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September 24, 2006
Knitting machines and self striping yarn
Thursday night, my knitting machine arived in time for me to play with it this weekend. My fabric had its share of flaws and dropped stitches, but I was happy with it. Besides, all I'm going to do with the machine is make up fabric to paint my yarn. I started with Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (I wasn't about to use handspun until I was adjusted to the machine.) I knit up two 'blanks', one long one that will be the main color of the bag, and a smaller one that will make up the design. Below are the picures of the process. They should be pretty self-explanitory. :-)
I'm still working on my technique to get the color more even, but I'm working on it. I think I should have let it dry a bit before steaming, but I'm more than happy with the results.
On Friday, I went to Grinny Possum to meet Nathan, a LiveJournal friend who's also a spinner. We spun with Ann for a few hours and began brainstorming ideas for a group of younger-ish spinners. It's just so nice to be able to spin with other people. I really love it.
I'd been spinning some of my commerical cashmere that I bought from Little Barn Inc. It's so soft and white, I should have known it was too good to be true. Nathan pointed out it was faux cashmere, despite the 100% cashmere on the bag's label. At home, I did the burn test to find out for sure. And yes, it melted. I wrote the customer service address this morning, expressing my displeasure with the labeling. (Not to mention that I paid $40 for a pound of synthetic fiber.) I recieved an apology for the mistake in less than two hours on a Sunday morning. Plus, I have been offered to swap 4 ounces of fine cashmere for my 8 once bag of fake cashmere. I will take them up on that offer. I'm only going to send one since I've spun up some of the fiber. I was impressed with the response time. I'll do business with them again, but I may be a bit wary in the future.
Posted by Holly at 10:31 PM | Comments (1)