Great Intentions

For a while now Hubby and I have noticed that one of the breakers on the electrical panel is tripping for no apparent reason. It is the breaker that controls the electricity to the microwave, refrigerator, the TV, DVD player, and one of the ceiling lights in the kitchen. A lot for one breaker.... but not everything gets used at the one time, so why the breaker is tripping so often I am not sure. We called our electrician and for three days I have been waiting for him to show up. Still no sign of him though.

My intention yesterday was to complete one of the questions for my level 3 homework... if you recall I was going to spin Bombyx silk for the warp and silk hankies for the weft. Weeeeeelllll.... I ran into a slight problem.... my silk Bombyx was not in large supply and I hated spinning the silk hankies. So, instead I spun the silk Bombyx and came up with about 65m of singles.... I decided to spin Tussah silk for the other single and quite frankly it came out much nicer than I expected! So a little bit of a lesson on silk for the non-fibre enthusiasts who read this blog and might want to learn a little something about silk fibre.

Silk as we know, is the spit of silk worms... basically a silk larvae will eat leaves (mostly mulberry) until they are ready to go through their change to a moth (chrysalis). When they are ready the moth will enclose itself in a coccon made of one continuous thread that is mostly protein and is spit from the larva's silk glands. I think I have that right.....

When silk worms have done this the cocoon is ready for humans to harvest. It is a labour intensive and finicky job. The beginning thread has to be found and then the silk is reeled onto a reel and the idea is to unreel the whole cocoon without breaking the thread. Even though silk is one of the strongest fibres in the natural world it is still a very fine fibre and can break... though considering how tiny the thread is, breakage surprisingly doesn't happen as often as you would think. However, when the thread does break the broken pieces are set aside for spinners and is processed into what a spinner calls a roving..... the rovings are hundreds of thousands of the broken threads all lined up in a parallel manner so that spinners can spin the stuff.

There is also another way to process the cocoon. The cocoons can be boiled in a solution to remove the sizing (that's the stuff that makes it stiff) and the worm and poop are removed and then the cocoon is stretched over a form and left to dry. One of the forms is a square Mawatta made from a 1' square frame that basically has pins or nails pointing up at various intervals around the edes. A cocoon that is stretched over this form is called a hankie and surprisingly looks like a silk hankie that is easily unraveled.Here's a stack of about 80 or so with one pulled off to show how transparent they are....


There are several different kinds of silk worms but there are two that I am concerned with. Bombyx silk comes from cultivated silk worms and the silk is amazingly white with an awesome sheen (this has to do with what they are fed). Tussah silk comes from wild silk worms and has this glorious champagne colour that also has a beautiful sheen. I love Tussah silk because I love the champagne colour... but I'm also learning to love Bombyx silk as well.

Ok so back to what I was saying. My plan was to spin in a worsted manner, Bombyx silk rovings for warp, so that I would have a really strong and smooth warp thread for my woven silk sample. Then I was going to spin silk hankies (which sometimes spins up a little lumpy and bumpy) for the weft, giving the woven sample some texture. For you newbies again, the warp threads are the threads that go in one direction and are the base threads for the weft. The weft are the threads that you weave under and over the warp threads. Clear as mud?

I started spinning the Bombyx and realized that I wouldn't have enough for my 10m skein and the warp if I plied it. If I wanted Bombyx then I would have to order some more and I am not the type who likes to wait.... Then I was going to give up spinning the Bombyx and just spin the Tussah which I have loads of, but the Tussah was too dark in my opinion, to go with the silk Hankies which are white like the Bombyx.... but not quite as white. So I got the idea of blending Bombyx with the Tussah..... problem... I had already spun most of my Bombyx silk so I decided to spin all of the Bombyx into a single and the spin a Tussah single and then ply the two together. This would give me a slightly less white look but at the same time it would still be lighter than the champagne colour of the Tussah. It looks really nice!
And actually looks closer to the colour of the hankie. So then I sat down and started spinning the silk hankies..... I hate silk hankies.... the threads are unbroken... and they are strong and when you try to draft the threads they cut into your hands.... I hate that!

So after taking off enough of the Bombyx/Tussah yarn for a 10m skein I realized that I had lots, enough to do the whole woven sample....
and I can do a lace weave instead of a plain weave.... lace looks better with smooth threads and not lumpy bumpy stuff. So I got out my 6" x 6" pin loom and away I went. It looks really nice so far.....

I should get this finished today.... and I will post pictures at that time. What I have noticed is that the textured weave of the lumpy bumpy silk hankie with the smooth warp will have to wait till I get a chance to do that with something else.... but I still will have a textured weave because the lace will give me a textured weave.

Funny how great intentions change and develop as you go along.

Have a nice day.... I'm off to weave silk!

I'm Dreamin' Of A Green Spring

What that has to do with anything I don't know because there is certainly no signs of spring around here.... well the alpacas are stating to fight again which means the hormones are on the air so maybe spring fever is not too far away but really it been -13 for days with light fluffy flurries falling and the deck is buried alive and I can't remember the last time I was out of the house except to go to the church AGM on Sunday which took three quarters of the day and I got elected to Church Warden even though I stepped down as Chair Person..... phew..... was that a real sentence? I'm not sure but I'm not going back to check either since it might scare me from ever blogging again.

Sadly the last two days have been days of stomach discomfort that basically knocked me on me a-- (whoops I'm not supposed to use that word on line). I'm feeling better today but not really wanting to eat much. Pops showed up yesterday for a visit and told me I looked like a sheet of paper.... well I'm not sure about being that white, but I certainly wouldn't mind being that thin! For two days I've eaten pretty much nothing except for bland food.... thanks heavens it wasn't a bad stomach flu.

Daughter #1 has had her first set of mid term exams.... she is finished today and has a few days of break before she goes back to school of Monday. She is looking forward to horseback riding with her friend for the next five days after several good long sleep-ins.

I remember exam week too but we never got three days off. We studied till the cows came home and our eyeballs felt like they were on the verge of dropping out of our heads. But then I never studied all semester the way Daughter #1 does... basically I was a whole lot lazier than she is..... or maybe we had harder courses. Either way she is done at 11 a.m. this morning. I wish I had enough money to take her for a 5 day shopping spree in Victoria.... there, it does look like spring. The apple blossoms will soon be coming out and dafodils will be poking their heads above ground.... ah lovely. Last year I was heading down to Victoria for a week of workshops with the JCR program around about this time.... not this year though.... it is someone else's turn.... not that I envy them since the workshops this year are being held in Winnipeg.... brrr!

It sure does make the winter go faster when you get to go on a little trip some time in January or February. I am looking forward to a retreat on the third weekend in Feb. though. That is when our spinners and weavers guild will rent a lovely log lodge out in the middle of nowhere and everyone congregates there for some laughs, work, fun, laughs, eating, and laughs. Laughing is an important part of the weekend and some of us actually complete particular projects. I'm looking forward to it.

As for an update on what I have accomplished the last few days... well due to the stomach thingy.... not a whole lot although I did spin 100m of plum silk and wool singles and plied them with black alpaca singles. I think I'm finally ready to warp my loom.
But for today I'm going to get that silk done that I planned on doing last week and never got to. I've found my silk hankies and some bombyx silk so I'm ready to start and that is exciting. This is a project that I have wanted to start on for a while. I will weave a 6' x 6' lace square as part of these two kinds of silk and we will see how it looks in the end. I'm hoping it will be lovely. The Bombyx will be the warp and the silk hankies will be the weft. I'll take pictures as I go and post them here.

But in the meantime Hubby just kissed me with a cold wet mustache before he headed out the door to school. He had to go to the shed and on cold days like that his breath freezes in his mustache and turns to snotcicles.... ugh! But I'd rather get a goodbye kiss from him with a mustache than a kiss from him without! Anyway it is just one more reason why I am looking forward to spring. No more snotcicle kisses... at least till next winter!!!!

I'm off too spin silk!

Poetry

I love poetry. I like reading it but I love writing it. It reminds me of a puzzle. You have to manipulate language and words to accommodate the technical aspects of poetry. So you just have to find the right piece that fits. It has to evoke a feeling and you can really lay your soul out on a page. It's awesome.

Daughter #1 came home this week with an assignment. They have been studying poetry in Language Arts. Her assignment was to write a Iambic Pentametre Poem.... in layman's terms she had to write a Sonnet. I remember studying prose and drama in school and I remember reading poetry but quite frankly, I never was taught the finer aspects of poetry. (I must have missed school that day/week)! As most of you know I play with poetry. I love writing rhymes and I love free style poetry where there are no rules but as the Daughters learn more about the technical side of poetry, so too do I.

Daughter #1 was in a pickle... she had been studying for exams all week and I think her brain was fried. She knew what she had to do but doing it was just not coming. I realize that writing poetry is not for everyone.... it's rather a bit like opera... either you like it or you don't. Daughter #1 is not a puzzle person. It makes her frustrated to try to fit those pieces into the right place so writing an Iambic Pentametre poem was not sitting well with her and that was her assignment on Thursday night. Write an Iambic Pentametre poem and pass it in on Friday. When she hit tears I knew I had to help. So together we got down to it. She explained to me what an Iambic Pentametre poem is (the technical side) and said that Shakespeare was the most famous for Sonnets.... aahhh, yes in the dredges of my memory I remembered my Shakespeare book had many of his sonnets and so out came the Shakespeare book so that I could read some of his before trying to help Daughter #1 with one. An Iambic Pentametre poem has to have 10 syllables in each line with the emphasis on every second syllable, there have to be 14 lines and every second line has to rhyme, with the last two rhyming too. This is the simple version of what a Sonnet is. Finally we felt we were ready and so we got down to it. Here is what we wrote...

The Sonnet Sonnet

In truth, there is no joy in bad sonnets.
I loathe the master of these dreadful rhymes.
Without my Mom, I could have not done it,
And write a verse like those of ancient times.
This is a sad and most horrific task,
With which to torture students and their brains.
How can we hope to prove our minds, I ask?
Our minds are just a bunch of crude remains.
So here I sit and waste my youthful years,
To try and write a useless, stupid rhyme,
When life around me begs for joy, not tears,
And asks me to enjoy these golden times.
I ask you not to teach this loathsome stuff.
It makes me want to scream and huff and puff.

I am sitting with a grin.... I hope her teacher gets it.... but I'm not sure he will... still, I can't see how we could be more obvious.... we would have to hit him over the head with a club.

Anyway, since Daughter #1 and I wrote that poem... well, Sonnets have been on my mind... I love to play with words and so I tried one out of my own...so if you are a poetry buff.... or you're just curious... check out the Sonnet that I wrote in Feathermist.....my other blog.

Arrrgggggyle Socks

Among my piles of socks that the Daughters gave me for Christmas was a pair of navy socks with wee Scottish Terriers and Argyle style diamonds on them. Yesterday when I went to put on my socks those were the pair that I pulled from my drawer. While I was pulling them on I started to think about Argyle socks and decided to look up a little bit about their history.

Beginning: I just Googled "Argyle Socks: a history". Since I knew that there was a Duke of Argyle, I thought that perhaps they were first developed, in part, due to him. Boy did I get an eye opener. Here's what I found out.

Argyle socks are a modern invention, since they weren't called that until around 1928 or so, but in actuality have been around in different forms since possibly ancient times. In order to give you a little information about them I have to back up a little and give you some information on the history of Scotland. Please know that I am not a Scottish historian and so there will be gaping holes in this brief history but remember we are trying to sort out Argyle socks, not the history and relations between Scotland and England which quite frankly is so tangled, it looks like a spider web that fell out of a tree and survived a hurricane! It would take someone better than me to untangle that mess.



During the 1700s there was an ongoing political battle between Scotland and England. The Stuarts, who had sat on the thrown in England since just after the death of Queen Elizabeth the first, and were of Scottish descent, had lost the thrown through conflict between the catholic and protestant church. Queen Mary and her husband William of Orange, took the thrown of England and king James who was a Stuart was ousted rather resoundingly.

Scotland became divided in their support of the new king. Most of the lowlands of Scotland slowly came to support the new king of England and protestantism (through the Presbyterian church mainly) while most of the Scottish highlands remained loyal to the Stuart king and catholicism. The Highlanders began to collect money among their people in the early 1700s in an effort to encourage the Stuart's return to the thrown. The ex-king's son, who we know as Bonnie Prince Charlie, was being supported by Rome and France and the monies collected in Scotland. There were great hopes that the Stuarts would re-invade England with the help of their supporters, called Jacobites. Jacobites could be found all over Europe and the Stuart cause was supported by many in the European community. But Bonnie Prince Charlie was no true leader and was in fact a drunken fool, spoiled and thoughtless when it came to his own desires. He had no regard for the people who followed him. In 1746 there was a horrific battle in the Scottish highlands at the site of Culloden following several successful battles on the part of the Jacobites. Here they were resoundingly defeated. The result of this battle had much to do with the subsequent affects on the dress of the Scottish highlanders.

In an effort to break the spirit of the highland clans the King of England instituted the Dress Act or de-kilting act where all dress of the highland and even the highland pipes were banned. As a result of this act much information has been lost as to traditional Scottish Highland dress. The kilts of today and the Argyle socks that are used now are actually a re-creation of the original, and like all clothing has developed to the point that modern science has influenced much of how the highland dress is worn.

So Argyle socks.... those who wear Scottish dress now wear kilts that are pleated with stitched pleats and knitted Argyle socks sporting a diamond pattern that matches the pattern of the kilt they are wearing. The first knitting machine was developed in the 1500s when the demand for hose was high. Prior to this, Argyle socks were knitted by hand and were not easily come by. By the mid 1600s knitting machines were much more common and so, knitted hose with diamond patterns were easier to come by. I imagine for warmth of the legs of the men who wore the kilts, these socks would have been knit with quite a heavy yarn from the typical highland sheep which was coarse.... (possibly the Scottish Black Faced which would have been the common sheep of the highlands at that time). After Culloden and the Dress Act or de-kilting act of the 1700s, traditional highland dress was not worn and so much was lost. It was only after King George IV in 1822, visited the highlands that kilts and hose were re-instated for military dress only.

The Duke of Argyle which would have been Clan Cambell made popular, modern Argyle socks, around 1928 when hunting grouse was popular. The greatest area for hunting grouse was on and around the Argyle estate in Scotland. Part of these hunting weekends would be the country's national sport of playing golf. The typical golfing outfit would have been knee length pants (trews)in a tartan pattern with socks (hose) of the same tartan. Thus the name Argyle became popular only after 1928 or so when hunting weekends among the elite were frequent.

Now I have to back up a bit because it was grouse hunting on fancy estates and golf that gave the typical diamond pattern that we know as Argyle its name, but in actuality they were around long before that.....

In ancient times the Celts were spread far and wide across the European continent eventually spreading to the British Isles. They brought with them a rich culture. But as Roman influence moved ever northward much of the Celtic culture was lost in mainland Europe. On the British Isles, however, Celtic culture remained in tact and unchanged especially in remote regions such as the Scottish highlands. The men of the highlands were shepherds, farmers and hunters. They would have been exposed to the elements since most of their activities would have been out of doors. From very early etchings the Celtic garb included short skirt-like garments over form fitting leggings. The leggings were probably made from leather originally, and were tubular in shape and would not have covered the nether regions... ; } thus the short kilt. I am not sure when weaving became the practice for clothing but it was relatively early as we have examples of weaving from as far back as Egyptian times and probably earlier. Perhaps the Celts brought the practice of weaving with them when they came to the British Isles, however, for whatever the reason, we know that by medieval times short woven kilts were being used over leather leggings. Perhaps because leather was stiff or perhaps because leather was harder to tan and prepare than was woven material, but eventually the leggings were made from woven fabric sometimes with leather on the upper inner leg area probably to help the material withstand the rubbing of the legs together, or horse back riding might have been a factor for the leather. These leggings were called truibhas (a Gaelic word pronounced trews I think) which were the precursor to trousers. They were form fitting by being cut on the bias so as to fit the form of the leg better, and they also were cut from the same material as the tartan kilt. Since being cut on the bias turned the grid pattern (sett) of the tartan on the diagonal it was the original Argyle pattern. For some reason the fashion of the kilt began to change and slowly the kilt became longer and trews became shorter. There seems to have been two types of trews at one point where there was an upper trew (which eventually were changed from form fitting to quite loose and are the beginnings of those God awful plaid golf knee length pants that we saw in the early years of the last century and are still around today as men's walking shorts) and a lower trew, (now known as Argyle socks) held in place by a garter either on the upper leg or the lower leg. Eventually a sock or foot was knitted and attached to the bottom of the lower trew, either plain or in the same pattern. This was the precursor to modern hose (now known as Argyle socks).

Ok so now we need to look at the kilt for a moment. By the 1700s there was in use the garment called the great kilt among clansmen and depending on which clan you came from the kilt could be worn worn in many different ways, I gather. There is no one way to put on a great kilt. The great kilt was actually a large piece of material usually 25 inches wide by about 9 meters long for a large man. sometimes this would have been cut in two pieces and sown together to form a rectangle 144" x 50". It would have been laid on the floor or ground and pleated or gathered by hand and then wrapped around the body and belted into place with a leather belt to which might have been attached a knife and sporran (leather bag for holding things). The upper part would have been folded over the belt or thrown over the shoulders or used to keep the upper body warm in some manner. It could also be folded in a way for the excess material to form pockets. We all know the joke about what a man wears under his kilt.... nothing! This may be true but the lower leg would have to have been kept warm and this was done with trews, cut on the diagonal.

You can see with the changes in trews over the years, how they led to trousers, short golfing pants, the modern day kilt, and eventually Argyle socks.

So there you have it. My navy socks with the Argyle diamond and the wee Scotty terriors are precious.... I love them.... who knew they had such a history.

Here are a few examples of modern Argyle hose...






Oh.. and by the way the kilt was worn by men only.... and there were hunting tartans for each clan that were drab colours to blend into the wild, and dress tartan that would have had brighter colours. Women could only wear the clan tartan as a shawl or shoulder throw, pinned with a brooch that would have had the emblem of the clan.

Hmm... maybe I should consider knitting or weaving some nice Argyle patterned trews... socks.... leggings.... or the like.

Arrrgggyle socks!!! Whose up for a round of golf??!!

Wool To Yarn.. What A Pleasure

I took a bunch of yarn off my wheel last night. It sure feels good. For two weeks I've been spinning and because the spools are so big, and I'm spinning so fine,... well it seems like I will never get the spool filled.... and then I have to spin another spool before I am able to ply the two singles together to get a nice stable yarn. The good thing is that the plying goes very quickly and all of a sudden, where I had an unusable mass of unstable singles on my hands, I'm now sitting there with loads of 2 ply yarn... to the tune of 650m.
The washed yarn is on the right and the kinky stuff on the left is what I am washing today.
Woo hoo! It makes you feel pretty good. Today I have to blend some purple rovings with some dark strawberry red rovings and spin them for the little bit of plum that the jacket commission requires for contrast. It's going to be nice I think.

Meanwhile my silk samples for my level 3 are calling. I've been searching through my supplies to find Bombyx silk. I have some but it is not enough I think to do what I want. I need it for my woven silk sample. It is going to be beautiful. And that's all I'm saying about that. Meanwhile, I'm going to spin today a knitting yarn out of Tussah Silk. That will give me a bit of a break from the jacket commission which I have been spinning for the last five days pretty much non-stop. Tonight is knit night and hopefully I will get the finger I'm working on,on my knitted lace gloves, and one more done. I would really like to get this set of gloves done before the end of the month. Then I have a request from Daughter #2 to, "please, please, please, finish my wristlets, Mom!" So that will be my next knitting project.

The last thing I have to say is this. When I decided to purchase cotton cards I had decided on a set from the Howard Brush Company so I ordered them and then afterwards, thought about all the cotton blending I would like to do and worried that the very fine and soft teeth on the Howard Brush cards wouldn't hold up to the other fibre I would be using. I panicked and ordered a set of Ashford cotton cards which have a much smaller number of picks per inch allowing you to use them on other fibres too with ease. I got the Ashford cards for Christmas and the Howard Brush Company cards a while ago. The Howard Brush cards languor in their box waiting for me to get my guts up to spin cotton. In the meantime I decided to try out my Ashford cards on some Alpaca fibre from my own animals. Boy am I glad I got that very brilliant idea. They are super on the alpaca. Far better than regular wool cards for preparing the alpaca.
See how wide the pics are on my regular cards on the right which is great for wool especially coarse wool. While the finer pics are great on my very soft and fine alpaca.

This picture shows the difference between my regular cards on the right and the Ashford cotton cards on the left.

I am so pleased with how it is working out, and I think I am going to be very happy with them all round..... what am I saying?!!! I already am happy with them. I'm looking forward to getting my silk samples out of the way so that I can try out my Howard Brush company cotton cards on my cotton samples (Hubby has them stashed away to give me for my Valentine's gift). The one thing that has come out of all my carder issues is that some time in the future, I'm thinking cotton blended with alpaca would make an awesome yarn..... I'm not sure if that will be something that I can try in my level 3 homework...(I will have to look more closely at the questions on blends and see if there is room for experimentation).... but suffice it to say that there is no worries with the Ashford cotton cards so far.

So there you have it.... I'm fired up for another day of washing skeins freshly off my wheel, blending and spinning a contrast colour for the jacket commission, and a little silk spinning before knit night tonight. A day of work??.... not a chance.... I call it a day of pleasure.

Proof That I Finish Stuff

It seems like I do absolutely nothing... or at least finish nothing but I am happy to say that that is not true. Every now and again I surprise myself.... once in a while I finish something and make myself proud.My guild has looms that they set up for projects and every so often I decide to participate in those projects. Last year we were asked as a guild to donate shawls to the Transition House For Women so we got right on that and set up a 36" floor loom with a cream coloured mixed warp long enough to accommodate 15 shawls. We all chose different weft and started one after another to weave shawls and so mine was finished in August but I had to wait till two more shawls came off the loom. Saturday past, when I went to my monthly guild meeting, I was handed my shawl and I was so pleased to see it. So here it is...



With three fingers left to knit on a pair of lace gloves I'm thinking that I'll be able to show them soon too. Knit night is my only chance to work on them and most knit nights I don't get there till late so I only get an hour and a half to knit a week. And with any luck there will be a jacket done soon too.

@$%%^$^#$^&*&^*%$

Ol' Parritch Muffins work a whole lot better when your oven doesn't give out in the middle of cooking them..... argh!