"Yarn
Spinner"

Well this ole yarn spinner did survive the late ride. But what I forgot from my experience last year is that it takes several nights to begin to catch up to the forever lost 8 hours of the night and it also takes several days for my body to catch up to the physical work of actually riding 25 miles on a bicycle.

I did wear a shawl and added a call name "Yarn Spinner" to it with retro-reflective tape, just in case there was another "real" spinner on the road. I also wore my retro-reflective scarf wound through my helmet. It really shows in the flash. I didn't meet up with any other textile people, but did have conversations with some of the riders.

I only got a few photos, it is impossible for me to manuever a bike and a camera at the same time. In fact it is near impossible for anyone to do so as there are thousands of bikes all around you.

The planners limit the ride to 10,000 bikers. Sending them off in "waves" of 2000 each as this fuzzy scene shows.



Here I am with my DH back in Grant Park after our reward breakfast, bagel and cream cheese, as the sun has just come up over lake Michigan behind us. We did survive to live another year.

Q/A Spinning Dog Hair

I recently had to put my 12 year old Std. Poodle to sleep, but I have the hair from Crystal’s last grooming. My question is – can dog hair be spun into a yarn and something made from it?

I am sorry to hear of your loss, having lost kitties over the years, I know it is always much harder than expected.

Yes, poodle hair can be spun and it will make a yarn like fine mohair (from a goat). It is very warm if it is made into clothing, so think about something to wear outside, scarf, hat or mittens, or socks could be made from a smaller amount. A jacket sweater would require 3-4 pounds. Some people prefer something they can hug like a woven pillow or a throw if they have a large quantity. Others like to do a textured woven wall hanging.

There are spinners who spin on commission. Some charge by the ounce, some barter, a small payment and half of the fiber for them to keep, half spun up and returned to the owner. Other owners decide that this is a good reason to learn to spin and to do it all themselves.

So you have a lot of options. The choices depend on the amount of hair you kept, the amount of time you want to put into a project and what you might like to have as a keepsake. Good luck and keep the happy memories.

PatsyZ

Spinning my Wheels?

"When did I agree to that? "

It seems that question comes to my mind more frequently now as I approach my 60th birthday this fall.

Yesterday, I realized that I had preveiously agreed to spin through Chicago late Saturday. And I mean LATE-long after twilight ends, and the spinning will be on my bicycle.

This hugh, multi-thousand person bike ride starts at 2:00AM at the Buckingham Fountain and goes about 15 miles up through town, then about 10 miles south on Lake Shore drive so you can watch the sun come up on your way back to breakfast and your car. Last year I did do the ride with my husband (who frequently hops out and does 18-20 miles at a stretch). But I this year I have yet to touch my bicycle.

And tomorrow, infact the rest of this week seems to be pretty well booked in. If I can post a blog next week you'll know that I survived, if not it was a short but fun shot at blogging.

Q/A Balanced Single Yarn

Is it possible to have a "balanced"
single?

The very act of spinning fibers together will cause a singles yarn to be unbalanced. I feel it is incorrect to use the term balanced with a single, as it is only one ply. The twist in the yarn can and should be set by blocking or restricting to make it stable and usable. Setting the twist is accomplished after washing or wetting out the skein while the skein is drying.

The skein can be stretched tight which is usually called blocking. I do this when I am setting the twist in warp yarns. I prefer that my warp yarns lack the normal springiness while I am putting them on the loom and weaving. After weaving when I wash the fabric web it will regain its springiness. I have to beat each pick very lightly so that there is room for the fabric to breathe as it relaxes later when I wash the fabric.

Restricting is a softer way to settle down the twist while the skein dries. Try draping the skein loosely around something like, placing a skein over a shower rod and placing a hand towel into both loops which I call restricting. Usually I do this for yarns that will later be knit or crochetted.

The skein may twist a bit as it dries, depending on how much twist is in the single. However there are many ways that a singles skein can be used.

PatsyZ

Skewed knitting

Is there a formula to determine if a singles yarn is going to cause my knitting stitches to be skewed after washing?

In my humble opinion, the biasing that occurs with knitting, singles yarns, can't be put into a simple formula. There are several factors involved, particularly the inherent body - the resistance to being twisted - that varies from fiber to fiber. Then you need to also consider the knitting stitch that you are using.

A very simple check of any particular yarn plying back on itself, as it is being spun, may give you the answer. If you stop spinning and let the singles yarn ply back on itself, and it does so with good definition, then it needs to be a plied yarn to avoid skewing or biasing in stockinette knitting. Since that particular singles yarn has the ability to ply back on itself, in all likelyhood, it will be able to twist the knitting stitches, especially each time it is wet for washing.

Conversely, if you stop spinning and let the singles yarn ply back on itself, and the plies become soft with poor definition, it will probably not skew in stockinette knitting, because there isn't enough twist and body to push the stiches around.

In my experiments using smaller, needles and a tighter guage, will give the singles yarn less room to move, bias or skew a stockinette stitch. A rib stich or lace yarn overs also reduce a yarns ability to skew.

A few of the other factors that I have noted in my spinning, besides body, have to do with the length of the fiber, the amount of fibers held together and the arrangement - parallel or haphazard. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TechSpin/message/3771 July 14, 2001.)