goodbye Movember!

If you have somehow never heard of Movember (and if not, where have you been?  Seriously.) you can find out more here.

I'm proud of my husband Dan for participating in this very worthy cause but I'm really, really glad that Movember is sighing its last gasps.  Why, you ask?

Is that not the sorriest, most pitiful excuse for facial hair that you've ever seen?

One thing that you could never accuse Dan of doing is growing excess hair.  Now if someone dreams up a fundraiser that involves women growing leg hair, sign me up.  I can grow leg hair so lush that I could braid it.  Okay, not quite but it's not that far out of the realm of possibility.  In fact, I wish that someone would make that sort of fundraiser in one of the summer months so we could show off our lush legs by wearing shorts.  Just think of the time-saving benefits to be able to wear shorts or skirts without having to de-forest our legs first.

Tomorrow is December and the so-called moustache will finally be just a memory.  Bring it on!

textured

I've been taking an art yarn spinning class at my wonderful LYS Golden Willow.  The very talented Deb, aka dragondancer, is teaching it.  She knows a lot about yarn and spinning.  Check out her blog.

I spun a few art yarns in the past, mostly just to prove that I could, but didn't see much practical use in them as knitting yarns.  I now have more interest in using them since I started weaving with texture.   I've always figured that learning new techniques makes me a better spinner so I probably would have taken the class even if I wasn't a weaver.  The possibility of actually using the yarn is a bonus.

In my mind I've categorized these yarns as art yarns and textured yarns.  Some yarns are spun just to make something pretty/different/wild to view as decoration.  These include but aren't limited to large or unexpected yarns with add-ins (such as eye balls, Barbie heads, toy soldiers, etc.).  I call those art yarns.  Textured yarns, to me, are those that are more traditional and less out-there and that's where my yarns fall.  I have nothing against the wild art yarns and give my blessing to those that spin them but I like my yarns to be more user-friendly, to be used in projects not the end result in and of themselves.

I believe that textured yarns require a lot of spinning skill to make.  I know that the first yarns produced by new spinners are frequently referred to as art yarn but I don't buy it.  Spinning mistakes may resemble art yarns but they are generally not stable yarns.  I think that textured yarns should be stable and (mostly) balanced.  That takes time and practice.  They generally are slow to produce, often needing considerable amounts of fiber, and involve plying and/or anchoring the elements in place and then finishing techniques to make them stable and usable.  That said, they're fun to make.  They make me think outside the box which is good for me.  My default spinning is control-freak, fine, worsted yarn so textured yarns force me to let that tendency go, experiment, and get creative.

So here are my latest spinning endeavors.

corespun mixed batts plied with 60/2 silk

merino thick and thin spun with 60/2 silk, the thick spots pushed up to form coiled cocoons, then plied with silk again to balance the twist

the same thick and thin merino and silk as above with the silk used to ply and then autowrap

If you would like a good reference for spinning art/textured yarns, my favorite is Jacey Boggs' DVD Sit and Spin!  Jacey also has a soon-to-be-released book titled Spin Art.

and BAM, it's winter!

It's a good thing that we prairie folk are hearty because Mother Nature didn't even give us a skiff of snow in October to prepare us for winter.  She deluded us into thinking that our lovely autumn weather would last forever.

Case in point:

this picture was taken Thursday just before sunset.

Here is a similar view taken from my kitchen window yesterday.

No more autumn for us.  Uh, uh.  Nosiree Bob.

As usual, the shelties are thrilled with the snow.

Robbie knows that he looks gorgeous against the snow.

Austin was so excited he couldn't wait to tell me about it.

Cooper got the zoomies.

Then he posed nicely while he caught his breath.

And where was Bentley?

Ready to go back into the house.  He doesn't have nearly as much fur as the shelties.

I will leave you with some stunning sunset skies from Thursday, before the snow.

Interesting that the sky was purple.  A year ago the sky turned purple before snow.

definitely treats

No tricks here - treats for sure!

One fiber that I had never had the chance to spin was qiviut.  That changed when I bought a destash spindle from Peacecat on Ravelry.  She lives in Alaska and told me that she sells qiviut (free shipping to boot!) so of course it was the perfect opportunity for me to get some.

This arrived in the mail.

It's a qiviut/silk blend and I can't imagine a softer, more luxurious fiber than this!

I will be spinning it with a Tabachek spindle so that the experience is exquisitely savored.

Also a treat.....

meet Twitter's fleece.  Twitter is a CVM/Romeldale who lives in Washington State and her shepherd is Joy (sheepgirl on Rav).  This is a gorgeous fleece - soft with lovely long locks!

One more treat was a visit to Celtic Cast On's blog today to see pics of the cutest Little Red Riding Hood and her big but not-so-bad wolf.  They win my award for best Hallowe'en costume this year for sure!

On a sadder note, my sunroom now looks like this.

Although we don't have snow yet (knock on wood), it's too cold to work there comfortably any more so all the fiber equipment has been moved indoors.

Sigh.

done diddy done done done!

Happy dance, oh happy dance!  I have finally finished the Watermelon Socks!

 I think that they are adorable!  But I'm very glad that they're done so that I can work on some other knitting for a while.

Also done is my foray into quilting.

 I am definitely a process spinner.  I am usually a process knitter.  I am usually a product weaver.  I am definitely a product quilter.  I really didn't enjoy making the bag much so I won't be launching into making a king size quilt any time soon.

Both of these projects were started in July.  They only took me all of summer and most of autumn to finish.

Speaking of autumn, Dan and I loaded up the dogs and took a drive out of town last weekend.  It was the first time we have taken the Terrain out of town since we got it in March.  Yup, we have truly exciting lives.

We went to the Craven valley which is about 20 minutes northwest of Regina.

The valley was flooded in the wet spring and the water is still high in many places.

There are numerous market gardens in the valley so we stopped at one for some veggies.  There were lots of pumpkins.

Lots and lots of pumpkins!

And in case the weather was unco-operative, there were even more pumpkins inside!

Back on the flat prairie on the ride home, the setting sun peeked through the clouds.

such a lovely autumn so far

Our weather has been such a treat lately.  I can't believe that my garden is still growing strong in mid-October; usually frost has killed it by mid-September.

The dogs are happy to be outside as much as possible.  I bathed and groomed them all last week so they were ready for this photo shoot.

 "Throw the toy!  Throw it!  Put that stinking camera away and throw it!"

 "I am groomed and beautiful.  This is my best side."

 "Oh, all right.  Take the stupid picture if you must."

"So many good smells out here this time of year."

Moving indoors, I warped the 15" Flip loom with 20/2 silk using two 8 dent reeds for a sett of 16.  The weft is the Austin colorway fractal-spun laceweight handspun yarn.  It sure takes a lot longer to weave than the fluffy baby throws that I've been doing lately but I love the resulting weft-faced fabric so far.

I feel so clever when I use my fractal-spun yarns.  I really love the gradual and soft color transitions.  I have no idea how I will finish the fringe.  I've been mulling over possibly using beads.  Any ideas would be welcome.

making progress

I'm feeling like I'm making headway around here.  This is the last day of our Regina Ravelry group's Challenge Week to finish WIP's and I actually have finished or made good progress on a few things.

I finished the custom spinning of Romney/Malamute.  It's likely going to be made into a knitted bag by the recipient so I spun the singles woolen but with a fairly tight twist and plyed it quite snugly too for strength.  I then aggressively finished it with hot/cold baths and lots of agitation to bring out the halo of dog fluff before hanging to dry.  The two skeins total about 140g and 415 yds.

I also finished the Austin yarn.

 There is a whopping 1482 yds., 224g.  It seemed like I was spinning this yarn forever and the large yardage explains why.  My plan is to weave a scarf with silk as the warp and the Austin yarn as the weft to show off the fractal 2-ply.

I'm also getting the second Watermelon Sock finished more quickly than the first one.  I'm just about to start the heel.

My next pressing job is also fiber related.  All the dogs really need baths before the cold weather sets in but my hand-held sprayer attachment on the laundry tub is toast and spraying fine streams of water in every direction even with duct tape covering the cracked plastic.  Dan shopped a bit the other day for a new one and couldn't find one that didn't need to be attached to a tub shower rather than the faucet.  Hopefully something will turn up soon.  I usually get pretty wet bathing dogs at the best of time.  I don't relish the notion of the sprayer dowsing me too.

My left foot had a bad summer.  I blogged about what I thought was plantar fasciitis after the Ex.  I saw my podiatrist last week and it turns out that it was actually pain because I had torn a ligament earlier in the summer.  I had been dusting the top of the fridge by standing on a kitchen chair.  When I stepped off the chair, my foot landed on a raised dog bed that someone (probably Cooper) had moved into the middle of the kitchen and rolled my foot.  I thought I heard a snap and it hurt like all get out but I was able to put a bit of weight on it by the next day so didn't panic.  It bruised in lovely technicolor shades over the next couple of weeks but healed slowly.  My activity at the Ex was too much for the newly healed foot and it protested.  So now I am doing strengthening exercises for my foot.  The moral of the story is that housework is hazardous to your health.

Speaking of summer, it still is!  We've had marvelously beautiful weather!  I covered the garden one night in September when it froze and haven't had to worry about frost since.  I'm still getting tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini from my garden which is unbelievable for the first of October.  I made a big pot of borscht yesterday with the garden vegetables.  With weather like this, it's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week.

I like lac

My friend Chandra generously gave me some sock yarn and natural dyeing ingredients to try.  I have never used natural dyes so this nudge gave me a chance to play with lac.

Chandra had included some plastic to use if I wanted to wrap the yarn tightly in places that would resist the dye, a method known as ikat so I did that before starting.  Then I premordanted the yarn with alum a couple of days before I dyed it, let it cool, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge.  I followed Chandra's directions for dyeing but used the crock pot so I'd have better control over keeping it from boiling.  (I have a dedicated crock pot for dyeing - I don't use any of the same tools for dyeing that I use for food.)  After dyeing it, I put the yarn into a vinegar/water bath for an hour or so, then washed and rinsed it.  And rinsed it, and rinsed it, and rinsed it.  There was a lot of residual dye.  Once the water was finally clear, I hung the skein to dry.

Here is the finished skein.

I like it a lot!  I think the best description for the final color is faded raspberry with the undyed yarn giving it the same casual look as well-worn denim.  Thanks, Chandra!  I bought some pre-reduced indigo and will try it sometime in the near future as well.  Honestly, I won't be abandoning my Jacquard dyes to switch over to natural ones.  While I like the result very much, there was a lot more clean up from the lac than there is from acid dyes.  Everything that the lac touched needed to be scrubbed.  However the resultant soft color provides enough motivation to use natural dyes some of the time too.

I've also been very fortunate to get an amazingly beautiful alpaca fleece from my LYS owner (Golden Willow Natural Fiber - Rav link) and friend Sharon's own alpacas.

I knew that I wanted to spin some samples before deciding how to prepare it.  I like sampling; it gives me so much information.  First I used my cotton cards to prepare a sample for woolen spinning.  I then combed some on my new Valkyrie Super Fine combs.  They are so newly developed that they aren't on the website yet; I heard about them on Ravelry and contacted Chris that way.  They have three rows of very closely set tines.  I am a fan of all the different Valkyrie combs and these are perfect for super-soft alpaca!

I spun this bit worsted short forward draw.

Here are the two samples before wet finishing.  It was dark already when I took the next pic so it's not wonderful.

I fulled the woolen skein with agitation and hot water/cold water baths then I whacked it against the counter.  The worsted skein just had a warm bath before I hung both to dry from my kitchen cupboards.  They are so light that they twisted in the plying direction when wet so that's kleenex on them to provide a slight bit of weight while drying.

Here they are after drying.

The verdict?  I like them both depending on how they'll be used for knitting.  The fleece is plenty big enough for more than one project so I'll prepare some each way.

I finally finished the first Watermelon Sock for Katie.

After having to restart this sock because it was turning out too small, I kind of lost enthusiasm for it.  Hopefully sock number two will be finished a lot more quickly.