Spinning Update

I’ve been obsessively diligently plugging away at the wool prep for my Rainbow Dark Sweater. Yesterday I finished spinning 2 more bobbins’ worth of singles. Now they just need to be plied for Skeins #3 & #4. I also finished up all the hackling:

That’s the last 24 nests – 12 each for 2 bobbins’ worth which will become Skeins #5 & #6. And that’s all I’ve got so it had better be enough for the Harvest Moon cardigan pattern! I figure I need about 1300 yards total. Fingers crossed! I’ve also been working on adjusting the pattern for my size. As always I need a medium yoke area, a large bust and an extra-large hip which means some fancy mathy stuff. I also wanted the body a little longer than the 14.5” from the underarm. Luckily the sleeves are knit last on this top-down cardi so I can fudge the length if I’m running short of yarn at that point. I have short arms anyhow so I need to remove 2” from the pattern before the cuff. And they can be a little shorter still if necessary though I would rather have long sleeves on this sweater if possible. We’ll see. There’s quite a way to go yet.

I was perusing my library to see if I had any further information on techniques to use with my wool hackle. It doesn’t seem to be a common prep tool so there isn’t much available. However I found a great chapter in this book that I’ve had since 1998:

This is the older hardcover version of Color in Spinning by Deb Menz. Even the second soft cover edition is long out of print but your library (guild or public) might have a copy. It’s going for big bucks second-hand on Amazon! That’s because it’s extremely comprehensive, for example this spread:

What Deb doesn’t know about colour and fibre is not worth discussing! She is amazing. Sadly I’ve not had the chance to take a workshop with her back when she was still travelling to teach but I have met her briefly. Such a lovely personality to go along with her gorgeous curly red hair! Good thing she is working with Interweave on videos so her valuable information and techniques can get out there somehow. Yes, I also have her ColorWorks book as well. It’s very helpful with colour theory as it relates to textiles but it’s a different beast. Not nearly as hands-on practical how-to – which is what I live for. Glad I bought this book way back when. I need to read it all again from cover to cover.

Some more good stuff about hackles and their uses:

Excellent PDF from Majacraft by Jenny Hart. (Also some simple uses for a diz, using wool combs and a blending board.) There’s an interesting video on blending colours with a hackle. The demonstrator does two things that I think are incorrect: she fills the hackle too full and her diz is turned the wrong way. There should be at least a finger’s width of bare tines above the fibre or you’ll find it jumping off when it’s not its turn. And the diz should be concave side towards the hackle in order to funnel the fibre into the hole. Lovely top she’s using though.

Valkyrie has a comprehensive article written by Jeannine Bakriges (aka Spinning Spider Jenny) on blending with the hackle. I covet her mother-of-pearl diz!

So I guess what this means is that I’m kind of hooked now. I’ll be using my hackle a lot more in future. Why did I wait so long to get to it? Silly me.

More soonest! Off to go ply yarn.

I Love/Hate Technology

Technical alert! Computer geekery ensues. If you have no stomach for this stuff please come back for my next blog post. I promise I’ll quit with the diversionary tactics then. But meanwhile I have to get this off my chest. Or outta my head. Or something.

So. I needed a new email client. Why? Because Microsoft Outlook 2003 is definitely not cooperating with me. I’ve been using this as my email, contact list and calendar for more than 10 years now. It’s like an old friend but it’s also been getting more and more difficult to download my email and I have no idea why this should be. Does it have Alzheimer’s, a brain tumour, a grudge against me or what? Am I anthropomorphising my computer? Why yes, I just might be. Must be the movie “Her” I just watched the other day. But I digress.

Of course I have kind of a weird email setup as these things go anyway – Shaw is a cable company. You can’t get your email directly anywhere else except through the cable modem here at home. If I’m away I need to use the web access. It sucks. But you adapt.

And I’m really used to my vintage Outlook. You know how it is. It feels normal even when it’s getting slower and slower a n d  s l l l o w w e r r r…

And yesterday I tried 5 or 6 or 7 times to download my email and got a stinking error message every single time. It wouldn’t cooperate at all. Nada. Zip. Enough already! Even for Ms. Patience Me. Time for a new option. But what? There are LOTS of options out there. I sent my Google-fu to work and I discover that Mailbird claims to be the best email client for Windows and it even works with XP. Plus, most importantly it finally has support for regular email POP3 when it used to only work with Gmail addresses. (Yes, I am speaking English. Kinda.) I had rejected it when I was investigating software prior to the April deadline for XP support because of that lack of universality. It’s doable now.

Was it an easy transition. Not on your tintype!!! It was a crazy nightmare and I couldn’t have done it without Thom’s admittedly rusty assistance. The download insisted that I needed to update the Microsoft .NET. Yeah, you understand about as much as I do about that one! Still that automatically downloaded and installed ok but then the stupid Mailbird wouldn’t install. Do not ask me what Thom did to fix it. He had to manually start the Windows installer somehow. Eventually we got it going. Grrr…

But that’s not all! Of course it wouldn’t start downloading my email automagically after it was up and running. Nope. I had to fill in a whole bunch of esoteric info like ports and passwords and stuff. Ugh. There were some issues with the windows fitting on my oddly-sized screen when they wouldn’t conform automatically. I finally got my email to come in but…then I couldn’t send. More fiddling. Eventually success! I tested things out several times and am OK with how this works now. It’s different but not uncomfortable. I’ll get used to it pretty quickly I hope.

Lastly I was missing my calendar and contact lists as well but there are apps you can easily add to Mailbird to give you Google Calendar and an intuitive contact list. I haven’t figured out if you can add the old Outlook list to it yet. But at least I’m up and running. It downloads my email quickly. I can read it and reply. I can delete and star. I can mark things as important. I can click on links and have them come up in Firefox. We are functional.

Would I recommend Mailbird to others? I’m not sure. So far the program itself is fine. It’s pretty intuitive and easy to use. But it was a bear to get installed and up and running. I needed professional help. Would the developers have been any assistance? I don’t know since we didn’t ask them. Mailbird is free for a basic version, $1 per month (billed annually) for a pro account and there’s also a business account for multiple users. I have no idea what the advantage of the paid version would be unless you have more than 3 email addresses.

I’m done. Back to your regularly scheduled fibery goodness in the very next post. I’ve been spinning up a storm!

Excuse Me For A Moment

I just remembered that I wanted to talk about something that’s been bugging me recently. I want to admit that I have a Problem with skirts. And also dresses. Especially ones that are knee length or shorter and NOT worn with leggings or pants underneath. As a woman of a certain age one would think (erroneously) that I would be quite familiar with the wearing of such. After all, I always had to wear skirts in school as it was against the rules to wear pants in that bygone era. And I was totally up front and centre in the wearing of the micro-mini-skirt in the mid-1960’s. They were teensy-weensy and yet I managed to keep my knickers to myself! (At least most of the time. Heh.) However, somehow in the long intervening years I’ve lost my skirt wearing ability. How did this happen?

To wit, just the other day I was dressed in one of my mid-knee-length elastic-waist skirts with a collared T-shirt and a shorter over-layer that could be described as a pinafore. The proportions looked ok (to me anyway) and the colours coordinated nicely but I felt a little breezy somehow so I added some stretchy shorts underneath. And well that I did because whilst we were out walking it was very windy and my skirt kept hiking up annoyingly in front when the wind blew from that direction. Also I got heated from the brisk walk and would have suffered from the dreaded chub-rub without my shorts to prevent nasty chafing. How on earth do all the girls wear skirts comfortably? Is it just me? Or are they not quite as insouciant as they appear? I demand to know! What clue am I missing? Does everyone just sit around looking elegant all the time?

And then there are the maxi-skirts that are so popular right now. These are just as annoying, I swear! How does one go up a flight of stairs carrying things so that you haven’t got a hand free to hike up your skirts? How do you not constantly catch your heels in the hem? Inquiring minds want to know! Or maybe I’m not a Real Woman? Have I been turfed out of the club because I don’t wear makeup or dye my hair? Someone forgot to give me the memo.

The only skirts I can happily wear and most importantly function in come down somewhere between below the knee and the ankle. So delightfully 1980’s. So dowdy. Unless one is very very careful with proportion, fullness and shape. Sigh. And even then I still need to wear something underneath to prevent chafing when out walking. Any wonder why I mostly wear pants? Or at the very least leggings or tights underneath? My shapely calves and ankles are honestly some of my best features and they rarely ever see the light of day. So sad. I’m sure you can sense my frustration. I want to be all girly and wear cute sundresses too! Wahhhh!!!!

So, it is what it is. I must use subterfuge. OK. Nevermind. Rant over. On to new horizons. More soonest.

Whoosh!

It’s been awhile, huh? Sorry about that. I got a little occupied. There was family, babysitting, a friend’s funeral Celebration of Life, long walks, much gardening and when I looked up for a moment more than a week had gone by. Where the time goes I have No Idea. It just disappears. Poof.

Anyhoo, the garden is looking pretty spiffy after a lot of hard work. Here’s the veggie garden (aka the Back 40) from the farthest end:

And here it is from the end nearest the house:

It’s grown some since I took these photos! I left them bigger than usual so you can click to see details if you want. Yes, we have too many Welsh poppies back there. Thom likes them especially and they add some welcome colour. We sadly lost a lot of the creeping thyme between the stepping stones in the pathways this winter but the star creepers (blue and white) came back just fine. I have to beat them back from out of the beds but I don’t really mind. The whole thing is planted now and all that’s left to do for the next while is maintenance and harvesting. Yum! See the pretty lettuces?

The light green ones are my usual Esmeralda butterheads and the lovely bronze ones are Cimarron romaines. There’s lots of other greens too including arugula, mizuna, red komatsuna, and various Chinese greens. I’m still getting kale buds though production is slowing down. I’ve stopped harvesting the asparagus but I might be able to get one more batch of rhubarb. Don’t want to tax the plants too much or next year will be slim pickings.

The crab and Christmas cactuses and the disocactuses plus the aloes are enjoying their outdoor time on their very own little patio:

Only one disocactus is blooming currently though I’m hoping the other two will get the idea soon. The big bright red flowers are so lovely! They compensate for the otherwise hideously ugly plants that I nurture all winter in my living room.

The dye garden is growing though the madder has lots of spittlebugs. They don’t really hurt it much but the new leaves get somewhat distorted. It’s not exactly an attractive plant at the best of times anyway. I just want the roots! Ahem. The front garden is nearly done except for some weeding in the west side. We’ve already gotten some nice comments from passersby too. Now Thom wants to remove some fairly major branches from the huge hazelnut tree before it splits down the middle. Hopefully it won’t be a Major Project but you never know until you’re in the middle of it. I’m going to have to help because I don’t think it’s a one-person job. Not particularly looking forward to this.

What else? Oh yeah. I finished the second pair of gloves:

More details on my Ravelry page.This was the pair that displeased me so I overdyed them with Lanaset black. You can still see a hint of the underneath colours but not the really off-kilter gray stripes. I like them much better. I’m totally done with gloves for awhile. Twenty fingers somehow managed to over-stretch even my legendary tolerance for knitting with dpns. Whew. I’ll be good for gloves for a couple of years now, at least until I wear something out.

My next portable and TV project is yet another pair of socks for Thom. This is the Grey Tabby yarn from Ancient Arts Meow collection:

I took this photo before I wound it into balls because it never looks the same after and I wanted to remember it. So far it’s knitting up nicely with interesting flashing and pooling of colours. I know some knitters don’t like that but I do. It’s like automatic ikat. I’ll get a photo as soon as there’s enough to see.

I also received the replacement connector for my spinning wheel from Jane Stafford. Even though I asked Jane for confirmation ahead of time, I got a bit concerned when the instructions said something about not fitting the S90 or the Victoria wheels. However, what it actually meant was that one of the screws supplied was too long so I just used the original one instead. No biggie. I don’t even know why they give you the screws as well since it would be a very rare occurrence to either break or lose one. Not to mention they could be easily replaced from the hardware store. What you really need is the flexible polyurethane cylinder connector. In the end I fixed it myself without Thom’s help. I have a screwdriver and I know how to use it! Plus I kept the glue stick substitute that kept me spinning in the interim. You never know when I might need it again although hopefully this will keep me going for quite awhile. After all the last one lasted me for 22 years, didn’t it?

Speaking of spinning, the Rainbow Dark project is coming along slowly. I had to slow down on the hackling because my thumbs were extra sensitive from too much gardening. I learned the hard way to quit before I hurt myself! After some rest days I’ve been alternating hackling and spinning which seems to be working ok. It actually takes a longer time to create a length of hackled top than it does to spin it up. I’m partway through the fourth bobbin-full and have the first 2 skeins already plied and washed. I noticed that I had spun a little thicker toward the end of the second bobbin-full so I’ve been watching more carefully to keep consistent. I may have to use that thicker bit for the yoke or something where the difference won’t show as much. Obviously I’m a little out of practice! Usually I tend to go thinner rather than thicker if my attention wanders so I don’t know how I went the other way this time. Anyhow, it’s been lovely spinning out on the back deck in the warm spring sunshine. I can watch all the colours glisten as they turn into yarn in my fingers. It pleases me immensely.

More soon! Gotta get out in the garden today before rain happens or something. I still have marigolds, alyssum and lobelias that need a home.

Quick Update

Sorry no pictures today because I’m too lazy to get out the camera. Bad blogger. However I thought I’d mention that my pulled muscle healed very quickly and I’m back to normal. Yay! Thank you all for your Good Thoughts for me! So apart from occasional long walks I’ve been in kind of a mellow mood, reading a lot (Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files wizard fantasy series) and slowly pegging away at the garden, my knitted gloves collection and the Rainbow Dark wool project. None of them are anywhere near finished but that’s OK. It’s not a race, right? The Tilton Skirt and the Devore Jacket are still on hold. Plus I haven’t even started preparing for the two 1-day kumihimo workshops I’m supposed to be instructing here next month. I don’t know if I even mentioned that here yet?

My weavers’ guild asked me to teach a class for them in kumihimo. As you may know, I kind of got burned out on the teaching thing several years ago and have been laying low but this time my arm was twisted I acquiesced. Judging by the enthusiasm shown it was a very welcome choice too. We filled 2 classes of 6 participants each with a waiting list in case I decide to do one more session this summer. Don’t know why but I’m quite surprised at this. I can never judge what people will be interested in since it’s usually quite different from my choice! Also, contrary to everyone’s expectations we’ll be working on the marudai (round stand) instead of cardboard or foam disks. I know those are more portable but that is definitely not my favourite way to braid. The movements on the marudai are so much smoother and easier and tension is automatic. I certainly make far less mistakes. Also there are a lot more braid structures that you can do and with the option of more diverse materials. On the disk you often have to move strands in order to put new ones in their place which adds more motions. On the marudai a quick flick of the fingers as you place the new strands makes room for them. I always say that it’s like a dance with your hands. It can be very relaxing.

I already have sets of improvised equipment which includes a marudai (folding stool with a hole drilled in the centre of the seat), bobbins (big nuts and bolts), counterweight bag and a chopstick. I think there are still enough for 10 but I wanted to keep the classes to only 6 because we’re having it here and there’s not a lot of room. If we’re lucky the weather will be good enough so we can convene on my back deck. It’ll be fun! Have I mentioned that I haven’t done any kumihimo at all since the bookmark I did for the memorial for my deceased Japanese friend over a year ago? And none at all for quite a few years before that either. Good thing it somehow comes pretty easily for me even though I swear I do NOT have a 3-D brain! I’d better bone up a bit first though. And make sure I have everything I need including printing up the notes and worksheets. Luckily I’ve done this one before so not a lot of editing will be necessary. Now I just have to get in gear and do it, right? Right. I still have nearly 3 weeks.

Meanwhile, it’s the middle of a holiday long weekend here in Canada (Victoria Day). Not that it matters to retired people. Every day is a long weekend. Or it’s all work days. Depends on your perspective! This particular holiday is the kick-off to summer – the Canadian equivalent of Memorial Day but without all the heavy overtones. (We save that for Remembrance Day on November 11.) Apparently Victoria Day is a particularly Canadian thing, celebrating the birthday of a dead monarch in a country that is actually quite divided on the British monarchy issue. Quebec calls it National Patriots Day because, hey, they don’t do British anything. Whatever. Happy Birthday, Vicky! Oh wait. It’s not really your birthday until next Saturday, is it? Also Happy Birthday to Lizzie! And you guessed it. It’s not really the Queen’s birthday either (that would be April 21) but we add her onto the celebration anyway. Why not? Political opinions notwithstanding we Canadians mostly just relax, have a barbeque or a picnic, watch a parade or fireworks, drink a beer or several and enjoy a day off if possible. Here’s to summer! Unless it’s raining you’ll probably find me in the garden.

A Slight Glitch Or Two

After I smugly said that we were finished with the veggie and dye gardens and would be getting out to the front garden next. Best laid plans and such. Well, I had a wee accident, nothing serious but it has slowed me down a little. Silly me managed to bump my head while entering the low door on our garden shed. That didn’t hurt much at all but I was bent over at the time and caught my balance at an awkward angle. I ended up pulling a muscle (or maybe more than one) in my thigh. After gimping around for a couple of days it’s definitely been improving quickly. Thank goodness. I hate to be incapacitated in any way. It’s happened too many times in the past, usually to my hands, wrists or neck. I’ve finally gotten strong and reasonably fit! Don’t mess with this little old lady’s success, please.

So meanwhile I spun up some more of my Rainbow Dark yarn. Of course I’m not done all the hackling yet but it was nice to do something different for awhile. Yes, I used my good right leg while resting the gimpy left one. However, as I was happily ensconced out on the deck in the shade with my spinning wheel there was a loud snap! The connector that joins the footman to the treadle had finally given up the ghost:

My Louet S90 wheel (aka Klaas) is a mere 22 years old so I can’t really understand why this nylon flex piece should get all brittle and break into 3 pieces, one of which we never did find. The horror! What to do? Firstly, I put out a plea to darling Jane at Jane Stafford Textiles who is our closest Louet dealer. I wasn’t sure whether or not the replacement part on her website was the correct one for my elderly S90. She got back to me to say it would work so I put in my order. However, in the meantime Thom & I got a cunning plan to at least get me up and running again while I wait for the part to come in the mail. Do you see how I’ve always thought it looked like mini hot-glue gun stick? Yep. We tried a glue stick in there and hey, it’s working so far!

It’s a teeny bit more flexible and a little narrower in diameter but it fit and the holding screws went in easily. Don’t know about its longevity but I still have half of a package of these things so it could be replaced again if necessary. The new connectors from Louet are black and I don’t know if they’ve used a different quality nylon or not from the old version. Apparently this is quite a common breakage anyway – along with the stretchy drive band which I’ve already replaced recently.

I’ve been counting the number of lengths of hackled tops that I’m getting onto one bobbin so I can repeat the action with succeeding bobbins-full. So far this is 10 and I figure I can get 2 more on here:

That will divide nicely so I should end up with 6 big skeins when I’m done. I love large skeins of yarn! So many less ends to work in. I’ve never understood the yarn industry’s insistence on dinky little 50g skeins when at least 100g is much better and more is better still. They could probably make them any size they liked! Hey I know, I’ve had it explained to me that knitters don’t like to have lots of leftovers. So they can buy 13 small balls of yarn for their sweater instead of 7 big skeins. It probably seems more economical but wouldn’t the larger skeins cost less to package up? Half as many labels and all. And don’t knitters buy an extra insurance ball or 2 anyhow? One thing for sure, when sock knitters were constantly buying two or even three 50g balls of sock yarn, manufacturers started packaging them in 100g balls! I can get a pair of socks out of one big ball for all but the largest guys’ socks. Or knee socks which need a ball plus just under a half of another and we’re back around the argument again, aren’t we? (I fixed that leftover though by making shortie socks from the remainder! Heh.)

As a spinner I tend to err on the side of way too much yarn for a given project. You can’t go out and buy more if you’ve spun up all that particular blend of dyed fibres. Matching again is very hard if not impossible to accomplish. You don’t want to run short or you will have to get creative which might not be what you had in mind. I’d rather get creative with the remainder after I’ve finished the project. But that’s just me. Spinning yarn might be work but it’s usually much cheaper than buying a similar yarn already spun up.

Heading out shortly to my weavers’ guild meeting and spring potluck with Thom in tow. He’s representing his woodturners’ guild as we start to put different craftspeople together for a big gallery show next year to celebrate the Year of Craft in Canada. He and I are already partnered up and starting to discuss some ideas for our collaboration. This is going to be fun! Well, life usually is. Unless you pull a muscle in your leg when you don’t expect it. Sigh. At least that’s just a temporary glitch.

More soon!

Enjoying Our Spring

Hope all the moms out there had a lovely Mother’s Day! I did. The weather was a perfect spring day and we spent most of it with our son Simon and his family. He made wheat-free waffles with whipped cream and strawberries for brunch then we all went for a walk by the Coquitlam River and finally ended with an early sushi dinner. Yum. Then I came home to a very cute phone message from the Littlest Grandbeastie wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day. The festivities continued yesterday when we took Thom’s mom out to the garden shop for lunch and plant shopping. Lunch was really good but they didn’t have everything we wanted so we finished off at a second place with more selection. I got several pretty coleus, stripey yellow violas and better basil than what I can grow myself. Also salvinia (floating fern) for the water garden. Now I’ve got everything I need for this year’s growing adventures. I’m running out of room for anything else.

Today I was back out in the garden planting my cucumbers and squashes. The weather has been warm enough for a couple of days and hopefully it won’t deteriorate too much at least until things get established. I also planted the rest of my beans and now the veggie garden is nearly full and the dye garden is done. Only weeding and watering left to do for the next while. Feels good to get that finished. Now we can concentrate on the front garden and clear some space to plant the rest of my bedding plants. I still have lots of marigolds which can always go in the veggie garden if I run out of room elsewhere. I love flowers in with the edibles!

Some of the edibles even look as pretty as flowers:

The dark leaves on the top of the pile are red komatsuna. It’s also called Japanese mustard spinach but this dark purple-red version with the red veins on the back of each leaf is just so pretty! Even better for you than spinach, the taste is fairly mild especially when young and can be eaten raw or lightly cooked. Then underneath these are the strappy bronze leaves of a new-to-me lettuce variety called Cimarron. They just glow in the sun and are a nice contrast with the chartreuse green leaves of my other favourite lettuce, Esmeralda. Cimarron is a romaine type while Esmeralda is a butter lettuce. Yes, I like my food to have pretty colours too, don’t you?

It got too hot in the sunshine to work this afternoon so a break was welcome. Not that I’m complaining about the heat! I’ll be heading out in the shade to clear off the space for the cactuses to spend the summer but first I actually have a Finished Object for you:

I finished knitting one pair of more-or-less matching gloves and am now halfway to finishing the second pair which do not go together in any way that pleases me. They will be overdyed something dark and then I will be happy to have 2 pairs put away for next winter to replace the ones that I was forced to heave out. I need more than the single pair of gloves with fingers that I was left with – at least one pair to wash and one to wear. They get pretty grubby even when covered by fingerless gloves for a second layer of warmth. I like to clean gloves frequently in winter to avoid catching colds and flu from touching public surfaces. Hey, sounds paranoid but it works! I usually get only one or at most two colds in a year, usually thanks to the Snot Fairy, aka Rosebud or the Littlest Grandbeastie. Daycare is a germ incubator for sure and it seems as if I can never wash my hands enough when she’s visiting with a runny nose. Good thing she’s incredibly cute.

So that’s the story for now. I have to go scrub my dirty toes. (How does that happen?) More soon!

Dancing With Wools

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that title has been used before – many times! It’s just too good a pun to resist, isn’t it?

The woolly work goes on. Yesterday after spending too many hours out in the hot greenhouse trying to get it ready to plant the tomatoes (notice how I got the garden reference in there) – I went up to the studio to do some more dizzing. For those who might be unfamiliar with how this works I took a few more photos to augment yesterday’s. Here I’m threading the first little woolly tail into the diz ready to begin:

My diz is a limpet shell with a small hole drilled in the middle (carefully because you do NOT want to breathe shell dust). I use a threader with a very fine wire hook. The handle was carved by a friend’s husband and, not surprisingly, it looks just like him:

Always more pleasure in a task when you can use nice tools, huh? I’m starting to get a more consistent rhythm to the dizzing off:

I pull hand-over-hand from right to left, then left to right and finally back to the left again to get all of the usable fibres in one long strand of top. It’s not quite a worsted preparation because it hasn’t been combed but it’s close. A somewhat-semi-worsted prep! I’m still getting quite a lot of waste but it’s only about 1/3 of the weight of the fibre, the rest being spinnable top. I’m happy with this result since I started with mostly secondary quality rovings anyway.

Here’s the next set of fibre piles lined up:

Each pile is one hackle full. I’ve done 8 of them now – only 64 more to go! The colours get lashed onto the hackle in single layers one at a time, beginning with the dark green. It’s at the bottom of the pile so I flip them over and try to maintain the same colour sequence each time, ending with the lime green.

With my first little sample skein I knitted up a swatch and discovered that my first impression of this yarn was incorrect – it’s actually closer to a worsted-weight yarn. It knit up to a gauge of 18.5 sts and 27 rows to 4” on 4.5mm needles.

I didn’t try any other size needles. I like the feel of this swatch very much. It’s light and woolly and drapes nicely. Now to make about 1,300 yards more of it and I’ll have enough for a sweater. I’ve now decided to make the Harvest Moon cardigan by Heidi Kirrmaier.

My gauge is pretty close and I already bought this pattern awhile ago because I really like it, especially the curvy pockets. It seems to look good on a variety of figures and in a variety of yarns. I even saw one in handspun! I’m going to have to hunt for the perfect button to showcase on the front. I have plenty of time because I’m not going to be finished this project for awhile yet. This is definitely a long-term project. Slow Cloth indeed!

Time to head back out into the garden before it gets too warm to work in the greenhouse. More soonest.

Happy Blogiversary To Me!

Yup! Nine years today!!! Whoo-hoo! Who’d a-thunk it? That I’d keep this nattering up for so long? And who knew anybody other than myself would want to read it? I LOVE YOU ALL, DEAR READERS!!! Thank you for being you.

Some stats:

This is my 1,440th blog post. I have 20 followers on Blogger but I know there are more who follow me using other methods. You are sneaky! So far I only have 1,955 comments. Pretty sad compared to some other bloggers but hey, I’ll take what I can get! I repeat – you are sneaky! At least as far as I know you are all dear, kind and civilised people which is more than I can say for some out there. We will not speak of all the spam that Blogger has caught for me before it got published. Even if some of it is pretty amusing. Assuming it’s in a language I can kind of understand. Some people need to get a life. I’m not speaking of you all because you already have one.

Yes, I know mine is not one of the popular blogs with lots of traffic but that’s just fine with me. I admit that I might bore some people who have very specific interests. Being the damselfly that I am, I tend to flit around from one project to another: a little sewing, a little knitting, a splash of dyeing, a whole lot of gardening and a sprinkle of whatever else takes my fancy. And today we have spinning! For the first time in sooooo long I’ve begun a spinning project. As I said yesterday, it’s the only way I’m going to get the yarn for a new sweater. Besides, I actually enjoy spinning. I needed an excuse to get with it.

So I finally got with it. It’s been a long time but I guess it’s like riding a bicycle because I can still spin! I did try something new for me though – using a blending hackle. I’ve had this Forsyth hackle for several years now but had never even tried it yet. Sad, really. I bought it during the BR period (before retirement) when we had more discretionary income and I was collecting supplies in anticipation of leaner times. Well here they are! Leaner times, hello.

I watched a few You-Tube videos before beginning just in case there was something I hadn’t understood about using my hackle. Luckily Susan and Andrew Forsyth made some very helpful videos to help me get started. The one on the hackle is here. I also own their mini-combs and clamp set so while I was at it I watched that set of videos too. The Forsyths are local to me and Andrew even belonged to Thom’s guild, the Greater Vancouver Woodturners. Sadly they are out of production for now and hope to get back into it again in the fall. I hope so because they make lovely equipment. Wish I could afford a set of Russian paddle combs as well but it’s hard to justify when I already have so many tools. The little mini-combs are pretty good at removing short fibres and neps, noils and vegetable matter anyhow so probably they are sufficient to have in my collection. I also own a set of English woolcombs by a different maker, Jim Sweitzer, who is no longer in business. Not to mention the two drum carders, several sets of hand cards and of course a flick card or two. Do you think that might be enough for just about any type of fibre prep? Hope so. I have a rather large fibre stash to deal with.

Anyhow, back when I did an inventory of said fibre stash I put aside a box of various wool roving bits that I thought might play together nicely. I was going by colour rather than type or length or anything so the pile included everything from soft merino to a rather coarse Romney with a lot of Perendale in between. The fibre lengths were also not too consistent and there was some matting from all the various dye processes. Not all by me either. I spent quite awhile yesterday dividing each roving into 18 equal lengths and then sorting them into piles. I tied each bundle together with one of the longer pieces to keep them from getting mixed up. Isn’t this pretty?

That’s over a pound and a half which should be sufficient for whatever sweater I decide to make. Here’s the hackle:

Looks a bit scary but it’s not nearly as fiendish as my English wool combs! Andrew kindly includes a safety cap to put over the tines when you leave it. And here’s what it looks like when I’ve loaded 1/4 of a roving bundle on:

In this arrangement the colours are lashed on horizontally. There are other ways to do this also, each one giving a different effect. I dizzed off a nice top, moving side to side until there was only short bits and noils left:

I think because there’s so many differing fibre lengths and some neps and noils the waste weighed nearly half of the original rovings:

Hopefully I can card this waste together with something else and make some even more tweedy yarn for another project. I’m not wasting the waste! That leaves just over half for the top:

And even this top isn’t all that nep-free either. But that’s ok because I like the tweedy effect in this little sample skein:

I’m calling it Rainbow Dark. Interesting to me how all those colours, darks and brights, can blend together into something that isn’t at all garish. In fact it’s rather subtle. I like it! Not particularly soft but not too scratchy either.

Now I need to knit a teeny swatch from this little 18-yard skein. I never bother to measure wraps per inch or twist ratios or any of that spinnerly stuff. It’s something between fingering and DK-weight and I really want to see how it looks knitted up. Oh yeah, and hackle and spin all the rest of the 71 remaining piles of wool. It feels good to be working with stuff from the stash. It’s been awhile.

More as this saga unfolds! Right now I need to get moving. There’s groceries to get and gardens to plant now that it stopped raining. Time waits for nobody.

Happy Blogiversary to me! Happy Blogiversary to me! Happy Blogiversary, dear damselfly….

Sewing Up A Storm – Or Not

I know! Is Damselfly feeling OK? So many recent posts! Yes, I am fine but we are dangerously close to my Ninth Blogiversary – tomorrow! I promise to get all  nostalgic on you then. Hold that thought.

Meanwhile I’m onto a different subject – or two –  entirely. Firstly, I’ve been fascinated by the sewing blogosphere’s signing up en masse for Zoe’s Me-Made-May. I would join in myself except for 2 things: personal photos of daily outfits which is just too hard for me to bother with and…ummm…I always wear me-mades. So it’s not at all unusual. I’ve nearly always got something I’ve made on and most of the time it’s most of my outfit right down to the socks and undies. The only way it would be any kind of challenge would be for me to avoid wearing any manufactured clothing altogether. Then I wouldn’t be able to wear my cotton or bamboo under-socks (worn layered beneath my handknit socks) which would make it hard for me to walk the 6-10 kilometre distances that we do several times a week. So that’s not happening. Anyhow I’m slowly accumulating even more me-mades as old things wear out and I work out TNT patterns for my every day casual wardrobe. I feel like I’m ahead of their game already. Minus the photographic evidence.

Similarly I’ve been enjoying reading about the Sewing Indie Month. This is a promotion devoted to the online independent pattern designers begun by one of their number, Seamster Smart Sewing Patterns. I’m all for the indies since there’s always room for new sewing patterns out there. Maybe it’ll help keep the Big Four on their toes, who knows? I am however a little disappointed that nobody has covered my personal style in any meaningful way. Most of the indies are retro fashions or simple basic t-shirt/skirt/dress patterns. The only ones I’ve actually made and loved so far are Sewaholic’s Minoru Jacket, Thread Theory’s Newcastle Cardigan (for Thom) and Maria Denmark’s free Kirsten Kimono Tee. Guess I’m just not their “target demographic”. (So what else is new!?) However I do think there’s a lot of room for more artsy clothing patterns that aren’t from 15-20 years in the past, don’t you think? Or do the Tilton Sisters have a lock on this one? I can’t be the only one who likes this style since the Tiltons consistently are top-sellers for Vogue and now Butterick. There’s a niche – somebody go fill it, please? I’d like a little more variety or I’ll be forced to rip (or riff?) off more ready-to-wear.

But I digress. Anyway there are some very interesting interviews and chats going for Sewing Indie Month so check out the calendar here. And sewalongs with prizes if you might be interested. Some people enjoy these kind of challenges. I just hoe my own row instead. (Note expected gardening reference! Heh.)

All this talk of sewing and I haven’t touched the machine since my wrangle with the Tilton Skirt. Must get back to that and conquer the thing, huh? Has it sat in the doghouse long enough to start behaving? Or was it just me? I have several more items in the sewing pile already cut out and lots and lots of potential items just waiting for me to get to them. It seems like I’m always at least a season behind in my production. How does that happen? Oh well. I don’t really mind if I can’t get any wear out of something until half a year later. That just improves its longevity! I pay very little attention to what might be “in” or “out” in fashion anyway. As you know, I still wear garments made from 1980’s and ’90’s patterns! I only give it up if it’s truly worn out or doesn’t work with my current body shape or personal style, both of which tend to shift around but not excessively so. I like to think that I’m beyond being overly influenced by the Fashion Marketing Machine. Am I just in denial? Or just Not. The. Target. Market?

Well, perhaps I’ve just temporarily lost my sewing mojo. What I really want to make right now is another sweater! Unfortunately I can’t justify buying any yarn for this because – hello! – I have a spinning fibre stash. Lots of stash. So I need to spin up a sweater’s worth of yarn. But first I have to card up a blend to spin. See? There’s always a “but first” in the way of immediate gratification. Guess I need to get off my lazy behind and go do something other than talk about it, huh?

So. Moving right along. Hey, it’s not raining right now. Is that the garden I hear calling me?

Here’s What Was Missing

Ha! I finally got the computer to speak to my camera card. So that means photos! Finally.

You might have to go back to yesterday’s post for clarification if you missed any of the details. Anyway, here’s the rayon/silk velvet (actually rayon pile on a silk backing) as I was cutting out my modified version of Katherine Tilton’s B5891 View C/D jacket:

You can see just how much of the yardage is left and how I had to squeeze the sleeve in so that there’s barely a seam allowance left at the armpits. The unused width on the right there is needed for the continuous collar/front bands of my modified jacket/cardigan. You can also see how the selvedges on this fabric are kind of wavy. Hopefully this won’t give me too hard of a time when sewing the bands. It may need a bit of easing to avoid a rippling seam. We’ll see. That piece is going to be treated with the devoré paste first though so who knows what it will look like after that plus a couple of dyebaths, rinsing, drying and ironing!

And here are my devoré samples from Thursday’s Spectrum session:

Not terribly exciting but I learned quite a lot from doing them – it’s harder than it seems like it ought to be! They were drying on my deck table in the sunshine when I snapped the pic so they’re a bit wrinkled and more transparent. Later I’m going to mordant them with alum acetate so they’ll be ready for a natural dye session with Spectrum next month. The actual jacket will be dyed in Procion MX and acid dyes though so I probably should do more samples before I tackle the real thing. I have some scraps still left to play with as well as my own bottle of Fiber Etch. This velvet fabric is stupid-expensive (at least from Maiwa where I got mine) and I don’t want to ruin it.

In other news, I finished another test knit for Sanjo Silk. Jo had knit one herself in the small size (before writing up the pattern!) and accidentally shrank it in the wash! Oops. So I knit her a large size and found a few errors in her pattern as written. Which was the whole point of the exercise, no? Really, aren’t they cute together? They kept making me smile until I turned them in to the shop.

The yarn is a yummy silk/wool blend from Italy and obviously not superwash! It did hold up well to the many frogging sessions it had to endure while I tried different cast-ons for the cuff and different interpretations of the eyelet check pattern. Personally, I think it would be better for shawls or even a fine-gauge sweater than socks. I’m much too hard on my handknit socks for something this nice. It’s also available in undyed as well as this rich red. Maybe it’s a good thing they’ve sold out of the black or I just might have been tempted!

So it’s still raining today because it’s still the weekend, of course. I had to leave the squashes and cucumbers under the lights because I didn’t want to get soaked putting them out in the greenhouse. If it was nicer today we’d be cleaning out the greenhouse and getting it ready to plant the tomatoes. After all, if they can stay in the greenhouse overnight in pots then they can be planted in there too, right? There’s some work to do first however – clearing it out, washing down the inside walls and adding compost and Sea Soil to the beds. It needs to be dry for a few days sometime too to enable an attempt to caulk the annoying leaks in the roof. One of the acrylic panels is cracked and pulling away and the previous repair isn’t doing anything useful. We’ve had this greenhouse for quite a few years now so some wear and tear is to be expected. It’s been great though especially now that we have automatic openers on the skylights. They open when the temperature gets too warm inside and close when it cools down. Saves a lot of fussing on our part. Also the shade cloth that goes on in June or July (depending on the weather) helps to keep it a few degrees cooler in summer than it would be otherwise. In winter we store the tomato cages, water garden, deck pots and Lazy Rosie, my potted rosemary bush inside. And I’m sure you noticed how I use it in spring to help harden off the seedlings until they can get into their permanent spots. It’s an all-year-round important part of my garden.

Gee, seems like all I can discuss lately is gardening, isn’t it? No, it’s not all I do! Honest. This is simply the time of year when it takes the most work to get everything cleaned up and off to a good start so it’s the most time-consuming. Later on almost all that’s needed is watering, harvesting and an occasional weeding. Both Thom and I really enjoy the work. Much more fun than going to a gym! And with something more to show for our efforts too. We have a system between us that works well. He takes care of compost, digging, mowing, the majority of pruning, some weeding and helping me tie things up. I do the seedlings, transplants, shaping the beds, fiddly weeding, deadheading and harvesting. We both water. And a little at a time the job gets done.

I’m very attached to my wee piece of land. Come to think of it, it’s attached to me too – under my fingernails! Heh!

Well nobody wanted to hear my May Day song and I forgot to wish everyone a happy Beltane, so now I’m trying to resist saying “May the fourth be with you” but obviously couldn’t help myself…

Must Be A Weekend…

…because it’s raining! Pity the poor folks who had to work and then expected the lovely warm sunny weather that we’ve had all week to still continue on their days off. Sadly, nope. However I was quite ready for a little break. We’ve been busy in the garden for days now and I’m still only about halfway through transplanting everything into their beds. The veggie patch and the dye garden are looking pretty good though there are still gaps because it’s just not quite warm enough at night yet to put in the beans and squash. Soon though!

A friend who is moving was kind enough to give me some of her Anthemis tinctoria (dyer’s chamomile, variety Sauce Hollandaise) to add to the dye garden. (Hi, Suzanne!) I don’t know if this variety is a good dye plant since the flowers have white petals with a yellow eye instead of being completely yellow as in the more common form that was actually used historically for yellow dye. But we shall see! Anyway I really needed more daisy-type flowers – not! In the front garden we already have English daisies and masses of Shasta daisies, which are actually kind of a weed and show up everywhere where I don’t want them. Also there’s the feverfew that I’ve been trying to eliminate for years. Not that I don’t like feverfew – the bright light green leaves and little white flowers with yellow centres are pretty – but it’s another one that shows up everywhere and the ants just love it. They plant ugly black aphids on the stems and then bite me when I brush by them. Yuck! Ouchie and so annoying. Hopefully the dyer’s chamomile will be pretty and useful and not pesky. One can only try it and see, right?

Sorry I don’t have any photos for you today. My computer is not cooperating with my camera card. Humph…

Anyway, Thursday was Spectrum Study Group Day and we had a lot of fun playing with devoré on rayon/silk velvet. I managed to get my jacket cut out (barely!) from my 2 metres of 45” wide velvet. I had one teensy centimetre of fabric length left! Good thing my arms are short, huh? However I wisely decided that a practice session would be a very good idea before I ruined the real thing. Just as well because I actually managed to create a couple of holes in my sample pieces! There’s a definite learning curve to this.

I tried some simple freezer paper stencils ironed onto the back of the fabric and also freehand with a foam brush and a squeeze bottle with a fine nozzle. It was super-hot on Jo Anne’s back deck in the sunshine so our pieces dried really quickly after applying the burnout paste. After lunch we did the ironing part of the procedure which was also kind of tricky. You have to get the heat just right, not too cool or it doesn’t work properly and not too hot or it goes very dark brown and can make a hole in the silk. Also no steam or it moistens the dried paste and can smear your design. You want a light and even biscuit beige. I found it was easy to test if it was enough heat by scratching the pile with my fingernail. If the burnout was done the pile came off quite easily. After ironing we washed out the rest of the loosened pile in warm water. I found the soft surgical nail brushes from Lee Valley Tools were perfect to brush away the pile without damaging the silk backing. Good thing we always keep a large package of them about the house. We use one in the kitchen (for scrubbing mushrooms and carrots etc.), one in the bathroom and one at the basement sink.

Yesterday (Friday) Thom & I walked down to Granville Island to get some groceries and also stop in Maiwa Supply for a bottle of Fiber Etch so I can get on with the real devoré project. I only borrowed a bit of it from my Spectrum friends for my samples. I could have gotten the ingredients to mix up lots of paste for much cheaper but since it only keeps for a month once mixed I doubted I would use enough of it to make it worthwhile. So instead I got the 12 oz. bottle of premixed for twice the price of the 4 oz. bottle, which I figured might not be enough for my jacket. Fiber Etch does have a shelf life too though because I used to have some ages ago that ended up getting tossed. Hopefully I can use it up before it goes off. Might be fun to try something handwoven inspired by some of the devoré work by the late Anne Field from NZ, hmmm…?

Well, I will try to get my pictures to cooperate and attempt another post soon. Over and out for now!