Handspun Knitting Tips for New Knitters…

Hello, my dear friends! I hope you’re all staying safe and keeping out of harm’s way…So far we’re still keeping a quiet life here at the House of the Maus, and this winter’s shaping up to be more of the same.  But I’m thinking of fun quiet things to do in the future, which will keep me happily busy during the dark cold days.

Recently I’ve noticed an upswing of brand new knitters around me and my shop,, tiptoeing around shyly and asking questions about handspun yarns. So I thought I’d write some helpful advice for people that want to try out handspun but are afraid that their newfound skills aren’t good enough to rate them…

First off, handspun yarns tend to shine their best with simple stitches, especially the art yarns. So a really fun way to dress up some simple projects is with a handspun yarn. Try some for borders, for cuffs, for collars, for hat brims!

Also, it’s useful to have a handful of different sizes of knitting needles, so you can try out your yarns and see if you like the drape. . I often find that new knitters tend to knit somewhat tightly, but switching over to a larger needle size fixes the problem immediately. Don’t be afraid to play around and find what your hands like to knit with!

People also ask about how much yardage you need for various projects, which an be a tricky question. I find that it breaks down like this: Usually a skein of handspun bulky weight yarn, about 60 or 70 yards, is enough on it’s own for a hat. (Though you might need a little more for accents or tassels or pompoms. Pompoms eat up a *lot* of yardage.) It can also be enough for the body of a cowl, though I like my cowls extra long so that they double as a hood, which again means more yarn.  A skein of worsted weight yarn, about 80 to 100 yards, is enough for a hat or a skinny scarf on it’s own, but if you like really long scarves double the yardage, at least.  And both with bulky and worsted weight, one skein is enough for a set of mitts.  One skein of sport, dk or sock weight yarn (roughly 140 to 200 yards or more) is enough for a pair of mittens or socks, or a nice drapey mini-shawl.  Anything like a sweater, a poncho or a lap blanket is going to require at least 6 skeins of a yarn or more, depending on how big your project is. For the bigger stuff, talk to your handspinner, and they can buy their fleece in bulk so they have enough of what you want  for your project.

Some of this sounds pretty expensive, especially for a brand new knitter, huh? No worries. I collected most of my needles from thrift stores, or kind friends clearing out their stashes. There are excellent milled yarns out there that are a happy compliment to other yarns. (My favorites? Brown Sheep Company, and mohair yarns of all kinds.)   Other knitters also usually have a good stash of beginner’s yarn that they save for new people, as well as loaner books and patterns, so you don’t have to break the bank to try out something new.

So don’t be afraid of the handspun! For ages, handspun yarn was all there was, and everybody learned on it with whatever they happened to have. It’s okay to treat yourself to something pretty. And don’t be afraid to ask your spinners about what would work well for your projects. People like me are happy to help out and steer you to the right yarns for you…

Be safe, be well, and stay happily warm, everyone!

 

Vintage skills, modern needs…

Skulls and flowers, Pandemic edition…

Hello, my dears, and I hope you and yours are staying safe and feeling well.  These days our strategies for this are all over the map, from being able to shelter in place to having to navigate a potential dangerous landscape daily in order to keep body and soul together. I hope whatever you have to do to stay safe is working out okay, and I hope we all can keep it up until better days come…

For myself, I’m kind of a mixed bag. I still report to my workplace, but far less frequently, and I’m kept abreast of things more and more by online communications. When I’m physically at The Jade Mines I channel my inner Howard Hughes with disinfecting, washing, masking and gloving. Everything I touch gets wiped down, or I wash myself, or both. I never talk to another coworker without a mask on, and most of them have masks too. A few days a week we have fun online lectures about art in the galleries, newsletters from our director and our personal department, and a handful of coworkers keep reaching out to me to see how I’m doing, and vice versa. Eventually we’ll reopen, and I’m still trying to picture what that’s going to look like for us. I try not to let the uncertainty and fear get the upper hand, but I won’t lie, there are bad days. I worry about my friends, my family members, strangers I admire, and everybody still out there holding things together as best they can. And I’m going to keep worrying as long as this goes on, because that’s how I’m wired…

So what do I do when I’m not at the Jade mines? I’m trying hard to keep busy. There’s a lot of new yarns to put up in the shop now, and I’m so grateful for the kind folks who have stopped by for a look. I’ve been making embroideries too, and am surprised both by their happy receptions and by how fun they are to make. (So far all the ones I’ve finished are spoken for, but there’s a few ideas for embroideries to offer in the shop soon.) I’ve been painting a bit, and sketching a bit, here and there. And like just about everybody else, I’ve been baking. One thing I’ve expanded this spring is my garden–I have a large garden trough to keep tasty plants away from ravenous wild beasties, and I’ve been growing little scraps of veggies and fruiting plants in the kitchen…

Tiny green onions in a skull shotglass make me so happy!

I’ve also been hand sewing things, with helpful Youtube tutorials from loads of helpful people, and hypnotizing my friends with short videos of my spinning on a support spindle…

You are getting sleeeeeepy…because spinning is preeeeetttyyyy…

All these activities, besides being soothing and interesting, are actively helpful right now. All those handsewing tutorials helped me make masks for myself and for my family and friends. (Also I can now whip up a decent skirt and repair my clothes when I need to.. Thanks, Bernadette Banner!) The baking has it’s own rewards. (Lemon pound cake? Yes, please!) The spinning wheels help with my exercise routine as well as help me plow through my fiber stash, The embroideries lift my mood and help fine tune my fingers. The gardening comforts me and feeds me a little. (Right now it’s a very, very little. It’s still chilly here in Minnesota. But I’m looking forward to salad and eggplants, hot peppers and lots and lots of onions in the garden.) and I’m also glad to see other people doing the same thing I am; trying out older skills and fine-tuning them to help get through an increasingly worrisome modern world.

I hope we all get through okay to the other side of everything. And I’m taking everything I’ve been learning with me to the world on the other side of the pandemic, whatever that will look like. I hope you will too. Stay safe and be well…

 

Quarantine…

I’m at home, mostly. By mostly I mean that here and there I’m at the museum where I usually work, keeping the lights on and the doors locked. The rest of the time I’m here, trying to deal with my own brand of Covid-19 anxiety by attacking projects. I’m one sleeve away from finishing a sweater. I’ve been embroidering something for a coworker. and I’ve been making lots and lots and lots and LOTS of yarn. I moved my favorite spinning wheel, Hester Hestia, down to the living room, and I’ve been watching movies, Youtube tutorials, and various friends playing music live while I spin. It’s comforting to still have my friends, even at a distance.

A few pretty, pretty yarns to while away the hours…

Otherwise? Social distancing, baby. Delivered groceries, verrrrry cautious walks around the neighborhood. I’ve been trying my hand at fabric masks, with a bit of frustration.  And I won’t lie; the times I go in to work I have terrible panic attacks before and after I go there. I have asthma, so I have lots of worries about contracting the virus. I’m just really grateful the museum is trying really hard to take care of it’s employees in real, practical ways. And I’m grateful I live in Minnesota, with a lot of people trying really hard to do the right thing, whatever that needs to be.

At the moment we’re under Shelter-in-place, so I’ve put the website on vacation mode until I feel it’s safer for me to mail out yarns. I’m also closing down the Etsy site for a variety of reasons. But if you need yarns soon and want something special from me, just shoot me a message and I’ll see what I can manage for you. Just stay safe, and hang in there, and I will too…

 

A few pretty things…

Opal mist

Moving seems to take forever. And when you’re finished, there’s always More Stuff to Do. You’re never really done moving in. But I do feel like I’m settling in now. The new Craftroom makes spinning very easy, and painting is much easier with a table committed just to that.  So I’ve been making lots and lots of yarns…

 

Opal mist
Sparkly pretty yarn!

Brains? Brains!! Braiiiiiins!!!

Gory wool

It’s been a hectic month, with not much posting from Yours Truly. I have a pretty good excuse, though–I got married! And so far, married life is pretty wonderful, with loads of great surprises. And more than a little paperwork. Eh, whaddaya do?

Anyway, I thought it might be nice to get some normal Maus stuff back on track, and dyed up some roving this morning. A coworker had given me her late mother’s fiber stash, along with several very nice balls of white milled wool. They looked like they would take dye very well, so I mixed up some black and red Jaquard dyes for a nice blended black-cherry sort of thing…

Black Cherry Roving
The roving turned out really nice, good and saturated!

While I was adding the red dyes, the pot looked rather…ominous…

Gory wool
What’s in that pot, Maus? What is it? Wool, you say? You sure? It looks…not good…

Sure enough, the minute I put up the photo on my facebook page, all my friends started weighing in with, “That looks…gory!” “It looks like brains!” “Entrails!” “Don’t lie to us, Ms Maus, you put brains in there, didn’t you?” “Brains!!”

So, for the record, I did not stick brains, entrails, or any other unnatural substance in with my lovely, gory looking wool. Because then it would be terribly sticky and hard to clean. Also hard to spin and knit. Gore is nobody’s friend in the fiber arts, my darlings.  Though what goes into my gumbo recipes? Wellllll…

 

 

Fuchsia shock…

Fuchsia yarn

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated. But it’s also a little easier now, since we made a few changes here to make it more readable. I’ve got a new computer to play with, too. I call it the Dreaded Grey Beastie, because it is.  A useful, helpful beast, too…

Meanwhile, even though it’s the heat of summer, I’ve still been spinning a lot. Mostly to help me relax. Every time I check the news there’s new reasons to unplug and do something else for a while.  I’ve been spinning magenta and fuchsia yarns, with lots of sparkle and fluff.

Fuchsia yarn
Fuchsia merino and angora yarn with sparkles

It seems my hunger for this color is shared by lots of people. When I bring a spindle to work, my coworkers glom onto the bright color. I sold the yarn in the photo, and people asked for more like it. I’ve already had to dye another kettleful of this shade, and now I’m out of magenta dye. (Which means I have to brave the big, gorgeous selections of Halcyon Yarns to get more. *mock sobbing*)

You think I’d get tired of this particular color…but funny enough, I’m not. Not even close. It’s just so hypnotically attractive.

Hypnoyarn
Yesss….good…let the Hypnoyarn fill your mind…

I must be out of my mind, spinning all this wool in July.  But–but–fuchsia!!

If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!

Scottish fluff!

It’s been a little while since I posted here. Life just got a little more hectic recently, with projects and and whatnot. I also…heh…got engaged. I’m very happy about it all. Of course, now I’m thinking about things I’d never really considered before. Are there registries that aren’t specifically full of beige-colored towels? (Apparently there are. I still have to go digging around for them, though.) What will I do about a dress?  How much cake? What kind of cake? And how many Gothly decorations can I bust out at the reception? (Quite a few, actually.) Do I change my name, and to what? Sadly, even though it would be perfectly legal, my sweetie put his foot down at being called Mr. and Mrs. Dracula.  *sigh* Another dream shot down…

Meanwhile, a dear friend of mine brought me a very interesting bag. Cornelia had been traveling through Scotland recently, and spent some time happily wandering around the sheep-filled heather, plucking bits of wool off the fences here and there. People used to do this sort of thing all the time to get a little wool to spin up; it’s the original meaning of the term, “woolgathering.”  When she came home, she presented me with a nice fully Ziplock full of soft plushy wool…

Scottish fluff!
A wonderful bag full of Scottish fluff!

The wool smelled wonderful, all heathery and peaty. I kept inhaling the scent while Cornelia told me with a grin, “That, my dear, is what Scotland smells like!” Scotland smells this good? Wowwwww… I gleefully showed off my bag to my boss at work, who is very pro-Scotland. After happily squishing the wool and huffing it, he asked if he could keep a pinch, for the innate Scottishness. Of course I let him.  How often do you get to snort another country at work and have it be legal?

So now I’ve been spinning it all up. I hand-carded the wool that very night, and chose my nice heavy Ashford spindle to do my spinning. For some reason spindle spinning just seemed right with something like this. The sort of thing someone would do while walking a hedgerow, woolgathering…

Scottish yarn
A spindle full of Scotland! Well, maybe not full, not yet…

What will I do with the yarn once I’m done spinning? Hard to say. I’m guessing once plied up there will be enough for maybe a couple of sachet bags or some cool cabled bracelets. If I need more, I’ll have to talk Cornelia into going back to Scotland to gather some more wool for me. I may have to go with her, for ummm…quality control. Yeah. That’s it…

 

 

Hester Hestia, the Rescue Wheel…

Hester Hestia

Over the years of going from happy experimenter to serious spinner, I’ve collected a few things here and there…3 wheels, loads of fiber and more spindles than you can shake a stick at. (And I can. Because they’re made of sticks. Heh.) But my first and most abiding love is my first spinning wheel, dubbed Hester Hestia…

Hester Hestia
Hester Hestia, my first spinning wheel. She’s a Seventies beauty, new when bellbottoms, Boogie Fever and Macrame were still a thing…

My friends on Nicollet Island discovered her in the basement of one of the old Victorian houses in the neighborhood. They knew I had just started teaching myself how to spin, so they gave her to me to play with. Hestia was beautiful, but daunting, and badly battered. She was missing parts, her only bobbin was broken, her wheel had started to separate, some rotten kid had drawn on her with a ballpoint pen, and some anonymous thing or things had chewed on her treadle. She was in rough shape.

Over time, I fixed her up. It wasn’t easy…in fact, I nearly gave up on her more than once. Maybe she was too broken. Maybe I was just too stupid about this sort of thing. I had only the vaguest knowledge about how a spinning wheel worked. There were all kinds of funky looking hooks and knobs and such. Terrifying for a very, very VERY new spinner…

Hester's flywheel
The business end of Hester…complete with spinny thing, scary hooks, weird bungee thing, bobbiny-dealio, weirdo hooky support thingies, and the Knob of Mystery…

But Halcyon Yarns had all kinds of great information, and I quickly learned about my new prize. She was an Ashford Traditional from the Seventies, made about the same time I was born. I could still get parts, and bobbins–lots and lots of bobbins! One of her support hooks was missing, so I crafted a new one out of an old metal hanger. My dad helped me reglue her wheel, and I lubed her up, waxed her drive band,figured out how her tension worked, and eventually…I could spin with her. She spun wonderfully!  The wheel was nice and heavy enough that you didn’t really have to treadle hard to keep her going.  It was particularly fun with some nice loud Ministry or KMFDM,  treadling fast and spinning nice thin singles in black and red. I was a spinner! A real spinner with a real wheel, like a demented fairy-tale person! And it was amazing!

Over the years, she’s still my best girl. I would say most of the yarns in my Etsy shop come straight from Hester. From time to time, I think about giving her a new coat of varnish, possibly sanding off those cruel pen squiggles and chew marks. But for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to. Good or bad, they were part of Hester’s mysterious history, and it felt wrong to remove them.  Instead I try to give her what she needs–more oil, a little dusting, an hour’s fun with some merino I just bought.  She’s a sweet, crabby beauty and I’d be lost without her…

 

 

 

Tutorial: How to spin with a drop spindle…

Ahhh, today is wonderful…dark, rainy, gloomy! Just the right kind of day to do some spinning! What’s that, you say? Don’t spin? But you’re dying to learn? *rubs hands together* Eeeeeexcellent…

Don’t be frightened–spinning is easy to learn and takes very little money to start. By now you probably have a nice little spindle you’ve made, all by yourself, with instructions from my last tutorial. Or you can buy them online–there’s all kinds of gorgeous spindles out there for beginners for reasonable prices. Wool is also easy to come by on the net–before long you’ll have your favorite suppliers to stock you up on demand, but I started out with the mother-ship of spinning acoutrements, the website at Halcyon Yarn. They have everything you need, and I do mean everything. But for a starter yarn, go easy and cheap–no alpaca or camel or angora or yak, not yet. Blue-faced Leister is a great beginners wool, as is Icelandic and Romney.

Beginner's tutorial
A simple drop spindle and a handful of fiber, waiting to be transformed into something wonderful.

The first thing you’ll want to do is fluff up your fibers. If you bought roving in long strips or braids, untie the braids and gently tear the roving into nice, manageable strips. If you have a batt, you can tear off chunks as you spin. Or you can just take locks of wool and use your fingers or a dog comb to make a nice fluffy pile. And take a minute to roll a little fiber around in your fingers. How does it feel? Twirl some around with your hands, and see what feels good to you. That’s how you’ll want your yarn to feel. Now, tie some leftover yarn to your spindle, under the whorl, and loop it through the hook on top. (This is called, the ‘leader” yarn.)Put a slip knot in the top, then thread a little fiber through the loop and pull nice and tight. This will anchor your fiber for spinning…

Spindle ready to spin
A spindle, all ready to spin!

Now, hold the yarn loop with your dominant hand, and let the spindle hang down from the leader yarn. Spin it with your fingers, counterclockwise. Let the twist go up into your fiber. You can stop your spindle anytime and use your fingers to smooth out your yarn. One hand will end up controlling the twist by pinching off the yarn, and the other hand will end up “drafting”; basically pulling at your fiber until it’s the thickness you want. Don’t be too worried about drafting right now–you just want to get the hang of the twisting from the spindle running up into your fiber the way you want.

Spindle with yarn
Spinning up the first bit of yarn. Let the twist from your spindle run up into the fiber.

How’s a good way to tell how your yarn is going? You can let it loop back on itself to see if it feels soft and comfortable. If it feels too tight and harsh, it has too much twist, and you can fix it by letting the twist run further up the fibers. If it’s coming apart, twist it a little more. But trust your fingers; they know what they want your yarn to feel like. You can always stop, untwist all the fiber and start over if it’s not the way you want it.

Looped fiber
This fiber looped onto itself really nicely. it’s not too tight, not too loose.

Running out of fiber? Add a little more! Just take your next bit of fiber and layer it over the end of your yarn. Give your spindle a spin and watch the twist run up into the new addition. Wool wants to hang onto wool, and you can keep adding on and on until your spindle is full or you’re tired of spinning, whichever comes first.

New fiber!
New fiber added onto the first bit of fiber. The twist holds everything together!

Now, while you’re spinning and spinning, you’ll make mistakes for sure. Your wool will be lumpy. You’ll drop your spindle a dozen times or more. Your hands won’t know what to do. Just keep at it–eventually your hands will find a rhythm that makes sense, and things will get much easier. My rhythm goes like this: “Spin the spindle, pinch the yarn, pull the fibers”. The pinching is to stop the twist going further than I want it too, the pulling is to even out the next fibers to be spun up. And you can stop whenever you want, start back up whenever you want, and keep going until you can no longer fit anything onto your spindle.

Very full spindle
A very, very, very full spindle…

So what do you do with your spindle full of yarn? You can wind your new yarn into a ball as it is and knit with it. I usually prefer to set the twist–I wrap it around a niddy-noddy, a wonderful tool used to measure and skein up yarn, then take the yarn off, give it a good gentle soak in lukewarm water, *very* gently wring out the water and hang it in my shower to dry. (I use clothes hangars to weigh down the bottom of the skein so the yarn doesn’t kink.) When it’s dry, it’s nicely balanced and much easier to use. You can use that first yarn to make a funky potholder, or a headband, or a little bag to put in spinning fluff for later. But be proud of that first wonderful, lumpy, blobby yarn, and be proud of yourself!! Not everybody sticks it out with something new, and you just did!!

(If you have any extra questions about spinning, or get stuck and need a little coaching, ask me in the comments section!! I’ll walk you through any fiber kinks you run into. But I think you’ll do better than you expected.)

Even in the darkest hour, you can always find me…

…Because I just bought some glow-in-the-dark spinning fiber!

It glows!! How cool is that?

I have always played around with glow-thread and it makes for some really fun Halloween yarns…but this looks pleasingly chunky and wonderful to play with. I can hardly wait to get my mitts on it!!
There’s so much opportunity for fun here.

Meanwhile, I’m almost done with a chemo cap for a friend of a friend…and a little more spinning here and there. I’ve been spinning more on breaks at the Mines, just to relax. It’s fun to watch my coworkers when the spindle goes around and around…sometimes I’ll laugh and whisper, “Sleepy…you are getting sleepy…ALL HAIL THE HYPNO-TOAD!!” and we’ll have a good chortle. This weekend I’d like to put up a nice spinning tutorial for beginners, so I’ll play with the camera a bit this afternoon. The last tutorial was so much fun, I want to do more…