I work with words,
but maybe not the way you do.
For me, they are sounds and symbols,
bits and pieces,
some parts visible, some parts not;
parts
to be taken apart
and assigned some kind of meaning.
Social, grammatical — sometimes it's the same.
It's meaning.
Quantify it, code it, count it, run it, explain it.
My life is with words, and their tiny bits and parts.
Showing posts with label eternal student. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eternal student. Show all posts
Thursday, October 04, 2012
Monday, November 08, 2010
Time zones are messing with me
So now that this conference is over, perhaps I can update the blog more regularly again. Perhaps I can even knit more regularly again. I have a couple sweaters that were put on hold in the sweaty, icky heatwave this summer, and this is now the right time to pull them out again and add those last sleeves.
I am in Texas. Right now I'm in Katy, Texas, but before this I was in San Antonio for several days for a conference. SA was fantastic. I told someone that it seems to have taken me 10 years of grad school to figure out how to enjoy a conference, but then, I always was a slow learner. Our hotel was right on the Riverwalk. That's a little bit of awesome, right there.
After waking up Wednesday morning in Toronto to FUCKING FROST on my car, it was fantastic when, 36 hours later, I was walking along the river in San Antonio barefoot - I skipped out of the conference briefly (lesson #1 in learning to enjoy a conference: leave the fucking conference once in a while) in search of cheap photocopies and Starbucks, and decided to go back to the hotel via the Riverwalk only to get completely turned around down there and THEN find that I'd worn the wrong shoes, hence the barefoot. While in SA, I had beef and guacamole in some form every day for three days. I would call that a win, wouldn't you?
I still have to double-check what time it is at any given moment. My computer and IPod were still on EST until yesterday, my phone was on Central, and then Daylight Savings time ended yesterday morning, so everything moved back yet another hour. I finally changed the computer and the IPod to Central yesterday, even though I'm going home today... it was just too confusing, and I don't want to miss my flight or some stupid-ass thing. A lot of clocks (like in my current hotel room) are not changed back to non-Daylight Savings yet. One must be careful.
The conference ended Saturday, and Sunday I rented a car and drove to Katy to meet up with a friend who I'd never met in person before! I love the innernets. Trish and I had fun - dinner and good conversation. We had a hard time finding the bathrooms in the restaurant, though. It was a "Baker Street"-Sherlock Holmes-themed pub, and the door to the restrooms was cleverly disguised as the end of a bookshelf. Trish has a pic, once I get it I'll post it. In honour of the pub, I went back to my hotel and caught the last half of an episode of "Sherlock" (seen it before, but whatever), and fell into blissful-full-belly-post-conference-I'm-on-vacation-tonight sleep. I'm still in bed, and haven't moved much since. Bliss.
I should get moving, though. Time to drive BACK to San Antonio to return the rental car and catch my flight home. Well, almost home - I flew out of Buffalo, NY because OMGLESSTHANHALFTHEPRICE. So once I get into Buffalo at 11pm, I have a 90 minute drive home to Toronto. But I'll have company. And there will be a stop at the duty-free.
No pics in this post, because I suck. I brought my camera, as I always do, but never pulled it out, as always happens. Yes, I went to the Alamo while I was in SA. It's still there. Comforting, yes? As for Relics of Americana: I saw a lock of Davy Crockett's hair in a locket, and my life is now more complete.
And now for a bit of honesty: I love Texas. That's right - this Yankee-Pennsylvanian-Canadian-Liberal has fallen just a little bit for Texas. I blame the gorgeous November weather, which Trish assures me is short-lived. And the guacamole.
I am in Texas. Right now I'm in Katy, Texas, but before this I was in San Antonio for several days for a conference. SA was fantastic. I told someone that it seems to have taken me 10 years of grad school to figure out how to enjoy a conference, but then, I always was a slow learner. Our hotel was right on the Riverwalk. That's a little bit of awesome, right there.
After waking up Wednesday morning in Toronto to FUCKING FROST on my car, it was fantastic when, 36 hours later, I was walking along the river in San Antonio barefoot - I skipped out of the conference briefly (lesson #1 in learning to enjoy a conference: leave the fucking conference once in a while) in search of cheap photocopies and Starbucks, and decided to go back to the hotel via the Riverwalk only to get completely turned around down there and THEN find that I'd worn the wrong shoes, hence the barefoot. While in SA, I had beef and guacamole in some form every day for three days. I would call that a win, wouldn't you?
I still have to double-check what time it is at any given moment. My computer and IPod were still on EST until yesterday, my phone was on Central, and then Daylight Savings time ended yesterday morning, so everything moved back yet another hour. I finally changed the computer and the IPod to Central yesterday, even though I'm going home today... it was just too confusing, and I don't want to miss my flight or some stupid-ass thing. A lot of clocks (like in my current hotel room) are not changed back to non-Daylight Savings yet. One must be careful.
The conference ended Saturday, and Sunday I rented a car and drove to Katy to meet up with a friend who I'd never met in person before! I love the innernets. Trish and I had fun - dinner and good conversation. We had a hard time finding the bathrooms in the restaurant, though. It was a "Baker Street"-Sherlock Holmes-themed pub, and the door to the restrooms was cleverly disguised as the end of a bookshelf. Trish has a pic, once I get it I'll post it. In honour of the pub, I went back to my hotel and caught the last half of an episode of "Sherlock" (seen it before, but whatever), and fell into blissful-full-belly-post-conference-I'm-on-vacation-tonight sleep. I'm still in bed, and haven't moved much since. Bliss.
I should get moving, though. Time to drive BACK to San Antonio to return the rental car and catch my flight home. Well, almost home - I flew out of Buffalo, NY because OMGLESSTHANHALFTHEPRICE. So once I get into Buffalo at 11pm, I have a 90 minute drive home to Toronto. But I'll have company. And there will be a stop at the duty-free.
No pics in this post, because I suck. I brought my camera, as I always do, but never pulled it out, as always happens. Yes, I went to the Alamo while I was in SA. It's still there. Comforting, yes? As for Relics of Americana: I saw a lock of Davy Crockett's hair in a locket, and my life is now more complete.
And now for a bit of honesty: I love Texas. That's right - this Yankee-Pennsylvanian-Canadian-Liberal has fallen just a little bit for Texas. I blame the gorgeous November weather, which Trish assures me is short-lived. And the guacamole.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
[Insert witty title here]
I am beat. Spent. Wiped.
Also, I am in Edmonton at the moment.
These two things seem to be related.
The first conference talk of the month, and I did not make an ass of myself. In my world, that is an unqualified success. (ETA *)
The last month has been a frenzy of preparing lectures, doing revisions, writing conferences papers (one to go, in two weeks), helping to run events, band concerts, wrangling sick cats, battling moths and sticking a thermometer in the mouth of a sick husband. There have been occasional moments here and there of knitting, dyeing and weaving, but they have been few and very far between. My schedule is so screwed up, I'm not sure I could immediately recognize my husband when he's awake.
We pulled out Audrey the Indigo Vat last week to get her going again for our annual early October dye day. She wasn't quite at full speed for the day last Saturday, but I've heard that she's going gangbusters now. She's still hanging out at friend Helena's house, in the shed, on her heating pad, since I was preparing for Edmonton this week and didn't have a chance to go pick up and wrangle back home a big Rubbermaid bin containing a very stinky4-gallon jar of 18-month old fermented urine. It's good to have friends who understand "BYOP", and do it without question.
Also, I finished the neverending double-knit not-a-toque. It's big and warm and comfy.
A real update, with pictures and everything, perhaps when I get home tomorrow. After I commune a bit with my bed, cats and husband, not necessarily in that order.
* Well, Would you look at that. Huh. I guess it went better than I thought.
Also, I am in Edmonton at the moment.
These two things seem to be related.
The first conference talk of the month, and I did not make an ass of myself. In my world, that is an unqualified success. (ETA *)
The last month has been a frenzy of preparing lectures, doing revisions, writing conferences papers (one to go, in two weeks), helping to run events, band concerts, wrangling sick cats, battling moths and sticking a thermometer in the mouth of a sick husband. There have been occasional moments here and there of knitting, dyeing and weaving, but they have been few and very far between. My schedule is so screwed up, I'm not sure I could immediately recognize my husband when he's awake.
We pulled out Audrey the Indigo Vat last week to get her going again for our annual early October dye day. She wasn't quite at full speed for the day last Saturday, but I've heard that she's going gangbusters now. She's still hanging out at friend Helena's house, in the shed, on her heating pad, since I was preparing for Edmonton this week and didn't have a chance to go pick up and wrangle back home a big Rubbermaid bin containing a very stinky4-gallon jar of 18-month old fermented urine. It's good to have friends who understand "BYOP", and do it without question.
Also, I finished the neverending double-knit not-a-toque. It's big and warm and comfy.
A real update, with pictures and everything, perhaps when I get home tomorrow. After I commune a bit with my bed, cats and husband, not necessarily in that order.
* Well, Would you look at that. Huh. I guess it went better than I thought.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Progress With Work begets Playing With String
Ah, September. I love September. The weather is cooler, but not too cool. I don't need a jacket yet, but I don't want to lay around all day under a fan and sweat. Summer really is my least productive time of year. I turn into a sweaty, useless lump. This is not helped by our air conditioner being dead - not a huge deal, really, expect for that one week. But still. Hot and sticky = cranky me.
My Big D proposal draft was turned in on August 15. On August 20, I received the following email from CM1. I thought it was worth posting here verbatim, because it is both hilarious (to me) and touching:
In person, he also told me that he had wanted to check before he left that it was "sane" (it was, which made him happy), and that he was pleased that I was once again "as comprehensible as you've ever been."
I thanked him, and told him it was possibly the first time I'd ever received an email using the word "svelte." To that end, I believe CM1 has now earned himself an official Blog Name. He is henceforth Sir C for his amazing ability to interweave Compliments and Constructive Criticism in the most Concise and Creative ways. Also, this is the first time I've felt complimented by someone telling me I was Comprehensible.
A little back story: Sir C is very well aware of my battle with depression over the last several years, and has been unwavering in his support for me to talk about it openly, admit and come to terms with it, and never consider it something shameful or to be hidden. This attitude is something I appreciate more than I can say, especially coming from a field like academia, where it seems every grad student goes through a bout of depression at some point, and there is still a certain amount of stigma attached to "taking some time off" for that reason. Sir C has also, in the nine years over which he's read my work, never been particularly comfortable with my writing style, something we've discussed many times. "Method-obsessed" is absolutely, 100% true, and everyone who knows me knows that I am, indeed method-obsessed. Part of my purpose in the Big D is to improve on methodology. His comment is his way of saying he recognizes that and it's fine, but I also need to work a little more substantive theory in there yet before it's done - and he is correct, as always.
In the meantime, the fall term starts tomorrow, and I start teaching again on Thursday. It's the same class I taught in January, so at least my prep time is minimal. I expect to hear from Lady S (that's S for Supervisor, since we're revisiting the blog-name thing) and CM2 (Committee Member 2, as yet blog-nameless) soon, and then maybe this thing can move forward. I've taken the last couple weeks off, except for a few rounds of The Administrative Paperwork Dance, which is a neverending production in academia.
But! The important things! There has been progress on things which involve Playing With String!
One blanket, star and moon charted by me, the overall design and layout cribbed from another pattern.
And a picture of the back, because I'm weird that way:
It will not be backed at the recipient's request.
Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with and hand it off to its intended this week. With that finished, I returned to the Double-Knit Not-A-Toque of Doom:
DH thinks it should be high enough now, so I'll start decreasing in a couple more rows.
No major screw-ups for the last couple inches. Crap, I just jinxed it, didn't I?
Finally, I have a warped loom, and I'm not afraid to use it:
A full-width dummy warp for the colour samples for the Coppergate textile (wabengewebe pattern) yardage, which I'll be weaving possibly eternity.
I've been wandering around in a daze today, convinced that there's something I'm supposed to be doing that I'm forgetting. I've come to the realization that, in fact, I'm extremely well aware of everything that I have to get done this week - including several things for tomorrow - and the fact that I don't feel like doing them is what's causing me to be such a space cadet.
And on that note, I'm going to soak in the tub.
My Big D proposal draft was turned in on August 15. On August 20, I received the following email from CM1. I thought it was worth posting here verbatim, because it is both hilarious (to me) and touching:
I raced through the thesis proposal these last two days because I won't be back again for a couple of weeks. It sounds good to me. It is repetitive and method-obsessed but readable and as sensible (surely) as anything else in the literature on register. All my comments in the attached pages are editorial, not substantive. I will have to study your results more closely eventually but for now the document seems to me to be clearly acceptable as the basis for a thesis proposal. No problem. (Organizing it in PowerPoint will undoubtedly make it more svelte.) I am well pleased. And happy, of course, to see you emerge from a long battle in such good shape. Nice going.
In person, he also told me that he had wanted to check before he left that it was "sane" (it was, which made him happy), and that he was pleased that I was once again "as comprehensible as you've ever been."
I thanked him, and told him it was possibly the first time I'd ever received an email using the word "svelte." To that end, I believe CM1 has now earned himself an official Blog Name. He is henceforth Sir C for his amazing ability to interweave Compliments and Constructive Criticism in the most Concise and Creative ways. Also, this is the first time I've felt complimented by someone telling me I was Comprehensible.
A little back story: Sir C is very well aware of my battle with depression over the last several years, and has been unwavering in his support for me to talk about it openly, admit and come to terms with it, and never consider it something shameful or to be hidden. This attitude is something I appreciate more than I can say, especially coming from a field like academia, where it seems every grad student goes through a bout of depression at some point, and there is still a certain amount of stigma attached to "taking some time off" for that reason. Sir C has also, in the nine years over which he's read my work, never been particularly comfortable with my writing style, something we've discussed many times. "Method-obsessed" is absolutely, 100% true, and everyone who knows me knows that I am, indeed method-obsessed. Part of my purpose in the Big D is to improve on methodology. His comment is his way of saying he recognizes that and it's fine, but I also need to work a little more substantive theory in there yet before it's done - and he is correct, as always.
In the meantime, the fall term starts tomorrow, and I start teaching again on Thursday. It's the same class I taught in January, so at least my prep time is minimal. I expect to hear from Lady S (that's S for Supervisor, since we're revisiting the blog-name thing) and CM2 (Committee Member 2, as yet blog-nameless) soon, and then maybe this thing can move forward. I've taken the last couple weeks off, except for a few rounds of The Administrative Paperwork Dance, which is a neverending production in academia.
But! The important things! There has been progress on things which involve Playing With String!
One blanket, star and moon charted by me, the overall design and layout cribbed from another pattern.
And a picture of the back, because I'm weird that way:
It will not be backed at the recipient's request.
Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with and hand it off to its intended this week. With that finished, I returned to the Double-Knit Not-A-Toque of Doom:
DH thinks it should be high enough now, so I'll start decreasing in a couple more rows.
No major screw-ups for the last couple inches. Crap, I just jinxed it, didn't I?
Finally, I have a warped loom, and I'm not afraid to use it:
A full-width dummy warp for the colour samples for the Coppergate textile (wabengewebe pattern) yardage, which I'll be weaving possibly eternity.
I've been wandering around in a daze today, convinced that there's something I'm supposed to be doing that I'm forgetting. I've come to the realization that, in fact, I'm extremely well aware of everything that I have to get done this week - including several things for tomorrow - and the fact that I don't feel like doing them is what's causing me to be such a space cadet.
And on that note, I'm going to soak in the tub.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Snippets from Crazyland, Academia
I met with my full thesis committee last week for the first time in over two years. The players:
Me: Eternal student, trying to get back on track.
Lady S: My long-suffering supervisor.
CM1: Committee member 1, another long-suffering mentor who I adore, even if we don't always agree.
CM2: New committee member, a recent hire.
What follows are some of my favourite excepts:
------------------------------
Lady S to CM1 and CM2: I've been getting regular updates on her draft. My last email to Bridget was last Monday, titled, "Where is it?"
Me: Was that the one that I responded to you with song lyrics?
Lady S: Yep.
Me (thoughtfully): It was a good song.
------------------------------
Lady S (digging through her file cabinet): Why can't I find your folder?
Me: I don't know, they should be easy to spot, you have, like, 7 years of them now.
CM2: She has seven years of folders on you?
Me: Or is it eight?
------------------------------
CM1 (looking over my CV): You spelled "assisstant" (sic.) with one too many S's on the top of page 6.
CM2: And two lines below that, I guess that's a copy-paste?
Me: Actually, I was going to say that was me being as "ass," but yes. And oh look, here's the same typo again! And again! Joy.
------------------------------
CM1 (looking at a journal citation on my CV): Shouldn't this title be italicized and not in quotes? Since it's a special volume?
Me: You know, I specifically checked the Chicago Manual of Style on that one and apparently, this is how they do it.
CM1 (once an editor always an editor): I don't know about that...
Me (once a typesetter always a typesetter): I'd be happy to send you the reference to the page in Chicago or bring it in...
CM1: That won't be necessary. *pause* Besides, we don't use Chicago style...
We continue to nag each other for a couple more minutes about editorial minutae.
CM2: I would be very surprised if anyone else ever noticed the difference.
Me: True. And we can continue to argue about italics and quotes later.
Lady S (ever patiently): Yes, thank you.
------------------------------
Lady S: So, what day shall we set for you to turn in the draft?
Me (firmly): This coming Monday.
CM1: Are you sure? Will you be able to finish it by then, do you think?
Me (grinning): Well, since you're giving me the option, how about the following Monday?
Lady S: If we give her another week now we'll have to pry it out of her hands in two weeks.
Me: Without a doubt. This coming Monday, then?
------------------------------
Miraculously, I'm not only still a graduate student, but apparently things are going okay.
PS: Note to self, do not open and look at your previous semester's teaching evaluations from your students while working in the department four hours prior to your long-dreaded committee meeting, for which you are not yet ready. Save it for when there's wine, and possibly fire.
PPS: Monday approaches, and the draft is not yet ready.
Me: Eternal student, trying to get back on track.
Lady S: My long-suffering supervisor.
CM1: Committee member 1, another long-suffering mentor who I adore, even if we don't always agree.
CM2: New committee member, a recent hire.
What follows are some of my favourite excepts:
------------------------------
Lady S to CM1 and CM2: I've been getting regular updates on her draft. My last email to Bridget was last Monday, titled, "Where is it?"
Me: Was that the one that I responded to you with song lyrics?
Lady S: Yep.
Me (thoughtfully): It was a good song.
------------------------------
Lady S (digging through her file cabinet): Why can't I find your folder?
Me: I don't know, they should be easy to spot, you have, like, 7 years of them now.
CM2: She has seven years of folders on you?
Me: Or is it eight?
------------------------------
CM1 (looking over my CV): You spelled "assisstant" (sic.) with one too many S's on the top of page 6.
CM2: And two lines below that, I guess that's a copy-paste?
Me: Actually, I was going to say that was me being as "ass," but yes. And oh look, here's the same typo again! And again! Joy.
------------------------------
CM1 (looking at a journal citation on my CV): Shouldn't this title be italicized and not in quotes? Since it's a special volume?
Me: You know, I specifically checked the Chicago Manual of Style on that one and apparently, this is how they do it.
CM1 (once an editor always an editor): I don't know about that...
Me (once a typesetter always a typesetter): I'd be happy to send you the reference to the page in Chicago or bring it in...
CM1: That won't be necessary. *pause* Besides, we don't use Chicago style...
We continue to nag each other for a couple more minutes about editorial minutae.
CM2: I would be very surprised if anyone else ever noticed the difference.
Me: True. And we can continue to argue about italics and quotes later.
Lady S (ever patiently): Yes, thank you.
------------------------------
Lady S: So, what day shall we set for you to turn in the draft?
Me (firmly): This coming Monday.
CM1: Are you sure? Will you be able to finish it by then, do you think?
Me (grinning): Well, since you're giving me the option, how about the following Monday?
Lady S: If we give her another week now we'll have to pry it out of her hands in two weeks.
Me: Without a doubt. This coming Monday, then?
------------------------------
Miraculously, I'm not only still a graduate student, but apparently things are going okay.
PS: Note to self, do not open and look at your previous semester's teaching evaluations from your students while working in the department four hours prior to your long-dreaded committee meeting, for which you are not yet ready. Save it for when there's wine, and possibly fire.
PPS: Monday approaches, and the draft is not yet ready.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
"Even when it's approaching torture, I've got my routine"
A year ago today, I had a Very Bad Day. It wasn't that kind of bad, if you understand my meaning. No one was in physical danger. But it was still bad.
Friends helped. Family helped. Talking helped. Medicine helped.
Things are better today.
And yet there is something I still struggle with, a lingering leftover from That Day. I have still not written the thing I was working on when I had my Very Bad Day. I fight with it, I poke around at it, I write a little and then I stop. And the next day, it starts again. Some days I give up completely and walk away. Sometimes it's for weeks at a time.
This has been going on far too long.
It's not that the thing I'm writing is hard - well, OK, actually it is hard, and it's supposed to be hard - but I've done things that are much harder in the past. This one, though, is linked to the Very Bad Day, and until I get through it, That Day will always be there, hanging over me. And more to the point, if I don't finish it in the very near future, I will be willfully, intentionally shooting myself in the foot, sacrificing years of work and time on my part and many others' because I had a Very Bad Day that I'm afraid to face again.
All the flowers have fallen from the magnolia tree out back, and it is fully, lushly green. Nature waits for no one, not even for me to find a way to write the thing I was supposed to have written before that last flower fell. So, I will pick up again from yet another missed deadline, and keep plugging.
The innernets, though, has a wicked sense of humour. As I was sitting here wasting time this evening, surfing the endless seas of YouTube, thinking about what I should be doing while I was doing anything but, thinking about one year ago today, and promises, and magnolia trees, this song came up unexpectedly, randomly, and I knew it was right (repeated lyrics edited):
----------------------------------
Oh, for the sake of momentum
I've allowed my fears to get larger than life
And it's brought me to my current agendum
Whereupon I deny fulfillment has yet to arrive
And I know life is getting shorter
I can't bring myself to set the scene
Even when it's approaching torture
I've got my routine
Oh, for the sake of momentum
Even though I agree with that stuff about seizing the day
But I hate to think of effort expended
All those minutes and days and hours
I have frittered away.
But I can't confront the doubts I have
I can't admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I'm condemning the future to death
So it can match the past.
- Aimee Mann, "Momentum" (from the Magnolia soundtrack)
Friends helped. Family helped. Talking helped. Medicine helped.
Things are better today.
And yet there is something I still struggle with, a lingering leftover from That Day. I have still not written the thing I was working on when I had my Very Bad Day. I fight with it, I poke around at it, I write a little and then I stop. And the next day, it starts again. Some days I give up completely and walk away. Sometimes it's for weeks at a time.
This has been going on far too long.
It's not that the thing I'm writing is hard - well, OK, actually it is hard, and it's supposed to be hard - but I've done things that are much harder in the past. This one, though, is linked to the Very Bad Day, and until I get through it, That Day will always be there, hanging over me. And more to the point, if I don't finish it in the very near future, I will be willfully, intentionally shooting myself in the foot, sacrificing years of work and time on my part and many others' because I had a Very Bad Day that I'm afraid to face again.
All the flowers have fallen from the magnolia tree out back, and it is fully, lushly green. Nature waits for no one, not even for me to find a way to write the thing I was supposed to have written before that last flower fell. So, I will pick up again from yet another missed deadline, and keep plugging.
The innernets, though, has a wicked sense of humour. As I was sitting here wasting time this evening, surfing the endless seas of YouTube, thinking about what I should be doing while I was doing anything but, thinking about one year ago today, and promises, and magnolia trees, this song came up unexpectedly, randomly, and I knew it was right (repeated lyrics edited):
----------------------------------
Oh, for the sake of momentum
I've allowed my fears to get larger than life
And it's brought me to my current agendum
Whereupon I deny fulfillment has yet to arrive
And I know life is getting shorter
I can't bring myself to set the scene
Even when it's approaching torture
I've got my routine
Oh, for the sake of momentum
Even though I agree with that stuff about seizing the day
But I hate to think of effort expended
All those minutes and days and hours
I have frittered away.
But I can't confront the doubts I have
I can't admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I'm condemning the future to death
So it can match the past.
- Aimee Mann, "Momentum" (from the Magnolia soundtrack)
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
A Magpie in Spring
Attention, Magpies and those who love Magpies:
Elisem is having a sale, right here.
I have been drooling over tektite pendants for weeks now.
And then there are quite a few other amazing pendants.
And some necklaces that I like quite a bit. And perhaps one day I'll have one of these for my very own.
If her jewelry is amazing, her sales kick serious butt. I don't get everything that I buy from her on sale, but I won't deny that I've gotten some of my favourite things at a healthy markdown over the last couple years.
Here are a couple of her pieces, doing what they do best:
Hairstick: "To Serve The Great Engine"; Necklace: "Of the Battle in the Woods and What Happened Thereafter", both by Elise Matthesen
In other news, I'm supposed to be writing the Big D proposal. Which I am. Slowly, and despite other necessary things. For instance, today was rather spent in the company of six of my eight marveloushenchmenTAs, grading the final exam for my Jan - April course, which just finished. That will be done tomorrow, and then I can go back to work.
If anyone sees Lady S, tell her I'm coming. The magnolia tree is in full bloom. That is not a euphemism. Before the flowers on it fall and it goes green with leaves, this draft will be in her hands.
And also, did I mention these shockingly adorable little guys? I'm just sayin'.
Elisem is having a sale, right here.
I have been drooling over tektite pendants for weeks now.
And then there are quite a few other amazing pendants.
And some necklaces that I like quite a bit. And perhaps one day I'll have one of these for my very own.
If her jewelry is amazing, her sales kick serious butt. I don't get everything that I buy from her on sale, but I won't deny that I've gotten some of my favourite things at a healthy markdown over the last couple years.
Here are a couple of her pieces, doing what they do best:
Hairstick: "To Serve The Great Engine"; Necklace: "Of the Battle in the Woods and What Happened Thereafter", both by Elise Matthesen
In other news, I'm supposed to be writing the Big D proposal. Which I am. Slowly, and despite other necessary things. For instance, today was rather spent in the company of six of my eight marvelous
If anyone sees Lady S, tell her I'm coming. The magnolia tree is in full bloom. That is not a euphemism. Before the flowers on it fall and it goes green with leaves, this draft will be in her hands.
And also, did I mention these shockingly adorable little guys? I'm just sayin'.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Avoidance strategies for the well-entrenched
Another of my peers successfully passed their Big D proposal through the department recently, making, I think, four in as many weeks, and more if you count the last several months. Every time someone who has been here a couple years less than I have completes this ritual (a 40-minute presentation to all faculty and graduate students in the department followed by an open question period), I simultaneously feel joy for them, and a sense of impending doom at my own lack of progress.
To that end, I made a pact with Lady S recently. Two weeks from the date of our last meeting, on a Wednesday, I am honour-bound to give her what revisions I have completed on the Big D proposal so far. We'll call this date "D-Day," for lack of a better euphamism.
I can't help but think this was an insane thing to agree to, and yet Lady S and I both know that this is the only way anything will possibly happen.
It doesn't have to be done, or even done right, which is a good thing, because I don't think I can do that. It just has to be something turned in, something which has addressed a significant number of her comments from a year ago. Not all of them. Some of them. Just... progress of some kind. And that I can do.
Since agreeing to this about 10 days ago, I have, of course, done nothing on it. I've fiddled around with the course I'm teaching, wasting a lot of time on things that don't require half as much effort.
I once again ripped out several rows on the double-knit hat from hell. Somehow the last time I picked it up, I knitting around the circle in the wrong direction, and chaos ensued a couple rounds later. Given that we're over halfway through March, I think it's safe to say that DH won't be getting the dratted thing this winter.
I have, however, finished knitting for secret projects #1 and #2, and begun to dive into #3 in earnest:
Finished bits of Secret Project #1 and #2
I've been combing wool and making rovings from seemingly bottomles supply of Dorset Cross fleece. These are for a beginner drop spinning class I'll be giving on April 4 (after D-Day).
I plan to make 10 spindle kits and roughly 200 combed roving nests for the classes, so that each kit contains about 60 grams of roving. 9 nests down, 191 to go. Hrm. Might have to break out the weapons-grade 5-pitch English combs next weekend and speed things up a little there. Here is one of the experimental drop spindles, made from recycled CDs, rubber washers, a dowl, an eye hook and superglue. It spins surprisingly well, so at least that's all good.
I even managed to finish a long-term editing job (4+ years) in its entirety. The final book is uploaded and available to order. Tell me THAT'S not some serious avoidance going on right there.
And now here we are. Saturday. It's warm and sunny in my kitchen. All day is mine, and all day tomorrow. DH is happily getting in some long-overdue game time (actually, he's snoring while the game plays on without him. Shhh!), I'm dressed, awake, have coffee and a full stomach, and it's time to start getting this thing together.
Ready now? One, two...
Say cheese. Prewrapped processed slices preferred, thanks.
To that end, I made a pact with Lady S recently. Two weeks from the date of our last meeting, on a Wednesday, I am honour-bound to give her what revisions I have completed on the Big D proposal so far. We'll call this date "D-Day," for lack of a better euphamism.
I can't help but think this was an insane thing to agree to, and yet Lady S and I both know that this is the only way anything will possibly happen.
It doesn't have to be done, or even done right, which is a good thing, because I don't think I can do that. It just has to be something turned in, something which has addressed a significant number of her comments from a year ago. Not all of them. Some of them. Just... progress of some kind. And that I can do.
Since agreeing to this about 10 days ago, I have, of course, done nothing on it. I've fiddled around with the course I'm teaching, wasting a lot of time on things that don't require half as much effort.
I once again ripped out several rows on the double-knit hat from hell. Somehow the last time I picked it up, I knitting around the circle in the wrong direction, and chaos ensued a couple rounds later. Given that we're over halfway through March, I think it's safe to say that DH won't be getting the dratted thing this winter.
I have, however, finished knitting for secret projects #1 and #2, and begun to dive into #3 in earnest:
Finished bits of Secret Project #1 and #2
I've been combing wool and making rovings from seemingly bottomles supply of Dorset Cross fleece. These are for a beginner drop spinning class I'll be giving on April 4 (after D-Day).
I plan to make 10 spindle kits and roughly 200 combed roving nests for the classes, so that each kit contains about 60 grams of roving. 9 nests down, 191 to go. Hrm. Might have to break out the weapons-grade 5-pitch English combs next weekend and speed things up a little there. Here is one of the experimental drop spindles, made from recycled CDs, rubber washers, a dowl, an eye hook and superglue. It spins surprisingly well, so at least that's all good.
I even managed to finish a long-term editing job (4+ years) in its entirety. The final book is uploaded and available to order. Tell me THAT'S not some serious avoidance going on right there.
And now here we are. Saturday. It's warm and sunny in my kitchen. All day is mine, and all day tomorrow. DH is happily getting in some long-overdue game time (actually, he's snoring while the game plays on without him. Shhh!), I'm dressed, awake, have coffee and a full stomach, and it's time to start getting this thing together.
Ready now? One, two...
Say cheese. Prewrapped processed slices preferred, thanks.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The Threads That Bind Us All Together
The new Baronial Pillow was presented to the Baron and Baroness of Septentria this past Saturday at Ealdormere Kingdom 12th Night. I finished weaving the back a couple hours before leaving for the event, having had to replace not one or two, but four broken warp threads the night before.
Four Vest Yorvik ladies, (myself, Eleanor, Aislinne and Violetta), formed an instant sewing circle upon Eleanor's and my arrival at the event at 2pm, and spent most of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on it. We were like a well-oiled, multi-tasking sewing machine. Aislinne, who had created, applied and embroidered the baronial arms on the front with hand-made felt and some of my indigo blue and green hand-dyed drop-spun wool embroidery thread, added two more badges to the front, recently delivered from their respective Cantons. In the meantime, I cut the back off the loom, hem-stitched the edges and pulled out the packing thread. Violetta, who had made the inner stuffed pillow from red linen, added the last of the stuffing to that and sewed it up, then helped me weave in the loose bits on the back. Eleanor held us all together with the passing of pins, scissors and wrangling ends of long fabric.
After Violetta whip-stitched one long side of the top to the bottom, Eleanor and I sewed up the sides and attempted to make the fringe more respectable. With 10 minutes to go before court - we were first on the agenda - Violetta stuffed the inner pillow into it and began to whip stitch the long bottom closed. In a moment of inspiration, Aislinne took the remaining warp thread off my shuttle and skeined it, stuffing it inside along the bottom just before Violetta finished closing it up, so that when it's opened up later for eventual re-stuffing or repair, there is a small repair kit inside. It was finished as court processed into the room.
Unsurprisingly, I don't have pictures of us working, because I was, well, working. I saw some pictures being taken, so if someone else posts them, I'll link.
The new Baronial Kneeling Pillow for the Barony of Septentria, Kingdom of Ealdormere, made by the Canton of Vest Yorvik, bearing the arms of each Canton in the Barony (Skeldergate is still coming!). Finished woven size (before stuffing): 3ft. x 18". It comes with a lifetime guarantee that we will make any necessary repairs.
Just under two years in the making, from shearing to wool prep to dyeing, carding, spinning, weaving, embroidery and finishing. A group project, from start to the very moment of finish, with the participation of not just the four of us who finished it on Saturday, but many others in the canton who helped us procure the fleece, clean it, dye it, and even help me weave a few inches. I personally learned a great deal about dealing with raw fleece, dyeing and weaving during this project.
A little better view of the weaving and Baronial Arms. The canton arms displayed here are: Vest Yorvik (top left), Monadh (bottom left), Eoforwic (top right) and Swan's Keep (bottom right)
And now, I can put something new on my loom. Thank Jeebus.
Also: A closeup of the arms of the Canton of Vest Yorvik, our official part of last year's baronial taxes, where each canton was to create their embroidered arms. Vest Yorvik then had the added privilege of making the pillow to display them all.
Designed and stitched by Aislinne with help from all members of the canton (a few stitches each), using my hand-dyed hand-spun blue, yellow, green, black and natural wool. The red is the same red as the pillow wool.
Four Vest Yorvik ladies, (myself, Eleanor, Aislinne and Violetta), formed an instant sewing circle upon Eleanor's and my arrival at the event at 2pm, and spent most of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on it. We were like a well-oiled, multi-tasking sewing machine. Aislinne, who had created, applied and embroidered the baronial arms on the front with hand-made felt and some of my indigo blue and green hand-dyed drop-spun wool embroidery thread, added two more badges to the front, recently delivered from their respective Cantons. In the meantime, I cut the back off the loom, hem-stitched the edges and pulled out the packing thread. Violetta, who had made the inner stuffed pillow from red linen, added the last of the stuffing to that and sewed it up, then helped me weave in the loose bits on the back. Eleanor held us all together with the passing of pins, scissors and wrangling ends of long fabric.
After Violetta whip-stitched one long side of the top to the bottom, Eleanor and I sewed up the sides and attempted to make the fringe more respectable. With 10 minutes to go before court - we were first on the agenda - Violetta stuffed the inner pillow into it and began to whip stitch the long bottom closed. In a moment of inspiration, Aislinne took the remaining warp thread off my shuttle and skeined it, stuffing it inside along the bottom just before Violetta finished closing it up, so that when it's opened up later for eventual re-stuffing or repair, there is a small repair kit inside. It was finished as court processed into the room.
Unsurprisingly, I don't have pictures of us working, because I was, well, working. I saw some pictures being taken, so if someone else posts them, I'll link.
The new Baronial Kneeling Pillow for the Barony of Septentria, Kingdom of Ealdormere, made by the Canton of Vest Yorvik, bearing the arms of each Canton in the Barony (Skeldergate is still coming!). Finished woven size (before stuffing): 3ft. x 18". It comes with a lifetime guarantee that we will make any necessary repairs.
Just under two years in the making, from shearing to wool prep to dyeing, carding, spinning, weaving, embroidery and finishing. A group project, from start to the very moment of finish, with the participation of not just the four of us who finished it on Saturday, but many others in the canton who helped us procure the fleece, clean it, dye it, and even help me weave a few inches. I personally learned a great deal about dealing with raw fleece, dyeing and weaving during this project.
A little better view of the weaving and Baronial Arms. The canton arms displayed here are: Vest Yorvik (top left), Monadh (bottom left), Eoforwic (top right) and Swan's Keep (bottom right)
And now, I can put something new on my loom. Thank Jeebus.
Also: A closeup of the arms of the Canton of Vest Yorvik, our official part of last year's baronial taxes, where each canton was to create their embroidered arms. Vest Yorvik then had the added privilege of making the pillow to display them all.
Designed and stitched by Aislinne with help from all members of the canton (a few stitches each), using my hand-dyed hand-spun blue, yellow, green, black and natural wool. The red is the same red as the pillow wool.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
We've lived here over a year? No way.
I'm not exactly sure what happened to this last year. It definitely doesn't feel like we've lived in our house for over a year. It really didn't feel like it last week when I was down in the basement digging through boxes looking for something that I hadn't seen in, well, a year, unearthing a whole lot of other things I hadn't seen in... um... a year, and thinking, "Holy crap! We have to start unpacking some of this stuff!" And then I started sneezing profusely, and I realized that all the boxes and bags were covered in a not-insignificant amount of dust, and I had to come back upstairs and sit down with a glass of iced tea, a cookie and contemplate The Year That Was.
Unsurprisingly, I found it upstairs in the living room, in full view in a bag on a bookshelf that I've walked past every day for a year. The Cube is never far away in my house.
Ten minutes later, after I'd messed it up and solved it three times to prove to myself I could, I was being poked by a cat, the phone was ringing, my email was beeping and I had forgotten all about the hole in time that was last year. This was home for me as soon as my husband, cats, knitting, bed and the computers were moved in. In that order. I might as well have always been here. I don't know if it's home for DH yet, but he takes a little longer to warm up to these things than I do. He keeps saying, "It's getting there." I suspect it won't really be home to him until we do something major, like renovate the kitchen, which will come in time.
This past week, I naturally should have been preparing for my second-ever lecture today - this is the first time I've been the course instructor (i.e. head honcho) for a course, and I have 200+ students and no fewer than eightminions teaching assistants to organize. They're all great and experienced, though, I'm very lucky. I, however, have been knitting and weaving instead. I'm mostly finished with my part for one super-seekrit joint project:
Brighter is better!
I'm working up a swatch for another:
Reversible cables without a cable needle, a slight revision of this pattern. Because I am a masochist, apparently.
And I've gotten well underway on a third project, which is also super-seekrit, but not joint.
Why, yes, that is the yellow yarn that was taking the form of yarn barf in the last post. Thanks for noticing!
Emails have been piling up from students who have conflicts with this and questions about that (some of which are answered on the syllabus, but let's not tell them that, OK?), my course website is barely adequate, and I only just got access to the enrollment lists because someone higher up fixed it for me today. One of my TAs is on the other side of the world and wasn't able to get a flight back in time for the first tutorial today (though she certainly did try - and there was someone to cover it, but it makes a good course instructor story, no?). Another TA flew into town late last night and had a solid case of jetlag for the first tutorial, poor thing. It would be nice if I started the next lecture before the day I have to give it - that hasn't happened yet for the first two lectures, which, apparently, I pulled out of my ass with a great deal of support and shared course materials. I owe Lady S an email, and I have a goal of doing some work on the Big D Proposal before the end of the week.
But those are all tomorrow's issues.
Tonight, I can relax in the knowledge that my second lecture, by some miracle, did not suck, my inbox is temporarily empty, and I'm mostly on top of the things I can control. I will weave a little, and attack cables a little, and enjoy being... home.
Weaving post soon.
Unsurprisingly, I found it upstairs in the living room, in full view in a bag on a bookshelf that I've walked past every day for a year. The Cube is never far away in my house.
Ten minutes later, after I'd messed it up and solved it three times to prove to myself I could, I was being poked by a cat, the phone was ringing, my email was beeping and I had forgotten all about the hole in time that was last year. This was home for me as soon as my husband, cats, knitting, bed and the computers were moved in. In that order. I might as well have always been here. I don't know if it's home for DH yet, but he takes a little longer to warm up to these things than I do. He keeps saying, "It's getting there." I suspect it won't really be home to him until we do something major, like renovate the kitchen, which will come in time.
This past week, I naturally should have been preparing for my second-ever lecture today - this is the first time I've been the course instructor (i.e. head honcho) for a course, and I have 200+ students and no fewer than eight
Brighter is better!
I'm working up a swatch for another:
Reversible cables without a cable needle, a slight revision of this pattern. Because I am a masochist, apparently.
And I've gotten well underway on a third project, which is also super-seekrit, but not joint.
Why, yes, that is the yellow yarn that was taking the form of yarn barf in the last post. Thanks for noticing!
Emails have been piling up from students who have conflicts with this and questions about that (some of which are answered on the syllabus, but let's not tell them that, OK?), my course website is barely adequate, and I only just got access to the enrollment lists because someone higher up fixed it for me today. One of my TAs is on the other side of the world and wasn't able to get a flight back in time for the first tutorial today (though she certainly did try - and there was someone to cover it, but it makes a good course instructor story, no?). Another TA flew into town late last night and had a solid case of jetlag for the first tutorial, poor thing. It would be nice if I started the next lecture before the day I have to give it - that hasn't happened yet for the first two lectures, which, apparently, I pulled out of my ass with a great deal of support and shared course materials. I owe Lady S an email, and I have a goal of doing some work on the Big D Proposal before the end of the week.
But those are all tomorrow's issues.
Tonight, I can relax in the knowledge that my second lecture, by some miracle, did not suck, my inbox is temporarily empty, and I'm mostly on top of the things I can control. I will weave a little, and attack cables a little, and enjoy being... home.
Weaving post soon.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Yarn gnomes. It's the only reasonable explanation.
This craptacular pile of yarn barf represents my Saturday and Sunday evenings' fibre-related work, and has absolutely nothing to do with weaving. Whoops. I pulled out a brand new ball of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece to swatch something, and hilarity ensued.
DH congratulated me on my debacle (pronounced "de-ball-cle". HAH.)
I have continued to work on the group-project woven pillow with the hand-dyed, hand-spun weft. For all my time, I haven't made a lot of forward progress, and not just because of the above distraction. At one point, I had about two feet of the pillow woven (2/3 of the first half, 1/3 of the whole thing), but then I realized that I hadn't staggered rows of the new skein with the previous one when I started the second skein of weft. The point where the second skein started was an obvious shade change. So a couple weeks ago I ripped out over a good foot of weaving.
When I started again last week, this time staggering the two skeins in alternating rows, I had some problems with the edges. On one side, the final warp thread wasn't being caught by the weft. I ripped out about 6-8 inches again, and figured out that on the right side I needed to run one shuttle of warp thread under the other before throwing it, so that it would bind the right edge. I still don't really understand how warp edges behave in weaving. I want to go back after this and really figure out double weaves on my rigid heddle, beyond just reading a pattern draft. I'm pretty sure that will help me to understand this problem.
Very late Thursday night, while at a friend's place for our weekly Thursday Night Crafts, I figured out the edge thing and wove 8-9 inches again. I need to get the front side of this pillow, three feet of weaving, off my loom some time Monday, so that it can go to the embroiderer, who will most likely be visiting that evening.
I also continue to work on the Double-knit Hat from Hades. I haven't ripped out anything on it recently. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one. It's amazing, though - I sit down to do a single row, and I'm asleep before I'm half-way through. Who needs a sleep aid? I have the double-knit hat.
Finally, I've started a few new super-secret knitting conspiracies.
More details eventually. Mwa Ha Ha. Just as soon as I finish untangling the rest of that skein.
Seriously, how does that happen? I have no good explanation.
DH congratulated me on my debacle (pronounced "de-ball-cle". HAH.)
I have continued to work on the group-project woven pillow with the hand-dyed, hand-spun weft. For all my time, I haven't made a lot of forward progress, and not just because of the above distraction. At one point, I had about two feet of the pillow woven (2/3 of the first half, 1/3 of the whole thing), but then I realized that I hadn't staggered rows of the new skein with the previous one when I started the second skein of weft. The point where the second skein started was an obvious shade change. So a couple weeks ago I ripped out over a good foot of weaving.
When I started again last week, this time staggering the two skeins in alternating rows, I had some problems with the edges. On one side, the final warp thread wasn't being caught by the weft. I ripped out about 6-8 inches again, and figured out that on the right side I needed to run one shuttle of warp thread under the other before throwing it, so that it would bind the right edge. I still don't really understand how warp edges behave in weaving. I want to go back after this and really figure out double weaves on my rigid heddle, beyond just reading a pattern draft. I'm pretty sure that will help me to understand this problem.
Very late Thursday night, while at a friend's place for our weekly Thursday Night Crafts, I figured out the edge thing and wove 8-9 inches again. I need to get the front side of this pillow, three feet of weaving, off my loom some time Monday, so that it can go to the embroiderer, who will most likely be visiting that evening.
I also continue to work on the Double-knit Hat from Hades. I haven't ripped out anything on it recently. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one. It's amazing, though - I sit down to do a single row, and I'm asleep before I'm half-way through. Who needs a sleep aid? I have the double-knit hat.
Finally, I've started a few new super-secret knitting conspiracies.
More details eventually. Mwa Ha Ha. Just as soon as I finish untangling the rest of that skein.
Seriously, how does that happen? I have no good explanation.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
I swear I'm not really a dyer, Part 4: The second annual dye madness day (BYOP), and "black enough"
The final installment of this year's dye adventures, at long last. It occurs to me that we have officially been in our house for a year: we closed on Black Friday 2007 (an accident of Realty and Lawyers over which we had little control), and then we spent the next week and a bit moving, a van-load at a time. We had to be out of our old apartment on Dec. 4, 2007. That makes this post appropriate - I guarantee I would never have undertaken most of this year's the dye adventures if we hadn't acquired a basement, a working kitchen, and a backyard!
Audrey the Indigo Vat had a magnificent final outing of the season over the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend (mid-October), when she was very carefully packed up and transported across town to my friend Helena's house a few days ahead of our annual* Dye Madness day at her house. Helena cared for her and kept her warm, feeding her some de-thawed, mushed up, organic bananas - after the traumatic ride, Audrey was a little gassy and needed to settle down, eat, ferment and reduce for a couple days.
Why not have the dye day at my house? You see, Helena has a magnificent dye garden, and Audrey was more portable than the garden. I requested that folks BYOP**, if they could, so that we would be sure to have enough to pre-soak things. One can only generate so much urine on one's own. In the end, with the help of the others (and also my reluctant but patient husband, who eventually learns to accept the Crazy), we had plenty.
Last year we did cochineal, weld, and madder berries. This year, though, the main plan was to dig up some of Helena's now 3-year-old madder and work with it fresh. The weather was perfect, and nearly room temperature outside - on the second weekend of October! We actually worked up a sweat, attacking the raised beds with gloves, shovel, spade and much glee. We hosed down some huge balls of bright-carrot-orange roots that looked for all the world like strange sea creatures, chopped it up and into the pot it went. We only dug up a little corner of her madder - and there was still plenty for each of us to take some home, and she still has 3/4 of her madder plants growing:
Freshly killed madder roots, drying in my basement
We weren't sure how the madder would go - the one experienced madder dyer in the group had never used it fresh from the ground and chopped roughly. She suspected it wouldn't give us anything too far into the reds or too dark. She was right - we got a nice salmon - but towards the end of the dyebath we did start seeing the reds come out a little. It will be interesting to see what we get later with the roots that we're drying, as those will be ground up more finely.
We also found a bush of Dyer's Broom growing in her garden, so we pruned it back a little and made a small pot of that with alum. We poked it dubiously throughout the afternoon, as the water didn't seem to be getting much colour into it. But after a good 90 minutes of cooking, it finally started to suck colour out of the leaves. We ended up with a nice light greeny-yellow.
Audrey was in fine form for the day, thanks to Helena's kind care and feeding after her rough ride. She performed well, and gave us everything from a medium blue fleece (a 5-hour soak) to some lovely light blues on roving that was only left in an hour or so, to a nice overdye of some patterned tan fabric.
As we were packing up our wet samples, we suddenly realized that we had, without really planning it that way, done the a primary colour set that day:
L - R: Indigo blue, fresh-killed dyer's broom yellow, and fresh-killed madder salmon
And then there was the added bonus: as we were standing around surveying the wonder that is Helena's dye garden, one of the ladies noticed that right next to us, very near the house and suspiciously close to where we had been chopping up weld plants the previous year, were three tall stalks of weld. It appears the seeds took root between cracks in the concrete. Nature is nothing if not persistent. Helena was happy for us to pull it and make it go away, so the lady and I split it.
Surprise weld, the best kind!
All the participants in the festivities agreed that our second annual (BYOP) dye day was a great success, and we all look forward to next year. And if Sharon Ann is reading this, your half of that weld has been packed up and will be in the mail to you soon, I hope (as soon as my mother comes up for a visit, which should be in the next couple weeks, before Christmas).
In other dyeing adventures, I continued my quest for black by once again trying to overdye this unfortunate colour, which I achieved by way of the weld on the left overdyed with Indigo to make the teal in the middle,, then overdyed in a cochineal exhaust bath. I had originally just tried this in a walnut bath with no additive, but there was no noticeable colour change, since the walnut bath would only add a nice brown to it.
This time, I bit the bullet and added a touch of iron powder to the dyebath. The smell was not as horrifically rotten-egg-like as I anticipated, but it certainly wasn't great. This time, though, I was very careful not to inhale deeply while standing over the pot, and often held a wet towel over my face when I was near it.
Liles (1990: 184-5) recommends an oxalic acid mordanting prior to the walnut-iron dyebath for a good black, but I didn't have a ready source of oxalic acid unless I wanted to buy over a pound of it, so I just went with the iron. I spun up a couple yards of it for my friend to finish the embroidery project that we needed it for:
Not-Quite-Black-But-Black-Enough!
So there we have it. Bridget's 2008 adventures in dying.
And just in case you forgot: I'm not really a dyer. We swears, precious. We swears.
* Two years in a row makes it annual, right?
** P = Pee
Audrey the Indigo Vat had a magnificent final outing of the season over the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend (mid-October), when she was very carefully packed up and transported across town to my friend Helena's house a few days ahead of our annual* Dye Madness day at her house. Helena cared for her and kept her warm, feeding her some de-thawed, mushed up, organic bananas - after the traumatic ride, Audrey was a little gassy and needed to settle down, eat, ferment and reduce for a couple days.
Why not have the dye day at my house? You see, Helena has a magnificent dye garden, and Audrey was more portable than the garden. I requested that folks BYOP**, if they could, so that we would be sure to have enough to pre-soak things. One can only generate so much urine on one's own. In the end, with the help of the others (and also my reluctant but patient husband, who eventually learns to accept the Crazy), we had plenty.
Last year we did cochineal, weld, and madder berries. This year, though, the main plan was to dig up some of Helena's now 3-year-old madder and work with it fresh. The weather was perfect, and nearly room temperature outside - on the second weekend of October! We actually worked up a sweat, attacking the raised beds with gloves, shovel, spade and much glee. We hosed down some huge balls of bright-carrot-orange roots that looked for all the world like strange sea creatures, chopped it up and into the pot it went. We only dug up a little corner of her madder - and there was still plenty for each of us to take some home, and she still has 3/4 of her madder plants growing:
Freshly killed madder roots, drying in my basement
We weren't sure how the madder would go - the one experienced madder dyer in the group had never used it fresh from the ground and chopped roughly. She suspected it wouldn't give us anything too far into the reds or too dark. She was right - we got a nice salmon - but towards the end of the dyebath we did start seeing the reds come out a little. It will be interesting to see what we get later with the roots that we're drying, as those will be ground up more finely.
We also found a bush of Dyer's Broom growing in her garden, so we pruned it back a little and made a small pot of that with alum. We poked it dubiously throughout the afternoon, as the water didn't seem to be getting much colour into it. But after a good 90 minutes of cooking, it finally started to suck colour out of the leaves. We ended up with a nice light greeny-yellow.
Audrey was in fine form for the day, thanks to Helena's kind care and feeding after her rough ride. She performed well, and gave us everything from a medium blue fleece (a 5-hour soak) to some lovely light blues on roving that was only left in an hour or so, to a nice overdye of some patterned tan fabric.
As we were packing up our wet samples, we suddenly realized that we had, without really planning it that way, done the a primary colour set that day:
L - R: Indigo blue, fresh-killed dyer's broom yellow, and fresh-killed madder salmon
And then there was the added bonus: as we were standing around surveying the wonder that is Helena's dye garden, one of the ladies noticed that right next to us, very near the house and suspiciously close to where we had been chopping up weld plants the previous year, were three tall stalks of weld. It appears the seeds took root between cracks in the concrete. Nature is nothing if not persistent. Helena was happy for us to pull it and make it go away, so the lady and I split it.
Surprise weld, the best kind!
All the participants in the festivities agreed that our second annual (BYOP) dye day was a great success, and we all look forward to next year. And if Sharon Ann is reading this, your half of that weld has been packed up and will be in the mail to you soon, I hope (as soon as my mother comes up for a visit, which should be in the next couple weeks, before Christmas).
In other dyeing adventures, I continued my quest for black by once again trying to overdye this unfortunate colour, which I achieved by way of the weld on the left overdyed with Indigo to make the teal in the middle,, then overdyed in a cochineal exhaust bath. I had originally just tried this in a walnut bath with no additive, but there was no noticeable colour change, since the walnut bath would only add a nice brown to it.
This time, I bit the bullet and added a touch of iron powder to the dyebath. The smell was not as horrifically rotten-egg-like as I anticipated, but it certainly wasn't great. This time, though, I was very careful not to inhale deeply while standing over the pot, and often held a wet towel over my face when I was near it.
Liles (1990: 184-5) recommends an oxalic acid mordanting prior to the walnut-iron dyebath for a good black, but I didn't have a ready source of oxalic acid unless I wanted to buy over a pound of it, so I just went with the iron. I spun up a couple yards of it for my friend to finish the embroidery project that we needed it for:
Not-Quite-Black-But-Black-Enough!
So there we have it. Bridget's 2008 adventures in dying.
And just in case you forgot: I'm not really a dyer. We swears, precious. We swears.
* Two years in a row makes it annual, right?
** P = Pee
Friday, October 03, 2008
I swear I'm not really a dyer, Part 2: Walnuts and Cochineal
September through November is absolutely my favourite season of the year. The weather is comfy, light jacket weather - not too hot and not too cold. The air smells fresh and crisp, not filled with the pollen of spring or thick humidity of summer. The apple trees are loaded down. The leaves are starting to fall, and they smell divine as they make that crunching noise under my feet.
My neighbour's late summer-early fall flowers are incidious, the morning glories particularly so. While the yellow daisy-like things are perfectly happy spreading their sunny goodness into my yard just enough but not too much, the morning glories have long since scaled the fence and are now happily wrapping themselves around my pine trees, air conditioner, the yellow flowers, the drains... whatever they can reach. They're so lovely, I don't have the heart to evict them.
Last Monday, I think I finally figured out cochineal. We dyed the warp for the not-so-super-secret project using Lilies (1990: 132-33) modern cochineal scarlet recipe, and got the red we've been looking for all summer. Holy Crap, is it ever stunning. We got close to this with the last batch a few months ago, but that was using washed-but-otherwise-unprepped wool. There was undoubtably still some lanolin in it, which explains why sections of it came out very light, where the dye barely penetrated. This warp yarn is a commercially-prepared Shetland, probably chemically scoured and bleached. It sucked up the dye like a vampire.
In the meantime, another lady has been spinning up the weft yarn from the three batches we did over the last year, while still others keep her supplied with rolags. She gave me the first couple skeins, freshly plied. So here is our warp (bottom) and weft (top) for the not-so-super-secret-project (a pillow, 18" x 3ft):
Once I get the lozenge twill samples off my loom (need to finish weaving those! ack! only a couple more...), I can start doing tests with this. The final fabric will be weft-faced, since the weft is spinning up nearly twice as thick as the warp. That's fine with me - I have to wonder if the lighter, bluer-red colour of our weft yarn isn't close to what a pre-1600's European dyer would have gotten with cochineal, using alum or light acid solutions (vinegar, fruit juices), before the mid-1600's discovery of using tin to produce a brilliant red.
So the short story: if you're dying fleece with cochineal and you want that amazing scarlet, make sure there is not a trace of lanolin in the fleece. Wash it like you have never washed a fleece before. If you don't want to dye spun yarn, at least prep it into rovings, and dye those.
I tried a black walnut dyebath last night. I need a tiny bit of black for The Project, no more than a few yards. I took a handful of the teal, which was originally white Dorset dyed with weld, then put into the indigo vat for six hours. We put some of this into the last cochineal exhaust bath and got the following, which I guess I can say with authority is a colour found in nature:
Honestly, what colour is that?
I then put that into a "tea" of crushed black walnut husks that have been sitting in water for a week.
Not for drinking
I also added a couple locks of the dark blue. Lilies (1990: 184-85, 29) recommends mordanting with oxalic acid and ferrous (iron) sulfate to get a good black overdye with black walnuts. I do have powdered iron sulfate here, but neither DH or I relished the idea of the house smelling like rotten eggs last night, and I don't have oxalic acid.
After an hour in the dyebath, neither batch of wool was an acceptable black. I'm going to let them soak in the pot for a couple days, but I suspect the iron-oxalic acid thing is in my future. Examples that I've seen of unmordanted, black walnut-dyed wool are usually lovely golden browns, so I'm not surprised that we're not there yet. I have lots of black walnut soup, though, no worries.
The indigo vat, whose name is officially Audrey (as in, "Feed me, Seymour!"), has been fed several mushed-up bananas and a fresh dose of stale urine, and the heating pad is now on, since our night-time temps are going down to single digits. I'll add 1/4 oz. more indigo tomorrow, and hopefully a few days with the heating pad will get the fermentation going again for reducing more indigo. Audrey has a date with some friends of mine in a little over a week.
My neighbour's late summer-early fall flowers are incidious, the morning glories particularly so. While the yellow daisy-like things are perfectly happy spreading their sunny goodness into my yard just enough but not too much, the morning glories have long since scaled the fence and are now happily wrapping themselves around my pine trees, air conditioner, the yellow flowers, the drains... whatever they can reach. They're so lovely, I don't have the heart to evict them.
Last Monday, I think I finally figured out cochineal. We dyed the warp for the not-so-super-secret project using Lilies (1990: 132-33) modern cochineal scarlet recipe, and got the red we've been looking for all summer. Holy Crap, is it ever stunning. We got close to this with the last batch a few months ago, but that was using washed-but-otherwise-unprepped wool. There was undoubtably still some lanolin in it, which explains why sections of it came out very light, where the dye barely penetrated. This warp yarn is a commercially-prepared Shetland, probably chemically scoured and bleached. It sucked up the dye like a vampire.
In the meantime, another lady has been spinning up the weft yarn from the three batches we did over the last year, while still others keep her supplied with rolags. She gave me the first couple skeins, freshly plied. So here is our warp (bottom) and weft (top) for the not-so-super-secret-project (a pillow, 18" x 3ft):
Once I get the lozenge twill samples off my loom (need to finish weaving those! ack! only a couple more...), I can start doing tests with this. The final fabric will be weft-faced, since the weft is spinning up nearly twice as thick as the warp. That's fine with me - I have to wonder if the lighter, bluer-red colour of our weft yarn isn't close to what a pre-1600's European dyer would have gotten with cochineal, using alum or light acid solutions (vinegar, fruit juices), before the mid-1600's discovery of using tin to produce a brilliant red.
So the short story: if you're dying fleece with cochineal and you want that amazing scarlet, make sure there is not a trace of lanolin in the fleece. Wash it like you have never washed a fleece before. If you don't want to dye spun yarn, at least prep it into rovings, and dye those.
I tried a black walnut dyebath last night. I need a tiny bit of black for The Project, no more than a few yards. I took a handful of the teal, which was originally white Dorset dyed with weld, then put into the indigo vat for six hours. We put some of this into the last cochineal exhaust bath and got the following, which I guess I can say with authority is a colour found in nature:
Honestly, what colour is that?
I then put that into a "tea" of crushed black walnut husks that have been sitting in water for a week.
Not for drinking
I also added a couple locks of the dark blue. Lilies (1990: 184-85, 29) recommends mordanting with oxalic acid and ferrous (iron) sulfate to get a good black overdye with black walnuts. I do have powdered iron sulfate here, but neither DH or I relished the idea of the house smelling like rotten eggs last night, and I don't have oxalic acid.
After an hour in the dyebath, neither batch of wool was an acceptable black. I'm going to let them soak in the pot for a couple days, but I suspect the iron-oxalic acid thing is in my future. Examples that I've seen of unmordanted, black walnut-dyed wool are usually lovely golden browns, so I'm not surprised that we're not there yet. I have lots of black walnut soup, though, no worries.
The indigo vat, whose name is officially Audrey (as in, "Feed me, Seymour!"), has been fed several mushed-up bananas and a fresh dose of stale urine, and the heating pad is now on, since our night-time temps are going down to single digits. I'll add 1/4 oz. more indigo tomorrow, and hopefully a few days with the heating pad will get the fermentation going again for reducing more indigo. Audrey has a date with some friends of mine in a little over a week.
Friday, September 26, 2008
I swear I'm not really a dyer, Part 1: Indigo, and Battling the Squirrels for Walnuts
Here is what the indigo vat looks like with things soaking in it. It is still going, with the aid of the heating pad and not-yet-freezing temps. I will feed it next week (probably some store-bought plums - our tree is finished for the season, but my vat really liked the plums), and then pack it off to a brave friend's house where it will sit and be cared for until our mid-October BYOP* Dye Madness Day.
I'll have to get a picture of the scarf once I've washed it out. It came out stunning.
In the meantime, I've been spinning some of my indigo-dyed fleece into a weight hopefully appropriate for cross-stitch in single ply, and satin-stitch embroidery in two-ply.
Indigo blue with a creamy white Dorset filling!
I've picked up some walnuts from the ground, but it looks like I missed most of them when they first fell. They're no longer green and ripe, but black. I certainly wouldn't eat the nuts from these - they sat on the ground in the rain for days and started to go a little moldy - but I've been told I can still use the husks for dying, so I picked them up anyhow.
The squirrels got all the good ones, believe me. If it's green and still lying on the ground and the squirrels haven't taken it, it's bad and already has bugs in it. They know these things. They've been kind enough to leave small piles of walnut husks on the stones and chair, so I've collected some of that, too. It's all currently soaking in water to make a brown "tea" for dyeing. I need a little bit of black, so I plan to overdye a handful of the teal.
Every time I go near the walnut tree, a voice above my head starts chattering and cursing at me in ... squirrel. Of course, I could probably score half a ton of good walnuts if I broke into their stash inside my front awning. They should admire my restraint.
Coming in Part 2 this weekend: Walnut experiments and the last cochineal dyebath.
*Bring Your Own Pee
I'll have to get a picture of the scarf once I've washed it out. It came out stunning.
In the meantime, I've been spinning some of my indigo-dyed fleece into a weight hopefully appropriate for cross-stitch in single ply, and satin-stitch embroidery in two-ply.
Indigo blue with a creamy white Dorset filling!
I've picked up some walnuts from the ground, but it looks like I missed most of them when they first fell. They're no longer green and ripe, but black. I certainly wouldn't eat the nuts from these - they sat on the ground in the rain for days and started to go a little moldy - but I've been told I can still use the husks for dying, so I picked them up anyhow.
The squirrels got all the good ones, believe me. If it's green and still lying on the ground and the squirrels haven't taken it, it's bad and already has bugs in it. They know these things. They've been kind enough to leave small piles of walnut husks on the stones and chair, so I've collected some of that, too. It's all currently soaking in water to make a brown "tea" for dyeing. I need a little bit of black, so I plan to overdye a handful of the teal.
Every time I go near the walnut tree, a voice above my head starts chattering and cursing at me in ... squirrel. Of course, I could probably score half a ton of good walnuts if I broke into their stash inside my front awning. They should admire my restraint.
Coming in Part 2 this weekend: Walnut experiments and the last cochineal dyebath.
*Bring Your Own Pee
Friday, September 12, 2008
The frog has a point
Since I got a medium blue colour on white wool after a single six-hour dip in the indigo vat, I put in half of the weld-dyed yellow from last September. Six hours later, I had a lovely deep teal. I let the vat rest for a couple days to re-ferment and reduce some more, then I tried a little more of the weld yellow, this time only dipping it for a minute or so. Again, no luck, it came out a light blue. Not even teal, that time.
Left: Weld yellow before going in the vat.
Centre: Weld yellow after six hours in the vat.
Right: Weld yellow after a minute in the vat.
Obviously, not the greens we're looking for.
Between attempts with the weld, I also tried a different approach, carding together some of the dark blue with a tuft of a friend's yellow roving (I think that was also weld), and spinning it. The result was... greenish? Maybe if I squint, it will look more green. Nope, not going to work.
Sigh.
Not the best video quality, but my favourite performance.
It's become clear that it doesn't take much time in the indigo vat to overwhelm my weld-dyed yellow. Re-reading Lilies, he recommends that greens using indigo+yellow be dyed by doing the indigo first, then mordanting the wool and overdyeing with a good yellow dye. I was beginning to fear that I would have to make time for a yellow dyebath before the weather turns, in addition to the final cochineal batch that I need to do sometime this coming week. But did I mention we have to card out all that cochineal red so that another lady can spin it later this month? And once it's spun, it goes on my loom to make a pillow, hopefully woven by November, so that someone else will have time to sew it together and embroider it in December using the blue, green and white that I'm spinning by hand? And everything has to be done in early January?
And, um, let's not forget that I have real work that I'm supposed to eventually be getting back to. Soon.
Right then. I don't exactly have tons of time here to experiment with with yellow overdyes on my blues to get a nice leafy green. A friend has a bagful of onion skins for me, but I've never dyed with them, and if there's one thing about my dye experiments that I do know, it's that they never, ever come out exactly right the first time, especially when I really need it. I expect I'll end up with orange on my first onion skin dyebath.
In a last-minute desperate move, I pulled off a little piece of that stunningly bright (almost heading toward orange) tin-mordanted onion-skin yellow that I bought from Brush Creek Wool Works at Pennsic. Four quick dips, each less than a minute, gently swish it around a little, air it out for 5-10 minutes in between. Quick vinegar rinse. Wash in warm soapy water. And suddenly...
What I started with, and what I ended with.
...the goal no longer seems quite so far away. I separated out half of the roving and went to town. It's now drying in the basement. If I have time later this month in between everything else, I'll try the onion skins with tin myself. I might even get a chance at another weld dyebath in early October, but what I dyed today will be more than enough green. And even though I didn't do the yellow, I know who did and how, and I can live with that.
As a wise frog reminded me today:
I'm green, and it'll do fine. It's beautiful. And I think it's what I want to be.
Left: Weld yellow before going in the vat.
Centre: Weld yellow after six hours in the vat.
Right: Weld yellow after a minute in the vat.
Obviously, not the greens we're looking for.
Between attempts with the weld, I also tried a different approach, carding together some of the dark blue with a tuft of a friend's yellow roving (I think that was also weld), and spinning it. The result was... greenish? Maybe if I squint, it will look more green. Nope, not going to work.
Sigh.
Not the best video quality, but my favourite performance.
It's become clear that it doesn't take much time in the indigo vat to overwhelm my weld-dyed yellow. Re-reading Lilies, he recommends that greens using indigo+yellow be dyed by doing the indigo first, then mordanting the wool and overdyeing with a good yellow dye. I was beginning to fear that I would have to make time for a yellow dyebath before the weather turns, in addition to the final cochineal batch that I need to do sometime this coming week. But did I mention we have to card out all that cochineal red so that another lady can spin it later this month? And once it's spun, it goes on my loom to make a pillow, hopefully woven by November, so that someone else will have time to sew it together and embroider it in December using the blue, green and white that I'm spinning by hand? And everything has to be done in early January?
And, um, let's not forget that I have real work that I'm supposed to eventually be getting back to. Soon.
Right then. I don't exactly have tons of time here to experiment with with yellow overdyes on my blues to get a nice leafy green. A friend has a bagful of onion skins for me, but I've never dyed with them, and if there's one thing about my dye experiments that I do know, it's that they never, ever come out exactly right the first time, especially when I really need it. I expect I'll end up with orange on my first onion skin dyebath.
In a last-minute desperate move, I pulled off a little piece of that stunningly bright (almost heading toward orange) tin-mordanted onion-skin yellow that I bought from Brush Creek Wool Works at Pennsic. Four quick dips, each less than a minute, gently swish it around a little, air it out for 5-10 minutes in between. Quick vinegar rinse. Wash in warm soapy water. And suddenly...
What I started with, and what I ended with.
...the goal no longer seems quite so far away. I separated out half of the roving and went to town. It's now drying in the basement. If I have time later this month in between everything else, I'll try the onion skins with tin myself. I might even get a chance at another weld dyebath in early October, but what I dyed today will be more than enough green. And even though I didn't do the yellow, I know who did and how, and I can live with that.
As a wise frog reminded me today:
I'm green, and it'll do fine. It's beautiful. And I think it's what I want to be.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The grass and sunlight are woven in for free
I'm home from Pennsic. This year I camped in a new location with a different group. (I-79 side of the Serengetti rather than on Runestone Hill). Being with a small group was quite a bit different compared to the 40+ people in my encampment last year, but I did miss the other group a little. Our encampment was so quiet. Well, OK, quiet in some ways. I haven't completely passed judgement on the location, but I could definitely have done without the almost constant air horns and jack brakes from the highway.
However, it was nicely flat (a bonus, seriously), shockingly convenient to the merchants, main food court and A&S tents, and I did not miss climbing the steep part of the hill every day. I did miss the sound of drums coming up from the lake all night long, though, and the feeling of being more at the centre of things. I'll have to wait a couple months until it's in long-term memory before I decide if I liked the good parts of it enough to camp over there again.
This was taken shortly before tear-down, so the camp fence and lanterns are already gone.
I played in a very excellent pickup dance band from Sunday through Tuesday. I'm still not a spectacular recorder player, but I'm starting to be able to hold my own on melody and play most things up to speed, which makes me happy. I still need a lot of work on recorder, though.
At heart, I suspect I'll always be a brass player. I believe Iwant need a sackbut. Possibly before the natural horn. Some day.
I was pretty good about not buying too much. I did have to pick up the obligatory spindle:
Yes, it's a heart. Yes, the pink felt baggie came with it. It would make me sick if it weren't so darn pretty.
...and the traditional couple of bags of naturally-dyed roving from Brush Creek Wool Works.
I had to get the red. Their cochineal red with tin mordant is almost exactly the colour we got. In fact, these were the reddest bags of the batch - the rest of her selection were noticeably lighter. I suspect the evenness of her colour compared to ours is because she dyes rovings, not raw fleece of questionable cleanliness. Her cochineal with alum mordant roving was close to our raspberry batch. It makes me feel considerably better to know we got what the pros get with our cochineal dyebaths. Oh, and that yellow? Onion skins with tin. Really, how awesome is that? Onions are the new neon.
I also picked up a pretty thing for my hair, a tiny hard leather pouch, two small handbound leather journals (with handmade paper! and refillable! one for me and one for Daniel to use as a sketchbook), some herbs for a friend and tea and honey - nothing to break the bank. No looms this year, thanks, and I even passed up on the expensive but lovely closed-toe shoes. I walked past the harps and sighed.
Once again, Dread Viscountess Seelie offered rigid heddle weaving classes, so a lot of my second week was spent weaving and generally playing with string. This year we were re-creating several specific archaeological textiles on the rigid heddle loom, using the multiple-heddle technique she taught last year. A few of us offered up our looms as teaching looms, so in all we had five looms going with different warps. We all wove a few inches on each pattern. All designs were woven on standard 20" Beka SG-20 rigid heddle looms, using either two or three heddles as required (3 or 4-shaft patterns), and no pickup sticks.
First a 1-2 Rippenkoper. This is a three-shaft design, requiring only two heddles. Basically, it switches between a 2-1 twill and a 1-2 twill, weft-faced to warp-faced, and also reverses.
Next, a rosette twill. This is 4-shaft design, done using three heddles.
I think this might actually be the back, but I like this side better.
And finally, my absolute favourite, the Jorvik 1336 (i.e. "Coppergate") textile. A honeycomb, or wabengawebe with a twill. I messed up the pattern more than once, being highly distractible on a good day, even more so there. A couple times I only did one repeat of the pattern, and once I did three. But I definitely want to make some long pieces of this one and do something with them.
Front of an apron dress, perhaps? Hmmm.
There was also a loom with a standard 4-harness twill warp, but since I did the twills and double-weaves last year, I didn't do more of those. One of the looms had to go back with its person early and we ran out of time, and since I was planning to put that very warp onto my loom at home, I was asked if I could weave up 5-6 samples to send off to the instructor and others in the class. It's definitely no hardship! I'm learning a lot, and getting the warping experience I was looking for.
So, now on my loom and weaving up nicely, a 2-1 Lozenge. This one is another three-shaft pattern, so it only requires two heddles.
Sample one of five. Or maybe six.
There really is something to be said for sitting under a sun shade, warping looms with a group of women, chatting with the person across from you, muttering the count of the warp thread quietly between sentences... "Here's the three. So, did you guys get wet last night? No, I was very dry - two fours coming through - but it was freaking cold when I woke up at three in the morning. Is that sixteen? OK, tie that off."
Someone might have caught a video of Seelie weaving in one of the classes, in which case I'll definitely post a link. Most of the drafts for these patterns can be found at the complex weavers medieval textiles study group, in the section on the textiles discussed in Lise Bender Jorgensen's book. The Coppergate textile draft is from Thora Sharptooth's site.
Aside from the RH weaving, I didn't take too many classes - one exception being a viking wire weaving class. I got to make a necklace, and wire-wrap a bead. I need to finish it with a hook for it to be completely done - but the part where you pull it through the drawplate is so much fun. It's like magic.
What do mean you don't go to Pennsic to weave?
I leave you with this. It was visible from Currie Road, near the west gate.
Everyone goes to Pennsic, didn't you know?
However, it was nicely flat (a bonus, seriously), shockingly convenient to the merchants, main food court and A&S tents, and I did not miss climbing the steep part of the hill every day. I did miss the sound of drums coming up from the lake all night long, though, and the feeling of being more at the centre of things. I'll have to wait a couple months until it's in long-term memory before I decide if I liked the good parts of it enough to camp over there again.
This was taken shortly before tear-down, so the camp fence and lanterns are already gone.
I played in a very excellent pickup dance band from Sunday through Tuesday. I'm still not a spectacular recorder player, but I'm starting to be able to hold my own on melody and play most things up to speed, which makes me happy. I still need a lot of work on recorder, though.
At heart, I suspect I'll always be a brass player. I believe I
I was pretty good about not buying too much. I did have to pick up the obligatory spindle:
Yes, it's a heart. Yes, the pink felt baggie came with it. It would make me sick if it weren't so darn pretty.
...and the traditional couple of bags of naturally-dyed roving from Brush Creek Wool Works.
I had to get the red. Their cochineal red with tin mordant is almost exactly the colour we got. In fact, these were the reddest bags of the batch - the rest of her selection were noticeably lighter. I suspect the evenness of her colour compared to ours is because she dyes rovings, not raw fleece of questionable cleanliness. Her cochineal with alum mordant roving was close to our raspberry batch. It makes me feel considerably better to know we got what the pros get with our cochineal dyebaths. Oh, and that yellow? Onion skins with tin. Really, how awesome is that? Onions are the new neon.
I also picked up a pretty thing for my hair, a tiny hard leather pouch, two small handbound leather journals (with handmade paper! and refillable! one for me and one for Daniel to use as a sketchbook), some herbs for a friend and tea and honey - nothing to break the bank. No looms this year, thanks, and I even passed up on the expensive but lovely closed-toe shoes. I walked past the harps and sighed.
Once again, Dread Viscountess Seelie offered rigid heddle weaving classes, so a lot of my second week was spent weaving and generally playing with string. This year we were re-creating several specific archaeological textiles on the rigid heddle loom, using the multiple-heddle technique she taught last year. A few of us offered up our looms as teaching looms, so in all we had five looms going with different warps. We all wove a few inches on each pattern. All designs were woven on standard 20" Beka SG-20 rigid heddle looms, using either two or three heddles as required (3 or 4-shaft patterns), and no pickup sticks.
First a 1-2 Rippenkoper. This is a three-shaft design, requiring only two heddles. Basically, it switches between a 2-1 twill and a 1-2 twill, weft-faced to warp-faced, and also reverses.
Next, a rosette twill. This is 4-shaft design, done using three heddles.
I think this might actually be the back, but I like this side better.
And finally, my absolute favourite, the Jorvik 1336 (i.e. "Coppergate") textile. A honeycomb, or wabengawebe with a twill. I messed up the pattern more than once, being highly distractible on a good day, even more so there. A couple times I only did one repeat of the pattern, and once I did three. But I definitely want to make some long pieces of this one and do something with them.
Front of an apron dress, perhaps? Hmmm.
There was also a loom with a standard 4-harness twill warp, but since I did the twills and double-weaves last year, I didn't do more of those. One of the looms had to go back with its person early and we ran out of time, and since I was planning to put that very warp onto my loom at home, I was asked if I could weave up 5-6 samples to send off to the instructor and others in the class. It's definitely no hardship! I'm learning a lot, and getting the warping experience I was looking for.
So, now on my loom and weaving up nicely, a 2-1 Lozenge. This one is another three-shaft pattern, so it only requires two heddles.
Sample one of five. Or maybe six.
There really is something to be said for sitting under a sun shade, warping looms with a group of women, chatting with the person across from you, muttering the count of the warp thread quietly between sentences... "Here's the three. So, did you guys get wet last night? No, I was very dry - two fours coming through - but it was freaking cold when I woke up at three in the morning. Is that sixteen? OK, tie that off."
Someone might have caught a video of Seelie weaving in one of the classes, in which case I'll definitely post a link. Most of the drafts for these patterns can be found at the complex weavers medieval textiles study group, in the section on the textiles discussed in Lise Bender Jorgensen's book. The Coppergate textile draft is from Thora Sharptooth's site.
Aside from the RH weaving, I didn't take too many classes - one exception being a viking wire weaving class. I got to make a necklace, and wire-wrap a bead. I need to finish it with a hook for it to be completely done - but the part where you pull it through the drawplate is so much fun. It's like magic.
What do mean you don't go to Pennsic to weave?
I leave you with this. It was visible from Currie Road, near the west gate.
Everyone goes to Pennsic, didn't you know?
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Seeing red. Finally.
Some friends and I are seeing red. We have been dyeing with cochineal, repeatedly, and with mixed success. I don't think we quite have this cochineal thing down yet, but we're getting better. Um, maybe.
The goal: Enough red wool to spin 1400 yards of singles in a good, strong scarlet, to then ply into 700 yards of 8-12 wpi yarn for the weft thread of a not-really-super-secret-anymore-but-I'm-still-not-advertising project that will be woven on my rigid heddle loom later this year. Since we can get a good 500 yards of singles out of a pound of raw fleece, that's 3 pounds of wool to be dyed. We have to do it in 1-pound batches, which has advantages and disadvantages.
We've done four, yes four, batches of cochineal since last October. Below, from L to R, are batch 2, 3 and 4 drying in my friend's pine trees. I don't have a picture of the first pound, which we did last fall, but for that first attempt we used alum-mordanted wool and a dash of tin added mid-dye to the cochineal bath. Half of that batch had previously been dyed slightly yellow with spinach, the rest not. The spinach portion is a little nicer, but both came out a beautiful scarlet, nicer than even the rightmost (closest) batch here.
Christmas in July? The colours are a little more neon pink here than in-person
As you can see, our dye batches are varying in colour dramatically. We won't be using batch 2, the furthest left, because, ugh. It was our first attempt at tin-mordanted cochineal, which is supposed to give the best scarlets. We tried a version of Lilies cochineal scarlet #1 recipe (Lilies 1990: 131-2), and it was going flame orange. When we added the recommended alum, perhaps not as "carefully" as recommended, the dyebath turned a mucky brown, and the wool a dirty, blue-red.
That experience scared us off the tin a little, so we returned to the alum mordanting for batch three. That's middle batch, above, which came out more raspberry than scarlet. The right batch, dyebath #4, is scarlet (despite this picture showing as bright pink), but lighter than we want, because the dye didn't take to parts of the fleece (perhaps it wasn't scoured enough? Hmmm.).
I pulled a couple sample tufts out of batch 3 and 4 to try a test spin after they dried.
L (batch 3) alum-mordanted cochineal, with 1/2 oz. tin and a dash of tumeric (for yellow) added late in the bath. R (batch 4): Tin and cochineal, one-pot method (Lilies 1990: 132-33), with probably a touch of alum from the previous dyebath still hanging around on the pot and stir-stick
In total, we have a pound of deep raspberry and two pounds of light-mid scarlet that are usable. The plan is to blend together the different dye batches when carding it to get a colour something between both. The two test tufts above give this:
Still not quite the red we're looking for, but this is a 50-50 blend of raspberry and scarlet, and I think we'll be blending it more 33-67% in the end
We'll also need warp thread. I've made the decision, after much deliberation and agonizing, that our handspun DorsetX is simply not going to be suitable to use as warp thread for this project - at least, not the way we'll be spinning it. It will mostly be prepped using cards, not combs (necessary because several people are involved, and handcards are the more common item amongst them), giving a woollen, not worsted yarn. This will make a fuzzy, sticky warp. I also can't confirm that the 2-ply will be strong enough for warp, even on a rigid heddle loom. The test singles definitely weren't.
So in late August, we'll be dyeing another 900 yards of white commercial yarn with cochineal for the warp. It might or might not work: varying colour is one thing when we'll be carding together the different dye batches. But when we dye the skeins, they have to be the colour we want, the first time. Precedent says that we simply don't have that kind of control over the cochineal. So, we'll try it, and if it doesn't work, we'll buy a cone of scarlet warp thread.
In preparation for a weaving frenzy this fall, I've warped up the loom to get some badly needed weaving practice. It seemed a good way to use up the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that's been in my stash for years:
The necessities for warping a loom: loom, yarn, coffee, chocolate and yarntangling wrangling assisstant.
Finally, an indigo vat update. Throughout the unseasonably cool and wet Southern Ontario June, no fermentation has been detected in my vat, although it's still mighty stinky. After consulting with an experienced vat-maker, our guess is that although we had a couple weeks of toasty warm temps in early-mid June, the evening temps around here still go down to 14-17C (in the 50s-60sF), which is causing the vat to cool off too much in the evening and is preventing fermentation. The recommended solution (since I lack a 24/7 firepit):
A double-boiler setup using a fishtank heater. Interesting note: fishtank heaters, even saltwater ones, are not rated for urine, and putting the heater directly into the vat would kill it in short order. Hence the double-boiler. Thank you SharonAnn for that hard-won bit of wisdom, and for being a great indigo vat consultant.
After a couple weeks of this, and several consistent warm and sunny days out of the last seven lacking light rain, thunderstorms and hail, I am starting to smell the unmistakable - and surprisingly pleasant - barnyard-like smell of fermentation under the ever-present stench of stale urine. It's still far from ready, and I'm not entirely convinced that the heater, which has a max temp of 85F (something about not wanting to cook fish?), is warming up the water as much as it needs to be to really encourage things to grow. But it is encouraging. I stir it gently every day or two to get the indigo powder off the bottom of the vat and encourage the chemistry to start. If nothing happens after a week of it staying warm 24/7, then I'll feed it a couple dates.
I still want to believe
I'm not certain how long I can hold on the illusion that I am not really a dyer. I still maintain that this is all about the educational experience, and a single goal. Let's forget about the fact that I'm still contemplating collecting chicory from the roadside, I have weld seeds about to be planted, and that failed attempt to get green from carrot tops a couple months ago... stop laughing. I'm not a dyer. I'm a spinner and weaver who dyes out of necessity. And I am learning quite a lot.
I mean, seriously - did you know that saltwater fishtank heaters weren't rated for urine?
The goal: Enough red wool to spin 1400 yards of singles in a good, strong scarlet, to then ply into 700 yards of 8-12 wpi yarn for the weft thread of a not-really-super-secret-anymore-but-I'm-still-not-advertising project that will be woven on my rigid heddle loom later this year. Since we can get a good 500 yards of singles out of a pound of raw fleece, that's 3 pounds of wool to be dyed. We have to do it in 1-pound batches, which has advantages and disadvantages.
We've done four, yes four, batches of cochineal since last October. Below, from L to R, are batch 2, 3 and 4 drying in my friend's pine trees. I don't have a picture of the first pound, which we did last fall, but for that first attempt we used alum-mordanted wool and a dash of tin added mid-dye to the cochineal bath. Half of that batch had previously been dyed slightly yellow with spinach, the rest not. The spinach portion is a little nicer, but both came out a beautiful scarlet, nicer than even the rightmost (closest) batch here.
Christmas in July? The colours are a little more neon pink here than in-person
As you can see, our dye batches are varying in colour dramatically. We won't be using batch 2, the furthest left, because, ugh. It was our first attempt at tin-mordanted cochineal, which is supposed to give the best scarlets. We tried a version of Lilies cochineal scarlet #1 recipe (Lilies 1990: 131-2), and it was going flame orange. When we added the recommended alum, perhaps not as "carefully" as recommended, the dyebath turned a mucky brown, and the wool a dirty, blue-red.
That experience scared us off the tin a little, so we returned to the alum mordanting for batch three. That's middle batch, above, which came out more raspberry than scarlet. The right batch, dyebath #4, is scarlet (despite this picture showing as bright pink), but lighter than we want, because the dye didn't take to parts of the fleece (perhaps it wasn't scoured enough? Hmmm.).
I pulled a couple sample tufts out of batch 3 and 4 to try a test spin after they dried.
L (batch 3) alum-mordanted cochineal, with 1/2 oz. tin and a dash of tumeric (for yellow) added late in the bath. R (batch 4): Tin and cochineal, one-pot method (Lilies 1990: 132-33), with probably a touch of alum from the previous dyebath still hanging around on the pot and stir-stick
In total, we have a pound of deep raspberry and two pounds of light-mid scarlet that are usable. The plan is to blend together the different dye batches when carding it to get a colour something between both. The two test tufts above give this:
Still not quite the red we're looking for, but this is a 50-50 blend of raspberry and scarlet, and I think we'll be blending it more 33-67% in the end
We'll also need warp thread. I've made the decision, after much deliberation and agonizing, that our handspun DorsetX is simply not going to be suitable to use as warp thread for this project - at least, not the way we'll be spinning it. It will mostly be prepped using cards, not combs (necessary because several people are involved, and handcards are the more common item amongst them), giving a woollen, not worsted yarn. This will make a fuzzy, sticky warp. I also can't confirm that the 2-ply will be strong enough for warp, even on a rigid heddle loom. The test singles definitely weren't.
So in late August, we'll be dyeing another 900 yards of white commercial yarn with cochineal for the warp. It might or might not work: varying colour is one thing when we'll be carding together the different dye batches. But when we dye the skeins, they have to be the colour we want, the first time. Precedent says that we simply don't have that kind of control over the cochineal. So, we'll try it, and if it doesn't work, we'll buy a cone of scarlet warp thread.
In preparation for a weaving frenzy this fall, I've warped up the loom to get some badly needed weaving practice. It seemed a good way to use up the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that's been in my stash for years:
The necessities for warping a loom: loom, yarn, coffee, chocolate and yarn
Finally, an indigo vat update. Throughout the unseasonably cool and wet Southern Ontario June, no fermentation has been detected in my vat, although it's still mighty stinky. After consulting with an experienced vat-maker, our guess is that although we had a couple weeks of toasty warm temps in early-mid June, the evening temps around here still go down to 14-17C (in the 50s-60sF), which is causing the vat to cool off too much in the evening and is preventing fermentation. The recommended solution (since I lack a 24/7 firepit):
A double-boiler setup using a fishtank heater. Interesting note: fishtank heaters, even saltwater ones, are not rated for urine, and putting the heater directly into the vat would kill it in short order. Hence the double-boiler. Thank you SharonAnn for that hard-won bit of wisdom, and for being a great indigo vat consultant.
After a couple weeks of this, and several consistent warm and sunny days out of the last seven lacking light rain, thunderstorms and hail, I am starting to smell the unmistakable - and surprisingly pleasant - barnyard-like smell of fermentation under the ever-present stench of stale urine. It's still far from ready, and I'm not entirely convinced that the heater, which has a max temp of 85F (something about not wanting to cook fish?), is warming up the water as much as it needs to be to really encourage things to grow. But it is encouraging. I stir it gently every day or two to get the indigo powder off the bottom of the vat and encourage the chemistry to start. If nothing happens after a week of it staying warm 24/7, then I'll feed it a couple dates.
I still want to believe
I'm not certain how long I can hold on the illusion that I am not really a dyer. I still maintain that this is all about the educational experience, and a single goal. Let's forget about the fact that I'm still contemplating collecting chicory from the roadside, I have weld seeds about to be planted, and that failed attempt to get green from carrot tops a couple months ago... stop laughing. I'm not a dyer. I'm a spinner and weaver who dyes out of necessity. And I am learning quite a lot.
I mean, seriously - did you know that saltwater fishtank heaters weren't rated for urine?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Our weekend anthem
...just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen...*
So, we made an IKEA run this weekend, and finally picked up some patio furniture. Nothing fancy, but within our price range, and I like it better than the crap that we found in every single box store from Home Depot down. I might also get a small parasol that clips onto the table so that I can sit out there with the laptop and still have a hope of seeing the screen. Or something.
Which brings me to work. I'm on a deadline this week. I turned in a substantial draft of my Big D proposal to Lady S. in mid-February and received extensive comments from her on it in early March. It would have been nice to have done those revisions in March, or even April, but a conspiracy of family obligations and other work has kept it off the table until now. I finished the piles of grading last week, took a couple days to get myself in order, and now I have several days of straight writing and revisions to do.
This means, naturally, that I'm writing a blog post, making a latte, finding reasons to poke the cats - who are miraculously leaving me alone right now when I should be working - and looking wistfully outside at the indigo vat, hoping that it is starting to ferment.
Okay, okay, I'm going...
*Here's the studio recording, but I do so love watching Jonathon Coulton's** live performances. Of course, if he did a concert in Toronto, I wouldn't have to be content with YouTube, would I? Go on, click that link and add to the demand. Toronto is only 6th on the list right now.
**Who is this guy? Go here. Listen to The Future Soon, Tom Cruise Crazy, Chiron Beta Prime and Code Monkey. If you're liking it, listen to Re: Your Brains, Skullcrusher Mountain, and (if you're OK with NSFW and a lot of cussin') The First of May. He also wrote the closing credit song for the video game Portal. If you're still really into it, go to Eventful and Demand him. Then come back here, because I like you.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
You've won this time, double-knitting! But I'll be back!
A couple weeks ago I was pondering idly as I trudged along on the double-knit hat I started for Daniel last month, wondering what simple, even, repeatable pattern of contrasting colourwork I might start in another inch or so. As I thought, I realized that I had cast on 142 stitches. Divided by two, because this is double-knitting, meaning half the stitches are the outside layer and half are the inside - this gives 71 stitches in each colour: a beautiful prime number which is not evenly divisible by anything.
I sigh. So much for an even, repeatable pattern, I think. I wince a little due to my inner OCD, but whatever, I think, it’s not critical, and I’m not ripping it out. I've done too much of it, and it seemed to fit OK when he tried on the headband the day before.
I mention my little quandry to Daniel, intended (non-knitter husband) recipient of the hat. "Uh-huh," he says, eyes focussed on his computer screen, reading.
A couple minutes of companionable silence later, and he looks up at me. “Can’t you just, you know, add in like two more stitches in there or something?" he says. "That would give you 144. Then you could do an eight-stitch pattern. A couple more stitches won’t really change the size, right?”
“Er, you mean increase,” I say, blinking at my knitting stupidly and mentally smacking my forehead. “Um, yes. Right. Thanks, honey.”
Well, I’ll be. He doesn’t know knit from purl, but I guess he does listen sometimes!
Two M1s later (one in each colour), which would conveniently be hidden by the brim that folds up, my cheeks were somewhat pinker, but I now had 72 stitches in each colour, a nice, divisible number. My OCD was satisfied.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Fast forward a couple weeks. I have ripped out and restarted the double-knit hat. Once I was 6 or so inches in and had him try on the headband again with the brim flipped up (oh, but for the camera! There were balls of live yarn hanging off it and peach acrylic through the live stitches!), he reported that it was a little tighter than he liked. I was afraid of that.
I used a long-tail cast-on, and I had repeatedly started with too little yarn. With this method, you cast-on with the main colour 2x the number of stitches needed for one side of the hat, and then you divide the work into front and back by starting a second ball (of, say, the contrast colour) on the first round, purling every other stitch and keeping the yarns separate as you normally would in double-knitting.
By the third try at casting on long-tail, when I finally got 142 stitches on the needle and still ran out of yarn, frustration kicked in. I figured screw it, that should be good enough, I'll see how it goes, right? I also wasn't completely happy with how the long-tail cast on looked at the brim edge of the hat, which I plan for him to wear folded up. The cast-on edge stuck out strangely:
Using long-tail cast-on, a very visible cast-on edge
So I sucked it up and pulled it all out before I got any further. There is honour, I remind myself, in fighting valiantly but admitting defeat and readying oneself to do battle again another day. At least I now know what doesn't work.
One month on the needles, 7 inches of tube double-knit, 10 minutes to pull it all out and re-ball the yarn.
And then, three tries over five hours one evening last week to get it cast-on again the way I wanted. My brain and fingers could not work out a provisional cast-on to a spare cable, and that seemed like the best way to proceed, since I was going to pick up the stitches later, right? Bah, I finally got it on to some waste yarn. Guess I'll have to practice that.
This time, I did 84 stitches in the provisional cast-on with a needle one size larger than before. This should make it sufficiently bigger, but not monstrous, and I can come up with a 2, 6 or 12-stitch pattern to repeat.
Using provisional cast-on, the bottom edge runs smoothly into the contrast colour
The neat thing about using a provisional cast-on to start double-knit is that after a couple rows, you can fold the cast-on edge up and bring the live stitches that are on the waste yarn onto the working needle, picking up one between each stitch already on the needle. And suddenly, you have two-layer knitting and a beautifully smooth bottom edge with no obvious cast-on seam.
OK, so it's not a brand-new discovery or an Earth-shattering epiphany, but at least I'm pleased with myself, even if I did have to learn it the hard way!
I sigh. So much for an even, repeatable pattern, I think. I wince a little due to my inner OCD, but whatever, I think, it’s not critical, and I’m not ripping it out. I've done too much of it, and it seemed to fit OK when he tried on the headband the day before.
I mention my little quandry to Daniel, intended (non-knitter husband) recipient of the hat. "Uh-huh," he says, eyes focussed on his computer screen, reading.
A couple minutes of companionable silence later, and he looks up at me. “Can’t you just, you know, add in like two more stitches in there or something?" he says. "That would give you 144. Then you could do an eight-stitch pattern. A couple more stitches won’t really change the size, right?”
“Er, you mean increase,” I say, blinking at my knitting stupidly and mentally smacking my forehead. “Um, yes. Right. Thanks, honey.”
Well, I’ll be. He doesn’t know knit from purl, but I guess he does listen sometimes!
Two M1s later (one in each colour), which would conveniently be hidden by the brim that folds up, my cheeks were somewhat pinker, but I now had 72 stitches in each colour, a nice, divisible number. My OCD was satisfied.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Fast forward a couple weeks. I have ripped out and restarted the double-knit hat. Once I was 6 or so inches in and had him try on the headband again with the brim flipped up (oh, but for the camera! There were balls of live yarn hanging off it and peach acrylic through the live stitches!), he reported that it was a little tighter than he liked. I was afraid of that.
I used a long-tail cast-on, and I had repeatedly started with too little yarn. With this method, you cast-on with the main colour 2x the number of stitches needed for one side of the hat, and then you divide the work into front and back by starting a second ball (of, say, the contrast colour) on the first round, purling every other stitch and keeping the yarns separate as you normally would in double-knitting.
By the third try at casting on long-tail, when I finally got 142 stitches on the needle and still ran out of yarn, frustration kicked in. I figured screw it, that should be good enough, I'll see how it goes, right? I also wasn't completely happy with how the long-tail cast on looked at the brim edge of the hat, which I plan for him to wear folded up. The cast-on edge stuck out strangely:
Using long-tail cast-on, a very visible cast-on edge
So I sucked it up and pulled it all out before I got any further. There is honour, I remind myself, in fighting valiantly but admitting defeat and readying oneself to do battle again another day. At least I now know what doesn't work.
One month on the needles, 7 inches of tube double-knit, 10 minutes to pull it all out and re-ball the yarn.
And then, three tries over five hours one evening last week to get it cast-on again the way I wanted. My brain and fingers could not work out a provisional cast-on to a spare cable, and that seemed like the best way to proceed, since I was going to pick up the stitches later, right? Bah, I finally got it on to some waste yarn. Guess I'll have to practice that.
This time, I did 84 stitches in the provisional cast-on with a needle one size larger than before. This should make it sufficiently bigger, but not monstrous, and I can come up with a 2, 6 or 12-stitch pattern to repeat.
Using provisional cast-on, the bottom edge runs smoothly into the contrast colour
The neat thing about using a provisional cast-on to start double-knit is that after a couple rows, you can fold the cast-on edge up and bring the live stitches that are on the waste yarn onto the working needle, picking up one between each stitch already on the needle. And suddenly, you have two-layer knitting and a beautifully smooth bottom edge with no obvious cast-on seam.
OK, so it's not a brand-new discovery or an Earth-shattering epiphany, but at least I'm pleased with myself, even if I did have to learn it the hard way!
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