Good things come in threes
In spinning, as in life.
Alpine Romney,
Changes Falklands,
Tartan superwash Corriedale.
Can't blog, too busy knitting
My plan was to celebrate the end of this week with a finished sweater for my mother-in-law. Instead I'm pulling together a care package to send to a knitter/spinner friend whose house caught on fire this week. She's not sure if she's going to have any stash left, so I'm pulling out things from my stash left, right and center to send to her. And doing a couple little things for her wee ones as well. So the sweater, lacking only one seam to be a FO, will have to wait a little bit longer. I think Mermaid will be ok with that...
Down the rabbit hole
Otherwise known as the slippery slope. Or perhaps that road paved with good intentions.
Wait a minute - let me back up. Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a fantastic winter holiday season. We took the family to Prague for a few days (gorgeous! new mitten inspiration!), and I celebrated New Year's by being sick for the fourth time in about 6 weeks. Yee haw! But it's been a fun couple of weeks since the last you heard from. But back to my new obsession...
Every year, Himself asks me what I want for Christmas (or my birthday) - my answer is typically a shrug and "I don't need anything" (damn Puritan heritage tells through every time...). And this year was no different, except that after a couple of days, the same thing kept popping in to my head: a rigid heddle loom. Partly this is motivated by a burning desire to get rid of the massive amount of yarn that I have lying around, and the other motivation is the recent inheritance by Himself and my brother-in-law of a very large, heirloom floor loom that belonged to their great grandfather. So...I did some research, sent Himself an email with the appropriate webpage linked, and a suspicious package arrived and appeared under the tree.
Well, come Christmas morning, I opened it up, got all the bits and bobs sorted out, grabbed some yarn and off I went.
Details:
Loom - 25 inch Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom
Yarn - leftover Cascade 220 for the warp (light blue) and some of my first handspun Corriedale (~87 yds) for the warp.
I just warped with as much yarn as I had, aiming for about a 36 inch long warp. Then I wove for a while until I ran out of warp.
Things I have learned: whoa. Whole new vocabulary to learn. I remember this from when I started spinning as well, but it takes a while to get up to speed. I've watched a lot of You Tube videos this time around, which has been really helpful. The warping bit was pretty straightforward, but the weaving is not quite so easy. My selvedges suck big time, but I've been assured by a number of handspun weaving experts that they'll get better with time.
I ended up with this wee scarf-like thingie, that has been washed and is now lying abandoned in a corner. Because the new toy is now warped with 8 feet worth of purple sock yarn that I am busily weaving into a longer scarf-like thingie. There's nothing quite so satisfying as dispensing with 400+ yds of yarn in an afternoon's worth of play time!
Birthday present
Himself asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I had no hesitation in asking for an installment of the Wildcraft Fiber and Spindle club. Now, to be fair, I ordered it and all the rest, but I probably wouldn't have done so otherwise - I suspect I have enough fiber already.
Yesterday it arrived.
A gorgeous resin spindle with a sunflower, and a cherry shaft, and a big braid of Shetland dyed in the "Last of the Sunflowers" colorway. Bliss.
If anyone is looking for a new crack fiber dealer, I can recommend Karen's stuff. She's got some lovely gorgeous colorways, and her own sheep! So head over and check out her site. You can thank me later.
Back in Space City and a commission
A week and a half ago I got to resume (for one brief evening) my Thursday knit night. We went back to Houston for a week long holiday*, and I got to visit with the girls over beef and vino. It was a lovely evening, only bringing back to me how much I miss the people in Houston** - there was much good conversation. And good steak. And wine... And then there was some yarn.
I did take orders before I left London, but only one of them took me up on it. I brought this:
Some lovely green Wollmeise in Pesto and an incredibly soft skein of orange alpaca-wool goodness. In return, she gave me this:
and said, in a tone that brooked no argument, "You need to design something with the StR. Because I have another skein in the same color and I want to make something out of it."
Ummm...yes ma'am! *salutes*
Over the course of the evening, we came up with a plan for the yarn that goes something like this:
- a long scarf thing, not a triangular shawl
- some lace is good
- but no more then a couple of charts please
- we'll all wear them to Rhinebeck next year
Because Rhinebeck (aka the NY Sheep and Wool Orgy Festival had been the previous weekend. None of us went. None of us have ever gone. It seems like a good thing to do. And if we make plans this far in advance, it's a bit more likely it might even happen.
So...October 2012...we'll be reuniting in upper New York state to ogle the foliage, eat some appropriate fair food, fondle some wool and generally have a weekend to ourselves. Anyone else in?
* Just long enough for everyone to get adjusted to the time only to turn around and come back!
** Houston itself? Not so much...