Talk About Tuesday

In Which I Learned A New Skill!

 Ages and ages ago, I bought a pack of silk mawata and a drop spindle off of the Internet Shopping Monopoly and swore I was going to learn to spin yarn.

Today I was working on the back/flap and gusset sections of the pouch that never ends and saw it sitting across the room. In a moment of impulse, I grabbed them and started setting to work.

They're so pretty, too!

Pulling one mawata from the pile is... not easy. And with my rough hands and fuzzy arms, it means that I now feel like I'm constantly under attack by spiders lol.

First you have to delicately tease one of the layers loose, then you need to find a point near the middle and wiggle your thumbs through, creating a hole. Next, you widen that hole with your thumbs, then your hands, then your wrists, pulling and smoothing until you like the thickness of the hank. Once you like how thick the big ol circle of silk is, you find a weak point and pull until it separates. With a long, wispy piece of silk roving at your side, you now get your drop spindle.

I looped the thin, wispy end of the silk around the hook on mine, holding the hank about 6" from the hook, and then I gave my spindle a, well, spin.

It took a bit for me to figure out how to draw the fibers to the right thickness, how to manage the thread, how to smooth the thread, and all kinds of other things, and I'm sure I still did it wrong, but I'm a little less than halfway through my stack of silk and, well....

I'd say that looks a lot like silk thread to me...

Is it even? No. Is it consistent? NO. Is it thread? Sure looks like it!

I'm... shockingly pleased with this. From some cursory research, apparently I can just... use this? But I'd really rather let it relax itself on a niddy noddy or something.

I do not have a niddy noddy.

I will have to improvise. I have some ideas, one of which is to use my easel, or possibly the tiny picnic table my dad made me. If there are enough leftover pipe bits in the basement I might use some of those. Hell, a long stick with two shorter sticks would do in a pinch.

So that was my Tuesday. I'm planning to do some fun art tomorrow for Thursday's blog, and also to work more on my various fiber projects for next Monday. For now, though, I'm going to go put some soothing lotion on my hands because I've got a hot spot on my left pointer finger (on the right hand side of my first knuckle from the tip) from pulling the hanks for spinning. Today was a blast, though, even with the intermittent downpours.

Actually, I have to talk for a minute about the weather.

We went from a day where the high felt like 94℉/34,4℃ to having the last few days being an ambient temperature of around... 74℉/23,3℃ . Sure, we've had rain every single day, and sure, the power keeps going out around town, but the weather has felt glorious.

If every single summer day could hover between 70-78℉/21,1-25,5℃  I would be very happy.

Especially with lower humidity.

Weather rant over lol.

I'm gonna go take care of that hotspot.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday 236: Shrug

I've finished the Shrug i was working on as a side project

So when I'm working on something, I've usually got a few side projects going. It's one of the reasons things can take... ages. I've had the lovely Yvonne yarn from a local yarn maker for years, but I only recently started working on a project with it in earnest. The rich purple merino-silk blend makes this shrug one of the softest things I've ever made, while the pattern is one that is so simple I'll probably be using it for many other items - including, perhaps, the pumpkin set I'm planning to make next...

The pattern is based off of a pattern called "Fika" by CJ Brady designs, so if you're looking for instructions, I'd strongly suggest going to Ravelry and checking it out there. I really liked the way the stitching was kind of a shell but also kind of not, so it looked really cool!

As you can see, I made a long rectangle. here it is shown folded in half.
It's about 15" high by 30" wide (or 38cm x 76cm) with 5" (13cm) sewn in on either side for sleeves.

I loved this pattern. I don't wear cowls or infinity scarves, but boy if I did, this would be how I made it. It's so airy, but it's also so warm! This is perfect for a short-sleeved dress in early spring, or a cold-shoulder dress when it's a bit too cold for one. I would have needed a third ball of Yvonne to finish this as a long-sleeved shrug, or to add a proper edging around the inside, but sadly, Yvonne is out of manufacture, so I will have to content myself to its current state.

Which isn't hard. It's fantastic.

I stitched the sleeves shut inside out with a simple single-crochet row binding the edges together.
Then I turned the garment right-side-out to edge the sleeves!

Measuring the other sleeve before committing to the single-crochet.

The actual speed of making this whole shrug was shocking. Seriously, if I'd just worked on it every day, I probably could have made this within a week, which is incredible for a snail like me.

Finished before edging.
I had to do the finishing in the hall upstairs, since there was no room at the table
and I work better sitting in front of the project than with it up near my face.

I finished the edging on my bed.
The edging was a repetition of the Fika pattern proper, which is simple and fun!

The hardest part, however, was trying to get this thing on camera. I'm not much of a photographer to begin with, so I had to balance on tiptoe and try to snap this in the mirror awkwardly...

Well, you can see it. Mission accomplished?

It really is awkward, trying to photograph oneself without exposing one's face...

I did get a good detail on the sleeve, though!

In the end, I've settled on laying the finished shrug on the stairs to give you some idea of its wear.

Which, unfortunately, the flash completely botched - lol!

If you were wondering what a shrug was this whole time (and the photos aren't clear enough, for which I apologize), it's basically a tiny sweater that consists of a tube that's only sewn along the bottoms of the sleeves, left open in the middle, and worn to keep the upper arms toasty. Or fashionable.

I hope my experiments with this shrug have intrigued you enough to check out CJ's pattern on Ravelry so you can make your own garments based off of it!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC