Flower Course, first week's results

 Here's a little spinning tip I didn't have images for in the previous post about spinning. I think it's worth the price of the course.

If you slide your finished yarn through the holes of your knitting needle gauge until you get a reasonably snug fit, you can find the range of needles that will work for that project. So obvious and yet.....

I have begun the "Crazy Flowers" course with Carla Sonheim and am I ever out of my depth.

http://www.carlasonheim.com/

I can do the first lesson, sort of. I threw out the first attempt at the first lesson because it was so hopeless. Carla's lessons concentrate on layering transparent colours, adding shading and little bits of dots and stripes and floaty things and shazam, a cool looking flower. Hmph.

Here's what I've managed to do so far. I've done day two and three over a couple of times. I guess that's why it's a four week course, by the end of the fourth week, I should like something I've done.

Ten flowers with pencil crayons, markers and some water colours to infill the big flowers.

After shading, more pencil crayons and some white pencil crayon to dull out the backgrounds. Carla used white ink, but I was too scared to wreck the whole thing. The white pencil crayon seemed the cowardly thing to do.

 Pencil crayons layered over top of each other, then water colour to mess things up and desperate attempts at ornament.

I see some small moments of success here and there. Forgot to worry about page composition, but then really, too much at once is too much.

Eventually, I just tried to erase the whole things with grey watercolour. The good thing about a mistake is that there is always the other side of the paper that can be used.  When I took Karen Ruane's on line courses, I already knew how to stitch. This course is wiping the smug look off my face. That's OK, it is still winter and I'm wearing a scarf, so no one can see my look of terror. I am off to do something with a thick layer of gesso (white gunky stuff).

Spinning lessons

This Sunday I took a spinning course with Elinor Crosby at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design. It was a three hour class and I learned several cool things.

Here's a beauty. If you can't establish enough tension through your brake belt or your drive belt, you can lead the newly spun yarn through a little maze via your guides. This is especially good for thinner yarns, such as laces which can be spun with only a couple of fibres at a time.

In order for this to work, your yarn guides need to be on the same side of the spindle. Mine are not, they are on the top and the bottom of the U shaped thing. It has a real name but I forget.

If you don't own a spinning wheel, you might not know that there are all kinds of whorls or pulleys and knobs to twist. When I am feeling adventurous, I twist a few knobs and see what happens. This weekend, the relationships between the knobs and whorls was revealed and several things happened.

I learned how to spin really thin yarn,

This can be plied two, three, four or even eight strands together, giving rounder and stronger yarns. This yarn belongs to that naughty sheep Floozy. If only I had known this three years ago, as I agonize spinning her up. By drawing the fibres out to a thin yarn, a lot of the garbage just drops out. I've been stopping and picking out debris and then starting again. It has been frustrating to not get a flow of spinning. Now the decision regarding Floozy is to continue as I was, or to switch strategies half way through. Hmm.

I learned how to spin a loftier yarn. This fleece is was not as well prepared as it could have been and is full of nubbins. It could be used to make a novelty yarn, or I could live with it and knit or weave something that looks cool with blumps. I have a very nice table mat made with bumpy yarn in the weft and linen in the warp. I could try that some day.

I learned how to figure out what yarn I want to spin, rather than spinning and hoping that what comes out at the end is useable. Both these yarns are a result of me making a decision ahead of time as to what diameter of single I wanted. These were spun on the middle whorl with medium tension on your left view and higher tension on the right view.

My fellow student was a nut for dying and there was a lot of talk about dying, batts, carding and strategies to get interesting colours. I brought out my recent colour disasters.

The skein on your right is from a door prize, I may have mentioned earlier, the skein on your left is a double ply. The colours get muddy and brown.

Here is where I tried mixing it with a strong pink and really. Ick. The spinning group helped me decide that the right view skein colour is better as a single, that I should wash it, see if the over spinning comes out and use it as a weft in something. Or donate it and let someone else figure it out. I like this idea best.

The spinning group helped me decide what to do with the pink. Here we've added a brown, about 2 parts pink to one part medium brown. I like it already. I have enough to make a small sample and head out shopping.

On the edge of LaLa

Advice: just when your head is clearing up from a concussion, do not bounce on the bed.

I was bored, it seemed like a good idea when I hadn't been physically active for 3 weeks beyond small walks and small putterings around the house. Bored? Bed? Bounce! Bad!!

What does one do with oneself when one is restricted to the couch with little to no reading, computer, TV or other fun things. Well, after a while, I decided that I could do the dishes and I could spin. To spin, I'm still seated, my head is not bending up or down, left or right, I can let my gaze wander around instead of focusing dead ahead and it doesn't require a lot of intellectual rigor.

I decided to finish some old projects...

On the top is the latest skein of Romney, from the sheep "Floozy", heading towards becoming a woven blanket. In the middle is a two ply of merino. The colours are all muddy browns, pinks, greens and even the yellow is brownish. I received the bag of fleece as a door prize. Unimpressed with the colours, I decided to try adding some pink to liven it up. The bottom skein shows the results. Hmmm.

Floozy is looking like all the other Floozies I've spun. It must be close to 1000 metres by now, all done by the spinning wheel.

The colours don't look so bad here, but they are rather dull, don't you think?  It is spun on the drop spindle several months ago and now plied on the wheel.

Here is a single ply of earth colours plus a single ply of the solid rose pink. It just doesn't work for me. Now there is too much pink and it is kind of loud. I was hoping for a pinky earth affect. Probably I should have carded the two together before spinning, but hey, the bag of earth was free, the bag of pink was cheap and it isn't a project I'm committed to. I'll have to think of what to do with the remainder of the fleece and the entire bobbin of spun earth colours. Maybe a donation to the upcoming Maritime Fibre Retreat, but sssh, in case I change my mind.

Now here is something I can get a bit excited about. Before the head smash, I had put together the fabric pieces for this block and over the past three weeks, I've been puttering around it with needle and thread.

 

Detail shot of the 8" block. Time to gather some textiles for a second block.

And here is the Grand Christmas Present of all times, seen in public for the first time. Steve (yes, he did) asked for a toilet paper cover. I have no idea why. I think he wanted it originally for the camp, but no way Hosay. Do you know how  many pill bugs can hid in this? Ick.

A crochet rose on top...

with a band of stocking stitch around the perimeter. Ain't it grand? Since he asked for this beauty, he is now in charge of making sure it stays filled, meaning, one less job for me. Win-win.

Some Odds and Ends

For the fans of Hot Flash Woman, I have hit a wall on the self publishing piece. I have the web page up to read and for over a month, I have been too afraid to read it. What if it's too easy? What if it's too hard? What's the catch. I have promised myself I will read it tomorrow and GET GOING on getting this comic into circulation. Volume Two is nearly done and it's time!

The front piece of Intentional Dots is finished, as far as I'm concerned. I am working on a background piece, a pale blue with different white circles on it to lift this piece off the wall. This project will go in the 'brain dead' pile of work for the summer. I can pick it up and sew away, all decisions are made now, it is a matter of production. I like to have one or two of those on the go. Usually, it is socks. This makes a nice change.

"Hee, hee, hee, I have a banana in my pocket," said Steve one day when he came home for lunch. Yup, he had a banana in his pocket. It was about to go in the compost bin at work, and there wasn't a thing wrong with it. He knows I pine for bananas, since they are off the local food list. I am making a peanut butter (local producer) and honey (organic and local and cheap) sandwich with my rescued banana.

Every so often a very fine yarn comes through my hands. They are usually the end balls from other people's projects, given to me for the knitting I do for mom's Helping Hands outreach. I've been making these hexagons for a while now with the idea of making a doll's blanket. Yeah, I don't know what I need with a doll's blanket, but none the less, I'm making one. I now have enough that the shape of the blanket begins to appear.

This is the fleece that I spoiled myself with back at the Fibre Retreat at the end of May. I have been spinning on and off and couldn't stand another minute of Floozy. I needed some colour. For the last two weeks, I've been focused on this,

and made this. There are about 200 yards altogether. At the moment it is a single ply, with a bit too much twist in it. If I ply it, I'll get 100 yards of a two-ply, but then I haven't any idea what to knit with only 100 yards. If I leave it at 200 in singles, I have a cunning notion for a lace edge for a shawl. This goes into the fall/winter stash of things to do.

Last weekend, Steve rented a car and we hightailed it to the camp near Liverpool. On the Friday, we went to assess any winter damage, cut back any fallen trees and weep at any vandalism. What a treat when we realized none of that happened over the winter!

Instead, on Saturday we started work on the bunkhouse. Steve did some outdoors work on the upper windows while Phoebe and I painted the inside of the bunkhouse with primer. The bugs weren't too bad yet, so it wasn't a nightmare of trying to keep bugs out of our faces while slapping paint in the direction of the walls. Steve's photos are better than mine, I will show some next post with the new vinyl windows in the upper portion of the space.

A coat of semi gloss white will finish the walls. Pine floors with a cedar finish will be on the floors and sooner or later, we will clad the exterior with hemlock. Another work in progress.

Spinning the Blues - the good kind

I was recently at the Maritime Fibre Arts Retreat at the Atlantica Oak Island Hotel with tons of women. We stopped into Have A Yarn for a sock yarn fix. Two for me, one for Steve.

During the weekend, I picked up an order I had placed with Bobbin Tree

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Bobbin-Tree/370613014589


I needed colour and couldn't resist the yellow orange combination. I am hoping a nice goldy colour comes out of it.

I just couldn't leave the blue-y-mauves alone, although they aren't really happy colours. They are more content colours.

I had been meaning to get the spinning wheel going for about 3 weeks before the retreat and seriously considered shoving it in the car along with two other women, three suitcases, food, wine and project boxes. I'm glad I didn't because I would have lost an eye sharing the back seat with the wheel. Once home, I pulled out the 4 ounces of lilac Blue Faced Liecester Top from Mountain Colors Inc. (American spelling so probably an American product)

On Thursday, I divided the roving into two parts and started spinning. I started just after lunch and kept going until I had to leave to meet Steve at 5:00. I finished off the last bit that evening. On Saturday I started the second half and managed to nearly spin through it all.

On Sunday, the last bit was spun and then I plied it all.

Cleo Belle thought she needed to help with the photos.

The resulting yarn is very nice. There is 130 metres, meaning a nice pair of mittens might happen next winter.

Shetland fleece or dust bunnies?

Dust bunnies?

Although it is a possibility, especially if I were to sweep in the studio, these are not ferocious dustbunnies massing for an attack, but "rolags" from two unknown sheep fleeces. When I was at the spinning retreat in PEI two years ago there was a huge box of donations of fleece and fibres that people could dip into and make crazy batts to spin from. There was a bunch of grey curly bits and some dark grey crimpy bits, both of which I pulled out and stuck in my bag.

My daughter was over helping me sort out my I-tunes music and while she was doing that, I decided to card these and see what would happen. I used the hand carders, placing bits of fleece on the teeth.

Then, the second comb is flicked through the bits and the fibres start to open up. This has to be done a time or two more, depending on how easily the fibres open. The light grey fibres were very curly and greasy, meaning that they had not been well washed, if at all. The dark grey was like combing through a baby's hair, very easy. (Unless you are my daughter who refused to let anyone but her grandmother comb her hair until she was 15)

Eventually I had combed everything and the results were a small pile of the dark grey and a larger pile of the light grey.

The problems with my I-tunes were not substantial but took a lot of waiting around for the music files to move around. While Phoebe and I were waiting, discussing the problems of love and prom dress hemlines, I managed to spin up the dark grey. I think it is a Shetland wool, due to watching someone a few days ago spin a Shetland. She was spinning a tighter yarn, I opted for a slightly more open yarn, meaning it will hopefully be warmer with the increased air space between fibres. Did you know that? The softer or loftier your yarn is, the more air is between the fibres and therefore the better the insulating opportunities.

This is the final yarn from the light grey, also spun as openly as I could manage. Phoebe had long gone from the house by then and it took about 3 hours to spin. I had lanolin all over my hands and jeans from the unwashed state of the rolags. This fleece has been washed in a light detergent and dried as a skein. There is a surprising amount from all those dusty bunnies that you saw at the top of the post. I managed to get 140 metres out of them all. That means a very nice scarf is possible.

Spinning retreat - 2011

Old Orchard Inn was the location for this year's spinning retreat. Hosted by the Potluck Spinners, we spun and talked and shopped, ate and spun some more.

Several of us met for dinner before the formal, and that's a relative term, began. It just means the bar was open.
There were vendors, with much to savour and delight. All my pre-planning and budgeting was forgotten 5 feet into the room. That's another story though.

Pia had three beautiful tapestries on display. I might be wrong but I believe the yarn was hand spun and dyed.


There was fun contest for spinning local skeins.

My favourite three were pet based. One spinner had some photos of the cat she had raided for its fur,
while another put a whole new value on dust bunnies. Maybe she had groomed her Tibetian Spanial, Nova Scotian Duck Tolling Retriever and Himalyian cat, but I also suspect she grabbed every dust bunny in sight to get this lovely skein spun.

In addition, in the upper photo, there is a lovely skein made from river grass by 16 year old Mira, who won the scholarship to the retreat.

Lois is not grimacing in pain, she is laughing her head off. Lois figured out a new way to wind a ball of yarn directly off her spinning wheel.

Inge from New Brunswick showed off her fantastical skein winder. It was made for her by a friend. It has a clicker to keep track of how many yards or metres are wound on, some piece of curly cue that none of us figured out and we forgot to ask about.

Jolene, who is an ace, gave me a very good lesson on drop spindle-ling. The stunning shawl on her chair was spun and knit by her. The spinning took place while at work, on her breaks, about 12 metres per break. That is perseverance. Jolene's generosity and story gave me a whole new outlook on the drop spindle and about the nature of achievement.

Richard Ashford from Ashfords (wheels and looms and other bits) was the key note speaker.

He gave us a charming slide show about the history of his family's business. He did this with great grace after a day of giving several short seminars, repairing everyone's wheel, and talking to just about every person any where near him.

Without any come hither look on my part, Richard sat down across from me at the dinner. It helped that we were among the last 5 people to sit down, but I expected that every woman in the room had saved him a place. Richard's business is outside Christ Church, New Zealand. It is still within the zone of tremors that are being experienced, over 8000 to date. We have family in Christ Church and it was good to get an eye witness report of the situation. Not good.

But we did manage to have a fun dinner since both Richard and I are both very entertaining.