Crafts | All knittings great and small

Fleece!

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

Alpaca shearing day at Harmony Meadows Alpaca farm. A lovely white male Alpaca!

Spinners are very tactile people. We love touching and feeling fibres and yarn.

Some of use like to prolong that as long as possible and will start right with raw fleece to make our projects. Others do this because they like to control all aspects of their yarn right from the fleece to get the end product that they want.

I learned to process fleece as part of my spinning course. I can do it, but it is not my favourite fibre activity.

I still haven’t found the best way to get my fleeces fully clean. There are usually some bits that just don’t want to clean up – usually the tips. I know of ways around this – like washing locks separately one by one – but I normally don’t have the time or patience to do this.

Usually I can get fleeces clean enough for my purposes and most of the remaining problems will come out in the fiber preparation for spinning.

Van and I purchased four nice Shetland fleeces from Chassagne Farms last year. These are sample locks that I washed when we got them. You can see the different lock lengths between the four fleeces. We plan on using all the colours in a couple projects and do some dyeing with the white and possibly grey fleece.

From left to right, the locks in the picture are:

1 – White
This is the fleece that we are processing right now. More pictures below.

2 – Light grey to grey (warm toned)
The fleece is a mix of light and medium warm toned greys with a few black patches.

3 – Moorit (warm grey / reddish brown mix)
The locks are interesting. The colour changes about half way through the lock. It is a warm grey at the base of the lock and changes to a medium chocolate brown at the tip. This division looks to be throughout the fleece. We are not sure what caused the change. The fibre is strong through. It is not weak at the colour change although there is a slight change in crimp at that point. It still should be fine to spin.
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4 – Black
The lock tips are a bit pointy. This is a fleece from a 5 year old ewe. It’s possible the fleece is
slightly double coated.

All fleeces were purchased at Chassagne Farms except for #4 – Black which was purchased at the Woodstock Fleece Festival.

You can follow these links to see samples of colours and markings of Shetland sheep.

We started processing the white fleece on May 24th. Van’s daughter Marian was up for the weekend and helped us clean up the fleece. It had been pretty well skirted. There were only a few tags (sheep poop) and we got rid of those. This is a fairly dirty fleece. There is a lot of vegetable matter in it and it’s fairly sandy and dirty. There were also a couple sections of felted fleece, which we removed as well.

There was enough fleece to fill 12 small mesh bags. We washed three bags that weekend and I’ve washed three at a time over a couple more days.

This is the first wash of one batch of fleece. You can see how dark the water is – pretty gross!

I gave each batch of fleece three 20-30 minute washes in very hot water, the first two with Unicorn Power Scour and Ecover Dish washing liquid, and the last just in Ecover. I rinsed for about 10 minutes between washes. I have plastic mesh baskets that I slide under the mesh bags to lift the fleece out and also used them to keep the fleece under the surface of the water.

There is still a lot of vegetable mater left in the white fleece. A lot of that should go by shaking out the fleece before opening it for carding. The opening and carding should remove most of the rest of the veg.

The locks also have black guard hairs in some parts of the fleece. I don’t think we’ll bother trying to take them out when processing the fleece. They don’t seem to be course enough to make much of a difference in the final yarn.

I have a few other fleeces that I will get to when I make the time. Some I’ve had for a few years, others are fairly fresh.

Having access to my spinning guilds drum carder is going to make a HUGE difference. The thought of hand carding up 5 to 10 pounds of fibre just makes my wrists ache!

Spinning certificate program

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

My final projects from years one through five

I’m heading into the sixth and final year of my spinning certificate program. You can see an outline of the years here.

It’s been a pretty amazing journey.

My class started when I was 40. At the time I figured I could do the program then, rather than waiting till I was 46 or 52 to do it. It was also the right time as I wanted to take my spinning more seriously and I thought this program would give me a structured way of learning all this stuff, rather then me trying to find classes all over the place to learn things.

The teachers for our classes are amazing people. Their knowledge and generosity are humbling. And lets face it – the thought of having to grade homework for 25 to 40 students is pretty intimidating, yet they do that, year after year.

Some highlights for me:
All of the dyeing classes. We’ve done both acid dyeing and natural dyeing. These have been a lot of fun and I’ve learned a lot in them.

Spinning woolen. This was probably the hardest challenge for me when we started. I’d mostly spun worsted or semi worsted. Learning to spin light and lofty was challenging. I still don’t spin enough of this and have to retry it each year otherwise I forget how to do it.

Bast fibres. Flax, hemp and cotton. I had tried these before, but it was pretty dismal. Last years class finally made things click and I was able to spin them. I think these fibres have moved up from the “Ugh! Argh!” list to “Ok, that’s not so bad”. I think with more practice I could actually spin enough cotton for a decent sized project – like a shirt or light sweater.

Silk has become one of my top five favourite fibres to spin. The diversity of silks that we have available to spin now is pretty amazing. I also love dyeing silk.

The other other students in the class. We have a very diverse group filled with really amazing people. For the first three years there were a lot of us in the college cabins, which bonded us all to each other. It’s great being able to share with these people, and to know there is a group out there that supports you through getting the home work done and supporting you in your life. I’ve met good friends through this class.

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I thought I would finish off by showing you what part of an assignment from class looks like.

This is from my year five final project. The criteria we had was to make a project using a bast fibre, with at least 150 meters of yarn. After that the choices were up to the student.

I chose to make a crocheted bath scrubby out of hemp. After doing sampling I found that I liked a 3-ply yarn that was the size of #10 crochet cotton. The gold coloured hemp was fairly easy to spin – it was a well prepared fibre. The purple was not a nice experience. There were sections with very short cotton like fibres, and other sections where the fibre may not have been retted very well and were clumped together and hard to draft. The final purple yarn was thicker than I was aiming for, but it worked out fine in the final product. I pretty proud of the final product, thought it certainly isn’t economical. The final project took a total of 71 hours. That includes all the sampling, spinning and making the final project, and doing the documentation and mounting.

You have to document your thought process on the project – what you wanted to make, why you chose which fibres, fibre prep and spinning techniques you did, what worked, what didn’t, and your comments on it. You are also to show and document any sampling you did to get to the final yarn you used.

Part of the final project is to show a mounted skein of the final yarn, plus the final object.

For the mounted skeins, you need the following:

fibre samples (raw, washed and processed if you do all that work)
a 10 yard sample skein, tied in four places with white cotton
a 1 inch card of wrapped singles
a 1 inch card of wrapped plyed yarn (if final yarn is plyed)
finished samples / articles
documentation on the yarn, stating it’s purpose, describing the fibre and how you processed and spun it, your finishing techniques, description of sampling or finished item, and final comments / observations on your yarn, spinning, sampling and anything else you may have learned or want to change.
for the documentation you need to keep track of how much fibre was used, how much waste was generated, the wraps per inch (WPI) of the singles and plyed yarn, the twist angle (TA), twists per inch (TPI) and yards per pound (YPP) of the plyed yarn.

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Blogathon Guest Post Exchange Day – Post by Joe Wilcox (QueerJoe)

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

Today’s post is a guest post by Joe Wilcox – Queerjoe.

Most of his postings are knitting and craft related, but he also says a lot about his life in there as well.

I first met Joe back in 2008 for the first Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat, held at Easton Mountain in New York state. He is a kind gentlemen, a big extrovert and all around just fun person to be with.

I hope you enjoy his post! Please go check out his blog – there are lots of interesting things to read and look at there.

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An American’s View of Canadian Knitters
About 28 years I’ve been knitting, blogging about knitting for over 10 years and organizing a men’s knitting retreat for over 6 years, and working in the lovely Province of Alberta for about 2 years, I have had the opportunity to come into contact with many Canadian knitters and have gotten to see firsthand how they differ from their American counterparts.

Disclaimer
Lumping all of the Canadian knitters and American knitters into two distinct groupings will obviously have some shortcomings. And I’m sure Danny’s readers, both American and Canadian will be able to come up with a number of exceptions to my conclusions. Make sure you leave plenty of comments to let Danny and I know.

Top 10 Differences Between Canadian and American Knitters:
1. Canadian knitters turn to knitting as a return to a simpler way of life whereas Americans take it on as another frantic pet obsession they can spend money on.

2. Canadians are much more technical knitters and want to understand the exact structure, torque and slant of various cables, or will try out multiple variations on decreases for a knee sock until the shaping of the calf is perfect or will take great pains to calculate the exact number of stitches required to decrease to get a perfect circle using all their college-level math, while the Americans will get it “close enough.”

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3. Canadians elevate crafting to an academic pursuit and even have colleges where you can get a degree in spinning. Tell a non-knitting American that you knit, and they’ll picture a crochet toilet paper cover and reply, “How quaint.”

4. Canadian knitters tend to either be extremely well-known and popular, like Stephanie-who-no-longer-needs-a-last-name (mostly because of their folksy wisdom…see number 1) or fly under the radar and are visible only to those that search them out.

5. Canadians knitters that fly under the radar are well worth searching out.

Going clockwise from top left: Barb Brown, Danny Ouellette, Veronik Avery and Ted Myatt.

6. Canadian knitters are not afraid to travel to attend a knitting event. Canadians are generally not afraid to travel.

7. Canadians have little control over taking on all aspects of knitting once they’ve started…I’m convinced that eventually, every Canadian knitter will eventually be raising sheep so they can be involved in all aspects of the craft.

8. Canadian knitters are content to sit in a group of knitters knitting without anyone talking. Americans, not so much.

9. Canadians are more literal, straight-forward and earnest than American knitters and Canadian knitters get uncomfortable when pattern instructions are vague or missing things. Having an instruction in a sweater pattern such as “Reverse all shapings for the left side” or “keep knitting until it looks good” irritates them, even though their politeness would prevent them from saying anything about it.

10. Finally, Canadians resent having to use U.S. size knitting needles. Telling a Canadian to use a US8 needle and worsted weight yarn is like nails on a chalkboard. Like Quebecois who pretend not to understand English when it’s spoken to them, many Canadian knitters will ask the needle size in millimeters (or is it millimetres?) even though they know full well what size to use.

A short yarn about my spinning

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

Spinning is something that I’ve taken to fairly recently – only ten years ago.

It was Ted Myatt, again, who convinced me to try it. He tried for a couple years but I resisted. I should have known better. In 2003 he taught me how to spin on a drop spindle. After a few attempts something clicked in my hands and it just made sense. He started me with wool fibre which was fairly easy to draft and spin. Early success encouraged me to continue and I haven’t stopped since.

In a lot of ways spinning works better by not over thinking it. Your hands have to do a lot of repetitive motions, and until they understand them it will feel awkward. Practice will make things easier, and there will come a time when things will just click.

I’ve mostly made smaller projects with my handspun – hats, scarves and a few shawls. I have plans to make a large shawl one day – 2000 yards or more. I also plan to make a sweater for myself. These will be quite an adventure.

I now spin on both drop spindles and a spinning wheel. For some spinning I still find the drop spindle easier to work with. I tend to use them to small projects and for finer spinning.

These are some highlights of my spinning over the years.

2003
Ted finally got me interested in spinning. He taught me how to use a drop spindle and I made a few small skeins on it. And the new fibre addiction began!

2004
Attended my first Ontario Handspinning Seminar in Guelph with Ted.

I learned that spinners are a much calmer bunch than knitters.

I had been going to the Downtown Knit Collective’s Knitters Frolic for a few years. Knitter’s seem to have a feeding frenzy when they go to large sales events. They rush about and grab everything!

Spinners a much more laid back. They wander around, fondle the fibre and yarn more, take their time, talk to the vendors and catch up with each other. It really was a much more pleasant experience then the frolic.

Spun my first lace project on a drop spindle.

2005
I was finally able to get the hang of spinning on a spinning wheel. My spinning guild was doing a demonstration at Allen Gardens in Toronto and they had an Ashford Traditional there. I got a little practice on it and was finally able to keep spinning for over half an hour! I was in heaven!
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In November I ordered my Lendrum spinning wheel from Romni Wools in Toronto. This was the wheel that a lot of friends and people in my guild had and I really liked the modern look and the fact it had two treadles on it.

2006
In February my spinning wheel arrived!

Attended Handweavers Guild of America’s Convergence in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That is an amazing event to attend. It is HUGE! They had between 2000-3000 people go through over the course of the week. I took a 3 day workshop on everything about silk with Robin Russo. The rest of the time were half day lectures and small workshops. I got to meet Kathryn Alexander and Gord Lendrum at the Lendrum booth. Kathryn was demoing spinning cotton on the Lendrums very fast flyer. She made it look so easy! I got to try out spinning on it with wool. Good lord that thing spins fast!

2008
Started the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Spinning Certificate Program. This is a six year program. I’m going into my sixth year this summer and will be graduating at a ceremony in 2014 or 2015.

Attended my first SOAR (Spin-Off Autumn Retreat) in Pocono Manor, Pennsylvania

SOAR is an absolutely amazing time. There are about 200-300 participants over the course of a week. You start off with a 3-day intensive workshop that is one one topic, then you have a down day, then 3 days where you can take four additional half day retreat sessions. The shopping is always phenomenal. But it’s the people that really make the event. You learn as much hanging around in the lounge in the evenings with other people as you do during the day. Sometimes you just don’t want to go to sleep in case you miss something!

2009
Taught a workshop on knitting gloves from the finger tips down using handspun yarn at the Ontario Handspinning Seminar in Kingston, Ontario.

2010
Attended my second SOAR at Lake Lawn Resort in Delavan, Wisconsin. My 3-day workshop was on colour blending using a hackle taught by Deb Menz. I took a lace spinning retreat session with Margaret Stove and another one on dyeing with cochineal.

2012
Taught two workshops on spinning silk on a drop spindle. One was at the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat, the other was at the Ontario Handspinning Seminar.

2013
Gave a lecture to the KW Knitter’s Guild on using handspun yarn in knitting. Members of the Guelph Handweavers and Spinners guild supplied me with yarn and finished items to enhance the presentation.

Working on the committee for the Ontario Handspinning Seminar for 2013, being held in Burlington, Ontario.

A little lacey something

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

After years of crocheting a lot of doilies and lace things in my teens and early twenties I figured I never wanted to do anything lace related again.

WRONG! I guess it must be in my blood. My grandmother on my mothers side was a great crocheted lace maker. I figure the need to make lace comes from her.

I can thank Ted Myatt again for getting me interested in knitting lace. He makes phenomenal pieces on seemingly impossible sized needles. You can see a few of his piece here towards the bottom of the page.

I can also thank Joan Kass and Dorothy Seimens and several other women in Toronto’s Downtown Knit Collective for lots of inspiration and guidance. Joan is an amazing knitter and Dorothy writes some pretty amazing lace patterns.

A man knitting lace is one of those funny contradictions in the knitting world. Big burly guy, tiny needles and light as air fabric. It just shouldn’t be, but it is.

There’s is such a fascination in making something that can be so complex and so fragile looking. The yarn can be quite delicate, but once the piece is made it can usually stand up to a lot of stress when blocking it out.

Lace really needs the final blocking. Until then it just looks like a mass of spaghetti, but once blocked is blossoms into something amazing.

Here are a few of the lace items that I have made over the years.

This is a small triangular scarf. The pattern is the triangular scarf from Two Lace Scarves by Dorothy Seimens.

The yarn is some of my first handspun lace yarn made on a drop spindle. The fibre is a 70% merino and either 30% alpaca or mohair blend. I left off the tassels from the pattern as I didn’t have enough yarn to make those.

These are pics of one of the Lotus Blossom Shawls I made for a couple friends. The pattern was originally made for a yarn that was slightly heavier then dk weight. That original yarn was discontinued years ago and Dorothy updated the pattern to use a dk or light fingering weight yarns.

This is the Faroese Flower Shawl by Lucy Neatby. I purchased this as a kit and made this shawl for my sister. One of the nice aspects of a Faroese style shawl is that there is extra shaping at the shoulder area of the shawl and they stay on the shoulder better then just a straight shawl.

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This is my Diamonds and Roses Shawl pattern. I had a lot of advice from Dorothy Seimens on creating the charts for this shawl. I still like making it! I plan to make it from handspun yarn one day – naturally dyed with either madder or cochineal.

This is a simple triangular shawl I have designed. The yarn is spindle-spun chain plyed (3-ply) Tussah silk, dyed by Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks. I kept the pattern simple to highlight the colour changes of the yarn. I had tried other lace patterns, but the patterning was lost in the colours.

Some lace designers that you should know:
Margaret Stove
One of the true lace goddesses. She has spun and knit many fine creations. She has also published several books on spinning merino and lace knitting.

Sharon Miller of Heirloom Knitting
Amazing Shetland Lace patterns.

Dorothy Siemens of Fiddlesticks Knitting
A Toronto designer that I’ve known since she first started creating patterns for sale. Beautiful designs, clear instructions and large easy to read charts are the hallmarks of her designs.

Katherine Matthews of Apparknitchick and Ravelry
A local Guelph designer. Ted Myatt introduced us. She has many fun designs.

Anne Hanson of Knitspot.com
Many wonderful designs for lace and other garments.

Birgit Freyer of Knitting Delight and Die WollLust in German.
Many amazing designs.

Judy Marples of Purl Bumps
Many lace scarves and other patterns.

I feel an idea coming on…..

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

Where do the ideas come from?

Sometimes they have very specific inspirations and references, others just seem to come out of nowhere.

A lot of times I work with a musical approach – theme and variation.

I’ll have an idea / inspiration – it may be a stitch or a construction or maybe colours.

I’ll use that for an initial pattern, then I’ll try out a variation on it. Something that was an idea for a hat may morph into a sweater. A cable that was on a scarf becomes the inspiration for a hat and the finishing of that hat inspires a sock!

Sometimes the variation will work, sometimes not. But I learn something from each step and that helps me with other designs.
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I come from a mathematical background, and a lot of my patterns reflect that and a certain amount of structuring. I find it very difficult to make things that are more free-form and fanciful.

That being said, part of my work really is just play. Seeing what a new yarn is like by making some swatches, trying out different needles and patterns. Taking some new fibre and trying different spinning methods and final yarn sizes, then knitting with it. There is a structure to what I’m doing, but a lot of it is just playing with what is there and seeing where it takes me.

I’m coming through a long period of not having a lot time or inspiration for new designs. I’m currently working through a backlog of older ideas that are being test knitted, and I’m starting to get some newer ideas that I’m working on.

Its amazing having the time and energy again to be creative and to come up with new ideas.

I’m hoping to talk about a couple patterns in more detail in future post.

Welcome to the fibre floor!

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

Having a dedicated space for fibre work is an amazing luxury. Van and I really lucked out when we found this place to rent.

The top floor is an open area with a LOT of natural light. There is a skylight on the south side, a large window on the west and north sides, and a smaller window in an alcove on the north.

We have had a few craft parties and meetings up here. It can hold 10 people quite nicely.

So onto the tour! Most pictures are taken from the top of the stairs, except for the closeups. I should warn you. Pretty much all the boxes and bins you see are mine. Van only has a teeny amount of stash compared to me!

This is on the left at the top the stairs. The little alcove at the far left is Van’s drawing nook and holds the sewing machine. It also contains the boxes I store my OHS Spinning Certificate Program binders / work in for first 5 years of the program.

You can also see my rocking chair. Sitting in this and plying yarn is really peaceful.

Half of the big bins here are holding fibre. One has yarn and the rest hold my photography stuff and papers.

You can just see the other window alcove at the far right top of the picture.

The bookshelf at the top right holds all our fibre books, patterns and magazines.

The credenza and the bins and boxes next to it are most of Van’s stash.

At the back is a bunk bed that has a fold out futton on the bottom. Right now the top is home to the yarn that I have cataloqued. The bottom is holding fibre that I’m finding containers for.

In the front center you can see my Lendrum double treadle wheel. I’m currently spinning some BFL / Silk that is dreamy.

Lots of good stuff. There is Van’s Lendrum right at the front. The craft table gets used for a lot of things. We have two swifts and ball winders. The second one is not being used and is on the white credenza you can see at the back left.

The brown boxes just under the skylight are my Wellington Fibres collection. Many wonderful mohair blends with wool, alpaca and silk!

These containers are a mix of fibre, yarn and completed projects.

This is mostly Van’s corner of the room. He has his spinning wheel and floor loom setup here. He also has a small rolling bin with some stash in it. Not pictured is a lovely set of cotton cones for a colour gamp.

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This is my blending hackle. A wonderful tool for blending fibres to get funky rovings to spin.

Van’s created rovings for his Peacock Shawlette on this hackle.

These are some of Van’s spinning yarns.

A lot of these are from Habu Textiles.

These are some of my drop spindles. I have a few more stored inside the white credenza that this is sitting on.

Also in the credenza are my hand combs. They are made by Alvin Ramer. The first set are Dutch combs, the second are the Super Mini combs. Both these and the hackle above are made in Cherry wood.

This is my 15″ Leclerc Dorothy Table loom.

I don’t use it as much as I would like to. I’m hoping to get a bit more time on it this summer.

Just to the side of the loom are two rolling drawers. They hold my excess needles, some yarn and magazines.

Next to the loom you can see a white drawstring bag and a Tupperware container. The bag holds my current sock project and the container is my usual traveling sock kit. It contains 40″ circular needles in 2, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75 and 3mm, a couple sets of dpns and some other things for making socks. It also has copies of a couple sock recipes I use for my basic plain socks.

One last look at the yarn stash on top of the bunk bed. Lots of interesting stuff up here and actually not as much sock yarn as I was thinking I had! But there is still more to cataloque, so we’ll see what else turns up!

Some things that are not shown here are the dyeing equipment and a few fleeces which are kept in the basement.

Thanks for coming along for the tour! I hope it was fun and you saw something interesting.

The joy of socks

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

WARNING!!! Sock pron and yarn pron ahead! You have been warned!

My name is Danny… (Hello Danny!), and I’m a sock-yarn-aholic.

I confess that I am powerless to the will of my inner magpie (Ooh! Sparkly!) and my resolve is weakened by the yarn fumes of pretty sock yarns.

I don’t remember who persuaded me to knit my first pair of socks. It was either someone in the Toronto knitting guild or Ted Myatt.

Until that point I always thought they would be too hard. Like many people the thought of turning a heel frightened me and I also couldn’t see myself spending so much time knitting on something that could be warn out and need repairing!

First socks made in Jawoll

I picked a fairly simple sock pattern and just bravely went ahead and the rest is history!

I LOVE making socks. They may take me a long time, but they are some of my most restful knitting.

Over the years I’ve knit socks in with many methods. Double pointed needes, 2 circular needles, magic loop on one circular needle. Toe up and cuff down. Heel flaps and short row heels.

About the only things I haven’t done yet are sideways socks and colourwork socks, but those are on the list. I also haven’t done lace socks. Given that I usually make socks for myself, and my sister would find them to frilly, I don’t think I’ll be knitting any of them soon either.

My standard go to mindless sock is done toe up using magic loop method, sometimes two socks at one time. I start with either a lighter circular cast-on, figure 8 cast-on or Judy’s Magic Cast-On. I then do a standard toe till I have 72 or 80 sts, depending on yarn and guage. Plain knitting for the foot, with gusset increases at the bottom of the sole and a heel flap for the heel. The leg is K3, P1 ribbing till about 1.5 inches short of wanted length (or amount of yarn!) and the finishing in K1, P1 ribbing and then a loose cast-off, like Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off.

These are socks that I have patterns for:

The sock on the left is the Crossing Cables Sock pattern.
The one on the right is the Diamond Waffle Socks pattern.

These are a couple more patterns that I have coming out soon:

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The sock on the left is Raspberry Socks, the sock on the right is Gansey Socks. The Gansey Socks are made from The Black Lamb’s City Silk, which is a lovely Merino and Tussah silk blend.

And now the danger begins. But remember – sock yarn doesn’t count towards stash. Really – it doesn’t!

Good all purpose sock yarns:
Kroy
Regia
Yawool
Trekking XXL

More interesting patterned, striping and painted yarns
Zauberball
Opal
Malabrigo Sock and Finito
Manos Del Uruquay Alegria

Amazing luxury and hand dyed yarns that I’ve used and love
Canadian Yarns
Fleece Artist – BFL Socks, Trail Socks and Merino 2/6
Handmaiden Casbah
Rhichard Devrieze
Koigu
Dye-Version – BFL Sock, Bamboo Sock and Wool Sock
Indigo Dragonfly – Great colour names – my favourite is: Plumber’s Butt: Release the Cracken!
Shelridge Farms – Solids with a limited quantity of handpainted colours
Wellington Fibres – They do sell the sock yarn separately, but is isn’t listed.
The Black Lamb – My favourite of their yarns is City Silk Yarn.
Tanis Fiber Arts
Waterloo Wools

Other countries
Madelinetosh
Lorna’s Laces
Bluemoon Fiber Arts

The indie dyed yarns are the ones that can be the most dangerous. Amazing colours and fibre choices. They are not cheap, but when you are making something extra special for yourself they are totally worth it.

Also remember that sock yarn can be used for a lot of other things besides socks. Much as I love socks I just can’t knit them as fast as I can buy yarn. If you look on Ravelry you will find lots of pattern ideas for things using sock yarn. Just in case you have a little stash that needs to be used up. Just saying.

These are a few of my favourite things

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

Today is the Blogathon’s first theme day. The theme was your five favourite apps that help you with your productivity.

This is geared more towards the writers taking part in the blogathon, so I’m going to list five (or more!) things that I love that make my fibre work easier.

1 – Interchangeable knitting needle sets

These are a great tool to have around. Depending on the material of the needle these can be fairly inexpensive. There are many companies that now offer these kits.

Some pros: Compact systems, usually with a storage unit to keep things neatly together. Easy to add additional items to the kits. Some brands offer different materials for needles (plastic, metal, wood). Others offer different styles of tips (blunter or sharper). There are several sizes of cords so you can easily choose the length of your circular needle.

Some cons: The joins between the needles and the cords can sometimes snag yarns. Most kits only go down to 3.5mm (US Size 4). Smaller needle sizes still have to be purchased as normal circular needles. The smallest connecting cords usually give you a 60cm (24 inch) circular needle.

2 – Digital scales

I like to have a couple of these on hand – a larger kitchen scale that measures in grams and a smaller one that can measure down to 0.1 grams.

The larger one is great for measuring out large quantities of fibre or yarn. The smaller scale is perfect for measuring out chemicals for dyeing or for small batches of fibre when I’m blending with hand cards.

3 – Mini shears or small sharp toenail scissors

These are very handy for trimming yarns from finished pieces. I find the shears easier to use then scissors – they don’t put as much strain on my hands. They also are usually a bit sharper, so cutting is easier. I often use the shears if I have to cut fibres when I’m blending shorter fibres together.

4 – Hand spindles

I learned to spin using handspindles and I still often go to them for projects and just when I want to relax. Their biggest advantage is their portability. It’s very easy to slip them into a case and pull them out while on the go. It’s amazing how much yarn you can make when you add up all those 5 minute spins over the week. A few people I know use cardboard tubes, like whiskey bottle tubes, for transportation. Put in fibre, add spindle and away you go!

A selection from my spindle collection

Bill is an amazing photographer. His studio is in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

His main photography site is on Photoshelter, and you can also find him on Flickr.

Front row – left to right; 1 and 3 – Edward Tabachek Deluxe and Mini High-whorl spindles; 2 – Spindlewood Company Square Whorl Mini spindle; 4 – Golding Fiber Tools Pinwheel Rinspindle.
Back row: Tracy Eichem spindles, Production spindles in Star Light and Ultra Light weights.

5 – Storage bins

I need a lot of storage bins on hand to keep all my knitting and spinning stash in. I like to use clear shoebox sized bins for my yarns and larger Rubbermaid like bins to hold fibre and fleeces. Having the clear bins allow me to see the yarns, making it easy to see what colours I have on hand.

Yarn in shoebox sized storage units

There are 44 boxes of yarn in this picture. I probably have another 10 or so left to cataloque before adding them to this pile. Each box is numbered, so I can look up a yarn I want to use in the cataloque and easily find the box.

6 – HanDbase database software for catalogueing

I’m in the process of catalogueing all my craft related items – yarn, fibre, needles, books and other fibre equipment.

I found a great simple database program called HanDbase to help me with this. There is a community of users that provide database layouts free of charge. I used a few of these as the starting point for my catalogue, modified them and created a couple new ones. The other great thing about it is you can get a copy for you smart phone, so I can have a copy on me when I’m out and can check if I already have things before buying more!

My goal is to cataloque everything by the end of the summer. I’m probably about a third done now. It will get faster once I get to the fibre, as there are fewer items in a box to deal with!

7 – Charting software

Making charts for patterns is usually a designers biggest nightmare.

For years I’ve used Excel to make my charts. I would then have to give that to the person doing my pattern layout and they would have to recreate that in their software. Big pain you know where.

I’m currently checking out a couple charting packages to see what they can do. One big benefit is that they normally can export files that the layout person can use directly.

I haven’t found The One package yet. They all have their quirks. Some do more than others, but I haven’t been able to do everything I could in excel yet in one package. I’ll keep trying and may just have to find a way to do certain things when it gets to the layout tool.

Packages I’ve tried and like so far:

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Van’s Sweater Story

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Danny Ouellette

I’ve known Ann and Eugene Bourgeois of Philosopher’s Wool since the late 90’s. I first meet them at the Toronto Downtown Knit Collective Knitter’s Frolic and it was a highlight of every frolic to see them again. The sweater you see in my banner image is made from their wool.

Starting in 2004 or 2005 Van and I have seen them several times at the KW Knitter’s Fair and The University of Guelph‘s Fair November.

In September 2006 we took a weeks vacation and part of that trip was visiting their farm and store in Inverhuron, Ontario.

Van and I had talked about me making a sweater for him as a gift. He chose the pattern and Ann worked with him to pick the colours for the kit instead of going with a ready made one. We had a wonderful afternoon visiting and it was amazing seeing all the yarns there.

The pattern Van chose was the Timber Framed sweater.

In the winter of 2007 I did some swatching to figure out my gauge, as I knew I would have a hard time getting the gauge that is listed in the pattern. We figured out what size of sweater was needed. From that and my guage I built an excel spreadsheet to plot out the colour changes that were needed for both the sleeves and the body.

I printed the sheets so that Van could colour them in with pencil crayons. Planning the colours went through a couple itterations, with lots of life stuff and Van moving in the process.

In September 2010 we finally had the colours figured out and I printed out the final charts and added them to the project box. Where it sat for about a year while a lot of things happened in my life and Van and I moved once again!

The first sleeve was knit Nov. 13, 2011 – Feb. 8, 2012.
The second sleeve was Feb. 10, 2012 – early October, 2012
The body was started on Oct. 12, 2012 and I’m still working on it! It will be ready to put on the sleeve steeks in another inch or so.

The plan was to have it all finished for Fall 2012 so Van could use it as his main coat. That didn’t happen for several reasons, procrastinating being one of the big ones.

Right now I’m trying to make sure it’s done for Fall 2013!

For knitting I’m using a colour in each hand, as Ann Bourgeois teaches in her video.

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This pattern has long sections where the colours are in blocks. If I wove in the yarns on the same stitches each row there would be a noticeable ridge on the front of the sweater on those stitches.

I’m alternating rounds of where I’m weaving in the colours. Round 1 is on stitches 2 and 4, round 2 is on stitches 1, 3 and 5. This gives a more even texture on the front of the fabric, and also gives an interesting colour pattern on the inside of the sweater.

I’m going to put in steeks for the sleeves and neck of the sweater. I’m planning on crocheting the steeks rather than sewing them. I’ll make a final decision when I’m ready to start cutting.

I’m going to make a small sample with a steek to confirm that the crochet method will work with this yarn. I don’t want to have to go back and sew this up again after it’s been cut!

Some more pictures of the sweater in progress. Click on them to enlarge them.

All knittings great and small

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