Another One for the Queue!

My LQS, Chester County Quilting,  runs a monthly workshop, imaginatively called 2nd Fridays, where we bring whatever we want to work on, eat, talk, and give suggestions and feedback.  During the school year I'm usually so tired that I don't plan ahead and end up starting a new project each month.  Maybe that's where all these projects came from?

This is called Blossom Time, from Pam & Nicky Lintott's Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts.  I walked into the shop with nothing more than a copy of the pattern (my books never leave my house!!) and finished up the night with all of the blocks pieced!!

 

I didn't get any quilts done yet but I did quilt two table runners and hand stitched the bindings so I feel somewhat accomplished.   While they were here for the 4th, Jackson saw the brown corriedale I was spinning and asked me to knit some mittens for him.  We had fun tracing his hand and measuring his hand circumference.  I'll make them bigger so I can full them a bit.  This yarn is fluffy and loosely spun so it will shrink down to a nice warm mitten.  With the heat we've been having this summer it's a little strange to be thinking about woolen mittens!!

 

Summer Fiber Fun!

There's been a bit of knitting.  Veronik Avery's Nordique Swing.  It made my list in 2009 but I never got around to finding the right yarn.  I'm using a Lane Borgosesia sport yarn that was part of a bag sale from WEBS maybe twenty years ago.  Do they even do that anymore?  You would call up a give some general color wishes and you got 5 bags of 10 balls each.  I think it was $50 so your yarn came out to $1 a ball/hank.  I used a ball or two for my Litla Dimun shawl and will have more than enough for this sweater!

Nordique Swing, IK Fall 2009

After more than six months languishing on the front beam of my loom, Ella's huck lace blanket is being threaded. Halfway there, another 350 ends to go.

Ella's Huck Lace Blanket

Lots of tee shirts were embroidered for spring and summer.  A lacrosse player for Jackson.  Jacob seems to be leaning towards golf.  At least he likes swing the club all over the place! 

Jackson's lacrosse shirt

Sewing for little girls is so much fun!!  Here's a little outfit for Ella.  She's already growing out of it so there are a few more on the cutting table. 

Ella's summer outfit

I even brought my Lendrum Saxony back into the living room.  That was relegated to safe storage when the kids moved in with us.  They've been in Long Island since last summer but I just didn't have my spinning mojo back.  Let's hope it's here to stay.

With any luck this is the start of a very productive and very relaxing summer.

Twist and Shout

My Minimalist cardigan is getting closer to the end. I have 1.75 skeins left and both fronts to do. Yikes! I'm finding that the moss stitch is really torquing but I can pull on the diagonal and it looks good. I'll block the pieces first and then the seams should hold it all in place. The picture is from last weekend, I finished the back last night.



I also started on my last fiber from Anne. This is Oberon - 40% gray alpaca, 30% gray angora bunny and purple/blue dyed angora, and 18% purple/blue dyed silk, 2% purple angelina. I'm spinning this in a laceweight.



I didn't spin when my kids were young. Now that Jackson can get around more I'm learning a few things!



You'll be happy to know that he pushed that car right behind the wheel without actually hitting it!

Spinning My Wheels

"Thank you for your SOAR 2008 registration. Confirmations will be sent the week of June 9th." I was able to go to the 2004 SOAR retreat - the last time it was held at Pocono Manor. This year I was able to talk my principal into going to bat for me with the superintendent so that I will be allowed to attend the entire event. So why does it have to be this year that SOAR received so many registrations during the first week that everyone is being put into the lottery? Okay, I'll stop whining and think positively.



To increase my chances in the lottery I decided I needed a little spinning karma. I finished the Vermont Maples from Anne. This is 40% brown alpaca, 50% dyed wool in magenta, pink, yellow and burgudy, and and 8% yellow silk noil, 2% bronze angelina. I'm usually not a fan of slubby yarns but the photo doesn't do the yarn justice. It will be a nice partner for the chocolate Humble Hills Romney X that has been patiently waiting for an accent yarn. Once plied I started on Oberon, again from Anne, a lovely pale lavender roving - 40% gray alpaca, 30% gray angora bunny and purple/blue dyed angora, and 18% purple/blue dyed silk, 2% purple angelina



All of my weekend spinning reminded me of my last project, all washed, skeined, and ready for action. I've got about 2400 yards of this squishy 3 ply corrie. So now the question is what do I make? I had planned on a cabled cardigan but now I'm thinking maybe I'll add some other natural colored yarn and make a patterned yoke instead.



Next up? Since I didn't get a chance to go to MDSW again this year, I treated myself to some Hog Island roving. I heard about this breed after Vee showed her Hog Island yarn and told about the historical background of these sheep. Very cool!

Oh, if you tried to post a comment in the last week or two, I realized that in my zeal to block spam I blocked all comments! Doh!

Back to Spinning

Once this last bit was plyed, the superwash from Crown Mountain was finally finished. I don't know if it's a characteristic of superwash, or just my inattentiveness, but it was terribly underplyed.



So on to the swift it went and I added more twist. Compare the re-plyed back skein with the underplyed front skein.



Much better, eh? So now I have about 1000 yards, 8 oz., and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.



Indecision abounds! I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing with the 3 ply corrie that I finished almost a year ago. It's just begging to be knit up with cables and texture stitches. I've got at least 2300 yards so I should have more than enough.



While rummaging around, looking for all those skeins of corrie I uncovered a finished sweater! According to my archives I finished this in April 2005 with the Beast I was spinning way back in 2002. Okay, it's not quite finished - but I've been wearing for the last week without any buttons. I remember buying them, but I can't remember where I put them. (Don't ask why I didn't remember that I finished it!)

Next!

The last month or so of school is always crazy. I get through it by starting lots of cool projects that I can finish up over the summer. At this point my attention span is about a nanosecond but I have to say this superwash from Crown Mountain Fibers has kept me interested. This colorway is The Beat Goes On. Love Me Tender jumped into the box on the way here! Makes you want to break out in song, doesn't it?



On Kim's advice, I've pulled off about two feet of roving and then predrafted. Doesn't it look like tropical fruit sherbet?



This is the first time I've spun superwash and it is a bit slick but after a few minutes I was able to fine tune the take up and things progressed smoothly. Did I mention that I have 23 days left?

Peacock

I finally got some time to sit down and finish spinning the Peacock (65% jet black alpaca, 25% dyed silk in royal blue and teal green, and 5% bronze angelina) from Anne's Wooly Wonka Fibers. It was so much fun to spin and the angelina adds just the right amount of sparkle. It's probably the finest yarn I've spun with the 3 ounce (85 gram) skein coming in at about 750 yards. I'll have to get the wpi when I wind it into a ball. Now, what to make with it!

Here's a close up:



On the color theory front, if you read Neki's blog you probably saw her link to the Color Harmonizer. Looks like a really interesting tool. You get to use it five times before registering and that's a very reasonable $20 through PayPal. I can't wait to play with it!

Location, Location, Location

Location 1: That old adage applies to beading too.



I wanted to make another Jewel of India bracelet for my sister's birthday. I think she'll like these black/pewter/bronze delicas. I'm using a silvery gray fire polished bead as the center accent. I started with the sample on the left but didn't like the multicolored bead next to the accent bead. A little too messy looking. So I started over and put the matte pewter bead next to the accent and it looked much better.



Another hour or two and it will be finished.

Location 2: The corrie tweed cardigan returned home with me last weekend. I dyed and started blending this fiber almost two years ago. I finished spinning and started knitting a top down pullover. Last summer I decided to rip it out and use Claudia's percentage cardigan pattern. I've been working on it at my mother's since her health began to fail last fall.



I have yet to take a good picture of this yarn. It's showing too much red on my monitor. I'm waiting on an extra long size 3 needle to do the button band and neckband and I've still got to decide on buttons.



Location 3: I bought my Lendrum Saxony last March and as much as I loved it I was having trouble with a clunking sound. It bugged me enough that I drove up to Kingston in July. Gord sat down and it didn't make a sound, but when I sat down it got noisy. He couldn't figure out why it happened, maybe the length of my leg (pretty stubby) but he put a little piece of nylon bushing around the brass shaft and that seemed to work. A few weeks later it started up again. So this week I was poking around in the archives of the Online Guild looking for spinning information and found that someone put together a list of the different wheels that people had and comments they made about them. Someone (no names were attributed) mentioned that she had a Lendrum Saxony and loved it. However she noted that she couldn't use her spinning chair anymore but that it didn't bother her because the easy chair was more comfortable anyway. Hmmm. Now I remembered that when I sat at the end of my chaise that it didn't make any noise. So I tried it again and voilà! No noise. I sat on the sofa and spun. No noise! I sat back on my spinning chair and the noise reappeared.



Expect to see much more spinning as I won't have to grit my teeth everytime I hear the clunking. On the bobbin is some gorgeous roving from Anne. This is Peacock - 65% jet black alpaca, 25% dyed silk in royal blue and teal green, and 5% bronze angelina. Be sure to check out her etsy shop.

Now this is a stretch for the location theme but too bad. The sleeves and body of the Faroe Vine Cardigan are ready to be joined. I can't believe how fast this is coming together!



There's nothing sweeter than a well designed sweater and the increases are so organic.

Out with the OId - In with the New

I rang out the old year finishing up some projects. The three ply grey corrie is finally done. This is for an all natural wool Faroe style cardigan. Next up will be the chocolate brown - unless I take a short break for some more colorful spinning!

I also finished the twill placemats using 4/4 cotton. Leigh asked if this was the same as Sugar and Creme. This was called Peaches and Creme but it's the same thing, the heavy cotton that people use to knit dishcloths. I got 8 placemats from one cone of ecru for the warp and about .75# of the variegated for the weft. I was very pleased with the way the washed up. They make a nice heavy mat. I've heard people say they've used this for baby blankets, but it seems a little heavy to me.



I tried several different means of reserving space for the fringe - strips of plastic grocery bags, and strips of posterboard. I was going to try some rags or doubling up the weft but ended up sticking with the bags.

I used a three-step zig zag and sewed along each side with the bags still in. Then I pulled out the strips. If I hit it with a stitch or two the plastic ripped very conveniently and pulled right out.



Placing my hands on each mat and pulling gently for tension I ran a second row of zig zag down each one. This is when I realized I should have done a few rows of tabby as a header.



I was able to use the same piece of string for each mat keeping the finished mats within 1/4" of each other. After washing they look identical.



These were sett 10 epi, 140 ends and woven to 19.5". They came off the loom at 11.5" x 17.5" and shrunk very little (less than 1/2"), which really surprised me. I will use this heavy cotton again, but the next time I am going to use a tabby header and a hem. When I weave towels I weave the turned under portion of the hem with sewing thread. For these placemats I'd use 8/2 or 8/4 to reduce some of the bulk.

New beading: I'm trying my hand at designing my next necklace. It's pewter and copper metallic seed beads.

New weaving: Boundweave! I put on a 10" wide warp of white rug warp and I'll be following along with Nancy Hoskin's video.

Taking It To The End

I finished off the warp on the table loom with some dyed muslin strips.



I cut the strips 1" wide and sewed them on the bias as I did for the earlier mat. On Rugtalk people were discussing different ways to work with rags: sewing, glueing, tapering the beginning and end of a strip. Those that glued used a water soluble glue. It holds the strips together while weaving, but washes away without leaving any hard spots on the mat. The 1" would make a nice place mat. I think I'm going to wash these mats several times to see how the raw edges on the strips hold up. I'm still thinking that bias strips would not fray as much.



I dragged out a fleece that I love, but was giving me problems. It's a beautiful, fine fleece with wonderful color, but it seems to my unskilled eye that it sort of felted together by the clippers. After teasing and carding I still wasn't happy. I know June would have said "send it away" but I was too involved at this point and needed to find some way to make it work. What worked was to spin fine, allowing me to pluck any neps that didn't work out during processing and then 3 ply.



I wish there was some way for me to show you its squeezable softness. I feel like Mr. Whipple is going to come around the corner and yell "stop squeezing the corrie!"

Kimono

I painted this warp at a dye day hosted by Claudia in 2003. After I realized how short and narrow the warp was I knew I wouldn't be able to use it. So I dyed some more raw silk and made this fabric to coordinate.

Now almost three years later I finally cut into the fabric and started making the kimono featured in Sara Lamb and Molly Freeman's Warp Painting video. The rather plain fabric was a good choice for the test drive. No stripes to worry about getting straight. I got the sleeves attached and after three tries got the neckline the way I want. I cut a band from the violet/scarlet/golden yellow painted warp. Tomorrow I'll interface and attach it. I didn't put any pleats over the shoulders but it's apparent that I need to.

I was able to wrangle some spinning time too. My new Lendrum Saxony can really spin up a storm. In just a little time I was on my second (big) bobbin of lovely grey corrie. This is from the stash c. 2004. I decided to spin it before dyeing as I'm waiting for Claudia's new design - a Norwegian sweater done in natural yarns.

Back to the Grind

Back to school and back to weekend classes, so the loom sits - still partially threaded. I have been able to finish one sleeve on Whitby and I'm heading down the other.



I ended up spinning all the tussah on one bobbin



and I'll ply it with some lovely purple corriedale.



I should have enough for a scarf and I have some green and purple beads that would look cool with it.

Whitby Progress

Claudia's pattern drafting is perfection! The gussets under the arms allow the drop sleeve to fit perfectly. It's big, but I only have a thing pj top underneath. I'll make sure I have, ahem, more support for the final photo. I can tell this will be a much loved, much worn sweater. I also love that I'll only have a few ends to weave in when the sweater is finished. How cool is that?

I received many comments about not spending too much time cleaning up. However one of the problems with a messy house is that you know you have equipment but somehow you can't find it. That's the case with my beautiful Kromski niddy noddy. Since I only have four bobbins for my new wheel this posed a problem. I crushed the scrap of foam board seen in the background while winding off one bobbin. I located my skein winder, but it was far back in the nether regions of my fiber storage room, locked in by bags of fleece. I was, however, able to find some pvc and T connectors and these plans. Works for me!



This is a very loosely spun Romney/mohair blend. I spun two bobbins while testing out the wheel. I'm going to use it for fulled mittens or a bag so the inconsistencies will disappear.

Plans

We have a short spring break this year but I have big plans. I'm sure I'll be sitting here Monday night bemoaning all I didn't get done. First thing - clean the dining room and maybe under all those papers I'll find my my blanks and get started dyeing. I also want to dye some fleece from Marie.

I'm up to the shoulders of Whitby. Next is picking up stitches and knitting the sleeves. Hope we have a few cool days in May so I can at least put it on for a few hours.



I've been having fun playing with the new Saxony. I usually like scotch tension, but I seem to be gravitating towards double drive with this wheel. This is some lovely hand dyed tussah Vee sent me. As you can see, I still haven't finished the bobbins. Now that my new spinning chair arrived I guess I'll get the tung oil out again.

Over a month ago I started winding a warp for some log cabin towels (good thing I have my notes stuck under the reel). With any luck I can finish winding and get that on the loom. There are so many other things: gut the house, clean up the gardens, but let's get real.

Let the games begin!

This is Going to Take a Little Practice

And the winner is .... Scotch tension. Although drinking Scotch while spinning my undies dry is a viable alternate!



Here it is set up for the Scotch tension. From what I've gathered (to say Gord Lendrum's instructions are succinct is an understatement) you can use the drive band doubled when using Scotch tension and just separate it for double drive. I'm trying that next. As you can see I didn't finish any of the bobbins or the lazy kate. Now that I'm using it I can see that I should take off the flyer base and finish under that too, but it can wait until school gets out.

What will take a little adjustment is how slowly I need to treadle. This has a 28" wheel - I'm used to a much smaller wheel and single treadle so needless to say I had some pretty tightly spun yarn at first. I hope I don't get so relaxed I fall asleep.


Just because I love the stuff so much .....

You Are a Double Espresso

Hey Energizer Bunny Girl! Do you ever slow down? You're a mix of high energy and ambition, perfectly matched with strong espresso When you want something you get it - by any means possible You're driven, determined, and no nonsense. Which is just how you like your java.

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

It's pretty accurate. I will add milk, but never flavors or sweeteners.

Meet ....

Okay, I'm not much for naming my stuff.



What a beautiful day it was today. Of course, the last two days of the marking period kids come out of the woodwork wondering "Do you have my grade?" Um, I post it every, single class and it's available online, but sure, here it is. Once we figured out why it was so low - oh, that's right you haven't turned in anything for the last 8.5 weeks and you were absent (gasp! what a coincidence) on the days we took the two tests - I headed home, stopping to pick up some tung oil.

How gorgeous is this? The wood itself was pretty, as you can see on the base, but the oil on the wheel just makes it so much richer. I used a rag to apply the first coat, but tomorrow I'm going to pick up a tiny little brush to help get into the narrow grooves.



Life is sweet!

If anyone knows what the two cup hooks (you can see them at the bottom left of the picture above) on the mother-of-all are for, please tell me!

Weekend Blather

Don't let the title fool you. It's Monday night and apparently I never posted this! It's been really busy around here. End of the marking period grades and a paper for my course ate up most of my weekend, but I did get to finish spinning and plying the roving I dyed last month.



I ended up spinning long draw and plying. The singles just didn't sample well for me. I have such a lofty, soft yarn - well, relatively soft, it is Romney after all. It still looks like good mitten yarn. I haven't counted yardage yet to see if there's enough for a hat too.



Conferences on Wednesday. That will give me some knitting time.

A Change of Mind

As I was attenuating the roving I dyed a couple of weeks ago, I started to think it might be better as a soft spun single.



I'll knit up a swatch but I'll give the Navajo plying a try too. I could change my mind. I'm still planning on mittens... at least for now.

I still haven't put a warp on. I'm back in Penn State's Technology Integration program, so my fiber time is being challenged again. At least this time it's through the World Campus so I can go to class in my jammies!