Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

During Knitting and Crochet Blog Week I said that the skill I’d most like to learn would be to spin yarn using a drop spindle. It seems such a natural thing to me, to want to be involved in the process of making yarn in some way, or to at least have knowledge of the processes involved.  Only a short while after posting I had a message alerting me to a comment left by Saff of Saff’s Daily Dribble, saying she had a spare spindle I could have.

Just amazing, amazing kindness.  I swapped with her a copy of Ann Budd’s Book of Handy Knitting Patterns which I have always found to be a fantastic reseource, posted it off and looked forward to seeing my first ever drop spindle.

Now, let me remind you of the picture of the spindle that I pictured in the blog post in question – it is perfectly nice, plain unfinished wood.  Nothing fancy, just simple and plain.  let me show you what actually arrived in the mail a couple of days later:

It is green.  It is covered in tiny, beautiful hand-painted sheep and goats.  It is wonderful and I love it.

Now, Saff was also kind enough to include a a few grams of fibre, and of course I had to have a go right away.  Here is my first ever handspun yarn:

It weighs just 8g and is only about 20m long, but my-oh-my do I love it.  It isn’t even.  It isn’t refined, but I made it from fluff.  OK, beautiful green merino fluff, but fluff.  Obviously there are some inconsistencies in my technique which i hope to get ironed out in time, and I have been warned not to be a perfectionist about it (which is difficult because I am a terrible perfectionist when it comes to such things) as perfectionists tend to get frustrated that they are not masters at this new skill right from the outset, so I am going to make a real effort to relax and just enjoy spinning and its hypnotic and soothing effects.

My second attempt is perhaps a little more consistent on the whole, but I felt quite at ease when spinning this and just let the fibre do it’s thing whilst I watched a bit of TV.  This is only seven grams, and about 16m in length, but I am really pleased with it.

Now, I need to find miniature projects for such small amounts of (roughly) fingering weight yarn, or shall I keep my first attempts un-knit, for posterity?  I’m not sure.  At the moment, Giantmonk is using one as a wig, hoping to pass for Donald Trump:

I wrote an entry for today’s theme, ‘a new skill’, this morning. In that post I spoke of my first attempt at intarsia when knitting a blanket square in remembrance of my grandad, and how though I know I could knit intarsia I didn’t feel much enjoyment in it, and how if I could perhaps learn how to be organise each of the little bobbins and strands of yarn so that they did not annoy and frustrate me in their entanglements, I might gain the skill to enjoy this form of knitting. But then, as I sat and ate my lunch and pursued Etsy and eBay, looking for a cheap drop spindle and some fibre as I so often do in quiet moments I realise that actually that is the skill I’d most like to learn, or at least have a go at. Spinning.

I don’t mean with a spinning wheel (though heck yeah!), but something far more low key.

Long, long before I learned to knit I happened to spot the Etsy shop of Snowberry Lime, and I fell in love with her clouds of unusual and beautiful hand-spun yarns. I didn’t know how to knit or crochet and so had no ‘use’ for her beautiful work, but if I had the money I would have bought some of her yarn just to display in jars.

Now I find myself looking at wooden drop spindles and fibre and wondering what it must be like to knit with something you have spun yourself. How satisfying to know that you have taken some fluff and turned it into yarn, and taken that yarn and turned it into an object to wear.

I keep looking at the wooden spindles and wondering if I could cobble something workable together from things around the house, however I don’t think I have anything heavy enough to do the trick.

How wonderful though, to take the creation of your object back one more stage. How far back could yo take the creation process? Dyeing your own fibre and yarn is another option, or you could always go back to the source and become a shepherd…

Click here to see other blogs tagged with knitcroblo4, blogging about this same topic for Knitting and Crochet Blog week. (May take a few hours to update on Google)

Those interested in the fibre arts are finding it easier to source ever more exotic fibres to run through their fingers and weave around needles and hooks, especially with the advent of the internet and the spread of knowledge about the beautiful yarns available to crafty folks.  There are some real luxury yarns on the market, perhaps the zenith being the almost mythical Qiviut/Qiviuk – the downy undercoat of the musk ox.  As light as air, as warm as a 1,000 tog duvet and with a softness you cannot imagine (or so I am told, at least… I am unlikely to ever get my pauper’s hands on any), this prized fibre seems to be the height of luxury, but is that about to be surpassed?

Simon Peers, British art historian, may have eclipsed the combers of must-ox bellies in seeking out the most unlikely and labour-intensive fibre-source.  The beautiful golden brocade-like fabric above is in fact spun from spider-silk.  Spider silk, in fact, that has been collected from a team of no less than one million Golden Orb spiders.  Quite a feat, especially as the silk was collected from living spiders, harnessed together in groups of 24 whilst the end of their silk was gathered together and slowly extracted, being hand-spun and wound delicately onto a spool.  Four strands of this 24-ply thread were then plied together to give a 96-strand yarn to use in the weaving of this magnificent cloth.  It has been said that at no point in the weaving of the cloth did the spider yarn break, so no spit-splicing and no extra ends to weave in, at least.

There are plants to make a second cloth come next spider-season in Madagascar, where the Golden Orb spiders were harvested.  It’s all but impossible to imagine that such a yarn would ever find its way onto the knitter’s market, but it is sometimes good for those who knit and crochet to stop and remember the sources of the yarns that we enjoy working with, and to remember what wonderful jobs the creatures that produce some of those yarns actually do in manufacturing their own thread creations.

Do you have any of Cascade’s Rustic yarn in your stash?  Or a sweater made of Harrisville Flax & Wool blend, perhaps?

Wool (well known for it’s warmth and comfort) and linen (made from the fibres of the flax plant, and valued for its crispness and coolness) are a popular blend of fibres for suits and trousers, and are combined in a number of gorgeous hand knitting yarns, yet there are some people who believe these to be a forbidden mixture of fibres, warned against in religious scripture.

I found this out quite by chance, mentioned as an aside in Stephen Law’s The Philosophy Gym, but it’s something that stuck with me, and a subject that I have been quasi-researching in my spare moments for the past couple of weeks.  I’ll be straight up and tell you I am not religious, but the teachings (and particularly the history) of various religions hold endless fascination for me.  If you mix that together with a  healthy dose of yarn-talk, then I am all ears.

So, what do these religious texts actually say?

…neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee. (Leviticus 19:19)

What most interests me is how this instruction came about. If I had to make my own judgement on what this instruction was for, I’d have guessed that it was a warning to keep the purity of different species and forms, because the entire verse reads:

Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee. (Leviticus 19:19)

So, don’t mix species of animals, fields of crops, or types of fibre – keep them all separate.

Deciding to hit up Google for a few answers, though, I soon discovered that this is not necessarily the assumed reason. The first search engine result I hit upon had the following dialogue:
Q: ‘Why shouldn’t we wear wool and linen together’
A: ‘Electrocution’.
Simply stated, but not particularly satisfying as an answer. No explanation was given as to why a garment of mixed wool and linen fibres might lead to electrocution, just that it would. Back to the google-a-tron!
Soon, I came across this far more comprehensive explanation from Brian Sass:

If you were to wear a garment mixed with linen and wool in a hot climate, the first thing you would notice is an increasing tiredness as your energy gets zapped, then your internal organs would begin to fail as the electricity needed to run their various functions is depleted. As the energy passes from your body and meets with the hot air your skin will start to excoriate like a blister, causing rapid fluid loss and dehydration. The pain and discomfort would become unbearable and you would long for death to quickly come. Your wish is eventually granted.

Scary stuff, and Brain Sass uses the appliance of science to explain further:

You can measure the electricity in the human body in an electrical measurement called angstroms. The human body is quite healthy with 100 angstroms of electricity, if the electricity falls to 50 angstroms sickness begins to occur – if the decline continues to drop to 15 angstroms – more critical diseases such as cancer will occur. Wearing a linen garment will boost the electricity in the human body to 5000 angstroms! keeping you very healthy and full of energy- it’s no wonder that God had his priests wearing linen garments in His service.

Wool on the other hand will also boost the body’s electricity to 5000 angstroms but with an opposite polarity. This is not harmful unless you mix the two, in which case, being of opposite polarity they cancel each other out and the bodies electricity drops to “0″ causing the symptoms outlined above.

Despite the scientific explanation that Brain Sass offers, I do not find it credible that these two fibres will cause you break out in blisters and develop cancer, otherwise clothes manufacturers around the world would have lawsuits coming out of their ears by now.

The real reason, to me, is still a mystery. This extremely interesting account and explanation of why wearing ’shatnez’(mixed linen and wool fibres) is forbidden is Judaism, and the practicalities of shatnez in modern life offers some understanding of the history of the rule:

…the Law of shatnez is a chok, a decree that the King has passed for His subjects, for which we do not know the reason.

^{(italics mine).}

So, at the moment I am not much the wiser as the historical significance of these passages but I find it an interesting concept none the less. If anyone has any more information about the ruling against mixing wool and linen in a single garment, that exists in a number of religions, I’d be extremely interested in hearing from you. Similarly, if anyone has any wool/linen mix yarn that they are now too scared to use, I will gladly take donations and put the risk wholly onto myself.
I especially like the colour green.