Not All Bad

Life isn't all bad, you know. As evidence, let me present some spindle-spinning.

Barb Parry's 75% Cormo wool/25% silk, spun on a Greensleeves Maureen's Mjolinor.

Random silk, given to me by Marcy because I harangued her to do so, spun on my new Golding.

Now, it's off to work on the other 95% of life.

Moving On

No, I'm not going to tell you I've quit blogging (the non-evidence of the past two months to the contrary); I'm going to talk about the ways in which I'm moving on and how I feel about that.

Exhibit A: Earle's moving out. I'm basically OK with the fact he and I are calling it quits - we came to the mutual conclusion that we make good friends and good housemates, but that we're not more than that (think of magnets pushing each other away, in certain configurations) - but, you know, I'm really rather tired of being on my own. I'd like someone around to be nice to and for someone to be nice to me. Plus someone to help decide what the hell to do with the gutters.

It's rather hard being in one's mid-fifties and unwilling to spend hours and hours staying in shape and dieting and exercising and dyeing your hair and shopping and hemming pants and plucking eyebrows and makeup and dealing with flirting with guys who, in reality, are mostly pretty damn boring or whacko, if they're unattached at an age close to mine. I don't want to do all that anymore (not that I ever did to speak of). Screw it. I would like my fitness back, however. When I broke my ankle four years ago, I started sitting on my ass way too much (and knitting/spinning/weaving, ahem). Despite the gorgeous weather here today, I'm not inspired to go dig up the garden or saw down the dead branches way up in the spruces or much of that. Lack of exercise breeds more lack of exercise.

Exhibit B: We're all getting older. My parents are getting older and they'll die sometime in the next five, maybe ten years. Dad'll be 81 on Sunday; Mom just turned 79. A friend and neighbor of theirs just dropped dead at the age of 83 while arriving to see his grandkids hunt for Easter eggs. I don't want my parents to die, I don't want my friends to die, and I don't want to die. Blunt, but true. Helluva thought for early spring.

Exhibit C: I'm an okay knitter, an okay spinner, an okay weaver. I'm a relatively new spinner and a very new weaver, so I forgive myself beginners' mistakes, but already I can feel myself being driven to do good work. Creative work, competent work. Not dabbling-around work. Which takes time and training and practice and stretching one's brain inside-out. Rather like getting back in shape, only more so. I just don't know if I have it in me to work that hard, or, conversely, to relax about it and just knit/spin/weave for fun. I must always press onward.

And yet the chances of my getting anywhere are slim, especially given my age and other commitments (see Exhibit B) and the energy needed for coping with companionship or the lack thereof (see Exhibit A).

Annoying, really. I expected better from life, since I'm basically an optimist, and it's annoying when life doesn't live up to my expectations.

If I Don't Blog Now....

I'll never get through it all.

I've discovered how to get through a snowy winter - keep at least two projects going in each of three creative modes! So, I've been busy; this'll be just a quick run-through.

Knitting:
I finished the cabled scarf Tilly from Lisa Lloyd's wonderful book A Fine Fleece. Knit from 4.5 skeins of Louisa Harding Grace Silk & Wool, this took me six weeks to knit, but oh, it's lovely. The yarn is a soft single, so it's a little splitty and a little pilly, but blocking made it bloom a tad and gave the whole scarf body. I love it!

While I was finishing up Tilly, worlds collided and I saw a lovely version of cosmicpluto's Simple Yet Effective Shawl on Ravelry at the same time my LYS had a 40% off sale on Noro sock yarn. Bingo! I restrained myself to buying only one ball (which is all the pattern takes), and now I'm fairly close to being done. You can't get a sense of scale from this photo, but it seems to me that this one ball of sock yarn is producing a lot of fabric - a lot more than would be needed for a pair of socks, even given that I'm knitting at a somewhat larger gauge than one would for socks. Interesting, at least to me.

Spinning:
I can spin on a spindle! Woo! Here are yards and yards and yards of Spunky Eclectic BFL is some forgotten colorway spun up on my little Greensleeves Connie's Mjolinar. I'm thinking I'll use this single as the weft in a floaty little scarf for me, hence the winding onto weaving bobbins.

The Louet S10 has been going like a banshee, producing a deliberately, ahem, slubby bulky-weight 2-ply from a beautiful Romney fleece I bought at Rhinebeck and sent to Friends Folly Farm for processing. I'm beginning to see the end of these 5.5 pounds of roving ...

And loving the result. There are two more big skeins drying downstairs, 2.5 more bobbins-full to ply, and maybe 8 ounces left to spin. I plan on dyeing this and knitting myself a heavy cardigan in a broken rib (but don't hold your breath waiting for it) and weaving a good-sized throw from all these riches of yarn.

I've been playing on the Canadian Production Wheel, just trying a little of this and a little of that, trying to get the hang of her. I finally figured out (with the help of Marcy - thank you!) that she needed a little corrosion taken off her flyer shaft; with that taken care of, I commenced real production. First off is a three-ply of Spunky Eclectic 100% wool in the Boogie colorway. I believe this went from unspun braid to spun/plied/washed in one day. A productive wheel, indeed.

Yesterday, I started a larger project - some gorgeous 80% merino/20% cashmere from Spirit Trail. This will be a 2-ply, for a weaving weft or knitting lace, depending on the final yardage and the whim of the moment. Oh, this is lovely fiber!

Weaving:
Well, I finished Laurie's warp-faced scarf, but I forgot to take a photo of it, so you'll just have to believe me. Now, I have an 8/2 Tencel warp partly onto the 4-harness loom; I'm planning to weave a semi-fancy twill scarf using Just Our Yarns Aziza as weft. I'm not sure I like the color combo so far, but I expect the multi-colored weft to tone things down. If it doesn't, I think I'll replace the blue in the warp with more deep fuchsia and try again. For me, weaving so much more experimental than knitting or spinning, and I like that.

On the 8-harness table loom, I finally - yay! - finished the table runner. Done, done, done! I've learned a few things from weaving this. First, I don't much care for using the hand levers common to most table looms. I'd much rather be moving the harnesses up and down with my feet on treadles; using my hands to move each lever one by one is too slow for my impatient mind. Second, you know how a cabled knitting fabric will draw in width-wise much more than a stiockinette fabric with the same number of stitches? Well, woven twills do the same thing compared to plain or tabby weave. For this table runner, I was following a pattern in Handwoven, which said to weave tabby for the hems on either end. I did, and learned that doing so made the ends flare. There's no real reason why the turned-under hem couldn't be twill rather than tabby, I think, and that would eliminate the flaring. I have enough warp left on the loom to weave a dishtowel, so I'm going to try using the twill pattern for the hems and see what happens. Third, this may not be evident in the photo, but my beat was off (equivalent to saying my gauge varied), so some of the motifs are square, as they should be, and some are rectangular. I suspect this came from neglecting this project all summer and fall, such that my hands weren't doing the same motions as when I started. All in all, though, this table runner is very usable and makes me happy!

Miscellany
See this? It's a medieval spindle whorl, from about 300 to 800 years ago, sent to me in a swap with Sarah of the UK. It's lead, remarkably heavy for its size - it's only a little over an inch wide, but it weighs 1.75 ounces. One of these days, I'm hoping I can make a shaft for it and try it as a bottom whorl spindle. It'll make a heavy yarn, for sure. Thank you, Sarah!

It may be winter still (and we're expecting another snowstorm this afternoon), but my fig tree, which has been dormant and leafless all winter, believes in the coming of spring - look at its little unfurling leaf! Oh, I can't wait - leaves and flowers and dragonflies...

I'm going to SPA in Maine next weekend; I hope I'll see some of you there!

Moving Right Along

One of the great attributes of weaving is that it is accomplished quickly. Yesterday, I resleyed the scarf warpp to 30 ends per inch and lo! it's warp-faced!

Furthermore, it's done!

A little narrow, and the yellow isn't a color I wear often, but done. Woven. Finished. Completed. Done.

As well, the second mitten was finished yesterday. I even found the yarn label, so I can tell you these are made of Ironstone New Wool. The basketweave cuff is lovely, but a bear to knit at this gauge - quite stiff. This cuff won't be letting any cold breezes near my wrists.

So now I have a hat and matching mittens. I feel almost pulled together.

A Finger in the Dike

All the snow recently has had a deleterious effect on my gloves. Apparently, the set screw on the handle of the snow shovel has been wearing away at the fingers of these gloves. I bought the gloves at Rhinebeck the fall before last, and I've already darned or duplicate-stitched two holes in the finger tips. This past weekend was the last straw.

Monday night I finished frogging and putting away the first attempt at new mittens, and then commenced anew. A couple of months ago, I made myself a Canadian-Winter Hat from this yarn, and now I'm holding three strands of it together for the mittens. I'd tell you what the yarn is, but the labels have disappeared. It's a very softly spun single plied with a think black nylon binder thread. I believe I held two strands together for the hat (I'm too lazy to go get the hat to check). Holding three strands together gives a good, firm fabric - not so firm I can barely stand to knit it, as with the first try at this pattern, but firm enough to protect the yarn from too much wear (I hope) and to protect me from the ravages of bitter winter wind.

The first mitten is complete. It fits. I like it a lot. It may be the first mitten I have ever knit, not being a big mitten fan up till now. I've weighed it and the remaining yarn and I have enough to knit mitten #2; I was a little concerned I might run out. So, perhaps by Sunday night I'll have a pair of mittens to match my hat. Sam would approve.

Of course, the winter coat this hat and mitten set complements is beginning to look quite tired. I predict that by next winter, I'll have a lovely set of hat and mittens, which will not go with any winter coat in my size in any store within 100 miles - what do you want to bet?

Weekends are for Weaving

But first, some of those details later...

Here we have a lovely cabled scarf, about two-thirds done depending whether I want to stop at 6 repeats or go for 12 (for which I think I'll need another ball of yarn). This is Lisa Lloyd's pattern Tilly from her great book, A Fine Fleece. The yarn is Louisa Harding Grace-Silk & Wool, a scrumptious half-silk, half-merino yarn, bought at 40% off at my LYS's holiday Midnight Madness sale. Alas, it's a relatively softly spun single, so I think it might pill. That's why I went for a cabled scarf; I'm hoping for less wear and for the cables to hold everything together. We'll see. There was no way I was resisting such a blue, however.

I was inspired by Laurie's mittens to try a pair for myself. I figured I could hold three skinny yarns together and end up with an interesting bulky to match the required gauge, not to mention a quick knit. Well, yes, I could get gauge, after frogging it once after trying to knit this in the round, because I could not wrap my head around mittens that start out being knitted flat and then are joined after the cuff. What you see is the not-yet-sewn-up knit-flat cuff. But the resulting fabric is very, very stiff, and I think I'm going to frog this all together and try with different yarns and only two of them. So much for a fast knit.

I've been spinning! ... as you might imagine from my last post. [I should get a new wheel more often; I think I got more comments on that post than any other I've written.]

The new wheel, she goes good, and she's slowly bringing me into compliance with her wishes. I am simply fascinated with this groove in the flyer - see how the yarn fits exactly? Decades of spinning fine yarn have worn that groove. There's one on the other side of the flyer, too (double my delight!) and even grooves on the inside of the flyer arms, where apparently the yarn was laced for easing production of very, very fine yarn.

Speaking of fine yarn ... OK, I get the spindle love now. This is a 0.7-ounce Greensleeves Loki with some Spunky BFL. This is the same BFL that was driving me up the wall when I was trying to spin it on a Golding spindle. Apparently, the fiber prefers the Greensleeves.

Finally, a three-day, mostly snowy weekend has driven me back to my loom. I've been procrastinating for months about weaving the scarf warp I dyed in a Sara Lamb workshop at SOAR, but yesterday afternoon I dusted off (literally!) the floor loom and warped her up with no problems.

Except I chose the wrong sett. This scarf is supposed to be warp-faced, meaning none of the weft should show. Do you see that thin blue thread? Yeah, me, too. It's not supposed to show at all. (That big white weft is toilet paper; you use it at the very beginning of a warp to spread out the warp threads evenly.) So, I have to resley the reed to a closer sett, probably twice as close as I have it now. Not a big deal, and I'm actually very happy to be weaving again.

In fact, I've just been wandering from loom to wheel to spindle to other wheel to knitting to frogging to spinning again, with occasional stops to make tea and see what birds are at the feeders. It's a lovely way to spend a weekend.

WAKE UP!!!!

The scene: A peaceful, snowy Sunday morning. Earle's at work, as he almost always is on Sundays. I get up late, make myself some tea and oatmeal, and settle in to the computer to check email and banter on Ravelry and such. Just a nice quiet day. I plan on putzing around the house later, maybe repot some plants, knit a little, call a friend, whatever. Take a nap, even.

But no.

There's an email from Marcy, entitled WAKE UP!!!! Let me quote the message in its entirety:

Go lookee wheel naow! Buybuybuy! CPW !! Go gettit.

A bigger font than that, even.

CPW stands for Canadian Production Wheel, one of which I want. Note that Marcy, in her excitement, neglected to tell me where, exactly, the wheel was or where it was advertised. I wrote Marcy back, saying, um, where, exactly? And then went on to Ravelry, where I discovered that Eva, somewhere in Massachusetts, had posted that she was, alas, selling her wheel.

Well, in between more frantic emails from Marcy, I establish that Eva lives in Hudson, only an hour from me, and that I could come see the wheel that very afternoon.

I did. She's beautiful. It only took me half an hour to figure out how to get her to spin (Eva doesn't spin, yet, and I've spun maybe 10 minutes on a double-drive Saxony, at most, ever), but a little oiling, a little adjustment of the driveband, and whee! She spins! She takes up! She goes fastfastfast!!!

And now she's mine. And I'm hers. I'm sure you can see why.

So much for a quiet Sunday.

P.S.: Thank you, Marcy!!

P.P.S.: Thank you also for everyone's kind comments on my last post; I've been meaning to get back to you all, but you see, there's this cobalt-blue, cabled, wool/silk scarf and the 5+ pounds of Romney roving and the several tries at mittens and well, I've been busy. Details later.