Why I Spin, or, The Smell of Home

I used to card wool when I was, like, 8-12 at the home of a family friend. She had a spinning wheel and they raised sheep and angora rabbits. She would sometimes set the kids to carding, if we were willing, to give us something to do while the adults played bridge. Their family did the local 4-H stuff and several fairs each summer, and sometimes my family went along for a nice, wholesome, inexpensive day out. I also washed my first fleece with them - although, it was still on a live sheep that was being prepped for show (For the record: The sheep did not take to it kindly, which was why it was “the kids’ job”). My mother’s favourite mittens came off her spinning wheel and needles.

My childhood was, in retrospect, mostly idyllic.

Naturally, I got older, and forgot everything I knew. I moved away to a large city for university and an even larger city after that. I remember asking my grandmother to teach me to knit when I was in high school or college, to which she replied, “Oh, honey, you can learn that from a book a lot faster than from me.” A few years ago, still mourning her and using her old needles, I did just that. Grandma Helen was a gem, but not really one for the patient teaching. It was probably for the best.

Not quite two years ago while I was visiting my parents, I spent a couple days at a medieval event that is held very nearby. I was pleased to have a chance to spend some time with my then 19-year old niece. I also wanted to experience this large event that seemed to have grown up with me. I had watched - from the road - as it expanded over the years. I crashed in my niece's teeny-tiny trailer, which she graciously shared, and she served as my guide for part of a day.

We split up in the afternoon, and I wandered around for several hours, in and out of merchant booths, people watching. My old memories of sheep, wool, fairs, farm shows and pioneer festivals (especially if it had a blacksmithing demo - Dad was all over that) began to work their way up to the surface as I walked. Some of the smells were there: grass, dirt, sweat. Fried foods from the food tents, complete with the teenagers who made spare summer cash working them. I had friends who did that every summer in high school. I spent one memorable summer week volunteering for charity at a dunk tank at the county fair, myself.

There was something missing. A smell common to all of those summer events, modern or historical. The smell of the animals. Something clicked in my brain. Yes.

I turned around, walked determinedly back into a merchant booth and left with a drop spindle and some roving. This seemed a good compromise; I had been thinking about it for a couple weeks. I had never spun before, but I knew I didn’t have room for a wheel and couldn’t, at that moment, do what I did remember (washing and prepping fleece). Worst case it would make a nice display piece. I netted another bag of roving, a book, and a second spindle from another merchant a few minutes later because I didn't know if I would be able to handle the fancy low-whorl one I bought originally. Tired of walking, I bought some iced tea and plopped myself down under a shady tree overlooking a sea of tents. With the ever-present sound of drums and laughter as a soundtrack, I had at it for a while.

My niece found me there a little later, in our pre-arranged meeting spot, trying to practice joining, a few feet of impossibly overspun yet still lumpy yarn on the spindle. I must have had the most content look on my face ever.

"I didn't know you knew how to do that," she said.

"I don't. Er, I didn't. Well, not for a long time, anyhow, since I was, like, 10 or 11. And then I never learned how to spin, just card wool."

"Oh. Well, it suits you. Like you've been doing it forever."

"Thanks, hon."

24 hours later, my spindle, iced tea and I were sitting under the same tree, joined by a pound of lovely RomniX fleece. Earlier in the day, I had found myself sitting in a tent with a handful of ice, chatting with a lady and admiring the piles of lovely fleece surrounding her, wrapped up in sheets and peeking out in bursts of browns, cremes, whites and greys. My new fleece was washed, but it still smelled a little sheepy. I didn’t have carders or combs, so I spun a little straight from the locks. And quite suddenly, with all those smells together (sheep, grass, earth, iced tea), all was right with the world.

Sheepy Goodness is not a common smell in a large city, unless you know where to look. It had never occurred to me to try. But it's a smell I've known since childhood. My niece and I woke the next morning in our cramped accommodations to the sound of a cannon shot (ooops, missed the opening ceremonies of war week, I guess). I rolled over in my sleeping bag, and came face-to-face with the fleece. Again, there was the smell of grass, and earth, and sheep.

I knew I had finally come home.

And so that's why I spin. Because when I spin, no matter where I am, I am home. My drink of choice while spinning is still iced tea, and I’ve determined that I prefer sharp, pointy combs to carders. I’m in no hurry to get a wheel. I have processed a fleece straight off the sheep. I continue to acquire more drop spindles at an alarming rate.

It feels like I've been doing it forever.

The only knitting request he's ever made...

...is finished. Here's the completed Season 12 Dr. Who scarf. I wove in the last few ends and put on the tassels Tuesday evening. It has already been slept on by the cats, so I guess it's officially done.


Total unblocked knitted length without the tassels and not under tension: 15' 6"

The tassels add about 4" on each end, and when worn, its own weight will always cause it to stretch some. On DH, it's wearable by looping twice, unless he wants to trip over it:


He really prefers to be behind the camera, but he's a good sport

I've requested that he not wear it dragging on the ground, as is traditional. This is not about it getting dirty or damaged, because that's going to happen no matter what, and patches on a Dr. Who scarf are traditional. However, he does take a bus, subway, several escalators and an elevator to work. Under those conditions, a dragging scarf could be... unfortunate. I don't think I'll block it. It doesn't need any help to stretch, and it looks more authentic like this.

I continue to spin the black superwash merino/golden-brown tussah silk batts into laceweight singles. I tried out my new tulipwood nostepinne to wind the first spindle-load into a centre pull-ball.



At least I finished something, even if it wasn't my Big D proposal revisions, which were "due" a week ago. I vaguely remember a time when deadlines meant something...

My laptop, iced tea, and a bucket of pee...

Why does seem that I get the most poetical when it involves pee?

I am enjoying having a table outside, although I really do need some kind of a shade, so that I can work out here. A laptop in direct sunlight is next to useless. A black laptop in direct sunlight is just begging to be allowed to overheat. But even a few minutes out here with lunch and a drink is better than sitting in the house on the couch all day!


Ford is more annoyed that I'm not inside feeding him than he is wanting to be outside

The black rubbermaid container, with its well-fitting lid, contains the 2-gallon glass jar (with - you guessed it - a lid), which is serving as the indigo vat. The temps have warmed up slightly over the last few days, and it's sunnier, so I'm hoping to encourage fermentation and try to get the indigo to reduce even though we won't be up to daily warm summer temps for a while yet. The black bin retains heat much better than the white bucket, particularly in direct sunlight, even when the outside air is cool overall.

In fact, I removed the jar from the white plastic bucket entirely, because it seemed to be working overtime at keeping the jar cool, even when the whole contraption was inside the black container. The air inside there is toasty-warm when I open it, but the white container and the liquid was still very cool to the touch. No chance of fermentation like that - let's hope this move does the trick and that we get some critters to be fruitful and multiply in there soon. Grow, little friends, grow. I'll continue to monitor it daily - if the jar warms up over the next few days but I don't see any sign of fermentation by next week, maybe I'll add a couple chopped dates.

The lilacs are just about ready to go crazy. Sigh. Why do lilacs have to be so pretty and enticing, and yet make me so miserable?


Hello, allergies. As if you weren't bad enough already.

I am trying, and failing spectacularly, to get my Big D proposal revisions done. They were expected today, which is obviously not happening. I'm crossing my fingers, because no one has come looking for them yet. The committee meeting is on June 3, which means even if I give it to them next Tuesday that still gives everyone their two weeks to read it - but that's not the point. I was given today as a deadline, and I agreed, and I didn't get it done.

I hate this part so, so much - the part where I have to work myself into a frothing frenzy of self-loathing to get anything done. Every time, I swear to myself that it won't happen again. Never again. I'll work on it every day for an hour, maybe two, and before I know it, it will be done, all with less stress and none of this insanity of late-nighters and mental meltdowns. And yet here I am again.

Dammit.

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.

Not so much with the May flowers here...

This was the backyard in on April 26, before last week's cold snap encouraged the magnolia flowers to begin turning brown and start dropping petals.



The buds on the unknown tree opened and became this:


Perhaps a wild cherry? Still not sure.

The little white petals are now peppering the ground after Saturday's torrential downpours, and all the flowering trees will soon be going green. Also, the yellow tulips had some company. Several reds opened a few days later, and a pot of purples came from my mother-in-law. I transplanted them, but I'm not certain they'll survive.


Yellow and purple are bare stems now, but the red are still going strong

The lilacs aren't open yet. I'm actually thankful for that. But we are enjoying the magnolia tree.



And what is this innocent-looking white container?


Not kitty litter

In all honesty, I wouldn't open that if I were you. Not without a mask, gloves and a strong stomach. I'm still in shock that I'm willing to open the damn thing. We'll see how long my will holds out. About as long as I can hold my breath, I suspect.

That's right, I officially started the indigo vat on Monday when I added the indigo to 2 gallons of increasingly stale urine and left it well-covered in a sunny spot. Inside that innocuous white bucket is a 2-gallon glass jar with a plastic bag tucked around the lid. Twice a day, with well-gloved hands, I am supposed to reach in there to swish and rub the nylon stocking containing the 3/4 oz. of unreduced indigo powder that is dangling inside it. This encourages it to dissolve and reduce in the urine. Other than that, I let it sit in the sun and hope it starts to ferment.

I'm hoping that with slightly warmer temps this week, it will soon begin fermenting, but realistically, it's probably still a little too cool outside to get it warm enough, so we're looking more like weeks instead. Unfortunately, the sunny parts of the yard are the closest to the house and neighbours. The area where I envisioned the vat residing (i.e. far away from civilization) is in cool shade much of the day.

We'll see how it goes. For now, all I'm willing to say is that it is certainly... pungent.

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!

When Knitters Frolic

What I bought at the Knitter's Frolic last weekend. "Full disclosure", that's my motto.

- Niddy-noddy (tulipwood), shawl pin (holly) and brooch (black Africa Wood), a dozen tulipwood bottons, and five other buttons (from L to R: spalted maple, Africa Wood, tagua nut, deer antler and sea shell) from that wonderful Ontario woodworker who was next to The Purple Purl's booth. I got his card. He sells his buttons through Purple Purl. I had to stop, I could have gotten in so much trouble at that booth.
- 2-pitch mini-combs by Roger Hawkins (of Peterborough, Ontario), a 900 yd. cone of 2-ply white shetland (soon to be dyed in a cochineal bath) for weaving, and The Handweaver's Pattern Directory from Gemini Fibres. Oh wow, I love this book and I've barely dug into it. I look forward to putting my rigid heddle loom through its paces.
- Maroon and green "young adult mohair" locks from Wellington Farms (Elora, Ontario): I think I'll mix this in with some DorsetX eventually to spruce it up and keep it interesting.
- Sock Blockers from In the Loop, I think.
- Alpaca roving from the very nice couple from Quebec, enough to make a pair of socks if I spin it sock weight.
- Porceline pansy buttons, can't remember from where.

It was my first Knitter's Frolic. I only went for the shopping, and then primarily because I had arranged to pick up an order from Gemini Fibres there, but it was fun. The TTC strike allowed me to build up a little car-ma (HA!), and I got to meet LittleMousling and IndigoDragonfly, both from Ravelry.

I think the thing I liked the most about the frolic seeing so many local shops, farms and craftspeople. The selection was great. I hear they're planning to expand, and are looking for a larger venue in the future. I can't wait.

I also ran into a friend I hadn't seen for years - turning around to the sound of my name and seeing Nancy was the best part of the day. We first became acquainted through a cross-stitch BB many years ago (my email archive says June 1999, Nancy! Um, does that deserve a "woah"?), and there we both were at the Knitter's Frolic, buying spinning supplies! There was much co-enabling: I encouraged her with the spindles and roving at Gemini Fibres and Black Lamb, she did the same for me at the woodworker-button guy, and now I have a Niddy-Noddy that I wouldn't be without. Our pocketbooks are lighter, but it was good, solid enabling, the kind that stash hoards are built on. Because what are knitter/stitcher/spinning friends for?

Does the TTC feel the love yet?

This is bound to offend everyone in one way or another, which is probably why it made me laugh.



I will only say this once: I do not dispute the transit workers' right to strike. But seriously - was there any reason the union couldn't have sat on the vote results and waited two more hours, until the end of subway service Friday night, to call the strike? And in so doing not stranded thousands of people downtown at midnight on the second warm Friday night of the year? Was there a really good reason why they absolutely had to shut down public transit with 90 minutes notice, considering that the "angry and irrational public" they were so concerned about facing wouldn't have known any better if they had just kept their collective mouths shut for 90 more minutes? Forget that they promised 48 hours notice. But 90 minutes? Announced at 10:30 pm, when people who get up early to work on a Saturday are already, wisely, asleep?

Any reason other than someone at the union must have lost their minds?

Didn't think so.

I have pokey sticks. Do you have pokey sticks?

These skewer-like objects were in the far back corner of backyard. I like how they're arranged so... jauntily.

With this last week of actual spring weather, our backyard is at last alive. Let's give a warm welcome to the very first flowers brave enough to open:


I feel like they should get an award or something.

A few days later, the small tulip patch revealed itself to be...


...happily yellow!

The magnolia tree is flowering nicely, and should be in its full glory of pinkness in a couple days:


I don't care if the blooms go away in a week, I love it.

My mother-in-law has identified the two types of bushes along the sides of the yard. There is forsythia down both sides, and what she assures me are lilacs along the left, closest to the house. The forsythia is mostly open and it's pretty, I suppose, but I haven't completely decided if I like it or not.

The lilacs could be a problem. I'm one of those weird people who strongly dislike the smell of lilacs. I think this is because from age 7 to 13, I had to catch the schoolbus at Oh-My-God-O'Clock from the end of my neighbour's driveway in the shadow - and smell - of their untamable lilac bush (which is still there over 25 years later, I kid you not. Even my Dad's backhoe couldn't kill it. The thing is a beast). I personally relocated our bus stop two driveways up the road in my teens because of that thing. Lilacs remind me of early morning ickiness, long bus rides on bumpy roads during which I always became motion-sick, and having to constantly duck flying insects. The smell still makes me mildly queasy and I sneeze a lot.


Lilacs getting ready to bloom, with magnolia in the background. That bright yellow sticking out over there is one of the forsythia bushes.

However, we're leaving everything in place this year so that we can see what all is here before passing judgement. It's all lived here longer than we have, after all. If we decide to dig anything out eventually, I have people who will take them.

There are also still some unknowns. For instance, I'm not certain about the identity of the tree along the right back fence. It needs pruning and is beginning to do battle with the magnolia:


Any ideas?

There is also a small patch of daffodils and a couple other probably-flower things I'm not sure about. I'm about half done with the raking after several hours last weekend. The yard was covered by at least one season's layer of leaves and pine cones, among other things:


Evidence of a neighbourhood cat. I've already seen one, wonder if that's who got this bird?

I've also dug out five lengths of old copper pipe, a piece of siding, quite a bit of plastic and a rawhide dog bone. There are a lot of rocks, including what looks like an attempt at a stone pathway that is partly buried and partly removed. The previous owners' dog also liked to dig holes. There is little to no grass.

But there are pokey sticks. Daniel says if someone breaks into our backyard, we can at least poke them with pointy, rusted pieces of metal. Maybe I'll arrange them around the indigo vat, which I plan to store in the back corner of the yard, as far away from civilization as possible.

Overall, I think this yard thing is going to be fun.

Am I... blue?

Have you ever seen the "This Little Piggy" episode of Justice League Unlimited where Batman is forced to sing to save Wonder Woman?


It still makes me laugh. I am so easily amused.

At any rate, last Saturday started off perfectly normal, and continued as such, until the following conversation:

Bridget: (suddenly changing subject) I hate to say this, but I'm going to need containers to collect urine.
Daniel: (not missing a beat) You know, this is a dark, dark road we're going down...

I want to start a fermentation indigo vat. The old-fashioned kind. Now that I have ample backyard space, I'm thinking, why not?

Why not indeed. Never mind the smell, the chance of scaring our neighbours, attracting the wrong type of critters to my yard and confirming for all the world that I am full-on batshit crazy - did I mention the smell? My understanding is that however bad I think it will be, it will be worse. Bad enough that it could be used in a Klingon Rite of Ascension. I can hear it now:

"DaHjaj SuvwI'e' jiH.
[Today I am a warrior.]

tIgwIj Sa'angNIS.
[I must show you my heart.]

Iw bIQtIq jIjaH.
[I travel the river of blood.]

(pause)

Wait a minute, that's not... eeew."

Here's a great story about a urine indigo vat in Toronto. She is totally my hero.

Really, I'm not into dyeing. Not a bit. Not really my thing. This need - yes, need for an indigo vat comes because some friends and I require a nice, naturally-dyed forest green for a maybe-not-still-secret-but-I-should-check-first-before-blurting-everything project.

As part of this ongoing quest, I tried a recommendation and dyed some of the DorsetX with carrot tops. Another friend tried it unmordanted, and got an olivey-greenish-brown. I decided to test it in combination with copper sulfate as a mordant. On the left is some mordanted wool, on the right, the results of the carrot top dyebath:


Not exactly the green we're looking for, but interesting, in a brown sort of way

I've been researching other options for green. Spinach? Tried and failed. I missed a massive pear leaf pruning at a neighbour's house last fall by a day. There are plenty of things that will give olives and brown-greens, but it seems nothing comes close to giving the strong, bright, colourfast green we're looking for better than overdyeing a good indigo blue with yellow (or hopefully, vice-versa). And the most well-known, time honoured, tried-and-true natural dye combination for this: indigo and weld. I already have some weld-dyed yellow from last fall.

The oldest, and a very historically accurate, way of reducing indigo is in a fermentation vat using urine: "the Good Old Sig Vat" (as per Liles 1990: 82). Yes, there are other methods. Methods that don't make me sound quite as nuts. Methods that don't smell anywhere near as badly. But we're going for historical here, preferably pre-1600.

So really: how much choice do I have? The need is great. I have indigo and recipes. And, I have plenty of the crucial ingredient needed to reduce it.

Sigh. How bad can it smell, really? (Please don't answer that.)

A Time to Spin, Part 9: Random Acts of Plying, and Musings on Pink

In an effort to reduce my expanding collection of singles and make some yarn that might be usable and stronger, I've been doing some plying. I started with the first singles I spun last year, from the first bag of roving I ever bought, plied with some of the DorsetX:


The plying setup, in which the niddy-noddy is demonstrated to be a multi-use tool

What Daniel called the "Strawberry Shortcake yarn," so I now call "Berry Berry Nice":


He named it, he can't un-name it!

I'm enthralled by the stunning pinkness of it all, which is odd, because there is so little pink in my life. Well, not now. I used to like pink. In fact, I was very into pink as a little girl. At age 6, I made my parents paint my bedroom walls pink. I moved out of that room and it became an office while I was in high school, but the pink stayed on a few more years, until after I moved away to university. I have it on good authority that it took several coats of paint to cover the pink.

A stint as the Cheshire Cat in a school play at age ten, combined with a love of all things Cyndi Lauper, meant that my pink phase continued well into my teens. The brighter the better, and when combined with purple, I was a force to be reckoned with.

At some point, it appears that I systematically removed pink from my wardrobe and accessories. When I bought a pink blouse a couple years ago, a friend immediately commented that it was strange to see me in that colour - "not that it looks bad or anything, it looks good! But it's surprising for you, that's all." My husband said something similar.

How did this happen? I can't remember exactly when the anti-pink phase started, but it must have been around high school, when I moved out of my pink room and declared that the title of my autobiography would be My Bridesmaids Will Not Wear Pink.

So sure was I that I designed to keep this declaration intact by avoiding bridemaids altogether. Daniel and I both had a best man, or whatever you would call it when the person who stands for the bride is a guy. We had the word once - the male version of "matron"? Anyhow, my friend Mike, who knew of my declaration, surprised me by wearing pink suspenders in my honour. He's a dear soul, I wish him many fat children.

I guess I've begun to soften my position on pink the last few years. Pink blouse. Pink roving and yarn. Since I've been experimenting with dyeing wool red and discovered how easy it is to get pink with natural dyes (cochineal and brazilwood in particular), pink has, for me, lost some of the "girly" association which has been part of my social conditioning since birth.

I find rebellion against such social conditioning to be an odd and confusing thing: When I recently saw someone describe a colour as "a screaming pink only a little girl and her mother could love," I thought, "Aw, it's not that bad," as if the fact that the mother and daughter would like it made it the wrong shade of pink or something, and if it were a shade of pink that they wouldn't like, that would make it acceptable. Whatever.

I have come to respect the pink. Into everyone's life, a little pink must come. As my parents will tell you (three coats later), pink is persistent. Pink endures.

After all, when red fades, you don't get "light red," right?

Now, if I could only figure out how I'm going to use this yarn. It's so.... pink.

To bead or not to bead

The last couple squares of the super-secret joint knitting project are finished, and all my squares have been delivered to the team crocheter for assembly. It was a relief to do a colour other than orange. To see what I mean, see the end of the March 25th post. In total, I made 10 squares of orange butterflies and 2 purple... somethings (seriously, they barely pass for what they're supposed to be, and naming it would totally give away what it's for), in New Bernat Satin:


The purl stitches do make a picture in there, but don't bother trying to figure it out!

Last Monday, I got to do something ultra-cool. I have a friend who makes very nice lampwork beads. She was teaching a class the previous weekend, so she still had everything for the class together on Monday evening. Being generally awesome, she re-did the class for a small group of us. I got to I made a real, live lampwork bead. With real, live fire and everything.

LOVE.

While I normally agree with the Buffy-ism "Fire bad, tree pretty," in this case I have to make an exception. Fire very, very good. I chose a clear yellow for the base colour, and an opaque purple for the dots. It came out miraculously round, for my first bead, and the dots are nice and evenly spaced. I like beads with a little texture, so I left the dots a little bumpy and didn't melt them down all the way.


My first bead, which now resides proudly in my little magpie box of small shiny things

I am taking my friend's advice and probably not going to use my first bead for anything. It is doing enough work just being My First Bead.

Someday, perhaps, when I am bored with spinning and knitting and weaving and dyeing and planting things in my yard that I can chop up and boil with wool and turn it pretty colours, and - well, I won't count sewing since it's more a necessity than a hobby and I don't enjoy it all that much - and after I've done some calligraphy and illumination that passes for more than 'adequate,' and on a day when I don't feel like playing music... Someday when I am ready to take on a nice, new, potentially expensive hobby, I will remember how enthralling it was to stand by the flame holding the sticks of glass into it, turning, turning, always turning to keep the heat even, watching the glass slowly melt and become drippy and orange then wrap around the metal and congeal into a little ball of shiny goodness.

Oh yes, I will remember. I have so many hobbies already, I couldn't possibly take on another, especially one like this, right now. But it's nice to know that I Have Made A Bead, and It Is Good.

A Time to Spin, Part 8: Dead plants, just in time for spring

Now that we're mostly settled in to the house, I'm starting to root through my spinning stash, which has been packed up too long. Since I have way too much wool (DorsetX, anyone? I have 2.5 full fleece here...), I was able to walk past most raw fleece I came across last year with a clear head and conscience. Overall I've done well at not accumulating more raw fleece. Agreed, I had a lapse a couple weeks ago, with that little bit of Romni I found, but it hardly smells at all, so I don't really think it counts, right?

This does not mean that I haven't continued to accumulate spinning stash, oh no. The Pennsic plant-fibre haul from Brush Creek Wool Works is finally about to see the light of day:

There is bamboo top...


...and flax top...


...and hemp!


Honestly, I don't know how to spin any of this. It will be a learning experiment this spring. I know the flax will spin up smoother if I spin wet, and I assume the hemp is similar.

In the meantime, I've broken in the Forrester Turkish spindle with some green eucalyptus-dyed-tin-mordanted wool, also from BCWW. This spindle spins like a dream. It might be the fastest and longest-spinning spindle I have.


I was right, the spindle does look even better with yarn on it

I want to make it a tradition of buying one bag of naturally-dyed roving from BCWW every year. In '06 it was the Brazilwood-tin-mordanted pink wool that became my very first spinning, so I feel like they're a big part of my spinning history. Even if I don't get to their booth in-person some year, I will try to have someone pick something up for me to keep up the tradition. Of course, it helps that they have wonderful stuff.

During the early fall dyeing adventures, only the first of which I have documented so far, I had reason to order cochineal as well as alum, copper, tin and iron mordants from various places. At the same time, I ordered several spare heddles for my loom in preparation for a related group project that is still in the planning stages. Somewhere among all that ordering, a few other things found their way into my cart:


a Strauch flick carder that will come in handy for some of this fleece, I think


Indigo Hound four-pitch English combs, with accessories

These combs came with the base, wood rods to hold the combs in place on the base, a PVC diz (not pretty, but it does the job), covers for the Very Sharp Teeth, and I think those metal rods are doffers, to clean leftovers from between the Very Sharp Teeth. There is also an intelligently written instruction booklet with a lot of good tips and information, including amusing but important points like: [Remember to] comb with the teeth pointed away from you and anyone else. The object is to comb the fiber and not yourself.

The wooden vice-grip thing in the left of the picture is a base for my single-pitch viking combs. It came with the small c-clamp, but it really needs two clamps to hold it firmly. A trip to Lee Valley solved that problem pretty quick.

And before I realized that the combs came with a diz, I had already ordered this one:


A nice metal diz for pulling roving off of combs

Bad clicky finger. Bad.

I want to wait for warmer weather and set up the English combs in the backyard to tackle the remainder of the DorsetX. I anticipate veggie matter flying everywhere. Whee, fun!

Hanging on by a thread

At long last, the weaving pictures. I've been wanting to post about this new excitement since I started it last August, but couldn't easily get all the pictures until I was ready to take things off the loom, and that wasn't going to happen until I finished the warp that was on there, or took it off because something else took precedence. I finally finished the warp last week.

The highlight of last Pennsic for me was the rigid heddle weaving classes taught by The Dread Viscountess Seelie. Three samplers from three classes, and I am hooked. Needless to say, I came home with a 20" Beka rigid heddle loom. I'm big on portability.


My loom, and the three samplers

The thing I most appreciated about these classes was that we started the first day by taking the new looms out of their boxes and assembling them - no pre-warped looms here. We learned to measure a warp and warp the looms, which is, frankly, one of the most daunting and crucial things to learn from an experienced weaver. It also sometimes takes as long or longer than the actual weaving, if you're only weaving a little sampler.

With more people than looms, we teamed up on warping looms to make it go faster. This provided several perfect hours of chatting and making friends with people while working across a loom from them, pulling and catching up warp threads, the strains of morning musical warm-ups providing a soundtrack. We all felt very much like we were doing something that women have been doing for centuries: "This morning we'll warp your loom, tomorrow we'll do mine..." I find that kind of connection deeply comforting.

The warps were long enough for a couple people to make samplers. This meant many people didn't finish their samplers before the (half to full-day) classes were over, so the instructor had a work table set up at her shop for people to continue working that day or later in the week.

In the first class, we made a simple even-weave colour sampler.



Second class was another even-weave sampler, this time learning to manipulate the warp with various types of open-work and inlay techniques. It was not unlike doing hardanger, which I have some experience with. I confirmed that I am not exactly a natural at wrapped thread work - I fight with it, screw it up several times, cuss profusely and in several languages... but it is so very pretty in the end.



Finally, the third class, which was the one I was really looking forward to, though the first two were absolutely necessary before tackling this. We learned to warp up a loom with three heddles and a fourth set of warp threads that float. It's possible, using combinations of raising or lowering heddles together, to weave four-harness patterns on the rigid heddle loom. So we did a couple twills (3/1, 2/2), tabby weave with moorman inlay, and various double weaves (tube, open on one side, open both sides).

This is seriously cool. I've become particularly enamoured with the double weaves. Weave two pieces of fabric at the same time, or a double-width piece? I am all over that. The double weave samples are the blue section at the top. You'll just have to trust me that the top is two separate pieces, the next couple inches down are open on one side, and the bottom couple inches are an enclosed tube.



While I "finished" the third sampler at Pennsic, I didn't finish tying it off with... whatever that stitch it called, I can never remember. So I technically only finished the third sampler last week. And since it's a shame to waste perfectly good warp, I used the last foot or so to do some more tube double-weave. The idea was that this would become a draw-string bag or something, but I don't think it's tall enough, and I ran out of warp. Whatever. It was good practice. Maybe some day I'll enter it into one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time: failed A&S projects" displays, those are fun.


The lovely rosewood comb sticking out is a multi-use weaving accessory. The husband of the weaving teacher makes and sells them in their merchant tent, 'Stitch, Weave and Burn (and Some Crap My Husband Made).' Everyone agrees, he makes good crap.

My plan this year is to take whatever classes she offers - she mentioned that she was hoping to do a class on recreating a some archeological textile patterns. I would be all over that, if she does it. In the coming months, I will have a not-so-secret project on the loom, but we're still working out all the details. As in, the wool still needs to be dyed, carded and spun, and we've been waiting for spring, which is finally beginning to show itself, to do the dyeing outside.

----------------------------
I was down at my parents' last weekend, so I made the short detour down Currie Road, ten minutes from home and on the way to and from the highway. I had wanted to drive up to the top of Mt. Eislinn, across the road from the campground (which is closed until May), and take some quick pictures while there were still no leaves on the trees to block the view. I decided against that - we had several preceding days of rain and I'm not yet comfortable enough in my new-to-me car to know how it would handle on the muddy dirt road up the hill. There were also three people on horseback coming down the hill, so I decided not to bother them or the horses by ungracefully trumbling by them in the car. Perhaps next time, if the weather is nicer, Dad will take me up on the motorcycle.

In the meantime, I did snap this picture of the (Shadowclans?) cathedral facade from the road (this is approximately outside the north gate, if you're familiar with the area). I knew it was was stored on-site, but I didn't realize it would still be up. I guess it's usually been hidden behind foilage when I've been by in the past. Right now it looks like a beautiful old ruin standing in a lonely field in the modern world.



There's a new Pilot truck stop at the intersection of I-79 and 422. It wasn't there when I was last down in the fall. It has a McDonald's and a Subway, among the other truck stop normalities (showers, supplies, gas). Civilization continues to encroach upon my childhood. I'll take fries with that.

No regrets

This past weekend was rough. I had to make a short trip to PA for the funeral of a woman I loved dearly, though I can count the number of times I saw her in the last 20 years on one hand. I couldn't possibly explain the reason for that here - family "situations" are never as simple face-to-face as they seem from a distance, and I have been at a distance for a while - but though neither she or I were the reason, we bore its results, and a year became two, then five, then ten and more before I held her beautiful old hands and laughed with her again.

There was regret at one time, yes, on both our parts, but we came to terms with that together, the last time I saw her. There was never blame, and there was always forgiveness and love. She knew and understood completely, and that's all that matters to me.

Dorothy Moon was strong, wise, creative, gracious and loving. A word from her could make me smile and laugh without fail. She took bullshit from no one, standing her ground with firm kindness. She was a mother to all. She was a teacher, every day. She was one of the dwindling links to the really good parts of my childhood, before things became complicated. She was part of who I am, and I learned more from her by everyday example than I will probably ever realize.

I love you, Grandma. Be at peace.

A Time to Spin, Part 7: When spinning and knitting finally collide

Like many before me, I have a huge number of works-in-progress, both knitting and cross-stitch. The evidence is in the albums - if there's a WIP pic and no corresponding "finished" pic, then it's not finished. A couple of the knitting WIPs have been sitting for 2-3 years. Some of the XS has been sitting for nearly a decade, which I suppose puts it firmly into the category of UFO.

Spinning, on the other hand, is constantly in-progress. That's its nature. I don't consider any spinning to be a WIP, which probably helps explain why I find it so easy to start more spinning. Even once I spin a full batch of roving into singles, I don't necessarily have a plan for it. I spin because I like to spin, and I usually worry about what the yarn will become later - I might eventually ply it with something I spin up year from now. I probably won't have a spinning "finish" until I've completed a knitted thing with some of my handspun, and then it will be a knitting finish.

But even I occasionally find myself feeling goal-oriented, and I now have an actual project in mind for some handspun:


Batt of black superwash merino mixed with golden-brown tussah silk by Pat's Colours. Laceweight 15 gr. zebrawood spindle by Hound Designs, both found at The Purple Purl in Toronto.

I'm planning for this to become either a light shawl or another black shrug. I need a dark shrug for my sleeveless black concert dress that is lighter in weight than the Shimmer shrug, which is very dense and warm - great outdoors in the winter and fall, not so great in the spring and summer, and always sweltering under hot stage lights.

As for whether I make a shawl or a shrug (or, dare I suggest, both?), I'll have to wait to see how much yarn I get, how strong it is, if it needs to be plied instead of singles... who knows. I'm not worried about quantity: when I run out of the superwash merino/gold silk mix, I have this black alpaca with another batch of the same silk. I can mix them together to make more of this colourway:



I'll spin them both laceweight, so if I decide to ply, I'll ply each type of single together. I don't even know if it's going to be a crochet or knit project, to be honest. It all depends on how much I end up with in singles.

I made a trip up to Gemini Fibres yesterday, ostensibly to see what they had for weaving thread (for another group project which I don't think is secret anymore, but I should check first). But really, I just wanted to show a friend the marvel that is this little shop. Unsurprisingly, I came home with the Forrester turkish spindle that I've been coveting for months:


2.58 oz., wild cherry whorl and maple shaft

She also had a small batch of local Romni fleece. It's still in the grease, but I think it might have been washed once. It barely smells. At $18/kg, ($8.18/lb) I couldn't pass it up. It's just over a pound, total cost $11.80. And gorgeous. Look at that crimp!


Newer knitting WIPs on the needles:


My first foray into double knit. This will be a toque for Daniel. There is no pattern. But can I just say - double knitting hurts my hands. And it goes so slowly, I feel like I'm making no progress at all. But I can finish a hat, right?


And finally, a mystery project. Well, not too big a mystery, but just in case a particular someone stumbles upon it, I won't give away too much. On the needle is the beginning of yet another afghan square, with its siblings lined up behind it. This is a joint project with three other knitters and a crocheter. Each of the knitters has a colour and a certain number of squares to do, then the crocheter will put it all together (brave woman!).

Obviously, I am doing the orange squares. This is number 10 of 10. The Bernat Satin acrylic has been a nice change from wool, despite the honking bright orangeness of it all. I might do one of the other colours as well, since I'm nearly finished with these. There will be a finished pic when the whole thing is done, or once the cat's out of the bag, whichever comes first.

Mother Nature has a full scholarship to F. U.

...but you can't deny, she has style.

From the evening of March 9th, a day or two after the latest bashing (the snow had already melted a little - notice the tree branches are empty). Comparing the bends in the tree trunk, the snow looks to be at least a good eight inches deeper than in the pic posted on Feb. 9.



This one was taken by Daniel on his good Olympus camera. It's three sequential shots of the same scene taken an exposure apart, then re-integrated using a freeware HDR app. This preserved more detail in the final picture, since he was shooting directly into the setting sun. (Shhh, I think he's having fun!)

When is a sock not really a sock?

Answer: When it's still in my stash, waiting to become what it wants to be.

I've knit my share of hats and scarves over the years. I've also knit afghan squares, a few bags, a t-shirt, a shrug and crocheted a sweater. I plan to knit some mittens and gloves soon with my handspun DorsetX. But there's one thing that I can't really find within me the excitement to knit, no matter how practical it may be or how many lovely patterns I admire. Try as I might, I cannot bring myself to be interested in knitting socks.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that I rarely wear socks myself. In the summer, I live in sandals. At home I have cozy slippers, at night my feet need to breathe. Even in the dead of winter, my stinky feet are quite often bare inside my toasty boots. My grandmother would probably think this makes me an uncouth heathen, but there it is. I like the idea of socks, but in practice, they just aren't me.

I recently found, if you can believe it, a pair of kneesocks that I received as a Christmas gift when I was fifteen. And how do I remember getting these socks as a Christmas gift over 20 years ago, you might wonder? Well, they are very very COOL socks, and were from a favourite Great-aunt who always sent the neatest gifts and I really like them. The kicker? (HA! Get it? Kick? HA!) The socks look like I got them a year or two ago. That is how little I wear socks. They also still fit. See?


On the left, one of the 20+ year-old socks from Aunt Ethel, in all its excellentness. On the right, another sock I've had since high school. Weren't the 80s grand? In the background, a hint of my work world: my well-loved English reference grammar.

So, when I was reorganizing the stash the other day, I was surprised to notice that I seem to have accumulated a surprising amount of sock yarn. Not all of it was a surprise: A couple years ago, a friend (thanks, Jenny!) brought me back some self-striping, washable sock yarn from Finland. I've eyed it for a while, never quite taking the plunge into sock-land, but its arrival nearly two years ago seemed to start a trend of accumulating sock stash.


Finnish sock yarn and Cat Foot: A study

The black Paton's Kroy Sock yarn also wasn't a surprise - it was 1/2 of the mix I used for the Shimmer shrug, and I still have 2 balls of it. However, shortly after I received the Finnish yarn, I seem to have been bitten by a sock bug, and I went out and bought several 40" Addi Turbo circs in sizes from 00 - 4 (since my beloved Denise needles only go down to size 5), as well as a book of sock patterns and some exceptionally soft sock-weight Lana Grosso. It's quite yummy, and I swatched up a tube on several sizes of the needles, but never committed to actually making a sock.



The short-lived sock fever faded last winter in favour of spinning, and I recently ripped out the tube swatch when I went through the WIP bag to reclaim needles.

Then a couple weeks ago, on a Mary Maxim run, I found a shelf of not only self-striping sock yarn, but self-patterning sock yarn. Several different brands, mostly imported from Germany (what's up with that? Since when did Germans corner the market on cool, self-patterning sock yarn?). OK, see, now these are just cool. I've been wanting to play with these for a while, so I thought I'd get one ball and try it out - but I couldn't help myself after I saw the brand called "Ja, Woll!" If you know any German, that will hopefully strike you as mildly amusing (and typical for German humour). So I got two balls.



When I go to pack up my new acquisition of the coolest-ever-sock-yarns-that-might-never-become-socks, and what do I find? Oh yes:



Fleece Artist hand-painted sock yarn and another, equally cool, self-striping yarn. OK, now this was a surprise. I had completely forgotten it - I have a vague memory of being in Lettuce Knit last year and asking about Blue Moon Fibre Arts Socks That Rock (they were sold out at the time), so maybe that's when the madness took hold? I don't think I bought them at the same time, either. Wow.

Add to this the three balls of Zephyr that I bought the Pennsic before last, and we reach the inevitable conclusion that I have way too much sock yarn and no desire to knit socks. What's a girl to do? And why do I want to go and buy more now?

It's a sickness, I tell you. I could knit hats with it, or many other things. But no - I'm saving the sock yarn for socks that I can't bring myself to start. Sigh.