A Jumble of Things

 

I realized that the placement of the border flowers wasn't working with the size of the hoop I was using to hook with.   I kept having to adjust things to not crush the flower centres, which are large sequins.   I dragged out the PVC frame which hubby had made me, but I wasn't using because I need another couple of clamps to hold the rug secure for hooking it.   However, the border is narrow enough that it worked well when I tried it.   It saves the sequins from getting crushed, and holds it tight enough in the area I need for hooking.   

There is an issue though, that proves to stop my hooking completely.  I set up the frame, tighten the rug down the rug.  As soon as Phil notices, he watches until I reach for my hook and wool.  Then he flies up, and settles under the frame for a nap.  Silly kitty...

On the plus side, using this frame when there isn't a cat hiding under it has made the border hook quite quick.  The first 3 sides are almost complete, so Yay!

After a huge fiasco when I ordered my Pysanky dyes this year, I've finally been able to start writing the eggs.   I'd ordered the dyes at the beginning of February.  The store sent them, but neglected to send me the promised tracking number, so I didn't know they'd been sent, and apparently delivered.  However they weren't delivered to me, despite the shops insistence.   Finally they sent me the tracking number, which enabled me to use the post office's miserable virtual assistance, to find out that they had put the wrong address on it.  It was back to the store, where they said that they'd resend the packet, and then decided that they should charge me a second time.  I was nope, I'm not paying twice for one package because you made the mistake.   I had to dig up all the documentation for them, to see that I had indeed paid, and they were "oops, it slipped my mind".   Needless to say, as much as I've purchased from them before, I'll be searching out a new supplier and only using this store if I actually go to the city to shop in person.

The sap is running.    We have some buckets out but I think it's too early.  Hubby is happy with the timing though and since he does most of the boiling down, his opinion has a bit more weight than mine.    He took the buckets down yesterday afternoon because a big storm was blowing in, with snow, snow thunder and winds.

 The storm dumped almost 30 cm of snow on us: heavy, wet snow.  It took him all morning in a couple of shifts to clear the driveway and blow out paths to the bird feeder and barn. Today the skies were blue and the sun was shining.   It was hard to believe that they said we had blizzard conditions for hours last night.

Pysanky Supplies Kudos

It's the time of year when I start writing Pysanky.  I may have started a couple of weeks early this year, but last year I felt rushed.   My daughter was running into the city, fairly close to the Ukrainian Store, so I had her pop in and pick me up some dyes.   They carry the traditional dyes, and a couple of brands which have a larger variety of modern colours.  This year though, they have a new brand of traditional colours.  I had my daughter pick up a few of the new traditional dyes to try them out.    The blue is quite intense, but the pink that I'd tried, took me 40 minutes, or maybe more to soak to get a quite pale colour.   I thought maybe there was an issue so I contacted the company.

I'll have to admit that the response from Ukrainian Eggcessories was amazing.  I messaged the company on the weekend and on Monday, they popped, not 1 replacement packet but 2 in the mail.    The difference was quite noticeable.  The top egg is dyed with the first packet of pink dye, which was called Cream Soda Pink - yum.   It took 40 minutes of soaking in the dye to get that colour.    The bottom egg is with a single packet of the replacement dye, again Cream Soda pink - yum.   This is after 5 minutes in the dye.  

(As an aside, Cream Soda is a pop/fizzy drink flavour, which in Canada and apparently no place else in the world, is dyed a lurid pink.  The rest of the world gets clear Cream Soda.)

I'm super impressed with the other colours I've tried, and the replacement packet of pink is a gorgeous colour.   I will have to say I'm sold on this company and next year, I intend to order my Pysanky supplies from Ukrainian Eggcessories.
With customer service like that, I think it's a no-brainer. 

However, this isn't a disparagement of my usual source of Pysanky supplies.  They have a nice supply, their service is good and I would highly recommend them to anyone going into the city.  However, having a reliable mail order supplier with great customer service, means I don't have to go to the city, or get someone else to do it for me.  That's definitely a win in my mind.

 I hung my laundry out the other day.  It was sunny and mild.  I love the first day I get to hand laundry.   The sheets smelled wonderful.  I love that spring, outdoor, sun-kissed, fresh air smell on the laundry.

I've some Ramie top on the wheel right now, in a lovely colour called earth.  It's a really nice brown and because it is ramie, it has a bit of a sheen.   This top has been really nice to spin, although when I stopped last night, my non-drafting fingers (the ones holding the fibre) were black with either dirt or excess dye.  Still, the yarn should be quite nice when done and any dye or dirt will get washed out when I wet finish it.


I'm still plodding away on the inkle loom with the pick-up pattern.   I did the math and I still have 2 weeks to go before I finish, if and only if, I manage to do my 3 inches a day.   I'm guessing that there will be a few days it won't happen, so it will likely be closer to 3 weeks.  

I had a single skein of a white tweed yarn which was exceptionally ugly.  It was bright white with some dots of colour and it looked totally wrong.  I dyed it a grey which in reality is a bit darker than this photo.  I started making mittens with it.  The first mitten was almost done but every time I looked at it, I saw fingerless mitts instead.   I ended up ripping back the first mitt and changing it up.  There are a bit shorter than I normally make fingerless mitts.  I usually like them to come up past my knuckles, to keep my fingers warm.  However I've found that when they are that long, they don't lend themselves to activities like spinning or playing the banjo.  So these shorter ones allow for those sorts of activities easily. 

I need to set up a Pysanky work station, so I can start on Easter Eggs this year.   My daughter was in the city, so she stopped by the shop and picked up a few dyes that I needed.  There was a new brand out, the same price as the basic dyes so I got her to get a few so I can sample them for differences.   I'm wondering though if they are just the traditional dyes, repackaged.   Different colour names, all with a Canadian cultural theme, but with the similar price point and a similar colour selection, it could be the same dyes, in a different envelope.

Just a little update...

 The kitchen back splash has been taking up a lot of time.  It's just plain white subway tile with white grout but it works with the already colourful kitchen.   The white lightens up the under the cupboard area.     Because the only time there's been to work on this, has been a couple of hours in the evenings, it seems to be taking a while to get done.  I think that when you just count the hours though, it's been pretty quick.

A friend just bought a new place and it is surrounded by Ash trees, which have been decimated by the Emerald Ash Borer.   He's had to take down about 40 of them, which he offered to us.   So the tile project and every other project, has been in between loads of wood.   I'm pretty sure my sweetie is happy to get to play with his chain saw.    There is still lots to get but the ground around  the area is just thawing and the truck almost got stuck - hmmmm there's a country song in that line somewhere - so we're waiting for the ground to dry out a bit. 

I'm still working on Pysanky.  That quartered oak leaf design took hours to make, though I rather impressed myself with it.   The green one with waves is an attempt at a reproduction of one of the earliest pysanky found still mainly intact.  The description says it might have had two colours as well as the white but I used only the one.   It's apparently a wave pattern.   It's a quartered pattern as well, and all those little lines took forever as well.  The original was done on a goose egg.  Mine is just a chicken egg.

The brown egg design is wobbly.   It shows what happens when you put on a video while trying to write pysanky.   It just doesn't work very well.

Other than that -  Banjo!   I had to fiddle around a bit figureing out why I was in a bit of a playing funk.   It turns out I wasn't happy with the very blue grass music my books and music had, and with a bit of effort, I found a new direction in a more melodic format, which is keeping me busy.... and happy... and waiting now for a set of new strings to come in at the local music shop as they think everyone should play with medium strings and not the princess light weight ones.  I have to order them every time I need them.... sigh...

Yarn disaster, lovely days and Pysanky

While it snowed again and was blustery last night, earlier in the week it was warm enough to hang laundry outside, two days in a row no less!   It was gloriously warm and sunny, with a bit of a breeze so all the laundry actually dried completely as well.  I like hanging the laundry out, so when we get a couple of bonus days like we just had, I always try to take advantage of them.

I finished plying the first skein of the Merino/Alpaca blend I've been spinning.   Last night I washed it and hung it to dry.  I even paid attention to where I was hanging the skein, to try to keep it out of reach from kitty paws and jaws.   However this morning, despite my efforts, the skein was messed up and chewed to pieces.  Nobody knows which kitty it was though and not a single kitty it looking at it as if it were prey today.    So is yarn only a toy at night?   It seems that all the cats will ignore it during the day but it is fair game in the dark.   Now I need to find a safer place to dry skeins! 

I'm calling these my warm up Pysanky.   I'm doing a demo at the end of the month and need some samples.  Knowing how long it takes to write each egg, I thought that I'd start early.  I'm pretty happy with these two eggs, though the contast on the blue and turquoise one could be a bit better.

  I'm hoping to have not only a selection of different designs to show, but eggs in different stages of decoration to work on during the demo.  I think it would be easier to show to process that way, rather than just explain it while working on eggs as it takes even longer to decorate an egg while talking.     I will definitely try to keep them a bit safer from little hands this year.  I'm getting my daughter to do a supply run to the Ukrainian store in the city for me.   I'm trading her maple syrup and maybe some pie ;)

This week's wrap up

This was another week where it felt like I didn't accomplish very much, but I know that I did.  The grey skies and torrential downpours certainly didn't help, not did the intermittent wifi connections which seem to mess everything up, especially watching the hockey play offs.   On Easter Sunday I was at Westfield, where I demonstrated Pysanky making.   I love talking with the visitors as there are some really interesting people.  I did keep one egg from slithering off in the hands of a very sneaky child, but lost one to a lollipop laden child who drooled on one egg, causing the dyes to run.    I moved the tablecloth back before I started working with the wax and lit candle, so that I didn't drip on it.

The second skein of S twist singles from the Falkland top is off the wheel and wet finished.   It is ready to go but I'm trying  to decide whether to dye it with natural dyes or if I should just use acid dyes.   It shouldn't be such a big deal I guess, but right now the husband is making the new counters, making thorough planning a necessity.  There is no way I want to be caught finishing up a dyeing project when he wants to be fussing with the new countertops.   The small one done for an learning experience is gorgeous, so counters get the go ahead and dyeing takes the back seat for the moment. I'm waiting to put the spin patterned project on the loom until the yarn is dyed.  It really is easier to dye the yarn than the yardage.  There are probably close to 1200 yards in total of the singles, spun 38-40 wpi.  I'll definitely be putting on a dummy warp for this project.

I thought I was out of the naturally coloured cotton, with only a small sample packet of the varieties of "easy spin" cotton sliver.   However I found 100 g of naturally green cotton hiding on a shelf.  I started spinning it up just to keep the cotton technique going.  Cotton sliver is often easier to spin from one end than the other.  This seems to have an oddness about it and I find myself switching from end to end sometimes, just because it seems to want to clump in places.  Other areas seem to spin normally.  I'm finding those awkward areas are prone to a bit of uneven spinning, which makes me a bit unhappy.  That being said, it's still pretty nice yarn.  It will be plied together and get tossed in my bag of plied cotton waiting for a bigger project.

This is the main reason  for feeling like I've been a bit unproductive.  I've wanted to play the banjo for about 20 years but they aren't cheap instruments and there was always something more important.   However, one of these fell into my hands last week.   It is awesome and I've been practicing and practicing.   It's a bit slow going because I have little experience with stringed instruments.  However it is indeed going forward and I'm making some progress.   Without any instructors locally, I'm currently relying on a series of online lessons available through the library, several other online lessons, a couple of books and a husband who doesn't play the banjo, but plays other stringed instruments and is helping me out.   There are two main styles, of which I am currently playing neither, but I'm playing, so I figure all is good.   

Now if only the sun would shine, because I'm tired of all this grey weather.

Pysanky Process

Apparently, like icons, pysanky are written, not drawn.   There is lots of symbolism in the designs.  The first found wax resist dyed egg dates from about the 15th century.  There are decorated eggs found from the neolithic era, although they are made of ceramic.   There is an ancient history for decorated eggs, that is for sure.

 2 kistka and a beeswax disk used to draw the wax lines on the eggs.   The small, pointed tip of the kistka is heated in a candle flame, then dipped in the wax, which melts and fills the reservoir, allowing lines to be drawn on the egg shell, like a pen.   Lightly drawn pencil lines can be used as guidelines, especially useful for long, straight lines.  The beeswax turns black when the candle soot mixes in.   This makes the wax easier to see on the egg, but doesn't affect the outcome.

 All the areas which you want to be white are covered with wax first.  The the egg is dipped into the first colour.   Once the egg is dyed to the desired depth of colour, it is removed from the dye and allowed to dry.  Then the areas which you want to be the next colour are covered with wax.   Here the orange egg has been dyed twice, with the white, yellow and orange areas covered with wax.  The dyes need to be applied in a particular order.  Green can contaminate other colours so is often painted in areas specifically and then covered, rather than dipping the whole egg in the dye.  Blue and green are usually dyed before red, but the blue will make the red turn a bit purple, so it is useful to plan out the colours ahead of time.  Brown eggs may not show all the colours clearly and the colours won't be as bright s on white eggs.

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 The orange egg has been dyed red, but of course I took the photo before the red areas were covered.  The yellow egg took quite a while to cover all those triangles.   It took several hours in 2 different sessions.   You would think that the black sooty wax would show the areas missed when trying to completely cover an area, but it doesn't really.  

To remove the wax after all the dyeing is complete, the egg is held near the flame and the wax is wiped off as it melts.  You can only do a small area at a time as the wax cools down fairly quickly.  I'm a little disappointed in the yellow dye.  It has weakened fairly quickly and it doesn't dye the eggs evenly.  I don't know if that is an issue with the eggs or the dye.  Because of the weakness of the yellow dye, the contrast on the yellow and white triangles isn't quite enough to be really effective.  On the other hand, the purple egg, which is a replacement for the one I found cracked, is much nicer than the one that I originally made. 
I've 6 finished, although I really made 8, but 2 had cracks in them.   I might have time to make 1 or 2 more before I need them to fill the Easter Basket.

The week before Easter

I cut the purple waffle weave off the loom on Sunday and wet finished it.   I started sewing between each piece, to secure the threads when I ran out of thread of an appropriate colour.  I had no white thread left and only purple of an odd shade which looked horrid with the towels.  I had to go to town anyway yesterday, to get to the guild room, run some errands and get my cute little car in for an oil change, so I just added one more stop to pick up some thread.  Hopefully I'll get started on hemming the face cloths tonight.  This run of face clothes was done at a sett of 24, which makes for a very nice looking fabric.  I'm going to do a comparison of the waffle weave I did at sett 20 and these at sett 24.   The slightly looser ones have a lovely drape are are soft and absorbent when in use.  It will be interesting to see if these work the same way.

I started on the candy for the Easter Basket.  Milk chocolate rooster lollipops and peanut butter filled, dark chocolate frogs.  This is pretty easy stuff, melt the chocolate, pour in a mould, chill till hardened, pop the candy out and bag.  The gold twist ties make them look special though.  I wonder if I should get some jelly beans to add a bit of candy colour?

Every Easter basket needs Easter eggs.   It is hard to believe that it takes about 3 hours per egg to make these, and these are simple pysanky, done mainly freehand.  There are fancy electric kistka, the stylus used to spread the wax, lathes to make lines perfectly straight and even etc.  I just use a candle, a little tub of beeswax and very basic kistka, although I have 3 different sizes for thick, medium and thin lines. The one on the bottom right egg was cracked, so I need to make a replacement.   The blue egg, has turquoise details, but the colours are too similar to show well.  I'll redo that egg as well. I was supposed to demonstrate these on Friday, and then could give them to my kids on Sunday.  I was going to use these as samples for the demo.  However, because of a work schedule, we're gathering on Friday, so the original plan won't work, if I'm able to switch the demo to Sunday.   Not sure how I'm dealing with that yet.

I just realized that this stuff should all have been done last week, to keep this shorter week less rushed.   I guess that didn't work out in my planning.