Sample Along Week One: Getting Ready

It’s Sample Along time, let’s get ready!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A 4 ounce, variegated braid, dyed in a regular pattern (no speckles). I’m using Cjkodesigns fiber, and she just updated her shop.

• A wheel or spindle, and your favorite tools to spin and ply a 2-ply yarn.

• Your favorite tools, tags ,and toys to label your yarns, and to keep track of what you’re spinning.

• Knitting needles that you like to use with your default yarn.

Your default yarn is the yarn you spin most often, the yarn you spin when you spin for relaxation and pleasure. It’s the most important yarn that you spin.

The yarns we’ll spin

For this Sample Along we’ll be making four 2-ply yarns, and it helps to see the colors shift if your yarn is in the heavy fingering or bigger range. I tend to spin DK to worsted weight when I’m sampling so I can see what’s happening in my yarn.

Our yarns will be 1) As it Comes, 2) Flipped, 3) Fractal, and 4) Drafted Together and Plied.

I’ll be talking about two yarns at a time, and talking other sampling info the weeks in between, to give us all leisurely time to spin.

Prepping your fiber

I take a lot of photos when I sample, and make notes and observations. The fist thing I do is prep my fiber.

I take a photo of the fiber in it’s braid, then unbraid it and take another photo. Taking a moment to look at my fiber in these two ways has helped trained my eye to know better what I’ll see when I unchain my braid.

I spend some time looking at my dye pattern. I try to lay out my braid in the way the dyer might have when dyeing it. I look at the repetition of pattern and the length of the colors.

Then I fluff my braid. Depending on how long a braid has been in my stash and how it’s been stored, it could be quite compacted. I shake out my braid, unfold it from the center out, and double check the edges. I wrote a post on my process. Opening up a braid by unfurling and fluffing makes drafting much easier, by allowing the fiber to slide by each other.

Before I divide my braid for sampling, I tease off a small strip all the way down the braid. I keep this with the fiber label, so I know what the colors and dye pattern originally looked like. I’m always sure I’ll remember; I never do.

For this Sample Along we’re going to divide our braid into 4. Divide it in half vertically once, then divide each vertical strip in half vertically again. Each quarter will become one yarn.

I eyeball my divisions, and when the fiber is open and fluffy I can get pretty close. The four pieces for this are, 1 oz, 1 oz, .95 oz, and 1.05 oz.

Even when they are off by much more than that, I don’t stress it.

Spend this week, getting to know your fiber, and gathering all the things you need to keep track of our spin. I may need some new office supplies.

Show everyone your fiber on Instagram with #samplealong.

Sample Along: Some Details

So many people are excited about the idea of a Sample Along, that I’m going to do it!

It will be low stress and fun. We'll spin and knit together, making four different yarns and knitted swatches from a single braid. For this first Sample Along we'll manipulate colors within the braid.

The official dates are January 2- February 5. All my chatter will be here on the blog. I'll also be posting photos (and I hope you will too!) on Instagram using the hashtag #samplealong

If you'd like to get a jump on things, go through your stash (or buy a new braid, no judgement from me!) and find a braid you'd like to use. For best results for this Sample Along, it should have a repeating pattern, not be soild, semi-solid, or speckled.

I have a new braid from cjkodesigns, it's Corrie Cross top, dyed in the Coralee colorway.

If you've ever been curious about how I sample this is your chance to watch, up close and personal.

I’ve never hosted an ‘along’ before, and I’m both excited and nervous. Let me know if there are questions you have, or things you’d like me to talk about specifically here on the blog.

The holiday season is in full force. I know it’s not an easy time for many people. Please take the time to take care of yourself, and ask for help if you need it.

I wish those celebrating, a happy and mellow holiday, surrounded by people who love and respect you.

Prep Issue of PLY Magazine

The new issue of PLY Magazine is out and should be hitting spinning mailboxes soon.

This one is all about fiber preparation, carding , combing, flicking, dizzing and the like. There are best usage tips, step by step instruction for newbies, and lots of talk about prepping for a specific project or purpose.

There are three amazing patterns in this issue, a colorwork cowl from Tanis Gray, a textured cardigan from Amy Christoffers and a woven book cover by Rachel Simmons.

I'm doing most of my work for PLY behind the scenes these day, but I have an article in this issue about intutive preparation.

If your local fiber source doesn’t sell PLY you can buy it directly from us.

We are always looking for new writers and designers at PLY. Interested in telling the world about what you are a passionate about in spinning or showing off your handspun yarn design chops? All the info you need is here.

Who's Up for a Sample Along in the New Year?

I made an off the cuff remark in a blog post a couple of weeks back about doing a sample along so we could all spin and play together.

Malin, a regular blog reader, emailed me and said, 'yes, please let's sample together!'

Anyone else interested?

I'm thinking of starting out with one four ounce dyed braid from your stash and we can play with the color a few different ways.

We could explore the difference between adding colors by plying together, and drafting together then plying.

We could explore manipulating the braid without adding other colors.

We could explore the effect of a dyed braid and different yarn structures.

Or something completely different.

We can do it over a month or six weeks, because it would include knitting the yarn you spin. It wouldn't happen until the new year.

Leave me a comment or send me an email if you are interested, and what ideas excite you.

E-books and Not Quite Out-Of-Print Spinning Books

There are a couple great spinning books that are out-of-print in paper, but you can still get as digital books.

Jacey Faulkner's Spin Art: Mastering the Craft of Spinning Textured Yarns, and Amy King's Spin Control:Techniques for Spinning the Yarn You Want. If you really want the paper versions, you can still find them from used book sellers.

If you are a new spinner, I highly reccomend Maggie Casey's Start Spinning, available as an e-book, and a paper book.

I own and use all three books in both formats. I've grown to really like having electronic books on my tablet for quick reference, and for comaparing ideas between authors. I never thought I would.

Of course, my book Yarnitecture is avialible in paper and e-book format.

To those of you celelbrating U.S. Thanksgiving this week, Happy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to wear your strechy pants.

To everyone, I am so grateful for your support, reading all of my words, taking my classes,and buying my book!

Keep Colors Long Another Way

Of course, I'm not done talking about spinning colors long.

I was reminded by Marina in one of my class at WEBS, the easiest way to spin colors long. It's especially good if you're finding spinning across fluffed out fiber tricky.

Tear it up. Break the fiber apart by color.

Fluff those colors, then split it vertically into manageable pieces and spin one color at a time.

A decision you'll have to make is what to do about the transitions, the colors that overlap. The little fluffs of the next colors on the ends. Do you want to keep them or remove them?

I almost always pull off the transitional colors, and spin the colors as clearly as I can.

The transitional colors that I've pulled off get put into my stash for making batts.

Keep Colors Long by Spinning Across Your Fiber

When I spin braids with clear color breaks, sometimes I don't care if the colors get muddled, but sometimes I want the colors to be as clear and long as I can get them.

When I want long colors, tt drives me nuts when I'm just halfway done with one color and the next color below starts creeping in.

I finally figured out the fix is in the tension.

Not the tension that winds my yarn on, but the tension between my fiber hand and the wheel that allows me to draft.

Usually I hold my fiber like in the photo. I use my thumb on top, and fingers underneath the fiber to create a point of tension between the fiber and wheel to draft against.

The tension point of my thumb is where the fiber draws from when I draft.

I have removed my drafting hand from the photos in this post, so you can see what’s going on better. When I spin, my right hand is in the front doing its drafting thing, and my left hand (like in the photos) is controlling the fiber mass.

If I keep my thumb static, the fiber keep drawing from when my thumb is positioned. Pulling fiber from the color below as well as gathering fiber from either side.

In the photo to the right, I can see the purple pulling up through the middle of the blue and see it marled in the yarn.

It doesn’t matter if I’m drafting woolen or worsted, if I have a fixed point of tension in my fiber supply hand, the fiber mainly drafts from that point.

If I move my tension point, moving my thumb slowly across the fiber while spinning, it’s easier for me to exhaust one color before it switches to the new.

It took a lot practice to be able to move my thumb across like a typewriter. I learned I couldn’t slide it (it would rumple the fiber), but I had to pick it up and put it down cleanly in little increments.

My patience was further tested by the fact that the fiber doesn’t move as fast as my thumb. I spent a lot time starting at the fibers watching a few at a time catch. I also can’t move my thumb in both directions, I can only move it left to right. When I get to the right end I flip the fiber and start from the left again.

This method of working across the web of the fiber works for me every time now, and when I want it I can get long and clear runs of color from my braids.

Spin Control: Really Opening Up a Braid

I'm ready for wintertime spinning. I've got all of my fiber show purchases from the year piled up and ready to go. I even have two of my three fleeces washed.

As usual, I bought a bunch of braids. No matter how carefully the dyer treats them in their dye process, most braids still need a little prep to draft smoothly.

Before I spin a braid I always make sure that it is all the way open horizontally. This allows the fiber to draft easily and steadily, with no catches or stumbles.

During the dyeing process a lot of combed top will curl in on itself, like a roly poly bug, from the edges to the center.

This creates layers of slightly compressed fiber that can make drafting uneven, and cause that stop and go feeling while pulling the fiber for a draft.

Here's what I do.

After I unchain the brain and shake it out, I look for the seam that runs the length of the fiber.

I slide my fingers in that seam and carefully unroll each side horizontally all the way down the braid.

This usually doubles the width of the fiber.

I used to stop after this and start spinning, but I noticed my fiber still catching.

I looked harder at my fiber and saw that the very edge of the edges were still curled in.

Look at the spots where the arrows point in the photo, the edges are a little thicker than the rest.

Now I take the time to do a second uncurling pass on my fiber.

When my fiber is all of the way open, my braid is sometimes 3x the width it was when I first unchained it.

The best part of fully opening my fiber is the smoothness of drafting. I can spin much faster (!) and it’s so much easier to keep my yarn consistent.

The wonderful fiber in this post is Frabjous Fibers BFL in the Ostara colorway.