You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2010.
I’ve begun spinning.
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My first attempts with a bottom whorl spindle, plied and then set.
It’s a tiny amount of yarn, inconsistently made. And yet I like it. I like it a lot. It charms me.
Like a seed, brown in my palm but full of promise.
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The spindle, full of my second attempt. This time with the coloured roving that came with the kit. Things are getting better. I’m not always consistent in my thickness, but that’s partly because I’m trying to sort out which thickness works best. The spindle is pretty heavy.
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It’s interesting to note the differences between the spun and unspun fibre. Spinning seems to darken the colours a lot, which makes sense since one of the things you’re doing is adding shadow. Each twisted fibre creates its own little bit of texture that casts a shadow.
Matthias continues to enjoy spinning. With two spinners in the house and one batch of roving, there’s going to be trouble. So I’ve begun falling down into the deep, deep hole that is looking at fibre. Gaia’s Colours is a Canadian shop with an incredible colour sense and good prices. On the other hand, there are fibres that sparkle, shine, and evoke the Irish seaside at Bohemia Fibers. Not to mention the gorgeous earth tones at Briar Rose Fibers that would flatter my colouring.
All of this means that I’m enjoying myself and planning to enter the Tour de Fleece (Flickr link; Ravelry link). This cracks me up a bit, since I’d always viewed it as being very much something for other people. But here I am. It’s time for the cyclists to battle and the spinners to spin. And I think that spinning a little bit every day during the Tour would be very good for getting a sense of what I’m doing. Let’s hope the new rovings arrive before we run out.
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Squander it all!
Hold nothing back.
The heart’s a deep well.
And when it’s empty,
It will fill again.
Greg Orr
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What can you spend it all upon this day?
Stormy skies, the tartness of lemon squares, the laughter of friends. Colours splayed out before us. The smell of wet wool.
After a fair bit of thought, I decided it would be better to hold two parties to dye yarn, one for family and one for friends. My sister and her husband couldn’t make it ’til July, and the logistics of choreographing 10 people’s creativity were making my head spin. It turned out to be a good call. In my initial vision, we were all outside in the yard, sun spilling over us as we laughed and enjoyed a picnic-like feeling of relaxation. In reality the weather has been very unpredictable, and this Saturday my friends and I were elbow-to-elbow in the kitchen.
Rainer and Sandra had gamely spent their free time winding yarn into hanks for me, using my new homemade PVC niddy noddy. I had a bit of trouble finding PVC piping, can you believe it? I had to go to a store up on the hill that is a combination of Canadian Tire and a livestock feed store that I’d always wondered about. My niddy noddy ended up costing more than the one in the AntiCraft, but I did have to buy the entire length of PVC. As I anticipate these long sticks of piping delighting Matthias and his friends, that’s not a bad thing. (And it still ended up being less than $15.)
I had a bit of a crisis when I realized I had ordered 1/3 of the cheap, undyed yarn I thought I had from Webs. But I looked through my stash and found some colours that I had been given and despised. That way we each had a white hank to play with and a coloured one to over-dye. I knew that one chance to dye wasn’t going to be enough. Playing with colours is really satisfying, but also completely unsatisfying. You want to try another colour or another technique or, or, or….
I ordered 4 colours of Jacquard Acid dye: three primaries and a brown. That way we could mix and match and really make things our own. I’d premixed them in baby food jars so they’d be super-concentrated. When we wanted a colour, we’d put 1/3 – 1/2 C water in a plastic cup and then mix in the concentrated colours.
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from l to r: Supernova, Princess Prunella, Riverbank, Irish Setter just peeking through, Canola Field, Blue Steel (with a nod to Zoolander)
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We had so much fun. We used to see each other at least monthly for potluck suppers, but we’ve all grown busy and those monthly meetings faded away. I can’t remember the last time we were in one room together.
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Can you guess which one of these became which yarn in the top photo?
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A Father’s Day present from Sandra. Completely her idea. Accomplished with freezer paper stenciling.
It cracks me right up.
“Portable and Interactive” indeed.
daisies and irises mix in our garden
reminding me of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse
a little peek at a full day
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My friend made me a hula hoop because hers makes her feel young and fun.
My Wetsuit. A birthday present that’s been in the house for a few weeks, and a strange set of converging circumstances meant I could try it for the first time on my birthday.
Berries and cherries waiting transformation into cake.
Quark cake. mmmmmmm
A starter spindle kit, a gift from my sister.
Tias is entranced by the prospect of spinning. The sample fibre that came with the starter kit will have to be supplemented, and soon.
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1. hoop, 2. wetsuit, 3. berries and cherries, 4. quark cake, 5. spindle, 6. 014
created with fd’s Flickr Toys
The season of the humble yellow rose always makes me feel 8 again.
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Is there a way to get them to my teacher’s desk without wilting?
I have had only one UFO. (That’s UnFinished Object.) I don’t cast on more than 3 projects at once as I like to keep things tidy and moving on. But there was this one nagging problem: the first lace project I attempted. I started it years ago, had to concentrate in a quiet room to knit it, and therefore often long stretches passed between knitting sessions. This spring I was inspired by the Stash and Burn concept of the “Finish or Frog” to have a look at it again.
What I saw: blunt, straight needles that felt awkward and heavy in my hands, a pattern I was no longer enamored of, a scarf with what looked like a big mistake in it.
It was time to admit that I wasn’t going to finish it and deal with it.
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While I was frogging it, I thought back to the time when I began the scarf. I smiled. How utterly silly and strange that it was during the last World Cup. I’d taken the project with me to Germany in 2006, planning to use it as a portable yet complex project to balance whatever mindless project I also had along. I can vividly remember sitting upstairs on the bed, sweltering in the heatwave, enjoying how much of my mind was needed to knit it – a deep, thoughtful silence in the midst of a houseful of in-laws and kids.
But seriously? This had hidden in a project bag for four years? Nope. Can’t bear it niggling at the back of my mind any longer.
Now it’s been washed and balled, reborn as my first project with beads. I’m calling it my World Cup Wisp. Even 4 years later with all the accumulated skill, I still can’t knit it while watching the World Cup, as it needs an eye to get the needle through the yarn overs and soccer needs my attention too, but it needs to be done by the end of the tournament to be a gift that arrives on time. We’ll see how I squeeze it all in. After all, in a few days, the pace of games will slow as they start eliminating each other.
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Our World Cup unit continues apace. We’ve explored some of ancient Africa, modern South Africa, the flags of the competing nations, and…well…more than a little soccer. I think we’ve seen all but 2 games so far. Not as exciting as one might always wish, but there have been a few standout matches and moments. We’re cheering for underdogs and upsets. Except when it comes to Germany, and even there we’d be happy to lose to an underdog…in a few rounds, that is.
…I make – at long, water-logged last – my own vitamin D!
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