Definitely worth the wait

When we moved into this house with its three outbuildings Steve said to me, "You're going to have a yarn studio where you can sew and spin and knit."

That was five years and many plans ago. Earlier this week Steve moved his office to another outbuilding. I scrubbed his former space. David, Marley, Sam, Steve and I moved furniture, bins, and books yesterday. Today I have a yarn studio.





Now the question is, how often can I get out there?

Progression

Almost a year has passed since I bought 16 ounces of this fiber to spin. I want to get it all spun, plied, washed, and made into skeins soon so I can start knitting a scarf or shawl with it.

Spinning with Penny

On Thursday morning I got Penny from the airport and we drove to Harvest, AL to buy fiber at Little Barn. After making our puchases, we headed to Birmingham to spend four days in a hotel spinning and knitting - and reading. I don't know that I'll have enough yarn spun by Monday to knit the pattern I've selected (Penny will - she's FAST), but I'll have made a good start! And spinning with a friend is much more fun than spinning alone.

(The gray yarn is Penny's and the blue is mine.)

Carding and spinning

It's been almost three years since I've carded any wool, but last week I picked up the carders and made rolags from the beautiful fleece that Jan sent me last year from her sheep. I love the feel of the wool with lanolin still in it. It spins so nicely and is much more forgiving than the slick merino roving I recently plied.

I'm trying to get back in shape - spinning-wise - before Penny and I go off on a spinning weekend together at the end of the month. (I told my mother Penny and I would be spinning for four days and she thought I said "spending." Not quite!)

Red homespun

A few days ago I brought my spinning wheel out of the closet where it had been stored since December. Before packing the wheel away I had spun 8 ounces of merino roving. The thread was still on the bobbins and needed to be plied before I started any other spinning projects.


Now the yarn is plied, washed, dried, and ready to be wound into a ball for knitting. (And I ended up with 7.8 ounces - only .2 ounces lost to waste!)

Everyone is home again

Steve is back from Virginia. Jacy is back from Honduras. Sarah and Joan are back from Pennsylvania. Mom and Dad are back from Greece. And we have Peter, David, and Grace with us for the next ten days or so.

While David and I were on our super-speedy trip to Virginia to get the girls and assorted friends we stayed with Penny and her family. Penny and I got to spin together. The last time we did that was before we moved to Alabama - over eighteen months ago. It was so nice to be able to spin in company with Penny, and to be able to talk - about spinning and knitting and fiber - while we spun.

Then Meg came and we all had lunch together and knit together in the afternoon. It was very relaxing and such a special "friendly" time. And very kind of the two of them to indulge me by allowing me to stay put at Penny's for the few hours we were in Virginia.

We all knitted on socks for a bit. Meg has finished two of the many pairs she has in progress and we took pictures of them.

And Randy (no, I think it was Kate) took pictures of us all knitting.

The Natural Knitter

Penny loaned me her copy of The Natural Knitter by Barbara Albright, and now I want a copy of my own.

Mrs. Albright did a magnificent job of describing different fibers and explaining how to use them, and included patterns to knit for each fiber.

A large part of the charm of the book is the photography by Alexandra Grablewski. I knew I was going to enjoy this book when I saw the picture of onion skins and thought it was beautiful.

All the information about different animal and plant fibers made me anxious to start working with the sheep fleece Penny gave me for Christmas. I told David he had to help me, so he took it out to the front porch and we skirted the fleece. (David was extremely reluctant to get near the fleece once he smelled it and looked closely at it. First he murmured, "Jason and the golden fleece... ." Then he yelped, "Ewww!! That's poop!")

It was huge, and I didn't do a very good job of cutting away the icky parts. I tried to get rid of the parts that were matted, but after washing (and I'm only a fourth of the way through with the washing of the fleece) I'm finding too much matted stuff in with the good stuff. But I'm learning as I go.

Summer Knitty is up

The Summer 2007 Knitty is up and ready with great patterns and articles - including one on spinning yarn for a sweater. (I already read that one. Now I need to go wash and card the bag of fleece Penny gave me, so I can get started spinning the yarn for a sweater someday...)

We are well

Last night it rained. Today the sun is shining. It has been more than 24 hours since anyone was ill. Thank you, everyone who prayed for us!


And this arrived in today's mail:




It's fleece from Jan. She sheared her sheep (brother and sister Hampshire/Finn crosses) a few weeks ago and kindly shared a bit of fleece with me to spin when I work at the museum this month. Toodles' fleece is the cream-colored bit, and Ivy's is the black.

Working at the museum

Sarah and I volunteered at the museum today. It sounds very special, but all we did was unlock the door, sit, and wait for any visitors for three hours. It was very cold there, and we only had one visitor. (Last week they had no visitors.) Sarah brought a book to read, and I brought my spinning wheel and fiber. I filled almost an entire bobbin with yarn.

I think I could have been more productive if it had been a bit warmer. I couldn't feel the ends of my fingers, and my feet (in thick wool socks) were numb. Still - any yarn spun is better than no yarn spun.

Spinning lessons

Sarah, Marley, and I went to school today and talked about spinning and weaving to Mrs. E.'s class. There were only three students, so I took lots of fiber for them to keep, and little hooks made from coat-hangers (Steve cut them for me last night) for them to use as spindles. I also gave fiber and a spindle to Mrs. E.

Then I told them about my spinning wheel and spun a bit of yarn.

Marley demonstrated weaving on her small loom. While we were there Chuck came in as a part of his daily rounds, and Kim stopped in to say "hi."

Afterwards we went to story time at the library. Glenn, Amy, and the girls arrive late tonight!

Much-needed impetus

Yesterday Kim called to ask a favor. One of the teachers at the middle school is teaching her class about spinning and weaving and asked Kim if the school library had a video she could show to her class. Kim told her she thought she could even better than that, and called me to ask if I'd like to take my wheel in and do a demonstration for the class.

Yes! I'd love to show the children my spinning wheel and my hand-spindle, and spin some yarn for them. It's been months since I've touched my spinning, and I'm long overdue to get back to it, especially since next month is the long-awaited trip to Rheinbeck, NY for the NY Sheep & Wool Festival. Months ago Penny and I talked about how great it was going to be to buy fiber for spinning - new fiber (because we already have fiber for spinning, but it's old now), exotic fiber, maybe even a smelly fleece to take from its raw state and process it ourselves. I really need to use up more of the wool I already have so that I'll have room in my fiber bin for new stuff!

For several months - since March, I think - I've had two bobbins full of spun yarn needing to be plied. I only have three bobbins. Because I'd like to spin yarn for the children's class, I knew I should go ahead and ply that yarn. So that's what I did yesterday afternoon.

Then I wrapped it on the niddy-noddy where I'll leave it to show the class.

I pulled out some gorgeous soft merino in a magnificent red colorway (Pam gave it to me) to start spinning. Hopefully I'll have a few days to practice spinning it before I have anyone watch me at it. It's a very slick and quick fiber and wants to pull out of my hands and onto the bobbin before it's spun enough. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's a rich fiery red with blue and yellow for excitement.