Yard Work Etc...

Today is the day that Teapot deemed that the annual yard cleanup should take place. It is a coolish day and slightly overcast so it is a good time to do yard work.

I am busy spinning (I'm actually having a wee break right now) but everyone else is out in the spring air doing what needs to be done. Teapot is raking up all the old hay in an effort to get rid of all the bits that fall out of the wheel barrow as we roll it across to the paddocks. He's burning it and it is making breathing outside very hard to do. Daughter #1 is working on the front of the house picking up an bits of plastic and garbage that has been dragged there by the dogs... or blown in on the wind. Daughter #2 is on the other side of the house doing the same. Only she has all the dogs hanging around her.  I think there is probably a bit of playing with the dogs going on for her too.

Meanwhile I have been spinning away for two days... The sock yarn is coming along.

The colour on this sucks for some reason... it should be white.

Yesterday I took off a small skein and knit it to see what it would look like in a knitted garment. I was quite pleased with the results.

Ah here the colour is a little more realistic.

I think this sock yarn will work just fine.

I have one more picture to show and that is of my cabled yarn...

I had finished this sample some time ago but forgot to include it on the day I posted pics of the snarls and marls... it is a mixed commercial batt with some wool and some cotton and other mystery fibres. Because it is mystery fibres I am trying to decide whether I should send this one as part of my homework or whether I should redo it in a fibre blend that can be calculated. Hmm... this is one I will ponder for a little while I guess... and since I have some time I am not terrifically worried yet.

It is pleasantly quiet here in the house and I have been up and on the go since quite early... 5:30 a.m. to be exact.  I love those early mornings when everyone is still in bed and I come downstairs and Narmie curls up by my feet and if I open a window slightly I can hear the early birds trilling their morning bird song. I would normally enjoy a coffee but these days coffee is not allowed in my world... I have been cut off from that particular pleasure... so now I drink decaf tea.... or a large glass of freshly squeezed O.J. It's still nice... but I do miss that cup of coffee.

Anyway I will end here as I only have more spinning stuff to talk about and that can get mighty boring to those who are not interested in spinning.

See y'all tomorrow.

Socks... Oh My!

I actually spelled the word out... and I say it all the time. For a lady who never wears them, I am beginning to feel an affinity for the darn things... I think that I have the bug... I like knitting socks (not wearing them but knitting them). And so it begins... the fifty hour project has been started. I have been busy for two days sampling and deciding on what I would end up with as a good sock yarn. I finally decided on a 50% cotton, 30% bamboo, and 20% ramie blend for my sock yarn. I had thought that less ramie and more bamboo would work but in the end I needed the ramie to give the yarn more strength. A sock yarn should be a hard wearing yarn, something that will stand up to the pounding that the feet will give it. But these are lace summer socks and so they should be cool on the feet and pretty.  The cotton will give them the coolness but cotton alone is just not hard wearing enough for my liking... in came the bamboo. The bamboo added to the cotton makes them much more lustrous but not really all the hardy.... so in came the ramie... and the ramie is good. It make the yarn so strong that breaking it even in the single is difficult. The decision in the end, is a good one. Also, I will dye them some colour that I like but it will have to be pastel. I have darker shades of Procion dye so I will have to really have to tone down those colours to get pastel anything.... just add water.... but it is all a matter of math. The depth of shade will be decided upon later...


Today is a windy day.... but the buds are coming out on the trees. There is a silver to their silhouette that means the grey fluff of pollination will soon be floating on the air. And as the sap begins to rise in the Pine trees we are beginning to see which ones have succumbed to the Pine Beetle infestation this past summer, fall and winter. I can't decide whether or not Dreamer (the horse) likes the wind or not. Every so often she flicks up her tail and goes for a little run around her paddock.  Either she is highly enjoying the wind or she is completely pissed off that it is so windy.  I have rolled up the rugs around the house and brought them out to be hung over the fence for a wash and a dry... but they will need to be washed all over again since they have all been blown down on the ground. (sigh)



Things are drying out quite nicely around the farm. The poop of the paddocks is no longer stinking and is drying out so well that it is disintegrating into the soil.  I will soon be out with my bags of grass seed as I put down the new seed in the bigger summer paddocks before the animals move into them in early May. Clearly the winter is behind us... we may still get days of blowing flurries.... we may still get days of cold rain but clearly the spring is here in all it annual splendor.  Even the birds are confirming this through their cheery songs on the early morning air. I hear them now around 5 a.m. tuning up for their serenade as we are sleeping nightly with the windows open. I just love spring.


I have been making sweet bread all morning and while I was at it,  I have been spinning on those socks as well. Back and forth between kitchen, computer, and wheel I have been moving... but now it is almost 2 p.m. and I started this post at 9 a.m. this morning... it is time to be done with it and at my wheel for real.  No more interruptions as I check the bread maker, and then the rising bread in the pans, and then the oven as I just put two lovely loaves on the cooling racks a few moments ago.  I have always hit the computer for a few more sentences on the way back to the sunroom to spin a little more. It is time to get to my work now and while that seems to imply that I haven't been working... ( I have spun eight rolags this morning which is a lot since I am spinning teeny tiny)... it does mean that I have been severely interrupted and could do a whole lot more. So I am off to spin spin spin....

To Myself.... Some Time

There's a difference between having time to yourself and being all alone. Being all alone means that you are alone... no one around you... not a soul. That kind of aloneness is not always welcome. Having time to yourself means time with no interruptions. It doesn't necessarily mean that there is no one about. It just means that you get lots done. Sometimes you can be alone in a very crowded room and not get any time to yourself. Sometimes you can have not a soul in sight and get nothing done. Sometimes you can get something done and feel very much alone.  But every now and again there comes a moment when all comes together and it is sweet when it happens.... all is quiet, there's not a soul around and you are thinking like an automaton and everything comes together so that suddenly you get lots done.... whether it be thinking up new ideas or actually, physically getting things done... it all comes together and suddenly you are superman.  For me the best part of my day is those first few hours when I am fresh and clear minded and full of vim and vigor. I love this time of year because it coaxes me out of bed to sunshine and birdsong. I watch the alpacas getting up from their night of stiffness in the hay to stretch and face the sun, nibble hay for a while and bump noses together. The dogs are playful chasing each other around the yard and warm tea in my hands steams so nicely waking me up slowly. And best of all, best of all there are blue skies all around me and I am alone.

At the moment it is just a little too early to go out on the deck... There is still frost all around and I am just wearing a simple nightgown. It is certainly too cold to be so exposed. But in a week or two when the night time temperatures don't dip quite so low I will wake and take my tea to the deck... there I will put in a little fire and await the company of my family. But during those moments of solitude, no doubt I will appreciate the world around me and thank heavens that I am here.... it will be a time of pleasurable activity. Maybe I will burn a tile for the ceiling of the sunroom as I sip my tea.... maybe I will spin a little, maybe I will just be alone with my thoughts. Either way that early morning solitude is something for which I feel very grateful. It doesn't mean that I don't love my family... or company for that matter... it just means that I enjoy my own company... and I guess that's not such a bad thing....

Hope you are having a day to remember and enjoy and that you are enjoying a little solitude, if you want it, too.

Trying Times... If We Only Knew The Half Of It

Shadow Weave has been giving me issues. Yesterday I sat down to try weaving on the loom and I needed to tie on to the front beam since I had noticed a couple of weeks ago that there were a couple of crossed threads and when I started to tie on to the front beam I discovered that there was a HUGE mistake with the tension.... and I hadn't even tied on yet. Teapot had been helping me wind on to the back beam... while I was pulling and untangling the fibres at the front of the loom Teapot was winding on the warp on the back and making sure that the newspaper was in between the layers of threads. Only when we got it finished I never thought to check his work... and that was a bad mistake in and of itself. So after that I discovered that Teapot had wound the warp on in such a way that it is not even on the back but thicker in the middle than on the edges...

The threads in the middle are NOT supposed to be shorter than the ones on either side.... this is what lead me to realize the problem... It means another full day of work just to get it to the point where I can weave. I'm growling just thinking about it.

this means that the tensions will suck worse and worse as I go along. So tomorrow I will have to spend the day trying to sort it out... by myself. : (

Meanwhile I haven't spun much for two days. Today my two dear friend came out from FSJ to have lunch with me and spend the day spinning and chatting about our yarns. By the time we had gone through our books (one of them is working on her MSP too and the other did some of the MSP courses but never went further) and going through all the things that we've been doing over the last few months, there was little or no time for spinning.  We also had to make a quick trip to the Thrift store here in HH looking for a roll of wallpaper that I am told will fix my tension issue on the loom.Not sure how that will work but I guess I will be head down and arse up tomorrow on that...

Meantime I am starting to work on the spinning composition for my 50 hour project which if you will recall is a pair of lace socks that look like this...

My blend will be 50% cotton, 40% bamboo, and 10% ramie. The cotton is lovely and soft, the bamboo has a little lustre and the ramie adds strength. I am looking forward to working on this project. I love these wee babies and maybe just maybe I might part with them as a Christmas gift.

In other areas of spinning I have pictures of the woollen and point of contact yarn. The pic of the woollen yarn just doesn't come close to showing how beautiful the yarn actually is... it is the softest... most sumptuous glorious fleece. Softer even I think than merino.

The yarn on the left the greyier one is the woollen spun yarn that I am so in love with. The other one is the same kind of fleece but a slightly browner and coarser fleece.  They are both Icelandic fleeces (type of sheep) and both are nice but the one on the left is just wow!

So let's see... here's the spiral...

The core is spun in Lyocel and the spiral single is spun in wool (Northern Lights) and it is spun thick and thin.

This flake yarn is two singles in Tussah silk plied together and I dropped in a flake of silk waste every so often.

If you look closely at this you can just see the little snarls of twisted single coming out of the yarn... this was a very poopy yarn to spin... it didn't want to work at all and eventually when I did get it to work it still sucks... what anyone would want with this is beyond me!

This is a marl yarn which is a fancy way of saying that it is a rag yarn... that means that it is one single one colour and the other single another colour.

This is my very strange designer yarn... It is cabled ramie and cotton blended and then tufts of cotton dropped into the cable as it is twisting.

So that's it... I have the fifty hour project left. and tomorrow begins the very hard work of getting it started. I will be spinning the first single for a 3 ply yarn. Very fine.... very fine.... not sure about the t.p.i. yet. We'll see.

Meanwhile the two friends that came today helped me once again celebrate my birthday.... a lovely kerosene lamp like the ones of old used in the bedroom... it's tiny and has a lovely spinning wheel. Then I was also given a very cool spindle bag and a cute little wooden box that has a magnetized top... it will be perfect for holding little things like pins and needles.... or maybe a ring or something equally small. (The wood smells really nice... it must have been rubbed with bee's wax.) I am a very lucky gal to have been given such thoughtful gifts. Or maybe my little box can hold the beaded spinny things for my Trindle Spindle... I have several sets of beads that would fit in that box just nicely.... but that Trindle spindle is a story for another day.

Teapot and Daughter #1 have gone to their regular monthly JCR meeting. Daughter #2 is just reading (her usual past time....). she is pleased with herself tonight as she has written a story for her grade 9 Language Arts class and received full marks for her efforts. As a matter of a fact she even received 5 extra bonus points for writing and passing in her plot outline. She has talent in the writing area and writes stories that even grab my interest.

Speaking of stories that grab my interest... I am reading a book that I got for Easter which is called Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant.  It is the story of Santa Catarina which is a fictional nunnery located in Ferrara Italy in the 1500s. The story is one of women who are sent to the nunnery after being deemed unmarriageable in the eyes of their families whether it be because of deformities or because they are second daughters and there is not enough money for their dowry. It is a startling reminder of how lucky we are to live in an age when women have rights under the law. the women of that time had no choice but to make good on an almost unbearable situation. They find a certain type of freedom within the walls of the nunnery even though they are subject to strict discipline and forced poverty. So far, I am enjoying it very well.

Anyway, I will end here... as I have tried to get this posted several times today and I kept losing it or the phone would ring or the kids would distract me or the pictures were not clear enough... you know... stuff kept happening to take me away from what I was trying to do.  I'll end here since right at the moment it's looking like if I hit publish it might actually get done!

Birthday Pleasures

I have been given the most epic spinning/knitting/weaving bag. For my Birthday.  Teapot took me shopping today and neither of us knew what I wanted for my birthday. I had been thinking about a folding directors chair... you know the one that CT sells and that are made of nylon and nice sturdy steal frame and don't bucket your butt. But I couldn't find one that I really liked. They were all too low for spinning which is the most important reason for buying the darn thing. I mean when I do summer jaunts with the wheel in tow I really want a nice perch for the bum. But the perfect height though is not so easy to find.  But while looking for the right chair Teapot and I came across an epic bag,... a perfect bag... the bag of my dreams... and it's not really a bag. It is a tool box/bag. Remember the tool box that carpenters of old would carry. They were wooden with a handle. Well DeWalt makes one that has an aluminum handle and is made out of nylon and let me tell you there are enough little pockets and pouches to stow any spinning or knitting gadget you could ever want to use. I can even see using it for carrying around my pin looms. Perfect.

It has a super strong handle and I can't wait to use it.... and to CJ... mine beats out that Lee Valley one you have!!! (But I'm not competing eh!) Meanwhile I was also given money towards my new loom. I have wanted a new floor loom for ever... I mean a brand spankin' new loom... one right off the assembly line. I have the loom of my dreams picked out. It is a LeClerc Compact eight harness... and it's not cheap... not like the sucker I have now. We are talking $2000.00 smackeroos. So I have started a loom fund. Dear old Pops is holding said cash until suck time as I have the required amount. I have one tenth so far. Then best of all... when I got home this evening waiting for me was a clean house. The Daughters got home from school and washed and scrubbed and swept and mopped... the house was spick and span. And on top of that they got me a iTunes card so that I can now download more tunes that I like. I need some new tunes so that I will do tomorrow. All in all a lovely day spent with my hubby and no work not even spinning for level 5... or 3 for that matter...

Tomorrow I will be working though since I will be entertaining some of my friends on Wednesday who are coming here to enjoy some spinning and show and tell... I haven't had a chance to enjoy them for a while.

I am off to bed... all is quiet and it seems that evening is the new computer time. Hey by the way, I think I finally have this darn thing working again.... I am not posting from the phone and I do not have to use the iPhone as a wireless device to connect to the internet... we think we have the bug fixed... let's keep our fingers crossed.  Meanwhile the truck is at the dealership and evidently the cam phasers are rally screwed... this means that they will be pulling the engine apart again and may mean that after 6 weeks we might get a new engine.... I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one too.

Ok now I really am off to bed... since I've been up since 4 a.m.  I think I'm tired... but then maybe I'm too tired to really know!

Late Into The Night

It's been a busy few days that's for sure. With Teapot gone with Daughter #1 for another JCR outing it left Daughter #2 and I to pick up the slack. In addition I have been working on the level 5 homework and have made great inroads. As a matter of a fact all I have left to spin is the fibre for the fifty hour project. I still have a few write ups to do but even there I am coming along.  As a matter of a fact I just finished all the t.p.i. write ups and glad to have it done. I was so pleased this afternoon when I finished the last sample. It looked like yuck but met all the requirements so it's done and over with. Some of these novelty yarns are for the birds literally. I can't see what on earth people see in some of them. I worked for two days before I got a satisfactory Snarl yarn.... it is also known as a eyelash yarn... but in the end when I got it done it hung right and looks alright... still I have no clue why anyone in their right mind would want to spin a yarn of this nature.... crap that's what I say. Then I had to design a yarn with cellulose fibre and honestly I think that's for the birds too. Mine is a cabled yarn (that's a four ply yarn that been spun and plied and then respun....  for you non-spinner types) and my cabled yarn is also a flake yarn with tufts of cotton dropped into it between the two two plies.... clear as mud right... anyway it too looks like no one in their right mind would want to knit with it.... I guess you could frame it and call it art. I think it's junk.

Tomorrow Teapot and I are heading into FSJ to once again take the truck back for more repairs... the whole damn truck seems to be falling apart. this time they are replacing one of the pistons and the cam phasers.... ??? whatever the hell that is! I think they should replace the whole f-ing engine... sorry for the cursing but honestly the whole truck would make anyone swear....

I decided to go this time because it is my birthday and I figured that Teapot could afford to buy me lunch and a birthday gift.... the big 47 hits.... jeese it feels like I should be turning 30.... and then some days I feel like I should be turning 92! Yesterday I had to go to a meeting at the church... yes I've been roped in again... to a lesser degree though. While at the meeting I was presented with a chocolate cake with berries over the top... lovely and tasty. Then my dear friend gave me a gift and inside peeping out of the top of the gift bag was a new friend....

I've decided to give the wee guy a name.... he is Mr. Tummly.... George to be exact. Mr. George Tummly.... meet the world. He will be taking a seat of honour on the deck this summer. And I am hoping to add others to the deckor (get it... ha ha... deckor/decor) I have fallen in love with these little gaffers after watching the Disney movie Gnomeo and Juliet.

It's getting late and all are in bed for long ago and I should be heading there too. So I will sign off here and head to bed with a promise of pictures of spirals, flakes, snarls and marls, and cables and tufts.... etc... maybe not tomorrow though as I will be celebrating making it through another year.... cause at this point I'm glad to say that I can still do that !

Oh Dear... What A Waste

You would think that I would be ecstatic about now. I should be saying that I'm over the moon cause all I have left is the fifty hour project. But that's not the way of it at all. I woke up this morning to spring snow. After weeks of lovely sunshine it was hard to get motivated. I headed off into town (that would be the town of HH)and proceeded to get groceries after letting Teapot and the girls off at the school. By the time I got home it was after 11 a.m. I put the groceries away and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Soon I was sitting in the recliner in the sunroom with the radio softly making background noise. There by my chair was the book I had been given for Easter. I had only read the first chapter in the last week and so it really hadn't grabbed my interest much yet. I picked it up and began to read where I had left off. Next thing you know my tea was cold and it was 2:30 p.m. And I needed to go pick up Teapot and the girls. After we got home it was a mad dash to get Teapot out the door again. Daughter #1 and her father are off to camp Sagitawa for the weekend. I spun one single for the snarly yarn but I still wasn't feeling motivated. So I picked up my book once again, fully intending to spin after supper. That never happened. So now it is bed time... And the light at the end of the tunnel hasn't gotten any bigger. My own damn fault, I know. I blame it on the snow. I think I'll read a little more.. Before I turn out the light. Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant... Very good... So good in fact it helped me to forget spinning today... Too bad it didn't help me forget the snow. Oh well, there's always tomorrow!