Christening

Just before Christmas one of our former guild members e mailed to say that she was selling some of her late mother's spinning and weaving equipment. I was the lucky first one to reply so as well as various warping pegs I soon became the happy owner of a lendrum with plenty of bobbins. All thanks to my past self who was wise enough to save birthday and Christmas present money instead of frittering it.

I knew exactly what fibre I was going to use for my first spin as I won a raffle prize of Babylonglegs fibre at a spinning day. As Sarah helped me check my new wheel, it only seemed fitting.

As the fibre came in three lots, I decided to spin a three ply (as a hat tip to Sarah's preferred yarn structure). I also decided to play with fractals using a one, two, three split. So, the first ply was spun across the top; the second was split in half along the length and spun and the last was split in thirds. With each ply I tried to keep the colours clear.

As always with Sarah's fibre, the spin was smooth and pleasurable and soon I had three bobbins of beauty which I was excited to start plying.

Which is when the problems began.

Everything started off fine, but then I realised I'd snapped a ply and been making a two ply for a couple of minutes. I couldn't just take that part out because of the sequencing, so I laboriously started unplying and rewinding. It took hours. It took the twist out of the singles. It made my arms and shoulders ache. I couldn't let it defeat me.

Once I had the plies unwound the only thing I could think of doing was to respin the singles to get the twist back in. However that meant I had to then spin again to get them the right way on the bobbins. I even did the same to the third bobbin to make sure it had the same amount of twist.

I joined all three plies back on and with a sigh, restarted. Five minutes of plying and the end of the bobbin popped off. By this time my shoulders were around my ears and I was tempted to cry or throw the whole wheel across the room. Instead hubby tried to help in various ways. None of which worked. Eventually, I had a strop, snapped the plied yarn and did the spin and respin thing onto more bobbins. Thank goodness this wheel came with lots of them.

Heartily sick of it all, I put the whole lot in the naughty corner and stewed for a couple of days. I came back to it and this time the plying went well, but I was really disappointed that I couldn't get all of the yarn onto one bobbin. I made this into a positive and decided to chain ply the remaining singles, just to see.

Cute enough on the bobbins, so winding them onto the niddy noddy then into skeins was very exciting. 

I'm so pleased with how these turned out, despite the wheel related difficulties on the way.   I've learnt a lot and resolved to use my Sonata for plying larger quantities. (Thereby taking a step to understanding multiple wheel ownership.) Next is finding just the right project I guess.   No rush! 

Whinge whinge

I've thought long and hard whether to write this post at all and have decided that as I won't be publicly naming the shop involved, I would like to express myself and my opinion!

A few months ago I thought I would treat myself to a set of fibre samples from a UK based online shop. Kind of like the US based Phatfiber.  I placed my order and waited with anticipation for the samples to arrive.  They came really promptly and I was so excited to receive them that I opened the plastic envelope in the car.  So, and this has bearing later, I opened an intact mailer in a confined, self limiting space.

I looked at what came and took a photo, but I felt kind of flat and cheated as I had

Three. Small. Samples.

Nothing else, not even a penny chew, a thank you tag or a smiley face on the invoice/remittance note

I took the purchase to knit night.  Friends there saw what came and were as underwhelmed as I had been. We chatted and after I came home, I confirmed what had been pointed out to me - that there was a guarantee of 5 samples per this package. I politely mailed the vendor and was asked:

'Had your parcel been tampered with when you received it? We are pretty careful about checking every bag has 5 samples from different dyers.

I will put another 2 samples in the post for you tomorrow.'

Apart from the salutation, that was it.  Not a whisper of an apology and what I felt was a faint accusation of me trying to rip the vendor off.  I even went and checked in the car in case I had somehow misplaced two fibre samples or they had sprung out when I opened the mailer.

I did get another two samples, but again, no additional customer service.  I've never been contacted to ask if I got the replacements and there was no extra for my inconvenience, no offer of a discount on a future purchase.  Nothing to encourage me to look on this as a blip. 

I won't say what I think of the samples as my whole interaction has been tainted by this experience.  I won't be repeating this purchase and I have to remind myself that the dyers provided their wares in good faith and I shouldn't let this colour what I think of their work

See, said it was a whnge!

                                          

Fibre adventure

Lovely Fiona gave me my first lesson in spinning at knit night last week.  It's a lot harder than it looks!  I was instructed to soak the results in hot water to set the twist, so I went the whole hog and had a go at dyeing too, using a pack of Koolaid.  I've a small stash of packets that Lori sent me all the way from S Carolina - many years ago we were all ATC and altered art freaks together - just occasionally there's a benefit to being reluctant to throw things out!   

So, here's my photo story of not quite fluff to finished article, but all the steps in between.  And yes, that is one of Alice Starmore's books - a bit tattered but a bargain from a charity shop.  TBH I don't really get why so many rave about her - can anyone enlighten me?

Oh, can anyone suggest what I can make with about 16 yards of bumpy orange oddness?