Oh well

I had a lot of plans in mind for January. Somehow, the month has escaped.  Here is a photo of some handspun that I dyed while I was sick.  I shouldn't have been doing it, but I've had several days when I felt sort of better and wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment.  This was some grayish/oatmeal Border Leicester/Romney wool, blended with a small amount of mohair.  I spun enough for a kid's sweater.  I started spinning this in July, when Wolseley Wool, my local yarn store, hosted a few spinning nights.  (It gave me a great excuse to leave home and spin.)

Naturally colored wool makes a great palette for dyeing because the colors come out with depth--textured and rich in the end.  This quick snapshot doesn't show the depth of color, it was cloudy, but I dyed the yarns to order for my kid, blue and green, and left it out in the dining room for all of us to admire and enjoy a shot of color.

Both my twins were home with me for a week due to illness--today is their first day back at school, I hope they make it through the day.  (More on that another time, when I am more energetic.)

A couple of details in the meanwhile.  I left home to teaching my spinning class, which was well-attended and went very smoothly, considering all the illness and antibiotics at home. There are 11 new spindle spinners in the world!  Hurray!  (I hope they keep up the good work!)

Whenever I am really sick, I enjoy a good wallow in bed with a book when it is possible.  Since I had two little kids home with me, that wasn't always an option, but I did discover something. Rosamunde Pilcher's books are now available as ebooks, and you can download them from Amazon or check them out from the library.  I have been a fan of her books since I was a teenager.  Everything is sort of ok at the beginning of every book, but in the middle, there are hot baths, cups of tea, bracing whiskies, dogs, cats, warm farmhouse kitchens, and eventually, at the end, it is always "happy ever after."  There is something to be said for this kind of reading while sick.  I own some of these books, and I prefer real books to ebooks...but these were written long ago and some are out of print.  Here are a couple links through Amazon to the ones I have read (again) so far.  I'm now in the midst of Voices in Summer.

If you're not sick and up for an exciting spy series, I've been really enjoying Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope mystery series, but only when I wasn't sick and thinking straight!

Permission to Experiment--on PLY's blog

Giving ourselves permission to break the rules is a luxury.

Often, when I teach spinning, I hear a newbie say “Am I doing this right?” or “Am I following the rules?” I usually call the entire class to attention to address this issue. If we focus on human history, we have to acknowledge that as a species, we’d have gotten way too cold (hypothermic even) and died out in the wilderness if there were only one way to spin. Ever since we stopped exclusively wearing animal skins and started producing textiles, folks have been spinning.

....Want to read more?  Visit PLY magazine's Blog to read this article!

shot of color

It is downright dreary outside right now...overcast and damp. Roofing has been put off until next week. The painting is almost complete--aside from the carpentry/painting that needs to happen next week. I knew all this would take a while. Some of it has gone very quickly, but some has not. Even though I'm not getting out much these days anyhow, I am beginning to miss leaving the house. (It's hard to leave home when you know someone is coming over at "mid-day"--and by the time that work is done, well, the day is mostly gone!)

I am really appreciating your messages on the blog. Sometimes I write you back via email, sometimes I visit your blogs (Adriene's post on citizenship was really something!) and sometimes, I just read your notes, smile, and read them again. I read them all. Thank you for keeping me company!

I am still doing some writing and editing for work, but am trying to wind this down. I can still type but my hands are very sore most of the time. This, like most of the pregnancy symptoms, will go away--sometime AFTER the babies are born. Between now and then, well, I have to take it one day at a time. From everything I've been told, nothing is likely to disappear in the symptoms department during this last trimester. It's all likely to get worse or stay the same.

One thing I can still do is dye things. A couple of days ago, I handwashed a wool blanket and while I was at it, went on a brief spurt of handdyeing. I started with an old short white cotton blend bathrobe. This was part of a nightgown set I got so many years ago that the rest of the set is long gone. I hardly ever wear robes and in any case, a white robe wasn't so useful in our household of muddy dog paws and spills. I decided that dyeing this might make it useful. I started with some garnet colored dye. (Before you ask where I got it and what I use...the professor used to buy me lots of this dye from here as presents. I have a life time supply of random colors!)

I like these packets of dye because they are self-contained, don't sprinkle powder everywhere, and allow me to dye in a one step, afternoon process rather than a multi-step one requiring mordants, etc.

I started with the bathrobe, but since the dye is an all-purpose one for both protein and cellulose, cotton/poly blends will not absorb all the dye bath. I decided to throw in some wool for fun. I soaked too small bunches of roving (wrapped up gently with rubber bands) in some vinegar. The weird color is because I used red wine vinegar. It was close by and didn't weigh too much for me to lift. (We buy white vinegar in enormous jugs and I now find a full one of these too heavy to lift!)

Then I threw these in the dye pot along with the robe. The white wool is a Romney roving and the natural gray color is a Romney-cross wool blended with a small amount of mohair. It turns out I could have dyed more wool, but I ran out of energy after this so ended up dumping a bit of colored dye water down the drain. That's reasonably safe with this dye, as compared to dumping something scary like copper sulfate-a mordant that fixes dye to fiber- down the drain as someone recently did in rural Manitoba. That harmed their water local water treatment plant and waterways.

In these photos, I included a ball of handspun laceweight natural gray wool/mohair so you can see how the darker color takes up a richer color of dye. I happen to like the rich cranberry color to the right better than the pinkish red...but in either case, this is enough for a spindle full of yarn, or perhaps a contrast color if I am filling up a bobbin on a spinning wheel sometime in the future. The robe came out a deep rose/red color. Ideal for hospital stays and perhaps more forgiving of stains than a white robe.

While all this dried, I had a remarkable turn-around in the mail service karma situation..I think it was all the professor's good luck. Yesterday, the professor was home from work as we dealt with two different things at once. (a painter and a locksmith/carpenter) First, my package of baggy maternity dresses arrived. Hurray!!

Everything I bought still fit (double Hurray!) although it turns out that one of the dresses I ordered, in brown, looks remarkably like a monk's brown cassock. I am wearing it today and trying to liven it up with some accessories. I am also having to put my feet up all the time because my ankles and feet are swelling these days as well as my hands. I usually try to remember to take my shoes off before putting my feet on the coffee table. Please don't think I'm a big slob! This is merely so you can see my oxblood colored shoes...good for livening up dreary weather.

Second, I finally received some black discontinued Jo Sharp yarn that I'd ordered to finish a sweater...back at the end of February. Both the seller and I had just about given it up for lost. It appeared yesterday. This photo shows the yarn (in a plastic bag) along with the black sweater, the red sweater, and some green t-shirts of the professor's -- fabric I am recycling by handsewing into something new and more useful, I hope.

This is the side table in my living room--it seems disporportionately messy. I am stuck on sleeves (second sleeve for the black sweater and first sleeve for the red sweater) and can only knit a few rows a day because of my swollen hands, but it LOOKS like I'm being really busy as a knitter! Either that, or really slovenly...!

If you live in a place where spring hasn't "sprung" yet (like me), I hope this shot of color brightened your day. If you're currently enjoying the end of daffodil season? Well, maybe you should keep that to yourself for a bit....don't rub it in!

Snow!!

Remember to leave a comment on that last blog post (the one that says "Win Something!") before Monday afternoon! I am loving the comments and enjoying hearing from all of you, including some new-to-me lurkers. Thank you so much for making me feel cheery this week with your comments. I loved reading them! One more day left...comment on!

Our weather in Winnipeg this week has been fantastic if you're a snow lover, like me. Yes, I love snow, even after living in Ithaca, NY--yearly snowfall average? 67.3"or 171 cm and Buffalo, NY--93.6" or 238cm. By comparison. I think we've gotten about 20-30 cm (8-12") in two separate snow falls this week here. This is a lot in one go for Winnipeg, according to the radio. The picture at right is one that my professor took from his laboratory window. It's the U. of Manitoba administration building--but it looks like it's in a snowglobe!

Better yet, the "asthma and allergy" portion of my health has improved immensely with the cold weather. I'm not quite fixed in the health department, but every time I step outside, I'm grateful for the weather change. No more leaf mold! Deep breaths again-- Hurray!

Inside, I'm working hard to get ready for the Handmade Holiday Sale, which is happening on Friday and Saturday this week. Since I'm still a bit, umm, mentally challenged with the antihistamine medicine I'm on, I work slowly. However, this week, I did some weaving and dyeing.

I will be selling a bunch of handspun yarn at this sale, and some of my stockpile was a very boring natural white color. I dyed all that blue yarn in the front of the stash there this week. While I was doing that, I decided to do some renovations of some of my winter woolens. Long ago, I wrote this article for Knitty, an online magazine. Each fall, I do a bit of "renovation" to make my older handknits seem fresh or interesting. This year, a white Icelandic wool hat (pattern in Fiber Gathering), a pair of plain white medium wool mittens and a handspun Rambouillet scarf cowl took a dip in the dye bath. Check out the result...brand new (old) knits!

When I was a kid, my mother always wanted my accessories to match. I've never managed the matchy matchy stuff particularly well--and this dyeing job was no exception! If you look carefully, you'll see that the cowl doesn't exactly match the hat and mitts--it's pinker. This is because they were different breeds of wool, different kinds of processing/knitting, etc. That's ok though--because I doubt I'd be able to remember to wear them all together in any case!

I also was able to finally finish this light green scarf for the sale this week. It has been a struggle, as I haven't felt up to weaving much. Even so, I forced myself to get it done, and I'm very pleased by how it came out! I combined two different yarns with very close (but not matching) spring greens. The plain weave has texture and tonality from these two yarns, and I am sure it is just right for someone. I hope that someone (whoever he or she is!) comes to the sale next weekend.

That's the fibery stuff from here. I've also managed to make a chocolate hazelnut cake for a friend's birthday, and we'll brave the un-plowed streets to see him this evening. I love snow--it makes everyday life an exciting adventure...

the fiber tour

My friend Sherry came to visit and we did a whirlwind two day trip of fiber arts in Winnipeg. We went to two yarn shops, the Manitoba Craft Museum, the Costume Museum of Canada, an amazing fiber arts show on Winnipeg's urban landscape at the Canadian Mennonite University and a side trip to the Bay (aka Hudson Bay Outfitters, a big department store) to buy Sherry's children Winter Olympics pins and mitts. That's just what was happening in town this week. This is a happening place for fiber arts!

We also went to Rovings, which is a small, breed specific processing mill that focuses exclusively on Polwarth wool imported from Australia. This is a business that has advertised in Spin-Off magazine for years, so I was really curious to see it...and it's just about 15 minutes away from my house! The wool, first of all, is exquisite. This Polwarth is imported from Wendy Dennis. The drought and fires of the past couple of years were rough on the sheep station, they've had to reduce their flocks to survive it all. Rovings has also just returned from SOAR, the Spin-Off annual retreat...so many of the shelves were bare! However, my friend found some beautiful heathered rose colored roving to spin,and I got a skein of Cranberry colored Polwarth/Leceister blend yarn. We had a long and fascinating chat with Francine, who runs it all!

She does amazing colorways, dyeing her wool in hundreds of colors. The colorway is called "Quarry."

Rovings was also the first customer of the Belfast Mini-Mills, who produce small equipment for wool processing on the level of a cottage industry. The mill processes hundreds of fleeces a year, but isn't industrially sized. Here's what some of the equipment looks like in the (very clean) mill.

The fleeces are shipped raw from Australia and washed in very hot water here in Manitoba. The process isn't too complex but Francine does have it down to a science since she washes so many fleeces per year. In particular, we thought her drying racks were something special. The racks are lined with snow fencing (see the orange netting) and this allows the air to circulate below the fleeces as they dry. There's a ceiling fan right above it all and of course, it helps to have a dry climate, which make drying fleece so much faster than a humid one.

Sherry left bright and early yesterday. I took Remembrance Day off and spent some time with the dogs and getting back to my regular routines.

Having a guest visit was good! It forced me to get out and explore, which was great! It was also tiring, but every time I hop in the car and see something new, I've learned new driving routes, met new people, and seen more of the potential of my new home. It's totally worth it...and exploring Winnipeg is something we haven't had enough time for in all the moving chaos.

Finally, I mentioned dyeing a sweater last time, so here are the details. A while back, I knit a sweater called "Thermal"--a design I found online at Knitty.com. Every so often, I like to knit other people's designs so I can explore how their patterns work. This sweater, knit out of Australian Merino, took a long time to knit on size #3(3.25mm) needles. Here's what it looked like.

Sadly, I found I never wore it, because it looked ok when I put it on in the morning, but as gravity worked throughout the day, I began to look like a big cream colored marshmallow. I decided the sweater design wasn't the problem but the color was.

On Sunday, my sweater took a dip in a dyebath and became a deep rich forest green. It's hard to shoot a good photo of this, but here is an attempt. The coloration actually looks more solid and normal in person than in this photo.

I'm wearing the sweater today, and the next renovation will be shortening the sleeves, which are still several inches too long for me...by following the pattern there, I forgot to think critically about how much shorter my arms are when compared to the pattern as written. Somehow, changing the color didn't magically shorten the sleeves!

That's the news from here. Thanks so much for all your kind comments on the last post about Knit Green! I appreciate it! Thanks for celebrating with me!