Woolthing

I like traveling alone.  I seem to be an anomaly with the people I know but that’s just how I am.  I get to leave when I want, do what I want and make seemingly stupid decisions without anyone else complaining.

Today I went to Gibson’s Landing for a Fibre Fest.  I ended up getting the day off of work so away I went.  Drove to the ferry terminal and parked to car to walk on board.   Then I caught the bus to the event.  There wasn’t that much to see although I managed to spend all my money.  I got some yak, some muskox (quivit) and some cotton.  I haven’t spun with any of these before so I’ll be learning.

When I wanted to go home I found out that the next bus to the ferry wouldn’t be by for a couple of hours I decided to walk the 5.5km.  There is no companion on earth that would have agreed to do such a dumb ass thing.   And yes, I should have been wearing better shoes but I enjoyed the hour walk and I got some exercise.  I made the next ferry by less than five minutes.  I’m sure that I wouldn’t have been so pleased with myself if I’d missed it by five minutes but I did make it.

Sometimes it’s nice to have a companion on the way.  I like that, too.  The same, but different.

Yesterday was challenge day for the bike riders and for spinners.  I chose to set myself a number of challenges at the same time.  I wanted to spin 100% alpaca.  I wanted to spin lace weight.  I wanted to spin a mile and I wanted to bring out the best in an alpaca fleece I had gotten a couple of months ago.

I had gotten a couple of alpaca fleeces from Wendy at Dream Weaver Alpacas.  And I fell for Prada’s fleece.  Prada is an alpaca that would have gotten culled out of the herd by most breeders.   His fleece was multicoloured and that makes it a pain for anyone who sends fleece out to be processed.  I wanted to use the unusual to make something exceptional.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of Prada but here is picture of the fleece as it is drying in the sun.

He had a bit of brown, a bunch of grey and a lot of black.

I separated each of the colours out and carded them into different batts.

I split each of the batts in half so that when I plied them together I would retain the colour shifts.  8:00 a.m.,I got my wheel set on it’s fastest ratio (33:1) and  I started to spin.  By the time I’d gotten through the first bit of my three batts I knew that I wasn’t going to get it all spun in one day.

I discovered that I needed to put quite a bit of twist in the singles.  I got the first bit done by 12:30 and the second half of the first three batts done by 4:00.  I treadled fast and got some music with a good strong beat to help me keep my feet moving.  Well, I thought I’d get it plied in short order and then spin up another bobbin full.  Not so fast.

The alpaca needed even more twist in the plies to stay together.   Alpaca is smooth like hair.  Wool has little barbs on it that help it hold together.  If I didn’t put a lot of twist in, it started to drift apart.  Well,  that was why I was doing this wasn’t it? so that I could learn how to spin alpaca.  I went on a plying marathon and that is where the real challenge began.  I find plying to be … well … boring.  Faster music, faster treadling, I mean my orifice,

(minds out of the gutter) was getting hot.  I wanted to quit.  I didn’t need this.  I could finish it tomorrow.  Why was I doing this?  I was doing this to proof that I could.  I finished plying it around 7:30.  I skeined it off so that I could measure it.  665yds.  Yes, I’m counting the plying this time so I did make a mile of spinning.  2 bobbin of singles at 665 and the plying makes over 1900yds of spinning in one day.  Oh and the best part.  I like the yarn and I like more every time I look at it.  It isn’t all flash and sparkle.  It’s soft but solid and strong.  It has presence.

I meet all my challenges.  So what did I learn.   I can spin fast if I have to, but I’m glad I don’t have to.

Today I continued spinning on the rest of the alpaca that I had carded.  I spun at my own pace, which is still pretty quick but I enjoyed it a lot more.  Do you suppose we all have a beat that we are happiest moving to?  A cadence that is all our own.  It might explain those different tastes in music.

Slide Show

When I was a child we rarely went places.  We went to school of course and we went to visit our cousins a few times a year.  And we went to church.  That was all standard and not terribly exciting.  We were farm kids so walking to a store didn’t happen.

In my parents defense, I don’t blame them.  With nine children in tow it was a bit of a challenge to take us anywhere.  It was in fact a major undertaking.  One of us got forgotten once when we all went shopping together.  It wasn’t realized till we got home.  My mom was very careful and a superwoman but that one time she counted one of us twice and a small quiet one got separated from the rest and …   It ended fine and the lost one was found.  Dad made a quick trip back to town to get her and all was well, except for the emotional scars, but we all have those.

What I wished for was to go to the local fair with enough money to have some fun.  My mom thought this was a silly waste of money.  There would be nothing to show for it when all was said and done.  A bit of excitement, a laugh or two and then what.  Money down the drain.  It wasn’t  till we were earning enough of our own money that we went.  I don’t remember it all that well, but for a few rides that increased the level of  adrenaline in my body from fear.  I think we went a few times and then the thrill was gone.

This all came back to me as hubby and I went for a walk to the quay where they were having FraserFest.  There were rides for the kids and tables selling stuff, a cacophony of sound and people.  It made me think that there isn’t much at these fairs that change.  The same calls from the tables try to entice us to buy things we don’t need and the same rides are there to excite us, but when all is said and done there is nothing new, and when you come home from the fair you still have nothing to show for it.  I am so becoming my mother.

What’s not to love about a farmer’s market.

Lovely people, good food, no beautiful food.

These Ranier Cherries were so sweet, yum.  There were babies and elderly folk,  a  violin player and dogs.  It’s a very small market near my home but it’s within walking distance and it has everything I need.

Slide Show

My youngest daughter was here for a few days and is continuing on her journeys with her husband.  She’ll be back in a couple of weeks but the apartment seems very empty and quiet right now.

It will take me a couple of  days to regain my equilibrium again.   Meanwhile I continue to spin.   I finished spinning a brown corriedale fleece and have turned it into several skeins of lovely dark brown three ply yarn.  Now I’m working on some BFL top that I dyed in berry colours.  Unfortunately, I can’t show you photos.  My main computer is very, very sick.  Most of my photos are on that computer.  They’re backed up; I’m just not up for the brain power involved in figuring out how to get them on this post today.  I’ll get on that for tomorrow.

Today I spent a couple of hours at “Fair in the Square” spinning in public.  It’s always fun because people are generally fascinated with the spinning wheel.   I spun and chatted while spinning for almost an hour and got about an ounce of fine yarn on my bobbin.  It was then the circus performers finished and one of the races finished and I ended up with a few children watching me.

It was then that one brave lad asked if he could try it.  And what could I do but let him.  I let him treadle for a while and then he gave it a shot.  His first yarn was better than my first yarn and I let him know it.

After that I had a row of children from under two years old to ten years old wanting to give it a try.  It was great fun.  Some of them just treadled while I drafted the yarn and few got to try a bit of drafting.  They all went away with the yarn they had made.  It was hard getting away as if there was a child who wanted to try I felt I had to let them.  But eventually there were no more children standing in line and I beat a hasty retreat.  My family was waiting for me.

Who knows, maybe one or more of those children will become a spinner.

Slide Show

I’ve gotten the loft organized enough that I can actually work there.  I will always have to move stuff when I change course.  If I’m sewing my carders need to be put down and the sewing machines need to be brought out but until we have a bigger place that is just the way it is going to be.  What else do you expect with two looms hogging all the space.  Ellie, the countermarche loom is back up and ready for a warp.  Mac, the Macomber jack loom, has some new treadles and a new beater bar but will have to be folded up for a little while.  The couch has been uncovered.

Here is one side of the loft.  The floor is visible and there is a path to the door.

The stash is organized so that I can see what I have and start using it up.  Yup, it’s ridiculous.

There is a spot for George, my antique CPW, and he is easy to move so that the couch can become a bed.

I do have a bit more organizing to do to clear my desk tops but everything is there.

Yay, there is room for my sweet daughter and her darling husband.  Now I have some spinning to do

Slide Show

We’ve been working on the loft and pretty much everything is either on our balcony outside or in our bedroom.  When room is already at a premium taking a third of it out of the picture and trying to squeeze what was in there somewhere else is not so easy.  Also, we found some interesting things under the carpet that had to be taken care of.

This condo used to be a rental building and it shows and the reno the workmen did after we bought it was also fast and dirty.  I helped my Dad when he was building homes so I know.  It’s no fun trying to repair that without it costing an arm and a leg.  So we’re having a bit of a break and then we’ll be back at it.  There is some stuff outside that I’d rather not leave there overnight and our bed is covered with stuff so if we want to sleep tonight we better get that floor down.  I probably should paint but in the loft the wall is generally covered  and I like the, nondescript, colour it is right now.

Neither one of us is ready to commit murder yet so that’s good, right.

Hopefully picures tomorrow.

Disorder, confusion, a very good way to describe the way my loft looks right now.  Some would say it always looks like that but this is worse than ever.  It makes me very cranky.  I’m hoping that it will look much better in a few days and that order will be restored.  I have to squeeze a lot of stuff in there so it will always be crowded.

And from the other end.

Yeah, there’s a hide a bed couch in there somewhere.

Slide Show

My trip to Ontario to be with my Mom on her 80th birthday was great.  The plane ride was uneventful, which is just what you want.  The plane was only partially full both ways so there was an empty seat beside me and that was great.  I usually end up with some large man sitting beside me.  When a man sits beside a woman he almost always takes the arm rest leaving her to primly fold her hands in her lap.  What is that about?

My Mom had four of her sisters, a brother and a brother in law visiting from the Netherlands as well as my sister and her husband.  It was a crowded, happy, noisy houseful.  I got a lot of Dutch and I think I need to go to Holland for a few months and get fluent with it.  My sister and I heard and spoke Dutch until we went to school.  We don’t speak it anymore but we understand it a bit and my aunts and uncles have a hard time speaking English but they understand it a bit.  So they would often talk to us in Dutch and then we’d answer in English and they’d answer back in Dutch.  Sometimes it all broke down but I was understanding a lot better after just a few days.

Her birthday weather was great, a bit cloudy which kept it from getting too hot.

All too soon it was over and I was back home.

I’ll miss her flowers.

We had a thunderstorm one night and it was great.  We rarely get them here in Vancouver and I miss them.

My Mom and Dad have bird feeders all over the place and I’ll miss watching them.

They’ve got some nice birds.  I’ll miss watching the little brown wren feeding her babies.

I had to be very patient to get those photos.

I’ll miss all the good fresh food and most of all I’ll miss my family.  I didn’t get much knitting or spinning done but that’s just fine.

What I won’t miss is the mosquitoes but don’t worry they left me some reminders.  It’ll probably be a week before the bites are gone.

Slide Show