8/31/2005
Do NOT let yourself get dehydrated or you’ll be reaping the aftereffects nearly two weeks later!
I’m a huge mass of infection right now. There will be much resting in my future to prepare for a marathon drive to IA and back (in four days total - 1 day out, 2 days there, 1 day back home) for which we leave before dawn next Thursday.
So, I’ll leave you with a few links of possible interest to see what I’ve been up to…
+ The Bat Mitzvah Book Commission, all completed.
+ The washed, blocked and dried skein of the merino/tussah top.
+ The washed, blocked and dried skein of the cotswold bat.
I had wanted to go to Textiles A Mano today to drop off a few things for an exchange to benefit a local charity program here, but I’m exhausted. I still have to wrestle up something for lunch (perhaps I’ll just have a Luna bar) and go pick up my prescriptions.
No promises on posting frequency this week, but hopefully I’ll be back to normal next week.
8/29/2005
This weekend was a BIG weekend in the world of spinning for me. Firstly, I finally got over my fear of spinning in front of DH (I haven’t touched my wheel on the weekends or evenings since DH’s not so kind comments when I first got my wheel)! I spun up a sample of merino/tussah roving (I suspect it is Ashland Bay, but I’m not positive) early Saturday afternoon while DH sat NEXT to me and watched every move I made. I was focusing on working on my worsted draw and I think I have it down. It still is a bit of a fight for me to keep the twist from entering the space between my hands, but I keep it out longer and when it does creep in I’m able to deal with it better than before. This worsted spun is on the Magpie niddy noddy in the front and is roughly 32 yds. At first I was trying to figure out what in the heck I’d do with 32 yds. I love it and an idea has popped into my head that I think 32 yds will enough for. So, stay tuned this week to see what that idea is! :-)
Then, later Saturday afternoon was a bit of a “card party.” A three of us spinners from SnB got together and carded some fleece on a drum carder. Boy, was that a learning experience. The biggest lesson? Don’t buy dyed, unprepared wool from Ebay when it is really cheap. Chances are the person selling it to you had no clue about spinning and just thought they’d cash in. Two of the three fleeces we worked with on Saturday were disgustingly dirty and full of second cuts! The one fleece that we carded completely ended up at only about 1/2 of it’s original weight in bats. However, now I’ll be a more educated consumer when it comes to looking at fleeces and such at the wool market next year (and perhaps SOAR in November).
So, on the PVC niddy noddy is one bat of Cotswold that I spun and plied on yesterday. This was the very first bat that we put through the carder so it is not very even and had a fair bit of noils in it. But, it was fun to spin, even if it isn’t terribly even. It comes out at roughly 42 yds.
Both are now washed and blocking with a fan on them to help the process along a bit. If I’m lucky they will be dry enough for me to bring along to SnB this evening. Though I have to leave early for a chiropractic appointment (nearly next door to Catalyst) at 4:20. So, we’ll have to see. Well, back to the kitchen and cleaning for me…
8/27/2005
the battle with worsted draw! More details and pics on Monday! Wooohooooooooo!
8/26/2005
Yesterday I showed off my center pull ball of the plied yarn. Here you can see that I used about 1/2 of that ball and knit my swatch. It’s 30 sts on US 2.5 Bryspun DPNs knit in the round. I had a tough time deciding on a pattern, as the yarn is still pretty rustic (though I’ll likely want to re-swatch when I really sit down to spin all the yarn for the socks as this skein contained all my experiements of different drafting techniques and fighting with the plying as well). So, I chose a simple embellished rib. I then wash and blocked the swatch too. There really wasn’t much difference at all. The one end is small in circumference because I didn’t pay attention to BO loosely - oops! If I had paid attention it could possibly be worn as a cuff. Oh, and if you click on the picture it’ll give you a larger image of just the swatch that will give you a bit better feel for the depth of color in this yarn.
So, last night was sort of a free form class. Once we all finished disucssing our project plans we got to just try different fibers. From left to right we have bombyx silk spun from a cap or bell (similar to a hankie), bleached tussah roving, linen roving (these weren’t full length fibers and weren’t spun from a distaff or wet as you would need to do with full length flax fibers), lastly is a combination mini-skein of combed cotton (the brown) and cotton spun direct from the seed pods.
My favorite to spin last night would have to be the bombyx silk cap and then the cotton from the pods. But I had very little fight with any of them. I did have some trouble doing a worsted draw on the tussah roving, but I got it down towards the end - mostly when Maggie started talking about the linen process so I got caught up in listening to her and just got into the rhythm. I’ll want to be trying that again here very soon to try get that engrained in my head. But I was having difficulty pinching my forward hand hard enough to keep the twist out from between the hands. It seems I tend naturally towards the long draw so I had a good time with the cotton. The first little bit of the combed cotton resulted in some really large slubs, but I thinned it out quite well and then had a blast with the seed pods. I was amazed at the length of yarn you would get from one seed pod!
I need to give props to my peep, Amanda for letting me tag along these past four weeks. It was so much more pleasureable to make the trip and take the class with a friend! Of course being able to take my pain meds was a great plus as well.
And, because I know I’ll have an e-mail or comment waiting for me if I don’t post this…
The very beginnings of Fiber Trends’ Leaf Lace Shawl in copper Zephyr (wool/silk lace weight). I’m afraid I haven’t made any progress on it today, but there should be at least some quality time with it this weekend.
Have a great weekend everyone!
I have a bunch to say about the final Spinning II class, but alas I ended up at water aerobics for two classes today because it was the end of the session and we played volleyball with the class after us. So, I’m behind. I still haven’t done anything about lunch (and it’s 1:30pm and as I don’t eat breakfast, I just gulp down a glass of cramberry juice before class, well you get the idea…)!
So, I’m going to take care of lunch and then I have some prep stuff that needs doing before I can make this post that is bursting in my head. So, expect a spinning-centric (which perhaps a small touch of lace to keep Snow happy) post late this afternoon…
