Raw fleece...Thanksgiving dinner wild kingdom...and, ooh...shiny!

Massive picture-heavy post!


Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians today - I hope your day is full of turkey and family (for some) and sleep and rest (for the others). I personally spent last night sleeping at the hospital wired up to within an inch of my life for a sleep study to see if I've inherited the family apnea. So I slept terribly, was home by 6:30 a.m. and crashed for another three hours in my own (delightfully comfortable I will never complain about my mattress again promise) bed. After I got most of the cement out of my hair.


I shouldn't complain though - I've had two great dinners - one here at home with my parents, kids and niece and the other at a friends who is a gourmet cook...more on this in a moment...


First - I owe you a bit of old stuff promised earlier, starting with my trip to Toronto at the end of August.


I went down to visit Wanna-Baa of the comments, but stopped on the way to visit a farm in Port Hope - probably one of the few, if only, shepherds locally with Blue-Faced Leicesters. I have no pictures for you, but the farm was just amazing - there were turkeys wandering around my car in all different colours, a guard goat and the ugliest duck I have ever seen who thinks he is a person and insisted on following us to visit the sheep. Sara had brought out bags of fleece from her spring shearing and I ended up with two BFL fleeces - one is a first year and the other is a third year.


Both fleeces were relatively clean and so far the processing has been dirty but not horrifyingly so...

Raw fleece in the bag - aromatic!!!

Staple length of the three year old.

After 24 hours in a bucket of cold water it went into the hot water. This is the first washing.

And here is the second hot water wash - much better!

After 2 runs through the water. The bags took five days to dry out in the sun on my balcony.

So - not entirely clean but free of grease which means I can store it away for winter without worrying it will go rancid. There is still plenty of vegetable matter in there so hand picking will be a must. I still haven't decided if I will send it out for processing or card it myself next year. I guess I have some time to decide.

That same weekend, W-B, her kids Ava and Luke and her mom Ginger and I all visited a local alpaca farm. Luke was WAY more interested in the tractor...

...than the very adorable alpaca...





There was also a baby donkey and the most amazing dogs - Lori raises Leonbergers - enormous but incredibly gentle. It was a whole lotta dog let me tell you.

Luke, his grammy and a REALLY BIG DOG.

So that's it for the history although I should shout out a huge thank you to Chriss and Elizabeth for helping me skirt the fleeces and for their advice on how to get them clean.

And while I'm on the topic of fibre...


I seem to have acquired some more...


I participated in a fiber swap on Ravelry. Basically we were split into groups of four and each member of the group sent fiber to another member each month. This month I got a lovely 4 oz present from Lapoli...isn't it nice???





I've also made an early 2009 resolution - I think this will be the year I knit for me. I have been considering simplifying my wardrobe pretty significantly and would love to focus on having most blacks and neutral bases that I can cover with my own knitted sweaters, cardigans, shawls and jackets...


I was so taken with this idea that I promptly cast on some things a bit early...

February Lady Sweater in Mirasol Tupa.

Drops Cardigan in Manos Del Uruguay Classic Wool in Autumn.

Mystery Stole 4 in Misti Alpaca and size 8.0 beads - okay not part of the resolution but still...how pretty is that???

And work on the Susie Hoodie from More Big Girl Knits also continues. I am just about done with the bust increases and will be onto the arms soon which I am really looking forward too...shorter rounds!

Getting organimized...

Something had to be done. I couldn't pull out a project without having fourteen others fall out of the cupboard. So - big canvas bins for fiber - the white has fiber to be dyed and the blue contains fiber that is up on etsy right now...

And some nice wicker baskets for yarn from current and upcoming projects to show off themselves...

Is it a bad sign when your house and stash start to look more and more like a yarn store?

(Oh and just to revisit an earlier post...all this clean up meant that I took some stuff off the needles...which means I managed to find all those needles I was lamenting about losing...

...not that this stopped me from putting in a knitpicks order...no siree!)

Now last of all...

Wild encounters OR how I pissed off a mother cat and paid the piper for it

Warning - includes photos of my legs that do not include handknit socks.

So I'm at my friend's place for Thanksgiving and she has a formerly feral cat that arrived on her doorstep looking for handouts, got adopted and turned out to have gotten herself knocked up before they had a chance to spay her.

The kittens were born about 5 weeks ago - four adorable little ones - two black and two tabbies. Like all kittens they have sweet faces and short stubby tails and when they run it seems like their back ends go faster than their fronts.

I am helpless in the face of kittens.

So I am walking towards the kitchen behind a kitten and reach down to pick it up but clearly she doesn't want interference and takes off ahead of me. I keep going into the kitchen but as I hit the doorway I hear this horrible hissing and feel pain in my leg. I look down and its like a scene from Wild Kingdom. You know the one where the pride of lions is taking down a full sized elephant by coming up behind and attaching itself to its back, claws fully embedded in the skin?

And that's just one side and the picture is a lot prettier than my leg which is also pretty bruised and there is more on the other side. I WAS wearing pants by the way...

So a few bandaids and some peroxide later I go down to get some dessert. I walk towards the kitchen again and as I hit the door Phoebe attacks the OTHER leg (no kittens were around by the way). Talk about determined overprotective mother!

Those would be puncture marks from her teeth! For the rest of the evening she kept a close eye on me and everytime I moved my hosts had to step in to move her out of the room.

I am certainly none the worse for wear but certainly learned my lesson when it comes to mother cats!

Have a terrific week everyone - I am off for a workshop with Brandon Mably and an evening lecture by Kaffe Fassett at WoolNthings...I should pack my camera NOW so I don't forget it!!

Misbehaving...camera (tilt head 90 degrees)

Hey all - long time no write! Summer sucked me in and spit me back out again - I can't believe September is already here - packing lunches and homework again. Neither of these two activities rates high on my list of favourties due to the amount of knitting time lost during a year!

The boy has entered Grade 4, and the girl Grade 6 (eek! that is kind of officially pre-teen country isn't it?). Two days in and neither is particularly impressed with the experience.

What I'm knitting

On the knitting front there has been progress. The Swallowtail Shawl in my handspun is done and I couldn't be more pleased. The colour changes are gorgeous and the repeats were long enough that I got several rows out of each colour even towards the long end of the knitting.






Pattern: Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits, Fall 2006
Yarn: Handspun from 100g of Blue Faced Leicester from Fleece Artist
Needles: KP Options in 3.5 mm

I am still plugging away on the Print O the Wave from Eunny Jang in Handmaiden Sea Silk...no sideways pics of this though. I am more than halfway through the repeats on the main body and will have to contemplate the border - somehow I am NOT keen on picking up 8 gazillion stitches around the edge.

Lastly - I am making some progress on my Susie Hoodie from More Big Girl Knits...granted that it doesn't look like much but the Berroco Ultra Alpaca is terrific to knit...

Colour is darker and more heathery than it looks here...love love love...cross fingers it will fit.

In my mailbox

I participated in the Hush Hush Handspun Hootenany this summer and received this awesome package from my downstream pal...whose email I am looking for right now - I will credit with an actual name and link but my brain has big holes in it!

Anyway - here is the package of goodness:

That's a huge 8oz bit of spinning fiber from Crown Mountain Farms - the blue yarn on the left is my pal's own handspun - pretty pretty blues and greens and very very soft. The sock yarn on the right is her own handdyed (damn I wish I had a link for you to her etsy shop...next time!). There were also two bars of soap (lavender and almond - yum!!!), some lindt chocolates (not shown...um possibly devoured at this point) and a cute little notepad that says "Homespun" on the top.

My own upstream pal was in England, moving to Australia next week so my fingers are crossed she'll get her parcel in time!

Spinning...span...spun!

More Fleece Artist - this is wool-silk in lovely browns, copper and burgundy/pink. I am spinnign thin again and now that I figured out what was going wrong the last time I tried to ply with thread, I'm going to try again.

Dye party

I spent Sunday dyeing my little heart out. A pound and a half of silk and a pound of merino-tencel blend. I am hoping to update the shop in the next few days and then I will be going on hiatus for about three months as I start French language training half days in the hopes of meeting the language requirements for my new position before Christmas. I suspect that blog updates will also be scarce and while I'll be reading other blogs I probably won't be commenting much (not a big change from the summer!) I am hoping to show you the Rambouillet that Chris and I are processing and to confess I had little stumble and am the proud owner of two unbelieveably gorgeous BFL fleeces that need to get cleaned and put away while the weather is still nice.

Here's a little taste of what I dyed up...




These are 3 of the merino-tencel rovings...shininess due to the flash on the first two.

Take care!

Low fibre content...pretty pictures!

I am...well...ridiculously wrecked. See the date? That is the day I uploaded the photos to blogger...as opposed to TODAY which is the 18th of August.

The new job is kicking me in the rear. I can't explain why. It isn't far off what I was doing before...just...more.

Anyway - here is the loveliest of merino I received as part of a fibre swap. This is from woolydaisy. Isn't it pretty! The top on top (heh heh...aren't I the funny one) is garnet and the bottom is topaz (coincidentally my birthstone) - I' m having stripped mitten thoughts...

Thanks woolydaisy!!!



Next...tranquil Canadian summer pictures....

Sigh...I just wanna go back. There was chipmunk (named Chippie...what else!) that would eat from your hand if you were still enough. There was knitting and spinning on the screened in porch. And best of all? There was a guest cabin where the kids hung out. Kind of like the kids table at family dinners but EVEN BETTER.

At some point the knitting/spinning adventures will get updated included, but not limited to:

- a finished Swallowtail shawl out of handspun

- self-striping yarn in four colours - hand dyed and handspun

- the fleece I bought with Chriss - I have learned that when it comes to processing your own fleece, clean is a relative term.

Happyish Monday!

Holidays...dealing with irritating wool...and I'm being stalked!

Quick note before I get into the post: Leanne is out of hospital! She and her gallbladder are officially "over". She is definitely on the mend and happy to be back home. Thanks again for leaving her comments on her blog.

*******

Happy Monday everyone! Why is it happy? Why because I just started my holidays of course. Today I am "sans enfants" (without children) - so I am enjoying a lovely day of sweet sweet quiet and little to bother me...except for my stalker and the construction workers on my roof.

It appears that a local honey bee hive have decided that there might be some good stuff at my house. Here is my theory:

1. At some point last week, a bee (let's call him Bob) came to my house and thought he found something he liked.

2. Bob went back to his hive and told his friends about it (note bee using vector calculus to indicate where I live).

3. I am put on some kind of list where fly-bys become part of regular daily routine.

Every day for the past week I have had at least one bee check out my balcony every fifteen minutes or so. They hover around the balcony, check out the gazebo cover and if the patio door is open, they fly in to check it out. I have used the cup and cardboard technique to facilitate the exit a few times now. I'm trying to figure out how to tag one of these suckers to see if its always the same one (i.e. Bob - which, if it is, means that Bob might need some intervention therapy of some kind - or I need a bee restraining order).

At least its honey bees - a few years ago I had a wasps nest in the box that hangs over my balcony - there is a whole story about a really cute, super muscly exterminator who was also, it turns out, afraid of bees. Kind of emasculating if you ask me.

Stuff I'm up to

Tour de Fleece is on and while I haven't been spinning as much as I would like, I did do something really cool - I almost got all lace!!! This ranges from cobweb in spots to lace to light fingering. I've already cast it on as a Swallowtail Shawl - and I can only say it was probably meant to be because I opted for 3.5 mm needles and it was perfect first try!

The roving is BFL from Fleece Artist that I don't have a picture of - blues, purples and greens. Its overspun in spots, underspun in other and you know what? I don't care! I just love it.

I picked up another Fleece Artist roving at Yarn Forward last week - very oddly dyed - there was red and red-violet, lots of white, patches of blue and pink. When I undid the braids there was no actual pattern to the dyeing which left me in a bit of a pickle about how to spin it up. At first I thought about lashing it all on the hackles but I kind of want a slubby but substantial sock yarn and though I like playing with the hackles, you lose a lot of fibre in the process (the stuff stuck to the hackles after you pull off the top is too short to use).

So I pulled each bit of colour out and ended up with four piles - dark red, light red, violet, and white mixed with blue/pink/yellow/green. I ended up with this:

So I've been taking one of each colour and drafting it out just like this:

Ending up with would bits of pre-drafted top like this:

Which is spinning up like this:

Once I fill the bobbin I will navajo ply it which will hopefully even it all out into predominately shades of red and red-violet with hints of white and specks of the other colours. I promise pics when it is all done.

What I'm knitting

Besides the Swallowtail, there are some socks on the needles I can't show you as this is Christmas knitting although the ravelers can check them out on my projects page - the recipients aren't knitters. Otherwise, a few things are hanging out waiting for me to be interested in them again, and that's about it.

What I Read

...or rather what I threw down in disgust: One Ball. Thankfully I got this from the library and didn't buy it sight unseen ... oh Mr. Bee is back ... My pet peeves were all in this book - sparkly yarn, icky colours and stuff I would never knit. YMMV of course - someone liked it or it wouldn't be a book right? There was a nice enough moebius (but moebius patterns are kind of a dime a dozen) and an okay shrug. That about sums it up. Not a fan. I encourage you to check it out as I wouldn't want to keep you from knitting something that you really might like. I do think the photos left something to be desired. About halfway through they adopt this kind of creepy wire dress form that makes me think about cobwebby attics and serial killers.

Damn bee still outside. I would like to go and rescue some roving from out there but he needs to leave!

The irony is that I don't have any plants in my house, a basil plant with a few flowers out on the balcony (which he doesn't seem interested in at all).

Wierd.

Buzz.

Take this pencil roving and...

So I owe you all a post that isn’t all like “blah blah blah etsy blah blah tired blah blah can’t think” right?

Right!

The news

I started my new-ish job today. And so far, I haven’t done anything new! This is probably because it is a) Monday and b) Monday before a statutory holiday. Downtown Ottawa is a wasteland (no, moi in Vancouver, I did NOT write cultural wasteland…stop that!) today. Tomorrow it will be dangerous to walk around here unless you have a Canadian flag tattooed on your face! I have no idea who that guy is, but he sure looks happy doesn't he?

Yesterday we celebrated Alex’s ninth birthday. We went to the ballpark to watch a Can-Am League game – less talent that Triple A, slightly more than Little League. We had a suite overlooking home plate – it was absolutely amazing and since my kids are used to running around the stadium, we only saw kids at important moments – like when they were hungry.

I can’t believe my baby is nine. I also can’t believe I am old enough to have a nine year old. As a result of my disbelief I did my best to behave as childishly as possible without endangering anyone and had two big pieces of birthday cake. So there upcoming 39th birthday!

Stuff I am dyeing

I think I lost two whole days of my life trying to untangle this holy mess:

That’s a pound of merino-seacell pencil roving. It was like untangling yarn, but yarn that would just drift apart if I tugged too hard. It was totally worth it though…it is so soft!!

The first step in dyeing is to soak the wool – with this stuff I couldn’t wind it up into a ball like a I do with thicker rovings because the water would not penetrate to the middle. So out came the swift and some very gentle skein winding happened. Worked like a charm! This bit got dyed strong blues, reds and greens. I really need to dye up some for me and spin it.

Stuff in the mail

Supplies! Can you believe the number of postage stamps on this? Mail ordered from Copper Moose in the US – there is a pound each of BFL and Merino, and half a pound each of Merino-silk and merino-tencel. Lookie here! Bags’o’wool!

Stuff I’m knitting

Susie Hoodie continues – it looks the same as last time so no boring pictures of blue stockinette for you! Don’t bother to complain about that either as I am not wasting valuable computer space on a picture.

Susie Hoodie might have been chucked aside for some warm weather knitting. Having firmly committed to copying a couple of people who are smarter than I am, I am knitting up the Print’o’the Wave in Handmaiden SeaSilk. Frogged once in favour of smaller needles but so far so good. Isn’t it pretty? This one is definitely for me!

And I guess today is Handmaiden day – because I cast on a sock in Casbah. The yardage on the skein is a bit short (around 325 yards) so I decided to bite the bullet and learn how to do a toe up sock. Now I am sold!!! I did Judy Becker’s Magic Cast-on with the help of Cat Bordhi’s YouTube video (thanks for telling me about it Nancy! Hint: click the link and check out the divine sea silk stole Nancy just finished - awesome!). I am using a rib-whose-name-I-have-forgotten out of one of the Vogue Stitchionaries and last night I did my firstest ever short row heel with instructions out of an Interweave Knits from last year. As I am knitting on 3.75s these are going very quickly!

Places I’ve been

I mentioned ages ago that I would tell you about Kniterary – just about the cutest little yarn shop in Whitby – and I think the ONLY yarn shop in Whitby. That’s beside the point.

The very first time I went there the woman who owned the shop had just bought it from the previous owner that week. Sales stock was…well…unimaginative and more than a little acrylic-y. I don’t go there everytime I go to Toronto but I do try to drop in occasionally to see what’s new.

Huge improvement! A super comfortable couch. Lovely woman who totally left me alone and talked to Alex who was nicely tolerating the yarn store visit (he actually likes knitting but doesn’t have the attention span to do it for long). They had some really lovely sock yarn from The Sweet Sheep and Celestial Merino (yummy). Decent selection of Berroco, Fleece Artist and lots of Mission Falls.

I didn’t buy much as I had just spent a fortune for three hellish hours at Canada’s Wonderland the day before. I did pick up Cat Bordhi’s new sock book – it is pretty cool although beyond the cast on and looking at the pretty pictures and marvelling at Cat Bordhi’s brain (I’m surprised her head isn’t three times bigger than it is), I haven’t tried any of the sockitectures…

That’s it!

Happy Canada Day to everyone!

A poem...

I gave it a try

To Navajo ply

Yeah, all right, I'm no poet. I can navajo ply however! At least NOW I can.

At first I got off to a rough start. This was not due to the singles I was plying which was lovely copper coloured superwash merino. It was not due to the teaching at all. It was due to my not being able to set up my wheel properly and so I tried to ply about 50 feet in the same direction that my singles was spun in...which meant I got crap.

Which of course I took a picture of because I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to humiliate myself...

Once the wheel and I started to get along a bit better (mostly because I stopped being a dumbass and it forgave me) I got a reasonable facsimile of a skein and the beginnings of an idea of how to do this. Here it is...

And last of all - the afternoon was spent in a group silk scarf dyeing activity where the entire group (about 80 or so) split into different groups to try different techniques. Chriss and I ended up in the pole wrapping (no, not dancing...) group.

Basically you wind string around your scarf on a piece of PVC pipe with string, push it up tight and then stick it in dye for a bit.

Chriss' ended up better than mine (yes, I have pole wrapping technique regret) but I don't have a picture so mine will have to do...

Purple isn't really my colour and this design feels "old" to me - I was thinking of overdyeing it - ideas are welcome! Just remember that the colour will interact with the purple.

All in all it was a fun day but I am still tired out! I spent the afternoon back with my hands in the dyepot. I also culled some sock yarn that I dyed in the winter and posted it to the shop. I picked up some absolutely amazing mohair from Diane the spinning teacher that is what is left of her own angora goats - about 1600 meters worth so I'll have to figure out what to do with it - its to much for one project but not quite enough for two.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Mail!...what I spun...Q&A

Hi everyone - I have so much in my head I can't possibly get it all down in one post or a) I'll be here forever and b) it will make no sense.

So I'm going to curb my enthusiasm a bit and focus on one thing at a time.

The stuff that's hit my mailbox this week!

As stuff has sold in the shop, it has given me a bit of virtual cash (seriously - with PayPal it doesn't seem like real money at all) to play with and I wanted to find some interesting Canadian sellers on etsy to support.

I got super lucky when Uli hearted me on etsy (I love that...hearted...and the little hearts pulse too!) cause she has some super cool stuff in her shop. I held out in the resistance department until I got to these and then I was hitting "add to cart" and the rest is history. There have been two great side effects of this - I got a terrific sock pattern and a new friend in the process!

I am also coveting this: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10876026

I was also after some removeable stitch markers and stumbled onto Crimson Orchid and bought these (I might have a thing for silver and blue).

I also heavily covet the shawl pins in Chris' shop - I have some gorgeous stitch markers by her that Jeanne sent me that are so pretty that if I use them I tend to pause a bit every time I have to slip one from one needle to the next.

And last, but certainly not least...I've got cool labels! One of my older, bestest (see, moi in Vancouver - I didn't say oldest!) friends - who may be familiar to all as wanna-baa in the comments - is my friend Jenna and I wouldn't out her on the blog if I didn't have a fabulous reason. I got these awesome iron-in labels in the mail today - I kind of knew they were coming when I got an email that said "If I was going to buy you labels, what would they say? Not that I'm going to do that or anything!" Anyway - this fantastic "surprise" showed up in the mailbox this afternoon:

Jenna is selling labels for a company called Lovable Labels - if you have kids or know of someone with kids, there is way more there than iron-ons. I am particularly intrigued by shoe labels that don't wear out inside of kids' shoes. With summer camp season nearly here and school starting again (I know, someone had to say it) in two months, these would be terrific for everything from the child's forehead (okay, maybe just mine) to sippy cups at daycare and so much more.

Check it all out at http://www.jenna.lovablelabels.ca/

So its been a great week for my mailbox. I am expecting new dyes next week (navy!) and a huge fiber shipment from the U.S. which means a shop update will be forthcoming too.

And just so you don't think I've been sitting around waiting for the postal worker...

What I spun

Back in the winter I spent an afternoon at Chriss' house and between the hours of conversation I made up about 6 batts with my pile of dye experiments on her drum carder...I finally had a chance to spin up some of the red yesterday. This is merino - bright red with flecks of purple. I didn't realize how much of a difference there is spinning from a batt vs a roving. With the batt there was more friction in the fiber and I was able to control out the amount being drafted and managed a pretty effective bulky weight - there's 1.8 ozs and about 72 yards in there.

Next up was some tussah silk I received as part of the Funky Carolina fiber club last year. I hadn't spun pure silk in a long long time - like two years and then it was only small amounts. I predrafted the top and man, was it static-y! And me without a water bottle. Not annoying-to-the-point-of-not-being-able-to-spin but definitely a bit more difficult to control. It is absolutely gorgeous. There's two ounces there - probably a fingering weight or light sport weight. I need to run it through the meter to get the right count at some point...but for now I am just petting it and calling it George. Not really, but you get the point.

And speaking of Funky Carolina roving - I just undid a braid from her that I got last year too (merino bamboo - awesome!) and it isn't braided! Its a crochet chain! I have got to try that!!!

Answering Qs

moi in vancouver asked if I was going to have yarn too...I actually just posted two handpainted soysilk laceweights and my plan is to offer handspun and handdyed yarns when I have them. I have some fingering weight yarn I have never knit myself that I will probably post when I have a chance to photograph them and figure out my pricing.

Take care and have a great weekend! Tomorrow, Chriss and I and the Hilltop Fibreworker are heading off to Almonte for Saint Distaff Day where I am hoping to learn to navaho ply.