Jananas

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last two weeks spinning. I’ve been doing a pretty major spring cleaning/overhaul of the house and had started to get a little overwhelmed by my fiber cupboard. The best solution? Spin like a mad woman! I think any point in time when you spin pounds of yarn in a one to two week period qualifies as crazy.

One of the difficulties with indie dyers is that you often end up with 4oz of a beautiful colourway. Because I don’t have fantastic yardage I end up with little skeins. Partly because I wanted more yarn and partly because I’ve been inspired by all the lovely yarns I see spun up on Ravelry I decided to play around with some combos. Excuse the photo heavy post – imagine how much work it would be if I included all the yarn I spun. Below (at 12oz of fiber, or one pound) is about half of what I spun up – eek!

First up is Hello Yarn in Minerals (shetland) and Juliespins in Amish Rainbow (targhee). I think that this is just lovely and it makes for a springy, dense yarn. Lovely, lovely, lovely! I also ended up with two giant skeins of yarn!

Next up is Spunky Eclectic’s Storms of Jupiter (organic merino) and Hello Yarn’s Icing (superwash merino). I’d originally hoped to ply Storms of Jupiter with Minerals (both are red/blue/white), but the colours weren’t complimentary. I think that this mix worked wonderfully!

After a brief hiatus, I’m back on the spinning bandwagon. I did the first 8oz of this lovely BFL before spinning Curiousities and then went back to finish up the last 12oz. So here you are, 12oz of Hello Yarn’s Norway colourway.

I was really surprised by just how different the skeins ended up, even though they are all fractally spun. The one on the far left has lots of colours lining up. The middle skein is very red/orange (and a little over plied). The one on the far right is much bluer. Close ups!

I think that this is destined to become the yoke of  a sweater for me. I’m imagining it with sections of garter stitch and ruched/gathered stockinette.

Sometime earlier this year a friend of mine told me about Yarn School. There aren’t a lot of spinning workshops/classes around, so I knew that I was going to have to travel in order to learn more.  Yarn School sounded awesome and came highly recommended, so I signed up as soon as registrations opened.

I was pretty proud of myself – I spent 15 hours traveling to get there (mostly killing time in airports, stupid lack of direct flights!) and went on my own trusting that a mutual love of spinning and all things fiber would help me make friends quickly.

The entire experience was awesome. It was like sleepover camp for adult ladies (with a glass of wine with dinner!). Nikol is a fabulous cook (even if lunch/dinner are a little late). The school is awesome – getting to set up a giant circle of wheels in the gym and getting to co-opt the science lab for dying fiber. We got to eat fresh eggs from Nikol’s chickens, visit with her sheep, see alpacas and even angora bunnies!

I dyed 2lbs of fiber – BFL, Wool, Merino, and a Superwash (not sure what the order is above). I love the first two, I’m not totally sold on the brown/yellow in the third, and the fourth is just… NEON. It was meant to be a colour study of gradients using Chartreuse… but, it obviously just came out looking like a neon safety sign. I’m planning on overdying it, but I’m still waiting for some inspiration.

The gym was awesome with all of our fiber hung up above the balcony to dry. Each dye lab had 15 people x 4 braids of 8 oz. each (or 2lbs). That’s a lot of fiber. What’s sort of scary is that we all came home with way more than that! I bought 6oz of alpaca, 2 x 4oz of a colour way dyed by Adrian from Hello Yarn, some angora, lots of firestar/angelina in bright colours, and several batts that I carded myself. In fact, I had so much fiber that I had trouble closing my suitcase on the way home and Jason couldn’t even hold it all. Even though, I showed restraint.

I learned how to Navajo Ply – my lovely neighbour Ashley taught me. I normally don’t like plying, but this method overcomes all of the reasons why I dislike plying, is fun, and looks cool to boot. In fact I love it so much that I haven’t been able to stop.

The top skein is 4oz of a special Yarn School Hello Yarn colour way spun up as a worsted single. The bottom row is all Navajo Ply. The far left is 4oz of Sweet Georgio rovings. Next is a mix of Hello Yarn scraps and a special Yarn School colour way. After that is a batt I carded while there that is a crazy mix of: wool, mohair, bamboo, silk, angelino, nylon, and merino – it is sparkly! Next is 2oz of tricolour alpaca. After that is a lofty 3-ply that I dyed myself in pinks, blues, lilac, and purples. And hiding up in the corner is a tiny skein that I practiced on when I was learning to Navajo Ply.

In all, I had an amazing time hanging out with a group of women who love spinning as much as I do. I missed it from the moment I walked out the front door and am already scheming how to go back next year (fingers crossed!).

Wise Daughters Craft Market presents

IT’S MY YARN PARTY (AND I’LL BUY IF I WANT TO)

Fri, Oct 15, 8 pm, $15

Yarns told by some of Toronto’s best storytellers, co-presented with FOOL (Festival of Oral Literatures)

Sat, Oct 16, 10 – 6

Yarn fair extraordinaire showcasing work by local spinners and knit/textile designers Spinning demonstrations at 2 and 4 pm (including one by yours truly!)

Sun, Oct 17, 10 – 6

Specialty knitting classes

10:30 – 12:30 Gloria Williams – Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless gloves make great gifts!  If you can knit and purl, you’ll love this project.

Materials: 1 skein of handspun yarn, set of 4 or 5 double pointed needles, 5mm.

1:00 – 3:00 Jana Reid – Ear Flap Hat (hey, that’s ME!)

Keep your ears warm and the cold Canadian winter out with this original cosy hat pattern.

Must know how to knit, purl, increase and decrease.

Materials: min 140 m handspun yarn, a set of double pointed needles, 16″ circular in 4 – 5 mm.

3:30 – 5:30 Rosa Tarle – The Kink in your Yarn

Keep the kink in your yarn and knit it…Learn how to wind handspun energized singles and maintain the active twist while you knit!  Scarf pattern included, other creations for this unique bias knitting technique will also be shared.  Must know how to knit and purl.

Materials: a skein of handspun energized yarn, 4 – 5 mm needles.

Each class $10, all three $25 Yarn must be purchased at Wise Daughters in advance www.wisedaughters.com 3079B Dundas St. W.

I’ve read a lot of books this year, with a good balance between fiction and general life improvement/business books. One of the biggest lessons is that sometimes you just need to make a decision and run with it. You could spend hours or weeks or months or years evaluating options and agonizing over whether you’ve made the perfect/right choice. Or you can cut out all that worry (and wasted energy). Make a decision and GO.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks talking about wedding stuffs and planning things. People seem shocked that we’ve already done things like reserve our venue and our caterer. [really folks, I'm a planner here!].

1 – If we make a decision now, we don’t need to worry about needing to make a decision. I’m hoping that it will mean less stress over the next year and more time for us to enjoy life.

2 - I’m trying to get decisions made now so that we can go back to being our normal, non-wedding selves. I really, really don’t want the next year of my life to be all about the wedding. Its important, but I don’t want to lose myself or our relationship if that makes sense.

3 – We’re 5 hours away from where our reception is going to be held and we don’t have free time to make multiple trips to view places/taste food. So we put a little faith into the universe and just went with some things sight unseen. The way I figure, even if we find a place that we 100% love and had visited and was perfect, etc. things can still go wrong the day of.

Instead I’m going to spend all of that energy loving Jason and having adventures with him. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.