Imagine

If anyone has seen my camera, can you send it home? It was supposed to come in when the streetlights came on. Haven't seen it in weeks, even though The Great Decluttering of 2009 continues.

Redlands Bowl season is here, so there is more knitting time in my week now. The first of the blue socks is nearly done and they might be fair-worthy. Opening night was packed with both people and good entertainment.

The first project from my weaving class is off the loom and wet-finished (imagine picture here). I need to figure out a good edging treatment and decide if it is a mat, towel or blanket. This project was my fist of double-wide double-weave, which gives a finished item twice as wide as the working width of the project. I think my fold line was pretty iffy, but the class and the teachers assure me it was pretty darn good. Wet finishing changed the texture significantly, so my first order of business in our next class is trying to find out why it changed, followed by how to avoid those changes and/ or how to duplicate them in a future project.

Someone came by the spinning demo booth at the farmers' market Friday and suggested we wander by the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum to see the weavers' barn. Denise was agreeable, so Saturday was filled with chili dogs, soft serve, tractors, weaving, looking for a water fountain, and contemplating the blacksmithing class. Then back at the ranch we admired the goats and sheeps and horses. A good day.

I am going to a wedding next weekend and am scrambling for a gift. Yarn, perhaps.

Being Lovely

Today is a good day because...

• it might rain
• yesterday was pizza night at the knitting store
• it might not rain
• I bought cat litter
• there is a cantaloupe growing in the garden
• I found a grown up bed that is so cheap it will fit even my budget
• I worked on my sock last night at knitting
• kittens are soft

Time to Reap

Watermelons and Wool.... this is the sunset colored merino I have been working on for a few months now at varous demos, photograped on a bed of watermelon leaves. I think I will enter it in the LA co fair.

Can you 'ear' me now? I promise I did not force the corn to grow this way!

The haul from the garden today. The corn was very tasty with a side of hot dogs and potato salad. It could have grown some more, but was sweet and fit exactly in the pot! Those tomatoes are about 3" deep in that container. I took lots of garden pictures but will settle for posting just this one. The sunflowers in the front are doing quite well; the goldfinches already check on their progress. Down the other side of the house is swiss chard, basil, a tomato, a larkspur and some coreopsis tinctora. I have flax to plant too, but no idea where to find the space! Here are the completed Uncloudy Day socks. I am always bewildered when the stripes come out so differently. The stitch count is identical. These might also get entered in the fair... the worst that can happen is that I waste $1 on the entry fee!

Loomacy.

The kittens love the loom. Mama cat (Carrie) is supervising and the gray kitten is hiding under the treadles.

Time to Sow

Well, the first kitten went to her new home today. She is missed, but the others are being so rambunctious I don't have time to fret. Another is on the 'maybe' list. They have another photo shoot tomorrow, the lucky ducks.

Had a hard day today... don't know if the lack of ambition caused the badness or if the badness drained my ambition. Either way it sucked. I did manage to thread about a third of the ends on the big loom this afternoon before my back cried uncle, and I think I can finish that tomorrow. Yes I took my meds, yes I remembered to eat, yes I took headache pills and yes I cuddled kittens. But yet - feeling off.

My big planting plans are put off until the morning, but I have larkspur, catnip, jasmine and lavender to plant and feverfew and flax to sow. I also bought some dirt and received the first batch of composting worms, so the poor little plants might actually grow. I will have oregano transplants for giving away (and maybe basil too), but am looking for a comfrey plant if anyone knows where I can get one. It is a rabbit digestive. mmmm

I thought of a wonderful caption for the picture in the last post.... 'A Loom with a View' .

Knittin' and Kitten

Socks in progress... 'Skye Blues' ankle socks. Araucania yarn in colorway 6. 8st/inch on size 0 needles. My first time trying this yarn - it is 100% sugar cane fiber. Not very elastic, but super soft and shiny. It also has good drape and would be nice for a tank top.

The other socks (brown and pink) are done, picot hem sewn down and everything, but the camera is not cooperating. I might enter them in the next fair (LA county, I believe).

A very adventursome kitty. I looked over and he was very, very tall on the very top of the loom. They have also decided it is their job in life to un-thread the heddles. I will have to hurry and finish threading and tying on. Then they can just bounce on the fabric like a giant trampoline. I learned how to lace my warp to the front apron rod in class last week, so I think I will try that on the home project too.

The rabbit show was great fun, and a long day. I can hardly believe how many kinds of rabbits there are... little ones, big ones, skinny ones, fat ones. You know when the day is just about done when you look at the rabbits on the judging table and start thinking of rabbit pie. mmmmm pie.

Sock Hop

The camera is still missing, but the first of the Butte / Uncloudy Day socks is done, picot hem and all. Number two is eagerly awaiting my attention, so gotta fly. Happy Holiday Monday everyone.

Happenings and happenstance

Tomorrow I will be joining my darling Denise at a rabbit show. Should be a good time. Then Sunday I have a demo and *hopefully* a kitten delivery. The garden is growing, the flowers are blooming and the kittens are 'wrassleing' as my grandpa would have said. Knitting is still intermittent, but we have been going to weaving class and progress is being made. I even took a workshop on tiny woven pouches that was great fun... and very saleable.

I love the nice comments and even the constructive ones. But for the mean ones, well, I am flattered that you take the time to follow my long absences. I will understand though, if you want to apply your energies elsewhere instead of wasting your time reading my boring blog, since it apparently annoys you no end. I suppose I should be flattered that you are not so busy in your own life that you can't take time to stop by here.

Wow.

I was going to post but then I checked the comments.

Not Dead

.... just distracted.

Wednesday Weaving

I forgot to post the picture I took of our weaving classroom. Someone from a newsletter or paper came by to take pictures, so we uncovered every loom. I siezed the opportunity to get a shot for the blog! This is not even all of them. It was also a lovely opportunity to see more of the projects that students are working on... every one of those floor looms (and there are several out of shot) is assigned to someone.

We had our 3rd session this evening and I am still working on getting my dummy warp set up. The bad news is that my intended project is just not going to fit on the loom I was assigned, but the good news is that I can use the same tie-up for another project and use the loom at home for the original one. Now that the front room is much tidier I want to make a bunch of rugs and runners to brighten it.

Cat-aclysm!

The kittens are getting bigger and more interesting. Here is a picture I took of one at the "dogwash". Dozer just loves the kittens but he is much bigger than they are! They are always closely supervised. They will be 3 weeks on Thursday and are still in need of homes.

They had a professional photo shoot on Sunday and were just adorable*. I love the look on the gray tabby in the background in this one...... and the expression on the orange one here. You can only see the tail end of kitten #6 off to the left there. She is a mostly dark tortie and white and was very shy that day.

Things have been getting bigger in the garden too and I made up a little bouquet of geranium, oregano and alyssum. The picture didn't look upside down when I took it! The alyssum is a volunteer from 4 houses down that just sprang up a month or so ago. Now it is huge and I have little seedlings all over the garden; much like the oregano come to think of it. And the basil. And the tomato. I might have more volunteer plants than real ones!

My hand wasn't feeling well last week so there wasn't much spinning or knitting, but I did manage some work on these socks a couple of days ago. I believe the yarn in Seacoast Handpaints and the colorway is "Butte". It is a lovely soft 2 ply yarn and I am knitting on size 0 dpns. One sock is on waste yarn for the moment - I set it aside to make the other so that I can work on each to use up every bit of this lovely yarn.

*Studio pictures courtesy of Kelly Vela at Mountains and Meadows photography. These are available as prints (kitten free with purchase of course) and you can see them in person at the Riverside Arts Walk.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Pardon my dust... I will reconstruct the blogroll and soap tour dates shortly.

Itteh Bitteh Kitteh Committeh

The babies are growing and *surprise* still need homes. First, a family shot...

The kittehs! The top center kitty and the one to the right are red tabby & white (both male). The calico & white just below that and the calico & white dead center are both female. The all red tabby is a male and the dark tabby is a female. Did I mention that they are a-dor-able?And really, who could resist this face?

In other news, I have been playing with the collection of spinning wheels this week. Here is some merino that I dyed many moons ago and am spinning quite fine on my Ashford Traditional. I had forgotten what a lovely wheel this is. I think I am keeping it for a student wheel. I tried spinning this fiber thick and fluffy but I think it is better suited to laceweight.

Weekly Wrap-Up

It is another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Set up the soap booth at the local farmers' market today and was astounded by the wind. It was really quite impressive. Picked up a little swiss chard for dinner tonight... the ones in my garden are really not growing fast enough.

Knitting progress is still slim. Washcloths are due soon and I had fewer than I thought, so there has been a lot of work on those. The lace stole is still in limbo and there is no lace mojo on the horizon. Even my socks have been stalled since I switched knitting bags. Fortunately it is too warm now for socks and I have plenty in the sock drawer already in case we have an early spring blizzard. I did stop by Knit N Stitch for an quick visit this afternoon and was reminded how much I love yarn and the people who work with it. We even got to burn someone’s yarn! The burn test is one way to determine the fiber of a yarn – wool turns to ash, acrylic melts, et cetera.

Saturday is the GLASG meeting so I will be there with fiber, a smile and some soap. It is always nice to visit with spinners, and I anticipate I can get a lot of progress made on the box of brown Romney roving. It seems that the more I spin, the less the level of wool in the box goes down! The black Romney fleece is nearly all scoured and dried now, so I can work on that soon. It will be fun to break out the drum carder! I think after that I will be ready for some white or anything with color. The theme of the meeting is trying out different kinds of wheels and spindles, so I will pack a couple interesting ones and maybe one will find a new home.

Denise and I started the weaving class in Covina this week. The facility is amazing – they have been in that room since the ‘70s and that class has been running since ’37. They must have 50 floor looms and a couple dozen table looms, plus a dyeing room, a small spinning area, a triangle loom and bunches and bunches of free / donation yarn for projects. I don't know what I was expecting, but that was not it. The folks are all very nice and it turns out most of us recognize each other from various fiber events - sometimes it is good to be known as "the soap lady"!

I am planning on learning the doublewide – doubleweave technique, where one weaves a cloth that you can unfold it when it comes off the loom and is twice as wide as it seemed. Double weave can also be used to make cloth that is a tube, has pockets, has a front and a back that are entirely different or to make two pieces of cloth at the same time (one sits above the other). It is all very clever.

I am also fascinated by the idea of woven lace (huck, atwater-bronson, etc) and might make some curtains later in the semester. I have to get Martha’s blanket done at some point in my life. She would prefer if it were soon! I am still such a new weaver that I am not sure what all the weaving ‘options’ are. So many things in our environment are made from woven fabric but how often do we stop and evaluate them? Do I want to make curtains? Rugs? Upholstery fabric? Towels? Yardage for clothing? That is why I want to be in a class – not just for instruction and guidance but also for inspiration and variation.

I brought the guinea pig to gardening day at Martha's this week and he was well admired. They commented how well the red pig looked in the green grass against the purple flowers; maybe we should make a calendar!

Kittehs

The stray (pictured in previous post) popped out 6 little kittens yesterday. They are living in the neighbor's garage in relative splendor. We are soft hearted. There are 6 - 2 orange & white tabby, one regular tabby, and some tortie and white. I have never seen kitties that small before. They are really cute. Momma will need a home too, if anyone has room at the inn!

Random Tuesday (is it Tuesday?)

First, a pic for the fine folks visiting from "Desked"... a niddy noddy in action:When the yarn comes off it is in a circle and then I twist it into a skein (seen in the desk picture). You can just see the spinning wheel base and the ball winder at the top there. Yarn requires many a gadget.

Next, a pic of the stray cat that needs a home. Here she is reclining on the neighbor's a/c unit. Anybody need a cat? The inn is full at my house.

For Melissa: it is not sunny here all the time. We had fog this weekend! And I thought I was just bleary eyed. The next day we even had rain squalls in the morning. You can see my 7 lane street there... I have a persistent mild fear of someone crashing their car through the kitchen wall.

Another rose has made an appearance in the garden. I actually have quite a few now and am on the lookout for ladybugs to eat the aphids. The lettuces and spinaches are ready for harvesting, the carrots, corn, watermelons, cantalopes and swiss chard are taking their sweet time.

And a scary sight - Devil Kitties. I wonder if I should submit this pic to LOLcats?

What Ho!

A quiet day at home today; cooking, chores, "Jeeves & Wooster", tea with a friend and now a little knitting before bed. It is good to feel happy again.

Rising Signs

I think I am at about the zenith of my energy, judged by what I managed to pack into this week (and by what missed the cut). There was work (!), gardening, wool washing, spinning, visiting and dogwalking... sometimes all at the same time. I want to overload my schedule something fierce, but am trying the best I can to only make committments that I can actually keep.Today Fran and I carpooled to the Freeway Lace Guild lace meeting. We stayed for a little bit and then hit the road, stopping by Garden Gate in Covina, Needles and Niceties in Upland and then Michael's to top it all off. Temptation was great (really great) but somehow I managed to resist and came home with nothing but some free cross stitch magazines from the lace meeting trade table and some kumquats. mmmm kumquats. GG is mostly a needlepoint / tapestry store and is just adorable. Fran found her fabric straight away and I admired all the beautiful work. NN is mostly a cross stitch store with a decent yarn selection and getting me out of there was not an easy task. Cross stitch has come a long way and I was dizzy with all the beautiful things there were to see and to create. All in all it was a good day with a good friend. "Detour Days" can go either way, but this was a pleasant one. It sure beat going from car parts store to car parts store. YMMV.Knitting progress is being made on the "Uncloudy Day" socks. #2 is about 3/4 done and I am getting antsy to wear them before it gets any warmer! Great progress was made in the car on our way to the lace guild meeting today. I thought I had a picture of them but it must be on another disk. Cross stitch, quilting, reading and WOW-playing have been sidetracked by production spinning (I dream in brown romney), but I know they will be there when the energy shifts again.I have been washing wool like a madwoman in order to get it shipped to the processor and out of storage. It is slow going but I am trying to keep the quality high as they have a new "WYSIWYG" policy. I figure the fiber is not making me any money (or sweaters) by hiding in the garage. I also like to entertain the neighbors by sorting and picking fleece in the front yard. No way am I bringing that mohair fleece inside. You can smell it from 20 paces (I counted).On Friday I joined Denise at her booth at the Farmers' Market in Riverside (8-12 in the Sears parking lot on Arlington) and helped her demo spinning and fiber arts. There is still time to submit handspun / knitted / lace items to the upcoming fair, so I will get on that in the next month or so. I carved out a little time between *cough cough* midnight and 2am this week to watch "Ring of Bright Water". It is a movie about a man and his otter that I saw once when I was small. Only bits remained in memory, but the story was the same and it was still a pleasure. Except for one part. But we won't talk about that. DestashingThe Flickr folder has been updated. Thank you for your interest! I will add fiber and fleece as I unearth and evaluate it.Time to wrap it up for the day. I highly recommend the link to Desked over in the sidebar. If I started a "link of the week" feature, that would be the current one.

Fleecy Dreams and Stranger Things

For your spinning pleasure, I present the current fiber selections from The Pick of the Knitter. They are soft and fluffy and ready to be made into something warm and beautiful.

Blue Faced Leiscester "Citrus Splash"

Merino/Tencel " Cherry Cordial"Blue Faced Leiscester "Skye"Merino/ Tencel "Skye"BFL "Aster"Merino/Tencel "Aster"Finn Sheep "Jester"

Merino/ Tencel "Twisted Spinster"BFL "Twisted Spinster"Merino/Tencel "Rainbow Trout"
BFL "Rainbow Trout" (not pictured)
Merino / Silk "Blueberry Squishy"

Merino/Tencel "Primrose"Merino/Tencel "Autumn"
BFL "Autumn" (not pictured)

The Idles of March

Not bloody likely! I finished a custom spinning order this week and thought to take pictures of the process.

First the wool (superfine merino) was soaked to remove the suint, then washed in hot water with detergent to remove the lanolin and filth, then rinsed. After two days of soaking, there were still dry areas of the fleece, which shows how well the suint and lanolin protect the wool from damage and weather. A pain to scour, though.

Next it went out to dry and was also picked over to remove the worst of the dirt and bits of twigs. I combed this fiber to make a worsted yarn, to get out the rest of the bits of dirt, and to use the best parts of the fiber for the finished yarn. Here you can see the way the fiber is loaded on the stationary comb and the sweeping motion the moving comb makes to transfer the fibers from one to the other. This is what opens up and aligns the fibers. I use Valkyrie two pitch combs purchased from Carolina Homespun. When the fiber is all soft and fluffy, it is drawn through a diz to make a sliver. This makes the fiber into one piece of top of a manageable size. This diz was made by my spinning teacher's spinning teacher, Lila Sturges in Vista, CA.The sliver, ready to spin. It is mostly air at this point - soft, fluffy and squooshy.Using a hand spindle to spin the fibers into a singles. You can see how airy the sliver is. Later I took 2 singles and plied them together. This spindle is a Bosworth featherweight in Tulipwood from Journey Wheel. This spindle is available as part of the destashing project. More info below.The finished cop of singles on the spindle. I forgot to take plying pictures as it required two hands, my lap and the ball winder to manage it.

The finished 2 ply yarn! From about 25 gr of raw fiber I was able to make a 17 gr skein of about 48 yards. It is amazingly soft and fluffy, and bright white. I hope the client is as pleased as I am.

Destashing

The destashing project is still on. I have made a flickr folder of the available items. Please email me at sleepingfox16 at yahoo dot com for more information on individual items. The featherweight spindle above is $35.