Dyet Yarns: Adventures in Fiber » yarn

Batts, Roving, and Spinning Styles

Nuri — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:01:02 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with different types of fiber, different preparations, and using worsted and woolen spinning techniques. One great way I’ve found to try out these many different fiber options is to play with combining samples or to swap things I have plenty of (hand-dyed yarn) for things I don’t (batts!). Of course, there is always the option to buy fiber!

I love the way different fiber samples combine into roving when I spin up the samples from the Phat Fiber boxes. This yarn from Farmer’s Market themed samples is going to make a hat that compliments my winter coat and my hair perfectly! I took the samples, divided them into 3 balls based on their colors, and then spun each ball up and plied the 3 singles together.

Next I worked up a set of batts that I got in a swap group on Ravelry. I wanted to try something besides the standard merino wool, and these batts were full of odd goodies! They have Polwarth, Romney lamb, Alpaca, and Bamboo as well as a kiss of sparkle. The Romney made them the perfect candidate for woolen spinning, and the yarn came out as a squooshy and soft worsted weight that fits the name of the colorway, “Night Sky,” perfectly.

Finally, my current ongoing spinning project is to spin enough yarn for a sweater that I’m designing. I purchased the fiber in stages based on a Rose Garden color theme. There is fiber in the form of combed top from 3 different dyers here: Creatively Dyed Yarns (wool/seacell), The Critter Ranch (merino/tencel), and Fiber Fancy (merino/tencel).

I’ve found that merino/tencel is much nicer to spin than pure merino. I don’t like pure merino because it tends to stick to itself and the singles are a it blobby when I spin them. It’s difficult to get a consistent weight single. The tencel alleviates a lot of that problem by making the fiber a little more slippery. I know some people who don’t like slippery fiber, but I actually prefer it. Here’s what the finished yarn looks like:

I love the way the dark ply accents the two lighter plies! I’m halfway through my fiber at this point, and I am taking a break to spin a few other things before continuing. It’s been a lot of fun experimenting with different kinds of fibers and preps!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Rhinebeck!

Nuri — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:54:12 +0000

This year I attended Rhinebeck with a couple of lovely ladies from a Rav swap group I participate in. We had a great time checking out the fibery goodness, meeting up with other Ravelers, and seeing the animals.

Yes, I am poor. However, I got a job this semester and I am making enough money to pay for my fiber habit and fill the budget gap. So for Rhinebeck, I set a budget and stuck to it; this round of fiber purchasing was my birthday present to myself and my only real splurge this semester, so I had to make it good. (Okay, I ended up adding a few things from Phat Fiber contributors who weren’t at Rhinebeck to the splurge… but that’s another post.)

Here are the goodies!

First we stopped by the Sanguine Gryphon booth. I *needed* some green Bugga. Even though the line was terrible. We were in the line to check out for more than an hour, but J and T were sweeties and stood in line for me while I went and got a thorough demonstration of the Strauch Petite drum carder from Otto Strauch himself. It’s the one I’m saving up for (it will be at least a year before I can afford it), and he was more than willing to answer all of my questions. He stands behind his work, and everyone gives the Strauch carders such great reviews! Anyway, here are the two skeins of Bugga!:

I also picked up some batts. A 4 oz. bag of textured art batts by Crosspatch Creations:

And a 2 oz. smooth aqua batt from Fairie Mountain Fibers (hee hee, Aquabat) to go with it:

After that we hit up the meetup for our swap group, and then stated the rest of our shopping. While waiting for T at the Briar Rose Fibers booth, I wandered into Creatively Dyed Yarns and found this 8 oz. braid of wool and seacell:

It makes me think of a rose garden. I am thinking I might get some braids or batts in rose colors – yellow, orange, pink – to spin up and ply with it. It will make a significant quantity of yarn, about 4 standard skeins, if I do that. I could even make a sweater. I’ll have to consider projects carefully.

Two other ladies were on my list: Loop and Gale’s Art. Both are members of Phat Fiber, and I have never had a chance to work with their products. Gale had a stunning selection (her colors are always beautiful), and I restrained myself to purchasing two things. Blueface/Silk fiber in Limited Edition:

And Blueface swirl fiber in Velvet Elvis:

At Loop, it was fairly late in the day and the Spontaneous Spinning Batts had been picked over. Pretty much everything left had mohair in it, so I perused the bags of cloud and found a lovely deep red that didn’t have anything to irritate my annoying delicate princess skin. The color is “The Devil Made Me Do It,” and the fiber is scrumptious. This will be turned into a supercoiled yarn:

So there you have it. The haul for the day. I was fortunate enough to get a Rav button at the gathering on the lawn, so now when I go to fiber events I will have an identifying mark! Yay!

I also got asked about the patterns for both my sweater and legwarmers several times, which of course I haven’t actually written yet. So that’s a kick in the pants. I need to get my patterns written, test knitted, and cranked out!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Phat Fiber goes Steampunk!

Nuri — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:20:23 +0000

This month’s Phat Fiber box has a Steampunk theme, and the pictures I have seen so far are awesome! You should definitely give it a try this month if you can get a box.

I’ve sent in three different colors (on 4 different yarns) for the boxes. These, and a few others, will be going up into my shop on October 15! (That’s this Friday.)

These colors are ALL inspired by Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which is a great movie with some steampunk-type tech (and family-friendly, too!). Of course, it came out way before Steampunk as a concept was solidified, but that’s irrelevant.

a. Something Worth Protectingn (Silk/Cotton Upcycled)
b. Ancient Guardian (Shortcake and Luscious)
c. Raze the Sky (Sockolate Mousse)

What you see in the picture is all there is, so snag it quick if you want it!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Learning! And also, yarn.

Nuri — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:16:11 +0000

School is back on, and classes are great so far. This year I’m going to be keeping up with my dyeing; it’s a great creative outlet that doesn’t give me wrist injuries! I can intersperse it with my knitting. Speaking of which, I’m working on a Seaside Shawlette with some of my own recycled, hand-dyed yarn:

This month I joined in the fun over at Phat Fiber and sent in some yarn samples for the sampler box. Getting colorways dyed up well in advance will let me keep a steady run of updates throughout the semester while keeping up with my schoolwork. If you’re lucky enough to snag one of the monthly boxes, they’re full of fibery goodness and coupons aplenty. Check them out!

I’m back to unraveling my luxury fiber sweaters, so check out the Etsy shop for some lovely recycled yarn. Some samples of my work with the recycled yarns will be included in future Phat Fiber sampler boxes too!

Lastly, I’ve considered putting dyed spinning fiber up for sale in addition to yarn. I enjoy spinning, and it tends to be more cost-effective for me to dye at least some of my own fiber. Of course, fiber is cheaper when you buy more of it, so I am dabbling in making lovely colored tops that people will dream of spinning. I’ve been playing with progressive dyeing to produce things like this:

I’ll post an update when I start listing those! Of course, if you want this one, you can mosey over to my Ravelry stash and check out the asking price.

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Rose Yarn Giveaway Results: laurie!

Nuri — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:34:56 +0000

Thank you, everyone who commented! Especially for the compliments on the yarn. I hope to be able to do more lovely color combinations, and might be overdyeing some of the current store colorways in the future. I would love to hear what you look for in a sock yarn colorway if you care to share!

Given a range of 1-26, which includes bonus entries, the RNG has chosen lucky number 8!

And that is…
laurie, also known as marlib7 on Ravelry! I’ll be sending you an email, so keep an eye out!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Knitting With One Hand Is Hard.

Nuri — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:11:54 +0000

Knitting with one hand is hard. Over the course of the Tour de Fleece, a spinning personal challenge that runs parallel to the Tour de France, I seem to have injured my left rotator cuff with overzealous spindling. This whole cycle of obsession and injury is alarmingly common in my life, and it really needs to be worked on. Right, self?

I made it through the heels of two On Hold socks (I knit socks 2-at-a-time so they both are the same) before succumbing to the orders to immobilize the arm and let the injury heel. Wendy Johnson is one of my absolute favorite designers; I just love the way her lace looks. I was feeling an urgent need to turn the heels of those socks and get the complicated part out of the way. Now it’s all easy knitting and I can wait to finish it until my shoulder heals.

I was also a little bit bad. I recently acquired a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome in Champlain Sunset, which is a rockin’ crazy colorway! These are convention socks for sure. Or “Oh frack it’s COLD” socks.

I will be getting pictures of all three of my in-progress socks once I can figure out how to do good photos with one arm. I’m sure I’ll think of something. In the meantime, I am going crazy not being able to knit or spin or anything! Argh!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Spinning, Spinning, Spinning!

Nuri — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:37:04 +0000

For some unknown reason, I’ve been bitten by the spinning bug. Maybe I am particularly delicious. I don’t know, but whatever the reason, my fingers have been itchy for fiber lately. I was ordering yarn bases for dyeing anyway, so I threw some blue faced leicester top into the order and started playing away.

The Great Spindle Search
I’m sure that my boyfriend was greatly aggravated and sometimes amused by my three-day constant search for a drop spindle. You see, I haven’t really ever spun yarn before, so I didn’t have one. We spent the weekend traveling between Albany and Beacon, NY, so I spent quite a bit of time attempting to find a fiber store that carried spinning supplies along the way. It turned out that I just had to wait until we got home, and I was able to find a shop only half an hour away that had spinning supplies. I called and reserved their last drop spindle! Woo!

First Handspun Yarn
I did a small batch to test my dyeing and spinning. I didn’t want to put too much work in if the fiber was just going to felt up into a gross, wet mass! Well, it worked out pretty well, although there were some areas that caught when I was drafting. Overall I like how the yarn came out; it was worth plying and knitting with, so I call it a win. I had trouble getting the colors right in the picture, but it’s already knit up now, so I can’t take any more!

There was only enough yardage of this batch to knit a nice squooshy bonnet headband that will cover my ears nicely when it gets cold again. I think it’s super cute; pictures to come!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Whew! And Back Again.

Nuri — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:38:22 +0000

Hello World!

I resurface from the depths of the murky pool that is the first year of law school and immediately wonder where I can get some undyed yarn within my shoestring budget to start production again. I won’t have the facilities I need to efficiently clean unraveled yarn up here in NY (all the washers are front-load), so I’ll probably be working with mostly new, undyed yarns. I have a couple of gorgeous colorways I want to produce more of (they were one-offs), and now I have a giant pot I can use for dyeing that will hold lots of yarn at once!

I have discovered that many of the drool-worthy supplies for a yarn dyer are the same supplies desired by small homebrewers. There is a brewing store nearby, and I happen to be living with a brewer who recently scaled up his equipment. I have been gifted with one of his old pots, and it’s a dedicated dye pot now, so I don’t have to keep it food safe!

The crux of this is that I’m looking for sources of undyed yarn that won’t break me financially. (Since I’m already broken, being a student.) I’m getting some income from the Etsy stores, and I can put a little of that into materials for the next yarn batches. I don’t have the resources to put in a wholesale order right now. If I did, I’d have several easy sources for blank yarn. If anyone has any requests or suggested sources, let me know!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Not Dead, but Getting There

Nuri — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:19:41 +0000

There is new yarn in the store since my last post; some sock yarns and some felting yarns. Gorgeous, bright colors! They are double-dip kettle-dyed, which essentially means they were put through 2 dye baths. All of my new sock yarns so far are named after food. I wonder if I was hungry when I named them?

I have been scarce for a month because of the move. It took SO much longer than expected, but luckily I had a few wonderful friends who helped out. I could not have done it without them.

We got to the new place and discovered that the stairway up to the 2nd floor apartment was a narrow hall with a 90-degree turn! It was terrible trying to get stuff up there, and we ended up tossing several large pieces of furniture because they wouldn’t fit.

And finally, on my way up to New York this weekend, I stopped to visit a friend in DC. My car window was smashed in overnight. Yay! This person must have been really stupid, because they stole a bag of yarn (and 2 cashmere sweaters) out of the back of the car and ran. They found nothing else of value, because I don’t leave valuables in the car. But they took my yarn. My YARN!

I guess they decided it wasn’t valuable to them (go figure) and dumped it, because we found the bag on the ground around the corner. everything in it was fine…I guess it’s a good thing for my car and my yarn that it didn’t rain. The window is supposedly getting fixed today.

This is why I hate moving.

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sneak Peek of New Cashmere Blend

Nuri — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:39:57 +0000

I’ve been doing a whole lot of dyeing lately; I am moving on July 4, and I have to get rid of my washing machine and dryer before the move. That means I won’t have them in my new apartment, which doesn’t have a hook-up for them. This will make my dyeing a little more difficult, since I don’t currently have a spin-dryer. I will get one when I can afford it. In the meantime, dyeing while I still can do it easily!

In that vein…

I give you Tequila Sunrise, a 55% cashmere 45% wool yarn. It’ll be up in the store soon!

I just LOVE the way cashmere takes up dye. It sucks it right up and the colors are vibrant and mix well. I’m still debating whether to keep some of this yarn for myself!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.