Seasocks 08 Stash

Normally I don't brag about stash. In fact, normally I hide it in as many places as possible. In my latest podcast though, I talk all about the Seasocks 08 cruise to Alaska. I did not talk too much about the shopping done on the trip, and I had one listener ask me specifically if I bought Qiviut. So I promised I would be putting pictures on the blog of all the wonderful yarn goodies from the trip, both free and purchased.



I actually did not buy 100% qivuit yarn. I chose instead a brand called Qiviuk, which is 45% Qiviut, 45% Extrafine merino, and 10% mulberry silk (isn't all silk mulberry silk? after all that's all the silkworms eat, right?) The yarn store was in Ketchikan and had lace scarves knitted from both 100% qiviut, and this blend, and I decided on the blend because it was softer. And I want a knitted scarf that I will wear and not just look at. So I purchased two 1 oz balls with about 218 yards in each ball.



This is what $124 plus tax yarn looks like:



Believe me, I can hold the ball up to the screen and it is almost the same size as what you are looking at in the picture. They are tiny balls of thin yarn. I am going to enjoy making every stitch of whatever I decide to knit from this yarn, but I also will be a long time thinking about just what that pattern will be.



Photos from here on down are the rest of the stash from the trip.



First tools, all free.


The Pony sock needles were in our goodie bag. The two very tall and hard to photograph items that look like gigantic cigarette cases are needle cases, for long straight needles. Each person making a purchase at the yarn store in Victoria received one as a gift (there was a stitch marker too, I forgot to grab that for the photo shoot). Since my daughter claims she will never ever ever knit with long straight needles, she gave me hers. So now I have two. The stitch marker on the brown case has beads spelling the word SEAM and they were a gift from Heather Ordorver's class on sock heels. And the collection of markers were my door prize one night made by Rycrafty.etsy.com, a set of five with one of them uniquely marked for a beginning of the round marker.



Here's a photo of a sample skein of linen yarn given to each of us by Amy Singer for her No Sheep for You talk.

Opps, photos a bit out of order, this next one is the only yarn I bought at the yarn store in Juneau, and only because it was a sale price too good to pass up ($4 a ball).

Now, the best. The yarns in the goody bag.

Brown skein is Saucon Sock yarn, looks like I may finally have a color to knit hubby a pair of socks. Fuzzy multicolored yarn on the right are two skeins of eyelash yarn by SSK called Kolibri. And on top is a lovely skein of hand dyed merino/nylon superwash sock yarn by C*EYE*BER fiber. Yummy yarn.


These are the skeins I bought in Victoria at the BeeHive Yarn Shop (two photos). That yarn shop was the best on the trip, old store building, yarn everywhere, two stories, tables and books everywhere. And somehow, being in Canada made it feel like the yarn was special, and different than yarn I get here at home.

That's NOT true of these skeins:

Hempathy (actually darker maroon than it looks to me here) and Trekking XXL sock yarn.

But it is true of this yarn:

All together now....ohhhhh, ahhhh. Yes I finally have the chance to knit with some Handmaiden Sea Silk. This yarn actually came with a pattern, but I think I will be hunting some more for just the right item and pattern to knit with this wonderful yarn.

The last photo is not of stash, but a picture of the sample sock heel I knitted for the class. The idea of the class was to present many different styles of sock heels, knitted either toe up or top down. You cast on your usual number of stitches for a sock, knit some rows of ribbing and then, start turning the heel, following the directions for the specific type of heel. Then you knit a few finishing rows, no toe, and cast off. You can then slip the heel on to see how that style of heel fits your foot. Brilliant!

This was a sample of a dutch heel and is the only one I knit on the trip. Doing the other sample heels given to us in a booklet will make a very nice knitting project for my next road trip.

Cute huh? I do have to tag the final heel so I can remember what style it is, it will be impossible to tell the difference after the knitting is done.

CW

Is he a closet knitter?

It irritates me when hubby is right. But especially when he is right about my knitting. How does he know? He doesn't knit!

He amazes me when I have three unlabeled handspun skeins on the table and I teasingly ask him to identify the fiber contents, and he does, right the first time. So I have to give him credit for paying attention to my fiber doings.

Here's another time he was right. Several weeks ago, while cleaning out a chest of drawers, I came across a skein of recycled silk, not handspun but purchased when I made a scarf from that yarn for my daughter. I marveled that I had what looked like a full skein, not remembering I had that yarn at all. I thought knitting a scarf for me would be a relaxing, TV watching project so I grab knitting needles and cast on.

I had about six inches knitted when one night hubby looked at my knitting and said, 'if you are making a scarf, you are not going to have enough yarn'. I think I actually glared at him, and continued knitting. But the seed of doubt had been planted, and I kept looking at the 6 inches knitted, and the remaining yarn. Later, I casually mentioned, 'Oh well, maybe I'll rip it out and make it narrower.'

However, I could not get the idea out of my head that I would not really have enough for a nice scarf. That's why I had this evidently partial skein of yarn, I had to have used some to make my daughter's scarf a nice length.

So I started looking around for another ball of yarn to use. Should I buy another skein of the same yarn for $12? Well, then I'd be in the same stash predicament, I have some of it left. No, it be better to go into the stash and find a complimentary yarn to alternate with the silk.

I thought about a handspun skein I have that is a silk/angora blend, and it probably would have made a neat scarf. However that skein is a true white and I just did not want a white stripey scarf.

Then I found the remainder of the chenille that I had used to knit a chemo cap. I had also knit two pairs of slippers from the skein, but it had been a large skein and appeared to have about the same amount left, as the silk. I frogged the started scarf, and cast on again, and ended up with this:


I'm very pleased with how well the colors matched. In real life the chenille 'pops' more in the fabric of the scarf, and cuts down the beautiful shine of the silk, but all in all, it's a fun scarf, and easy knit, and uses up two balls from my stash. I couldn't ask for more from a project. I will knit until one or both of the skeins are gone. I wonder how close the yardage will be for the two yarns.

And no, hubby is not a knitter. Closet or otherwise. He is just good at those analytical, problem solving type of things. I just hope, when I am working on a bigger project, he catches any problems before I have too much knitted.

CW

Too Precious to waste on dyeing

Life is nothing but a bowl of cherries:

and more cherries:

And even more cherries:

Now I am all in favor of natural dyeing, and I must confess, the bright red juice running from my fingers as I pitted seemed promising. But I refuse to waste something I so seldom get from my land, just to dye yarn.

No I much rather make them up into something that has as many calories as possible.

We have two cherries trees. They are the sour pie cherries, not really the kind of fruit that you eat more of than pick. But they along with strawberries are the first real fruit of summer, and are much loved by gardners and birds alike.

In my area we have to have a perfect spring to get a cherry crop. The weather needs to bring on the blooms, and then not freeze them or the fruit. The weather has to be balmy enough to bring the bees to the trees to form the fruit. If all of this happens, the tree starts showing along the first week of June big plump cherries turning from green to yellow to red. I swear the birds sit there and wait for them.

Except this year. Surprised to find that the cherries were not disappearing as rapidly as they ripened, I did a bit of investigating. It was easy to find out why, and amazing. At the same time the cherries were ripening, the 17 year locust hatched. First we heard them in the surrounding hills, then the trees on our land, and finally, walking in the orchard, I could see and hear them. They mostly preferred the apple and pear trees. But standing and watching the swooping antics of the birds proved to me, that they were eating the locust instead of the cherries.

So last weekend, we picked about 25 pounds of cherries. I preserved them in various ways, one being cherry wine. Unfortunately this is a wonderful but unstable wine, that only lasts a year. Too bad, because it may be another 16 years before I get a crop like this again. If-and only if, the weather is fine.

CW

Bramble Soxx

I finished the socks that were given me some problems in the previous post:



All in all, I am really pleased with the yarn, and I love the way the socks fit and feel. The bit of stretch adds a cushy comfort that I like. I wore them when we ran errands yesterday.

I ended up with remaining yarn on three balls, so now I have to figure out what to do with that. Given the stretch of the yarn, I am thinking I will make me a pair of house slippers. I find that slippers knitted in a worsted weight yarn and not felted, makes for slippers that ebb and flow. You wear them, they stretch, you wash them, they go back to the right size.

So I am thinking of taking the same 'granny slipper' pattern, and knitting with a size 2 or 3 needle and this yarn, and maybe I will have slippers that stretch, but then stay on good.

And I can recommend this yarn for knitting, if you are using circulars, or straights such that you can pretty much keep the stitches where they are suppose to be. The only time there's a real problem with the yarn, is when a stitch is dropped.

Project details:

Yarn: Soxx Appeal by Knit One Crochet Too Two partial balls of green and one of contrast color

Needles: Two circulars, size 2, with the occasional use of DPN size 2

Pattern: Bramble Soxx a pattern created by a local designer for the local yarn store

Time to knit: Embarrassing long

Lifelines for socks?

I didn't realize that I would need a lifeline for a sock. That's just not normally necessary. Oh, sure, a lifeline in a complex lace knitted garment is a given. But a sock?

I am knitting a pair of socks, both on two circs at the same time. I love this method, even though it seems to take me forever to knit the socks (well, technically it's taking me the same amount of time to knit two socks at the same time, as it would to knit them one after the other.) I love the fact that _both_ socks get done at the same time. However, I have discovered that no matter how much sense it makes to knit the socks this way, I can not figure out how to knit the heels this way, both at the same time. So I always transfer the socks to DPN for the heels, and once both are turned, put the socks back on the circs and continue once again to knit both at once. I know many advocates of the 2 socks 2 circs method, but I would be interested to find out just how many of these knitters, actually turn the heel without DPN's. I bet it's more than admits up front.

I found another situation where I have to slip the socks off the circs and do one at a time, and that's when I am using up a ball of contrast yarn for the heels and toes and only have one ball of that yarn. Such was the case for these socks, and so when it came time to do the toe, I slide the first sock off the circs and proceeded to do those last rows in the contrast color, on DPN.

These are not fancy socks. No fancy patterns, except on the cuff. The main unique thing about these socks is the yarn. It's new to me, and has just enough stretchy, springyness to the yarn to be a problem knitting sometimes. One problem is pulling the yarn tight enough between the DPN to prevent laddering. I usually do this well, yanking the yarn tight on both the 1st and 2nd stitch after each needle. This yarn however, likes to be yanked, and then gladly springs back to it's original, and therefore laddering self. So my toes, were beginning to look a little lacy. The second problem with this springy yarn, is if you drop a stitch, that little stitch loop that you want to fish up and catch with your needle point, now decides to spring back into itself. A dropped stitch just about virtually disappears in the knitting below.

However, with vigilance over not dropping stitches and much yanking to avoid ladders, I finished a toe on one sock. I kitchner stitch it shut. I slipped my hand into the sock and spread the toe to see my neat seam. Only to see a big gaping hole! No it wasn't just a ladder, it was a hole. About half way down the heel. With lots of bars of yarn above it. Yep, I had dropped two stitches! and run they did.

So I undid the seaming (first major chore) and unraveled the knitting back to below the hole. Here's where the thought of a life line came in, and when I finished laughing at the thought of a lifeline in a sock, I slowly and patiently tried to pick up what looked like live stitches. Forty of them. I know, because once they were on the needle, I then unknit two more rows, just to be sure I had all the stitches on the right row.

Will I put a life line in here now? No, that be silly. After all, it's just a Stockinette stitch sock.

I will put all the yarn details in the post with the pictures of the socks. I don't have the information in front of me right now. Then you too can go and play with stretchy sock yarn.

CW

Dyeing cotton Naturally with podcast

This is part two of the dyeing cotton blog and podcast. On both, I will be giving the details of how I dyed cotton roving and lint using the natural dye made from peach leaves.

The podcast for this blog is Episode 13 and can be found here.

First I want to talk about dyeing the cotton lint and then I will give a detailed description of how I got the dye liquid, and the process to dye the roving.

The cotton lint had been soaked in soda ash water by my daughter as a large batch, and when we were at her house doing the dye day, I decided to try and dye some of the lint by putting it into a crock pot filled with the peach leaf dye liquid and held at high for three hours. I was pleased to see as it was 'stewing' that the lint seemed to be taking the color. Here's a picture of how the lint looked after I took it out of the crock pot and popped it into a ziplock bag to take home:



However, the next morning, I took the lint out of the bag and began rinsing it, and discovered immediately that the color was not sticking to the fiber. Here's how it looked after rinsing:

This of course really worried me about the success of dyeing the cotton roving with the same liquid, until I realized that the lint had not been soaked in alum, a key mordanting point of the natural dye process. So with hope restored, I continued on to dye the roving.

Here's a copy of the directions I included with my swap fiber, and then after that I have a few pictures for you of the process. I did not take as many photos as I should have, once I get going in the process I forget to stop and take a picture. But I think the detailed written description will be plenty for anyone wanting to try their own dyepot.

Dyeing cotton with natural dyes experiment

05/26/2008

Dyestuff: Peach leaves, green and fresh

Method: Fill two large stainless steel pots with fresh peach leaves. My pots were 16 and 20 quart size, filled about ¾ full of leaves. Cover leaves with warm water, cover and set in warm spot (just my kitchen floor) for two days. On day three place pots on stove, bring liquid to boil and boil for two hours, watching liquid levels. Allow to cool and sit overnight. When ready to dye, dip leaves out of liquid and heat pot of dye to just boiling.

Cotton: wetting out steps

Cotton needs to be thoroughly wet in order to dye. It also should be soaked in soda ash water. So I filled my 12 quart stainless steel pot with a couple cups of warm water and soda ash using the ratio roughly figured from referenced books, 1/8 ounce for 1 pound of cotton. The book did state that if soda ash is not available, soap suds could be used, however I did not use any soap.
The cotton soaked in this solution for two days, on the third day, I did set the pot on the stove and raised the temperature to just below boiling, and allowed to cool overnight.
This step may not be necessary.

Mordant on fiber: alum
Ratio: 4 ounces of alum to one pound of cotton.
I took the fiber out of the soda ash water and allowed to drain well. I cleaned the same stainless steel pot well, and then dissolved the 4 ounces of alum in several cups of warm water in that pot, making sure all was dissolved. I then filled the pot with enough warm water that allowed the cotton roving to be immersed and well covered. This sat overnight and the fiber was dyed the next day.

Dyeing the cotton

After removing the peach leaves, I took my 8 quart stainless steel pot and filled it half full with the dye liquid. This I set on the stove and started to heat. I also set the 12 quart pot with the alum/cotton in it on the stove and set it to a gentle heat. Both heats were just a bit over a comfortable hot to the hand. When both were to that heat, I took enough of the wet cotton roving from the alum water, squeezed gently to remove most of the liquid, and placed that in the dye pot, gently and trying to get the roving as open as possible. I had plenty of dye liquid, so I did the whole dyeing process in these small batches, instead of dyeing the whole pound at once. I experimented some, the first batch was held at the below boiling heat for 30 minutes. The second batch was brought to a boil, and held at boiling for 30 minutes. Both batches dyed with the same intensity, so boiling is not necessary for the dyeing process. Although the dye seemed to strike almost immediately, and did not really increase in intensity with the 30 minutes, I did do all batches the same.

After the first batch had heated for 30 minutes I poured everything out through a strainer (I use an old wire basket from a deep fat fryer, works really well). I let the dye go into a pot to save, because it still seemed to have color. The fiber went into the strainer and straight into the kitchen sink, where I ran the hottest water from my tap on the fiber to rinse. There was very little dye in the rinse, just the obvious dye water still trapped in the ball of fiber. The fiber soon appeared to be clear of that dye, and rinsing clear. I squeezed the fiber ball hard to remove as much water as possible. I then slowly untangled the ball and draped the fiber into long open loops of fiber and laid it on a mesh sweater dryer in front of a fan to dry. I did try spinning the fiber out in the washing machine in a mesh bag, but did not find it got the fiber any drier, unlike wool.

I used new dye liquid for each batch, and repeated the process. Only one thing I noticed that affected the dye liquid and that was the dye color was deeper in the 20 quart pot than the 16 quart pot, I probably had more leaves in the larger pot. So I combined the liquid from the two pots, to more evenly distribute the color.

I also had one batch that seemed to be dyeing lighter, and I realized I had not squeezed out as much of the alum water before placing the fiber in the dye pot, thus diluting the color. To correct this, I poured part of the dye liquid off and placed new dye liquid in it, and then continued with the heating process.

The color appeared as a lemon yellow when wet and as a lighter, lemon aid color when dry. The color was certainly fast as far as washing out, although there will be no information on true color fastness of the yarn, or light fastness of the color until much later.

Dye Disposal

The dye liquid can be safely emptied outside, or down a kitchen drain into municiple sewer or septic tank. The alum mordant water should be copiously diluted with running water and then allowed down the kitchen drain.

References used:
Early American Weaving and Dyeing: J and R Bronson, Dover Publishing
Your Yarn Dyeing: Elsie Davenport, Select Books Publishing
Natural Dyes for Spinners & Weavers: Hetty Wickens, Batsford Craft Publishing

End of directions, begin photo :)

One of the photos I missed taking was of the peach leaves 'stewing' in the pot. Silly to forget, since the pots were hanging around my kitchen for three days. On Monday, getting ready for the grand dyeing experiment, hubby offered to take the pots out to the driveway and scoop out the leaves for me. I gladly accepted the help, and it was until later it dawned on me that I had not taken a photo of the leaves in the pot. When I commented on that, hubby even offered to _put them back in the pot for me_! He's wonderful like that, but I said no, my readers would have to settle for a photo of the leaves on the ground after being removed from the pot:


I did remember though to take a photo of the actual dye liquid. Look how yellow it is! Yes it reminds me of many years of working in a medical lab and all those body fluids, but trust me it smelled much better. In fact, it had very little smell at all.

Here's a photo of the roving soaking in the alum solution, which turns out to be a very important step for the dyeing to work.

Finally, a photo of the roving just as it's being dipped out of the dye pot. I was still on pins and needles as to whether it was going to work at this point, because remember the lint had looked yellow also.

But proof is below, the alum is the key, and the yellow color stayed on the roving after rinsing:

Now is when I did a happy song and dance, and proceeded the rest of the day with dyeing the one pound of cotton roving. This was rinsed and squeezed and rolled in towels to assist drying, and looked pretty compacted while it was drying:

However, once it was completely dry, it was possible to 'beat' it by either banging the roving on the table, or hitting it hard with a wooden mallet (my preferred method) and then rolling the fiber some with my fingers. The cotton softened up and smoothed out and feels ready to spin:

The very last thing I did, was to take all the cotton lint that didn't take the dye, and soak it overnight in a fresh solution of alum water. Then I took all of the remaining dye liquid and heated it, and put the lint in the pot. I held it just below boiling for 30 minutes and then let the pot completely cool. At this point I felt I had gotten plenty of dyeing from those peach leaves, and I drained the lint out of the pot, letting the dye go down the drain. It looked plenty yellow still, and who knows, I may have been able to dye lots more. But the experiment was over, and I had proved that those old reprinted books on dyeing were correct when they said 'dyeing cotton at home is easy'.

CW

Cotton Dye Day with podcast

Lots of photos to share! And there's a podcast to tell you all about these photos. It's episode 12 of yarnspinnerstales and if you have not already listened to it, I encourage you to check it out.

The podcast is on my website. Look for Episode 12.

Last Sunday four of us gathered to dye cotton. This is a totally new experience for me, I have only dyed wool in the past. I will be sharing in this post all about what the other three dyed, and then in the next post, I will talk all about my natural dyeing experience.

The project started in a Ravelry group called the Garden Spinning group. This group's focus is spinning with non wool fibers. During a discussion of cotton, which is so often (boring) white, it was decided that we could gather a few spinners, dye some cotton and then swap the resulting fiber. We limited the swap to 8 folks, and made a 2 oz sampling of fiber for each. One member, stashymama was very generous in sending a pound of cotton roving to three of us, and plenty of cotton lint for everyone, thus living up to her Ravelry name. Thanks Stashymama!

And one of our four had a wonderful stash of the old Cushings union dyes. These are no longer made, and do dye cotton wonderfully. So Anita shared her dyes. If you do not have these dyes, don't dispair! Any tie dyeing dye will work just fine, and I was able to find a wonderful selection of colors at my local art supply store, so you should be able to find some too, if not locally, then, on the internet.

First thing we all did, before arriving on Sunday, was to be sure to soak the fiber. Three of us soaked the fiber in soda ash/water solution. One only soaked her fiber, intentionally, in water. It was interesting that all four of us had different plans of attack, when it came to the actual dyeing process.

We set up tables, chairs and lots of dyeing equipment on the deck.

This photo just shows how it all started out. Believe me, things got lots messier later!

See those disposable metal pans? They really work great. Most everyone eventually decided it was better though to actually use the lids, which were plastic and not the bendy metal. The fiber was laid out in the plastic lids, the dye was placed on the fiber and then the metal could be placed over that during the warming period.

It was a bright sunny day, and since cotton only needs to be held just slightly warmer than body heat for 30 minutes, we found that just leaving the pans covered, out in the sun, did the trick. But we also did use the warmer rigged up by Anita.

The warmer is covered with a rubber tub:

And it you'd lift that up, inside you'd see a heating pad, wrapped in a towel, and a metal rack on top of that. Whether you are capturing solar or electric heat, the rubber tub holds it inside. The pans of dyed fiber sat inside for 30 minutes (or actually until we finished lunch).

The next photo shows the bottles of Cushing dyes. These are extremely concentrated, to be diluted by a ratio of 1 to 10. Note that since it is so hard to tell just what the colors are in the bottles, that small skeins of yarn are taped to the top of the bottles to show the color.

Anita did a gradiation study with the dyes and the following photo shows the bottles. Each end is a concentrated color, red on one end and blue on the other. 4 oz of dye was put in those outer bottles. Then first working with the red, she poured 2 oz of dye into the bottle next to it, and added 2 oz of water to the original bottle. That mixture was poured into the middle bottle, and again 2 oz of water was added to the original bottle. 2 oz of that was poured into the fourth bottle (and that's the one right next to the blue concentrate bottle). Finally 2 oz of water was added to the original bottle, making a very dilute red. The process was repeated with the blue, only going the other direction. When all of the dilutions had been made, the bottles were filled to the top with a mixture of soda ash and water. The soda ash is the dye activator, and the dyes will not strike unless there is soda ash somewhere in the process.

Once all of the eyeballing measurements were done, the fun begins:

And the rewards are great! Here's Anita's final roving.

Viki experimented with a different method. She soaked her roving only in water, counting on the soda ash in the dyes. The method from then on was the same, add dyes to the rovings, allow to be at 100 degrees for 30 minutes or so, and rinse.

Again, beautiful roving!

All of us just took the fiber home still in the dyes, and held the fiber that way (in ziplock bags) overnight. This gives the dye time to soak into the fiber as much as possible. And we all found out it takes lots of effort and time to get cotton roving dry!

The other fiber we all dyed was cotton lint. This is cotton about as raw and unprocessed as you can get. It does card up into punis with cotton cards, so the theory was to dye the lint in many different colors with the Cushings dyes, and then do the color blending with the cards. So here's a photo of the lint in a pan, being dyed.

Andrea also experimented with dyeing a yarn, and some carded cotton punis. The punis had not been soaked at all, and the yarn had been soaked in soda ash/water. No final pictures of those yet although she reassured me that those bedraggled punis really did fluff up pretty good once they were very dry, and that the yarn dyed well.

My dyeing was a completely different process, since I was using a natural dye, and I will be documenting that in the next post. However, just so I could go home with something pretty and purple, I had soaked some cotton/wool roving in water. This would be for me, not for the swap. After I got to the dye day, I soaked the roving in soda ash/water for 30 minutes and then made up some Procion MX dye. I put the roving in a large ziplock bag, squirted lots of dye on it, zipped up the bag and smooshed it to get the dye into as much of the fiber as possible. I left the bag in the sun for most of the afternoon and took it home and again left the dye on the fiber overnight.

When I rinsed the fiber, it looked like this:

And dried to a lovely variegated colorway. Just like lilacs in spring!

CW

Merry month of May

There was nothing 'May'-be about this month except my absence from blogging. Big life changes have no maybes about them.

I seldom write about personal things here, keeping this blog fiber related. It's much like those very specific newspapers that focus on world news from the perspective of the paper's focus. Lots of life happens to me all the time, but all I blog about is the knitting, spinning or podcasting that I manage to squeeze into free time.

So with that perspective in mind, let me say that a current life event will hopefully allow me with more time, for just those things. Maybe I will finally even blog more, maybe.

After working since 1976, I decided to take a sabatical. I am still required by hubby to call it that, to keep his faith that I have not quit working and retired for good. And in truth, I really don't feel ready to fully retire. Instead, I'd like a bit of time out (off) to decide just what I want to be, now that I am _really_ grown up.

I doubt it will be fiber related, this new career of mine. I say that because I truly have attempted that, although always while still working full time, and I find the fiber arts then become a job. Inventory has to be maintained (washing and carding fleece, spinning yarn) sales have to be begged online, or at local fiber fairs, etc etc. In short it's no longer fun.

No, I entirely want this sabatical to be fun. And if this first month is any indication, I am well on my way to just that.

Here's a bit of review. Note, most of this is the fiber bits.

Last day of work, May 2nd.

Frantic week of list making, errands, packing, getting house and pets ready for my departure for Sea Socks 08 cruise (yes, there will be pictures and details in a later post).

May 9-19th on the high seas, or in Seattle. Lots of knitters with me, lots of things to take pictures of, a few wonderful yarn stores, and even more wonderful yarn to buy. There was not much knitting actually accomplished, but it was lived and breathed every day.

Next week, a frantic week of unpacking, errand running, overdue paperwork and housework, and best of all, dyeing cotton both with my Tuesday knit group and by myself. That will all be explained soon, in the next podcast. All I'll say now is it was a surprisingly lovely shade of yellow and you'll never quess how I got it.

Last three days, a deep breath and finally relaxing into the wonderful fact that my time is all my own, for weeks at a time. I spent a good part of these days editing the next two podcasts, finishing a book I was reading, swatching for a new knitting project, and sleeping. Naps are a wonderful new discovery.

So for now, here's only the promise of more posts, more pictures, more knitting.

And a challenge: I plan to do the Olympic Spinning challenge again. Remember two years ago, my post about all the yarn I spun during the Olympics? This year I have something different in mind. I am still working out my details, just how much do I want to challenge myself. You all will be the first to know, when I decide.

CW

April Podcast is about washing fleece

The April podcast is up at the Yarnspinnerstales website, and can be downloaded from there, or subscribed to in Itunes. If you search for me in Itunes, be sure to search under the podcast category, and use Yarnspinner Tales in the search box. The podcast should show up with that search.

It's officially spring at Yarnspinnerstales and that means spring cleaning. Windows? Nope, not a chance. But give me a fleece straight off the sheep and I jump at the chance to be up to my elbows in soapy water.

Here's what we are washing today:


This is the Shetland fleece I had spread out on my car hood several podcasts ago, and now I am podcasting about just how to take it from this state into fluffy lovely carded batts ready to spin.

If there's any doubt, wool really does take to hot soapy water. It just takes a very gentle touch, while it is wet.

I talk in my podcast about not really handling the fleece much, just moving it around as you work. This next photo shows how I just push the fleece to the back of the sink, in order to let the water drain out. The photo is actually of one of the rinses, which is why the soap suds are now gone.

After the fleece is rinsed free of any soap residue, you want to try and get as much water out of it as possible. Although you can just let it drain, or keep dabbing it with dry towels, I prefer the mesh bag method. You need a large mesh bag with a closeable top. Here's a picture so you know what I mean.

The fleece goes in the bag, and then in the spin cycle of the washer for 10 seconds. This creates a very fluffy and almost dry fiber. This fiber needs to be spread out so it can dry. I use what I call a sweater dryer, available in many of the mail order catalogs. This one hangs from my shower rod and actually has a furnace vent blowing straight on it, so the fleece dries quickly when I put it up this way.

Fluffy fibery goodness, all dry and ready to card or comb.

I wasn't sure how this fleece would do on my drum carder, because the staple length of the fleece is very long. However, it carded wonderfully. I still had to pull some vegetable matter from the fiber before carding, and much of the smaller bits fell out as I carded. I decided to pull half of the drum off at a time, which still made nice big batts each weighing around 3/8 oz.

Not bad for what I considered the 'worse' part of the fleece! It can only get better from now on. I always do the worse bit first, sort of a fleece washing swatch. That way I can check out each step of the planned process and if any of the steps are not satisfactory, I can change my plans before getting to the best part of the fleece. As it turned out, I will be able to process the rest of this fleece in exactly the same manner as I did with this bit. There is still some hay bits in these batts, easily removed as I spin. I forgot to weigh the swatch bit before I put it in the water, but the final batts produced 7.5 oz of spinnable fiber. I suspect knowing that lanolin adds weight and that I did toss about a third of it as I worked through the process (too much hay in it, or coarse fibers) I probably did have over 16 oz (1 lb) in the original bunch of fleece.

Be sure to check out the podcast!

CW

February Spin-In Podcast is posted

The Spin-In podcast for February is posted here.

Or if you have subscribed in Itunes, it should be there now. For those of you that are new to Itunes and have had a hard time finding my podcast through it, here is a short tutorial. If you do not have Itunes downloaded to your computer, you can go to the Itunes store, click on podcasts, and in the search box type Yarnspinners Tales. It should show up with that search.

If you have Itunes downloaded to your computer and have had trouble getting it to subscribe to this podcast, open Itunes and at the top open 'Advance'. Find subscribe to a podcast and in the box type or cut and paste: http://yarnspinnerstales.libsyn.com/rss.

In this podcast I talk about two completely different sheep breeds' fleeces, the cheviot and the corriedale and my experience sample spinning those wools. Around these sections is music that just made me laugh out loud, and I hope you enjoy it as much also.

And since it is the month of hearts and pink, here's my spinning project: pink superwash roving.

It's still cold enough outside to really enjoy sitting by a cozy fire, and the spin-in part of the podcast was recorded right here:

That's my haldane spinning wheel, and a full picture of the wheel and fireplace is on the podcast webpage.

Finally just a photo of the beginning of the spinning:

This wheel is small and therefore very portable, however, it only has two ratios so I tend to spin one size yarn on it, generally sock weight. That's exactly what this yarn will eventually make, a pair of socks for me, plus probably many baby items since it is truly baby pink in color.

Listen in to my yarnspinners tale as I talk about just how the internet has changed our world of spinning. According to a computer magazine just published, the internet is 16 years old this year. Oh my, sweet sixteen and just look how you have changed our world. Imagine, just imagine what it will be like in another 16 years.

CW

Buddha Board

And now for something completely different:

This is not fiber related, but every now and then I just have to share something that is so creative and just plain fun. I went to our local museum last Friday and while browsing in their gift shop, came across the Buddha Board. This plain white board, framed in black has a small tray for water, and a chinese brush. Straight out of the box it looks like this:



When you dip your brush in the water, and paint, it looks like this:

I love the fact that whatever you paint, looks very oriental, like an ink brush painting.

But what then happens is that as the water dries, the painting fades. How Zen is that?

Finally the board is completely dry, your 'life's pictures that pass in a moment, as your life' are also gone, and a new one, for just this minute, can be painted again.

I have the board on a fern stand in my dining room. As I pass by it, I take 30 seconds to stroke more lines on it, just because it is so much fun.

CW

YST Podcast Episode 7 Skirting a fleece

The first Yarnspinnerstales podcast for the month of Februray is posted here or should show up in your Itunes subscribtion. Listen in as I skirt, sort and talk about this Shetland fleece:



Yes, that fleece is spread out on my car hood...I have found that hood to be the perfect height for this job. There's over 5 pounds of fleece there and most of it usuable.

The second podcast for February, to be released at the end of the month, will be a spin-in with two more sheep breed overviews. Hope you listen in to both.

Words without a picture says nothing at all

I did a very stupid thing yesterday. It took me about three hours to realize I did this stupid thing. I was having one of those kind of days.

Last Tues I finished the comfort wrap I have been knitting for a dear friend receiving chemo treatments. I rolled the wrap up into my knitting bag, and proceeded to have the type of the rest of the week, I generally have lately. Busy, distracted, frequent phone calls, less than normal sleep, very busy at work type week.

So every now and then while laying in bed before sleep would catch me, I'd think, oh I have to take a picture of the wrap, and lay and try and figure out the best way to display it for the picture.

Then Sat rolled around, a day off and I slept in. I had many errands planned for the day, and the highest priority was to get to the post office with a box to my friend, and a box for my mother so they'd get it by Valentine's day. In my pre 6 cups of coffee haze, I got the boxes packed and ready, and set off for the post office.

It was three hours later that I realized I had not taken a photo of the wrap.

I was really upset, I mean really upset, for a number of reasons. First, this seems to be the norm for me anymore, in my mid fifties, I seem to be unable to hang on to details anymore. This was just one such detail, take the picture before sending it away for good. Those type of lost details are happening to me all the time lately and it really upsets my sense of efficient living (and ego).

Second reason I was really upset, is that I know, just know, this blog post would have been so much more appealing with a picture! We all browse our favorite blogs for the photos. I can tell you that the wrap was done in a combination of handspun yarns, and a coned cotton yarn held as the base. I can tell you that I did a very quick knit on size 13 needles. I can tell you that I did a stripe pattern with the different yarns. I can tell you that I divided areas of the pattern with a garter stitch knit. I can tell you that I crocheted a scallop trim around the wrap.

Can you see the wrap yet? I thought not.

Words without a picture does not make a blog anymore.

I know the main reason I am sorry about all this is that I had really made it a plan to pay more attention to my blog entries, and my live journal posts this year. I think the blogs that are truly interesting are the ones that are actively part of the creator's life. Think about the blogs you love to check day after day, they have long entries speaking of the person, and their creative journey, and have pictures. Now granted, the blogging effort has been made easier in many geeky ways, but it still _takes time_ often a large amount of time in a busy life, to keep that blog interesting. I had hoped to work towards that goal this year, but first, I have to find a way to remember to take the photo before gifting the project.

Ah well, I have options. I will ask my friend to take a photo and email me the result. In my opinion it's alot to ask a non geeky friend going through chemo, but I may get a photo. If I do, I will post it here, as my penitence.

CW