Knit by Nora

Compulsive ~ a strong, irresistible impulse to act (i.e., to knit) and Obsessive ~ to occupy the mind excessively (thus this blog)

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Today’s Fiber News

On Saturday, I visited the new location of the Otter Creek Store in Mercer (Pennsylvania) with my two sisters and mother. It was a great time especially since it is part gift shop for non-fiberholics. While Yarns Unlimited is great for yarn and stuff, Otter Creek has spinning stuff. So I got roving and a cone of commercial yarn to ply with my homespun. And I even bought beautiful mohair lace weight to ply with homespun (it quadrupled the price of my homespun investment). The new store is cozy, cute and welcoming. I wish it were closer to home (it is about a 50 to 60 minute drive). I was invited back with my wheel to sit and spin on Saturday afternoons.

This is the brown alpaca top plus Bollicine distributed by Cascade Yarns on behalf of Sissi of Italy. It is 70% mohair & 30% polymid in a lace weight. The two plied together are perfect for the project that I picture in my head. Plain brown would have been…plain. And the mix of color in the mohair is no longer mixed but anchored by a single color.

I am very happy with this first marriage of my homespun with commercial. I have another experiment in mind but need to dye my commercial yarn to mix it with my dark gray alpaca. Alpaca is soft as cashmere and drapes nicely but has no body. Unless I make a shawl or scarf, it is limited…..so I am adding in other fiber for more versatility so I can knit a sweater or shrug or something.

At Sheep Fest, I talked to a spinner who mixed commercial and homespun to make her own yarns – they were beautiful, one-of-a-kind and to a newer spinner like me, a radical idea. Today I picked up Spinning Designer Yarns by Diane Varney to get more technical inspiration. I like her thoughts on page 9, “I used to believe that using commercial yarns was somehow less pure, but I have decided now that it is just plain sensible. My goal is to make beautiful yarns and then wonderful things with those yarns. I often buy yarns with sole intent of incorporating them into my handspun yarns.”

posted by Nora | 4:12 PM

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