Challenge Navajo/chain plying

In order to maintain the beautiful colour separations which come with spinning a handpainted fleece or roving, I always wanted to know how to Navajo/chain ply. Still, as rather a newbie, this is not exactly the first thing you're giving a try at ...



Well, now I felt ready to deal with this challenge - and thanks to YouTube ;-), it wasn't even that difficult!



What you need is a slightly overtwisted single, three times the length you wish your yarn to be, and if you don't want the final yarn to bee too bulky, try spinning the single quite thin.

Set your whorl on big and slow, select a strong uptake, put your single on a lazy kate, make a loop with the single and the leader on your bobbin. Then it's basically just 'finger-crocheting' your single through the loop with your left hand - making real big loops -, while your right hand is pinching the three strands to form the twist.

Sounds more complicated than it actually is - just take a look at that video and I guess it will come perfectly clear!

Another funny little thing which I found at YouTube was an i-cord earphone wrapping tutorial, showing how to knit a colourful i-cord around the cables of your earphones, to prevent them from tangling. Of course I couldn't resist, these are mine:



(German summary: Jetzt habe ich mich ans Navajo/chain-Verzwirnen gewagt - und mit Hilfe des YouTube tutorials, war es gar nicht einmal so schwer. Der große Vorteil ist natürlich, daß die Farbsequenzen vom handgefärbten Vlies oder Kammzug viel besser erhalten bleiben.

Bei YouTube habe ich auch das lustige Einstricken der Kabeln gefunden - jetzt ist kein Kabel mehr vor diesem privaten 'guerilla-knitting' sicher!)

True colours

Although the mornings are still chilly, spring is in the air. Maybe that's why there is a lot of talk about colours in different blogs on the net.

In one of her recent postings, my friend Elizabeth/Landanna introduced me to a great vocal group I'd never heard before: 'Perpetuum Jazzile' - and thinking about colours, I'd like to share this with you today:



And I have decided I will have another try on some dyeing myself again.

Spinning for leisure, felting for pleasure

This orange flower just had to be made, celebrating the first warm and sunny spring days!

I added a couple of beads and French knots for embellishment and a safety pin on the back - a brooch for a spring jacket or as a closure for a shawl or a wrap. It's a small present for a friend of mine.



I've been spinning a little too - just for the fun of it, no special project in mind. 'Spinning is good for the soul' - Anke at WolleNaturFarben often reminds me of that in her blog postings - and yes, spinning is like meditating, it soothens your mind and calms your thoughts - and at the same time, your hands produce a lovely yarn out of the soft wool on your lap.

I still had a roving left of the New Zealand wool I dyed myself two summers ago - not a very spectacular one, but I did like the red dots in between:



It's funny, how serendipity often decides how a yarn will turn out - sometimes a most beautiful roving turns out to become a quite regular yarn, sometimes it's just the other way round ...

You make your decisions about the wool, the blending, to card or not to card, about the thickness and the whorl when spinning, how and with which material to ply - and still there is a randomness which keeps surprising you until the end.

Even if I have been spinning enthusiastically for a couple of years and know that I can control the handling a lot more now than in the beginning, I still feel there's a lot left to be learned. I remain a seeker and beginner in my experiments.

It seems every new yarn teaches me something I didn't observe before - in this case, it was the colour of the plying. When plying with a thin thread, I usually try 'hiding' it by choosing the dominant colour of the roving - this time, I took a shiny blue silk thread instead and a dark red woolen one, referring to the red spots on the wool -



and in my opinion, this was exactly what made this yarn arise. (Meeting the colours with the camera would need improved skills though, I'm afraid - the first photo above, with the felt flower in the front, shows the 'glow' better ...)

(German summary: Eine gefilzte Blumenbrosche zum Einläuten des Frühlings - und einige Gedanken darüber, wie jedes handgesponnene Garn mir neue Erkenntnisse und Aha-Erlebnisse bringt - diesmal war es die farbliche Akzentuierung beim Verzwirnen.)

Do you mind if I sketch?/ Darf man hier zeichnen?

A cigarette box full of colours - or how to easily carry 20 colour pencils in your pocket - the healthy alternative to smoking ;-)!



If you like sketching 'on the go', it's always convenient to have a set of colour pencils with you - and it's a good way to use up the 'shorties'.

Just before throwing away an empty packet of cigarettes today, I realized this would be a perfect container for the short pencils, sorted out be the kids, and which I collect for instant sketches and notes.

(My kids provide me with a never-ending stream of these short ones - but if you're keen on the pocket size and don't have any at hand: find a kid and swap long ones for short - it will surely be appreciated!)

I quickly made a template on a scrap paper, tracing around the box on all sides, adding a small allowance for the overlapping, then pinned the template to a light weight cotton fabric. Subsequently I glued the fabric to the box with a white craft/PVA glue, slightly diluted in water.

Using an old paint brush for that, it's easy covering the box part by part with glue, continuously smoothening the fabric on top with your fingers, cutting in on the edges with a pair of sharp scissors and finally giving the finished box another dash with the glue - this will make the fabric stiff and more resistant.

When the glue had dried, I cut the fabric open along the lines of the lid using a craft knife, adding some drops of glue again where needed.

As my pencils seem to be slightly slimmer than the cigarettes, I could even add a short normal pencil to the 20 coloured ones, without having them stuck. Well, if this isn't a luxurious pocket palette ...!

(German summary: Kurz bevor ich die leere Zigarettenschachtel wegschmeißen wollte, wurde mir klar, daß man diese als Behälter für die kleine Taschenpalette an kurzen Farbstiftstummeln verwenden könnte, die sich bei uns immer so ansammeln.

Bunten Baumwollstoff mit verdünntem Weißleim ankleben, wenn trocken, den Stoff bei der Deckellasche wieder aufschneiden, Ränder nochmals mit Leim fixieren - fertig! - Und solltest Du keine Stummeln auf Vorrat haben - tausche einfach Lange gegen Kurze mit irgendeinem Kind!)