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still, still scouring...

If I've measured correctly the sample from VJ is 8.5 to 9 inches and I *think* the bags of wool are going to be comparable. I'm trying to find info on spinning from the fold vs spinning from the lock right now to determine how best to spin up this grey sample from vj which came to 9.3 ozs after scouring and drying. The pretty heathered effect of the wool cries out to be dyed but I'm not sure in what way so I'm letting the idea kick around in my head. I think your book is spot on and while this wool will felt I don't think it's going to be a great or easy felter! I scoured about 15.40 ozs of a choc. merino but I think I have about that much more of it to scour before I'm done. I put some cormo thru the at the same time but the results were less pleasing and it's still a bit greasy so I'm going to run it again after pt tomorrow.

--Wed. to do...
drain and rinse kiddie pool wool
drain and scour washbasin wool
rescour cormo
start sorting thru the Hallie woolbreak bag of fleece to scour for felting on Sat.

still scouring...

Well, the grey cotswold sample from VJ has weighed in after scouring at 9.3 oz and is quite lovely. The chocolate merino seems to have washed clean and is drying out on the rack but the cormo that I washed at the same time is still tacky with lanolin so I guess I'll have to try the whole process again. I've got an entire washbucket of white cotswold in its second outdoor soak--this time in dawn water and the other half of that first bag soaking in the kiddie pool out back. I did however find an old doorscreen that I can set up on bricks to use for drying fleece tomorrow:>.

Scouring

There's cormo scouring in the washer. There's cotswold in the bucket. There are two bags of Cotswold from the Sheile Museum to scour thanks to Pam!!! THank you Pam. I found some of the merino is already scoured and there is merino drying on the porch to rescour with a different method. Felting rugs on Saturday so I need to get some prep done.

Best Central Asian info website on a group ever!

I am absolutely blown away by the level of detail in this website, esp. concerning the yurts and women's clothing! I feel a refinement of several existing projects coming on. Perhaps one of the most exciting pics was of a weaving loom on one of the yurt pages that is exactly the type I've been looking for info on and includes it's name in the language of the area!!! I'm soooo jazzed.

http://www.karakalpak.com/index.html

On the art front today was another foray into inlaid felt. I'll post a pic tomorrow.

Plans for a new 12ft yurt are afoot! However, if I only had some extra cash laying about...

http://www.bukhara-carpets.com/kazakh_yurt_for_sale.html

Going slowly

Well, I'm a little slow on all my projects right now. I'm at a point where I need to sit down and catalog then prioritize my projects to get back on track. Everytime I start something it leads to something even cooler is the problem!

This is inspiring me...

I really wish I could remember where I found this picture. I think it may have been for sale on Ebay but it anyone knows the correct attribution please let me know. This is the weaving technique I'd like to learn this summer to begin weaving a belly band for my yurt as well as edges and trim for the fabric for my entry into the Outfit challenge. Is anyone familiar with this?

The Angel of Yarn and Roving
After taking Linda's class on dyeing I dyed some roving with the leftover dye from class and have now begun to spin it on my new Kundert 1.2 oz drop spindle. I haven't figured the precise wraps per inch yet. The roving itself is an 80s count fine merino from the Copper Moose and is extremely soft, even with the amount of twist I tend to put into my projects.

I'm also attempting to learn to do pickup weaving. I hope to get the Central Asian style down pat so I can do a very, very long decorative Yurt band this year from my yurt. Pics of the yurt are in last August's posts. Just signed up for a Central Asian rug felting class as well so I'm very excited.
Linda dyed this yarn and I love it!

Happy Memorial Day

Well, I'm working on spinning silk with the idea of trying to weave a small ribbon out of what I spin. This weekend I ended up working on spinning silk, learning the rudiments of pick up weaving, knitting a sock in a sockotta cotton blend, and spinning from the fold. Not too bad for vacation:>. It was really nice to have the DH playing with the toddler all weekend so I could relax. Once I dig out of the den full of dirty clothes and toys I'm hoping to start warping one of the 4 shaft looms to begin that project.

Hi all

Well, it's been a few hectic months but I've been steadily increasing my spinning and knitting skills. A happy twist of fate has landed a LeClerc Nilus loom in my art studio for cheap, cheap, cheap so I'm going to also pursue my interest in weaving. My current obsession is the following blog... www.saralamb.blogspot.com

This artist has a yurt studio, Central Asian influences, and a kickbutt sense of color!

New adventures

Well, things have been really busy lately but I'm going to make a point of updating so I can keep track of my projects. I'm currently knitting a purple mohair Pi shawl and have recently finished two pairs of toddler socks for my child. About 10 years ago I decided to learn to spin wool but never got very far with it as I didn't have anything to do with the yarn after it was spun. Thanks to the Joy of Knitting and Felting I now have enough projects to justify learning how to spin! I'm hoping to plant some dye plants in a small garden this spring as well to experiment with dyeing my own skeins of yarn and wool rolags.

No new knitting this past month. I hurt my pointer finger on my right hand and have had a lot of inconvience and irritation from it. I finally had it looked at at the docs today and at least it appears to be something that'll go away. I'm going to start back to knitting this week I hope.

"Black Friday"

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, people in the US loose their MINDS when it comes to shopping. The DH and I had to make an early trip out to Lowes for housepaint. To combat the projected long lines I brought my purse with my Pi shawl in it and knit while waiting for the paint to be mixed and also while in line. Hopefully if I keep plugging away at it I'll be able to get it done this next month. Life is crazy right now as we're moving out of a house a state away and into a house here and are down to one vehicle due to a wreck last month. I'm hoping to get some Christmas knitting projects started as soon as I get some comfy funiture in the new home so I can sit and knit without hurting my shoulder or back. Felting is on hiatus as well but I hope to pick it back up the first of the year. Housepainting and organizing is the name of the game currently.

Today I knitted a baby hat in wool for the Dulann project or the preemie project that I had started as a teaching project yesterday at the shawl knitting group. I've been asked to teach a couple of (prob slow paced) classes on knitting in the round for caps and things. I'm shocked and flattered, esp. since I've not been knitting even a year at this point. I'm going to work this week on a pattern and a handout. One of the members actually called on her cell phone to stop by and get some help picking up dropped stitches today. I was really happy to be able to help out.

Toddler sweater diaster!!!
DuH! I started a sweater for Joshua about 2 months ago or so. Today I tried it on and it completely doesn't fit. I'm going to do some rapid decreases and make it into a hat. An adult hat. I could scream. Really loudly. Next time I'm knitting a size above and with thick yarn and big ass needles!!!! At least it'll come out useful in it's life as a hat and it's wool so it'll be warm. It was some of that nice Paton's Classic Wool merino in a self striping colorway. To make up for this atrocity I am doing the measurements for another sweater using the Elizabeth Zimmerman book "Knitting without Tears" which seems appropiate somehow! I think I'm going to model the next one off a 3T sweater and go from there.

New Knitting group...I'm trying to organize a local knitting group similiar to my BAM group in SC which I really miss. Those ladies really inspired me and I didn't realize till I moved up here how fastpaced the learning enviroment was there! Hopefully I'll find knitters here and we'll all learn and enjoy ourselves learning new things about knitting just as much.

PrayerShawl Group

I went to the local Prayer Shawl group today with my halffinished shawl. Fortunately I found somone willing to take it over as a project. I have discovered that I cannot knit with needles over about size 10 1/2 without it causing arm problems. I also am not using any acrylic yarn if I can manage because it just doesn't seem to have give to it like the natural fibers. I mentioned I'd be willing to knit weekly (would jump at it actually) and one of the ladies said that was a possiblity. I'm also working on getting together a group of local knitters to sit and knit and socialize---there are three of us so far! I'm really happy about that.

Check out this link...
http://www.nwkniterati.com/movabletype/archives/MossyCottage/DulaanFlyer2007_color.pdf

Cautionary Walmart Tale and other things...

Last night while out at dinner our car died inexplicably. We had purchased it at Walmart within the last 3 years so we took it there to get it replaced as per their advertised warrenty. They refused to honor their replacement policy because they had "changed the numbers on the battery now so you'll have to buy a new one that has the current numbers". Walmart's return policy seemed very dishonest to me on this one and the service was crappy as usual. It was supposed to be covered, we bought it there, they failed to live up to there advertisements and policies. I won't be making anymore big purchases there unless it's an absolutely unavoidable situation. I've been reading and thinking a lot about "ethical shopping" and besides the horrible service am coming up with a lot of reasons to avoid shopping at Walmart. One of the things that interests me is the CSAs which I can't remember what it stands for but it's a buying club that purchases locally grown, organic foods. My big fear on that one is that I'm rather picky when it comes to veggies and I don't like a wide variety of them. In general I also prefer to buy from local businesses if at all possible rather than the souless chains that really don't do more than knock the mom and pop businesses out of service.

Yarn stash news...holey moley AC Moores was getting rid of their Alpaca, cashmerino, and mohair!!! I have a whole drawer full now---intant yarn stash at seriously discounted prices. I guess I better get cracking on Christmas and 12th Night presents which is what most of the stash is for. The mohair though is all mine--4 purple skeins and one white. I want to do a shawl and possible a lace scarf. I also want to start some more socks soon. The DH is so awesome...he just keep shoveling yarn in my cart as an early birthday present!

Today we went to a craftfair here in NC and meet a really nice gal. I hope to drag her into yarn mischief and arts&science goodness (lets see if we can get her addicted to felting or spinning!). I'm hoping to take some more spinning lessons soon from Lydia as well---try out the spinning wheel. If I could spin that way without hurting my shoulder I'd really be interested in spinning and then dying my own wool.


Felting for the vest is done at the first stage of the project. I now need to refine the vest pattern and test it before cutting on the felt. I'm really happy with it thus far and I hope to have a working vest by December. After that I have a super uber felting/garb project to begin that I hope to have complete by Tourney of Ymir (assuming they have it) in Febuary. Any later and it'll be too hot to wear it:>. I also had fun felting some lavender dreads from the SAFF wool that had been dyed with logwood and rinsed in amonia. Wore that out to dinner but our friends didn't seem to like them. Oh well, I did and the DH did and that's what matters.:>

I'm getting ready to go down to SC for BAM and really looking forward to it. I ran into a website on lj today about wool dreads and am sitting here wondering how hard it would be to make some kind of hat/headband with cool colored wool dreads.

More felting

Today I decided to get to work felting a garment and so have gotten the back of a vest made. I used the Icelandic mix I picked up at SAFF and am well pleased with it. Hopefully the weather will be good this week so I can work on the front pieces. I'm a little unclear whether or not this is a caftan/jacket or a vest but I expect it'll reveal itself to me during the creation process. I'm also posting a pic of the babyhat for the church knitting group tomorrow.

My DH gave me this lovely sweater today. I'm wondering if I could use it to pattern a sweater to knit. Seems like it would require shortrows?

recent projects...

Felted Hat from SAFF--made during the "Katherine Hat Class" by Chad Hagen which was absolutely wonderful. I can't wait to try another one:>
First of two of a variation of the Fetching pattern from Knitty.com. The picot top kept rolling down so I skipped it, also changed up the numbers on the cables. I'm really enjoying the alpaca yarn at this point.