Lamb and Frog

Stella Diane Thomas Gray joined her husband Raymond on April 6, 2010.

She was 99 years old.

She was laid to rest in her Temple clothes.

What I Always Knew

She was an amazing seamstress.

She was an amazing gardener.

She worked hard—real hard and for no ‘pay’.

She saved money rather than spent it—she was a child of The Great Depression.

She cooked from scratch.

She set the table for meals—everything had a serving dish, no pots on the table.

She loved nature, especially the Oregon Coast.

She loved flowers, especially pink ones.

What I Didn’t Know

She was Miss Rexburg.

She was a model for the first women’s Levis. I never saw my Grandmother in anything less formal than slacks—not even when she was mowing the lawn (with a push mower).

She was sent to live with an aunt in Utah when she was a teenager because she was “getting too big for her britches”—and that’s where she met my Grandpa.

What I Know Now

Stella was a devoted wife and mother who spent most of her life in the service of her family and her church. I think some people saw her as submissive, the little woman ruled by her husband’s wishes, but I don’t think that was really how it was. Stella wasn’t submissive. She was a bright, beautiful, passionate, and independent woman. She had a fiery temper (I’m told) and could be stubborn as a mule. She chose to live for her God and her family rather than for herself or some other, less worthy, cause.

The best way to remember Stella is not by writing down what I know and can remember of her, but by doing my best, every day of my life, to live with the kind of grace that she exemplified. As a rule, this is something at which I fail miserably, but I’m a better woman for the trying.

I have been a flying pool. Oh! Wait. In the immortal words of Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder version) “strike that, reverse it.” I have been a plying fool. In more ways than one.

I plied probably 400 yards of merino (I haven’t counted yet). This fiber was originally in a colorway called ‘ice cream before bed’ but spinning and plying muted the once bright and crazy colors. So, the resulting yarn was christened ‘Fiona’s Bouquet’. Its namesake has a smile that lights you up like the sight of the first spring daffodils.

I also plied this green single (which I think answers the question “What do you get when you cross an alpaca with a leprechaun?” ) with a (second batch of handspun ever) white coopworth single.

Then I proceeded to ply what was left (quite a bit, obviously) of the white coopworth with my first-ever batch of handspun to create a ‘rustic’ (thick and thin, really messy) yarn that I am calling ‘chocolate-vanilla swirl’.

All this plying was quite the learning experience. I started with the merino. The singles had been sitting on the bobbins for a week or so waiting to be plied. I started plying and thought I was doing a pretty good job, but whenever I would hold out a yard or so of the plied yarn, it would twist back on itself like crazy which, if you were paying attention last time, means that the yarn is unbalanced. I started to get frustrated. I almost started to panic. Instead, I just thought, well, even if I can’t sell this yarn, maybe I can fix it so it will at least work for a felt project or something. So, I got online and put my mad skillz to work and found this article, which put my mind at rest. The article mentions two facts that I knew, but which I did not have the skill or the sense to consider together. First, as yarn sits on the bobbin, the twist relaxes (remember, these singles had been sitting for at least a week). Second, plying adds fresh twist in the opposite direction. So, a freshly plied yarn from relaxed singles may appear unbalanced during or right after plying. Usually, you have to wait until the yarn is washed and dried to to check for balance. The article, however, provides a quick, easy way to check for balance in the ‘yarn in process’ (read it if you’re interested).

The green and white yarn taught me a different lesson—what happens when you ply in the same direction you spin. The answer is nothing good.

You get a tangled mess of twisty chaos that is extremely difficult to ‘unply’ (although I am still trying). The second lesson learned from this minor disaster is that it is not a good idea to start plying 1) when you are tired and 2) right after you finished plying a single and you are tired.

Fortunately I realized what I was doing relatively early in the process and was able to ply the remaining singles into a reasonably balanced yarn in the ‘Vintage Rancho Rams’ colorway. If you are a rather-less-than-vintage Rancho Ram you may not be aware that the school colors were kelly green and white before they were their current (cheesehead wannabe) green and gold. Now, I am an LVHS Wildcat through and through (Wildcats rule! All other schools drool!), so why in the hell would I ply yarn in Rancho colors? Rancho is, after all, our arch rival and has been since the 1960s. Well, as hard as it is to admit, Mom, Aunt Connie, Uncle Clyde, and a host of their friends were Rams (Uncle Chuck was, by some act of Granny, spared the fate). So I figured as long as it was in the ‘vintage’ colors (mom and Aunt Connie are as vintage as it gets) no real harm done.

The chocolate-vanilla swirl was plied without incident. I’m done plying for a while; I’m back on singles as of today (it was supposed to be as of yesterday, but Dagmar and I got crazy sidetracked—I have her to thank for the most excellent pictures of the plied skeins).

Oh, one more thing. When you’re finishing your yarn. If you decide to thwap. Take off your glasses before you start.

Rednecks are born, not made. Try as I might to pass as a bona fide liberal treehugger, I’ll never be 100% successful. Sooner or later my red neck starts to show–the guns, the desire to trade in the VW wagon for a V8 Mustang or a big ol’ Caddy (we already have the truck), the food issues, the refusal to wear those godawful sandals no matter how cool my handknit socks are.

I can’t help the way I am and it bothers me that other people can’t accept that (as with many other human subspecies) there’s both good and bad to be found in americanus redneckus. But you know what? You can’t change what people think of you unless you change what they see of you (and even then humans have an amazing capacity for not accepting truths that are right before their eyes).

I’m not talking about trying to ‘pass’ for something other than redneck; I’m good with who I am, proud even. I’m talking about embracing redneck pride by taking back the name from those who have been using it against us–including the worst of our own kind. I’m talking about evolving, not devolving. I’m talking about becoming Redneck Nation 2.0. Here’s the manifesto—

Loud & Proud Doesn’t Have to Mean Boorish and Narrowminded

Keep the love of country; lose the nationalism.

Keep the love of guns; lose the love of war.

Ensure that ‘redneck’ is no longer a synonym for ‘racist’ or ‘homophobe’ or ‘xenophobe’. We may not understand everyone; we may not agree with everyone; we may not like everyone. That doesn’t mean we have to hate everyone who is different from us.

Exemplify your faith–be a light, not a bludgeon. People can’t truly come to Jesus in chains or at the point of a sword.

Making ‘Dumb Redneck’ an Oxymoron

Embrace common sense but respect book learnin’ too, especially when you find that book learnin’ in another redneck who has worked hard to educate himself or herself beyond K-12.

Go bravely into battle for a just cause but refuse to be used as literal or metaphorical cannon fodder.

Refuse to be led by those who identify with us publicly to subsidize their own greed while privately mocking our lifestyles, our values, our very lives.

Putting the Red in Red, White, & Blue

Take pride in your roots, but remember when roots are the only thing that is nourished you’re unlikely to ever see leaves, let alone flowers or fruit.

Mind your manners. Let’s once again make what we’re known for our politeness and hospitality.

Recommended Reading:

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War

This post is gonna be long and rather boring technical. It will, however, have lots of pictures. It describes the steps involved in plying and finishing handspun yarn. Read it, you might learn something.

Notes:

• This post is not meant as a highly technical ‘how-to’ on plying. It is, as the title says, ‘an overview’. It is intended to provide new spinners with some concise guidelines for what to do when they have a few bobbins full of singles and to give my non-fibery FaceBook friends some idea of what the hell I’m talking about in my status updates.
• I spin on a wheel, so that’s what I’m talking about. The general principles are the same for wheel and spindle spinning, but the equipment differences result in some technical differences in the process.
• I am not a professional, or even a particularly experienced, spinner. I am, however, a decent procedure writer. What you see here are my process and my opinions. These have been gleaned from books, the internet (including YouTube), other more experienced spinners, and quite a bit of trial and error. If you have highly technical questions, are having a specific problem, or disagree with anything you read here, I encourage you to take a class, consult a professional spinner, or both. In other words, my word on this subject is not intended as gospel.

Alrighty then. If you read the penultimate post, you know I had several bobbins’ worth of spun fiber. These are ’singles’. To make yarn stronger you ply one or more singles together.*

Weight vs. Ply

If you’re a more casual knitter or crocheter you have probably seen the terms ‘4-ply’ and ‘worsted weight’ on skeins of acrylic yarn in craft or hobby stores. Even if your intent is to remain a casual knitter or crocheter it is important to understand that 4-ply and worsted weight are not interchangeable terms. ‘Ply’ refers to how many singles are twisted together in the finished yarn. ‘Yarn Weight’ refers to the thickness of the finished yarn and is used to determine the recommended needle size and a ballpark gauge (how many stitches per inch you can expect for the recommended needle size). My handspun is usually 2-ply; the yarn weight varies from batch to batch. My early efforts were bulky or chunky weight. Now my finished yarn is usually somewhere between worsted and DK (double-knit). Some folks spin worsted-weight singles; some spin lace-weight singles. 3-ply yarn made from lace-weight singles is probably fingering weight. 3-ply yarn made from worsted-weight singles is uber-chunky. 3-ply sock yarn (fingering weight) is nowhere near as thick as 4-ply worsted weight even if there is only one ply difference.

Doin’ the Twist

As a rule you spin in one direction and ply in the opposite direction. All spinning, pretty much all fiber manipulation, affects the amount of twist in the finished yarn. Spinning and plying can add or remove twist from the yarn. Plying singles together in the opposite direction removes some of the twist in the singles and helps to create a balanced (not too tightly spun or plied) yarn. Generally, singles are spun clockwise (Z-twist) and plied counterclockwise (S-twist).

I’m currently working on an ‘art’ yarn (of blended silk) that will feature two (green) singles spun clockwise, plied counterclockwise. I’m going to then ply these two in the clockwise direction with another clockwise spun, but much finer, (pink) single. The intended result is a balanced 2-ply wrapped by a fine single that ‘beads’ the final 3-ply yarn (makes it kind of bumpy). I’ll let you know how that works out—could be a disaster in the making (oh well, disasters usually make for entertaining blog posts).

In any case, plied yarn is not finished yarn.

Resting & Winding

Dagmar the Enabler says that it is important to take a yard or so of your plied yarn off the bobbin immediately and check it for balance. To check for balance, hold the one end of the yarn in each hand with your hands wide apart. Gradually move your hands together. As the yarn droops into a ‘U’ shape it should not twist in on itself; it should just hang there in a ‘U’. Twisting indicates an unbalanced yarn.

Balanced or not, you can either let the plied yarn continue to rest on the bobbin (where it will relax a little, which may help with balance issues) or immediately wind it onto a niddy noddy. Rested or not, the next step is the niddy noddy, which is how you make a ’skein’ and which is a necessary step in determining just how much yarn you have in that skein. I find it best when winding to have the bobbin on the wheel and under a little bit of tension (or you can use a tensioned lazy kate if you have one). The tension helps keep the bobbin from spinning too quickly and gives you more control as you wind. As you wind the yarn from the bobbin to the niddy noddy, count your wraps (this will be important later when you’re trying to figure out if you have enough yarn to make a scarf).

Before you remove the yarn from the niddy noddy, tie the wraps together. Some people have this fancy way of using one long strand of the finished yarn to make ties in three or four places along the skein. I hate this method, not because I don’t know how to do it, but because I have found that it causes difficulties when the skein is placed on an umbrella swift and untied for winding into a center-pull ball. I have yet to find a skein of yarn that has been tied this way that does not overlap and tangle and cause the swift to quit spinning when the ball is being wound. I usually use separate pieces of scrap yarn in a contrasting color and tie the skein in four places (easy to tie, easy to see, easy to cut off). If you decide to use scrap yarn, be sure it is colorfast because the next step is washing. You don’t want color from your yarn ties ‘bleeding’ onto your beautiful new handspun.

Washing & Rinsing

The next step is to wash the plied yarn to set the twist. Remove the yarn from the niddy noddy and gently immerse it in lukewarm water and a small amount of mild soap. I use Woolite. It is not particularly environmentally friendly, but it is effective (I haven’t wrecked a batch yet) and inexpensive. More expensive, more eco-friendly, and (arguably) more effective wool washes can be found online and at local yarn stores (but not usually at the big craft stores). Use them according to your own preference: use what you like, use what works, and use what is within your budget.

Remember, gently immerse the yarn in the soapy water. Push it down to get it to absorb some water but do not agitate it in any way. Fibers have a coating of overlapping scales. Water, especially warm water, causes these scales to lift. Agitation will cause them to overlap and interlock with scales on the other fibers—really, really tightly. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why wool shrinks. Note that the process is called ’shrinking’ if you do it accidentally. If you’re doing it on purpose and in a reasonably controlled manner it is called ‘felting’. Felted fabrics are lovely and are a great way to make use of recycled or radically imperfect yarn, but you don’t usually want to felt your pretty new handspun…at least not until you’ve knit it first. 

Let your yarn soak for 15 to 30 minutes then drain the soapy water. Gently press the yarn against the sides of the sink or wash basin and drain off any excess water. Move the yarn to the side (or lift it out carefully) and fill the sink with cool water (don’t let the water beat down on your yarn) and some white vinegar to set the color. How much white vinegar? A quarter cup per gallon of water is a general rule. My process is rather less exact. Let the yarn sit in the rinse water for 15 to 20 minutes. If your yarn ‘gives’ a lot of dye during the first rinse, rinse it with vinegar one more time. If you really hate the vinegar smell (it doesn’t bother me), rinse it one more time with plain water.

Thwaping & Drying

After the final rinse, drain the water from your wash basin and again gently press the yarn against the bottom or side of the basin to remove the water. Remove the yarn from the sink and extend it into a long strand. Roll the strand ’jelly-roll’ style in a towel to remove even more water.

Now it’s decision time. To thwap or not to thwap. ‘Thwapping’ is the process of beating the crap out of your finished yarn to 1) remove yet more water and 2) better align the fibers. Those who do it swear by the improvements it makes in their finished yarn. Those who don’t do it don’t understand how abusing wet yarn can possibly result in a better final product. I’ve tried it both ways. The thwapping made a visible difference in the end product. I was explaining this process to my friend, Fiber-free Donna. She’s fiber free, but she’s another Textile Goddess and she told me that many commercial fabrics are also ‘thwapped’ to align the fibers. Hey, if professionals are doing it, it must make sense on some level.

So, if you decide to thwap, you can use one or both of the following methods (I use both). In the first method, you drape the damp skein over both arms loosely and then quickly bring your arms apart to ’snap’ the skein tight. Repeat several times. You will get wet. Really wet. In the second method you hold onto one end of the skein and smack it over a chair or against a wall or table repeatedly. You will get wet, but less wet than in the first method. If you choose this method be sure that the surface against which you are smacking the yarn is smooth, otherwise your yarn will snag which defeats the purpose of aligning the fibers to smooth the yarn. I use method one first and then proceed to method two (using a towel-draped patio chair). During method two I hold the skein in different places and do two or three thwaps for each of three or four hand positions. 

Once you’re done thwapping (or right after you’ve removed the yarn from the towel if you have decided not to thwap) hang the skein to dry. At this point a balanced yarn will hang straight (in a perfect oval). You will not have to weight it or otherwise manipulate it to keep it from twisting. Be sure to hang the drying yarn on a smooth (so it doesn’t snag), clean (so it doesn’t get dirty), non-metal (so it doesn’t get rusty) hanger, doorknob, pole, or line. I usually just hang mine over the ‘neck’ of a plastic clothes hanger which I then hang in the closet, on a shower rod, or on a doorknob.

Dried yarn is not finished yarn.

The Final Countdown

Remember when you counted your wraps? I hope you wrote down the number. You’re going to use this number to determine how many yards or meters of yarn you have. Measure once around your niddy noddy with a tape measure. Lay your dried yarn on a table and carefully measure the circumference (the distance around the oval). I usually get two different numbers. The distance around the niddy noddy is a constant 62 inches; the distance around the yarn oval depends on the yarn. The lesson? Measure the yarn, not the niddy noddy. To determine your yardage, multiply the number of inches by the number of wraps and divide by 36 (36 inches per yard). If you’re using the metric system, replacing inches with centimeters and dividing by 100 (100 centimeters per meter) will yield length in meters. I usually do the measuring in inches/yards and use an online unit converter to calculate the metric equivalents.

Weigh your finished skein. If you don’t already have one of these–

get one ($24 on amazon.com, but also available at places like Bed, Bath, & Beyond).** Use your unit converter or reweigh if you want to include both ounces and grams on your label.

One more measurement–the yarn weight. Not the weight of the skein, but how ‘heavy’ the yarn itself is (as differentiated from ‘ply’, above). You can use a wraps-per-inch (wpi) tool to do this if you want to. I have one, it’s a pain in the potato. You can also use a ruler or a pencil and a ruler; also pains in the potato. I prefer to calculate the approximate wpi/yarn weight using a superamazingthankyousomuchforpostingit tool I found at girlfromauntie.com.*** This tool will calculate the wpi/yarn weight based on the weight of your skein and its yardage. The wpi/yarn weight tells you (or a potential buyer/knitter) how many stitches per inch this yarn will yield for the recommended needle size. In general thinner yarn takes smaller needles, thicker yarn takes larger ones. Using needles other than the recommended size produces a denser or airier fabric depending on whether you use smaller-than-recommended or larger-than-recommended needles, respectively. Record the approximate wpi and weight (e.g., lace, fingering, DK, worsted).

The End

Make your label. You are making a label because even if you have no intention of selling this yarn, you want to know what it is before you put it in your stash. No, you won’t remember.

If you’re not going to re-sell the yarn and the original fiber included a band/label, you can simply record the information on the back of that label. If you are going to re-sell the yarn, write (or use your computer to print) the label information on the back of a business card or make a custom band or label on your printer. The label should include length in yards/meters, fiber content, skein weight in ounces/grams, and an approximate wpi and the equivalent yarn weight (fingering, worsted, etc.). You may want to include the original name (or number) of the colorway and the original source and price of the fiber (for your records only, don’t include this information on a retail label).

If you’re going to sell the yarn I recommend giving the finished yarn an interesting name. Why? Because many impulse buyers make purchases (and pick racehorses) based on color and name. I might not buy ‘purple’  or ‘lilac’ yarn but I might buy the exact same yarn if it was called “Grandma’s Garden Violets” or “Granny’s Hand Lotion” or some such. Even if you’re not going to sell the yarn, you might want to give it a name just for fun (you know, in case you ever knit it and blog the project).

That’s it. To twist the yarn oval into one of those pretty skeins you see in the pictures, hold both ends and twist. Let the yarn twist in on itself and tuck the ends in. Put it in a plastic zipper bag for protection and put it in the stash (or wherever you hold your inventory). Don’t forget to attach the label or put it in the bag with the skein.

Sell, gift, or use as you wish! Happy spinning.

* ‘Navajo’ or ‘chain’ plying is how to ply yarn from a single, single.

** It will come in handy when you need to figure out if you have enough yarn left for that second sock. Hint: If the first sock weighs more than the remaining un-knit sock yarn you have a problem. Trust me.

*** The Girl from Auntie is currently having some serious technical difficulties. Her site is pretty much down as of this writing. Please send good mojo.

I guess I sort of left you all hanging since my last post. Well, for starters, I got all that yarn plied. All. Of. It. Three days, three batches. I am planning on selling at least two of them. The other one I am either going to use or put up for grabs—I’m still thinkin’ on it. Since then, I have spun more singles and have a basket full of other stuff ready to be plied. I am also still spinning singles like crazy and today I bought two more small bobbins for the Lendrum (and some more fiber).

The current pile of UFOs in progress includes a blanket I’m crocheting with vintage yarn (destashed to me by a non-fibery friend) and the usual pile of socks. I’ve put the knitted log cabin blanket away again. I worked on it diligently for a few weeks (that is, it was in the rotation). I made some progress but, well, let’s just say it ain’t no crocheted blanket and leave it at that.

The not so current pile of UFOs includes a shawl, the log cabin blanket, and a scarf.

As usual, I have a couple of vaporware-type projects in my head that I really need to get either onto paper or onto the needles/hook. Easier said than done.

I have also finished a few books. And what I really wanted to tell you today is that, in case you haven’t noticed, I added The Book Page. If you want to know what I’ve been reading that is where to look.

I have a date with The Enabler on Thursday. Here’s hoping that yields some pictures and text by this weekend.