We've Been Busy

Ian met DD Chris at the craft fair on Sunday and brought Alexia home to spend a couple of days with us. She attends year-round school and is currently off track. This is a whole generation who won't understand "off track" as we do. I heard many voices conducting many conversations before bedtime and checked on the state of play - no shortage of imagination.
Alexia is so easy to have here, although I must say baking a batch of cookies each day could use some rethinking. All cookies went home with her. She loves to watch a movie on my laptop under the dining room table and it gives me a break. This weekend she wanted to learn to make origami boxes, knit and spin. Yikes!
We did try the knitting this morning and while she did very well, her hands are tiny so it ended up being three-handed knitting. Her attention never strayed but her hands need to grow I think. To be continued. We tried spinning after lunch.
She can barely reach the treadles and she absolutely loved it. I started with Shetland but the staple length was too long so went to Merino. She did pretty well with it but wasn't getting the why of what her hands were doing - and then suddenly her hands made an instinctive move and she changed from the direction that I use and put her left hand in front as the guide and her right hand to feed the fiber.
I'd reach in when the fiber drew apart and reconnect it and then say - back to your hands - treadle, treadle, treadle, and she'd be back at it. Treadle, treadle, treadle was my constant line - she'd get so excited that she'd forget, and pull her feet off the treadles and draw her knees up - lots of laughing. Treadle, treadle, treadle.

It was awesome. I am so excited at how well she did. We were both wearing down and suddenly her hands got it - the right hand started pulling back with loosely held fiber and the right hand guided it onto the bobbin. She's a natural! I am exhausted and can't wait to do it again.

My First Ever Craft Fair

I met Mim at the mailboxes yesterday morning at 9:30 to go in town to our spinners guild meeting. We were together until we got home at 3:00. Today in setting up our booth for the craft fair, who should the organizers set up right across the corridor from us, but Mim!

I was pretty rummy this morning, because I got to bed at midnight. We met friends Amy and Allison for dinner last night and then went to the university's student presentation of the Pirates of Penzance. Delightful! I called DD Chris as we drove to our dinner date, needing specifics on our babysitting duties this weekend. She texted me that she was in a noisy restaurant but would call when she got out. We walked into the restaurant and who walked out but DD Chris. We're both still laughing.

Jeanette owns the Sierra Nevada Alpacas ranch out here in Red Rock Valley. She and Mim shared a booth. Jeanette has had a problem making money since the downturn in the alpaca market and has come up with these felted alpaca saddle blankets. The body is pure alpaca felt but she sews a leather strip along the bottom to reduce wear on the blanket. The blanket on top is English and the full-length one on the bottom is Western. She didn't sell these but got orders. Profit!
I'm sharing a space with two friends and this is my section. I sold my natural colored hats and wished I had more. The colored hats apparently are passe. A spontaneous craft fair was organized for our valley three weeks from now and I came home resolved to knit a couple more natural colored hats for it. I'm learning that trendy craft attractions can quickly become old hat. Is that a pun?
A two-year old boy named Alex was obsessed with my wheel. His mother got worried because she couldn't keep him from coming back. She didn't know me and also was worried that he was bothersome. We're babysitting Alexia tonight, or I would say this was the highlight of my day. It probably was no more than ten minutes, but it's certainly a time I will never forget.





I have demonstrated spinning at events for the last dozen years and have seen plenty of interested children, but I have never seen the focus of Alex. He chattered amiably with me, nothing intelligible, but we got along famously nevertheless. Alex kept coming back to me for over an hour - what a charmer. After they left, I heard someone say they were surprised Mom got him out of the building. Don't you wish you could know where his focus will go in the years to come????

Lessons

I finished the back of my bolero, and the whole time I knitted on it, something didn't seem quite right. I just kept knitting, thinking that it would be fine when I blocked it, but the fabric frankly was not pretty. The problem with Harmony needles is that they all look the same, so you aren't tipped off by appearance if you change needle size. That's what I had done somehow, which affects the gauge and fit of course.
I wasn't thrilled about reknitting but it was worth it. The fabric is lovely and the gauge is right on. Getting the yarn on correct needles allowed it to open up and I think that the fabric now looks like a desert sunset, which was the name of the color pathway of the roving.
I have been antsy to start some new projects. I have several finished yarns that need to be knit. This is blue face Leicester that I spun earlier this year from some dyeing I did in the spring. I swatched it and started a vest last week. By the time I got this far, it was clear to me that in spite of the gauge appearing correct, the nature of the wool is making this project far too dense and a vest would be unpleasantly heavy. I've never knit BFL for a garment, only a hat. The fabric was starting to feel much like knitted Romney.
I decided it was time to pull out my Vogue magazines and shop for some ideas. I went through them several times over the past couple of days and finally found this vest pattern, but I'll knit it shorter. The swatch looks loosey goosey but the fabric feels very nice. I have boxes of Vogue issues, back to the 1980s. I keep thinking I'll get rid of some to make studio space, but they always come through for me when I need ideas.

I had anticipated a different yarn from that roving. I'm still nuts over purple, gold and green and those are the colors I used. Do you know what makes brown? Blending complimentary colors, which is exactly what I did with purple and gold. My colors would have worked on yarn, but it didn't work on roving. The yarn will look nice knitted, but it's miles from what I had pictured in my mind.
I'm eyeing this vest for my repurposed Merino. The gauge is correct and the stitches will show up nicely in the triple-ply yarn. I just have to figure out how to adjust the pattern to eliminate that skirt. That can only be flattering on Twiggy. It's not flattering on this model! So this is in the wings for now. I have close to another pound of the roving so can also make more yarn if I need to.
I see an Aran-style big sweater for the yarn I'm currently spinning. This pattern will work and I do like the sweater a lot. I will have to finish spinning before I'll know if I have enough yarn. Another project in the wings. I'm so glad to live where it's cold enough to wear wool!

More Fixing to Get Ready

I spent the entire morning getting my things ready to take to the craft fair on Sunday - bags, hats and soap. I had just finished and had turned on the computer so I could print up some signs, when the power went out - again! And yes, I paid the bill. It was out for close to two hours.
So I went upstairs and wound my baby blanket warp instead. I had a message on the answering machine when I got home from town on Tuesday from the Yarn Barn of Kansas. There was an error in the instructions. I called the next day and discovered that the instructions say wind 3 yards, but you really are supposed to wind 2 1/4 yards. Since I'm not going to make the hat and I'm going to do hem stitch instead of fringe, I decided to only wind 2 yards and hope that I have enough yarn left to knit a hat. I hope I didn't out-clever myself.
This is the coveted spot. All our animals want it but this time, Charlie is the winner. He warms one side of himself until he's just too toasty and then turns another side to the fire.
I just finished a book I picked up from the remainders table at Barnes and Noble in New York, called The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British spy ring in wartime Washington by Jennet Conant. There were a lot of familiar names in this history of the wartime relationship between Britain and the US. I learned a lot that I probably should have already known, like the Lend-Lease Act. My goodness, the "in the know" crowd had a lot of all-stars, like Lyndon Johnson and Ian Flemming. Only in the last chapter does Dahl become the childrens author that we know. It was a starred review in Publishers Weekly and I'm giving it 4 stars in my Library Thing.

Change

We awoke this morning to our first dusting of snow and 29 degrees. This is the third Monday I've taken a picture from this spot and boy has it changed. The forecast was for 100% rain. I waited until the temp got to freezing before walking the dogs. It's psychological - it was still cold.
Everything is flocked in white and Peterson Mountain gets its first snow of the year. This will melt soon, but today I'm enjoying it. I'm warmed by my socks, scarf and hat. This is why I knit them.
Trees on Peterson have been burned in multiple wildfires, but you can see a pocket of golden aspens, still thriving, highlighted by the surrounding white.

I put my samples into my notebook today. I used Excel to enter the information on threading, tie-up and threadling. These two samples struck my as super ideal for hand towels. I've noticed in the kitchen that some weaves are more absorbent than others.

This mistake sample is probably my favorite. Davison's book is old, the illustrations are black-and-white and old-fashioned. I wove half the sample, thinking it was possibly the ugliest weave structure I had ever seen. I rechecked the treadling to make sure I hadn't made a mistake when I saw inserted above it in the smallest print ever, there was a change in tie-up. I made the correction and the difference with the correct tie-up blew me away. Big lesson.
These are my first two samples. They are so close in appear-
ance to be almost indistinguishable. The actual fabric is so much better than photographs. They don't just look different, they feel different.

I've already enjoyed looking through my own sample book and then through Davison's to drool over what I want to sample next. It's hard to believe how many weave structures are available on just four harnesses.

The power went out a couple of times last night again. We had run the generator the night before, but this time we just sat with our book lights and read. We turned our book lights off when the power came on and went back to them when the power went out. I finished reading The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, the 2006 Book Award winner, a literary insight into the modern state of India. I wish I enjoyed cozy mysteries, but alas, I seem to be afflicted with the love of these weighty tomes. Now I want to read her first book! I'm sure it will be equally weighty.

What a Surprise

It was surpris-
ingly warm when I woke up this morning so I took my wheel and coffee to the front porch for my morning spin. If you look closely in the shadows, you can see Sammie who endures with anguish my spinning ritual. Get to the walk already is her message.

This is the turn-
around point of our walk. It's also a school bus stop, as you can see by the bike rack. You can also see that kids don't ride bicycles. They ride quads. This is quad country.
I walked in short sleeves but the weather started to change by the time we were walking back. The wind had come up and those funny little lens-shaped clouds are indicators of high winds aloft.
They look like a little flotilla of white space ships to me. They also are harbingers of weather change. I've learned that East Coast weather doesn't have day-long notice that something's coming. You get clouds, hear thunder, see lightening, get rain, get wet.
By this afternoon, clouds were sending up smoke signals - change is coming. I sat on the deck and read until the gusts of wind made it impossible to enjoy any longer. The forecast is for 100% rain tomorrow. The winds this afternoon finally knocked out the power. Ian put us on generator power about 5:00 so we could eat. It was out for at least four hours. It's so nice to have it back since we're on a well and need power to flush toilets.
I was trying to wet-finish my samples when the power went out. I don't know if this will work or not, but I've hung them over the balcony and hope they'll dry flat and look like I meant to finished them. I sure don't want to start over.

I washed one set and sent them through the drier since I want to know what they'd look like as towels. The shrinkage is much less than I had anticipated. I'm so anxious to cut them apart and put them in my sample book. They are my first ever samples and I am in love with them!

Projects

This is the fiber I'm spinning now and have been spinning for the past couple of months. It's a 50/50 blend of hogget Rambouillet and alpaca that I had blended at Morro Fleeceworks about four years ago. Birdsong and I bought the wool from Anna Harvey, split it and had it processed separately.
I am becoming less and less enamored with alpaca as a wearable fiber as time goes on. It's warm like mohair is warm. I have about 15 ounces of the fiber spun up at this point and am undecided on whether or not to dye the yarn. This is triple plied and originally I had planned to make an Aran sweater - I've never made anything from natural white yarn.
This is all the fiber that I have left. I realize that any Aran sweater with the alpaca is going to be unwearably warm indoors. I'm now thinking about a oversized cardigan, but since triple-ply is ideal for cables, I'm still thinking.

I finished my first of the Mood fabrics and I'm more than happy with how it look with blue jeans. At least I have one satisfactory project under my belt. I also had to frog a knitting project today - disheartening. On the plus side, I did pull my sampler off the loom. Disheartening - I realize how many hours it going to take to turn the weaving into a sample book.

It's good to have a satisfactorily completed project. I love my t-shirt and had I tried it on in a shop, I would have bought it. I was stunned to realize that, since I am my own worst critic!

Post Election Day

I have been sewing and have a project helper. While I sewed everything I wore for almost half my life and thought I could pick up where I left off, well - fabrics and threads have changed. This is just about the only fabric I bought from Mood that's 100% cotton. I went to my local fabric store and discovered that this green is not a thread color. I came home with the closest match and realized as I fought through the project that the thread is 100% polyester. Good thing this crone had her familiar. This was a bad gig.
I'm also still working on my rosepath sampler. I finished my 5" of this pattern and was thoroughly disappointed at how the pretty lavender was grayed out, so much so, that I took a picture of the bobbin with the weave. I was finished for the day and in reviewing Davison's book to see what I'd work on the next day, I noticed something.
The book is old, and I've found the illustra-
tions to be difficult to read. I had completely missed that she had inserted a change in tie-up. What she had intended is very interesting and not blah at all - these two are the same treadling, different tie-ups. It was a great unintended learning opportunity for me to see what a difference a tie-up can make.
The twisted bout is wreaking havoc on my right selvedge. Until I can under-
stand how I'm inserting this twist, I'm afraid I'll have to revert to front-to-back warping. I know that this isn't the optimum method, but since I don't have a genie and don't know how this happens, it's a case of - oh well.
I've had some really cool "aha" moments. I'm up to #13 of the 16 samples and can see why weaving samples is important. I know I should have done it years ago. I've never understood what the difference between warp-face and weft-face weaves is. I was just finishing here today when I realized that these are weft face. I think I get it.
I went over to Mim's after lunch today, just to visit and hang out in her "womb room." She has this wonderful space that's her fiber-woman cave. I need to visit every now and then. I put my stuff in the car afterward and we paid a visit to Simon, her new guard dog.
I know this is a weird picture, but we were trying to get a picture of the size of his feet. He's only six months old. I had asked her once if he was growing into his feet and she said no, his feet are still growing!
Check out the size of his leg - good grief. He's to be a 160 pounds at maturity. I've never met a guard dog like him. He's gentle and playful, happy to see you and yet doesn't display separation anxiety when you walk away. He differs from the traditional Great Pyrannies in that he doesn't have a desire to roam over large areas. I think she found a winner. Some Armenian breed - don't ask.
Mim was playing around with my camera and shot this. It's a peaceful picture and it was a peaceful kind of day.

Project in the Hole

Look what I got in the mail! We have a grand-nephew arriving very soon. I had been collecting ideas for a baby blanket but got sidetracked by our vacation. When I saw the Yarn Barn catalog at a friend's house, I decided to opt for a kit, and I wish I would have ordered it at that time. We will have a baby before I have a blanket.
I love the bright colors and plan to skip the hat. It doesn't do anything for me. I think the hat is 4" of the weaving length and I'll probably just add it on to the blanket. I won't be able to wind this warp until Thursday and will warp front-to-back, just to be safe.
Charlie fell in love with the box the kit came in. He pushed it all over the counter and then off the counter and then all over the floor. He was so funny that I knew it would be a great photo op. I had the camera on and walked around the counter, but he heard me coming, left his new toy, walked toward me and sat down. What box? I don't know anything about a box.

I was reminded of a friend whose five-year-old daughter came into the kitchen with her hands behind her back, rocking a little from side to side, and stated: "Nobody wrote on the washing machine with crayons."