Fiber Activities

The Northern Neck Spinners and Weavers group had a get together last weekend at the Hughlett Tavern Farmer's Market and completed a 24"X 72" shawl!

We started with a wonderful fleece donated by Judy M. which she pre-washed for us, carefully preserving the locks. It was a really nice fleece, soft and varigated in colors from warm brown to grey and black with very small touches of tan. Sandy, our weaver, donated yards and yards of a nice auburn colored wool yarn with with she warped the loom.

I spun up a couple of ounces of the fleece prior to the event just to give us a little head start and give Sandy and opportunity to experiment a little.

Most arrived about 8:30 or 9 a.m. and started flicking and spinning the wool. Sandy kept weaving. She's a trooper, too, because I think during the whole thing she took only about three breaks. In any case, the completed shawl came off the loom at about 2 p.m. so we did pretty well, I think for first time activity together, working at a leisurely pace and taking breaks to talk to passer's by.

June 14th is Knit in Public Day which is the second Saturday in June. I'm thinking of packing a picnic lunch and grabbing a comfortable chair and camping out at the Blacksmith shop and knitting while Ken works inside. Maybe some of my fellow locals will join me.

July 19th, Our group has been invited back on the third Saturday in July to spin and weave our way through another project. We will have to figure out what we want to make this time. Judy has offered to take care of the weaving portion of it. I'm donating a white Lincoln fleece (Larry) that has been made into roving (for the most part) but I'm going to bring along the washed locks I have left as well as some of the fluffy stuff that's been waiting to go through the drum carder. That way everyone can spin the material they are most comfortable working.

During our conversations at the event last weekend, several of us realized we really did want to get together regularly and one Sunday afternoon a month seems like the best time and commitment. I'm leaning towards the second Sunday of the month because it would precede the 3rd Saturday and if we were doing something at the Farmer's Market, it would give us a week to hash out final details.

Bad Hair Cut

I sheared my first sheep today with the help of many people.

A new friend who had two babydoll sheep now has four as her supposed infertile male, Bobby, is apparently not infertile. They did not know that the ewe, Emma, was expecting and were rather surprised one day to see two little lambs in the pen.

The twins (one black and one white) are now two weeks old and just a cute as all get out.

But my friend and her husband have come to realize that these sheep are quite a bit bigger than they thought and know that the fenced part of the pasture they thought was large enough really isn't so they are selling all four of them with a top dollar set of electric shears for just $1200. Included in that price are the two fleeces from Emma and Bobby.

Now, as to the quality of that fleece I can speak with intimate knowledge. It is soft, has a lovely hand and while it has some lanolin is not overly greasy and washes up nicely. It does have more VM it than it should as we forgot to put down a tarp on which to work.

The reason I know this is because I went over this morning to help with the shearing. I was a helper in the shearing of Larry and Curly the lincolns from last fall. I sort of figured that I would be doing similar help by holding a couple of legs or putting fleece into bags or such. But, as we got started (none of us has previously handled electric shears) and poor Bobby got nicked and started to bleed, his owner did not have the heart to proceed for fear of hurting him further.

Me, being the bossy sort, just moved in and took over the clippers and buzzed my way along. It took an hour and a half. The fleece is a mess and is probably good only for felting (well, parts of it are going to spin nicely, but you will have to pick out the billions of second cuts.). Bobby was nicked about four or five times all told.

And when the deed was done we could nothing but laugh at the poor fellow for I really did a hack job. I completely missed one hind leg.



We were all completely exhausted and decided our best bet was to come back and deal with Emma on another day. So we have set Thursday after work as round two in this saga.

But here are pictures. The full fleeced sheep is Emma is at the top and you can see the black lamb catching a quick snack. The other pictures are of poor Bobby. I love the one in which Ed is petting him for he is looking at me like he's afraid I will come at him again... but doesn't he look cute? He looks all the world like a large sheep dog and not a sheep himself.

An ugly rug?

A dear friend who shall remain nameless in this case, brought me a very large baby-poo colored sweater knit in super bulky yarn. He did not like it. He said the color wrong for him and he didn't like the pattern (which was a cowl neck).
Now my friend is a large fellow and the sweater fit him. But he was right in that the pale yellow with odd brown hairs throughout made him look rather ill. The neck was completely wrong for him -- he would look far better in a V-neck. He said the sweater had been hand-knit for him by a friend of his wife and he had worn it from time to time when he needed a sweater but really wished something else could be done with it. I think he was hoping I could dye the yarn and reknit it into a nicer style for him.
Well, I unraveled the thing and got a large paper grocery bag filled with balls of yarn. Some of the balls are soccer ball sized. We burn tested the yarn and discovered it was acrylic. I really am not fond of acrylic yarn for knitting. But I certainly appreciate it's affordability.
The bag of yellow super bulky yarn sat in my fiber room for nearly six months.
Then I got the loom.
Well, one thing the loom is making me realize is that I really don't have much room for a large stash. I need to use up the stuff that I have.
Since I'm a new weaver, I'm figuring I will probably make many mistakes at first and hate the thought of using "good" yarn (high dollar or particularly loved) yarn on items which might find their way to the trashcan anyway.
My first warp was dedicated to using up some of the brown/neutral odd bits of homespun stuff that I had lying around. (See last blog entry)
I thought about using up some of the collection of odd purples/pink/mauves and whites that I have sitting in a basket waiting for inspiration. (And I think I got one, but on a loom, you can really only do one thing at a time, so it will be my next project.)
But everytime I went digging into the stash for ideas, I had to move that bag of baby-poo yarn. I got tired of moving it around. I studied it a bit. I did a little cardboard sampler and made a mug rug. It looked pretty good.
It had the right thickness. It wasn't too stiff and it was actually kind of nice to pet.
So I decided to make a rug.
I wound off enough cotton rug warp to make a 52" long 24" wide rug from this yellow yarn. I planned to weave it and give it back to my friend. I'm about 8 inches into it and actually finding I like the way it's looking. And I've barely made a dent in the bag. I might actually get two rugs out of it if I put on a second warp later.
I saw my friend yesterday and told him what I was doing with his old sweater. He just laughed. I hope he likes the finished project for there is really no where in my house for this color.

First results

Here are the results from my first warp. These are not all complete yet. The two mats are, but the three little bags need to be completed. The clutch sized one needs to be sewn up. That will take me about 15 minutes doing it by hand, so it's that close....

The other two bags still need straps. I am going to put a warp on my inkle this afternoon/evening and make straps using the same yarn that I used on the warp.

To make these I used up several odd skeins of hand spun yarn I had saved.

Some were over spun and some were underspun and some were just perfect. But I didn't have enough to make a knitted project. When I got the loom, I put on my first warp and went right to the basket with all these odd skeins of handspun yarn.

I could have done more as I had about 3 yards of warp left, but I was anxious to see what these looked like off the loom. Next time I will use the warp to the end.

There is much to learn. My selvages for the first few really sucked.

But I love the Earthy feel and look of these items.

When I wove the grey mat I got really, really excited. The black and white was the first roving I ordered from Sheep's Shed Studio. It was some of their black and white roving that I spindle spun as singles (sort of worsted weight). The grey, at the one end is commercially spun grey yarn at roughly the same weight. But it is two ply. It's nice and even. It is completely different from the puffy, thick and thin of the black and white singles. I want to make blankets out of this stuff!



Then there is the small mat from some of the very interesting mixed up buncle yarn that came with the loom.
I have quite a bit more of this

and I think it needs to be made into a set of placemats.

This bag is crying out for a tapestry design in that unwoven area of the flap. I just have no concrete ideas at this point. I may take it to Sally and ask for her advise.

This bag has a magickal feel to it. It wants to carry crystals or an altar kit or something... not sure as it tells me that it does not belong to me but it's new owner, when he or she finds it, will know exactly what it's role is.

The little clutch is just that: a little clutch.

Next warp going on starting tomorrow.

From Always to Depends

Years ago - before children -- I used to try and hide my sanitary napkins under the bread and bananas while shopping at the grocery store and I always picked the checkout lane with a woman behind the register even if it was the longest line in the store.

Then I had kids. Considering that when in labor you don't care if you are laying naked on a gurney in the hospital hallway, I lost much of my shyness when it came to feminine protection.

I was even willing to purchase condoms if my fella felt a little shy about it.

But now that I'm past the baby stage and well on my way into menopause, I'm finding that I'm kind of back to hiding those bags. And gods forbid I should sneeze in the check-out line. I think I'm just not quite ready for this stage of life.

Hey, what time is it really?

They pulled a fast one on me this year and the official time changed on Saturday.

Now it is Monday morning and every single clock in my house has a different time. I have no idea of the correct time. Once I could go to my trusty computer and look down at the bottom right-hand corner and know that this was the time that the entire world was running on. But not this year.

I just hope I'm either not overly late for work or that all the clocks at work are wrong as well and we will all eventually get this straightened out before it's time to change things back again in the fall.

Loom pictures

This is the way my loom looked when we brought it home.










Just a tad cramped.


Here is the first "project". It's just a narrow strip about 8.5 inches wide and I'm using up odd bits of spindle spun yarn that has been lying about for a couple of years.

I need to learn to do better/smoother color changes and my selvages suck at this point but I know this is just a matter of experimenting until I figure out how this loom and these fibers want to behave.

Deal of a Lifetime!

OH my Goddess!

One of my new friends from the Northern Neck Spinners and Weavers Group knew I was looking for a floor loom. She has a couple of looms in her studio and on Saturday a fellow came by and said he had seen a similar loom to her large Macomber in a house that was for sale. It was his understanding that the loom was available to go to a new home or would be sold with the house.

Turns out the house belongs to a couple that she knew because they were buying carpet for their new home from the current home owner's store located in Kilmarnock. I knew there was only one carpet/flooring store in Kilmarnock and also remembered that this couple used to live in my parent's old neighborhood. So I called my mom to help me remember their names and other details. Mom did remember this loom and said it was a nice one.

Since serendipity works the way it does, it just so happened that I was in Kilmarnock getting my hair cut on Saturday when my friend first called me and I called my mom. So I went by the carpet shop and spoke for a long while to the lady working there. She apparently decided I really wasn't a nut case and actually gave me the loom owner's home phone number. She suggested that I wait until Sunday to call her. (Turns out this was a very good move.)

So I called Sunday afternoon about 1 p.m. The loom owner remembered me and my mom and agreed to meet me at the house for sale. She could not remember the size of the loom but thought it was a Schacht. She agreed to meet me at 4 p.m. and said it would be okay to bring my weaving friend. She told me she was selling the loom and all the stuff that came with it (bench, bobbin winder, shuttles, warping mill, swift, ball winder, rattles, etc. for $500). She said she had had it for sale for a while and was planning to go to the Williamsburg Weaving Guild in a few weeks to see if anyone there wanted it.

I called my weaving friend who, blessing upon her, agreed on this spur of the moment late Sunday afternoon outing.

I knew as soon as I saw it I would buy it even if it didn't fit in my studio because what she was selling for $500 was a complete weaving studio including some yarns with the center piece being a pristine condition Schacht 46" 8 harness floor loom!

Well, my weaving buddy about dropped her teeth I think. I knew this was worth far more than $500 and asked the lady if she was sure. She said that she was.

Well, I wrote her out a check and we carried out most of what we could carry and transport in Ken's little pickup. We got back to my house and my weaving friend called her husband. Double and triple blessings on him, for he got up from his Sunday afternoon of relaxation and went outside and hooked up his open trailer and drove down to my house. There he picked up my weaving friend, my husband and myself and after doing a masterful job of turning that long thing and van around in a very tight driveway, helped load my new loom onto the trailer and transported it safely back to my house.

He also was a huge help in reassuring my husband that I really had made an outstanding deal and he would have bought the thing if I or his wife had not. Considering he is not a weaver, that says quite a lot.

So now I have this wonderful weaving studio! I think the guest room/fiber studio idea is shot... but perhaps I can make it up to friends by learning to weave and making wonderful, fibery gifts.

New and old projects

I finally finished the mittens for Allison (GD #1). I think this took me forever because once I figured out that I had two different dyelots, the whole project just seemed a bit flawed. I got tired of getting blue fingertips everytime I picked up the second mitten. But I finished it and washed both mittens in hot water several times and then added vinegar and let it sit for a while. The last rinse finally came out clear.

Ken has been helping me by picking the wool from Curly as I get it washed. He is also helping me get it carded as he fills grocery bag after grocery bag of the picked fiber. We have about a pound and a half done up in pulled batts now. I don't know if "pulled batt" is an actual term but what I've been doing is pull the batt off the carder then carefully pulling it out with my hands spaced about 6 to 8 inches apart until the whole thing is a nice thick bit of roving like snake. Then I've been wrapping the snakes up into nests. Each one is weighing in between .8 and 1.2 ounces.

Out of curiosity I spun up two of the snakes and plied them together and got something around dk weight at about 87 yards. I knitted up a swatch on US#4 needles and got 5.5 stitches per inch. I'm seriously thinking about doing the Mary Burr pattern Cinxia from Knitty.

The only question is whether I should do it in white or dye the fiber another color. The yarn is coming out a nice cream color, so it's not bright white.

The only problem is that I have issues with white clothing. I have managed to ruin every single white shirt or sweater I have every owned. I don't want to invest umpteen hours into something I will dribble coffee or catsup onto. I know I will wear this sweater a lot.

So color choices.

Well, I look great in red. But since becoming involved with gang investigations, I'm very leery of wearing red very much. I also look good in turquoise but I don't have many outfits with that color simply because it's hard to tie it into other colors. I'm wondering if I want to try something completely different and go with a baby blue? Bloods are into red and Crips are into royal blue (both colors I love, but must steer clear of for work). Purple? Green? I look ill in some greens and all yellows... but I wonder how interesting it would be to go with a heathered look including purple, green and yellow?

A List

I was impressed by the list of goals for 2008 posted by Fleece Street and have decided to make up a list of my own. Some of these goals will be easier to do than others:

1. Save up the money to purchase a floor loom.
2. Buy a floor loom. (I'm looking seriously at a Harrisonville 4 harness but haven't decided yet).
3. Knit completely a sweater for myself
4. Prep all raw fleeces currently in my stash (this includes washing, picking and carding or flicking)
5. Each month throw or give away at least a laundry basket full of stuff I don't use anymore
   
6. Declutter/Straighten and dust at least one location of the house a week even if it's just a drawer.
7. Complete two pairs of socks (one of one pair is finished)
   
8. Complete at least five holiday gifts by making them by hand (One scarf is already finished) and complete all of them by November.
9. Spin enough fiber to knit a sweater (that would be about 3 pounds of one kind of fiber)
10. Make Ken a knitted hat
11. Update the Hoot Web Page by the end of February
12. Take more and better pictures of my knitting and other fiber projects
13. Post to this blog more often and with more pictures (see #12)
14. Learn to spin cotton on the wheel
15. Learn to spin flax on the wheel
16. Spin more silk or silk blends
17. Make some "art yarn"
18. Get the wing back chair in the music room re-upholstered
19. Work in the garden at least twice weekly starting in March
20. Vacuum the whole downstairs weekly
21. Continue on Weight Watchers and remain positive even when there is no loss for a week
22. Pick up the Mandolin again
23. Take the dogs to a groomer in the Spring
24. Go to local craft shows and support the Farmer's Market more
25. Visit Stratford Hall and George Washington's Birthplace
26. Walk at least 1/2 mile at least 3 days a week starting in April