The Knitters Thread

meanmarie

Kittie.....wish I lived near you to learn to spin.......I spent €70 some years ago for a 1day spinning course.......tea provided but bring your own food! I felt I learned nothing, but still have a yen to spin.

[Deleted User]

MM, it really is only practise. I had never tried spinning, apart from with a drop spindle which was a clunky cheap one and yes I learnt some basics, like why fibre pulls apart. My spinning wasn`t good for quite some time, I was treadling too fast and not releasing the fibre quickly enough. I got the children started by having them sing ba ba black sheep while treadling quite slowly, first I got them treadling without fibre, to train their foot/brain co-ordination.

This person is a beginner and he is spinning on a wee peggy, my first wheel was a rappard wee peggy, made in 1980. I stripped it down, used meths and wire wool and finished with danish oil and it spins smooth as butter, no clunks and is lighter in colour than his
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58ymW_lLgGM

I usually spin sometime in the evening, listening to the radio, as you can imagine, it does get my mind settled to sleep

[Deleted User]

here you are

beginning spinning part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_clqBwf8gHs

beginning spinning part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0VlqcL9Odw

Ellijay

I've been told by an avid spinner that the act of spinning is very therapeutic, however I've never got the hang of it.

[Deleted User]

yes, it isn`t easy to start but is a challenge and does come with patience. You need to know some background basics first, like fibre length and how the fibres slip past each other eg holding the fluff too tight stops fibres from slipping forward. I want to reiterate that I could not get on with drop spindling and still don`t, treadling on a wheel is very different

[Deleted User]

I saw a clothes moth last night in my bedroom, the only one I ever saw here but action stations. Vac packing and preventer sachets ordered. A massive operation is ahead of me, I need to protect all wardrobes and all stashes and garments :eek: just in case

[Deleted User]

today I am wearing a very favourite and lovely top with a gorgeous neckline and short sleeves. I made it in 2015 and it cost me £27 for the fibre. It was not an easy spin, it was flyaway fluff and I had to wear an apron.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/leaf-top


This was my first spinning with a silk componant, the fibre is 50% white seacell and 50% jonquil tussah silk. Custom blend from world of wool, I had it blended 5 times and bought 500g. I didn`t spin all that fine, I was too worried and I made 2 ply. It is absolutely lovely and drapes like a dream, so much so that I know I bought more identical blends in colours to suit me, green,scarlet and blue, all of which will be lighter because of the white seacell. Those blends were £37.26 and bought only last year, tucked away in moth proof containers, an investment


The sleeves, sleeve seam and neckline on that pattern are perfect, as is the length, most flattering


This is seacell
http://english.smartfibernewsroom.de/index.php/news-wp/entry/seacell-the-natural-fiber-with-the-skin-caring-properties-of-pure-seaweed


I was just looking at my last wow blend, 1kg and still wrapped. Superfine merino seal 40%, + 20% ash plus seacell 40%. £46.90, enough for two tops, easily. Should make nice drapey pale grey, eventually

Seakay

Thanks Kittie for the Seacell information - all entirely new to me but fascinating. Definitely something I shall be looking out for in future

Laura_Elsewhere

kittie wrote: »

I saw a clothes moth last night in my bedroom, the only one I ever saw here but action stations. Vac packing and preventer sachets ordered. A massive operation is ahead of me, I need to protect all wardrobes and all stashes and garments :eek: just in case

From a LOT of experience, the very best thing you can do is to wear/use your edible textiles. Moths don't eat the things you wear or use, they eat the things in storage, ESPECIALLY anything kept "for best"!

(My parents' old house has clothes moths under the floorboards and in the wall spaces throughout, so until they believe me and have it professionally fumigated, they will continue to have hundreds upon hundreds of moths, no matter how much they spray aerosol moth-killer around. Every time we stay, when we come home, a few weeks later we find clothes moths here, presumably because we bring invisible eggs home, no matter how hard we try. I can keep on top of a minor moth problem in our little flat, but have learnt a LOT about moth methods from decades living with a major infestation in my old home. 90% of the claimed methods simply don't work when you go into the research. Freezing? Not in a domestic freezer, chum, not cold enough to cause proper cell-wall bursting on thawing. Lavender? Hahahaha. Vacuum-bags, nope, not air-tight so eggs still hatch but can cause worse damage due to you thinking that bag is moth-proof, so they munch further through things before you find them.
Sadly, major chemical warfare is the only thing that works - Rentokil Insectrol is my current napalm of choice, but nothing is 100% except to wear or use your beloved stuff as much as possible. There's a moral in there somewhere about not keeping things "for best" - I can't tell you how much yarn and fabric got mothed before ever being made into anything...)

[Deleted User]

prevention is much better than cure. Moths have been around forever, in the scottish crofts when they did spinning, they used to wind yarn into very tight big balls, keeping the moths out. Clothes were also stored in cedar chests and all the older people, frugal with clothes and never throwing any clothing out, always had a whiff of mothball on their furs and felt hats. I remember a few holes from when I was a child 60+ years ago but not that many

I have a home clad in cedar and also have insect screens on every opening window, that is why I was surprised at getting a clothes moth, ie if I can get one so can others. I found a dead one today, on the en suite cill, must have come through a vent as the moth is small. Nothing to eat here, so they starve

I am glad I don`t have any experience of how to deal with infestations and I am glad I can rest easy, my stash of quality fibres is worth a lot of money besides which they are beautiful

Anyway moth 3 appeared and died without me, en suite attached to my bedroom and preventative is working :T