Twists of Fate

I have a hand crafted wheel for sale, and someone is coming to look at it tomorrow. I’m down to two wheels now, and will be keeping the Ashford Traveller until I can save up the moolah for something different. Selling this other one, which is lovely and beautiful and I wish I could keep it, but I never did get the hang of treadling on it, so it must go to a new home.

It was the first wheel I ever bought, found on craigslist, and the kind older gentleman who sold it to me had it set up as a single drive. It’s actually a double drive Norwegian, and you know, if these folks don’t end up buying it tomorrow, I won’t be *too* sad. I’d like to take the time to finish it with Wood Beams and really get it up and running, and spend more time working out a way we can get along. Earlier this week I realized that if these folks are going to bring someone who knows more about spinning than I do along (not difficult, since I’m still pretty much a rank novice), it needs to be functional and ready-to-spin. Oops!

Enter the mad dash to the candle supply place for some 24-ply flat cotton wicking. I had bought some flat cotton twine of some kind months and months ago to do the double drive with, but I’ve moved since then and of *course* I can’t find it. I do have some Pony bead lacing that I could use in a pinch, but I’m not really fond of its performance on the Traveller, and would prefer to try this out instead.

That’s my project for this evening, I think. To get the drive band on the Norwegian, get it oiled and ready to test drive tomorrow, and hope that it may find its way to a new owner as of noon tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Sorry y’all. I’ve been AWOL since finishing the first skeins. Family stuff sort of took over my life - my sister moved here from WI and we were getting here settled, and my oldest brother was in a serious car accident yesterday back in CO. He’s OK, though they had to cut him out of the car and there was airlifting and scalp staples and other things that make me go EEK! and EWW! simultaneously.

I haven’t really had much time to myself since last Saturday, though I’ve continued to work on socks, and my take-along modified feather & fan scarf in Colinette mohair when I’m on the go because it’s what happens to be in my bag at this point in time. I haven’t had much spinning time, though I did pay for the Petite Strauch carder and it’ll be here next week sometime. I need to get back on the fleece washing wagon, and hit the local essential oil supply store for a ginormous bottle of lavender EO and a spritz bottle for Ye Olde Fleece Stash. I think I need to get a big ass bottle of a lavender wool wash as well, and maybe take the yarn stash that was in the old apartment out for a good washing as well. It’ll give me incentive to re-discover and possibly document the stash at the same time, and also help moth-deter for another year or so.

Anyway. Life is crazy at the moment. Fiber goodness is helping me stay balanced, and after last night’s astrology class? Knowing that my south node in Taurus in the fifth house helps explain a few things. :)

Back to the mines before the boss discovers blogging on company time!

So The Yarn is dry now. It’s The Yarn, with caps, because it is my first! My first wheel singles were spun on my now very sadly sold Columbine, and before the wheel went in the mail, I wound off onto a couple of Ashford bobbins. These sat around for *koffkoff*, and I finally got around to plying them up the other night.

First, the artistic shot shown here to the left. This was actually the last picture I took. It was lovely light outside today, and I had the window open to air out the place a little bit, and to listen to the birds in the tree in the back.

This shot is of the wraps per inch. Both skeins are pretty much the same overall, so I snagged the second one and measured. These may be a bit smooshed on the measuring tool, but it came out at 12. If it wraps a bit looser, it runs at 11. So, first skeins WPI is 11-12! Woo.

You can see other shots by following the links.
Skeins side by side.

Skein the first, plied w/out tension: One, two, and three.

Skein the second, plied using the tensioned lazy kate: One, two, and three.

I’m so pleased! I ended up not weighting these when they were drying. I just took ‘em out of the pot, stuck them around a couple of hangers and let the water/gravity do the weighting. I did, after a few hours, do the whacking on the kitchen table thing before re-hanging. Just because.

Right now the skeins are relaxing on the couch. If I had about 130 yds between the two skeins on the niddy noddy, I wonder how much it shrunk after I washed it? Do I unskein them, and reskein and recount to be sure?

Gosh. Did y’all actually make something with your first skeins or just leave them as is, to be admired and treasured forever more?

Actual fibery content!

Sadly, I don’t have any pics to share with you at the moment, but I did want to mention that I actually plied some of the singles I’ve spun and the skeins are still at home soaking. They’re still soaking because me and mornings are un-mixey things, and I forgot they were on the counter in their pasta pot of happy eucalyptusy Euclean utopia.

My plying? Sucks. I wish I spun as well as I alliterate.

One skein, which is about 67 yards, seemed way too loosely plied. This was done using the “kate” on the front of the Traveller, which is really just those metal spokes poking up from the bottom. I had big issues with trying to do this - it just wasn’t working at all, and I gave up about halfway through the bobbins. However, once I pulled it off the niddy noddy, it actually hung straight. Huh. We’ll see how it looks once it’s dried - the singles were *koffkoff* old, and I am curious to see how the wetting will change the way it looks.

The second skein is also about 67 yards (my bobbins weren’t really all that full), and skewed liek whoa. This one was done with the tensioned kate, but I think I screwed something up with the placement of the bobbins on it. I know that I managed to twist the two singles around each other while attaching them to the lead, which made the whole plying experience just yick. Also, I need to move the kate behind me, I think, in order to give me some actual lead time and help ease the whole process.

If they don’t turn out too badly, I’ll post pics once they’re dry. I’m definitely keeping the skeins, but I should probably get a refresher on how to actually ply from someone who knows what they’re doing.

I must say though, that I really like Finn. Nice and easy to start with, and I enjoyed working with it a lot. I’m on a list for 2007 shearing notification at a couple of Finn fleece farms, which would be neat. In the meantime, I’ll try to get some more at the LYS when I’m in there next.

Or, you know, I could continue washing fleeces (this will never, ever end!). Or begin teasing the washed fiber I have in prep for drum carder arrival later this month.

However, it’s much more likely that I’ll go home tonight, sit my big fat ass down on the couch and work on the knee high socks while listening to season seven of DS9 on DVD. I’d taken an inexplicable break from Netflix for a while, but I’m back at it. With enthusiasm!

I’m not sure why some folks feel that knitters should be held to a standard of behavior that is ‘higher’ than others. Does picking up a pair of size 8 straights automatically mean you’re on a path to enlightenment or sainthood (if either of those fits your PBS, or Personal bullshitBelief System)?

What is this obession with being “nice”? Is it a female thing? And why would standing up for yourself verbally be construed as “so sad”, “unfeminine” or “not gracious”? While I admit that letting rip with the verbal abuse may not be the most charming immediate reaction, if someone is verbally digging at my hobbies, I don’t really see why being polite, “feminine” or standing there to just take the abuse is the socially correct response.

Fuck that noise.

I’m not really here to educate with my hobbies. If I wanted to do that, I’d sign up to teach. I don’t want to teach. I want to do my own thing, and possibly share with others who enjoy the same hobby, and if someone approaches me politely and with genuine respect and curiosity, then I’m more inclined to share with them. I’m not here to be a respresentative of the Craft, or an ambassador to the unwashed, unenlightened Wal*Mart sock buying masses.

Anyway, this entire discussion on various lists (Socknitters being the most prominent lately) has me pondering this phenom as a commentary on social behavior, standards and expectations based on gender as a whole.

I’ll tell you one thing though - Never have I been more sure that a circ makes a handy garotte in a pinch.

I see a lot of KIP-related posts on various lists lately, and you know. I really only have one comment to someone who’s either deliberately snarky or rude to me while I’m knitting. It’s fairly succinct.

“Bitch, please.”

Remove the ‘please’ part of that phrase if you walk up and want to touch my knitting with nasty hands, only recently covered in greasy french fries and/or ketchup, or sticky with the remains of an ice cream cone. I’ll be kinder to someone who has those kinds of hands and barely reaches my knee (aka children), but if you’re an adult? All bets are off. You should know by now how to behave in public, and if not, I’ll certainly call you on it.

And if you get even more rude in response? Well, that’s what the metal Inox size 0 DPNs and the handy dandy Bic are for. Perhaps I should refresh my knowledge of branding techniques, or knowledge of archane practices that involved sticking sharp, pointy and *heated* objects into people.

Thou Shalt Not Snark on the Knitting, for Thou Art Puncture-able and Will Probably Scream.

This post brought to you by that fucking ‘leap ahead an hour’ program and a serious lack of coffee.

Today was a fairly good day, which rather surprised me. I usually hate the time change ahead with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, but today wasn’t bad. Probably because I went to bed right around the time change this morning, and finally dragged my carcass out of bed around, oh, 10:30am or so.

Yes indeedy my friends, it is good to be single and accountable to no one and nothing at times.

Of course, I’ll probably hate myself in the morning when I have to get up to go to work, but that’s ok. I’m totally cool with that, although I suspect it has something to do with the beer I had this evening.

Mmm beer. It was my reward for spending a full hour and fifteen minutes spinning up…something. I can’t remember what this wool actually is, which is, ok, somewhat humiliating. I suspect it’s the oatmeal Romney roving from Spring Hill Farm, but I’ll have to do some investigating to make sure. Everything got sort of jumbled there in the move, and things are only now being straightened out as I start arranging the roving and top I have for spinning.

At this point, I’m probably only spinning about an ounce an hour, but I’m OK with that. I took a fairly long break in between to tighten up the drive band on the Traveller. I am experimenting with the Pony bead lacing, because the cotton drive band that came on the wheel feels way too tight to me, and that’s w/out any tension at all. I’m not 100% satisfied with what’s on there right now, and will likely futz with it some more tomorrow or Tuesday, but tonight I just wanted to spin.

It was fun. I really should be working on my plying, but I felt too lazy to do so tonight. Plus, I couldn’t find the empty bobbin that’s lurking here somewhere. So this lovely mystery wool was just the thing for the night. Someday, I’ll figure out WPI and post it here. For now I’m just concentrating on trying to keep my drafting and twist fairly consistent.

In other news, I put down a deposit on a Strauch Petite. I tossed a mental dart at the selections I wrote about in my last post, and it landed on the Petite. If nothing else, it will be a good place to start, and I can pass it on if I outgrow it or miraculously hit the lottery and can purchase the Triple Card. *G*