Woven Thoughts

I'd like to be....

2012-01-25T12:22:00.000-08:00

under the sea:

Tile Mural by Dianna Rose, now installed in our guest bath!

We've been so busy the hands are faster than the camera:

Spinning:

a bobbin a day, that's all we ask.

and some African silk:

This stuff is marvelous to work with: I spun this last night at our local guild meeting. Our speaker was Ginger Luters, who is also a member of the guild. She talked to us about Tunisian Crochet, which is apparently not Tunisian but is a form of crochet. She showed us interesting openwork and modular work, lots of inspiration.

I spun through the lecture. I was given this African silk at a workshop, but I am not sure I can remember from whom.....! If you know anything about this baggie:

can you email me please (lambspin at g mail dot com....remove all spaces etc.)? Meanwhile, I've sent an inquiry to the person I think brought it to me.

Anyway, it's wonderful to spin, drafts like a champ, and very little in the way of chaff, fluff, noils, short bits. Thank you!! to whomever....

Lots of fun stuff happening, people busy either building or making, a bit on the frenetic side around here, but that's better than being dull, I suppose. I have neglected the blog, sadly, despite having thought of lots of things to tell you: I had a whole post about the lunar eclipse last month, quite beautiful, joined by two shooting stars as I sat and watched....I just hope you are psychic, or telepathic, or something because I'm off and away! again. Back soon.

There is a warm bright sun out there, and the studio awaits.

New

2012-01-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

Lots of New besides the year.

This year's best Christmas present ever?

Blue tarp, cut and sewn into shopping bags. It made us both laugh out loud! And furthermore:

you may not be able to tell from this photo but that is duct tape reinforcing the bottom(!). And also? It comes with a repair kit:

We laughed!! My husband thought it was such a good idea we should go into business. Think of it, he said: all the men will be clamoring to do the grocery shopping just so they can flash their bags!

I did a little knitting, but not for gifts. For me, mitts:

They do so match :D! This is worsted weight wool from Green Mountain Spinnery, bought when we had a day off from SOAR this October.

They have flip-tops for warmth:

and frankly, I've been wearing them over gloves, because I am in the mountains of Colorado and it is very cold here.

We had a sleigh ride:

to dinner in a cozy cabin:

Some of us are learning new things, like using a big-people spoon to eat our cottage cheese out of a big-people bowl:

But alas, we get distracted by our Uncle Sean:

and have to laugh out loud!

The New Year is starting out right, as we speak, with a nice long nap, so our grandma can finally (!) (I know!) get busy and put up a blog post.

If we are starting as we mean to go on, this will be a very jolly year :D!

A Whirlwind Occurred

2011-12-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life just feels like this:

Obviously, I have been visiting. I took spinning with me, but tragically, forgot the plying spindle. Relax, I thought, just keep winding off onto cardboard tubes. I managed for 4 or 5 days:

Things just kept building, spinning was getting done, and then (imagine lightbulb here) I realized I would be in one place long enough to get a package delivered. I ordered a new spindle! Hooray! Was not just an excuse! See the bright shiny new spindle here?

New plying spindle delivered, all yarns plied and wound off into skeins, and everyone is happy:

Knitting has been occurring, also while traveling:

and even a small bit of weaving:

for a benefit sale (the tote bag is gone now, no idea where! If you get it for Christmas, please let me know :).

Alas, still many deadlines to meet, and miles to go before I sleep. 'Tis the season, of course, and I still feel a little:

upside down. Things are getting done, I am catching up, but, alas, not there yet! Baking to do! Letters and cards to write! Shopping! Making! wrapping and packing!If I have missed you, owe you an email, or (gasp!) need to contact you, soon! I tell you it will be soon! (The panic and desperation you may have read into this post is yours and yours alone. No one is desperate here!).

Colors

2011-11-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

Evening knitting, morphed from travel knitting:

Some of this has been ripped back, the yarn by itself has enough color, I don't need to add stripes of other yarn. No new photo, but imagine this with only the BFL yarn.

For some reason I love the look of a warped loom:

A warm shawl, quickly done (my how swift and easy it is when using commercial yarns!). This is done, and mailed off:

to a friend, in a weaverly attempt to comfort her in loss.

The season is full of the colors I love to use:

And the early dark makes for a perfect bedtime-story season too:

We came, We Saw, We Wove

2011-10-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

First, upon arriving at The Spinning Loft I was confronted by the Wall O' Fleece:

Actually, that's one of two walls, and excess:

But we overcame. Rather we overlooked, because this weekend, we were weaving:

That is a pile o' painted warps, ready to turn into piles o' fabric:

(Valerie has a great shot of weaving the fabric on her loom here).

Painted warps in cotton, useful fabrics, and fun to weave: as the warp advances new colors/new sections show up. Here is the front of Wayne's loom, as the fabric is being woven:

And here is what's coming up next:

I totally stole this photo from Valerie (without permission, thank you Valerie in advance!) of Wayne's finished fabric as it came off the loom:

He also painted some warps for other fabrics:

(photo also stolen, this time from Wayne himself via Ravelry). (I'm a criminal, yes, but at least I confess quickly.)

Lots of other fun things happened, including holding babies!

This is Beth's grand-daughter Candice. You can see I got handed the baby the minute I walked in the door: jacket and scarf still on...

And speaking of Marin's new shoes:

snappy, eh?!

Well Traveled

2011-10-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

I'm in Howell Michigan, at the Spinning Loft, a spinners dream shop: there are wheels, and spindles, of course, but there is a wall (actually two full walls) of fleeces. Almost any breed you can name, multiples of some breeds. Lots of options. All there. In one place. You can buy as much or as little of any breed you wish: in fact Beth, the owner, makes up sample packs, just perfect for trying out All The Longwools, for instance, or All the Down Wools.

Beth also has dyed fibers, from local and distant dyers, and despite being a dyer myself, I have been known, in the past, to succumb.

I bought this fiber the last time I was here, in January. I spun it on spindles, in April while I was in Denver visiting the grandchild (have you heard? I'm someone's grandmother! I know! News!):

The yarn sat for a while, resting, waiting, but also enticing me as I passed it in my studio. I mentally tried out patterns for it: hand warmers, a scarf, or shawl, a woven fabric; lots of options.

I started knitting this only recently, knowing I would be traveling. I wanted a simple project, nothing taxing, no pattern if possible, because traveling? I could easily lose a pattern, so it had to be in my head (I occasionally lose my head, but, so far, I have always managed to find it again).

I liked The Age of Brass and Steam (Ravelry link), but it's a little too orderly for me. I liked this version especially, with a bit more color, well used: the pattern changes where the color changes, nicely done.

But I also liked this shawl, and I liked that the directions are more a recipe than a pattern. What I like most about this shawl though is the garter stitch border which can be incorporated into anything, including my scarf.

So I started knitting:

So far so good. The yarn changes color nicely, I get to change stitch patterns at will, and throw in a garter stitch section, or a yarn-over section. I have a few other colors to work in, and plenty of yarn to make a sizeable scarf or small shawl. Easy to knit on planes, in airports, or hotel rooms, a pick-up-and-put-down kind of project, it's been traveling with me, and has traveled a lot before me: The fiber is dyed by Abstract Fibers in Portland, to me via The Spinning Loft in Michigan. It traveled back with me to California, then to Denver still as fiber, and back to California as yarn. The yarn has already been to New Hampshire, and now is back again in Howell for the weekend. Back and forth, back and forth, somewhat like the rhythmic activity of spinning and knitting, and life actually, but I'll stop there before I go all philosophical and zen.

Instead I'll just go all grandma and leave you with this:

a happy little girl :).

Moving On

2011-09-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

Heading into a busy month: New Hampshire, Detroit, Dana Point....Pack bags, fly away, come home, wash clothes, pack bags fly away, lather, rinse, repeat. Travel knitting has been sorted:

I'm so looking forward to a glimpse of colorful fall in New Hampshire next week! Fall is here, too, the air smells moist and leaves are starting to drift down. Acorns have been heaving themselves at the yurt roof, which causes a small heart palpitation each time they hit (so unexpected!). We passed acres of pumpkins on our foray over to the coast, and grapes(!): the world will soon have lots more wine...

Detroit (actually Howell) Michigan is next up, where the lovely Beth will take good care me, and where we will talk late into the night like the teenagers we are not, while dandling her tiny new grand-daughter: baby fix!I'll have spinning with me too:

Then it's off to Southern California for SpinMore, a new venture in a great location. Fingers crossed that all goes well with this small gathering: five teachers, great people all, so it promises to be an amazing time.

Unfortunately, none of this travel puts me in the vicinity of this little pumpkin very soon:

But at least I am kept too busy to fret!

Plying on the Playa

2011-09-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

Rilly! :D! (Wensleydale, Golding spindle, playa!). People are so right when they tell you to match the spindle with the fiber you are spinning:

Wait....you mean they weren't referring to the colors???? :D!

I finished knitting a hat while traveling:

Slouchy, alpaca, with a tassel! I dyed three reds and used a black with them:

I love how the colors gradually get lighter toward the top, but if I did not tell you, would you have noticed?

A survey, do you think she is spinning?

Last:

Do you think she cares about any of this? :D!

The Cult of Perfection

2011-09-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, a knitter showed me her current handspun shawl, and expressed concern that it was Not Good Enough. She was hesitant to continue, because there were imperfections. I showed her the shawl I have been working on, which is decidedly not perfect, and she said Oh. (You have to laugh).

My work is not perfect. It is lovely though, useful, magical, beautiful and wonderful for me to behold. In the process of making things for the last 30+ years, I have learned that to be beautiful, something need not be perfect. The real test is in the use of a practical object, and it does not have to be perfect to be useful.

We all worry, second guess our work, step back and criticize. Examination and critical assessment can be a good thing, and is indeed an integral part of mastering a craft. But it can go too far. It can cripple, halt progress, make one run for cover and not finish things.

I might have been known to harp relentlessly on “finishing things”. It’s a problem for many of us, we start something, knitting, spinning, weaving, and it goes along for a while, and then we Stop! And put the work aside, start something else, clean the house (!), go fishing, whatever.

When we finish things, we learn things. We might learn what we never want to do again, but every time we make something, we are teaching our hands and bodies subtle movements that help us master the craft. Sometimes a project is just Proof of Concept, but finishing things is part of mastering the craft. The muscle memory does not come from your head. It comes from doing. Even from doing things Not Perfect. And the muscle memory is the goal: not the thing.

This is not to say we cannot strive for beauty, fine work: perfection, if you will, in what we do. Most craftspeople trying to master their craft are doing just that: striving. But the best of them are not expecting Every Single Work to be Perfect. Not every piece is a Masterpiece. But a masterpiece will not just show up, full blown, the first, second or even third time you do something. It takes work. It takes a body of work, with incremental learning along the way. It takes a visceral and physical understanding of the materials and process in which you choose to work; it requires you to put in the time. The subtle body knowledge that comes from working on your craft has nothing to do with what’s in your head; it’s a muscle memory, and an unconscious knowing without thinking, an integral part of who you are.

Your first (second, third) project should not be a masterpiece. If so, you have just done something safe, something everyone else has done, something your teacher told you to do, nothing from your heart and soul.You can’t email an internet list and ask how to sett the yarn for a masterpiece. You can’t call up your local weaving teacher and ask which weft to choose. You may get one good piece that way, but will it be yours? Will you have learned the tactile and subtle understanding which makes you a Master of the Craft? Or will you have put together a series of steps to create a beautiful object, One Beautiful Object, with no part of you invested except your head, your intellectual ability to pull together information? That leads to Posing. Posing as a Weaver, because you have woven. Not Being a Weaver (spinner, knitter), but pretending to be one. We even fool ourselves sometimes.

In a recent discussion with several spinners, the topic was “butt to tip, wind off to storage, and ply one direction”, all of which any spinner has heard, and knows the arguments for and against. My question is: are there sweaters made with variations on this theme, worn for ten years and compared??? Can you tell then which was butt to tip, run onto a storage bobbin and plied from the same direction and which was spun more casually? If so, we can all learn. Without the work, it’s just talk. And it is talk that separates, divides people into good and bad spinners, and causes some spinners to halt, paralyzed by Not Doing it Right, not being perfect.

I want to hear about personal experiences, not listen to a parrot. I want samples, not intellectual exercises. If I keep asking teachers what is the best sock yarn, not spinning sock yarn, knitting socks and deciding for myself, am I a master? If someone asks me for the best cast off to use, do I say Cat Bordhi says This? Or do I say: "this has worked for me"?

Your teachers should have samples to show you progress, variations from A to B, samples, hopefully, of their own making. Yet even samples of indigenous textiles will help students gain understanding, samples the teacher's apprentice has made will help other seekers. But look for samples, please. We are involved in a tactile craft. The appearance, while important, is not the only criteria for success. Intellectual understanding is not mastery. Performance, over a period of time, is really the goal: beautiful useful objects. To be useful, one need not be perfect.

Machines can make perfect things. That might be why some weavers are attracted to computer weaving: once designed, and set up properly, the machine takes cares of vagaries in memory or order of treadling or complex systems so the fabric structure can be perfect (the weaver still has to provide the information, design, fiber and yarn choices, color choices, even structure choices, to make the fabric beautiful: perfect is not necessarily beautiful. Have I said that enough?).

We should not expect our hands to behave like machines. There lies madness, and the way to piles of unfinished less-than-perfect projects.

When I buy textiles made by hand, I am enchanted to find the little imperfections that indicate a person, not a machine, made what I am holding. Why do we hold ourselves to a different standard? I believe we should glory in the evidence of the human maker, glory in the imperfections, the variations from standard, that make our work, and us, something you cannot buy, something precious in this world, something unique.

Well, I guess I have ranted. Do you wish to rant back? I am curious, and wish to hear it. Please leave a comment, or a link to your post in response.

In the meantime, someone I know practices climbing stairs. She is learning a new muscle memory, and she will be really good at it. Someday.

Winding Down

2011-08-22T04:33:00.000-07:00

There are places you never want to leave:

Windswept promontories, thatched cottages, heathered hills and long vistas to the sea. Skye was haunting, and lovely, and yes, there was sun every day....between the wind-driven rain showers! Cool weather, perfect for raising a good crop of wool:

indeterminate and yet ubiquitous hillsheep

Scottish blackface

Herdwicks, just like these! (photo totally stolen without permission from Sarah).

We made Sarah's poor husband stop in all sorts of odd places while we went crawling around to take photos of peat cuts, hillsheep and lichens:

We capped off the week with a fitting visit to Talisker, the whisky distillery which uses the peat soaked water which seems constantly to be pouring off the hills....

But all things change. Colorado in summer is dry and warm, though also windswept and sometimes rainy in the afternoons. I am on the road to home, by way of someone's first birthday:

Skye Now

2011-08-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

Still in Scotland, and it's still sunny:

This was somewhere on the road from Inverness on the way to Skye. It's Loch Something, and Sarah will remember Loch what when I ask her and I'll try to remember to tell you!

We have had a great time at Summer School. Lots of weaving, some spinning and we saw others dyeing and making baskets, doing a photo course, more spinning, and weaving weaving weaving. People were busy: what luxury to have classes for 5 days, really 6 because we shopped a bit on Saturday and then went right back to work. They got Lots! done:

We used lots of different looms, and everyone got plenty done, enough for me to be confident they know the technique. Luxury, that 5 days of class. Some even finished:

And........ there were sheep!

More to come: the sun just disappeared and I hear rain....but it's what we expect here yes? :D!

Further Adventures

2011-08-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

Glencoe, on a misty, mysterious day, much in keeping with it's history.
A beautiful ride into th Highlands, along Loch Ness, ending up in Inverness. We are in Edinburgh now, museums and castles, cathedrals and:

Dovecot Tapestry studio! Housed in a former baths, would this be the most fabulous studio space? Lucky weavers! There are tapestries to see, an exhibit currently of Indonesian batiks, and a nice cafe for lunch.

The Royal Museum (up the road from Dovecot) allows photos:

I'll have to look closely at my notes for spindle materials (stone?) and whether the shafts are reproductions. The mind, she is sometimes not at my command.

I loved this tea set:

Thistles! In silver :).

It was a rainy day in Edinburgh, which meant All The People were visiting the Museum at once. It's a perfect museum for families: lots of variation in the exhibits from animals, to science, cars, boats and planes plus an intriguing
Scottish history section, where I spent most of my time. I sat often and watched as families navigated their way, pointing things out to their children, teaching, passing on the culture, pushing strollers and trying to cling to one another. I listened to the cacophony of languages, happy to be able to step out of traffic, and knitted for a while under another glass-domed central hall. It's city life, a far cry from my usual days, and a great change of pace for country mice.

Life goes on at home, too, with little people learning lots of new things, like how to kiss Mama:

Sunshine in Unexpected Places

2011-07-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

We packed umbrellas. We packed boots. We packed jackets.

We have not needed them:

Stirling Castle

The Wallace Monument (off in the distance), from Stirling Castle walls, under sunny skies.

We did see tapestries:

These are two of the reproductions being woven at West Dean and at Stirling itself, although we did not see weaving: the recently finished tapestry was on display in the workshop (no photos allowed), and these 4 (2 here) were on display in the Queen's Chambers in the Castle itself.

Lots to see and do yet, and miles to go before I see this one again:

My favorite bit of sunshine.

New! ... Almost

2011-07-25T06:17:00.002-07:00

Can I say the clothing is new if the fabrics were woven a year, and two years ago?

The fabric had to age, mellow, ripen. That's it. Sewing is my least favorite of all the skills necessary to accomplish new clothing. Spinning? Love it. Dyeing? Yay! Weaving? Fun! I even like the washing and ironing part of finishing the fabrics.

Sewing? Not so much. Forced by circumstances (need new clothing), I have sewn. I prefer to speak of sewing in the past tense.

But these are done! Now I can wear them for the next 10 or so years, like the rest of my handwovens, until I fell compelled to sew again.

Also not quite new:

Someone is eleven months old! Where does the time go????

Weaving that is Like Knitting

2011-07-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

There are many ways I could describe the weaving that I do, but I am often talking to knitters, so I try to relate the similarities of this weaving:

with knitting. There are the visual similarities, like the section of soumak:

which has a surface appearance like stockinette: thee little v's of opposing rows. Soumak can be pictorial too, like intarsia:

But more than the visual, finger-manipulated weaving like soumak, knotted pile, pickup band weaving, and cardweaving has a similarity with knitting in that it is tactile, contemplative (once the process gets going), takes time, as in a few weeks or months to complete a project, not hours as in fabric weaving, and is less equipment-dependent than fabric weaving.

I had the experience once again, as I am sure many of us have, of a seatmate on a recent flight watching me knit for a few minutes and then commenting that she "did not have the patience for that". Now, I know my knitting style is a bit tortured (!), but really it's not something that requires patience. It is something that requires introversion, as in I am focusing on that which is right in front of me, not the bigger world swirling around (in fact, the ability to focus small and tune out the madding crowd may just be how I survive travel at all).

This weaving is similar. Focused, tactile, small, allowing for contemplation or listening to a book or music while I work. It just may be the slowest of weaving, and it also has some advantages in design: it is one of the few forms of weaving where the graphic image is very freeform, and allows for curves and color changes in a pointillist manner:

But aside from all of that: I love the process, I love doing it. Doing something you love does not require patience. Like the hours watching a child play:

Does Not Require Patience.
Just Love.

Everything Old...

2011-07-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

is new again.

This silk shawl:

is now this silk shawl:

The shawl is about 7 years old, and I might have used it a total of 5 times. It's just so cheerful! bright! and eye-popping in the original colors. The colors suited a purpose at the time, but the new colors are more wearable. Happy happy joy joy that I do not have to weave a new shawl, to get a new shawl :)!

It was an interesting overdye: I used violet, and when I checked the dyebath at about the halfway point, the water was magenta.....was some of the old dye bleeding? Did the new dye color break down into components and the blue strike first?

After the full dye session and cool down, the water was still red. I now think the discoloration must have been the yarn used for the weft: the colors of the shawl are as expected, but the weft where it peaks through is a little brighter.....perhaps it lost a color component. I think the weft is 5/2 cotton, but in order to be sure I'd have to read through my weaving notes on this (2004!), and frankly, not going to happen right now, too busy, a little overwhelmed, in fact.

Why am I so rushed? Have many things to get done before I go visit this happy clean girl:

Brief, Pithy, to the Point

2011-06-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm dyeing green:

by choice! I know!

Another anomaly:

I feel like a pod-person, who is this??

Also, whoops:

a bear thought the bird feeder might have food. Must've been a really hungry bear. Now we need new bird feeder parts. Harumph.

Baby-daddy has not down-loaded new baby pics for me. The pressure is on now :).

The Cat Must Be Away

2011-06-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

Because the mice are playing:

Sometimes, a project just takes hold. It consumes. This is the start of a handspun silk shawl (or scarf: we'll see just how far we get with the yarn already spun, and the yarn I am able to spin plus the knitting in the time frame allotted).

I made up the pattern, did a swatch (worked fine) then tried to figure out how much yarn would be needed. I know how much I have, and we'll see at the end how close the two calculations are.

I can keep spinning as I travel this summer:

and plying:

Both spinning and plying will continue as the scarf grows into a shawl. This must be done by late August, so the time frame is set. I'll be on the road for at least 6 weeks in that time frame, here and back, here and back again. This project all fits neatly into a very small package, perfect for carry on, and for carrying-on once I get to my destinations.

Speaking of carrying on:

Someone was just told "NO!" when she put her hand up to the electrical socket. I love the look of disbelief on her face! For the record, she tried again....and then was summarily removed. Sockets are all blocked now.

Hitting the Bricks

2011-06-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

Silk bricks, that is:

One brick to one bobbin: three more to go. These bobbins are big enough to hold the whole brick (usually about 4 to 5 ounces). Nice!

I have been cross-training with some spindle spinning:

This is some Wensleydale for knotted pile, and this:

is some generic wool, for knitting.

Meanwhile, Alfalfa rides again:

Thanks to Marcy for the Alfalfa reference, and if you get it, it's a sure indicator of your age.....:)!

The Aftermath

2011-05-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Two pop ups and the screen room set up the morning of camp! day! one!, ready for the onslaught of spinners to arrive (we were 23 or 24 at final count).

We drift in, set up our space, and are apparently off eating something somewhere.

But we eventually drift back, and settle in to serious spinning. This is Lindsey, me, Eva and BJ, photo by Susan (all photos by Susan) used totally without their permission (except for Susan, I asked her), so you may see my name on the docket soon.

It's super serious business here:

No fun was had, we were working! all the time! (snort).

Tableau:

Name tags, potato snacks, wine and marshmallow roasting equipment.

We spun, had potluck dinners two nights running and a dinner at the camp restaurant the third night (no one had to cook!). We had shared lunches, much wine and coffee, chocolate and chips (requisite camp food) and a glorious expanse of time to spin, knit, chat, have a fashion show, pass out door prizes, and spin some more. We stayed up late and got up early (bacon!) and do you think I am focused enough on the food???

We had the requisite camp visitor:

Then the sun set on Spindle Camp II. Watch for Spindle Camp III! This space, next year :D!

Spindle Camp II

2011-05-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend! We are away! Camping! With spindles (and wheels and needles and potluck suppers and pop-up tents) and a campfire! The weather should be grand (raining now, but supposed to stop and we are counting on the weatherman being right this time!).

Last year was Spindle Camp the First. Guild member Jan took on the challenge of organizing us, setting the date, contacting the campground, getting everyone to pony-up for the camping fees. We all showed up with tents and campers, good food and spindles, and the rest, as they say, is history.

We had such fun that we agreed to do it again: the second annual Inter-mountain Spindle Camp for the Foothill Fibers Guild and the Reno Fiber Guild starts tomorrow.

I have been soooooooo looking forward to it: days of just spinning (a little knitting, and maybe a stroll or two), sharing good food with friends, and long relaxing campfire conversations. I love the smell of woodsmoke, especially when it permeates my camp-clothes.

No one is In Charge. We'll have a table or two of fiber-white-elephant or studio-clean-out sale stuff, plus this year, Susan organized Door Prizes: A Golding spindle! Fiber from Lisa Souza! and Miss Babs!

I actually have new spindles for the event:

I was going to wait to try them out at Camp, but, alas, who can resist? Obviously, not me. And, um, I like pairs. This is two Goldings, and two from a NZ spindle maker, Sourkraut. All are fabulous spinners!

CNCH last weekend in Sutter Creek was grand: well organized, pleasant people all around, everyone seemed happy to be there and helpful. Class went well, better than expected really because the time was so short. We had a very beautiful workroom: lots of light and space, and that makes a world of difference. I had time for a relaxed dinner two nights running with good friends, a wonderful bonus.

But this week? Thoughts turn to Spindle Camp. Can you tell I'm excited? I am! To some people, though, Spindle Camp might seem like a total snoozer:

Give her time. Maybe she'll grow up to be a spinner.....

Big Surprise

2011-05-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

I made a new bag:

I know this is not a surprise to anyone, the post title is sarcasm. I made this last week, and kept thinking I should post about it, but also knew most people who read this will not find yet another new bag all that compelling. Alas, I guess I have to work with what I've got. It's what I do :).

This is a project/travel bag. It's sturdy denim, a good dark color for travel, and has a zip closure and long enough straps to carry cross-body.

I made and have carried this one for 6 years. There is a certain comfort in carrying the same bag on trips: I put my boarding pass in a specific place, and can always find it. I have enough room for my netbook, kindle, book (I know, redundant), wallet, a shawl and a project (or two), plus some travel necessities like nuts, hard candy, tea bags and dental floss (which is useful for all kinds of things from string to cutting tool).

Th current travel bag is still intact, has had pockets and bands re-sewn a few times, has been washed and re-washed, and is quite serviceable. But. It also has some limitations which I have tried to mitigate in the new one.

First off: I put a zipper in the top. This will keep things better in place, of course, but also makes the bag a possibility for over-head stowing.

Next, I made one of the outside pockets a pouch:

with a button! Carrying a project in the outside pocket meant I could easily reach it during flights, without scrambling through everything and pulling the whole bag out from under the seat to go through it. But the flat pockets meant things bubbled out, especially if I pulled one thing: the rest would follow. This is more voluminous. The pouch will hold a small project easily, and the button means I can leave the ball of yarn in the pouch, feed the working yarn out, and the ball will remain in the pocket, not roll around in my lap (or ack! on the floor).

The new bag is slightly larger, so that my spindle carriers fit in the bottom:

They are protected, provide a certain strength and stability, are accessible if need be, but not likely to fall out.

There is room (when not actually traveling) for a full pile of yarn or fiber above the spindle cases:

There are inside pockets for my niddy-noddy and nostepinne, and a snap pocket for knitting notions like stitch markers, a tape measure and a crochet hook.

I feel so smug. The real test comes with use though, so I guess it's time to break out the travel schedule. This week! CNCH. Also? The bag can be a class sample :)!

I will be traveling to CNCH by car, so the Ultimate Test will have to wait until the next flight, which is not soon enough, of course, to visit this favorite munchkin:

Stubborn

2011-04-25T13:44:00.001-07:00

I woke up early this morning with a solution to a very minor "problem": not enough yarn. Well, that's not specifically true, more like not enough yardage. This yarn:

which is the spindle spun BFL/silkyarn from my recent trip, is 700 yards, weighing in at 8.4 ounces (that is about 1300 ypp, for those of you keeping track).

I want to knit a small shawl with it, I have been haunting the pattern feature in Ravelry, but every pattern was just "not right". The pattern I really want to knit is not small, and requires over 3600 yards! Not even close. No fudge room there (the pattern is Volt (Ravelry Link) from the Holiday issue of Vogue).

What was the Epiphany this morning? The pattern requires several colors. I could add other yarns to my puny little stash, and make the shawl I really want. Duh, duh, duh and duh.

Before the sun even rose, I was down in the studio. Within five minutes I had this pile:

This is various wools, all handspun, some softer than others, some variation in grist but not enough for the Man-on-a-Running-Horse test, totaling over a pound. And the other good news? There's more where these came from. I just have to be judicious, once I start knitting, and make sure the color order looks planned, rather than "She ran out of Yarn".

I cast on (395 stitches using a provisional cast on, for those keeping track at home: so far, I've cast on and not even finished the first row! This is going to take a while...).

I am stubborn. I want what I want, not a pale imitation, not a version of, but the Real Thingtm.

The second entry in the "Proves That I am Stubborn Category":

Nice yarn, eh? It is indeed nice now, but it wasn't last week. You've probably seen it here before, but that was indeed Before. Before this oil bottle leaked:

ALL OVER MY WORKTABLE. Yes, I am yelling. The bottle was upright. Closed. Plastic. Leaked. These two skeins of yarn (and my weaving records notebook) soaked up an entire bottle of leaking oil, which was properly sitting right next to my sewing machine, because I was being good and oiled the machine, right before I left last month.

An entire bottle of oil: handspun yarn.

I washed the yarn. I washed it again. Dawn, Dawn, then Synthrapol, wash, rinse, wash, rinse, latherrinserepeat: for a whole week. Hot water, Hot Hot water, Hotter yet water, with detergent. Yarn = still oily and smelly.

What finally saved it?

A sample package of this detergent. NO OIL NOW! (Yarn smells kinda funny, they use some sort of herbal scent in the wool-wash, but hey! I'll take that over oil!). I get these samples at conferences, and have never used them. I pass them on to people who scour wool. I'm SO GLAD I had one on hand. And that I am stubborn enough to keep trying until the yarn was clean again (DH thought I was nuts).

So by way of a cautionary tale: don't buy oil in plastic bottles. I could see no cracks, holes, or breaks in the surface, and it was upright on the worktable. There must be a crack of some kind, but not visible to the naked eye.

Also? Put yarns away, don't leave them out on your worktable (hah!!!).

Also: buy some Power Scour. You may need it someday. It must be powerful stuff.

Luckily, it's not likely ever to be needed for this cute face:

Focus

2011-04-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

So far this week:

Four skeins, and # 5 on the spindles. I think there will be 6, or at least 5 and some, for a (guesstimate) total yardage of 550 to 600. I have been looking at patterns, but with each new spindle-full the options are greater, so I will wait until I am done with this fiber before I buckle down and really search. I've also got one more braid at home, not of these colors, but of a purple that would certainly go with, so I am not above looking at patterns where two colors might work.

Yarn Management:

Spindles to nostepinne, together, into one plying ball, then from noste to plying spindle. Easy, direct, no transfer of yarn from the noste means there is no need for fancy storage babbins, winders, tubes or containers.

Then: plying spindle to niddy noddy:

The noste becomes the central post, and two arms are added to make this a very useful travel tool: Niddy-pinny from The Bellwhether.

It's been easy to spin, in fact I brought knitting and that has seen very little action. I can spin and sit with a certain someone, and occasionally the spindle fascinates just enough to prevent an outbreak....

I do have to put it down for meals though:

Or I might end up with Sweet Potato yarns!

12 Days of Cheating

2011-04-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

On Ravelry, someone posted a spinning challenge: spin any project you want, make it a personal challenge, start April 3rd, end April 10th. Post results at the end.

I have a current spinning project, but I am away from my wheel for a time and decided to take up the challenge on spindles. I only brought the one (!) spinning project with me, two braids of dyed fiber:

This is a Blue Faced Leicester and silk blend from Abstract Fibers that I bought at The Spinning Loft in January. The yarn will be two ply, for knitting, one of each color.

I'm using two Golding spindles, both weighing .08 ounces, for the singles. Plying is happening on my Hound Design:

And the first skein, 83 yards, is done! This yarn will be a lace-knit something, a pattern to be determined, but from Anne Hanson's website, because I can't attend the Anne Hanson workshops and retreat that Beth has planned for this Spring, and I am jealous. I will assuage my jealousy with a secret private knit along while the ubiquitous they are at the retreat and I am not. I may even indulge in a few treats like afternoon tea with scones during the week, just so I feel like I am there!

See? Cheating. I started on April 1st, and I will continue on past the stop date (unless, gasp!, I run out of fiber....!). Cheating. For 12 days, or thereabouts. Do cheaters never prosper?

Why am I away from home, gleefully cheating away?

Was there any doubt? :)!

Two Turns Into Three

2011-03-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Lots of grey days here:

The hot tub and picnic table, under the weight of snows this week. Also:

While this is a shot of the bird feeder, the real news is the heavy tree branches in the background. These (and many others like them) are the branches that break, drop phone lines and power lines, and leave us in the dark, often this winter, and sometimes for days on end.

Luckily, spinning is people powered, and can be done in dim light, as in the light of oil lamps....so I've been spinning:

Blue Faced Leicester wool blended with tussah silk. It was donated by Ashland Bay Fibers, and sold at SOAR in Bend (2009) to raise funds for the SOAR scholarship program, and for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund.

I managed to buy three packets, two of which I've spun up during recent power outages/days on end of rain and snow, onto these three bobbins. I have one packet left, or another bobbin and a half (approximately), all of which is spinning up to a weaving yarn of 56 WPI in the singles. I will ply this and I will also dye it. I've been dreaming of colors as I spin: I'm sick of grey at this point, in the weather and the fiber. So next up:

A little more color! This is Alpaca Silk that I bought at The Spinning Loft in January (Michigan in January? I was going for More Color then too). I'll start this on spindles, because I'll be traveling next week. A little of this should brighten any day.

Speaking of brighten any day:

This is who I will be traveling to visit :).

Weaving Window Screen

2011-03-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to have faith that what you are doing will turn out all right:

Or, in this case (drumroll please) sample! This is ready to cut off and wash: before I go any further I will see how the yarns/sett/weft behave. It is quite window-screen-ish at this point: see through and wiry (it's mohair). But we'll see how the sampling goes, and if nothing else, I make very colorful window screening....

Thank you! to everyone who has been so supportive of my Etsy shop. Who knew samples of fabrics and a few bags would find homes so quickly?! I appreciate everyone's support and comments, and can't wait to see what you make out of the fabrics: I'd love photos if and when.

It's snowing again here today, wet and sloppy snow, after some hard winds and rain earlier. I don't know how long the power will last at this rate so I will quickly close with:

A cute little girl I know has just learned to sit up!

Everything Furthers

2011-03-09T09:59:00.001-08:00

Sometimes even small steps toward a goal mean real progress. Years of making things means years of accumulated supplies, leftovers, finished projects and just stuff.

There can be too much of a good thing. Feeling a little overwhelmed by the collection in the studio, I set up an Etsy shop this week to manage some of the accumulation. So far I have sold some packets of handwoven fabrics.

There will be more fabric, some beads, buttons and all kinds of vintage sewing stuff, which I used to collect but now seems to need a new home.

I also have some finished bags to list (Sunset bag, above, among them), and a few that were made for The Book. I have several that are handspun silk, kind of hard to make that choice to let them go, but really, something has got to give!

I used to have most of the bags on display in a glass case in my living room. I keep making more. They outgrew that venue. I need to thin the herd.

The second part of creativity is letting go. Wish me luck.

Knitting Architect vs. Knitting Designer

2011-03-05T06:13:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning, and yesterday morning, thinking about the architecture of a knitting project I am working on (in my head, so far). Knitting thoughts are not my usual contemplation: I am a spinner. I am a weaver. I am a spinner, who weaves.

I often knit, but I do not think of myself as a knitter. For a long time I have tried to describe why I do not think of myself as a knitter. It is something about the way I knit, but mostly about the way I think about knitting.

I like knitting. I've knit for over 30 years, and mostly make up my own designs. I learned to follow patterns only a few years ago when I started knitting lace.

Peacock Feathers Shawl in handspun silk: pattern by Dorothy Siemens

Patterns were a revelation. I learned lots of things from them: different ways to increase and decrease, different ways to change direction in knitting, add to the fabric, and make shapes: the architecture of knitting.

I belong to a group that meets once a month to knit together, and there are several very talented and accomplished knitters among the members. I've learned lots from them, too, like how different increases and can look in the finished fabric, how to decrease in various ways and the effect those various ways have on the fabric: holes? or no holes? smooth transitions? or a neat and tidy little seam-like line? These things are also the architecture of knitting.

So what had I been doing all those years? I'm not a pattern follower, so I had to be doing some of the architectural underpinnings, and as a spinner who knits: there simply were not patterns that I could follow. I always had to do the math in some way to make the yarns work. But I knit mostly during the Big Sweater years of the 80's, where shaping was not the goal: the colors and patterns of the fabric were the goal: the interior design of the sweater, so to speak. I think in terms of the colors, the overall impression, the picture of the sweater/socks/mittens, and borrow the shape, or architecture from knitters more clever than I. One of my favorite finds this past year was Knitting Pure and Simple patterns:

Easy Baby Cardigan by Diane Soucy

Diane does all the math: I just have to plug in the yarn and the stitch pattern. I've made baby sweaters (several), adult sweaters, baby bunting, all from Diane's formulas.

I can use some of these architectural tools now, and like any interior designer, the more construction tools one has at one's disposal, the better the design: one can move walls, or re-orient windows, or move light boxes, etc. and have a more satisfying result than just painting, furniture placement and window dressing would allow.

This silk baby hat is on my project page in Ravelry. I'm quite proud of it in that I have learned enough to alter the pattern for the construction methods I wanted to use (knitting the star in the round, rather than flat), the size yarn I wanted to use (fine silk, rather than the cotton specified, so I had to use the yarn doubled, and add repeats to the star to make it big enough) and also the size head I thought it might fit (I have not seen it on the head-for-which-it-was-made-yet, but all the hats I made for said head were a bit large so far. Baby still growing though, so I have hope!). I have indeed learned some of the tricks of knitting architecture, and I'm beginning to feel more confident in those skills.

But I am still a knitting designer, but not much of an architect. I still think in weaving terms, sometimes translate that weaving architecture to knitting (which can be a good thing). Weaving architecture differs from knitting architecture in many ways, not the least of which is construction in weaving is usually flat-to-shaped, rather than knit-to-shape. 2-D to 3-D, rather than created in 3-D.

Much to think about, fun to contemplate: and not done yet. Still learning.

Meanwhile:

If I cannot eat my hat, I will eat my toes.

Ten Years On

2011-03-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

2011-02-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

The Old One (silk, knotted pile) was indeed getting funky, mostly on the strap:

Both sides of the strap are wearing out:

In its defense: this bag has been used everyday for almost 8 years: I made it in 2003. I have had to take it apart and re-make it once, to wash it for beauty shots for The Book, and also? because the strap needed to be replaced then too. The strap wears out because:

I am a bad person and I carry my hair clip on the band. Do not do this, unless you want to rip through straps.

I could have simply replaced the strap again, but, alas, the actual weaving is also wearing out on the edges of the flap (arrow):

This meant more extensive repair, and I decided to go for retirement. These two panels (the front and back) will get cut off, washed and re-purposed, probably as pillow tops (with some added cloth). Yet! Another! Project! for the future-project pile....

The New Bag:

The design is based on the button (copper with a brass outline), the wool is from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. I discussed working on the bag here, with more information on the stranded wools that are the pile yarns.

Speaking of Cute as a Button:

If you won't let me eat my hat, I will wear it askew.

I suppose I should change the post title to Grandma's Got a Brand New Bag? :D!

Fruit Salad

2011-02-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

Been weaving. Handspun wool, from Reflection Farms, purchased at SOAR 2009 in Bend Oregon. Spun on a Lendrum Saxony, plied on the SpinTech. I call it Fruit Salad because there are plums, strawberries, mangoes, blood oranges and blueberries in there! Yummy :).

The fabric was sett at 15 epi, and is about 4 yards long, x 20 inches wide, on the loom. This is finished, and off the loom actually, but not washed yet. I'm too busy getting the next warp on.

More to come!
Meanwhile:

Somebody has been visiting Hawaii, where, if they don't let you eat fruit salad, you might as well eat your hat.

Out With The Old

2011-02-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

It is a New Year, after all (some weeks old, unless we are doing Chinese New Year).

New Tea Cozy, stranded wool, which keeps the pot extra-toasty:

The tea pot has been cozy for several years in a cotton patchwork job that is lined and interlined:

It is not nearly as warm as the new wool one though. The new one was a gift from a friend, who knits with singles(!) of all things, and it will be the new stay-at-home cozy. The old one will be the traveling cozy. I am rich in cozies!

More New: Blog post-provoker extraordinaire Lindsey has retired from the library and finally(!) started her own blog! Now please go over and comment on how rarely she posts, and go back regularly and ask her to post more. She who laughs last.....

Lindsey recently started a campaign to finish up all the old projects in her studio. Funny thing is, she has a knitting studio and a weaving studio. She is only counting knitting projects so far. She recently finished a shawl, in a pattern which I have forgotten. I also can't remember if she could not find the yarn she was using, or ran out, but in any case, she knit the border and edging in yarns other than the central field:

The colors were nice, but she knew an over-dye would blend them a little better, so she handed me the shawl and gave me carte blanche to pick a color for it. I used gold:

The colors are more unified now, even though the yarns each took more or less color depending on their fiber content and previous color.

Speaking of gold:

Josiah got a new sweater. It's handspun superwash wool, dyed top from Spincerely Yours. Sorry for the poor photo quality: camera phone. Nice tractor buttons, though, eh?

If you need buttons, my friend Mollie has opened a new online custom button business. Mollie has taught button making classes for years, but I have never indulged. Lucky me, I can now have her just make the buttons, any color any size (except, maybe, tractors). Good things come to those who procrastinate (wait? is that right?).

And last, certainly not least, she-who-still-seems-new to me:

A very Big Girl.

Hats and Cats

2011-01-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

Well, OK, one hat and one cat:

This was the pluperfect travel project: easy to knit, 1 x 1 rib for much of it and then stockinette for the rest, both of which would have been boring boring boring without distraction, conversation and...babies!

Well, OK, again: one baby :) (We're going with she will grow into it!).

The hat is a dubbelmossa again, using yarn from Jenna's fiber CSA and some handspun (here), here it is in it's unblocked state showing the ribbing:

I know! It looks very weird (we will not discuss what it looks like.....)! but it folds up nicely and the ribbing helps it to fit closely:

I suppose I should block the thing, but I've just been wearing it as is....

What of all the projects to be finished? Not yet. I've been running yarn bundles:

Bags and bags of them, for sample dyeing. Book One of the Dye Sample Book is back in production, and I head for Wisconsin for a working holiday this week. Plus?

I have been spinning.

Not Surprising

2011-01-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

Given that these last few years have been full of travel, away from the studio, one of my first coherent thoughts this New Year morning was not surprising: finish things.

There are projects left unfinished that cause me a certain anxiety and need to be wrapped up. There is also need of clearing out: some things that need to move on to another home, another studio, tools and materials that may find new homes.

What is causing this consternation? First up, I want to finish this, handspun wool rug warp:

This actually has some weaving done, but it was put on hold at the time of the book project almost 3 years ago now. There are yarns spun and dyed, ready for knots:

There is also this:

A spindle bag, with all the yarn also ready, waiting.

The purse I carry everyday is having issues with the strap (falling apart issues) but I have been reluctant to weave another band (it would be its third in 7 years of use) because I have been slowly working on a replacement bag:

The weaving is further along than this photo would indicate, but not, alas, done. Yet.

Other projects call too: Deb and I are dyeing again for Sample Book #1, version 2.0, which we will start mounting this month. All of version 1.0 is sold, so there is some pressure.

Which may be the problem with each of the projects above left undone: they have no external deadline. I have dropped them to get something done that was required by some certain time. There was this bag, for Schacht's 40th Anniversary Celebration:

(photo by Avedan Raggio)

There was a silk shawl for Deb to wear at her daughter's wedding:

which may be a different color by now, as Deb was planning to over-dye it after the wedding, to some color more suitable to her everyday wardrobe.

There was this handspun silk fabric, not yet made into the vest it will come to be:

Some of the silk was wheel-spun, and some was spindle spun.

There was this handspun cashmere, silk, yak and wool fabric:

Then there were these:

All this and more for the Marin Surprise:

Lots got done. There are just these few projects not-yet-done that haunt me. They are not very portable, they need to be done at home, in the studio. Travel is not conducive to this slow technique, but since nomadic weavers all over Central Asia get things done, I can too ((and will!).

Organizing these projects here gives me a certain peace of mind, a focus to the next few months; a promising outlook for the start of a New Year.

The Red Post

2010-12-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

First up, the least red:

This is the pile of handspun yarn I bought at LaLana Wools in Taos. It's a fluffy woolen dubbelmossa, a doubled hat, so it is two layers thick all over, and four over the ears where it folds up. Warm! and best of all, it fits :). It was interesting knitting with handspun yarns spun by other people. These are singles, and knit up nicely, but skewed slightly when I washed the hat to block it:

Singles have twist inherent, of course. That twist will torque in some knitted constructions, which can be used to advantage. Here, there is not enough skew to worry me; in a sweater I'd be more annoyed. I have enough yarn left for some mitts, perhaps fingerless, and again, the skew will no irritate me there either.

Next up is this cowl, now red:

having been thrown into a dyepot. I have not worn it. I took a good look at it in its previous incarnation, and decided it was just not the right colors, so I threw it in a crock pot with some red dye (people who know me will not be surprised). Now, it goes nicely with everything I own! (Again, people who know me will not be surprised). I liked the close up of the colors:

Several yarns in the cowl were multi-colored, so they took the red dye in their own way. Yes, the irony of buying multi-colored rovings and over-dyeing them is not lost. I updated my Ravelry project page with these new photos: the pattern information is there too.

Speaking of red:

This is commercial yarn, from a flock in NY, which came to me white:

I actually thought about knitting it up in white, but, alas, could not. It is part of my allotment as a member of a wool-and-fiber CSA from Jenna's Coldantler farm in upstate NY. The wool is crisp and crunchy, good also for a hat, and will be taken with me as knitting on my next trip. I was not sure if the amount would be enough so I added a few skeins of handspun to go with it: the top one I over-dyed (and yes, it was multi-colored rovings I purchased to spin, then yes, I over-dyed the dyed yarn.....):

In the photo you can see some of my very favorite knitting needles, the funky all-one-piece nylon ones from the 50's, by Susan Bates. I loooooooove them, and other people seem to not, so I collect them whenever I find them (thrift stores, friend's stashes, estate sales, yard sales, whenever).

Also? I have neglected to brag about this:

A *gift* from Deb, as a thank you for weaving her silk shawl last summer. I put gift in quotes because I made her give it to me. It's embroidery, using her handspun yarns, and was her gallery piece for several conferences this year. At some point, I just told her she needed to give it to me, and she did. I should be embarrassed, but I'm not. I'm incorrigible :D!

Why all the red? Well, it's seasonal, cheerful, festive, pretty, I like it a lot, and one of my favorite little elves is wearing it this year:

Merry Christmas! or Happy Solstice! or happy other holiday, whatever you may celebrate.

Layers of Meaning

2010-12-12T12:43:00.000-08:00

We were driving through Arizona on our way to Canyon de Chelly, when I spotted a very small brown road sign for the Hubbell Trading Post. We screeched to a halt and turned into the driveway. I was totally unprepared: I did not know it still existed, nor did I know it was a National Park Site, nor did I know we were anywhere near it (because, doh, I did not know it still existed).

The was a pasture with churro sheep(!), a guard llama, and a guard dog. There was a visitors center, and then there was the (tiny!) trading post, living quarters and stable. There were carts and buggies in the stables, which smelled of horse, but no horses were there at present.

John Hubbell played an integral part in the re-settlement of the Navajo after Kit Carson slaughtered many, then rounded up and marched the survivors to Fort Sumner NM in the 1860's. A fragment of the Navajo population had finally returned to their homeland, decimated by war, disease, marching for 300 miles and years of incarceration. Hubbell, and several other trading posts, began to supply goods to these survivor/returnees in exchange for weavings, which the traders then sold back East.

In order to sell native-made rugs to picky Eastern householders, traders had designs drawn up that would suit their homes, designs based on Turkish rugs, or rugs that the buyers would see as familiar patterns.

Paintings were made of these designs, and then potential customers would pick out what they liked, the weavers would look at the painting, and then weave up the commission. The rugs we know today as Navajo designs are based on these paintings. Previous to the Trading Post Period Rugs, Navajo weavings were mostly striped blankets, some with geometric edgings including triangles and points.

The paintings were there.

They hang on the walls of the trading post, along with examples of baskets. There was a case of silver and turquoise jewelry, at which I barely glanced, making my way into the Rug Room.

There were stacks and stacks of rugs. Size, color and quality varied, and the prices were well beyond what I could invest. I searched anyway. There were some that I thought I might be able to stretch for, but (not being much of a Navajo rug collector) I resisted the big ones (even though I looked through them!).

There were a few very small rugs, and some saddle blanket sized, some even smaller, decorative, including an oddly colored, poorly woven one I thought was charming. It was what we think of as a traditional Navajo design, but the colors were irregular, and some of the yarns were larger grist, making it lumpy, and hard to beat properly with the finer yarns.

The proprietor told me it was woven by a 90 year old grandmother, who still lives on her own, doesn't see well, and is not as capable as she once was, which I also found charming. Being new to this grandmother business, I thought it was a good investment of my few $$.

I picked up some churro yarns, and we were writing up the ticket, when I spotted this:

How could I resist? There are sheep! There is even a black sheep! There was the desert, with distant mountains and clouds, just what we were seeing on our drive through AZ and NM. It was beautifully woven, the colors were lovely, and the yarns and beat were even, and it was sheep!

It is a non-traditional design, one based on the weaver's imagination rather than a prescribed set of patterns. It's what I like in contemporary work, not blind following of tradition, but good use of traditional techniques to make a contemporary weaving. This weaver was a young woman, in her 30's, not so very well known to the trading post staff.

I changed my mind, had the purchase switched to this one, (the price was the same as the one I had chosen previously) and the proprietor was annoyed with me. I knew why. The grandmother-weaver must have been a friend, she knew much about her, and was encouraging the sale. The grandmother-weaver probably needed the money from the sale for the coming winter.

It made me stop and think. I had to decide: support the grandmother-weaver or the new younger, contemporary woman? I teach weaving. I want younger people to learn to weave, to be able to support themselves with their weaving, to keep traditions alive. I'm not a collector of Navajo textiles, much as I love their designs.

I bought the one that charmed me. I bought the younger woman's work. I bought the better weaving.

I wish I could have purchased both. I like to think my near-purchase left a ghost of attachment on the grandmother-weaving, and the next person in will buy it.

Now? I will take my second pile of churro yarns:

And head to the studio to weave my non-traditional designs in my very traditional knotted pile techniques.

I hope I chose wisely.

Snow Flying

2010-11-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

We raced ahead of the storms to get to Denver for Thanksgiving, and made it, mostly! We did run into some snow, but not the worst of it, and we've managed to avoid the long power outages which followed this storm at home. Thankfully, we'd drained the pipes, and a neighbor came by and emptied our freezer for us, so we dodged a bullet on all counts.

What made it imperative that we hit the road in November? Well, you asked:

Some (very little) people are like magnets, and attract whole families to come and visit!

We've also been to Taos:

This is handspun wool from LaLana Wools. In my haste to pack and leave before the storm, I forgot a hat. No matter: I had yarn and needles! so I knit one out of Cascade 220 that I brought along for Christmas stocking knitting. Well, the quick-hat was done by Salt Lake City, and it has served, certainly, to ward off the cold during walks in Denver, but it is boring, not like handspun! This new yarn did not help on this trip, but I was inspired, nonetheless, to buy some beautiful yarns for future hat knitting (that's my story!).

I also bought some hand-dyed Churro singles yarn at Weaving Southwest:

I can't imagine wearing this scratchy stuff, but it will be perfect for knotted pile. I have several skeins of Mattgarn, also a singles, and also a coarse fiber, which will go nicely with these. Someday. This project is in the as-yet-undefined stage of gathering yarns, a bag? A rug? We shall see.

I saw lots of beautiful weaving all over the Southwest on this visit. Surely it must be inspiring to be a weaver in that part of the country, and certainly the communities seem to understand the value of weaving better than most. It's encouraging, to say the least!

Attempt at Chronology

2010-11-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

Whoops! Much time passes, here is a quick photo round-up:

There was weaving in Vermont.

More weaving:

The Gathering went quickly: a weekend only, it was over in a flash.

Then there was a last-of-the-year boat ride on Lake Mendota in Wisconsin:

with doggies:

Then, I actually went home. Waiting for me when I got there was this:

a several-months long experiment in cold batch natural dyeing. The jars contain madder and wolf lichen (also yarn). The aluminum pot contains more madder and yarn:

Nest Rubio wrote an article in SpinOff (Spring 1993 for those of you following along) about cold batch natural dyeing. These are some of the samples she made of madder batches:

I, of course, tried a variation on the theme: instead of mordanting in alum for 30 days, I used pre-mordanted yarn for um, let's say 60 days (have no real idea when I started this, but it was summer, after I came home from England in July, and before I left for Colorado in August).

There was some scum on the top of the lichen jar, but the lid was cracked so it was not really sealed. The madder jar, and the pot of madder were both pristine (as in yarn and madder only) and the colors were:

One of the madder skeins is muted slightly, I think it's the one from the pot. The jar yarns were fabulous! I have never seen that bright and clear a yellow from this lichen (I usually heat it for dyeing),lovely! I will do some sun-tests next.

Of course, I will get new! updated! photos of this little bug at Thanksgiving:

Change of Venue

2010-11-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

We have left Lake Lawn Resort in Delavan:

And have arrived at Mt. Snow in Vermont:

A bit of change in the weather! There were also unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark and rain, and a late arrival last night, making this morning's coffee/tea and knitting particularly welcome. We are here for The Gathering of the North East Handspinners, which starts today.

SOAR 2010 Last Day

2010-10-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

Crisp this morning, frost on the grass. As the sun shone, the frost receded:

Good byes were said, there was some bowing at the feet of the dye master:

shuttles drove off with loads of people, and then we were left to eat our lunches and stroll the grounds.

Until next time......

SOAR Day Five

2010-10-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

We woke up this morning to very cold, which gave us mist on the lake: beautiful!

Today was spinning silk:

These guys are better than me already. I'm so totally out of a job......

SOAR Day Four

2010-10-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

The market opened today:

Margaret Stove's brand new (and excellent!) lace book, purchased from Lambspun. Several of the other vendors had them: 100 fresh-off-the-boat copies arrived at SOAR for Margaret's book signing tomorrow evening!

My new spindle is from Spindlewood, and is spinning up some silk as we speak!

SOAR Day Three

2010-10-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

Clear , cold and windy, but beautiful weather today, the last day of the workshops. Lots of nice work done in our silk ribbons class:

John and I had a personal battle of the kindle-covers, and damn! I think he won. Mine is just cotton fabric:

But John's is tablet woven bands:

Nothing like a good challenge: next year John, mine will be knotted pile. Yours??

:D!

SOAR 2010 Day Two

2010-10-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

We had weather today: thunder and lightening, rain, wind, snow (!) and sun.

Windy now, and getting colder by the minute, a chance for all those hand-knits to be put to good use.

Warm inside, in more ways than two! :).

SOAR 2010 Day One

2010-10-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

silk packets: passed out.

Wonderful gift received for grand-daughter Marin: a handpsun silk and cashmere hat from Judy!

End of the day, whew!

SOAR Begins

2010-10-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

First night: Lake Lawn Resort, Delavan Wisconsin.
Introductions, dinner, spin-in, bed.

:D

Wild Blue Yonder

2010-10-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Off again, this time to SOAR in Wisconsin. Leaving was the usual last minute crazy, with packing supplies:

Weaving off the last of the sample projects:

And sewing up a pumpkin costume for a certain baby:

We are in Wisconsin now, seeing the sights Of Madison. Last night was a sunset boat ride across Lake Mendota, dinner at a lakeside restaurant, then a boatride back, with a stop for ice cream at UW.

Today: farmer's market, last minute shopping for SOAR goodies, and packing the car to head off tomorrow for the start of the week.

Obligatory cute baby picture:

Lucky, Lucky, Lucky

2010-10-12T11:33:00.001-07:00

A few years ago I bought some cashmere-silk-wool blend fiber to spin from Morgaine at Carolina Homespun. Morgaine carries lots of fibers, tools and yarns from small fiber producers, dyers and tool makers: she really walks the walk in supporting the people who support the makers (me!) with their products. My fiber was dyed by Jennifer at Spirit Trail Fiberworks. Jen lives in Virginia, and vends her fiber at East Coast fiber festivals and online. In my normal range of travel, I would not get to any place to see and feel her fibers before I buy, but thanks to Morgaine, I can, did and bought:

I spun this for, I thought, a knitted shawl. I spin tight, relative to most knitters, because I am primarily a spinner for weaving. I can relax the twist, but the yarn does not look right to me, so I generally spin and ply a little tighter than most for knitting, which is lucky in this case....

I went to lecture at my local guild a few months after the buying-spinning of the cashmere silk above. The presenter was felter Carin Engen, who used to be local to this area but now lives in way more Northern California on the Coast. Carin had lovely hand-dyed fiber to sell, and I succumbed to some merino silk in colors of a rose garden, the middle skein here:

When I was spinning the roses, I noticed how nice they looked with the cashmere silk already spun, which generated the idea for a woven shawl, instead of a knitted one. The third skein in that photo above is some tussah-merino, spun in its natural color and later dyed to add a balancing color to the woven fabric. By the time these were all spun and plied/dyed, whatever, I had spun a bit of pygora-silk blend in a fabulous copper color from Terry at Rainbow Yarns, so I added that to the mix:

You can also see the tussah-merino in its dyed state: the deep wine red.

I set up the warp for this shawl, and at the last minute, I added some yarns spun from batts that Abby sent me, two colors, one a pale gold and another a medium dusty rose. Both of these, while two ply yarns, I had spun anticipating knitting, not weaving. Once again, my tendency to tight twist allowed me to switch, but not without some trepidation.

So now I have several skeins spun at different times, containing different fiber blends, although most have silk in them as a unifying fiber, and most of the other fibers were soft and resilient. They were likely to behave similarly, if not identically, in the finished fabric. Therein lies the rub. Sample? Hah! Hold breath, warp, weave:

Here is the finished fabric, off the loom, fringe twisted, but not yet washed. Washing may, in fact will, encourage any incompatibilities to show up. The fabric could be wonderful, curious, interesting or a failure. Think uncontrolled seersucker...toss in washer, agitate, full to desired depth, fluff and dry.

My friend Eva modeled it for me:

Phew! I was lucky! It worked, worked beautifully, not so much due to skill but grace.

Eva and I, along with 30 of our very best knitting friends, were also lucky enough to be at Lake Tahoe for a knitting retreat last week, where these photos were taken. My LYS, Meadowfarm Yarn Studio, hosts this retreat every Fall in a beautiful private Lodge right on the Lake. This was my first time attending, and I hope not the last:

And the third Lucky from the post title above? I've been to visit this munchkin again:

For those of you who are weavers or are interested in weaving properly, not by luck or grace like me, you should be reading my friend Sharon Alderman's new blog:. Sharon has years and years of experience with lots of yarns, fibers and weave structures, awards and publications, a fabulous book on weave structures, and is gracious to boot. She walks the walk in the weaving world, and I am pleased and proud ( and lucky!) to call her my friend.

Rewards

2010-09-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

As a reward for making the Ugly Gloves, each day I would spin. I'm working toward a new silk fabric, with a few things in mind: it will have some spindle spun silk, and some wheel spun silk. It will be interesting to me to see if these yarns behave differently in the finished fabric.

You might remember the genesis of this project: some spindle spun silk with too much twist in the ply for knitting. I ran those skeins into a warp chain and overdyed them.

I gathered some previously spun silks, some the right color (Red. Need you ask?), and some of which I dyed.

Then I started spinning, and plying, spinning and plying, spinning and plying more silk, mostly on a wheel, but some additional on spindles while traveling this summer, all with the goal of a 2+/- yard piece of fabric in mind. Not a shawl per se, but shawl length. If the fabric is interesting it might become a shawl, if it is curious, it might become a curiosity (always good for instructional purposes). If it's really beautiful beyond words, it might become some other garment.

Nevertheless: I needed about 20-22 inches in width, and at 48 epi that's over 1000 ends, at at least 2 yards long, we'll say three for argument. That's a bit of spinning:

While spinning, I was imagining a ""red" look to the fabric. While dyeing, I can get carried away from any pre-set goal, mostly with golds and yellows (dyeing is fun! Oooh look! Nice color!). Gold and yellow are two very nice accent colors, but too much of a good thing is not a good thing in this case. Over-dyeing to the rescue:

The multi-colored warps are the wheel spun yarns. They are painted, then steamed to set the dye. To overdye, I used a crockpot with a very low depth of shade to correct, not cover up the color. You can see how light the color of the dyebath was, these ends were white:

I always de-gum silk, yarns or fiber, before I dye, using a small amount of soda ash, detergent and hot water (I use the crockpot for this too). Silk varies in the amount of sericin left in the fiber, I always consider it partially de-gummed, through sad experience (sericin will take dye, being a protein substance, making the fiber look brilliant. But then sericin washes away, taking it's dye with it, making the silk less brilliant). This is the gunk that comes off the silk:

It will take me a week or so to get this on the loom, not that it will take that long to actually thread, but because I am away from home again, rewarding myself with a visit to this pumpkin:

And Patricia? Give my best to Tuck.

Slog

2010-09-22T10:52:00.001-07:00

Well, the second glove was a slog. It was hard to work on something that isn't lovely, isn't coming out well, but for which I still had some hope. It was a slight improvement over the first:

But the dyebath certainly helped both of them become acceptable:

They were overdyed with Lanaset scarlet, at a 2% depth of shade, in a crockpot. Easy fix, still not lovely, but they make a better canvas for the glove covers:

This is the first incarnation, I may rip and tweak a bit, I'll know after I block this one. I started with a stranded pattern in the body area, not just the cuff, but changed my mind, I think because of severe ennui with the whole project.

In the midst of this knitting I have been able to do some other things, including:

dyeing some silk for SOAR 2010, coming up soon in Wisconsin. Also making a few garments for this child:

whose little face makes me smile, and who I get to go visit next week! Grandma rides again.

Dreaming of Dye Pots

2010-09-07T03:52:00.000-07:00

This yarn, previously termed *ugly*:

did not improve with knitting:

Homely is polite. Really. Ugh. Travel knitting, something small, easy to do without a pattern, and potentially useful. Well, they are warm, and fit me. I used Lace up Mittens pattern from All New Homespun Handknit (because it is in my head), changed into gloves. The yarn is spindle spun, 3 ply wool, spindle plied, and nice, if you close your eyes.

My consolation is the dye pot. These will be thrown in forthwith, once both are done. Then I will knit glove covers for them, and they will be warm, still fit, and forget their homely origins.

I need to finish the second glove. I persevere:

This is the only travel project I have with me, so it's easy to keep working on it. I did want to see how the colors look worked up.....oy!

I will leave you with a prettier image:

Marin and her Mama.

Why Movie-Watching Pays

2010-09-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

If I had not watched the Bourne movies, I may not have been able to light the gas stove to make my tea this morning:

We are in DC. We are in a very nice, well-located hotel suite, with a kitchen. Well-located but not well stocked. Today I will buy some matches!

Gratuitous baby picture:

That is all!

Knitting Content

2010-08-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

They seemed very small when I made them:

You see how this is going don't you? Knitting Content, with Baby. Next will be Weaving Content, with Baby. Spinning Content, with Baby.....Dyeing Content? Sewing Content? I will try not to be too Grandma with this :).

Grandma is visiting, with baby :).

Just Call Me Grandma

2010-08-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

Marin Belle was born today:

Blue Period

2010-08-13T05:12:00.000-07:00

I seem to be weaving blue these days:

And:

For a slight change, I made some ugly yarn:

Which still has blue in among the colors:

I actually planned this, kinda-sorta: there are 6 colors, the first single is long repeats, the second is shorter repeats, and the third single is a variation of two of the colors. This is spindle spun, and I actually had to repeat the whole sordid ordeal for a second skein....

I just did not plan for it to be so ugly.

It will be gloves, though, so I can make some glove covers for the body of them and cover up the ugly yarns. I have a set of skeins which will cover nicely:

The colors were a bit bright, so I overdyed the gold and orange with a small amount of violet:

I know monitors are color-fickle, but I hope you can see that the two yarns were toned down a notch. I bought the batts, to make gloves, from Dyak Crafts years ago. You'd think I could pick out the right colors from all those beautiful choices, but alas, sometimes fiber, spun up, looks a bit different than what I planned. Hence the ugly yarns....

Why gloves? Why now? Because I'm on the road again, and need a small travel project. Back soon!

Reflections

2010-08-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

Despite the whiny comments last post regarding travel issues, I love getting out and away from the familiar daily path I have at home. Oh, I may not love the preparation, the worry and concerns, the airports and all the attendant crap that occurs with airline travel these days, but a change of scenery and of associates is necessary to me.

I cannot predict what will happen when I travel, which, of course is the source of some of the anxiety, but I can predict that some interesting thoughts and ideas will come of it. My work is fueled by other places and other people.

My first stop in the UK was Cambridge, where we had a class in a very nice open airy church social hall, and a group of weavers who were very welcoming. One of the weavers who took the class was Noreen Roberts, already an accomplished weaver of knotted pile (she has actually done a rug! not just small things like I have done.....). I was thrilled to meet her, have admired her work, and was a little nervous to have such an accomplished weaver in my class.

I know Noreen's website address by heart: I give it out regularly in classes, and it's on everyone's handouts. Noreen is a supplier of tools, yarns and equipment for knotted pile, and she has written a book How to Make an Oriental Rug, which is excellent and comprehensive.

An afternoon lecture wrapped up my time with the Guild, and I usually open the floor to questions after the presentation. I'm prepared to answer almost anything: how I made stuff, where I work, what I use in terms of tools and yarns, etc. One question caught me off guard though, and has had me pondering ever since. Noreen asked what was next for me.

Well, I must have answered something, but what I said I can't recall. Next is not necessarily a plan for me: things just roll along whatever path I'm taking, and I sometimes take off on tangents. I may come back to the original path, or I may keep on going in some other direction.

My current interest in knotted pile weaving was never a plan. I was making bead bags. I knew someone who did knotted rugs, and asked him to teach me, so I could make a bag. One bag has turned into ten years of exploration: spinning, dyeing, testing different yarns, trying new construction techniques for bags, new tools, testing looms, and on and on.

The What next? question resonated in my head though, and after leaving Cambridge for London, I had a few days to myself. I spent most of my time in the V & A, with the majority of that time in the textile collections, and the jewelry.

I got some fabulous ideas. I scribbled in my notebook, and thought and thought. I will admit to some active searching, thinking about next, not that I feel a need to change anything immediately, but it was a thought that recurred.

If I had been asked instead what I thought I was learning, or contributing to weaving, or what was original about my work, I would have said Shaped Knotted Pile:

This is not traditional work. I have not found shaped knotted pile in museums or catalogs, books or in references. Most pile pieces are flat, what eventual shaping may happen is done by combining flat pieces into bags or box-like containers.

I think the idea for shaped pile occurred to me because I am a weaver first, and had been working with bags and ideas for bags. I modified information already out there for other shaped weavings. I just happened to be working in knotted pile, so it came up as shaped knotted pile.

Having written a book on what I do, I am aware that soon, other people will be doing this work too (that's kind of the point of books, and teaching....!). So next for me, had been a thought in the back of my mind. If other people are doing bags in knotted pile, I'll need to move on. I need fresh work of my own.

This is a constant issue in craft work: if your work is seen, it will be tried and perhaps added to another person's repertoire. If you teach and write about it, others will do it too. When that happens, they make the work their own, and maybe even succeed in ways I never will. Rather than objecting to their efforts, I need to move on, find new paths, explore what is next.

I'll keep pondering next, for me, and thank you to Noreen for asking the question. It's better than any question about where I've been, and has kept me entertained with possible answers for several weeks now!

Ups and Downs

2010-07-28T07:02:00.001-07:00

My last full day in England, Pete, Carol and Margaret and I went to Betty's in Ilkley for tea. We had tea! and I also bought some to bring home.

Pete and Carol bought a Yorkshire curd pie for our supper later that evening. That and flapjacks were the two new taste treats from this trip. Other things were tasty mind you, but these were new, unexpected, and delightful.

Margaret and I nipped over to Duttons too, and I managed to find a few buttons, but really you need a focus and more time for true button shopping. It was a little shop, but much to see!

When we dropped Margaret off, she ran inside and came out with another gift for me:

In the short time since Margaret found out I am to be a grandmother, she knit my coming grandchild a lovely little sweater! Fast! Cute! Thank you Margaret :)! Yes, the buttons are from Duttons.

The next day began the long journey home. We will not speak of Continental Airlines starting it all off with a two hour delay. I had breakfast while I waited. We will not speak of Continental Airlines keeping us waiting at customs in Newark for AN HOUR for our luggage, thus missing the connecting flight. We will not speak of standing in line for ANOTHER HOUR with all the other passengers who missed their connecting flights to re-book on a later plane. We will not speak of having to run to another terminal, go through security AGAIN while the second connecting flight is announcing final boarding, and finally boarding at the last minute before the doors close. We will not speak of a long trip that would have taken 21 hours on a good day, now up to 29 hours. We will not speak of it again.

I've been keeping mind and hands occupied since I've been home with dyeing some silk for SOAR classes coming up this Fall:

Always nice to contemplate lovely colors on silk, and the dyeing is easy enough to do while not-really-present.

I usually come home from a class ready to get to work on projects that I've had to abandon for travel. I've had this pile bag on the loom for several months waiting, and it was a good week to watch dyepots, listen to a book and tie knots:

The pile yarn for this is some I purchased in Melbourne at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop:

The yarns are fine:

I stranded five together to make the size yarn I would need, in colors I am using:

The blended colors add a richness and depth not possible with a single dyed strand:

I love the surface texture with these yarns too, and will have to husband the rest of them for a special project some day (or, gasp! order more yarns!).

All this dyeing and weaving has served to distract me this week from jet-lag and re-entry into my own life again. The hardest part of the week, and saddest of all though, has been having to say good-bye to Mojo:

He was a good cat, a grand friend, and we miss him.

Homeward Bound

2010-07-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

Packing up. Trying to stuff purchases and gifts into the odd corner. Tea at Betty's. Soft rain, lots of lush greenery, trees thick and green grass, dotted with sheep, crisscrossed by stone walls. I will have to store up these images as I head for the hot dry West.

I finished knitting the Composed Mitts I talked about here and here, using some spindle spun and some wheel spun wools, wool blends, and angora:

They were fussy to knit while traveling, having to change color so often, and weave in so many ends. I changed the pattern a bit to lessen the fussiness....and then I traded them away, to Margaret for hers:

There are also Gifts:

Some of which pack in neat little corners, others of which will take up a bit more space:

Technically speaking this is not a gift, but also a trade: I owe Freyalyn a woven shawl. She spun, dyed and knit this for me (we'd agreed to the trade months ago), but I have yet to fulfill my part of the bargain......I photographed her knitting on top of my woven shawl: did she not get the colors just right?!

There is also new yarn to pack, and some samples:

I've bought a few skeins to sample with for next year's knotted pile class in Edinburgh. It was useful to come to the UK to find out what could and could not be purchased here. People who sign up for next summer's class will get an updated materials list of yarns available to themn here.... very useful.

But before all that happens, I have to stuff everything into bags and jet home.

Soon now.

There and Back Again

2010-07-12T02:32:00.000-07:00

I'm in the North of England now, in Yorkshire, and we've been over to Alston Hall, in Lancashire. There were roses in the gardens, neither red nor white, but every color inclusive. The people were inclusive too, and we were made to feel very welcome by the staff and hospitality at Alston Hall.

There were two courses going, a dye class, run by Debbie Tomkiss, and knotted pile in our room. We began classes after arriving Friday evening, and that short time allowed everyone to get a jump start on the class for Saturday morning, getting more accomplished in the short weekend than I had expected:

Marion and Hazel (respectively, above) are weavers, so of course they are familiar with the tools, jargon and what would be expected, but several of the newer weavers got on well too, finishing both their initial sample and starting their project:

There were variety of looms, and we managed to work with all but one of them (which was missing parts). In a perfect world I would supply the looms so everyone worked on the same one,
but since the process is able to be adjusted for any loom, weavers who already have a table loom or frame loom can (and did) use them.

Some people used silk for the pile:

But most people used wool:

I was able to get a handle on just which UK yarns worked to add to the materials list for next year's UK knotted pile class, which will be held in Edinburgh in August.

Today is a grey and drizzly day, perfect, giving us a chance to recover, knit, spin (on my new IST spindle) and rest up for the next big social occasion: a night on the town for a birthday party tomorrow night!

Oh! The Places You'll Go....

2010-07-06T01:22:00.000-07:00

I'm in London this morning, having spent the weekend with the very kind and generous Cambridge Guild of Weavers and Spinners. We had a short workshop on knotted pile, and happily everyone at least got to the knot tying stage, but I forgot to go into the whole waving-of-hands-describing-the-construction-of-the-bags, so alas, I will have to come back some day and rectify the lapse :).

Before leaving, I shipped off the shawl to Deb, the soon-to-be Mother of the Bride:

You can click the photo and get a larger picture: the fabric is just lovely, soft and drape-y, and the colors are stunning.

Deb's inspiration for this shawl is some silk paper she made a while ago:

Deb dyed the warp chains, and I think the fabric and colors turned out perfectly! It does remind me of Marimekko fabrics, as someone commented previously, and it will be a perfect wrap for a summer wedding.

It was interesting being the technician, not the designer, on this project. Usually, from conception to execution, I use my own ideas in weaving. I may take inspiration from someone else's work, or use a sett, or yarn or set of colors I've seen somewhere, but the idea, the project is my own. This time I was trying to meet someone else's vision, which requires communication, understanding, luck and good will. I think we met that challenge. The subject of artist vs. technician is a rich one, and one that I'd like to think about further.

For what it's worth: I am now in the class of travelers-who-take-too-few-knitting-projects on board the plane:

The Peanut will be a Pumpkin for Halloween and Fall this year :). Those of you at home who forced me to pick these colors for the hat: you were right Lindsey and Eileen, this looks just like a pumpkin (I wanted a brighter orange....). This hat was knit between SF and Newark, leaving me nothing to knit on the way to the UK. I slept a bit, and then woke to a breakfast snack and an hour to landing. I actually spun in my tiny little window seat cubby, on this the smallest of Goldings with some silk::

My hostess in Cambridge, Tricia, should recognize her bath towel and couch cover on the last two photos, and when she sees this, please pass on a wave from the train to Madeleine and Isaac, whom I missed as the train pulled away to London.

Zoom Zoom

2010-06-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Travel Season.
First, the mountains:

Spinning, knitting, listening to books on tape, a few casual walks, but mostly good friends, good food and several sunny days:

That's some of Lindsey's yarn, Sue's bobbin with wool in progress, Eileen's bag of knitting notions, some wolf lichen we collected for dyeing, and, ahem, one of the several bottles of wine consumed. I don't remember this particular one, but they went by quickly. It was hot. It was 7000 feet. It was vacation.

It is advisable when traveling, to make sure you have all the parts for your spinning wheel. See that nice big round knob, under the flyer on Lindsey's wheel?

Oops. My wheel is the one with the duct tape fix:

Thankfully, duct tape, a nail and a clothespin block did the trick. Luckily, these are not the pretty face, furniture grade spinning wheels but actual useful spinning tools, which can take a fix or two and keep on spinning. It spun silk just fine:

And now is home, cleaned of all duct tape residue, and reunited with its proper knob.

Travel is good time for small projects, but alas, I finished these just before leaving:

I knit these as samples, using some commercial yarn to see if I could get gauge:

Which I did (get gauge) but it hurt my hands to do the knitting. I'll be altering the pattern for a larger needle and fewer stitches, but that's a project for home, when I can concentrate with paper and pencil, not a project for summer travel.

White socks?? Not anymore:

They got plopped into a crockpot, and are now a more practical green.

What I am planning to take with me this week:

My new spindles, from Golding, ebony and silver:

They spin silk just fine too!

Now, off to get packing.

Grandma? Nana?

2010-06-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

I have not decided (or it has not been decided for me) what I will be called when I grow up (early September. Nice to have a handle on when I will finally be grown up, eh?). Be that as it may, I have been busy with small things for several months. They were Secret From the Blog small things, but we had the shower for the baby and her mama yesterday.

I'll start with the knitting, since that is most accessible to most readers. First up, the ubiquitous (but still cute) fruit cap:

My granddaughter will be a strawberry :). This is Cascade 220 Superwash, the pattern was on Ravelry.

Next, the first hat and booties I made (March) before we knew the baby will be a girl:

This is handspun superwash merino, in a color I thought would be gender neutral. When we found out she will be a girl, I used pink ribbons for the booties and hat ties. The hat is Norwegian Sweet Baby cap from Ravelry, and the booties are from the book 50 Baby Booties to Knit.

Next up, the consummate girly set:

Superwash wool (I forget the name of the yarn but I bought it at my LYS), in the Simple Hat pattern from Itty Bitty Hats, and the booties are Saartje's Booties from Ravelry.

Also from Itty Bitty Hats:

An Easter bonnet! in Superwash Cascade 220. This is just way too cute.... :)

The last knitted hat:

A silk bonnet from Knitting for Two. The silk is naturally dyed with pomegranate from Tactile Fibers, bought at SOAR last Fall. I have more of this silk, so there may be a matching sweater forthcoming ......

Which brings us to the sweaters....(you can see that I am worried this baby might be cold. She will live in Colorado. Her parents have a place in the mountains. I think they will take her up into the snow.....sigh). Anyway, first up, the Five Hour Baby Sweater (they lied, it took me more than five hours):

Once again in Cascade 220 Superwash that I bought at Meadowfarm (I might just as well purchase all the colors: loved the yarn, loved the color range, will be useful for the I-bet-I-will-be-knitting-more future baby and child projects).

Then there is the handspun superwash BFL Knitting Pure and Simple hooded baby cardigan, which I call the Cutest Sweater Ever:

I bought superwash BFL roving from my friend BJ (Lola's Looms), dyed it in one pot:

I spun it into a three-ply yarn. There is some left, which might someday become mittens and a hat for a bigger girl :).

The last knitted gift is a baby bunting (repeat after me: Cascade 220 Superwash purchased at Meadowfarm, pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple. I am nothing if not consistent):

I dyed some Onesies in newborn and 6 month old sizes to go with the bunting, and embroidered a little on the neckline edge. Many of these gifts were photographed on an heirloom blanket the baby will have too: first used by the new papa's grandfather (1915), then used by the new papa's father (1948) and the new papa (1976), and now the new baby (2010). I washed it and added new blanket binding, and hope the baby will use it to death: almost one hundred years of use is enough for any textile!

Then we have the woven gifts :). First, a Very Pink cotton baby bonnet:

I sewed this using a commercial pattern and it is big!, probably a three-year-old size or better. It is lined in flannel (consistent, consistent, and worried about cold ears).

Then we have rompers:

These are about 6 month size, lined in (heh) cotton flannel, sewn using a commercial sewing pattern, handwoven cotton cloth, with purchased t-shirts. The second one is the only fabric I wove with a specific project in mind:

This is various cotton yarns (mostly 5/2 and 8/2) in a narrow fabric sett at 24 epi. The rest of the fabric used for these projects was just woven (at 20 epi, same yarns: a range of cottons and rayons between 2000 and 3000 ypp) and then I decided what to make with it.

The new baby will have her own silk dress, using a leftover piece of fabric from the new mama's wedding shawl four years ago:

Sorry for the blurry photo, here's a better one of the back:

I dyed the fabric red, and used a commercial sewing pattern for a dress of about a one-year old size. I say about because the armholes are large, and it looks to me like this could be worn as a smock-top over pants well into her third year. I used almost every scrap of the silk fabric I had saved:

Last, the booties and knitted cotton blanket I posted months ago, when I found out I would be a grandma? Nana? Time will tell:

Celia's Wedding

2010-06-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

Celia is getting married!

Celia's Mom will have a new shawl to wear:

Deb dyed this silk yarn:

The colors will be a little muted by the weft:

But it will still be a bright spot of color for the Mother of the Bride to wear. Details: 30/2 silk from Treenway, dyed with Lanaset dyes, sett at 48 epi, woven plain weave, with 30/2 silk weft.

The weaving is done, now to the finishing. It will take a bit of time to twist the fringes: good airplane work, and I have a few planes in my future....

Best wishes to Celia, and congratulations to Matt: have a fun wedding! and a glorious life together :).

Moving Out Into The World

2010-06-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

I mostly think of the projects that I make as singular: I make one, move on and make something else.

Sometimes, though, the process of making includes writing up the pattern, and in those cases, the projects move out into the world and can show up again. I'm always surprised, and very pleased, when someone likes what I have done enough to make one of their own.

Several months ago, on Ravelry, I saw a photo of this bag:

I did a double take. My first impression was that someone had altered a photo of the colors of my bag from Woven Treasures:

But no! This was Donna's bag. She wove it from the instructions, changing the colors, adding her own embellishments. It was so nice to see how the design and instructions had made their way out into the wide world :).

Then Donna wove several more bags, changing the colors and some of the construction.
Donna's:

My bag colors:

Donna also used her own design for the soumak bagfaces:
Donna's:

Mine:

It's gratifying and exciting to get independent corroboration that the instructions work, and work well enough that Donna could alter them to suit her own design and color choices!

Then the other day at knitting, Dee held up a bag and asked if I recognized it? No, I said, but I wanted it:

She then told me it was a variation on my design for the New Homespun Handknit:

The color choices change things so very much! There are a few construction details that each of these women changed, too, which is one of the best parts of this whole process: they are not following a pattern, but they are using the instructions or charts and making something new.

Last, also on Ravelry, I saw another version of the Lace-up Mittens from Homespun Handknit:

Jen's in her handspun Spirit Trail cashmere.

Everyone who uses handspun yarns in a pattern knows the next person who makes the project will change it somehow: handspun is necessarily individual. This was a very fun pattern for me to make up, and to knit, but I am jealous I did not think of using cashmere yarns: I may just have to make up another pair..... :)

There are at least two kinds of creators: those who wish to keep all of the details of creation to themselves, making their projects unique in the world, and those who send out the patterns for others to use, make things with, make personal, and change. I've been both, at different times and for different projects.

For me, now, the pleasure of seeing how things evolve is far greater than the pride in having made something one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated. The pleasure of the shared community, the shared effort, and the common goal: the work of our hands, to keep us warm, to keep us entertained, to make things that are useful and ours and yet are part of the greater community, all of this is very gratifying.

One Thing Leads To....

2010-05-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I posted about some yarns I have been organizing for a pair of gloves or mittens. I dyed the angora yarn mentioned a spring green, thinking it would go nicely with the coral and brown yarns. The color reminded me of something else...

a bump of dyed wool from Steph, waiting to be spun. How nicely this would bring the other colors together, I thought, and so I spun up a skein:

This is three singles on (l to r) a Spinner's Lair, a Spindlewood and a Golding.

I bought the wool above with another bump, of blues, which seemed like a nice complement to the other yarns too:

So I spun up a small amount:

This is the ( in reverse order r to l)Greensleeves, another Golding and a Cascade. I plied both sets on the Hound Design Dervish (my current favorite spindle, but I am fickle):

All the yarns are 3 ply, they seem to go nicely together:

The colors reminded me of something I had seen:

The pattern is Composed Mitts (Rav link).

Seems like a theme here lately, last post: no brainer design. This post: no brainer design. All you need is time, effort and a an eensy remainder of memory, and all things come to those who wait...and do the work. That part is important. Nothing happens if I just sit around and daydream, or talk about it. I have to make an effort.

Things may not just make themselves, but sometimes they neatly present themselves for the making.

Sometimes It's Just Obvious

2010-05-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

When one has a spindle with a Celtic Knot design:

The spindle bag for it will be a (doh) Celtic Knot design:

And the band for the bag will be a (doh) Celtic Knot design:

Sometimes "design" is easy. It does not carry the weight of a capital *D*, it just happens.

Details: Celtic Ring Spindle, cherry wood with silver inset, .89 ounces in weight, from Golding; spindle bag woven on the Cricket loom, warp is crochet cotton (size 10) sett at 12 EPI, pile weft is handspun wool and wool mohair yarns; band is woven on a Schacht inkle loom using size 10 crochet cotton for background warp, and Tahki Cotton Classic for pattern warps. Design adapted from a once-ubiquitous-but-now-not-there online four strand Celtic braid pattern, into a six strand Celtic braid pattern.

Eventually It Comes Together

2010-05-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, Abby sent me a gift of fiber to spin. It happened to arrive on my birthday, so I considered it my birthday present :). I spun the fiber almost immediately into a three-ply, ready to knit some gloves or mitts:

I even started to knit them, but alas, got involved in other things and they languished. Interest was revived when Abby gave me another batt this Spring:

I divided this batt into three sections, and spun them on separate spindles:

The top spindle is a Maggie (also a gift from friend Connie), the middle is a Desko and the bottom is an Ethan Jakob from Greensleeves.

I wound the three strands into a plying ball, leaving very little on the Desko, and a bit more on the Ethan Jakob:

I've started to ply on a Tabachek that I bought as one of my first spindles at Olds last June:

Now I plan to rip back the false start of last year's cuff, and restart with at least these two colors. I may add a third yarn, a 3-ply white angora I've had spun up for several years: the fiber was also a gift, this time from Helen of Bay Colony Farm.

Percolate. Some projects take a while to percolate to the top. Sometimes it takes a catalyst to re-start the process after a lull. But eventually....all things come together, with a little help from my friends :).

Dye Day 5.0

2010-04-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

We had two days of dyeing at Sue's house this weekend. Lindsey came prepared with a photo for color inspiration:

After the fiber was dyed, steamed, rinsed and dried (thank you sunny warm day!), Lindsey spun up some samples. On the bobbin is the singles, at right is a three-ply, and below the snails is a two-ply. The fiber she used to spin this first batch is on the left, and at the top of the photo is fiber she then over-dyed with a bit more brown, to more closely represent the colors she wanted.

We had 16 people over two days, and we dyed many pounds of wool, silk, cotton and linen. We had the usual legendary potluck lunch each day, and spun in the afternoon as the pots were steaming away. Perfect weather, fun, friends, dyeing, all in a perfect place. We are so lucky!

Go Back, Go Back!

2010-04-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

This is no more:

The silk was spun on spindles. It, the spindles and more silk were to be my carry-along project for the summer. But alas, too much twist. You can see the slanted stitches in the plain knit part. I caught the problem when I made a mistake, and had to press and rip the scarf.

Let me back up: I made a mistake while knitting fine slippery silk yarn on size 00 needles. I had no lifeline, so I ironed the scarf, pulled back to the error, and picked up the stitches to continue. I iron the silk because then all the little stitches will stand up tall, happy to be picked back up.

But then? I noticed the slant. The fresh knit stitches did not slant, it's the after-blocking stitches that slanted.

I knit several rows more (airplanes, must do something) and when I got home I dunked the whole thing into a bucket of water, hung it to dry and waited.

Slantville.

I put too much twist in the yarn. Now, I'm new to the whole spindle thing, and I was told rim-weighted spindles did not spin as fast as center-weighted (longer, but not fast), so I always allowed extra twist before I wound on, spinning and plying. Plying especially: I just held on, while the spindle turned, after every length. I also thigh roll rather than twiddle (!), which I think sets the spindle going faster.

I think the majority of extra twist is in the plying direction, because of the direction of the slant:

This is my new moon-and-stars Golding plying spindle, a gift from a friend. I love it, and it's speedy.

All is not lost, though, the yarns will be fine in weaving. In fact, they are already run into a warp:

and over-dyed:

I'll add it to some other handspun silks that I have languishing:

And I have a new travel spinning and knitting project: 8 ounces of BFL/silk that I bought from Beth. It will be baby bonnets, baby booties, some sort of grandma-thing, likely a three ply. Still small enough to travel with, spindles, knitting and all. I can dye it once the knitting is done (it will be a variation of pink!) and I will endeavor to insert less twist.....

Bison? Dyson?

2010-03-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

I've been on planes again. It will take a few days to recover. But for now?

I came home with gifts and purchases. I'm spinning some delicious fiber from Abby on my new Desko spindle, that I purchased at Beth's shop . Yes, I went to Michigan, to one of the few spinning-focused shops in the country, and we had a weaving class!

There was wool everywhere for sale, a veritable cornucopia for those who like to touch before they buy, and buy what is right for their project, not just what they can find. Everything was there: longwools, fine wools, down breeds, silks, dyed fibers, dyed roving and batts (see above!) and the odd optim, latte and soysilk. There are wheels to try, spindles to fondle (fewer of them than previously, I assure you), books and all sorts of tools for spinners.

The workshop participants were a cheerful crew, the best! I wish I had more pictures of the workshop, but Beth's blog has a great wrap up.

We knotted, we clipped, we made a total mess. By the time we left there was such a plethora of wool bits on the floor, Beth's delightful daughter Chelsea will be cleaning up after us for days.

There was no bison, Denny, but there will be a Dyson.

Small Things

2010-03-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Several small things in the works or done:

First up, the spindle bag. It looks a lot like a horse's feedbag: maybe I should just save myself some time and shop at the feed store? The other side:

Inside, there are 2 pockets for spindles, and 3 pockets for my niddy-pinny. Here it is empty:

And full:

There is room for the two silk spindles (both Goldings), and the bombyx silk I've been spinning. It has a drawstring top, and a handle to sling it over a shoulder. Quite the success, for the first time out, although the second (and third? fourth?) bags will have some alterations. Maybe less of a feedbag look too. :)

I've got enough of the silk spun now to start knitting:

Start being the operative word:

This will take months to knit: it's a scarf or shawl, depending on how long the silk and I hold out. But it's to be travel knitting, and the traveling starts this weekend with a trip to Michigan, so it was time to cast on.

My last trip brought a few new small things too:

Silk pins,a gift from rug weaver and basket maker Michael Rohde, made with his hand-dyed yarns. He came to the lecture with a tiny copper and brass lap-loom, based on Archie Brennan's pipe looms for tapestry. I've been using a variation on Archie's loom plans for knotted pile, and tried a small version for travel using Michael's alterations:

This is not as small as Michael's: mine is 12" x 18". I may try for smaller yet, but some of the constraints of knotted pile make for a slightly larger version than for tapestry: I need room for the shedding device, and enough room above and below the shedding device for the warps to move. This will fit easily in my usual travel suitcase, though, and it works(!).

And last, the smallest red shoes I have ever made:

I'm going to be someones Grandma soon! :)

Baba Yaga

2010-03-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Baba Yaga is one of my favorite bags:

There are skull beads on this bag given to me by my son, there is a broom made from the hair of the daughter of a friend from my younger days, there is also a silver broom and cauldron, and a chicken foot made from the copper wiring from my house remodel.

But why Baba Yaga? She is one of my favorite folk characters too: witch, wise woman, herbalist, curandera, keeper of the flame, Baba Yaga is all of these. Folk figure or legend? Some of both, most likely. From the oral tradition, stories were written down; there are many versions and many exploits of Baba Yaga in the guise of monster, wise crone or helper: just like anyone's mother..... :)

This bag is woven of raw silk yarns, dyed fiery colors, with a eye-dazzler cardwoven band in the same flame yellows and reds:

Baba Yaga lived in the woods, in a house perched on chicken legs. She kept, among other things, an eternal flame, for those who needed fresh coals to kindle a fire. After finding one's way through the woods to her house-on-legs, one appealed for permission to enter. If the correct secret words were uttered, the house would turn on its chicken legs, orienting so the visitor could enter.

Baba Yaga would give three tasks for the applicant to complete: always daunting tasks, like finding a needle in a haystack, or separating earth from poppyseeds.

If one completed the tasks correctly, burning coals were the reward, given in the hollowed out skulls of previous, but unsuccessful, visitors. There would be notorious and frightening sightings of the fiery skulls as they made their way home to the village through the woods.

Baba Yaga flew through the night sky in her cauldron or mortar, sweeping all traces of her path from behind her, using a broom made of the hair of her victims.

Baba Yaga is Earth Mother, fearsome and useful, helpful and capricious. In some stories she is the heroine, in others the monster.

Apropos of nothing previous, Patricia and Tuck were married this week:

We're meeting them for dinner later this evening, and I will be soundly berated for my recent lack of blog posts. Now I can ::blink, blink:: in all innocence. :)

A Perfect Marriage

2010-03-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

Still winter:

Still spinning:

A perfect marriage of fiber and spindle: Hound Design laceweight spindles, both Paduak, from Acme Fibres (love the name, it reminds me of Roadrunner cartoons, as does their logo), and pygora/tussah fiber in Copper Canyon from Rainbow Yarns NW, which I bought from Terry at SOAR 2009.

This is about 80 yards of laceweight yarn, less than an ounce spun up so far (I have 7 more ounces, I have lots of spinning to do!). The colors of the fiber and spindles just make me sing. That is, after all, what this is all about isn't it?

Second Verse

2010-02-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

Same as the first?

It was fully my intention to weave both sides the same for this spindle bag. But. When it came to actually weaving the second side, I just could not get motivated. I designed a few options, using the same motifs arranged differently: still no spark. I finally just gave in: the second side is related in theme and color, but is wholly new.

I like it :), and had fun weaving it this week.

Also?

A few new spindles. I bought these new donut beads specifically with spindles in mind. They are Jasper and Amazonite, and the carved ones have built in notches which neatly catch the yarn. The two smaller ones weigh less than an ounce each, the Peridot Jasper is heavier, for plying.

I tried them out with some bombyx silk on the smaller ones and some wool on the larger. They spin forever!

Inevitable

2010-02-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

I've seen the spindles for sale made from bead whorls and chopsticks. Some are quite beautiful, but they seem pricey. I had a few semi-precious gemstone donuts in the bead stash, so I made a set:

These are three 40mm donuts and one 50mm donut. I purchased the grommets and chopsticks, but had the wire to make the hooks: I think a bit of better glue might be in order, but for this trial I used craft glue. The finished spindles all weigh less than an ounce: most are .7 of an ounce, much within my current preferred weight range.

I tried them out with bleached tussah, and they are all good spinners. The 50 mm seems to spin the best: I don't know if it's the size of the donut, or something about the relationship of the whorl to the shaft. Should I just happen to be in a bead store soon, I will stick to 50 mm donuts should I just happen to purchase any more......

These are about $6 each to make. The spindles for sale online have much prettier stone whorls, so I will probably be haunting bead stores again, looking. There are some beautiful options at online bead shops too. Always fun to have a particular quest when shopping..... :)

Much The Same

2010-02-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

Still spinning, still knitting, still weaving. The progress this week is not remarkable, even though there is another skein to add to the pile of silk:

There is a penny for scale this time, because when Lindsey saw the skeins she said: "I thought they would be bigger!" Nope. Small. But Mighty! About 150 yards per skein.

I am also spinning some wool/mohair blend for the next spindle bag:

Also on spindles, this time on the Viking Santas:

A few weeks ago I mentioned in this post about stranded yarns for pile, and Phreadde asked about Paternayan yarns. The yarns were developed in NYC in the early 1900's, by two brothers from Turkey, Harry and Karnick Paternayan. They were carpet repairmen, and needed a durable wool yarn in a wide range of colors. They used New Zealand wool (this was Phreadde's exact question: what breed of wool), and since NZ has an abundance of Romney sheep, I'd place a bet that is the wool in Paternayan yarns. The yarns are spun worsted, making them more durable, and as I mentioned in the previous blog post are stranded, in over 400 colors, making matching colors an easy task using either a color as is, or separating out the strands and mixing various values and hues to get an exact match.

Repairing carpets is an interesting topic: there is repair, restoration and conservation. Conservation is simply holding off further degradation. Whole carpets, as well as scraps and fragments, are often cleaned and either stored properly or perhaps sewn to a backing, preserving as much as possible the textile as it is presented. Museums do much of the conservation work, and most people don't have conserved textiles in their collections, they have repaired textiles (if not whole cloth !).

Repair is most common, and involves trying to fix and stabilize, as well as replace missing and worn areas. Since most workshop carpets sold for the last hundred-plus years have been woven of commercial wool, repair shops most often need commercial wool to do their work. This is where Paternayan yarn is valuable. I was introduced to it by the man I learned knotted pile from: he used Paternayan as his pile yarn to weave over 20 carpets in 20 years. The yarn has held up well: his first carpet shows no more wear than the most recent, and they have been on the floor and used for 20+ years.

Restoration involves returning a carpet to as-close-as-possible original condition. This is best done on valuable carpets, historically significant works, or, sometimes, by people with lots of money and no real concern for the ultimate worth of the carpet: they just want it restored. This is the most specialized of work, and often involves spinning wool to match the existing in grist, twist and breed, dyeing to match and making the most invisible of repairs which are expected to age along with the balance of the restored carpet.

As a spinner, when I started weaving knotted pile, I experimented with spinning yarns for my work. I used Paternayan as the model, and branched off in several directions, at first on the advice of lots of interested and some knowledgeable people. I have come back to the original stranded-model, as the previous post mentions, for many good and fun reasons.

So the yarn for the next spindle bag will also be stranded. I'm spinning both white and grey as the base yarns, and they will be dyed and sorted into color piles, and then woven held as one, I'm thinking two strands together, for a rich blend and depth of color not possible with just one strand.

This is the current spindle bag progress as of now:

See the glow of the shiny mohair yarns?

There is progress, but it all takes time. It moves slowly. So, eh, the current work indeed looks much the same as it did last week.

Supposed Friday Post

2010-01-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

I've been spinning more silk on my spindle:

This is another 160 yds or so of two ply for knitting. Here are both skeins:

The silk top is small bundles dyed several colors:

My original thought was to organize the bundles in some sort of fashion, either darkest to lightest or by predominant color. But I am actually just reaching into the bag and pulling out a lump to spin, so the colors will end up quite random and blended. All of the top has areas of white, which tends to soften the colors anyay.

The knitted scarf will be dyed and painted, like these:

Flaming Peacock, blogged here, or the Falling Leaves painted silk version:

I'm knitting the prototype, Ballet Lace scarf: (Ravelry link)

I think this will be fun to paint, and the underlying variegated yarns will make the painting interesting. At least that is what I hope :). Otherwise, the spinning and knitting are a perfectly good way to spend my travel downtime, and if the project is successful, that is icing on the proverbial cake.

The blog post title? Tomorrow is knitting. I get lots of grief from my knitting cohorts if I haven't posted recently. I have taken to posting Friday mornings just before leaving for knitting, so when the verbal abuse begins, I can innocently ::blink, blink:: and just ask them if they did not see *this morning's post*. Patricia has taken to actually leaving late so she could check the blog and say she'd seen it.

So I had to up the ante. What she (and Lindsey) don't know is whether I will post again tomorrow.

:)

8 Years

2010-01-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

Deb and I finished inserting the last sample in the last notebook and boxed up the remaining binders: 200 dye sample notebooks total, 100 of Book One, and another 100 of Book Two. There are over 1100 samples in Book One, and over 700 in Book Two.

We sent out emails to the waiting list we had, and several people responded, so some of these are already sold (thanks! and hi Di in Tazzie! :). We have just a few of Book One left, and less than 40 of Book Two. If you think you are on the waiting list and have not received a notice, email Deb. If you would like a copy and did not receive a notice, email Deb!

This was a project we thought might take us a couple of years, and provide us with an excuse to get together periodically, plus a product should we decide to vend at conferences like SOAR. We did vend once, but most of the books have sold through word-of-mouth. Most of the books also went to guilds and guild libraries, teachers of dye classes, and shops, which means the information reaches a lot more people than the individual sales would indicate.

It took us a bit more time to complete the project than we anticipated, however. It took 8 years.

We plan to start all over and begin dyeing for Book One, Version 2.0 soon. We're hoping to keep up with orders this way, and not have long waiting lists ever again. Maybe!

In other news:

This is a quick shot from my phone, but there was also weaving! The Cricket fit nicely in my suitcase, and once all the samples were done we had a few days for our own projects. Deb is getting pieces ready for a one-person show in March, so I had weaving time, and a little spinning time:

Deb gave me some dyed silk to play with; this is about 100 yards plied. It's coming out to about 4500 yards per pound, or about the size of 20/2 silk. I think it will be a travel spinning-knitting project, perhaps a scarf: a small amount of silk, but the maximum amount of spinning and knitting time for road trips this year. And it will all fit into one small bag (and soon! the bag will be a woven bag made just for it!)

Can you say Obsessed?

Marking Time

2010-01-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Two airports, two planes and an unexpected layover:

becomes the Ridged Lace Cowl designed by Elinor Brown (Ravelry Link). Handspun yarns, quick to knit, easy stitch pattern to memorize. I cast on waiting for the first plane, I did not imagine that I could essentially wear it getting off the second plane! Luckily I have leftover yarn to knit on this trip (plus I brought the universal *second project just in case*).

The orange and blue yarns are my first spindle spun yarns :). I started the cowl with yarn leftover from this hat, spun by Nancy, and it is the softest of the bunch. The green is spun from my friend Stef's wool, and the (spindle spun!) orange and blue are Northern Lights from Louet ( I think Sunset and Autumn Twilight). The Northern Lights wools are not as soft as the others, but, meh, oh well.

I have enough of the yarns left over for a pair of fingerless mitts, which I will start today but make no sense whatsoever to wear here in Wisconsin (and it's warmer here this week than last.....!).

To answer a question from last post: Yes Alyclepal, that is a Cricket loom I'm using, with a 12 dent heddle. And the other cool thing? The Cricket fit in my suitcase! and I brought that project along with me :)! So next post: further adventures in spindle bag weaving.

And if I run out of yarn? Ahem. I brought my spindles too.....

Stranded

2010-01-08T14:58:00.000-08:00

I'm happily working on the spindle bag:

It is important that the yarns for the knots are sized correctly so that the design is squared. I did a bit of a sampler first, both to check the size and also the color of the yarns:

The pile yarn is three strands held together, both for yarn density and to give the colors depth and variation. As luck would have it, though, the "squares" in the sampler are not square: they are 5 knots wide by 5 rows high, and too truncated to be called squares. I also wanted to shift some of the colors.

The pile yarns I am using are handspun mohair. I could easily add another strand, so in the final bag above, the pile yarns are all four strands. I also shifted some of the colors: the red got a bright red strand, and the gold got another bright gold strand.

I was lucky to be taught knotted pile by a man who used Paternayan yarns for his rugs: it is a rug yarn, spun worsted of luster wool, composed of three two-ply strands. It comes in a multitude of colors, and because of the available palette and strand construction, it is used by rug restorers to match for both grist and color in restoring Navajo and Oriental carpets.

Since I spin my own yarns, I followed this model: worsted-spun fine two-ply, stranded up depending on color and grist needed. For a while I tried using a single strand spun to the right size to square the pattern. But if the pattern did not square, or if the color was slightly off and needed to be shifted, adding another strand was not possible: the yarn was already fat. So I went back to the stranded model, which is more flexible.

I have been a weaver for quite a while now, and have learned that the materials you choose determine the quality of the final product. Cheap textiles, or textiles done for sale, are often woven of heavier yarns: it is faster to spin and weave up. But the best fabrics are made of the finest yarns: the hand is more supple, the fabric drapes and is manageable. The best carpets are also made of the finest yarns: smooth, lustrous and close-tied. It simply makes sense: if you were making a superlative fabric, would you use fat yarns? I wouldn't either.

This last photo is for Eileen, Sue and Lindsey:

S'mores anyone? :)

Twelve Calm Nights

2009-12-26T07:46:00.000-08:00

These next twelve days and nights always seem like a gift to me, the calm after the storm. Deadlines have been met, things are done, there is food aplenty and friends and family still around to visit.

The Christmas knitting is done, wrapped and given:

And projects planned but postponed are back on tap:

I have been spinning and dyeing for this new project: a spindle bag, for the Golding Mandala spindle you see with the yarn and pattern. Some of the yarns (the white and turquoise so far) were spun on the very spindle this bag will house, and the design is, of course, inspired by the spindle itself. I'm setting up the Cricket for this portable project, and am just wiggling with anticipation.

I expect this to be the first of several (!) new bags. I want them for the upcoming classes, so people will have new bags to see, new ideas for their own projects. I like to bring new things, not the same old worn out samples, and in some cases, I am also trying new colors: Amy! the green yarn is new! I'm branching out (heh). (You and Sarah in the comments: too funny, and alas, too true).

Gone are the days when I had children at home for another week, but regular business does not settle down to the usual routine until after the New Year (or Twelfth Night, in my case). Let the weaving commence!

Colors of the Season

2009-12-18T15:01:00.000-08:00

So far, no repercussions on yesterday's Birthday Post :)!

Today is Sue's Birthday!!

2009-12-17T02:20:00.000-08:00

Today, Thursday, December 17th is Sue’s birthday. She is 70!!
(I am so going to pay for this.)

Sue is a local friend, a mother, grandmother, former state worker, veterinarian's assistant, chef, hospice worker, and licensed ordinary seaman, now a traveling companion, fiber person, homesteader, avid gardener, singer, and guild member. She is cheerful host to a monthly knitting group:

She does beautiful spinning and knitting:

(This shawl was on the cover of Spin Off Fall 2009!)

She is also a weaver:

She has sheep and goats, and has provided me with fiber for several years now:

We've traveled together all over this country by conveyances large and small:

Sue threw a wonderful birthday party last Sunday, catered by local chef and new guild member Wendy (Ravelry link). Sue also hosted the guild Christmas party Tuesday night, opening her beautiful home to guild members and their spouses.

She usually avoids notoriety:

Not today :)!. If you know Sue, give her a call or send an email wishing her the best on this, her birthday!

(I am so in trouble. Watch this space.)

A Good Beginning

2009-12-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

There is nothing quite so nice as a warped loom, ready to begin:

Given the gift-like nature of the month, the other loom is warped too:

It's early enough in the month to be relaxed about completing these gifts, weaving being a quick thing to accomplish.

Good thing, too, because the storms hit:

We've had 12 inches, give or take, followed by very cold weather, wherein it just does not seem prudent to heat up that tent out in the yard:

The sun has threatened to shine and usually warms things up:

Not this time however: the days are too short, the air is too Arctic.

So the looms remain patiently idle. In the meantime I've been doing some knitting, some spinning and working with those spindles. The power has remained on, and I've got books to listen to, tea on hand and food in the pantry. Not much suffering here, just waiting.

Spindle Yarns

2009-12-04T08:29:00.000-08:00

When does a new activity become an obsession?

I've been stealing time from other holiday preparations to spin:

First I tried all sorts of different fibers and spindles. Oddly enough, for someone who does not use spindles (until now), I had quite the collection.

But, as is the case for 'most any new process that needs to integrate into the larger picture, I'm done with the playing around, and on to the planning of projects, and spinning towards a few goals. This will be a pair of gloves:

The blue mix is some of my first spinning, and the orange blend I simply had to have when I saw someone else spinning it at Olds. I think they will look nice together, despite somewhat of a variation in grist.

This is some of the very first yarn from that same spindle, Lincoln, for pile:

Much of the first spinning will in fact be pile yarns: very forgiving in that they will end up as 1" cut lengths :).

The blue is my carry-around spinning, a wool-silk blend from Lambspun, which will join a few skeins of wheel-spun cashmere-silk and wool-silk already destined for a shawl:

It must be some part of my Virgo personality that makes it imperative that I spin for something, rather than just spin. Lots of spindle spinning lately, which I am sure will improve my technique, and also give me a nice shawl, some gloves and yarn to add to the pile pile.

Obsessed. Is this a problem?

Distractions

2009-11-25T10:17:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, the little distractions can take up days and days: first the idea (which always comes late at night: too late to go into the studio).

The next day, there is a mad scramble, searching for materials, cutting, sewing and finishing the prototype:

Cute! There will be more of these.

Right Place, Right Time, Right People

2009-11-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we try to push things. Rightly so, in some cases: we need to get things done. Sometimes, though, everything in it's own time and place.

I've not ever been much for spindle spinning. But soon, in a year or so, I will be somewhere very far away for a period of time, working on a project for which I would like to spin. I do not plan to ship my wheel, nor do I plan to buy one while there. I might be able to borrow one, but I have not investigated that. A spindle is the portable answer.

I started serious spindle investigation when I was at Olds College this past June. Two of my suite-mates were teachers in the Master Certificate Program, and we talked spindle spinning. They showed me a few things. I told them what kind of yarn I would be spinning, and they marched me down to a vendor booth where I bought a spindle and some wool:

I practiced a bit. It was not hard to do, I just needed to practice. And a few tips, encouragement and advice from a Blue Duck (Ravelry link).

Then, several things coincided. We were at SOAR, and Deb had a Mongold spindle:

Heavy, durable for travel, no longer available, and not wood (there is a restriction against bringing wood products into Australia. I did not know if a spindle would be confiscated, so I planned to buy one there, just in case).

Deb handed me her spindle. A gift, she said. I could have it. Perfect! I even had wool with me to practice with: Cotswold. I practiced. I'm getting better at it.

In my new-found pleasure at using a spindle, I bought another, smaller one:

It's wood, though, and thus not Australia-bound. It is the right weight and size to spin the wool/silk blend given to me by Sirley and Penny from Lambspun. Perfect again!

You know, having been sickly and puny for the last 10 days (two weeks??) has allowed me to sit and stare, practice spinning, and also read:

Lovely advice, history, photos, and spindles on every page. It has helped me in this learning process, and came at a perfect time for me, right now, with the time to slow down and perfect a slower method of spinning. Also, it's just a nice read.

I am not planning to give up wheel spinning. I do love that this path to learning spindle spinning has involved so many people who could help, give advice, help me find the perfect tools, and even provide me with the perfect tools. And no one ever stared, shocked with dismay, when I told them I wasn't much of a spindle spinner. They just helped.

The Gift That is SOAR

2009-11-03T05:35:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of gifts about coming to SpinOff Autumn Retreat. The most obvious is the friendship of like-minded people, learning from and teaching each other. There are formal classes, of course, but much is learned informally, over lunch, in the hallways or lobby while sitting among other spinners, and we also learn about different areas of the country as the conference travels around.

There are tangible gifts from friends and associates too: a beautiful crocheted doily from Lotto, a wool silk blend and some soap from Shirley and Peggy at Lambspun, Chopsticks Of Vacuum from Michael, a Lantern Moon basket from Michelle Coburn, calendar and a fair trade woven bag from Interweave, the sponsors of the event, and soap from friends who borrowed wheels and tools.

We all love gifts, the tangible and the not so much. What we are not so thrilled about is the gift of the SOAR cold: fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, loss of voice (a hint?) and general malaise. Thanks. Thanks to whomever, I will try not to devolve into whining.

But I am sorely tempted. Waaaaaaaaaah!

Homeward bound today, after a few lovely Fall days in Oregon, visiting the town of Sisters and the High Desert Museum. We had the Sage Springs Spa to ourselves every afternoon for a very welcome jacuzzi and steam bath, which did ease the discomfort of the cold.

It should be a glorious drive, and I have my tissues. Wah.

Rounding the Bend

2009-10-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that our week here is closing in on the end, it always goes so quickly.

The workshops are done, the market has opened, the retreat participants have arrived and some workshop participants are gone. The whirlwind that is the retreat begins today.

There has been all sorts of weather from bright sunny crisp days to fog, rain, and brief snowfalls. The weather makes it all truly seem like an Autumn retreat, and we've been able to pull out the mittens, hats, scarves, and sweaters knitted and woven in beautiful handspun yarns.

Each crisp morning starts with a fire and a cup of tea, and each evening ends with long conversations over a glass of wine or a brew. Thus braced against the cold, surrounded by friends, knitting away into the evening....who could ask for more?

Eastern Oregon

2009-10-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Golden trees on our drive up through Eastern Oregon.

We arrived yesterday, amid a flurry of SOAR attendees, and settled in to our accommodations. Many hugs, shouts of joy and recognition were heard throughout the day today. Introductions were tonight, slides and then a delicious dinner, portent of things to come.

The actual work (heh!) all begins tomorrow in earnest.

Last Gasp

2009-10-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

There is still much to do,but now I am up to the *packing clothing* part of the process.

Odd, how I leave the clothing for last. I make clothing. You'd think it would be the first thing I fuss over and pack. But no, it is the class supplies, samples, handouts and tools that get the most attention. I know my life will go smoothly if I have everything I need. I can look like the wrath of dog, but people need to be happy with their class.

So, to a few last things:

This is a box of reeled silk and cotton yarns, a copy of my book, and a few tools. It is a donation to the auction at SOAR, all of the yarns and tools one would need to make the bag on the cover.

It took a bit of wrangling to get all that reeled silk yarn into a form that I could transport, and that someone else can unwind safely. Yikes! reeled silk is slippy. Spun silk, which I am more familiar with, is less of a struggle. But reeled silk has that glow, that shine.....

And this week, of all the weeks, came my shipment of books:

If you have ordered a signed book from me, it is in the mail today:

There is still time to order, until the end of November. Retail stores are starting to get their shipments, and we all know the need to support our local yarn and books shops! Terms are the same as in this post, $24.95 and free shipping in the US. Foreign shipping fees are listed in the above referenced post. Here is the Paypal link again:

Paypal:

I'll try to post photos of SOAR again this year: I won't guarantee every day, but some days there will be more than one. Until then, I am off on a road trip!

Bing! The washer's done. Into the dryer, into the suitcase, and out the door.

Breathless

2009-10-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

A quick post, a place holder really, but one with a photo!

It's a mad rush to get everything finished, printed, packed and ready for this weekend: SOAR looms (heh).

This little shawl, scarf really, is cobbled together patterns from instructions in this book, yarn from Yarn Chef, see this post.

The cobbling together is interesting to think about, not so much to look at (save for the pretty colors in the yarn) and not very hard to do. I vote for more complex patterns than these in my future, though, like some of the others from author Evelyn Clark, or those from Dorothy Seimens of Fiddlesticks or Anne Hanson of Knitspot, both of whom I want to be when I grow up.

If I were a knitter, of course.

Later. Samples await. Handouts to print, laundry to do. You get the picture (literally :).

From Hand to Hand to Hand

2009-10-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

I received a skein of handspun yarn a few months ago, and started this hat:

The yarn is luscious, thick and warm, and was a delight to knit with. The hat is done now, and ready for the cold weather soon to come. Spinner Nancy (Ravelry link) agreed with me that the hat will make a fine addition to the Scholarship Auction at SOAR, soon to be held in Sun River Oregon.

If you have a need for a warm, cushy textured winter hat, or know someone who does, this will be a chance to bid on one.

The auction funds go toward scholarships for people who would not otherwise be able to make it to SOAR. I have met some of the best people as scholarship students. In this time of shrinking budgets, I'm happy to help enable someone to come and join us(as was Nancy, and in fact Claudia, whose MS fundraiser started this whole thing).

So hats off!, and here's hoping this one finds a happy new owner:

A Good Week

2009-09-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

It was a good week, one of those memorable ones: good weather, good company and good times. Take four women, four days, many more than four projects and lots of consumable fuel:

These appear to be the World's Biggest Steaks, but really, it is a small grill! Honest!

I think we were somewhat modest in our wine consumption the first night:

but since I forgot to take any other photos of dead soldiers, there is no photographic proof.

We did get a lot done:

In this pile are some of the projects we worked on or finished: Lindsey spun 4 skeins of Black Coffee yarn, 2 skeins of white "coconut silk", has cashmere/tussah, Crosspatch Creations yarn, and black alpaca on the bobbins, is knitting a lace shawl off the bobbins, Lindsey's ribbon-knitted shawl called Shawl That Jazz is underneath Sue's loom (with cardweaving), with Sue's socks of Noro sock yarn atop, next to my knitted shawl and my bobbins of wool, then there are Sue's skeins of 3 ply wool, and a bag of wolf lichen we collected for dyeing. Dizzy yet?

Here are some details:

This is some of Lindsey's yarn: black coffee colorway dyed by Kimber Baldwin.

This is Eileen weaving, and Sue, um, resting! Eileen is making this scarf:

which she finished, and then warped up again for another scarf:

which she started weaving at the cabin:

and finished weaving at home:

This is Cascade 220 sett at 8 epi, and the beads are size 6 pony beads on the fringe.

Sue had a mission:

She was out to spin up a whole bag of wool, and turn into enough 3-ply for a sweater (she spun it all).

We needed a plan to accomplish all this spinning:

This is the line up of spinner's chairs in front of the laptop, with an audio book: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, recommended!, and a full 18 hours long, which kept us in our chairs for several days.

Mornings were chilly, so we worked inside:

That is my Cricket, with some soumak samples on it; you might notice there were three of us weaving away each on our own little traveling looms this week.

It is wonderful to have the time away, to sit and spin until the wool is gone, to laugh and listen and talk (and take a brief walk or two). The weather was perfect, the company congenial, and the task at hand not onerous at all. There were even s'mores; we toasted the marshmallows at night in the outside fireplace.

Who could ask for more?

And yet, there was more to come:

The First Book arrived when I got home.

This is my one-and-only advance copy, the rest are on that proverbial slow boat from China, to arrive next month. But oh! to see it at last is a joy.

September Showers

2009-09-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

There is a soft rain falling, a lovely early Fall shower making everything smell woodsy. We have kitkidizze growing on our hillside, it's perfume is permeating everything this morning.

We had a shower yesterday of a different sort, however, being the Grandmas, and potential Grandmas that we are. Soon-to-be Mama Sarah received a bag of goodies from me, but first I had to make the bag:

Mama Sarah is the daughter of weaver Lindsey, so she got handwoven baby blankets too, and friend Sue knitted up a tiny cashmere hat and booties set for baby Erik. There was also a handmade quilt, and lot of other goodies, a few games and Eats! followed by stories and best wishes for the family.

There is a Big Sister involved, and while she was not there, she also got a few gifts:

A smaller bag, filled with a few things for a six-year old, along with all of the aforementioned best wishes.

Bag details: cotton/rayon fabrics, 20 epi, cotton weft, reinforced with interfacing, lined with cotton and batting and made like these. Bags are always good. Babies (and their big sisters) have lots of things to corral.

Just now, in fact, the car is loaded with bags much like these, as the Grandmas (and me! not yet a Grandma) head off for a retreat in the mountains :). The current rain is not slated to last long, so we are looking forward to sunny days, lots of food, wine, knitting and spinning :). :)! I can't stop myself: :)!

Too Young to Protest

2009-09-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

When babies are too young to protest, you can dress them anyway you like:

Ella is turning one. This hat came from this book, and it's only good for one wearing (maybe two, if Ella ever has a sister)!

But cute? Who could pass this up?

If I get a photo of Ella modeling, I will post it. If the baby's parents are just too mortified to take a photo? Well, it was fun making it :).

Carbondale

2009-08-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

An active group of knitters and spinners in the high meadows near Carbondale Colorado invited me up for some band weaving classes. We had a beautiful setting, wonderful meals and long days of weaving and spinning. The group consisted of a potter, a cattle rancher and knitter, a mid-wife knitter, a former librarian, an ancient language scholar, a few teachers, a former caterer, a gardener, a yarn store owner, and me, happy to bask in the reflected glory.

We spun silk, and wove small bands, with the attendant long talks, late into the night, and early rising to see the incredible views and take in the mountain air. And what air! There were thunderstorms, winds and then mild sunny days. You can have it all in one place, within one week!

We made use of every inch of space in our host home's large bright living room:

And I ran into some old acquaintances:

I saw these mittens several years ago in a show in Boulder. I had the pleasure of being a juror for that show, and gave these clever mittens a Judges Choice award. They are fanciful fish, each different, made of handspun yarns from several members of the knitting group here, knit up by Elizabeth Yates. Elizabeth owns the Yarn Garden, in Glenwood Springs, is a local teacher, and is also a spinner. What fun to talk with her, and find out how she made these, what problems she encountered and how she solved them. I plan to make a pair for myself some day, mitered-corner fins and all.

Sad to leave, but I am moving on today, back down to the "flats" at 5000 feet, of Denver. Knitting only in fits and starts myself, and looking forward to more time to do so, while I savor the memories of this past week with a group of very wonderful women.

From Hand to Hand

2009-08-13T05:25:00.000-07:00

Lots of bloggers follow Claudia's bike rides (and vacations!) and when she holds a fundraiser, we pitch in. Her 2009 MS fundraiser bike-ride drew over 800 people to donate more than $30,000 and 200 prizes. We all get to live vicariously as Claudia and (front man) Stig ride the ride, and then take the vacation awarded to the top fundraiser. Where will it be this time? Disneyworld? Hawaii? Cancun??

This year, my sister lost a friend to MS. Susan was a young woman still in her 50's. The disease progressed rapidly from diagnosis to death in less than 3 years. Imagine your life changing that rapidly, that uncontrollably, that definitively, in so short a time.... Research might help us change that outcome. Even in these times of economic uncertainty, many people stepped up to donate. I donated. Claudia rode.

I won! And now I knit:

Nancy donated a skein of her handspun made from 7.6 oz. of corriedale from Crown Mountain Fibers in the Druidenzauber colorway. Its a two ply yarn in a light worsted weight. Delicious!

I picked out a pattern that would do justice to this beautiful soft, scrunchy yarn:

I've made a good head start (heh), it's a fun knit, and now it goes on the road with me:

Back in a few :).

The Book Details

2009-08-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

Publication is close! I will be happy to send you a personally signed copy as soon as they are available to me. You may either Paypal or send a check for the retail price: $24.95. If you live in the US, shipping will be free. Elsewhere, you'll need to contact me for a shipping quote: lambspin at gmail dot com. Blooper Edit: of course, right away I got a request for international shipping amounts. I should have been less lazy and looked it up before posting:

Shipping to Canada: add $5
Shipping to UK, Australia or Continental Europe: add $12

Paypal:

Paypal payments will ship to the address listed in your Paypal profile. If you wish to ship to a different address, email me.

If you would prefer to send a check directly to me: PO Box 1304, Cedar Ridge, CA 95924. Be sure to include your name and address clearly for shipping.

I expect to be able to ship mid-November 2009, just in time for Christmas!