Woolthing

Not that we’re wimps here on the west coast … oh yeah, we are.  The thing is we don’t have air conditioning.  I could go to the mall but … then I’d be in hell.

Yesterday, I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery to check out the Dutch Masters of the 17th Century Exhibit.  My heritage is Dutch after all and I’m a fan of Vermeer, even before that movie.  I was a bit underwhelmed, I’m afraid.  There was one small Vermeer and a couple of Rembrandts.  There were plenty of paintings and I did enjoy it, I just expected more.  It is always great to see the original when all you’ve seen is prints.  There is a spark that you can’t explain.

Most of the painting had such detail that you could look at them for a long time and still see something new.  Unfortunately, there were lots of other people wanting to see so, it would have been rude to take up a space for too long.  I didn’t buy the catalogue.  I’m getting tired of everything being about money and yes,  I know that the gallery has to pay it’s own way.  I’m not going to get into how the government should do better job of supporting the arts.  It is the soul of the people after all.

And the homeless.  As I walked up Robson Street, the shoppers meca of Vancouver, I can’t help be turned off of our never ending spending on the newest and brightest when there is a homeless person holding out a cup for some change or scavenging in a garbage pail for the food that someone else just threw away.  Poverty sucks.

But it actually takes me back to the paintings.  In one very large painting (sorry don’t remember the artist) there was a fair of some sort with people of all kinds.  There were the refined, wealthy people in their silks and ribbons and there were also the pick pockets and the street people of that day.  Nothing much has changed.  And one of the themes, of many of the painters, was that for all our wealth and striving after the stuff of the world, we will all die and return to dust.  It seems that they foresaw the decline of the prosperous Dutch Empire.

I’m not ready to give up all my worldly goods and I still get a lot of joy out of life and the things I do but when I looked in the shops I just kind of went,  mmmhwa.

Or maybe it’s just the heat.

I spun for 12 hours today.  Pictures tomorrow.

Well, no new ones anyway.  Yep, I went to the dentist today for a cleaning.  They are clever those people at the dentist’s office.   They somehow knew that I’d been putting it off.  They called yesterday and told me they had an opening.  Was I available?  I had no excuse.  So off I went.

Now it feels like a bunch of mouth elves had a party in my mouth with sharp, pointy shoes.  My own fault for not taking better care of my teeth (really how many people floss every day) and waiting almost two years between cleanings.

The good news is that my teeth are just as good as they were when they were last seen.

Now, I feel like I should go brush my teeth.  I’ve got a new toothbrush.

It appears that my computer will soon be as good as new.  It needs its memory chips replaced.  It appears that whatever bug got in there went for the memory.  That’s a relief as the cost is much less than a new computer.

And to totally change the subject …

I tried to spin a mile yesterday for the Tour de Fleece.  I don’t have any way of measuring the yarn until it’s all done so I just spun and spun and when the bobbin was full I plied it with a bobbin that I had spun the day before.   Then I plied them together.  And skeined it off.  That’s when I measured.  It came to 1400 yds or about .8 miles.  A bit short.  Of course I could say that I spun 1400 and then plied 1400 but that is a bit of a cheat since plying is faster than spinning.  I know now, however, that I could have spun a mile and I’ll give it another try in a few days.  For some reason I don’t feel much like spinning for hours and hours today.

I must say though, that I am very pleased with this yarn.  It is even better than I had hoped for.

Good enough to eat.

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I am gradually getting my loft in shape.  It looks pretty good today and I hope to get it as organized as all that stuff can be by tomorrow.  I’ll post pictures so you can see.

The floor under the carpet (Richard) did not have any small animals or insects on it.  I could have used some gnomes to give us a hand though.  What it did have is nails sticking out, staples left in and a lot of large gouges from a past life.  All of that had to be taken care of before we could lay down the underlay and then the laminate.  By the end of day one (we’re old, we’re slow), we had the first width of underlay down.  We ran into our 5:00 p.m. deadline and laid down down tools and moved everything around so that we could live and sleep.

Day Two we got the majority of the floor down.   The last row was tricky with lots of cuts and notches and we ran into the deadline again.  We moved everything again.

Day Three we finished the floor fairly early but ran into major problems with the baseboard.  I won’t go into the details.  The baseboard looks bad but it is done for now.  It will get redone.  I was starting to panic with several pounds of fleece and yarn sitting on our balcony and a loom and a forecast of rain.  I got more than a bit stressed.  In fact I had to give myself a time out.  I vacuumed so I wasn’t  sitting idle but I had to have a break before there was bloodshed.

It got done; we ignored the deadline figuring a bit of tapping on baseboard wasn’t going to bother anyone too much.  Then we moved everything in. I’m glad it’s done.  It looks nice and it will be so much easier to keep clean.

We learned lots, which is good, because we still have to do the living room.  Fortunately, the flooring will wait till we’re ready.

The hubby and I worked on the floor again today.   We couldn’t start till 10:00 a.m. and had to finish by 5:00 p.m. (condo rules) so we didn’t get done.  Thank goodness it’s been nice as a lot of my stuff is outside.  It’s actually a good thing that we couldn’t work longer as I would push myself past misery to get it done but we were both getting tired.  It was also the first day of the Tour de France/Fleece.  Biking and spinning were necessary.

Hubby went for a bike ride.  I spun up some corriedale.  I have already spun some of this but I’m going to finish it for the Tour de Fleece.  I got the fleece at Black Sheep Gathering last year and it was a big fleece.

I can’t seem to get the colour quite right as it’s much darker and richer than in this picture.

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In the next few days I have to completely empty my studio loft so that we can put down a laminate floor.  And then I’ll have to put it all back again.  I have found that fibre, carpet and easy cleaning do not belong in the same sentence.  It’ll be a pain but it will also force me to take stock of everything I have.  I’ll give some away but mostly I need to remind myself that I have enough stuff and stopping buying things for a while.  And in my studio I will always make sure there is a bed and room for a guest or two.  Then we’ll move our work downstairs and do the rest of the apartment.  Our goal is to have it done by the end of the weekend.  It has to be because my daughter and her hubby are coming to stay for a few days and they need a good place to sleep.

Also at that time I will start the Tour de Fleece.  It’s a challenge for spinners that mimics the Tour de France, only instead of biking we spin.  We have wheels; we have ratios; we have yarn when we’re done.  I’ll be spinning from stash.  NO MORE BUYING.  Some of my goals are, to spin only from stash, to spin one mile of yarn in one day, to teach myself to be more ambidextrous, to do an art yarn with feathers and to finish the brown that I’m working on right now.   I’ll tell you more in a couple of days.   It starts on the fourth of July.  Yep, we’ll be up to our elbows in flooring but I can do it all.  I’m sure I can.

Not much to post today other than I’m trying to get my new-old wheel cleaned up.

I’m happy with the progress so far.  And I’m going to stop for now.  I would like the wheel to look as though it’s had a life.  No face lifts for George.

Progress with some orange oil and a mixture of turpentine and linseed oil.  George is outside getting some fresh air right now and I promise the smell will be gone before my pregnant daughter comes for a visit.  And then I have to find a good spot for it.

As you can see in this picture I didn’t do any tidying in the apartment.  The biggest difference was in the uprights where the axle of the wheel sits.  There was about a quarter inch of black dirt and grease there.  It looks like this now.

So that’s all for now.  I have to card some more fleece so I can keep spinning my not so interesting brown yarn.

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Today my mother turns 80.  Now that’s a big birthday and I’m with her celebrating her day.  She is a great mother.

I think we all grow up with different perceptions about our lives.  It amazes me that some incident in our family life that had a strong impact on me is not even remembered by my siblings so I speak of my own experiences.

No woman is one thing, we all hold inside ourselves the young girl and the wise woman.  My mother was, of course, a mother.  Here’s the gang with Mum and Dad.

Yup, we’re all getting up in years.  And despite having that bunch of bums my mom still adores children and especially babies.

She is a wonderful grandmother and great grandmother.

My mother is a cook and baker and she is good at it, especially her baking.  Nothing beats her pies.

She is an artisan sewer and knitter.  There was a mint green sweater with white trim around the collar that she knit for me.  I wore that thing for most of a year when I was entering my teens.  I only took it off when it needed washing.  I’m not sure what I loved about it but I do remember it was a hard year for me and perhaps I felt my mother’s love wrapped around me when I wore it.  And I remember a time she was going to make me a dress.  We went shopping for fabric but I just hated everything.  I don’t remember how I behaved, I’m sure it was badly, but later my mother went and got just the right thing and made me a dress that was just right.  My mother is an artist with fabric and thread and with yarn and needles.  One of her proudest moments was when a wedding dress she made was set up in a museum.

My mother is a writer.  My mom grew up in Holland and was pulled out of school at an early grade because she was needed at home.   Despite that when my parents came to Canada my mother taught herself to speak and write English.  Now she writes beautiful, eloquent pieces to read for significant occasions.  She’s one of the smartest people I know.

My mother was a nurse.  No, she never got a degree or diploma but I know that if she hadn’t stood in death’s way I wouldn’t be alive today.  I was a sickly child and had pneumonia several times.  When I did she would get up every hour or so to fill the steamer (those were the days).  I mean she peeled grapes for me because I wouldn’t eat them any other way.  And she did all this with several other children to take care of.

I could go on and on but I think the most important thing about my mother is that she is a woman with an open heart.  She opens her arms to anyone who needs her.  But, she dislikes self pity and laziness so expect some advice along with the love.

When other people complain about their parents I am reminded again and again just how lucky I am.  She taught me independence, strength of character, a good work ethic and most importantly compassion.   I think that most people who meet her and get “adopted” by her are lucky as well.

So Happy Birthday Mom, you’re one in a billion and I love you.

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I did some more dyeing today.  I wanted to use up some dyes that have been in solution for a while and then I’ll start over.  I also wanted to do a dark saturated dye this time.  When the fibre is saturated there isn’t room for error.  Although often great mistakes make for creative discovery.  But anyway, because I wasn’t going to be able to go back and over dye,  I did some mixing and testing before I poured the dye on.   I mixed up a bunch of different colours and then dipped some watercolour paper in them to see what they’d look like.  I originally thought I would use up to six colours but it wasn’t working for me so I ended up with four.

Here are the colours that I rejected.  I didn’t use any red or magenta.  I thought it would be too much contrast and since I just did some red maybe I’m tired of it.

Next step was to pour it onto the fibre.  I had laid the roving into the bottom of a roaster and then poured each colour over about a quarter of it.   Here’s the first step.

Because I wanted a saturated colour I gently worked the colour in by squeezing down with a gloved hand.  Then I laid another layer of fiber in.

And kept pouring.  I ended up with four layers of fibre and dye.

I topped up the dye bath with a vinegar/water mix by gently pouring it at the sides and not over the fibre.  Agitation will cause felting and felting is bad if you want to spin.  You’ll notice a bit of sludge on the top of the right side blue.  I really should have used a filter but since at least part of this is for me I’ll deal with that bit when I spin.  Spinning will draw all the colours together and soften it.   If I were dyeing yarn it would be a completely different story.

All done.  Put it in the oven for a couple of hours at 240 F, just above boiling.  I checked to make sure that all the dye was absorbed and it wasn’t so I added some more fiber (superwash mill ends) and then let it cool overnight.  Tomorrow we’ll give it a rinse and see how it turned out.

I think I should get some longer gloves or I could be less of a slob.  Sorry about the blurry picture.  It’s hard to take a picture of your own arm.

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