End of the Year Tasks

In the last couple days I have checked off some things from my "finish before the end of the year" list.  A few nights ago I finished spinning the last of the singles from the Polled Dorset fleece.  Now I have several storage bobbins of singles in various colors, and I will need to make a final decision about how I want to ply them, but the wool takes up a lot less room this way than it did as balls or piles of fluff.  

The project I most wanted to finish was the Christmas socks.  These were toe-up, plain vanilla, fish lips kiss heel socks in the colorway Candy Cane from West Yorkshire Spinner's holiday sock yarn collection.  They are done and will be ready to wear next year.

I also had one last skein of handspun off my wheel.  This was Leicester Longwool from Ross Farms.  I had spun this breed at the very beginning of my spinning journey.  It was part of my first 5 breeds for Shave 'Em to Save 'Em and I quickly made it into rope on my spinning wheel.  At the time I was still thrilled that I was making something that resembled yarn, but as my spinning improved and my knowledge increased, I felt like it might be a good idea to experience those first few wools again.  I think it is good to experience any breed of wool multiple times to get a real feel for the variety it can have and the difference prep can make.  This summer I was in Hudson, Ohio and was able to stop into the Ross Farm mercantile and there I was able to get my hands on more Leicester Longwool.  This was a roving prep.  I spun it on my Flatiron, on my lowest ratio I have available on it right now which is 10.4:1.  If I had the slower whorls I would probably have gone lower.  I did a SFD with it and plied it with a 60 degree twist angle.  I definitely spun this thinner this time than I did last time.  I feel like it might make a good warp, but I don't know what I would weave with it.  Anyway, I didn't really expect to get it finished as quickly as I did, but I was happy to get it off the wheel.

At that point, both my wheels were empty so I was able to spend some time doing a "spa day" treatment with them.

For my Flatiron, I have only had it for 3 months now so it did not need a lot of attention. Mostly I cleaned off fluff and debris, wiped off old oil, and reapplied new oil.  The polycord drive band and brake string and spring are still practically new and did not need replaced.  I also don't know how much use they are going to get because I am developing a strong preference for spinning in double drive on the Flatiron.  I plied in double drive for the first time with this most recent skein, and so I tied on a new driveband to spin S twist when I did that.  Afterwards I tied it up around the front leg where I have the polycord secured and I tied on a new Z twist driveband.  I replaced the leader on the bobbin on the wheel while I was at it.  

My Kiwi received a little more TLC.  I have had my Kiwi 3 for nearly three years now so I've given it the "spa" treatment several times now.  I find I like to do a basic version of this at least every few months, especially if I've recently spun something with a lot of dirt and/or vm in it.  This is my process for my Kiwi, please keep in mind some of these things are just what I have found works for me and aren't necessarily recommended, so anything you do with your own wheel should be done carefully and at your own risk.

1. I start by taking off all the parts that come off easily.  I remove the flyer, the bobbin on it, plus any on the built in lazy kate, and the whorl.  I also undo the drive band, loosen the brake band and untie it from the springs if I am replacing those, and remove the orifice hook.
2. I use a paper towel to wipe all the oiled areas first so I am not spreading dirty grease around.  
3. Then I use a microfiber cloth to dust the surfaces.  
4. The treadles, specifically the right treadle, really gets dirty.  This is one of those things I experimented with but should be approached with caution.  The thing I find works best is to take a new magic eraser and get it damp (wring out the water so it isn't dripping) and gently wipe the surface of the treadle like you might wipe down a table or counter top.  I don't scrub, I don't saturate the wood, I am just surface cleaning.  I find it removes most of the dirt quickly.  Then I immediately take a dry cloth and wipe it again so the wood doesn't have moisture sitting on it.
5. Back to the oily places like the front and rear maiden- I use q-tips or pipe cleaners to remove any additional excess oil and also pay attention to where the footmen attaches to the crank.  The one pops off for folding the treadles up, so that is easy to clean.
6. Next I take that allen wrench and check if any of the screws need tightened.  There are a few phillips head screws too to check.
7. When I bought my wheel it was unfinished.  I used tung oil on it initially, but now I maintain the wood with Ashford's finishing wax polish.  I give the wood a good once over with a little on a rag, I especially concentrate on the treadles.  
8. I give some attention to all those parts I removed: the flyer, bobbins, whorl, orifice hook, tension knob.  I avoid doing anything to the grooves beyond running a dry microfiber cloth around them once or twice to remove and dirt or fluff.  
9. The next step is replacing anything that needs replaced.  This time I put on a new driveband, and new brake band and spring, and I replaced the flyer hooks.  This is the first time I replaced the sliding hook and I did because I had noticed that over time the plastic was developing grooves in it.  I also replaced the metal hooks on the orifice end of the flyer because they were getting loose easily and showing wear and I had new ones in the maintenance kit bag anyway.  I put them in and them seem more secure and less likely to twist around.
10. I didn't need to do anything this time, but this seems like a good place to discuss the Kiwi's tension knob.  The brake band for the Kiwi is nylon, essentially a 30lbs or higher fishing line I think.  It works well in the potion that goes over the wooden bobbins, but I found it didn't always stay put in the section between the spring and the tension knob.  I replaced that section with cotton drive band (from the maintenance kit) and have been much happier with my ability to control the tension.  Also, last winter I found that with the indoor humidity so low the wood wasn't tight enough and the knob wasn't always staying put as a result.  My solution (again, caution) was to take a kettle of boiling water and open it up to allow steam in the area and on the tensioning knob for just a couple seconds.  That brief burst of humidity helped immensely.  
11. The last thing is to return the bobbins and flyer to the wheel, so this is the point I oil everything again.  I've started using white lightening lithium grease on the flyer shaft.  I still regularly oil with the Ashford oil, but using the white lightning lithium grease initially when I put on a new bobbin has really helped decrease some of the noisiness of the wheel.  Then I tie on a new leader and I am good to go!

The wheels are ready for another year of spinning

Looking Forward into 2022

I'm surprised, but I haven't really seen people posting Make Nines for 2022 yet on Instagram.  Maybe that trend has passed?  Maybe I just need to give it a few days.  I made one a few years ago and then knit maybe half the things I posted on it.  Last year I just made a list for myself in a notebook.  The only thing I didn't get to was brioche.

I think I am going to skip listing specific patterns I want to knit.  New patterns come out and then I want to knit those instead and the old patterns start to feel like obligations.  I would rather look at my fiber and yarn and think about what I want to prioritize working with this coming year.

In general, I have to be careful not to make my fiber arts into a to-do list.  I find myself trying to balance my making between it just being pure play and following whatever creative urge I get and also setting up challenges for myself and staying disciplined enough to eventually finish what I start.  Along the same lines, I belong to many groups or follow podcasts or IG accounts or whatever that host challenges and KALs and everything.  On one hand I find that to be really inspiring sometimes and at times it has introduced me to elements of craft I hadn't encountered before and it can be a lot of fun to participate in a community activity.  On the other hand, sometimes I worry that I spend so much of my creative energy following along with what other people set up that I'm not able to follow my own instincts or really allow my own creativity to flourish.  I wonder if anyone else struggles with that as well.  

So with all that said, I am trying to keep my 2022 goals or ideas somewhat vague and allow for a lot of flexibility in them.  I still want to give myself some direction and parameters, but I want to avoid it feeling like a big checklist.  Here are some of the things I want to do in 2022:

1. Knit a sweater from my 2021 Jacob fleece.  The yarn is spun and ready to knit with, I need to swatch and then settle on a pattern.  I will be starting this soon, I signed up for the Shave 'Em to Save 'Em Sweater Challenge that starts mid-January.
2. I still want to learn to do brioche.  I plan to knit Andrea Mowry's Harlow Worsted as a learning project.  I have some other more complicated brioche hat patterns I would really like to knit, if I like it I might do a few of those patterns as well.  
3. Socks are still going to be one of those things I always have going.  I plan to always have a vanilla pair in my purse and I will often have a second pair going as well.  Socks are definitely low-pressure though.  They take as long as they take unless I am at a point where I just really want to finish a pair they probably won't hold top priority.  This leads into the next thing, wish is...
4. Specifically, this year I would like to keep using my sock yarn stash.  I have some skeins I would like to get knit up, but I would also like to play around with scrappy socks and holding yarn double for thicker (and quicker!) socks.  I want to use a lot of my sock leftovers, if not for more socks, I would like to weave with them or use multiple strands for mittens and hats.
5. At the moment I have 3 sweaters going.  I would like to finish all of them, as well as that Jacob sweater I will be starting soon.
6. I would like to make a colorful sweater from handspun as well.  I might do a sort of fade with my existing skeins.  Or...
7. I would like to play with my blending board a lot more.  I would really like to blend up enough for a sweater.
8. In 2019 I bought 5 lbs. of raw Corriedale.  I scoured it and started combing it, but mostly it has sat.  This is in part because I find combing really hard on my body so I have to limit how much I do.  Prior combing was directed at a Polled Dorset fleece and a couple pounds of Shropshire.  It is time this Corriedale gets some attention.  For Christmas my husband gave me a Clemes & Clemes Lock Pop.  I think having this tool will make the combing less arduous.  The locks are very dense and so it is really easy to overload the comb.  If I "pop" the locks open first and then load the comb I get a better amount of wool to comb, but I also reduce the number of passes I need.  I weighed what I have right now, and I have about 9 ounces of combed nests.  I think I will start spinning those before long and then just keep working on combing up the remaining 3 lbs. of clean fleece.  
9. With the exception of my mill ends/add ins/sample fiber stash that I have for blending, I would like to spin up my existing fiber.  I worked through a lot of it in 2021.  Excluding the aforementioned Corriedale, I have about 3 pounds.  That is 8 braids and around a pound of Oxford that I drum carded.  If I hit a spinning slump this might not happen, but if I keep going as I have been I have a good chance of getting this done.  I have given a lot of thought to my fiber stash and how I want it to function, that is another post for another day.
10. I purchased a Selection Box from The Woolly Thistle this holiday season.  I would like to use a lot of that yarn for projects in 2022.  There were 9 skeins in that box, but one project will probably use (at least part of) 4 skeins and another project I will be holding 2 skeins together, so that reduces the number of projects to 5. I would like to prioritize using that yarn this year.

So there you have it.  This sort of thing doesn't really fit into a neat little grid anyway.  

Reflecting on 2021

This last week of the year between Christmas and New Year's Day always feels to me like it holds so much potential. The mad rush of the holidays is mostly over, there isn't any school, usually work schedules are lighter (if you aren't working retail or medical that is). It is a breather, but also a time to look back at the past year and look forward to the new one. 

For the past few years I have had a list of things I want to finish by the end of the year. One year I even finished all my WIPs. I actually don't recommend that, because then I didn't have anything going and I felt weirdly stuck and unable to figure out what the right thing to cast-on would be. I guess I have learned I really am happiest with having a) multiple projects going b) having those projects at various stages and c) having those projects require various levels of concentration. 

Even if I am not finishing everything, I still have a few things I want to finish before the end of the year. This year, I have one knitting and one spinning project that I want to complete. I have been knitting a pair of Christmas socks this year with the WYS colorway Candy Cane. As of this morning, I am on the heel of the second sock. I think I can finish this before Saturday. My other WIPS include another pair of socks and three sweaters. Two of those are top-down yoke sweaters and I wouldn't mind at least finishing the current colorwork motif on the one and finishing the yoke and dividing for the sleeves on the other. If I am able to do either of those things that would be great but I am not too fussed about it. The other pair of socks lives in my purse so I'm not putting any deadline on those. The other sweater I will get back to eventually. I am still knitting the body, but when I needed to add another ball of yarn I decided to go ahead and pick up the neck stitches and get that over with. Unfortunately, I had to stop halfway through that process because it was too hard on my wrists. About a month and half ago I fell and have radial head fractures in both my arms and probably some sprains too and I have had quite a bit of arm and wrist pain. The arm pain is getting better, but I am going to give it some more time before I pick it up again, I have other things to work on. 

As for the spinning, I am so close to being finished spinning all the singles from the Polled Dorset fleece I bought in 2019. That fleece deserves its own post, but I have maybe an ounce or less to go and will definitely finishing spinning it by the end of the week. I won't be plying yet, but that can wait for 2022. I am doing that on my Kiwi 3. Up in my attic room, I am spinning 4 oz of Leicester Longwool roving on my Flatiron. I just started spinning that this past week, and I am spinning relatively thin singles with that, I am unlikely to finish it before year end. So there are just a couple things I want to finish and be able to add to my count for 2021. I have been keeping track as I go this year of how much yarn and fiber I have purchased and how much of used and how much of that fiber has been converted into yarn. Counting the fiber that is converted into yarn can get a little tricky because I never know how to count samples. I have spun multiple 5 g samples of fiber to figure out how to spin the rest of it. I have also purchased 1 oz samples of various breeds and just spun those up. Likewise, sometimes I blend up batts and just spin them up to play. Anyway, not counting those tiny skeins, I have still spun up 50+ skeins of handspun yarn this year! That does include one full fleece that purchased in March, and it includes several skeins from Sheepspot's Breed School 2.0, but a lot of it is just me converting my fiber stash into yarn stash. I have more to say about my fiber stash but I will save that for my post looking forward at 2022. 

While I would say 2021 has been heavier on spinning than on knitting, I still had a fairly productive year for knitting. My notes record that I used up 42 full skeins of yarn, and 47 partial skeins. That yarn went into 8 hats, 7 sweaters, 7 pairs of mittens, 7 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of fingerless mitts, 1 pair of gloves, and I wove two scarves on my rigid heddle loom. I also destashed some yarn earlier this year. I am probably going to do that again soon. 

I definitely feel like it was a productive year. It is funny, because even though I do spend some time planning for the upcoming year, I can never fully predict where my creative energy is going to go. I definitely didn't predict that so much of it was going to go into spinning, especially because in the early part of the year I just didn't have a ton of enthusiasm for it. My spinning mojo waxes and wanes, and it was definitely at a low at that point. It really picked up this spring and then with Tour de Fleece I just took off. I took a look back at my lists I made at this time last year. I have checkmarks next to most of thing things. The only thing I really didn't get to was brioche. I keep intending to learn and I just haven't made the time yet. In 2022 I guess?

Bringing Back the Blog

I have had knitting blogs in the past. At some point I abandoned them, but this past year I have been hearing rumblings about bringing back blogs. Of course some people have maintained blogs all this time, but it seems like there is a little bit of nostalgia for a "simpler" time. I don't think it was truly simpler, but at least it was easier to keep up with the people you wanted to and not miss posts because they don't disappear after 24 hours and you aren't dependent on an algorithm showing you a post in your feed. I wouldn't say my past blogs were particularly successful, but they were some place on the internet (pre-Ravelry even) that I could show what I was making. 

I was actually excited to start an Instagram account for my knitting because I could easily post pictures and didn't have to add a lot of text. There is really only so much to say about a pair of vanilla socks, you know? In that sense, I felt (and still feel?) like Instagram is better suited to sharing my actual knitting. What I do need, and what I hope this blog can fulfill, is a space to ponder things related to knitting. I have found Instagram incredibly limiting for discussing ideas. Sometimes I have things to say and no image to attach. Mostly I need an actual keyboard and they ability to see all my text and edit it. I find that really difficult on a phone. 

You can find the pictures on my VioletMittens Instagram account, but I think this will be my home for the words.