicks, guardians of the fells. They are hardy characters, well suited to the cold, wind, and rain of England’s Lake District. They are one of my favorite sheep with their beautiful gray coloring, round faces, and perpetual smiles. Beatrix Potter—author and illustrator behind Peter Rabbit—loved them, too. Her interest in the breed and the legacy she left has helped preserve the Herdwick in its natural environment. However, this handsome creature produces a beast of a fleece, coarse with hair and kemp. Traditionally, the fleece is used for carpets, or, in bad times, it is burnt as worthless. In 2017, two…

Creating socks that are durable and resistant to abrasion yet soft and elastic is a great spinner’s challenge. My handspun sock yarns have evolved over the years, and the no-nylon sock is my newest quest (see page 26). This design grew out of my love for trying out new fiber blends and color combinations. The stitch pattern allows use of small amounts of handspun yarn in a variety of colors in a cohesive way. The colorwork effect is attained by slipping stitches along with one-by-one cables, making wrangling multiple yarn colors a bit easier as only one color is used at a time. SPINNING NOTES For each of the contrasting colors, I blended 0.8 ounce (23 grams) natural, light indigo, or dark indigo Gulf Coast Native (GCN) wool with 0.2…

Inspired by the substantial two-ply yarn I spun from Dakota Carding & Wool Co., these lined mittens should stand up to outdoor adventures with my pups this winter. I knitted the mittens to fit my own hands—a woman’s size small. You can easily adjust the finished size by changing the size of the needles, the gauge of the yarn, or both. SPINNING NOTES I explored several drafting methods and yarn types (see page 50), and the delightfully sturdy semiworsted twoply yarn was perfect for this project. The final skein was about DK weight after wet-finishing. The mitten lining can be considerably different from the outside of the mitten because it receives very little wear. A much finer, crimpy wool is a perfect pairing for the sturdy Icelandic/hemp blend, so I…