Too Much Wool

Nest

No birds were disrespected during the shooting of this photo. I promise.

After all the excitement of our little Wool Gathering, Alice managed to get kind of sick on Sunday night. I didn't blog about it yesterday, because I was worried about her. She seems better, but has been having bouts of some kind of intestinal problem every once in a while. She's almost 13, and I don't think there's much to do about it.

I needed to sit still with her because she likes when I stay still in one place, for long periods of time. Alice will settle in on my shoulder or on my knee and just snuggle for warmth, and preen or sleep while I do fibery stuff. I finished spinning the singles of this yarn last night, went to ply it, and the minute she saw me sit down, with the wheel next to me, and yarn in my hand, she climbed down off my shoulder and onto my lap, ready to settle in for a long haul of spinning/hanging out time. She knows me pretty well.

When I started playing around with fiber, I wondered if I'd do anything with these little bags of dyed roving. How much yarn can a two ounces of roving make anyway? [The answer is about 150-180 yds, for me.] At this point, I don't care. I love spinning them. Its a great way for me to practice my spinning, try to do some kind of a modified long draw (not sure how well I'm managing on that), and play with different blends of fiber. I get to mess around with just 2 oz of fiber and then move onto something else. No huge commitment. I like that.

This particular bag had me wondering what in the world the yarn was going to look like. A bright light green, rusty shades, and bits of an almost azure blue were looking .... well, kind of odd in the singles. When I started plying, I couldn't believe my eyes. Delicious.

I'm happy with it, and Alice seems to be taking to her first real nest very well. Even if the handspun is 'eh', the sick bird nestled in handspun is cute, no?

wool gatherings

I started the weekend by knitting with the Drafty Table ladies on Friday. I met some new and wonderful people, knit on my sock, drank way too much coffee and ate sugary snacks. Which mostly makes me .... talk. Apologies to all and sundry.

I managed to farm out some of the work of recruiting new spinners over the weekend. Unable to get to Mass., I asked Claudia, Risa and Cate to help Laurie get started with spinning. They more than did their job, as it seems her husband was also converted to the cause. A fact that I find heartwarming and utterly adorable.

Saturday Juno came over for the local wool gathering festival. Attendees included, myself, herself, and Alice. The idea was that, rather than making the trip to Cummington, having OD'd on long drives and being more or less out of wool money, we'd have a little gathering here. Play with fiber, look at books and my wool collection, and give Juno a little spinning lesson.

My family is out of town. We had the place to ourselves. We trashed the house. And all we had to drink was water, tea and Diet Coke.

I do believe we went through every box and bag of wool in the house. Big bags of Koigu, zippered vinyl bags with my collections of Icelandic wools. The box of laceweight. The fleece. The cones of laceweight, the box of Guernsey wool, Rowan Magpie, the bag of Wensleydale, the bags of sock yarn. The big box of color cards got pulled out and scattered around the house. No pictures of the wool debauchery, it isn't something I'm willing to show in public.

Now, Juno is a very decisive person. She said no spindles. I pulled out every spindle I own, trying to entice her. She didn't take the bait. I even artfully arranged a tempting basket of goodies right on the coffee table.

Self control from that woman, I tell you.

We did finally get around to the wheel and the spinning part of the festival. For a while, she watched and I spun. I think I spun a lot. I have trouble stopping once I get going on the wheel. I finally convinced her to sit at the wheel and make friends with it. And she did. She tried spinning a couple of different wools and by the time we stopped she was enjoying herself. I think. She'll have to tell you about that.

The festival lasted the whole weekend. On Sunday morning we went for brunch, then met up with Jan of Be*mused at Purl. Juno shopped hung out a bit and then had to say her goodbyes. After the Koigu enabling was over, Jan and I spent the next several hours walking and talking and hanging out. I got to take her for a walk through one of my favorite parts of the city. There was much more to say and do, but she'll be back later in the summer, and we'll be able to cover more yarn shops bases and talk some more.

Did I mention that at the end of the day, Jan mentioned that spinning was sounding attractive?

Cackle.

BL'KER

She hated bleak and wintry things alone.
All that was warm and quick, she loved too well -
A light, a flame, a heart against her own;
It is forever bitter cold, in Hell.

- Dorothy Parker
Tombstones in the Starlight: The Pretty Lady

Westminster Wool Gathering

This is my current sock. I always have something going for subway knitting, and this is the latest Feather and Fan sock.

Right now its my refuge from the seven five rounds I have left to knit before my life dissolves into a sea of stockinette stitch and boredom.

It got so bad yesterday that I actually managed to plan an entire sweater, from stash and with immediate cast-on possibilities, rather than face the end of the orange cabled sweater and its you-know-what stitch.

I have a very bad attitude. Yes. Bordering on prejudice. Indeed. So I'm going to change the subject and talk about other things to distract you.

Yesterday, walking home after running errands related to the passport nightmare,** a woman walked up to me on the street and said, "Excuse me, aren't you......" [fear deep in the pit of my stomach, I don't look like anyone famous] and it turns out that she had taken a quilting class with me a number of years ago, along with her daughter and two nieces. I had an extra large class because they wanted to take it as a group, and so I remembered her.

We walked together for several blocks, and she asked about a quilt group in Brooklyn (there's a quilt guild) and I filled her in on the particulars of finding it. It turns out that she and her daughter and one niece are all still quilting several years after my class. She finally said thank you, and that it had been a great class and that I had been a wonderful teacher.

I used to teach quilting. I rarely do anymore. A couple of classes a year in esoteric things like designing your own Welsh wholecloth quilting designs and medallion quilts and elaborate applique and English paper piecing. I've done workshops and even lectured. I teach people how to use their hands, and sometimes how to see and draw.

So, tomorrow I plan to teach a knitting/blogging friend to spin. That's at least part of the plan (the evil, secretive part of the plan), the main part is that she's coming here to play with wool and some quilts and maybe Alice and costuming books and things like that. Textile conference, more or less. A wool gathering. The implication is that there is a wheel and there are at least 7 spindles and a helluvalot of fiber has accumulated after all the fiber festivals I've been to. So spinning or at least a "demonstration" of spinning is on the agenda.

In preparation I've been spinning and paying particular attention to what's happening. Trying to figure out what it is I'm doing so I can verbalise it. And slowing down in the process of figuring it all out and I'm finding my spinning is improving. Very zen, a very good thing. And the fact that this is a friend takes it out of the realm of teaching (I hope) and just back down to the level of sharing something I enjoy doing with someone who is interested in it.

This little gathering is really an attempt to fill the void of not being at Cummington with lots of friends. In response I/we are going to inaugurate our own little Wool Gathering/Festival, following in the hallowed footsteps of the St Albans Sheep and Wool Festival. I'm going to attempt, without cute sheep but with one very luscious fleece, to convert a simple knitter into a spinner and all 'round fibre junkie. For the record, she's pretty close to the edge. Just saying.

**The passport nightmare is over. More on the trip that precipitated it, later.
_________________________________________________

And I obviously had a Freudian linkage slip because I just put two and two together and realized I linked the wrong friend for teaching spinning tomorrow. The link is now repaired, although Laurie is also going to learn to spin.

Don't get me wrong

The astute among you may have noticed that I rarely blog about things that people have sent me. Because, for the most part, no one sends me stuff. I haven't done any of the secret pal exchanges, so the people who send me wool and chocolate are generally blog friends or real life friends. This is in contrast to imaginary blog friends, they being the blog friends I haven't yet met in person. Or talked to on the phone. Or who haven't sent me things. Or something. Nevermind.

I would like to say that if you're one of the people who has sent me things that I haven't blogged about, you shouldn't take this personally. I love the wonderful little exchanges between friends that happen out of love and friendship. Yeah, I'm getting sentimental.

The box that came yesterday stopped me dead in my tracks. That Laurie stopped me from buying Gotland roving in NH because she said she'd send me some. Very sweet of her, and since I'm learning that spinners are as bad (or worse) about stashing mountains of wool as knitters are, I gave her my address, thinking that I'd help the poor dear get rid of some of her stash. Since she offered. I'm a kind and helpful soul, yes I am.

The Gotland roving is wonderful, don't get me wrong. Its at the bottom of the photo, the silver gray ball. Its great and primitive and we love our naturally colored wools (crap, I'm speaking in the plural now, stop me). Left and right are Romney locks, top and middle wool balls are combed Romney top.

Laurie combed that herself. I know she did. She kindly sent me some washed fleece to practice combing. And sent the matching combed wool to illustrate the wonder that is properly prepared fiber. Before and after. She turned those pretty locks into this:

This is the wool equivalent of a paradigm shift.

Fiber preparation is everything. Yes, yeah, I know. I've heard it before. People say it. I listen. But if you could touch it (I tried - I tried to get a good close-up shot. Click it and see how smooth and sparkly it is) you would understand.

Now I understand. Truly, an amazing transformation. And now I understand how she spins so beautifully. I have a goal to shoot for in my fiber preparation.

This isn't commercial packed-down, needs-to-be-loosened-and-tugged-at kind of stuff. This is melt-in-your-hand, almost spins itself magical stuff. Please don't point out to me that it grew on a very nice sheep who had a beautiful fleece. I really do realize that. The sheep just grow it, they don't prepare it for spinning. Laurie did the prep work.

I'm not sure why I feel the need to apologize for this turning into a spinning blog. Of course, I'm the person who feels it necessary to explain to the nice people who compliment me on my shawls, "... but I didn't spin it, I bought the yarn." So, for those of you who are bored by balls of fluff, I leave you with some knitting.

The Wrixlan Jacket is seven rows shy of beginning the final, stockinette portion of the pattern.

The stockinette and I, we do not get along.

Hand-holding, sympathy, and any other moral support offered will be graciously accepted.

doing strange things in public

When I went away to the various lovely fiber festivals earlier this month, I brought along knitting to work on, but brought nothing to spin or spin on.

I realized at NH that not bringing along a spindle to a fiber festival was a lapse in judement. When I saw Mamacate happily spindle spinning from a bag of raw fleece while watching/listening to the fleece judging, I realized I was jealous.

Well, I was jealous of the fleece, but I was also jealous of her spinning in public. Now, I do think Norma had a spindle with her, but it didn't occur to me to borrow it. And for some reason, in the midst of my Saturday shopping aversion, it also didn't occur to me to buy a spindle. But I really wanted to spin.

I've been 'busy' spinning with my wheel lately, and several times when I've had to leave it and deal with real life outside my home, I've been loathe to give up my spinning for any length of time. When I was invited to my mom's for dinner, it occurred to me to bring my wheel (it is a Joy, after all, and portable) but it was more effort than I felt like expending to bring it along.

So why can't I just grab a spindle and some fiber and take it on the road? I love spindle spinning. The process is thoroughly enjoyable to me. Maybe its that a lot of my away-time that needs filling is spent on the subway, and spinning on a crowded subway car doesn't seem as practical as knitting. And so my knitting gets dragged everywhere, but the spinning stays at home.

And all of this is probably a good argument for the HitchHiker wheel. Which was really really cute and fun to spin on. But not subway appropriate, really.

Aside from at fiber and knit events, who spins (or knows someone who spins) in public?

No pictures. I'll give it another day, until there's some visible knitting progress.

last night I knit

Last night I almost dove into one of the bags of Copper Moth roving. I spun a weensy bit of it, and stopped. It was the silk and wool blend and I feel like I'm not spinning delicately enough to do this roving justice right now. It's beautiful and fine and the colors are gorgeous, but I've gotten so used to my not-so-fine natural wools that I hesitate to spin this rare and glorious stuff.

Nonsense, most likely. But that was my mood.

I had a fit of remorse for my lack of knitting time lately; other than socks, which are acceptable but somehow seem less than serious, I haven't been working on anything.

I was contemplating casting on for a fine lace shawl, but I need another new project like I need .... well, you know. More wool, or something.

Speaking of which, in the optimistic process of going into the closet and looking for summer shoes and putting away boots, I found a big bag of washed Jacob wool. A bag of wool that I forgot I owned. How embarassing is that? It was from a trade with someone on an email list over a year ago. It looks spinnable, although there is a bunch of VM in it. Listen to me, "VM". Like I know what I'm talking about.

So, I picked up the Wrixlan jacket. I seem to have referred to it pretty consistently as the orange cabled thing. Funny, I forgot how nice it is to knit on larger-than-toothpick needles; it had been that long since I touched it.

I got about 6 rows done yesterday. Not a lot, but enough to show the beginning of the third cable repeat quite clearly. The picture isn't great, but that's in the 2MW tradition of taking pictures at midnight under an Ott-lite. More or less up to the minute, but not always the best picture quality.

Hey, at least I'm knitting.

One bag full

Friday I got together with Risa for the first time, for coffee and a little wool gazing. We met up at Purl, which was a good thing because I was late and she was early. Fortunately, there was enough wool there to keep her busy until I showed up.

After a little bit of shopping (really, very little on my part) we had coffee and sat and talked for at least an hour. About wheels, and wool, and spinning, and wool, and wheels.  Oh, and twins too, naturally.

Saturday was my clean-up day. Planned, but definitely pushed to the forefront by the arrival of this

from Helen at Bay Colony Farm. This is both very exciting to me and also proof that I have stepped off the edge of the precipice, and possibly lost my mind.

I distinctly remember, at NHSW, oohing and ahhing over fleeces while protesting that I didn't know enough to buy one and had no idea what to do with one and don't have a washing machine anyway. As I recall, Mamacate just kept buying fleeces while Stephanie kept saying something along the lines of just trusting instincts and going for it.

Maybe its better not to dwell on the point that I'm listening to advice from someone who calls herself  ..... well, you know.

So, me and my intensive fleece regret called Helen after returning home and bought a Corriedale fleece I had admired in her booth at NH. Which fortunately is small (until you start opening it, and then it looks freaking huge) and soft and sheepy-smelling and pretty damn lovable all around. The woolcombs aren't here yet so I have a few more days to debate just how insane my purchase was.

I updated most of the photo albums in the sidebar. There are some new socks in the Wee Things album, and a few smaller projects in the Finished! album. I hadn't added anything to the WIPs album since I started blogging, so now its somewhat updated. Just contemplating the projects I've got on the needles made me feel a little (just a little) remorse. Because all I can think about right now is spinning.

Looks a wee bit like an Icelandic shawl, doesn't it?

plates

Spotted at New Hampshire Sheep & Wool:

Manhattan Bridge