Thinner grey yarn finished

I've been very remiss in posting. I normally post on the weekends (in case anyone has noticed) but had company this past weekend and never had the opportunity to sit down and focus on my selfish desires.

Last night Ken and I racked (again) the elderberry mead (to get it off the lees and keep it safe until I can get around to sterilizing a flock of bottles). We tasted it, of course. It's going to be wonderful! It's like an elderberry pie in a glass. But it needs to age. I'm hoping to hide it away somewhere for a year once bottled. I fear my hubby will raid my stash and drink it all before it's really ready, however.

The other mead, the one with my attempts to use lime, is quite vile. It will be sacrificed to the compost. I'm thinking I might do that this weekend and start a batch of Sweet Melissa Mead since the Sweet Melissa is coming up in abundance and my last batch of that was very popular.

On the spinning front: I finished 210 yards of fingeringly weight 2-ply 100% grey (fancy) alpaca. This was made with the washed version of the Fancy. Very tweedy. Very pretty.

It's not very soft, however. I draped it around my neck while running water for it's setting bath and it was downright scratchy. I'm hoping that the prickles are coming from vm that I missed and can pick out when knitting OR that the whole thing softened in the bathwater. I did spin it at a higher ratio and plied on a slightly lower ratio... but I suspect it is overspun regardless and may just be very FIRM yarn.

The next batch is going to be a blend of wool (from MDS&W) and a touch of mohair with the alpaca with the aim of creating sock yarn since I've now got the right weight. The overspinning for sock yarn might not be a bad thing either. I will need just over 400 yards for a pair of socks.

Ken wants to know when I'm going to spin enough to "make something". I told him I've made tea cozies and hats and baby booties but he indicated he thinks I should be aiming already to make enough for something like a sweater. I just smile at him. Enough for a sweater will require about 3 pounds of fiber and probably 3 months of spinning -- on the same project. I'm not sure I'm ready to do that. Right now I'm having too much fun experimenting.

But I do have that much fiber in a really beautiful teal stashed away for that eventuality.

Thoughts on Spinning

Is it me or are a lot of folks spinning now?

I know we are in a groundswell of knitters and I know I got into knitting because crochet (which I really enjoy a lot, too) gobbles up three times as much yarn as knitting. I started spinning because I had this delusion that I could make my own yarn cheaper than I could buy it... because it seems like a whole lot of my income was going suddenly to yarn. Basically, I'm cheap but want to have my crafting things.

Well, the knitting is so darned addictive that I have virtually abandoned crochet (although when folks need drinking horn cozies, I'm there).

I do need to provide a picture of a horn cozy as I think I was making them BEFORE BLOG.

And yes, if you are a mead maker, you must drink from a horn at least once in your life. There is a secret to keeping the mead from glogging in the horn and splashing you in the face after you take a sip (or while you are sipping). Turn the point of the thing down. Or is that up? I will have to try it because I forget just now. But it is one or the other.

But the whole matter of the spinning craze -- Where did it come from? Did all knitters get the same notion that I did and think they would save money and then get hooked on the spinning?

Or is it just my distorted thinking that just because I'm interested it seems to me that lots of other people are interested?

But I made a mistake. It is a false idea that I would save money by spinning my own because I ended up spending more on better quality materials than I did when I just bought pre-made yarn.

I also had this notion that I should be able to have many basic survival skills should our country have a meltdown, invasion or some other catastrophe and those skills included things like:

• Preserving food (I know how to safely can food, pickle food, salt food, dry food, freeze food and smoke it without poisoning the people I'm trying to feed.)
• Make clothing (I now know how to spin, knit, crochet, hand sew, quilt) I do not yet know how to weave but bet I could figure it out if needed)
• Tan hide (I can do this both with and without fur attached)
• Fish
• Raise vegetables
• Identify edible wild plants
• Identify and use medicinal plants
  
• Make candles (will need to install a couple of bee hives)
  
• Make soap
• Make cheese
  
• Make mead (again the bee hives would come in very handy here)
• Hunt (I know how but currently have no hunting weapons... an investment to be made soon, I think)

Lest you think I'm one of those crazy survivalist types, I'm not. I just know that these are skills which are rapidly disappearing and yet provide human kind with the ability to survive in dreadful circumstances. One of the biggest problems my household faces with the extended loss of electricity is the ability to pump water. I'm thinking a solar panel system that would provide back up power for running the deep freezer and pumping water is not a bad idea. In addition, if we installed a heat pump, it might also provide supplemental heat as we do not currently have a wood stove.

So thinking about these things we still need to buy:

• Five more acres of land (nice but not completely necessary as we already have an acre)
  
• A wood stove (this will involve repairing a chimney)
• A rifle and or shotgun and ammunition for same
• Solar power station (this includes the battery and converters, etc.)
• Sheep (a small flock -- to provide milk, meat and wool)
• Milking goats (probably easier to deal with than the sheep for milking)
  
• Fencing to keep them in
• A pig (would provide meat, and fat for soap)
• Beehives and bees (for honey, wax, fertilization of plants)
  
• Equipment to finish the greenhouse. This can be solar heated.
• More hand operated woodworking equipment.
• A good supply of rope
• Vegetable seeds that I can store for a year or two
  
• Large water storage container.
• A windmill pump (might require digging a shallow well)
  

We already have chickens which could be turned loose and allowed to free range and we could take over their small yard for the pig as it was originally a pig pen anyway. The shed with a long southward facing roof where the solar power station could be set up and the batteries put inside. Access to fishable waterways, hunting grounds (for turkey, deer, groundhog and squirrel) all within walking distance. Access to wild blackberry and raspberry canes within walking distance. Apple tree, fig trees, plum tree is on the property and I would like to put in a few blueberry bushes. We also have pecan and English walnut trees on the property. There are plenty of white oaks and black walnut trees within walking distance.

Mead pictures

It's funny how many comments I've gotten on the mead making.

Anyway, here is a picture of the meads currently in progress. I still haven't set up the one gallon methoglins (herbed meads). And Ken has yet to put together his prickly pear mead.

Here is a picture of a carboy in a sweater from a year ago. Worked great as a cozy until the sweater donor wanted his sweater back. I keep thinking I should knit a carboy cover or felt one. Meads do best when kept in the dark. But you want them out where you can check on them regularly and make sure they are still bubbling away when fermenting.

One of those projects for when I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time. ...

Meads in progress

Nobody showed up for the Third Annual Mead Making Workshop this past weekend.

Sounds depressing doesn't it? But it was all good. I got two meads started all by myself without input from anyone so I really will be able to claim (or disclaim) them as mine. And my house is clean and I have food enough to feed the family for a week without having to go back to the store except to replenish the milk on, or about, Wednesday.

One mead is the elderberry.

The other is Pineapple with Mint.

Both of these are in 3 gallon carboys so hopefully, they will both come out well and be consumed without too much complaint or delay. Depending on how well they bubble along, I hope to rack them in February then again in May and finally bottle in July. That means they should be ready to drink starting in October.

I was going to do a repeat of the Rosemay Mead but got so involved in knitting lace that I lost track of time. I seem to do a lot of that with the knitting.