Time Travel and Other Hobbies

2011-12-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

Wassail a la Turner

Once upon a time, my friends Kelly and Karen threw big parties at the holidays. What was memorable about these parties was the number of people all toiling away on sewing projects for other costumed galas, and Kelly's wonderful wassail on the kitchen stove.

I recently found a xeroxed copy of the recipe tucked away with my other treasured recipes. While many in attendance at those long-ago holiday parties are no longer physically with us, the camaraderie continues on, so I'm taking the liberty of turning Kelly's recipe loose in the world. Make this punch, invite a bunch of people over, and sew something pretty for the holidays!

WASSAIL A LA TURNER
(This recipe is a perversion of the one found in the Playboy Bartender's Guide)

Ingredients:
Apples
Oranges
Brown sugar
White sugar (optional)
Stick cinnamon
Ground ginger
Ground nutmeg
Whole allspice
Whole cloves
Brandy (apple brandy works best)
Sherry
Apple cider (apple juice will also work)

Core approximately 10 apples and place in a 13x9x2 baking pan. Fill cores of apples with brown sugar. Pour 1 cup water into bottom of pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Combine 5 sticks cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 6 allspice berries, and 6 cloves on a square of porous cotton fabric (a large-size coffee filter will also do). Tie into a packet using a piece of string. (For a little extra flavor, add 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the mixture.)

Pour 1 gallon cider into large stockpot. Add baked apples and juices from pan. Add 1 cup sugar (brown or white). Add 1/2 of a 750ml bottle of sherry. Add 1 cup brandy (or more, depending on your taste). Slice up 1 orange and float slices in mixture. Add spice packet. Heat slowly over low flame. Do not boil--it will remove the alcohol!

2011-03-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

Dress Journal #4: Excavating the Sewing Room

I've been a bit busy. Between grad school, regular school (the one I teach at), holidays, and construction on the house, I haven't set foot in the sewing room since Memorial Day weekend, 2010. That changed today.

Part of this sudden desire to clean and tidy is simply not being able to stand the mess any longer. On the other hand, if I clean up the sewing room, I can begin working on the wardrobe I need for Gallifrey One next February. There's quite a bit to build and--by my calendar--only 315 days left in which to build everything.

I'm not exactly starting from Square One: Dress Journal #3 details everything I need to build; all the fabrics, notions, and findings were purchased last year and carefully put away in one place; some of the underpinnings are already cut out and partially sewn. Now I just need to find my sewing room so I can go back to work. As you can see from the photo, it's pretty small, so it's easily buried under the debris of daily living.

Excavating it wasn't quite as difficult as I thought, and turned up a couple surprises. The first was money--$11 stuck on a shelf after a trip to the fabric store and subsequently forgotten. The second was some additional fabrics I didn't remember buying, and a beautiful length of navy blue silk ribbon for a hat. Another pleasant surprise was how far along everything was before life intruded on my costume construction: nearly everything is purchased and all the fabrics have been washed and pressed, so I can focus on the cutting and sewing.

Next steps:

1) Dyeing the weft yarn to weave 2 yards of blue-gray herringbone tweed for a vest.

2) Replacing the cover on Helga, my long-suffering (?) dress dummy

3) Finishing the underpinnings so I can start construction of 2 different sets of outer garments

2011-03-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

Old House Blues: Attack of the Mole Men

2011 will go down in history as "the year we really worked on the house." We've owned the Big Damn House for 17 years. It was in decent shape when we bought it, and we've done some additional work on it ourselves, but it's now 103 years old and some major issues need to be addressed. The floors are a bit "bouncy," I've spent 17 years patching cracks in plaster that magically reappear after a dry summer and/or a wet winter, and both bathrooms really need some attention.

When we sold the Los Angeles house in 2009, we decided to use the money to work on the BDH rather than invest in another piece of property. We paid the horrendous taxes, banked the money, hired a civil engineer, and had plans drawn up to tackle the biggest task on the long "to-do" list: replacing the foundation. It really is a problem area: the concrete used in 1908 was crap, there are no proper footers, and 103 years of shifting soils--and a major earthquake in 1989--have pretty much destroyed the foundation. It's cracked in several places, and one of the cripple walls (additional bits of the foundation that support interior load-bearing walls) completely tipped over at some point. The foundation has shifted enough that it's very slowly tearing the house apart--replace it, and a host of problems, from doors not shutting properly to the never-ending plaster cracks, stop.

By late 2010, we had the plans, sent out requests for bids, and--once we recovered from the shock of what it was going to cost--hired a construction company to replace the foundation. It's a tricky job: we're still living in the house as they very gently slide huge beams under the house, slowly level it, then dig out and replace the foundation. That's where we are right now.

The construction crew (christened "The Mole Men") are usually here when I'm at school, so this week--the first week of Spring Break--is the first time I've been around when they're here. It's a bit disconcerting, and I've had to adjust my "non-work" schedule a bit: the Mole Men start to work at 8:00 a.m., so no lounging about in my bathrobe, drinking coffee and answering emails. The dye yard is full of lumber so I can't dye any fibers outdoors. There's an amazing quantity of banging, power tool noise, and periodically jackhammers and reciprocal saws as they clear away the old foundation and the hillside to make room for the new foundation. At one point yesterday we lost our electronic connection to the rest of the world when a Mole Man dropped a beam on the digital wiring and pulled it out of the terminal box. Today they were adding some additional beams under the house and the entire house was shaking and and making the sickening noises houses make during earthquakes.

It's all scary and an inconvenience, but there's already a difference in the house: the floors feel less bouncy and the house seems more stable. Eventually, this attack of the Mole Men will end: they will leave a much better house in their wake.

2011-03-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

A Bit of Housekeeping

I'm microblogging (i.e., I'm tweeting) quite a bit these days. Much of this is due to getting an iPhone at the beginning of the year, which has turned out to be an amazing communication device. I love being on the InterWebz whenever and wherever I want, and I'm sharing more of what I think is interesting (and most likely isn't to other people) with the world.

All this microblogging has meant that I'm not sitting down to write proper blog entries as often as I used to do. It's difficult to write an entry (which can take me from a few minutes to over an hour) on a regular basis when I'm also posting to Twitter and Plurk. Technology to the rescue: Twitter has a widget which echoes my tweets to my blog. I've added a Twitter feed (it's on the right), so my blog is now up-to-date.

2011-02-23T16:57:00.000-08:00

Gally

For the first time in nearly two decades, I spent the weekend at a science fiction (SF) convention. Not just a run-of-the-mill, literature-based science fiction convention, nor a costuming convention. Nope: I went to Gallifrey One, the big Doctor Who convention held over Presidents' Day weekend in Los Angeles.

The last SF convention I went to was ConFrancisco, the WorldCon held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend in 1993. We bought the house a few months later, and weekend-long events such as conventions (aka "cons") were left by the way, along with a lot of costuming. It's hard to make the time to build elaborate costumes when paint needs scraping, flower beds need weeding, and money needs to be earned to pay for the work on the house.

I ended up at Gally--the nickname most fans use for Gallifrey One--due to the efforts of one of my fiber friends. Our paths have unknowingly crossed many times in the past thirty years, as we're both geeks interested in science fiction and fiber. After she attended her first Gally a couple years ago, she began bugging me to go, and after last year's con, I broke down and bought a membership. I also set myself some rules:

1) No making myself insane over building elaborate costumes. If it isn't built by the end of 2010, it isn't going.
2) No apologizing for not having elaborate costumes. I have a life, darn it!
3) I will enjoy myself, within reason.

Gally was held at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott hotel: a brilliant choice for a good-sized convention. The hotel is just a few minutes by shuttle from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and is large enough to handle the needs of a convention for nearly 2,000 attendees. The hotel also has a very large lobby seating area, strategically placed between the registration desk, a Starbucks, and the bar: the area has become notorious for a multi-day party known as "Lobbycon" as fans hang out to relax, chat, and drink their choice of beverages.

Gally is a "media" con (different from a literature-based con), so many of the panel discussions were about different aspects of the long-running TV show Doctor Who and its spin-off, Torchwood. There were also photograph sessions with actors and actresses who appeared on the series, and autograph sessions with actors and writers. I skipped the photograph and autograph sessions (I'd rather drink and chat with people than bug them for pictures or signatures), caught a couple panels (I especially enjoyed the "Crafting Who" panel), and spent much of my time hanging out in the "TARDIS Lounge" with the other knitters I had previously met online through Ravelry on the Who Knits? board. I earned my keep: the group knits a copy of one of the scarves worn by Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor each year for a charity auction, and I worked on both scarves over the weekend. I also worked on my own scarf for a future costume.

Science fiction conventions have changed since the last time I attended one. The biggest change is the ready accessibility of social media. On Thursday night, a sign at Lobbycon said, "What happens at Galley is on Facebook in nanoseconds." It's true: as soon as something happened, fans were pulling out their smartphones and tweeting their words and pictures, all marked with #gally. I even managed to send a few tweets myself, mostly about what I was doing and how a long-time costuming friend won the Saturday night masquerade.

All in all, it was an enjoyable weekend; I had enough fun that I sprung for next year's membership. I'm also starting to plan some elaborate costumes for next year's con.

2010-12-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

Starting Anew

Once again it's New Year's Eve--time to consider everything that's happened in the past year, and make resolutions (which will be abandoned by January 2).

All in all, 2010 was fairly uneventful. I finished graduate school. The high school I've taught at for the past fourteen years was slated for closure in 2011. I got braces put on my teeth. We pulled the building permits to replace the foundation under the house. We've survived colds, cold weather, and a squirrel in the house. Good-bye, 2010!

Some resolutions for 2011:

1) Blog on a regular basis. I'm really bad about this--I have lots of lovely ideas, but never get around to typing them up. Perhaps I need to invest in a piece of dictation software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking (this is not a plug for them) so I can dictate my email and blog posts while knitting. I'm a bit leery of this software--I tried it about ten or twelve years ago, and it didn't like the way I pronounce certain letters. I'm also not sure how it will respond to my mumbling around my braces.

2) Get back to living a healthy lifestyle. Eat less. Move more. Reduce stress. 'Nuff said.

3) Reduce the size of the stash. The infamous stash has now grown too large for its own good. It's gotten so large that the studio stash closet is full to overflowing, and two tall stacks of bins full of fleece and fiber are stacked in the studio proper. In addition to the bloated stash, I've gone from one loom a year ago to three looms now: I got a Pioneer 16-shaft table loom for sampling in April, and was gifted a 4-shaft Baby Wolf (along with some other equipment) last month. There's barely enough room for me in the studio these days, so reducing the stash should create a bit more space.

4) Get the weaving records organized. I confessed to a bunch of handweavers recently: I am an abject and utter failure at keeping my weaving records organized. How do you keep electronic files, paper notes, photographs, and woven samples all organized neatly? This is a big priority--I've cut projects off two looms in the past two weeks, and both had "issues" because I didn't keep decent records: the five-foot rag rug was actually eight feet long; I used the wrong shade of yellow on some gift towels I was weaving. I need to find a way to keep errors like these to a minimum.

5) Start thinking about life after school. It's time. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I'm retiring from teaching in less than 61 months. I need to start making some decisions about what I want to do once my life--from August to June--is my own again. Obviously, fiber is going to be a big part of that, but in what ways? As a spinner, a dyer, a weaver, a knitter, a designer, an artist, or a combination of those things? Do I want to design knitting patterns, sell fiber and yarn on the Internet, or create one-off pieces for sale in galleries? Time goes quickly, so if I start thinking about these things this year, I'll have time to take the steps to transition into a very active "retirement."

About the photo: Abracadabra. An original design for a multi-directional lace scarf, knitted from KnitPicks Stroll handpainted sock yarn.

2010-10-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

"Tell me about the steel industry in America..." (Part I)

Last weekend's homework for the kids was to "research the steel industry in America" and be ready to report out on Monday. Monday rolled around, and we spent the class period developing a list of "factoids" (thank you, USA Today) about steel. Some of them are dead-on, some are funny, and some are amazingly wrong. Some examples:

Henry Bessemer developed the Bessemer Convertor in 1857.
In the 1900s, the United States was the largest producer of steel in the world.
John Surma is the CEO of US Steel.
To make steel you need iron ore.
Andrew Carnegie began Carnegie Steel.
Carnegie Steel was the largest producer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the 1880s.
Carnegie sold Carnegie Steel the US Steel in 1901. It was the largest steel producer for decades.
The first steel mill was built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is the only one left operating. (But what about Gary, Indiana and Fairless, Pennsylvania?)
The Pittsburgh Steelers use elements of the US Steel logo as their logo.
Braddock's single largest employer was a steel mill.
Steel is basic to the world's industrialized economies.
After 1970, the United States could no longer compete effectively against low-wage foreign producers.
In 1999, the United States was the second largest producer of steel in the world, with 12% of the market.
In 2008, US Steel opened the Mon Valley Works Training Facility to train steel workers. (not exactly)

Once the very long lists of factoids were compiled, we had basic knowledge, but still no clear understanding of what happened to the American steel industry and its collapse. We began exploring this aspects of economics on Tuesday.

During much of America's history we made things. Many Americans don't know or have forgotten that, from the end of the War of 1812 in 1815 to the start of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States did not face east, toward Europe, but faced west toward its own interior. During the second half of the 19th century, America found itself at an economic nexus of resources, labor, capital, and new technology that produced the perfect conditions for large-scale industrialization. America began stitching the ends of the country together with steel railroad tracks, building up into the sky with steel-framed buildings, and opening factories producing everything from buttons to water bottles. At the beginning of the 20th century, Pittsburgh and its outlying boroughs and communities represented one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in the world. The Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio river valleys were dotted with steel mills, glass works, aluminum smelting plants and factories, all in need of labor both skilled and unskilled. A few people, such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and George Westinghouse, made huge piles of money; other people--the "middle class"--made some money, and a lot of people made a little money, but a lot of people were working and supporting themselves and their families. With the money they made, they bought things--groceries, furniture, clothing, shoes, books and toys--and supported local businesses, which in turn were able to buy the things made in the factories and mills. Like some great Victorian engine, all the cogs and gears of the American economy meshed and turned. This engine worked well: well enough for the United States to declare war on Spain after the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor; well enough for the United States to eventually involve itself in the "war to end all war." And then it stopped.

Some parts of economies work in predictable ways. A portion of the economy slows down, so demand other things drops. When demand drops, prices have to drop. When prices drop, supply drops. Since supply drops, less workers are needed for production, so they are laid off. The laid-off workers have less income to spend, so they participate less in the product market, and the process begins anew. The effect spreads outward, like ripples in a pond.

Eventually though, just as the ripples in a pond eventually disappear, the troubles of the Depression waned and American heavy industry went back to work. World War II, as difficult as it was for so many American families, was also a prosperous time: mills and factories ran at maximum capacity, producing everything needed for the war effort. At the end of World War II, America was the undisputed industrial giant of the world.

**To Be Continued**

2010-10-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

The Project: "My Brother From Another Mother"

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, we spent some time examining the differences and similarities of Braddock and Vallejo. Let's start with the differences.

Basic Facts About Braddock, PA (15104)

Geographic size: .6 square miles (roughly 350 acres)
Population (2000 Census): 2,912
Ethnicity: 67% African American; 30% white; 1.5% Latino; .25% Asian; and 1.25% everything else
Median household income: $18,473/year
Percentage of population living in poverty: 35%
Largest private employer: US Steel Edgar Thomson Works (900 employees)
Current economic situation: Declared "Financially Distressed" by State of Pennsylvania in 1988

Basic Facts About Vallejo, CA (94589-92)

Geographic size: 48.8 square miles
Population (2000 Census): 116,760
Ethnicity: 36% white; 24% African American; 21% Filipino; 16% Latino; 3% everything else
median household income: $47,030/year
Percentage of population living in poverty: 10%
Largest private employer: Kaiser Permanente Medical Center (3,900 employees)
Current economic situation: Declared bankruptcy in 2008

On the face of it, Braddock and Vallejo don't seem very similar. Vallejo is bigger, more diverse, and more affluent. Start digging, however, and the similarities appear.

Both towns have a long and illustrious history. Braddock was the site of the Battle of the Monongahela, and was named for British general Edward Braddock, who fell during the battle. It was Braddock's young aide-de-camp, a Colonel George Washington, who would eventually lead the Continental Army when Britain's American colonies decided they didn't want to pay taxes levied on them by Parliament after the French and Indian War. In effect, what happened in Braddock eventually led to the United States of America. As the home of the Edgar Thomson Works (established by industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1875), Braddock is also the birthplace of modern steel industry in America.

Vallejo came about as a gift from local landowner General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo to the new state of California for a state capitol. Vallejo served as the state capitol for only two years (1852 and 1853), but the United States Navy quickly recognized the value of the site--located at the point where the Napa and Sacramento rivers flow into San Pablo Bay--as a strategic location for a naval base and shipyard. Mare Island Naval Shipyard opened in 1854, and for the next 140 years built and repaired ships and submarines for the Navy.

Both towns have their roots in heavy industry with working waterfronts. Braddock's location along the Mon made it perfect for bringing in the raw ingredients of steel, and then shipping the finished product out to world. Vallejo's location adjacent to Mare Island was perfect for taking steel and turning it into ships.

Both towns have suffered devastating economic losses. Braddock is a town built on steel. As long as steel was made in America, Braddock and many other towns thrived. But as American industries shifted to using cheap foreign steel, mills were closed, jobs were lost, and communities found their economic base pulled out from under their feet.

Vallejo was a Navy town. When running at full capacity, as it was during World War II, Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) employed about 50,000 workers, and Vallejo's population swelled to nearly 80,000. Although the town shrank considerably after World War II, many Vallejoans worked as "Yardbirds," building submarines during the Cold War. Then, in 1993, Congress voted to close MINSY. Almost immediately, people began to move away and businesses began to close. Vallejo could not withstand the shock. In 2004, the school district was placed under state control when it needed a $60 million loan to keep the schools operating; in 2008, Vallejo became the largest California city to declare bankruptcy.

Two towns: on the surface, as different as can be. But underneath, similar enough for each to claim the other as "my brother from another mother."

2010-10-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

The Project: Doc >>> Vjo

I do not enjoy teaching Economics. I didn't care for the subject when I took it in college, and I don't like the textbook (Economics: Principles in Action by O'Sullivan and Shefferin). It's difficult to read, difficult to understand and has, in light of the
current economic downturn, little real relevance. When the textbook was published in 2007, Vallejo's unemployment rate was around 5%; today it's more than 12%. High school students respond to "real world" facts and situations and learn in ways that are not possible when using a dusty, dry textbook.

The current advertising campaign by Levi Strauss & Co. that focuses on Braddock is providing the grist for teaching "real world" economics through something called "Project-Based Learning." In PBL, you use a project to make real the concepts you're trying to teach. It can be exciting, crazy-making, scary, and can blow up in your face if the project or how it's guided aren't carefully thought out. As a result, most teachers don't go for big, unwieldy projects. Most teachers also don't use PBL with their most difficult students, saving it for their "best and brightest," so they can have projects to brag about. This isn't going to be one of those projects. About 50% of my seniors are, to put it politely, credit-deficient. In other words, they may not graduate from high school in June because they've failed too many classes during the first three years of high school. They don't have the grades, they don't have a lot of the traditional skills teachers expect, and they don't have a lot of happiness. They live in a bankrupt town, attend school in a bankrupt district, and are the 48th and last graduating class: their high school is being closed at the end of the school year. A big project built around the similarities of Braddock, PA and Vallejo, CA, and what happens when a big corporation comes in and uses the town for advertising purposes might just be the tool for teaching the concepts of economics in a way that is meaningful to them.

We started on Monday, October 4, by brainstorming questions. For each class (there are 3) I hung up a large piece of butcher paper, put up an image of one of Levi's billboards

and asked, "What questions does this billboard, and another similar one in Oakland, raise?" I was peppered with questions. I didn't answer any of them, I just wrote them down on the butcher paper. When the questions started to slow, I showed The Ad. More questions, more writing them down. At the end of the day, I turned them into a master list of the questions, roughly grouped into four areas:

The Town

Does Braddock exist?
Who or what is "Braddock"?
How is Braddock like Vallejo?
Is Braddock broke?
Is there a struggle in Braddock?
Was Braddock an industrial town?
What happened to Braddock?
What's going on in Braddock to warrant the attention?
Where is Braddock, PA?
Why is Levi's in Braddock?
Why is the town so empty?

The Advertisements

Are the people in the ad wearing Levi's?
Do the people in the ad work for Levi Strauss & Co?
What are the guys in the advertisement working on?
What ethnicity are the guys in the advertisement?
Who are the people in the commercial?
Who are the people on the billboard?
Why are the people sad?
How do the advertisements relate to selling jeans?
Is "things were broken" referring to the rivets in Levi's?
Is the billboard some type of inside joke?
Is the commercial a "mini-movie"?
What is meant by "Go Forth"?
What is the billboard about besides Levi's
What is the commercial's message?
What is the meaning of the narration/voiceover?
What is the company advertising?
What's with this campaign?
Where are the jeans?
Why does the billboard say "Braddock, PA"?
Why is an advertisement featuring Braddock in Oakland (CA)?
Is the advertisement to raise money for Braddock?

The Corporation

Does money from the sale of Levi's go to help Braddock?
Is Levi's doing a charity in Braddock?
Is Levi's giving discounts to poor towns?
Is Levi's lowering their prices?
Is Levi's trying to sell jeans by suing sympathy?
What is the connection between Levi's and Braddock?
Why are Levi's supporting another state?

Everything Else

Are we (who is "we") willing to fix Braddock?
Does wearing Levi's expand your horizons?
How can we help Braddock?
Is everybody's work equally important?
What does this have to do with Economics?
What is a "frontier"?
Why isn't Levi's helping Vallejo?
Why should we care about Braddock?
What can we learn from this to help Vallejo?

Their questions, not mine. Can we find answers for them all? Only time will tell.

2010-10-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

Wait! What Was That Ad?!?

I was sitting on the divan watching the season premiere of The Simpsons when I finally saw The Ad. I'll admit it--I haven't been watching a lot of TV this year, and when I do, it's usually programs that I've recorded so I can fast-forward through all the commercials. I was watching the actual broadcast, so I couldn't "zap" through the commercials. I saw It...twice.

The first time I saw It, I was rather annoyed (I find most of Levi Strauss' commercials annoying), but something looked familiar about the background. Something about the trees on the hills, and the way the town looked, full of old houses and narrow streets. The quick cut to the "Welcome to Historic Braddock" sign registered on my subconscious; the "Braddock, PA" at the end merely raised the question, "Why was Levi's shooting an ad in Braddock?" It wasn't until until the second time The Ad aired (during Family Guy, if I remember correctly) that it struck me: This was Braddock, PA. No wonder the hills and backgrounds looked so familiar--it was home. I sat there, stunned.

Once the sickening shock wore off, I was angry. Angry that Braddock--and by extension, the other little towns and boroughs of the Mon Valley--were being shown in such a light. Angry that Levi Strauss & Co., the largest jeans company in the world would exploit the people of my home in such a way. Angry that Levi Strauss would travel nearly 3,000 miles to make such a commercial, yet ignore the problems in their own San Francisco backyard. Levi's produced a "feel good" commercial about their product, which they don't even make in the United States any more. Grrrrrrrr!

The commercial broke my heart. Here was Braddock, looking as it probably did in the depths of the Depression, with hardly enough population (2,912 as of 2000) to sustain itself. Braddock's story isn't very different than other towns--the economy of areas such as Braddock, North Braddock, Rankin, and Homestead collapsed when the American steel industry collapsed and, in many cases, have yet to recover.

Sometimes good things can come out of shock, anger, and sadness. I'm teaching Economics to about 100 high school seniors this semester, in a town that has been economically rocked as Braddock has been. Perhaps this can be turned into a "teachable moment."

2010-10-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

These Roots are Deep

I’m proud of my roots. My very blue-collar roots are sunk deep into the coal-laden Allegheny Mountains and watered by the Monongahela River. Different parts of my rather large family tree have lived within 20 miles of “the Point”—the place where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to create the mighty Ohio River—for at least 150 years; I have a letter from my great-great-great-grandfather dated 1863 describing life on his farm just outside Elizabeth. My dad’s family lived in Carrick and later Mount Oliver; my mother grew up in Hays (her father worked at National Tube in McKeesport). I was born in Pittsburgh and went home to a house in Baldwin. Pittsburgh was home—imprinted on me the way a specific patch of gravel in a specific creek is imprinted on a salmon--even though circumstances required this part of the family be transplanted to Southern California. I grew up in the vast suburbs outside Los Angeles, went to college, married, and established my own household, but home was always right around the corner, in the way the light strikes a group of buildings, or the tantalizing scent of woodsmoke on a crisp fall evening. The imprinting runs as deep as the roots: when traveling to Washington D.C. by train, I knew when the train passed through Pittsburgh and up the Mon Valley in the middle of the night, before I peeked out the window to catch a glimpse of the hills and bluffs of West Mifflin. Later that same trip, I became hopelessly lost coming into Pittsburgh from the Pennsylvania Turnpike; I hadn't been there in nearly 25 years, had never driven in the city, and simply didn't know which offramp led to what bridge. I ended up at East Carson Street in South Side and, on a hunch, turned left. It felt familiar, and then I saw a sign for the Blue Belt at Beck's Run Road. I knew where I was, turned right, and fifteen minutes later was in front of the house where my father grew up in Mount Oliver.

I live in Vallejo because it reminds me of home. While visiting a friend, I fell in love with the town: little old houses marching up and down hills to a working waterfront dominated by the big brick industrial buildings of Mare Island Naval Shipyard. I felt like I was home.When we could, we moved to Vallejo, found a wonderful old house to love, and put down new roots. It's not quite home, but it's pretty close.

2010-06-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

Where Do You Want the Piano, Lady?

June has been nuts. Not cashews, walnuts and pistachios; way too much stuff to do crammed into too few days. There have been 5 fiber-related events during the 4 weekends in June, along with two graduations and a trip to Oregon. The events have been:

June 5--Spinning at the Winery fiber picnic
June 6--Grad school graduation exercises
June 10--High School I teach at graduation exercises
June 12--Spinning at the Farm fiber picnic
June 16--Leave for Eugene, Oregon
June 17-20--Black Sheep Gathering
June 21--Arrive back from Eugene
June 26--Spinning demonstration at San Francisco's Exploratorium museum
June 27--Spindles & Flyers guild meeting; Oakland Fiber & Textile Festival

All of them have been fun, and a lovely way to shift gears from teacher to fiber artist, but the studio has suffered...badly. I haven't been home enough to put away things that didn't get put away during the school year, and it seemed that I dragged home more fiber and equipment from nearly every single event. The past several days have been devoted to bringing order to my corner of chaos, and I made a big discovery:

There is a limit to what I can fit in the studio.

That brings me back to my header. At CNCH in April, I ordered a 16-shaft, 20" wide Pioneer loom. I took a good look at them at CNCH, and was impressed by the quality construction, the size, and the fact that, with 16 shafts, I could weave some pretty elaborate small projects and samples. The loom--after some travails including FedEX dropping it several times--arrived on June 4. I barely had time to uncrate my new toy before the round of fiber festivals and events started, so it sat on the dining room table for nearly 4 weeks until I could get a small table and move it up to the studio.

Once I took some measurements, I realized that the only place the new table and loom would fit was where 2 file cabinets have been for years. No problem--just move the file cabinets. But where? If I moved the small chest of drawers full of art supplies next to the storage closet, I might have room for the file cabinets. But where should I put the chest of drawers, as it's too big to fit under the table? I did a bit of rearranging in the laundry room, and moved it out next to its twin, also full of art supplies; problem solved. Once the chest of drawers was moved out of the way, it was relatively easy to move the big loom, move the worktable into the place where the loom was, move the loom where the work table was, then maneuver the file cabinets to their new spot. I assembled the new table and we carried the new loom up the stairs and into the studio. Job finished!

Or not. I got a new set of combs, a set of Peter Teal 5-pitch English combs. I've wanted a set of Teal's combs for years--they're about 50% larger than my Indigo Hound combs, so I can comb more each time. They're also beautiful. The only problem: they don't fit on the IKEA "sawhorse." The combing "pad" puts the stationary comb too high for easy combing, and the wide base is too wide for the top of the sawhorse. The two-shelf bookcase is just the right height, but the drum carder is on one, and the other is over a bit too far to make carding easy. Or is it? I measured everything, and by moving one of the bookcases across the studio to a place next to the file cabinets, there was a place to clamp the combs, with plenty of room to swing a 1.5-lb comb with very long spikes. The drum carder was clamped to the other bookcase, and is now in front of the window air-conditioner, but I think it's low enough to not interfere with the A/C. The space left by the moving the bookcase quickly filled with 8 boxes of fleece, but the door to the storage closet is no longer blocked. I moved my little spinning chair out in favor of a larger kitchen chair that is the right height for both spinning and weaving on the Pioneer loom.

I think the studio will work in its new configuration. I did some spinning this evening (yes, I even managed to fit my Sonata in the studio) and I had enough room to do long draw. The big loom is unfolded and there's enough room to weave. I have enough room on the worktable for 3 computers (2 laptops and my netbook), the printer, my ball winder, and swift. One thing I don't have any more room for is more stuff--this is going to have to be "it" until I get rid of something, such as 2 file cabinets.

2010-05-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

Dress Journal #3: Loud Socks

I like hand knit socks. I started knitting socks a few years ago and discovered with the first pair--knit of Patons Classic Merino--that hand knit socks are basically little sweaters for feet. As I have perennially cold extremities (hence the affectionate nickname "Popsicle Toes"), hand knit wool socks are a luxury.

Because I make my own socks, I get to choose my own yarns. I began with some basic, moderately subdued colors, but quickly moved on to the more "interesting" colorways. Opal, Blue Moon, Flat Feet, Red Heart--I like them all, as long as they're moderately to very bright and bold. I knit my socks toes up, one at a time, from a "figure 8" cast-on to an "afterthought" heel: only the leg changes, as I get bored with just plain ribs (the sock above has a spiral rib leg).

KnitPicks, that online emporium of nearly all things knitting, has a wonderful line of specialty sock yarns: Felici. A blend of 75% very soft Merino and 25% nylon for strength, KnitPicks dyes this butter-soft sock yarn in series of limited-edition colorways. This time around, they drew inspiration from the popular British childrens' TV show Doctor Who, and created the Time Traveler colorway for fans that wanted socks similar to the scarf worn by the good Doctor in the 1970s. The scarf is amazing, both for its length (at its longest, about 15 feet) and its colors: the original scarf was created from a bunch of mismatched yarns, but the random colors work well as a whole. It is somewhat a rite of passage for Doctor Who fans to, at some point, knit their own version of the famous Scarf. I crocheted one out of horrid acrylic yarn during my college years--it has long since disappeared (probably raveled and crocheted into an afghan), with no one the wiser until now.

I ordered a couple skeins of the yarn, and was impressed by how similar they are to the scarf colors--the photo at the right is the skein, sitting on a portion of my new Scarf, currently underway. The only missing color was the olive green, so I ordered a skein of KnitPicks Essentials in the Sarge colorway to add in some green.

The plan is to knit this pair of stockings as a 4x1 rib. As I knit socks from the toe up, I started with the Sarge Essentials and knit the toe, then switched to the Felici Time Traveler. At round 65, I knit half of the round with a bit of waste yarn--I will go back later and knit an "afterthought" heel in the Sarge colorway--then continued on up the leg in the 4x1 rib. When I get the leg long enough to reach my knee, I'll switch back to the Sarge and knit a turn-over cuff before starting on the second stocking.

This pair of stockings is fun to knit--the yarns a buttery soft, and the pattern is just complex enough to keep my interest. At the end, I'll have another pair of very loud knee socks to wear with some of my outfits.

2010-05-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

Dress Journal #2: Brain Dump

The first step in costuming does not involve fabric, pins, a sewing machine, or an iron. It does involve, in my case, paper, pencils (both regular and colored), an eraser, india ink, and a moderate amount of swearing. This is a brain dump, where my ideas are taken out of my head and captured on paper. For me, it's an important step because without it, I'm relying on an overly full memory to keep track of all the details of an outfit. Putting it down on paper solidifies the idea and makes it a bit more real; I also can start to think about what materials I will need to turn the drawing into reality.

Some time this past weekend was devoted to a brain dumping session. I need several new outfits, along with new underpinnings. There's too much--about 25 pieces--to just work from a list, so some sketches are necessary. I also want to try out some trim details before committing to one specific idea, and sketches are the least expensive route.

So, what am I considering? Nothing short of a nearly complete wardrobe for a lady archaeologist/cultural xenologist in 1905. No big puffy sleeves and giant hats full of dead birds: these are practical clothes that can take me from the field to the lecture hall in style and comfort. The list:

Underpinnings:
2 chemises, both trimmed with hand-crocheted lace (more on that later)
2 prs. French drawers
1 petticoat
1 Equipoise basque (basically an unboned corset)
2 prs. loud handknitted stockings
1 pr. black lace handknitted stockings

Field dress:
1 white shirtwaist
1 split skirt
1 Norfolk jacket
1 topee with veiling
1 pr. stout walking boots
1 tie

Lecture/Meeting dress:
1 white shirtwaist (see above)
1 gray tweed vest
1 navy Eton jacket with white braid trim
1 navy walking skirt
1 straw boater,
1 pr. sensible shoes
1 tie (see above)

Cycling outfit:
1 sky blue shirtwaist
1 gray tweed vest (see above)
1 pr. navy bloomers
1 gray tweed Norfolk or Reefer jacket
1 straw boater (see above)
1 pr. black gaiters
1 pr. low-heeled boots
1 tie (see above)

It's a lot of cutting and sewing, but I really need to build a lot of new clothes; it's been 15 years since I last built a wardrobe for this time period, and my figure has changed somewhat in the intervening years. One piece at a time, I will build a new wardrobe.

2010-05-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Dress Journal #1: Steampunk. Steampunk? Steampunk.

After an extended hiatus, I'm preparing to drag the sewing machine out and build myself some new clothes. Not clothes that I would normally wear to work--clothes that I wear to play, since my idea of "play" still includes a good amount of "dress up." This summer I am doing some serious costume-building.

If one were to diagram my friends and my play, it would be a Venn diagram with three very overlapping circles. Some of my fiber friends are also fans of the British TV show Doctor Who; others are in the historical reenacting and fiber circles; a few are in all three. Now there's a fourth circle: steampunk.

Steampunk--as a literary form--is a subgenre of science fiction extrapolating the idea that Charles Babbage's Difference Engine (now considered to be the world's first computer) was built and the design improved upon in the 19th Century. It's a world populated with technology that operates with steam and gears, and a rather Victorian sense of geopolitics: the United States is split into several different countries, depending on the author, and the sun has not set on the British empire. An excellent description of the origins of steampunk can be found in Jess Nevin's essay, "The 19th Century Roots of Steampunk," in Steampunk. Steampunk has taken the historical costuming world by storm.

Steampunk as a venue for costuming is fun, because it draws heavily on 19th and early 20th Century clothing (approximately 1850-1910). It gives me a reason to revamp my wardrobe after a long break from this period, with clothes I can wear for action-shooting, historical reenactments, the odd science fiction convention, and of course steampunk events. As an early 20th Century technical exposition--The Great Pan-kinetic Exposition--is tentatively scheduled to be held sometime in 2011, I have no excuse to not start building clothes appropriate for it and other events.

So this is the start of an actual dress journal. Stay tuned, and follow how I go about refurbishing my wardrobe.

2010-05-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

Don't Teach Your Grandmother to Suck Eggs

For years I've heard (accompanied by a long-suffering sigh): "Everybody and their mother gets a camera and immediately thinks they're a photographer." This statement comes from a darned fine photographer with decades (four, to be exact) of experience; he's commenting on the difference between the amateur snapshots that many people--including me--take and the carefully composed photographs that capture what he sees for the rest of the world to share. The guy is good, really good, and over the years I've watched him patiently put up with the n00bs who--with exactly 15 minutes of experience with a camera--tell him exactly how to go about capturing a moment.

I'm suddenly running into fiber version of the n00b with the camera. As I start to shift from the winter months full of papers to write, papers to grade, and the workload of both graduate school and full-time teaching, I'm starting to monitor the fiber-related social networks. During the eight months I've been away, focusing on Real Life, a new crop of n00bs has grown up, most having received fiber equipment (usually spinning wheels and/or looms) while I've been away. Many are true n00bs, full of eager questions and excited to share their new successes at an art form. It's fun to watch their excitement, give them a bit of support, and occasionally give them a gentle nudge down the path to all things fibery.

Unfortunately, along with all these excited fiber "puppies" come the fiber "n00b with a camera." We've all run into her/him: he/she is the person who has just gotten a spinning wheel, has read one or two books on how to do a specific aspect of fiber (e.g., spinning), and are now the complete expert on spinning. She/he loves to share their knowledge with everyone, whether or not asked, and is double-quick to tell people they are wrong when confronted with information different than the book(s) he/she has read. I've also noticed that the "n00b with a wheel" is also very young; in many cases, I started working with fiber long before the n00b was born.

So, to all the n00bs with a [fill in the blank]:

I learned to crochet at my mother's knee in 1961, and learned to sew and knit when I was a Junior Girl Scout, around 1966 (my Sewing Badge was my second badge, right after Housekeeping). I started weaving potholders in 1965, and did my first weaving on a floor loom in 1967. I took sewing and needlework classes in high school, and by the time I graduated I was skilled at most types of needlework and could sew my own clothes. By comparison, spinning is a recently acquired skill--I've been spinning since 1994.
Unlike you, I haven't gleaned all my knowledge from one or two books. I've had the tremendous opportunity learn under the guidance of some of the foremost teachers in the United States. I don't like namedropping: open a copy of Handwoven or Spin Off to the contents page, and chances are good that at least one of the authors each month is someone I've taken a workshop from. Workshops aren't the only way I work to improve my craft. I've got "a few" (roughly 300) books on fiber and needle arts.
In the nearly 50 years I've worked with fiber, I've learned one universal rule: there are at least two ways to do nearly anything connected with fiber. Some things don't work quite as well as other things, and sometimes a different technique is required for each different type of equipment. Whatever works best at the time with specific equipment and specific fiber is the best technique. It's knowing which technique works best in each circumstance that separates fiber artists from fiber hobbyists, just as it separates photographers from snapshot takers; refusing to consider other techniques merely makes you look small-minded and becomes an obstacle in your own path to knowledge.
There's an old saying, "Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs." In other words, don't give advice to someone with more experience than yourself.

About the Shawl...

The photo at above is the Aurora Borealis shawl, knit from some nice Mountain Colors Targhee (colorway Northern Lights) that I spun as a fingering-weight 2-ply a while back.

2010-04-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

When All Else Fails, Write!

Spring is making a valiant attempt at appearing in Northern California. Valiant, but not terribly successful yet: the fancy irises are starting to bloom, but we still get cold, rainy days (yesterday's high was 58 degrees).

No matter. The days are getting longer, and I'm starting to feel a touch of Spring Fever. It's the same every year; we approach the end of the school year (only 33 school days left!) and I want to spend more time at play in the studio. Due to other commitments (that Master's thesis), finding the time to play is difficult, but I'm trying to carve out bits of time to spin, knit, dye, or just tidy up the studio. I need a bit of balance; too much school and I crack under the stress, so the art is a good release from the stress. I've managed to get a few things done; since the first of the year, I've knit 2 shawls, a scarf, and another pair of socks. I've dyed half of the yarn I scored at the White Elephant Sale in January a beautiful shade of blue-purple. I've designed and started knitting another large lace shawl using the above-mentioned dyed yarn. Last weekend I picked up my combs for the first time in 8 months and got most of another color (red) combed and ready to spin. I finished spinning and plying the blue warp.

I'm also trying to carve out a bit of time for the blog. I'm a rabid microblogger on Plurk, but writing proper blog entries takes time, but time is in short supply. That should change soon (Did I mention there are only 33 school days left?), and I should have more time for the blog. One new change: I updated my photo. The old photo was about 10 years old. The new photo was taken in late January, right after I had about 15 inches whacked off my hair (it was well past my waist).

2010-01-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

There but for the Grace of God...

I've been watching the nearly non-stop coverage of the disaster in Haiti's capital of Port au Prince.

Under the best of circumstances, in a place where we expect earthquakes as one of the prices we pay for living in "the best place on earth," an earthquake is a horrible, terrifying thing. I should know; I went through the Sylmar earthquake (6.6 on the Richter Scale) on February 9, 1971, and it took me years to get over that event. However, everything got rebuilt, in many cases stronger/more earthquake resistant, and I've managed to miss all the other big earthquakes--I was in Southern California when Loma Prieta happened in 1989, and I was living in the Bay Area when the 1994 Northridge Earthquake (16 years ago Sunday) occurred. Even then, it was more inconvenience than actual hardship. Yes, the electricity was spotty. Yes, it was frightening when the aftershocks happened. But we had running water, plenty of food, and we got through it.

The people of Haiti, on the best day, don't have all the advantages of living in a wealthy country, much less the richest country in the world. Eighty percent of Haiti--the second-oldest independent country in the Western Hemisphere and the only country in the Western Hemisphere to kick Emperor Napoleon's butt--lives below the poverty line, and 78% of Haitians live on less than $2/day. The last time a major earthquake hit Haiti, it was a plantation-filled colony of the French, and the US was just beginning to talk about how King George II was abusing his American colonies. Haiti is a land completely unprepared for a major earthquake, which hit on Tuesday afternoon.

It's bad. It's really bad, and this was only a 7.0--the same magnitude that could so easily occur on the many faults that cross the San Francisco Bay Area like lacework. The earthquake that struck Haiti could have so easily struck San Francisco or the East Bay, destroying homes, schools, and lives. The estimates are (at 7:00 pm PST) that 150,000-200,000 people lost their lives, and that nearly 3 million people are hurt, homeless, and hungry. For a country that has only a population of 9 million, that's a lot of suffering.

We are a wonderful group of people. We argue, we fight, but when somebody is suffering, we step up and become the most wonderful, generous people around. I've seen this happen time after time after time after time. We open our hearts, our homes, and our wallets, no matter how thin, to help those who have even less and are suffering. And right now, the people of Haiti are suffering.

So, how can we help? Right now, the biggest need is for money. Plain old American dollars. Dollars buy the medical supplies to suture cuts, set broken bones, stop the pain. Dollars buy bottled water, food, and tents to provide shelter. Dollars help organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, and the International Red Cross to get aid to where it's needed. I've put a bunch of links to different relief organizations at the end of this post. In some cases, it's as easy as sending a text message. I don't normally do this, but please give what you can, because there, but for the grace of God, could be any of us.

Haitian Earthquake Relief

American Red Cross Haitian Earthquake Relief
--Make a $10 donation by texting HAITI to 90999

The Clinton Foundation
--Make a $10 donation by texting HAITI to 20222

Compassion International
--Make a $5 donation by texting DISASTER to 90999

International Rescue Committee
--Make a $5 donation by texting HAITI to 25383

Salvation Army
--Make a $10 donation by texting HAITI to 52000

The United Nations Foundation
--Make a $5 donation by texting CERF to 90999

The United Way
--Make a $5 donation by texting HAITI to 864833

Yele Foundation
--Make a $5 donation by texting YELE to 501501

2009-12-31T07:16:00.000-08:00

Grrl @ Work

Once again, I've disappeared from the blogosphere for an extended period of time. My disappearance can be summed up in two words:

Graduate School

In mid-August, I was offered the opportunity to finish up a Master of Arts in Educational Technology (the geeky part of education) at Touro University. Finish up this part of my education at a site a few minutes from home, and for less than what the local public universities were charging? I jumped at the chance, even though the course load was going to be heavy (cramming six semester classes into two semesters, rather than the recommended three), and I was teaching two new courses at the high school. It's been a semester full of tight deadlines, missed research opportunities (it took Touro nearly six weeks to grant me access to their library and online research tools), a few sleepless nights, and stress, but the semester finished on December 18 with everything turned in on time to good reviews by my professors and peers. I'll dive back in after the start of the new year, but right now I'm enjoying a too-short break for the holidays.

My refuge from the stress of school (teaching) and school (attending) has been fiber. I haven't been able to get very much spinning done in the past few months, and the stair runner is still on the loom, gently mocking me for starting a project I wasn't able to finish before my schedule filled up. Instead, I've been knitting. I normally knit as a way to stay focused at meetings, but 2009 is a year when I've turned out a large number of small projects. I've tracked them this year by entering each into my Ravelry notebook, and tagged each with "2009fos." Since this is the last day of 2009, it's now time to list what I've finished:

Weaving:

10 bookmarks (which I'm finding very useful)

Knitting:

2 1817 Student Socks, 1 in sock yarn, 1 in DK, to test the pattern
1 Bachelor Tea Cozy, from a pattern in Weldon's
1 Cowl of black baby Alpaca
1 Calorimetry shaped headband out of purple Alpaca
1 pair of Brioche stitch wristwarmers
1 scarf in an old Shetland lace pattern (Razor Clam?) out of fuschia Angora blend
1 Chevron Lace Beret out of the same DK as one of the 1817 Student Socks
1 tiny coiled basket out of some of my handspun
1 Irish Hiking Scarf out of peacock wool
1 scarf based on the Irish Hiking Scarf with additional baby cables out of purple wool
1 beret based on the formula published by Ida Riley Duncan out of purple wool
1 pair of Irish Hiking Wristwarmers out of purple wool
1 pair of children's mittens out of red variegated wool
1 pair of socks out of Opal
2 pairs of socks out of Red Heart's "Heart & Sole" sock yarn
1 pair of slippers out of some old stash wool
1 scarf in Feather & Fan lace out of dark brown variegated wool

All together, I've used up about five pounds of fiber in 2009. I've also traded or given away nearly five pounds of other fibers or yarns I'll never use, and I've purchased very little yarn in the past year, so I'm starting 2010 with a slightly smaller stash than I had at the start of 2009.

2009-07-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Those Who Can...

It's been one of those days when it seems that the entire world is now populated with people that haven't the vaguest idea of what they're talking about. I normally go through life nearly oblivious to these well-meaning souls, usually with nothing more than a slightly pained smile and that most useful of comments, "Well, bless their hearts..." Usually these poor benighted beings avoid me like a form of plague--I can be intimidating under most circumstances, and downright forbidding if I haven't had any coffee. However, the moon must be in just that phase when they all decide it's time to come out of the woodwork--or wherever else they ~~hide~~ hang out--and tell me exactly how to walk, talk, think, or do things. This is not a recipe for happiness: I spend most of my time telling people what to do, not the other way round.

H.L. Mencken once said, "Those who can--do. Those who can't--teach." I think it's time to update that old saw to: "Those who can--do; those who can't--complain interminably on social networking sites." The past 24 hours has been filled with comments by people complaining that they can't: a) travel where they wish; b) have the fiber they wish; or c) do a type of fiber art. An example: someone complains vociferously about how difficult/tiring/time-consuming it is to comb locks with mini-combs. Other posters join in, commiserating on how simply awful it is to use tiny combs to comb ten pounds of fleece. Finally, your intrepid blogger does what needs to be done: gently suggests that it might be best to use big bad English combs for combing the fleece, as that's what they were designed to do. At this point, the excuses begin. English combs are expensive; they are, but so is a spinning wheel, a drum carder, and we aren't even going to talk about the price of a new floor loom. English combs are dangerous, with all those long, sharp tines; so is a 10" French chef knife, and I don't hear anyone complaining about using one of those. English combs are too big and hurt my hands; have you considered doing some hand/wrist exercises? What is not being said: I'd rather use the wrong tools, spend time complaining to others, and then blame my less than satisfactory results on the tools. Poor tools--they were only doing what they were designed to do.

I'm also being plagued by the "ukants": people who say, "You can't do that." "Can't" is a word rarely found in my general vocabulary. There are very few things I can't do; as my dear mother frequently says, "I could probably do brain surgery, given the right training and tools," and I've usually followed that same philosophy. When someone says "can't," if they're lucky, they'll get "The Look"--that sideways over-the-glasses look that teachers give students who are about to do something stupid/wrong/illegal. If they aren't lucky, they may be treated to a "gentle" explanation--in excrutiating detail--of exactly how I will go about doing just what they said I couldn't do, followed up by my giving them several suggestions on what they can do (jump in a lake, kiss a pig, you get the idea).

The latest target of the ukants is my good old Gilmore loom. It's big, it's heavy, it's old, it's noisy, and it weaves like nobody's business. A lot of thread has passed over the warp and breast beams of that loom (it's not dated, but the consensus is that it's from around 1940) in the last 69 years, and it's still going strong. You can imagine my surprise when I was informed that my loom was all wrong--the shafts are too low and there's no way it could possibly make a shed for weaving a rug. Huh? I've woven rugs on it for years--it weaves very nice rugs. Oh no, say the ukants, you have to get a big Swedish loom with a big overhead beater that makes giant sheds to properly weave rugs. Huh? I don't have the room for a big Swedish loom with a big overhead beater, and why do I need a gigantic shed anyway? I weave rugs with ski shuttles that are 1 1/4 inches tall--I need 3 inches, max.

I suspect that some of this pushing back against the ukants (besides being naturally obstinate) is that I didn't learn to weave in a formal setting. I learned to weave the way I learned to knit, to crochet, to sew, to cook, and to make terrific jams and jellies: by learning at the knee of another, asking questions when I didn't understand, and supplementing with a lot of reading. Older weavers, some of whom had been weaving when my loom was new, were patient and generous with their time and knowledge, and answered a child's endless questions on the whys and hows of weaving. It turns out, I have an affinity for the loom and its workings: I can't explain how I know when a warp is tensioned properly, or why I rarely use a temple and still have nearly perfect selvages any more than I can explain how I know when a conserve is cooked enough and is ready for the jars. The knowledge is in my hands and fingers. The ukants, trained in their formal textile labs and classrooms to always do "this" and never do "that," don't grasp that there are others for whom "that" is just what they need to do. For the ukants, the loom is a noisy piece of equipment; for some of us, it's the music of a centuries-old song of labor and love and beauty.

2009-07-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Spin Journal #12B: Romney

While at Black Sheep this year, I got a wild idea for a new project: a ruanna woven from handspun Romney. Finding weft was not a problem--I still have more than 5 pounds of black Romney I purchased several years ago. The weft though, especially given my love for working with stripes, was going to require some thought. At 4:15 a.m. on Sunday morning (right after the rain and the screaming that the wheels were outside in the rain), I had an epiphany--buy a small white Romney fleece, dye the locks, and spin the warp to make stripes. As soon as everything opened up on Sunday morning, I ran over to the wool barn (getting drenched in another shower in the process), found a small bright-white Romney fleece, and carted my little fleece back to camp. It was small enough that when we packed the car, I put it in the almost empty spare wheel well under the rear deck.

When I got the Romney home, the first order of business was to get the locks separated and into nylon netting for washing and dyeing. I'm a firm believer that nylon netting is the most useful fiber prep tool around, because it gives one the ability to both wash and dye locks with a minimum of fuss. The only downside to using nylon netting is the time involved in laying out the locks (tips all going the same way), and wrapping them in the netting. It's not a quick process, especially as I take the time to pick out any second cuts or large pieces of VM. However, I just put on my iPod and get to work, laying out locks, and once three layers of locks were in place, stitching the bags closed. It took the better part of two days to prep the entire 3.87-pound fleece.

Once that was done, it was time to wash. I washed in my usual way (for information on how to do this, see this blog post), but with one difference: rather than rolling each bag into a roll, I found they got cleaner if I simply folded them in half and pinned them to the top of the laundry bag. With three per bag, I had everything enclosed in three laundry bags. Once washed, dried, and weighed, I put the nylon net bags of locks into a large pot of water to stay wet until I was ready to dye them.

Dyeing the locks was also a pretty straight-forward process, once I determined the formulas for the colors I wanted. Most of the colors were plain Jacquard acid dyes, twice the weight of the locks I was dyeing. Two colors needed some "tweaking:" Purple, which ended up a 50/50 mixture of Violet and Lilac, and Green, a 50/50 mixture of the old Robin & Russ Handweavers Dye in Hunter Green and Jacquard's Chartreuse. Dyeing went well, except for the Green: for some reason, the Robin & Russ dye didn't strike (penetrate the fiber), and the locks came out too light. Those will have to revisit the dye pot in the next few days. However, all the other colors came out well.

Next: Combing the locks.

2009-06-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Weave Journal #1: Worms

We need a new runner on the stairs. The current runner is one of those "buy it by the foot" nylon pseudo-Chinese carpeting that used to be sold at home improvement centers, and was in place when we bought the house in early 1994. I think the runner may date from when the house was remodeled, in 1981. It's "woven" in shades of mauve and tan, and after 15-28 years of service, it's looking pretty shabby.

I am perfectly capable of weaving a rug. I've done it before, I have the equipment--a good loom with a heavy beater--and I have the time this summer to complete the project. This is a perfect opportunity to weave a rug with Pendleton "worms."

Pendleton Woolen Mill makes some of the nicest wool fabrics and blankets around. I have one of their "Glacier National Park" (aka "candy stripe") blankets, and it's the blanket that I sleep under whenever I go camping. The process for making these blankets is pretty straightforward, and they're finished with a neat serged binding. As part of this binding process, 1/4" to 1/2" of each side of the blanket is trimmed off, making these long strips known as "worms." Pendleton figured out pretty quickly that people were buying the trimmings for weaving rag rugs, so they box them up and sell them, 50 cents a pound plus shipping to wherever you are. I called them on Tuesday morning and ordered a 25-pound box of worms. Our friendly UPS man lugged a huge box up the stairs and dropped it on our porch this afternoon. I had my worms.

Getting the worms was just the first step. Pendleton doesn't make just blankets; they make a variety of different types and weights of woolen fabrics. An order of worms contains everything from the trimmings pile, so the worms have to be separated by weight and color. Fortunately, it's not difficult, as the worms are not thoroughly mixed together, but it is time-consuming to empty a 25-pound box and bag up the separated contents. My box was about 1/3 trimmings from the lightweight blanket fabrics in cream, taupe, and chocolate brown, about 1/3 trimmings from the unfulled wool/cotton blankets, and about 1/3 trimmings from their legendary National Park blankets. I sorted everything, and it appears I may have enough of the heavy trimmings for at least one of the stair runners (there are two--above the landing and below the landing). The cream, taupe, and brown worms will go into various dyepots and will become another rug.

2009-06-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

...Three Bags Full

The big reason to travel to Eugene every June for the Black Sheep Gathering is to partake of the great Wool Show and Sale. This year, I missed the judging, as I was either in class (Friday) or frantically shopping in between classes (Saturday morning). This year's judging was done by Mark Eidman, and from what his clerk staff has reported, it was tough--this year's fleeces were exceptionally fine.

People were also in a mood to buy. Every year, there is a room off the main Wool Show space for Class 00--For Sale Only fleeces. It can be a good place to pick up a decent fleece for a bargain price, as these fleeces are not part of the regular Wool Show and aren't judged. I trotted across the parking lot on Friday afternoon to check on what was in the Sale Room. I expected to find a good number (50 or so) fleeces; I found a lot of nearly empty tables and half a dozen marginal fleeces. When I asked the exhausted-looking women "manning" the Sale Room, they told me it had been like a scene from the Oklahoma land rush: 100+ fleeces sold in less than 6 hours.

I knew I had one fleece--the incomparable BLX, waiting patiently for me to pick it up. Thank heavens I had been able to secure it before the show! I met up with Liz Hubbard of Hub Corriedales and picked up my lovely baby. This year's fleece rivals last year in length and crimp; only the weight is less (6 pounds instead of 10+ pounds). I lugged the box back to camp and locked it in the car--nobody was going to get my precious!

However, one fleece was not going to be enough. I really wanted a charcoal gray fine wool fleece, and since the Sale Room was empty, I was going to have to pin my hopes on the Wool Sale itself. When the viewing time came on Saturday afternoon, I started looking for good charcoal gray fleeces. I found one, started to examine it, when someone said, "You seem to have picked up an entourage." Sure enough, people were starting to follow me around to see which fleeces I was selecting. I actually had to bare my teeth and snarl, "This isn't a field trip--go away!" I wandered away, and once I knew I was alone again, I "casually" found exactly what I was looking for--a glorious dark charcoal merino fleece from Nebo-Rock Ranch, with a blue ribbon on top of the fleece in the bag. Once outside waiting for the sale to begin, I explained to my "runner" that she needed to quickly walk over to that fleece while I walked over to my second choice; if I saw that she had gotten it, I would come over to her to claim that fleece. Our plan worked like clockwork, and within a few minutes of the start of the sale, I had my fleece.

Sometime the right fleece for a project simply pops up. I was satisfied with both my fleeces, and was starting to think about what I could do with them, and with the other fleeces I'm still working my way through. I have a particularly nice black Romney from Ace in the Hole Ranch that I bought at Lambtown in 2007; it's washed, and I've been slowly combing and spinning it. Early Sunday morning (at 4:15 a.m. to be exact), I had an epiphany and knew what I needed to do with that fleece--weave a ruanna. However, I needed a small, good, white Romney fleece to dye for warp. Sunday morning I trotted back over to the Wool Sale (and got caught in a rain shower), thinking that if I found a small, good, white Romney for a good price, I'd have my warp. Romney sheep are not small animals and they do not produce small fleeces--8-10 pounds is more normal for them. However, I found a lovely bright-white Romney fleece that hadn't placed because it was "too small" (3.87 pounds). Perfect! It was less than $35. Even better! I had my small, good, white Romney at a good price.

2009-06-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

Good-bye God, I'm Going to Black Sheep (Again)

June rolls around and two things happen: school finishes for the year, and the entire fiber-related community (that matters) makes the pilgrimage to Eugene to spend three days ogling fleece, rovings, tops, yarns, dyes, and loads of spinning equipment. It's time for the annual Black Sheep Gathering!

This year, I drove. Normally, I take the train. It's simple: get on the train in Martinez at 11:00 on Wednesday night, wake up near Mount Shasta on Thursday morning, have breakfast and lunch on the train, attempt to take over the lounge car with spinners and knitters, and generally have a good time before arriving in Eugene around 1:00 in the afternoon. Then, it's just drag the gear out to the fairgrounds and get camp set up. However, I really wanted to try making the drive, both because I can take a bunch of extra stuff, and because this year both Betsy and Jane were going to go along with me. If three go, the costs of driving up there, getting a hotel room, and eating out should still be cheaper than traveling by train, right?

I will not miss Black Sheep, barring something truly serious (e.g., major hospitalization), so when Betsy called on Tuesday around lunchtime to say she finally heard from the company she's been trying to get an interview with and she couldn't go, I started to shift gears to take my own car and just Jane and I going up there. No problem, I can handle this, I just need to finish cleaning the disgustingly dirty house so it's fairly reasonable when Jane gets here to spend the night before leaving.

At 6:30 p.m., the 100-year-old plumbing in the upstairs bathroom finally gasped its last and sprung a leak. Fortunately, it's a leak in the drain portion, so I didn't have water squirting everywhere, but I had water pouring onto the floor every time I turned on the shower...and it was past the time I could call the plumber. I am still going to Black Sheep--plumbing or no plumbing. I called Jane and let her know the plumbing situation ("Shower at home--the dodgy bathroom plumbing has gone sideways and we're not sticking around waiting for a plumber tomorrow."), grab some towels and the world's fastest shower (<60 style="font-weight: bold;">Rain Sounds Like Popcorn on a Nylon Tent

2009-05-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Chained to the Sewing Machine

After a very long time, I am willingly "chained to the sewing machine," finishing clothes to wear to the Pacific Primitive Rendezvous. After several years, the organizers of the rendezvous have very kindly decided to hold the event in Northern California, about three hours from home. Since they've been so considerate, I'm returning the favor by attending this year.

For those unfamiliar with rendezvous and other Fur Trade Era fun, a rendezvous is a late-18th/early-19th century historical event that attempts to recreate the big rendezvous of the Fur Trade Era (1831-1842). These events included shooting events, a lot of shopping (the purpose was to sell the pelts collected and buy supplies for the upcoming year), and a great deal of drinking and swapping lies. The present-day rendezvous continue in that tradition. The Pacific Primitive runs for about 7 days, and I'm planning on attending the first 3 days before returning home, repacking the car, and traveling up to Eugene (Oregon) for this year's Black Sheep Gathering.

I haven't been to a rendezvous in 15 years. I haven't even done very much reenacting in the past few years. As a result, I need clothes. Since the clothes I need aren't exactly something that comes off the rack at Kohl's, I have to make them myself. This isn't difficult--I've been sewing for more than 40 years--but does require some organization, always a tough thing at this time of year. I need two new skirts and probably new underpinnings, so I have some work to do.

The skirts are important (I can't run around without a skirt--it simply isn't done), so they're first on the list. I have some hand-dyed green linen for one skirt, but I need some red fabric for a second skirt. Fortunately, Hancock's had 5 yards of perfect dark cherry-red cotton and I had a 50% off coupon. Score one skirt! I hustled back home with my booty and washed it while I excavated the sewing room.

The problem with not sewing on a regular basis is that the sewing room becomes a place to store things I really should put away. I stacked things in there when we painted the studio in March, and now it was time to get them out of there. After several hours, I had a functioning sewing room again, the ironing board was set up, and I was ready to start knocking out skirts.

The skirts are classic Californio skirts: 3 tiers of gathers, simple waistband. I tore the linen into strips the width I needed, sewed the tiers, and gathered them. Ugh--gathering that much fabric (the bottom hem is about 150 inches) is a pain! However, I finally got everything gathered and sewn together before I called it a night. The next morning, I tackled the second skirt. I wasn't looking forward to repeating the gathering, and remembered that I had a ruffler for one of my sewing machines. The problem? Figuring out which machine it worked with. My Viking was ruled out pretty quickly, as was the Pfaff 230. I thought it might fit on the old White Dressmaker, but it didn't. Becoming desperate, I moved everything off the cabinet of my tried and true Kenmore, and tried the ruffler on it. Success! I ruffled the strips and sewed the second skirt in a few hours.

I handsew my hems and waistbands. I don't need to--I have a machine that does beautiful machine-sewn hems--but every time I do, I can hear my mother saying, "It would look better if you did that by hand." OK, Mom--I'll do it by hand. Handsewing hems in these skirts is time-consuming, but not tedious. I have a lot of British TV on the computer in the studio, so I just clamped my sewing bird onto my work table and sewed the hems and waistbands while watching episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood. The skirts just need buttonholes in the waistbands and buttons sewn on, and they're finished.

It's been surprisingly pleasant to sew costumes again, so I've begun planning the next big ensemble: a 1880s (2nd Bustle) walking outfit, out of striped cotton upholstery fabric and brick red cotton velvet. The goal is to get it finished (along with a complete set of new underpinnings) in time to wear it to the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in December. If I start it this summer, I just might have it finished in time!

2009-05-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Fomenting Weavolution

Nine months ago, a small group of women decided that the fiberarts world needed a social networking site. Ravelry, created in April, 2007, was growing by leaps and bounds (350,000+ members as of this date), but Ravelry was designed for knitters and crocheters, not weavers and spinners. In spite of gentle noodging by Ravelers that spin and weave, the site couldn't do certain things, such as accommodate weaving drafts or catalog the mountains of fiber, thread, and yarn spinners and weavers quickly attract. Tien, Claudia, and Allison, weavers all, began work on the site, which is now--after eight months of raising money and design work--nearly ready to launch.

A few weeks ago, Tien put out the call for people to start helping get the site ready for the world. The technical end was almost completed: it was time to debug and load content (a fancy tech word for "data") before asking ~~victims~~ volunteers to try out the new site. I'm either a glutton for punishment, or have a secret desire to abandon my comfy world of academia for the insanity of high-tech (or both): I volunteered to help out, as did about a dozen other people.

The best way to clean up and prep a site for launch is to "divide and conquer": everybody takes on a portion of the site as their responsibility, and starts making notes on what is broken, what needs tweaking, and what content is needed to make the site attractive to users. I snagged

Looms and their manufacturers
Groups
Forums

Groups and Forums aren't too difficult--sort out the problems, decide how the two are linked together, and write a short "help" guide for people trying to create or join groups or post messages on a forum. Looms and their manufacturers is quite another story, however.

Weaving is a task that requires technology, even if that technology might appear to be nothing more than a bundle of sticks and strings, or something so small you can hold it in the palm of your hand. One of the features built into the site is the ability to catalog looms owned by a weaver, so all the information they need, such as the type of loom, who built it, and its size, is at one's fingertips. Weavers need this feature because we don't have just one loom: we collect equipment and tools the way a knitter collects knitting needles. An inventory of my own collection of looms revealed

1 floor loom (my beloved Gilmore X-frame)
2 inkle looms (1 floor, 1 lap)
1 Navajo loom
1 tapestry loom
6 frame looms (2x2, 4x4, 2x4, (2) 4x6, 12x16)

and this list doesn't include the rigid heddle loom I'd like to buy, nor the Gilmore Gem I'd kill for to put in the studio for weaving samples, nor the Macomber I'd like to own if money and space were no object, nor the top-of-the-line AVL CompuDobby I'd make space for because I love technology, and an almost completely automated flyshuttle loom that can weave nearly anything just sounds so very cool.

So, inventories are necessary, but to build inventories, you need data--lots of data--on the looms and their manufacturers. I didn't realize until I started on this project how many companies manufactured looms during the 19th and 20th centuries. There are currently about two dozen loom manufacturers, ranging from tiny handheld portable looms to big industrial-sized looms. That's not too bad, and I gathered all the contact information in a couple hours. The real job began when I started to list the looms made by companies no longer in business. There were scores of loom manufacturers, most of them very tiny, that produced looms for farms and small weaving shops between 1880 and World War II and beyond. Many of these looms are still in use in homes, studios, and schools today, and will eventually end up in someone's inventory on Weavolution. I've put out the call for information on most of the weaving-related listservs, and I'm getting a lot of names; now I have to dig for more information, and load all this data in before the site moves to Alpha testing on Saturday.

2009-04-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

I Got Bupkis

I've hit the wall, word-wise. I can't think of a single thing to write about that's appropriate for a blog entry. I don't even have any pretty pictures to post. I feel like I should be saying, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned...it's been two weeks since my last blog entry...", but that could be construed as blasphemous by some people, so I won't.

Right this moment, I'm trying to split my time between

Monitoring the computer system running BitTorrent
Combing some of the free merino fleece I scored last weekend at a demo
Reading different threads on Ravelry
Writing a blog entry

None of these are things I should be doing. I should be grading notebooks and preparing the last progress report of the year before final grades in June (27 more days!). However, I'm a firm believer in never doing today what you can put off until tomorrow, so the notebooks sit. They'll still be there tomorrow, and Saturday, and Sunday, and maybe even on Monday (grades are due by 4:00 p.m., Pacific Time, on Tuesday).

2009-04-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

Black Holes and Electronic Time Sinks

Some people think black holes are a myth. I can't speak intelligently on the fine points of black holes--or quantum physics, for that matter--but I can prove one exists in my computer, and it's sucking up my time. I should be fair to my poor little laptop--the black hole in it isn't unique. There's one in the big 19-inch flat-screen monitor the laptop is frequently attached to in the studio. There's one in the TV in the kitchen. And there's a really big one in the living room, in close proximity to the home entertainment system. All of these black holes seem to attract me, pulling me into their orbit and suctioning off seconds, minutes, and hours until I wonder what happened to all my free time.

I like technology. Technology is my friend, and that wonderful, vast network of networks (the Internet) encircling the globe has allowed me to explore libraries, visit museums, and talk to people around the world, transcending time and space. However, all this lovely technology takes time--inordinate amounts of time. A lovely example is the time I spent this weekend with the laptop, a high-speed connection, several pieces of software, and a large quantity of time. I downloaded a bunch of rare episodes of Doctor Who, along with the recently aired (in Britain) Doctor Who Easter special, Planet of the Dead, and two of the most recent episodes of another British sci-fi sitcom, Red Dwarf. Once downloaded, the recently-aired TV programs had to be converted to a format compatible with the DVD recorder in the home entertainment system ("ripping"). The downloading wasn't a problem--I can read and answer e-mail, chat with people, and blog as necessary while downloading, but ripping is another matter. Ripping requires most of the available memory (I have 2GB of RAM), so everything else s l o w s t o a c r a w l while the software works its magic...slowly. I have to keep checking back on the progress of the programs while they're working, and each time I sit down, I have to swing through my e-mail accounts and check the Ravelry fora for any new messages. And there goes a bit more time, lost while sitting in front of the computer instead of my wheel, or with my needlework in my hands.

Is there a solution for this odd time-space problem? I haven't come up with one...yet. But give me time; if I don't lose it to the black hole inside this little box, maybe I can come up with a solution.

2009-04-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

A Space To Call My Own

This is what a finished, tidy fiber studio looks like:

The painting is finished and dry, the curtains are hung, the furniture and equipment is all back in place. The only thing missing is my wheel, which was still downstairs in the living room when these photos were taken last night. Even the desk is clean! This state of affairs lasted 15 minutes--about the time it took to snap the pictures, complete with the happy artist standing in the doorway of her studio.

As lovely as a clean studio looks, it doesn't stay that way for very long because I need to work. The current work is finishing the picking and carding of nearly all the washed fiber I still have. There are two fleeces I'm not touching: the white Border Leicester cross that I carefully washed by the lock is done until I start to use the locks; and the black Romney I bought from Ace Vandernack a couple years ago that is awaiting combing. However, there's more than enough for me to do right now.

One of the tasks I set myself this week was to go through the fiber stash thoroughly, both to check on the condition of my fibers, and to refresh my memory regarding what I currently have. It's quite a bit of fiber, including:

1/2 a black Jacob
a moorit Border Leicester
the above-mentioned black Romney
the above-mentioned white Border Leicester/Corridale/Merino
a black Merino, already turned to pin-draft
a Romney/Coopworth hogget, turned to batts

and lesser amounts (usually a pound of each) of dyed merino, superwash merino, gray Shetland, black Shetland, Leicester, Jacob, Gotland, and Blue-Faced Leicester tops. All in all, it's a lot of fiber, enough to keep me spinning for a while.

However, fibers have to be made ready to spin before they can be spun, so I'm picking and carding the moorit Border Leicester and the Jacob. Quite frankly, I had forgotten I had that fleece--I carded half of it on Joan Kintcher's big Duncan double-wide motorized carder in 1997, and although I washed the other half of the fleece, I hadn't carded it when I stopped attending the spinning class. The remaining fleece, stored in a bin, has sat since that time, waiting for me to remember that it was there. I pulled it out and checked it, and it's fine; more than I can say for the yarn I did spin from this fleece (it was attacked by moths and was thrown out several years ago).

The Jacob is completely different than the Border Leicester--it's soft and bouncy, more like a Down sheep than the longwools I've been handling recently. Picking it is different--it jack-rabbits through the picker and into the box, so it doesn't take long to fill the box with fiber to be carded. Carding takes time and muscles--I've discovered that I can pick enough fiber to fill the box in less than ten minutes, but it can take 20-30 minutes to card that same fiber. It's work to do the carding, and I find myself wishing I had a motorized carder to make the job easier, but I know it will be done (eventually), and I can relax.

2009-03-31T22:04:00.001-07:00

Ten Percent

Why is it that the last ten percent of any project seems to take as long as the first ninety percent? I'm finding that's truly the case with finishing the studio. I'm ninety percent finished, but I just can't seem to get the last few little things finished.

Part of the delay might have been a weekend full of delightful interruptions. After writing the last entry, I went back and was able to put on the final coat of trim paint before falling into first the shower and then into bed. On Friday morning, I started putting the studio back in order. First on the list: replace the light fixture with the new light ordered from Rejuvenation Lighting, our favorite source for period lighting fixture. We went with a very classic flush-mount ceiling fixture and a "school house" shade similar to others in the house. Once that was installed, we put the bookcases back against the wall, this time with holes cut for access to the blocked outlets. For the first time in fifteen years, I have electric power on the far wall! Everything else went into place slowly, as I carefully cleaned behind, under, and around each item before it was put into place. I finished most of the furniture moving by Friday afternoon, and called it a day; I had a spinning group meeting to attend!

Saturday, I spent the day in a spinning workshop taught by renowned fiber artist Judith MacKenzie McCuin. She teaches a workshop and gives a lecture to the guild every March; this year's workshop topic was "Fleece Evaluation," and we spent the day looking at different fleeces and wool, spinning some of them, and carting away baskets of samples. It was a good workshop for everyone, and we are all now filled with enthusiasm for the Black Sheep Gathering's big wool show and sale in June.

After the workshop, I dropped Jane off at her house and began the shopping to finish the studio. A trip to IKEA netted new curtain rods and two picture frames, but the hardware store was closed by the time I finally got there at 7:45 p.m. (they closed at 6:00). I was in Pinole, on my way home, when I suddenly thought: Orchard Supply Hardware! Sure enough, they were still open, and a bevy of bored store clerks were more than willing to help me find the odd litle items (1/4-20 wing nuts, a small sink plunger, and picture rail hooks) still on my list. They were so sweet and patient--I was so tired after two days of moving furniture and spinning that I was punchy--and I was soon on my way home with more items crossed off my list.

Sunday dawned and I hustled back down to the East Bay for the Spindles & Flyers meeting and lecture by Judith on the development of different sheep breeds. The meeting was packed, the talk informative, and when it was over, I went back over to the hardware store (now open) to get the last item on the list: picture hooks. No such luck--the only picture hooks available were inexpensive stamped brass that I know better than to use (they don't stay on the picture rail). At some point, I'll have to order more hooks from Rejuvenation Lighting, but I have to be miserly with the hooks I currently have.

After two more days of putting things away, hemming curtains, and running errands, the studio is nearly complete. I've done some rearranging of storage, so I need to make another trip to IKEA to get more little wooden storage cabinets and baskets for the shelves, then finish putting the last things away. I have two fleeces out to pick and card once the studio reaches 100%.

2009-03-26T18:05:00.000-07:00

...And Then We Paint (and Paint and Paint)

I can't believe I'm able to write this--I have one coat of paint to put on the trim and I'm finished (except for putting everything back). Three hard days of work, but the studio is looking really sharp. The gray is perfection: exactly neutral, it reflects the color of the light outside, so when it's early or late, the walls seem a warm gray, while looking cool and slightly blue in the middle of the day. The white ceiling reflects additional light into the room, while all the white trim "pops," and sets off the gray. I'm planning on hanging more artwork in the studio, and the gray walls will show the art to its best advantage; one area is being kept clear, so I have a place to photograph fiber.

I'm looking forward to finishing, and moving everything back into place. I miss my studio!

2009-03-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

...Then We Prime...

The priming is done, and I'm only a day behind schedule! If I was a responsible, energetic person, I'd put the first coat of paint on the ceiling this evening, but I'm not that responsible, and I don't have that much energy.

Spackling the cracks put me behind, because I had to spackle not once, but twice. I was filled with enthusiasm for fixing all those pesky cracks on Sunday evening, and had them all neatly filled before calling it a day on Sunday night. On Monday morning, I went in to check if all my handiwork was dry. Much to my disgust, I discovered that the fancy "polyester elastomer" spackle had shrunk into the cracks, rather than filling them. Feh! Not only do I have to redo all that work, but I have to find something that is going to work!

Home Depot carries an amazing number of different products to fill holes and cracks in walls. Powders, pastes, for plaster, for drywall, and so on. One of the newest (and neatest) is spackle that goes on pink, but dries white and can be sanded. I bought a bucket, went back home, and spackled the entire room...again. However, this time the product worked; as small cracks began to turn white, I could see that they were completely filled and ready for sanding. It took longer for the large areas and deep patches to dry, so I decided to wait until today to do the priming.

While I was waiting for the spackle to dry, I decided to make use of the time and get some dyeing done. I dyed several pounds of Border Leicester/Corriedale/Merino locks last summer, but I didn't have any orange dye at the time; I attempted to mix an orange using red and yellow, but ended up with red-orange. At that time, I also dyed some locks black, but for some reason they came out dark gray. This time, I have the orange dye and the time to try again for a good black. I sewed some of the net "envelopes" I washed the locks in closed, set them to soak, then decided that I wanted to also dye some roving, so I dug out the dyeing crockpot and measured out some roving.

Dyeing the locks was a pretty straight-forward affair. I've used Jacquard dyes for years, and they usually perform just as I expect. This time was no different. I measured out the dyes, added them to the pots on the stove, put the locks in, and brought each up to temperature. I used vinegar, rather than citric acid, to acidulate each vat, and as I was doing so, I suddenly realized:

Citric Acid: 4% of WOG = Vinegar (5% strength): 100% of WOG

Once each vat reached temperature (190 degrees for 15 minutes), I pulled each off the stove to let the locks cool overnight.

That left the roving. I was in a mood to play, so I measured out royal blue, dark green, and violet dye solutions, added the vinegar to acidulate, and poured each solution into a squeeze bottle. I coiled the soaked roving in the bottom of the crockpot, and went "Jackson Pollack" on the roving with the squeeze bottles. I set the crockpot on "Low," and left it for three hours, then unplugged it and let the roving cool overnight.

This morning I washed and rinsed everything, and put it out to dry while I primed the studio. It takes an amazing amount of paint--two gallons--to prime an entire room. I got through the cutting in (and got a blister from the piant brush), rolled primer onto the ceiling and walls, and primed the doors and windows. As usual, paint was everywhere, including all over me.

With the painting out of the way, I spent the afternoon dyeing more roving. My experiments continue--this time, I braided the roving before putting it in water to soak. The braid helps keep the roving together, but it's harder to get the dyes to penetrate fully without making the roving too wet. I found I could open the braid up, and by using the squeeze bottles, could get some nice effects. I tried to keep it pretty simple, using three-color combinations (light green, turquoise, lilac; red, purple, blue), but I let Stephen pick the colors for one braid, christened the "Firebird": yellow, orange, red, with a violet "kicker." Once each braid was dyed, it was wrapped securely in plastic wrap, slipped into a ziploc bag, and microwaved. I let each cool, then washed and rinsed. After a quick spin in the washer, I unbraided each braid (easier than it sounds) to dry.

2009-03-22T17:07:00.000-07:00

First We Prep...

I dislike painting. I dislike the disruption to my routine, I dislike tearing a room apart, I dislike prepping, I dislike the actual painting, I dislike the cleanup. The only thing I like about painting is the clean, tidy look right after I'm finished--in my studio, that will last about 15 minutes.

I particularly dislike prepping. Prepping is annoying because it has to be done, but there's no lasting benefit--unless you count not having paint all over everything permanently. However, I am not a neat painter, so painstaking prep work is essential.

My mother is a neat painter. I have no idea how she does it, unless it's from years of painting, first with those oil-based paints that were full of lead, and more recently with latex-based paints. She gets up on a Saturday morning, pulls out the old paint roller and older paint tray and gets to work. It seems she needs only a single piece of yesterday's newspaper, no matter the size of the job, and there are never any drips, spilled paint, or goofs--she simply doesn't allow it.

I, on the other hand, and one of the messiest painters around. The only time my can of paint doesn't have drips around it is when it's still at the paint store. When I paint, it is on everything and in everything--I've ruined pairs of eyeglasses by wearing them while painting a ceiling, and nearly every floor in the house has a few little drops and drips of paint on them. Prepping is an absolute necessity.

After moving all the furniture and equipment to the middle of the room yesterday, I took the time to start scraping open the cracks in preparation for spackling them. New problem: after 100 years, the finish coat on the plaster is finally beginning to fail. Several large pieces came away as I was scraping open the cracks, so I'll have to do some fancy faux-plasterwork to fix the spots. Scraping and spackling is an exercise in futility. The house is "indeterminate framing" (basically, a box)--good for flexing under shear stresses (e.g., it moves but doesn't collapse in an earthquake), but tough on inflexible materials, such as plaster. Add to that a condition known as "soil heave," and you have a house that is always in need of spackling. A lot of our neighbors have ripped out the plaster and replaced it with more flexible gypsum dryboard (sheetrock), but I am trying to hang onto the plaster as long as I can: replacing plaster with sheetrock requires a professional and is expensive.

Once most of the cracks were scraped open, and the debris swept up, it was time for covering and taping. This is the hardest part of the prep work, but the most important. Guaranteed: if I don't cover it with taped-down plastic, it will have paint on it before I'm finished. Two 10x20' plastic drop cloths were enough to cover the gigantic mound of furniture in the middle of the room. Once covered, I went around the room, carefully taping down heavier 3' wide plastic. All the window frames were taped, the face-plates for the outlets and light switch removed, and the outlets and light switch themselves covered with painters tape. It took several hours, but I'm finally ready to start spackling and priming.

2009-03-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

I Am My Mother's Daughter

A year ago, I was in sunny southern Spain, sipping sangria on a sandy beach in Marbella. Every even-numbered year, we go away--preferably to to some place warm and sunny--and last year it was to Spain for a week, followed by five days in London before returning to the Bay Area. It was a lovely vacation.

However, this is an odd-numbered year. Even if it wasn't, the economy--both national and personal--have made travel next to impossible. Because we aren't traveling, the two weeks of Spring Break are a perfect time to do a Big Project. This year's Big Project is repainting my studio.

I love my studio. I love that I have a place to call my own, to mess up (and clean up) as I please. However, even the nicest place occasionally needs a bit of "freshening up." The studio was painted in a hurry-up fashion in March, 1994; a paint job necessitated by the absolute revulsion I felt whenever I walked into a room with bubblegum pink walls, and complicated by my being in a cast from my toes to my hip and unable to do much more than sit in a wheelchair. Stephen was a lamb and got rid of the pinkness in my studio, but I've had Sea Mist Green walls for fifteen years, and it's time for a change. It's time for the green to go, and with two weeks off, I have the time. I mentioned to Betsy that I was going to spend my Spring Break painting the studio; she just chuckled and said, "Of course you are--you are your mother's daughter." (My mother is famous for spending the spare time of a long weekend painting the interior of her house; we joke that the house is smaller inside from so many coats of paint.)

First big "problem": there is a lot of stuff in my studio. In addition to two file cabinets, there are two large bookcases, two small bookcsaes, a large worktable, a floor loom, several small small chests of drawers, and my combing stand. There are also a lot of boxes and baskets of things that need to be put away. All this stuff has to be moved away from the walls so we can get to them, plus everything has to be protected from the spackle, primer, and paint. I began moving things on Friday evening after work, and quickly realized that moving things when one is tired is folly. It takes three times as long to accomplish anything, and I won't remember what is where because I put it there when I was tired. I gave up, went to bed and vowed to make a real start on Saturday morning.

2009-03-15T16:44:00.001-07:00

Spin Journal #12A: Silly Sally Spider Sat Spinning Silk

It's such a lovely feeling of accomplishment when you look at a finished skein of yarn. No longer are you contemplating bobbins full of singles. No longer are you sighing over the time it's taking to spin a very fine thread evenly and consistently. It's done! You can sit back and marvel at the beauty you have added to the world.

Back in November(?) I started spinning a batt I bought at Black Sheep last summer. It was a lovely batt: 40% pygora, 40% alpaca, 18% bombyx silk, and 2% yak, in a lovely shade of lavender. This was going to be my personal challenge--spin it as fine as I possibly could, and see if I could get enough for a large scarf or shawl out of its tiny two ounces, along with two ounces of something else that could be spun fine. I spun. I spun some more. Then I spun some more very fine thread. Who knew that two measly ounces could be so much!?!

I finally finished the batt, and turned to the next bit to be spun: two ounces of handpainted roving. Not just any roving: handpainted bombyx (silk) roving from Chasing Rainbows. The colorway is "Purple Haze," a variegated roving in shades of medium purple, deep purple, and silver gray. The medium shade was a match for the spun pygora, so I was looking at the possibility of creating a yarn that would have color definition both in minute detail, and over the range of several stitches. This could be interesting!

I finished spinning the silk at the end of February and started plying. I quickly discovered that, while my double-treadle Sonata is great for spinning, it's not so good for plying. I ply very fast, and, since I want to get it d.o.n.e., I try to ply everything all at once. Treadling away as fast as my little feet could go, I plyed, and plyed, and plyed, and still couldn't get more than half of the plying finished at one go. There was a lot of thread on those two bobbins! It took two days to finally finish all the plying.

Reeling the finished yarn off the bobbin was a shock--it just kept coming and coming. By the time it was finished, I had 837 yards of finished lace-weight 2-ply that tipped the scales at a tiny 123 grams (4.3 ounces). The finished yarn has been wet-finished (washed, thwacked against the side of the clawfoot tub to fluff up the fibers, and dryed). While not absolutely perfect--there are the odd slubs and occasional boucle loops from combining two strands with different characteristics--the yarn itself is a glorious combination of purple and silver. The silk, carefully spun as a true worsted, sparkles and shines, while the pygora and alpaca beg to be touched.

This finished beauty needs a design to show off its best qualities, so I'm swatching (with other laceweight) the lace pattern for a Canadian Cloud, originally published in Weldon's Practical Knitter around 1890. A Canadian Cloud is a combination hood and scarf: approximately 20 inches wide, and 72 inches long, one end of the scarf is finished with a large tassel that serves as a counterweight, while the other end is folded and sewn to create a hood. The Canadian Cloud is worn by putting the hood part on the head, then wrapping the end twice around the neck with the end thrown over the shoulder in a dashing manner. The tassel weights the end and keeps the Cloud closed. It should make a pretty, light-weight head scarf for next winter.

2009-03-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

Go Outside and Play!

Sometimes, you just have to stop for a bit. I spent three hours this morning trying to write a blog entry, basically a rant on the idiocy of people that expect the customer service of a Fortune 500 company from a 1-person fiber microbusiness, but to no avail--all I was doing was making myself angry and incoherent. Angry, I don't mind, but incoherent is itself annoying. I could hear that internal voice stating firmly, "Step away from the computer. Go outside and play." So I obeyed.

Lo and behold, there was a lovely day outside! Winter in Northern California never ceases to amaze me. I grew up in Southern California, where "winter" is an occasional gray, rainy day with temperatures in the low '60s. Here in the Bay Area, winter is an actual season. I have a reason to own multiple sets of gloves, mittens, wristies, scarves, and hats, along with several different coats. I even have two umbrellas! Winter in the Bay Area means (usually) a lot of very cold rain and going days--sometimes weeks--without seeing the sun. I kid you not--one year (1998) we had measurable rain every single day January. Newspapers reported sheep turning green as the VM in their wool sprouted. Winter seems to last forever here; then the weather pattern changes, the rain goes away, and everyone is startled by the beautiful Northern California in late winter. The sky is a very blue blue, studded with cottony white clouds sailing above emerald green hills. Everything looks freshly scrubbed. The air warms in the sun, and a gentle breezes carries the unmistakable scent of orange blossoms.

Right now the yard is, quite frankly, a mess. Not much grows until the rains start, and once they start, it's impossible to do any gardening. As a result, I let everything go until most of the winter rains are done, and our first big yard clean-up takes place in late March or early April. Today I just wandered around to see what was happening. The daffodils I planted 18 months ago have naturalized, and are poking up through the oxalis, trying to be brave in spite of being beaten down by the heavy rains. The deep purple early irises, originally confused by some very late warm weather in December, have recovered and are beginning to bloom, letting me know that the other irises will follow along eventually. My much-worried-over Kaffir lily is finally pot-bound enough to attempt a bloom this year, while the tiny pine tree--a Christmas gift from a fellow teacher two Christmases ago--is tiny no more, but now a small shrub.

I can't simply look, admire, and plan--before I knew it, I was pulling a weed here, or a misplaced bit of crab grass there. I checked on the kitchen herbs and found, to my delight, that the thyme thrived over the winter, and the oregano turned into a dense velvety mat in its pot. I weeded the herbs and other potted plants, checked on how a few other plants fared, and finally stopped to marvel at the Tuscan rosemary on the patio. After 4 years, it has become a large shrub, covered in tiny blue flowers. A gentle hum rose from it, as dozens of bees circled around it, finding fresh flowers to sample. Above it, the plum tree hosted its own white and green buffet for the bees in the hope that the magic of pollination would result in fertilization and eventually plums.

After an hour puttering about in the garden, a bit of clean-up is done, and I'm feeling charitable once more. Sometimes, the best solution to a problem is to go outside and play!

2009-02-14T12:47:00.001-08:00

SpinJournal #12: Pick a Card

Today is the Big Day! I'm going to pick those fleeces and get them whipped into something closer to spinning shape than scoured fleece in laundry bags.

I got my picking station set up, and started on the Romney/Coopworth hogget I bought last June. It's a good fleece to start with: lovely-soft, but full of VM (vegetative matter--hay, sticks, dead lady bugs) and second-cuts. I started to comb the fleece, but that's taking forever, and the lock structure is not as intact as I would like for combing. The fleece has been sitting in the studio since last June, and it's time to either spin it or get rid of it.

I discovered pretty quickly that the advice Paula Simmons gives in her book, The Handspinner's Guide to Selling, is accurate: don't let the picker try to take too big a bite. A big chunk of fleece only jams the picker. As the fleece was still pretty much in bunches of locks, I grabbed handfuls and pulled them apart a little bit to keep entire blocks of fleece from being pulled into the picker. The perfect technique seems to be to let the teeth at the closest edge of the rocker skim over the unpicked fleece, pulling a little bit of the fleece down onto the teeth in the cradle. The rocker then moves the fleece across the teeth of the cradle, and off into a basket. It took a few minutes to get the rhythm down (it's more just "push," rather than "push-pull"), and then dark brown clouds of wool began to fall into the waiting basket. Someone with experience can (supposedly) pick 6 to 10 pounds of fiber an hour; I'm not nearly that fast, but I can at least operate the picker safely and efficiently.

Picking was just the first step. Once the basket was filled, I had to card the fiber. Carding makes a nice break from picking. Too much of one task leads to inattention; inattention leads to disaster! Carding the picked fleece led to the next big discovery--why the drum carder came with clamps. My drum carder--a Strauch's Finest--is big, heavy, and doesn't move very much when I card, especially as I'm pretty gentle. As a result, I never put the clamps on it to clamp it down; it sat on the chest of drawers and everything was copacetic. The clamps sat in their little plastic bag in the drawer of drum carding tools until today. I'm no longer working with little teased open locks, or the bits pulled from my English combs, and it became evident pretty quickly that the fastest, most efficient way to card the picked wool was to turn the crank on the drum carder with one hand, while feeding handfuls of the picked fiber with the other. Great! Then the drum carder began to slide around a bit. Not Great! Everything ground to a halt while I installed the clamps and clamped the drum carder down to the shelf. When I started carding again, the drum carder was rock solid, and I started turning out batts of chocolate brown goodness.

After an entire day of picking, carding, and breaks at the computer, I finished! Where I had a laundry basket full of fleece, I have a storage bin (plus!) of dark brown batts. I need to card them all once again, both to thoroughly blend the color and to remove more of the VM, but it's been a good day's work!

2009-02-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

SpinJournal #11: Pickin' N Grinnin'

Having the proper tools makes life so much easier. Yes, it's possible to do nearly everything with fewer tools or lower technology, but it almost always takes longer, and is more frustrating than the same task with modern tools and technology. A cake can be baked in a dutch oven over a wood fire, but isn't it easier to mix it with the KitchenAid and bake it in the self-cleaning oven?

Fiber-related tasks are no different. I discovered this several years ago, when I was using a set of handcards to make rolags for spinning. I new I had to make a lot of them, and I had a lot of fleece, so I put an audiobook on, sat down, and handcarded rolags. Three hours later, I had a basket full of beautiful gray rolags, and no feeling in my hands. I ordered a drum carder the following day.

Two weeks ago, the Guild had their annual "Big Carding Day." We do a lot of demos and public outreach that includes teaching people to spin on a CD spindle, so we need carded fiber for teaching. Everyone that owns a drum carder brings it, and we spend the day carding up lots of donated fleece. I took my big drum carder and a couple bags of fleece to contribute to the effort. The fleece was, quite frankly, not in the best shape. It was scoured by an outside source, and the lock structure is nearly gone, so it's not suitable for combing. I set up my carder and my teasing pad, and produced several pretty nice batts out of this fleece before I finally wore a hole in my thumb from teasing open the locks before throwing them onto the drum carder tray. Obviously, teasing open the locks for 5 laundry bags of fleece wasn't going to be possible. I needed a better way.

A few days after Carding Day, someone on the SpinList posted a link to a beautiful bench picker. I've always resisted the idea of getting a cradle picker, mostly because it's a frightening piece of equipment. Six hundred steel points, all waiting for me to stop paying attention so they can seriously hurt me. But a bench picker is a different animal. I e-mail the link to Stephen, and got a quick reply: Where would you put a bench picker nearly the size of a floor loom? Oh. I hadn't thought of that--the studio is only 120 square feet, and the only way I could fit a picker the size of the loom is to get rid of the loom. So much for a picker.

Suddenly, another message popped up: "Doesn't your guild have a picker you could rent?" Well let me quote Homer and say, "Doh!" I had completely forgotten--the Guild did own a picker that members could borrow. A flurry of e-mails over the next couple of days took care of the arrangements, Stephen picked it up, and the Guild's Triple Picker was sitting in my studio.

On the floor.

Where it couldn't be used.

Fortunately, the picker is a lot smaller than the bench picker, so I just needed to rearrange the studio a little bit. The swift and ball-winder that were under the window moved to my worktable. The drum carder moved from its station at one end of the studio to the shelf under the window. The picker went on top of the chest of drawers, in the spot where the drum carder used to be. Once I switched the position of the table clamp on the picker, and found a big basket for the picked fleece, I was ready to go.

2009-01-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

The KnitMeter

In the last few years, as the world has moved further and further into the online world, people have been designing "tools" for the online person. Usually called "widgets," they're tiny programs that run on a desktop or a Website, and do lots of different things: give the temperature, track the Wall Street's ups and downs, or let people know that it's OK to build a fire in the fireplace without getting a whopping-huge fine. Most of them are probably pretty useless--after all, if you want to know the weather, go outside--but occasionally they're rather nifty little tools.

This proliferation of widgets has finally reached the fiber world with the creation of the KnitMeter. A tiny widget designed by Brandon Checketts for his wife to keep track of how much she had knitted, it was released into the world a few weeks ago, and has taken the online fiber community by storm. It's really a pretty simple little tool: you enter your project(s), then enter how much (in feet, yards, or meters) how much you've worked on that project. The KnitMeter keeps a running total of the yarn used, and announces it in a little box that can be put on a Website or on a Ravelry profile page. If you look to the right, you can see my KnitMeter, which I've currently set to announce miles. I've left it the original colors, but if you know HTML color coding, you can manipulate the color of the text and the box. Altogether a very cool widget, and Mr. Checketts is to be commended for creating a tool that caters to those of us who obsess over how much yarn we're burning through.

2009-01-12T17:42:00.000-08:00

One Step Forward (Two Steps Back)

Stash reduction is tough, especially if you have a naturally acquisitive nature, and not nearly enough time to use up all the fiber you've acquired. To help get rid of some of the more "unusual" fibers (OK, crap I'll never use in a million years), I joined a group on Ravelry: the Karma Yarn Swap (KYS). The idea is to turn some of your unloved darlings loose out in the world, and things you like will come back in their place.

The idea took a bit of getting used to (about 10 seconds). Basically, people post what they're offering, then if you like it, you claim it, and than have 3 hours to offer something else in its place. Most of the threads in the group are regular trades, but weekends are another story entirely.

While the Ravelry fora are set up for messages, they can be used to do a bastardized version of IM or chat by staying online and frequently hitting the "refresh" button on the browser, or hitting the F5 key. As a result, weekend evenings are time for a KYS specialty: the Kick-Ass trade thread. One person serves as the moderator (a necessity, as there are dozens of posts a minute), and puts up the first item. It goes to the first person that can type "Me" and hit "Send," and that person then has 10 minutes to put up the next item. Meanwhile, everybody is busy chatting. It's fast-paced, nerve-racking, and fun! The items offered are also supposed to be "kick-ass" (really nice), so there's a chance to pick up nice goodies to add to the stash in exchange for less-loved goodies.

So far, I've been able to send away some linen-cotton blend, a wild chenille with bits of Lurex, a skein of my handspun, several skeins of Spinnerin boucle mohair, a couple skeins of Panda Silk, and a gorgeous skein of Jaggerspun Zephyr that I'll never knit (but it's so pretty). It's a good bit of yarn gone, but in return, I've gotten a skein of DK-weight superwash, 2 skeins of alpaca, and I'm waiting on more alpaca, some Filati cotton, and a couple skeins of Southwest Trading Co.'s Karaoke.

So, does improving the stash count as "stash reduction"? Stay tuned...

2009-01-11T18:31:00.000-08:00

"Marathon" Knitting

A week in, and 2009 is turning out to be an interesting year--I'm learning all sorts of new things, including a lot of words that probably aren't in common usage (and probably shouldn't be).

Firstly, the stash diet. It's...going. I don't know if "well," is really accurate yet. I've gotten two things finished, and gotten a few other things started. On Ravelry (where I spend too much time that I should be spending on fiber), I joined the Burning Up The Stash (BUTS) group, for some support in reducing the giant stash. It's been good for me--I spent two days cataloging a large portion of the stash into my Ravelry stash (the weaving fibers and the raw fleeces aren't cataloged), so I have a good idea of what I have. I also borrowed Stephen's camera (the really good one) and took photos of everything, so nearly everything has at least one identifying photograph in the stash database. It's nice--I can now go "shopping" right in my own closet, and if I really feel the urge to ~~stroke~~ my fiber stash, I can still pull things out of the TARDIS stash closet.

So, what's finished? The first is a cute little tea cosy, based on a pattern published around 1890 in Weldon's Practical Knitter, an English needlework magazine. The pattern is for a "Bachelor's Tea Cosy"; my guess is that the bachelor in question isn't bright enough to take the tea cosy off the pot of tea, as there are openings for the handle and spout. I worked this first one in Patons Classic Wool: Regency for the garter-stitched lining, and Bright Red for the brioche stitch outside. I love the brioche stitch--when each row is done in brioche stitch, it makes a really pretty rib pattern. I may knit a couple more of these very "homely" tea cosies--I think a giant tomato in red and green, and a pumpkin in orange and green would make nice gifts for friends.

The second is yet another pair of mittens, this time out of the leftovers of the Regency yarn I used for the tea cosy. I started this pair last Sunday, when I went to the Asian Art Museum to see the Treasures from the Afghanistan National Museum exhibition, and stayed for the knitting meet-up hosted by Afghans for Afghans. This pair of mittens, along with whatever else I can get knitted for them in the next few months, will eventually go to some child in Afghanistan so they won't have cold hands next winter. I've knitted so many pairs of these mittens I practically have the pattern memorized--I just check to see how many stitches/rows for the size I'm knitting.

I've also cast on my Irish Hiking Scarf, and I'm well up the leg on the second sock of a pair of Opal socks, so I'm keeping my needles busy. I also spent a couple days at my Bond knitter and cranked out a bunch of knitted squares (Good-bye acrylic!) to make a baby blanket for Warm Up America. That was the easy part--the "hard" part is crocheting around each square (a round of single crochets, followed by a round of half-double-crochets), then sewing them all together. However, it ate up all the leftovers that have been kicking around since I finished the Fibonacci stripe afghan several years ago.

The total yardage either consumed or being consumed is now at 2,355 yards. A "marathon" of yarn is 46,145 yards (26 miles, 385 yards), and that's my goal this year. At this point, I'm in my second mile, so I'm doing pretty good.

2008-12-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

2009: A Low-Fiber Diet

In case anyone hadn't noticed, the economy went to a small town in southeastern Michigan (Hell, population 266) and decided to stay for an extended visit. Things are tough for a lot of people right now: the financial system is tottering, jobs are getting scarce, and neighborhoods are becoming ghost towns in some communities as banks foreclose and people walk away from money pits they can no longer afford. At Christmas dinner last night, the topic of "hard times" came up once again, and my long-time friend, Betsy (she of the great attic emptying adventure) noted that it seems that every two generations, something really bad happens (war, recession/depression) because people forget. There may be some truth to that: my parents were born in the Depression (Dad in 1931, Mom in 1933), and I picked their brains, and later my grandmother's brain, about what life was like during the Depression. They got through it through hard work, frugality, and being creative; their "tricks and tips" can make getting through these Hard Times a little easier. While the Big Bad Wolf (an iconic figure during the Great Depression) isn't quite at the door, he keeps sniffing around, and I want to keep him away.

One way to make things a little easier for us to is reduce the discretionary spending. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," was a popular chant during the 1930s and early 1940s, and tracking all those pennies means more of them stay in my pocket. However, my hobby/passion/avocation for all things fiber is one of the few things that I really hate to give up. Fortunately (?) I'm currently sitting on a huge stash: at least 6 fleeces, boxes of other fiber, and boxes of millspun fibers of varied types. There's so much that I really don't have any room left for any more fiber. So what's a girl to do when things don't fit? Go on a diet.

For 2009, I'm going on a "low fiber" diet. This means that I don't get to buy any more millspun yarns until I make a good-sized dent in what is already stashed away. This means that I don't get to buy any more rovings, fleeces, or batts until at least some of what I have is combed, carded, and/or spun. This means I finish the projects I've started and dropped, or I frog them and use the yarn for something else. The fiber has got to go! This is stash-busting on a serious scale, so I have to get serious about it.

The list of projects is long and varied, including:

an afghan for my mother
two sweaters for Stephen
two sweaters for myself
an Irish hiking scarf
6 prs of socks
a "Canadian Cloud" scarf
hats, scarves and gloves for my niece and nephew
gifts for friends

At this point, projects underway (the second of a pair of Opal Peacock socks and a tea cozy) should be finished before New Year's, so I can start with a fresh slate. How much stash will will I use up in 2009? We can only wait and see.

2008-12-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

The Great Christmas Cookie Adventure

I know my way around a kitchen. There's a big sheaf of ribbons--mostly blue--for my cooking and baking hanging in the corner of the kitchen. I also got my grandmother's and great-aunt's recipe collections when they died, so I have multiple generations of recipes, especially cookie recipes.

Just like Christmas, Christmas cookies are a big deal in my family. Everybody has their favorites, there's a lot of entertaining, and naturally, I make nearly every "favorite cookie." I don't make small batches--most of these make 3-10 dozen, so by Christmas, I have a dining room full of tins of Christmas cookies, most of which will be eaten or given away before New Year's. I used to make several kinds of candy, too; that has stopped, as the weather is always a bit "iffy" around Christmas, and candy doesn't respond well to "iffy."

This year's great Christmas cookie adventure had to be in two parts, as I had a Christmas party to attend early in December, then I had to concentrate on work until the 19th. The first big "bake" included some of my favorites, along with mixing up the dough for the Christmas fruit cookies, a long-time, often-requested favorite of nearly everybody. For the first big bake, there were:

Georgia's Cookies (a kind of brown-sugar shortbread with pecans)
Spritz Cookies
Mincemeat Cookies
Christmas Fruit Cookies (a refrigerator cookie full of nuts and dried and candied fruit)

This year, I found a nice 9x13" shallow basket that serves as a perfect cookie transport and serving device. All it needed was a large towel folded in the bottom, then a fancy"Christmas" towel for the cookies to rest on until they were gobbled up. The first basketful of cookies went off to a potluck Christmas party, and came home nearly empty.

The second big bake was Christmas Eve, as the time until Christmas was drawing to a close. This was a "scary big" bake, so I could wrap up everything before Christmas Day. The day before, I had mixed up the doughs that needed chilling, so Christmas Eve I started early and worked hard, cranking out as many cookies as I could. This marathon cookie baking was interrupted only by a batch of jelly for Christmas gifts, but it was a nice break, because baking pan after pan of cookies gets old after six hours. For this bake, I turned out:

Christmas Fruit Cookies
Brown-eyed Susans (a short cookie with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle)
Striped Susans (the same cookie but with Hershey's Hugs)
Anise Drops
Spritz Cookies
Festive Cookies (my grandmother's name for Mexican Wedding Cakes or Russian Tea Cakes)
Santa's Whiskers (another sliced refrigerator cookie that is rolled in coconut)
Lebkuchen
and a batch of scones for breakfast

Making Lebkuchen is...interesting. The dough, full of nuts, candied citron, molasses, honey, and spices, is incredibly sticky, so there's a lot of flouring surfaces to keep the dough from sticking to everything. Flouring surfaces means everything is covered in flour, especially your intrepid author--I had flour in my hair, all over me, and I finally had to kick off my clogs and work in my bare feet, as I was starting to slide around on the floury floor. However, I got the little cookies, cut in the shape of hearts with an old canape cutter, into the oven and baked. So far, so good!

I hit a snag when I tried to glaze the lebkuchen. The "original recipe brought from Germany," which is identical to the recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook, calls for making a sugar syrup, then adding confectioner sugar and glazing the cookies while hot. This was fraught with disaster, as I needed to create basically a candy syrup (cooked to soft ball stage) in the middle of a rainstorm, and the results were somewhat less than what I wanted. OK...take a deep breath and try option two: a thin confectioner sugar-water glaze. Better, but still not perfect. I had to settle for that, however, as I was running out of time. Later, my palate memory finally identified the taste as the wonderful "molasses" Christmas cookie my mother's close friend made when I was small. She finely ground the hazelnuts and candied citron, used cookie cutters to create fancy shapes, and then frosted them with regular cookie frosting and sprinkles. Ah-ha! The next batch (there's still dough in the refrigerator), will be frosted just as Mrs. Weaver's cookies were.

I finished the last batch of cookies around supper time, and Stephen chased me out of the kitchen to make us soup and sandwiches for dinner. Not fancy, but wonderful after a day spent up to my elbows in butter, flour, sugar, and spices. The dining room is full of cookies, the refrigerator is full of cookie dough, and I'm feeding all my friends cookies for the near future!

2008-12-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

Playing Santa's Little Helper

Christmas gifts are lovely things--fun to give, fun to get. Handmade Christmas gifts are particularly lovely, as it means the person took some of their valuable time to make something for the recipient. The bad thing about handmade Christmas gifts is that they take time--something in very short supply these days. There's an old saw about "having either time or money": if you don't have the time, you can usually rush out to a store and buy the recipient something; if you don't have the money (these days, because you're unemployed), you probably have the time to make some thoughtful handmade gift.

The problem with this is when you: a) don't have the time because you're one of the lucky ones with a job; and b) you don't make enough to spend a lot of money on gifts. Trying to make thoughtful handmade gifts is tough when you're trying to fit 36 hours into a 24-hour day.

The economy, quite frankly, stinks this year; it's become chic to be ~~cheap~~ frugal. Handmade gifts sounds like an excellent alternative--after all, who wouldn't like a set of hand-embroidered kitchen towels, or a hand-knit tea cozy? Even better when the gifts can be made out of the overly large fabric and fiber stashes--stash-busting and giving at the same time is a "two-fer," and always a good thing. A great idea, but the sands of time are running out.

I gave it my best--got the kitchen towels, out of a beautiful bunch of huck toweling, sewn in a couple hours. The "wrinkle" was in the embroidery--even a simple Swedish weaving pattern on the end of a towel takes about 8 hours, and I have 8 to do. I think I can make it, if I give up eating, sleeping, and everything else between now and Christmas. Not practical; I'm on the 15 yard line, and it's 4th and long in the Christmas Bowl. Time to "drop back and punt."

Thank God for gift baskets. Those wonderful inventions, that in good years provide an interesting (if somewhat expensive) solution to last-minute gift-giving, are a lifesaver for the crafty giver. The trick is to know how the fancy baskets are done.

1) Smaller is better. The trick to a lot of gift baskets is the size of the basket--it's slightly smaller than all the stuff that's going into the basket. "Small" means the basket will be overcrowded, giving a feeling of abundance.

2) Excelsior is my friend. I love excelsior. It's the straw-like stuff that is in the bottoms of the fanciest gift baskets. It makes great padding, is natural and biodegradable, and is once again easily available. Fill up the basket well with excelsior, so the goodies are shown to their best advantage, then pile them in.

3) High quality items mean a high-quality basket. Cost Plus World Market is a wonderful place to find basket goodies, and if you're a great baker or an awesome chef, this is the time to whip up a batch of incredibly luscious treats, or put up that special Christmas jelly that everyone loves. Great handmades also personalize a gift basket in ways that commercial baskets can never duplicate.

4) Shrinkable cellophane. I don't know who invented this stuff, but it's a wonder. Just wrap up the basket (I usually pull it up to the top and put a big bow on), then use a hair dryer to shrink-wrap the basket, just like the fancy commercial baskets.

This year, everybody is getting "Breakfast in Basket," a selection of coffee, tea, cocoa, scone mix, and my award-winning homemade jelly. The baskets are beautiful, everybody seems to like what I put in them (they fight over my jellies and jams), and now I can focus on making wonderful, thoughtful handmade gifts for everyone next year.

Note: This was posted after Christmas, so my friends didn't find out what they were getting for Christmas.

2008-12-20T10:09:00.000-08:00

Hurry Up, Santa*

It's the most wonderful time of year--the papers are graded, the tests are taken, and the next two weeks are dedicated to celebrating. Like most teachers at the end of a term (our fall term ends the Friday before Christmas) the past several weeks have been a mad rush to finish the teaching and testing, the grading and the meetings; I finished entering the last grade at 5:01 p.m. on Friday evening and collapsed, exhausted but secure in the knowledge that I do not have a stack of papers awaiting my return on January 6th. Let the holidays begin!

First on the very long list is decorating the house. Being married to someone that didn't celebrate his first Christmas until he was 22 is a mixed blessing--Stephen loves Christmas, but doesn't know how to decorate a house, so the major task of cleaning and decorating falls to me, with an assist from him. This year, the annual decorating frenzy had to wait until school was finished; I'm ready to start, but my assistant has a full schedule of photo shoots, so I'm on my own, once the decorations are out of the attic. All the work in the attic hasn't deterred the squirrels: we discovered the center well of the Christmas tree stand filled with fiberglass, used by some enterprising squirrel to line a cozy nest. Fortunately (for the squirrel), we aren't putting up a large, live Christmas tree this year, so his nest is secure for a bit longer.

Decorating this year is relatively easy: wreaths on the front door (one on each side), decorated, greenery, and the Victorian feather tree in "pride of place" in the living room. I'm particularly fond of this little tree, as it's perfect for the largish collection of glass ornaments we've amassed over 32 Christmases. They're the only things that go on the tree, and the result is a tree with a glittery, jewelry appearance. I've purchased most of the ornaments, but there are some that have come from the Christmas fairs in Germany, and others that were made in Poland. Two special ones are little gold and silver glass balls that were on our first Christmas tree in 1977--they don't look like much, but at least one of them has been on every single tree we've decorated together.

Once the tree was up, I got all the presents that are finished wrapped and under the tree. There isn't much--yet--but by Thursday morning, the table under the tree will be groaning under all the packages. I still have some Christmas shopping to do, and many gifts to finish before Thursday, so I need to quit writing and get back to work!

Next on the list: Finishing Christmas gifts.

*but not too fast.

2008-11-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

Restocking Time

Every couple of years, I have to buy yarn. No, I don't mean buy a skein here or there because I need a bit to finish a project. I mean Buy Yarn. I have to restock the stash with millspun yarns for my charity knitting projects, dyeing projects, and for any large-scale projects (sweaters, afghans) that are going to use up a lot of yarn.

It seems the Black Friday sales are the best time for big yarn purchases, and this year is exceptional. With the economy foundering, retailers have hit the panic button, and are in full discount mode. Recognizing this fear the way a shark smells blood in the water, I started watching the advertisements at the beginning of this week for the real deals on millspun yarns. My favorite is Patons Classic Wool worsted-weight yarn. It's soft enough I can wear it, it's good quality, and I like most of the colors and colorways available. I also like their Kroy sock-weight yarn, even though it's not superwash and I can't throw the socks in the dryer. Since those two are my favorites, a good deal on Patons is something I'm willing to investigate.

JoAnn's fired the opening salvo with their post-Thanksgiving flyer advertising Patons Classic Wool for $3.50/skein. They also had a 20% off coupon good for Friday morning. Michael's Arts & Crafts returned fire with their flyer: all Patons yarns for $3.49/skein and a 25% off coupon for Friday morning. Hmmm...this was going to require some thinking, as the two best caches would be approximately 20 miles apart.

Friday morning, I bounced out of bed early (OK, after 5 hours of sleep, I didn't exactly "bounce"), got some coffee, and headed to Michael's. I walked in the door at 7:45 a.m., armed with my coupon and a shopping cart, and proceeded to clean out their bin of ecru yarn. Ecru is a wonderful color, because you can dye the yarn to any color or colors you need or want. I supplemented with mound of ecru with some specific colorways for charity knitting--two variegated with purple got matching skeins of purple, while two green variegateds got matching green and olive skeins. I also got a good quantity of sock yarn, as it's not just for socks; gloves are also knit from sock yarn, and since I have a special request for a pair of "rifleman mittens" with a separate index finger, I need sock yarn to knit them.

Once I cleaned out Michael's, I headed to our Super JoAnn's. Much larger than a regular JoAnn's, the Super JoAnn's was also a lot more crowded, but I was prepared for the crowds. I found a nice gray for a special-request "skull" sweater, and some black for the intarsia skull. I also found several skeins of a lovely peacock blue for an Irish hiking scarf.

I dragged home all my yarn, cataloged it (thank heavens for Ravelry, or I'd never keep all this organized), and packed it away in the stash closet. I'm now set for another couple years, and can resist all the future sales (yeah, right!).

2008-11-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

BSP: Big Sweater Project

Sometimes, keeping a blog is tough. I don't want to write a litany of complaints about the current state of education ("Quick, Henry, the FLIT!* There's a whiny teacher outside!"), or a rant on the political process (How can we move forward and backward at the same time?). That sweet, patient man I live with has to listen to both those topics, so I shouldn't inflict them on the unsuspecting reader.

About this time every year, I start another Big Sweater Project (BSP). I actually like sweaters, especially wool sweaters, in the cool, damp weather we have through most of the winter in the Bay Area. This wouldn't be an issue, except that I'm sensitive to most of the wool used in commercially knit sweaters, so I have to knit my own to get something that doesn't itch horribly. Last year's BSP was that sweater knitted in the round, that ends up with a shawl collar. I made one out of a dark, heathery green Cascade 220; I finished it just about the time the weather warmed up, so I've had to wait until this fall to wear it. I haven't even had a chance to block it and photograph it (a job when the sweater is huge), so this is a picture from the elann.com pattern I used.

This year's BSP is another cardigan based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket pattern that was created by EZ in 1968 and published in her book, The Opinionated Knitter. This is a very popular pattern for baby sweaters, probably because it's dirt-simple, and created a rather cool-looking pattern, especially if different yarns are used. The photo is an elegant example by Lynda Sorenson. However, it's difficult to "reverse-engineer," because the placement of the double-decreases and double-increases, which create the angles in the jacket, have to be understood to make straight rows of knitting bend 90 degrees. I looked at a lot of photographs, but without an actual garment to examine, I had to settle for locating a pattern. Success finally came when I won on eBay a complete set of Knitter's from the year 2000, which included the directions for an adult-sized Baby Surprise Jacket. Hooray! Now I can use up a bunch of the stash and make another sweater.

Next problem: the ASJ (Adult Surprise Jacket) uses a lot of yarn. I had squirreled away 8 balls of Lion Brand Wool in the original "Majestic Mountains" colorway (much more saturated than the current version), but that wasn't going to be nearly enough for a comfy wool sweater. Fortunately, Michael's Arts & Crafts had sent me a discount coupon off everything I could purchase at once, so I hot-footed it down the the local store and bought another 8 balls of solid-color Lion Brand Wool in Sage, Cadet Blue, and Cocoa. These colors are pretty close to the colors in my version of Majestic Mountains, so the plan is to separate wide bands of MM with narrow rows of the solid colors.

Once the colors were set, I started adapt the pattern itself to what was in my mind. First off, almost all BSJs and ASJs are knit in garter stitch, a stitch I truly hate, probably because it's b.o.r.i.n.g. Also, I'm using a nice-looking variegated, so I want the color variations to show. My ASJ is being knitted in stockinette, a simple change, as all of the decreases and increases happen in the odd-numbered rows (the "right" side in stockinette). The second change is going to be the collar--I want a shawl collar and a V-neck. The basic pattern has no collar, so adapting the front edges to include a shawl collar shouldn't be too difficult.

The execution is slow going, as the sweater is started by knitting around one sleeve, across the shoulders and around the other sleeve. I should know better, and run when a pattern starts with the words, "Cast on 440." However, I really want this sweater, so I cast on the required number using waste wool, and then switched to the first of the narrow stripes. The plan is to use the row of live stitches to extend the sleeves (if necessary), and create very clean/invisible shoulder seams when I finally finish all the knitting. Two rows of brown (A), two rows of blue (B), two rows of green (C), then ten rows of the variegated, before knitting a C-B-A-B-C set of rows and going back to the variegated. Each row takes about 30 minutes to knit right now, so a week of working on the jacket every evening has resulted in about 3 inches of finished jacket.

The execution also required some tricky stitchwork to get decreases I like. The first, SK2togPSSO is not that big a deal, except that it moves over 1 stitch each time to create a left-slanting diagonal. The second is more difficult. I wanted the decrease to be a neat as the first one, but the stitches are going in the wrong direction for a right-slanting diagonal. Solution? K2tog, pass the stitch back to the left needle, then lift the next stitch over it and drop off, creating a right-handed diagonal decrease. I'm sure there must be an easier way, but I haven't had the time (or, quite frankly, the inclination) to research an easier way.

This is also not a portable project. I hate weaving in ends, so I'm leaving the different-colored yarns attached for easy pick-up. Trying to move something spread over two 32" circular needle cables, with 4 different balls of yarn attached to it at all times, is difficult at best, so I don't even try. My portable project is yet another pair of socks, this time out of Opal, in the Rainforest 2 Peacock colorway. Socks are wonderful because they're portable, and I don't have to really think about what I'm doing until I get to the heel.

*FLIT was a popular pyrethrin-based insecticide manufactured by Standard Oil Co. in the 1920s and 1930s. The advertising, one of the first jobs by a young Theodor (Dr. Seuss) Geisel, featured whimsical flying bugs and the tagline "Quick Henry, the FLIT!"

2008-10-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

Stash-busting

My studio is a complete mess--I'm surprised that I can find my work table, much less sit at it to write a blog. All this mess was created by the guild's annual swap meet, fondly referred to as the "Stash Reallocation Sale."

I'm committed to some serious stash-busting. The stash is just too darned large, and if I can make it smaller, either by selling, trading away, or using up the fibers, I have an excuse (As if I needed one!) to buy a bunch of new fibers. The stash is also a bit ridiculous--I have yarns that I got when I bought my floor loom--in 1995--that the loom's previous owner got when she bought the loom. All of these have been carefully stored for ~~years~~ decades, but I had to ask myself: When am I ever going to use up 14 skeins of pink and white bulky mohair boucle? I don't like pink, I don't like mohair, and I don't like boucle. The stuff needs to go.

Saturday was spent going through the boxes in the stash and deciding if I should keep it or let it go. A couple things started off in one pile and wandered back to the other: the half-pound of llama stayed to be blended with some cotted merino roving of a similar color; the black-and-white two-strand mohair stayed because it's really weird; the cut but unchained chenille warp stayed because I couldn't inflict it on my fellow guild members. Other things were easy: a 2.2-pound of very fine silver lurex was a no-brainer, as was the pink-and-white mohair boucle, and a bunch of other stuff. When I finished sorting through everything, I had 2 1/2 boxes of stuff, along with an inkle loom and a warping reel, to take to the sale.

This morning, I dragged everything down to the guild meeting, and before the sale even started, found exactly what I was looking for: a clock reel. A clock reel is a wonderfully tricky skein winder that has a counter built in for calculating the length of the yarn in the skein. The name comes from the clicking or popping sound the counter makes. The reel is immortalized in the song, "Pop Goes the Weasel," which describes the workings of a clock reel:

Round and round the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey stopped to pull up his socks,
Pop goes the weasel!

Most of the clock reels I've been over the years have been antiques, and very valuable, so it was a delightful surprise to walk around the corner of the building and there one was, with a price tag on it! Made by Fricke Enterprises, my new clock reel has a two-yard circumference (so each "pop" is 2 yards), and is mounted on a small floor stand. This is going to make winding off and measuring yarns much easier, as I've always had to use a niddy-noddy in the past, and then calculate the amount of yarn by counting the number of rounds in a skein, or by using a McMorran Yarn Balance, which seems to be general at best. Now I can calculate yardages pretty accurately while creating skeins, so I'm saving quite a bit of time and effort.

Money isn't currently growing on trees, so I had to make sure I sold enough of my stash to pay for the clock reel. It was easier than I thought--the warping reel went almost immediately, followed quickly by some roving, some yarns, and a set of Denise interchangeable circular knitting needles that I bought years ago, used once, hated, and never touched again. At the end of the day, I sold enough stuff to cover the cost of both the clock reel and a small stack of vintage (1930s) needlework magazines. My clock reel was free! I packed what didn't sell (about 2 boxes of vintage yarns) and dragged everything back home; hence the messy studio. I gave the clock reel a whirl this evening, and skeined the black-and-white mohair: there's 256 yards, so I need to give some thought to what I'm going to use it for once I get the studio tidied up.

2008-10-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Color: An Excuse to Goof Off

With all the craziness that accompanies life during the school year, I needed to take a break. I really needed to take a break. Fortunately, Color: A Fiber Festival in Berkeley was yesterday, so I ditched the lesson plans and papers--I have nearly 100 essays on America's 19th century industrial boom to grade--and the Sonata and I spent the day with people and things related to fiber. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera.

Color is an interesting local fiber festival. This was the second occurrence of this festival (the first was in April of this year), and drew about 75 people to its classes, sales, and hanging out in a marvelous location, the Pacific School of Religion. The campus of the 160-year-old interdenominational seminary, spread over an acre on "Holy Hill" (Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union Library is down the block), features beautiful old Gothic Revival buildings set in lush green lawn, all with a stunning view of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate.

All this beauty was enhanced by the weather. For those unfamiliar with our so-called "seasons," October is actually "summer" in the Bay Area, with cerulean skies, warm days, and crisp-as-a-potato-chip nights. Yesterday was no different. What little fog there was yesterday burned off by 11:00, so most of us spent the day either sitting with our wheels or knitting outside on the patio beside the historic Holbrook Library. I schlepped about a half-pound of the black merino pin-draft down there with me, and spent several hours turning roving into very fine singles, as a group of us chatted about everything under the sun from the current political situation to the recent Yahoo! buyout attempt, to whose kid is getting braces next. Needless to say, it was an eclectic group! People wandered in and out of the group, taking breaks from spinning or knitting to take one of the several classes offered, or to shop with the vendors set up in the common room.

The classes were out-and-out fun. I took a short class on using a Weave-It, a tiny loom used by many people to create woven samples, taught by Karrie Weaver. A Weave-It (also known as a Weavette, or a similar tiny loom made by Hazel Rose) has been around for a number of years in a number of different sizes; I have a giant-sized version marketed during the 1950s as a "Loomette King," and used for weaving placemats. All these loom-like creatures work in the same basic way: wrap a yarn or thread around a series of pegs in a specific sequence, then use a long needle to weave through the threads, locking them into place. All of these looms come with instructions when first purchased, usually printed with microscopic diagrams in tiny books that are easily lost, so taking a class on how to use one clears us a lot of the mystery. I took the class with Jamie, another good friend I'm gently leading down the path to fiber perdition, and a couple other people, and by the end of an hour, we were turning out coasters for shot glasses on two-inch Weave-Its, and noting on how much this reminded us of childhood days spent at day camp. (Many thanks to the lovely people at Color and to Karrie for letting me "kype" this photo of her Weave-Its and weavings).

What would a festival be without some shopping? Festival attendees had their choice of fiber and yarn from about a half-dozen local vendors: Tactile, Ceallach Dyes, A Verb for Keeping Warm, Pan's Garden, Pigeon Roof, Girl on the Rocks, and Flynn Creek Churros (which my brain keeps turning into Flying Creek Burritos) had baskets, bins, and braids of fiber to spin, and hanks of yarn waiting for needles and hooks. Handsome Books had a selection of old textile books and a pile of quaint needlework magazines from the 1960s. I'm currently on a very strict "no fiber diet," and it was hard to resist, especially the braids of purple hand-painted superwash merino at Girl on the Rocks. I owe a debt of thanks to the people that bought all that superwash--I managed to make it through the day without adding to the stash. However, a lot of other people went home with a lot of good stuff, including one very happy woman who went home with a new (to her) drum carder.

All in all, Color is a nice little festival. I'm already looking forward to the next one, which should be in April, just as the Bay Area fiber community begins to ramp up for the summer fiber activities.

2008-09-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

Juggling Lessons

I'm currently preoccupied with juggling lessons. No, not the kind where you throw tennis balls, fruit, or chain saws (for those fascinated by extreme spectacle), the kind where you juggle the demands of a life that is suddenly overly full of commitments.

School is back in session.

It seems I no sooner got back from the Golden Gate Fiber Institute (at some point, I'll write an entry just about "Spinning Camp") than I went down to Southern California for some family face-time. I came back from Southern California, and less than 72 hours later, I was sitting in meetings, trying to get answers to burning questions ("When am I going to get my class lists?"), and trying to rearrange my classroom in preparation for the return of the students. August 20 arrived too quickly, and my room was full of students once again. Wait! I just went on vacation! Where did the summer go?!?

Every year, my schedule is different. This year it's a single class of 14-year-olds taking 9th grade Geography and four classes (about 120 students) of 15- and 16-year-olds taking 11th grade United States History. It's funny: just about the time that teenagers reach that stage where they drive their parents crazy, I start to find them interesting. They are turning from children into adults, and once we get it clear that: a) I'm not their mother (or grandmother); and b) they are to be respectful to me because I am a teacher, we I have a pretty good time (they are miserable because I require them to work). The biggest change this year is my preparation period. After a year of not having students until almost 9:00 a.m., my schedule is completely reversed, and my first students arrive on my doorstep at 7:45 a.m. However, my last students leave at 1:45, rather than 2:45, and I have several uninterrupted hours to work on grading papers, writing lesson plans, or attend the endless meetings teachers have to attend.

So, what have I been doing for the past month? Not too terribly much since the end of the Ravelympics on August 24. The final tally was 4 pairs of mittens, and a good start on a knitted hoodie for Tracy's baby (due in October). I finished the hoodie (except the handsewing and finishing) this week, and I'm looking forward to gift-wrapping it so I don't have to look at it any more. I also discovered in knitting the baby hoodie that I truly hate garter stitch (the stitch used throughout the baby hoodie), and that I hate working with acrylic (essential when making baby clothes).

Because I've been so busy with school, I haven't had time to spend with my spinning wheels. Back in June, I bought a black Merino fleece from Nebo-Rock Textiles while I was at Black Sheep, and I sent it down to Morro Fleece Works for processing. I sent down 5 1/2 lbs. of gorgeous black fleece; I got back 4 1/2 lbs of perfect pin-drafted roving, neatly divided into four roughly equal "bumps" (the term used to describe a large ball of processed, unspun fiber). I'm spinning first one (and probably a second one) semi-worsted to create my standard knitting yarn--a moderately fine single that when 3-plied will create a nice DK-weight knitting yarn. Eventually, when I spin and ply enough yarn, Stephen will get a very nice sweater.

2008-08-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Ravelympics Update

This is, by necessity, a very short entry simply because I'm spending all my "extra" time with flying fingers and clicking needles--Ravelympics 2008 is under way! Around the world, 5,651 fiber artists and needlepeople committed to finishing 16,210 projects during the 17 days of the Beijing Games. It's amazing how you can entice people into knitting, crocheting, spinning, or felting, simply by suggesting a timeline.

I cast on the first pair of mittens just after 6:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, and was well underway by the time I saw the fireworks shooting off from "the Birds' Nest," Beijing's very modernistic national stadium (which Stephen describes as "the Toilet Seat"). No, NBC's Olympic coverage wasn't on early--the fireworks were going off in the background as KNBC's representative was finishing his report. I started with both mittens on the same needles, but switched to singles after finishing the cuffs--it's simply too difficult to keep things straight when knitting mittens two-up.

In spite of some long "interruptions," including a trip to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to see Air Force One and and a Nancy Reagan's gowns, I was able to knit pretty steadily throughout the day, and finished off the first pair just as the Opening Ceremonies telecast began. The first pair, red-brown-blue-purple variegated with brown cuffs and thumbs, came out well and I cast on the second pair, knitted in solid brown wool. They were finished early in the morning on August 10th, and I proceeded on to my main Baby Dressage entry, Tracy's Baby's Hoodie, a garter-stitch hoodie knitted from pastel-variegated acrylic baby yarn. I've focused on that through the train trip back to the Bay Area, and most of yesterday, finishing the bottom and now working my way up the right front. The hoodie will make a good project to take with me tomorrow when I go to a series of meetings to start off the school year, and I'll keep cranking out mittens as fast as I can.

2008-07-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

Big House Project 2008

Each summer, we try to do one big project around the house. It's a good time to do things that are either outside (the weather is good), or require both of us (we're both at home). Last year's Big House Project was landscaping the front yard. This year's Big House Project is installing cedar paneling in the closet of my studio.

I have two problems: a) a large quantity of protein-based fibers; and b) something that likes to eat protein-based fibers (either moths or carpet beetles). The critters have occasionally gotten into a skein or two in the studio, but I've been lucky--they haven't found the great mother-lode, my fiber stash. Everything is stored in bags (just in case), and then in those 12-gallon stackable bins--24 12-gallon stackable bins, along with (currently 3) muslin-canvas bags of scoured fleece. I also use No-Moth, a powerful moth killer/repellent, but I'm tired of having the studio smell like mothballs. So, this year's project was to line the closet where the wool (and silk, and camel, and so on) lives until it gets used up.

The closet is 71 inches wide, 25 inches deep, and 108 inches tall. The entire closet has to be paneled--ceiling, walls, floor and (if you're really anal) door--so we got 10 15-square-foot boxes of cedar paneling, several boxes of paneling nails, and set to work. We started off tag-teaming this project: Stephen cut the cedar planks to size, and I put them into place and nailed them down. We quickly found out the first problem: I can't swing a hammer accurately to save my life when I can't see what I'm doing. Did I mention that the closet does not have a light in it? By the time I was half-way up the back wall, I had hit my fingers at least a dozen times. Not good for someone who has to do so much work with their hands. Stephen gently took the hammer out of my hand, and told me to go do something else while he finished the back, did the sides, and tackled the ceiling. Problem #2: There's only 1 joist above the ceiling. Stephen tried gluing the boards into place, but gravity proved too much, and they kept falling on the floor. He finally gave up, swore a lot, but nailed the ceiling into place. I took over when we got to the floor (for some reason, I can swing a hammer straighter when nailing something flat.

Once we finished with the cedar planking, all that was left was installing a nice cove molding to hide the edges. I measured the pieces of cove molding, then gave them to Stephen (along with careful instructions) to cut. Then Stephen brought them in, got back up on the ladder, and started nailing them into place.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my new stash closet. While it's not very roomy if you're standing in it, the closet is deep enough to hold all 24 storage bins, 3 bags of fleece, a lap inkle loom, a large box loom, and an assortment of other small things, and still be able to get the door closed. My studio now smells like the inside of a cedar chest, and probably will for another six months or so--it's a good thing I like the smell of cedar. My fibers are now safe, and I can concentrate on import

2008-07-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy)

I'll admit it--I have a really, really, really large stash. I'll also admit to being a bit of a packrat. It's probably pretty common for women of my age--we're the children of people that grew up in the Great Depression, and while there was a lot of love, fun, and laughter in my family, there wasn't a lot of money. My mother, bless her dear sweet heart, still pinches pennies until they squeak, and she taught her daughter well; I can pinch pennies with the best of them--a good skill for this time of economic hardship. She taught me to always shop for bargains, and how to substitute (when necessary) to get the results I wanted. I've taken that advice to heart, and I've stockpiled quite a nice little pile of fiber, some of it good, some of it atrocious.

When I married, I had a tiny stash, mostly of very fine needle- point yarns that came from Super Yarn Mart in Southern California. Super Yarn Mart was a wonder--acres of cheap acrylic yarns from the major mills, sold at a fraction of the price of the skeins you could find in TG&Y and Gemco. Super Yarn Mart sold their yarn by the ounce or pound, and it came in huge skeins that had to be wound into balls before it could be used for needlework (this was the days before umbrella swifts and ball winders became standard equipment). The stores were probably terribly tacky by today's standards, but they were full of yarn, carried lots of free patterns, and were a Godsend for fiberholics on tight budgets. Just like any disaster area, there was a little bit of heaven, in the form of their needlepoint yarns. I don't know where they were getting them, but they sold 40-yard skeins of Paternayan as "Persian Wool" for 59 cents a skein. I stocked up when I did a needlepoint for a magazine cover comp/Graphic Design class assignment in college, and those yarns formed the basis of my stash when I finally moved out of the parental abode, along with a book of needlepoint designs and a few knitting and crochet patterns.

The stash grew slowly over the next few years: a ball of crochet cotton here, some more needlepoint yarn there. Because I was still near the family, I often raided Mom's stash for fiber, then supplemented with my own. I started collecting books of vintage needlework patterns as an adjunct to doing historical costuming: some of the first Dover reprints of Weldon's patterns; a copy of The Workwoman's Guide; xeroxes of instructions from the Los Angeles Public Library's bound copies of Godey's Ladies Book. Each time we moved, the stash grew a little larger: I wanted a needlepoint rug for the new house; I crocheted an afghan for the living room. Excess yarns were regularly dropped off to grow Mom's stash. Then we moved to Northern California.

I suddenly found myself in a land where wool was not only wearable during the winter, but nearly mandatory (I thought I was going to freeze to death that first winter). I was living near lots of reenacting opportunities, and hanging with my friends, all of whom have a fine appreciation for mastering historical tasks, whether they are shooting, spinning, or knitting. I needed more fiber in my diet! At first I limited my fiber intake to my usual obsession with stockpiling fabric (but the fabric stash tale is for another time), but I began to get interested in adding the needleworked finishes to my historical garments. I was now 500 miles from Mom's stash, so I started buying my own fibers, stocking up when I found something on sale, and setting things aside for the ever-lengthening project list. Yarns were harder to find (Super Yarn Mart had gone out of business), but I could still find skeins in Michael's and Target, as long as I wasn't too fussy (I wasn't).

We were at Gold Rush Days in Coloma, California when I was introduced to the joys and frustrations of spinning. Another woman had brought her Ashford Elizabeth up to the reenactment to give a spinning demonstration, and was bedeviled by the intracacies of her wheel. I watched her struggle for a while, then asked if I could try when she walked away in disgust. She gave the OK, and I sat down, gave a couple of practice pushes on treadle, and began spinning from the rolag she left hanging down from the orifice. It wasn't great yarn, but I was hooked. Serendipity led Stephen to buy me my own wheel--a Tekoteko Wendy--from a tiny antique store next to our campsite, and I bought my first fleece--a Cotswold hogget--from the shepherd giving a shearing demonstration that same weekend. I was a spinner! Now the stash really began to grow. I started attending a spinning class through Napa Valley College, hanging out with other fiber folk, and buying a fleece or two when I could afford it. I still bought yarn--I wasn't confident enough in my own spinning to start actually using the yarns I was spinning. And I started thinking about weaving. I had done "little kid" weaving projects on looper looms and cardboard looms when I was smaller, and had wanted to take up weaving in college, but the weaving classes were always full, so I focused on printmaking. A friend offered to let me store her floor loom in exchange for use of it, so I started playing with warps and collecting fibers for weaving rebozos. I loved weaving, and when she was ready to move her loom back to her house, I started looking for my own floor loom to keep working. I answered an ad on the bulletin board at Straw Into Gold; the woman who posted it was a long-time weaver that was retiring, and she sold me nearly everything she had. I ended up not only with a floor loom, an inkle loom, a tapestry loom, and a Navajo rug loom, but about 300 pounds of fibers that she had gotten with the loom when she bought it, along with virtually her entire stash. I now had bins of fiber.

Over the years, I've continued to add to the stash faster than I can use it up. It takes time to use up stash, and I've had precious little of that, especially with a full-time teaching position and (this past year) graduate school. To that end, I've been, mostly, very good about not buying more fiber. I've decreased my mill-spun fiber purchases to very little (3 skeins in the past 15 months). Unfortunately, I've upped my quantity of unspun fibers with several fleece purchases, so the stash has grown even larger.

Storage of all this fiber is a problem. Northern California does not get hot enough in the summer to kill off a lot of bugs, and wool is particularly susceptible to both clothes moths and carpet beetles. To that end, we're cedar-lining the closet in my studio (my obsession long ago ago took over one of the bedrooms as an office/studio) to provide a safe habitat for my wools and protein fibers. The non-wool fibers (cottons, linens, and the acrylics I still have) are currently stored in the attic. But most of all--I have got to go on a very restricted fiber diet for a year or two, until I can either use up, sell, or trade away at least some of all this fiber.

2008-07-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

Hangin' with the Fiber Folk

Like clockwork--an odd saying, as clocks don't always run "like clockwork"--the fiber folk took over Dixon to celebrate all things sheepie at Lambtown USA. This is the 22nd time this festival celebrating Ovis aries has taken place; this year, the festival was back at the Dixon May Fairgrounds, after last year's attempt at having it at another site in Dixon.

A lot of history surrounds both the Dixon May Fairgrounds and Lambtown. The Fairgrounds and the May Fair have been a yearly event since 1874, and for many years, the May Fair (which originally started as a horse-racing event) served as Solano County's yearly agricultural fair. This changed in the early 1950s, when Vallejo offered to be the home of the County Fair (a much cooler place to hold a fair in mid-July), but the Dixon May Fair has continued as the 36th Ag District's yearly agricultural fair. Lambtown began in the mid-1980s as a mid-summer celebration of lamb (as in "leg of") to honor Dixon's largest employer, a lamb packing plant, and to draw people out to the Central Valley community during July--the hottest month of the year. A few years after the start, Lambtown began to include things of interest to the fiber arts community; when the packing plant closed in the late 1990s, Lambtown had incorporated enough fiber-related events that it has continued to be a popular little fiber festival. It has a small-town feel--the entire coordinating committee is only twelve people--and for those of us who like the idea of small towns, it's a chance to get out of suburbia and pretend we're "down on the farm" again.

This year, buzz about Lambtown started early on Ravelry, and by the time the fair rolled around on Saturday, a lot of people were making plans to drive out to Dixon. Carpools were coordinated, a group gathered online, and a Ravelry meet-up was organized--as well as could be by people unfamiliar with the layout of the Fairgrounds. The day arrived, and Jane and I went out early; unlike last year, I opted to save gas (and money) and take my skeins out the day of the festival, rather than driving out to Dixon the day before to drop them off. Getting out there early paid off--we got a parking place near the entrance. This year, Lambtown was given the best gift ever for a festival: lovely weather. Unlike last year, when it was over 100 degrees, this year's festival was hot only if you were in the sun; those of us opting to sit in the shade and spin or knit found the weather to be mercifully cool and pleasant.

The skeins dropped off, we went to explore the Fiber Fair, held in one of the two buildings taken over by the festival. Too much good stuff!! About 30 vendors had their wares spread out for the delectation of fiber fans, and I nearly had "fiber lock" (a condition caused by exposure to too much fiber choice too quickly). There was enough alpaca fleece to clothe an entire troop of Andean actors, hanks of Nancy Finn's luscious hand-painted silk roving everywhere, and something to delight the heart of nearly every spinner or needleworker. Brooke and Maia of Tactile Fiber Arts had more skeins of their natural-dyed yarns (I got a skein from them as a "thank you" gift for Betsy for minding Becky Fatcat while I was at Black Sheep), along with yummylicious hanks of silk-merino roving. They were sharing a booth with A Verb for Keeping Warm, and the entire booth was packed with patrons, petting the yarns and snapping up finds as fast as they could. Carolina Homespun had a huge booth, with lots of wheels to try, and lots of fibers to entice; I was good, and bought only the Strauch flicker I needed to start on all the BLX locks, but Jane spent a long time searching through the collection of spindles until she found her "baby": a Bosworth Maxi, perfect for spinning the bulky yarns she favors. I nearly succumbed to the rainbow-dyed silk hankies at Royal Hare, but I kept remembering all of the stash I currently have: 6 fleeces (or parts thereof), and pounds of other fibers, including silk. No fiber buying for me! I relented a bit, and bought a 2-oz. bump of hemp roving from Cavyshops. Stephen's greatest desire is to have real hemp rope for the linstock of his cannon, so this hemp will be spun and we'll set up a "rope walk" on the sidewalk in front of the house to ply it into the size he needs.

Part of the fun of attending a fiber fair is running into people you know. Pretty early on, Jane and I ran into a bunch of people from the Spindles & Flyers spinning guild in Berkeley, and we all hung out together most of the day, while we shopped, sampled the different food booths (the consensus was "more lamb!"), strolled out to see the sheep dog competition, and hung out with the other Ravelers in the meet-up area, under the big elm between the fiber buildings. At one point, we went to admire the angora bunnies in the wool show building--I lasted about 10 minutes, then fled the building, my eyes itching and nose running. Angora bunnies are so cute--and I'm so allergic. Because the competitions were going on in the same building, and the judging for the skeins and textiles was going on at the same time as the wool judging, I didn't see any of the wool judging this year. It probably was for the best--I really don't need any more fleece! Most of the afternoon was spent in the shade of the big elm, with about forty other spinners and needleworkers, chatting and working.

So, how did my skeins do? Not badly at all, considering that I didn't make the decision to enter until about three weeks ago, and spun the yarn specifically for entering at Lambtown. The two skeins entered were rovings that I had purchased from Carolina Homespun at the spinning event at Retzlaff Winery in June; they spun up nicely, and I decided to enter them for "hoots and giggles." The first was a 4-oz. hank of 100% Targhee roving, hand-painted by the people at Mountain Colors in the same colors as their popular "Northern Lights" yarn. I spun and two-plied it, and got nearly 400 yards out of the 4 ounces. I also got a red second-place ribbon for it, in the 100% handspun wool, plied, class.

The second was a 4-oz. bag of Rainbow Roving, colored "Victoria Into the Woods," from Crosspatch Creations. I was a little surprised when I saw the spun yarn at Black Sheep--it was much more yellow than my roving was. My roving, however, spun up into a heathery green novelty yarn. I tried something different for this roving, after reading different posts online about Paula Simmon's technique for spinning for speed and softness. I normally don't attempt a long draw, but I did on this, and it seems to have paid off--that is a blue ribbon on the skein. I have 350+ yards of 2-ply from this roving; I'm not sure what it will end up as, but it should be something interesting.

Once again, Lambtown was good, old-fashioned summer fun, and it's already on the calendar for attending next year.

2008-07-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Every Four Years...

Once again, the quadriennial madness has struck. In the United States, we go through the political process, as originally laid out in the Constitution, and elect a new president, vice-president, 33 senators, 453 members of the House of Representatives, and about 20 governors. The election campaign has been going on for more than a year, the last primary was more than a month ago, and we're still nearly 3 months away from the actual voting. However, politics goes on.

Outside the United States--and for many people inside the United States--every four years means it's once again time for the Games of the Olympiad. This one is #29, so the official title is The Games of the XXIX Olympiad. However, most people just refer to the Games by their host city; 2008 is Beijing, China, so most people just call them the "Beijing Olympics." This time the Olympics are fraught with controversy. China is looking forward to the Games serving as a showcase for how the country has grown from a largely agricultural monarchy at the end of World War II to one of the economic superpowers of the world. However, with all this publicity comes a certain amount of scrutiny, and China's ruling oligarchy doesn't have the best record of being nice. There has been tremendous controversy over China's support of repressive governments in Sudan and Myanmar, and her attitude toward the people of Tibet, the followers of Fulan Gong, and generally anyone the government or its supporters think is "dissing" China or her government. There have been some calls for boycotts of the Summer Games, but it looks like every county that has an Olympic Committee is sending athletes.

The Games begin at 8:00 p.m., on August 8, 2008 (8 is considered an auspicious number), and for the next 17 days, people around the world will be glued to their television sets, radios, and computers, following individual athletes, events, sports, medal counts, and the controversies that always arise: who was caught doping, who got hurt during last-minute workouts, or whether an athlete really can live up to all the hype. The Games give people an excuse to get together ("hey, why don't you come over and we'll watch the Men's Basketball semis"), and to organize their own events connected to the Olympic Games.

Ravelry (the online network for fiber folk) has jumped in with the Ravelympics 2008. Working on the basic premise that members will start and complete at least one project during the 17-day Games, the basic idea has exploded. More than 1,000 "ravletes" have signed up to participate in such events as WIP (Work In Progress) Wrestling, Baby Dressage, Mitten Medley, Homespun Heptathlon, Sock Put, Sweater Sprint, Shawl Relay, and a host of other events related to knitting and crocheting. Ravletes sign up for events (projects they want to do) and teams that may be related geographically (Team Canada; Team Indiana) or by common interest (Team Battlestar Galactica; Team Hopelessly Overcommitted). I joined Team TARDIS (full of fans of the long-running British SF series, Doctor Who) and signed up for three events:

WIP Wrestling--I will finish a blue crocheted sweater I started down in Los Angeles on a visit home in 1999.
Baby Dressage--A friend is due in October; this is a perfect time to knit a hoodie and booties for her.
Mitten Medley--This year's charity work. I'm going to crank out as many mittens as I can (while finishing the crocheted sweater and knitting the hoodie), box them up, and send them to Afghans for Afghans.

In the Ravelympics, swatching, and the necessary prep work that goe into knitting or crocheting a pattern are considered "training," and are allowed before the start of the Games. To that end, I've been working through the mitten pattern I've chosen (a simple 2-needle pattern) to find the flaws, errors, and glitches that make knitters crazy. However, the actual "medal mittens" won't begin until the evening of August 8. Then, it will simply be a race to complete as many as possible. The other "events" (projects) are either started (the blue crocheted sweater), or I'm familiar enough with the pattern that I don't need to swatch it, so they will also get a little work on August 8. Then it will be scraping bits of time together to finish as much as I can.

The very cool Ravelympics 2008 banner was designed by Raveler K2togKate.

2008-07-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Spin Journal #10: So--What Do You Do With A Ten Pound Fleece?

One of my big splurges this year at Black Sheep was fleece--I came home with no less than three. The hogget I already described. The second, a beautiful black Merino from Nebo-Rock, was packed off to Morro Fleece Works to be professionally scoured, carded, and turned into pin-draft roving (I don't have experience working with fine wools, and I'm not going to start with a blue-ribbon fleece). The third was a big, drop-dead gorgeous white fleece, shorn from the back of a Border Leicester / Corriedale / Merino cross-breed (aka, "the BLX") owned by Elizabeth Hubbard of Hub Corriedales in Bonanza, Oregon. Ms. Hubbard has a knack for raising amazing sheep--a Border Leicester fleece she entered in the Wool Show at Black Sheep last year was the Grand Champion fleece, and this year's fleeces seemed even better. I had to have that BLX, and through some terrific teamwork, the fleece not only ended up in my pile, but finally ended up back at my house a week after I got back from Black Sheep.

This fleece is big, tipping the scales at just over 10 pounds. It also has great lock structure, something necessary if you're going to spin from the lock, which I wanted to do with this fleece. However, this sheep is a heavy lanolin producer, and I've gotten away from spinning in the grease, so the fleece has to be scoured. But how to maintain the lock structure and get the fleece clean? I decided to do something different--separate the individual locks, wrap them in nylon net, and wash them that way. I trotted off to JoAnn's to buy a mile of nylon netting.

At first, I thought I could do all this washing prep outside in the backyard. It was a lovely summer day, so I took the fleece out and dumped it onto the 48" patio table. It completely covered the table, and I didn't have any place to work, so I carried all the TV trays out to the patio to create a horizontal work surface. Next problem--the breeze. The wonderful westerly breeze that keeps us cool was making it impossible for me to work outside: it blew the nylon onto the patio, blew the locks onto the patio, and (worst of all) blew leaves and twigs from the overhanging birch tree onto the fleece. Dang! So where is the next largest horizontal surface that I can use for this? Simple: the kitchen island, eight feet of uninterrupted, tiled, perfect height for working, space. So what if it means we can't use the island for a couple days? I need to get this fleece washed. Everything got bundled back up, carried back into the house, and I spread out on the island and got to work.

The nylon netting is 72" wide, so I cut it into 24" lengths. That's enough to allow 2 rows of locks, or 4 to 5 ounces (washed weight), and still have enough space to completely enclose the locks in netting. Once the packages were finished, I gently rolled each into a cylinder (a wool "cake" if you will), pinned it, and put it into one of the large mesh laundry bags I normally use for washing. Each bag holds 6 rolls; the washer holds 2 bags. Then I just did my usual scouring. Once the bags were done, I spread out the rolls on the kitchen counter (which had been scrubbed down by this time) to dry. Over the course of two days, I washed 4 bags (24 rolls) of wool.

Some lovely discoveries in doing all this work. #1: This is a lot of work. It took two days to process 8 pounds of wool, and I have about another full day of work to finish off the fleece. #2: It's definitely worth it. Once washed, the fleece is snowy white, with nearly all the crimp still intact, and very little felting. For the several pounds I put aside for spinning as white yarn, all I need to do is flick a dog comb through the tips of the locks, and they're ready to spin. There are also very few second-cuts or noils, because I was able to pull all those out as I separated out the locks. #3: With the locks already wrapped in nylon, it's a relatively simple (if time-consuming) matter to sew the rolls shut and then chuck them into dye pots. I've been doing that for the past two days, and I'm getting some really nice dyed locks that will be fun to comb and spin. #4: I got to lovingly handle all this gorgeous fleece--just the experience is well worth all the effort.

2008-06-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

Spin Journal #9: Mr. Stinky

Sometimes my senses get ahead of my brain, and I get into trouble. I managed to do it again at Black Sheep, the big fiber festival. I cruised through the "non-show" fleece room on Saturday morning, just to check out what was for sale, and found a fleece that had real possibilities: nice color, good length, incredibly soft, and nice crimp. A good fleece; it was small (just under 3 1/2 pounds), but I wasn't looking for anything too large, so I bought it and dragged it back to the camp.

I should have looked closer.

My "find" was full of grass, bits of alfalfa, a few dung tags, and lots of tiny ladybird beetles. Worse, it stank--phew! I don't know what that sheep had been rolling in, but it was certainly fragrant. Oy vey--what had I gotten myself into? I wasn't really too sure, but I took a chance, pulled a random lock out of the bag, and trotted over to the ladies' room to give it a test wash with some of my shampoo. Hmmm.....the lock came clean, and when it dried, it was very soft, with a moderate amount of wavy crimp, and the same color as my own hair. The softness intrigued me--Romneys and Coopworths aren't really soft, but this was baby-fine, rather like llama. Could this be a hogget? Was there hope for this little fleece? I decided to take a chance on this stinky little fleece, packed it into the duffle bag with my beautiful black merino, and brought it home.

When I got home (and recovered from the train trip back to the Bay Area), I fired off an e-mail to the previous owner of this little fleece, Anna Harvey of Harvey Farms in Calpine. Specifically, I wanted to know what the sheep was that produced this fleece. While I waited for a return e-mail, I set about washing "Mr. Stinky." I normally don't pre-soak my fleeces--I buy almost exclusively from coated handspinning flocks, so there isn't that much dirt in the fleece. However, I don't think this sheep had even heard the word "coat," much less worn one. separated the fleece into three large mesh bags, filled the washer with cold water, and submerged the bags. The water turned black! I just shuddered and shut the lid on the washer to let them soak overnight.

The next morning, I drained and spun the mesh bags, and looked to see what was going on. The awful stench was gone, so I prepared for the next step: scouring. I use the directions given to me by Paula Shull last year, and they really work well for longwool fleece. I had cranked up the heat in the water heater to the highest setting, so I knew the water was hot enough for washing fleece. I filled the washer with hot water and 1 cup of Dawn dishwashing detergent, turned the washer off, and submerged the mesh bags full of fleece. Then I closed the lid and let it set for 40 minutes. I spun the water out, lifted the bags out, and refilled the washer with hot water again, then turned it off, and resubmerged the bags. After another 40-minute soak, I spun the water out a second time and took the bags out again. Once again, I filled the washer with hot water, this time adding a couple "glugs" of plain distilled "white" vinegar. Back into the water went the bags for their last 40-minute soak. After a ride through the spin cycle for the last time, I gently emptied the bags onto my drying racks.

To my amazement, it worked! The fleece was clean, soft, and beautiful. Most of the lock structure was still intact (important, as I'm combing this fleece), and I was able to shake out a lot of the vegetative matter (and lots of dead baby ladybird beetles). There's still a little VM left, but it's coming out as I comb.

The final treat was getting an e-mail answer back from Anna Harvey. It seems that Mr. Stinky is a ewe lamb named Vicky. So it turns out that Mr. Stinky is Miss Vicky, and Miss Vicky is actually a pretty nice hogget. Not bad for taking a chance and a day's work.

2008-06-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Good-bye G*d, I'm Going to Black Sheep, Part 2

Friday evening, the Ravelry members at Black Sheep gathered in the camping area for a potluck "meet-up," a new term for what was basically a mixer. About 20 people showed up, lugging chairs, knitting, spinning wheels, spindles, and goodies; not bad for something completely organized via the Internet. I was struck by how much many of us have in common, whether it's kids, work, or our love of fiber. All in all, it seemed a successful event, in spite of the oppressive heat.

The heat broke late Friday night with a patter of rain on the tent. As the first drops fell, I scurried out of the tent and gathered things up to shove under the awning over the central camp area. Throughout the rest of the night, we were treated to small showers of fat drops that sounded like popcorn as they hit the tent. Near dawn, several loud booms of thunder woke the entire camp, but we soon settled back to our respective beds. I learned later than the main part of the storm front was south of us; the dry lightning ignited nearly 1,000 wild fires in Northern California, many of which are still burning a week later.

Saturday was the big wool sale. Wool judging, under Letty Price, had gone on for most of Friday, but I managed to catch the end of the judging for the Breeder's Cup. In this competition, each shepherd/shepherdess has a group of 5 fleeces representative of his/her flock. When the judge pulled out a lock from a bag of Border Leicester, I couldn't help my self. "Oooh, sexy," came out of my mouth and fell into one of those absolute silences. Even the judge looked up. Everybody laughed and agreed, so I didn't feel quite so embarrassed. The sexy Border Leicester, along with a magnificent Border Leicester/Corriedale/Merino cross, secured the Breeder's Cup for Elizabeth Hubbard of Hub Corriedales.

Once the wool show and judging was over, the shoppers were allowed in for "the viewing." For about 30 minutes, everybody has the opportunity to examine the fleeces in the show, decide which (if any) are worth trying to purchase, and make plans to be the first person to the bag of fleece. This year, I was torn between two: a beautiful black Merino that had won the Colored Fine Wools, Greater Than 60s, and the above-mentioned Border Leicester cross. My problem was solved when someone offered to drive a fleece home for me. Next problem: How can I be in two places at the same time? Both fleeces were highly desireable, and across the room from each other. Fortunately, another spinner volunteered to run for the Border Leicester cross while I ran for the Merino. With our plans made, we exited the building and got into line for the big sale.

When the doors opened, it was an orderly, but hurried, scurry into the building. Some woman, caught sitting on the ground talking on her cell phone when the doors opened, nearly got trampled, but otherwise it was orderly. I ran over and grabbed the Merino, the other woman grabbed the Border Leicester, and within a few minutes I was standing in line, waiting to write out a check for both fleeces and receiving congratulations on the fleeces in my possession. The exclamations and congratulations continued across the parking lot and into the campground as we carried my new purchases back to the camp. I pulled a couple locks from each bag and hand-washed them in the ladies' room so I could see what I had gotten: they're beautiful!

Once I finished buying all that fleece, I was pretty much "shopped out," so I spent the rest of the festival enjoying myself--spinning, talking to people, attending the annual potluck and Spinner's Lead, and hanging out. The train trip back to the Bay Area was uneventful, and now I'm facing washing a mountain of laundry and fleece.

2008-06-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Good-bye G*d, I'm Going to Black Sheep, Part I

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, the school year ends and spinners and other fiber folk gather at the Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene to celebrate things sheepy and fibery. I don't want to get into a deep anthropo-socio-mumbo-jumbo analysis of the fact that the fiber arts seem to attract many more women than men, nor that the Black Sheep Gathering occurs in close proximity to the summer solstice; I just want to spend several days camping with friends, looking at sheep and goats, and spending money on something I really like: fiber.

I went to Black Sheep last year (see the posts dates 6/28 - 7/1), and at that time wrote a pretty thorough description of what the festival was like. This year was, on the surface, very similar: everybody that was camping stayed in Jefferson Park behind the fairgrounds; there were a slew of terrific classes (all of which I mightily resisted); the shopping was incredible, in spite of several long-time vendors not being in attendance; the Shetland lambs were once again voted "most likely to be smuggled home"; and the wool show and sale was irresistible.

Our little group on the train was larger by one this year, and Amtrak made a real effort to be punctual, pulling out of the Martinez train station right on time. This trip up I discovered that, in spite of my very best intentions to keep doing everything I could do when I was 20, Mother Time is starting to catch up with me physically--I can't curl up and sleep in a coach seat. I'd doze for a while, then my shoulder would start to bother me, I'd try to move around and get comfortable again, doze a while longer, and the whole process would start again. I finally gave up around sunrise, grabbed my knitting, and went up to the Lounge car to watch the sun rise over the Sacramento River and Mount Shasta. Beautiful! Eventually, I was joined by everybody else, and we had a grand time, taking over one end of the Lounge car. We found that some of the seats swivel, and Laura pulled out her Ashford Joy and worked on spinning up the fleece she got at last year's Black Sheep, while the rest of us spun, knitted, or crocheted.

Big surprise when we--and our mountain of luggage--piled off the train in Eugene. It was hot! Wait, this isn't what was forecast!?! We discovered that Eugene was in the grip of an unusually hot, unusually humid stretch of weather, and none of us had really prepared for hot weather. I brought plenty of jeans and long-sleeved Ts, but no capris or short-sleeved Ts. No matter--we can cope. We found a couple of taxis to get us--and our mountain of luggage--to the fairgrounds, got camp set up, then several of us braved the bus system and made our way to the market to buy provisions for the weekend. OK, so there was a slight detour to Ben & Jerry's for ice cream--we really needed it. We also opted for a taxi back to the fairgrounds, as we had exchanged our mountain of luggage for a hill of shopping bags full of good things to eat.

Friday dawned hot and humid. Very humid. I did the best I could, and made a beeline for the Black Sheep information and T-shirt booth, and picked up a couple short-sleeved Ts to get me through the weekend. After changing into one, I started fulfilling my main purpose in going to Black Sheep: shopping. A new WooLee Winder and some additional bobbins solved the last little problems with my Sonata, a nice chunk of targhee roving gave me something to spin, and I managed to "pick up" some other nice little doo-dads and bits of fiber: two sets of stainless steel DPNs; a protective cap for my favorite Spindlewood spindle; 2 oz. of passionately purple pygora; a bump of royal blue merino; and, of course, sock yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. By lunch time, I had made all my "necessary" purchases, and settled into the Spinners Circle with my Sonata to enjoy the the comraderie, keep an eye on the Sheep to Shawl competition, and get some of that targhee spun up.

While all this was going on, a wide-spread but low-key game of Bingo was going on. Organized by two women on the Black Sheep Gathering group on Ravelry, Black Sheep Bingo was a variation of that old "icebreaker" game of bingo, where you have to find people that fit the descriptions in your bingo card squares. This time, the Bingo squares had the names and Ravelry IDs of the "squares," and "players" were to go around and find those people, who were wearing badges that identified them as squares. A lot of us were both squares and players, and it seemed that the most common greeting that weekend was, "I think you're on my Bingo card." The Spinners Circle became Bingo Central, and hanging out there guaranteed that you met a lot of people. While I didn't find everybody on my card, and didn't win anything in the raffle (not surprising--I don't have that kind of luck), the "game" itself was a tremendous load of fun. It also did something that frequently doesn't happen at fiber festivals: people got out and met new people with a common interest face-to-face. Too often, we travel to multi-day fiber festivals in others in our circle of friends, or with our guilds, and we socialize exclusively with those people. Black Sheep Bingo made people meet one another, and many new friendships were formed.

Tomorrow: a Ravelry meet-up and the Wool Sale!

2008-06-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

Veni, Vidi, Knitti

Today is the fourth World Wide Knit In Public Day, so I did what hundreds of thousands of women (and some men) did today--I took myself and my knitting outside and knitted in public with a bunch of other women (and some men).

KIP Day began in 2005, when Danielle Landes, a fiber artist/jeweler/knitter decided that too many people knitted in private. People could go for years not knowing that their next door neighbor knitted socks, or that the woman up the street spun silk. To stop this artistic isolation, she came up with the idea that knitters (and other fiber folk) would get together in previously-announced locations on the second Saturday in June, talk, knit, and share their art and passion. In 2005, there were 20 sites. In 2006, KIP Day had grown to 70 sites, and more people were getting interested in knitting, crochet, and other fiber arts. In 2007, there were more than 200 sites, and local newspapers were starting to notice all these knitters.

In 2008, thanks to word of mouth (both live and electronic), there are 782 "official" KIP Day sites (ones registered with WWKIPD and listed on their website), and probably hundreds of other ad hoc sites where knitters simply are pulling their needles out and proudly knitting in public. While most of the sites are in the United States and Western Europe, there are people knitting on every continent.

Since there weren't any very local sites, I went down to Knit-One- One in Berkeley, to hang out and start a new pair of socks. A cute little fiber studio owned by Sile Convery near the Ashby BART stop, K11 is fronted by a wide sidewalk with street trees, and is next door to Sweet Adeline, a simply scrumptious bakery. Knitting was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m., and by 10:30, 30-40 women (and a few men) were seated in a large circle on the sidewalk, sipping coffee, nibbling goodies from the bakery, talking, laughing, and knitting. Everyone admired each other's yarns and handiwork, ranging from tiny socks for a granddaughter, to a sweater, while several people used giant needles and bulky yarn to garter-stitch a "tag" for one of the trees: a "sweater" for one of it's branches.

I was in a bit of a bind for knitting-- nothing I had was truly portable. I wasn't sure of the space available, so I didn't want to bring my wheel. I couldn't take the Shawl of Many Samples because I didn't have any yarn. I have 3 skeins of yarn for the SMS, but they aren't washed, so they can't be knitted into the shawl yet. I thought I might have enough spun, dyed, and skeined Falklands for another pair of socks, and when I dug into the stash, I found this was the case. I wound the skeins (about 550 yards total) into balls, packed them up with my KnitPicks case, and as I sat there in the sun, did something I dislike intensely and almost never do: I swatched. I usually don't swatch because I can judge pretty accurately what needles are needed for nearly any type of yarn (a skill that develops with experience), but this time I wanted to try a different pattern (basketweave), and I like the color of this Falklands, so I want the socks to go very right. I knitted the swatch, and to reward myself for being so good, treated myself to a vegan dried-fruit oatmeal cookie from Sweet Adeline. Now that's a breakfast! I now have a lovely little basketweave sample, I was correct on the size needle I need to use with this yarn (size #4), so now I'll cast on the actual sock and get to work.

2008-06-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

I Can Quit Any Time I Want To*

There's an interesting thread on one of the Ravelry forums/groups right now entitled, "Are you a fiber junkie too?" Mostly it's a humorous discussion of the size of our respective fiber stashes, the hordes of equipment we've accumulated, and how we can't seem to pass up a deal on fiber, be it fleece, roving, or yarn.

However, this thread also has me thinking about the nature of addiction, and how we throw that word around so casually. True addiction is not funny--I've watched people battle uncontrollable dependencies on tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and gambling, and I've seen the havoc wreaked upon family and friends by their actions.

OK, this is getting waaaaaay too serious. Let's do a little etymology. No, not bugs, that's entymology; etymology is the study of words and their origins. According to Michael Quinion on his Website World Wide Words, the word was first used in written literature by William Shakespeare in 1598 to describe a strong inclination; in Henry V, the Archbishop of Canterbury marvels at Henry's knowledge of theology, saying that "His addiction was to courses vain." (Henry V, Act I, Scene 1) The word continued to be used in that fashion until the early part of the 20th century, when it was co-opted to describe someone with a dependency on a drug. By the 1990s, use of the word had expanded. Michael Larkin and Richard Wood of Nottingham University presented a paper to the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group in February, 1998 on this phenomenon, noting that the word has become “a scapegoat for the nineties — a moral label for what society feels isn’t acceptable. Lots of people are being called addicts when they’re just engaging in unusual behaviour." Under this definition, somebody that enjoys walking briskly every morning, or sitting down to relax by spinning some yarn on their wheel, could be considered just as much an addict as the junkie attempting to score his or her next fix.

I think many people (usually) outside the sphere of the "addict" use the term is because they do not understand the difference between dependency on and passion for something. Dependency requires that one surrender to the object, whether it is a drug or something that triggers an adrenalin rush. It is the object or the action that is in control, and the demands of the object or action are given first priority by the person.

On the other hand, passion causes the object to surrender to the person. It is the person that is in control, and while they may enjoy their pursuit, they are able to put it aside when necessary to focus on other tasks at hand. A fiber addict may enjoy buying and processing raw fleece, then spinning it into yarn to knit, crochet, or weave with, but they will not sacrifice the basic needs of themselves and their family simply to buy more fiber. The person is in control (even if we whine that we have no willpower, before bragging about our latest finds.)

We need a new word. I vote "avocation" (an activity taken up in addition to one's regular work or profession; a hobby). When I hear the word, I smilingly think of the quintessential Londoner pottering about his backyard garden after work, changing the plants in the carpet bed and moving the garden gnomes. For many of us, our fondness for the fiber arts is an avocation--we have good jobs that support ourselves, our families, and our growing stashes of fiber. We mess about with fiber as a way to relax, to express ourselves artistically, and to make the world a little bit nicer through our efforts. Our families may think it steals a little time away from them, but we come to them richer for our time spent focused on the beauty found in our collections of fibers.

*but why would I want to?

2008-05-31T23:41:00.001-07:00

Spin Journal #8: Shawl of Many Samples

I've been playing with the new Sonata to get used to it quickly, as I'm taking it to Black Sheep Gathering in three weeks. Since the fastest way to get used to a wheel is to spin on it, I tackled the rest of the samples from last year's color blending workshop. As I spun, I started to think about what I could do with all the samples and leftovers I have accumulated over 14 years of spinning. There's a lot, because I usually just "tag 'em and bag 'em," then throw them in a drawer in the studio. The drawer is full to overflowing with singles, 2-ply, 3-ply, and other weird bits of yarn. I need to do something with them, but what?

As I spun, the idea finally came to me: using the Danish WrapTie Shawl pattern in the current issue of Spin-Off, knit a "shawl of many samples" out of all the samples. I quit spinning, and spent about an hour sorting through the many samples, using the ball winder and swift to roll everything plied into balls for knitting, and the singles into balls for adding onto the yarns on the wheel. Once I moved the singles over to the bobbins (I ended up with 2 full ones), I Navajo-plied the singles into a nice 3-ply, DK-weight yarn. A bit of "aggressive finishing" in hot soapy water with a plunger, then a rinse and hanging to dry, and my myriad samples are starting to knit into an interesting shawl.

So far, so good. Maybe a little heavy on the brown Romney? Lincoln? I spun some time in the last century. As it is, I don't have quite enough "sample" fiber to knit the entire shawl, so I've had to do a bit of judicious fiber buying to round out the amount of yarn required for this project. I found what I was looking for at the annual "Spinning @ the Winery" in Livermore: a luscious dark green CVM/tussah/silk noil roving that will complement the brown. Then I found some rainbow-hued Targhee roving, so that came home too. All this new fiber gives me an additional 8 ounces of variegated fiber, which should end up in nearly enough (along with all the samples) to complete this shawl.

2008-05-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

...and Kromski makes 4

2008 is going down in history as "The Year of the Wheels." For our 30th anniversary (see my May 14 entry), we both got "wheels." Stephen got a new truck. I got a new spinning wheel.

I've wanted a good, modern, folding wheel for traveling to workshops, meetings, demos, and festivals since taking my Wendy wheel to Black Sheep last year, and discovering that one of the gorillas of Amtrak had stacked luggage on top of my poor little wheel. Fortunately, the wheel survived nicely, thank you very much, but I was a bit put out and not a little concerned. After all, I can't get replacement parts for that wheel. Traveling with the Reeves is even worse--it's a real collector's item, and I'd be crushed if something happened to it. It's also heavy! I started thinking about a Kromski Sonata after I had a chance to spin on a friend's Kromski, and I like that it came with a good padded travel bag. So I ordered the Kromski, Stephen paid for it, and it was mine.

I finally had a chance to sit down and spin on it, and I'm satisfied. It took a bit of getting used to at first--I normally spin on single-treadle, double-band drive wheels, and the Sonata is a double-drive, Scotch-tensioned wheel. It required a bit of adjustment in my spinning style, but once I made the adjustments, the yarn I was able to produce was pretty decent. I didn't want to waste anything really good while playing around with it, and most of the fiber is packed away, but I found a bump of carded Border Leicester combing waste, and started with that. The fiber is full of neps so the resulting yarn isn't great, but I could spin a fairly fine thread pretty quickly, and I spun a half-bobbin in no time.

It turned out that a half-bobbin was all I could stand of that nasty, neppy mess. I still have a bunch of the "samples" from the color blending workshop I took last year, almost all of buttery-soft merino, so I switched to that and yay! the wheel spins great.

2008-05-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

Home Improvement

How many trips to Home Depot does it take before a project qualifies as "home improvement"? The current project has taken two trips to Home Depot (and there will be at least one more, as I didn't get some cedar planking) and three trips to IKEA (shelving), so I guess it qualifies.

After nearly a year, we are getting close to the end of the work done on the attic. It began last summer with replacing the attic stairs. The old stairs were in place when we bought the house in 1994; they were cheap and rickety, and too small for the space (the upstairs hall). Someone had extended the legs to make up the difference, but one side rail was cracked when we bought the house, and the stairs continued to deteriorate. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did! The new stairs are the really nice rolling ladder stairs--they're pretty common on the East Coast, but rare here in California, and it took several months to find a contractor willing to install the stairs. We finally found one, and after several months, and two sets of rolling stairs (the first set was too short), we had our stairs.

After the stairs were complete, the "stair guys" decided they had done enough, and claimed they were too busy to do the next phase of the project: removing the blown-in cellulose insulation and installing a floor in the attic. It took 6 months to find another contractor willing to do the job for a decent price, but the work was started in late April, with immediate consequences: one of the workers put his foot through the lath-and-plaster ceiling in the guest room, leaving a 2x4-foot hole. A few days later, another worker did the same thing in my studio/office. Sigh. The contractor patched the lath where it was broken, and I cleaned up the broken plaster and lots of dust.

In spite of the floor not being completely installed, I simply couldn't stand the mess throughout the house (everything in the attic is currently in the upstairs hall, the library, and the dining room). We made a couple trips to IKEA to purchase their Gorm shelving units and assorted parts, and began building and installing shelves in the "finished" portions of the attic. Stephen also took the time to install some lights for us and we moved a few boxes back up and put them on the shelves. What a difference! I feel like I have some control over the project, and know it is only a matter of time until everything is back up in the attic where it belongs, neatly boxed and labeled.

2008-05-18T18:17:00.001-07:00

Ravelry: Fiber's FaceBook

I've succumbed to the lure of the social network. After 15+ years of e-mail, forums, ListServs, UseNet groups, and YahooGroups, I've finally waded into the "world" of social networking with joining Ravelry.

I hadn't even heard of Ravelry until about 2 weeks ago, when I was reading old e-newsletters from the guild, and there was a mention of it. I was curious, so I checked it out, and got on the waiting list to be a member. It's a little odd--I'm used to lists and groups that either allow immediate access, or access with 24 hours, and here I was being asked to wait until they had space for me. Surely there aren't that many fiber fans in the world!?! It turns out, there are. Ravelry currently has 126,000+ registered users, and an additional 1,000 are added each day. I got my "invitation" on Wednesday, and joined.

OK, I like this Website. The coolest part of the entire Website is the Notebook you can set up of your projects, your stash, your tools, and just about anything else you might want to organize. Even better: you can link to most of the blog sites and Flickr, and easily add photos and links to blog entries. This just may be one of the best organizational tools around for fiber folk. It's pretty intuitive (if you can put your pictures on Flickr, you can do most of the stuff on the site without the tutorial), and it seems pretty easy to update things on the fly. I put a couple projects in the notebook, linked them to photos on Flickr, linked them to entries in this blog, and it all seems pretty tidy.

The groups are OK; I think I need to look at them some before making a final decision, as I'm already used to my YahooGroups, and know a lot of people on them. However, the Group feature would be terrific as an online list for members of a spinning guild.

So check it out! http://www.ravelry.com/

2008-05-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

Thinking About 30

May 14 has arrived once again, so I stop and consider what I have done in the past 30 years on this date. On this date in history was the Battle of Lewes (1264), the Coronation of Charles VIII (1483), the founding of Jamestown (1607), and the creation of Israel (1948). Thirty years ago today, I helped my younger brother deliver a load of newspapers for a friend that was on vacation.

And I married.

Spending most of one's adult life sharing living space with the same person is a bit daunting when viewed from the front end, but in looking back, I'm a little surprised at how much we've done, and how easy most of it was to do. We've lived in 5 different places: 3 in Southern California, 2 in Northern California. We've traveled to Mexico 3 times, to Europe twice. One or the other of us has worked, gone back to school, changed careers, and/or retired. We've stuck together through broken bones, major surgeries, and the loss of parents and friends. We've even managed to survive construction, remodeling, redecorating, and relandscaping. It's been, to steal a line from the Grateful Dead, "a long, strange trip," but by and large, it's been fun. OK, the broken leg while we were moving in 1994 wasn't fun, but most of it was fun. We've reached that stage in our relationship where divorce really is something that happens to "other people." We used to joke that we could never divorce because who would get custody of the books? Now, splitting us up would be the equivalent of splitting up that comfortable old pair of shoes: you might find another, newer shoe to replace the one you took away, but it would never be the same pair again.

So, was there a huge celebration for this momentous occasion? No. I actually spent it doing much the same thing I did 31 years ago today: dealing with school, and getting paperwork sorted out so I can continue my education. Got everything squared away (two weeks of telephone calls and letters, to solve an issue that should have taken--and took--only five minutes once I went down there), shared a sandwich on campus, then went over to the library to do some research on the Los Angeles student walkouts of March 1968. Spent part of the day working on papers that are due by the end of the week. Tried to deal with the oppressive heat and humidity (July has suddenly arrived in mid-May). Pretty much a normal day.

Number 30 has come and almost gone. Now it's on to Number 31 and beyond.

2008-05-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

Vanishing Act

No, I didn't fall into a weird wormhole through the time-space continuum, I wasn't abducted by aliens, and I haven't spent the past 8 1/2 months participating in secret Government-run experiments on hapless goats to create non-shrinkable, hard-wearing cashmere. Where I've been for most of the past year can be summed up in one word.

School.

My students (60 freshmen and 100 juniors) arrived in my classroom on August 21, and it's been a non-stop, madhouse scramble to write lesson plans, run off copies of worksheets, grade papers, and do all those things a full-time high school teacher does. It's fun, but challenging, and very time-consuming.

At the end of September, graduate school started. I decided last April to pursue an Administrative Credential and a Master of Sciences in Educational Leadership for that most basic (and base, in my mind) reasons: I want to make a lot more money than I make as a classroom teacher. I wanted to get the entire program finished in two years, which meant becoming a full-time graduate student in addition to being a full-time teacher. So now, when I'm not grading papers, I'm writing them.

Fortunately, this has been a good year for travel, so I've been able to escape everything periodically by running away to far-off places. Late November found me in the Big Apple, strolling through the Met and marveling at the balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and the lovely windows at Lord & Taylors. New Year's Eve was celebrated "Old School" (perhaps, "Old Country") with a marvelous candle-lit 18th century dinner at the King's Arms Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg. Easter afternoon I was sitting in London's Heathrow Airport, awaiting my flight to Malaga for a week in sunny Spain, followed by a second week back in London. So I've been busy.

My wheel and needles have also been busy. I've nearly finished spinning some truly wild blue and fuschia mohair, and have cranked out several different projects, including one of those circular sweaters in a deep heathery green, and a pair of long stockings out of handspun merino. Currently on the needles is the second sock from some dark purple Honey Lane alpaca that I bought at Stitches West last year. It knits up beautifully, and the socks will be pretty and warm when finished.

Now that school is starting to slow down (25 school days and counting), I can finally look up from my books, and post my rants and raves again. Pax, in advance.

2007-08-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Back to the Salt Mines

Sadly, summer has come to an end. Officially, summer doesn't end until the Autumnal Equinox, on September 23rd this year, but summer ends for teachers when they go back to work after a too-short summer break. This year's break was impossibly short: the last day of school was June 16th, and we were required to be back at work this morning, only nine weeks after leaving books, grades, and students behind. The students have only a slightly longer break; they'll be in class tomorrow morning at 7:50 a.m., and the treadmill of the school year begins once again.

Summer has wrapped up in a rush, with moving to a different classroom across the campus from where I've been for the past 10 years, getting used to working with a new group of teachers, and getting ready for the new challenges that come with teaching a new grade and subject (9th grade Geography) with brand-new books and materials. No matter what, everything that needed to be done by this afternoon was finished--the kids arrive tomorrow morning, whether I'm ready for them or not. Fortunately, school starts slowly, and the first week is spent on "resocializing" the students after two months of them running wild. During that time, I can make decisions on how to start tackling the material, getting books passed out and assigned, and training my "little puppies" to start acting like the adults they so desperately want to be treated as.

Meanwhile, I wrapped up the fiber tasks that had to be completed before work again moves to the center stage. The black Romney is washed! I followed Paula Schull's instructions for washing fleece, and the entire fleece came out incredibly clean and soft, with 97% of the lock structure intact. I spent part of yesterday combing about a pound of clean fleece, and there's very little waste; I'm going to end up with about 80% of the fleece turned into buttery-soft sliver, perfect for spinning. The question now: do I comb it all before starting to spin, or do I spin as I comb? Time and inclination will tell.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to work on the pinwheel sweater. It is growing, slowly. I'm now past the point where the sleeves go, and am now working to make it large enough to close in the front. It's incredibly boring knitting (good for meetings), so I keep telling myself "Done is beautiful," so I'll finish it before I start on another project.

2007-08-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

Done Is Beautiful

How many projects do you have partially finished? How many sweaters are knitted, but not assembled? How many socks are awaiting heels? How many knitting needles, crochet hooks, or bobbins have you bought because the others are currently "dedicated" to another project? These things, usually known as UnFinished Objects (or UFOs) seem to be the bane of every fiber artist, needleworker, or reenactor. My own list is frighteningly long, and covers a multitude of different crafts: spinning, weaving, dyeing, knitting, crocheting, sewing. This tendency to create UFOs slops over into other areas: the house, the gardens.

In some cases, there's a good reason for a project stalling. For example, we can't do any more work on the house until the attic renovation is finished, and we're currently waiting on the "stair guys" to call us with a start date on the new attic stairs installation. We need to finish landscaping the last part of the backyard, but I need 3 Cecile Brunner climbers and the nursery has to special-order them.

In other cases, however, it's simply my own broad interests, and boredom with doing just one thing at a time, that causes a closet full of UFOs. Sometimes, I just don't feel like sewing, or crocheting, or knitting. Sometimes, I need something for a specific reenacting event, so I have to drop everything to work on that project. Sometimes, what I thought was just going to take a day or two takes a week or two...or month or two...or a year or two. So I end up with yet another UFO.

Fortunately, I'm not alone in this affliction--it seems to affect all of us at one time or another, and among my group of friends, it's considered nearly normal. However, we're all trying to change our ways, and we've adopted a new mantra: Done Is Beautiful. Get one project finished before you start the next project. Revel in the sense of accomplishment when you can finally look at something, and realize that the rest of the yarn can be thrown into the scrap wool bin, or the tools can finally be cleared off the front porch.

Obviously, it's impossible to have just one knitting project going on at a time, especially if knitting is something that gets dragged to meetings. Lace knitting just doesn't work when you have to keep track of what some moron is proposing during a meeting, so "brainless" knitting projects are essential for taking to meetings, watching movies, and hanging out. As a break from brainless knitting, I need one regular knitting project. As a break from knitting, I need one crochet project. As a break from yarn, I need a costuming project. As a break from costuming...wait a minute...I'm back to the stack of UFOs. Done is beautiful. Done is beautiful. Done is beautiful. Let's try this again.

1 pair of socks from handspun (regular knitting project)
1 pinwheel sweater (brainless knitting project)
1 afghan (crochet project)
1 late 15th/early 16th century Flemish dress (costuming project)
1 lb. of Falklands combed top (spinning project)
Install drip system to plants in containers (gardening project)

This is what I'll admit to right now. The true list is much, much longer, but this is enough to keep me busy, especially as my wonderful, blissful, child-free summer has come to an abrupt end with the news that I need to move, lock, stock, and cases of paper, to a new classroom across the campus from my old classroom. I hate moving, as it generates its own list of things that have to be done, all with a deadline of August 21st. Most of the big things (packing, moving, and unpacking all my books, papers, supplies, and files; setting up the room) are finished, but there are the details:

Organizing my desk
Hanging my historical posters, credentials, and awards
Hanging the screen for the overhead projector
Changing the door knobs on the closet so I can chain and lock them
Pulling hundreds of staples out of the wooden walls--did I mention this room has no bulletin boards?

I will get all this done: the classroom stuff in time for the start of school, and the rest eventually. I will get this done because...

Done is Beautiful.

2007-07-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hot Fun in the Summertime: Lambtown U.S.A.

The 21st annual Dixon Lambtown U.S.A. festival came around again this weekend. Lambtown originally started in the mid-1980s as a way for the small Central Valley town of Dixon to celebrate their their links to lamb and sheep production, and to draw people to the town best known for a 5-day country fair in early May (the Dixon May Fair). Dixon was one of the centers of California lamb (as in "leg of") production during most of the 20th century, with two large meat-packing plants providing most of the town's non-farming employment. Dixon needs all the help it can get in the summer: the town is located in the "agriculturally-oriented" eastern part of Solano County, and July there is both incredibly hot (around 100 degrees) and humid. The festival, famous for its lamb cook-off, mutton-busting, and sheep shearing competition, began to change about seven years ago with the addition of a wool show and fiber festival, and is now Northern California's mid-summer fiber festival.

This year's festival came about in spite of the trials and tribulations that only small town politics can cause. The festival, depending on who you talk to, has been the victim of poor attendance, poor publicity, high prices for renting the festival site, lack of volunteers, lack of corporate sponsors, or a combination of issues and problems. The festival was moved from the Dixon May Fair Grounds, up the street to the smaller, but much nicer, Hall Park between the Dixon City Hall and the Senior Center. The festival was cut from two days to one, with the resulting logistical headaches caused by cramming two days worth of fiber classes and competitions into one. The livestock-related events (which are the big draw, according to some of the local papers) such as mutton-busting, competitive sheep shearing, and sheep dog trials, had to be cancelled.

Note to the powers-that-be at the Dixon May Fair Grounds: I heard how much you wanted ($,$$$/day) to rent your facilities. You can rent the entire Solano County Fairgrounds--including the horseracing track--for less.

We (I "dragged" my friend Betsy along with me) got down there early on Saturday morning, and started off the day by checking out the forty or so fiber vendors. Alpacas seem to be the current favorite livestock "pet," and most of the vendors had alpaca fleece, alpaca roving, alpaca yarn, and items made from alpaca for sale; one vendor even had a very cute Suri alpaca (but I don't think he was for sale). Instead, his owner had taught him a few very cute "stupid alpaca tricks," and had him performing for treats (alpaca pellets). This fair, I was smart: I came armed with a list, and pretty much stuck to it. I found a grist control card to help me continue to work on consistency, got a new multi-hole diz for pulling sliver off the combs, and a Weavette for doing up samples, as they seem to be required more and more for skein competitions. I admired all the alpaca, but didn't buy any; I already have a pile of millspun alpaca to knit/crochet, some alpaca to spin, and too much fiber already. Anyway, I was waiting to pick up my fleeces from Black Sheep, and find another fleece.

Eventually, we found our way over to the Senior Center, where the Skeins & Textiles competition was on display. Much to my delight, there was a blue, first-place ribbon on the Monmouth Cap, and a red, second-place ribbon on the skein of SoySilk I swore and sweated over. The 3-ply Gotland I rushed to finish for this fair didn't place, but I'm not surprised--it's my first attempt at 3-plying off 3 bobbins, and it's difficult to control the tension properly.

After a leisurely survey of the entire fair, we went back to the car, retrieved our wheels, and set up camp under a shady tree for an afternoon of spinning. So many people came by to watch and ask questions I felt like I was doing an impromptu demo of spinning techniques, but it was fun. Eventually, we moved closer to see the sheep shearing demonstration, and ended up with perfect seats for the National Spinning Competition. This competition is enough to test the mettle of the best spinner, as it requires the winning spinner to be good at lots of different things: spinning consistently, plying, designing novelty yarns on the fly, spinning blindfolded, and spinning in rubber dish gloves. The prize for the winner was a nice reward for all this work: a Kromski Sonata spinning wheel.

There was a wool show and sale that, after Black Sheep, seemed small (about 60 fleeces, including mohair and alpaca), but most of the local woolgrowers were well represented. The Grand Champion fleece was a luscious white Merino, while the other top fleeces were a yummy dark charcoal Halfblood and a lustrous Romney x Coopworth. The logistics of the move and shortening the fair may have intruded on the wool show and sale, as the tent where the wool show was going on was used for the National Spinning Competition, people couldn't easily get to the fleeces to examine and purchase them. Also, for some reason, most of the fleeces didn't have prices on them, and it was difficult to transact a sale, as the fleeces didn't have the growers' names on them. Fortunately, I "lucked out" in several ways: I found a beautiful black Romney that had a reasonable price on it, and was able to find the grower--Ace Vandenack--and give him the cash I had for buying fleece. Mr. Vandenack joked that he didn't really want to sell the fleece and was considering showing it again, then let me keep the first-place ribbon the fleece had won in its class (Natural Colored Wool, 50-54s).

We missed the Spinners Lead, as we weren't sure where it was happening, and both of us had promised to help one of the vendors pack up her booth, so we spent the rest of the fair relaxing, packing, and moving boxes, baskets, bins, bags, and spinning wheels into various cars and trucks. We came home with a back seat full of wool, sunburns, and a renewed appreciation for our craft. Below are a couple of photos of the black Romney fleece, but they don't do it justice: the fleece is really black, and the few brown tips are dark brown, rather than the orange in the photograph. But you can see the wonderful crimp and lock structure.

2007-07-27T09:10:00.001-07:00

Spin Journal #7: Cooking Up Something Wild

After stewing, simmering, and baking the "found" Romney to get some truly wild yarn, I've knitted a silly hat based on a pattern for a South American chullo hat. For some reason, this hat has earned the nickname of a "Jayne Hat," after appearing on a character in the TV show Firefly (which I've never seen). The hat itself is a simple stockinet cap with ear flaps, but trimmed out with all manner of yarn braids. Since starting the hat, I've noticed it appearing in all sorts of unusual places, including on the head of Ron Weasley in the 3rd Harry Potter movie.

The Cherry/Blue Berry Kool-Aid Colortwist ended up with the colortwist spaced far enough apart that the yarn self-striped. To make it a truly "unique" (is that code for "ugly"?), I put several yarn braids sprouting out of the crown. More yarn braids on the ends of the ear flaps keep them from curling up like overcook calamari (a problem with stockinet knitting); the individual braids looked a little skimpy, so I combined them into 4-braid plaits.

I'm now the proud owner of a completely silly, one-of-a-kind, warm hat to wear at cold fiber-related events. One thing about this hat: everybody will know it's mine. Who else would make or wear such a hat? Who else would wear such a hat? The darling, long-suffering, and ever-patient husband consented to serve as my model for these photos of my latest creation.

2007-07-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

White, Red, and Blue, Blue, Blue!

Once again, the Solano County Fair has come and gone. It's rather like a rite of mid-summer: the Fair opens, almost nobody shows up except those loonies (like me) that love county fairs, the Fair closes, and I go pick up my entries and a sheaf of ribbons.

This year, I didn't enter any jams, jellies, or pickles in the Preserved Foods competition. Preserved Foods is a bit tricky to do in the Bay Area: most of the county fairs happen just as the major canning season starts, and things have to be put up within 1 year of the opening day of the fair. This means you either spend most of the summer putting up things that won't be judged for nearly a year, or you scramble at the last minute to come up with award-winning entries. I've done both, and won both Best of Show and Reserve Best of Show in both 2004 and 2006. However, I didn't do any canning last summer because it was much too hot, and then we went on vacation for 3 weeks. I tried to do a little canning right before the deadline, but my heart really in it this year, and I wasn't satisfied with the results, so I just passed on entering anything.
I made up for the lack of Preserved Foods by entering a bunch of different things in different Textile and Baked Goods classes. Even though I was hampered by a bad can of baking powder--Clabber Girl, the baking powder I've used for the past 40 years seems to have been reformulated to remove any trans-fats (in baking powder?!?) and doesn't act the same as the old baking powder--I still had 9 of 10 entries finish "in the money," and 5 of the 9 had blue ribbons tacked up next to them. I did nearly as well in the fiber arts: 6 of 7 entries finished in the money, and 3 won blue ribbons.

But wait! There's more!

I came home Friday evening, and there was a telephone message from someone at the Solano County Fair, telling me I had won a "special award," and that I and two guests were being "comped" admission to the Fair on Saturday, so I could be present at the awards ceremony at 6:00 p.m. As we were already going to the Fair with a bunch of friends, and had a fistful of comped admission tickets already, I didn't worry about retrieving the comp tickets. We went off to the Fair, spent an hour buying different snack-like foods (corn dogs; garlic fries) that went well with beer, and made our way over to the MacCormack Building for the big awards ceremony. We got there early, snagged perches on a couple benches, and waited. And waited. AND WAITED. Nearly an hour after the ceremony was supposed to start, it finally did...with the announcements of the winners of the different 4H awards. Now, I don't have a problem with 4H, and it was sort of cute (for the first 10 minutes) to see these little kids go up to receive little trophies and cash prizes for growing 28-lb. cabbages, making the best jam, or stuffing and mounting a buffalo head. However, it was hot (the MacCormack Building doesn't have air conditioning), everybody was tired, and we missed several hours of the fair.

However, the Fair officials finally got the end of all the kids' awards, and announced that Meyer Cookware Co. had donated two of their 5-piece bakeware sets for a Cookie Bake-Off, so all the cookie entries had been entered. A little girl who won for her baking won the Junior Division Cookie Bake-Off, then the official doing the emceeing said, "During the entry check-in, a woman came in with all these entries, and when I said she must be hoping to win at least one blue ribbon, she said, 'I don't do this for the blue ribbons...I'm going for the Best of Show, Reserve Best of Show, and the Sweepstakes.' Well, she didn't win those, but her cookie entry was loved by every one of the judges. The winner of the Senior Division Meyer Cookie Bake-Off is Dawn Jacobson!" The Lizzies, made from a recipe from my grandmother's cousin Mary, had won what turned out to be this year's top prize. I was both very pleased (it's a great recipe) and very embarrassed (Did I really sound that arrogant?) as I went up, posed for a "grab it and grin" photo, and got my set of bakeware, to the cheers and applause of my friends and the rest of the crowd.

So, the results:

Blue (1st Place) Ribbons:
--Banana Bread (my grandmother's recipe wins for the second year in a row)
--Streusel Coffee Cake
--Carrot-Pineapple Muffins
--Lizzies
--Lemon-Poppyseed Bread
--Handspun Yarn, 2-ply, Other Than Wool (SoySilk)
--Handspun, Handknitted Item (Monmouth Cap)
--Handknitted Item, Other (Child's Vest)

Red (2nd Place) Ribbons:
--Currant Scones
--Handspun Yarn, 2-ply, Wool (Corriedale)
--Handknitted Item, Socks

White (3rd Place) Ribbons:
--Hot Milk Cake
--Chile-Cheese Cornbread
--Nut Brown Bread
--Handspun Yarn, Singles, Wool (Suffolk)

2007-07-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Landscaping, or "You couldn't pay me to do this!"

I've been remiss in writing my blog, spinning, or weaving the bookmarks due October 1st because we (me and the long-suffering, ever-patient husband) have been relandscaping the front yard. Landscaping is one of the items on that short list of things that I will do for myself (because I'm a cheapskate), but that I would never willingly do for any amount of money, because it's far too much like work.

"Gardening" is not "landscaping." Gardening is fun. I love to putter in the garden, snipping dead flowers off the roses, pulling a few weeds, especially with a lovely cold beverage at hand, and the promise of grilled food and dinner on the patio that evening. Landscaping, on the other hand, involves moving large quantities of very heavy topsoil, fertilizer, soil amendments, and mulch. Landscaping requires the use of tools like rakes, shovels, and in our area, a mattock (which most non-gardeners refer to as a "pick-axe"). Landscaping is hot, dirty work that includes multiple trips to the Yard Waste Center (for clean topsoil), the local building materials yard (for mulch), several nurseries, and Home Depot, sometimes all in the same day.

We have slowly (OK, very slowly) been relandscaping nearly the entire property since purchasing the house in 1994. Part of the delay has been money--landscaping can be very costly, especially when you have to put in "infrastructure" (retaining walls, patios, a garage, etc.). Part of the delay has been time--it's hard to tackle a big landscaping job over a weekend, and many of our weekends are taken up with other things. Part of the delay has also been trying to decide what will grow best in each area, as we have a property that can best be described as "problematic."

The big problem is the soil: there isn't any. Our property is on the northeastern slope of a large sandstone hill, with 4 to 12 inches of clay. Dig through the clay and you hit the sandstone. Dig down through the sandstone enough (about 7 feet), and you hit water, because we have a very high water table. When we first bought the house, I managed to dig up one bed on the east side, and improve the soil to the point I can grow roses and irises in it. Otherwise, plants are limited to what can be grown in containers and raised beds. We "hardscaped" (a fancy term for "paved over") the backyard--not difficult to do once most of the backyard was taken up with a garage--and built large raised beds around the patio for a nice collection of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Doing all this work takes time, so the front yard was left until we had the time, energy, money, and desire to relandscape the entire front, an area about 15x75 feet on the north side and east sides of the property dominated by a huge Monterey pine. The entire yard sloped down toward the streets (it's on a corner).

This is the third time we're landscaping the front yard. The first time, we ripped out the junipers, repaired the board-and-gravel stairs, and planted arctotis stoechadifolia (African Daisy) across the slopes. The goal was to create a simple, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant front yard. The result was a bunch of dead plants that either didn't get enough sun (thanks to the slope), were poisoned by the acid soil (thanks to the pine), or were run over (thanks to the stolen motorcycle that crashed into the front yard).

The second landscaping adventure included putting in retaining walls (goodbye slopes!), trying (and failing) to get rid of the oxalis that blooms every spring, and seeding (and reseeding) a lawn. I actually managed to get a nice lawn growing on the 100 square feet that got enough sun and weren't under the pine tree. The lawn died last summer when we had two weeks of 90+ temperatures, and I couldn't put enough water on the lawn to keep it alive. The only things to survive were the hydrangeas and Sprenger asparagus ferns planted in wine barrels along the foundation of the house--they were in the perpetual shade.

This time, I'm giving in to the demands of the pine, the terrain, and exposure (garden-speak for how much sun the area gets). It's quite a mix, from complete shade to lots of sun, from hard-packed clay to very acidic loam (years of pine needle mulch creates that). I sat down with my trusty Sunset Western Garden Book, looked at lists of plants that like permanent shade, partial shade, bright sun, filtered sun, acidic soil, and are easy to grow, and came up with a nice plan and plant list. The list is heavy on azaleas, ferns, and a rhododendron in the shady, acidic areas under the pine, the hydrangeas and ferns in the complete shade in front of the house, and more sun-loving plants (including a gardenia, several dietes, and lots of bulbs) in the sunny spots. We've "sculpted" small hills to create enough topsoil for the plants to thrive, in spite of being planted on a bed of clay and sandstone, with paths in between the hills for access through different parts of the garden. The entire yard is now bordered by a boxwood hedge and soon have that finished "professional" look by judicious mulching with ground redwood bark (aka "gorilla hair"), both to hide the drip watering system and to protect the plants while they're getting established. The azalea in the photograph above, which was "borrowed" from the Azalea Society of America's Website, is "Redbird," one of the 4 varieties of red and pink azaleas in the yard.

So I'm spending a little money (less than $2,000), some time (about 150 man hours), and a great deal of energy, to save a great deal of money (about $20,000). An equitable trade-off for my own yard, but you couldn't pay me enough to do this in your yard!

2007-07-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

Answering the Call and Getting a Hang-up

After a marathon baking session and dropping off all my baked goods at the Solano County Fairgrounds, I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening parked on the divan, spinning and flipping channels to watch the LiveEarth concerts. Mindless, if relatively preachy, entertainment, and just what I was in the mood for, after all the baking.

For those who were in the mountains and completely cut off from civilization for the past week or two, LiveEarth was a series of 9 concerts on 7 different continents, featuring 150 artists, most of whom you've never heard of. I must admit, I was surprised by a few absences--most notably, U2--but I guess their Big Issues (Africa and baby seals) take priority over the planet. Or perhaps they felt, as Roger Daltry commented, "No concert is going to save the Earth." Perhaps not, but it was nice to see a benefit concert series that didn't hit you up for money every 2 seconds; instead, the organizers and their sponsors (most notably, Philips--the lightbulb company) just reminded people to recycle, drive less, and replace their incandescent lightbulbs with Compact Fluorescents (CFs), in the hope that you would run down to your local home improvement store and buy CFs--preferably Philips--to replace your wasteful incandescent bulbs.

The continuing refrain through all this was "Answer the Call," but the exact details were a little fuzzy. At one point yestday, Al Gore ("the former 'next president of the United States'") exhorted the crowd at the "New York" (actually, the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ) to take a pledge to do all this stuff (get the United States to sign the Kyoto Accords, cut personal CO2 pollution, not support construction of any more coal-fired power plants, etc.), but most of it is pretty vague. I've noticed over the years that, while people like grand statements ("Cut CO2 emissions"), they need specific tasks to get anything done ("Turn the thermostat down and put on a sweater.").

The downside of events such as LiveEarth is that they really are "one-day wonders." Everybody comes together for a great day of great music (personally, I would have paid for a ticket to the concert in London's New Wembley Stadium), but once the music is over, everybody goes home and goes right back to what they were doing on Friday, albeit with a sunburn and a hangover. It doesn't address the issue (the environment), perhaps because the real work for environmental change is just that: work. It's sitting in meetings, talking to people, reading research, writing letters, articles (and these days, blogs), sitting in more meetings, talking to more people, helping draft legislation, and so on. People remember the first Earth Day (April 22, 1970), but most people don't remember what led up to it: a horrendous oil spill off the beautiful coasts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in California that was the largest oil spill until the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. Most people also don't remember what came after: lots of work, lawsuits, politicking, and finally legislation to give California some of the toughest environmental laws in the U.S., including banning oil-drilling off the California coast. The laws have been effective--California is a pretty darned nice place to live--but they took a lot of work, and continue to take a lot of work to keep everybody following them. All that work never was mentioned yesterday as people enjoyed listening to the Beastie Boys, Alicia Keys, and the Police.

The other problem with issue-generated concerts such as LiveEarth is...you're preaching to the choir here in the Jacobson household. I switched most of the lightbulbs to CFs years ago; in some cases, I'm on my second CF (the porch light). I didn't do it because I'm a "granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing, blissninny" (although I do like granola and Birkenstocks), but because they save money and I'm cheap. Same for the water-saving showerhead, and the hot water heater set at 135 degrees, and the thermostat set at 65 during the winter ("You're cold? Put a sweater on!"), and recycling all the pop cans, and separating the garbage, and, and, and... You get the picture. I grew up in a household where saving money was essential, and the less money that went for the utility bills, the better, so I learned to take really quick showers, save water, turn off lights, and wear sweaters. I still follow that same philosophy today; if it helps the environment, so much the better.

So, in the dual interests of saving money and helping the environment, here's how to make your very own "GottLite" for less than $10 (a knock-off of a very expensive brand of craft light):

"GottLite"

Equipment needed:
1 lamp that uses a standard incandescent bulb
1 5000K (aka "daylight") CF for an incandescent bulb socket

Unplug the lamp. Remove the incandescent bulb. Screw in the CF. Plug the lamp in. Turn the lamp on and use.

2007-07-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Black Sheep or Bust, Part III--Shopping!

The highlight of the Black Sheep Gathering is, of course, the incomparable shopping! Nearly 100 vendors from all over the West Coast gather in three of the barns at the fairgrounds to set up one of the best fiber marketplaces around. Add to this Oregon's lack of sales tax (the price you see is what you pay), and nearly every Californian at BSG went a little crazy, buying nearly everything in sight.

After all, how can you resist sights like entire display walls filled with nothing but hanks of Chasing Rainbows silk roving? I didn't even try. While I didn't take home everything on the wall, I did manage one skein dyed beautiful shades of purple (the colorway is named "Purple Haze"). Classes are conveniently scheduled with 2-hour lunch breaks and wrap up before the "Trade Show" closes, so a lot of shopping can be accomplished, if one is determined and can manage not to suffer from fiber overload. It's possible, but it's tough. After all, you walk in with a shopping list, and find all that other stuff that isn't on the list, but is stuff you really need (a convenient euphemism for "want"). And how are you supposed to pick just one drop spindle (it was on the list, I swear), when you can choose from Jonathon Bosworth's lovely spindles, or Steve Paulson's beautiful and unusual Spindlewood square drop spindles? In the end, I didn't even try. I "settled" for a birch and purpleheart Bosworth, and a cocobolo and ebony Spindlewood.

In the midst of all this shopping, the Wool Show and Sale is going on. The judging takes place all day on Friday and in the morning on Saturday, and is well worth attending. The judge(s) wear microphones, and the good judges explain what they're looking for, and the good points and bad points of each fleece, so it's a great free lesson on selecting good fleece. Once all the judging is finished, all the fleeces to be sold are set out on tables and everybody has about an hour to closely examine them and decide which fleeces they're going to try to purchase. Then the doors close, everybody lines up, and makes a mad dash for the fleece(s) they want to buy. This year's fleeces were beautiful, and as BSG is the colored sheep show and sale, this is where one buys colored fleeces. I ran through the sale room during my lunch break on Saturday, found a magnificent black Corriedale, and made arrangements with the daughter of one of my guild members to stand in line and grab the fleece for me when the sale began, as I would be back in class. I wasn't sure I was going to get it, so I cruised through the "non-show" fleeces, just to see if there might be something nice. I stumbled across a big (7 pounds), gorgeous, silver variegated Border Leicester that just cried out to be combed and spun, so I bought it as a "consolation" fleece in case I didn't get the Corriedale. Much to my delight, I did get the Corriedale, so I sent both fleeces directly to the wool mill to be scoured.

Since I didn't have classes on Sunday, I was able to finish looking at everything in the Trade Show, and finish my shopping. Rule #5 (right after "always bring a list," and "leave the credit cards at home"): Don't send purchases back to the tent so you don't have to carry them around. Having to lug around purchases slows down how much you spend, because you're conscious of how much you've already spent. Having an obliging husband carry bundles back to the tent for you frees up your hands to touch, consider, and buy, including helping a friend pick out dyes for her next project, a large silk flag (we're looking for Scarlet Red among all the boxes of Cushing's Perfection Dyes).

So, all in all, it was a great show. After BSG closed at 4:00 p.m., we helped people get their stuff packed up, and then hit the road ourselves, pointing out and chuckling over the cars heading down the road toward California, bags of fleece strapped to the top or filling up the back. We traveled as far as Grant's Pass, then finished the drive back to the Bay Area the following day. Next year's trip is already in the planning stages, and I'm frantically combing, carding, spinning, and weaving to clear out space for all my new tools and fibers.

2007-07-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Black Sheep or Bust, Part II--The Classes

One of the features of the Black Sheep Gathering are the teachers pulled together for several tracks of really great classes. There are two types of classes--1/2-day, lasting 3 hours, and full-day, lasting 8 hours with a 2-hour lunch in the middle--and tracks include fiber processing, spinning techniques, needlework techniques, and animal husbandry. You can mix and match the tracks to take the classes you want, but you have to sign up early--I barely got into the Woolcombing Basics class, and the silk spinning class filled up before I could get in. In place of that I took Blending for Effect, which turned out to be just the class I needed. This year, classes ran from $40 (half-day) to $75 (full-day), plus nominal fees for materials. I was delighted when I found out that Paula Shull, the Woolcombing Basics teacher, "bent" the rules a little bit and allowed me in her class. I saw her give a demo of woolcombing about 10 years ago, and on the basis of that demo, bought a pair of Indigo Hound 5-pitch English wool combs. I tried over the years to use them properly, but couldn't seem to get the hang of it; now I had a chance to learn from the person who got me started!

Friday morning saw me hoisting my Wendy wheel on my back, packing up my wool combs, and trekking over to the Catholic school BSG uses for the classes each year. When I got there, I found a large room with a multitude of different types of combs, all being clamped securely to tables, and big bags of freshly washed fleece, waiting to be combed. Promptly at 8:30, Paula began the class, and we dove into the incatricies of woolcombing. Paula is a great teacher: she's very down-to-earth and practical, and has a way about her that gives you the feeling that she won't coddle you, but she also will give you a hand if you're making a complete hash of something. Paula originally learned woolcombing from Peter Teal, and was careful to explain the differences between Peter's technique (in which you add olive oil and water back to the fleece and comb with warm combs) and her technique (in which you start with clean fleece and cold combs, and just add a little water to control the static electricity). I liked her technique (the finished yarns don't become rancid from the olive oil), and found that there are some combs I don't like (such as the Majacraft mini-combs), and some combs I absolutely love (like my 5-pitch English combs). We combed lots of fleece, found that combing can get rid of scurf, learned a cool trick for separating down from hair in double-coated fleeces with a set of Viking combs, and saw a quick demonstration of how to spin worsted to take advantage of the combed wool. I've gone from being a little frightened of my combs to loving them, and even bought a set of Indigo Hound Viking combs and a Forsythe blending hackle to do some other things with wool to be combed.

After Friday's woolcombing breakthrough, Saturday's Blending for Effect class was a nice counterbalance. Taught by Jill Laski of Ashland Bay Trading, the class was a "back to the basics" of color blending using about 40 different colors of Merino top and a drum carder. I haven't worked so hard in a class since my days in college. After a short lecture on the care and maintenance of drum carders in general (for example, you should always take the poly belts off belt-drive drum carders, or the belts wear out faster from being under tension all the time, and they're a pain to replace), she launched into a discussion of color that took me back to my days in Basic 2D Design. Then we had to card batts of Merino top to meet certain color requirements, and manipulate some of of the batts to make lighter, darker, cooler, and warmer yarns. I ended up with about 14 batts, enough to make 28 large sample skeins that illustrate each effect. And that was just in the morning! After lunch, we got to play with texture, when Jill pulled out the exotics and different fibers, and let us play with blending them to make new and interesting yarns. I created some truly bizarre combinations (such as black alpaca with shocking pink silk), but also some really nifty stuff (red/brown shades of Merino, sky blue silk, black mohair). Needless to say, there was no way I could spin up everything as I was making it, even though Jill recommended that we spin a sample before carding large batts to make sure the yarn was what we wanted. Again, another terrific class, with lots of great information and the confidence to create my own yarns. Never again will I have to spend a bunch of money for mill-spun yarn--I can make it all myself!

2007-06-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Black Sheep or Bust, Part I--Traveling and Camping

I spent the last weekend in Eugene, OR, at the Black Sheep Gathering, one of the larger wool and fiber shows and sales on the West Coast. I spent way more money than was probably good for me, but everything I came away with I either needed or wanted, so it was a greally great show.

This year, I took Amtrak from Martinez to Eugene. The Wednesday night Coast Starlight is sort of the "Fiber Express," as it's the one most of the West Coast fiber people take, if they are going to take the train. I've traveled by train before, but never this long in coach (normally Stephen and I get a sleeper and travel 1st class for long trips). However, at less than $50 for a ticket, it seemed like a cheap way to get where I wanted to go. I wasn't truly travelling alone--several other members of my guild also went by train.

As usual, Amtrak was late getting into Martinez. We were supposed to leave at 10:54 p.m. on Wednesday night, but it was 12:11 when we finally pulled out of Martinez on our way north. One of the guildmembers had alerted the conductor that I was getting on in Martinez, so I had a seat near them. I had just started to doze off when we pulled into Sacramento, and my seatmate got on: a coach traveler's worst nightmare. I spent the rest of the night trying to sleep, defending my seat (Why are there no armrests to separate the seats?), and blocking out the overhead lights and the snores and coughs of my seatmate. As soon as it was light enough to quit pretending to sleep, I bolted for the Lounge Car, knitting bag in hand, and spent the rest of the trip in the Lounge Car.

The scenery on the trip north is spectacularly beautiful, especially this time of year. The route winds around Mount Shasta, along several rivers, and through lots of forest. It was the way I like to travel--pretty scenery passing by the window, while I work on a piece of needlework. Several other guildmembers did the same. We finally managed to get seats all together, and didn't give them up until lunch, afterwhich it was almost time to get off the train in Eugene.

This year, I decided to camp out with other members of the guild. Camping at the Lane County Fairgrounds is really pretty nice. The fairgrounds has a big, grassy field behind the buildings, right next to a creek, and the field is exactly between the show and sale, and the classes. There's no running water in the camping area, but there is a Porto-San in case of emergencies, and the fairgrounds' nice bathrooms (complete with showers) is only a few minutes walk away. Camping is also nice, because you have a place to hang out if you don't feel like going to a class, looking at sheep, or shopping, you can have an ice chest full of goodies to eat and drink, and (best of all) you save lots of money that can be spent on fiber! Our little encampment had about 6 tents surrounding a couple awnings, and the awnings became our "Spinning Central," where we could gather to chat, spin, and relax. We "potlucked" our meals, and each afternoon, somebody with a car made a trip to a grocery store to stock up for dinner that night and breakfast the following morning. Having at least 1 car accessible is a big help, as the fairgrounds are in what is now primarily residential, and the nearest grocery store is nearly a mile away. The weather was nearly perfect (we got a few sprinkles on Sunday morning), but the nights were cold. The photo was taken near sunset on Friday, and it had ready dropped into the upper 50s before the sun set. A good sleeping bag and a wool blanket made for perfect cover to sleep in my tent.

2007-06-19T13:44:00.001-07:00

Spin Journal #6: Cooking Up Something Wild

Tried the Ice Blue Lemonade Kool-Aid, and discovered that you get a nice light blue, but it still wasn't as dark as I wanted. Sigh. OK, back to the drawing board, or dye pot. While I was waiting for the first skein of Romney to dry so I could check the color, I finished spinning and plying the rest of the Romney, so I have about 6 ounces (approximately 255 yards) of finished yarn.

The second try was with Blue Berry Kool-Aid: 6 packets of Blue Berry and 2 packets of Ice Blue Lemonade, along with 1 1/2 cups of vinegar and enough water to cover the balls of yarn. This time I gave the dye pots (my stainless steel saucepans) 90 minutes in the oven at 210 degrees and then let them cool in the liquor overnight before rinsing. This time, I got a much "bluer" blue, and the red from the Cherry Kool-Aid is more subdued than in the yarn dyed with the Ice Blue Lemonade Kool-Aid. The yarn is a variegated blue through a process known as "cloud dyeing": you roll the undyed yarn into a ball (I use a ball winder), then dye it rolled up. The dye doesn't penetrate completely, and you get these lovely clouded patterns in the finished yarn.

The other skeins are some other yarns dyed with Orange and Grape Kool-Aid. I have all this yarn I've spun, but never done anything with, so I'm trying to get rid of some of it by dyeing it up bright colors. Perhaps the fact that it's dyed will motivate me to do something with it.

2007-06-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

...And They're Off!

Summer vacation is finally, finally, FINALLY here! Far too short for my taste, but at least I have 9 beautiful, blessed weeks of doing n-o-t-h-i-n-g connected with school or education. Time to do all those things I normally like to do in my full and busy life: spin, weave, do needlework, read, sleeping in, and staying up late.

I'm celebrating the first day of summer vacation by finishing up some spinning, and leisurely cleaning up the house. I'm trying to get more focused about cleaning, as I would love to have the house really clean (housekeeping is a "hit or miss" situation during the school year), but I'm too lazy to day to really worry about it.

I did manage to get quite a bit of spinning done. I finished dyeing the batts and got them spun, and started spinning the rest of the Merino on my Wendy wheel, Emily. I wanted to get used to using it, as I'm taking it with me to Black Sheep, and I haven't spun on it for about 10 years. I took the Wendy to the guild meeting yesterday, and several people commented on how cute it was (it really is pretty cute). A lot of people confuse a Wendy with John Rappard's wheels, the Little Peggy and the Wee Peggy, but they're completely different wheels from different wheelmakers.

Emily seems to have lived a charmed life. Stephen found her in an antiques shop in Coloma (California) in late 1994, while we were there doing an historical reenactment. He bought her for me, lock, stock, and 3 bobbins, for the whopping price of $65, including tax. I'm sure she probably sold for more than that brand new. Shortly after purchasing her, I "sort of" learned to spin and had loads of fun spinning really bad yarn until I finally settled down and started taking classes and spinning on a regular basis. I ordered a bunch of extra bobbins for Emily from Philip Poore, the New Zealand wheelmaker who made her, and have a couple charming letters detailing the history of the wheel, how to build and install a Scotch tensioner on the wheel, and why it wasn't in production any longer. Nobody is really sure how she ended up here in the US, but I'm not complaining--she's still the wheel I take to workshops because she spins silently and is tremendously light and sturdy. For her trip to Black Sheep, I got a new, blue carrying case for her that arrived today. If inanimate objects can look happy and excited, this wheel is doing just that: she's currently standing in her new carrying case in the front hall, saying, "Can we go yet? Can we go yet?" Soon.

2007-06-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

Spin Journal #5: Cooking Up Something Wild

This experiment is entirely due to an off-hand comment by Randall Hayden of Hayden Looms. He compared types of wool processing before spinning to cake baking: if purchased roving is your basic cake mix, while hand-processing is baking from scratch.

"Cake" got me thinking about food, and dyes, and what can I do that's fun with fiber I'm not overly concerned about. Idea! Dye parts of the remaining batt of Romney with Kool-Aid, spin and ply them with a bobbin of white Romney already spun, then overdye the entire mess with yet another color.

The white Romney (approximately 2 ounces) was spun this afternoon. The other batt, which weighed just over 2 ounces, was split in half lengthwise. I decided to go with Cherry (red) and Lemonade (yellow) Kool-Aid for the first dyes--when overdyed with Ice Blue Lemonade (blue) Kool-Aid, I should end up with a finished yarn that is 50% blue, 25% purple, and 25% green, with a color twist.

To make the dyebath for each of the batts, I dissolved 2 packets of the appropriate flavor/color Kool-Aid with hot water in a stainless steel pot with a tight-fitting lid, then added 1/3 cup white vinegar to make the dyebath acidic. Then I submerged the batt in the dyebath, gently pushing it down under the water, but not agitating it any more than necessary. I lidded the pot and put it in a 210-degree oven for 1 hour (and found out the "Cooking Time" feature on my oven works), then left the pots in the oven overnight to slowly cool.

2007-06-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

What? Fair Time Already?!?

It's June, and the panic has set in--what am I entering in the county fair? This happens every year. I get busy with my life in general, June 1st arrives, and I suddenly realize two very important things:

1) I missed the deadline (for the umpteenth year in a row) for most of the "big" county fairs in my area; and

2) The deadline for our county fair is next week.

This year is no different than the past five. Once again, I missed the deadline for most of the big fairs in the Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, and Marin county fairs); the deadline for the Solano County Fair is Monday at 4:00 p.m.

Fortunately for me, this is just the entry deadline. If it was the actual deadline (June 16th for everything except baked goods), I'd be in real trouble. As it is, I just have to fill out the entry forms, and calculate what I can get finished before the actual deadline.

I'm the first to admit it: I like county fairs. Maybe it's because I'm not that far removed from the farm myself (only 2 generations), or that it's the one place where what you do is judged strictly on it's merits. Or maybe it's because it's the only time I allow myself to indulge in that gustatory disaster/delight known as a "corn dog" (preferably with lots of yellow mustard). I like to wander around, looking at all the jars of tomatoes, pickles, jams and jellies, watching the Ginzu knife guy saw through an aluminum can and then slice up a tomato, marvelling at the crocheted afghans, knitted sweaters, and embroidered quilts, and laughing at the antics of the kids and their prized sheep, goats, rabbits, and pigs. It's a pleasant rite of summer.

I got started competing in county fairs about 20 years ago when I entered and won my first blue ribbon for a jar of wine jelly. I was hooked! Since then, I've kept competing when I've had the time, and can now boast of a sizeable collection of ribbons, mostly blue, plus a bunch of rosettes for Best of Show, Reserve Best of Show, and Sweepstakes (given to the person with the most blue ribbons that year). I even won "Best of Class" a couple times at the California State Fair.

Last year, I started to branch out, in part because I do much more than make fabulous jams and jellies. I like to bake, so last year I entered some of my baked goods: just a couple breads and three kinds of cookies, just for fun. "Fun" turned out to be four blue ribbons. Last year I also entered a couple crocheted afghans as my first foray into the Needlework competitions and they both won blue ribbons. The final "take" after last year's fair was the Best of Show rosette for my Tecate & Lime Beer Jelly, the Reserve Best of Show rosette for my Cherry-Amaretto Jam, and out of 20 entries, 17 took ribbons (11 blue ribbons).

So, what should I enter this year? How many jams and jellies can I get made before June 16th? Do I have examples of my knitting, weaving, and spinning that can be entered? Will it be unbearably hot the days I have set aside for baking the baked goods entries? You'll just have to stay tuned to find out!

2007-05-28T08:15:00.001-07:00

Spin Journal #4 The Gray Monmouth Cap

Success! After two trips through a hot washer and a hot dryer, the Monmouth cap shrank to a fraction of its former size, became very thick, and the Cotswold bloomed beautifully, as I had hoped. It took two trips because after the first "felting cycle," Stephen pronounced it to be still a bit too large (it came down over his ears too much). As you can see in the photographs, there's still some indication that the cap was knitted, but it's beginning to get very fuzzy.

One problem I discovered during the first felting cycle: do not felt fuzzy knits with terrycloth towels. I spent about 15 minutes carefully picking little black lint balls off the hat. As they were a different color black than the black in the hat, I knew they must have come from the black terrycloth towel I threw in the washer with the cap to help with the felting. For the second felting cycle, the cap went into the washer alone, and there were no more cotton lint balls.

After the second felting cycle, the hat was smaller, thicker, and the individual stitches in the knitting obscured by the fuzziness of the Cotswold bloom. Stephen tried it on and it gave him slightly goofy, just-fell-off-the-haywagon look that I suspect all these knitted and felted caps gave their wearers. I'm planning on teaseling (gently brushing the surface to bring up the nap) and then shearing the nap to improve the water-shedding ability these caps supposedly had. I would love to use actual teasels--they grow in vacant lots in the Bay Area--but this is the wrong season for them, so the dog brush I use for flicking open locks for spinning will have to suffice.

This has been a good experiment in reproducing 16th century knitting. I designed a yarn with characteristics to achieve a specific finished product, knitted something out of my handspun, achieved the level of felting I desired, and made Stephen something extremely cool that can't be purchased from a sutler or off the Internet.

2007-05-27T10:05:00.001-07:00

Spin Journal #3: The Gray Monmouth Cap

As noted in a previous post, I decided to knit the gray Monmouth cap with 3 strands of single handspun "Corrie-Cot" (a Corriedale and Cotswold blend), as my singles still seemed a little skimpy for the task at hand. No matter how much I try, I simply can't spin fat singles. I don't have wheels for spinning fat singles--double-drive wheels are traditionally for fine spinning--and it really is difficult for a spinner to go back to fat after learning to spin thin. A great deal of it has to do with concentration: you have to constantly pay attention to how you're spinning, and if your attention strays, you go back to spinning your regular "default" yarn.

I finished the knitting on the Monmouth cap, and took a few liberties with Rutt's original description to get a cap more to Stephen's taste. He thought the first cap was "OK, but..." and then had a list of changes he wanted made. Make the crown shallower, make it more semi-spherical, etc. One thing he wanted that I simply can't comply with is making it a thinner cap. The original cap I made him was out of a 2-ply Merino I spun and hand-dyed with madder, and I used overly large needles to create a cap that was lighter and lacier than a normal Monmouth. But back to the changes. I've listed my pattern notes below.

1) Cast on 60. Join to make round. Mark the join.

2) Knit 3 rounds. Inc 3 stitches spread evenly throughout round. Mark where the stitches are.

3) Knit 1 round, then purl 1 round (this will create the edge of the hem), then knit another round.

4) Dec 3 stitches above the increases while knitting this round. Mark these decreases.

5) Knit next 8 rounds.

6) Dec 3 stitches above the previous decs while knitting this round. Mark the decreases.

7) Knit next 6 rounds.

8) Dec 3 stitches spaced evenly between the previous decs while knitting this round. Mark the decreases.

9) Knit the next 4 rounds.

10) Dec 3 stitches above the first 2 sets of decreases while knitting this round. Mark the decreases.

11) Knit the next 2 rounds.

12) Knit 2, k2tog all the way around.

13) Knit next round.

14) K 2, k2tog all the way around.

15) Knit next round.

16) K 1, k2tog all the way around.

17) K1, k2tog all the way around. You should now be down to 8 stitches.

18) Thread a tapestry needle, cut the yarn leaving a tail of about 6 inches, and thread it through the remaining 8 stitches, then pull tight to close the top of the hat. With another piece of yarn and the tapestry needle, turn the brim and whip it down.

19) Felt the living daylights out of the cap (I throw it in the washer on hot with a couple of towels, then dry it in a hot dryer), and shape it over a head form to get the shape you want.

I'm not putting a button or a loop on this one, as Stephen normally wears these caps under his helm as padding, and the extra stuff can be annoying. The finished cap is quite large; the photos of it are on a styrofoam head, but it's huge on my own head. Next step: felting/fulling the cap.

2007-05-27T09:40:00.001-07:00

Felled By The Back...Again!

I can't believe this--just as I'm planning a weekend full of busy tasks, my back goes out once again! So I'm now "back" on muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatories, and (when necessary) painkillers, trying to keep still once again, and wondering if I'm ever going to get anything accomplished. A bad back is such a trial!

I did manage to finish the layette for a friend's BBQ/Baby Shower, and it came out quite cute, I think. The sweater is from the "Happy Baby" pattern from Red Heart yarns, the booties are from another layette pattern, and the hat is the "Stupid Baby Bonnet" pattern from Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English. I took a few liberties with the pattern (working it up on #6 needles rather than #8s, changing colors, etc.), but it still came out pretty well, and the mom-to-be to appreciate a handknitted layette. She also got a gorgeous handknitted baby afghan from another friend, and lots of the usual "baby" stuff: sleepers, T-shirts, baby toys, a "gift basket" of all the weird things you need to take care of a baby (whoever heard of "Dr. Boudreaux's Butt Paste"?). There were, of course, stupid baby shower games, but the hostess added a twist: instead of all the women being subjected to these indignities, the guys (it was a co-ed BBQ) had to compete. It was a hoot seeing all these big guys trying to drink beer out of baby bottles and guess the contents of different baby food jars. In the end, everybody had a good time, and the mom-(and dad-) to-be got a lot of needed stuff for Junior's arrival in a few weeks.

2007-05-17T18:25:00.001-07:00

Odds, Ends, and Another Skein of Yarn

Four weeks and counting until I'm paroled for the summer! Then I'll have vast quantities of time to spend messing about with fiber, and all the other things I normally do when I'm not torturing children (according to them) or grading papers.

I decided that 2 strands of the single "Corrie-Cot" blend might not be enough for the Monmouth cap, so I finished spinning another bobbin of Corrie-Cot, washed it, and got it dry. Before that, however, I spent nearly 2 hours trying to fine-tune my Reeves. Oil, new drive band, more oil, different drive band, a bit more oil (it was really thirsty), and finally, a change to a different whorl. Success! I think the issue was the small differential between the smallest whorl and the bobbin. They were nearly the same size (the whorl is only slightly larger), and I was having to treadle like made and ended up with horribly overtwisted yarn. I switched to a larger whorl, and things smoothed right out. It's still a bit difficult to switch back and forth between the two wheels (the Reeves and the Schacht-Reeves), but I have to keep my skills up on both, as I normally take the Reeves to workshops and demonstrations, while I just love spinning at home on the Schacht-Reeves.

2007-05-13T11:38:00.001-07:00

"Character"-building Yarns

I can honestly say I've now seen it all. Well...OK, I haven't seen Jesus riding down Market Street on a bicycle as part of Critical Mass, but that event can't be far off.

Last weekend, I trekked into one of the local LYS (Local Yarn Shop for the non-knitters). Normally, I seldom set foot inside one of these rarefied establishments--the yarns are costly, there is nearly always a group of expensively "casually" dressed women all gathered around a table knitting and gossiping, and, quite frankly, the atmosphere gives me the heebie-jeebies. I keep wondering if they're going to require a credit check before I buy the set of 000 Addi Turbos I need to knit the latest odd thing I'm creating. The yarns in my not inconsiderable stash have come from Michael's and Jo-Ann's (aka "the lands of cheap yarns"), the Internet, fiber shows, and what I can produce myself. Visits to LYSs usually involve buying equipment, books, and patterns for the latest thing that has captured my fancy.

Last weekend we finally had a blue moon, and this particular LYS had a sale: 25% off everything in the store. 25% off will get me into nearly any store dealing with fiber, so I dashed down after work, ignored the women sitting around the table gossiping about their latest vacations in the Caribbean and Hawaii, and proceeded to comb the store for the Addis and books I wanted. I also went through the yarns, looking for future projects waiting to happen. That's when I stumbled across it: the "character" yarn. I'm pretty tough, but I was frightened by this yarn. It was a blobby mess made by a beginning spinner, full of snarls of mohair and lumps of wool, with bits dyed different colors that appeared all randomly mixed together. It looked uncomfortably like a few skeins I spun years ago when I was a brand-new spinner, and hadn't yet mastered the intricacies of the spinning wheel. I've kept these skeins, marked with the type of wool and the date they were spun, both as a reminder of how my spinning was when I started in 1994, and to show me how far I've come. The photograph shows my improvement over the years. The bottom skein is some Suffolk singles I spun in late 1994 on my little Pipy Wendy wheel; the upper skein is some 2-ply merino I spun and plied on my beloved Schacht-Reeves last month.

I was frightened a second time when I saw the price: more than $25 for a tiny 50g (35 yards)hank of this yarn that looked so much like intestines, and labeled as "chunky" yarn. OK, that's just crazy. I've worked for years to produce to fine, consistent single that can be plied into a nice-looking handspun suitable for knitting or weaving, and some guy is making money off what I would throw in the trash as a disaster? Impossible. Surely the LYS owner made a mistake in ordering this year, as nobody would spend their hard-earned money and precious time making something out of this stuff. One would have to spend more than $150 just to make a small garment.

Just as these thoughts were drifting through my fevered brain, still reeling over the price, a well-dressed woman walked in, lugging her latest project. She had suffered that bane of a knitter's life, running short, and needed match the yarn used for her project (a small cardigan-type sweater). The yarn? That same horrendous handspun that had shocked me to my toes. I couldn't resist the temptation--I asked to look at her project more closely. I have to admit, I was not impressed by what I saw. The yarn worked up in a nasty, blobby fashion, with uneven stitches and bits of mohair sticking out at all angles. The color range--and remember, I am the queen of loud variegated--looked like random bits of colored wool all tossed together without regard for tone or color compatibility. In other words, the colors clashed violently. I mumbled a polite, "Oh, how every interesting!" and "Thank you," to the poor woman, obviously proud of her project, and beat a hasty retreat to the bins of Koigu until I could recover enough to pay for my items (5 sets of Addis and a stack of books and magazines) and escape to the relative safety of a nearby pub and a pint of cider. I can only hope that her little project is destined for fulling/felting, which might hide some of the "features" of the yarn, or this project, too, is one destined for the bottom of a drawer or the back of a closet.

I recognize that handspun yarns have character, and that the unevenness of handspun can be a desirable trait. However, there is such a thing as too much character. In my book, blobby messes marketed as "handspun" are both a rip-off and an insult to the rest of us who work so hard to produce beautiful handspun yarns. My plea to handspinners is this: Please, please, honor the rest of us that spin, and the good taste of needleworkers, and don't sell blobby messes as "handspun with character." You're giving me a headache, and the rest of the spinsters of the world a bad name. Produce great yarns--they have all your great character already built in.

2007-05-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Spin Journal #2: The Gray Monmouth Cap

I finally succumbed to the temptation of using the new drum carder, and recarded the rolags and some additional picked wool both to try out the carder, and to continue spinning up the Corri-Cot into yarn. I ended up with about 6 ounced of beautiful batts (still full of noils, thanks to the second-cuts), but this time spun what I had on the Schacht-Reeves. Talk about quick! I had nearly everything spun in an evening (thank heavens I can still treadle, even with a bad back).

After spinning, Stephen said, "Can you really felt my hat a lot?" Well, I can do nearly anything (at least where fiber is concerned), so I reeled off all my singles and tied the hanks to set twist. Normally, I don't set the twist until after plying, but this time I'm using singles. Also, I sort of wish I had known before I started spinning. Normally I ply my yarns, so I overtwist the single slightly to accommodate the slight "untwisting" that happens during plying. Since these yarns weren't plied, they're overtwisted a bit.

Using the singles will also answer a couple questions that have come up recently on the Historic Knitting list about knitting, yarns, twist, bias. I want to see if the following happens:

1) Does the single attempt to untwist as I knit because I knit "US/English" style (I throw the yarn)?
2) Does the twist cause knitting to bias or skew to one direction or another?
3) Does the finished knitting felt tighter (more like felt) because the yarns aren't plied?

2007-05-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Spin Journal #1: The Gray Monmouth Cap

In a valiant attempt to document the construction of a Monmouth cap from sheep to wearing, I'm starting a "Spin Journal."

Years ago (we won't say how long, as it's embarrassing), I got a Cotwold hogget from (IIRC) Teresa Simons of Mountain Shadow Ranch. She brought a darling little Cotswold down to an historical reenactment at Coloma (my first wheel came from that same reenactment), and she did a sheep-shearing demonstration using a set of 19th century hand shears. Unfortunately, the little beast was squirmy, and it takes a lot of skill to shear using those old hand shears, so there were a lot of second cuts, but the fleece is so pretty--a mix of white, black, and silver gray--and the wool is so soft and lustrous that I didn't want to just use it for felting. It ended up in the back of the stash closet until I could find time to do something with it.

A few years (and a few fleeces) later, I got a gorgeous silver-gray Corridale fleece from Sherilee Farms. That fleece came off Christopher, their big, award-winning Corridale ram, and I got the entire fleece (I even skirted it myself). It was a huge fleece--14 pounds after skirting--so I graded it, and wondered what to do with all the leg and belly wool. It was too nice to just dump (Sheryl and Lee kept the sheep coated, so even the "trash" was first-rate), but too short for combing and spinning worsted yarn. Again, more fleece was consigned to the back of the stash closet until inspiration struck.

This spring, as I was cleaning the studio, I came across all this fleece that had been stored for years. The bugs hadn't gotten to it, so I sent it off to Yolo Wool Works for scouring. There wasn't enough of the Cotswold nor of the Corridale leg and belly to send as separate lots, so I thought, why not have them scoured together (and save $30), blend them, and see what I get? Both staples are about the same length, both are soft, and and the different colors (from black, through silver gray, to white) should make a nice gray wool. So all that wool went as one lot to the processor.

I got back about 8 pounds of scoured wool, all of which needs picked. While I will spend lots of money on my fiber addiction, I balked at buying a picker. It's not the cost; I simply can't justify the space a nice Patrick Green triple-picker will take up. Also, I'm just a little afraid of something with that many sharp points. I'm by nature a klutz, and I'm afraid I would not concentrate on what I'm doing for just a second and shred my arm from wrist to elbow. So the wool has to be picked by hand--a horrible, boring, tedious job, but it has to be done. I just put on a "Book on Tape," and let someone read to me while I sit in the studio, pulling locks apart and picking out noils and bits of vegetative matter. I got about half a pound picked before my hands finally rebelled and I couldn't pick any more.

After picking comes carding. I bought a new set of handcards in February, and all this gave me a chance to give them a serious workout. I did give them a workout, as I handcarded this entire half-pound of picked wool, rolled it into neat rolags, and stacked them in a basket for spinning. I also realized that there is no way that I can humanly pick and handcard all this wool--it's too hard on my fingers and hands, and I need them for other things, like spinning. Time to break down and order the drum carder. I was nearly ready to give up, so I tried spinning up a few of the rolags to see what kind of yarn I would get. Hooray! The yarn, a glorious tweedy gray, was just what I was looking for, so my enthusiasm for this project was renewed, and I slogged on, carding and rolling all this gray fuzz.

I took the basket of rolags and my little Reeves castle wheel to School of the Renaissance Soldier and began spinning up the rolags. I'm trying to spin a fat, woolen yarn and it's proving quite a trick. I normally spin either worsted or semi-worsted and very fine (think sock-weight), so I have to spin slowly and keep saying "Fat. Soft. Fat. Soft."

2007-05-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

Enforced Idleness

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a complete slug, except when you're ordered to do so. Then it becomes a form of torture.

I pulled a muscle in my back in late January. Pulling a muscle in your back is nothing like pulling a muscle in another part of your body--it takes forever to heal, and just when you think everything is OK, your back betrays you. My back seemed to be fine until Tuesday, and then agony! By Wednesday morning, I could barely move. The diagnosis: a pulled muscle (the same one pulled in January). The verdict: absolutely NOTHING until Monday. No work, no driving, no shopping, no housework, nothing. I was sent home with two prescriptions for painkillers and muscle relaxants (oooh, happy drugs!), a referral for physical therapy in four weeks, and a warning that if I tried to do anything, my back wouldn't get better. As I'm planning to camp at Black Sheep next month, my back had better be in good shape, so I'm trying my best to behave myself.

By Thursday afternoon, I was B.O.R.E.D. There is nothing so boring as enforced idleness, especially when there are so many things that need to be done, but can't because you're not allowed to do any of them. The studio needs to be straightened up, there are skeins of yarn to roll into balls, and since the carder is now here, a ton of fleece to be carded and spun. There's also all that "other" stuff that should be done: laundry, ironing, vacuuming, and dusting. Since I can't do any of those, I did things I could safely accomplish: grading papers (my students will be so pleased), and knitting a sheep.

When I went to Stitches in February, I was told "don't bring home any sheep," so as a joke I bought a kit to knit and felt a toy sheep from Yarn Barn. The sheep is from FiberTrend's pattern (#206X), and the kit had 3 skeins of Reynold's Lopi: 2 light gray and 1 dark brown. The sheep is knit on US#11 needles and, since I can't do anything except sit on the divan and knit, works up pretty quickly. I finished the body on Thursday, and probably will have the sheep finished by the end of the weekend. FiberTrends also has a pattern for little llamas and alpacas (#207X), so a trip to the LYS to order the pattern may be in my future.

2007-04-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

Bits and Pieces

I'm spending far too much time with knitting needles in my hand, and far too little time doing all the other things I should be doing: grading papers, working in the garden, painting the studio. I'm even foregoing posting to this journal, as I want to get things done.

Speaking of "done," the parcel for afghans for Afghans is ready to go. I finished the vest (sewing on the buttons took nearly as long as knitting the vest), and after I finished it, got a "wild hair" about sending just one thing. I sat down with a a pattern for a little knitted cap, a skein of green wool, and my trusty US#10s, and four hours later, I had a little cap. Next: to adapt the Monmouth cap pattern I knitted Stephen's cap from to crank out little Monmouth caps for Afghani children to wear this winter. I like knitting caps--they're quick, don't take too much yarn, and once I get a pattern worked out, relatively mindless knitting (great for meetings).

School of the Renaissance Soldier was well-attended, and generally fun, except for the torrential downpour on Saturday afternoon and evening. I discovered something important about camping in the rain: I don't like it. Once upon a time (about 25 years ago), I didn't mind it so much, but now I generally hate it. Fortunately, it wasn't too cold, but still, very wet, and I really wished hard for a pair of wool socks to keep my poor toes warm (wish not granted). I took my little Reeves castle wheel with me and spent part of Saturday spinning some "grade 3" (neck and belly) corridale with some Cotswold I had gotten years ago. I'm trying to spin it as a woolen (tough for a longtime worsted spinner like me), and I'm getting pretty decent results. The yarn is a nice medium gray. Heaven only knows what I'll do with it when I'm finished: I've got about 6 pounds of the stuff, so everybody may end up with gray wool Monmouth caps, all knitted from yarn I've spun myself. In this picture, I'm knitting the top of one of a pair of wool socks for myself, so I will be warm at the next cold, rainy event. The white cloth is actually a small linen bag (think "little pillowcase") that I just pulled through my belt, leaving enough to allow the yarn to travel from the ball to my knitting. And yes, that dress really is made out of wool that heavy. I wear a linen gown underneath it and a linen shift, so the wool is essential to keeping moderately warm when the weather is chilly (it was in the low '50s).

On Sunday, the ground was damp, and I wanted to walk around, so I carried my knitting with me, and made a fascinating discovery: I can knit and walk at the same time. True, I'm not "power walking," and I have to be somewhat careful to keep an eye on where I'm going, but I can do it. As I can barely chew gum and walk at the same time, I'm rather pleased with my attempts at being coordinated.

One of the things I managed to do at SRS was to sell one of the spinning wheels. No, not my Reeves, not my Pipy, and certainly not my new Schacht-Reeves. I sold the Country Craftsman Saxony I had purchased about 5 years ago for reenactments, and then discovered that I didn't like how it spun. It's a perfectly fine wheel, I just don't like it. It was purchased by the daughter of a friend, so it is, in effect, staying in the family.

Having gotten rid of the wheel, I ordered my drum carder. After months of agonizing, I finally settled on Strauch as the manufactuer, and I was all set to buy the 205, when I found that for just a little bit more, I could buy the top-of-the-line Strauch 405. It actually ended up being nearly "a wash," as the 205 didn't come with the accessories (like clamps), while the 405 is a "turnkey" package: carder, brush, tools, clamps, and Strauch's new teasing tool (a piece of carding cloth attached to a board). So the 405 is on its way from The Woolery to me, along with a Leclerc floor inkle loom. I've been looking for one, off and on, for about 5 years, and after seeing one at Southern in early April, checked the various vendors and found the Leclerc. It doubles as a 10-yard warping board, so I can get rid of the gigantic warping board I've used for years and have this much smaller "multi-tasker" in its place. I want to experiment with weaving "narrow wares" (tapes) on it, and as a lot of people are beginning to bring spinning wheels to events, I want to stay one hop ahead of them and do some actual weaving at events. Other people have done it, usually dragging one of the little lap inkle looms with them, but I've always been bothered by the fact that the laptop inkle loom dates back to the 1930s, rather than the 15th century.

2007-04-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

April Is A Very Busy Month

I just love April--there always seems to be so much, I have enough on my plate to fill three months, and it all needs to be wrapped up before May 1st. This year is no different from other years: every weekend has had something scheduled for at least 3 months, and I spend all my spare time recovering from one thing, and getting ready for the next event, workshop, or meeting.

One thing I am not doing this year is going to the Conference of Northern California Handweavers big meeting, scheduled for next weekend. This year's meeting is being called a "retreat" and is being held at Asilomar, the famous conference center near Monterey. The conferences are a chance to take spinning, weaving, dyeing, and felting workshops with regionally and nationally known experts, and (usually) there are incredible opportunities to shop, as most of the fiber and equipment vendors make the trip to Northern California for the conference.

However, this year is different. There are only 14 workshops (none of which I'm interested in), the conference is expensive (over $500 if staying at Asilomar), and Asilomar does not allow vendors, so there's no shopping. I decided months ago to save my money and go to next year's conference, to be held in Sacramento.

While I'm not going to CNCH, I won't be sitting at home. The School of the Renaissance Soldier is the same weekend (See my post a couple weeks ago, further down; there are pictures of me in costume), so I'm off to spend the weekend doing what reenactors like to do best--getting sunburned and dirty while having fun. This year's weather forecast is for warm, sunny weather, so the "Action in the Low Countries" should be fun.

Speaking of a lot of fun, we managed to squeeze in a visit on the opening day of Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Los Angeles last Saturday. The Faire has found a new home in the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area in Irwindale, and last Saturday was (for us Northern Californians) nearly perfect weather: cool, cloudy, and even a little drizzle. I wore my Flemish dress, Stephen wore his new socks (which needed to be fulled even more, as they were much too large), and we both had a marvelous time. While we were there, I did a lot of knitting on a new Monmouth cap for Stephen, and a number of people stopped and took pictures as I sat, either in "Nobles" or in "German Camp," knitted, and (in the best tradition of Faire), gossiped with friends. While there wasn't too much to buy, I did manage to find a lovely new pair of German shoes, so now I need to build new Germans to go with the shoes.

I knitted a Monmouth cap for Stephen based on talking with a friend about the caps she had knitted. She started with the description in Richard Rutt's History of Hand Knitting of a cap found in 1969 in Monmouth, and worked out the right size needles (US#11) and the right yarn (1 skein of Cascade 128). I ran by a LYS while we were in Southern California (Happy Hookers in Chatsworth--cute, cluttered shop with a nice owner), found the yarn, and splurged on a set of rosewood #11s. The cap worked up quickly, fulled into a thick, warm cap for Stephen's bald pate, and was a nice little project to work on at Faire. On this cap (nicknamed "Monmouth 1.0"), I turned the brim after fulling. On the next version, I'm going to try picking up the cast-on edge as I'm knitting the cap, so that the brim is already turned when I get ready to full it.

That done, I tried another experiment: knitting a pouch. I need a small black belt pouch, and couldn't find anything that was remotely what I wanted. After fulling the Monmouth cap, I thought, "This might work for a pouch," so I started with a skein of Paton's black merino and my trusty #11s, and knitted a pouch. I doubled the strand (one from the center, one from the outside), and made the pouch as large as I could and still keep it to 1 skein. I fulled it this afternoon, and ended up with a nice little belt pouch that is approximately the size I wanted to hang off my belt. It's also thick enough that I can carry small things and they won't fall through (a common problem with unfulled knitted pouches). So this experiment was a success. I've included approximate instructions:

Belt Pouch 1.0

Materials: 1 skein Paton's Classic Merino Wool (225 yds/skein)
1 set #11 dpns

Cast on 48, and join. Put a ring stitch marker at the join.
Knit 3 rows.
Knit 3, *bind off 4, knit 4,* repeat from * around. You should have 8 bound-off areas.
Knit each stitch, and when you get to bound off stitches, cast on 4 stitches using "backwards loop" cast-on. You should be back to 48 stitches and have 8 openings.
Knit about 30 more rounds.
*Knit 2, knit 2 together,* repeat from * around.
*Knit 1, knit 2 together,* repeat from * until about 8 stitches are left.
Draw end of yarn through the eight loops and pull tight. Tie off.
To full, wash in hot water in the washer, then dry in a hot dryer. Cut a thin leather thong to thread through the slits at the top of the pouch.