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Why does everything seem to take so much longer lately? Continuing in Part 2

Why does everything seem to take so much longer lately? Continuing in Part 2

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Why does everything seem to take so much longer lately? Continuing in Part 2

When last we chatted Glenn had just arrived home from a hard day of matching letters and number and not tripping. (don’t scoff this is not a job for me! unless you want your bills and fiber purchases lost to who knows where). i let him get comfortable at the computer for a couple minutes before asking him if he could drain the fleece for me. (He really is vary patent with my interesting hobby)

Fleece coming out of gray bucket with soapy water 36-37

The water is not as dirty as the last fleece! We filled a Dollerama bucket to just below the handles. The water from the hose was mildly warm from the sort of sun which is quickly becoming clouds. Glenn lifted and drained the fleece its container, tipping it to the side to let the water flow out. I may get another one and drill holes in the bottom, then gently placing it into the white bucket of clean water. I pick up and rotated the fleece holding container a couple times then left it to soak a bit more.

lightly soapy wash water

Draining the fleece from the wash bucket 38-41

Fleece going into the rinse bucket 42-43

During this delicate part of the fleece-washing operation we were interrupted by a hayness individual determined to steel birdseed! AH I had a weapon in hand so vanquished him in a torrent of bath water! Well I guess that was actually a shower from his criminal perspective. I ran him off twice and checked the lid on the feeder was tight. I’m sure he will break in and steel all the sunflower seeds but at least he will be vary clean when he does it. Evil rodent!!

Skwerl vanquishing!!! 44-47

After about 20ish minuets Glenn and I traipsed outside and I had him drain the fleece pulling the bucket from the rinse water.

the rince watter

Fleece has rinsed and is coming out 48-51

Onto the drying rack 52-54

Someday I should tell you about what my washing fleece inside set up looked like before I got the giant dirty Redo Arcott fleece. Maybe next time?

Its gaming night for Glenn, (no time for corn on the cob tonight so it’s been moved to tomorrow) and he is off to Kanata to play a game about saving sheep in the low country from levees and dikes that are about to brake. A vary noble endeavor! (I hope everyone including the sheep stay dry)

55

Sheep game 55

Now if the back neighbors raccoons don’t try to help I will have the first washed fleece dry by later tonight or maybe tomorrow morning. Then weather willing on to the next fleece tomorrow.

Update; the sun is defiantly gone after a brief valiant attempt at making it hard to see the computer screen. I may have to move the fleece drying under the dog shelter in a bit. I checked the weather forecast there may be unpleasant wetness later tonight. (That makes sense after all the watering earlier today.) So I will let the fleece drip a bit more before moving the rack.

I have gathered up the partly dry fleece and moved the drying rack. I went looking for a piece of sheers but found another fleece. Where did I get that one? It looks like it was poorly washed or was not washed I through it in the mostly clean soap water and added the rinse water. It can sit overnight and I will through it on the drying rack tomorrow. I put down a sheet since I couldn’t find the sheer for the Icelandic. Although the length is good the ends are vary thin on the tog end and quite thick ion the thule end. This will insure nothing falls through as it dries.

 

56The drying rack moved under partial cover in case of rain 56

 

P1570892Getting the last bit dry inside by the register.

I finished it off drying in its bucket in the bathroom (the register is rite behind the bucket and the air conditioning is on).  I took this into the guild social and Ann helped me separated some of the tog and thule.  i will sample spinning the two parts separately then do a sample together. Eventually i will have that Icelandic blanket i keep dreaming about. But that will be later since i have more fleeces to wash before the snow gets closer!

It is quite the feeling of accomplishment when you can start with raw wool strait off the sheep and process it into something to felt, spin or weave. This is just the start of lots more fun!

Why does everything seem to take so much longer lately?

Why does everything seem to take so much longer lately?

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Why does everything seem to take so much longer lately? part 1

This morning I asked my hubby to please bring up the wool drying racks from the laundry so I could start washing a few fleeces. But first there was the little problem with the hose…. I went out to fix the Non-Kink hose which had sprung a leak followed quickly by a second leek.  With the help of a lot of teal duct tape the hose no longer aggressively throws water at me when I turned it on.  A fine mist is much better.

   Hose patch leaking less. 1-3

While fixing the hose I found that the pots and portable forest all needed watering. Yes my forest is portable. So a round of water for everyone! Oh no, the front garden looks thirsty and the grass seed on the little bit of grass also needs a drink.  While watering I washed out the big bin that I am eventually going to use to wash the fleece. Finally all the plants looked happy and my back insisted it was time to go sit down NOW!

Side yard pots planters and prottable forest
parsly
black harratige tomatos
dalia
Flox
Flox
Alba Globe Thissel
Front Benches a good spot to spin
Everbaring Strawberrys

Portable forest, planters and front garden 4-14

Sit, sit, sit, sit…. Ok I think I can get the kettle now and bring out the first fleeces. My smallest unwashed fiber is 6 oz. of Icelandic.  I also have half a lustrous fleece from the wool growers co-op (from Twist festival a couple weeks ago) there is also a full large possibly Icelandic fleece and 2 smaller full Shetland fleeces. I am not sure if the Shetlands are skirted hence having Glenn bring up the skirting table too.

15 Skirting table (yes it also looks like a close drying rack but less so with a sheet over it and fleece on top) 15

The Icelandic I am starting with is from Erin at Rocks End Farm. Her sheep have really nice fiber. As you know Icelandic sheep are an old breed and have a double coat. The tog is the long outer guard hair and the thule is the soft under coat. So in one sheep you can make your medieval outer wear from the tog and inner layers from the thule. You can even blend them together. We have heard that the Icelandic sheep in Iceland tend towards a coarser tog than many of the Canadian fleeces.  The Icelandic roving I bought from the World of Wool is very noticeably much courser than Erin’s fleeces.

16 Erin’s Icelandic Fleece 16

My end goal for this and the large Icelandic are to wash, then separate tog from thule. Most would crave the soft luxury of the thule but I’m after the tog. In fact most of the wonderful guild I belong to knows I’m on a quest for Tog. Some have been contributing to my growing tog collection. Once I have enough tog I can wind my wool warp (possibly from the thule or a thule/tog combination) for an Icelandic tufted blanket. It looks like a Raya rug or for those that don’t weave think of a deep shag carpet that you throw on your bed shag side down. The shag part traps air and body warmth. They were used for cloaks and blankets. There have been a few reports online about modern weavers trying this. I want to be one of them!

But back to step one. Wash the fleece, and I might as well wash the other fleeces I had been meaning to wash for a while. I have the drying rack set up. I have the skirting rack ready to check the other fleeces. I learned my lesson with the last Redo Arcott fleece, which was horribly dirty and full of chaff. It was worth every penny since it was free but it was a horrible amount of work to get it to a point I could use it for core wool. (Ann and her amazing picker and carder helped and did all the hard work after the washing!)

I ran the extension cord from the garage to one of my upside down planters that had become my water boiling station. Kettle on, I waited for the water to boil. And waited, and waited, and waited. Oh yah if you’re watching it water doesn’t boil. So while waiting for the first kettle I found my pruners and cut back more of the trumpet vine, then moved some of the thorn-less blackberry canes away from the blacksmithing and back into the bed along the house. Check the kettle, nope but there is a bit of steam. Hummm. Drag the vines to the composter, Yep first kettle done only a few more to go.

17 Kettle station with Sunlight dish soap 17

As the second kettle refused to boil I took pictures of this year’s set up. I am constantly amazed by what other non-felting, non-fiber people think things are used for.  The drying rack is from Ikea (they think it’s for cloths!!?!! Who could not see the amazing fleece drying potential?) The giant gray bucket with rope handles had been for sail last year at Walmart but I found it this spring second hand for a lot less and a smaller thinner one was at Dollerama. The gray bucket was labeled for storing kids toys. Who would keep kids toys in an unlidded container? (My kids had toys Mr. B had a box with a lid for most of his. Evil and Miaka’s were in small chest of Ikea drawers.)  The white plastic container with holes in the sides was from Dollerama. There was a bigger one earlier in the year luckily I hadn’t realized I wanted it since the medium sized one actually fits the gray bucket!

      The set up, buckets, drying rack fleece 18-23

Over the next 3 kettles worth of water (I will look for a bigger kettle while I’m out in stores now), I thot you might like a peek at the patio and the disaster which is my back garden. You may have noticed the somewhat rusty collection of implements partly hidden by tarps. I have not yet figured out how to use them in felting or garden decorations. That Glenn’s blacksmithing set up. He has a light duty farm forge (the second larger forge is under the trellis covered by a barbeque cover) hum I wonder If I could use one of them to heat the water next time? There is a leg vice it’s for pounding mettle and having the force transfer to the floor. There are 2 anvils back there somewhere and a cutting tool I’m not too sure what it is. It might cut really thick felt?

Light duty farm forge (sear robuck) with hndle off
Leg vice
the roof of the blacksmithing side
the little anvil
the bigger anvil

The west half of the back patio – Blacksmithing 24-28

My side of the patio is more comfortable with honeysuckle vine, trumpet vine and dwarf Japanese lilac standard giving shade. The sheet provides the remaining shade under the trellis. We have a few chickadees, one humming bird, a wood pecker and the evil Chipmunks (eaters of strawberries!).  Miaka’s garden swing is in the back yard. She seemed vary sure it was hers and would meow with grate annoyance until you relinquished the spot she wanted. (Evil just sat by the rock edge of the garden and ate chives when he didn’t think we were watching)

29 The east side of the patio – trellis 29

the vew south with Miaka’s Swing
We had few blueberrys but we do have grapes!

  backyard 30-31

Ah the water has boiled and I had layered loosely the 6 oz.’s of Icelandic fleece.  I checked and the water was finally close to hot. (Not cold and not warm but a little less than uncomfortably hot.) I had run out of distractions and had enough water so in went the fleece. Using the back of my hand I gently submerged the fleece so no dry bits were visible. Then went in to update my note to you while I waited the first about 20 minits-30 minutes soak.

   Layered fleece and putting it into the slightly soapy water to soak 32-35

Now that you have had a tour of the back patio and the fleece is starting its soak, Glenn is back from work.  He is about to be volunteered into helping with the rinsing.  Its probubly best not to tell him yet and let the fleece finish soaking.  i will show you what happens next, next week!

 

A tutorial: how to make roving with a drum carder

A tutorial: how to make roving with a drum carder

Comments 19 comments

This week has been hectic. I haven’t had much time to do any felting. I did a little bit of stitching on my seascape, but not enough to show you and a little bit on a set of shoelaces. Mostly I made pasties for the market. They are more popular than we anticipated and we are down to the last few.  This is a few about to go in the freezer. They get bagged once they are frozen.

I thought you might like to see this post from way back at the beginning of our blog journey. This is one of the first posts I did.

After you have carded your wool and it is still on the drum you might like to have it as roving instead of a batt. This will show you how to use a simple diz to do that.  You can make a diz out of almost anything. mine is a piece of plastic cut from the side of a plastic sour cream container, it has a hole in the middle for the wool to come through. you pull a small bit of the carded wool through the hole and turning the drum backwards slide the diz around the drum pulling the wool through in a long rope as you go.  the diz rest directly on the drum. You control the amount of wool in the rope by how fast you slide it across the drum as you go around. If its too hard, you are trying to pull too much wool through the hole.

Ann

A Scribble Tree

A Scribble Tree

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Last week in Ruth’s post  Batik Post  she had a scribble tree. I have always liked them so Ruth suggested I make some. Ok them what to make. then I remembered these felt pieces I made a long time ago, I think,  because I do not remember making them or what they were for.

They seem to be white felt with black silk hanky on them that were make to the prefelt stage, then cut out and put on some black prefelt(maybe) and felted again.  I had no idea what to do with these but then thought why not just treat them like pieces of tile and just make a picture on them like painters do.

First I needed some tree green yarn so bot out my carders. It is some sort of curly fiber maybe Blue Faced Lester as that is what I have most of and the curls are small.

I made some rolags to spin. It is full of lumps and nepps so it will be a textured yarn.

I spun up a single, then plied it and made it into a center pull ball ready to use.

I used the yarn to needle felt a scribble tree onto one of the bigger pieces.

I decided it needed a star so used some embroidery thread to add one. I would like to add some hanging Christmas balls but there really isn’t room for them. The piece is only about 4 inches square.

I decided to try it on one of the smaller pieces too about 2×3 inches. The picture on the right is the back. I love how all the little stabs of fiber stick out.

So thats been my weeks worth of daily doses of fiber.

As It is so close to new year I am going to Wish you all a Fibrey New Year full of creativity. I am planning to do more hangable art work, work out an online workshop and an intermediate vessel class for my guild. But also to learn how to use my new camera to make and document my work. See you next Year(8 whole days form now).

 

The magic of blocking your hand knits

The magic of blocking your hand knits

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Hello, Leonor here guest-writing for this week’s post.

After reading the title, if you’re not a knitter, you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. What on earth is blocking and why am I writing about it?

Simply put, blocking refers to the act of stretching a knitted item with the aid of specialised wires and pins, with the intention of making it look a certain way. Think of all those airy, lacy shawls you’ve seen people wear – those have been carefully and mercilessly blocked into submission.

leonor1leonor2

Above is my latest project, the Banana Leaf Shawl. It looks nice-ish, but it lacks that finesse that one usually finds in store-bought shawls. The stitches look limp and you can see the differences in my gauge. Let’s make it right.

Firstly, soak the item in room-temperature water (add a nice wool wash if you want; I used Eucalan, a no-rinse Grapefruit-scented one). Let it sit for about 15 minutes and then carefully extract the excess water. Your knit needs to be damp but not dripping.

leonor3

Now comes the fiddly part. Using blocking wires, you’ll need to catch the edges of your project so it’ll keep the shape you want (in my case, everything’s a straight line, but it can be crescent-shaped, for example).
I decided to do this just before going to bed, thinking it wouldn’t take me long – how wrong I was. After one hour, I was losing the will to live. I’d need another hour to finish getting the wire through all the edges.

Next, you’ll need to pin the wires to a surface. There are special fancy mats you can buy for that, but I got some for home gyms that are a fraction of the price and do the job nicely.

leonor4

Because I have cats, I couldn’t risk them getting hurt on the blocking pins, so I had to move my blocks vertically for the night. I then used my desk chair to keep everything upright.

Once your finished object is dry, you can take the pins out and because fibre has memory (like the mohair and silk of this shawl), it’ll keep its shape… until you wash it again. Yes, blocking needs redoing every time a knit gets wet! Don’t you have a newfound respect for all the people who knit delicate lacy shawls?

leonor5

And here’s the finished product. I hope you can see how different my Banana Leaf now looks, comparing it to the first photo – from a slightly misshapen piece to one with sharp, well-defined edges. It’s grown quite a bit, too.

leonor6

leonor7

The stitches look so much better, too, neater. They’re suddenly really well defined. This shawl now looks like something one would see in a shop front, if I do say so myself.

leonor8

Even if you’re not a knitter, I hope you’ve marvelled, like I do every time, over the magic of blocking knitwear. If you fancy reading the technical bits about this particular project, head on over to my Ravelry page.

Have you ever done blocking? Can you think of any ways this technique could be used for other fibre endeavours? I’d love to read (and steal) your good ideas.

What To Do With All The Little Bits Or Fun Batts

What To Do With All The Little Bits Or Fun Batts

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I am very busy getting ready for the first Farmers market of the season and forgot it was my turn to make a blog post. I thought You might like to see this one from 2012 again.

Ann

Last week I sorted out my wool and put all the decent size pieces on the new shelves. this left me with a lot of little bits. I usually keep bins of little bits to use as accents. Now I had way to much of that too.  I sorted it all, picked out the stuff I really wanted to keep and put the rest into 4 piles for carding.

I have a large carder, a Patrick Green Cottage Industry Carder.

A friend came over and we carded it into a 4 fun textured batts.

pink/red/purple batt
orange/yellow batt
brown/gray/black/white batt
blue/green batt

The batts came out really nice and will be great for felting or for spinning textured yarn. I didn’t think I had that much until we fluffed it up to card. It is amazing how much you can compress wool when you’re stuffing it into a little storage box.

Carding and Blending

Carding and Blending

Comments 11 comments

Over the break at New Year, I thought it’d be a good time to tidy up our supplies from the Well Being Centre. I mentioned at the beginning of the year I’d made a start on the fabrics tub. I also cleared out the equipment tub. Which inevitably led to clearing out the main wool tub! Not surprisingly we end up with lots of scrap bits of wool tops from the classes, from wisps left over from projects, to strips which have got clumped or matted from being in the bottom of the box or shoved around during searches. I thought it was easiest to just bring home all the wool to do a stock check. I sorted it all into piles, starting with single colours which had just become matted, or pulled all to bits:

Then I made piles of all the small left over bits, and grouped them according to colour. Reds, oranges and yellows Merino:

Red, orange and yellow textured tops (made from a previous scrap tidy up, some of these are probably 5th generation now!)

There were purples, blues and turquoise Merino shades:


And lots of Merino greens:

I started with carding the single colours which just needed refreshing or neatening up, then moved onto blending. We had a few other supplies I could add in, and plenty of my own to add a bit of brightness or contrast here and there. I tried not to overblend them so they had good shows of colour rather than just making a new shade. It’s not that easy to see with the blues though! This is one of the batts made from the mid blues:

The mid to dark blue one with a few flashes of purple refused to be photographed as a batt, but rolled up is fairly accurate:

I forgot to photograph one of the green ones, but this mid-greens looks nice:

The orange textured batt looked much the same as it did before, but is now useable again!

And the Red, orange and yellow batts always look good:

I think the blue blends I took in have already been used and half each of the reds/greens 🙂

Finishing Up Some Spinning

Finishing Up Some Spinning

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In the spring I borrowed a blending board from my friend Carlene. I made rollags at guild social meetings and at demos.

And spinning here and there.

I finally got around to plying them all.

Then I needed to be washed to reset after being tight up in skeins for ages. this is before washing. I spent an evening tying the skeins up so they wouldn’t be a mess after washing.

This is some of them soaking.

And after all the skeins where soaked this it what the water looked like.  I couln’t believe how dirty it was.

then I had to hang them all up to dry. excuse my shower backdrop. we don’t have the new tub surround in yet so it is just orange construction plastic so we can shower.

And the finished yarn. I am making the skeins into center pull balls on my nostepinne. I am mostly done. I am getting better at them.  I didn’t realise how often I do thick and thin yarn until I started winding the balls. It is fun to do.

So thats one thing finished up from 2017 and only 2 days late.  All ready for embellishing some felt.  I hope you all have a fibery new year.

 

 

 

Spinning mostly

Spinning mostly

Comments 22 comments

I haven’t been felting much lately, other than teaching, but I have been doing some spinning. I borrowed a friends blending board to try making some fancy rolags to spin from. I used 2 shades of orange, a purple wool, some silk and a tiny amount of  trylobal nylon on the board. It was my first time using the blending board so I was getting instructions and pointers from Judy.

I spun it on my new top whorl spindle. I don’t usually use a top whole spindle but I couldn’t resist this one from The Clay Sheep

Here I am spinning on it.

The yarn came out quite nice. I could have added more sparkle but I am always cautious of adding to much sparkle.  I wound it into a center pull ball the other night so now it is ready to be plied.

The other cool thing I got with my spindle was a hair stick. I asked her to make it as a special order.

Thanks To Jan Scott for the great pictures of me with the blending board and spinning. I think you took the hair stick pictures too even if it was on my phone.

 

 

A Busy Guild Social

A Busy Guild Social

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At my guild, Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ we have a large formal meeting with a program on the first Monday of the month and on all the other Mondays we have a casual social night. bring your wheel or knitting or what ever you like and just have fun with like minded people.

This Monday we there was lots going on. There were spinners and knitters.

guild-social

Jan brought in some Sheep for the Demo boxes. they came back to the guild a short time ago from being used in a school program. they needed a little hair dressing and now they will go out for demos.

guild-social-2

Some people were trying to fix the brake on a loom.

guild-social-3

Elizabeth was teaching some one how to make a warp using the cool little paddle to speed things up .

and this is Judy carding cotton into punies ( probably spelled really wrong)

and this is a link( or maybe it will show.  to Judy’s YouTube video of spinning cotton on a Lego charkha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSbUTcfal1s