It was a Good Day

Linda and Mim were over for lunch and fibering yesterday. Linda said that since she was in between jobs, how about we have lunch at my house on Tuesday - she'd bring lunch. My best friends come to me with lunch? Talk about an offer you can't refuse. I enlisted them to help me with one bout on my warp that got twisted.
We are half of the Wool Hussies - the other three, being Laura, Amy and Allison. This unlikely alliance formed when we were practicing for a sheep-to-shawl contest years ago and have been good friends ever since. Mim and I are are trying to hang onto the inch sections of the bout, while Linda gets them into order.
I had tried a counting thread and without realizing I had done it, had started at a wrong place. I'm going to try it again now that I know what I did wrong, but what a costly mistake. I was going to trash the warp and start over, but Linda insisted we could salvage it. The rest of the warp is fine and in spite of this, I'm beginning to like the Back-to-Front method. I ended up having to forfeit the cross and am having to thread from the raddle - ugh.
I had so much fun yesterday, but really needed to do some work in the studio today. My Etsy store is empty and I'm casting about for replacement ideas. I carded together all the pieces and parts of the merino/sari silk that I had blended, which should give me a 2 ounce skein.
I also bended up the rest of the brown Romney with the fawn and white mohair and added more Starfire. This took five or six passes through the carder before I was satisfied - the most passes I've ever done. Again, this should yield about a 2 ounce skein. I think it'll go into a hyacinth dyebath. That's what I'm hearing from it right now anyway.

These are the six sales that I finally got weighed, yards and wpi counted, reskeined and labeled. I'll start listing them tomorrow. I did finish getting ready in time to sit on the deck, barefoot and in a tank top, to read the first 100 pages of Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson. Thanks Valerie!

A Monday to Dye For

Today got off to a slow start. I walked the dogs and then fooled around with beads. Oddly, now that I no longer have a beading table, I am suddenly interested in beads. Almost everything fits into a medium Sterlite container, so I take it to the sofa and work on a bed tray. The earrings on the left are new beads - my treat for having to go the dentist - and the ones on the right are from my stash. I bought the green beads at the Bead Museum in Washington D.C. years ago. Why did it take me so long??

I had planned to put warp on Maudie Mae today, but as the day developed, my plans changed. It got up to close to 60 degrees - worrisome since we should be under snow. However, my spirits embraced the sunshine. I can't make it snow anyway.
I realized this was the perfect day to dye my yarn so it could air dry. I am really pleased with the color. Since I was in the kitchen, I decided to cook at batch of cookies while I as cooking a batch of yarn. I used all butter this time. As for the palm shortening, I was terribly disappointed by the crust on the quiche I took to the guild meeting. It was soggy. I have never had a soggy crust ever before, and I do believe I can put a good crust on anything. I'm afraid I'm not a fan of palm shortening and am back to butter or Crisco. My organic mother is probably rolling in her grave.
I haven't seen these in a very long time. It's been a long winter with no breaks and today was the break. Happy feet! I took my book to the deck and read until the sun went down behind Peterson Mountain. That was my Monday. I hope yours was good too.

Fiber Preparation Demonstration

This is the Huffaker School-
house which has been moved and is now part of Bartley Ranch, a County park complex with an emphasis on things Western and agricultural. Our guild has been blessed by the gift of meeting, at no charge, in this facility six months each year. They feel that our mission compliments theirs, so they just ask that we are welcoming to the public. They also advertise our meetings in the Current Events of the local newspaper. Our mission is to promote the fiber arts so we couldn't be happier. Yesterday, six new people came to see what spinners and weavers do.
After the meeting and lunch, we have something we call The Learning Tree. Linda conceived and developed it for two years, then handed it off to Mim last year. Mim and I talked about it last week when I was at her house. This month the theme was fiber preparation, so I took my drum carder and a bag full of fiber and things to blend with it. These were some clean Romney locks that I had gotten at Black Sheep Gathering from a now forgotten class. We grabbed locks, showed how to tease them and then passed them around to speed things up.


We wanted to show what can happen with natural colored fibers so blended the Romney with undyed mohair locks, which is the top fiber. We blended in some Starfire to the bottom fiber. You'll have to click for big to see it. Romney is lustrous anyway, but with the mohair is became absolutely silky and the glitz is the frosting on the cake.
This fiber is Merino blended with snips of sari silk. This silk is loom waste and came from Woodland Wool-
works. Linda grabbed someone's drop spindle and started spinning the fibers so people could see what they'd look like as yarn. She enlisted one of the new ladies to hold one end so they could fold it back into a plied yarn. You cannot imagine how excited the lady was.
These are some of the things we used. That was the first time I had used that Starfire in brown wool. I just did it for the sake of demonstration. I didn't expect to fall in love with it. I'll be doing some more of that. Oh yeah.
I also had some clean Border Leicester locks. I really like that wool and have probably three clean fleeces that I got from a now retired Shepherd. It cards up into delicious fluff.
We blended the dyed mohair locks, some sari silk and Mim brought some silk noil. I like to only use one pass through the drum carder when I'm blending. I feel like it gets over blended after the first pass. However, as you can see in the top fiber, once was not enough. The left piece is where the silk noil rested and right half is the mohair. The bottom is two passes.
I plyed up that sample this morning. I was just curious about the noil which I'm unfamiliar with. It seemed so bumpy, but I really do like the yarn. Then I got more curious.
It's not fulled, which is obvious by the diagonal fabric, but look at all the color. That's still white wool. Blending is so much fun. Oh, I bet you're wondering. I have a Patrick Greene Deb Deluxe and I've had it for probably ten years. I unfortunately didn't take Paula Simmons suggestion and also get the fur cloth which means I can't process fine wools. That's why I go to Mim's to process fine wool because her carder does.

During our guild meeting yesterday, Ranger Marie came in to welcome us and let us know that Farm Days is May 8th, also a guild meeting day. Docents will be giving tours through the school, and from 10:00-2:00, it's going to be full-steam ahead throughout the park with activities. We will probably just do a circular spin-in so onlookers can have access and chat with spinners. It's a guild's dream to have this much exposure and we they just hand it to us. Wow.

Telling a Yarn

I drove a two-hour round trip last night for Vickie's shower which was just almost my commute exactly. I used to do that every day, in all weather and every day. I am so glad I don't anymore. I asked Vickie if I could take a picture of her with Rowdy's blanket. They're calling him Rowdy for now because their oldest daughter is headed for college in the fall and he's turned their household on its head.
Corinne, my former boss and soon to be Vickie's former boss, makes the craziest cupcakes. Witness these babies with red licorice safety pins and pacifiers, their piped eye lashes, also the features on the little teddy bears - times a couple dozen.
The last set of dish towels are finished, and while I love the colors, I wish so much that I would have listened to Beryl. I emailed her last year when I saw that the baby colored variegated yarn was on sale at Webs.

"The variegated cotton would be fine for baby blankets. I would use it in the warp -- but you could also use it warp and weft for an interesting plaid effect. If you just use it in the weft, it can be splotchy and not all that attractive. I almost always use cotton for baby blankets because I'm strongly opposed to the acrylics and other synthetics which aren't safe (IMHO) if they get near flames. And, cotton is easy to launder and dry in the dryer."

I followed her advice for the baby blankets and they turned out perfect. I wish I would have listened to her for the dish towels. I now know what she meant. While I'm happy with the colors, I could have avoided the splotchy experience. One of these days I'll repeat these towels in reverse.
My Olympics knitting is a green sweater, which I'm knitting in the round in garter stitch. Charlie is modeling it for me - it looks very nice on him. I gues that would be "under" him.

I'm so fascinated by the widget I loaded to count visits by countries. The 50th country to visit my blog was the Republic of the Philippines, the home of my oldest son. He's not adopted. That's where we lived then.

A Room with a View

I'm using the temples I ordered to see if they will help improve my selvedges. It finally occurred to me that I need to take them off before I release the tension so they don't drag the warp down to my lap - common sense. One day I'm going to finish a whole project, not have one crisis and actually feel in control. I wonder what that will be like.

This is my wider temple and it's made of some sort of metal. I'm comfort-
able using them, but I'm beginning to wonder if they're a security blanket. I wove the first baby blanket without one and the second one with. Both ended up being the same width and the selvedges are pretty even. I found it much easier to get an even selvedge on the wider warp.
The natural light and the view in this room are absolutely wonderful. The down side is that I have sun damage on the back side of my loom. It absolutely spoils me for wanting to weave on Goldie in the guest room with its north-facing window. What a difference the new studio is - I love being in it. And oddly enough, all my beads are in a clear Sterlite box and I ended up fiddling with earrings again yesterday. I kept the beading table way too long, thinking I'd never do beads again if I took it out - so odd.
I watched video clips on Laura Frey's blog, showing how she coached a woman to weave more effectively. I'm trying to implement the rocking motion that she shows. It was a bit foreign at first, but I've found that it relieves the strain on my lower back and allows me to weave comfortably for longer. The blue yarn for the second baby blanket came on Friday. I wove the blanket before the Superbowl on Sunday, then finished the hem stitching during commercials. Yeah, I know. The commercials are the best part. Anyway, these are they.
This is Rowdy's blanket. The shower is this Thursday and it's already wrapped and ready to go. I warped for M and W twill and treadled for the same. The twill pattern doesn't show as color but it does show as texture.
This Taryn's blanket. I didn't know we were getting a girl when I warped up so went safe with all-baby colors. It's the same threading but I just treadled for a zig-zag twill, or whatever it's called. What is it called? 4,3,2,1,2,3,4? This is 5/2 mercerized cotton, 33" in the reed and 40" long. I am absolutely thrilled. Note to self - measure and cut the fringe at desired length while still under tension.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The good is these gorgeous batts that I carded on Mim's supercard when I visited her yesterday. The lavendar is Merino that I oven dyed. The multicolor is a blend of Ashland Bay samples from a spinning workshop I attended, blended with some mohair locks that I already had.
The bad is that I'm not going to have enough of the blended samples to make socks after all. This finished bobbin is two ounces and the samples I blended yesterday are two ounces, but I'm pretty sure it's just not enough. I've decided this yarn is what I will use to learn toe-up socks - finally!
The ugly is this batt that I blended from the red and orange type samples. Again, I added mohair locks to extend the yardage. It's disturbing - hurts my eyes. I've decided to go ahead and spin it as is and the overdye it with something dark, maybe even black. When I run out of the blue blend on the socks, I can make the tops from this, since it will be the same grist and no one sees sock tops under pants anyway.
That kind of color goes much better on cats. I realized after I had torn my studio apart and reconfigured it that I hadn't left any place for Charlie to sleep in the sun. I rigged this up with the leftover cube panels. It's leaning against the shelf on the left, but Charlie only weights 8 pounds so it's secure enough for him.



And speaking of color, I got this in the mail from Benita. She and her husband are graphic artists but have also produced some T-shirt designs. Recently she had a T-shirt give-away, but I told her I'd rather have the transfer to put on a shirt that I know fits me. So she sent me one! You can't read it, but it says, "We who are to dye salute you." I laugh every time I look at it.
And speaking of color, I did a double take after my shower yesterday at the two shirts I recently ordered from Lands End. It occurred to me that surely they wouldn't use two different pinks, just for reasons of economics. However, the shirt on the floor appears to be a lighter pink that the shirt I'm about to wear.

Even side by side, the left shirt looks lighter. It is amazing what the juxta-
position of color does for value.

Colorful Day

You might not have seen this bag of mystery fleece from a December post so I'm showing it again. It was a half fleece that I purchased from Doris many many years ago and processed myself. I am determined to destash this year.
I finished it in my morning spinnings (with coffee) and today was the day to decide what I have and how I want to dye it. It appears that I spun pretty consistently, but I'm not a machine and I know there is some variation from skein to skein.
I measured six samples on the McMorran yarn balance and calculated my yardage on the average of the samples.

If you haven't seen one of these these, you drape a piece of yarn over the arm. In the beginning it's in the down position. You just continue to snip the ends until the arm is level, measure the length and then multiple it by 100. That's how many yards you have in a pound of yarn. Based on the weight, I know that I have a minimum of 1400 yards. At 14 wraps per inch, I will probably use a size 6 needle, but first I have to decide what color it will be.
I made these samples today and really had a hard time photo-
graphing accurate color - had to Photoshop to get this, which is pretty close to true. I like about half of them but am leaning toward the gold since the gray fleece shows through. I also like the hibiscus and myrtle, though it's pretty purple.

Ian was out of cookies, and since I was in the kitchen and had to wait for the samples to steam, I made him a batch. I had never heard of palm shortening until Leigh introduced it. When I acknowledged that saturated fat is healthier than hydrogenated fat, I started trying to find some. It was harder than I had expected and health food stores didn't know what I was talking about. When I asked at Trader Joe, the clerk said to try Whole Foods, which is where I found this. Today was the day to try it out. For the first time in my adult live, I don't have Crisco in the house.
Do you know what this is? Real eggs! And I'm out now, so am going over to Mim's tomorrow to restock. The yolks are so unbelievably orange. I'm taking some fiber to process on her supercard. I dyed it today and it felted a little. We try to get together once a week. She asked me last week if I wanted more than a dozen, and I said no, because I need the excuse to come over!

The verdict on the cookies with palm shortening? I ate one but can't really compare it to since I don't usually eat them. I have to say though that they were a little more "short" with better flavor. I defer to Ian - "Oh, they're tasty."

Clean Studio

I stopped at Costco yesterday to get some more wire cubes for storage to find out that they're considered a seasonal item - spring and summer. I'm guessing that's because they're popular in craft fair booths. I bought another wire shelf instead, like the white one in the corner, and began assembling it after breakfast this morning.
I realized that I could put it in the closet and pull out the two cube units. I reassembled them into one single higher unit, which essentially meant that everything had to come out. It just kept getting messier. And of course, I had to vacuum before I could put something back in a space. I ended up having to empty the vacuum twice. Once I started, I couldn't turn back. "In for a penny, in for a pound," was my grandmother's saying for that.
The four-shelf unit in the closet has all the stuff that was in the drawers of my beading table. The three small see-through bins on top have supplies for some of my other hobbies like sketching and linoleum-block print making. And my magazines have a place too, easily accessible, though some are going away.


The shelf only took half of the closet and I realized the yarn-
storage dresser that had been in this corner could actually go in the other side of the closet, which freed up floor space and made room for my warping board to be stored instead of always in the way.


Ian had to help me periodically move and heft. The dresser fit perfectly as I knew it would, because it had been in the closet in our house in town. The old library catalog is perfect for the little things that tend to get lost and overlooked. The more I cleaned, the more I found "lost" things.

The wire cubes are perfect storage. I don't have much weaving yarn but at least I can see what I do have and think about how to use it. I am thrilled and exhausted. I told Ian, my back is screaming but my heart is singing. It was about six hours of sweat equity to a clean and workable space. My studio thanks me.

Dining Commons through the Eyes of a Five-Year-Old

This is the photographer. I handed her my camera and she went on her snapity snapity way.