Ready for Spring

Saturday was the February meeting for Portland Spinnerati and Susan (that's her in the orange shirt) had volunteered to give a lesson in long-draw spinning of cotton. She'd made a trip to Woodland Woolworks and purchased cotton in several different preparations: carded sliver, combed top, and punis.

After a few minutes of practice and lots of encouragement from Sharon, Sari and I were both successfully doing long draw. You can't see the thin threads we were producing, but you can see how far back from the orifice we were able to draft.

I'm not sure I'll spin more cotton; I rarely knit with it and it's pretty reasonably priced in the stores. But spinning with cotton makes me think it's time to start thinking that Spring is just around the corner.

Melissa, however, was not as successful, even though she had that beautiful Journey wheel on loan from Barbara. Maybe Barbara should have packed some "spinning mojo" inside.

I was busy spinning during the meeting, so thanks to Tami for the pictures!

It was a good meeting; we discussed the direction the group will take and welcomed new members. It was a large group this month, too; I think we counted 21 spinners this time. We're still on the hunt for a permanent home and sorting out who can teach what techniques, but it's developing into a really good group for teaching each other and expanding all our skills.

I did finish two things this week; both for me for a change. My office tends to stay a little on the cool side but I find sweaters too bulky when sitting at a computer most of the day. If I can keep my neck and shoulders warm, I'm much more comfortable. As a result, I'm on a spurt of building a wardrobe of cowls and small shawls for myself.

This one is a small skein (only 93 yards) of kid mohair that I bought at TKGA last fall. It's snow white with a single thread of mylar for just a touch of sparkle. No pattern, I just casted on and knit in rows of ribbing, stockinette, seed stitch, and garter stitch. That shawl pin is one ToolMan made last year for OFFF but I snagged it for myself.

This is another single skein project finished this week. This one is Lala's Simple Shawl, knit in Handmaiden Sea Wool in Woodlands colorway. The picture doesn't really show the colors well; it has multiple greens, with bits of brown, grey, and dark blue. The Sea Wool was a little stiff and shiny in the skein, but after a nice soak and blocking, it's very soft. The finished shawl has a wonderful drape and hand, very similar to linen.

I really like these small shawls for the office. I wrap them around my neck if I'm cold, drape them over my shoulders when I warm up, and are small enough to tuck in my bag if I get too warm. With my recent reduction in hours, and the resulting reduction in income, I won't be buying new clothes anytime soon. Having these cowls and shawls to toss on give me a change in wardrobe without breaking the bank and they make great commuter knitting.

I've got balls . . .

I don't have any knitting to show you this week. Yes, I've been knitting; actually, I'm working on a triangle shawl in Handmaiden Sea Wool that I bought at Knit Purl on the LYS Crawl this year, but it's not really blog-worthy yet. And then on Friday, I got a kink in my shoulder and haven't been able to knit for the last few days.

I did go to Westside Spinning on Wednesday afternoon; I had two 1/2 ounce samples from Abstract Fibers in her Sunset colorway, so I started spinning them. I've been wearing cowls or shawls to work this winter and that's where this will end up. I don't think there will be enough for a whole from just the sample, but I think it will look great as a trim with some leftover brown alpaca in the stash.


The gals at Westside Wednesday night were in rare form this week. Duffy was working on her own version of Queen Anne's Lace; she was afraid of losing her point protectors (again) but found the perfect place to store them - on Gail's brace.

While the rest of us were suffering hot flashes, Gail apparently was feeling a chill. Gail will be in this brace for another couple of months; she took a tumble on a slick deck during that last Arctic blast that hit our area.

Meanwhile, the rest of the motley crew were finishing projects right and left. Tracy finished a sock; which apparently, cracked up Jen.

From the look of pride on her face, I don't think she'll be suffering from SSS (Second Sock Syndrome) anytime soon.

Tami was just a little too excited to show off her finished project.



That's a heart with "Brandon + Tami" on the front. I had to promise not to blog this until after Brandon received it on Valentine's Day.

Lori finished not one, but TWO hats.



OK, so she might have knitted those before arriving, but she did finish them Wednesday night.

Last week, Kathleen asked about the dryer balls I had in the blog. When we bought the new washer and dryer back in November, they told us not to use fabric softener sheets. It seems the new dryer has a very fine lint screen, which gets clogged up by the residue left by dryer sheets. Since being diagnosed with sarcoidosis a couple years ago, I've been trying to cut down on the amount of chemicals, fragrances, and dyes we use in the house. That means going to "free and clear" detergents, fewer spray cleaners and air fresheners, etc. But I was still using dryer sheets to cut down on static cling in the laundry. I'd heard about people making felted wool dryer balls that are supposed to make your laundry dry faster and cut down on static cling, so I decided to make some for myself.

I used some very rough yarn barf from a couple of years ago when I first started spinning. It was unidentified, very coarse wool; totally unsuitable for knitting with, but great for felting! I just wound it up into balls, tossed them in the washer and dryer with a load of towels, and got small felted balls. There are lots of tutorials for these on the Internet, but here's the basic lowdown. Use only wool; if it's got any silk, tencel, nylon, etc., then it won't felt uniformly. And no synthetics or superwash - if it says "machine washable", it won't felt at all. Use the roughest, coarsest wool you can find; it felts much better than the nice, soft stuff. Wind it into small balls, loosely; if it's too tight, it won't felt properly. I secured each final layer to keep the balls from coming apart before they felted properly.




I used the ugly colors for the centers; I made them about the size of a plum and felted them. Those are the ones you saw last week. This week, it was time for the final layer which I wanted to be prettier colors. I made a layer of the base color, then wound on another color in a pattern and secured it by stitching down each section where the yarn crossed, making sure I stitched down pretty deeply into the previous layers. Again, wind loosely so the yarn will felt better.




I ended by burying the end deep into the ball, so it wouldn't come loose during the felting process.




I snipped off the loose ends before felting, but you could do it afterward, if you wanted.

I popped them into lingerie bags (from Dollar Tree), just in case they did come unwound in the washer.



Then, into the washer along with a load of towels.



I've heard people say that front loading washers don't felt things well but I've had no such trouble. I set it for prewash with hot water, wash with hot water, and extra rinse. Yes, that timer does say 1:28 - that's how long the cycle will take.



After the washer, it was into the dryer for another 45 minutes, and here are the finished dryer balls:




These are each about 9 inches in circumference - roughly the size of a tennis ball. I'll keep 3 for myself and the other two sets of 3 each will go to my SIL Faye and neice Jane.

I've been using my dryer balls for about a month now. Mine have been staying in the dryer and keep felting tighter with each load. My dryer senses the humidity and stops automatically when the clothes are dry and I have noticed that clothes dry faster using these; presumably because they separate the clothes. But the real difference is in the amount of static - it's not completely gone, but much better than without anything. When I take out clothes what have polyester or nylon in them, the little hairs on the dryer balls are standing on end from all the static but my clothes don't cling to each other nearly as much. And I'm not adding chemicals or fragrance to my clothes.

This week, I finished up that bobbin of Romney cross that Kathleen brought me from New Zealand. It took a couple of soaks to get the grease and dirt out of it, but it is much softer now. That's it drying on the bottom of the rack in the guest room.




Those other hanks? Those are from the cashmere sweater from Goodwill. Approximately 2,000 yards of beige lace weight 100% cashmere for $6.99. Eventually it will become a lace shawl. As soon as I'm done fondling it.

The Final Numbers

Here are the final numbers for the reclaimed yarn:



First, the aran weight lamb's wool: This started as a man's extra large aran sweater, rescued from Goodwill. Cost was $3.49 (it was 1/2 price day for the tag color on this sweater). Washed, raveled, and reskeined, it yielded 1,626 yards of aran weight yarn in the traditional off white.

And the wool/nylon blend in khaki heather: This started as a man's extra large pullover, very densely knit, rescued from Goodwill. Cost: $6.99. Washed, raveled, and skeined it yielded 1,880 yards of very soft fingering weight yarn in a khaki/off white marl.

Next up, dryer balls!

It's All About Wool

First, remember the miniature sweaters and hats from a couple weeks ago? Apparently, they were well received.



It's been so cold in Portland lately, that even Barbie, who usually dresses like a streetwalker wears much less clothing, decided it was time for wool.

And I plied two bobbins of wool on Friday night. This is the Romney cross that Kathleen brought me from New Zealand. It's resting on the bobbin right now, to be skeined and set later in the week.



This is a lovely reddish brown and very soft. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, though. I might just put it on the mantle and admire it for a while.

Remember the sweaters from Goodwill? I decided to deconstruct the big wool one and blog the whole thing while I was at it. If you're on a dial-up Internet connection, I apologize in advance. This is a long post and has a lot of pictures. You might want to go get a cup of coffee or tea, maybe a snack, and come back.

Back already? Okay, here we go:

First, when I look for sweaters to recycle in my local Goodwill and other thrift shops, I check the men's racks first. Not only are their sweaters HUGE (providing a lot of yarn), but the quality is usually better, and they're less worn so it's less likely they'll be felted or stained.




I go down the rack just feeling each sweater: "crap", "crap", '"cotton", "crap", "might be wool". When you get to a "might be wool", pull it out and take a good look at it. Here's what to look for:

A label for fiber content. If it's not on the back of the neck, check the side seam; that's where this one was.




OK, it's not 100% wool; it's 15% nylon, but it's still really good wool. And very tightly machine knit, so it'll give a lot of yardage. Next, look at the seams.

If the seams look like this, put it back on the rack. These seams have been serged. That means the sweater was cut out of flat knitted pieces and seamed together, not knit back and forth like a hand-made sweater.




You're looking for seams like this:



This seam does not have any thread wrapping around the edges, but just to be sure, pry that seam open and take a look.



You should be able to see yarn holding the two pieces together and the two slip-stitch edges. Just like Mom used to make. Unless the price is exorbitant, put this one in the cart to go home with you.

Other sections in the thrift shops to look for recycleable wool is the ladies' large section. And don't forget the ponchos; they were so popular a few years ago and now are showing up in the thrift shops. I look for sweaters that are either a single color or in large color blocks. While the stripes look great, unless you're really into fair isle patterns, you don't get enough of any one color to really make the deconstruction worthwhile. Also, check for any glaring stains that might not come out in the wash. I've never found anything with moth evidence, but I check all the same. No need to bring home a treasure only to find your entire stash destroyed later.

If the sweater is really soiled, I'll wash it before deconstruction. This one was pretty clean; in fact, it didn't look like it had been worn at all, so I could gather my tools and go straight to work.

Here's what you'll need: a pair of short, very sharp scissors, cuticle scissors work great; a good pair of tweezers for picking out threads, a magnifying glass, a plastic bag for the waste bit, and good light. I like to work on in our master bedroom where I have plenty of room and good light. I also get a cup of tea, find something interesting to listen to on the telly, and the dog. Ready? Here we go:

First, off with the label! Sorry 'bout that, I was channeling Henry VIII from The Other Boleyn Girl.



This is where the magnifying glass comes in. If you can snip the first stitch or two, the label usually comes off pretty easily. Save the fiber content label and attach it to the relaxed skeins later. Trust me, in six months, you will not remember what the content was.

Next, the back neck label. Snip those threads on top of the label, just to make sure you don't accidentally clip the yarn.



This sweater has twill tape sewn inside the back neck to keep it from stretching out. Neat idea that I'll try to remember for my own sweaters. But, it has to come out, too.



Again, it's sewn in with thread, so start snipping on top of the tape. Once a stitch or two has been loosened up, you can start pulling it away and snipping the stitches.



I don't bother with pulling out the threads; they'll fall out as you unravel later.

Now, it's time to examine just how this sweater was constructed, so we can work in reverse order.



The neckband looks like it has a seam around the inside and the outside, and it goes over the shoulder seams. So, it's probably a separate band that's been attached. But, there's no thread to be seen, so it must be sewn down with yarn. First, let's see if we can find the beginning of that seam.



The seam looks like a crochet chain stitch on the inside of the collar. If we can loosen that up, it should zip right off.

There it goes!



Yep, the neckband was knitted separately then secured from the inside with that chain stitch. Another neat trick to remember for my own knitting.



While there's not a lot of yarn in the neckband, it does have that nice navy blue, which is on the inside of the cuffs and hem, so I'll save it for unraveling. It might make a nice trim for a pair of mittens or on a hat.



Now, let's look at the cuffs and hem. They only show a seam on the inside; again, over the seams, and there's that crochet chain stitch again. Find the end and unzip them.



They weren't separate bands, like the neck; they were knitted right on, so they'll be unraveled when we get to that part.

Next, we have to take apart the big pieces of the sweater: front, back, and sleeves. Let's figure out what order it was constructed in, and we can reverse the order.

This is the side/underarm seam. Since it goes over the sleeve seam, we know it was done after the sleeve was sewn in.



And here's the shoulder seam. Since the sleeve seam goes over it, we know the shoulder seam was done first. So the manufacturer put the sweater together like this: shoulder seam, sleeve seam, side/underarm seam. All we have to do is reverse the order.



First, undo the side seams. This manufacturer used the same crochet chain stitch for all the construction so far, so the side seams just zipped open, leaving a huge flat knitted piece, rather like a poncho.



Next, undo the sleeves from the body. Again, the manufacturer used that crochet chain stitch, so it unzipped easily. If mattress stitch is used, you're going to do a lot of pulling yarn back and forth. If mattress stitch is used, I don't recommend cutting it open as the loose bits will snag the unraveling process on the side of every row. Go ahead, ask me how I know this.

We now have two nice flat sleeves separated from the body. Set them aside for unraveling while we take a look at the front and back of the sweater.



Uh, oh. It's a dreaded serged seam. While the manufacturer took care to use the crochet chain stitch everywhere else, the used a serger here. Know why? Because it's hard to teach machines how to do short rows, that's why. It's much easier to just tell the machine to knit it flat and longer than needed then cut off what you don't want.



But, that means we have a bunch of rows made up of short pieces of yarn. Get your scissors, find a row that goes all the way across the shoulder and snip away.



I know, it feels completely wrong to cut knitting. But you'll find out that it does not magically unravel before your eyes, does it? No, it just sits there. Because this is wool and those little cut bits are keeping the stitches from unraveling. You may find that the neck edge is cut, also. If it is, just keep unraveling until you get to a row that goes from side seam to side seam. But don't completely unravel yet!

You should now have four flat pieces of knitting to unravel: front, back, and two sleeves.




And this is what is the waste out of the sweater. Remember, this weighed about 1 and 1/4 pounds when we started.



Now, let the unraveling begin!

You can do this yourself, but a willing helper is appreciated.



And a reel or swift helps, although you could use two dining room chairs, set back to back a couple feet apart; or a laundry basket turned upside down. Anything to wind the yarn around that's sturdy enough to hold a considerable amount and withstand the pressure.



An audience is nice, but not required. It'd be nice if they show at least a small amount of interest, though.



Unravel one piece at a time onto your reel or whatever. Try not to stretch the yarn; it'll put a lot of pressure on your reel or swift and might break pieces. Plus, if it's tight, it'll be really hard to get off. When one piece is unraveled and wound, you'll need to tie leases on the skein.



I use leftover pieces of acrylic yarn (because I know it won't bleed dye) in a color different from the skeined yarn (makes them easier to find later). Each lease is tied in a figure 8; splitting the skein width-wise into 2 or 3 sections. This will help keep the rounds from tangling. Tie the leases in at least 4 places for the sleeves; use 6 or 8 leases for the front and back pieces. Don't tie them too snuggly, though, you want the yarn inside the leases to absorb water, which won't happen if their too tight.

After the leases are tied, you can clip the skein off the reel.



The yarn will relax back into the shape of the stitches. It'll look like a big pile to Top Ramen noodles. We could knit with it like this, but it wouldn't be fun. We need to get the yarn to relax. And it might be dirty. Let's kill two birds with one stone by giving it a nice long bath.

You can use an expensive wool soak, your favorite laundry detergent, or shampoo from the Dollar Tree. Since this was fairly clean, and really just needs relaxing, I opt for inexpensive shampoo/conditioner for this and save the fancy wool wash for finished items later.



I fill the guest bathtub with hot water, as hot as I can get it. Then drizzle in some shampoo/conditioner and add yarn.



Mmmmm, the smell of wet wool!

Just submerge the skeins gently and let them soak. Do not be tempted to agitate or you might wind up with one giant felted mess. I leave them a couple of hours, until the water is tepid. Pick up the skeins and squeeze the soapy water out of them one at a time. Warning, they'll be very heavy! I lay them on the side of the tub to drain the water out. Trust me, you do not want the skeins anywhere near that drain plug! Then I fill the tub with lukewarm water and give them a quick rinse. Squeeze the water out again, this time getting as much water as possible out. I wring the skeins at this point, but if you do that, be sure to twist the skein in the same direction as the yarn is spun (probably to the right), otherwise you'll be untwisting the yarn.


I hang the skeins on plastic hangers over the tub for a few hours, until they stop dripping. Then, I move them to a drying rack in the guestroom.



I haven't checked the yardage yet. My reel is 2 yards around, so I'll count the strands in each skein for an approximation when it's dry. I'll also label each skein with the yardage and fiber content (you did save the tag, right?) before putting it in the stash.

And those small little bits of blue from the neck, hem and cuffs? They got added to other leftover wool and made into felt dryer balls which will be gifts for my sisters in law and nieces.