I Have Returned

Rambling Again << Main >> Almost Done

It feels good to be back. I have been buried here. I haven't even caught up on reading the blogs I usually read. My aggregator says I have 2258 unread blog messages. Well, I'll get around to them.

When last I wrote, I was in the middle of moving out to my pole barn. Well, that has happened, but after a 5 week hiatus of being really sick. I'm still sick, but I seem to be able to do a few more things. Also, hubby came home from his 5 week hiatus, so there was a lot more progress. I won't go through the gory details, but things are looking up a bit.

The move from the house is 90% complete. All I have left to move out here is my yarn stash (at least 200 pounds, no lie) and my books (too many to even think about counting). We're still trying to organized stuff, but it's slow going. That's okay because I have new appliances to play with. I have a new smooth-top convection range. It only cost about $150 more than the non-convection, so I went with it. One thing nice about the oven part is that the bottom heating element in under the oven floor, so I can clean up spills without fighting with the element. Also, there are no buttons or dials to clean around. That's one of the things I look at when buying stuff. How easy it is to clean is right up at the top of my requirements. I have a new front-loading washer and dryer, too. My old ones are over 32 years old and need fixing. I LOVE these things. I can have it spin only for when I wash fleeces and I can stop and check stuff when using it to felt. I am very pleased.

I've built us a new king-sized mattress from 2 king-sized 4-inch Memory Foam toppers and a good mattress pad. It is the best mattress I have ever slept on. My husband had built a platform for a Sleep Number bed, but I needed some relief before I had the money for it. I think we won't be needing it now. I got 2 toppers and 4 pillows for $300. I just hope it lasts for a while. We'll see. I can still get the "Sleep Number" bed if it doesn't. For now, it's bliss.

On the knitting front, I got 1/2 way through the Secret of the Stole KAL, but I just hated the fabric. I have since pulled it all out and next time will use smaller needles with that yarn. There is another "Secret of the Stole-ii" KAL coming out in January. I may use the yarn for that. BUT, I may not participate in it because there is another KAL I really want to do and I can only work on one at a time. The one I will most likely do is from the Ethnic Knits yahoo group. The owner, Donna Druchunas, who wrote "Arctic Lace" and "Ethnic Knitting: Discovery", is doing a design to finish KAL of the Norwegian Sweater from the "Ethnic" book. I have the yarn and will be dyeing the contrast colors for it. I'm pretty sure that this KAL is where I'll be spending my time this January.

I have knit a 6+ foot scarf for the man who has been taking care of my step-dad. He's a tall guy and it looks great on him. He's happy with it.

The pattern is called the Cabin Cove Journey Scarf by David Taylor Daniels. I loved knitting it. Easy, yet elegant.I've started knitting a cute little hoodie for my grad-daughter from a pattern in the November 2007 Creative Knitting magazine. It will go fast, so I think it will be done long before I start my Norwegian sweater.

Speaking of my step-dad, I finally got an apartment for him at this great assisted living place. He'll be able to move into it the middle of January. He's been packing to go "home" for the last few months. I don't know where home is to him, so maybe it will be easier for him to move to this place. I hope so. The last thing I want to do is upset him. He and his care-giver have been going to this place for social activities every week and he really has a good time. Things are looking good on that front.

I haven't done much spinning in the last 2 months. I spun some Black Diamond fiber at my September spinning group. I think I liked it, but I didn't spin much and messed it up trying to Navajo-ply it. So I tossed it. I was too sick to go to the October group but I did manage to make it in November. I have actually spun for a day here at home, too. Amazing.

I LOVE spinning this stuff. It is from a neighbor's first batch of commercially processed rovings from one of her alpacas. Her place is called StoneCroft Alpacas. I've only spun raw alpaca that I had cleaned myself. Nice to spin, but not as nice as this. It's gorgeous. I'm spinning some pretty thin singles to get a 3-ply DK weight. Navajo plying has it's place, but when I'm not trying to match colors I prefer plying with 3 bobbins of singles. It just works out better for me. I have around 2 pounds of this color. I think I will probably work up one pound for this batch of yarn.

Well, that's all I can remember at this point. I've been sitting here since 3 am and am finally getting tired. Take care, All.

New Tools

Woo Hoo! New stuff! First off is my stuff from The Woolery. I have ordered from them several times and I'm always pleased.

This is some Tussah silk noils. The plan is to dye them several colors and mix them with wool for a tweed type yarn.
This is the Support Spindle by Royale Hare . It is GREAT. I actually mastered the one-handed long draw within a few minutes of using it. I can't wait until my grandkid goes home so I can actually use it.
These are the Viking combs by Indigo Hound. I have their 5-pitch English combs and love them. I wanted these to use on shorter fibers.

Then, Knitpicks had a 40% off book sale at KnitPicks . Sooooo:

I now have all of Elizabeth Zimmermann's books. I got my first one, "Knitting Without Tears" for 5 cents at a garage sale. I fell in love with her style.
I heard so many good things about this book that I thought I would get it. I all ready do socks on 2 circulars on occasion, but there is always something new to learn.
I really like the sock book by these ladies, so I had to get this one. I like the idea of "Knit-to-Fit", too. Knitting a sweater that actually fits my body is a rare thing. I'm hoping this book will help.

I really haven't had a chance to read these yet. I'll let you know what I think when I've gone through them. At a glace, they look pretty good.

Gotta run. The lightening is hitting hard outside and I have to unplug the modem. We've lost one computer and one answering machine to lightening already.

Spinning at the Fair

Hi, All. Man, I've had an extremely busy time since I last posted. Taking care of step-dad, sleep studies at hospital, out of town guest, traveling to get a much needed new (to us) truck and spinning at the Carlton County fair. This was in one of the county newspapers, The Pine Journal . I guess I'm famous now. I had been spinning on my wheel and this kid was sent over to me by another spinner because she knew I had brought my spindle. This kid comes by every year and is just a joy to spin for. I hope he keeps coming and maybe we can reel him in as a new spinner some day. I spent 4 days (around 28+ hours) spinning at the fair this year. I love it. The costume gets a little cumbersome, and the weather didn't cooperate, but I had a blast anyway.

This is the yarn I spun last year which is the same as the stuff I spun this year. It's a mix of all my left-overs from combing. It works really well. I can show people all the different animal fibers in my bag before I hand card it and spin it up. I usually card up a rollag and then spin it so they can see the process. This skein is a mix of several wools, alpaca, silk, mohair, and llama plus a little chunk of blue tencel that I tried. As exhausted as this makes me, I still can't wait until next year to do it all over again.

Soon, I hope to get some pictures taken of my shawl. I have only worked on it for an hour or so, but it looks like it will turn out nice. Take care, Everyone.

Plying is done

Well, the plying for the Wing-of-the-Moth shawl is finished.

I ended up with 1210 yards of 2-ply out of 10 ounces of the alpaca, wool, silk, and mohair. The yarn is very soft, shinny, slippery, and a bit fuzzy. The colors got pretty much muddied up. More blended than I wanted, but I guess that's the way it is. We'll see how it knits up. It really feels nice.

Back from the Ether

Hi All. Whoever thinks that Minnesota is to cold a place to live, they should visit in the summer. It has been in the 90's every day for over a week and it looks like it will stay that way for a least another. When I was younger, nobody had air conditioners. Didn't need them. Well, we sure need them now.

It's amazing how much I missed my computer. I've been without computer access for a little over 2 weeks and I felt a little out of touch. I found that I could easily live without it, but I didn't WANT to. Kind of like electricity. When the power goes out, it's kind of fun for the first day or so. After that, you really begin to miss it. Anyway, I'm back for a while.

The reason I was gone is that I was taking care of my step dad. I'm all he has since my mother died last year. He's had dementia for a few years and it's getting worse. My mother had many physical ailments but her mind was still sharp. Both of them together made a working couple. Now that his "brain" is gone, it's pretty tough on the old guy. Anyway, he pulled a stunt and I decided I had to see what was going on. For the first week or so, I organized his house. They have lived there for 17 years and, although the place is neat and tidy with all their crap stored away, every cupboard, shelf, and closet was filled. So, without moving things around too much, I reorganized stuff so he could easily find and get at things. While I was grabbing rags to clean out the freezer after I defrosted it, I found this in the rag bag.



It's the first ever embroidery that I did. I used to visit an elderly lady went I was young. She lived by herself in a trailer a few blocks away. She was a rabid craft person: embroidery, crocheting, etc. I showed an interest and she taught me how to embroider on a printed dish/tea towel. It did this in 1969. I was amazed how good it looks after being a cleaning cloth for who knows how long. I brought it home with me.


After that first week, I managed to get my wheel to his house and was able to spin on the down time. I managed to finish spinning the singles for my shawl.

I think it turned out pretty good. It was a tough blend to spin, though. The color did turn out the way I wanted it. Hope it looks as good when plied.

Spinning for Shawl

Hi, All. It has been a madhouse around here lately. I have finally gotten started on the spinning. It has been a real experience trying to get these fibers to work together. I have spun all of these types separately before, but never such a wildly blended mess. So here's the saga and what I've learned:
Here's the layered batts, more slippery than you can imagine.
I rolled the layered batts around a dowel for (supposedly) easier handling.
Here's an attempt at dizing using a very large hole (CD)
Here's some very poor top created by the above dizing.
Here's the whole mess (10.5 ounces) mixed up in a giant tub.
Here's the final mix.
I separated the whole mess into 2 plastic zip-locks.
I grab a handful, pull it into a foot or so long piece of roving. High-tech tweaking of my brake band for lace weight spinning.

About 1/3 ounce spun up. It goes real quick.

Dime-shot.

What I have learned:

A batch of fibers consisting of 33% wool, 33% alpaca, 17% mohair, and 17% silk is SLIPPERY!!!!!! It will not "behave". It will fly in your eyes, up your nose, and in your mouth. It will attach itself to your clothes permanently unless it sees a food dish and then it will then happily release from your clothes into said dish. Basically, it will get into and onto everything in the room you are preparing it in. No matter how much water I used to "mist" it into submission, it still remains wild.

The "grab, draft, and spin" methods works very well. It forces you to take breaks which lets helps defeat any repetitive stress problems. That's good because when I spin big hunks of good roving, I tend to spin until I can't feel my hands.

Anyway, this stuff is turning out very "organic" and wild, just like the moth. I think I am pleased. I hope it blooms some when I finish it. I'm not spinning it very tightly, so maybe I'll get lucky.

Sin-Off Survey

Just reading the SOAR blog and they are asking spinners to fill out a survey to see how we like their mag, etc. Here's a link to the survey: Spin-Off Mag Survey ...Now, back to hauling boxes....
Oh, yeah...I got some new knitting and weaving books today...I will probably start doing some "no BS" reviews in the coming weeks. As soon a things settle down here.

Fiber for Shawl

Here are the batts that I carded up for the shawl. I'm going to lay each the three colors on top of each other and pull into roving. I hope to maintain some seperation of the colors. We'll see how it turns out. Wish me luck!

Black and silver/brown alpaca
Tussah silk and grey Coopworth

Brown Cotswold and red Kid-Mohair

Drum Cards and Maintenance

It's been my experience to beware of any product that claims "maintenance free". There is no such thing. It's kind of like a self-cleaning oven...There's always something that you need to clean by yourself. The problem with my Louet Drum card is that it's one of those maintenance free jobs. As I was carding my fibers for my shawl, I noticed some "drag" as I cranked it. It was weird because I tried it with no fiber on it and it still got kind of hung up at a certain point....Well, I decided it needed a closer inspection.
The problem with maintenance free stuff is that it's not meant to be maintained and therefore not really meant to be taken apart. This one came apart pretty easy. What I found was a ton of fiber and fiber dust and grit embedded in the lubricating grease on the gears and it had dried rock-solid. I was kind of surprised at the amount of dirt as I always use clean fibers and keep the card in a box when not in use. Then again, it is 12 years old. All the parts are plastic and wood except for the metal crank and pin. I was afraid to use any solvents to break up the grease, so I tried using a tooth brush and tooth picks. I finally resorted to soaking the 2 small gears in some Dawn dish soap. That loosened up the gunk enough to remove it. Then I re-lubed the thing and put it back together.

So, a word to the wise...If it says it needs cleaning, then it is built to be taken apart and cleaned. If not...it still needs to be done and it's a pain in the butt.

Shawl Inspiration

I took a picture of thisPromethia Moth last week and I just loved the colors. While I was wondering what to do for the Spun Stitches KAL it kind of hit me. Why not take the dominate colors of the moth and make a blend to spin for a shawl?


So I looked through my stash and I found some.


(Clockwise from top)Deep Brown Cotswold. Tussa Silk, Grey/Brown Alpaca, Black Alpaca, Red Kid Mohair, and a Light Grey Hogget Coopworth.

I think it will work. Then I had to figure out what shawl to knit. Well, there could be only one... Wing-of-the-Moth . Now I just have to find the time. It's been hard to locate.

Wimple

I started this wimple last fall for my mother from Knitting in America as a take along project. I fell in love with it when I saw it in the book. I spent most of my time knitting on it while she was in the hospital. I didn't tell her it was for her as I wanted to give it to her for Christmas. All though the weeks as I sat knitting it in her hospital room, she kept telling me, in no uncertain terms, that it was a stupid thing to waste my time on. Well, I decided that I liked it well enough to keep knitting on it for myself. She died at the end of September. It got to be a real pain in the butt to knit on after that. I knit a bunch of other things, but couldn't seem to too exciting about working on the wimple. Well, I've been knitting on it again at doctor's offices and car shops. I'm about 1/3 the way around the bottom lace edging. It's getting there. I think I've finally figured out why I hated working on it. It's not that it made me sad because it reminded me of my mother. It's because all I could think of is "It was a stupid thing to waste my time on." Somehow, I got it in my head that it was stupid and senseless, not really practical, too. Well, you know something? I love this wimple. I still think it's beautiful. It's OKAY to make something just because I like it and it's pretty.

That being said, I am just waiting to hear back from a shawl Spin/Knit-Along that I want to join. I've never participated in any kind of KAL so this should be doubley fun to spin and knit. Probably a waste of time and certainly not practical, but by golly...it will be FUN!

Wool Blend

I'm quick blended white corriedale and some grey unkown breed of wool together. What do you think of the 2 colors together for a fair Isle? There are a lot of nepps(SP?) so I'm going to give a comb on my five-pitch and see if that helps.

Plying Done!

Ya know? I love spinning, but sometimes it feels really good to have all my bobbins empty and nothing really important pending.

Here is the finished product. 15 ounces of domestic wool top thaT I dyed with PRO Wash-Fast Acid Dyes. I ended up with 1281 yards/1171 meters in a nice DK weight. Perfect for the EZ Fair Isle Yoked sweater that I want to make. Now I just need to spin the "main" color. Not sure what I want to do for that. I think I do some carding and see what I come up with.

Now I need a better camera so I can get the colors right on these photos. These are close but not perfect. Well, have a good one, you all...I'm off to the hot-tub to relax. Hope this horrible weather that's been going through here is done for the night...It could prove embarassing if the pole barn blew down with me in the tub.

Airports

I have changed the settings a little on the blog so only one day's worth of entries shows up. A special thank you to readers with dial-up connections since I get kind of picture happy.

I spent yesterday getting a relative onto an airplane in Minneapolis. I haven't flown since 1995 and has it changed! The aiport is HUGE. We took a shuttle bus from parking at one airport to the main airport and a train to get to the terminal. Walked forever to get to the right counter. We couldn't do the e-check-in because I needed to help this person to the gate, so I needed a pass. Then it was security which was pretty tough to do with this person. Then, we got into the middle of the airport and I was STUNNED. There are more shops and reasturants than most malls. 39 restaurants and eateries, 16 news shops, 44 stores: Body Shop, Naturally Cashmere, Author's Bookstore, etc. and tons of traveler services like massage, shoe shine, internet connections, etc. The big problem was walking through all that area and getting to the right concorse and gate. Thank goodness for moving sidewalks. Well, got him through the gate, looked at a map, found a shortcut, took the bus, got my car, and drove into traffic at 5:30 rush hour. Of course I was south of Minneapolis and needed to drive through the city and head north for 120 miles. Anyway, I made it home by 8 o'clock. Not bad, really, just more hectic than I like.

I'm still plying. I haven't had any time and today looks dismal for it, too. I'm going to try, though.

I brought the Wimple I'm knitting to the airport and it went through security with no problem. It's on one metal-ended circular. Too bad I didn't have a chance to work on it.

Well, off to the salt mines. Man! When I'm gone for one day, things really fall behind.

Plying away

Finally done spinning up the pound of singles and I'm now plying it up.


It has turned out just the way I wanted it to ( how unreal is that).

It's 3-ply at 303 yd/3.5 oz. (277 m/100 g) so it's a nice light-worsted weight.

The colors don't show up really well, since it's kind of an overcast day. They are much brighter in person.

5 ounces down, with 11 more to go.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Last summer I got myself a WooLee Winder, which I LOVE, but the bobbins are a larger size than the ones that came with my wheel. I have this Tensioned Lazy Kate from Ashford that wanted to use .


So, I had to modify it.


I cut a board to 7-inches in length, drilled some holes for the screws and tension knob and cut some heavy clothes hangers for new longer rods. PRESTO!



Note the "hi-tech" clips to hold the rods in place since they don't have the "bends" in them like the ones from the factory.

Today is plying day. This is one pound of some domestic wool top that I dyed. I can't wait to see what it looks like. Have a great holiday weekend.

What I'm Spinng Now....

This is some domestic wool top the I have dyed with blotches of black, teal, purple, and blue acid dyes. It seems to be coming out nicely. I'm on the last of 3 bobbins now. It comes out to about 1 pound of singles. I'm planning on 3-plying it. I have to modify my tensioned lazy-kate so I can fit my WooLee Winder bobbins on it. They are a little longer than my Ashford Traditional bobbins. I'm not quite sure what I will do with this stuff. I was thinking of using it for the pattern color in the Elizabeth Zimmermann Yoked Sweater. I'll have to spin up a natural white or grey solid for the background, I suppose. I wonder if this stuff would be too dark?

I have a ton of this fleece and I was thinking I could lighten it up by carding it with white fleece to make it a real soft, light. grey. I'll have to try that when I finish spinning and plying of this stuff. Any opinions are appreciated.