Red garter stitch

I dreamed of it last night... a simple piece of red garter stitch that was so beautiful that I remembered the dream this morning. A piece that you might imagine came from the needles of the marvelous Mr. Flood. That kind of.. simple.

It'll stick in my head until I spin something suitable, until I can come up with the right pattern, until I can turn the dream into reality. Or, until something else catches my attention.

And in that mode, Sherri, Tracy and her blackandredness, AnneK, have been helping me out with another dream; this time some simple, white lace. The longest time ago Sherri have me a partial bag of Columbia fiber from one of Tracy's sheep. I didn't know how to clean fleece, and had no idea how to use raw fiber, so it sat around for the longest time. Eventually I thought.. gosh, what a great piece to start with. Small bag.. nothing to lose.

Pfft.

It washed up sparkling white, and after being carded into the crudest rolag, spun into the most precious little skein of light fingering yarn.

I've been wishing and wishing that I could do some more; thinner, for a shawl.

Initially Tracy let me take all I wanted from a large bag of Columbia, but unfortunately the colour wasn't quite right (tho the yarn will be beautiful one day) I asked AnneK if she had any to spare. Affirmative! She brought a nice big bag of locks to the store on my birthday. Since then I've given it all a good wash and it's dried and ready to go. Tonight I pulled the locks apart and flick carded them.. then spun. I've got a really fine, white single that's looking fantastic on the bobbin. It's going to be perfect.

And simple.

Fiber meets puppy

I bought this from Pigeonroof Studios on Etsy. It's a BFL (my favorite...)/Silk blend. Not my usual choice of colours, but really pretty I thought.



I spun just more than half of it, and left the balance of the fiber on the arm of the couch while I went out to do an errand. (Would you have guessed that it would spin up blue? Me neither)



It was roughly in the shape of a ball.



When I came back, I found this:



And here is the guilty party. Any attempt to resist his powers would be fruitless.



(I managed to spin most of the fiber.. it ended well)

Did you see this in Knitting Daily?

A YouTube video on how to stretch silk cocoons, and then how to knit with them. To be honest, I wouldn't tug like that if I was going to knit, I would use the same technique as I do to spin, but I'd probably start with 4 or five layers instead of trying for one.

Up until the moment I saw this video I honestly believed that hankies were prepared in a way that did not kill the pupa. Processing. Processing. Processing.

2010, year of the nupp, year of Estonian, year of Orenburg

Year of crazy?

Of late I've been spinning Bison and Qiviut like a crazy woman, getting ready for 2010. I have almost all of the Bison in singles at the moment, and I plan on plying it with silk (which is not yet purchased.. I don't think I'll spin it).



I've spun miles of cobweb singles from the Qiviut, but I've barely touched it, overall. I have about 80 grams left to do.. the plan is to do 10 grams every day or so, but that hardly explains why it took me a year to do the first 30 grams.



After trials on my new Holly Tabachek Tibetan, on the Golding from Marilynn, and on the Cascade Tiger, I've decided to go with the Golding. It's a bit heavier than I'd like for the fiber, but the results are less fuzzy than with the Tabachek, and faster than the Tiger. My plan is to have all of those two fibers done and ready by the end of this year. As well, I washed about 50% of a Shetland fleece, ran it through the Pat Green Triple Picker, and then carded it on the Strauch Finest. The triple picker made a massive difference in the carding, and it ended up to be a joy to do. I might ply the Shetland singles with a Cashmerino cobweb single that I brought in from Colourmart (Haven't shopped there yet? Why the heck not?)

So it goes. At least that's the plan.

I'm not discussing the Cormo. Talk about your fly in the ointment.

tell me...

Do you have any idea why I have more energy in the afternoon than I do in the morning? I cannot figure it out. I eat my breakfast, I am hydrated, but I cannot get up that hill at 9am. However, at 2:00.. tired and hot-hot-hot, it seemed like it was within reach.

How does this work?

The only thing I could think of was that it might be my BP meds.. so I switched to taking them at night. No difference.


Frustrating. So here's an awwwwwww for us all.



My Glow gloves are coming along nicely; I am just starting the second chart. Also, I've been spinning quite a bit, and finished 100 grams of Fleece Artist Wool/Silk. It's a very manly colourway, so I'm thinking it might be socks for the BF.

Tonight I flick carded and spun a little bit of Shetland that we got while we were at Olds. One lock went so far that I'm currently in fear regarding spinning a whole fleece. I want to knit some Orenburg this year, and I'd love to do it with my own handspun. We'll see.

BFML comes home tomorrow. I'm glad.

Yesterday.. (or, not so much)

I wrote this post a week ago yesterday, and didn't publish it... So, here's some old news.


Opera, Mug, BFML and I were up and out of our houses at the crack of dawn, in order to get into the Stampede grounds by 9am.. cuz it was family day, and it's free if you get there fast enough. We made it with 3 minutes to spare, and saved ourselves a big bunch of money.

The plan was to attend a sheep related event at 10am, however the shearing schedule was re-arranged, so the first event wasn't until noon. We landed up watching a sheep dog and a blacksmithing competition, and they were both fascinating. The dogs are purely amazing and clearly smarter than the two we have here at the house (don't mention that to them though, we don't want any embarrassed pups). Twice during the sheep dog competition the ewes turned on the dogs, pawed the ground, and refused to budge. In both cases the ewes were victorious. I was quite shocked!

We eventually got to see shearing, but not until 3pm.. gosh it was a long day. BFML put up with the whole entire thing until that point, and made a break for freedom. Opera and I watched it all, and learned that you don't have to be fast to be a winning shearer; you have to be GOOD. The more second cuts, and missed spots, the more points against you.

Just before we went home, we turned back and spoke with the head of the Sheep Breeder's Association and left her with our names and numbers. It would lead to a pretty exciting Stampede for me and for Opera.

More to follow.

Just in case you're bored, here's some super cute puppies.

Today...

I could write for hours to catch up on the last few weeks... it's been crazy-fun, that's for sure.

But how about we just deal with today? With perhaps a touch of yesterday thrown in for good measure?

I built a contraption with 2x2's and chicken wire (my neighbor came over to ask if I was building a coop) to use for drying or skirting fleece. It's a clam shell configuration that allows airflow if there is damp fleece enclosed, or when opened up, provides a nice open surface for bits and unwanted pieces to fall through. it's a good thing, and I'm super happy with the result. Yesterday I washed Targhee, Shetland, Cormo and Border Leicester. I put it in the contraption and put it in the sun to dry (ha squirrels.. you are powerless against the contraption). It would have worked really well except for the fact that I left, and during my time away there was a fairly massive rain storm.



My goal over the next two weeks is to wash allllll of the raw fiber that I have on hand; with the exception of the new Cormo hogget. I think I'll just wash it handful by handful as I go.. The rest of it is getting scoured, and that's that.

Did I mention I got a new Cormo fleece? #840, to be exact. It is too beautiful to describe. You're surprized, right?

It's Calgary Stampede time just now, and in honour of that I came up with a new (to us) pizza tonight. Most Fridays, when all the kids are here, BFML makes up a big bowl of homemade dough, and everybody makes their own pizza to share. It was just the three of us tonight, but we decided to do pizza anyway.

I loved, loved, loved this one. It was really quite amazing, and super easy.



Cowboy Chicken Pizza

Prep: BBQ one chicken breast, let it rest for 5 minutes or so and then slice it up into largish bite sized pieces. Roast a red pepper on the BBQ while you're there, and put it into a paper bag to sweat. After it's cooled somewhat, remove and discard skin and seeds. Slice. Roast a head of garlic for about an hour at 400 degrees. Thinly slice a tomato (I used a yellow artisan); rinse seeds out, and pat dry.

Spread a thin layer of BBQ sauce on whatever pizza crust that you prefer. We normally have fresh dough, but I've been known to make pizza on pita bread... Layer the chicken slices, gobs of roasted garlic, tomato slices, a little sliced pepperoni, roasted red pepper, and fresh basil leaves. Put on as much grated mozza as you like, and sprinkle liberally with parmesan. Cook until the crust is quite done and crispy.


Besides washing fleece and making pizza, I've been knitting on the pink Lady Eleanor. It's at about 85% I would say. Tomorrow morning we're going to the Stampede grounds to watch fleece judging. I'm going to try to shadow.. we'll see if it's possible or not.

Please Lord, do not let me find a fleece that I like.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, actually it wasn't, but it seems like everyone should get to type that sentence once in their life.

This weekend turned out to be especially productive; I can barely remember all the things that I accomplished. Roxy (the pup) kept me up most of Friday night; I was totally and completely exhausted by her whining and crying. She would have liked to sleep on the bed, and I would have liked her to sleep in another city. Neither of us got our way. Eventually I got a few hours sleep, and was about to get up to take Mug to soccer, when BFML offered to do the deed for me AND take both dogs as well. I slept from 9 to 12.. it was like absolute heaven.

Once they returned home I packed up Mug and headed for Make One to talk to Bess about dyeing and to spin for a while. The store was pretty darned busy. AnneK brought in a warm coffee cake, studded with chunks of apple. Did I say heaven?

I don't know what possessed me, but afterwards I started bringing all of my yarn and allll of my fiber downstairs to organize and.. well, spring clean. I've been thinking it needed to be done, but dreading it. Man, what a job. I got to a point with the yarn that I'd think I was done, and sure as crap yet another bag of it would be hiding behind something. In the end my entire upstairs area was sorted out and organized, and all of my yarn/fiber is contained, labelled and, shockingly, findable. It was kind of fun being reminded of frogged projects, successes, failures, plans... I got rid of very little, and realized that I'm missing one skein of yarn.

Silk. Koigu. From our New York Trip. DAMN.

Anyway, we won't discuss mileage, or Rubbermaid totes, or green garbage bags. None of that.

I knitted, I spun... the Cormo basket is completely and absolutely empty. To be honest I never thought I'd see the day, but now that I have combs, the fiber is under my control. The Cormo is about 50% plied.... I wish now that I'd Navajo plied it, because it's thinner than I would have liked, but still soft, still gorgeous. (Yesterday the 2009 hoggetts were sheared. I so want one).

I dyed and dyed and dyed; the kitchen is absolutely resplendent in a rainbow of fiber. Tonight I'll bag that up and get it off to it's new home. I felt inspired, for the first time in an age.

Ahhhh and it was Mother's day. Dida and Ike (and Nini, in a stroller) ran the 5k, so BFML and I walked downtown to cheer them over the finish line. It was such a great thing for Dida.. her first race ever. Later we went to their car and Dida gave me a framed picture of Nini in a red raincoat. It's the best ever.. honestly.

BFML treated me like a queen all day on Sunday, and gave me a reconditioned mailbox that he and the kids had worked on. We so needed it! I can hardly wait for it to be installed.

Seems like this is about enough information.. but honestly there's more! Mug and I watched The Colour Purple together, we had poached eggs, drank Lambic Framboise - not Mug; BFML, I did washing/carding experiments, BFML freecycled and I landed up with a copy of Eat, Pray, Love... the only book I've wanted to review by the time I was reading page 9. It's that good.

etc. It was an etc. kind of weekend.

All spinning, all the time

Since I got combs from Vikingmaid I haven't knit one single stitch. Not one. I keep spying perfect little Cormo locks in the big cloud of washed fleece that I have by my chair.. and I think how nicely a particular lock will slide onto the comb, and I wonder how much it'll fluff up. The first pass is easy, and it seems to get tougher each pass.. yet the more passes, the cleaner and more oriented the wool becomes.

As I work, residual lanolin softens my hands. Piles of fluffy clouds grow.

Initially it was all about spinning, because the combing was awkward (get enough done to spin for a little while and hope for the best). Now, I'm at another place, where the combing is as enticing as the spinning.. and gosh, the spinning is great.

I have a sense of urgency about it because I have 6 lbs. of Cotswold calling my name. 3 lbs. of Border Leicester, 3 lbs. of 17 micron (no, you did not misread that) Merino. I have Targee. I have.. well, more. It calls my name (you might know the voice of wool in the form of yarn, but in truth it begins speaking as soon as the fiber has been sheared); and frankly there are a lot of voices in this house at the moment.

And, best of all? 40 grams of Qivuit is coming my way. I can spin it as thin as a thread, so 40 grams represents a long, long, long spin.

Somehow I need to win a lottery, because the real world is cramping my style. There aren't enough hours in the day.



ps: If you have been interested in Kiva and found that of late it has been next to impossible to find lending opportunities, it seems to have resolved itself. Yesterday I was able to do 6 loans in areas that are meaningful to me (a seamstress, a craftswoman, a weaver, a woman selling timbers, a woman in construction and a blacksmith). Kiva is truly the most sustained fun you can have for $25.00.

Picture? Mug and Banana playing together at the park; the day's last sunlight streaming though golden hair.

This and that

Let's start with eggs.

I'm in a three way tie for being the world's biggest poached egg fan; IK and Darts are the other two contenders.



This Thursday at TKR one of the knitters offered up two dozen local farm eggs. I jumped at the opportunity, and this weekend I have had the pleasure of turning several of them into poached eggs. BFML had previously created a berry jam that I had on a second piece of toast. Problem with those eggs? Some of them are just too big and the poaching is a bit tricky. Now that's a sad, sad story, isn't it?

BFML went on a motorcycle ride to the island. He is very particular about how the dishwasher is loaded, and it drives him into a flap if dishes are sitting around.. I'm a 'fill the sink, and then load the dishwasher' person.



Yay. My way this week.



This is a very special little silk hankie. I was dyeing a stack of them blue, and this lone hankie (ok.. maybe 5) somehow attached itself to another fiber. I have left it on the baker's rack, because I like looking at it, and imagining what it might like to be when it's spun.



I've been dyeing some sock yarn; doing experiments. This particular batch has been quite successful. The colours in the picture are not representative in any way; the yarn is actually an almost black-brown, with reds and oranges. Wayyyyy nice.



Last weekend, Vikingmaid made me these combs. They are lethal, and useful, and some kind of wonderful. I've had part of Cormo hogget fleece #750 washed and partially spun since last spring. Now that I have combs I'm going to work through the balance of the fleece. It's kind of fun to comb a bit now and then, and watch the little clouds pile up.

I've been knitting too.. but we'll save that for later.

Shearing

I had the greatest time at the shearing on Saturday. Vikingmaid and her business partner were just fantastic in every way; organized, fun, interesting and helpful. I now know how to skirt a fleece, and was lucky enough to split a Cotswold fleece (a 2 year growth, resulting in up to 11" staple). I washed a good deal of the fleece as soon as I got home, and I've spun a little already. It is FABULOUS. There were lots of sheep about to give birth, and some adorable little black lambs gamboling about.

Did you know that sheep are a real visual bunch, and that after they are sheared, they don't recognize each other? That's why, after being shorn, they are often penned very closely (in a 'crush'); so that they are forced to reacquaint. Interesting.

I'm going to go again this Saturday... I could easily become a shearing groupie..

The zen of spinning

Warning! I took these pictures on BF's camera, and his setting takes a picture as big as a house. Bigger than real life! So unless you want to count my wraps per inch, and really check out spinning errors, don't click! Or.. click to enHUGEen.



Flickr isn't flickring tonight.. so this is gonna take a while. You've got the time, don't you? Me? I'm up at 2am, tho I'm totally exhausted, because Roxy had a bath tonight and she feels it is imperative to nibble her feet all night. I cannot get her to stop. If she's not asleep when I go back upstairs, I'm going to find alternate sleeping arrangements that does not include dogs on the bed.

Anyway.. you might know that things have been a bit stressful for me lately, plus I have strep and an ear infection again. I think I'm wrung out. The solution? Spin. And spin. And spin.

I had 6 bobbins of a jacketed hogget cormo that just needed to be plied, so I dragged them out and gave them a whirl. Now, here's what I have.

1. Skein of scoured, unprepared in any other way... just spun from the locks.



2. Skein of scoured, hand carded locks.



3. Skein of scoured, flick carded locks.



All three skeins have been spun thick and thin, finished, and tho there is still minimal VM (especially in the natural locks), they are a pretty cream colour, and I'm very happy. I won't dye any of it. This yarn is so soft and bouncy I don't have words to describe it.

What I learned is:

- I am a pretty lousy hand carder. Must practice that.
- It's hard for me to spin art-type yarn... If I lose concentration, my spinning reverts to consistent fingering weight. Then.. ooops!.. back to art yarn.
- A dog comb used as a flick carder will go straight through your jeans. It won't take long either.
- I absolutely adore cormo. It might be my favorite fleece ever.
- I learned a lot about how NOT to wash a fleece. I basically have a cloud the size of a laundry basket, but, it's not a total loss, and in fact it hasn't been a loss at all, I just altered my spinning.
- I think i'm going to flick card the rest, and I think I'm going to force myself to start throwing out short and really dirty parts. We have a compost. I can use it. The world won't end if I don't spin every single inch.
- I think it might be ok to cut off the tips of a hogget fleece sometimes. They are too little to be jacketed at first, so the tips are a bit frazzed.
- Starting from a fleece is hard, but worth it. Times a thousand.

OK.. moving on.

2 skeins of Llama-down, purchased carded from Lars of West Mountain Farm, Inc., Stamford, Vermont. I met Lars Garrison and his wife Gaye at Rhinebeck. They have decided to sell off their animals. If you can get your hands on any of this fleece, do so. It is amazing, and I could just kick myself for not buying more. This is my first real attempt at unsupported long draw. I'm very happy with my initial results. The takeup on my wheel isn't strong enough, so it's kind of a tough go... but I did as well as I could. The yarn is soft and very springy.



Coils! It's my first try, and the skein is loaded with errors.. I did everything wrong I think, but I'm still stupid thrilled with the results. I think the singles needed to be spun tighter and I need to figure out how to do this without coiling up the core thread so bad that it breaks. Technique = 0. Pretty = 10.



I picked the roving because I thought the dye job sucked. In reality, it kicks butt.



Now. Can somebody tell me what the heck one does with a coiled skein???

I am rath

Rath is my tag for our trip to Rhinebeck. Lately I've been wondering if it isn't a really fine name for me, and had you seen me this morning at 7:50 in my pink housecoat, with my hair doing its Lyle Lovett impression, waving my arms and swearing at the top of my lungs.. well, you might have had to agree.

You see, we have round three of condo construction within a block of my house. The current construction site is right across the street, facing our bedroom. The sub-contractors who are working on the site don't give a damn about bylaws, and each and every weekend morning they are running power tools anywhere from 6am onwards. The sound bylaw is 7 on weekdays and Saturdays, and 9 on Sundays. This morning they were mixing concrete. We've reported them two weekends in a row, and they've been 'warned'. Apparently a warning doesn't mean a darned thing to them, because sure enough they were outside my bedroom window with the concrete mixer on at 7:45. It was the SAME GUY who stripped naked (aside from a baby blue g-string) on the street 3 weekends ago.

They were all: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, no more noise. And I'm all: (hmmm.. apparently what I said is not fit for print of any sort).

BF, being the wise one (and not as rathfull as me), picked up the phone and called the City again. He now has the Bylaw Officer's name and phone number. Probably that was the right thing to do. He then talked me out of padlocking the security fence on the jobsite next weekend. He says that would be in bad form, and possibly illegal.

Enough of that.

Last night I finished spinning the first 1/2 of the Qiviut that Dida bought me for mother's day. I had 2 - 10 gram bags, so I'll do two singles and ply them. I am spinning so thin that after plying I fully expect to end up with a cobweb weight. I estimate that I have 237 miles of single from 10 grams.

Well, perhaps not. But it is LOTS.

Today I'm going to Bessthespinner's house for a afternoon of fiber goodness. I'm so excited. Pray for me that things stay smooth enough that I might actually GET there. If all goes well, I'll have pictures later.

We're going! We're going!!

It all starts like this...

I came in to work one morning, and Amy had left me a note about a really cool and interesting person by the name of Tori who had been in over the weekend. Tori is from NYS and is in Calgary to stay by her mom's side during a recent illness. She folded into the kind of normal that we are at the shop.. now I find myself looking for her every afternoon; honestly, if she didn't come, I'd worry.

I'm not sure how it came up, but I was talking to her about Rhinebeck, and I jokingly told her that we would all be coming to stay at her house during the festival. She said SURE!.. After ascertaining that she really meant it, I started to work on Aunty Tink. Wouldn't it be great to go?

So today we have tickets. I cannot believe that I'm going to be so lucky.. this has been my dream for a while, and suddenly it is real. In fact, I'm going to Camp Pluckyfluff in September, Rhinebeck in October, and THE retreat in November (yayyyyyy! I have a 6 hour class booked with the Yarn Harlot on Friday. I am so excited). My life has become something different in recent months.. it's amazing what can happen when you are amoung your *people*. I feel real.

And.so.damned.excited. OMG... Rhinebeck.

I'm so looking forward to spending the time with Tori. She's one of us, and we're all going on this fabulous adventure together.

Now.. tell me.. where in New York should I crawl? Any suggestions to maximize our stay? We have four days to discover all that the fiber arts community has to offer. How does one do Rhinebeck right?

Next stop: Australia. I believe it.



PS: I miss you BF. The house is weird without you and the kids, tho I am currently having ice cream for dinner, in the nude. OK.. not so much on the nude part. ;)

My throat: ouch.

Knitting? Finished the Silk Garden Lite socks for BF last night, and he left with them on his feet. Tonight I'm working on the last pattern row of the Hemlock Ring. I hope to bind it off tomorrow.

The sheep? Romney. Rhinebeck 2008 featured sheep. Ya baby.