spin-it-n-knit

ALPACA HIDE AND MARTINA MCBRIDE

2007-08-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

I have been kinda lax in blogging!!! I am so bad!!!

For the last week I have been sorting and washing Alpaca fleece. It's a dirty job but somebody had to do it.

Here are few photos.

This is a lot of washed alpaca.

This looks like really bad wig!

This is a lot of guard hairs I sorted

from the Alpaca I am spinning.

The guard hairs don't spin.

This has been picked clean and need washing

This is alpaca that still needs to be sorted.

This chocolate brown and cream

and needs sorting and washing

What a night Christine and I had. We saw Martina McBride and Little Big Town in concert on Friday night. What an awsome show. This was my first live concert!
What can I say. I've lived a sheltered life. Well, maybe a little.

Absolutely amazing!!!

Its not that much fiber, honest!!!

2007-07-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Fiber Heaven

2007-07-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

What is fiber heaven, you ask???

It is being at a fiber fair with a limitless amount of

spending money and buying one or (10 or 20) of everything!!!

And feeling totally guilt free!!!

Dying to Spin

2007-06-20T18:39:00.001-07:00

We are ready. Christine and I decided dye some wool for the first time. We had a such a blast.

First we found a red tub to soak our wool in.

We're using a stock pot to fill the tub with hot water.

Baa, Baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!!!

Into the drink for an hour soak with lots of vinegar in the water and a squirt of dishwashing liquid.

All our little wooly balls in the sink to drain.

Shake! Shake! Shake it Christine!

Wilton Cake Dye test run. Christine's.

Wilton Cake Dye test run. Mine.

What a mess!

But, Oh what fun. We used 7 ounces of warm water, 1 ounce vinegar, and a pea-sized amount of cake dye, then mixed and measured and sampled like making witch's brew.

Next, we rolled out a sheet of plastic wrap the length of the table and put four strips of our wooly bundles unrolled on top of the plastic wrap.

Time for a little color.

Isn't mine pretty?

Fold the sides of the plastic wrap into towards the middle and roll up like burrito.

Christine's is pretty too.

Roll 'em, roll 'em, roll em!!!!

And roll some more!!!

Next, Use a foldable vegetable steamer, the kind that unfold like round fan, in the bottom the stock pot. Add water to just low the level of the steamer. Add your wool burritos. Turn the heat high until the water is boiling, then cover the pan and steam at medium-low or so to simmer for 45 minutes. Don't let the water boil away. HMMM! HMMM! SMELLS SHEEPY GOOD!!!

After letting the bundles cool off for a while, unwrap and let them soak in a tube of hot water and a squirt of dish soap for 15 mins, then exchange the water for plain warm water. Keep the wool out the way when you do this, or it will felt.

Beautiful pile.

Hanging around until they're dry.

Abracadabra!!! It's done!!! I hear socks calling my name!!!

hello again/yarn harlot

2007-06-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

Well, life happened, and it has taken a while to for me to get another entry put on my blog. Things are a little calmer now.

My friend Christine and I went to see the Yarn Harlot at Powells. The book store really doesn't get how many knitters are going show up. Last year they put Stephanie at the small Powells Book Store on Hawthorne. They set up about 75 chairs. They were overrun with knitters everywhere.

This time, we got to Powells at about 4:30 p.m. There was not a chair in sight. The info person said they weren't setting up chairs until 6:00 p.m. and she was speaking at 7:00 p.m. How dumb is that. She was going to speak in the Pearl Room on the third floor. They finally set up chairs at 5:30 p.m. but there were not near enough to accommodate. There were knitters stacked on top of knitters. Every book aisle was filled and it was a hot box, but it was so worth it. Stephanie is just hillareous to listen to. I forgot my camera, but fortunately, Christine remembered hers. Air conditioning was lacking. It was a sweat box, I wouldn't have missed it for the world!!!

Afterwards, we waited in line for a long time. When I got up to meet Stephanie, she remembered me from last year.

I decided to give her two skeins of my handspun shetland. She was impressed and said how much she appreciated handspun yarn. I was impressed that she was impressed. What a thrill!!! Stephanie said she was going to make mittens out of them. I really feel honored!!!

I got to hold the traveling sock, and Stephanie held my yarn and Turkish Spindle.

How cool it that!!!

The Time Is Now

2007-05-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go. I have never done anything like this before. My Friend Christine has been begging me to start my own blog, so now, we are going to go for it.

I started knitting when I was about 5 years old. My mom used to teach knitting to young women at the local YWCA. It was pretty funny to me, sitting with all these grownups who were still learning to cast on, as I worked on knitting a little pink sweater.

I have always loved fiber arts or anything artistic for that matter. I played the cello in orchestra for about ten years. I learned to play the guitar and piano. I played handbells in a bell choir, and I have always sang. I love to paint and draw, work with beads, and I think I have tried, done, or do just about every fiber art craft there is. I used to sew all my own clothes and still do to some extent.

I had stopped knitting for about ten years due to some health issues with arthritis. I work as medical transcriptionist and my hands are my life, so when I started having real problems with my joints, my job had to come first, and I gave up knitting for a long time. About three years ago, I got on a real good medication regimen that totally turned my life around. I was able to take up knitting again and I haven't looked back since. I have been obsessed ever since.

In the past 8 months I have taken up spinning my own yarn. I went to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Fair with a couple of friends last September. It was just crazy. I was so taken by all the wool and the colors and the feel of the fibers that I bought 1/2 pound wool in all different colors, and I knew nothing about spinning and did not even own a spindle, let alone a wheel.

My friends and I were sitting on some benches watching all the spinning wheels that were being used around us. This woman named Wanda Jenkins was spinning with a Turkish drop spindle. I was just totally fascinated and drawn to what she was doing. She graciously showed how she spun. My first thought was, I can do this too! It just so happened that Wanda's husband Ed had handcrafted this drop spindle. I went home that night and ordered one online from Jenkins Woodworking.

Needless to say I am absolutely, utterly in love with spinning. So far, I have spun up the 1/2 pound of wool that I got from the fiber fair. I am working my way through 8 oz each of white, grey, and black fine Shetland wool. This is being spun up in fingering weight. I have spun 9 skeins of white (see my profile picture) , 3 skeins of grey, and 3 skein of black. All of the Shetland wool spinning has been done since the end of February. When I get it all spun, the white is going to be divided into smaller skeins and dyed different colors. I am going to knit Fair Isle gloves and mittens.

In addition, I bought a Kromski Sonata folding spinning wheel in December and have been working my way through 2 pounds of blue superwash wool from the Sheep Shed Studio. I am spinning this in sport/worsted weight for a sweater I am going to knit for my daughter.

I am totally addicted.

I hope this is not too long-winded.

I will post pictures soon.