(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Making Spinners

I finished teaching my first session of Spinning 101 at Fibre Space yesterday. There are four new spinners in the world this week because I taught them. I also taught 3 members of the Fibre Space staff to spin. I learned quite a bit during the class that will help make the next two sessions better. In looking for spindle and fiber prep examples for show and tell, I unearthed all kinds of treasures buried in my stash.

To wrap up the 3 session class, I hauled both wheels and the drum carder to the shop (in the rain, no less) so that my students and my friends could play. One friend had a blast blending fake cashmere top with a little bit of firestar and Colonial Top. She then spun it up on a spindle and christened the yarn Alaska Princess.

I've also reacquainted myself with both the Schact and the Joy in the past couple of weeks. Over the past two Saturdays, I spun merino and sea silk singles for yarn for a friend. An amazing pencil roving showed up at Fiber Space, and I desperately wanted to spin some. The recent stash dive (and plans for Rhinebeck in a few weeks) kept me from buying any for myself. I offered to make yarn for Beth if she bought the fiber. I had every intention of plying today, but laundry, cooking for D, making a pass through the closet, and finishing a pair of socks won.

It's time to finish up that last bit of laundry and get to sleep. I'll try to be less of a stranger to the blog for the rest of 2009.

Tour de Fleece Wrap Up

I did spin every day for the first two weeks of the Tour de Fleece. Then work got crazy, I finally decided to read the last 4 Harry Potter books, and my hands gave out (probably from holding the heavy books). I am happy with the amount of spinning I accomplished in small bits of time over two weeks. I spun two more balls of the finewool fleece and spun up some of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts BFL roving I bought at Sock Camp in March. I still have to ply the finewool left to ply. Inertia keeps winning: why pull out a spinning wheel when I can grab the sock out of the knitting bag right next to where I am sitting.

In the end, I decided that life is too short to process the rest of the finewool fleece by hand. I'm down to the last small bin of washed wool, and I think it is all leg wool. The staple is shorter, the tips are yuckier, and there is lots more VM (vegetable matter) and other crud in the wool. When the weather cools down a bit, I plan to set up the drum carder on the deck and send the last bit through the carder. If it doesn't disintegrate, I'll spin it up, if it does, I'll toss it.

As soon as I overcome the spinning wheel inertia, this project will be finished. I think I need to spin something fun and colorful next. Then I'll tackle another natural colored fleece.

SpindleRose Spins Again

Tour de Fleece progress so far: 1.4 ounces of singles spun in two 45 minute sessions and enough rolags to keep me spinning at that rate for a few more days. I am down to my last storage bin of this fleece. The end of it is actually in sight.

Tour de Fleece

After several years cheering my friends from the sidelines, I decided to participate in the fun this year. I joined Team Rookie, Team Spindle, and Team Spin for Peace. My only goal is to spin for at least 30 minutes every day including any days that I am traveling (I have one trip planned for July so far). Since I want to finish spinning the fleece I have been hand processing, I expect to spend at least 30 minutes prepping wool for spinning every day, too.

The fleece is from Elihu Farm in upstate New York. I bought it at the Massachusetts Sheep and Wool Festival in 2004. I enjoy spindle spinning and hand carding, it is the picking and wheel plying that challenge me. The fleece is a bit tippy and sometimes fragile, so I'm pulling of the tips and opening the locks by hand to prep them for carding. In order to end up with nice big skeins, I have been winding 3 or 4 spindle cops onto a nostepinde and wheel plying 2 of those balls. Today, I plyed the 4 balls of singles I've spun in the past year or so and made enough rolags for about 2 hours of spinning.

L to R:Washed locks, rolags, 200 grams of yarn. As always click for big.

This is a good start to my rookie Tour. Tomorrow I plan to spin a bit and try to finish prepping the current bin of locks. I'll also spend most of the morning on the sofa with a sock watching the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Final.

Tonight D and I are headed into the District to watch the fireworks from the roof of his building. We'll be about three blocks north of the center of the Reflecting Pool. I saw the fireworks crew setting up on Wednesday while visiting monuments with my sister's family.

Secret Stash Swap

Better late than never, here is my Secret Stash Swap questionnaire. I missed the part of the instructions that included the questions in the chaos that was August around here.

1. When is you birthday? May 10
2. How long have you been spinning? 7 or 8 years
3. How long have you been blending your fibers? Not long at all. I'm using this swap as an excuse to get me off my duff to start playing around with the tools I have and to be creative with my stash.
4. What types of blends do you like to make and spin? I have no idea what kinds of blends I like to make, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I enjoy spinning just about everything in small quantities. I love spinning my own sock yarn and then knitting it.
5. What types of fibers do you NOT like? Are you allergic to any kinds of fiber? I'm not a fan of really short fibers. I have no allergies.
6. What are your favorite colors? Green, red, and pink. But never all together. I also love natural sheepy colors.
7. What are you least favorite colors? Orange, yellow, and any muddy blends.
8. What type of yarns do you like to spin? (singles, plied, novelty, fingering, bulky, etc.) I usually 2 or 3 ply, from tiny up to aran weight. This fall I'm challenging myself to spin fatter lofty yarns.
9. What type of blending equipment do you use? I have used a drum carder and hand cards. I own combs, but I have not yet been brave enough to try them out. I plan to comb one blend for the swap.
10. What type of wheel or spindle do you spin on? Wheels: single treadle Schact Matchless and Ashford Joy. Spindles: whatever top whorl feels right for the fiber at hand.
11. What do you do with your handspun yarn? Usually, I admire it and pet it. Sometimes I knit with it.
12. What are your interests outside of spinning? Knitting, cooking, watching sports (while knitting or spinning) with my DH, and traveling.
13. What types of music do you like? Just about everything. Lately, I'm listening to a lot of show tunes, folk, and classical.
14. What types of movies do you like? Classics, musicals, and romantic comedies. Nothing scary.
15. Do you collect anything? Yarn and fiber. ;-) And Disney character tea pots.
16. What types of candy and snacks do you like and dislike? I like just about everything. I prefer my chocolate dark--the darker the better. I think that Scharfenberger 99% is tasty stuff.
17. Do you have any food allergies to common "goodies"? (ie: chocolate, nuts, etc.) Peppermint. Wintergreen and spearmint are OK, though.

If I manage to get home during daylight tomorrow, I will have an actual finished pair of socks to show off. And two more odd socks added to my collection.

Fifth Blogiversary

In past years, my blogiversaries zoomed by without a nod. This summer, I am stepping back and taking stock of where I am in my fiber life, so it seems appropriate to recognize the beginning (and first incarnation) of my fiber arts blog. I am actively destashing and trying to be more realistic about what I will and will not knit and spin. I am using my precious yarn dollars to support our community and its causes instead of adding to my stash.

Like me, my blog has moved twice in the past five years, and the blog moves coincided almost exactly with the physical moves. In 2002, D and I were living in a tiny one bedroom apartment in one of MIT's married student dormitories; I used my student Athena account to host the blog. I had just purchased my first fleece at one of Claudia's early gatherings. D still planned to pursue a PhD in engineering. Most of my stash and stuff was in storage. I was deep in thesis procrastination.

If you had asked me back then where I would be in 5 years, I would probably have answered supporting D while he finishes graduate school. If he left MIT for grad school, I would probably have snagged a database consulting gig; if not, I would still be working in academic IT. I would never have imagined D working at a big law firm and me working in software sales. Looking backwards, I can see the turns that led us to Washington, DC, and our current life, but my self of 5 years ago would never have imagined that path.

For posterity, here is my first post and an update on the fleece I was working on back in July 2002:

It's a blog!
I'm so excited. I've been washing fleece today. I'm flicking open the locks, soaking them in my kitchen sink, rinsing, and drying them. This romney fleece cleans up to bright white with a bit of yellowing at the tips that disappears into roving and yarn. I'm looking forward to starting to spin it when my new wheel arrives later this week.
Sunday, July 21, 2002 1:14:00

Here is the current state of that fleece:
1.    2.
3.

1. The locks I washed in the tiny kitchen sink in our MIT apartment, flicked, and pulled into roving. 250 grams ready for the drum carder.
2. Eventually, I realized that processing fleece in the tiny apartment was a little impractical. I sent the rest of it out to be washed, carded, and pin drafted. 400 grams of beautiful ready to spin roving.
3. 180 meters of handspun Romney from the processed roving.

Sinking my hands into all that lovely Romney-ness to take pictures has me itching to spin the rest of the roving and drumcard the rest of the locks. If I can match the existing handspun, the remaining 650 grams of fiber should yield a little more than 1000 meters of yarn. In total, I will have 1200 meters of 2 ply DK to light worsted weight yarn to knit into a lovely cardigan for myself—perhaps Ariann or a lengthened CeCe. I do plan to dye the finished yarn before knitting since my white clothes never stay white for very long. Now I'm excited to finish spinning my first fleece and knit something with that handspun.

I suspect that my self of 5 years ago would see that fleece on my back or in a bin of yarn. I think it is time to turn that vision into reality and make some space in a fiber bin.

Looking ahead

Happy New Year!

2006 was a year of big changes chez SpindleRose. New city, new jobs, new friends. Looking forward, I anticipate a much calmer year as we learn more about our new hometown, host a few parties, hang with the neighbors, and make more new friends. We will also be getting ready for another move early in 2008; this necessitates more de-cluttering and de-stashing.

I am joining Wendy's Knit from Your Stash in 2007 challenge. The counters under the button are to keep me honest. In past years I have tried to knit from my stash and posted counters, but I did not own up to stash added. This year, I am committed to making a big dent. I cannot imagine a gift-giving occasion that would require yarn not already stashed. If an unimaginable occasion comes up, I will spin appropriate yarn from the fiber stash. If I cannot spin yarn appropriate for the occasion, I should not be giving a fibery gift.

My challenge has just one rule:

No yarn or fiber purchases in 2007

To succeed in this challenge I need a few exceptions from that rule.

1. May (my birthday month) is exempt.
2. Yarn from 2 sock clubs may be stashed. I have already paid for Lucy's and set aside the money for Blue Moon's.
3. I may buy one and only one skein of souvenir sock yarn from never visited before shops when I am on the road.
4. I may order the contrasting colored yarns required for the Dale sweaters I have planned.
5. A secret sock yarn rule (so as not to ruin a few surprises).
6. If I finish 4 new sweaters (the two nearly finished ones do not count) and spin the equivalent of 2 fleeces by October 1, I may do limited shopping at Stitches East and Rhinebeck (if I get to go to either one).
7. If I finish the EZ in the round sweater I have owed D for more than a decade (aka The Sweater from Hell), D says I may purchase 3 times the amount of yarn used.

My other challenge for 2007 is to be healthier. D and I both want to lose 20 pounds before our late September trip to Hawaii. To meet this goal:

1. I will cook at home more and eat out less when I am not traveling.
2. I will snack on fruits and vegetables instead of chips and cookies.
3. I will exercise at least 4 times a week.

Now it is time to knit, watch Wisconsin beat Arkansas in the Capitol One Bowl, and convince my aching head that I did not drink too much champagne last night.

Wool confessions

Juno just flashed her stash. And reminded me that I should post my own admissions, too. D and I have houseguests coming this weekend. And my parents are coming for Christmas. We really need a guest room with enough space for the guests, their luggage, and a bed for them to sleep in. Last Friday, we ordered a new mattress and box spring for ourselves. So we need room in the office or wool room for a queen sized bed. Remember this photo of the wool room right after the movers delivered everything in March? Here it is as of 8:00 last night waiting for the guest bed delivery.

Where did all the stash go? Most of the yarn is in the wool room closet. The fleeces and fiber are hanging out in the bedroom waiting for a large shipment of space bags. The fabric is hanging out in D's office waiting for under the bed storage bins. And about 1/3 of the stash is in the entry hall waiting for me to find time to list it for sale. Yes, it's time for another major destash chez SpindleRose. Watch this space for announcements.

And now I must go to work to earn money to pay for the new bed, underbed storage bins, and space bags. Except that there is a large moving truck blocking the exit from my garage. I guess I'm working from the sofa today.

Happy trails.