This Lady Knits

Curiosity got the best of me and as it happens I have a Fricke Woolee Winder.  So I tossed on my pipe to make the bobbin fit, then I tossed on the Woolee Winder (WW) and it didn’t want to work.  The flyer was too far from the bobbin for the gears to mesh.  I sent DH to the Hardware Store one day on a mission, while I was off at a spin in, to find me 2 things, another pipe, same size as the one I already had but shorter, if we had to cut it down, well we could do that and to find me a screw, identical to the one in my WW, he found the screw, but not the pipe.  So off went an email to Doug, maker of the Pocket Wheel to find out where he bought his pipes….he bought them locally, which is not so local for me, about an hour and a half north of me as a matter of fact.  He send me a pipe, 4.5″, and I got it in the mail today.  I tossed that on there, then the WW with the longer screw and started spinning, worked for about 2 min, then the WW lost it’s grip and stop flying.

HMMMMM, now what.  I rememered something from a Ravelry thread about pipe/plumbers tape, it was a Matchless thread to help with clacking as the whorls got older, they loosen up.  Guess what, there was some in my spinning kit, perfect, wrapped that around several times, wanted to add a little “cushion” on there screwed the flyer back on, and yes, I now have a WW that works on my Pocket Wheel , and it spins great, I can’t even feel the added weight of the flyer as I do with some of my other wheels.

Well, DH and I decided to take off for Pasadena for a week, and silly me, I keep forgetting to take pics, but there has been plenty of knitting and spinning, as I’ve spent quite a bit of time with mah Knitta’s the last couple of days.

See progress, this just had the back down to the arms when i left Seattle, but now, well it’s a front and a back down to the sleeves, collar is done, and i’m an inch or so below the underarm.

We’re hitting the road again today, to head up for Canby Oregon, to go to OFFF, I’m taking a day long spinning class on Sunday and want to get some shopping time in tomorrow, can’t go to a fiber festival without doing some shopping now can I.  Right now we’re sitting at a Toyota dealer, no I didn’t break my truck yet, but I did manage to pick up a screw on our trip down to San Diego yesterday, once that’s done we’ll be on our way.

I’ll regale you with my pictureless rendtion of my knitterly exploits later.  Thanks again to TC Marie for a wonderful time this week, and I love the house and you will finish with all the rest of those boxes soon.

Look what showed up at my house, yes it really is a picture.  No it didn’t show up with a full bobbin, I filled that.  What is it you may be asking, it’s a Butterfly e-Spinner.  Very fast and Whisper quiet.  That bobbin you see sitting on top, well it’s a Woolee Winder Bobbin and it’s much closer to standard size than that full bobbin.  That full bobbin is a Jumbo Ashford Bobbin and can hold 8oz of fiber, and well i just happend to have 8 oz lazing around waiting to be plied.  I won’t know the yardage until I get around to skeining it, and who knows how long that will take, I have 2 other ginormous bobbins, and 4 of the Woolee Winder bobbins, and an a bearing so I can use my old Lendrum Woolee Winder, yes I sold the Lendrum, but I kept the Woolee Winder , good thing I did.

The fiber, it’s a Blue Moon Sheep to Shoe kit in one of the Raven Colors – Rook-y.  It really does look mostly black, but i did notice stretch of color as i was plying, so we’ll see what happens to it when i skein it.  There is a bit of a dark dark gray in there and you can see a hint of it in the pic.

Back to playing with my new toy.

I just realized that not only has it been a while since I blogged, but it’s been a month and a half!  Where does the time go.  Since i haven’t taken any pictures of anything lately, this will be a pic free post.  Pretty much a hey I’m still alive post!

So what have I been up to, well not much on the knitting front, only FO i have to show for anything is a pair of socks, Catoptrical (Ravelry link), for serveral months. What’s new in my house, well there is a lot of that, I really need to take some pics.  A while ago (ok, so that was at the end of May early June) I bought a Baby Wolf (Yup it’s a picture of my loom, but not in my house and not my picture) a weaving loom, not a real wolf, wouldn’t have anyplace to keep a real one.  So I took a weaving class, which led to buying a table loom as well.  DH picked me up another wheel, an Ashford Joy, which brings my wheel collectiong back up to 6 (Matchless, the Victoria, the Rose, Pocket, a Little Gem, and now the Joy).  Oh yeah, can’t foget the Bosworth Charkha or the Fricke E-spinner.  Yes I’ve been busy collecting tools.

So there has been lots of spinning, I still am buried by bobbins full of singles that need to be plied, I just need to take a weekend and ply ply ply.  Some of weaving lately, mostly samples for class, but I did manage to weave a rug and a scarf and now there is a table runner on the table loom .  There has been some knitting, mostly casting on, very little finishing.  My Everyday cardigan that I cast on on the 1/1/08, well the body is done, the sleeeves are done, shoulders are seamed and there is even 1 sleeve pinned on to the body, I just really need to finish that sweater, it’s so close. 

Oh well, I’m still alive and breathing, hoping to take some pics over the course of the 3 day weekend, but no promises, but i will try.

I have been a very bad blogger, but life has been busy around here lately.

Memorial Day Weekend DH and I spontaneously decided to hop on a ferry and head out to Friday Harbor on San Juan Islands.  For those not local, it’s the biggest of the San Juan Islands and is about a hour drive, then another hour on a ferry from where we live.

We saw this little cutie:

Some of his friends:

There are more pictures that you can find on here, didn’t have much time, so I just dumped them all there.

The following week I went up to Whistler on a business trip, it was more of a retreat than a business trip, there were some meetings, but I went on my first Helicopter ride, then the next afternoon, I went zip trekking.  I have pics from the Helicopter ride, but I really need to go through those before uploading them.

Last week, my spinning group had a class with Judith Mackenzie Mccuin.  OMG that woman is wonderful, she had lots of knowledge to impart and does it in a great way.  If you are a spinner and can only take one class ever, it must be with Judith as the teacher.  No pics from the spinning class, but wow, my brain was exploding after 2 days with her, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Last, but only chronologically, I picked up a Baby Wolf Weaving Loom yesterday.

There has been some knitting, but not as much as I would have liked, lots of spinning.  OTN right now is a pair of socks, that isn’t mine to reveal, but as soon as the Nancy publishes it I’ll let you know, it’s a really fun knit.

Ok, back to work with me, I have a lot to catch up on not having been in the office for a full week in 3 weeks, amazing how much work piles up.

DH and I took a trip up to Friday Harbor this last weekend and while waiting for the ferry to get off the island there was this:

See the crosswalk?  Well that’s at the back of the queue to load the ferry boat.  See the cop?  he’s standing in the middle of the street directing traffic.  See the spectators…they’re all wondering why is this guy parked in the middle of the street.  yes you read that right.  This individual saw fit to park in the middle of the street.  When he returned he was lucky to find his truck still there, the tow truck had been called but hadn’t showed up yet.  The cop was nice and didn’t ticket the man.  But when asked by the cop why he parked in the middle of the street, his response, “Because all the lines were full and there was space”  The cop just shook his head and said under his breath, but loud enough for all to hear “and we haven’t even hit the busy season yet”

Wings of Fantasy is off the blocking board and here you go, pics as promised…for once

Also off the blocking board:

Pattern:  Gust by Anne of Knitspot

Needles:  Addi Lace #6’s

Yarn:  (drumroll please) 100% Mohair and it’s my handspun .

This was a quick and easy lace to learn, remembering to pay attention to it thought proved to be difficult, I tinked as much as I knit because I kept socializing while trying to knit this one, oh well it’s done, and yes I may even do it again.  This one is destined to land at Mom’s since it was gifted to her on Mother’s Day complete with needles, then taken back so that it could be finished.

yes an actual FO, and my 2nd post in 2 days .

Once it’s dry I’ll take better pics, between the blocking board and the color varigation, it didn’t turn out so well in the pics.

Stats:

Pattern: Wings of Fantasy by Hazel Carter

Yarn: Claudia’s Handpainted Yarn – Silk Lace

Colorway: Midnight

Needles: Addi Lace #5’s, (I wondered where those disappeared to)

What can I say, I loved knitting this, I had no problems with the pattern, it was an easy read for me.  I love the yarn and I love the FO, an all around pleasure for me to knit.

Before our drop spinning class, I was spinning with my Aroma Therapy Ring Spindle made by Thomas Golding, and a few of us got to talking about how cool it would look on a 5-pointed star, you know a little cauldron sitting on top of a 5-pointed star with a brass ring around it.

Well later that weekend I thought about it some more, which led to me sending an email to Thomas Golding asking about if he could do it and the cost.  I found the cost to be reasonable, considering this was a custom design request.  Well one thing led to another and look what showed up in the mail today:

Whorls 2 3/4″ Cherry Handcarved 5-point star

Style: Aromatherapy

Shaft: Walnut 5/16″ x 8 3/4″

Weight 1.46 oz.

It is absolutely beautiful in it’s simplicity.  The balance is incredible as is the craftmanship.  The spin time….wow, with a flick it’s off and running and i can draft until I am reaching up as far as I can and it hits the ground, which stops the spin of course, but I’m sure if I were taller it would spin longer as it would take longer for it to find the ground .

Yes there has been some knitting and even some finishing, but the 2 fo’s I have are waiting for a dunk and block.  So pics later, well ok as soon as I get over my awe of this spindle, or at least put it down long enough to block the scarf and shawl i’ve finished.

I’m back to spinning.

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve last posted, but guess what, I didn’t fall off the face of the planet, and yes I actually remembered to bring my camera.  There has been some knitting, and even an FO, I just need to take a picture of it, but I’m knitting away at my Mother’s day present, Gust, I missed it by a scant 3 repeats, mom loves it though, more on that later when it’s done.  Most of all there has been spinning at my house, I’ll fess up to all that in a later post, and post some eye candy, it’s been a while since I’ve posted any hand spun, and the wheels, oh do I have a bit to catch up on there.

This last Saturday, I took a little trip up to North Bend (about 50 miles from where I live, on the way to Snoqualmie Pass) to take an advanced drop spindling class with Amelia AKA The Bellwether. 

Forgive the pic, it was after the class was over and we were just kind of milling around, and I thought I need to take at least 1 picture.  I would have taken some earlier but I forgot I had the camera until this point.

Look at all those spindles, yes, during class we were allowed to try any spindle we wanted and use the spindles to learn on .  3 of those spindles made it home with me, pics to follow at a later date…maybe.

So I what did I learn:

1. I learned how to use a Turkish Spindle.  I am even more comfortable using a bottom whorl spindle, which was one of my goals for the class.
2. I learned how to Navajo ply on the drop spindle, it’s tricky, but no where near as complicated as I thought it would be .
3. I learned how to Ply-On-the-Fly, this is a neat bar trick, where you spin your single then navajo ply it before you wind on to the spindle, so when you are done, what comes off your spindle is a finished 3 ply yarn.  I may write it up here once I’m more comfortable with it.

All in all I had a great time, and it was definitely worth the trip out to North Bend to take this class, and I look forward to taking more classes with Amelia, but she’s just a tad farther away, in Sequim WA .  That’s a ferry trip and a floating bridge away, so it’s not exactly easy for me to get out to her LYS to take a class, but I’m thinking I may have to find a way, she is a joy to learn from. And now my addiction to spindling has brought my drop spindle collection up to 26 drop spindles, Amelia says I’m getting to the point where I’m a collector, but I still have a ways to go to catch up to her.