Author: denisemor

Spin Mod

denisemor 0 March 5, 2017

Hey hey hey- Electric Spinner motor and controller are on their way.
Should be here tomorrow, and then we can start figuring out how this thingee is going to work.

In the meantime, I’ll share a mod I’ve made to the Kromski Sonata flyer that we’re going to be using for the e-spinner project.

Right now this flyer is on my lateral treadle wheel that The Man built for me a few years ago.
It works well, and is very sturdy, but I’ve always found the hooks kind of annoying.

I didn’t realize when I selected this flyer that the hooks pivot.

I think that it must be to give you a little more lateral flexibility in how the yarn winds on. It’s fine for heavier yarns, but with finer singles I find that I can’t get a good even application of yarn on the bobbin. I get little hills, with valleys in-between.

Amazingly, I found that the hooks pull easily from the flyer arms, so I didn’t have to fuss at all over the removal. Nice.

And I have fitted on of the arms with a makeshift sliding yarn guide.

Pretty simple fix. And working well so far!

Fleece Preview, Wannabe Spring Chickens

denisemor 0 February 26, 2017

Last days of February- winter in the morning, spring in the afternoon.
First time this year that I’ve hung out yarn to dry in the sunshine!

Probably a few weeks away from shearing, but the fleeces are looking very nice.

Chone-

Dottie-

Edgar-

The shy white boys Frank

and Felix

opted not to participate in the fashion show, but when I last had my hands on them for hoof-trimming their fleeces were in much better shape than last year. So fingers crossed that they are not all felted up again!

And here is a little spring chicken action- feathered friends are good company for garden work

The Man is researching motors, controller, and pulleys and such- so hopefully we’ll have parts soon to play with for the e-spinner project. Stay tuned! 🙂

Bring on the Spring

denisemor 4 February 20, 2017

February, despite it’s measly 28 days, feels like the longest month of the year.

So I’ve taken things into my own hands and cooked up a little bit of spring to get me through-

From top to bottom: Bloom, Sunshine, and Sprout. 🙂
And here they are all carded up

That will be fun to blend and spin. Maybe a some more “Faux-berball” type yarn?

In other news, The Man has signed on to help me build an electric spinner! I’m super excited, and plan to share updates on our progress over the next weeks/months. Design is still in development, but I hope to incorporate adjustable maidens to accommodate different flyers.

And I also wanted to share this awesome little video from HansenCrafts, the folks who make the Mini-Spinner.

Snow Day Productivity

denisemor 6 February 11, 2017February 11, 2017

Now that we’ve emerged from our recent bout of crazy winter weather, it kind of feels like it was just a bad dream.
We’ve snapped back to our usual cool raininess, so that’s a relief, and I was able to make good woolly use of the couple of snow days I got due to inclement weather closures at work!

This little woven piece was inspired by Donna Schoonover’s Cotswold Lock Rug.I started a couple of years ago, but I hadn’t been back to the loom for a while. The unexpected time off and general icky-ness outside provided just the right impetus to get-er-done.

The locks are from Griff, who I lost last spring, so the piece has kind of turned into a memorial of sorts. He had the most beautiful locks- long and crimpy with curly sunbleached tips. I think that I am going to turn it into a wall hanging, perhaps for my office.

I also got to work on spinning up some “Faux-berball”, my worsted-weight take on my favorite commercial yarn, Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Crazy. I haven’t done much dyeing recently, and so didn’t have a lot of crazy colors poised and ready to participate in this project, so I decided to go with indigo and naturals.

I tried to wind it into a cool little muffin like the original to show off the colors shifts, but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it by hand, so here is another shot to show the progression-

It’s probably a little bit underspun, but it’s really nice and lofty. Should be fun to knit with.