Day 10 ~ Something I Made

I have many things that can compete here. I chose this yarn that I spun as it's such a lovely colour.

My Apologies - Olio

Obviously, I have not posted in aeons. FB has fulfilled the need so often to express myself or vent, that this wee blog has suffered as a consequence.

I have been to England since I last posted. Istill need to sort out the photos. However, I have sketches for two new quilts. I have started the quilt based on a section of floor at Winchester Cathedral with the Stonehenge Line to mimic the slabs of stone used in the section I sketched. I also am planning a new quilt based on a section of Stonehenge. I made one with Hale-Bopp in the evening sky already. The new one will be a fall tree colour in the daytime...

Been making costumes for Steampunk events,here's the Wiki Link explaining it. Steampunk. I have also beeen knitting on many various items, some of which are even complete.

I bought a new spinning wheel this year as well. It's the Thurmaston Suitcase from Timbertops. We are still getting to know each other however.

I finally finished painting the wheel of my Louet with a Celtic Knot and thistles. I think it turned out well.

For a gal who had only one spindle up to three years ago and who now owns two wheels and 4 spindles, I'd say I've been bitten hard by the spinning bug.

Have been busy as well helping out the dear daughter with her yarn business. I have also been nick-named the Mama Minion but the other minions.

We went to Garden of the Gods with the Judd Family the other day and it was a treat as always.

I am sure that there is lot's more I should tell you about, but that will be left for the next post.

How about that, this is a post with NO pictures taken by me, LOL

Part Trois - Tour de Fleece 2010

Here's the last installment of photographs of what I got done during the Tour de Fleece 2010.



The green is my 3rd and 5th attempts at chain plying. Feel better about the 5th attempt, still need more practice to feel really comfortable with the process. The purply grey is the 80/20 Merino/Silk single, that I will make my shawl from to wear to Erin's wedding.

Part Deux - Tour de Fleece 2010

Here tis, the end of the race. All in all, the challenge to myself was incredibly helpful and fulfilling as I really concentrated on my consistency and learned to chain ply (Navajo Ply) better. My last two skeins of two ply yarns also were more balanced they my two plies have been in the past. So little by slow, I am getting better at this still new to me pleasure. I have only be spinning with this wheel for little over a year.

There are a few stray pictures that need to be rounded up as yet to complete the collection of what I did spin-wise this month during the Tour de France. There are also 2 skeins of 80/20 merino/silk drying and therefore still setting twist that I need to photograph as well.

I also have started spinning some cinnamon alpaca. This may be the last alpaca I ever spin as it is the grubbiest fiber I have ever spun. Not as dirty as the last alpaca I spun back in the Fall, but full of vegetable matter (VM) and foxtails. It's going to take me ages to get it all out before I can spin it, if I continue to hand card it. Going to check into borrowing a drum carder tomorrow in hopes of speeding that process up.

Spinning for Tour de Fleece

Here's some of my spinning. The Tour de Fleece is going well. Still have lot's to learn about Navajo or chain plying, tho. Below is my second attempt at chain plying, it's better than my first attempt but I still need to get better at consistency and not get my finger caught in a loop, OUCHERS!

Tour de Fleece 2010

Every year fellow Ravelers do various projects for the Tour de Fleece. The goal is to spin every day during the Tour de France bicycle race. We get to rest on the rider's rest days and spin more or challenge ourselves on the hard mountain days.

I have been spinning everyday and my challenge has been to learn to be a better spinner and also to get better at plying my resultant singles. I am practicing chain plying, which is also called Navajo plying and also double plying with more balance to the twist.

This is the result of spinning a henna hand dyed Corridale and a natural coloured Corri and then plying them together. This yarn is called Fort Yellowstone in honour of the natural single being spun at Fort Lupton, CO during Heritage Days and the dyed single being spun at the Yellowstone Highland Games in Billings, MT.

This is a Corridale sheep in Natural. This other one is a Blue Face.

More shall be revealed. I am waiting on a chain plied dyed Blue Face Leicester to dry as well as some custom dyed pink merino.

Happy 4th of July

These flags are courtesy of Bryn Hughes, an Urban Sketcher of my interwebs acquaintance. I so hope to meet him this year when he comes to visit his daughter, Anna here in CO.

We girls had a small celebration here at the house. I made oven roasted sausage sandwiches and my famous potato salad with blueberry/strawberry shortcakes with REAL whipped creme for the dessert. Geek that I am, the shortcakes were cut in the shape of the contiguous United States. I also gave Jes a lesson in biscuit making as she was having some serious fails in that department. I think I got her on the right track now.

We also had our own stitch and bitch. Mimi, Erin and Jes each started a new project. Erin's making a scarf in Field of Poppies from Fresh from the Cauldron to go with her Gretel. Mimi is making the Multnomah and Jes is learning to crochet by making a baby blanket. As for me, I tried out one of the new bobbins I just got for my spinning wheel. It's a different ratio than I am use to but I think I am spinning with it just fine.





Happy Fourth of July to all, be safe.

#104 of 365 - New to Me and Painted New to Me

Here is the start of the painting of the big wheel on my used but new to me Louet spinning wheel that I got last year. There are still thistles to come, but I discovered that I don't have the paint colours I need. Can you believe that, with a bucket o'paints we have, Erin? However, the irony continued as the drive band broke last night on the wheel, which meant no spinning, yikes! Fortunately, Table Rock had one in stock, so I am happily spinning again.

The photo was taken with my used but new to me Sony Cyber Shot camera with a Zeiss lens that I got yesterday.

I am so much happier now.

Just a note: Sadly, Louet has discontinued this model with it's lovely painting surface.

#10 of 365 - Distaff/Roc Day

We had quite the turn out for our first ever personal celebration of Distaff/Roc Day. What a variety of wheel styles there were, even an electric one that Tam brought.

So many lovely spindles were there too, including some made by Darla and one made by Sue. I brought along my Ren Scot produced spindle as well. Schelli brought her Navajo style spindle and Darla brought her new one from Gypsy Wools in Boulder. Katte had her first experience with a drop spindle, I believe that she will be way more successful at spinning then I will ever be at tatting which I tried to learn today. Sigh. I went back to my lace knitting as that makes more sense to me...

#9 of 365 - Distaff Day

Today is the day that most fiber related business are celebrating Distaff Day or otherwise known as Roc Day. The actual date is January the 7th. Distaff Day is the day that the spinners would go back to work after the Twelve Days of Christmas. This is a photograph of me prepping fiber to spin on my Louet S15 wheel. It was taken last June in Gillette, Wyoming at the Wyoming Celtic Festival.


Those photo also features another one of my hats of which I have MANY!

Tour de Fleece

Tour De Fleece

The Tour de Fleece started yesterday as did the Tour de France. Fiber spinners will be spinning along with the bicycle people with the sore butts. I aim to spin every day, rest when the riders rest, spin all the day as they head up the mountain. My personal goal for this Tour is to relearn spinning on a drop spindle.










If I get the hang of the drop spindle before the end of the Tour, I will continue to spin. It will be on my Louet wheel though, as I still have a lot to learn about it.

Randomness from the Wyoming Celtic Festival

The Wyoming Celtic Festival
Seven Nations
Gobs







Some of the Music, Seven Nations, Gobs O'Phun as well as Jenny and Tim Sullivan (Gobs O'Phun)

Ren Scots in various activities. Mark Reihm and Will from the Wyoming Pipe and Drum Band in the Pub entertaining us at lunch. Ren Scots lining up for the Opening Ceremony. The Chief, the Seneschal and the Wolves Fight Directors taking a meeting. The Ren Scots





Katte Judd and Jenny at the Ceidhl.


The girls at the Ceidhl.
Episcopal Church in Douglas, WY

Just a quickie to share some of the wonderful weekend up in Gillette. The musical line up this festival was one of the best I have experienced in a lang (long) while. The Muses (Traditional) played on Saturday and then Prickly Pair (Cowboy Celtic) played on Sunday along with Seven Nations and Gobs O'Phun on both days.


Me setting up to card some wool into a batt to spin it up. I relearned to spin over the weekend. More shall be revealed.

Painted Banners and Over-Skirts

or Why I Ended Up in Bed all Weekend

I refuse to submit to the fact that I just don't have the strength and stamina that I think I should have or used to have. After cancer in 2001 and West Nile Virus(WNV)in 2003, I seem to have lost about 30% of my strength. My immune system was still compromised from chemo when I contracted the WNV. I have to push myself fairly hard to get things finished in a timely manner. Unfortunately, no one know what a good lead time is. All last week, I hammered away on painting these canvases. Of course the weather refused to cooperate, no painting out of doors, heavy moisture in the air, etc. Even with acrylics, things took forever to dry.



This was the most challenging one and some of its detail shots.









This is the one that sank me.




I was suppose to spend the weekend in costume at the Heritage Days at Fort Lupton, CO with our Katte Beth and our Spinning Mistress, Darla from the Ren Scots but I couldn't get out of bed on Saturday morning as I had had a relapse of the WNV as a result of being too tired and was running a low grade fever. That and the fog that socked in my truck so badly, that I couldn't see it from my front door and its 15 feet away, maybe. I looked at the traffic cameras from here to Fort Lupton as well and it was pea soup all the way. High speed, winding highways, bad conditions, not my idea of a fun trip. The fog also lasted all day Saturday and the temperature didn't get over 50 degrees. So, discretion being the better part of being a chicken, I stayed home. It's just as well, as I didn't get out of bed for any appreciable amount of time until mid morning on Monday. My daughter, Erin took good care of me, bringing me real food to consume instead of a handful of crackers, LOL.

I was given the band of Seminole Patch Piecing forever ago in a de-stash swap. I always knew it was going to be a hem band on a skirt or something. It was blue tho and I don't do much in the way of blue in my various costuming pieces. Then, I found my Folkwear Prairie Dress pattern and decided I wanted to make the dress again and I found a blue/cream calico print for a dollar a yard (the length of dress I wanted to make take 5 + yards). I will wear this dress with the keyhole pocket apron over in warm weather and I will wear the patch work over-skirt over it in cool/cold weather. Part of the reason I wanted to make it again is so that I can wear it when I hang out with my friend, Katte Beth when we are at Fort Lupton.

I decided to make this over-skirt on Tuesday to wear on Saturday as well as finishing the painting of the banners. (I thought the break to sew would ease the impatience for the paint to dry, HAH). I also did my regular life stuff of knitting with friends, meeting friends for coffee, going to the library, cooking, laundry, re-arranging the furniture in my bedroom, packing for the weekend, yadda, yadda, yadda and so forth. Sadly, it all proved to be too much.

Here's the detail of the over skirt I also referred to in the title.

Here's what the Prairie Dress looks like with the keyhole pocket apron.









Then, the worse happened late yesterday afternoon, I broke a molar! So, I am currently in a fog of pain and percocet til I can get into a dentist this afternoon. I will then proceed to give them all my money to either fix it or yank it. More to be revealed, sigh. Therefore, the monotone brown banner, above , is again on hold as I can't think enough to paint it. This post alone has taken me over 2 hours of stopping/starting and spell check to write. However, a couple of my regular readers pinged me and wanted to know what was up. So here, tis!

I Can Sit and Spin Now!

A few days ago, there was a note on Ravelry.com in the El Paso County Crafters thread about a spinning wheel for sale. I looked at the ad and thought, I wants it, I do. I have been yearning for a wheel for quite some time, now. I used to wheel spin years ago as a demonstrator at the Texas Renaissance Faire. We're talking spinning with castle wheels, walking wheels and drop spindles as well. I have also tried my hand at spinning a few times over the last 10 years as a part of the Renaissance Scots Living History group.

I googled the Louet S15, which was the model that was for sale. It's a little workhorse of a single treadle wheel made by a reputable company. I have actually spun on one of these before, years ago. I thinking to myself, how am I going to buy it?

I was in a quandary. It's a good price, it's here in this city (no shipping), I could help out someone by buying it from her. What to do, what to do, where's the money going to come from, yadda, yadda, yadda? Well, the other day I got a letter from Uncle Sam telling me that I was getting an incentive payment, Cha-ching! Hmmm, found money! new tattoo, new tires, put towards a new digi SLR camera, the spinning wheel, what?

Then I talked to Erin about it and she's like, oooooh, cool!, a wheel, maybe I'll get back to spinning as well. To that end, this morning we went to ColoKnitter aka Gretchen's home to check out the wheel. I sat and treadled it and looked at the wood parts, the leather part and metal parts and checked out the general soundness of it's action and wrote out a check for it and came away with my, new to me, spinning wheel.

We parked it in the back seat of the car belted in and Erin brought it home as I was on the way to church to work on the garden plan and plant the tree (earlier post). Best part, besides my new toy, is that I have a big ball of merino roving ready to spin up here at home. It was meant to be, I suppose.

As you can see from the picture, I have a blank canvas to work with for decorating. So, I have to figure out what Celtic knotwork designs I want to put on the wheel. I will paint one on each side of it so that I see one as I spin and other folks see one as I demo spinning at the festivals this coming summer.