fiber arts!

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by jacktrash, Jun 3, 2015.

  1. paladinkit

    paladinkit brave little paladin

    The curlypurly pink one? It was honestly kind of an accident - I was trying to teach myself how to do a thick single on the wheel and not really getting the hang of it, so the single spin is quite thick and thin, and spun mostly loosely at a 6.5:1 ratio. Then I plied it on itself at 8.5:1, but I was distracted by cats and the ply wasn't consistent, so I ran it through again to try to even it out, and got the crazy curlies. For finishing, I soaked it in lukewarm water & soak wash for about 15 min, then squeezed out extra water, snapped it a few times, whirled it around a while in the backyard to get extra water out via centripetal force (also evens the twist a bit), and finally smacked it against the siding a few times to make it puff up. It's definitely not actually super consistent, but it pretends fairly well.

    Edit: if you meant a different or all of the skeins, I actually spun each one a different way? I did the soak/snap/whirl finishing steps on everything, though.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2019
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  2. jacktrash

    jacktrash spherical sockbox



    nettles?? intriguing...
     
    • Informative x 1
  3. jacktrash

    jacktrash spherical sockbox

    i like them all, but my favorite is the first one.
     
  4. paladinkit

    paladinkit brave little paladin

    It's my favorite too!
     
  5. Lizardlicks

    Lizardlicks Friendly Neighborhood Lizard

    I totally spaced posting this early but I FINALLY finished plying my Starburst yarn! I can't find my niddy noddy to skein it off though ;__;
    [​IMG]
     
    • Winner x 9
  6. spockandawe

    spockandawe soft and woolen and writhing with curiosity

    One last blanket and now I can finally Rest XD I've been dying to pick up my cross-stitch again, but I had to finish the baby blanket before my friend could finish her baby.

    This is the Jacaranda CAL, but only through around row 60 or so, because this just needed to be a little blanket. And then i improvised a couple border rows to wrap everything up. This was an interesting one! I'm not sure if I'll do it with actual colorwork at some point, but i enjoyed the shapes this was having me use

    12d3c6a6-5e6e-410b-9a2d-25413b0e1a2c.jpg
     
    • Winner x 8
  7. Camber

    Camber Active Member

    I never let myself do silly fun edgy stuff when I was a teen but now I have Time, Resources and Emotional Ability on my side! here is a new friend who I made today with much glee from a jellyfish beanie baby and a fairground unicorn:
    goochy heart.JPG goochy plus.JPG
    goochy profile.JPG
     
    • Winner x 6
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  8. jacktrash

    jacktrash spherical sockbox

    omg gorgeous!
     
    • Agree x 2
  9. paladinkit

    paladinkit brave little paladin

    More intentional nubblies!

    IMG_20190726_182852_006.jpg IMG_20190726_181405965.jpg IMG_20190726_182852_009.jpg

    These were spun from rolags made on my blending board, with intentionally strong segments of that gold fiber (a camel/silk blend) in with the green Polwarth. Both the rolag shape and the chunks of sticky silk made it more natural to spin nubbly singles. I did the same bigger-whorl spun/smaller-whorl plied, and the same finishing, as I described for the pink yarn. Neighbor kids in the courtyard think I'm very weird when I stand out on my walkway whirling yarn around.
     
    • Winner x 7
  10. Lizardlicks

    Lizardlicks Friendly Neighborhood Lizard

    I made a birthday purchase. This plus a new niddy noddy and another bobbin for my wheel put me up over $100 but then I found more shinies and my wallet is crying. I'm just. Gonna add these to my cart and pine at them until next payday.

    [​IMG]
     
    • Witnessed x 6
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  11. jacktrash

    jacktrash spherical sockbox

    delightful!
     
  12. Lizardlicks

    Lizardlicks Friendly Neighborhood Lizard

    I ordered my stuff on Friday and it got here Saturday afternoon

    [​IMG]

    The first one I picked to spin is the middle blue. All the names are interesting. This one is Primaveral. Of or relating to early spring.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Also I miiiight have my first custom spinning request? I was showing the fiber off in a server is don't normal fiber sperg in and someone asked If I could spin their older dog's fluff. Apparently pupper is getting up there in years and requester's mum doesn't handle loss of pets very well but she's also a knitter and they thought having some chiengora to remember their good girl by would be nice. She (doggo) was clipped for summer so the fall undercoat blowout I think would be too short to spin, but spring time shedding should be perfect. They're planning on sending over enough fluff to "fill a 13 gallon trash bag" and added me to their contacts so they could talk shop when it's closer to shedding season next year. I've never spun yarn for anyone else, I'm kind of at a loss as to how to price something like that? Help???
     
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  13. idiomie

    idiomie I, A Shark Apologist

    http://thefybercafe.com/TheFyberCafe/Welcome.html

    i immediately thought of this woman - it looks like she charges $18/finished ounce of yarn, which ... feels like a lot

    a quick google search tells me that a 13 gal bag is approximately 49 liters^3, and that the average volume of an ounce of wool is 0.02 liters^3 - or, alternately, that ~43 liters^3 of wool weighs about a 2000 oz/125 lbs - i feel like the conversion somewhere is horribly wrong because that... can't be right

    (wool weight-to-volume calculated here)

    alternately, i guess you could charge based on like the final yarn product? knitpicks sells yarn anywhere from $4/100g to $25/100g, and my gut says to put it at around $10/100g

    (also, $18/1 oz yarn = ~$63/100g - so, yes, "feels like a lot" indeed)
     
  14. Lizardlicks

    Lizardlicks Friendly Neighborhood Lizard

    A LOT of those finished yarns are relying on the cost of the raw fiber as well as the work for the final product. An ounce of angora sells for more than the same ounce of Coridale. The fiber in this case is both worthless and priceless. It's value is purely sentimental to the dog owner so it's not going to be a factor in the final product.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2019
  15. paladinkit

    paladinkit brave little paladin

  16. idiomie

    idiomie I, A Shark Apologist

    poking around etsy, looking for "handspun yarn" and "yarn handspinning," gave me an average price range of $20-40/100g, with most of it weighted in the mid-30s. everything above $40/100g was specialty fiber (angora, alpaca), and everything above $50/100g was a silk blend - there are quite a few things in the range of $150-200/listing, but they all seemed to be ... i guess "yarn kits" by this one shop? (each listing was for a ball of yarn around 2lbs, being sold as "enough yarn for you to make a sweater"). in the $60-80/listing block, again, most products were weighed in pounds not ounces, with a few one off listings for very fine, lace weight skeins

    (i'm not going to call this a thorough analysis - i spent 15 minutes on this)

    but like you said, a lot of this pricing is based on the fiber - looking at the cheaper end, and when i narrowed my search to "merino wool," it seemed that most listings were in the range of $10-20/100g, so i'm still feeling pretty confident with my gut assertion

    there were two listings that offered to spin your dog's fur, they link back to each other, and also said that they were an advertisement page not really a listing (custom orders only) - neat data point, but didn't give me really anything to help factor into this

    i suppose you could try to estimate how much time cleaning, carding, and spinning will take you? and just price based on that? but i don't think that will give you a neat "$x/100g" number
     
  17. keltka

    keltka the green and brown one

    • Informative x 1
  18. Lizardlicks

    Lizardlicks Friendly Neighborhood Lizard

    Jesus these etsy listings are really fucking pricey...

    Eta: the second listing is more helpful. Very rough conversion from Euros and grams to USD and ounces, it works out to around $15 per ounce. A lot more reasonable than $25!
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2019
    • Like x 2
  19. theprettiestboy

    theprettiestboy wombatman

    as good as it is to get an idea of the prices that are out there, i'd focus on figuring out how much time you're actually spending. see how much you can spin in about an hour, and then you can use that to make sure you're compensated fairly for your time. the formula i always learned was materials x 3 + your hourly rate for any hand crafts, and then double that if you plan to do any wholesaling since stores will usually want a 50% markup.

    so in a case like this you should be pretty safe offering them the "wholesale" rate, but pad it a little bit so that you can account for prep time on the fiber
     
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  20. paladinkit

    paladinkit brave little paladin

    My Tour de Fleece 2019 results! I spun a total of 647g of yarn (nearly a pound and a half of fiber), with a finished yardage of 1297yd! This was ridiculously fun.

    IMG_20190729_165442_150.jpg

    IMG_20190729_165442_149.jpg IMG_20190729_165442_152.jpg IMG_20190729_151510615.jpg IMG_20190729_165442_154.jpg IMG_20190729_165442_198.jpg
     
    • Winner x 11
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