And hilarity ensued

Posted on February 21, 2013 by admin

Spinning camp, day 3

I kicked some long draw ass today, kids. That was super exciting, since I’ve never, ever been able to do long draw even a tiny bit.

More deer! Even less afraid of humans than yesterday’s deer were! (seriously – I was about 2 feet away from this one when I took this picture)

Finished spinning the silk, and plied it with the alpaca/merino/silk. That turned out quite nicely. Fascinating thing there – Judith had given us these two fibers and some suggestions on how to spin them. One idea was to hold the two together and spin them just held that way, so you’d get a bit of one, a bit of the other, back and forth in the singles. Another was to spin them separately and ply them together. Tina and I decided to test both and see how different they were. She did the first option, I did the second, with the singles being roughly the same thickness. The two plied yarns are SO different. We are different spinners, yes, but the two different preparations resulted in surprisingly different yarns. I want to knit with mine and weave with Tina’s.

The two spun separately (both spun worsted) and plied together is lofty and fuzzy, the two held together is glossy and denser and darker in color. They’re both really lovely, but completely different. Compare and contrast:

I made a new friend:

And there was some really strange things happening at the other end of the room. There was fiber wrapped up around their heads, too, while they were trying to untangle whatever was going on there.

The best moment of the day, though, was Tina’s daughter responding to a text querying how her day was with:

“Fine
Learned some shit.
Fucked some bitches. Made some money.”

Yeah. I love these people.

Spinning camp, days 1 and 2

Posted on February 20, 2013 by admin

Seriously. Spinning camp. At Camp Orkila, no less – the camp I managed to completely avoid my entire childhood, and now I’m here for a week as a full-fledged grownup. Hilarious.

Monday: Up since 4:30am, spun 4 (miserable) ounces of merino/tussah that I got at… Sock Summit? Probably. It was so pretty in the braid, and was, sadly, a bit felted, incredibly sticky, didn’t want to draft for ANYTHING, and spun up into 120ish yards of 3-ply sport-dk weight nastiness. Yuck.

Boggled at the deer. They are ridiculously unafraid of humans, and you can walk almost up to them before they give you a nasty look and amble a few feet farther away. Also: humans are not the only ones who make stupid faces when being photographed.

Amused at the distribution of spinning wheels present. There are 18 people, and the only wheels here are Jensens, Lendrums, Hansens, and pocket wheels (there are actually two others, a Majacraft and a big production wheel of unknown manufacture, but I’m not counting those).

Tuesday: Learned all kinds of cool stuff from Judith, spun some extremely satisfactory (and skinny!) stuff, and walked on the beach.

The rest of the day, in pictures:

The beach, looking at Canada, where my cell phone thinks I am

If Judith had spun this, this would be two plies instead of the one. She did dye it, though.

The first half ounce or so of the polworth/silk mix from above, on my wheel.

The pretty little wheel to my right.

The rest of the pictures from camp are here if you’re jonesing to see.

The Craft Pit is All Grown Up

Posted on August 14, 2012 by admin

Welcome to the new studio space!

There’s still a bit of work yet to do, but it’s done enough to start moving into at this point. We have to figure out how to shingle and trim around the new door, and need to get our wonderful window guy back out to do the window trim, put in baseboards, move the ends of the light fixtures to better distribute the light, and get two more drawer units to put in the corner near the ironing board. That seems like a lot of work, now that I’ve written it all out…

We’ve been working on this, off and on, for almost a year now. No, I didn’t take any before pictures. The before on this was too awful to contemplate, let alone photograph.
The building had had an electrical fire at some point, after which the owners had mostly gutted it, and then used it to store several decades worth of random crap, all of which the previous owners just left out there. After several trips to the dump to get rid of all the crap, and a lot of screaming and flailing every time one of the enormous shed spiders was encountered, we finally got it cleaned out enough to use it for storing our own random crap.

A new roof here, some electrical work there, and a considerable amount of standing around wondering WTF (seriously – WHY remove whatever passed for plumbing out there by cutting the pipes off, at an angle, just above the foundation wall? WHY????), and we finally got to start the fun of hanging drywall. The drywall took forever, during which time we discovered that there were no studs out there that were the same distance apart. A few were 16″ apart, but the rest were anywhere between 11″ and 33″. And none of the walls are square or straight. Good times!

I’ve got about half of the stuff moved out there and set up so far. Still have lots and lots of bins to unpack and make sense of, but it finally feels more like studio instead of shed. Hopefully it’ll be done enough to get some drafting and sewing done next weekend. Hopefully.

Looking from the corner nook into the room towards the drafting table and the sewing table (the serger is there, but the sewing machine hasn’t been moved out yet):

Looking from the far corner behind the sewing table towards the nook. All of those bins are still yet to be unpacked or repacked and put on the tall chrome shelving that’s still in the basement:

Standing in the doorway looking in towards the sewing table end of the room. The books are about the only things that are likely to stay right where they are. The class sweaters will probably go back in the house, and the fabric will get moved around, the swatch bins will move, etc, etc:

In other news… Nope. No other news. Nothing at all to report other than this. It’s been fairly all-consuming, really.

De-lurking on my own blog

Posted on June 5, 2007 by admin

Hey, y’all. Remember me? I’m not sure I do, really, but that’s ok. It’s been a crazy few months. There are stories, but I won’t be telling most of them.

There’s been work. And some more work. And Very Little Knitting. But hey! I have pictures, so it’s all good, right?

There was a gigantic shawl knit for Melissa of Peace Weavers (which I swear I have a picture of, but I can’t find it to save my own life. Ang? Help?) edit! Found it! (It’s the Lady Of The Forest shawl from Ilga Leja)

Lastly, the “what I did with my summer weekend” series… The label on the roving claimed it to be biffle from Dicentra in the Eomund colorway. I believe the biffle and Dicentra bits, but from the pics I’ve seen online, I’m not buying that it’s the Eomund colorway. No clue which one it is, but probably not what it was labeled as. Whatever, though. It’s purty.

Pre-drafted goodness:

Followed by the mandatory ‘in progress’ shot:

And, finally, the rare Biffle Boa, in it’s unnatural environment:

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

Posted on September 17, 2006 by admin

Especially when you put absolutely NO effort into it? Ooooh yeah.

So, back in… February? At Madrona, I saw this hank of Dicentra targhee that for whatever reason I couldn’t resist. It made no sense at the time. NONE. It was ORANGE! and MAGENTA!, two colors which, honestly, I CAN’T STAND. But I couldn’t walk away from it. It exerted some sort of freaky fiber-power over me, and I had to buy it. The look on Angela’s face spoke volumes, since she knows the colors I like and these? Not on that list. Anywhere.

It took me a while to spin it up, but the Reeves 19″ saxony did a lovely job with it, and I ended up plying it from a center pull ball, and it came out soooo beautifully. And it has languished on top of the basket o’ fiber ever since.

I saw it sitting up there the other night and thought ooh! that would make a lovely panta! So I pulled it down, and got out some needles, and waffled for a bit between making a panta or seeing if I could get a pair of fingerless mitts out of it. I opted, finally, for the panta.

Not only is the panta SOO perfect – it starts orange, and fades gently to MAGENTA at the center, and then, amazingly, PERFECTLY back to orange! Like I planned it that way. And on top of that little bit of joy? I found another skein of it, having totally forgotten that I ended up with two skeins, so I still have plenty for a pair of fingerless mitts! Hooray!

Musta been meant to be…
(batteries are dead, pics to follow)

EDIT: For those that don’t know, a panta is a headband. The pattern that I used was the translation from Crafster, but I think this one might be a better version of it.

BSG

Posted on June 26, 2006 by admin

I’ll see if I can’t do something about getting the critter pix up in the gallery later today, but in the mean time, two pics to whet your appetite:

The tiny bit of the OMG yummy merino fleece that Denise and I got (that staple length is 4-5″ (10-12.5cm or so):

and four samples of thigh-spun yarn that O made in the car on the way home:

Top to bottom: two ply, cabled, novelty three ply, and braided.

Too exhausted to think yet. Check back later for some stellar examples of my crap animal photography skillz.

Oh, and a picture

Posted on May 13, 2006 by admin

Some alpaca I spun up two weekends ago (the all jammies all day weekend). The fiber was from Winderwood Farm (gorgeous colors, yo), and was gifted to me by the unbelievably talented Lara. I heart Lara.

More to come!

I’ve got your pathetic riiiiiight here, baby

Posted on April 30, 2006 by admin

Wow. What happened to my day? Let’s take it from the top, shall we?

First up there was the chickens going off at some unholy hour this morning, leading me to the realization that the Booger was already up and downstairs watching Buffy.

Got up, threw on my favorite pj bottoms and a thermal shirt, grabbed the pieces of Angela’s new wheel and headed for the basement.

Ooh! Coffee! Back up the stairs I go. Coffee made, back down the stairs. This concludes the exercise portion of today’s program.

Get the Rose put together and adjusted to suit, bust out with 4oz of alpaca from Winderwood Farms and spin for the first time in weeks. Numerous episodes of Buffy go by. Woo! 122yds of 2-ply pretty pretty pretty alpaca yarn!

Realize my ass is totally asleep.

I think there was some breakfast in there somewhere.

Switch to another wheel and some baby camel/silk blend.

Avoid the dirty looks from Booger as she pulls strands of silk out of her sandwiche at lunch.

Have the sinking suspicion that the ball of camel/silk is actually getting bigger and not smaller as I spin.

More spinning, more food.

OMFG. It’s 10:30 and I’m still in my pj’s.

Really? What more could you ask of a Saturday?

Heading back to the Seattle Knitting Expo tomorrow morning on my way to drop the Booger off. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll run into more folk I know. And maybe if you’re lucky I’ll have pictures to show for it.

540

Posted on March 6, 2006 by admin

That’s the number of 2-ply yards of Lisa Souza’s Joseph’s Coat Biffle I spun up yesterday. It’s interesting to see how differently the biffle came out than did Angela’s merino in the same colorway.

Here’s mine for comparison:

And a close-up, which shows that it’s not really purple yarn at all, but a melange of many, many colors:

This was the first time I’ve spun with something specific in mind. Generally I just spin for the sake of spinning, and figure out what, if anything, to do with the resulting yarn later. This time I wanted sock yarn (hush), and got enough to do two pairs of socks out of it. As soon as it’s dry, I’ll cast on for the first pair.

Yessirree bob.

She’s growling over there

Posted on December 18, 2005 by admin

Xmas came early for the Booger. Last night to be specific, since she’s going skiing and we’ll be with Critterboy’s family. So, thanks to Angela and a wonderful woman she found on the Spinner’s and Weaver’s Housecleaning Pages, the Booger now has her very own spinning wheel. Check it out:

Spinning in front of the (very messy) book case

Concentrating awfully hard on the whole thing

Joy! Yarn!

Hooray for xmas! Go Booger with your fibery self!

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

Posted on December 1, 2005 by admin

OMFG! Pictures!

While up in BC this past weekend, Angela gave me a little bump of wool in various shades of green and blue and rust(?)*, which as I’m pretty sure I mentioned at some point below, I spun up on Sunday morning. Last night and this afternoon I took a bunch of pictures of it. NONE of which really show what it actually looks like. (*I’m red/green colorblind, so, really, wtf do I know about it?). This one:
the pesky unphotogenic green yarn
I think is the closest. I could be wrong. See above. The others… not quite. See? and see? and again with the not quite. And yes, totally wrong. Meh. Whatever. It’s green. With some other pretty colors in it. And it’s soft. And nice. And no, I haven’t measured it yet, so I don’t know how much I ended up with when all was said and done.

Moving right along.

Disastah! Terrah!
I’ve been working on a SUPER SECRET PROJECT (and, oh bugger, here I go showing a bunch of pictures of it… sheesh), and was cruising along until I got to the 11th damn pattern repeat. At which point it all went to crap. THREE TIMES. I had to completely reknit repeat 11 twice (I forget why now. short attention span, I know), and was 5 or 6 rows into repeat 12 when I noticed: BIG GODDAMNED HOLE. Not only was it a BGDH, mind you, but it was (insert much profanity here) many, many rows BELOW the last lifeline. What’s a girl to do? Each row is…. um… lots of stitches at this point. 5+155+37+155+5. That many. No way no how was I going to rip it ALL back and redo that many stitches and rows and omg it’s garter stitch and please make it stop. But oh ho! I am crafty!

Check it out, yo:
First things first: Gather your supplies.
everything you need to reknit just a section of lace
Here we have: the offending piece of knitting (the pink blob), the pattern, a good magnifying lamp, needles, scissors, and yummy Canadian microbrew (and, apparently, a can of highly flammable spray-stuff in the background, just in case…). Wait! Where is the chocolate?! Crap. Oh well. Soldiering on.

Then! Um. I forget what comes next so Unicorns! Unicorns make everything better.

Ok, ok. Moving right along with the repair project.
I guess now is the time to really look at what we’re up against:
the offending hole in the lace

And then? What then?
Rip it! Rip it good! (just make sure you’ve put a lifeline in at the bottom of the section you are gonna fix.
now we're ready to start reknitting

Then you just pick up the stitches along the lifeline and go to town. Really.
the reknit has begun
Here we have, I think, 4 rows reknit.

And here we have 8 rows reknit, with only 13 to go. But I was tired, and I started making mistakes which had to be unknit and reknit and… decided to stop for the night.
the progress on the reknitting continues

There you have it. Updates! Photos! And yeah, I’ll post another picture when I get the reknitting of the lace section finished.

Edit: In response to Angela’s question in the comments, here’s how I did the green spinning:
I weighed the whole thing, and then just divvied it up into three roughly equal piles without regard to color. Then I split each sliver up into three or four lengthwise pieces, laid them on my left knee, and just grabbed them randomly as I spun. From that I got three bobbins full, which I then plied. I probably should have done it as a two-ply instead of a three-ply, but I really liked the way it came out as a three-ply.

And… I finished the repair on the lace last night. I still have to go through and even out the stitches in a couple of places in that section, but I figure that can wait until I block it (if any of you know different, PLEASE tell me now!). Pictures to follow, probably over the weekend.

I promised pictures, and here they are

Posted on June 19, 2005 by admin

Since I’m way too tired to even try to think of anything even mildly witty to say about anything right now, I’ll just give you pictures.

First up, the second Apricot cardi, still not in apricot ‘cos that would look like shit on me. Instead, in basic black cashmere. Revel in my picture taking abilities and the amount of detail you can see here. Woo!

And another view of it, included only because the angle at which it was taken makes it look incredibly vast:

And the promised picture of the fugly roving spun up into some not-so-ugly yarn, which isn’t *quite* this bright, but I couldn’t get a picture of the actual amount of brightness, so deal:

Followed by one crap-ass picture of the mostly finished sock for Barb’s impending baby:

So there.

Spin, span, spun

Posted on June 7, 2005 by admin

My level of surprise at the results of the spinning up of the fugly roving would elicit a “well coat me in butter and throw me into a French prison!” from our fabulous graphics guy Tony. Seriously.

You remember fugly, dontcha?

Ok, so I’m the Queen of Slack these days and haven’t bothered to take a picture of it spun up, but I really kind of like the way it turned out. I spun it a little thicker than I usually spin, so it’s about a… maybe heavy worsted weight? ish? and there isn’t all that much of it, but who woulda guessed? (yeah, yeah, a couple of you, I know)

I’ll get pics of it up maybe tonight, if I can muster the energy to get up off my fat ass and take a picture of it. We shall see.

MD* Weekend Photos!

Posted on May 10, 2005 by admin

*MD is for Mother’s Day in this case, since some of us (who are. not. bitter.) didn’t get to go to that little sheep thing back east. So there.

The other thing she brought with wasn’t quite so sweet. At least not quite so sweet smelling…
The stinky fleece in its entirety
and let me just say that it’s a damn shame that computer monitors aren’t scratch n’ sniff, ‘cos that, my friends, stinks to high heaven.
up close and stinky
Stinky up close!

O and I spent about half the day Saturday washing half of that fleece. For size comparison, the tire and bumper you see in the corner there are a full-size Dodge pickup. That fleece is huge. And did I mention the stinky part? We’re pretty sure that one is from one of the Scottish Blackface rams on the island. They’re fairly wild critters, roaming freely in the woods most of the year up there, so the fleece is chock full of vegetable matter and is kind of matted in places. And it stinks.

Decatur has a sizeable herd of sheep going at this point. Most of them are Scottish Black Face, and a few are Dorsets. The annual island sheep shearing was the last weekend in April, and since they just give away all the fleeces, O asked for and got some. Ten of them. TEN. Eesh. That’s a LOT of stinky. She has big plans for all of it, though, so it’s all good.

And, just to prove that I haven’t totally lost interest in spinning…
skein of glittery purple handspun
That’s spun up from some mystery batts that I got from Franquemont Fibers on eBay. It’s lovely stuff that’s been a joy to spin. And it has sparkly stuff in it, which is a total bonus. No clue what was in the batt, but it’s mostly wool with some other stuff.

There’s been more, I just don’t have pix to show of any of the rest of it. O’s Rogue is coming along – we’re down to one and 2/3 sleeve left. She better not outgrow it before I finish it…

So there. I may not have gotten to go to MS$W, but I had a damn fine MD weekend anyway.

‘Bout f’in time, no?

Posted on March 20, 2005 by admin

Ok! Ok! I finally did it. Found the battery charger for the camera and charged up the battery. And now we have pictures. Several of them. Yay. Woo. Nope, sorry, can’t muster any more excitement today. Lame, but whatterya gonna do?

So. I really have been productive, I just haven’t done much in the way of talkin’ about it or takin’ pix of it. But, I’ve got pictures now, so here goes, in no particular order:

The cabled sweater I did for Denise’s new baby Owen:

Owen's aran sweater