Woolly Fluff & Stuff

It still hasn’t lost it’s glow for me – I can make things again! Wha-hoo! You can easily infer from that reaction the extreme level of frustration I was feeling since The Incident happened two long months ago. Back in the saddle studio now and trying hard not to obsess crazily or flit about aimlessly. Slow and steady, damselfly! Don’t push things too hard. Yet.

I’m slowly knitting on the Blodgie Sweater (aka hot water bottle cosy) for Nana (aka Thom’s mom). I made a major mistake and had to rip back 2/3s of what I’d already done. Boo. But I’m back up past that now and about halfway to the finish line. The cables are kind of complex but fun and they take some concentration though it will go much faster when I get to the turtleneck ribbing which I can practically do in my sleep. Sadly I won’t be finished by New Year’s Day but she will get this gift next week instead. No hurry really except that it’s been a bit chilly around here lately so a blodgie would be welcome to warm up the foot of her bed, I’m sure. Mine sure has made itself indispensible! Photos to come soon.

My other current project is The Sweater For Thom which is of course still at the teasing-wool stage. Lots and lots of wool to tease! Unlike most other spinners I really love that job. It’s mindless and soothing and I can listen to podcasts without dividing my attention. Recently I’ve been listening to a new one I just found: Woolful. It’s very interesting with an interview format, two per episode, with various fibre folk whom you might not have heard of especially if you don’t hang out on Instagram. (That would be me actually since I don’t have a smart phone!) The conversations are thoughtful and articulate and totally remind me of a lot of the back-to-the-land people I knew back in the 1970’s – a combination of the desire to DIY as much as possible, concern for environmental sustainability, and an acute awareness of their wider community. I do love me some youthful energy and enthusiasm. You go, people.

Meanwhile, woolly pleasures abound. So let me show you more about the process from fleece to yarn. To reiterate, this wool is a RomneyX from New Zealand that was gifted to me ages ago. As in decades. All I did since then was wash it in very hot water and Orvus. The fleece is coloured an extremely light gray, some almost white but with a few patches of darker colour. I’ve been systematically sorting out the much darker bits and the wool that is left when blended all together is a very pale warm grayish, not quite creamy tan but not quite gray either. I’m sure there’s a very chic name for it in paint chips. Sand? Barley? Elephant’s Ear? Dolphin Fin? I need to take the swatch into Home Depot and use their matching machine (spectrometer)! Or download the app. I want a cool name to call it by. Ahem.

This RomneyX fleece is quite long-stapled even for a Romney:

I really wonder what it was crossed with? You can see that some of the locks are nearly 8” long! This photo shows a good range of the colours too and a good idea of the wide loose crimp. You might be able to tell that this fleece has some brittle tips which I’ve been pulling off as I tease each lock:

Isn’t it pretty? This leaves me with a lot of debris so I’m teasing over a lap cloth and a flat basket to collect the fallout. I have a huge big deep basket-full of fluffy fleece now!

Next step after teasing is to run the teased fleece through my drum carder. For this relatively strong fleece I’m using my very old Patrick Green that I’ve had since the 1970’s. It has wide coarse teeth that work very well with the long-staple medium to coarse fleeces, especially Romneys which I’ve actually been working with since I learned how to spin way back then. I’ve heard that anything over 4” is too long for a drum carder but that’s just hooey. Does a fine job. Just don’t try to card too much at once and stop before it’s packed too high.

The results after two passes are pretty good. Occasionally I miss a piece of of the brittle tips which show up when I hold the batt up to the window:

Not hard to remove them at this stage. If I left them in they’d just add unwanted lumps in my yarn. The zigzag-stripped batts look pretty nice:

All ready to spin. When I get about a kilo ready to go I hope I can remember how I did my best sample, that was Sample #4 – long-fibre, long-draw. Whew! It’s a new technique for me. Guess I’ll get lots of practice in though before there’s enough ready to start knitting the sweater. I need about 1300 yards total for a medium man’s long-sleeved sweater. I’m not even sure which pattern I’m going to use for it yet.

Hand update. Just in case you’re not sick of the whole stinkin’ issue, poor old Righty is looking pretty healthy these days. The skin is peeling where the infection was. I’m still slathering on my aloe, vitE and lavender whenever I think about it. It’s healing well but I’m still getting the occasional pin-pricking or light nerve zapping. It’s a LOT better than it was though so I’m expecting it’s going to go away eventually. I can use it almost as well as normal now anyhow so I’m generally very pleased. It’s been a very long haul. One I don’t really want to drag into next year with me. Still a few antibiotic tablets to go though.

We are priveleged to have the Biggest Grandbeasties tomorrow overnight. Rumour has it that they really want to stay up until midnight for New Year’s and honour the local tradition to bang on pots and pans and shout out with the neighbours. From here you can hear the boats in the harbour too which is my favourite part of it all. Since they’re only 10 and just-turned-8 that will be a challenge! Or maybe that would be their grandparents having a hard time keeping their eyes open. We shall see who quits first! The gauntlet is thrown down. Heh.

Here’s wishing all my Dear Readers a very happy, healthy and productive New Year! Big hugs to you all. On to 2015!

(image from here)

A Year’s Worth of Makes

(Borrowed from here.)

Christmas Day was delightful and most of the family made it to Milady Daughter’s for a delicious turkey dinner. (Thom made butter tarts and I made the salad and the gravy. Yay! Mostly functional hand.) Glad that’s over for another year! Now we just have New Year’s Eve with the two biggest Grandbeasties coming up before a couple of months’ worth of peace and quiet ensues. Hopefully. Wishfully?

Anyway now that I can mouse and type again properly, I decided to do the usual review of my production in 2014:

Knitting

• Socks – 7 pairs (and one in progress)
• Gloves/mitts – 3 pairs
• Cowls – 3
• Scarves/shawls – 3 (and one in progress)
• Sweaters – 4
• Miscellaneous – 2 glasses socks (and 1 hot water bottle cosy in progress)

Sewing

• Tops – 5 (and one in progress)
• Dresses – 2
• Jackets/vests – 2
• Pants - 1
• Miscellaneous – 1 neckpiece (and a whole lot of other things in progress)

Spinning

• Black Shetland – 1 bobbin
• Boysenberry Glitter – 1 bobbin
• RomneyX (in progress)

Weaving

• Towels – 4
• Scarves – 1
• Placemats – (2 still on loom, more in progress)

There was also some dyeing here and there but it’s too much trouble to count them up! It’s not usually an end in itself anyway but part of the progress of a project. Like teasing, carding and spinning.

Total finished items for 2014: 40

So, obviously not quite up to my usual production numbers. Last year was 59! Of course I couldn’t really accomplish much during November and December due to The Splinter Incident so there’s that factor. Also several makes just took more time to complete. I know it’s not a race here! Just an interesting observation. At least there was some weaving to report this year which is definite progress. Now I need to sew some more garments, both for me and for Thom. I promised him some shirts and sweaters, preferably before winter is over. I plan to go up to my studio today for the first time in what feels like forever! Probably just over a week or so in reality. I’ll probably tease wool because that’s what’s calling to me the loudest right now. I know it’s not sewing but it is progress on his knitted sweater project. Gotta start somewhere, don’t I?

Thanks so much to everyone who wished me well over the past little while. Whether I know you IRL or not, you darlings are just The Best and your good thoughts really helped a lot! Poor old abused Righty continues to improve. I’m slathering it with aloe gel, vitamin E and lavender oil every time I think about it. The swelling has gone down quite a bit and things are feeling much more normal though of course I’m still being very careful. No desire to go back to Emergency or even the doctor’s office for the foreseeable future! Moving on…

The Tale of…The Claw

<Cue creepy music>

In the last episode we left our brave Damselfly attempting to hold off The Claw from getting worse and prevent it from ruining her Solstice. Uh, nope. I fought The Claw and The Claw won. (Are you all groaning now? How many trite expressions can I come up with? Mwahh-ha-ha!!)

Yes, I finally broke down and went to Emergency on Saturday afternoon right after I wrote the last post. Things were getting ugly. And my timing was actually good because I ended up having to go four days in a row! At least it didn’t end up overlapping Christmas Day. Whew! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the beginning.

Emergency in BC’s largest and busiest hospital is…an experience. You need vast reserves of time and fortitude. A patient patient. They will take good care of you but it happens at its own pace and you have to be prepared to wait until they can get to you. After all there are many others waiting too, some in much more serious states. They keep track – even if it seems kind of haphazard when you’re in the middle of it all. It’s nothing at all like the TV shows would have it. Thank goodness.

So we gathered all our patience and walked (in the pouring rain, of course) because parking is a PITA and we only live 2 km away. I’ll spare you all the minute details because that would be as boring as the waiting. Here’s the Coles Notes version. That first day, Saturday, The Claw was getting nasty so they took a pus sample (ewww), decided that I needed IV antibiotics (sigh), had trouble getting the IV catheter in my left hand (ouch, bruise), poked me again with a temporary one (double-ouch), gave me a Fast Track paper and told me to come back the next day for more fun and games. Which of course was Solstice at my son and daughter-in-law’s so I whined enough for them to schedule things early enough to hopefully get out in time for dinner.

Day 2 (Sunday) was an ultrasound to make sure there wasn’t any more lumber embedded (gooey), the stitches finally removed (HUGE ouch-ouch-ouch), a proper IV catheter in my right hand (much less ouch), IV antibiotics (again), and a line drawn around the reddened area to see whether it was responding properly. At least the stitches were finally gone and, although the nurses were grumpy about having to put the catheter in my ouchie hand, I still had one more-or-less functional hand left instead of both being incapacitated. Fun sleeping with the IV catheter in though. I spent Solstice with The Claw looking like a mummy or a small turkey roast:

My darling son had to cut my dinner up for me into bite-sized pieces so I could eat it with my left hand! Had a delightful family time anyway, in spite of being semi-incapacitated.

Back to the hospital again for Day 3 (Monday) and this time just the relatively quick IV antibiotics. Things were already clearing up. Day 4 (Tuesday) and the last dose of IV antibiotics and the catheter out. The Claw is gone and, although not 100% yet, well on the way to health and function. Yippee!! I still have to take a week’s worth of oral antibiotics, the ones that I didn’t have a chance to take when they put me on the super-antibiotics. They won’t go to waste anyhow. I’m using soothing aloe gel and slathering Vitamin E and lavender oil on the scar to hopefully minimise it as much as possible.

Hint: the infection started to clear as soon as the stitches were out. They did NOT dissolve but festered instead. Mystery: solved. I knew they needed to come out properly a week ago and I should have insisted. My Dear Family Doc is not in my good books at the moment. Any snipping they did just made it harder in the end to remove the stitches completely. Lump of coal in your stocking, doc! We will not discuss how much time was wasted and pain suffered during this two-month-long Splinter Incident. It would just make me cry.

I’m still taking it easy on poor old Righty now that I have her back. It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet! Even though I’m chomping at the bit to get back to the studio I don’t want to push things. I’m still revelling in having a bare hand that doesn’t hurt. Gotta appreciate the small important things. I have the best Christmas present I could wish for this year!

And the Scheffmas Tree is now sporting my two hospital wristbands as decorations. Hah!

Wishing you and yours all the very best of the Holiday Season! Now that I can type again, I’ll be back as soon as I have something new to say. Off to darling daughter’s tomorrow along with 25 or so of our closest relatives. Merry-Merry!!

Another Update on The Hand

Now referred to as The Claw! The darn thing somehow got infected and, after waiting 3 hours to see my doctor on Wednesday, I’m back on antibiotics. It’s not improving so far. Of course it would have helped if I hadn’t accidentally smacked it hard yesterday right on the stitches while trying to open the coffee canister to make Thom’s morning cuppa! Doh. So painful! If things don’t start improving soon (I’m giving it until Monday) I have been ordered to go to Emergency. Sounds like fun, huh? This close to Christmas and all. Tomorrow is our family’s annual Solstice Party at my son and daughter-in-law’s. I’m NOT missing it. Meanwhile I’m taking my meds and probiotics and trying to keep The Claw out of trouble. Wish me luck.

Hope you all have a very Happy Solstice! It’s at 3:03pm PST (recalculate for your own time zone) tomorrow, December 21st. Yes, here in the Northern Hemisphere the sun is coming back and the days are getting longer! Yay! We need some positive energy and light around here for sure.

More when I can type better.

Oopsie

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. At least this time I hope it sticks. I wanted to dye some of the white Elann F05 sock yarn. (You knew I couldn’t keep from doing my crafty things for so long without being sorely tempted, right?) I thought this would be an easy-peasy low-water immersion bath with just acetic acid and Lanaset black dye. As you might know, Elann yarns come in these little puff balls:

Photo from Amazon.ca

Somebody I read called the balls’ shape “tomatoes” though this photo shows the colour “persimmon” which is definitely what these ones resemble. My white ones look like marshmallows! I thought I could just dye them as-is since they’re loosely wound and mostly the dye should penetrate to the centre ok. I wouldn’t mind a little variegation just to keep the dead black from being boring. If I really wanted straight black, and if Amazon actually had any for sale, I might have just bought that and be done with it. But no. Work from the stash.

However, I forgot that the darn things disintegrate much too easily no matter how careful you are with them. I ended up with this:

That’s 6 balls! Which took longer to untangle and skein than it would have just skeining it up in the first place. Doh. Also I’m not sure I like where the blips of light gray happen – mostly just on the second half of each skein – and not very evenly over the 6 of them either. Oh well. If it looks bad when I’ve knitted my sweater, I can always throw the whole thing in another dyepot and then it really will be dead black.

I used Lanaset black for this because it gives me the most true black of all my acid-type dyes. The washfast acid dye blacks (I have more than one) lean either a little blue or a little purple or a little green especially in the grayer areas. Lanaset (also called Telana or Sabraset) is totally the best black of any dye I’ve ever used. I used a nearly-4% depth of shade in total, though it’s hard to calculate exactly after I mixed up a little more dye because the centres of the balls were still too white. Black areas are very black! And the remaining liquid in the dyebath was pretty clear when I was done so none went to waste. Another good thing about Lanaset is that it exhausts pretty darned completely. Also superwash wool/nylon yarn sucks up the dye like a thirsty camper after a month in the desert! (Ask me how I know.)

Oh yeah, I’m sure you want to know which sweater I was planning, don’t you? It’s this lovely little cardigan, Trellis by Lili Comme Tout (aka Julie Partie). I found that I have a need in my wardrobe for a little black sweater and this one looks just right, particularly with 3/4 sleeves. I’ve already purchased the pattern through Ravelry and printed it out. Not starting to knit it yet though!

I did do a little bit of knitting anyway. See?

I started Nana’s Blodgie Sweater. We decided that Thom’s mom needs a hot water bottle to warm her feet in bed. She’s always complaining of cold but doesn’t like to use her electric blanket. She didn’t even know that they still make hot water bottles (now known in our family – thanks to me – as “blodgies” for the sound they make when filled) but of course they are even more popular these days when everyone is trying to save money on heating and electric bills. And who can just wrap the poor thing in a towel when it can sport a lovely hand-knit sweater? Not me. I like to try out different cables on each one I make. This one is provocatively entitled Enclosed Cable Variation II from Walker’s Charted Knitting Designs.

However, today my hand is a little sore from all that activity so I should stop typing and rest up. I’ll leave you with the photo of our Scheffmas Tree in full regalia:

Every item has a story and most were made by us, family or friends, except of course the tin icicles from Lee Valley Tools. Also the basket on the front door is now filled with evergreen boughs from our neighbour’s tree (which blew over here in the wind storm last week) and decorated with sun, moon, and stars for Winter Solstice and a hilariously “nakey” angel doll, made by a long-ago friend. I’ll try to get a photo, although my decorating would not win any Martha Stewart awards!

More whenever…

The Good, The Bad & The Not-So-Pretty

Hello, my dears! I know it’s been awhile but, you know… The Hand. I was going to write a really whiny post here because I’ve been having some very uncomfortable nerve zap issues since the surgery. But suddenly things are feeling quite a lot better today. Perhaps they’ll be better still when I get the stitches out next week? Really though, aren’t they interesting? (Please look away if you’re squeamish!)

Not to question the resident hand doc’s sewing skillz, but I believe this is going to leave a serious scar. Which I don’t really care about too much as long as I have the complete use of my hand back.  I’m still hoping that I’m just being too impatient and quick to judge the results. It hasn’t even been a week yet. Patience, damselfly.

These guys will now cover up the horrific view:

Yes! I have my own Minions!

So. Enough complaints already. Moving right along. Naturally I don’t really have much to discuss since I haven’t done much of anything except walk (when I can because the rain has been crazy), read, and watch Craftsy classes. I’m super-happy with the Fairy Bra Mother, Beverly Johnson’s bra making class! It deserves to be the hit that it is on Craftsy. You can sure tell she’s done this one a jillion times in real life! I already own two of Beverly’s books and have made 4 or 5 bras but even so, I’ve learned several helpful new things from watching her class. I want to sew. Now! Shut up. Patience, damselfly.

The only other exciting thing I’ve done is scan a vintage sock pattern booklet donated by my mother-in-law, Hand Knit Socks by Regent Vol. No. 20. Surprisingly, it’s listed on both Etsy and Ebay and in Ravelry.

It must have been a popular pamphlet back in the late 1940’s when it sold for a whopping 15 cents! Nana says she knit argyle socks for Thom’s dad using one of the patterns in here. This copy is quite well-used indeed. Besides the argyles, it also has some textured socks, cabled socks, socks with moose and maple leaves (so Canadian!), some ladies stockings, plus 2 sweaters. There’s a couple of pairs I wouldn’t mind trying:

And especially a mysterious technique for knitting diamond patterned socks in the round just might need to be explored:

When I can actually knit properly again. Patience, damselfly!

Anyway, to that end I scanned all the pages, printed out an enhanced copy that was much more readable and then put the original in a heavy page protector to keep along with the printout. Now I’m trying to remember way-way back in ancient history – old Canadian/UK size 13 needles are 2.25mm, yes? I remember when I thought those were really tiny. Now I knit most socks on 2mm (old size 14’s) and have been known to go even smaller on occasion. Anyway, this pamphlet is like an archaeological dig! I wonder how the old yarns compare with modern sock yarns?

In other news, I hope you have gone and checked out Wendy’s Blog Hop post that came out on Monday following Myrna’s last week. Next will be Gayle’s linked from Wendy’s and you won’t want to miss that one either! So many great creative garment makers out there, plus other crafty stuff! I feel really blessed to be part of such a great collection of delightful, artistic, thoughtful and inspiring women.

Whilst I wait (patiently!) for healing to happen, Thom is being a huge help and is learning more about cooking than he ever wanted to know! So far I can’t chop or lift anything heavy with my right hand. But together we’ve managed a lot of basic housekeeping and kitchen stuff that I usually do by myself, me directing when necessary. At least I finally made a pot of tea without assistance and washed most of the dishes today (with The Hand sporting a disposable nitrile glove). Baby steps. So frustrating though when I want to be flitting about in my usual manner! Good thing all the Holiday Stuff is elsewhere this year (I so appreciate my responsible adult children!) and the minimal gifts are ready to go. I can’t imagine if I had to make the usual full-on turkey dinner for 25+ family members only a couple of weeks from now. Yikes! Normally it would be no problem. Not this time, honey. I haven’t even put the decorations yet on Scheff, my very large and very old Schefflera arboricola who lives in the dining room and has been serving as my Christmas tree for a number of years now. OK, so he’s not a fir tree. But he is an actual live plant and enjoys the decorations! So much so that we never find all of them when we try to put them away and he ends up sporting some leftovers all year around. Sneaky thing! Doncha love it when your houseplants get uppity on ya?

More soon. Less moaning. (I hope.) Maybe even a photo of Scheff in full holiday regalia.

2 X 4

Just a super-quick update (because it’s really hard to type with one hand) – yesterday I had my appointment at the hand clinic. Resident checks the spot, asks all the important questions, and then tries to put the surgery off to another day. That’s when I whined at him. Noooo!! Sliver has been in there for over a month! I want my hand back. Get it ouuuutttt!!

Luckily it worked and they found me an operating room right away. Semi-hysterical granny power. Yay! The doc was actually surprised and I was shocked when the piece turned out to be a wicked-sharp chunk nearly 2 cm long. Yikes! So now I have 3 stitches and a bigger scar than my granddaughter’s bed is sporting. At least I’m wood-free and can get on with healing. Meanwhile I’m going just a little nuts not being able to do much with one hand. (For starters it somehow took a whole 12 hours for the anesthetic to fully thaw.) But I’ll be back crafting up my usual storm PDQ.

One question though – why are nurses so bad at bandaging? You’d think they would get enough practice to do it really well! This one is coming off ASAP. It’s barely hanging on the wound but the rest is way too tight. Sheesh. I could do better with one hand…