February | 2011 | Fiberjoy

Ed’s making great progress on getting all the hooks, hairpin lace looms and spindles made on time to ship and deliver in Tacoma. I will be heading north on the 17th and spend a day or two at Madrona Fiber Arts Festival. He has this last week of pushing hard to finish all the spindles still waiting to be made.

Roughed out spindles waiting to come to life. No, there’s no way he can make this many spindles in one week! He not that much of a superman. Periodically he’ll take a day or two and rough out as many spindles as he can so they can hang above his wood stove and finish drying before the final shaping.

In the midst of going crazy trying to get numerous items made our d-i-l asked Ed to make a bunk bed for Faith. He put it on the back burner for a couple weeks but we heard MJ was coming to Oregon for a visit the weekend of the 12th. Ed decided he’d enjoy the change of pace and took to heading to the shop earlier in the morning, working hard without breaks until 4pm then switched gears and worked on the bed for an hour before supper. He also devoted Saturdays to the project.

He stained it last weekend and on Wednesday, a balmy sunny day with no wind he brought all the pieces outside to apply the final coat of finish. Before Ed tucked them in a safe corner of his shop we snapped pictures for MJ. The side rails are against the far wall, ladder to the left, footboards and headboards on the right.

Two rugs have been woven and the third will be finished this week. I’m waiting until the grandkids visit on Friday so they can weave some of the final rug which will go home with them. The camera battery ran low when taking pictures so you’ll need to wait until next posting. Meanwhile not only did I ply the colorful Schoppel-Wolle singles from two weeks ago, it is now a Cat’s Paw Scarf for Faith. A ribbed scarf for Wesley is 1/3 finished using a lovely yarn I bought some time ago and had used some for socks but sadly lost the ball band and can’t recall what brand it is.

Spinning: Last October Michelle (do visit her lovely blog!) sent me some of the processed fiber from her Shetland ram, Blackberry. I had remarked on the gorgeous fiber at OFFF when she picked it up from the processor. Originally I tried spinning it with a spindle but it wasn’t spinning smoothly the way I knew it should be so I set it aside. Having empty bobbins freed from the colorful yarn a few weeks ago I turned to the Victoria (a Louet wheel) and tried what I call a modified long draw. (I’ve not taken spinning lessons and am guessing at the terminology/method from what I’ve seen and heard). Keeping my forward hand about a foot from the flyer and using it to control the amount of twist released into the unspun fibers, my fiber hand drew back between 10 – 20 inches as the twist ran up the fibers. It didn’t take long to get into a rhythm of moving the fiber hand back and forth while releasing fiber into the advancing twist. It was great fiber for challenging me to move away from the fine laceweight singles I’m prone to spinning while trying to spin woolen for the first time. Very enjoyable and I love the resulting yarn. Four ounces spun over the course of several evenings.