Knitting, with Dogs

2/1: Real content

Jeezopete, it's February already!  How'd that happen?

In the interest of making this blog less content-free, I now present you the newest member of my household:

A new (to me) old bike, a step-through model with fenders!  Here's another picture, with Jasper, because everything's better with dogs.

Here's what Jasper can do with this bike. He cracks me up.

I managed to bork the valve tube in a non-repairable way while I was pumping up the rear tire.  Doh! A quick trip to Target netted me a new tube and a basic bike computer. 

I rode the bike about 6 miles this afternoon.  You know, now that I've accepted that I'll never be a bicycle racer or ride across the US on a bike, I'm pretty cool with going slow and sitting upright like an old lady.  I had great fun on it this afternoon.  The gears are low, but my legs aren't strong at all, so that works well for me.  It still needs a little cleaning up and fooling around with (and a rear rack), but I can handle that.

I got some roving in today from UglySchmugly, at Ugly Stepsister Designs too.  She was raising money for Haiti relief, and that was all the excuse I needed.  And the roving is anything but ugly.

Hooray!

Long time no see...

I should either blog again or give it up. 

Let's try blogging again first.

I wonder if I could do something like this:  Furr Homespun Dress.

I'd like to try.  First I'll have to see if I can spin finely and strongly enough.  Then see if I can weave it.

Sampling will be involved, of necessity.

Stay tuned!

Spin a mile in one day

I took on a challenge in the Tour de Fleece this year -- spin a mile in a day.

I managed to do it today.

I used the Paradis Canadian Production Wheel that Betty gave me.  It only has one bobbin, but I've spent the last couple of days experimenting on how much the bobbin would hold, so I figured I could do it in 2 bobbin if I spun it fine.

Here's bobbin 1 -- 540 wraps on a 2-yard niddy noddy (a little more than 1000 yds):

and bobbin  -- 435 wraps on a 2-yard niddy (a bit more than 800 yds):

The two skeins on the scale:

That's 4 1/8 oz, so unless I've got the math wrong, that's about 6900 yards per pound.

It took just over 10 hours off and on today.

I'm pretty please with this.  And very, very tired.

Distaff Day

Had a good afternoon at the PHG today.  I got to play spinning wheel problem-solver, and got to talk to some new (to me, at least) folks there.

Found out one of my friends has a marriage that's going to end.  :(  Not good news, but she's a strong lady and she'll be ok, in time.

Janet and I left the meeting and went to Roswell to a shop specializing in lampwork beading and glass art supplies.  That was interesting, and I'm glad to know where it is.  I'm  not up for starting something new and different right this sec, but Janet's well on her way and doing well, as usual.  But Janet's brilliant.  I'm in awe of Janet.

And since I am totally pictureless AGAIN, here's something funny, if your mind runs that way:

Boy, it's hot!

How's that for an original sentiment in July?  I was at Stone Mountain today, spinning in the shade under the porch.  (It was hot there too.)  I was wondering why I met hardly any other spinners when I was doing demos when a lady and her husband walked up and started asking intelligent questions about my wheel.  Then the husband volunteered that his wife was a spinner. 

How about that, eh?

She has an Ashford Elizabeth, a Traddy and a Joy.  I asked her if she was on Ravelry (no, but she'd heard of it), and we talked shop for a while.  Cool.

Later in the afternoon, there was a cute kid (maybe 3 years old) who came and sat beside me and asked lots of questions.  She (I thought) had a gorgeous huge curly head of hair, and she asked me to guess what her name was, and volunteered that it started with an "E."  After guessing Emily and Elizabeth, I was informed that HE was NOT a girl. 

Oops.  I promptly apologized and offered in my defense that a) I'm not around kids much, b) the hair fooled me and c) I'm an idiot.

Oh well.  Can't win them all.

Bark in the Park, and Knitting (picture heavy post)

On Saturday Jun 12, we leashed up the dogs and headed out to the Dog Days of Duluth celebration.  You know those cities that have decorated cows and mermaids and stuff, where they parcel out the figurines to artists and the artists decorate them?  It was kinda like that.  Though honestly, the dog figures were kinda small and hard to find.  I don't even think we saw all of them.  There were also dog-related businesses and rescue groups set up on the green.  (Lots of freebies and samples!) 

Some of the dog sculptures we saw looked like these:

or this (that's a butterfly on his nose):

Or this (Bouncer got in the picture):

Or this:

Surprisingly, Jasper didn't try to steal the tennis ball.  :)

It was a hot, sunny day.  Jasper kept heading for shade and flopping down.  We thought he might like to get wet in the fountain, but her really wasn't interested:

Dear Robert and I laughed while we thought about our Sasha.  When she got hot, she'd flop down in ANY available water to cool her belly.  Whether we wanted her to or not.

This was my favorite dog sculpture.  Those are 1's and 0's all over it.  Its title is "Computer Lab."  :D

That's my elbow, but I looked so hag-like I cropped the rest of myself out.

Knitting new -- a FO!

No, not a serious moth attack, just a bunch of holes on purpose.  It's the Full of Holes Triangle Shawl (Ravelry link) from Etsy seller Yummy Yarn.  (She's not showing the pattern in her shop right now, but I'm sure a quick email could get you a copy.) 

I probably over-blocked a little (I'm an aggressive blocker), but I still like the way it came out.  And it's  a GREAT pattern for variegated yarns.  I used 1 skein plus a little bit of another of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn.

Obligatory bathroom mirror shot:

Tour de Fleece report:  I'm still spinning cotton.  I got Eileen Hallmans' video and her tips on getting the charkha set up were worth the price of the dvd by themselves.  My creaky old Indian charkha is now purring along much more happily.  I ordered directly from Eileen via email, and I think the dvd was in my mailbox before the money was out of my Paypal account.  She's that fast.  :)

I'll leave you with a last shot of Dear Robert and the dogs before I go off to do battle with laundry and housework.

A little more handspun

100% tussah silk singles, approx. 225 yards.  All the shine is from the silk.  :)

It has a really nice scroop-y feel to it too.

Sorry, no white and blue to go with it today.  Happy 4th of July, USAians!

Spinning at Stone Mountain tomorrow.  You won't be able to stir folks with a stick out there.  I'm hot already.

Spinning: yarn and device

My first handspun bamboo fiber:

It's about 250 yards of 2 ply, weighing about 3.25 oz.  The color is actually a very pale lilac.  I dyed the fiber before it was spun.

The bamboo wasn't really hard to spin, but it was... unusual.  It seemed a little stiff in the single, though that may be because I am the Queen of High-Twist Yarns.  It softened up nicely in the plying, though.  It's slighly fuzzy, but should have some nice drape.

I'm still struggling to find a good way to spin cotton.  I can't get either of my wheels to spin the cotton A) fine enough AND B) fast enough.  I can get one or the other, but friends, I have POUNDS of cotton to spin, and I'd rather not spend the rest of my life doing it.

So I had an old bicycle wheel and some pvc pipe lying about.  Here's what I came up with:

I'm using one of the spindles from my charkha, and obviously the spindle support is just being held on by a clamp right now.  But it works, and it's almost fast enough.  :)  Now I just have to refine my technique.

Unexpected side effect:  my left arm gets TIRED reaching up and to the side when I'm drafting the fiber.  Who knew?

Still around, somewhere

Not much knitting going on lately, but I've been doing a good bit of spinning.  I'm gearing up to spin cotton for the Tour de Fleece (blog and Ravelry group) this year. 

This is Cotton Spinnin' Summer for me.  I'm a sprinter, because I'm still aiming on spinning cotton at about 7000 yards per pound.  I'm not there yet though.  But I'm making progress

Maybe I'll actually get good at that old charkha I've had for ages.  Srsly, the worst part about spinning on that old Indian charkha is that it's... well, touchy describes it pretty well.  Some day I'm going to find a good solution for the belt that goes from the accelerator pulley to the spindle and/or good spindle bearings.  I'm also  messing with my CC wheel.  In order to get the tension loose enough to spin yarn as fine as I want to, I need to loosen the belt so much that the slippage is costing me time.  I need a better way to get twist into my fiber FASTER.

More info as I figure it out.

In other news:  many of the other Georgia bloggers have grieved along with Claudia at the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband.  Her husband was the same age I am right now.  :(

We love you, Claudia, and we're thinking about you all the time.

And just as an aside to the universe:  ENOUGH with all these people dying this year!  STOP IT.  Just. stop. it. dammit.

Jeezopete.

Oh, and I'm thinking of starting a story podcast.  Just reading stories, because I like to read stories out loud.  Nothing special, just stories.  More on that as it develops.

Spinning guild this afternoon -- YAY!

Some good, some bad

Good:  spinning in public, even though it was World Wide Knitting in Public Day.

Bad:  Thunderstorms, the kind where you hear that zzzzzzzip-POW sound, the one that means the lightning was REALLY close, right over you.

Good:  Being safely sheltered under the porch with a bunch of nice people.

Bad:  a fall on the stairs and a possible broken ankle.

Good:  It wasn't MY ankle!

Bad:  Being too far away from the African drummers to really be able to watch and listen to them.

Priceless:  talking to them afterwards, and seeing some of the mudcloth from their home.  Even though they did say I reminded them of their grandmothers.

Handspinning is alive and well in their home.