The New Year Beckons

All day I’ve had the niggling feeling that a cold is trying to take up residence in my head.

Not wanting to deal with a cold I decided to stay home this evening rather than join the games and music up at the church. It would have been fun; friends, table games, puzzles, jamming with other musicians, food and hot drinks until midnight but a quiet evening in our woodstove toasty home is more sensible.

I took the spindle for a walk for the first time in what seems like months early yesterday morning. The spinning and exercise felt so good and natural! Here’s to having more sunny days ahead than the extra rainy autumn and December which were not conducive to spinning wool in the rain.  A neighbor and I walked out to the cemetery and back before church time. I ended up not going. We were deep in one of those conversations about life stuff that sometimes need to be shared and it was more important to listen over a cup of coffee when we returned to the house. We plan to walk again in the morning before I head over to spend time hanging out with Aurora.

2013 is a good year to get back into weaving on a more regular basis! I miss sitting at the loom and getting into the rhythm of watching the cloth grow.

Yesterday afternoon I began the process of measuring out warp and sleying the reed for my next weaving project. Super time and darkness fell before the last bout was sleyed and today there was no time. I want to get the loom completely warped tomorrow afternoon while there’s still good daylight. My eyes feel the strain of the close work of sleying the reed and threading the heddles with artificial light. This will be a small project but using a technique that’s new to me: 3 shaft weaving . I’ve had the pattern and materials for months but haven’t been able to hurdle the idea of manipulating only 3 shafts on a 4 shaft counter-balance loom. Sometimes a person just has to take the plunge and hope that the muddy surface was just an illusion and that once in everything makes sense! It’s a short enough warp that if it doesn’t work out as intended then it’s a small loss that will have been worth the trying and learning.

A Pretty Thing cowl seemed the perfect way to close out 2012. Except. I’m slow. It’s only 1/4th of the way. But there’s no rush, it’s not for any particular birthday or occasion.  We’ve been watching Tripods almost every evening and I couldn’t keep track of the pattern while watching the show.  Ed ordered dvds of Tripods from England a few weeks ago and they arrived just in time for Christmas. He decreed we’d watch only three episodes a day. Sometime back in the 80s or 90s we stumbled across the weekly BBC show but on our local station it was always hit or miss and then suddenly it was off the air leaving us hanging. It’s one of those low budget shows which wormed its way into our hearts.

A new blog was started today at our Yarntools website!!! It’s been at the back of my mind to have one at that site, mostly for those times that Ed’s up to something new or information needs to be available. The past couple of weeks so many people were expressing concern for Ed’s back that rather than try to answer via email it was easier to put it out in one place where customers could easily find it.

Fiberjoy will continue to be my main outlet.

One spinning project that’s been in the works off and on for too long only needs one more braid (maybe 2) to spin for the final color. I just might get spinning on it tomorrow evening. A good way to begin the New Year: an early morning walk followed by girl time with my daughter, some loom work, and finishing the day off in the evening with spinning. Wednesday, the 2nd, is our 35th anniversary. Another day of celebrating!
Here’s the skeins of yarn spun up so far, the 2nd and 3rd from the right are each about 270 yards, the others are about 140 yards each

All from various braids of Picperfic Polwarth, Polwarth blend braids. (oh! I must not look at her shop! There are more colors that would be great with this blend of yarns!)

Blessings on the New Year! May it be filled with Peace,  Industrious use of time, hands and mind,  Contentment and Joy

 

New Website

The new Jenkins Woodworking website is up and running!!!

Just as I was salivating with anticipating of taking the site live, I hit one more hurdle – the shopping cart that came with the program didn’t have a way to limit sales on one-of-a-kind item. As in all of our spindles. Nor could I simply take out the software buy now button and substitute it with a PayPal button. No. I had to re-insert every. single. picture, go to PP, create a button for that one item, put it near the picture, and then do it all over again for the next spindle. I may now be one of the fastest button makers/ecommerce page builders around. :0
I’d love your feedback on the new site. There’s still some info to add (links to how-to videos) but essentially it’s finished. What a relief after long months of three steps forward, seven steps back.

The growing season continues apace:

 

Marigold Field on a back road to our daughter’s place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A field of onions with bee hives further along the same road, looking west across the Willamette Valley. Coastal Mountains in the background.
The seeds will be harvested for future onion crops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seed crop of Cosmos flowers. They were even fuller and more brilliant a couple days ago but I didn’t have the camera with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first ear of corn will be ready to harvest in a few more days. Can hardly wait! First time planting corn in ages. When corn was 12 ears/$1 it was cheaper to buy from the local produce stand but the last two years they were 3 ears/$1. Time to grow corn. We planted seeds for 10 stalks and so far there are 22 ears on the stalks with more silk showing up every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gravenstein apple tree is loaded this year. Should be plenty for pies and putting up for the winter as well as for our daughter to make applesauce for Violet and send some home with our daughter-in-law who arrived today for a short visit / 10 year high school reunion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spinning continues every evening as I’m attempting to spin a bunch of small samples. The two singles were spun on different evenings and I was in a major hurry feeling the pressure of getting on with the website. Very inconsistent!

App 1 ounce blue yarn, ca 84 yards.

 

 

 

 
One goal in spinning these small color samples is to increase my spinning speed on the wheel. I’m also trying to spin a more consistent, lofty worsted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re babysitting Violet every Thursday now that her mom is back to work.

We spent some time in the early afternoon outside under the catalpa tree, I with the laptop working on the website, Violet talking to the leaves and cooing at the shifting sunlight in the canopy.

 

 

 

 

 

I still haven’t tallied all the people who participated in the Jenkins Team TdF. I went to Ravelry last Saturday evening, saw the several hundred entries and felt too daunted to tackle wading through all the posts when the website was more pressing. I want to take my time and enjoy all the effort everyone put into their spinning, to give proper attention and justice to the work of their hands. I’ll begin going through all the posts tomorrow. Will be fun!

 

Summer Spinning

The new Jenkins Woodworking website is close to publishing. After months of building, photo sessions, set-backs, frustration and bumbling my way around the launch date is around the corner. The website I’d been working on through May and June showed its limitations only after most of the information had been entered, yanking the rug out from under me. Crawling, once again, through myriad web-host reviews one caught my attention that not only offered a free webhosting, with option for paying for more bells & whistles – the annual pro fee is very reasonable and has the capability to take it to the next level, as well as offering the quirky variables that our website needs, and  a set-up that makes building an ecommerce website easy for a non-techie person. All but the final page is finished and I’ve been working on getting the domain name and email set-up properly, which includes having the Jenkins woodworking domain pointing to the correct host.

We’re also changing the name to one which is more pertinent and much quicker to type.
We hope it’s a good move – please comment here with your opinions.

The new name?   YarnTools.com (not online yet)

Other than working endless hours on a new website as well as handling the day to day business, what have we been up to in the month of July?

Gardening

 

Spinning
Babysitting Violet every Thursday. (Ed watched her all by himself from 7:30 – 4:30 this past Thursday when I was away from home. Good man! He even changed some very soiled diapers.)

Spinning. Lots of spinning. Daily, to the point that there was no time left for checking in at Ravelry. Will do so this evening and tally the people who spun while exercising then use a random number generator for drawing the spindle winners.

Almost daily gardening (food type of gardening).

Dying cherries from our pie cherry tree. Ed’s not a huge fan of cherry pies so they get dried to use in baking and on hot cerea.
Spinning. Finishing spinning the 198 grams of merino/camel fiber Ed gave me for my birthday. The three singles were each spun as fingering weight on the wheel.  The resulting worsted/bulky 3-ply yarn was  too much for the wheel so one evening was spent plying it  using my Navajo spindle.
ca 230 yards. Not sure what it will become.

 

 

Trying to keep ahead of the weeds and deter the deer. Two ongoing battles. (Picture taken Mid – July)

Picking blueberries.

Lots of spinning. Evenings were spent spinning with wheel and spindles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to go outside with the wheel for some relaxing spinning and enjoy this mildly warm day – only 73F here.

 

Black sheep pt 2

Selling spindles makes for quick setting up time. We store the spindles in bins that ride on a trolly and sit under the cloth covered table. Assemble the display shelves hang our sign and we’re ready in less than half an hour. Which gave us time to look through the market to see others setting up without the pressure to scurry back to the booth.

The pleasant slanting evening light drew people out of their RVs to sit in scattered circles chatting to friends and acquaintances.  The ladies of Abstract Fiber had set up their RV across the way from us and soon we found ourselves sitting down to pies that Susan had made the night before. Yummy! A huge marionberry as well as a huge apricot pie. Enjoyed every morsel of a sliver of each,  and their delightful company, which included an engaging African whose booth was right behind Abstract Fibers, selling baskets, bags and jewelry. Sadly, his name is gone from my memory.
It was still light when Ed and I crawled into our sleeping bags. All night it was light. The nearby parking lot light was so bright I literally could have read my book.

Pitter-pattering against the tent woke us up. Rain. What started out gentle turned into a cold, day-long deluge.
Diehard fiber and fiber animal enthusiasts braved the rain.

Sights and goods like these were well worth it. Such tempting vibrant colors and beautiful skeins.I was quite taken with the young lady who was elegantly dressed as though for high tea. She and her friend sat there for some time as he knitted away. Our booth was right beside the main door and when I caught a glimpse of them leaving I couldn’t resist a picture of contrasts.

The rain hadn’t let up at all during the day, and at times it poured hard. About 4 that afternoon Ed decided to check on our tent and soon return with a gloomy face. The rain had managed to seep through one spot  where we hadn’t been able to completely pull the rain fly taut. Being on asphalt we used the car to tie down two sides and water jugs for the other two corners. His sleeping bag was seriously soaked.

In January when I’d tried booking a motel room for BSG all the reasonable rooms were already reserved. Any motels/hotels with a room were asking close to $200 and up per night. The Olympic Track & Field Trials were beginning the same weekend as BSG, and Eugene as Track Town USA draws the running fans. We were prepared to pack it in and drive home if absolutely necessary but hoped to find a cancellation. Having a smart phone turned out to be a huge blessing! (We’d not owned one before but knowing there was no wi-fi in the barns we bit the bullet and bought one to use our card reader. Almost the very first thing after setting up and trying to run a card we discovered that the signal wasn’t strong enough and the call was dropped. The customer happened to be the very person who’d talked with us at Sock Summit about a new contraption he carried around to connect to the internet. Next thing we knew, he was back at our booth, mi-fi modem in hand with accompanying power cord. God bless him! He gave us his Mi-Fi to keep! )

Wow, the info one can access with a smart phone. Typing in motels, Eugene OR, a list popped up of all the motels with vacancies, and the number of rooms available, plus rates. Even as I scrolled through the list rooms were filling up so I frantically called one with decent rates (just over $100/night!) and secured a room for two nights. Apparently enough people who’d made reservations last January had last minute change of plans. (High gas/bad economy)

Shortly before 6pm the skies lightened a bit and the rain stopped. At six we were closing shop and rushing out to gather all of our camping gear, stuffing it in the car, wetness and all. About five blocks from the fairgrounds is a Five Guys. We were starving so pulled in for the first decent meal of the day. Just as we sat down with our hamburgers and fries the sky grew black and the rain drummed down.

Saturday brought a number of previous customers who stopped by to buy another spindle and/or show us what they’ve been spinning.
John, a friend of several years now, had just taken a workshop and one of the things they did was grab random bits of fibery fluff and spin it all together. His yarn is from various silk bits.

Ilisha, whom we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know since last year’s Sock Summit, had a bunch of yarn turtles she’d recently spun.And what does she do with these relatively small batches of yarn?
She’s the Jazz Knitter! Look at what her creative mind does with yarn! There’s no end to the scope of her imagination for using colorful yarn.

Lauri stopped by not only with her spinning but with a tool that are over a hundred years old: Turkish distaff! How exciting it was to see her putting one to use.

There were a number of weekender kids who gravitated to our spindles (and probably all the other spindle makers!) Their enthusiasm is contagious. These two were in an RV next to our tent the first night. They were at BSG to show their sheep. The girl took home at least one blue ribbon, and they both took home a Delight.

Hope everyone had a great Independence Day! I made good headway on the new website and hope that by this time next week it will be finished. I keep getting badly sidetracked by needing to maintain the ongoing regular office work.

This afternoon Ed and I headed in to town to help with the weekly community dinner (served 187 people tonight, down from the usual 450+). The core team had finished most of the prep work by the time we got there at 2:30 so we headed to the street fair happening downtown.

We saw a sweet, old spinning wheel that was in good condition for a terrific price, but alas, she didn’t take credit cards and we hadn’t taken the check book. My Tour de Fleece spinning was quite happy not to have the extra competition.

 

Musical interlude

My heart is satisfied, music dances through my head. The strings ensemble I play violin with had our year end concert this afternoon. Over all it went quite well, and Ed captured most of the pieces on video. His favorite piece is being uploaded to YouTube as I write this. (It’s taking about 75 minutes to upload.)

Previous years Abiqua Strings was primarily made up of the students of a local violin teacher, Ann.  Last fall Ann decided to completely retire from teaching violin lessons but she continued with the Abiqua Strings.  She invited several of her students to continue with the group as well as several adults. We ended up being a group of 7 adults, all had been playing strings since they were kids. Except for me – I took up the violin in my mid-late thirties.

What a good challenge it has been. The other second violinist is the music teacher at the middle school with violin having been his major. I feel very anchored playing next to him with his solid, confident bow strokes.  With two first violins, two seconds, two violas and a cello we have a nicely balanced sound. We practiced for 90 minutes every other week, really not enough time to work out that tight, everyone-playing-as-one sound that comes mostly from hours and hours of playing together, honing the music as one unit. Still, I’m so grateful for this wonderful opportunity to make music with others!

What a fun program we played today! I know a number of my readers are musicians so here’s the playlist:

Telemann’s Sonata for 2 Violins – IV movement: Allegro, Andante, Presto
Greig’s Holberg Suite: Allegro, Sarabanda, Rigadaun
Medley of 3 Scandinavian folk tunes: Ark Varmland, Walking Tune, Ringnessen
Simple Gifts  – Ed’s favorite one
Medley of 3 folk tunes: Red River Valley, Red Wing, Red Haired Boy

I don’t have the video upgrade for this blog , please click on the Simple Gifts link to listen.

After a time of playing with other good musicians it makes me want to concentrate even more on the violin. I hope that this group continues together next year. As adults with busy lives there are times it’s very hard to make the commitment to this type of group.

Much has been happening here the past couple of weeks that I’d like to post. Guess I need to post more often!

Meantime, one hour in the evenings have been devoted to reading “Distant Hours” by Kate Morton, which I finished yesterday. I’ve been listening to Silas Marner on Librivox whilst spinning some scrumptious PicPerFic roving and now I’ve hit a dilemma: to ply together or order more of hree colourway/fibers so I can keep each of these lovely colours as a unit rather blending them into a 3-ply yarn which is what I originally set out to make. As I finished the last bobbin the idea of weaving a shirt with these slowly took root in my mind. Almost clinching the thought was when my daughter stopped by with Violet and saw the three bobbins laying together. Immediately smitten she grabbed them up and asked what I planned to make with them. She thinks they should be kept separate. It was hard to capture the true colours of each of these so here’s another view, different lighting, different arrangement which shows the true color of the lightest pink (middle below) the bobbin with the purple/blue is more like in the picture above.Left to Right: Polwarth and Silk, Polwarth and Baby Alpaca, Polwarth. I’ll 3-ply a few yards of them together in the morning to see how they look co-mingled.

Enjoy the music!

 

Slow end to Winter

Winter is refusing to graciously give way to Spring. It has snowed more days since the Spring equinox than almost all winter.   This morning as I walked down Grand View what had been a hardly noticeable mist suddenly to snow! Small wet flakes filled the air. Quickly stashing my spindle in the walking pouch I grabbed my camera.

Looking at swollen creek from the bridge.

Walking Grand View after a long break away is beginning to restore my flagging energy, sorely drained by what seems like a long winter. Walking down to the school and back with Ed was easy. Even out to cemetery hill isn’t much of a challenge but Grand View is a good workout, in both directions.  For two weeks now I’ve been walking up Grand View at least every other day, slowly going farther each time.

The brief snow flurry this morning reminded me of pictures I wanted to share from my walk two weeks ago on March 23rd, two days after the heavy snow storm. These views are from above our small village where Grand View levels out between a Christmas tree farm and grass fields. (I zoomed in for a good picture of each of the mountains. The picture at the bottom will give a better idea of the true perspective without a zoom feature.)

Looking to the East and a bit North is Mt Hood which is in Oregon.

Swinging my gaze northward along the Cascades I’m delighted to see Mt Adams.

Mt Adams is a grand mountain that does not get the respect it deserves. It lies just north of the Columbia River on the backside (East) of the Washington Cascades so it’s not readily seen in the Willamette Valley except from certain locations.

Looking due North, Mt St Helens squats broad and flat-topped. If it were a clear day we could see Mt Rainier in the

distance beyond St Helens’ eastward shoulder. For a number of years, when I was young, we lived in a place where we could see all three mountains. I’d whisper their names over and over almost as a litany while gazing at them.

Turning back to the Cascades directly across from me I zoomed the camera in to see the snow fields in the vast clear-cut areas and am astonished to realize I can see what I assumed at first was the old look-out tower. Looking at it on the computer makes me wonder if it’s a cell tower or something of that nature. It seems too tall and narrow to be the lookout tower. Son will know, he’s been up there many times with his four-wheeler.

And here’s the normal view of this same section of the Cascades.

The days are very busy: tying up the loose ends of bookkeeping and tax filing,  preparing for the spinning workshop I’ll be giving at the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival in two weeks, along with regular business responsibilities, practicing the violin for the Resurrection Sunrise service at the Scout Ranch, and best of all, a wee baby to visit and hold whenever possible!
Starting the mornings off with a spindle in hand and a long hill to climb recharges my energy, clears my head and provides a quiet time of connecting with the Creator who provided this wondrous world.

 

Best Laid Plans…

Remember the baby cocoon that I mentioned making with my handspun yarn a few weeks ago, followed the next week by making a hat for Gus and beginning another hat for Feathers with the remaining yarn? The day before Aurora went into labor I stayed up late finishing Feather’s hat so I could give it to her the next day.

She too loved her hat. I’m sure it’s the crochet butterfly that won her over. (Sorry for the blurry pictures – my camera has been dropped a few too many times; it’s getting increasingly harder to take a sharp image without a tripod.)

Sadly Gus hadn’t worn his hate to the hospital that morning so I wasn’t able to take a picture of them together wearing their matching hats. Here’s the picture from the previous week.

When making the hats I deliberately used more of the blue/grey sections of the handspun yarn for Gus’s hat and the red/orange sections predominately in Feather’s hat.  I had grand plans of a picture of these three grandchildren in their matching handspun wools. Alas, it was not to be. Unexpected circumstances had made MJ come to Oregon two weeks earlier than she’s originally planned and by the time Aurora had Violet our son had flown out here so he could drive back with MJ on Saturday. They only had a  brief time Saturday morning with Aurora and Violet before they headed for the long trip back home. Aurora hadn’t packed the cocoon for the hospital and I wasn’t about to make a big deal out of trying to make it work.

 

Try to picture the two children above wearing their hats, sitting together with Violet/

The Baby Cocoon, officially known as the Eskimo Kiss Hooded Cocoon, pg 94 of Welcoming Baby Home by Tricia Drake. I used a N/10mm Knook that Ed made for me for the Cocoon and a J/6mm Knook for both hats.

When Violet was five days old Aurora put her into the Cocoon. She loved it! She’d been a bit fussy but as soon as she was snuggled into the cocoon she relaxed and fell asleep.

That afternoon friends stopped by to see Violet and visit. Nine month old Baby Ava was very intrigued by this real doll.
I modified the pattern with an opening at the bottom and the drawstring for quick diaper changing. We also found it easier to slip the cocoon over Violet’s head.

In the early stages of Aurora’s labor I spent some time with my newest spindle, a cunning sweet Sycamore Aegean. The plan is the spun Newhuehandspun Bamhuey, Moon Beams colorway, fiber will be made into something to give to Aurora. I have no idea what it’s to be though I’m spinning quite fine.

 

 

Gone Spinning

Absent for months on end I was determined to attend the monthly spinning group a week ago, Wednesday.  A relaxing day with other spinners was just what I needed after being down with a cold. I felt slightly guilty turning my back on work that had piled up but it would still be there the next day.

During our visit to the kids in Idaho last September I had watched the grandchildren one evening while everyone else went to Swan Falls to fish. After tucking the kiddos in bed I unpacked my spinning wheel and the 8 ounces of Crown Mountain Farms BFL roving.  Those few hours were only spinning I got in while there. When we returned home hairpin lace, knitting  and occasional weaving occupied my crafting time but once Mirth’s prayer shawl, Feather’s sweater and Aurora’s hand-warmers were finished I turned back to the wheel…

Brief sidetrack; I forgot to post a picture of her wearing them, not a great picture but she didn’t want to hold still, blame it on wee one’s hiccups!

The cold bug depleted my energy level and fuzzed my thinking but spinning felt relaxing and productive. It’s remarkable how much fiber a person can go through when most everything else is ignored. Almost 8 ounces of singles spun within a four day period. Three bobbins full ready to be plyed during the spinning group.

Spinning was at a home about 30 miles to the west, across the Willamette and up into Eola Hills. Just before the turn to Jere’s house I pulled over to gaze at this view of the Willamette River past the hills southwest of Salem.

With several of the regulars not able to attend we were a group of  six enjoying the slower pace after a busy holiday season when others had also dealt with a virus.

Jerene well captures the mood of the day: quiet and serene.

My bobbin (foreground) was as stuffed as possible. I remembered looking at a spare bobbin thinking to grab it and put it in with the wheel but alas, I must have been interrupted mid-thought. What else does one do when out of bobbins but seriously wanting to be finished with the job at hand? Wind the three singles together into a plying ball to empty the bobbins! The last of the singles were being wound onto the ball when Jerene looked across at me and asked what I was doing. I explained the purposed and Jere exclaimed about having ball winders, niddy-noddies and skein winders that I could have used.  Of course, I should have thought to ask. Jere, spinner and weaver extraodinaire, naturally has the necessary equipment for any such need.

I’m very pleased with this 3-ply yarn meeting my goal for a lofty, bulkier yarn which was spun for a specific project. After washing and hanging to dry it weighs 7.5oz / 214 grams and is approximately 250 yards.
With so many rain-free days this winter our almost daily walks are very enjoyable, even when frosty. We stopped walking during the worst of our illness but by Tuesday we were at it again (missed a few days). I grabbed some of the white wool that was in the birthday fibers and my 1.6oz yew Swan (our name for our standard sized Turkish spindles) with one goal in mind; spin all that fiber only when walking. I’m even spinning walking to and fro the Post Office, and last night I spun my way up the high to Bible Study. Coming home was the best. The moon was bright, the air biting cold, silence spread over this small valley. Bundled up with a shawl wrapped around my head and shoulders, a felted hat down over my ears, a small headlamp perched on my head with the light directly slightly down, the scant half mile was covered all too soon.

 

Wood and Fiber

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.

Turned into this wonderfully squooshy 200 yards of yarn. All in less than a week – a record for me.

 

Wrapped Up

A New Year’s Eve party is happening at our church only 4 blocks away. This is the first year in many that I’m not up there making music, putting puzzles together, talking, eating and laughing with friends. Emotions and obligations try to tug me up the hill but I resist, preferring instead to write a final post for 2010, a year of not posting as much as I had wanted.  I’m not in the mood for noise and being “on” with a large group of people of all ages. Besides, there were two projects I had wanted to finish this evening. One has been accomplished, and the Cat’s Paw scarf is very close but it’s completion will wait until tomorrow; I’m very tired and will head for bed as soon as I’ve updated. (Depending on how noisy it is – already people are shooting firecrackers and guns. Yep, we live in an area with avid hunters.)

The Kid Mohair/Alpaca spinning is finished!

2 balls of 100+ grams Picperfic’s Kid Mohair singles spun on a Jenkins Jay and a Jenkins Aegean spindle

Combined with one single of Alpaca spun on my Louet Victoria. ( I was chomping at the bit to get the alpaca spun so I could ply them.)

I’d been warned to spin the alpaca as loosely as possible, a new challenge which took some practice but overall I was happy with the look and feel, other than that it was thicker than the mohair singles. Until. It keep drifting apart as I plyed it with a Mohair single. Undaunted I ran the alpaca through the Victoria again adding a bit more twist.

Wanting one large skein of yarn I used my Navajo spindle for plying. After plying a few grams I was dismayed to see that the alpaca was overwhelming the mohair. Gritting my teeth at the thought of losing half the yardage by three-plying I sampled away and found that 3 ply was the way to go. Gamely I uniformly wound the three singles together into a big ball with my nostepinne, moved the ball onto a simple plying board, for ease of off-winding, and began plying Wednesday evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight the plying was finished and the yarn measured on a niddy-noddy.

 

Total yardage, before setting twist, is approximately 330. After it’s washed and dried I will weigh it for final results.

I’d originally split the Kid Mohair roving in half along the width hoping to spin it evenly even that the colors would match up in the end two-ply results. But there were such beautiful color changes that I didn’t want to risk them muddying in the plying process if my spinning wasn’t uniform enough to keep the colors in each single together. In order to preserve the colors it was suggested to instead ply them as one single against one grey alpaca single. Which would have worked if I’d spun the alpaca as thin or thinner than the mohair but in spinning it looser it was bigger.  Winding the three together into the ball revealed that I could have 2-plyed the two mohair singles together for the colors did come out very evenly in the end. By the time I’d realized the colors were matching very nicely throughout I didn’t have the heart to unwind the big ball and start that process again.

The good news is there’s approximately 65 grams / 2 ounces of alpaca singles left over for something else.

Yesterday Ed and I went up to Portland to buy wood then over to the Pendleton Woolen Mill outlet store in SE Portland/Milwaukee to buy a new blanket for our bed as our anniversary gift. In the five years since I’d been there the store moved from the basement upstairs into what used to house the Portland mill & weaving room for their fabrics. We were told the looms were all moved to their weaving mill in Washington when the constant motion from the looms was destroying the structural integrity of the old building. (Blankets and rugs are still woven in Pendleton, OR).  It’s been refurbished into a bright, welcoming store with a museum tucked into a back room. Ed and I spent well over an hour looking at blankets, fondling fabrics on bolts and hanging from huge rollers, and looking at the tapestry collection in the museum. I longingly looked over the cones of weaving yarns and managed to put blinders on when walking past the large bins of selvage pieces but came away determined to weave a chunk of what I have before buying anymore.

Fueled with enthusiasm from wool fumes I came home and set about calculating, measuring and sleying the reed with warp for 3 throw rugs. It feels so good to once again have a work in progress on the loom. Just in time to start the new year.

It was a beautiful gift to see this as we drove home from our daughter’s at noon on Christmas Day, Mt Hood:

Today Valerie wrote of letting her stash be sufficient for her fiber needs in this coming year with the word sufficient as a key word. It is a very good word! One my mother loved, and lived by. Her favorite verse that she clung to in hard and uncertain times was “My grace is sufficient for you…” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (New Testament) closely followed by “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency is everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” 2 Corinthians 9:8  Isn’t that a lovely assurance to carry into this New Year!