Fiber Fool

By Judith MacKenzie McCuin
Wiley Publishing, 2007. Paperbound, 208 pages, $21.99.
ISBN: 0-47009-845-7

A brand new spinning book has recently hit the market. Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning is written by frequent Spin-Off contributor and well-known spinning instructor, Judith MacKenzie McCuin. This book, geared towards the new spinner, fills a hole in currently available instruction books for spinning. It provides much more information than Spin to Knit by Shannon Oakey (my review) and is much more accessible to the newer spinner than The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning. It is also readily available from bookstores for those without access to a local shop.

Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning is made up of 11 chapters coving topics from why spin to fiber to spinning on a spindle and wheel to plying and even using your handspun. There is plenty of information to get you started spinning. McCuin provides guidance on choosing a spindle or wheel to preparing fleece and shopping for prepared fibers. If you are an experienced spinner there is also information to keep you spinning, whether you wish to explore more exotic fibers or different plying techniques. The author also shares some ideas for using your handspun. There are two appendices with sources for further information and reference, including a thorough glossary and an index which makes this book easy to use as a quick reference whenever needed.

The book lives up to its name and contains copious photographs; I don’t think there are a dozen pages outside of the reference areas that do not contain a photograph and most contain three or four. The step-by-step photographs are large and clear, making it the next best thing to seeing a technique demonstrated in person. There are also many photographs of fiber and yarns. These are not as helpful as the step-by-step photos as they are not close enough to really see the structure of the yarn or fiber. I would have preferred a close look at only a small portion of a skein of yarn rather than the whole skein. Overall, that is minor flaw in the book though.

The breadth of topics in a book of this size with the large number of photographs it contains does mean many of the topics are not covered as in depth as one may want. I did not, however, find any of the topics to be missing anything that would prevent me from being successful in my spinning. In most cases the various references listed in the back of the book will provide more depth on specific topics as needed. Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning has everything needed to be off and running with spinning and keep you plenty busy exploring different aspects.

I would highly recommend Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by Judith MacKenzie McCuin for anyone interested in spinning or new to spinning. Those who are experienced spinners may wish to check the book out from a library to see if it will fill a hole in their spinning library before buying it. As a spinner for only two years I am glad I purchased it. I think it will serve as a great reference as my spinning skills progress.

Spin to Knit: The Knitter’s Guide to Making Yarn

By Shannon Okey
Interweave Press, 2006. Paperbound, 128 pages, $21.95.
ISBN: 1-59668-007-5.

The ancient art form of handspinning has had a recentincrease in interest, particularly among knitters. Many knitters progress to spinning because they wish to have more control on the final outcome of their projects, others because they like the idea of creating a project from the sheep through to the finished knitted object. There are several spinning books on the market and even more if you peruse used bookstores and web sites. But there is a new title on the shelves as of October 2006 specifically targeting knitters who wish to spin — Spin to Knit by Shannon Okey.

While I have been spinning for nearly two years now, I know I have much more to learn. I love researching and soaking up info through books, so when I found that my local library had the title in the New Non-Fiction section I snatched it up and brought it home with me to review. It is a rather slim volume at just over 120 pages. It is split nearly equally into two main sections – instructional and projects. There is also a small reference section at the rear that includes some knitting reference, spinning resources and an index.

The instruction section contains all the basic info one needs to start spinning on either a spindle or a wheel. Okey very briefly covers equipment, fiber basics, carding, spinning on a spindle and wheel, twist, plying, finishing, embellishing, and dyeing. Much of this information is accompanied by full color photographs. All of this info, along with many photos in roughly 50 pages leads to an instruction section that only skims the basics of spinning.

Sprinkled throughout the instructional section are some small DIY projects to support spinning. These projects include making a CD drop spindle, a lazy kate to hold two cops for easier plying, and a distaff for holding your unspun fiber supply.

The project section contains five headwear patterns, four scarf patterns, four sweater or shrug patterns, two sock patterns, and a few more miscellaneous projects the use handspun yarn of varying weights and qualities. Most of these projects were designed by the author with contributions from Jillian Moreno, Symeon North, Erin O’Brian, Lexi Boeger, Laura Jefferson, Shoshana Mathews, and Crystal Canning. Many of these spinners and designers are featured in interviews scattered throughout the project section as well.

So as to not overwhelm new spinners, several of the projects combine handspun with commercial yarns so you can have finished objects without a long term spinning project. Most often the hand spun yarn is described as commercial yarns are, by the CYCA weights and do not often include common ways to describe yarn construction such as wraps-per-inch or twists-per inch.

Most of the projects are simple, which makes the hand spun yarn take center stage. More often than not a knitter who is contemplating spinning is an experienced knitter. In this instance most of the projects in Spin to Knit are ones you could come up with on your own or with the aid of a good reference book like one of Ann Budd’s “Handy” books and your favorite stitch dictionary. That said, I am seriously contemplating the Laurabelle Swedish Heart Shrug and the Beauty School Dropout Sweater has me plotting a trip to my nearest Sally Beauty for some rayon to try spin!

If you are a knitter and are interested in spinning but have reservations as to whether spinning will be for you and can be easily overwhelmed by too much information, Spin to Knit is a good place to start. There is not as much in-depth spinning information, but there is enough there to get started and have an idea of whether spinning is for you.

If you are fairly confident that spinning will be a longer term interest of yours I would recommend investing your money in a more comprehensive spinning book such as Spinning in the Old Way or Spin It! for spindle spinning. If you suddenly found yourself with a wheel and now wish to spin I do not have a specific title to recommend. The basic beginning spinning books I have read so far neglect entirely or skim over wheel spinning. The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning has everything you need to know, but it can be a bit overwhelming and overly opinionated for the beginning spinner.

While there is a page of resources included at the end of the book, there are only two web-based resources for further information listed. I recommend the following in addition to those in the book (in no particular order):
- Spin-Off | Getting Started
- Joy of Handspinning
- HJS Studios
- Knitting-and.com | Spinning and Dyeing
- Spindlicity
- Grafton Fibers

Spin to Knit is a great concise resource for those unsure of whether spinning will be a long term interest. It provides the most basic information needed to spin a yarn without overwhelming the beginner with technical terms and techniques and includes simple knit projects that can utilize even the earliest hand spun yarn. Those with any spinning experience or who are sure that spinning will be a longer term hobby may do better to peruse the book themselves via the library or inter-library loan before deciding whether or not this book would be a worthwhile purchase.

- I’m in a lull. I think the curtain may be lifting. I feel sparks of project ideas, but it will take a while to nail down details and such. I have sewing and knitting ideas swirling around in my head. Though I have aches and pains kind of holding me back in productivity. I should get the ideas down on paper so they are there for a lull when I feel better!

- I’ve been doing a *ton* of reading. Well, not like some people. But I’ve been reading a book roughly every 2.5 days. I just finished yesterday another book not in that stack because I was given it by a woman in my water aerobics class. It was Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches. It was a pretty nice heartwarming romantic read about four girls who met to learn to knit while battling cancer as teens. They are all given the official stamp of remission when in their early to mid twenties and celebrate by setting goals they want to each reach by the next year. One wants to dance in a ballet, another wants to get a cat, the third wants to get an internship and the fourth wants to go on three dates. They all find out that goals are great, but they can’t always be met on a deadline. The book is written as a journal of the group. Most of it is written by one of the members, but each of the other members takes a time or two to write in the journal as well. It was decidedly Christian though. It wasn’t as preachy as some I’ve read, but Christianity was certainly a large part of the punch line so if that is not your thing you may give it a pass. If it is something you think you’d like to read, leave me a comment. I’ll send it on to someone if you promise to pass it along to someone else when you are done.

- I sprinkle in a bit of Northern Exposure Season 3 or House Season 2 (mom lent me her House DVDs since I had things to ship to her at a later date anyway). Is it just me or are our television series wrapping up much earlier than normal? The O.C. had the series finale a week or so ago. Psych is wrapped until summer. I’m pretty sure a few others are wrapped - Grey’s Anatomy, yes? That may also include it’s night companions Ugly Betty and Men in Trees…. I know there is often a lull in March while they take a break from February sweeps. But dang, I hope I don’t have to wait until September for most of these to have new episodes!

- I had my second voice lesson with SIL3 last night. It went *much* better than the first one. I wasn’t nearly so nervous. I still was somewhat and that cramps my range and she doesn’t push it much. But it’ll only continue to improve. I’m working on Dido’s Lament by Purcell as my classical piece, Come Rain, Or Come Shine for my jazz piece (which ended up being a good piece to reinforce some of the stuff I need to work on with Dido’s Lament eerily enough), and Defying Gravity from Wicked for my musical theater piece. Yesterday I was playing around on iTunes and discovered that they had an album of Wicked for Karoke! It isn’t the best one out there from the reading I’ve done, but it is much cheaper that what I’ve seen and I could have it immediately for practicing with. SIL3 or I playing the piano accompaniment for it is next to nil. Defying Gravity starts out with 5 flats and switches to 4 sharps and then back to 5 flats. Because I didn’t start learning piano until I was 13, I’m not real good. I can play the easy piano version of most anything and the regular of some things, but once you get into that many flats and sharps it would probably take me an entire year to work out playing it well and I probably still wouldn’t be able to sing with it. Anyway, Defying Gravity on that album is done quite well. Once I burned it to CD I can change the balance and turn down the demo vocals and wean myself onto the instrumental version.

- We may do another spring break road trip to the same location sometime next week! Yeah! I’m looking forward to it. I hope to get lots of fiber to dye. I’m also hoping to score some summer yarns that will coordinate with some skirts that I should be making soon so I can make some tees and tanks to go with them. Oh, speaking of making skirts, SIL3 asked me to help her make a skirt for auditions! I feel honored!

That’s probably enough randomness for now…

- Oh wait! I *hate* Bloglines! They weren’t even letting me manually ping them. It took something like 5-6 hours to pick up my blog yesterday. Grrrrrrrr!

We did a *ton* of entertaining this weekend. We had another couple over for dinner on Friday night. DH made wonderful cheese gnocchi from Moosewood (the older edition) with a tomato and pesto topping. He also made a winter leek soup. We tag teamed on one of our favorite bread machine breads, but baked it in the oven this time around. I also made skordalia (a potato and almond based hummus of sorts with *tons* of garlic) and dessert. Since I played a bit more active role in the Friday meal this week I only got about 5-10 minutes of spinning done on Friday.

Saturday was the usual relaxing around home sort of Saturday, but I did a bunch of reading. There was the latest William Kent Krueger to finish up, some re-reading of areas of The Joy of Coffee, as well as some quality time with the latest in the Scandinavian cooking library - The Great Scandinavian Baking Book. By sundown I had only spun another quarter of the second bobbin of superwash merino.

When the evening rolled around quicker than I would have guessed we had another guest over for an impromptu pasta dinner with left over skordalia and bread. Gene came over and made baklava. Each year he makes it as his holiday gift to friends, but this year’s crazy weather combined with a rather unpredictable work schedule had him a bit behind. We had spoken of wishing to learn how he makes it, as it is even better than the restaurants in town so he came over here to make this batch.

Then, Sunday was fika day again. It was lower key fika this week, but I’ll share what I served on Wednesday as usual. It all added up to not a lot of spinning, though I did get a fair bit accomplished during the week. Bobbin two of last week’s Emerald Forest Superwash Merino from Bonkers is complete now. If my knitting continues to go down the crapper this week perhaps I’ll be plying next Friday…

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As I mentioned above I had the latest William Kent Krieger novel to finish. I hadn’t wanted to be quite caught up with WKK’s writings, but his previous book really didn’t have an ending. Sure, we knew who dunnit at the end of the book, but Cork O’Conner’s life was anything but settled. It was one heck of a cliff hanger. So, I found myself having to put the next installment, Copper River, on hold at the library. The book was as I suspected. A real page turner, especially once you crossed that half-way mark. This time most of the action was centered around a small town in the UP of Michigan. I won’t fill you in on how Cork ended up there in case you haven’t read Mercy Falls yet.

If you like murder mysteries from the point of view of the law or if you’ve enjoyed previous William Kent Krueger books you’ll definitely enjoy Copper River. In fact, I think his books just keep getting better and better! This was my second book of 2007. That is much more like it!

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On another slight aside, I figured out a way to set up an RSS feed for my photos from Project 365. You can set up RSS feeds for your photostream with a specific tag. So, if you wish to see any new photos I upload to my Project 365 set on Flickr, please subscribe to http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=73771158@N00&tags=365&format=rss_200

You can follow my photography on any of the following subjects in the same manner:

• Works in Progress
• Knitting FOs
• Spinning FOs
• Sewing FOs
• Food & Drink

I am not having much luck in the knitting department lately. I started a fun sock pattern on New Year’s Day in hopes of using it for the Socknitters 2007 Challenge. I grabbed two balls of Fortissima Colori that I had picked up at Creative Fibers in the Twin Cities in July of 2005. I had a plan to work increases into the leg for fuller calved people and it was going to be awesome. Only trouble? I had to ball up a *ton* of yarn off of one ball to get the stripes to match. I have two more color stripes and the smaller ball of yarn will be gone. That will yield a very short sock. Even if I had the full ball to work with the socks would still be shorter than I had planned. (I took photos, but those are the files I’m trying to recover and so far the process is slow as I haven’t figured out how to feed these various programs the specific files I know are missing thier JPEG marker so I apologize and with any luck I’ll be able to pop in a photo that I either re-take later or that I have been able to recover.)

These are 50g balls with only 125m to the ball. I realized it was thicker yarn when I was casting on, but I figured it would be fine. I should have been more worried when I realized I was only getting 7 sts/in. That should have been my first clue.

As is, these socks should wear like iron, being a light sport weight knit on 2.5mm needles. That said, I’m not really much of an anklet wearer. If it is warm enough for short socks I’m in sandals. I very much a sandal girl. So I’m at a dilemma. Do I rip and try the pattern with some other yarn? Do I try get my hands on another two balls (making this a $40 pair of socks)? I’m leaning heavily in the rip direction. The yarn makes me mad for one, but I’m also not in love with the brown and olive green that are breaking up the nice bright other colors. It just doesn’t fit to me.

When the sock project went south I decided I could do a smaller diversionary project while I made up my mind. So, I cast on my just finished handspun (it has to be a record BTW - from finished skein to cast-on) for some fingerless gloves similar to Fetching, but in my own gauge and my own cable selection. It looks pretty good, but they feel quite stiff and a tad snug. Seeing as how I wash the yarn before knitting it I’m guessing there won’t be much of any bloom to increase the circumfrence of them much.

So, do I rip and redo on the next needle size up? And if I decide to go that route do I wait until I can get my hands on a pair of circs to do it that way again or do I suck it up and use DPNs - keeping in mind there are seven cables and you cannot split cable stitches between multiple needles so that yields a very uneven distribution of sts amongst four or even three DPNs. Gah! Or, do I finish this first one while I wait for new circs to arrive, knit the second one on the bigger needles, wash/block and compare and then reknit the one I don’t like?

Needless to say I’ve been spending a bit more time reading (just finished All Creatures Great and Small for my first book of 2007 - can’t believe it took me so long), doing things on the computer, and spinning (I’m half way through the second bobbin of the superwash merino from Bonkers).