Oh, snap!

(Boring technical spinning post. feel free to skip.)
Okay- at the Fest, I was seduced by some silk waste at a vendor's site, which spun up into a rope of gems.
For her.
I wasn't happy with the texture of mine when I spun some up. It was much too stiff- a problem of silk- and had little give. Researching on the Net, many suggested combining it with a 1: 2 ratio of wool, so I decided to dye up some merino that was in the bin, using my new "greener" dyes, also from the Fest.
All was going well until I took my eyes off the pot for a few minutes and it boiled. OVER, actually, but only onto the stove, not the floor. Whew!
After the pot cooled and I was rinsing the roving, it began to look as if the whole mess had felted. Which makes sense, because that's how you make those Austrian boiled-wool jackets.
Damn.
Because I don't have any use for five six-foot long lengths of amethyst felt, however lovely and brilliant their color.
Still, some of the shorter pieces that have dried all the way through are pulling apart, so perhaps all is not lost.
Note to me: PAY ATTENTION!
UPDATE: False alarm. Once the roving dried, it was fairly easy to card it out and re-card with the silk. Next up, spinning two batches to see how they do.

Neutral Ground



Earlier this month, I went to DFW Fiber Fest. (Like a gun show, but with yarn.) One of the classes I took was on Dyeing Yarn and Roving, taught by my spinning instructor. We worked in the little convention center's kitchen- it's a water-heavy process. She instructed us to choose three colors from her collection of dyes and illustrated various ways that we could apply them to our fibers.

Those of us who were dyeing roving (unspun wool) had to consider how our combinations would look when spun into single strands and then plied together into yarn. Leef told us about a process that would, if we liked, prevent the 'barber pole' effect of two distinct colors twined together. You divide your fibers into two equal batches, as usual. You spin one as is, preserving your distinct colors. The second you comb, with carders, into one muted color called a 'neutral ground'. When you ply these together, they balance each other- the original colors retain their individuality, which is actually strengthened by being offset by a shade that combines them all.

I think, here in America, we have lost our 'neutral ground'. The commonality of our culture has been splintered into so many warring social, ethnic, racial, religious and even economic factions that there's not a lot holding us together. Now, this is not to say that there's ever been a time when things were perfect- we are a nation of fallen human beings- but we had a vision that actually worked. But the bases of our 'neutral ground'- the ideas of the Founding Fathers, a shared and common Judeo-Christian morality and a unique American consensus of who we were existed to ground our individualities and allow them to flourish.

Our State Fair


is a great State Fair and it is coming up soon. I have less than three weeks to get my entries finished before delivery day at Fair Park. This year I'm entering three categories:

• Infant Sweater Set, 2 or more pieces. This will be a sweater and hat in burgundy with a tan border embroidered with flowers (or appliqued knit flowers, haven't quite decided yet) and ruffled trim.


• Character Doll which can either be a dressed purchased doll or made from scratch. I'm doing the latter and chose Anne of Green Gables as my subject. She will have hair of handspun yarn and fyi, the Kool-Aid recipe for 'decidedly red' is half a package of Orange with a teaspoon of Black Cherry. The pattern I'm using is one from Soft Dolls and Toys magazine- a re-working of an old Betsy McCall doll by Aletha Ike Putney.
  
• Handspun, any item will be the Diva Scarf from Lion Brand in a pink, green, yellow, lavender blended colorway called "English Garden". I bought the wool from Jehovah Jireh Farm on eBay- they have some beautiful dyelots.

I'll try to post some photos once I get them finished.

Snippets

What I've been doing instead of writing here:

Gardening

Building stuff for the garden

and spinning. This is only about half of the output now. It's not exactly out of control, but has the potential to become so.

Just spent what might be my dumbest $8 ever on eBay, buying a fleece. It was advertised as 'washed', but when we opened the box, we learned that 'washed' doesn't mean 'odorless'. It's a lovely creamy white color, but smells distincly 'sheepish'. Nor is it carded, so I'm off to the Petco for some dog slicker brushes to deal with it.

Ro came in to hang about the bedroom door.
"I'm worried, Mom. B's mother thinks Barack Obama might be the anti-Christ. She's been seeing all these numerological signs that he is- something to do with 444. She's seeing it everywhere."

"Darling, you do know that numerology is complete bullshit, right?"

"Yes, but you know her. She seems so certain that if you listen to her long enough..."

"Okay- I think he's a biblical chastisement, but he's not suave enough to be the anti-Christ. Alright?"

"But he swayed a lot of people."

"Many of whom just thought it would be cool to elect the first black President and are now going 'Holy Moley- what just happened here?' So- stop worrying, at least about the anti-Christ part."

"Okay."

"And please don't pay any serious attention to B's mom."

Reading a wonderful web of interconnected works- from Schumacher's "Guide for the Perplexed" to Vincent McNab's "Flee to the Fields" to Schall's "The Order of Things". Sane people for crazy times.

I also picked up a copy of Magnificat magazine for May. The offices are not as long or full as the ones in Shorter Christian Prayer, but they involve less flipping around and manipulation of markers, which I can understand being appealing. It also includes all the Mass readings, meditations and bios of various saints. I can see why it is so very popular.

The Yarbroughs have been attending Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and love it. They have learned so much that has helped them understand how they deal with money and how they can change that for the better. They have Fan Target in their sights, now.

She just finished a wonderful knitted baby blanket for the new daughter of some of Davy's friends. He is on tour with a show now, but it's coming to Dallas for one night, so she and the Yarbs will get to see him then. We'll be babysitting, so they can attend.

"History is the river, real life is what happens on the banks."

Move over, Morgan Jane



There's a new baby in town.

This is my new Majacraft Pioneer, which I brought home on Thursday. This stock photo shows all the wonderful (boring) technical details, like

- Double heel and toe treadling- Frictionless ball bearings- Single hook flyer- Maintainance-free drive band- Super smooth patented bobbins- Lightweight- No threading hook required- Right or left handed- Five ratios available on each whorl

All of which simply mean that it is soooo nice to spin on. The treadle action is so smooth and effortless that I've really had to throttle back on the treading or it goes way too fast.

Ro came in to watch a moment and noted that it sounded different from the loaner "That one sort of whirred, and this one goes "sssssssss". Which means it's super quiet and I can spin when the rest of the house is asleep.

Like any new mom and baby, we're still getting used to each other. But I see many happy useful years ahead.

Sissy came over with the kids yesterday and Bubs and I had a little CTJ on the subject of Mimi's new wheel.

"See, Bubbie, this is Mimi's new spinning wheel and she needs you to never, ever touch it. Okay?"

Poor little guy got this 'what did I do?' look on his face.

Sis said "You're not in trouble, honey. We just need you to leave Mimi's wheel alone."

He thought for a moment, then: "Just look! Don't touch! 'Cause that will make Mommy and Mimi sooooo happy!" Yes! and much cheering for his smart self.

Snippets

'Fan Target's' boyfriend is in town for 2 weeks, so we had Family Dinner on Saturday. She wanted to share the tradition of Marshall's Bar-B-Que with him, so we picked up a couple of family packs. And we ate off the Fort Worth Centennial plates I inherited from my grandmother and which are only used for family and honored guests.

While Sissy, Miss O and I cleaned up the kitchen before game playing and dessert, Marge and Davy fed Morgan Jane her dinner. "Let's just stuff her under our shirts and make a break for it", he said.

They are going to Arkansas this week, so he can meet college friends and see her school. She is a little apprehensive about this because strange things happen on trips to AR, but maybe if he's there, nothing odd will occur.

There is much progress on the toilet-training front, but people have threatened to quit reading if we don't quit writing about poop.

I finished my spinning lessons and have ordered a wheel of my own. Not the Cadillac design, more of a Hyundai, but with the potential for add-on's. I would be going through spin withdrawal, but I have to wind (and/or untangle) all the skeins I've made so far and wind them into balls, which keeps me busy. And I want to catch up on the sewing and clear my decks, to be able to spin guilt-free when it arrives.

Ro has gone to Austin to see the boyfriend in his roomates's movie at South by Southwest. It must be a sign of the times- everyone now has a movie that they edited in their bedroom, instead of a novel. She made them a cake, decorated to look like a wheel of Swiss cheese, a gigantic kitchen-wrecking project, but very cute. It seems the film is about a goat named Artois and goat cheese. As far as I can tell.

She got free show photos from "Rumors" because she was nice to the photographer, who appreciated it. She is 'jus' adorable' as the Tiny Cop. The other actor is about three times her size- no wonder they get a nice laugh.

Turning the back yard into my little mini-farm is one of the smartest things I've done lately. It's practical, it's exercise, it's soothing manual labor, it's meditative and prayerful and it's good stewardship.
Alas, many of the groups you turn to for advice, products, philosophy or fellowship are fanatic ecologists. Even the Catholic Bishops Conference for Rural Living has drunk the 'climate change' kool-aid. So, the winnowing of useful knowlege from hysteria is time-consuming, but worth it.

In Which I Strike Off On My Own

Several years ago, when I first thought of taking up spinning, I bought a sack of roving off eBay. Roving is cleaned, carded wool formed into ropes. I dug it out, postponed my assigned homework, popped an empty bobbin in the flyer and spun it all.

It took about 3 1/2 hours, or one episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, one of The Andy Griffith Show and all of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. (Yes, I don't watch TV during Lent, but stuff you've seen at least 10 times doesn't count. So much.)

Then I unwound it off the bobbin onto something called a niddy noddy, tied it with a figure 8 in four places to make a skein, soaked it in the sink in warm water and a little detergent, rinsed it well and hung it in the bathroom to dry.

It was gone in the morning- brief alarm- but Ro had moved it to the sewing room so she could take a shower.

It looked like this:

I briefly considered dyeing it, but decided it wanted to stay natural. I wound it into a ball and am now knitting a scarf out of it.

I probably shouldn't be impressed by accomplishing something billions of people have done for thousands of years, but I am.

It's a little like being The Magician. There's the same element of effortless concentration- or at least I can see the potential for it- and the transformation of one thing to another form. It's like knitting, but at a higher level.

Rumplestiltskin, look out

Had my first spinning class today here. It's about an hour's drive from home, but so worth it.

The beginning spinning class is taught one-on-one and the first session is about three hours. Then you're turned loose at home with the class handouts, a drop spindle, two bags of wool roving (grey and white) and a spinning wheel, the model above, to practice for a week, until the next class.

Spinning, it seems, is all about using physics to put twists in fiber. Which explains the puzzling captions in Spin-Off magazizne about 6:1 ratios, etc. All the motions are simple, but co-ordinating them is the trick. But the teacher assured me that, just like knitting, it will all come together once the muscle memory is established.

It was a little hard to pay attention to the lesson, since the store is a treasure trove of everything fiber: wool rovings for spinning and felting, 'blank' yarns of various weights and all sorts of fiber for dyeing, dyes, spinning and weaving equipment, handspun and hand-dyed yarns, home-made soaps, two looms and a kitchen area for dyeing.

My major assignments: learn to treadle the wheel as slowly as possible to be consistent. And to practice drafting, which is drawing out a thin bunch of fibers from the larger mass, on the drop spindle.

And possibly spin on the wheel. But I'm in no hurry.