This is a textile text book. For a woman who started in dressmaking, quilting and crochet and went on to spin, knit and weave it promises hours of interest. I don't think it will make it onto my shelf for a while. It's going to be next to the armchair so I can dip into it often.
I've been walking a lot lately. Not just my recreational--make myself and the dogs happy by exploring the neighbourhood morning walks. I've been walking to get where I need to be. Now the difference between the two is reflected in my footwear. I've got excellent runners, but their white silver and purple sportiness is not the look I want when I'm shopping, attending meetings or teaching. I thought I had quite a good range of sensible well-fitting flat shoes. But my ideas of comfort had to be adjusted to walking several kilometers a day in them. Suddenly they weren't as good as I'd thought. I wished for a hybrid: black leather walking shoes that would be unobtrusive but kind on my feet. I bought them, yesterday when I could drive to several different locations until I found what I wanted. I've decided that despite the convenience of having my own car again, I do want to keep up as much walking as I can. So while I'm appreciating the irony, I'm also making myself a promise that these walking shoes will be well used. But now I'm about to head over to Williamstown. Last time I went there on a Sunday it was a two hour trip on a bus and three trains. I'm going to hop into my little car and deliver myself door to door in less than half that time. I guess that means I don't have to wear sensible shoes.
I'm getting a lot more comfortable juggling the four needles and knitting in circles. By the way, I've just noticed the colour of my skin in the pic--don't worry, I'm not dying of cold. It's a grey day and there's not enough light in my front room to take a better shot, and I've still got "learn about white balance" on my camera "to do" list. If you need a reference point, this is actually the same yarn as yesterday's post.
I started the hat yesterday, just 'cause. Now It's finished, well not quite . . . but see the needle on the left of the pic? It's already threaded with the tail of the yarn. Unfortunately I stopped the process there to go grab my camera and write this post. But as soon as I hit "publish" I'm going back to finish it off. Then it will be ready to wear. Well maybe not quite--I'm still tossing up whether it needs to be blocked or not.
Just the right size for my 2 metre skeins, low profile so it doesn't want to tip over and with fixed arms, so they don't want to collapse in. Having said all that, the skein I tried it on wasn't in the best shape to start with and I did have a few tangles to sort out. Overall: I love the home-made ingenuity of it and I'll happily give it another go. Better yet, the generous unexpectedness of the whole episode makes me smile.
Definitely still red and white, not pink. I'm glad to say I kept up the momentum and got through the spinning and plying before bedtime. The skein is washed and hanging on my rack to dry. Now to get my folio in order and handed in. My spinning wheel is conspicuously vacant! It's so tempting to launch in on something new, but I'm going to discipline myself to do a bit each day on sorting and presenting the work I've done. Then I can really heave that sigh of relief.
A sheet of instructions, a sandwich bag with paint chips and the hand-dyed fabric for each contributor and we're away. The Quilters' Circle met yesterday afternoon so I had my perfect opportunity to hand out the kits. A couple of the knitters who meet at the same time are also quilters, as are several of the staff, so I easily got to the target of nine blocks. Now to wait for the completed blocks to come in. Then we'll have the fun of piecing them together to make a quilt top. Meanwhile the raffle ticket team are already getting themselves organised. We're planning on selling tickets from early August and drawing the raffle at the AGM in mid-September, so the timeline is looking good.
The red is merino tops and the white is the (required) tencel. They're waiting to be carded together, then spun. The tencel feels even more synthetic than did the bamboo. Its redeeming feature is that the fibres are longer than either the bamboo or the soy, so they're less inclined to slip out of my fingers. And you can see the sheen. I'm hoping it will produce an effective highlight in the red fibre. Regardless of that, it will be done. Then I've got a fair bit of tidying up to do and swatches to knit before I can hand it all in.
Therein lies another question: where did my week go? The recipient of this scarf is two states and two days postage away from where I am. This should have been in the mail by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest--in an express pack--but here it is just coming off my needles. And while we're at it, where did the years go? It wasn't so long ago I first met her as a five year old . . . Somehow time's going by faster than I can keep up and there's not much I can do about it. Except in this case, say, "Happy Birthday" from afar and give my friend A a sneak peak of what should be in her hands already. It will be in the mail tomorrow. I'll spare you the, "my, how you've grown!" and "it seems only yesterday" . . .
Having said all that in its favour, it's not silk. Call me biased, but look at this pic, you can see some lustre, but not enough for a real Wow. As for environmental credentials: apparently this stuff is a made from a byproduct of tofu. That should please my vegetarian friends. I couldn't get any meaningful information about the actual processing, so I can't do a side by side comparison between cotton, bamboo and soy for "green value".
The next thing to think about is dyeing. I'm going to have to experiment. I'd lumped this fibre in with the "semi-synthetic cellulose" group, but apparently it takes acid dyes well. And if it's a tofu byproduct, then mabe there's more protein in there than I thought. I don't know enough about it at this stage.
I'm still strongly focussed on getting my spinning requirments ticked off, so just now it's most valuable feature is that it is done. Now for a soy-wool blend--maybe today--and two tencel skeins. The countdown continues!
These guys must be used to working for everyday car buyers. There's a huge long speil about all the things they looked at--very impressive. Then there's a summary statement. Oh, I love summary statements. For each group of items they give a green light--go--an amber light--caution--or a red light--stop. There's a short paragraph to spell out the significance of each. OK, I can deal with this. The car I'm looking at got green lights in all sections--go, go, go! The road worthy inspection is booked for next Monday. I'm looking forward to being a whole lot poorer and a whole lot happier. Oh, and did I mention . . . the car is blue--bright metallic blue:)
Please note: this is not a sock. If all goes well, it will be a little wrist warmer. I like to break my challenges down into small, small steps. For the first few rows I was constantly dodging and rearranging needles. Now I've got a bit more of a rhythm going, but it's still rather awkward. It seems as though there's more bulk of needles than actual knitting in my hands. Come to think of it, I guess there is. So, I'm persisting. I'm given to understand--isn't that a great cop out phrase!--that if I just keep knitting along, I'll eventually stop worrying about the four pointy sticks I'm holding and get back to enjoying the knitting. OK, knitting, knitting, knitting . . .
70% wool and 30% bamboo. That's a fair enough blend. The bamboo is definitely there--it's the white stuff in the pic above. Carded on my fine hand carders and just about spun up already. I stopped before spinning this last bit so I could take a shot and post it. The mix behaves like an easy flowing carded wool. Occasionally theres a bit with more bamboo than average and it slips a little. I've had only one breakage. Oh, so much easier. As to the purpose of 30% bamboo in a wool-blend. I dunno! Novelty? White highlights?--I'd rather have silk! Because it's on the list and I have to do it to get to the finish line? That's honest at least. Back to my wheel. If I can complete the spinning, ply and finish this skein this morning there will be four more on my list. And now I can look forward to the helping hand of wool in two of them.
The original yellow-green in the foreground, the new blue-green in the background. And there's enough to make an itty bitty scarf or some wrist warmers.
I have to finish this sample of bamboo alone, then do a sample of bamboo-wool blend. The bad news is that I then have to do the same for soy and tencel, and I expect them to behave in about the same way. All three are semi-synthetic cellulose fibres. My vote is that they should just stay in the factory where they've been chemically broken down before being extruded into fibres. They can just go ahead and form a yarn there, without coming out half prepared to tease and frustrate a spinner's fingers. So! On the other hand, bamboo does take dye particularly well, so maybe, just maybe it will redeem itself.
I've used it a lot. Mainly to ply with. This morning I used it to ply the last of my angora-merino drop-spindle yarn. As if it wasn't delicious enough already! The strange thing is the reel never seems to get any smaller. Of course I didn't weigh it when I first brought it home. It was part of a boxload of stuff and I'm sure I only paid a couple of dollars for it. It isn't really infinite and maybe if I live long enough to spin up all the fibre I have at my house I'll eventually get to the end of it. But meanwhile, there it is in its fine magenta lustre waiting to be added to one more skein
It was easy spinning while my friend S was here to visit from Canberra--something that didn't require too much concentration. The variety of colours kept me interested. Then came the challenge of plying. The different colours are close enough that they would have been ok just as a two-ply yarn, but I decided to emphasise the colour variation by Navaho plying it. Then I wound the skein, washed it and put it aside. Somehow it never quite made it into a box, so last week I found it in the mass of stuff on my big table. Did I put it away? No, I thought I might have to do something with it. Now it's found its way onto my needles: a simple garter stitch to let the yarn do the talking. I'm enjoying watching the colours appear in turn: blending and contrasting. Meanwhile I'm hoping the weather will take its inspiration from my yarn and give me a bit of warmth and contrast. We've had several days of grey drizzle. I'm ready for a change. 
I've spun my way through all this delicious fibre and it's ready to ply. I'm not enough of a purist to ply it all on my drop spindle. The first attraction of drop spindling for me is portability and plying vast lengths of tightly spun lace-weight yarn from two little bobbins in not portable. I'll use the wheel for plying and set myself up with a new batch of fibre for my drop spindle. Hmmm, what to choose? I'll ponder that over a cup of coffee while I gloat over my beautiful bobbins. Or maybe I'll just gloat for now and choose later.
Raspberry merino tops blended with sari silk waste--"throwster's waste"--on my hand carders. I selected pink and orange tones and got this warm mix. Just as well since yesterday was also the first day this year that I've kept my heater on all day. I appreciated having some warmth in my hands. I went on to blend some white silk waste with mohair and wool. Two bobbins are spun and ready to be plied. After that all I need to do is work through a list of cellulose fibres and put everything in order ready to hand in. But today it's beading. I'm off to the Neighbourhood House soon for my first session of Jewellery Making.
I'm happy with the combination of pale blue, green and silver foil--it speaks to me of spring which, given the wintry weather that has set in here, is a welcome thought. Incidentally the camera has picked up more red tones in the background wood. It's exactly the same piece of table as yesterday's post and natural light. I really must learn more about how the colour balance works in my camera. It's on the long list of things I want to learn.
But I'm preparing for a Jewellery Making class at one of the local Neighbourhood Houses and I want to have a variety of examples to show the students. Going deliberately out of my comfort zone was fun. Plus when Harmony Day comes up again next year and we're all scratching around for something orange to wear, I'll have this choker in my collection.
My friend M came over with her beading bits and pieces and I pulled out some of my collection. Between us we covered a fair bit of space. Just as well I'd managed to clear off some of the table earlier. I put together these amethyst and silver earings for M. I also got to make a couple of chokers as demos for the beading class that's coming up in the next week. At least I think it's coming up. The date has been set, but I'm not sure if there are enough students for the class to go ahead. I'll have to check on that tomorrow.
I rinsed it; spun it out in my salad spinner and hung it out to dry before bed last night. It's not quite dry yet. That's OK, I'm still without a car and so I'm anticipating several hours of public transport over the weekend. I'll have the makings of a hat to keep me company.
Now I have no more of that yarn. I'm going to improvise with other materials until I come up with something I like. But first, I'd better do a little more of the spinning for my folio and take my morning walk before it starts raining again.
This is a macro shot of some of the silk cap I've been spinning recently. Silk cap is the degummed cocoon of the silk worm, which is then stretched out on a frame. My task is to stretch it out still further until I can spin it into a yarn. It's beautiful and I love both the sheen and the irregularities that come with this form of silk. But this is tough stuff! I've been told that gram for gram it's stronger than stainless steel. And after a day or two of working with it, I'm ready to believe that story. The fibres are very long, so the secret is to get as much distance between my hands as I can when I'm pulling it apart. Even then it takes quite a strong grip. My fingers hurt. My wrist hurts. It's time to take a break for a bit. But I know I'll forget the pain quickly and come back to this gorgeous, shiny, lumpy bumpy unpredictable, irresistable scrap of natural goodness.
I got myself a bit more organised over the weekend and checked off the skeins I've already completed. There are a few more silk blends to do on this page. I'll happily tackle those this week. I love working with silk and I've already done the fine smooth ones last year. Now I'm looking forward to some interest textures and colours with the various forms of silk waste. The next couple of units were felting and dyeing--I got those all done at the time. Then there's a section on various cellulose fibres: bamboo, tencel, soy etc. And that's it!
The hat at the top is done in treble stitch: it's loose and floppy--it could look very good on a teenager with attitude, but I won't know until she tries it on. The one at the bottom of the pic is the original, done in double stitch: quite firm . . . quite, quite firm! I'm hoping it's a little bigger than it was when it arrived, but I can't be sure unil she tries it on. So, as the author of the tale, and the supposed author of textile magic, I'm planning to make a third hat. According to the fairytale formula, this one should be "just right". Oh, please!
Cute blue paw-prints. I love blue, I love my dogs, I love cute and I love receiving gifts. It's a smile all round. And I get to decide what to do with another fat quarter of irresistable fabric.
I've been promising to make some pot mitts for a cat-loving friend. A little bit of sewing today and the job will be done. I don't need to add anything to these feline characters. They carry the story all on their own.
