Katherine is hosting the Tour de Fleece again this year. (3rd annual, I think.)
The rules of play are here.
You can sign up by leaving a comment here. (But read the rules of play first, okay?)
I may not be participating this year, as I'm...um...still nursing the debilitating back injury that has knocked off my spinning chair.
I'll be cheering from the sidelines.
“Are you alright?” Lori’s eyebrow had shot up with the question, a look of concern on her face. She was visiting the city and we got together for supper. I mentioned that I’d cast-off a shawl (I’m not thrilled with it), and there was nothing on the needles. And my wheel is empty. So are the spindles, as I’d wound off the cotton I’d been spinning to make wrist distaffs.
It is, I suppose, odd for me to have nothing on the needles or on the wheel or spindle, and I could see Lori might be concerned by this break in my normal behaviour. There are, of course, some UFOs hanging around, but nothing is catching my fancy. Perhaps a Malaise has set in.
It’s been an odd week. It’s been an odd couple of weeks, come to think of it. For some reason, I’ve not had the time or focus to sit to spin or knit. (I have, however, been eating way too much ice cream. This is not good.) It’s been complicated in that I’m having problems with my low back and hips: if I sit for longer than 15 minutes I start feeling like someone is driving a spike into my pelvis through my groin. I also know exactly where my right SI joint is, because I have the same pain there. (Hands up, those of you who’ve guessed that eating way too much ice cream and low back pain suggests that the stress load is relatively high right now.)
However, after supper with Lori, I thought I should pull up my socks. I dug out the spindle I’d started working with at the Men’s Knitting Retreat. Turned out I didn’t feel much like spinning there, so I got about a half-dozen yards spun and then I went back to my knitting. I dug out some fibre that I’ve ear-marked to be spun for a shawl, and set it beside the wheel.
A recent exchange over on Ravelry about spinning, wheels and spindles got me to look at my spinning output this week. The discussion went around the usual stuff about spindles and wheels. A guy can’t spin because he’s waiting for the wheel to be delivered to the shop. I noted that this is why every spinner has a spindle somewhere. The production spinners will say that spindles are too slow and wheels are so much faster. Others complain that a spindle is always dropping and rolling under a piece of furniture; that’s never a problem with a wheel. People don’t have the “patience” to spindle-spin, whatever that means.
So here’s my week’s work on the wheel.
To compare, here’s my week’s work on the spindle. (Subtract from this the half dozen yards done at the men’s knitting retreat.)
What’s that? Oh, you’d like to see the spindle and the bobbin side by side. Sure.
This week past, the spindle lived on the kitchen table. When I was restless, I’d pick it up and spin off a few armlengths. When I was waiting for the tea water to boil, I’d spin off a few more. If I had a few minutes before heading out the door for work, a few more still. When I needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts, tell myself that life was okay and that there was no point in awful-izing and catastrophizing over a variety of things, I would spin even a few more. When my back was hurting I could stand and spin, and stretch, and rock back and forth.
Once I finish this length of top, I’ll wind off the singles and set them aside. Yesterday morning I told blogless Jim that I have a couple of Abby’s batts in my stash, and he replied (forcefully) that well-prepared batts, unlike cheddar cheese and many wines, are not intended to be aged: they should be used while fresh. I dug the batts out of the stash. (I hope that aging them was not detrimental.) The color is called “Orchid”. Here’s a picture taken in the shade, and one in the sun. The sunlit picture doesn’t really do the fibre justice: Abby has carded some sparkly nylon in with the merino and silk, so the batt actually glitters. Quite amazing.
And while hunting through the stash I also found some less-than-prime fibre and made felt balls. When I wind balls of singles or odd bits of yarn, I use one of the felt balls as the core.
In Other News
Jason has received his scarf in the Fibre to Scarf exchange. I’m always surprised by how these multi-coloured merino tops look when spun up. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with one that disappointed me. Scarf is “Campus” by Fiona Ellis, in Scarf Style. Picture of scarf by Jason, since I forgot to take any.
On my computer, the scarf looks greenish, but the yarn really much warmer in colour: more yellow and reds. More pics and write-up here.
That’s it for now. Have a good week.
On Lorraine's recommendation I contacted Donna at Wellington Fibres, explained the fleece, and wondered about taking it down for her to inspect. She replied that she'd be happy to look at it.
So on Saturday I drove down. It's a nice trip to the mill, driving was good. (Gas was only $1.36/litre.) Halfway down I realized I'd forgotten my camera, so there will be none of my (trademarked) Crappy Pictures.
Donna checked over the fleece; said she didn't see any weaknesses in the locks. Suspected the white gunk was some residue from washing. All 10 pounds of the fleece have been left with her: she'll wash and card some of it to see what comes out the other end, as a test run. It's in the work queue, slated for December.
Donna and I had good conversations about fibre, and she showed me some of the yarns she is custom spinning. (Like 13 pounds of 50/50 dog down/wool.) It's really good to talk with people who actually know what they're doing, you know?
K. and Rob met me there and we went into Elora for lunch and about 3 hours of conversation on a wide range of topics.
And then I drove home. All in all, a nice day. Good conversation, good company.
How was your weekend?
This weekend I started washing a fleece I’d inherited during the men’s knitting retreat. Apparently it is a Cormo ram fleece.
Because I want to spin this for lace (what else?) I thought about combing the locks to get a nice even prep. Additionally, that would help to even out colour differences in the locks. I teased open the locks (to help grit fall out), laid them in a basket lined with nylon mesh, and tied the basket in a piece of nylon mesh. While filling the kitchen sink with the hottest water from the tap, I added about ¼ cup hair shampoo. Scooped out the suds, pushed the basket of locks underwater and walked away for 20 minutes. Repeated the wash, then 2 rinses.
While arranging the locks on a mesh screen to dry, I noticed that several have this white stuff in them. At first I wondered if they were bug eggs, but there was no evidence of bugs in the fleece. I hadn’t noticed the stuff when I was opening the locks. If I press on some of it, it smears. It’s like cottage cheese or yogurt.
This has me wondering:
What is that white stuff?
Do I need to worry about this? Do I need to get rid of it? Will it damage or mar the yarn?
Is there anything I can do to get rid of it at this point? Or do I chalk this up to another less-than positive experience with fleece and dump the remainder of it all in the compost?
Perhaps it’s a sign from the deities? (You know: “Ted; stop spinning. Give it up. Take up book-keeping instead.”)
In Other News
Yesterday I did an update to the page of complete scarves in the fibre to scarf exchange. It’s really great to see them finished.
Have a good week, everyone.
Back in October or November of last year –-possibly while driving home from Rhinebeck-– I started to think about all the knitters and spinners I know. Maybe it was because I’d watched Mona learn to spin at the end of September. Perhaps it was because I’d spent time at Rhinebeck with Mar and Joe and Carol and Lars and everyone else. Or perhaps it was because I’d done my best to teach Dave to spin. I dunno what else it might have been. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, as I thought about it I realized that my friends and I are on this interesting continuum. On the one end of the scale I saw the very good (to superb) spinners who are good knitters, and on the other end are the novice spinners who are very good to superb knitters. I don’t know anyone who is a superb-all-around knitter and a superb–all-around spinner. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. We’ve all come to our crafts at various times in our lives; we’ve all been working at them with differing amounts of intensity and depth; we all have differing levels of skill at the different crafts.
Now I’m not trying to say anything negative about anyone, and I hope no-one is offended by what I’ve written. That’s the not the intention. It’s just to acknowledge that I know a great group of people –-I consider myself quite blessed, in fact-- and each of them does some things well, and other things really well, and some things superbly.
One of the things I’ve noticed with beginning spinners is that they feel awkward about their first skeins of yarn. They compare them to skeins of commercially-spun yarn --which may or may not be a good thing-- and judge their work as bad or good, or crap, or as “novelty yarn”. The yarn doesn’t get used for anything. It doesn’t even sit in a basket in the middle of the table where it’s handy to be pulled out and bragged about. It gets hidden in a box somewhere: maybe in the attic. Forgotten about.
I think that’s too bad, because some of that yarn –-perhaps it’s underplied or overplied or thick’n’thin-– could be used in a simple project. Maybe it could be used as an accent yarn with commercial yarns comprising the majority of the project. Or maybe it really could stand alone by itself. I mean, even with the lumps and bumps and splooches and slubs and wonky bits it really is good enough that it could stand alone, in a project, by itself.
I remembered an article in the Winter 1991 issue of Spinoff magazine ("Secret Sibling Scarf Exchange" page 17-18), about a guild that organized a mystery project exchange between members. I wondered if I could organize some kind of similar exchange between the spinners I know…something where the novice spinners could be encouraged to use their yarns, and more experienced spinners could be enticed into the game by …what? And the people I expected might participate live in Canada and the USA…how would I bridge the wide geography. Hm…
The other thing I considered was that if people knew who they were spinning and knitting for, they might kack out of the exchange. They might get performance anxiety and that could lock them up. They might freak out and need large amounts of chocolate or ice cream to carry on. Let’s face it: I’d be pretty intimidated knowing I was spinning and knitting for some SuperDuper Incredible Spinner. “My work just isn’t good enough for her,” I might start thinking. “Here I am spinning this stuff that I’m calling yarn for this World Authority on Spinning, and oh my gawd, why bother. I might as well just put it in the garbage and hope that nobody noticed. I mean, she’s just going to look at this and roll her eyes and wonder why I even bother trying.” So it became important to me that people not know who they were spinning/knitting for, to keep it anonymous. Novice spinners wouldn’t feel intimidated by knowing who they were spinning for, and all spinners had the challenge of receiving some fiber and having to make something from it, within their skill levels.
The whole thing, based on the plan profiled in the SpinOff article with only a few changes, turned out to be quite simple. I emailed a whole buncha potential participants and explained the basic "rules" for the exchange. You can read them here.
Thirteen people (including me) signed on. Six people have finished their scarves and sent them to the recipients. Only 1 person had a total nervous breakdown when she found out who she was spinning and knitting for, requiring large amounts of chocolate for her to recover her composure.
As I get photos and comments about the scarves I’ll post them on this page. Plus there'll be a heading for this in the blog's sidebar.
Over and out for now.
Beth tagged me for this here meme thingy.
Since I believe I am about as uninteresting as they come, I don’t normally do these. However, here we go.
“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”
Which is fine, except that several of the folks who I've tagged have their comments set so that I can't leave one. Oh well.
1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
The 90s weren’t a particularly good decade and I pretty much prefer to forget about them.
However, in ‘98 I came out as a gay man (I didn’t really “come out of the closet” as much as I was “ejected”); gave up on organized religion (why do I want to be associated with a spiritual path that considers me an abomination, tells me I’m a sinner and will burn in hell, and that the love I’d feel for a life partner is not real? It’s not terribly life-affirming, you know? And it's like belonging to a club that doesn't want you as a member anyway); lifted out of a suicidal depression (actually I was too depressed to be suicidal, as I think about it); and made plans to move out of a profession I should have left a few years earlier. I was also grappling with a chronic physical health issue that was making life particularly miserable at the time.
Oh, and I realized I’m not stupid, ‘though I still have many, many moments when I am convinced I must be.
My goodness: things are much better now. (Though I’m still not sure I’m not stupid. Self-esteem is a funny thing.)
2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Wash the car
Do laundry
Grocery shopping
Pay bills, reconcile bank accounts and visa statement
Write a blog post, other than this one.
3. Snacks I enjoy:
Usually if I’m snacking it means I’m bored, depressed, or anxious. (I’m trying to snack healthy, though.)
Plain, unblanched almonds
Good Darjeeling tea
Good Assam tea
Raw carrots.
Miss Vickie’s “Lime and Black Pepper” potato chips
1 single scoop of Greg’s Roasted Marshmallow Ice Cream. I have it once a year. (Available at Gregs on the southwest corner of Spadina and Bloor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.) This isn’t really a snack: if I go to Toronto I will plan to go to Greg’s.
4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Off the top of my head:
Knit
Spin
Go to Easton Mountain every year
Buy a nice condo and hire someone to decorate it
Have a cleaning service come in every 2 weeks
Hire a personal trainer for 3 sessions per week
5. Places I have lived:
Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada (twice)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
6. Peeps I want to know more about:
Paul
Kenny
Chris
WonderMike
Patrick (who wrote a wonderful report on the knitting retreat at Easton Mountain)
(Warning: long wordy post with a few of my Crappy Pictures©. You know how I am with a camera.)
So. After several months of planning; 24 hours and 1680-ish KM of driving; and 3-ish days of fun and community in a lovely setting, here we are.
I’ve realized that a few people are wondering what I have to say about the event, as I am one of the instigators and attendees. Truth be told, I’m not sure what to say. I’ve been rolling around the blogs reading posts from a few of the attendees, and see that they’re a bit stuck for words as well. (And having listened to everyone chattering away on the weekend, I’m a bit surprised by this, but, oh well.) There was, I think, some sort of intangible magic that occurred and it’s hard to explain it. In fact, I’m a little…stunned, perhaps, at how favourably the event was received and how grateful the attendees were for it and the opportunities it afforded.
I was once told when you’re the organizer of an event, there comes a point when you have to let go of it and let the participants take it on. You don’t abandon it, of course: you still have to be there to facilitate the overall process and intervene if things get too far off track. But just as you can’t lead a horse to water and make it drink, you can’t put a group of event attendees in a room and make them have an experience that leaves them feeling satisfied. Joe has written that the success of this event really depended on a whole lot of things coming together: the venue, the organizing, the programming, and so on. And that’s true. But I want to thank all the attendees who took a risk to go to a place they didn’t know, for an event with no track record, organized by guys you only know online (whatever that really means), and to make it work. Each of you contributed to make this event a success. Applause for all.
All of the attendees know that we were sharing the space at Easton Mountain with a group of middle-aged to elder gay guys exploring issues impacting maturing gay men. They asked to sit in on our show’n’tell session, because, as their program facilitator said, they were completely intrigued that a group of guys would get together for a weekend to knit. (“You mean there are knitting camps? Like…people just go to a place for a weekend and knit, and swap ideas, and look at each other's knitting? Really? But what kinds of things do you knit?”) I think we exposed them to a subculture that most never knew existed, and you wowed them with your skill, humour, camaraderie, and the great stuff you showed and told. It was a wonderful cross-pollination of concepts and experience, and it meshed completely with the material they were considering in their program.
Thank you to the staff at Easton Mountain. You provided a great space for us to hang out and do our stuff. We hope you'll want us back next year.
While I’m doing the thank-yous, I want to list the companies that sent an item for us to give to the attendees in exchange for including their business card in the attendee’s information folders. Joe and I were astonished by people’s generosity. (“Sure I’ll send some yarn. How much would you like?”) So, in alphabetical order:
Black Bunny Fibers, Villanova, PA, USA
Briar Rose Fibers, Caledonia, MI, USA
Danny Ouellette Knitting, Toronto, ON, Canada
Green Mountain Spinnery, Putney, VT, USA
Hyphen Boy Designs, Bloomington, IL, USA
Louet North America, Prescott, ON, Canada
Nomad Press, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Oceanwind Knits, Teesewater, ON, Canada
Rabbitworks Fibre Studio, North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Red Maple Sportswear, Kittery Point, MA, USA
Shelridge Farm, Durham, ON, Canada
Schoolhouse Press, Pittsville, WI, USA
Spinning Loft, Howell, MI, USA
Threadbear Fiberarts, Lansing, MI, USA
Wild Geese Fibres, Cold Lake, AB, Canada
Woolcott and Company, Boston MA, USA
Thank you also to Alpacas of Easton, who hosted some of our group to see their animals and do I-don’t-know-what-else. (I missed that part of the trip as I was teaching the lace class.)
A final thank-you goes to Joe. The event may have been my idea, but without Joe it wouldn’t have happened. He did so much work on this that I am embarrassed when people thank me for organizing it. We shared the same vision for how it should unfold and run. He was on-board from my first mumbling about it, and jumped in to handle the arrangements with Easton Mountain, to track registrations, to reply to dozens of email and phone enquiries about the event, stuff swag bags and print out bingo cards. We additionally benefited from his level-headed common-sense, and ability to look at issues from a variety of perspectives to come up with fair and simple solutions.
And now for the pictures.
Michael spent a lot of time sitting on the lodge porch looking at the mountain and the pond. (So did several of us, but our hats were a lot less interesting.)
Here’s the mountain and the pond. You don’t get the feel for it from this photo. (A lot of us looked at the mountain and said things like "I never knew green came in so many colors." And compare with the photo in this blog post.)
I finally got to meet Kenny, whose knitting I've admired for a couple of years.
Guys spent time just hangin’ out, knitting and talking.
We had a class on spinning cotton.
Stephen and Sean would make a perfect comedy duo.
Til next year...
Luggage?
Out of country health insurance and passport?
GPS?
Spinning wheel?
Knitting and spinning for trip?
Handouts and samples for “Lace 101” class?
Show and Tell item?
(What!? You thought you were getting an advance showing?)
Shawls and other stuff (freshly blocked)?
Miscellaneous bits and bobs?
Off we go. See you later!
(Note: In reading other blogs, I’ve seen notices to alert readers using RSS feeds that a post contains pictures. I don’t use an RSS reader, so I’m guessing they don’t show images? Since I know at least 1 reader uses an RSS feed, he can consider himself alerted. BTW, the adventurous amongst you might want to go over to Tycho’s blog and look at the sweater KAL he’s started. You're looking for a nice challenge, right?)
A couple of years ago, I was shopping at the LGS and wandered into the floral dept. It was January, snow on the ground, and I wanted some colour or something interesting. They had Anthuriums in pots, and they were in full bloom, and looked exotic indeed. I bought one (it was hugely expensive) and it’s been doing rather well in the apartment.
It looks a bit flat right now, because it needs some fertilizer. But let me tell you, when there are 7 of those shiny red blossoms on the plant, it looks quite…opulent.
//Have you seen Larry's Amaryllis? Go look at Larry’s amaryllis. It’s okay; I’ll wait til you come back.//
Anyway, maybe somebody can help me with this. The anthurium is getting a bit leggy. As you can maybe tell from this picture, the leaves grow off the stem with long stalks, and as they die off, you end up with …well…a lengthening bare stem.
I’m kinda wondering if I could lop the top off the plant to force it to send out leaves from further down the stem? Or would I be guillotining the plant? Or do I need to sink it further into the pot, perhaps with some root pruning to reduce the amount of plant under the soil?
Anybody?
Oh, and I finished plying the yarn.
After 48 different shots, I gave up trying to get a decent picture, but you can see it’s kind of a blue-green colour. It's in the queue to be knitted.
I think that’s it for this week. I mean, I suppose I could tell you that there’s only 18 more days til I head out for the men’s knitting retreat. (Not that I’m marking them off on the calendar or anything.)
In Other News
In one month, the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat will be over. I volunteered to lead a basic lace knitting class, so consulted lots of people -- individually, through a post to Techknit, and on Ravelry -- about what might be presented. I’ve thought about it, and have been busy writing notes and drawing charts and so on. There’s probably 3 times more material to cover than the time will allow, but we’ll see. Since participation in any of the workshops is voluntary, maybe only Joe and Franklin will attend (and they could both lead the class, anyway). An interesting thought, that, because it would be a wonderful sharing of information and ideas.
However, all that keyboarding and mousing means I am again having significant pain in my right wrist and hand. So I’ve reduced my knitting and computer time (hence, a lot of people are owed thank-you notes for their input on the lace knitting course) and it’s better. Moderation will be the key, I think. (Or perhaps a wrist brace and a new computer system.)
Have a good week.
