Boxing Day -- Time to Post

It has been a long time since I posted. No legitimate reason for this, just a few excuses. The usual busyness, and I admit that I still find it difficult, slow and frustrating to manipulate this process, insert pictures, and the whole gamut of things involved in pulling a blog together. I know, I know -- practise, practise, practise, which is also what my spinning mentors tell me. Sigh.


Anyway, it's Boxing Day, and although John and I will be heading off to Toronto in a few hours for dinner with friends, I decided to take a stab at this again. I hope all of you had a Happy Christmas, or whatever the occasion is that you are celebrating this time of year, even if just a break in your routine.






Since my last post there have been some things happening, although nothing too dramatic and out of the ordinary.










My guild, 'The Niagara Handweavers and Spinners Guild" moved. We found quarters in the Historical Museum in Welland, Ontario. And so we packed up and moved over a few days. The new space is great. Lots more room for meetings and the looms, and it is rent free, since we are considered to fit well with the museum's mandate. We are merely required to do some display and demo stuff from time to time. Thank you , Mr. Carnegie, for your libraries generously donated to so many communities in North America and which are still being used in imaginative and educational ways!




I also bought a Drum Carder a couple of weeks ago. It belonged to a lady in my guild who is getting elderly and so is divesting herself of of a lot of her equipment. When I went to Dorothy's house to pick the Drum Carder up, I was amazed at her weaving stuff, including, what she believes is the largest loom in Canada -- 120 inches wide (yes, that is 10 feet wide fabric it will produce!) It works best with 2 people, although there is a device so one person can do it.




The Drum Carder I got, although it appears to be 'no name' brand, is in excellent working condition and I am looking forward to working with it, especially in experimenting with colour blending. Dorothy let me have it for $175 which I thought was a good bargain.








I have also been doing some drop spindle spinning. Spinning singles in two different colourways -- Louet's Northern Lights line of space dyed wool top, I did some named "Ocean Waves" on my Tom Forrester spindle.







And the I did the other colourway, named I believe, "Skittles" (which I think is some sort of candy similar to our 'Smarties' although maybe not. lol) I did it on my new Bosworth spindle that I got at Rhinebeck. I am not sure I like the spindle though, it has a tendency to only spin for a very short time and then start travelling in the opposite direction and 'unspinning'. Now, I don't want to blame Mr. Bosworth, since I am far from being an expert on the drop spindle, so perhaps I am doing something wrong and it will take a steeper learning curve than I anticipated. However I do like the fine yarn that is finally produced.




And then I plied these two singles together and I really like the result. The colours never come out very well for me in these photos, but here is what it sort of looks like. I am in the process of doing some more, and now I have to decide what to do with it. I am thinking, at this point, of either trying my first EZ 'Baby Surprise Jacket', or maybe that 'Morning Surf' scarf that was on the cover of a recent SpinOff magazine. However, it will most likely end up sitting in my stash for forever and a day.









John has been busy dyeing with all his plants and twigs and things, including the most foul smelling fermented Eucalyptus you could imagine. He started it in the kitchen but I made him take it outside shortly into the process. When I THINK of eucalytus, I think Vick's Vapour Rub, right? Wrong! Vick's is always a comforting smell to me, redolent of colds, flannel pajamas, and my mother rubbing it on my chest and dabbing a small glob of it at the base of each nostril before putting me to bed.



Fermented Eucalyptus, on the other hand, has a smell more reminiscent of the cold congealed vomit of a Koala bear. However there were some nice colours from it. Unfortunately we still have two huge leaf bags of eucalytus cuttings on our porch, since John had people at the nursery save them for him in their pruning.






Our house is gradually filling up with balls and skeins of John's experiments in colour and vegetable matter. I cannot complain, however, since I contribute at least as much to the mess with my fleeces, rovings and tops as well as my mammoth yarn stash. (Speaking of which, a local, lovely high end yarn store is having a 'boxing day' sale starting tomorrow. So John wants to go, so I know we will each add more to the mess as well. We do tend to egg each other on in unfortunate ways!




John has been natural dyeing, as I said, and I have been experimenting with acid dyes. My OHS spinning programme homework includes a 'colour graduation' assignment, in which we have to spin and dye 10 skeins of yarn in which one colour is used but with increasing intensity --- 10%, 20%, 30% etc. I did mine last Friday when we stayed home because of a huge blizzard. It was a lovely day, I do enjoy being snowed in if I have the luxury of not having to be anywhere. The work went fairly well, although the subtle colour gradation does not show up so very well in this photo. The extreme left skein is the natural colour of the yarn. The shining glints are small plastic bags holding a lock of the dyed unspun fleece.












Of course I have also been knitting. Socks finished and new ones started, scarves started and set aside for a while, and so on. I have also been plugging away at the current sweater I am working on. The basic pattern is from 'Guy Knits' in the Best of Knitter's series by XrX books. I like the colourway a lot, and although you have to keep track, it is really not a hard knit at all. It looks more impressive than it is, simply being a slip-stitch pattern (which I have never done before). The yarn I am using, for the main, teal-turquoise part is Brown Sheep's 'Nature Spun' in a colour called Hurricane Seas, and the variegated colourway is Noro's Silk Garden Lite in colour #2033.












Here is a closeup of the back and a sleeve in progress. The colours, as usual, are not true, but you can get the idea. I am using 4.5 mm needle for the work (3.5 for the cuffs etc). I did a swatch with a larger size (4.5) but did not like the drape of the fabric. Now, I have one more sleeve left to go, then putting it all together which is my least favourite part.

We had a lovely Christmas dinner with friends in St. Catharines yesterday. I gave Fran some of my handspun yarn as a gift. She had admired this particular one for a long time so I surprised her with 3 skeins of it (It weighed out at a pound in total). It is very uneven, one of my early spinning efforts, but as they say, people don't have to know it wasn't planned that way. The top I used was Louet's 'Soysilk', although at this point I can't remember the name of the colourway. Some of you may recognise it. I think I got the top as one of the door prizes at the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat in May held at Easton Mountain near Saratoga Springs in New York State. http://www.eastonmountain.com/ And I spun two singles and then plied them on each other, letting the colours fall where they may. I am pleased with the way it looks.

Speaking of Easton Mountain, I have also registered for the next Men's Spring Knitting Retreat to be held again on the Victoria Day weekend in 2009. Very much looking forward to it and seeing all the guys again. It is amazing how this thing has taken off.

Well, folks, I think this is all for now. Look forward to seeing some of you in the near future, and hearing from more of you over the weeks ahead. I hope that all of you have a healthy, prosperous, and peaceful 2009.