Maker and Bean

hello! call me Maker. i make things - spinning, knitting, weird art / zine things, and some writing i don’t actually talk about much here. sometimes my cat, The Bean, is also here. Bean is here a lot, actually. (i’m also an adult, if that matters to you.)

[unfinishedsweaters]

the scrumbus is getting closer.

[swords-n-spindles]

Rolag time!! (While I wait for the hockey to start)

[comfortabletextiles]

Aren't these beautiful 😌

I'm so glad I get to see them again, but without me having any more to DO with them!

[swords-n-spindles]

They were so fun to rolag up!! (And the hockey was dramatic wtf) All done now!

[swords-n-spindles]

First few rolags spun up 😌

[swords-n-spindles]

Working on the last rolag! That's one of the "waste" batts and it's a beautiful indescribable silver green grey brown colour. Kind of like willow bark or murky swamp water reflecting moon light.

[ezekiellsplayground]

Blocked the SilverNeedleTea shawl and I’m pleasantly surprised at how generally even the large holes turned out (they had me worried whilst crocheting). After it was dry I decided that it needed an extra element to really ‘pop’ the design, so I added some bead dangles (tigers eye stone & yellow crystal) on every edge point.

[persianpenname]

okay okay okay, so, I'm working on some yarn, right? chain plying

and I forget what I was thinking about but SUDDENLY brain goes 'hey what if another bobbin?'

and at first I was like 'pfft, no, that wouldn't work' but then I thought about it a bit more and

CHAIN PLIED 4 PLY YARN

CHAIN PLIED SELF STRIPING YARN

I'm really kicking myself right now for not having brought some emergency roving with me, but as soon as I get home and have access to more colors I'm going to try this!

[persianpenname]

@orangespicecake DO IT DO IT DO IT

[orangespicecake]

well it certainly does the thing

lessons learned so far:

doing this directly on the wheel is a nightmare task (and probably would get you more variegation than self striping)

if you're going to do a chain ply ball from across the room don't be lazy and just use the lazy kate pins

i'm going to take a break to eat breakfast + walk dog + collect myself after that harrowing experience but when i come back i will be continuing the chain ply ball and using my stoner engineered tensioned lazy kate

[orangespicecake]

on a roll (if it doesn't have a name already, might I suggest switchback chainply)(it is wordy but it also sounds cool)

[orangespicecake]

all done! about 206 yds and 154 grams

notes:

there's both yarn that i did with shorter stripes (chain ply ball from across the room) and longer stripes (chain ply ball from the kitchen table, through the kitchen and into the hallway beyond). the second one is with a measurement that i got from a ball of self striping yarn in my stash

personally i find it interesting how with normal chain plying there's less color mixing with short loops and more mixing with longer loops, but with the nature of using two solid/tonal singles in different colors it's the opposite

the knit swatch uses both yarn from the end of the long stripe skein (bottom) and from that early attempt at chain plying directly at the wheel (top, but there's not much)

the woven swatch turned out with a lot more color mixing even though it uses the long stripes because my pin loom does half the warp/weft at a time, so there's actually alternating between colors more (unsure if if this is how other pin looms work)

[makerandbean]

in my ongoing efforts to a) make a bunch of four-ply, and b) not waste any singles length, i am coming up with increasingly unhinged ways of Still getting four strands after one or more of my bobbins runs out.

after much experimentation, i’ve come up with the following process:

four singles: easy. four lengths of singles, one for each ply. three on a lazy kate, one on my wheel’s integrated bobbin holder, done.

three singles: still pretty easy. turn one of your remaining bobbins into a plying bracelet. this gives you two ends from one length of single. that, plus the lengths from the other two bobbins, makes four plies.

two singles: now we’re cooking. where we go from here depends on whether your plying bracelet ran out, or one of the other bobbins ran out:

a) two bobbins: chain ply one single, while simultaneously plying with the other. the chain ply gives you three plies, and the additional single makes it up to four. a fun discovery i’ve made with this is that it doesn’t actually make a difference which single you pull through the loop in the process of chain plying - you can essentially alternate which of the singles you chain, as long as you’re only ever pulling one single through the loop at a time and letting the other single ply normally. (you can also do (b) below with two bobbins, but this is way is much less of a hassle.)

b) one bobbin and one plying bracelet: turn your remaining bobbin into a second plying bracelet, on the other wrist to the current plying bracelet. now you have two ends of singles from each wrist, for four plies total. this is exactly as much of a nightmare to control as it sounds, especially if your singles have a lot of twist in them. good luck!! you’re going to need it :) also, probably turn your wheel’s tension up a bit. that helps.

one single: advanced technique for the truly deranged only. turn your single into a plying bracelet, and then do as (a) above - one end of the plying bracelet chain plied, with the other end allowed to ply normally, for a total of four plies from a single length of single. definitely turn your wheel’s tension up. laugh directly into the face of the uncaring void as reality bends to your will. also, time how long it takes for everything to become hopelessly tangled. if it’s more than a minute, you have Won Spinning. congrats!!

[makerandbean]

@iphis26

god damn it, that is so much smarter and easier than what i’m doing. “why not” bc im a fool and a rube i guess!!! i love to distress and derange myself i guess!!!!!!

(though, also, someone in the replies has linked a very very cool post showing how using the chain-ply-and-one-ply method with two colours of single can make a really cool striping effect, so! still fun things to be done with my deranged tactics.)

[makerandbean]

in my ongoing efforts to a) make a bunch of four-ply, and b) not waste any singles length, i am coming up with increasingly unhinged ways of Still getting four strands after one or more of my bobbins runs out.

after much experimentation, i’ve come up with the following process:

four singles: easy. four lengths of singles, one for each ply. three on a lazy kate, one on my wheel’s integrated bobbin holder, done.

three singles: still pretty easy. turn one of your remaining bobbins into a plying bracelet. this gives you two ends from one length of single. that, plus the lengths from the other two bobbins, makes four plies.

two singles: now we’re cooking. where we go from here depends on whether your plying bracelet ran out, or one of the other bobbins ran out:

a) two bobbins: chain ply one single, while simultaneously plying with the other. the chain ply gives you three plies, and the additional single makes it up to four. a fun discovery i’ve made with this is that it doesn’t actually make a difference which single you pull through the loop in the process of chain plying - you can essentially alternate which of the singles you chain, as long as you’re only ever pulling one single through the loop at a time and letting the other single ply normally. (you can also do (b) below with two bobbins, but this is way is much less of a hassle.)

b) one bobbin and one plying bracelet: turn your remaining bobbin into a second plying bracelet, on the other wrist to the current plying bracelet. now you have two ends of singles from each wrist, for four plies total. this is exactly as much of a nightmare to control as it sounds, especially if your singles have a lot of twist in them. good luck!! you’re going to need it :) also, probably turn your wheel’s tension up a bit. that helps.

one single: advanced technique for the truly deranged only. turn your single into a plying bracelet, and then do as (a) above - one end of the plying bracelet chain plied, with the other end allowed to ply normally, for a total of four plies from a single length of single. definitely turn your wheel’s tension up. laugh directly into the face of the uncaring void as reality bends to your will. also, time how long it takes for everything to become hopelessly tangled. if it’s more than a minute, you have Won Spinning. congrats!!

[tyrhinosaurus]

New spin!

50/50 blend of Merino/mulberry silk, approx 131gm, dyed by Glenhaven Knits.

It's shedding silk onto *everything* XD

[makerandbean]

[hellenhighwater]

Book is here!! It's time for book!!!!

[hellenhighwater]

Mayhem Jane stole my chair, and then immediately squarshed herself with a pillow

Vice is not willing to help with this problem.

Ah... Malice, no...

[hellenhighwater]

But what if it WAS for Maybe

[gifsfromthecrows]

ultimate portability for a kumihimo project: half-empty roll of paper towels (kept from unraveling by being wrapped in string) inside a big souvenir cup. like I'm definitely going to be printing something to mimic this setup in a prettier way but this works

[gifsfromthecrows]

the president could neverrrrrr

[dangerphd]

🌻🌻🌻

[weeberc3]

Sometimes, even when you know you should stop and periodically check things, you don't. Which is why I'm going to drop stitches into the prior row of squares in my entrelac to recapture a split stitch. (I am writing this portion before editing the fabric. Optimism is high.)

Here we see nearly identical pictures of the work, the first is unedited so that you can see the active square which is started from the selvedge of the square where the spare DPN is inserted into the split yarn that is not joined to the stitch above. The second has a line drawn showing the path I will need to take from the active stitches down into the knitting.

Note: I like joining my entrelac squares a little bit differently than I typically see instructed. When picking up the stitches for the new square typically you would pick up the stitch so that the selvedge is on the wrong side. I like to pick up the stitches so that the selvedge shows on the front of the work and the color of the next row gives a little decorative detail.

Stage one of the drop back. Since that first stitch has a lot going on, being the edge stitch and where the yarn transitions to the next square, it gets a red stitch holder to make sure that nothing's coming loose and is easily identified. I'm not completely detaching the two squares, just disconnecting the selvedge stitches until I get back to the column on the adjacent square I'm going to have to drop back on, which is at the gap at the right side of the stitch holder.

We have arrived! Now to rework the split stitch and then put it all back together.

Fixed! The crochet hook is pointing at the reworked stitch, which is a little bulky. When I started reworking that column of stitches I realized that I had a little bit more yarn in that spot than I wanted to leave so pulled up the yarn and formed an extra stitch which was then worked as a k2tog to tuck away the excess. It's a little bulky but there won't be a hole and unless you're feeling the fabric you probably won't notice it.

I think in theory you could use the same sort of technique to drop back to an even earlier row of squares, but hopefully I won't need to test that out anytime soon.

[foragersfleece]

Today felt like a wandering day.

The woods are starting to wake up again. Moss glowing almost neon green, tiny mushrooms tucked into pine needles, bark textures that look like maps. I always notice color first — the deep reds, smoky browns, soft greys, bright moss.

Nature does color better than any dye pot.

I walked for a while, took a few photos, and let my brain wander the way it always does when I'm outside.

Eventually I came back to the studio.

The drum carder was waiting.

The wool was waiting.

Oli… was already asleep on the job.

Honestly, I think he has the right idea.

[tenacioustatter]

My first heavily beaded piece in ages! (Since probably August of last year.)

I am so in love with how it turned out. I think this is a good piece to demonstrate the versatility of tatting and lace stylistically.

[thedoctorknits]

I'm suspicious this is going to turn into a game of second sock yarn chicken

[windvexercrochet]

Varigated singles, my first dyed braids. The dye was leftover from my crocodile green acid experiments. I added a bit of golden yellow to one of the braids.

[makerandbean]

WOUGH

sometimes u go on an evening walk at a team building workshop thing. and there’s sheep on the walk. and you find like 300g of pretty decent-quality wool just like. on the grass. and now your boss has a picture of you clutching said wool to your chest. but ALSO you have 300g of wool so who is the real winner??? you!!!!!!

[makerandbean]

@leiyahime

step one: live and/or work and/or randomly end up in the countryside somewhere in the uk where there are sheep

step two: have somewhere between Very Little and No shame whilst on official work businsss

step three: be not afraid of the poop and the pee when picking stuff up

step four: free wool!!

[makerandbean]

WOUGH

sometimes u go on an evening walk at a team building workshop thing. and there’s sheep on the walk. and you find like 300g of pretty decent-quality wool just like. on the grass. and now your boss has a picture of you clutching said wool to your chest. but ALSO you have 300g of wool so who is the real winner??? you!!!!!!