The full spec
Full apologies for not blogging properly about the wheel and for leaving it so long between posts, but I have been playing with it most nights and have been a bit busy with other stuff too. The wheel is a Kromski Sonata, bought from Wingham Woolwork. The service from Wingham was fantastic, and they couldn't have been more helpful. The wheel had actually just been returned by another customer who had complained that it was 'very damaged'. Turned out that the only damage was a slight nick out of one of the treadles which didn't concern me. Because of this I got 10% off the price, which made me an even happier badger.
I spent last Sunday night having a play with the wheel, and I spun up around 100g of Jacobs wool and then made a vague attempt at plying. I wasn't attempting to produce any actual yarn, merely trying to get to understand exactly how the wheel worked. I was quite surprised to find that I'd actually produced something that looked vaguely like yarn.
Most surprising was that it turned out balanced - a spinner, Caroline, from my knitting group was very kind about it and declared it very good for a first go, so I'm quite chuffed.
Now, Monica is a not so happy experience. The alarm bells were making a little jangling noise when I first glanced at the pattern, but I ignored them. Foolish badger. If you read the pattern you'll see that the edging is just 3 rows of garter stitch. That's never enough to really stop stocking stitch from rolling, and despite knowing this I still only did 3 rows. The frill as well isn't that well designed either, it's far too bulky under the arms and, like the bottom of the tank, it only has 3 rows of garter stitch to prevent rolling. I'm also unhappy with the rigidity of the top, caused by knitting cotton at a fairly dense gauge. Needless to say, this one's going to be frogged.
And in other news, the Pie Princess has finally evacuated the baby pie from her oven, so I'm frantically knitting as much baby stuff as I can before I go over to see them on Thursday :)
I spent last Sunday night having a play with the wheel, and I spun up around 100g of Jacobs wool and then made a vague attempt at plying. I wasn't attempting to produce any actual yarn, merely trying to get to understand exactly how the wheel worked. I was quite surprised to find that I'd actually produced something that looked vaguely like yarn.
Most surprising was that it turned out balanced - a spinner, Caroline, from my knitting group was very kind about it and declared it very good for a first go, so I'm quite chuffed.
Now, Monica is a not so happy experience. The alarm bells were making a little jangling noise when I first glanced at the pattern, but I ignored them. Foolish badger. If you read the pattern you'll see that the edging is just 3 rows of garter stitch. That's never enough to really stop stocking stitch from rolling, and despite knowing this I still only did 3 rows. The frill as well isn't that well designed either, it's far too bulky under the arms and, like the bottom of the tank, it only has 3 rows of garter stitch to prevent rolling. I'm also unhappy with the rigidity of the top, caused by knitting cotton at a fairly dense gauge. Needless to say, this one's going to be frogged.
And in other news, the Pie Princess has finally evacuated the baby pie from her oven, so I'm frantically knitting as much baby stuff as I can before I go over to see them on Thursday :)
posted by Badger at 7:20 pm
8 Comments:
You could knit with that, if it had each ply a different colour you could be calling it OOK designer yarn. "Badger Big Wool", stick a label and a big price tag on and you're away. It's balanced and if you got that from the off you're going to be laughing. It's certainly better than my first (second, third) wheel spun yarn.
So where's the second (third, ninth) skein then?
The spinny yarn looks very good.. Caroline is right.. spruce it up and you could have your own branded yarn! :p
Give my regards and best wishes to PP and BP.
That yarn not only looks like yarn it looks like lovely yarn - how exciting for you.
Shame about Monica - I love the little girls face on knitty :)
aw.. thanks Kai!
i am sooooo envious of your wheel. i wonder if i can convince someone to buy one for me for being a new mommy?? i doubt it though.
can't wait to see you. in fact, your plane should have landed by now and i should be seeing you within the hour! yey!!! :D
Your first spinning attempt is great! I had a go at spinning, and found it very hard. My first attempt was nowhere near as good as yours. Sorry that the frogging demons have descended on you :(
yes, lovely yarn, can I have some!! ;) glad you mentioned that about monica, I was about to cast on, so might do something for me instead!! have u won the lottery yet, cos we haven't??!!
That is very impressive, especially for a first attempt. Well done you.
Was going to have a go at Monica. Now not going to. Please visit my blog as you are the winner of a little pressie!
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