(With apologies to Dr. Seuss) One thread Two thread, Red thread Blue thread. Black thread Blue thread, Old thread New thread. Look! I knit a little star! I can crochet in the car! Oh what a lot of threads there are!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Mamoo's Yarn
Mamoo is what we call my mother. To make a long story short, my niece couldn't say "memere", and everyone else called my mother "mom" and in her mind, it came together as Mamoo. Seeing as my dad is a dairy farmer, we all thought that the name fit.
Ma-moo. Get it?
I decided that I wanted to spin her some yarn so that she could knit a pair of mitts or gloves or a hat or whatever she decided.
So I chose to blend some fibers that I had. Black superwash merino is the base of the fibers. I also had some purple alpaca, and a bit of green and blue merino. When blending fibers, I usually weigh everything so that I know the fiber content percentages. Not this time. Oops. I'm guessing that the superwash is about 60-65% with 30-35% alpaca, and a small amount, less than 5%, merino. I kept blending and adding until I had a colour combination that I liked.
Which was then spun into a relatively fine singles (sorry, no WPI)
And plied into yarn. I finished it on Christmas eve and had to set the twist. In most houses it would be no problem to dry a skein of yarn overnight in the winter. Some people even have to run a humidifier in the winter. Not here. We are horribly humid. Partially because of poor insulation. Partially because we cook a lot and have many house plants. And partially because there are 6 of us living in a relatively small place.
In any case, even though the skein was wrung out as much as possible, rolled in a towel and stomped on, and sat in front of the dehumidifier for about 10 hours, it was still a little damp when I wrapped it up before heading out to my parents on Christmas day.
It is 270 yards (I think I forgot to tell you that, Mamoo)
Mamoo, I hope you have fun knitting with handspun!
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3 comments:
I know that I will have fun knitting something if I ever get a-round-to-it.
Yesterday and this morning was spent cleaning calves pens at the farm and there is nothing I would like better than sit down with my feet up with a cup of hot tea and some knitting especially when the yarn was lovingly hand spun by my very own talented daughter.
Thanks Jackie. Mamoo
Man, does unspun merino look like MY mother's hair!! (Okay, so it's not purple, but the dark and light waves and the crinkle.)
How funny that you have a memere in your family, too!
It's beautiful Jackie. Like you with the camera jargon I am with the wool jargon, someday I might understand ;) If we lived closer together I'd do all your portraits and you could make me wool! LOL
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