I Took Sunday Off

I really did. Usually I spend Sunday catching up on all the things during the week that I didn't do. But not yesterday.  Teapot had report cards to finish at school and so he was gone all afternoon. The Daughters were busy finishing assignments that needed to be done for today, as a result, I found myself at loose ends. So I finally decided to ball up those skeins of yarn that I had dyed during the retreat at Blueberry. This got me thinking about that Counterpane pattern in the last issue of Piecework. I had been planning on knitting that counterpane with the yarn that I had dyed and I had spent a week looking for the darn magazine that I had gotten just after Christmas. I still can't find it but a good friend in FSJ had copied the pattern for me so that I wouldn't have to keep being frustrated while looking for it. Eventually I will find the magazine but for now I have the photo copy. So I started knitting and this is what I've go so far...

I am working my way up through the colours. So far it is looking just as I had hoped.

So I need to back up a bit and talk about this a little. The 150 hour project for the level 4 of the MSP is looming over me and so I had decided quite some time ago what I wanted to do. I wanted to knit this...

in a blend of Cashmere, Merino, and Silk. But I want to use percentage dyeing in order to make the petals in the pattern look like actual flowers... in order to do this I need to carry the colours from pale lemon yellow to darker peach, with gradual changes in the colours as I work up the petal pattern. I will be using percentage dyeing, blending fibres, and Cashmere which was one of our new fibres we learned about this year. It is important to use the knowledge you've gained in these types of projects and this suits the criteria fairly well.

Now what does this have to do with a counterpane pattern in the Piecework magazine?  Well, I got the brilliant idea that if I needed to dye my wool I would not want to blow it and spoil a whole bunch of my hard won hand spun Cashmere blended yarn if the dyeing didn't work. So I ordered some Gems yarn which is a merino, lace weight yarn sold by Louet.... and while I was at the Blueberry I had a little test try of my dye. I do realize that a Cashmere/merino/Silk will take the dye differently but it is better to test with this first before I commit myself to colours that might be wrong.

When I finished dyeing this yarn I had a bunch of fibre that was useless for my 150 hour project but quite lovely to be used in a project... so since the counterpane pattern has a leaf motif in it I thought I would give it a try and see how it looks using the methods I will be using for my 150 hour project.

That's what I did yesterday.

I needed a day to sit on my arse and do nothing other than watch my needles click away, feel the sunshine on my face after a week of snow, and listen to CBC. It was a lovely afternoon.

Saturday was bad and good all at the same time. I almost died but I had a great spindling class. Having almost died, it meant all the more that Sunday was appreciated fully.

Dieing was not something I wanted to do, so I didn't do it, but it almost wasn't up to me. I left Saturday morning on roads that were less than spring-like (that's an understatement) for my class of spindling students in FSJ.  I was traveling along about 20 kms less than the speed limit, and about halfway there, when a driver in a car coming toward me, decided that her side of the road was not good enough and so crossed over to mine.  She obviously was busy talking to her companion and either didn't see me or thought that her SUV was bigger than mine and would have a better chance in a head on collision. She did not move over till the last possible moment. We missed but it was by about three or four feet at most. It was horrifically scary. She swerved at the last minute when she finally decided to put her eyes back on the road and not on whoever was distracting her..... and I thought she might end up in a ditch but she didn't and I was able to carry on unscathed.... Still my knuckles from that point forward were extremely white and my teeth will all need to be resurfaced since they were grinding the rest of the way there.  I hate winter driving and avoid whenever I can.

The rest of the day turned out well except I was so uptight driving home that I had a serious case of white knuckle syndrome again and every vehicle that came toward me meant that I was slowing down to about 40 kms on a 90 kms road... I'm sure I ticked off every driver who had the misfortune of catching up behind me.... because every one who did passed with frustration in their moves, and all the ones who were coming toward me looked at me like I was some kind of strange weirdo that shouldn't have a drivers license. But all is well, that ends well. I'm home and I'm safe.

As for my spindlers... it went well except that my two newbies didn't show up, so I was teaching a class of students who at least had some experience. They all went away with smiles on their faces and yarn to practice on till next week. It was a real privilege to teach them. Here they are learning how to card rolags after having spun pencil rovings of various grist.

MJ learning how to card properly... she's charging the card.

MA also learning the same thing.

DS is learning how to flick card locks.

NC had two drop spindles that she worked with. This one had no hook and was a bit of a challenge. But she did really well.

And this lady is another of the Master Spinning Program and needs no help spindling... she's there to help if I need it.

We all went for lunch afterwards and had a lovely time. Next week I will go back and teach them plying techniques and how to choose a spindle based on fibre and weight of yarn that they want to spin. I also told them I would show them support spindling... hopefully to wet their appetite for another course at a later time.

I'm off to shower and spin flax... finally.