Going on at length

Okay, then, another vost!

I recorded this video in June (I mistakenly say "April" in the voiceover) and though I have meant to put it on the blog this entire time, I never got around to it. But I had huge fun with that eggnog latte vost, so thought I'd put another one together. I'm weirdly fascinated with hearing myself talk.

This one's about hand-carding Shetland fleece in preparation for spinning. Eventually I'll record the spinning itself, to sort of round things out.

I'm aware this might be sort of boring, but the whole point of vosts is to have a little glimpse into someone's life, and this is definitely a glimpse into mine.

Mainly in the plain?

It's a dismal spring here on Vancouver Island - much like last year. My garden is gradually coming into bloom, sodden, then the flowers sit there, sodden, until they finish and drop off, sodden. I check from my kitchen window a few times a day, and notice what else has opened up in the pouring rain, but I never actually get outside.

My friend visited me last weekend for a few days, and brought some beautiful marled sock yarn from Iceland. "Direct from the factory," she assured me. A few hours after she left on Monday, I cast on a new pair of knee-high stockings with the Icelandic yarn. Why? Because I need the warmth.

Canadians have a wonderful ability to talk about the weather, almost without ceasing.

Actually I think it's a wonderful ability to listen to each other talk about the weather.

***

My house has been colonised by moths - can you believe it? I had been carding wool for a few weeks in preparation for spinning, and one day I noticed a little fluttering...Mum and I actually saw a larval moth, his/her head wiggling around, half-covered by a cocoon s/he was making out of my grey Shetland. There was a frosted cluster of tiny pearly eggs clinging to the side of the box, too. Did we freak out? Yes, we did.

***

My older daughter is a horse girl, and is preparing for a show in August. Being that we homeschool and therefore have a flexible schedule, we spend a lot of time at the barn these days...it's mostly wonderful, but sometimes a drag if I'm tired, busy, or cold. My younger daughter spends her barn time on a tire swing under the trees, singing and talking to Dayley, a 17hh thoroughbred, and Vindaloo, a little goat. Usually some chickens come by, and a dog or two. On this particular day, one of the rare sunny ones, she had my camera with her. (For the second time.)

The Fountain Pen Shawl, Finished

Fountain Aster
Pattern: Fountain Pen Shawl, by Susan Lawrence, Interweave Knits Spring 2009
Yarn: Handspun 80% merino, 20% silk (worsted spun, 2-ply)
Needles: 4.5mm Addi Turbo Lace (120cm length)
Cast On: June 2009
Bound Off: February 20, 2010
Finished length at centre: preblocked - 34.5" / blocked - 50"
Modifications:
Ths pattern calls for 11 repeats in total. I didn't have enough yarn for 11 repeats, so I ended up with 9 plus the border.


I love the pretty pointies.

Blocking wires make this all so much easier. My friend and my mum and I made a set a few years ago for, practically, tuppence. Just a few stainless welding wires and a poster tube. How many hours has this saved us? Innumerable.

Colour not quite true, in any of these pictures. Darker than the sunlit shots, and lighter than the blocking shot.


Getting all arty with my crocii.



I usually do this thing with the trees and the grass and the points of lace, and I don't see any reason to stop now. In the absence of a good camera and a keen-eyed photographer, we have to settle for nature's spartan glories.

Drapey goodness.

See? The grass, the tree, the shadow of winter sunlight....now you're all meant to sigh "how beautiful! How understated!".


From the wheel it was born, and to the wheel it has returned.*

And that, my friends, is the story of how my first spinning became finished knitting.

I'm so proud of this project, because it is a study in gruelling hard work and perseverance. I had bought the roving before I even had a wheel or knew how to spin, on the advice of a sheep-show vendor who, when I asked her whether it would be too much for a beginner to handle, said "I'd go for it. I'm a both-feet-in kind of person."

So am I, I thought, and I went for it too. At times I was so frustrated I wanted to burn the lot, but I set my teeth and grimly carried on, drafting all wrong, overtwisting, underplying, stripping the roving down to a frayed and frazzled thing....and ended up with 1010 meters of ropy yarn experiment. But it was the weight I was shooting for, and it was an incredibly valuable learning experience.

As dubious as the finished yarn was, I picked a pattern, cast on, and worked on that sucker til it was done. My hands hurt (did I mention "ropy"? I think so.) and I had to rip it out twice, but it is finished and blocked and ready to wear.

And I have a little list going, of mistakes I'll not make again.

Thanks for your patience on the knitting posts. And, hey! This is the first one in..............oh my gosh. I just checked. LONG TIME.

Anyway, Carry On! I shall be back soon, with more of something-or-other.

----------------------------

* Shit. Remind me not to drape my lace over my spinning wheel in the name of artistic photography. It got caught on a hook. ("The bolt of Tash falls from above!")

Reinventing the wheel.

My cousin came to my door the other day with her favourite sweater in hand. "I was at a client's," she said, "and her cat chewed a hole in it."

She was very specific - she wasn't asking me to fix it, she was asking me to show her how to fix it, but...this is a beginning knitter, never darned a stitch in her life, talking to me about a hole in her sweater. Just the thought of explaining exactly how to do it made me tired. I did try, but after a few minutes I said "Y'know what? leave it with me."

I pulled it out this afternoon and examined it, reflecting with a frown that I don't think I have anything remotely like this yarn in the stash...I'm certainly not going to use contrasting yarn...what to do, what to do.

Wait a second - do I have roving in this colour? I'm pretty sure I do.

So now I can say I've drafted, spindle-spun, and plied a .7 meter long piece of Twist of Fate top in order to fix a cardigan bearing this tag:

(Made in China. By Joe. 70% acrylic, 20% wool, 5% mohair, 5% alpaca. At least they got 30% of it right.)

That's me: needlessly complicating things for over 30 years. A fine tradition of pointless excellence.

El Fruitablo

Elizabeth, at the end of this post I respond to your question about the Easter dress.
____________________________________
And another one's gone
and another one's down...

Weeks just keep flowing by and I barely notice.

Work continues on the Shetland project: I have finished all the washing and am carding and spinning. I've done two skeins of grey (showed you that before) and two skeins of white.

The white fleece, which I have the most of, was the dirtiest one of all. In the words of my shepherd boy, "She's a real pig." This ewe rolls in anything she finds, and the day before she was shorn, got into the woodchip pile and wriggled down deep. Have a gander at her fleece, soaking in the tub:



and this is what the water looked like afterwards (three washes like this, then two rinses, gets most of it out):




The dirt isn't the problem though - the woodchips and grass seed are the problem. There's only one way to remove that: card, card, and then card again. When you're done carding, card it a few more times. Couple more times through the carders for good measure, keeping your tweezers handy to pick out more grass seed, and then give up and roll it into a rolag. What you didn't get out in the washing and carding, you have to pick out as you spin the singles.

I borrowed this little sweetie from the guild the other day: it's not as helpful as I thought it would be though. Turns out wool is like bread: if you want it done right, you have to finish by hand.



Spinning outside is lovely nowadays, but I have to get out there early - by 10:30 the shade is mostly gone from the back garden, and I need shade: it is hot. 42 today (109.4). Hot enough, as Auntie Bina says, to make the tongue of a crow hang out.

The garden has bloomed


faded

and gone to seed

These pictures will get bigger if you click on them.

As hot as it is, though, these little dudes don't seem bothered by it. They're the only ones hard at it, in the scorching sun. Talk about a work ethic.
Notice that the children have stripped my lavandula angustifolia Hidcote - they were making potions last week and had to use the better part of six lavender plants' worth of blooms, to create an effective curse. I didn't ask what they were cursing - it sounded like the answer might be "The neighbour's house" and I wanted to be sure of plausible deniability, later. In the event that they turn out to be unexpectedly good at hexes, though, with that much lavender I imagine the effect won't be anything more ominous than a sudden lassitude followed by fits of remarkably soothing narcolepsy.

And maybe softer skin.

The shade garden is doing fairly well - thanks Rona for the Lady's Mantle. The best part about alchemilla vulgaris is the way it looks after you've watered. Not that you can tell - in this weather the water is mostly gone within minutes.

Lastly, here's my beautiful, chilled dinner - isn't it lovely?

I have no idea what the other people who live here will be eating: I suspect I'll have to turn a burner on at some point, but only when I'm forced to.

________________________________________

In response to Elizabeth's question on the Easter Dress post:

I suspect the pattern piece you're trying to lay out is supposed to be cut on a single layer. Double-check that, and if it still doesn't fit, cut two and seam them together. The skirt is just a huge square (rectangle?) anyway, so it won't affect the fit. Just try to make sure the seam lands on a side, and matches with the side seam of the bodice when sewn. It IS possible that the dress is designed for 60" fabric only, and that your one particular piece won't fit on a 44" fabric, if that's what you have. Sometimes that happens - it just means you seam the piece and have to buy a little extra. Good luck! If you have any questions, ask me again. Maybe email me at the address in the sidebar, so I know how to get in touch.

Wish you were here

I'm startled to see that it has been 8 days since I posted. But, really, if you were here, doing this, would you be thinking about blogging?

My new favourite thing to do, and the number one reason that none of my family's dinners has been on time for, like, days.

There's something so satisfying about the whickering wheel, wind in the trees behind my house, and industrious birdsong all mingling together into a contented, busy euphony. I could spend whole days here.

Yesterday a butterfly came to rest on one maiden as I was spinning. It was only there for a second before it wafted away.

The weekends are full of my neighbours' power tools and top-forty radios, but Monday through Friday, after all their cars have charged off for work and daycare, the birds and the wheel and I make a gentler music for my neighbourhood.

Great and Powerful Oz

My friend emailed me today with a cautious inquiry as to my health...apparently I've been a little too silent.

Definitely the blog has suffered, the last few months, from a lack of action on my part. Especially the crafty stuff - it's not that I haven't been doing it, I just haven't been telling you about it.

Knitting

My feet have been cold lately, so I finished a pair of "Grown-up Booties" from Ysolda's book "Whimsical Little Knits". Well, I've finished one, and the second one is half done. I am going to be about 5 grams short of yarn, so I'll pick up some more from the Farmer's Market on Sunday.

The yarn is from a flock of Border Cheviot, locally grown for wool and meat. They are raised about 25 minutes from here, and processed in a cool little mill in Alberta. The colour is natural - no bleaching or dyeing. It's a heavy aran weight.

Spinning

I've finished the first skein of Shetland yarn from Aiden's flock. My long-term goal for this wool is to create a fair-isle palette of natural colours, blending the wool on the carders to make the various shades. I started with the natural grey, which started out as a three-colour fleece - the tips are warm, light brown, the middle of the lock is cool grey, and there is white next to the skin. Sadly, of course, the colour gradations are lost in the carding, but in the skein all three colours are present, giving the finished yarn depth and complexity that a single colour wouldn't have.

This is my first long-draw skein. Things get a little uneven in places but I love the overall effect - not to mention the incredibly fast process. The skein is a heavy-fingering/sport-weight 2-ply - I haven't done the wraps per inch nor the yardage yet.

I had a half-bobbin of singles left over -with this much raw fleece, I am not worried about making the singles ply out evenly. I just fill two bobbins more or less, and ply away. The process is interesting. I've developed a contemplative, long-range view for this project, due to the sheer size of it. You can't expect to have all the fleece washed in one day, and you can only spin as much as you've carded, and you can only ply as much as you've got bobbin-space for...I like it. It's impossible to hurry. I've done as much plying as I have singles, and I've spun all the rolags I've carded, so now it's time to card again.

This week is for carding, then, and next week I'll be able to spin some more singles. Once I've got another 100 grams or so of the natural grey, I'll start carding some white and grey together for blended rolags to spin an intermediate shade.

I took some garden pictures to show you, but a baffling 'internal error' has stymied me. Blogger is vague as to whether the error is internal to them, or internal to me. Perhaps next time.

Longdrew

I finished spinning the Romney - now that I've really got the hang of the longdraw, I can't believe how fast it was. One evening to do the second bobbin, a day to let it rest, and less than an hour to ply.



I ended up with 136 grams of a 12 wraps-per-inch 2-ply, with an estimated 230 meters. This puts into the worsted-weight category, which was a little heavier than I was going for - I was aiming at DK. Still and all, it'll make a nice something-or-other.

I've started spinning the Shetland, now that I'm comfortable with the woollen longdraw, and the other night I filled a bobbin in an awfully short time. I will be spinning and plying this fleece one ball at a time, apparently - using two bobbins of singles onto two bobbins of 2-ply. I had wanted to do a whole bunch of singles before plying, but I've not got the bobbin space for that. I've only got four bobbins for my wheel (I have three Ashford bobbins but they are shorter in the shaft-length so I have to futz about jimmying washers to keep the tension line from hitting the flyer arms as I spin).

No pictures of Shetland singles yet - next time.

Friday I am doing a performance (real, honest-to-goodness, darkened-theatre gala performance) for which a lot of rehearsal with duet partners is necessary, so I might not post again this week.

Might, though.

Today, tomorrow, and Thursday are good days for planting and transplanting. I went to a local charity plant sale last weekend and have been anxiously waiting to put in all the perennials I bought. I also acquired a hazelnut tree for a song (less than $5) because, I think, it has been chomped by a deer while a seedling. The central trunk is cut off about 2" from the ground and the tree has already started branching below this pollard - it'll be interesting to see how it grows in the next few years.

I think I'll do hanging baskets this year - tips? I've worked out that you need to stuff those suckers fuller than full, and feed them like Hansel and Gretel, but any other less well-known wisdom would be very welcome.

I think they'll be full sun.

Well the great, blustery outdoors awaits. Off I go to get dirty.

The Camel's Back

That's a possessive - as in 'straw' - not a contraction, as in 'welcome back, camel'.

No more words. No time. Only captions. Enjoy.

Sorting. Far left - washed & drying. Centre - picked ready to be washed. Far right - waiting to be picked. Bottom - compost.

Shetland rolags - tricolour foreground, white (faun?) behind.

White Shetland locks washed and ready for carding. Quite a bit of feed contamination in this fleece.

The Romney is all carded - 139 rolags altogether. (Disappointed with the amount of second-cut in this fleece. Wish I hadn't paid $2.50/oz for it. Got robbed.) Divided them in half, spun one half in 24 hours, using my newly-acquired spinning technique which is SO FAST and which everyone should know. I love it. I want to marry it.

Romney Bobbin love, up close. English Woollen Longdraw, Be Mine.

Comin' to the end. I'll be happy to see the back of this one.

Cheeky. If only it were that easy.

Oh, and.....what the heck was I supposed to be doing? Oh, yeah - de-ignoranting my children. This is Science.

Unless you wanna help.

Everyone who's anyone has only one question to ask Shannon these days. Phrasing includes the following direct quotes:



"How is Fern coming along?"
"Did you finish that sweater you were working on at my house the other day?"
"...so what's the news on Fern??"
"Are you done that sweater you were knitting for Ruby?"



In answer I give you Blocking Day:



And the sleeves, blocking together to ensure they match:




After it's dry, I'll knit on the collar, sew on the buttons, seam up, and then embroider the fiddleheads all around the bottom of the coat.


And this would only take me a couple of days, if it weren't for the rest of my life, which threatens to overwhelm at the moment.



Tomorrow is our troupe's hafla - a belly dance party for dancers only. It's a fantastic time, but of course Yours Truly is responsible for what will amount to six hours of work tomorrow (plus cleanup afterwards) and making several pairs of sparkly gauntlets I'll be selling to try to make back the cost of the party itself. If I sell ten pairs, I can also pay for the $125 Exotic Fibers spinning class I'm hoping to take in September.


And speaking of spinning, now we come to the most truly urgent of all my present obligations. My friend's son, eleven years of age, (reads the blog when the post is appropriate - Hi Aidan!) has a flock of about eight Shetland sheep. He is a knitter, but wants to learn how to spin. His sheep were shorn on Monday morning, and guess who got

All.
The.
Wool.





Raw fleece needs to be washed within a few days of shearing, before the lanolin hardens on the wool. I have about six raw fleeces here, each weighing 2-4 pounds. Each fleece needs to be sorted into grades before it's washed.





Once it's washed (by hand and at 140 degrees Fahrenheit), it gets spread between sheets outside on the grass, where the diffuse sunlight and spring wind will hopefully (Oh Please) dry it fairly quickly.


So please - no more questions about how my world is revolving these days. Unless - well, y'know.

It's been - One Week since you looked at me.

That was kind of a long break. Things got away from me a little.

Actually I was busy. See?

Fern is coming along beautifully. I thought this would take me forever, but no - the end is nearly in sight. I'm 3/4 done the first sleeve.

The ends will take me a fair few days to weave in, though.

Spinning

I finished spinning the purple top, and ended up with two bobbins of nearly the same size. I let them rest for a couple of days, during which The Intentional Spinner arrived, and I got to read all about plying.

Judith tells me that you should rewind your bobbins before plying - that it evens out the twist and makes for a smoother finished yarn. Yes'm, boss, I said, and, not having a bobbin winder, spooled it onto my ball winder over a TP core to keep the centre from twisting inward.

It turns out Judith was right - I could feel the twist running up and down the length of the single "like water", as she promised. The singles were much more even afterwards. And if you're going to try this, you get the best results with a long distance between the lazy kate and the winding device - I placed mine about seven or eight feet apart.

I popped the two balls of singles onto the lazy kate, and started plying. HORRIBLE MESS. The TP core wouldn't spin properly on the shaft of the kate, so the singles started slipping off the edge of the ball, and snarling themselves around it. Then they'd break, or too many strands would slip off at once and they'd become hopelessly tangled in plybacks. I had to break out quite a few sections of singles, and couldn't seem to get them to splice together properly. I got very frustrated.

When I say I got very frustrated, I mean I almost went off in an apoplexy.

I put the balls of singles into two separate bowls, and let them roll around while I plied. Still not an ideal solution - I think I'll be hunting around for a bobbin winder.

I started out by adding approximately the same amount of twist as I had put into the singles - did this for about 25 meters before I tried hanging a loop, and realised I was putting in about twice as many twists as I should be.

I ended up putting in four foot-beats per arms' length of yarn, then two to reel it onto the bobbin. That seemed to work out well, and before long (actually it was exactly the length of Batman Begins) it was all done.

I skeined it

and it's soaking now.

Until it's dry and swatched, I won't know if it's at all useful or successful. I can confidently say, though, that I spun this too hard. Being a novice, I did what felt right. This turned out, on further research, to be the "worsted draw"...easy to spin, but man does it kill all the softness in the yarn. Live and learn, though - I'll be working on my woollen draw for the next project, the Romney.

Well Begun is Half Done. Again.

It seems I've run out of post titles - this one sounded familiar (more than just Mary-Poppins familiar) and it turns out I've used it before. It is apt - and therefore it will stand.

I started to feel like I was half done the merino/silk top I bought at the Cowichan Fleece & Fibre Festival, but I couldn't find the label for it, which would have told me how much it weighed in the first place. I ended up getting around it by weighing an empty bobbin, the full bobbin, and the remainder of the top.*


This photo makes the top look silver - it is far more purple in real life (i.e., without a flash).

The empty bobbin was 50 grams, the full was 150 grams, and the remainder of the top was 100 grams. So I was exactly (well, as much as my analog scale can be exact) halfway through.


Switched bobbins, tied on a new leader, and am now on the downhill part of this, my first spinning project.

Speaking of, Annalea asked how much I had spun before embarking on this purple. The first yarn I ever spun was those few meters of corriedale, shown in their entirety in this post. I tried to get the photo in here, but linky be brokey.

After that - which I did at my niece's drop-spinning lesson - I spun a bit of Briggs & Little pencil roving. I had to stop when I got a sore shoulder from the vertical draw. I don't know how much is on there, but it isn't a greal deal. I do plan to ply it onto itself eventually, though there won't be much finished yarn.



After this purple laceweight (hopefully it's laceweight) is done, I have a new project planned. I bought this fleece from Knotty by Nature, the new spinning shop in Victoria. It is a Metchosin-raised Romney cross, washed but not picked (grass bits removed) or carded. I wish you could reach in and touch this wool - it is intensely warm. I will be hand carding it in batches, spinning as I go. I haven't decided what to shoot for in terms of weight, but my copy of Intentional Spinner was shipped today and I expect it by the end of the week....Judith can help me plan this yarn.



And this is my daughter's depiction of me at the wheel. She drew it for the "Living Room" portion of the "What is Going on in Our House" bit in her family newsletter. I think I look a little like Whistler's mother here - I quite like it.


I think I may need to work on my posture, though.


=================
*I don't know whether this stuff I'm spinning is "top" or what - not sure about all the terms yet. I think it's a sliver.....right? (pronounced SLY-ver) but I think that just refers to the long ropyness of it.

Warm Fuzzies.

Aw, y'all are so sweet! Thank you for being so staunch in your defense of my right to post about knitting. You made me all verklempt. (Well, I'm just joking about that part. I'm not actually crying.)

Today is a special day. One year ago on this very day, our little Piper slithered into the world, probably hogging more than his fair share of placenta, and already claimed by us. Happy birthday, buddy!


What a sterling visage.

And in Sheltie Appreciation Part II, Messy Tuesday is visible - thanks to Anna who commanded I post more messy pictures, to cheer her up. Look behind the dog, friends - that's my living room. I usually crop those bits out.


I have some jobs to do today - mostly involving cleaning up getting ready to leave tomorrow for a week-long family visit. I won't be blogging until I get back, so you can just wander through the archives if you're looking for something to distract you from your own life.

Here is the promised picture of my first bobbin of singles.....ain't it pretty? I realised I forgot to take a picture of the fibre, so I'll have to do that for next time.


Everyone else seems to take pictures of their spinning using a dime for scale, so here is the Bluenose to provide a little perspective.





I'm off to Postes Canada Post now, to mail this:



and then I will be absent until next week. (Barring a Friday post I've got queued up - isn't scheduled publishing wonderful?)


Kiss Kiss