Fiber Arts Friday – Pay It Forward

Welcome back to Fiber Arts Friday.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’re probably aware there was a snow event this week.  I know many of you fiber folks were stuck home and were probably enjoying some down time with your spinning and knitting.

Unfortunately for me, I work for a utility and like the post office, wind, rain nor snow will close my office and I am expected to trek in no matter the road closures. Even with moping around at work and wishing I was home I did manage to get some fiber time in.  Since the week was stressful I found my fiber time very relaxing. 

If you follow Wonder Why Gal or myself on Facebook you know that a while back we offered a fiber pay it forward. For the first 5 people that responded to our posts we would hand make an item for them and in return the recipient should make an item for another 5 people.  For me to make items I need yarn so I’ve been working at spinning away.  I have 3 bobbins going all with different yarn. 

Green/Gold – Superwash Merino / Tencel blend – Hope to make a shawl out of this
Gray – Himalayan Cat / Tencel – Yup, I’m still spinning up even more yarn for my friend
Beige – Alpaca / Mystery Wool / Tencel – Not sure what this will be yet

Fiber Pay It Forward

I’m also working on my first ever knitted scarf.  Just something simple but with some of my spun single ply yarn with some fun colors I used to keep it interesting looking. 

I twisted up some cord and braided a custom dog leash for Wonder Why Gal’s miniature schnauzers which I’m hoping they both enjoy.  I also crochet up a little something for her too since she was one of my hand made gift recipients.  Sorry no photos, I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

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Fiber Arts Friday – Alpaca Fiber Tensile Strength

My fiber week was spent back to what I like doing the most.  Making ropes for mecate reins, leashes or lead ropes and of course my fiber of choice is alpaca.  But why?

When I got into raising alpacas everyone told me how much better alpaca fiber was for one reason or another and I wanted to do the research and find out if folks were just blowing smoke up my @$$ or not. It turns out there was hardly any research done and I only could find 1 article done by the Yocom-McColl Testing lab, Texas A&M and University of Wyoming entitled “Fiber Characteristics of US Huacaya Alpacas.”

I specifically wanted to learn about fiber strength.  I was not interested in crimp, color, diameter, or any other characteristic unless it directly affected the strength of the fiber.

First and foremost; how is strength calculated and what is is the minimum needed for today’s high speed mill industry?  Strength is calculated in Newtons/kilotex (N/ktex) and is the force measured in Newtons required to break a staple of given thickness measured in kilotex. Mother Earth exerts 9.8 Newtons(1kg x 9.8m/s2) and kilotex is the thickness in terms of mass per unit length (kg/km).

Today’s milling industry requires fiber with a minimum of 30N/ktex tensile strength for processing.

Wool

Wool fiber has a direct correlation between fiber diameter and staple strength.  So much so that Australia research actually has come up with a formula for breeders to follow to improve upon tensile strength.  They can use the CVD (Coefficient Variation Standard Deviation) from fiber reports to improve upon N/ktex.  Breeding for a CVD of 19% or lower creates a stronger wool fiber.  In other words, say your ewe’s mean micron count is 20, breeding to stay within 19% of 20 is ideal for fiber strength. Wool breeders aiming for this CVD, results in producing wool with 30-38 N/ktex.

Huacaya Alpaca Fiber

As it turns out alpaca fiber is extremely strong and has no correlation to color, fiber diameter, or length.  It is naturally strong fiber!  So much so that further studies on its strength aren’t even bothered with because 90% of fiber tested scored higher than the 30N/ktex required for the milling industry.  The mean tensile strength of alpaca is 50N/ktex.  The one study I found back in 1997 for Suri show’s their fiber strength to be 44.4N/ktex. I’m now hearing reports that Suri is stronger than Huacaya due to recent breeding practices but I have not been able to find recent research supporting this claim.

One thing when reading through this study that I did notice, is that alpaca fiber strength seems to increase dramatically with animals raised in the Great Lakes and Northeast regions.  I’m not sure if it’s the cold weather, snow, or forage that the alpaca fiber seems to like, but animals in these regions score and average of 56.25N/ktex.  Alpacas from the central, south and western regions scored an average of 47.26N/ktex.  Fiber Diameter does not appear to affect the strength at all over the regions.

  Great Lakes/North East Central, South and West % difference
Average Strength N/ktex 56.25 47.26 15.98%
Average Diameter µm 29.6 27.9 5.7 %

The study does show that alpaca is also nicer than most wools in that the longer the fiber length does not mean courser fiber.  In fact it tends to be reversed.  The longer the alpaca fiber the finer the micron count and again fiber strength does not appear to be an issue.  Long, fine, short or course alpaca scores above the required 30N/ktex every time. 

I hope I didn’t bore you too much and I guess to sum everything up; alpaca is STRONG!

So what have I been doing with my superior strength alpaca?  Making ropes of course.
here are some photos of the crazy process I go through to make the 6’ braided dog leashes pictured here.

alpaca cord rope making 
 
 
Shameless Plug… These 2 leashes are available for purchase!
FREE SHIPPING to any Fiber Arts Friday reader who would like to buy one.
Use coupon code:  FAF
 
Note these are big dog leashes… 5/8″ dimeter.  If you’d like a narrower leash I can make one custom for you.

[wp_eStore_fancy3 id=36] 

 I participate in….

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Fiber Arts Friday – Cat Hair Yarn

Hello Fiber Arts Friday and Crafty Friday Folks

A good friend of mine dropped off a Wal-Mart bag of fluff for me on Sunday.  It was labeled simply, Raja.

Raja was a beautiful Himalayan cat and a long time companion who had recently passed away.  Over the years my friend saved everything she brushed out of his long coat.  When he passed away she asked if I would be willing to see if there was anything I could do with all that hair and make enough yarn to possibly crochet a scarf.  Of course I agreed!

The weather has been cold and I sat down next to the fireplace and opened up the bag.  I’m not sure what I was expecting but a bag full of matted cat hair was not it. At first I actually attempted to detangle each clump by hand before carding. FAIL.  What I found out actually worked was to use the carders themselves to pick the mats open.  I would grab a clump and briskly rub it across the comb and little by little the fiber would start to stick to the carder and open up.

The cat hair by itself actually seemed rather dull in luster so I opted to blend in some tencel to help liven it up just a bit.  I didn’t want to go too over board but I think adding it really helped.  Not only did it give the fiber luster it also helped add some length since the cat hair was only 2-3” or so and I’m terrible at spinning shorts. 

Cat Hair Yarn

Surprisingly the cat hair spun up really nicely.  It short drafted really well and I was able to get a rather consistent thickness and twist. It plied just as well and I think only 2x did I break a strand because it was too loosely spun.  No problem though, just rub the 2 ends together in your hand with a little spit like Wonder Why Gal taught me and poof, problem solved.

So far I have ~100 yards of 2ply spun up and I’ll be working on more this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend… if anyone happens to be in the Rochester NY area I will be doing a spinning demonstration at the Cobblestone House at the Mendon Ponds Winterfest.  Spinning not your thing? There also are horse drawn sleighs, dog sled racing, and the ever popular snow shoe race.  The snow shoe race looks ridiculous, like adults running in swim flippers.

I participate in….
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Fiber Arts Friday – Resolutions

Welcome Fiber Arts Friday and Crafty Friday Fans.

It is 2011 and with it brings the dreaded New Year’s Resolution.  I made a few resolutions this year related to fiber. 

  1. Learn to knit
  2. Hand paint roving
  3. Learn to ply with thread
  4. Learn to spin beaded yarns

Sounds like a pretty extensive list doesn’t it?  Would you believe in 1 weekend I did every single one of those items?!  

The Christmas holiday flattened our household with the stomach bug and then a cold.  For a solid week everyone was bed ridden and by the time we started to feel better our boredom could be contained no more.  My mother-in-law(M-n-L) and I went fiber crazy!

Spinning

I had gotten some beautiful merino/bamboo/nylon blended roving from the “roving of the month” club I’m in and while I was still in a fog I spun it up into a thin single with plans of just plying it onto itself for a simple 2 ply.  However the colors wanted more than just a simple ply they wanted pizzazz!  It called out I want GOLD I want Glitter!

The only way I could think of adding some bling to the work was with beads and gold thread. With the help of M-n-L we beaded up some thread and swore a lot plying it into the yarn. 

It was so beautiful, I say was because I learned the hard way that with metallic thread you do NOT set the twist.  The second the yarn hit the water the threat went nuts and twisted up onto itself. *sigh* I would be disappointed but the yarn still looks great and even more unique with all the gold thread bits sticking out of it.

Beaded Yarn

Dying Roving

After the above spinning project I wanted to do more and M-n-L never dyed roving or yarns before so it sounded like a fun project to do.  I weighed out (2) 4 oz portions of roving and each of us got to paint away.  We opted not to wet the roving first so it would suck up the dyes better and not make even more of a counter mess. The end result? A whole lot of fun an laughing.

Hand Painted Dyed Roving

Knitting

Sunday came and the though of having to go back to work hung over the household.  M-n-L was knitting away on a sweater she was making out of yarn she had gotten for Christmas and I asked if she would teach me to knit.  Sure!

She taught me the “English” way and the general technique and sent me off to my own accord.  Immediately I hated the way the needles felt in my hands and worked them around until they felt better and started knitting.  As I was plodding away M-n-L asked what I was doing because my needles were flying away.  I guess I was a fast learner and ended up teaching myself the German way of knitting without knowing it.  After a few test patches I decided to tackle a full project.

I had gone to my local Yarn Boutique and picked up some Merino/Camel blend and it just called out to me “Hat.” So a hat it became. Tada!

I learned how to knit

Well that wraps up my week.  Crazy huh?

What did you do?

Fiber Arts Friday – The Holiday Rush

Welcome back Fiber Arts Friday and Crafty Friday folks.

This week has been spent mostly with work.  Unlike most folks, the life of a geek gets crazier around the holiday’s when everyone else gets time off.  Something about people hate being without their precious internet so they make us all work when they’ve left to play and aren’t using it.  So, I hear by send out a Christmas salute to all my fellow tech heads who are buried in work like I am.

What did I managed to do with the little time I’ve had to myself?  I worked up some cord and braided this beautiful pair of reins.  Best part of this latest braid is that it is 100% alpaca and machine washable since I preshrunk the cord.  I have them up for sale but really have been eyeing them up for myself instead.  If they don’t sell by New Years I might have a Merry Christmas gift.

Alpaca Braided Mecate

I also managed to spin up some alpaca/merino/tencel that I plied and dyed.  I’d show a photo but it’s a gift so I don’t want to spoil it if someone gets nosey.

Lastly my hubba made me a great little tool for my fiber fun.  Ive been using the as seen on TV Embelish Knit to make knit cord for rugs and really thick yarn projects but its slow.  M kept watching me a little at a time make batches of cord and said, “wouldn’t it be nice to have that motorized?”  So he went out to his shop with my Embelish Knit in hand and worked up a metal attachment so I could hook up the devise to my cordless drill.  The result?  Fabulous, it’s so fast and easy to make cord now.  My only slow down now is having to stop and wind up the cord and then continue on.  FYI, the beautiful cordless drill? My birthday present from M, isn’t he awesome?

Embelish Knit Drill

 You’ve seen this knit cord in past projects I’ve done as in the “Loom and Skein” post.

Rug Loom