Cotton, Cloaks and more Cotton

The first 2 bobbins of the sage cotton have been plied.   The yarn looks amazing considering how different it was to spin, than the cinnamon cotton.  Cotton sliver and punis usually have a grain, so it spins smoothly from one end and a bit lumpy and roughly from the other.  Well, this seemed to have a few issues from either end.  Not only that but the slubs wouldn't pull out with a gently tug, nor would they necessarily rub out with a simple twist between the thumb and forefinger.  Nope, I had to pull each stupid slub out individually, or so it seemed.  Still, it spun pretty quickly.  Bobbin 3 was filled during the Grey Cup game.  OMG - what a suspenseful game that was.   I didn't take enough breaks during the spinning time and went to bed with sore shoulders - but really, that was a lot of cotton spun.  I don't think it will look as nice as this skein though. 

I decided to stick the cloak yardage in the washer and full it up a bit more.  Unfortunately I got a little bit side tracked because my sweetie was home and remembered about it, when the washer started to spin.   It is a bit more fulled than I wanted, but still drapes decently.  It is pretty easy to piece together now.  

I've been butting the two selvedges together and running a thread though the loops made when the shuttle switches direction.   It is like running an extra warp thread though and a great technique for joining pieces for blankets or to make wider yardage as in this case.  If I'd been thinking, I might have used a blue thread to make that blue stripe on the selvedge the same size as the rest.  Still it looks pretty good.   This picture is of course of the best part and what it should look like.  Not all of the seams look quite that invisible.

My sweetie surprised me with a road trip to Camilla Valley Farm, which is a well stocked weaving supply store.  I came home with this little bag of goodies.  I wouldn't let him pay for them because then they would have been Christmas presents and I figured I'd likely want to play with them sooner than that.   They offer great mail order service, but I'd never pass up a road trip there.
   So I know what my sweetie is giving me for Christmas, and I can't touch it now for weeks.... argh.....

Spinning for fun

I recently participated in a spinners swap.  I sent off a packet of goodies and in return, I received all this bounty.  The pink and black project bag is a perfect pink and big enough to hold a sweater or everything I'll need to take my wheel out to a guild spin in.     The braid of fibre is pretty wonderful.  I'm not sure exactly what fibre it is, but probably Merino, Rambouillet or something similar since it's a soft, shorter/medium staple with a very fine, high crimp.

I've been feeling a little hung up on my homework.  The rattling off of small sample skein after small sample skein of yarn was getting to me.  I mean, this is year 5 and I've not done a huge amount of just fun spinning in there.  So.... I took a break.  Yesterday afternoon I undid the braid.  It was a crochet type chain, so just unraveled nicely.   I pulled a piece off, about 1 m long.  I divided the strip of roving into two.    I cleared off the bobbin that was on the wheel and tossed the bit of hemp singles that I was spinning by accident - stupid story there.  

This is three lengths of roving stripped in halves.   I made sure to keep the beginning and ends the same.  I labeled the beginning bit, with a numbered post-it note, so I could keep the lengths in order.  Hopefully I'll be able to match the colour changes when I ply the singles.

The post it note labels are just ripped part way down, folded over the end and then secured with the sticky bits together.   It would have looked much neater if I'd bothered to cut little squares and punch a hole in the middle, to thread the roving end through.  However, this is fast and will last as long as I need it too.  The other way would be more secure and long lasting if I needed to store the project for a while, but I don't anticipate having to store this for long.  If I do, I'll cut the little squares of card stock, punch the hole in the middle, label them properly and thread the end of the roving through the hole.

This is what I've spun since yesterday afternoon.  The subtle changes of the green are lovely.  It started with a pale yellowy green which reminded me of a spring green and then shifted to a greeny/brown.  Now the green has a little more blue in it and is brighter once again.  It's going to be so pretty when plied up.

Better yet, I'm having a lot of fun with this.  It's very refreshing to just play without having to worry about counting treadles and all the other stuff that goes into homework skeins.   On the other hand, I realize that I tend to sort of count anyway and get into a rhythm, but it's automatic, not something I'm obsessing over.  

Using my handspun yarn and making more

 I've spent the past few days winding a warp with the pink yarns and dressing the loom.  I'm using a soft grey Shetland for the weft.  It really softens the depth of pinks.      I realized that I could have dyed the grey and my first thoughts were that I could have dyed the grey, the same array of pinks.  It would have made the fabric much bolder in colour impact.  However, I love the soft shading of the grey and I think it will make the shawl much more wearable.

I tie up my treadles so I can use a walking motion when I weave - left, right, left, right.   I've always had my tabby tied up on the two outermost treadles.  However, I changed that up for my last project and didn't switch it back.   I hadn't realized how ingrained the muscle memory has become.  My legs really want to treadle a straight twill with the previous tie up, that I've used for years and not the new one.  It's making the process a bit slower than usual, though enjoyable none the less.

I spun up a sample of Kinred's fleece.   I combed it out, pulled sliver and spun with a short forward draw.  It's a nice yarn and spins up nicely.  However the fleece has a lot of waste with combing, as it's an old style Shetland fleece.  I'm not sure I want to waste 50% of the fleece by combing.   I'll try carding some fleece and sampling next to see what the differences are.  I was trying to match the grist of some wools I'd spun for embroidery, but I couldn't get it quite fine enough.   The fibre is quite springy and really bloomed when I wet finished it.

Done, started and OMG!

The Fall socks are done.  They are beautiful and fun!  I think the pattern is just perfect, though it did take a wee bit of concentration.  By the second sock I was memorizing the pattern, so that halfway through I just had to mark my spot on the pattern when I finished so that I could pick up next time without thinking about it.   The yarn is amazingly soft and cuddly.  Belfast Mini-Mills - you guys rock!

Next pair may actually be knee socks or over the knee socks.   I've been thinking about something to wear over leggings for wearing skirts in the winter.  But I also picked up a huge amount of Kroy at an amazing discount and they work up to be heavy duty, hard wearing and quick to knit socks and those are sometimes advantages for socks, when one is suddenly finding themselves heavily into level 4 homework.  No brainer, easy to knit socks for relaxation aren't a bad thing.

Blanket number 3 is on the loom.  The 4th colour, which I managed to leave out is a dark red.  I was testing two colours here, a green and a grey.  While the green makes a lighter, more fun blanket, it rather overtakes the other colours, so I'll go with the dark grey once again.  The weaving is pretty easy, but the finishing takes the time.   I'm still hopeful that I'll get all 4 done in the next 13 days. 


I've had this bisque ware sitting around for years.  The plates were an experiment in slab work before I had any idea what it really entailed.  Okay, I still don't really know, but I know more than I did.  The bowls are from the pottery day with the girls .   I kept the bowls even though my kiln wasn't hooked up. I packed and dragged them through a move and they sat mournfully on a shelf for years.  My friend Maureen's husband  is a potter.  He does amazing stuff, not much in the way of dishware now but art, with a capital A.  It's very sleek, modern and interesting work.  However, one days Maureen dragged me out to her studio.  I got to play on the potters wheel and they then took my assorted mongrel dishware, glazed and fired it for me. Actually, Maureen mixed the colour up for me right then and there.  It was an interesting process to watch her weigh and mix the bucket of glaze.  She showed me how and I got to wax the bottoms and dip the bowls.   It's a beautiful colour, like an I'm in love type of colour.  With a drizzle of white or grey, I could definitely see this colour as dishes for the table, if I could actually learn to throw that well.    Anyway, hubby even liked  them and he's much harder to please that way.

Happy days, even if it's cold, blustery and stupidly snowing :)

Taking the Good with the Rediculously Oversized!

I finished sock number one.  (well, except for grafting the toe).  It took me 3 tries to get the skull and crossbones motif error free.  I know that the sock pattern is only 4 stitches larger than I normally make for myself, so I'd hoped that it would compensate for the possible draw-in and lack of stretchiness of the stranded colourwork.  I also used  2.75 mm needles, which is also a size that I've been waffling about as I've had great results with size. 2.25 mm.  But often it's suggested that you do colourwork with a size larger than you usually use for stretch compensation.   I tried it on yesterday.  The sock is massive.  It would fit someone with a leg and a foot which is either much wider or longer (or both) than mine.  It kind of looks like it was made for a Sasquatch!  I wondered about the size early on, but just kept knitting, knowing that my math should have made it all fit!  Right....  I really like the look of this sock, fun, bright and very pink.   However it will be destined for the frog pond because it's useless to me the way it is right now.  I can't even think of anyone with feet that size who I might want to give a special gift!


Yesterday was a guild Dye Day.  One of our members sets up an acid dye station, tables draped with plastic and all the necessary supplies needed.  We show up, pay a nominal fee for the dyes and play.  Most people brought silk warps to play with, but I brought a skein of sock yarn and some superwash roving.  The dyes need to be steamed and while it could be done there, I have enough equipment to do it at home.   I steamed the packets last night and let them cool overnight.  This morning, I opened up the packets, rinsed them out and have spread them out to dry.  All the dye set perfectly.    There are several shades of the basic primary dyes so we get to mix and experiment to find the colours we want.   Last time my sock yarn was a bit darker than I wanted.   This time I went for bright!

The sock yarn has the pink and blue in 5 yard repeats, with 2 yards of purple in between each colour.  Both th e purple yarn and turquoisy green in the roving came out better steamed than they did with the dye colour.   I consider this a very successful dye experiment.

Finishing things up

I used up the last of the indigo vat by tossing in some silk hankies and a bit of leftover North Country Cheviot roving.  It's really a bit too coarse for my liking as a spinning fibre, but there are times when it's useful to have.    The blues are gorgeous though.

 The 2 long scarves are off the loom.  I still need to twist the fringes and wet finish them before I call them done.    I left the warp on the loom and tied it in front of the reed in case I want to do the white scarves next, so I can just tie them on.  If I decide to put on the tea towels, it will only take a few seconds to clear the old warp off.

The Louet Northern Lights is plied and skeined.  It's a lovely, subtle colour, with the pinks, blues and greens still showing through.  I was a bit worried that they'd blend into a grey mass, but it's very pretty.  There are 249 yards so enough for something useful.  It might have to age a bit before it tells me what it wants to be.

Done!

The mindless knitting on the shawl was perfect for the cold, blustery days we've been having.  It meant I could listen to the hockey game while chatting with family and without paying a lot of attention to a fancy pattern.  The shawl was large enough that it rested on my lap and kept me warm and cozy while I was knitting it.

I did have to forgo the last two rows of the bottom ruffle as my circular needle was full and there was no way that many more added stitches would fit on my needle.  I almost wavered on the top ruffle but decided to do it anyway.  I'm glad I did as it really does make the shawl that little bit different.  It was only 2/3 of the bottom ruffle stitches, so not only did it fit on the needles but it seemed to go very quickly.  The pattern is very intuitive and easy to remember, so no need to check the pattern every few minutes.

By the time I had cast off the last stitch, it was quite late and I decided to wait until the morning to block the shawl  Knowing Kevin kitten's ability to get into mischief with the project du jour, I thought it safer to keep the blocking mats and pins out of temptation.  Yesterday morning,  I popped the shawl in a sink of warm water, with a few drops of dish soap and a glug of vinegar.  I let it sit for about 20 minutes, then drained the sink.  I refilled it with like temperature water and let it sit for another 20 minutes.  Then after draining and carefully pressing out as much water as I could, I lifted what was now a monsterously heavy and large shawl out onto a heavy bath towel and rolled it until it was damp.

When I was done the shawl, I worried it was going to be too small.  However, it grew in the water and in the end, I had to only block lightly, patting it to stay within the confines of my blocking mats.  I could have easily used another 2 or 3 mats, and another packet or two of T pins to properly block this shawl.  It required no stretching, only gentle shaping.  I had to balance it on a laundry rack and a spinning wheel in order to have enough space in front of the woodstove to help speed drying on a cold, blustery day.  I did have to chase K away from it several times as the long ends dangled off the mats and he thought they were a very awesome new toy!

We had a 4 minute break in the snow, with a flash of sunshine though the bleak clouds.  I grabbed my camera and took the shawl outside for a photo shoot.  This shawl may be plain and simple, but it is comfortable and cuddly.  I'd highly recommend the pattern Milk Run Shawl and it's free too!   The only thing is that this shawl desperately cries out for an uber cool shawl pin.

All in a Kitten's Day

I made a mock up of  the coat for my husband and it was way too big, although I'd used the smallest size.  I'm using a commercial pattern and I have 2 different brands which have a similar pattern.  I decided to trace off the second pattern as they have several smaller sizes.  Not wanting to cut the pattern before I knew what size would fit, I traced it off onto tissue paper.   Before I could cut the pattern and fabric, I had some chores to do.  From the kitchen, I could hear some rustling.  My son had made the kitten a paper ball, which he has been enjoying chasing about the house.  It makes just that type of rustling sound.  However, when I checked up on things, I found that the kitten was not chasing his ball but rather my pattern!  It is so shredded and crumpled that I'll have to trace out a new one. 

Please note the multiple ends - all kitten chewed up!

I was finally able to spin again.  I blended up some Polwarth and some Alpaca to make some mitten yarn.   I spun and spun and spun.  I plied it up and it was a lovely, soft, yummy 2 ply yarn.  I wet finished it and let it dry.  That was a couple of days ago.  Today I went to skein it up and what did I find?  Broken ends..... Lots of broken ends.  I'm guessing they were kitten chewed.  The longest piece of yarn left is almost 8 yards long.  Everything else is shorter.  Much of the skein is in piece which are a yard or less long.  No mittens will be made from this yarn!  

To chase away any horrible feelings from the chewed yarn and shredded patterns, here is a photo of a pretty sunset which we had the other night.  Actually was the first sunset we'd had in ages, due to rain and grey, dull weather.

A Taste of Spring

Weather wise, today is an amazing day.  It's 15C , sunny and despite the blustery winds, it's brilliant outside.  I spent almost an hour doing yardwork today, even though the ground is still too wet. Since it's only the top couple of inches that have yet thawed, it's an odd sensation, mud over frozen ground, but was totally worth it just to do "stuff" outside.

   I hung out the first laundry.   I enjoy hanging laundry out.  I love being outside first thing in the morning, I love the smell of the laundry and even the sound when it's breezy and you can hear the cracks and rustles of the shirts and towels.  It's going to be a pain to bring in though because the strong breezes have wrapped it around the line in places!

A quick check of the gardens shows that the chooks have cleared out much from the flower beds.  I fear that also includes the flowers.  I've never seen them so clean before!  A few bulbs have survived.  These are daffodils, bravely pushing forth in defiance of the hungry chooks!

More white yarn!  I'd spun up the white yarn for the Master Spinner 3 class, practicing the long draw.   In the end, I wasn't satisfied with it as it was too thick for my liking.  I had lots of white roving left, so I spun up some more.  This is half the diameter of my first skein with this roving, and I'm much happier with it.  There is 340 yards of it, so I should have more than enough.

I've a new sock on the needles.  I've turned the heel and knit past the gusset.  I forgot to take a photo of it so it will have to wait until next time..  Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get some sewing time in.  I've spent the past few days waiting for a delivery.  If I was off sewing, I'd have never heard the truck drive up.  It came today, while I was outside doing yard work with the chooks.  From the chaps reaction, I don't think he'd ever seen a chook up close and personal before.  However, they were "helping" me, okay, not so much helping as getting in my way, but they were being very social and they were quite curious as to who this guy was in our driveway!  Some were brave enough to run right up to him.  The rest just hung around in close proximity, probably looking like a flock of guard chooks.

The Long Draw

I've been practicing my long draw.  It's a spinning technique to make woolen yarns, light, airy and suitable for knitting.  Since I generally spin for weaving, I use a lot more worsted and semi-worsted techniques.  The smoother, denser worsted threads can be much less elastic, less sticky and well suited for weaving.   However, this means that I periodically need to practice the long draw.

 As well, a true long draw is not the easiest of things to do.  There are all sorts of "longdraws"; supported, American,  traditional or English and the list goes on.  Over the past few years, I've been trying to teach myself the traditional or English long draw.  I've not found it the easiest of techniques and like many adults, the I haven't learned it even though I've  practiced it for 10 minutes, attitude sort of sets in.  I've persevered though and every once in a while I pick up my hand cards and go at it again.  Hand cards, because rolags are supposed to make the longdraw easier. 

I found a couple of videos on you tube, which have been really helpful.

Ruth MacGregor makes it look really easy! 

This lad's video however, takes the cake!  It's very well done. He explains the technique really well and lets face it, he's so young and confident that you realize it's just a bit more practice.

And practice I've done.    I carded up a bazillion rolags and filled the bobbins with the blue Merino.  I can tell  you exactly what muscles are involved with hand carding now, as every single one of those muscles screamed at me for two days.  I used a slightly supported long draw for  the blue.    Then I tried James technique, using a prepared off white coloured  roving.  It works well too.  I've been spinning on the Mazurka, using double drive.  However he suggests that Scotch tension works better for him.  So I spun one bobbin full on double drive and started the second using single drive with Scotch tension.  I'd have to say, so far I prefer the double drive for the long draw.  Guess it's just what your used to.   All this is for good use. The Master Spinner 3 course, requires 250 yards of handspun yarn for the dyeing project.  Better to get that done sooner than later!

I've been able to do a lot of this bobbin with the unsupported longdraw.  I'm still not proficient at it, but it's way better than it was!   I'm looking forward to seeing the two white bobbins plied!  Then, if I have enough for the course, I can go back to spinning the blue.

Finished Projects and some new project musings...

The nice thing about having 2 spinning wheels is that I can easily work on more than one project at a time.  I set aside the Minstrel, with the Blue Faced Leicester and spent a couple of days spinning up the Indigo dyed, superwash Merino.  I skeined it off and soaked it this morning.  It's a fairly tightly spun, nicely even skein, with about 280 yards of yarn.  I'll sample before I turn it into socks but I'm guessing it will be a 54 stitch sock, rather than 60 stitch sock.  There seems to be a tad more loft in this yarn than in a commercial sock yarn.  I was considering trying toe up socks with this yarn but think maybe sticking with a tried and true top down, flap heel as I'm not fond of the fit of short row heels.  Once it's dry, I'll sample and go from there.  I'm also considering doing the toes and heels in a second colour, using a commercial sock yarn for durability, however  I may just run a strand of toe/heel yarn along with the blue.  The nice thing about the near solid colour is that if I do a fancier pattern, it should show up nicely.

The tea towels are washed.  I tossed them in the washer and dryer while still in a full length, right off the loom.  When they were dried, I ran a small zig-zag stitch along each side of the marker I'd used between each towel.  I used # 10 crochet cotton, as it was handy and shrinks at about the same rate as the 2/8 cotton.  They're cut apart.   I just need to iron them and hem them.  I swear that takes the longest of all the steps in weaving!  They'd have looked quite awesome in my previous kitchen!

Next project?  Well, I have some sewing to do.  But on the loom?  I have the project which was supposed to be on this time, a structural plaid, which might just end up being a shawl.  I also have a hankering to try my hand at double weave.  I'm a little concerned about all the 1/3 and3/1 shaft combos on the counterbalance loom.  I wonder if I should set up the old jack loom for the double weave project?  Here is where some advice would come in very handy.

Chooks and Stanley Cup Spinning

I woke up in a panic last Saturday morning as I'd suddenly remembered that the new chicks were due soon.  We'd started getting the little barn cleared out for them ages ago but people got distracted.  Like the rest of everything we've found here, it was far worse than expected.  The amount of junk stored in there was amazing.  We've been having bonfires every evening and we've hardly put a dent in just the old wood bits we've found.  There was a huge shelf piled with heavy pieces of wood.  We can't figure out how it stayed up since there wasn't a single nail holding it together, no pegs, screws, nothing but balance and a bit of luck I suspect.   The one side of the barn has a cement floor in relatively decent shape.  One would expect, from the way it was that the rest of the floor would be cement as well.  Nope, they hacked out most of the cement floor on the other side of the barn, but not all.  They left parts of it and rough edges.  They put old skids on top of the remaining dirt and allowed small and larger rodents to make their homes there.  This means there is lots of icky stuff to shovel out.   However, after days of work, my sweetie had a space to put the brooder together.  I ran around finding all the bits and pieces.  Today, I picked up the new babies - 45 of them, 35 for the freezer and 10 layers.  It's still pretty cold here and so windy today that even with 2 lamps on full strength it isn't warm enough, so I'll be hunting down things to cover the brooder with until either the weather warms up a bit or they start to feather out. 

In other news, it is the hockey playoffs.   We don't actually get enough t.v reception to get the stations which show the games, but we seem to be able to stream it this year.  So my computer gets commandeered for the games, which seem to be every single night right now.  I had forgotten how productive hockey games were for spinning sessions.   This is so far my play off yarn.  If I do this every single game, I might have a mountain of yarn to deal with by the finals!

Spinning, spinning and finally weaving

Monday ....  found the grey locks, I think it's Romney.  It's very soft and lovely to spin, although a few bits are full of VM and other trash.   I spun one bobbin full and started on the second.  Loom is warped and ready to weave.

Tuesday... finished the rest of the easily useable grey but there won't be enough for the shawl weft, even if I take the time to clean the chaff and VM from the last few locks.   I dug through the stash and found  a lovely brown roving.  Wasn't sure there would be enough of it so I grabbed a huge pile of what seemed to be a slightly darker brown.  It was a cloudy, miserable day with flurries on and off all day and the ambient light really did make the roving look brown.   I spun up a bobbin full, realizing that it was black while my kids tried to reassure me it was just dark brown.  hehehe.. Got a second bobbin started.

Wednesday...  finished spinning the second bobbin.  It was more cloud, snow and rain outside.   I swear I spent half the day trying to watch the seedlings grow.   I plied the two bobbins into two skeins.   I have now about 337 yards of black, plied wool for the weft.  I'll need at least another 400- 500 yards according to my calculations.  I switch the sett at the beginning.   I was pretty sure that the EPI of 9 wasn't quite right.  I used 10 instead.  I think that small change will make a big difference.  It will however probably increase the amount of weft I need too, if I'm aiming for an even twill.

Today.... after fixing a couple of crossed threads and crawling around under the loom to re-tie all the treadle.. now that is lots of fun, I'm finally weaving.   While the black, or dark brown, really does show black and not the grey which is from all the sunshine today.. YAY for sunshine...  I think the shawl will be much more versatile this way than if I'd actually used the lighter brown I'd first decided on.   I do love when things come together in the end.


As a bonus, the seeds that didn't germinate yesterday, despite my watching them, have germinated today..  Some tomatoes, cabbages, summer savory, winter savory, marjoram, soup celery have all made their appearances!  Still waiting on a few things and still have to plant a few more..  some need to be started only 3 or 4 weeks early but the woad, madder, indigo and dyer's knotweed should get started soon.. 

garlicky garden and wool

There are things growing! The garlic I planted last autumn is looking very happy! I'd done a bit of research before planting the cloves. Several places said the most important aspect to planting garlic was to make sure the root end was pointing down, so as to not make the plant wind around when growing. Of course after I'd planted it, a bit more reading also said that you must have all the papery skin totally intact and that there must be a bit of root left on each planted clove. I was a tad worried because I know that some of the cloves didn't separate properly and that on a couple of them, the root end just popped off completely. I'm thinking that the latter instructions aren't quite so important as the first ones. It looks like pretty much all the cloves of garlic that I planted have come up, regardless of minor imperfections.

The rhubarb looks pretty happy as well. I'll have to find some yummy rhubarb recipes as I've never actually had a rhubarb patch before.

The Feverfew is starting to run amok. It's very pretty and of course useful I guess, if I harvested it for it's medicinal uses. However, it is fairly persistent as a weed. I've also found the poppies are running rampant and there is a cat nip patch, that I want to get under control before the lawn and flower beds are just bits of colour peeking out between the catnip. It's in the mint family and has similar growth habits.

I spun some white Shetland rovings for some dye sampling that I'll be doing next week. I'll admit that I don't normally like to use hand spun yarn for general dye sampling. It seems to be a little overkill and a waste of time. However, in this case, getting 100% wool would have meant a trip to a city. I really had no other errands to run to make it a worthwhile use of gas and time, so I spun it up myself. It certainly seems like it will do the job, regardless.

Weaving through distractions

It's been a week of distractions..

First, I had offered to make up a display board for the local Weaver's and Spinner's guild recent demo. It took longer than I had expected. Among other things, I changed my vision halfway through, which is not a good idea. I dragged my wheel and the inkle loom to the demo as well. When I dug out the little loom, I realized it had a half finished band on it and the warp had stretched. It took a bit, but I wove it off and re-warped it just in time for the demo. Now just to get this band off and ready for the next inkle project which will be a strap for a felted bag.

The bag is the loom waste of the shawl project. I had a bit of the weft thread leftover, so I just did plain weave all the way to the end of the warp. Off the loom, the tabby was a firm fabric which really had little drape to it. After sewing it up, I tossed it in the washer and watched it carefully so that it would full up enough but not too much. I almost got distracted and let it go on a bit too far, but it's still good. Hopefully this week, I'll be able to pop a lining in it and once the strap is woven, it will be a nice, albeit somewhat small bag.

The shawl is off the loom. I'm really happy with it. It turned out as nice as I'd hoped for, even nicer perhaps. It's soft and drapey and the colour combinations worked as I'd envisioned them as well. Going with the twill, used more yarn and thus a bit of a narrower shawl, but it was the right decision. It is a much nicer piece than if I'd used a tabby weave. Of course I could be biased, since I am rather fond of twills anyway...

Then of course, were several beautiful days when I dragged my pup out to snuffle in the sun's glorious rays, while I squelched through the melting snow and mud with intentions of picking up sticks and other bits. He did make things a bit more difficult at times when he noticed I had some of the larger sticks in my grasp. He would jump up and bite the sticks and nudge my hand. Apparently larger sticks are to be thrown and retrieved rather than put in the ever growing pile of sticks.

My girlfriend, who lives halfway around the world, sent a Christmas pressie, which due to a timing delay, got here on Monday.. Isn't it pretty! It's soft, squishy, beautiful, yummy sock yarn in a very pretty colourway. I found a set of sock needles for sale from someone's stash at a spin-in today, so I nabbed them so I could have two pair of socks on the go at once. My rule is finish the pair on the needles before I start a new pair, so that the single sock doesn't languish forever in some sort of sock void. However, I had no rules about 2 pair of socks being knit at the same time. That's not cheating too much is it?

We unfortunately missed Winter War. This time we realized we'd not had a day out just to ourselves in a while, so we took the day to do some running around to various places to do some planning, research and window shopping. We went to various stores looking for various kitchen design ideas. We were supposed to go out for lunch, but the restaurant we chose closes between lunch and dinner. We'd missed the window of opportunity so headed home. On the way, DH decided to pop into a local car dealership to do some of the research. We've been planning a second vehicle for a while and one on our list was in the lot that day. We went for a bit of a test drive - always fun.... and picked up this today :) Not quite the little run about I'd anticipated....

She thought she wasn't busy.... BUT.......

I really was.

Every year I take my Ashford traveller, give her a good wipe down and re-apply the tung oil finish. Turns out I should be doing it every 6 months, so this summer I will take some fine steel wool and sand her down before I apply the next coat. I can do it outside, which will be nicer. It took 3 days to do this but after a good cleaning, two coats of tung oil, oiling and waxing all the moving bits, she spins like new.

My sweetie calls her my forgotten wheel, but she is only a tad neglected sometimes, never forgotten. I'm spinning the Shetland Shawl project on her. Tammy provided the rovings and I'm spinning and weaving them into a shawl for her. The rovings are from some of her favourite sheep. I'm spinning the shawl project on the Traveller so I can drag the wheel and the project out to the Guild spin-ins. There are 3 a month and I've found them to be a really good way to set away a block of spinning time. Since this skein of 263 yards of plied shetland wool took most of my free time for two days, having a few blocks of time devoted to spinning this yarn is a going to help a lot in time management.

I finished spinning up the pink and purple polwarth rovings. I really hope that I have enough to weave with, but I'm not sure. There are only 500 gms of them. I was initially planning to make a woven vest with them but I might have to do the back of some sort of contrasting, commercial fabric as I'm not sure I'll have enough.

I broke down and started a few herb seeds. There were a few potted herbs in a local grocery store and they were very sad looking plants. I didn't think I could bring them back, they looked so far gone. Instead, I put a grow light and a few peat pellets in a tray and planted some Flat leaf Parsley, Chives and Sweet Basil. The parsley seems to be a bit of a slow grower, but the others are making me very happy. These will be for inside pots. It's really too early to start seedlings yet here.

That being said, I may try Winter Sowing some Weld and Dyer's Greenweed seeds. This is supposed to be a good way to start perennials. You plant them in a clear plastic lidded container and leave them outside to freeze and thaw as the weather conditions dictate. This stratifies if necessary and lets them start as soon as they can. It is supposed to give strong plants.


I made two Anglo Saxon style hoods - one from handwoven wool fabric dyed with Yellow Bedstraw. The other is just a plain commercially woven wool fabric. Both are lined with linen. They are for a Regia Anglorum N.A outing this weekend.

Right now, I'm mordanting yarn and cooking up some dried Weld for the Regia outing. It's outside and the weather looks good - sunny and -8C. I'm dragging out the dye pots, or at least the nice steel pot and I'm going to try dyeing over an open fire in February. I'm not sure I'm willing to risk the clay dye pot to temperature extremes for a winter demo.

Small projects and Big surprises

The mittens are done! Why does the second of a pair take a gazillion times longer than the first one does? I swear that first mitten took only 3 days of intermittent knitting while the second mitt took until last night at 7:30 when I was sewing in the last tail!

After making a variety of wool scarves and the tencel experience , I decided to wind off a cotton tea towel warp. I hunted through my limited stash and there wasn't enough of any one particular colour to work with. There were lots of partial tubes that I'd picked up along the way and several that I'd purchased but didn't like the results. Nothing really "went" together in a traditional colour sense. So I tossed a bunch in a basket, used the two full tubes as background and randomly wound a third colour, changing whenever I felt like it. Four towels which should be about 36 x 20 before wet finishing.

I hated the warp halfway through winding it! I perservered... Threading the loom - 534 threads took a while because there was this holiday stuff happening in between, but I had planned it so I'd be weaving on Boxing day - as it's usually quiet. Nope.. I was still winding that darned thing on. Without a paddle, I separated the strands while winding with my fingers. Obviously I didn't do a very good job as it twisted around itself horribly.
It was a slow winding job and needed frustration breaks! I thought I'd broken tons of threads while winding, but it was only 5 :) More than I like but at least the warp is on, tensioned and I.... Can... NOW.... WEAVE.........YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what? after grumbling the whole way through about not liking the colours and worried that I'd hate weaving it... I don't! It's maybe not an elegant or pretty project, but it's interesting to weave, with all those colours. I'm glad that I didn't give up and cut it off. Not only does wasting that much thread go against the grain, but I learned much in patience, problem solving and that sometimes the project gets much better as it goes on. Ask me as I'm approaching half way through the last towel though. That is always the fatigue point for me, wanting to get on to a new project! hehehe

You know, none of my weaving books or magazines had a draft and tie up for waffle weave. This project would have been perfect to try it out with! Right now it's a plain twill. With all those colours, I didn't want to get too fussy with a pattern.

Sometimes people surprise you in amazing ways. Without my knowledge and totally nothing that I'd asked for Christmas, my hubby '' tricked" out my Kromski Minstrel spinning wheel! The Distaff is functional. There are extra bobbins! Who doesn't want extra bobbins so you can switch out projects or do a 3 ply wool? There is a very pretty upright lazy kate. Which I might add, I didn't need because he made me one which is plain but works perfectly. His reasoning was that the new one was "pretty". It is, I'm not complaining. And.. he added in something I'd have never in a million years thought about getting myself.... A Jumbo Flyer...... It's huge for making fat or novelty yarns (says she who loves to spin fine and smooth yarn) but also for plying larger amounts. The bobbins are enormous. I say bobbins because it comes with one and he added a second one as well! It's ratios are much slower and will take a while to get used to. It required a 3 second adjustment to the wheel - and a trip to town to get the required drill bit. I plied with it. I filled a regular bobbin overly full- so full that I couldn't actually get my fingers in to change the hooks. I used the jumbo flyer! I only filled the bobbin halfway! I have the biggest skein I've made yet!
For weaving, I can see that larger bobbins mean less waste from not quite long enough ends and less knots. This is a very, very good thing..
For spinning, I can see fatter yarns and more ease in plying. With a shawl project upcoming, which is designed to be woven with fatter yarns, this will make the project so much easier.