How long does it take to…?

Probably my biggest craft-related peeve is the ubiquitous How long does it take to knit a sock/spin enough yarn to make a hat/knit a sweater/crochet an afghan?

I hate that question because there are a lot of assumptions underlying it…all of which are negative, inaccurate, or simply stupid.

First of all, there is the assumption that if it takes too long (too long as judged by the questioner), then it’s not worth doing.  In fact, I would posit that if it doesn’t take long enough, it’s not worth doing.  Knitting, spinning, and crocheting are pastimes.  A pastime is an enjoyable activity that we engage in to pass the time. Duh.  That’s where the word comes from.  So, if it takes 10 minutes to knit a hat, it’s not going to work real well as a pastime, now is it?  Also, if it takes 10 minutes to knit a hat, then what do you do afterwards?  Knit another hat.  Then another.  Then another.  Now it’s a production.  It has turned into work.  And work isn’t fun.  That’s why it’s called work, and not hobby.

Also, the other part of the definition of pastime is enjoyable activity. So, I posit again that if it doesn’t take very long, it’s not working well as a pastime.  Nobody ever says, “I wish I had less time to do the things I enjoy doing.”  No one ever says, “Gee, I wish my husband was a premature ejaculator.”  No.  People like it when enjoyable things take a long time.  That means more enjoyment.  Duh.

It shouldn’t matter how long things take.  They take as long as they take.  If it’s a pastime, it should take a while.  But what if it’s a necessity?  Well, so what?  Let’s say there’s a nuclear holocaust and the global economy as we know it is  in ruins.  No one can go to Walmart and buy a cheap acrylic scarf and hat made in China.  What do we do?  Everything we need to keep warm must be handmade.  So, make the damn scarf.  It doesn’t matter how long it takes.  Because you know what?  During periods in history when people had to make all their clothing by hand and it took a long time (relatively speaking), people had fewer things, and they took care of them, and they lasted longer.  So, if it takes 60 hours to knit a sweater, who cares?  Once you’re done, you’re done.  Take care of that sweater and it’ll last you decades.  And you don’t need 25 sweaters in every color of the rainbow.  So, the fact that it takes you 60 hours is nothing, in the grand scheme of things.

There is another assumption in the question of how long it takes to create something.  It is that the person asking the question has a limited amount of time and can’t possibly fit it something into his or her day that takes too much time.  I always thought this was stupid, because let’s face it, if the person asking the question was the CEO of a multi-national company and worked 16 hour days and on the weekends was researching a cure for cancer in his basement laboratory, he wouldn’t even be asking the question.  His days are full, he knows it, so he’s not going to ask how long it takes to knit a hat.  He’s not going to be knitting any hats, believe you me.  I guarantee you that the person asking the question has a television habit.  Even a half-hour a day of TV is time that could be spend knitting or spinning or crocheting.  They have the time.  Why they care how long it takes to spin up 4 ounces of fiber is beyond me.  Are they afraid it’ll cut into their TV time?  They can do both.  Sheesh.

I think another problem is the idea of instant gratification.  People can’t deal with something that doesn’t have a pay-off for a while.  They want to fondle the yarn, cast on, knit for an hour, then cast off.  They want the hat NOW.  The closest thing we have to instant gratification is crochet.  Seriously, I can crochet a hat in worsted weight yarn in a couple hours.  Or get a knitting machine.  They are fast.  But, I think you lose a little something when you start mechanizing it.  It becomes more like work or production again.

I think the instant gratification types are probably “product” people and not “process” people.  They want a one-of-a-kind handknit hat, but they don’t want to take the time to knit it.  You’d think these people would be the perfect customers for your handknits, but I guarantee you that they won’t have the respect for the time that goes into a handknit, so they wouldn’t want to pay you much for the one-of-a-kind handknit hat.

I hate the question How long does it take to do that?, because it implies time is bad.  And time is what knitting, spinning, and crocheting ARE, when you get to the bottom of it.  Every gift of a pair of handknit socks is a gift of your time.  And time is love.  No one would ever ask, How long does it take to love?

OK, so I’m temporarily undisciplined

The two-at-a-time rule is kinda on hiatus.  Just for a while.  I did finish up my socks (pic to follow when I unearth my camera).  They are super cute and fit perfectly.

So, that freed up a slot, and I put my mom’s doilie in the rotation.  The other project I should be working on is my EZ blanket.  However, I unearthed a pair of worsted weight socks and put those in the mix, since they are almost done.  I am on the leg ribbing of the second sock, and if I actually sat down and worked on it, I’d have it done in mere minutes.

Also, since I was going to make gloves out of my handspun, I figured I should finish the handspun socks I started a long time ago.  I unearthed those and continued to work on them.  I don’t think I have enough yarn, so I am doing short-row heels with a commercial yarn.  Seems to be working pretty well.  And what’s even better is that I’m managing to knit with my own handspun without screaming and freaking out!  I’ve come to a level of acceptance where it just seems normal to knit with my own yarn, instead of extraordinary.

So I have the handspun socks, the EZ blanket, the worsted weight socks, and my mom’s doilie.  That is four projects.  Plus, I really need a scarf, and my other scarf is packed away somewhere where I can’t find it.  And I looked through my stash and couldn’t find any decent commercial yarn.  I am really starting to hate commercial yarn.  It’s all the bloody same.  There’s no character.  So, I decided to spin up another one of my shetland batts into a singles and knit a scarf.  I spun the singles approximately fingering weight, thinking it would puff up a bit in the finishing.  My knitting is not biased, because I put in just the amount of twist to keep it together as yarn, adding a bit extra, because I always lose some twist in the finishing.  So, before finishing, my yarn turned on itself, but after finishing, it hangs pretty straight.  There’s maybe one quarter turn or less in it.  It’s so soft and fluffy and will be a really warm scarf for me.  I don’t know how much yarn I need.  I’m spinning as I go.  I can get about 50 yards of yarn on a spindle.  I’m using a new Golding spindle that I bought.  It’s about 1 1/2 ounces.  It’s my plying spindle for when I make fine singles, or my main spindle for making slightly thicker singles, like I’m doing right now.

I’m doing a 1 x 1 garter rib.  It’s really pretty.  The pattern lies flat, but it’s not reversible.  The back side doesn’t look as nice, but my plan is to wear this scarf inthe “european” way.

Since the scarf is folded in half before wrapping around the neck, only the right side shows pretty much.  So, it should be OK.  And since I learned a lesson from my last handknit scarf (that it will become longer and narrower with wear), I am making this one relatively wide and short.

I’m pretty sure I have enough shetland, since I have 8 oz. of that particular color.  It’s kinda fun to spin as I go.  I have one skein I’m knitting with, and one that is dry on the drying rack.  I’ll spin another spindle full today.  Using singles is great fun, because it’s so quick.  I have discovered though, that using singles works better once you have experience, because you don’t want seriously thick and thin yarn.  Your singles should be fairly even.  Mine aren’t perfect, but there isn’t severe variation.  The really thin spots are removed, and the really thick spots are untwisted and drafted out to the proper thickness.  I’m really pleased with how my spinning has progressed.  And I’m getting good enough that I can actually blame the fiber now!

I sold my wheel

I have someone coming up next weekend to buy my wheel.  That’ll free up some space in my apartment, especially since I moved to a smaller apartment.

I’m not sure where my camera is packed, so I can’t take any pictures of my new spindles (two new Bosworth’s) and the socks I finished.

Hopefully, I find my camera soon.

New project

I’ve had the initial twitchings of startitis, but since I’m not allowed to work on more than two projects at a time (type discipline into the search box if you don’t know what I’m talking about), it has been frustrating.  Because the energy of startitis doesn’t naturally move into a desire to hurry up and finish the current projects.

But my mom called and requested that I crochet her up something for her kitchen table.  She just redid the kitchen with all new cabinets.  She doesn’t want a tablecloth in the sense of something that hangs down over the table.  She wants basically a large doilie.

I’ve never crocheted a doilie, but I think I can do it.  I was a bit concerned about the time investment, because crochet thread is so thin, and I’ve never used steel hooks before.

So, I told my mom to go to the store and find the thread she wanted in the color she wanted.  She told me “gold,” but I knew if I went looking for something gold, it wouldn’t be the same color she had in her mind.

So, she called me a few days later to tell me what she had picked out.  Royale brand thread in the color “maize.”  So, I trekked to the store and just about screamed with glee when I saw the Royale.  Crochet cotton is sized like wire gauge.  In other words, the larger the number, the thinner it is; the smaller the number, the larger it is.  Normal thread that is traditionally used for doilies is size 10.  Bedspread cotton is size 30.  Perle cotton is size 5.  And in big bold type on the Royale label, it said Size 3!  Oh, yeah!  They even recommend a size E crochet hook, which is approximately a size 4 knitting needle.  Not bad at all.  This stuff looks to be about fingering weight or so.  Yippee!

So, I looked for a doilie pattern.  I found one that makes approximately a 10 inch doilie with size 10 thread, so I’m thinking with the thicker thread, I should be able to get between 18-20 inches.  Here’s the one I’m going to make:

Ain’t it a beaut?  I hope my mom likes it.  I hope it comes out the right size.

So, I’m kind of excited to start on it.  I’ll be making this and my handspun gloves.  So, I’m really putting effort into getting my socks finished.  I’m doing the toe on one of them right now.  I’m trying a round toe for the first time.  I hope it works.  After this pair, I think I’ll go back to doing my socks toe-up again.  I just prefer them.

A spindle as cute as a bug’s ear and finally I got batteries for my camera!

I haven’t even sold my wheel yet, but I’m adding to my spindle collection.  Check this out.  It’s a Jenkin’s Turkish Delight that I bought from Spunky Eclectic.

You may be wondering why I bought a turkish spindle, especially since I my other Jenkin’s spindle is listed for sale.  Well, I am intrigued by turkish spindles.  I used to have an Ashford turkish spindle.  I think it was 1.8 ounces.  And my Jenkins spindle that I’m selling is an ebony one that weighs 2.6 ounces (I think).

Actually, all the spindles that I’m selling are my heavier spindles.  I just don’t have much interest in the heavier ones.  There are only two heavier spindles that I’m keeping.  One is my Woodchuck low whorl.  It’s HUGE.  It’s the epitome of boat anchor.  I think the whorl is something like 4 inches across, and it weighs probably 3 ounces or more.  But this spindle is not made anymore, and it’s gorgeous.  If I want to make thick yarn, I can use it or my Golding 2 oz. sunflower spindle, which is gorgeous.  But otherwise, I don’t have much use for heavy spindles.  I spin mostly on my spindles that weigh one ounce, give or take a few grams.  And I ply on a 1.5 ounce spindle.

But as I’ve said before, plying from spindles is a pain.  I like my Golding kate, and I can use it with straws for my other spindles, but I’m intrigued with the idea of having a center pull ball at the ready for plying.

So, I grabbed some undyed Finn top (Finn!  Yummy! and undyed fiber drafts so smoothly), and spun up two tiny center-pull balls and plied them.  Oh, it was really nice!  Winding on a turkish is a bit slower, but the spinning was pretty quick.  This little cutie weighs .9 ounces, and it can really go.  I think I’ll be mighty pleased with it.  And it’s so small.  The shaft is shorter than the distance from the bottom of my hand to the tip of my middle finger.

Here are some of my recent wee skeins:

In the middle is a two-ply lavender shetland that will become fingerless gloves (or full-fingered, haven’t decided yet), and it was spun and plied on my wheel.  The skeins on the ends are from the same fiber (can’t remember what type, but I bought it at Black Sheep Gathering) and were spindle spun.  I will probably make fingerless gloves from the singles on the right.  And the two-ply on the left will probably be a skull cap that I will wear around the house so that I can keep the thermostat turned down.  Aren’t they cute!  The Shetland drafted like butter.  You can see how even it is.  That other fiber is a bit of a pain.  I’m down to the last few bits of it, so I hope I have enough for the hat.  I’ll make it top-down just to be safe.

Oh, and here is a pic of the sock that I’m almost done with..the one I’m putting off finishing because I don’t want to stroke out when I’m knitting something with my handspun.

I’m doing the leg and top of the foot in garter rib.  One round is k2,p2 rib, and the next round is all knit.  It’s nice a stretchy.

But what is that thing at the top of the sock?

It’s a skull stitch marker.  I got a set from See Jayne Knit. They are super cute, and my knitting now has a menacing quality to it.  Quite fitting, no?

Stalling…stalling

I only have  a little bit more to go on my socks, then that will free up a slot for a new project.  I really am itching to work on something new, so I’m not  sure why I haven’t worked on my socks for weeks.

But yesterday, I finally figured it out.  My next project in the queue is to make some fingerless gloves with my handspun.  Why would I want to stall on my sock project?  I’m not one of those spinners who likes to just admire her skeins.  I want to knit with them.  Well, the reason is that knitting with my handspun is so overwhelming that I can’t tolerate it.  Seriously.  I know it’s weird, but really strong positive emotions can be just as uncomfortable as really negative ones.  I still have a pair of socks that I haven’t touched in a couple years.  One time when I was working on them, I had to keep putting the socks down, because I was literally screaming the whole time!  I know; I’m weird.  It was just so absolutely incredible that I was knitting socks with yarn that I had spun myself!  I think I need sedated when I use my handspun.  I’m close to stroking out, I tell ya.

I really want to start those handspun gloves, but I’m scared!  So silly.  So, so silly.

Destash

Since I’m selling my wheel, I decided to get rid of some other spinning equipment that I don’t use anymore.  If anybody reading is interested, here’s what I’m selling (shipping is included):

Jenkins Turkish spindle, ebony (I think it’s 2.6 oz.) – 40.00

Tracy Eichem Star and Moon spindle – 35.00

Cascade Little Si – 20.00

Running Moon Farm Low Whorl Stone spindle (can’t remember the stone or wood, but the stone is a jade green color, and it feels as if it’s between 1.5 – 2 oz.) – 20.00

Spinsanity 2 oz. flower spindle – 10.00

If you take all those spindles off my hands, you can have them for 100 dollars even, no shipping.

Kromski Medium Mohagany Niddy Noddy – 10.00
Kromski Mohagony Nostepinne – 10.00

I don’t need a nostepinne, because I find it easier to wind a center-pull ball with my hands.  And I have a really easy way to skein yarn without using a niddy noddy.  It’s the method in Connie Delaney’s “Spindle Spinning from Novice to Expert.”  It’s supposedly the method used by Navajo indians.  It involves wrapping it around your leg.  I find it easier and quicker than using a niddy noddy, although I am keeping my small one-yard niddy noddy.

I am just kinda fed up with being sucked into buying a bunch of equipment that I don’t need.  Niddy noddies and nostepinnes are NOT necessary.  They are even less efficient than doing it by hand.  I realize this isn’t going to help me make a  sale, LOL, but it’s how I feel.

I did make a couple purchases of new spindles today.  A Jenkins Turkish Delight, which weighs less than an ounce, and a Majacraft Turkish spindle which has three sets of crossbars to go from about half an ounce to over an ounce (and possibly heavier if you use more than one set of crossbars).  I also want to get another Bossie and another Golding, probably next payday.

I’m gonna do it

In my previous post, I talked about possibly selling my Lendrum.  I’m gonna do it.  I just need to clean up my place a bit first, because it’s possible I’ll be inundated with requests to look at it within minutes of the posting going live, and I don’t want to be caught with my proverbial pants down.  People will be traipsing through my apartment, and I need to clean it up.

I mentioned to a coworker who’s also a spinner about my desire to get rid of my wheel, and she thinks I’m crazy.  Of course she would.  Most people would.  Because most people think in a linear way of get more money, buy more things, get more money, buy bigger and better things.  A spinning wheel is considered an upgrade from a spindle, so I’d be nuts to downgrade.

I went looking through the archives of some yahoo spinning groups I used to post to.   I found a couple instances where I expressed my love of spindling.  In one post, I said that while I loved my wheel, my heart sings when I use my spindles.  And in another post, I said that I was afraid to admit that I preferred spindles to wheels.

I looked around at all the websites I consulted when I was jonesing for a spinning wheel.  None of them entice me.  None at all.  They all seem like overkill.  All that wood, all that metal, all that knowledge and technology.  And all you really need is a wooden shaft and a whorl at one end, doesn’t matter which.  And you can spin thick, medium, thin, or froghair on a spindle.  You can navajo ply, you can two-ply, you can cable, you can do anything.

Yes, the pace is a bit slower, but I really feel that I “experience” my fiber and yarn much more with a handspindle.  It’s like being with my cats.  I can have one of my cats lying on my lap and pet it (wheel spinning), or I can embrace my cat and bury my face in his neck fur, breathing deep of his feline musk (spindle spinning).  I can run across a skein of yarn that I’ve spun on my wheel and think, I don’t remember that, but whenever I see one of my wee spindle-spun skeins, I think, Ah, yes, the lavender shetland that drafted like butter.  I was spinning that while walking from the busstop and that nice lady and her daughter were so curious about what I was doing.  I may have inspired a future spinner.

I sat down at my wheel the other day to spin, and I just felt that it was going too fast for me.  Draft, draft, draft.  Treadle, treadle, treadle.  Let the yarn wind on.  Draft, draft,  draft.  Treadle, treadle, treadle.  Let the yarn wind on.  Rinse.  Repeat.  The fiber was barely in my hands before it was on the bobbin.  I had a nice, even yarn winding on the bobbin, but I felt like I hadn’t really been with it.  It was like it was passing through, whereas spindle spun yarn lives with me for a while.  Ah, I’ve got it.  Spindle spinning is like making love with lots of foreplay.  Wheel spinning is fucking…wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

I’d better quit before my analogies start taking an even more disturbing turn.

Spin on!

Oh, and if anyone is within driving distance to Eugene, OR (I refuse to try to box it up and ship it) and wants to buy my Lendrum folding wheel, I have the complete wheel with the plying head and everything.  I’ll let it go for 500.

Thinking, mulling, considering…

If any of my fiber blog readers read my other blog, you’ll know that I’m a luddite.  I love simplifying, paring down, being frugal, making do with less, etc.  I don’t really care for technology, because technology uses up valuable resources, and the more advanced a technology becomes, the more money it costs.  And you reach a point at which the cost of a technology increases more than the actual value you get from it.

I love my wheel.  I currently have  Lendrum Folding Wheel, although in the past I did have an Ashford Kiwi and a Babe Spinnrock (both of which have gone on to other homes).  However, it does not escape the luddite in me that I paid around 600 clams for a machine that does the same thing as a 20 dollar spindle.  Are there advantages to a wheel?  Of course.  The main advantage in my opinion is speed, but it’s not the speed of the spinning itself, because a hearty thigh-spin can make a spindle achieve lift off.  The speed comes from the automated winding on.  And the capacity of a wheel’s bobbins is an advantage, although how much of an advantage depends on the person.  There are some people who can make cops so large that they seem to defy the laws of physics.  And the technology is fabulous, but is it worth several hundreds of dollars for a bit of an increase in speed and an increase in capacity, when you figure in the downsides of lack of mobility of the wheel itself and lack of mobility of the spinner while spinning?  I’m not so sure that I think it is.

I have debated in the past about whether or not to get rid of my wheel.  There are two main reasons why I haven’t.   One is that plying from bobbins with a wheel is so much easier.  But now that I’ve found a good method for plying with my spindles, that’s no longer such a concern.  The other reason is that I haven’t yet learned to spin woolen with a spindle.  I can sort of do long draw with my wheel, though.  Once I learn to spin woolen with a spindle, though, I’ll have no excuses.

See, the thing is, I love my wheel, but when I spin on it, I keep thinking to myself, I enjoy spinning with my spindles more. I have to sit in the same spot.  And I don’t care for that.  Some people say they dislike spindles or they dislike wheels, but it’s usually because they haven’t mastered one or the other.  I can spin equally well on either spindle or wheel.  I just prefer the spindle.  I like the portability of it, and I even kinda sorta don’t mind the winding on.  It’s not that bad, really.  It’s relaxing and meditative.  I like that I can spin a length, wind it on, and then put the spindle down and do something.  I can come back, pick up the spindle, spin another length, wind on, etc.  I feel trapped when I’m at my wheel, even though it’s just as easy to stop.  And this seems really stupid, but I dislike having to move the yarn guide.  I thought it was just the hooks on the flyer that pissed me off.  But even the sliding yarn guide bothers me.  I feel like I’m always having to stop treadling to move the damn yarn guide.  There’s a lot of stop-start to spindle spinning, too, but for some reason I’m not as bothered by that.

What irks me is the commonly held notion that spindles are an introduction to spinning.  That a REAL spinner would GRADUATE to the wheel eventually.  That’s one of my big beefs.  People have been spinning for millenia with spindles.  Wheels are a relatively recent invention in human history.  It’s disrespectful to consider spindles an introduction to spinning, when they were all that existed for spinning for millenia and are still the way many people create thread and yarn in some parts of the world.  I get the same problem with my ukulele playing.  When people find out that I play the ukulele, they always want to know when I’m going to graduate to the guitar.  The uke is not a pre-guitar, a mini-guitar, or a guitar wanna-be.  It’s an instrument in its own right, with its own characteristics, charms, and quirks.  Same with a spindle.  Actually, the comparison is pretty apt.  There are chords that are really difficult to finger on a ukulele that are actually quite easy to finger on a guitar.  Ah, but the guitar has its own set of hard to finger chords.  And sure, you could say that it’s a pain to wind yarn onto a spindle shaft, while it’s relatively quick and painless to do so on a wheel, but the wheel has its own disadvantages.

I feel as though I want to learn all the ins and outs of spindle spinning.  It seems like I’ve only tapped the surface of this awesome spinning method.  Wheels are great, but I like small things that take up less space, portable things that can be tucked away in my backpack, and very cost-effective things.  Most of my spindles were under 50 dollars, and some were under 20.  None were over 100.  I think my most expensive one is my large Golding, which was 78, I believe.  I can make just as nice yarn with my spindles as I can with a wheel that costs anywhere from 6 to 10 times as much.

Hmm, I’ll mull it over some more, but I think there may be an ad on craigslist in my future (and possibly at my LYS).

Addendum to the mishmosh of stuff

I brought home a couple restaurant straws, which felt sturdier and thicker, and they did go over the rods of my Lendrum lazy kate.  Just.  Very snug.  So, that’s an option, too, now.