something new for me to obsess over

I have long dismissed the notion that I could become a weaver because of my pain issues with TMJ and Fibromyalgia. I saw weavers bent over their floor looms and my neck was sore just looking at them. That is so not a good position for me.

Then Ravelry started buzzing about rigid heddle looms and I bought Jane Patrick's new video Weaving on a Rigid Heddle Loom to see what it was all about. Once I realized that the loom can be tilted, which makes all the difference to my neck, I ordered a 15" Schacht Flip and made this.
So cool.

Back to spinning.... I received this comment from chevyrell on the post "a subjective wheel comparison":

This was such a great post! I'm in the market for a wheel and have been shopping for quite some time. My passion is extra bulky art yarn and I want a wheel that's capable=) Currently I am looking at an Ashford Joy with the Freedom Flyer, but have been drooling over the Majacraft Aura since xmas. I would love your input on these! I will get a chance to try the Aura at an up coming fiber fest in March. However, I'm trying to decide if it's worth the extra expense or if the Joy would suit my needs for years to come. I would love any advice you have=)

I wish that I could be more helpful but I haven't had the chance to spin on the Majacraft Aura or the Ashford Freedom Flyer. I'm sure that the Aura would be a terrific choice for bulky art yarn and likely gives you the most control over your yarns but the Joy with the Freedom Flyer should work well too. My advice for you is to think about whether you want a wheel that will travel easily. The Joy is a great traveler and its bag protects it very well. I don't think that the Aura would be as light or compact. If you ever plan to spin other types of yarn than the bulky ones, the Joy is pretty versatile too.

You might also consider the Louet S-10. It's the original bulky spinner and does an exceptionally good job. It has large bobbins and is easy to treadle because it is a bobbin lead Irish Tension wheel. I love mine! I'm not sure if the flyer allows large add-ins though.

Another possibility is the Lendrum wheel. It has a jumbo flyer and bobbin and is another of the original art yarn spinners. There is even a quill head available if you want spin yarn with large add-ins that won't fit through a regular orifice. The Lendrum is a very versatile wheel for spinning a variety of yarns.

Hope that helps!

drum roll please....

The random number generator chose the 11th comment on the 5th blogiversary post and the winner of the two skeins of Fearless Fibers sock yarn is Amy (knitterofhats on Rav). Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about my blog!

5!!

It's hard to believe that this blog is celebrating its 5th birthday today! It doesn't seem possible that I've been blogging for the amount of time that would be needed to raise a newborn to a kindergartner.

To celebrate, I have a prize package of these two cheerfully colored skeins of Fearless Fibers merino sock yarn for one lucky commenter.

Just leave a comment on this post before Monday night at 11:59 pm (CST). Make sure to include some way for me to contact you to be eligible. If you are on Ravelry, leave me your Rav name as that's safer than an email address. If you need to leave your email address, write out the AND and DOT parts to foil the spammers.

good one

I enjoyed this. Thought you might too.

you know you've been married a long time when....

Dan and I exchanged cards today.

Too funny! I guess what they say about starting to think alike is true.

We've been married for almost 33 years. What do you suppose happens when people are married for 70 years, which I've seen in announcements in the paper?

still playing with fiber

I decided to wash some individual merino locks in cotton hankies as Judith MacKenzie describes in her video (A Spinner's Toolbox, I think, but it might have been one of the others. I have all of them. Huge kudos to Interweave for making spinning videos available by download. I watch them on my iPad and learn so much!). I carefully pulled some locks that were about the same length out of the fleece and wrapped them burrito-style in a hankie, then simmered them on the stove in soapy water. It worked great!

Here they are after drying.
The stained tips weren't an issue as they came off with a gentle brush of the flick carder.
I didn't worry about keeping the tip ends sorted while I flick carded because it's easy to tell which end is the tip by gently rubbing the lock between my fingers. The lock will "walk" toward the tip end. I spin from the tip end for consistency.
These little locks don't need to be combed. They spin lace weight yarn beautifully from the lock.

In other news, we are back into the deep freeze today after another unusually warm few days. According to the forecast this cycle will continue as very mild temperatures will be here by the end of the week. (I hope I didn't just jinx the warm spell by actually typing it here.)

I was out with the dogs the other night and the trees were so pretty! There were little icicles hanging from the branches while soft snow coated the tops of them.

I just received the following blog comment from Keri,

What beautiful results! I'm a little nervous - I too have a superfine merino fleece and just ordered the mini combs but not the extra fine mini's. Now I'm starting to worry I should have ordered those. Did you get bad results with your regular minis?

I didn't have much luck combing my super-fine merino fleece on the mini combs. The fiber was neppy. However, the mini combs are superb for general use and easier to use because you don't need as much strength to pull the fiber through the combs. My suggestion is to have both if you can swing it.

q and a

I just came in from the back yard with the dogs and it's raining. Raining!! Needless to say, the weather has done a complete turn around this week. It's actually gorgeous outside now but the rain is freezing once it hits the ground so the roads will be a mess.

I received some questions lately in the blog comments so I'll answer them here.

Mickey asked,

How do you like the Russian lace spindles?

I'm not very good at spinning with the Russian spindles. My hands are just starting to figure out how to park-and-draft with them. I'm getting better but no where near proficient with them yet. It's tempting to ditch them and just used the top whorl spindles but I feel the need to persevere with them for the sake of honoring the culture's history. And pure stubborn-ness because it's a challenge for me.

Your sock yarn looks wonderful. Do you use 2 or 3 plies?

It depends. I like to aim for 3 plies most of the time but will do 2 plies with stronger fibers like BFL that I haven't spun as finely. The Shunklies Humbug BFL fiber was 2 plied. I didn't have enough fiber to do a 3 ply that would yield enough yardage for a pair of socks.

The art yarn was interesting. I found myself trying to fit my hand into that shape and I am afraid I don't have the concept, you spin a core and wrap in one pass? Are you adding the locks to a prespun core?

No prespun core. The core is spun and wrapped in one pass. I remember reading about Judith's wolf yarn in her book The Intentional Spinner but it didn't make any sense to me until I watched her video A Spinner's Toolbox. It's one of those things that is easier to understand by seeing it. I just did a google search to see if I could find anything and lo and behold, someone made a little video showing the technique. I discovered that it's easier to do quickly than slowly. And here's a skein of it finished:

Monika said,

I just read yesterday, that Canadian Winter is getting milder. I've been here almost 15 years now, and I've been saying that the last three years or so. when we first came here, boy there was so much snow, and long, cold winter month, but not so much the last few years.

That doesn't seem to be the case on the Prairies. We've had a couple of cold, snowy winters. We went through a spell of mild winters for a while but the last couple are like what I remember from my childhood.

Jody said,

I need a little workhorse like the Louet for plying. That looks like quite a large bobbin....how much does it hold?

The Louet bobbins are big. Not as big as the jumbo bobbin on the Lendrum but close. I think they must hold about 8 oz. of fine yarn but I haven't tested it yet.

deep freeze

As I am writing this at 1:13 am (why yes, I am a night owl), the temperature is -35 C (-31 F) with a windchill of -46 C (-50.8 F). Thankfully the cold snap isn't supposed to last too long. Warmer temps are forecast for Wednesday. Good. This is ridiculously cold. It makes a person want to just crawl into bed and hibernate until it ends.

Even though I haven't been posting much lately, I have been keeping busy. Shuttleworks had a sale on Louet products and I was itching to try a venerable S10 DT so I bought one.

My intent was to use it for plying so that I would have easy treadling with the Irish tension (bobbin led) and be able to get into a rhythm for consistency. As much as I like my espinners, I find that I have an easier time gaining plying consistency when my feet and hands are co-ordinated. In order to gain speed for plying fine high-twist yarn, I ordered a couple of fast bobbins in addition to the regular ones that came with the wheel.

I didn't really think that I would fall madly in love with the S10 but I have. It's a truck but it does its job amazingly well! I quite like the kate that comes with the wheel too.

Here it's plying some Shunklies Humbug BFL for sock yarn.

I liked the Humbug BFL a lot too so bought some from International Fleeces to play with dyeing. Here it is with the finished Shunklies yarn.

I have some lovely Cotswold locks from Wooly Wool of the West in my stash. I scoured and dyed some to play with boucle singles a la Judith MacKenzie.
After a bit of practice I was able to get the hang of spinning a thin core yarn with my back three fingers against my palm and using the thumb and forefinger with the other hand to pull out teased locks to wrap around the core. It's pretty fast once your hands "get it" and yields an art yarn that is quite usable as a single. It's light but strong.
Fun!

(The Roberta package is for sale again if you are interested. The price has been reduced to $1100 including shipping within Canada and to the US.)

a family picture plus one

I decided to take a picture of my spindle collection. I've been steadily accumulating spindles over the last couple of years and I love them dearly.

I rounded up all the strays that were tucked into project bags and set them all in pottery mugs and a jug. We had an exceptionally beautiful day today, not a common occurrence in January to say the least (it was less than a week ago that we were in the deep freeze), so I was able to take the picture in the sunroom (it was actually room temperature out there in the sunshine this afternoon!!*).

Aren't they lovely?

As I set about putting them all back where they started from I came across my beloved Bosworth Moosie. How could I have taken a spindle photo shoot and not noticed its absence? So Moosie gets its own picture like the star of the show.

*Days like today remind me of reading C. S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" to the kids where it was always winter and never Christmas while the White Witch controlled Narnia. Today felt like Aslan was on the move and winter was starting its transformation into spring. Of course, days like today are anomalies and there is no doubt that winter is about to smack us all upside the head again soon enough.

a little happy camper

Normally, Bentley doesn't like it when I spin because I won't let him sit on my lap while I treadle the wheel. He is very happy when I spin on the Hansen miniSpinner though because my lap is available.

Notice the tongue poking out of his mouth as he snoozes.
He is a very entertaining dog.

combing merino

I bought a lovely merino fleece from Jean Near a while back and was at my wit's end over how to deal with it. Apparently I'm not the only one who has had this problem - a quick check on Ravelry revealed a number of people who have sworn off processing merino fleeces at home.

I didn't have any trouble washing it. Lots of very hot water and some Ecos HE laundry detergent (my new secret weapon for scouring fleeces) worked great, better than Orvus, dish detergent, or the specialty wool scours that I've tried.

Merino is a short fiber that doesn't lend itself to being combed with most wool combs. It's very fine and pills up if you look at the wrong way. Flick carding it to remove the vegetable matter resulted in many nicks to my fingers. I had resorted to hand picking it and then carding it but still got a lot of nepps in the batts.
I wasn't happy with the results and was starting to regret buying the fleece.

That all changed when I got the new Valkyrie Extra Fine combs. I already had the Valkyrie Mini combs and like them a lot for most of my combing so decided to try the extra fine ones. They are perfect for fine, short fibers like merino.
Mini comb on the left and extra fine comb on the right. I like to use both with the comb pad. These are not really mini combs; they're substantial and sturdy, especially the extra fine ones.

I clamped the comb pad securely to my kitchen counter which is a perfect height for me. Finding a really sturdy table is very important for the extra fine combs. There is a lot of resistance to the comb due to the narrowly spaced teeth.

I was able to fill the comb about 2/3 full of fiber.
I spritzed a mix of water with a bit of baby oil in it and then starting combing just the tips, working slowly up to the comb, then transferring the fiber from the working comb back to the stationary comb in the same way. I could get more nice fiber if I used my other hand to help pull the last of the long bits with the working comb. There was a lot of waste but about half of it was free enough of vm to save for future carding projects.

Here is what was left after a few passes-
beautifully uniform and silky merino.

I dizzed it off and coiled it into a little nest of super soft, perfect sliver.

Here is what I had after a few hours of work. I weighed these little nests and found that I had only produced 29 grams or about an ounce. It's definitely not a fast way to produce fiber but the results are exquisite!

happy new year!

Yet another You Tube video but such a lovely one. I'm showing my age again but I love ABBA.

We saw the new year in with our good friends Rhonda and Al and my sister Darcie and family. Dan and I have spent every New Year's Eve but one with Rhonda and Al for about 30 years. We are blessed to have such dear friends. It's always a nice quiet evening, very comfortable and laid-back, with a casual supper and board games. Even Darcie and Dallas' kids Christopher and Katie made it to midnight last night for the first time.

Happy New Year everyone! May 2011 bring peace and tolerance to the world.

Hallelujah Chorus -Quinhagak, Alaska

The teacher in me loves this. The human in me loves it too.

Merry Christmas everyone!

winter solstice lunar eclipse

I have told you before that I am an incurably nocturnal being. That meant that I did not have to set my alarm to see the lunar eclipse early this morning. I saw it before I went to bed!

This picture was taken at about 3:30 a.m. as the eclipse was waning. So beautiful! It was cold outside and taking a picture was tricky because I didn't want to take off my gloves but I managed to get a good pic out of a lot of duds.

Most information out and about says that the last lunar eclipse that occurred at the same time as the winter solstice was in 1554. Apparently that's not entirely accurate. At any rate, it's a very rare event and we certainly won't see another one in our lifetime.

fly by posting

Just a couple of pics to share with you today.

Anthera posing over a plate to show the design. I used my handspun Cormo/Sheltie/Targhee/Angelina yarn.


A couple of Gotland nests of combed top. I used my Valkyrie mini combs with one clamped to the table, Dutch comb style. They work better than the Majacraft combs for this longer stapled fiber.

for your weekend's entertainment

who needs diamonds?

When I took the dogs out late last night, the ice storm had ended and there were strong winds blowing a skiff of snow over the ice crystals. The back yard glittered in the yard lamps. It was so pretty that I ran back into the house and grabbed the camera.

You really need to click and embiggen these pics to properly see how lovely these little crystals are.

blogging malaise

I have no excuse for my break from blogging. I don't know why but I've had blogger's block. It's not that I haven't been doing anything - I've actually had a lot of fun the last few weeks.

I've been taking Cooper to dog classes and we've been having fun getting a taste of obedience, agility, and flyball. Cooper's favorite is agility so I've signed us up for an agility class starting in January. This dog has a lot of potential with appropriate training. I figure fate sent him to me to get me off my duff. He needs to be kept busy. The challenge will be finding the balance between his needs and my aching body some days.

I've also been taking an intermediate spinning class and challenging myself to spin yarn that is outside of my comfort zone. Here are a couple of projects that I produced for the spinning class.

220 yards and 80 g of 2-ply cotton and silk noil. Spinning cotton is not my favorite thing to do so it was good that I forced myself to practice on this yarn. I have to admit that I am much better at it now. I dyed it with periwinkle acid dye and was surprised that it took the dye so well. I thought that only the slubs of silk would take it but there must have been more silk distributed over the entire yarn as I spun than I thought. You can see a bit of the wool yarn that I tied the skein with on the upper left side of the picture to see the difference between this blend and pure wool.

Then there's this:
so far out of my comfort zone that it's scary.

It's Spunky Eclectic Tuxedo Rose Romney, the September club fiber. I wanted to see if I could anchor beads into a singles yarn. I pre-threaded the beads onto thin strips of the fiber and then spun the strips right into the singles. By incorporating twist into the fiber before and after each bead as well as beside it, it is quite secure. Lightly fulling the yarn after spinning helped too. I have 173 m and 114 g of the plain singles (top) and 88 m and 103 g of the beaded one (bottom - you can see the beads more clearly if you click on the picture). It was an interesting project to spin but I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with the finished yarn.

I got my Christmas present early. It's a Louet Victoria.
Shuttleworks has them on sale. It's a very light wheel and very easy to tote which my body appreciates. It treadles lightly using both feet or just one foot. So far I actually prefer to use it as a single treadle which surprises me because I usually find double treadling easier. Spinning my default fine worsted yarn is effortless. It's not a wheel for chunky or art yarns though but I certainly don't plan on churning out art yarns any time soon. The beaded one above was enough to hold me indefinitely.

The Victoria folds down and tucks neatly into its bag which can be carried by handles, a shoulder strap, or as a backpack. Louet planned this wheel very well.

As I sit here typing I can hear ice pellets hitting the windows. We are having yet another winter storm with freezing rain which will turn into snow overnight. I'm sick and tired of winter already and it doesn't even officially start until next week.

I'm including the Environment Canada weather warning for your perusal. It seems that knowledge of punctuation and sentence structure isn't a job requirement for the person who writes these things.

Freezing Rain Warning

Issued at 10:24 PM CST Tuesday 14 December 2010

Summary

Another hour or so of freezing rain.

Details

A major storm system continues to affect much of Southern Saskatchewan this evening. At 10:20 PM radar indicates that the leading edge of the precipitation is just pushing into Melfort..And approaching Yorkton from the west. The precipitation generally is falling as a mix of freezing rain..Ice pellets..And snow..With the major area of freezing rain now affecting the Regina-Estevan area. Highway 1 has now been re-opened between Moose Jaw and Rush Lake. However in general most highways in the affected areas are reporting ice-covered, slippery conditions..With travel not recommended. The remaining areas under the freezing rain warning will likely see freezing precipitation continue for another hour or two..Before changing to snow or ending. As the precipitation tracks eastward tonight it will change to snow as it moves into colder air. Total snowfall amounts of 10 to 20 cm are forecast by noon Wednesday over portions of the eastern grainbelt.

not a weather post

It seems that all I've had to blog about for the last few weeks has been the weather. Today, however, I have some fiber things to share.

I finally finished up the gift socks for my physiotherapist Rachel. I used yarn from the stash, Nova Sock Print color 303, doubled. I bought the yarn from Golden Willow Natural Fiber a while back and it's quite nice - I should have bought more at the time; the price was right. The socks are thick and warm. I hope she likes them and that they fit.


I also finished up the yarn for the shawl. I posted a picture of the first singles of merino, silk, baby alpaca, sheltie, and angelina that I carded and spun woolen in the summer. It took me quite a while to spin up the second singles of worsted silk brick; I don't like spinning silk by itself so it was slow going. However I do like the finished yarn.

The finished yarn on the bobbin:

And after being fulled in the bath:
I haven't decided on a pattern yet but there are lots of contenders.

it might as well be January

It's been cold here. We seem to get a new dump of snow every 3 or 4 days. It's hard to believe that it's still November when I look outside.

I think we've had just about as much snow already this year as we get all winter in other years but that might be stretching it a bit.

Although the shelties still like the snow, even they start lifting up their chilly paws soon.
I took a couple of pics of Austin and Robbie before they got too cold this afternoon. I had to use my gloved fingers to snap the pics.
B and Cooper weren't as co-operative about the picture taking today. Poor little B almost has to swim through the snow drifts and comes into the house covered with snow. I don't think Cooper slows down long enough to get cold.

Dan got bronchitis which developed into pneumonia even though he was on antibiotics already. He missed a couple of weeks of school. His lungs can't tolerate the cold so we have really appreciated that Geoff has been clearing the driveway and sidewalks. Geoff will be moving out at the first of December. Dan and I will become empty-nesters for the first time. I told Geoff that he wasn't allowed to move out until the snow stopped falling. I don't think he is going to listen to me.

I've been taking a spinning class at Golden Willow and loving it as usual. Cooper and I started a dog class introducing obedience, agility, and flyball. He thinks it's great fun, especially the agility part.

I had a request to make a little video for Ravelry showing how the Hansen MiniSpinner can be used as a bobbin winder/quill with my trick of using a chop stick and an orifice reducer. It was my first attempt at recording myself using my laptop so the production quality is less than stellar to say the least. I learned a lot in the process though. Some of my spinning class friends asked that I post it here too so here it is for anyone who is interested.