Corriedale and Ashford

What's this, you say? A 1/2 lb. of Louet orange-dyed Corriedale roving and 0.5 oz. Ashford drop spindle?

This past Saturday, I travelled downtown to a LYS in hopes of purchasing another skein (or two, or three) of the beautiful Araucania Ranco in the pink I'm using to knit up my Diamond Rib Dress.

I had a plan. Get in, head straight down to the basement where the sale yarns are located, find my Ranco, and get out. Fortunately, that didn't work out quite so well as I'd hoped.

Soft tresses of roving

The spinning and weaving sections of the store are located downstairs too, you see. And some beautifully painted tresses of soft Bluefaced Leicester roving beckoned to me the moment I reached the bottom of those stairs. (That wasn't what I walked out with, though.) I asked for some help in deciding what to purchase to learn to spin on my own, and the sweet lady was so helpful and gave me all the information I needed to make my purchase. Before I knew it, I had paid and was leaving with this beautiful orange Corriedale roving and a small drop spindle nestled in my bag.

I watched a couple of Youtube videos to see how drop spindling is done, and thought to myself, "Oh hey, that looks really really simple! I bet I could start spinning out pretty thin and even singles tonight!" Note to self: Murphy's law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Here's a small sample of the nightmare that followed: I didn't split the roving quite evenly when I got to eighths, and started ripping fiber from one eighth and trying to even it back out, but it kept falling apart; I couldn't for the life of me get the spindle spinning, probably because my hands kept getting caught on the fabric of my dress; the roving got caught in the spindle as it was spinning when I finally did get it spinning, etc. etc. I was ready to tear my hair out at this point!

And if that wasn't enough, when I finally got everything moving along, all I could spin out were thick singles with thick and thin spots that kept falling apart (not enough spin to hold it all together), and because I was spinning much thicker than the spindle was probably designed for, it got pretty hard to get the yarn to stay put in the notch when I placed it on the hook and spun. This was a pretty big blow to me with the mindset in which I started spinning. (Don't let me discourage you though! It is pretty easy once you start.) I don't have any pictures of the ensuing mess, but suffice it to say I was pretty discouraged.

Left to Right: first and second spinning attempts

While I don't have any pictures of my miserable first experience with spinning with a drop spindle, I do have pictures of the resulting yarn! Here they are, waiting to be dunked in warm water to set the twist. (I ended skeining and soaking both of them twice because some bits still had kinks and I wanted them pin straight). The first one is much more lumpy than the second, as I started to get the hang of it after a good night's sleep and much less cumbersome clothing.

I'm not quite sure what to do with my babies now that they're ready to be knit up, though. I get the feeling there isn't much yardage on them, so I was thinking maybe mittens or a hat, but the first handspun is sort of falling apart at some points and they're both so uneven I might end up just plying them together in the hopes that it'll even itself out a bit (I'm almost positive plying is supposed to take place before I set the twist, so I'm not sure how well that would work).

My 3 beautiful babies!

I have been practicing my spinning almost daily now, and am proud to say that I'm spinning out relatively consistent singles now! There's still some pretty dangerous thin spots every once in a while, and I tend to keep trying to spin thinner and thinner since I feel as though I'm not spinning thin enough, but all in all, it's coming together pretty well, I think! There's my third attempt (it's pretty obvious which) - isn't she beautiful?

The first two are each 1/8 of the roving (1 oz. each), and the third is 3/16 of the roving (1.5 oz.). I still have about a half of the entire bag left to spin, and I'm already contemplating whether I should purchase more of the same fiber so I'll have enough to make maybe a 3-ply yarn to make a sweater!

oh comely

oh comely magazine

Purchased: 05.27.13.

At: Chapters/Indigo

Notes: Looking for more magazines, and there were actually quite a few I wanted to get this time, but that my budget wouldn't allow. I flipped through it and saw that there were several pages that featured knit sweaters (along the same sort as the cover), which was what got me in the end. Overall, a very nice and simple, clean aesthetic that I quite enjoyed.

69 stations of Kisokaido

I also purchased this Hiroshige/Eisen Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido, which was on sale for $20! It's a sizeable hardcover book featuring their prints, which I fully intend on studying before I get back to my own printmaking in the coming months. At the moment it's still shrink-wrapped, but a flip through a sample in store revealed descriptions for each print, which were each a page in size, full colour. It's probably going to come in handy sometime during my academic career, and even if it doesn't... all those beautiful prints! (Albeit not actual prints, but it's still quite worth it).

frieze & philosophy

Frieze magazine and The Story of Philosophy

Frieze

Purchased: 05.24.13.

At: Chapters/Indigo

Notes: I went looking for knitting magazines, which I did get, as well as hoping to browse through the art magazines, since I want to try to expand my knowledge of people and what they're doing where. Maybe try to connect a bit more and go to galleries more often, and not just the bigger ones or when I have somewhere in particular to go. But I don't usually purchase magazines, so I had no idea which publications were going to be to my liking. So, as I'm sure many before me have, I looked through the stand and judged all the magazines I saw by their cover. I was looking for something that wasn't too image-heavy (I mean, I love images, but I also tend to gravitate towards text) and that had articles in-depth enough to actually give me enough information to get me interested enough that I'd do my own research later on. I flipped through a number, and found a lot had either Q&As or very short introductions of artists followed by pages of pictures, and not too many that were of the sort I was looking for.

one of the listing pages

So I settled for Frieze, but I'm quite happy I did! I haven't made my way through all of it, but I really appreciate all the shows and exhibitions that it lists for several countries! Especially since I want to go visit more galleries, it's very helpful to see where I can start, and I'm quite excited about it!

It was on sale.

As for the other item, The Story of Philosophy, it was on sale. I'm pretty into philosophy as a whole, and seek it out whenever I go to book sales and the like. I thought this might set a good foundation for whenever I read newer works that build upon the classics.

frankie & smith

Frankie & Smith

Smith Journal

Purchased: 04.14.13

At: Chapters/Indigo

Notes: I guess I expected a lot from Frankie magazine (since I kept seeing people posting about it, especially the issue with the cross-stitched cover), so I was a little disappointed. There weren't as many articles as I expected, but in their defense, some of the articles did catch my interest. That being said, I feel like they weren't quite as in-depth or "serious" as I wanted them to be. It's great for a quick flip-through, when I maybe don't have too much energy to focus on longer articles, but my high expectations set me up for disappointment (which is probably of my own doing).

Smith on the other hand did impress me! They're both sold on the same site (from what I know, though I haven't really looked into it) and the description said that Smith was aimed at males, and I'm assuming Frankie at females, which makes me wonder what the implications are concerning their contents. That is, I found the articles in Smith much more engaging, both in the style of writing (even the length of them) and the contents, and it felt like I got a lot more for my investment than I did for Frankie. (Perhaps due to my expectations.) This was the sort of content I was looking for when I sought out Frankie, and I would probably go back to reread Smith at some later point in time.

Both of them are meant for different audiences (or different mindsets from a similar audience), and I'm sure both fulfill their goals in filling their respective markets, but I'd be more likely to purchase Smith again than Frankie, personally.