Blogger Does Not Like Me...

...or my photos...or my weaving...or SOMETHING because it keeps refusing to post my photos and screwing up my formatting (and, of course, this isn't a case of the error occuring between the keyboard and the seat, as DH would say, it really IS Blogger's fault, not mine).

In any event, this is what my loom -- my wonderful, glorious loom! -- looks like with some real live weaving on it:

The colors are rather washed out -- too much flash, not enough skill on my part to keep it from glaring off the yarn -- but here's a closeup of what, with any luck, will turn out to be a beautiful handwoven scarf, a Christmas gift (nothing like starting early!) for my friend who loves purple:

On The Loom

This Spring Break, I decided to finally put together the 32" Beka rigid heddle loom I bought a few months back and learn how to weave on it. After much help from DH, here's the loom all assembled:



I decided to use a microfiber yarn in purple as my warp; in retrospect, it's probably far stretchier than I should have picked for a first project, but too late now...and I LOVE how it looks with the ribbon yarn weft (you can see it in the photo, above,wrapped on my humungo-sized shuttle).


Here's how the loom looks all warped up and ready to weave:

Spindlers Spring Fling Exchange

My package from my Spring Fling partner arrived, and boy was it fun to open! Amy N in South Dakota sent me:

• an assortment of different teas
• Hershey's kisses (plain and caramel-filled, which DH and I promptly devoured)
• purple Peeps (yuck! I'm not a Peeps person and neither is DH, so those will go to the kids in the family at Easter)
• Japanese jelly candies
  
• colored pens
• three skeins of novelty yarn, including a full skein of raspberry-colored Divine, which is the exact yarn I'm using in my ruana (score!)
• a very nicely-made wooden toy car wheel spindle
• four small samples of luxury fibers: angora, camel down, Chinese yak down, and raw quivit

I was especially surprised by the quivit. I have no idea of what to do with all those fibers, especially the quivit, which looks like it still has guard hairs in it. Maybe I'll spin some up for one of the Spin Off "Our Yarns" segments. Wouldn't that be cool, getting a sample of my yarn in Spin Off?

Mystery Spindles a Mystery No More!

Well, based on the responses I got on the Spindlers listserv, I think I've got the following spindles:

Mystery Spindle #1 = a Hatchtown Farms Kaari spindle. That's pretty cool since those spindles are pricey ($40+) and well-liked by a lot of spindlers. I haven't yet spun anything on it (the cop in the photo was made by the prior owner), but I'm looking forward to giving it a try soon.

Mystery Spindle #2 = a toy car wheel spindle. Wish I knew more about the name and date, but the shoddy construction does scream homemade. Still, it's never a bad thing to have some cheap, homemade spindles, even if only to have on hand for curious kids to play around with.

Mystery Spindle #3 = a Kokovoko. The shape looks right, but most of the Kokovokos I found photos of online were top whorls, not bottom. Still, I know that Kokovoko does make a bottom whorl spindle, and this so closely resembles the top whorls that I can't imagine it being anything else.

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions!

Mystery Spindles

OK, I need some help here. I just received 4 spindles as part of an assortment of fiber, equipment and books I bought through the Spinners' and Weavers' Housecleaning Pages. One is a Louet top whorl, but the other three are mysteries to me. The woman I bought the spindles from couldn't remember any details about where they came from, so I'm wondering if anyone recognizes these:

Mystery Spindle #1

Mystery Spindle #1 looks to me like it might be a Hatchtown Farms spindle, but since I've only seen them in photos online and never in person I can't be sure. It's about 7 inches long from hook to end of shaft and fairly lightweight. The whorl isn't notched.

Mystery Spindle #2

Mystery Spindle #2 looks to me like it has the whorl of a Simple Market Farms spindle. However, the shaft is clearly a roughly-cut dowel with a cheap cup hook screwed in off-center on one end, and the whorl is clumsily glued onto it. The fascinating thing about this spindle is that it's signed and dated. It says:

"Kick n' Spin"
1997

And there's a signature on the whorl also that I can't read but that seems to be two words, the first beginning with S and ending with R (maybe only 3 or so letters long) and the second really more of a signature scribble than having any well-defined letters. There is also a hand drawing of a sheep (done in the same black ink as the rest of the writing) on the outer edge of the whorl. Unfortunately, my camera wouldn't take any clear photos of the writing. If this were just a homemade toy car wheel spindle, I can't imagine why someone would name, date and autograph it. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Mystery Spindle #3

Mystery Spindle #3 is a real boat anchor, but I love the way it spins forever on a single twirl. I think this will turn out to be a wonderful plying spindle. It's a bottom whorl, about 10 inches long, and weighs about 3.5 ounces. There's no hook, but it does have an interesting "double notch" (for lack of a better word). The end is shaped like a shallowly-cut crochet hook, and the center of the hooked end is deeply cut. It looks like the hook is there for a half-hitch to wrap around and the notch is there for the end of the thread to fit into. Sound familiar to anyone?

I'd love to hear any ideas about what these three spindles may be. I got the deal of the century on them (all three plus the Louet for $10!), so I certainly can't complain no matter what the provenance. Still, I'd be interested to know more about these if anyone can enlighten me.

Forgot to Add....

Just this morning I remembered another thing I included in the Spring Fling package (which I still don't knowif my partner has received or not): two cute little handwoven "pockets" in purple and yellow. My mom gave one in red and white to my daughter for Valentine's Day with a little gift tucked inside, and it was just so cute I had to try and copy it.

Here are step-by-step directions for anyone who's interested. This seems to work best when made with something that has a bit of firmness to it, like paper or cotton fabric. I tried it with felt, but it tended to torque a bit after weaving.

How to Make a Woven Pocket

Using two pieces of paper or cloth, layer them one on top of the other and fold in half. Cut an elongated half-circle out of both pieces with the short center-line being the fold line. You will wind up with two roughly football-shaped pieces that are folded down the middle. Cut an equal number of slashes from the folded edge almost to the opposite side of each piece, but do not cut all the way through the outer edge.

Next, keep both pieces folded in half and weave the leftmost strip of the piece on the right (red fabric) between the folded rightmost strip of the piece on the left (heart fabric). Basically, you will tuck the leftmost red strip between the fold of the rightmost heart strip. Then take the second-to-right heart strip and tuck it between the fold of the same leftmost red strip.

• Continue weaving in and out in this manner until all strips have been woven together.

• Neaten weaving until pocket lays flat. If you like, add a handle or use as-is.
  

Knitting Olympics

I must say, I'm jealous of all those folks participating in Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. If I'd known, I might have entered, though the way my knitting has NOT been progressing lately, I doubt I'd finish.

I've been working on my ruana pretty regularly. It's totally mindless knitting with the only downside being the tremendous amount of yarn I need to drag along with me if I want to take it anywhere. It's definitely not designed to be commuter knitting.

I also started my mom's silk stole, figuring that should be portable enough to take with me to and from work, but so far I've only gotten about four points worked on the first edging; at this rate, she'll get it for Christmas...2007!

At least I finished spinning the orange never-ending Corriedale on my Louet wheel. Right now it's still in singles on the bobbin; I'm not sure if I want to ply it on itself or with another yarn. Right now I'm spinning up some mixed wool (white) on the wheel and enjoying how I'm increasingly able to spin a more consistent yarn.

Oh, and the Golding Swan Lake has been sent back to Tom and Diane for repair. Let's just say that there'll be no more spindling over bare hardwood floors for me. :( Still, the Goldings are wonderful and stand by their products, so I should get my spindle back in fine working order soon. Let's hope so; I can't wait to finish that purple variegated wool I was working on.

Secret Spindler Spring Fling

OK, I tried posting this a couple of days ago but bagged it when blogger went wonky on me and ate my post. Here goes try #2....

I mailed out my spindlers Spring Fling package about a week or so ago, which means my partner out in SD should be getting it any day now. Since the theme was spring, I started by making some Loom Blooms, which I made on my little Weave-It 4 inch hand loom following the pattern in this season's issue of Spin-Off.

I figure she can attach them to whatever she likes once she receives them.

I then made a bunch of stitch markers (I hope she knits!) in purple, green and gold -- nice springtime colors. Couldn't get a good photo, though, to post what they look like. :( Oh, well.... I sent them in a nice little woven drawstring bag (not handmade my me, unfortunately), which -- since it's fairly large -- she should be able to use to hold all her stitch markers, not just the ones I sent.

Next I included a couple of small skeins of yarn, one in pink and the other a novelty sorta-boucle-type in white. I just had them sitting around with no plans to use them and I thought maybe my partner would be more creative with them than I had.

I also tucked in a few seed packets: baby's breath, poppies and tomatoes. Again, just some seeds I already had in the house, but nice for spring (especially the tomatoes; by the summer they should be ready for picking and eating -- YUM!).

Finally, I packed it all for safe transport in a bunch of "mystery wool" in various shades of white and off-white. It came in a mixed box of wool I bought off ebay awhile ago, and I figured that even though it was a bit rough it would be perfect for needle felting or use in outerwear...and, of course, the color lends itself perfectly to dyeing.

I really hope my partner likes her package! Now, I wonder what I'll receive myself.... :)

Valentine's Day Surprise

Do I have the Dearest DH or what?? He gave me a Golding Swan Lake spindle -- a gorgeous piece of art that is as useful as it is beautiful. I've been happily spinning up some variegated purple wool roving since getting this beauty. How lucky can I get? *g*

Ruana

Tonight I finally started the ruana from Folk Shawls. A ruana is a South American shawl -- very long, solid in the back and split down the middle in front with a floor-sweeping fringe. It takes a tremendous amount of yarn, so I've been collecting for the past couple of months in preparation. I'm doing it in somewhat unusual colors for me -- lots of pinks, raspberry, purple, and also deep blues and charcoals -- and it's basically a showcase for some of the sari silk yarn I treated myself to at Christmas. This is going to be a LONG project --236 stitches in a row, and each row has to be ended and started over to make the fringe -- but it's totally mindless garter stitch knitting, so it'll be a nice break from working on my mom's lacey silk stole and my pi shawl.

Baby Blanket



I cannot believe how well this turned out! I wish I'd taken a "before" photo to show the comparison. I didn't simply because I didn't believe that crumpled, ruffled ball of knots would turn into anything resembling a blanket even after the most determined blocking. Happily, I was wrong! :)

This blanket is based on a Shetland hap shawl, which is the traditional "everyday" shawl worn by women of the Shetland Islands. The solid garter stitch center is for warmth, while the lace edging is for beauty. I picked the colors -- black, blue and light grey -- for my cousins' new baby, a boy due to arrive from Korea in March. I'm glad I have this finished well in advance; my current work/school schedule makes it tough to get in any serious knitting time. Still, I'm almost done with DH's Valentine's Day present, a simple scarf in a zig-zag pattern made from dark brown wool singles from the Brown Sheep company. That's my subway knitting, for the moment at least.

Sick Again

I can't believe this. It feels like I just got over the last horrendous cold and now I'm flat on my back again, mouth-breathing and wondering when I'll just frickin die already and get it over with. DH says it's going back to work that's done it; I'm not used to being around all those germy people, riding the subways and leaning over students' shoulders and such. Whatever it is, I'm miserable. Thank goodness for my in-laws, who very kindly offered to take the baby tomorrow so I can stay home alone and try to recuperate. Bed all day, chicken soup...aaaah, sounds like heaven!

How very, very sad.

Time Warp

Well, I'm officially back to work. Classes started last Monday and I feel like I haven't taken a breath since. Is it less than 24 hours to February already??

When not spinning in a tornado of paperwork I've actually managed to get some knitting done -- finished the lace border on F's baby blanket on the subway this morning (just have to graft the two ends together and it's done, done, done!!) and even started paging my way through Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls (HIGHLY recommend the book for Shetland lace patterns and shawl making tips) looking for a pattern to make my mom a small stole.

Kinda cool story there. I was in Beacon (home of the aforementioned Dia) with DH and friends over the weekend when we stopped into a small artsy-type shop. Lo and behold, the entire back of the store was filled with fiber works (woven, mostly) and hand-dyed skeins of yarn. I came across a real treat: a 4 1/2 ounce skein of 100% silk in the most wonderful silver-grey with just a few deep violet streaks. Wow! That thing just shouted to be made into something for my mom. But silk don't come cheap, and that's where DH once again earned his D ("dear") status.
"Is it a good price for that kind of yarn?" he asked as I waffled.
"Well, I've paid about the same per ounce for hand-dyed silk top to spin myself," I replied.
"So, buy it," he said, and even offered me the money to do so. Is that a sweetie or what?

So now I have just shy of 850 yards of the most wonderful silk two-ply, probably something like a fingering weight. The stole will be small and I'm picking the most open lace stitch I can find just to stretch it as much as possible. I think I might even try to do a teeny-tiny bead-accented pointed edging on the short ends. Now to sharpen my bamboo size 10s into needle points (for those killer p3togs in the Madeira Mesh) and start sampling!

It's amazing where inspiration comes from.

Yesterday I went to Dia: Beacon, the modern art museum in an up-and-coming (until recently VERY economically depressed) river town about half an hour from where I live. As DH and I toured the site, I was struck by what I think is the single most important message that modern art has to teach us: Art is everywhere, and everything is Art. How else to explain a gallery full of string, piles of rags, video loops of a rat infested studio, giant metal-lined holes and Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes?

A trite but incredibly freeing revelation, at least to me.

Now I'm inspired. I've been contemplating doing a little painting for a couple of years now; something large, oil on canvas, definitely non-representational. But now I know I want to incorporate my fiber arts into that vision, making something of a sculptural painting, a dyed and woven fabric lifting itself off of a canvas, playing with light and shadow and color and texture. I want to start with the raw fleece and process, dye, spin and weave it all myself, keeping bits of each stage -- a snippet of raw fleece here, a hand-carded rolag there -- as I go along (hey, if some Japanese dude can make art out of a series of canvasses with a single date and a newspaper clipping from that date then I don't see anything too far out about my fleece idea).

Lord knows when I'll actually have time to do any of this. I'm just so happy to be this inspired!

And the next time the crap piles up around the house, I'm just going to stick a title on it and call it Art! :)

Rethinking the Blog

Back a few years ago, I was a vegetarian. I mean, a serious vegetarian: no meat, no fish, nothing "with a face," as the saying goes. I had reasons for going veggie, which were sound and valid at the time I took up my salad fork and put away my steak knife. But as the years went on, those reasons got further and further from why I was a vegetarian. Finally, I had to admit that I was only a vegetarian because it was who I'd become. "Splindarella the Vegetarian," that was me. I couldn't separate myself from what I would and wouldn't eat; my meals had begun to define my existance.

I bring this up because I've been thinking about my blog. I started it as a class assignment; I continued it as a personal record. But, all along I felt like my blog needed a "theme." People keep educational blogs or technology blogs or poetry blogs or fill-in-another-adjective blogs. So, I decided my adjective would be "fiber," and I'd fill my blogs with photos of my projects and descriptions of my adventures in wool. Funny thing is, I never seemed to get the camera out when I should; when I did manage to photograph my work, it took way too long to get the pics from the camera onto the hard drive. And let's face it, it's not like I finish a project every day. Much as I might have wanted to blog about other things, I felt the need to maintain my fiber blog as strictly as I'd maintained my vegetarianism. I'm sure there's something Freudian in all this, but hell if I know what it is.

Anyhoo, I eventually fell of the veggie bandwagon -- jumped headfirst into a BBQ pit is more like it. I decided it was stupid to let something define me if it wasn't working with the reality of who I was. Same goes for this blog. So, while I'll probably still blog about my adventures in fiber, such as they are, I'm also officially giving myself license to blog about anything else I damn well please. Starting with the fact that I have to get up at five frickin' a.m. tomorrow for work, to which I just returned this past week after a 10 month maternity hiatus.

Off to bed now, understandable. More to follow, much sooner now that I'm not waiting for fiber adventures to happen before posting....

Serenity Stone

This is just a little something I made this evening for my co-worker, H. She's going through some problems and has a lot on her mind these days, so I decided to make her a variation on a worry stone. The "stone" is actually a flat glass marble, the kind for decorating the bottom of a vase or bowl. I wrote "serenity" across the top in English (out of view in the photo) and the Chinese character for "peace" on the front. I also knitted the small bag to hold the stone. It's made of corriedale wool that I hand spun on a drop spindle, some of my very first homespun. I'm hoping it makes her feel just a little better, even if only because it always feels good to get a present, especially a handmade one.

A Visit to the Frog Pond

Well, after struggling gamely on with my striped hap shawl design, I finally decided it just wasn't working since a) the colors were godawful, and b) it was so oversized that had I continued, by the end it would have been big enough to cover the whole house and everyone in it. I therefore made the painful decision to take it down to the frog pond and rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.

The good news: I've already re-knit one of the skeins of yarn into the center of a half-sized hap shawl which will eventually become a baby blanket for Fletcher, my cousins' second (adopted) son, who is due to arrive from Korea in March. The re-knit center is black garter stitch done on the diagonal; the lace border (which I just started on this evening) is royal blue, and the edging (which I hope to start by the end of the weekend) will a very, very pale grey. I was originally planning to make Fletcher a handknit sweater instead of a blanket, but when I had to frog my hap shawl I immediately started re-knitting it without really thinking through what I would do with what by necessity (due to shortage of non-godawful yarn colors) would never be a full-sized shawl. I briefly toyed with having my 9-month-old wear a mini-shawl, but a quick reality check took care of that idea (it's all I can do to wrestle my little free spirit into normal baby clothes like onesies -- no WAY she'd keep a shawl on her back for more than a nanosecond). Then I hit on Fletcher and my need for a gift for him. Since the hap was calling me much more loudly than a sweater, I decided to call it a hap blanket and continued to knit on it guilt-free.

I'm really enjoying knitting Fletcher's blanket far more now that it actually IS Fletcher's blanket and not Splindarella's GINORMOUS Shawl-from-the-Bowels-of-Hell. If I can get myself together enough I might even post some on-the-needle pics. Stay tuned....

Still Catching Up...

...on posting pics of handmade Christmas gifts. Here's the necklace I gave my teenage cousin:


White and rose quartz chips with garnet accents and a decorative flower clasp. I'm quite pleased with this piece; I only wish the photo weren't so washed out. Oh, well. She liked it, and that's what's important.

The J Family Hats

How do I love my knitting machine? Let me count the ways....

Well, at this moment I'm absolutely loving the instant gratification of knitting up a trio of hats from start to finish in a matter of a couple of hours. Sewing up the seams and tucking in the ends took as long as the knitting itself.

The J family actually consists of 6 people: my best friend K from high school, her husband R, his two kids from his first marriage, and infant twins. Way back in November, I sent a Christmas package with something handmade for each of them. K and R got a wildly-fringed red-white-and-blue laprobe (I figure if my friend is going to up and move to Europe the least I can do is saddle her new family with some kitschy Americana). Pre-teen daughter got a beaded bracelet; infants got coordinating sweaters; but it was teenage son's gift -- a simple winter hat in red-white-and-blue stripes -- that got the greatest raves. K asked if I could make a hat each for her, hubby and step-daughter...and of course, how could I say no?

Now that holiday gifts are a thing of the past, I decided to sit at the machine and turn out the hats so they could be worn THIS winter instead of next. Here's how they turned out:

The hat on the right is for R, in his favorite team's colors (black and yellow). I promised I wouldn't make the hat look like a giant black-and-yellow bumblebee, and I think I managed okay.

The hat in the center is for R's daughter. She specifically asked for hunter green and light green stripes. It looks a little weird in the photo, like the brim of the hat is narrower than the top. Mea culpa; it's the way I stuffed the hat so I could photograph it. In reality, it looks very similar to the black-and-yellow hat but with small ridges where the striping is.

The hat I'm proudest of, though, is the one for K:

It almost looks like one of those bag-purses that were popular for awhile when I was a teenager. K specifically asked for a bag top and three large blocks of color in rust orange, green and purple. I chose the yarn -- Lion Brand Suede -- because I thought it had the best combo of those three colors of any of the yarns I looked at. It's also machine washable and something a bit unusual for use in a hat. It looks like it could fit the Jolly Green Giant, but that's so K can wear it pulled all the way down on cold days without totally crushing her 'do.

Now I just have to get out to the post office and mail them off -- yippee!

For the Benefit of Inquiring Minds

So, the HVME was a bust. How disappointing! I thought their move into new digs a few years back would have resulted in their having even more cool stuff at dirt-cheap prices. Instead, it seems the cool stuff was left behind and all they have now is piles of crap -- not much of a bargain at any price. What's worse, I brought friends along for the ride, and so exposed not only myself but those I care about to a (fortunately brief) romp through a warehouseful of crap. Oh, well. We compensated by heading out to New Paltz and the amazing Guilded Otter Brewery for lunch afterward, and no one was the worse for wear.

And now, it's time to give me a round of applause: I've finally downloaded some Christmas present photos! Here's one of the blankets I machine knitted:

This is the second of two, each one given to a cousin and spouse. This one is actually a tri-color blanket in sage, cream (the two colors you see in the photo) and beige (turned under in this shot). I'm especially proud of how this one turned out because I got the basketweave join perfectly correct (as opposed to the first one, where I had to go back and splice some loops that accidentally got left out of the weave -- oops).

And here's a photo of the second of three scarves I made for friends:

Same pattern (Horseshoe), different background (stockinette) and color (rose); this one went to Sue, who promptly put it on as soon as she opened the package. Joy! *g*

More photos to come as soon as I can figure out how to download them from the other camera....