Dyet Yarns: reuse, recycle, reinvent!

An Aside: Epic Fiction, Tolerance, and Social Skills

Nuri — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:21:44 +0000

Recently, I discovered knitting fiction. Fantasy and mystery knitting fiction, in particular. I started out with a tiny hardback from the bargain bin at Borders, Knitting: A Novel by Anne Bartlett. I put this tiny book by my bed and vowed to read a little each night. A year later, I ventured in slightly deeper; I purchased Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton for the Kindle. It turned out to be a delightful little fantasy novel set in New England, and I devoured it quickly. I even want to read the next in the series, but have promised myself I will read the other knitting fiction I bought, Died in the Wool by Mary Kruger, before spending more money. (I haven’t gotten through that one yet.)

Then I joined Audible.com and I was hopelessly re-immersed. My full return to epic fiction was heralded by the unique attribute of audiobooks that no printed word has: I can knit or spin while listening to them. Knitting AND epic fiction at the same time? I was sunk. There is no escape. The joy I get from epic fiction stories has few rivals. Not being content to let this simple fact be, I contemplated WHY that might be.

This led me to an interesting conclusion: reading fiction is not only beneficial, but necessary for advanced understanding of human interaction.

In the past few years since graduating from college, I have, on average, gotten through one novel a year. Since putting the Kindle app on my phone and joining Audible.com, my consumption has jumped to several novels a month. As I worked my way through these books, the senses of elation, anticipation, suspense, and satisfaction that I used to experience along with the characters of a book came back to me. I remembered why I loved reading epic stories so much, and it got me to thinking about how profoundly my reading habits have affected my personality and philosophies.

The single largest influence on my social views has been fiction novels. This realization came as a bit of a shock until I thought about how reclusive and immersed in my books I was throughout middle school and early high school. For instance, my first major fantasy series was the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey. Those books, while not highly sophisticated in many ways, contained well-developed social and political themes and explored controversial topics as a matter of course. There were many characters with alternate sexualities or lifestyles, and different cultures and races almost all had stories from the perspective of a member. The books taught me that things that are different may be valuable in their own right, even if they are not what we expect. They also had some damn good stories, humorous turns of phrase, sympathetic characters (especially for an angst-ridden teenager), and some steamy romances.

Later I tackled more advanced fodder along the lines of Dune and Ender’s Game, which discussed philosophical points of view more explicitly. These built a foundation for my ability to abstract a scenario from my own personal morals and perform objective analyses. I began to learn the significance of politics, manipulation, and communication. I saw how those things could lead to devastation when employed by the ruthless or the misguided, and I saw situations where there was only a choice of evils rather than an optimal solution.

My reading habits have profoundly shaped my perception of my society, the rest of the world, and how things “should be.” I developed an acceptance of many social “irregularities” without even realizing it. They were normal attributes of characters in my books, and I took them in stride. Formal education only goes so far; parents, encourage your kids to read often and read fiction. Consuming a diverse sample of characters, social structures, and political dynamics will be one of the best things you can do to prepare them to enter the world.

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

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.

Dover Castle Fever

Nuri — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:52:32 +0000

Over the Holiday season, I made quite a few gifts. This was a stash-busting project for me, and i tried to pair up remnant yarn balls that worked well together. Some of those gifts were lace shawls. After the Shawl Wars I was part of earlier in 2010, I became enamored of the Dover Castle shawl pattern (Ravelry link). It’s a relatively simple knit for me, and the pattern sticks in my brain so I don’t have to look at the chart during every repeat. I also like the way it works out with various different color arrangements. I’ve knit this shawl in fingering yarns and worsted yarns, and both worked marvelously.

This was my first one, which you’ve seen before if you have been reading for awhile:

It’s knit with my own Dyet Yarns Shortcake, a solid superwash merino that reminds me a lot of the Wollmeise bases.

The next one was a Christmas gift. The main body is knit from Aslan Trends Invernal, and the edging is knit in some leftover fingering-weight recycled yarn from a shawl I knit for myself in a cashmere/wool blend.

I liked the fuzziness and weight of the Invernal so much I decided to make my own. I had more leftover Invernal from the bunny hat I made for a friend, so I took my brown and light pink remnants and combined them to make my Layer Cake Dover Castle. As I was knitting it up it looked delicious and made me hungry for cake.

I’m enjoying knitting lace shawls, but I am rapidly approaching maximum shawl capacity in my knits drawer/box/chair (they tend to spread). Gifts seem to be a good way to go, or maybe I will start swapping my finished shawls for more supplies. I use my shawls in many ways: shawls, scarves, hoods, face coverings… they are so versatile! The lace ones work perfectly for covering my face in the winter because they let enough air in and out to breathe easily while maintaining enough of a layer of warm air underneath to keep my face from freezing. I highly recommend them to anyone living in an area that gets cold and windy in the winter!

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

Prancing Pixel Spinalong

Nuri — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:24:14 +0000

Last year I started participating in the Phat Fiber community, which is a lovely group of fiber artisans. Every month, they release a sample box with varying types of fiber goodness inside. It lets people see and feel first-hand the products of internet fiber vendors. I have gotten a few of those sample boxes, and the samples often lead to interesting spinning and knitting projects.

In October, Prancing Pixel hosted a Spin-along in the Phat Fiber group. Her samples for that month were spin-along kits that each contained a batt, some add-ins and notions, and sparkle. The goal was to spin up the material in the kit into a necklace. (We could also use any samples from other contributors to that month’s box.) I used the batt for one ply and then spun a Polwarth sample from The Dyeing Arts into a second ply.

Then I finished it into a laceweight yarn with an occasional supercoil.

Then we all posted pictures of our finished work in the group and voted on the designs. Here’s what I came up with:

Enough people like it that I’m working on getting the pattern written up to send in as a sample some month soon. I want to get a few of my original patterns written, tested, and released before I do that so that the “sample” pattern is actually a sample of something I sell. The best part is that this pattern can be made with sample from the Phat Fiber boxes!

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

Oh Hai Blog!

Nuri — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:14:29 +0000

It has come to my attention that I have been neglecting you. I’m sorry. You fell by the wayside during my frenzy of learning about spinning, cranking through my stash, and dyeing new yarn and fiber. I really do care about you. But check out all the cool things I was doing when I wasn’t hanging out with you! I mean, at least you know I didn’t leave you for some floozy video game, right?

Most recently, I finished that ridiculous pair of socks I was making! They are soft and warm, and I love them even though they are ugly.

I also completed my first project in which I spun the yarn at a specific weight intended for a certain yardage to knit a specified pattern. My handspun Citron turned out great! The fiber came from Silver Sun Alpacas. It’s gorgeous and sparkly in person, but difficult to capture in a photograph.

The last project I’ll tell you about today (after all, we have many days ahead of us) is a follow-up from Rhinebeck. The lovely BFL/Silk I purchased from Gale’s Art spun up into the perfect gradiated lace weight skein; 900 yards of 2-ply! This is going to make a lovely shawl.

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.

Illustrious Potentate of Doing Too Much

Nuri — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:47:20 +0000

The Etsy shop will be updated tomorrow, October 1. There are a few new batches of upcycled yarn and some variegated/stripey skeins of Halloween colors. I’m knitting up a sample pair of socks to see what it looks like on them… I basically have stripes that are one row thick. A neat look, but I think I will use a different method if I want thicker stripes!

Law school is going well. By well, I mean “Oh My God, can I sleep now?” Classes by themselves are actually fine. The major time cruncher is that I am on Law Review, which takes up at least 6 hours a week, and independent of that I’m working 15 hours a week.

The upside is that with a job, I actually feel some sense of accomplishment to go with my legal education. There is no longer a void in the “contributing member of society” part of my life.

Here’s what’s really interesting about this combination of Law Review and Job: I took this job after I picked the topic for the Law Review article I’m writing. My first project on the job is researching and helping with a project on essentially the same topic. How amazing is that? The center I’m working with just happened to have a funded project in the subject matter I chose to work on for my article. Woo!

I’m very happy I spent some time before school got intense working on fiber and yarn for the shop. I have a pretty good backlog built up to list. My Phat Fiber yarn (and fiber, starting in Nov!) is dyed and ready to go until December, and I have some other stuff to put up for updates in between. The MCN has been really popular, so I am ONLY going to be dyeing MCN yarn for the duration of the semester unless I get a specific request.

I’ve got lots of fibery things to put up here; I’ll try to get the blog caught up now that I’ve caught my breath!

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.

Slowly Making Progress

Nuri — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:26:32 +0000

Well, I’m back from the vacation of pain (it was a good vacation at the beach, but my body hates me) and working on regaining my shoulder strength. I can spin very, very gently for a very short period of time or knit a few rows on something. I can type a little bit with both hands instead of using only my right hand. Yay for progress!

School is starting up soon. There are lots of things coming up on the horizon! In September I will be starting a shawl with which to assassinate my Shawl Wars target (a little game in a Rav group). It’s a small shawl, made with one skein of sock yarn, so it shouldn’t be too taxing. It’ll certainly be easier on my hands than tiny sock needles! Plus, lace is cool and I have yet to knit a shawl. Check out the lovely skein I dyed up for it:

I’m so very excited to start knitting with this yarn! I have only one other skein dyed in this color, and that skein is the Sockolate Mousse base. I think I might put it up for sale once my target has been killed…but not before. The colorway name kinda gives away who my target is, and that’s sooper sekrit!

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