Weird things and hat experiments

Weird things I've noticed lately -

I started to read a novel - just some random ebook to that was an obvious "story" and a work of fiction, only to find a notice at the beginning of the book that this was a work of fiction, and not true.  Is this a thing now, that we have to warn people that a story, which is obviously a made up story has to have a warning that this is fiction and not true?   I worry about humanity's future.

Kevin has been behaving nicely.  What's with that?

All the lemons on my little lemon tree house plant, ripened at once.   Now I have to figure out what to cook with 11 lemons over the next couple of weeks.

Many years ago, I subscribed to the only spinning magazine available.  In one issue was a felted hat made with handspun, and a pattern for it.   Not being a regular crocheter, I was careful about following the pattern.  I  ended up with this huge football shaped thing which would fit nobody's head.  I contacted the company concerned that there might have been a missing instruction or something, only to get  a rather curt and rude reply that there were no typos or missing instructions and the fault was my own. A few years later, I had learned  bit more about crochet, and I tried carefully to keep my gauge to same as they instructions suggested and follow the pattern.   Again, I ended up with something that didn't even resemble a hat.   

I decided that 3rd time was the charm.   I watched some crochet videos. I made sure I had the recommended hook.  I practiced until I new for sure I had the correct gauge.   I followed the instructions, knowing that I was ending on the correct stitch and had the right number of stitches on each row.  I ripped and remade any row which might not have been correct.  With much anticipation, I felted this new hat in the washer and put it through the drying cycle.  I took it out and did this whole felting routine 2 more times just to make sure...

This football shaped hat will fit nobody I know.  It was still huge, with something like a 28 inch head circumference and comes down past my nose in depth.  I have come to the conclusion that I'm missing something in those instructions.   It's too bad because I liked all the yarn that I used on those hats, some handspun and this one not, in order to try to keep it within the pattern parameters.  I will be looking for a new hat pattern. 

Eeek how time flies

A perfect gluten free and dairy free pumpkin pie.  The crust turned out to be quite easy to work with, unlike my previous attempts at gluten free pie crust.   The pumpkin was one I processed myself and the whole pie turned out to be not overly sweet with a tender crust which wasn't soggy or gritty.    It was absolutely delicious.   It was pretty too!

 The navy and brightly coloured yarn plied together.   This is the partial bobbin that I'd spun up as a tester.  I'm still spinning the rest of the navy for the full bobbin.   It definitely subdued the bright colours, but since I was worried about muddying the colours up when they were plied, this is definitely not muddy!  I rather like this combination of colours, even though I'm not always a huge fan of marled yarns.

I had just about 100 g of superwash merino left in the bag.  I tossed it in the pot with some brown, blue and black dye.    I'm really happy with this bit of fibre.  I like the more subdued colours in this batch.  It's a bit of a change from the bright colours I often use.  I used weak acid dyes, with a low immersion technique.





It's been crazy busy here.  Some days I didn't even get a chance to practice the banjo because it felt like I was hardly home.   The grey, wet weather has been putting a damper on things too, as it's been delaying projects.


I made this hat.  I need to needle felt some decorations for it.  I made a second hat in a different style, without the brim, which is going to get some embroidery on it, if I get the time.

Felting and spinning and spinning and spinning

 It was Textile Day at Westfield yesterday.  I ran an activity for making wet felted beads.   These are the samples I made up ahead of time.  I have another container full, but it's in that super safe place and really, I didn't have the energy to dig it up.  It was easier to just make new ones.  I started decorating a couple of them just because.   Most of the kids and adults who made a bead, had a great time and were very successful. We made necklaces and bracelets with a little bit of embroidery floss.   Once people started coming in, it was non-stop beadmaking.    I haven't been that tired at the end of a Westfield day in a while.   Silly me though.  I'd brought my wheel and some cotton to spin during the down times.   I probably got 4 or 5 yards of cotton spun as there was no down time during the whole afternoon. 

Just a heads up that if you come to Westfield on Sept. 2nd, I'm currently planning to churn ice cream!   Yay!   That's a good way to end the summer. 

 When I got home, we had a campfire.  I picked some of the drying Tigerlily (those orange ditch lilies) leaves and turned them into cordage.   My sweetie thought it was a lot of work, but really, I was sitting around the campfire doing nothing otherwise.  Now I have 2 metres of cordage suitable for basketry.   I'm drying some of the still green leaves to see if they make a difference in workability.   I wonder if bull rush leaves would work as well?   There are a bunch in the ditch, up the road!

 This is some ramie I dyed when I was first playing with Fibre Reactive dyes.   It is definitely a bold colour.   The ramie sliver was pretty compacted when I was done dyeing.  I tried shaking it out,  spreading the fibres manually, carding the fibres and then finally just stripping the sliver into thin bits.   The carding worked reasonably well, but of course was extra work.  The stripping into thin bits of sliver worked the best though and was quite fast.   There was a fair bit of short bits and neps in this fibre, but it looks pretty decent despite that.

This is more ramie.  The right skein I spun up in the past two days.   It was a bit of roving which was perfect.  All long staple lengths, with no short bit or neps.  It flew out of my hands and onto the wheel.  It was a joy to spin.  The skein on the left is from a previous batch of this same colourway.  What a difference in dye lots!   Just a reminder to get enough of one dye lot if you need it for a particular project.   I didn't believe they were the same colourway at first, but I'd been storing the skeins in their original packets, and sure enough - same colourway, just a different colour.   It won't really matter for what I have in mind though, so I'm happy enough with it.

I've two projects to put on the loom, which I'd planned to do over the summer.  I guess since summer is almost over, I should get started on those.   :)