Is there a wool intervention?

Last April I learned how to knit Intarsia. I instantly came up with ideas for knitting, not one but FOUR, afghans as Christmas presents. THIS Christmas.

Then a day spent surfing the web and I've rekindled my passion for learning how to hook rugs. BAM, I have a sudden brain storm for my mothers' Christmas present. THIS Christmas. Mind you the only hooked rugging I've done was latch hooking as a child. This step runner has to be classy and look realistic as the recipient does not appreciate anything remotely folk artsy.

These ideas and plans can not wait for Christmas's down the line, oh no! They HAVE to be designed and created by me in time to give this year.

Christmas 2013 now looks like:

One Intarsia Rainbow Dash afghan

One Intarsia Pinky Pie afghan

One Intarsia Apple Jack & Big Mac afghan

One Intarsia honkin' huge block afghan

One hand dyed, hand spun, hand hooked step runner (learn how to hook rugs first)

Four hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit Christmas Advent Wreaths (learn how to knit on dpns first)

Two or three hand spun skeins to gift to someone who doesn't think handspun should be sold for a lot of money.

I've said before that I need a wool intervention. Then it was to keep me from buying more fleeces. Now I need one to keep me from having all these "wonderful" ideas.

Exciting news.. for me anyway.

Remember this post?

Well, that was all about this:

My mother received a nice sum of money that she didn't even know was owed her and was generous enough to share with several members of the family. After pondering long and hard I decided to use it like this.

Kaydessa Wool picker
Fancy Kitty drum carder
Card Weaver's Surf Board.

Can you see me doing The Dance Of Joy now?

The Kaydessa Wool picker is pretty neat in theory.

You put your compacted fiber in one end, drag the lid (containing multiple sharp nails) across the bottom (also containing multiple sharp nails), and as you do this you catch the fiber which opens it up to become nice fluffy mounds on the other end while all the vegetable matter (VM)is left in the bottom.

That's how it works in theory. The top picture is staged. You can't draw that much fiber through at one time. Also, that mohair was so compacted with tight curls that I had to pick it open with my fingers before sending it through so the picker didn't tear the fiber. The nice fluffy mound of fiber on the right hand side of the picker was hand picked once and sent through the picker twice after that. While it did help remove a lot of VM, there is so much of it in this fleece that I had to hand pick it once, send it through the picker twice, hand pick it again before drum carding it and still there was a pile of VM under the carder when I was done while the new bat contains too much VM for my liking. This is not the fault of the picker though. This fleece is terrible in it's amount of VM. So much so that I'm not buying from this local "award winning" shepherdess again.
Anyway, with a long fiber like mohair, the picker tends to pull and rip the fiber too much. I tried it with a small amount of merino/targhee x and it pilled terribly. I'm going to have to play around with this thing more to see what it likes to work with. I don't mind hand picking smaller amounts of fiber but, even with it's flaws, the Kaydessa wool picker will come in handy with 5 VM filled mohair fleeces to work with.

The Fancy Kitty 90/120 drum carder

This is what I thought I'd never be able to afford. It's taking some getting used to, and there's certainly more of a learning curve than when using combs, but it sure plows through large amounts of fiber in short order. In this picture I've carded some professional top, dyed by me, and some more of that mohair, also dyed by me. Orange and blue are not my usual colors but there's something about a drum carder that begs you to play outside your usual field.

I've carded two bats of this same blend and hope to knit some sock/slipper things with it.

My favorite purchase, by far, was the Card Weaver's Surf Board.

Please excuse the messy picture. It's sitting on top of my floor loom which was piled high with clothes sorted for an emergency trip out of state for a family funeral.
Anyway, I love this little thing. No more having to strap my work to my waist, or try to find a table or other surface that won't be needed for as long as it takes to finish a project. I LOVE this thing. There are a few things I would change about it but just the fact that it's light weight and oh-so portable makes it's well worth the money. There will be a lot more tablet woven bands around here now.

Plums and Olives in merino and viscose

I'm kicking myself right now because I forgot to take a before picture.
For reference, and for as long as it's up, I got this fiber from Fiber Fancy and the picture can be seen here.

After doing a little test knit, I've decided to keep it single ply and knit a scarf for my mother.

I really need to take the time to learn how to N-ply so I can keep colors together with a 2ply. This would be "SO Soft N Fuffy!" and gorgeous if it were a N-ply.

I'm still working on my other knitted scarf as well as Fugly. I just get bored too easily and need to move on to other projects every once in a wile. These two scarves WILL be done by Christmas though. If they're not then...well I'll think of something to threaten myself with.

Back to the needles

Cha Cha ChaCha Changes...queue Bowie

When I bought a bunch of

these, in different jewel tones, I had plans for a felting project.
Instead, those, became

colorful rug yarn to use as accent with the silvery coopworth.

I'm sure I'll think of something to put here after I've gone to bed and I'm half asleep

While I haven't been posting I've still been very busy.

My son and his wife have managed to find an affordable apartment, so we are in the process of moving them out of the basement. YEAH! Two years down there was 23 months too long. Now they can have fresh air and sunshine and a happy life, and I can have a storage area and workspace. That is once we get them all moved. They were going to come back over this week to finish, but we are all sick with the yuckies so we'll have to postpone it for a while longer.

In between snow storms


And packing, and cleaning, and everything else that I do with my day, I've been
combing out a very VM filled Cheviot fleece.



It's also, most of the time, filled with cat.



When I shoo her out of there she makes a nest in the combing waste box



We have video of her burrowing down until she's completely covered and hiding from the world. I'll post if up sometime.

I've also been spinning up samples.



My favorites so far have been Coopworth Bulky or Chunky. I can't wait to get my hands on more of this and make some area rugs. It's so squishy and scratchy soft, plus the luster is amazing. This came from Homestead Wool & Gift Farm

My other favorite is a Merino/Targhee cross from Ranching Traditions



I've also been weaving or crocheting with the samples.

That big mass of gray is crocheted Coopworth in bulky. The woven sample on the left was woven on my weavet with left over Coopworth and Cheviot, the one on the right with some of the Merino/Targhee. I'm trying very desperately NOT to buy more of that kind of fleece. I have to take care of all the fleeces I already have. Plus I'm trying to save money for a wheel and 4 pitch combs.

In the next few weeks I'll be finishing up the Fugly afghan, getting the basement cleaned out and a work space set up, making a skirting table (No more skirting on the front porch or living room floor!!) combing out the rest of that Cheviot, and washing up some more wool.

I have fallen

Oh the shame. I was doing so well too, but that wool was whispering so loudly that I had no choice but to give in. Yes, I have set aside the fugglienes for wool.

I still have several fleeces that need washed. It takes forever to wash an entire fleece. Picking out the icky bits, washing handfuls at a time in the kitchen sink, letting it dry on the electric sweater dryer for a day or two, picking out the smaller bits.... you get the picture. It takes forever, it's smelly, dirty work, and I love every bit of it. Raw (unwashed) wool is stinky but it's a good stinky. It means I'm being creative and doing something I love. There's just so much potential in raw wool. The family has other ideas about the mess and smell though, so I have to get up very early to do it before it bothers the others.

The wool I'm washing now will be died and spun to make area rugs for the house. We have all wooden floors and no area rugs so it's going to take a lot of spinning before this project is finished. The wool isn't next-to-the-skin-soft so every once in a while I'll hit up Etsy and see what nice things are out there to spin. THAT was my real downfall yesterday. I found some yummy merino and silk that would make beautiful scarves for my dad and his wife. (Yes I promised myself that I wouldn't make handmade gifts this year. Yes I realize it's only 4 weeks until Christmas and the wool hasn't even shipped yet, let alone been spun, knitted, and mailed out. Yes I realize I'm crazy for even thinking I can get these done in time), then I found some really pretty merino and tencel and..... I think you see where this is going.

It's all the wools fault I tell you. If it would only stop asking to be washed.

This thing is getting to large to manage. It's 73 rows (so far), nearly 7 feet long, and still fuggly. But I knew that wasn't going to change. So far I've been a good girl and have only worked on this afghan since I started it. I'm still itching to get the loom warped, and there's the counted cross stitch wolves I've got going, the card woven straps I want to weave, and the table top covers I want to embroider, not to mention all the wool that still needs washed and carded before I can spin it.... heavy sigh.

I've taught my daughter how to crochet now. I tried last year but she wasn't interested. Now I've given her a skein of very fuzzy soft-as-a-bunnies-butt yarn and she's working on her own scarf. Maybe I can talk her into crocheting her own afghan too. That would be one less for me to do.

Making progress. Fugly progress.

Slowly but surely. There were at least two nights when I was too tired to even crochet. It takes me about 40 minutes to crochet one row I think. I haven't really timed it except that it takes longer than an half hour tv show, and even longer if one of the cats is "helping" me.

I do a lot of flittering between projects and one of my looms has been whispering to me. I'm trying to be good and get at least this afghan finished before I start something else. I still have my son's afghan that I'm knitting. I'm still not happy with it, but I've started that thing over so many times I think he's afraid he'll never be warm this winter if I don't just go ahead with it.

The plan is to finish the fugly afghan by the end of November ('m not making Christmas presents this year), then get a warp on the loom while working on the knitted afghan, as well as starting another afghan with different yarn and a real pattern this time. I have a lot of baby sport and fingering weight yarn that I want to use up. It's very soft and pastel so I'll have to come up with something that suites it.

Wish me luck.

I'm still here

Phew what a busy summer I had. I wish I could say that I have a lot of free time to blog now, but alas, school started again so I'm still without blogging time. I'll still blog when I can and as things start clearing up around here (life wise I mean) I'll be able to blog more often.

In the mean time.

What do you do when you have been given 5 totes full of yarn? Well, it wasn't really "given" since my husband paid her for them but I feel like they were given. Hubby picked up a load of unknown craft items (I think there were 7 black garbage bags full) of stuff and brought it home for me. There was a lot of stuff in there that I will never use so we added it to a bunch of our other stuff and had a humongous yard sale.

Back to the yarn though. I love some of it. It's soft and silky and high quality and cost more than I would be willing to shell out for yarn. Yes I'm cheap. I pulled out what I wanted to keep for knitting, crocheting, and weaving and put the rest up for sale. After the sale I still had tons of yarn I don't want. They are colors that I wouldn't normally work with, or pretty colors I love but there's not enough to make what I want, or colors that don't go with each other well.

So, what do you do when you have scads of ugly yarn and left overs? You make a fugly afghan of course.



24 colors, most of them are full skeins, so I will be making more than one of these things. Just a simple crochet stitch so I don't have to think while I'm working on it, and with six people living in a cold drafty old house we don't care if it's pretty as long as it keeps us warm. This one is nearly 7 feet long because we have giants living among us.

I'll be back when I can. This was a rushed post as it's our anniversary and I need to get ready to go out for an early dinner and movie.

I think I may have overdone it a little with buying fleece, but the smell of sheep in my house again makes me happy.

Pictures to come as soon as I figure out what the kids did with my camera.

I wasn't happy at all with the way my son's afghan was turning out, so I scrapped it for another design. This time I'm weaving it on my little 4 inch loom.



I'm not really wild about the colors he chose (red, black, and gray), but it's his afghan and he's the one who has to live with it.

Decorating the craft room

... with wooden spools and loom parts

Planning more projects

I should be banned from craft stores. Really I should be.

I guess "Herald" is good for something while we try to find the parts to get him working. Here he is modeling a card woven strap I made last night. I was bored so I really didn't have anything in mind when I measured the warp. It ended up being to short to use on the table loom, so I tied it onto the front beam and roller of Herald. This left me little room to manipulate the cards, so it's not the best weaving job I've ever done, but it did keep me occupied for an evening.

I'm still getting the loom set up. What started as a "Hey let's move this piece of furniture over here..." has turned into a house that's turned upside down. The kids and I have almost gotten things where we want them, and then I can get my hands back at the loom and see how well she/he works. It's a Herald loom, but I just can't bring myself to call it that. I'll have to come up with a name after I've used her/him a little bit.

I've also been thinking again about making things for an etsy shop. I have a few ideas, but it's scary thinking about starting something like that.

I own a what?!

How do I show extreme excitement without sounding like I'm 10 years old?

OMG!!!!!XXX27!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope, I can't do it. I have become a little kid and it's all thanks to my new 45" 8 shaft - 10 treadle floor loom.

Found on Craig's list, it was a deal I couldn't pass up. This loom came with 7 reeds (some have a little rust but should clean up), lease sticks, 2 cone holders, 4 boat shuttles (1 is a double), 2 ski shuttles, 2 net shuttles, a 14 1/2 yard warping board, a sectional warp beam (needs the mounting bars) extra heddles, and 53 cones of yarn. If I had bought all the extras through normal means (and it was all stuff I needed anyway except maybe the net shuttles and the sectional warp apparatus which is nice but not necessary), it would have come to a hell of a lot more than what I actually paid. It's kind of like getting the loom for free! As an added bonus she threw in 31 Handwoven magazines and 16 Weavers Craft magazines. The Weavers Craft are old editions that I was wishing I could afford months ago.



This picture came out too small to really see but, the cones are two deep in almost all the cubbies.

The yarn is all 1 to 31/2 pound cones of linen, chenille, wool, oodles of cotton, and 7 cones of perle cotton which I can't wait to start card weaving with. Please excuse the painting that needs done in this picture. Anyone want to lug a 7'x 4' solid hardwood bookcase outside so that I can paint it and the wall? No I didn't think so. My husband won't either.

The only problem with the loom so far, is that I'm missing one 3/8"x9" hex bolt, and 4 hex nuts. No one around here has ever heard of a 9" hex bolt it seems, so I had to order one online. It comes tomorrow, and then I can start weaving my little heart out. There is plenty of yarn to play with, so I won't feel guilty 'wasting' expensive yarn while I learn.


OMG!!! I own a floor loom!

WIPS

... or at least on the list of 'to get started'.

SPIN
- Dad's birthday scarf.
*Needs to be finished before 3-20-10.*
Progress – choose fiber, Make swatches, comb, card, spin yarn, ply yarn, knit scarf
.... update: There was no way I could get this all spun and knitted up in time. Instead I spun/knit a swatch (finished the morning before we left to visit him) and my daughter sewed it onto the back of a little stuffed lamb as we were driving to the hotel. It turned out kind of like a saddle blanket. It was a weird gift but kind of cute. I promissed him I'd have a real scarf ready for his 80th birthday. I should probably get started on that now. I only have 10 years to finish it.

- yarn for rugs
Progress - choose fiber, comb, card, spin.

CARDWEAVE

- 6- card woven dog leashes for mom.
*Needs to be finished by 12-25-11.*
Progress – make patterns, choose colors, buy yarn, weave leashes : Alfie, Pippin, Casey, Maggie, Bridget, Bailey, buy clasps, sew clasps and handles.

- swatches for notebook
Progress - buy yarn, weave, attach to patterns.

Fix loom
- make raddle
Progress - cut wood, sand wood, hammer nails.
- Add heddles
Progress - buy heddles, add heddles

Weave
- waffle weave dish towels for myself.
Progress - buy yarn, warp loom, weave, full.

- dishcloths for mom
Progress - buy yarn, warp loom, weave, full.

- start on weaving book projects.
Progress - choose yarn, choose colors, buy yarn, warp loom, weave, full.

Knit
- 2 1 more dishcloths for mom.
Progress - choose patterns, buy yarn, knit, block

- A's afghan
Progress - choose colors, choose pattern, buy yarn, knit, block.

- C's afghan
Progress - chose colors, choose yarn, choose pattern, knit, block.

SEW

- Purple quilt
Progress - cut material, wash blocks after cats peed on them GRR!, layout and re-cut what was damaged, piece, sew, quilt.

- Brown quilt
Progress - finish cutting, piece, sew quilt.

- C's skirt
Progress - choose pattern, buy material, sew.

- Sewing machine cover
Progress – make pattern, choose material, cut, sew.

- Printer cover
Progress - choose material, make pattern, cut, sew, embroider.

- Rag doll
Progress - make pattern, cut, sew, make pattern for clothes, choose clothes material, cut clothes, sew clothes, embroider face, sew hair.

Learn to clone myself so I can get all of this done.

progress - *************

My problem with hobbies/crafts

Where does everyone get their energy to do everything AND crafts? By the time I’ve done some laundry, the kids and I are finished with school, I’ve made dinner and cleaned up, I’m so tired it’s all I can do to make it into bed, let alone spend the hours it takes to warp the loom.

This is certainly not worth getting upset over. I just don’t understand how so many of you manage it.

Because I said I'd post it back with my pea soup: My favorite bread recipe. This recipe is very easy and forgiving and comes from an Amish lady.

6-7 Cups flour
1/3 Cup sugar
2 ½ TBs vegetable shortening
2 tsp salt.
2 ¼ tsp (or 1 envelope) yeast.
½ Cup warm water
2 Cups warm water


Melt shortening. Dissolve yeast in ½ C water and set aside.

Measure out flour by scooping from the bag. Yes you heard me right. Do not do the proper spoon and measure, but scoop with a big ole’ measuring cup and level with your hand.

Add melted shortening, sugar, salt, and yeast water together in bowl with 2 cups warm water.

Here I use my Kitchenaid mixer (it’s old and cranky but still does a great job) Mix until you can no longer hear the sugar scraping in the bottom of the bowl.

Slowly add the flour. Start with 3 cups and mix thoroughly. Then add by 1 cup increments, allowing the mixer to completely mix between additions.

Once the mixer can’t mix anymore, plop the dough out onto a floured board and continue to add flour as you need. Add only enough flour to give you the right consistency. Here I’m hoping you already know how to make bread because bread making, for me anyway, is all about looks and feel, not hard recipe facts.
Kneed until dough is smooth (no longer looks like it has cellulite) and place in a greased bowl. Dampen a dish towel and place it over the bowl. Place dough in a warm, draft free place. Let it rise until doubled. This will depend on how warm your kitchen is. It can take my dough up to 4 hours to double sometimes.

Punch down the dough and plop out onto floured board. Divide in half and shape into 2 loaves. Place each loaf into a greased bread pan. Prick the tops with a fork, cover with damp towel and let rise again.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes. My new oven element takes a while longer to cook things so I just estimate and keep watching. Once it’s nicely browned on top and sounds hollow when you knock on it, it’s done.

Place on metal cooling rack, lightly butter tops and turn out of pans, setting top side up again. Try to keep everyone out of it until it’s cooled enough to cut.

We go through about 10 loaves of bread a week around here, so I’m ALWAYS baking bread. I just wrote this out from memory so if you try it and something doesn’t seem right you can blame me.

Now it’s 9:30pm and while I’m dying to get my hands into some wool and do more carding and spinning tonight, I think I’ll just go to bed. Tomorrow it’s more laundry, a huge lesson in American History (which I am having a blast teaching) and more bread baking before an even earlier bed time so I can get up at 4am on Saturday to help my oldest get his car to his mechanic.