Spinning Acrylic

It is a secret we tend to keep only to ourselves, but we are all friends here, right? Spinning one's own yarn does not save on the overall cost of wool. In fact, just the opposite is true, unless you get your fleece for free. Roving, that wool that is already cleaned and carded making it ready to spin is not cheap. One can easily spent $20 on four ounces/113 grams and if it is spun poorly that four ounces might yield as little as 100 yards/91.5 meters. Should it be spun well, the numbers improve. If that wool is hand dyed the expense can be even more. And a hundred yards is just about enough to knit one hat, cap or toque.

So imagine my happiness when I found an acrylic yarn at Michael's for $9.99 that contained 10.5 ounces/ 300 grams. It is called Chunky Grande Big! by Loops and Threads. I picked out my favorite color combinations and began to prepare it.

This yarn comes with two large strands rather simply plied together and my intention was to spin only one strand at a time. This meant the yarn had to be cut into lengths that were manageable to make the separation easier.

Once freed from one another the spinning began. It was like spinning pencil roving.

This is fine yarn for me

To my surprise this acrylic was easy on the hands (I expected it to be rough) and of course the staple was perfect for spinning. The long-draw worked well with this stuff. I have much of the 10.5 ounces spun and intend to chain ply it so that each of the colors remains distinct.

There is one person I know who loves purple and pink. Perhaps we can discuss what she might like made from this yarn and see what can be done to accommodate that request.

Until then, I might look for other acrylic yarns like this. It makes for an inexpensive way to practice spinning.

Comments

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! Sure but what about the remaining 4

Flagel Knitting Files

Search This Blog