Cabling Without Cable Needle

About 6 months ago I began to knit this fabulous sweater from Audry Nicklin. It looks rather complex but the pattern is written so well that I would say it is easy to make for knitters who have just a bit of cabling experience.

Up to this project I always did cable patterns with the help of a cable needle.
In this sweater you need to cross stitches almost in every round, so I thought it would be helpful to find a way of speeding this up - cabling without the help of a cable needle!

There are several ways to do that. Here are some good videos that show different techniques:

From the DROPS tutorial library:

Or this one by elizzza which I liked most (sorry, it's in German):

 I used a mix of different techniques for the different kinds of stitch crossings in this pattern. I hope you will find this useful :)

Color Experiment: Grey Corriedale Fiber

What happens if I dye grey wool? To answer this question I took some grey corriedale roving and dyed it in different shades of blue, while I randomly tossed in some dye solutions that were left over ... totally random!
Afterwards I separated the roving in stripes of different thickness and spun it randomly... plied from a ball... and here it is! I really love how the grey "background" makes these many colors smooth and match together.

The colorway is now called "Deep waters".... what shall I make from this yarn?

• Aran weight, 2ply, 8 wpi
• 108 g, 182 meters
• drive ratio singles: 6.5:1, plied: 8.5:1
• information about the fiber: Corriedale 25-28 mic, 80-120 mm staple.... the roving had a very rough touch and I expected to get a rather scratchy itchy yarn - after plying and soaking I was absolutely surprised to get a squishy soft yarn!

Restoration of Old Spinning Wheels

Yesterday was a lucky day and I received a cute old spinning wheel. It is very beautiful, came with a distaff full of old flax and some thick spun wool on the bobbin. However there are many broken parts and things that need fixing before this wheel will be ready to produce a yarn.
At this point I thought it might be nice to make a post about restoring old spinning wheels and how to make them work.

The first part might be the most tricky one and requires some experience. You need to determine what type of spinning wheel you have in front of you - single or double drive - flyer or bobbin lead - which kind of tension/break etc etc... Some useful information around the types of spinning wheels you can find here on the website of The Woolery. If you don't find out which kind of wheel it is, try posting a picture in a spinner's forum (e.g. on ravelry), there you will get help for sure :)

My old wheel is a single drive, single treadle wheel. In the beginning I thought it might be a wheel only for flax, but the thread on the bobbin is definitely wool, and it's also possible to remove the flyer for exchange of bobbins. It has a bobbin lead and a break on the flyer, this assembly is called Irish tension.

Also it has some beautiful decorations, which might mean that it is a "wedding wheel": it was quite common in the german speaking area around 100-150 years ago to give spinning wheels as wedding presents, and they often came with beautifully turned decorations.

The next steps will be:

Fixing of the wooden frame

First the wood should be cleaned with a wet cloth to remove dust and dirt. Then it will need some glue or even small screws to fix broken pieces. Afterwards the surface of the wood will be sanded smooth and treated with a beeswax balm.

Fixing of the wheel's functions

When the wood is nice and good again it's time to do the "real" fixing and make the wheel work again. This means screwing some new hooks in to the flyer and adding a new drive band. Maybe the connection between treadle and wheel needs some adjustments, and the leather band of the break needs to be replaced or at least greased a bit. Talking about greasing... the wonder medicine for old wheels is oil! It is worth to have some good spinning wheel oil to grease all the connections and pieces that experience friction from time to time (also on new wheels).

I did all these steps before on my beloved Ashford Traditional. This girl I rescued from being thrown to the trash and she was in a quite bad condition. Now she has a new sliding hook flyer, a polycord drive band, bobbins, some color and wax, a lot of oil and a name: Zora :)
She is my darling and I spin everything on her... here is a picture:

I will keep you updated about the restoring process of the old goat!

Etsy Shop

I am happy to announce that I finally launched my etsy shop :)

After some time of spinning, knitting and dyeing I realized that I just produce more than I can use myself, and so I would like to share some of my items...

My first item is a handpainted merino roving in the colorway "plum cake"

Here you find my etsy shop.

Homemade Blending Hackle

My love is experimenting on how to build a nice blending hackle. For the first try he took a piece of wood, drilled some holes and fixed nails that are 120 mm long and 4.5 mm thick.


The disadvantage with the nails is that they are a bit too thick and not so smooth at the points.... around here we couldn't find any nails that are thinner and still that long.
For the next model we are planning to use stainless-steel tines with a thickness of 3 mm.

Here are some pictures of our prototype in action!
First we dyed some merino wool and tussah silk in pretty colours, and now we are blending them on the hackle. On the last picture you can see the first combed tops - they are heavenly fluffy fiber "clouds" and I can't wait to spin them!

Here you find an instructive and funny video on how to blend fibers on the hackle!

New Name, New Language!

I have decided to do some changes to this blog!

• from now on my posts will be all in english - easier to follow for people from all around the world :)
• a new name? yes - I have decided to use a new name for my wool and fiber related activities on the internet. "Dunkelgrün" is german for "dark green", which is my favorite color.

I am looking forward to updating you about my recent spinning and knitting projects :)

sunset clouds viewed from my balcony yesterday evening