Woohoo! Look! It's linen!

Ugly linen but it's linen! The roving was all prepared so you don't have to do anything to it but spin it. Exactly what I was looking for. I've never tried the preparation process with flax but have done it with nettle for papermaking. Dew retting takes forever (months). A process that's interesting to try it at least once and that's about it.

Colleen at Wild Rose sugggested wrapping the roving in a towel. The moisture from your hands will gum the fibres together. I found some more tips on the internet. Spin counter-clockwise, low twist and very little tension. Wet spinning is not a problem as that's how I spin my paper. All that moisture does make your fingers chapped and wrinkled. You can spin this roving wet or dry but wet will give you a smoother thread.

It took a long time to spin this little bit! Well, I was looking for a new fibre challenge and this stuff is really a challenge. I feel like I should go spin some cotton to make me feel better...just kidding.

Total fibre weekend!

As usual, Fibre Fest was an absolute blast! What I love about Fibre Fest (aside from the obvious fibre) is the people. There is no such thing as a stranger there. You pick up a skein of yarn or a bag of roving and someone will come up and start talking to you. Total strangers will become enablers.

This year's Fibre Fest was a little different because it was combined with the Country Life show. I think it worked because it gave my poor husband something to look at other than fibre. I did noticed that there seemed to be more yarn and a little less raw fibre than previous years. There were certainly more animals! I fell in love with a beautiful alpaca named Louis.

Total haul for today:

4 bags of prepared flax rovings, ready for spinning from Wild Rose
1 bag of Fox Fire organic cotton from Wild Rose.
1 skein of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn kit
1 Sock blocker key chain with mini Opal yarn
2 skeins of Laura Fry's handdyed bamboo
1 bag of alpaca/silk with Angelina fibre from Princess Farms



The little sock blocker and mini Opal was too cute to pass up! I think I'll keep the Opal intact and use some of my leftover sock yarns to knit the mini sock. Is it strange to want to change the sock on my keychain to match the socks I'm wearing?

In addition to the Fibre Fest stuff today, I picked up 4 skeins of linen at the Guild meeting on Thursday night. It was all Rusty's fault...I was doing so well not buying anything until she calls out that there's no tax! I'm only human.

On the way home, we stopped off to pick up a package at the post office...

It's a fabric cutter from Harry M. Fraser & Co. It comes with your choice of a cutter head and I ordered two additional cutters. I used to have an old one - not a Fraser cutter. It was a very old plastic thing that didn't cut very well. The cutter can't be sharpened. It was something I picked up secondhand long time ago. It was so annoying having to go over all the cuts by hand because it never cut all the way through. I always wanted a good one. These things are handy to have around.

So, yeah, I missed Friday with my friends but I think I did quite well fibre-wise. :D

Well, that sucks!

Everyone is off today and tomorrow for some kind of conference. So I'm working Friday because we have a newbie and a temp in. That means no Fibre Fest for me on Friday. People who are going on Friday, don't buy everything up...save some fibre for me. I'll be there Saturday but it's not the same. All my friends will be there on Friday.

:whine:
:whine:

The Spin-in will be on Saturday afternoon. I'm thinking of bringing my wheel but I may be too busy shopping. Shopping for fibre always makes me feel better. :D

My Igolochkoy needles have arrived!

My Igolochkoy punch needles arrived today! I can't wait to try them out. The needles are really well made - no burrs to catch on the fabric. I was going to wait until I finished my green sweater first but just had to try these needles out. Gail Bird at http://www.gailbird.com/ is really fast! I just ordered the needles last week!

It's four or five sleeps to Fiber Fest - four sleeps if I go on Friday and five sleeps if I go on Saturday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's going to be Friday. This will depend on how things go at work this week.

Another one!

Looks like a couple of the loops are out of place. That's ok...I can just nudge them back with a needle. This one is 2.5"x2.5". The fabric is Irish linen. I read somewhere that you shouldn't use 100% cotton as the needle will cut the fabric instead of punching through. I only had 100% cotton Aida or Irish linen. I thought the linen would be stronger. It was difficult to work with as the needle did cut the fabric strands. I had to make sure the needle punched between. If I were to use linen again for punchneedle, I think it would be better to wash the fabric first. It was really stiff to work with. Good for cross stitch but not so good for punchneedle.

Gillian, thanks for the info on your rug. It sounds like yarn was used instead for bigger rugs. I can't imagine how long it would take to make something that size with embroidery floss! :0

Punchneedle Embroidery

Look at what I made!



It's punchneedle embroidery. Last week, I saw that Quiltopia is offering a workshop on punchneedle embroidery. I did a web search and came up with a lot of references & instructions. It doesn't look that hard. Serendipity (aka local newspaper) brought a Michael's 40% off coupon to my door and pretty soon, I was punching away on this kit. As long as you don't look at it close up, it looks fine. The back is really messy but not bad for my first effort, I think. It doesn't look finished with the background plain so I might do something about that.

Things to remember:

Punchneedle work is done on a small scale. Finished pieces are usually no bigger than 5". Small is good.

Get a good needle. The one Michael's sell is ok and cheap but if you're interested in doing this more than once, invest in a good needle. The tiny burr at the end of my needle kept catching on the fabric. The two that seems to be preferred by other punchneedle enthusiasts are Cameo and Igolochkoy. Locally, Quiltopia and Shan's Needleworks sells Cameos.

The suggested fabric is weaver's cloth. I'm not sure what that is. The fabric in the kit looks similar to a 28 count Aida cotton. Possibly even 32 count.

Things to do...

...at the crack of dawn Saturday morning...



...while watching English Premier League soccer.

That's the tussah silk noil that I've been picking through for a while now. No matter how thorough you are picking out chunks of VM, you always find more as you're spinning. I carry a small ziplock baggie of the noil with me and pick through it whenever I have a few minutes. It's actually better than knitting for short spurts of free time. No worries about finishing the row.

Midweek blahs

I really need to take a picture of the purple cardigan before I frog the trim. Yes, the sleeves are all sewn in but I'm not happy with them...the sewing looks a bit sloppy even after blocking. I really need to work on my finishing techniques. The trim is a picot edge all around the sweater. It looks good lying on the blocking board but not so good on me. I think I'll put this away for now. Maybe when I feel up to it, I'll knit a cable rib around the sweater.

Good thing Fiber Fest is less than 3 weeks away...I need pick-me-up. Kris's last day is the same day as Fiber Fest. I'm really going to miss her. We've been working together for a lot of years.

Just cuz...

In case you ever need to make your own cow...

Mine is sitting by my computer. Heh!

What day is it?

All week long, I've been a day off. Short weeks are great if your workload is shorten to match the short week. Another busy week over. It looks like another two months to go before things will settle down.

One month to Fibre Festival!

The sleeves for purple cardie are still not sewn in yet. I'm seriously considering re-knitting the sleeves right on the sweater. I've never knitted a set-in sleeve right to sweater before. I've done top-down sweaters with raglan sleeves but not sleeves needing shoulder shaping. I did find a couple of website with some good suggestions - Morehouse Farm's knitting tips for armholes and Heartstrings Fiber Arts seamless shoulder-down sleeves.

Am I crazy? I would rather re-knit the darn sleeves than sew them in.

Spring has sprung!

All the Magnolia buds have thrown off their fuzzy little jackets to enjoy the sunshine! The tree is packed full of pink and white flowers!

PURPLE CARDIGAN V1.3 (aka Fall Cable KAL project)

The plan for this glorious super long Easter weekend? Sew the sleeves to the body and decide on how I would like to finish the edges.

Right now I'm leaning towards quick & easy (crochet edge all around). But this is version 3 of my Fall Cable KAL, in previous reincarnations have been Knitty's BPT and partially knitted Paton's Urban Aran, and I feel slightly guilty that there's not one speck of cable anywhere on this cardigan.

I'm not sure I want to mention what Plan B is...it involves a lot of math and another 50 years of knitting.

Not for the faint of heart...

Being not of sound mind and body on Friday, I decided to tackle one of my WIP boxes.


After close to three hours of untangling and rewinding, I got this...


Not all the WIPs have been reclained but at least, everything is untangled. Amber, I really could have used your help on Friday.

Nothing new or exciting here...

It's another rainy Saturday and Crazy Man is out running. Nothing new or exciting here today. Just doing a bit of laundry & knitting. The sleeves are almost done for the purple sweater. No pictures since it's so dark and dreary outside and I don't want to set up the lights.

Maybe I'll wander up to the LYS later & see if there's anything interesting there. :D

Happy St. Patty's Day!

For those of us living in the Lower Mainland of BC, here's something to look forward to. It's ugly out there today.



Just a reminder that it's going to get better.

It was unexpected that I have the house all to myself today. Son was called in to work early and Hubby went running. Yeah, he's crazy that way.

My plan for today will be to continue on with my list from yesterday. I can cross off a few things on yesterday's list. Finally finished the top of the cardigan and started the sleeves. Soap is done and curing.

One day is just not enough!

I have today off from work and here's a list of things I wanted to do.

1. Make a batch of liquid soap. Not sure if this is a good idea. It takes 4 hours of simmering but too late to change my mind...it's on the stove now.

2. Finally finish the top of my cardigan so I can start the sleeves. I still have ~2" to go. All the knitting I'm doing on this cardigan seems disappear into the black hole of knitting. I think it doesn't help that I get bored of this after two or three rows.

3. Finish spinning the fibre on my wheel.

4. Make some 1" art squares. I've been meaning to do this since December. I have all the stuff and I have a plan. I just didn't have the time.

5. Carve out my rubber stamps. The blocks are sketched out and ready to be carved. I found all my knives and everything is ready to go. Again, need time. I don't like distractions when I'm carving. I always worry that I'm going to cut myself.

5. Clessidria socks - ok, that one has been on my mind for the last few days. I'm been phoning around to see if any of the LYS has Regia Silk in stock. I have 4 - 1/2lb skeins of superwash merino fingering weight in natural white. One skein is ~112o yds. That might be enough for a pair of socks. I could dye that to use for the socks.

6. Replace the zipper on my jacket. This shouldn't take long since I've already done the tedious work of removing the old zipper.

Did anyone noticed that there's not one mention on this list of cleaning or laundry? :D

Knitty's Clessidra

It's been a while since anything on Knitty got me this excited! I think I've found my next sock project. I don't just want to knit them now - I want to wear them now!!!

I'm excited enough to post twice in one day!

:D

Spring Ahead already

The one thing (and only one thing) that I used to hated about Spring is Daylight Savings. We lose an hour of our precious weekend. I don't mind when we get the hour back in the Fall. To make matters worse, it's now earlier (today) because WE (not me but our government) wanted to sync up with the US. It's really mucking up the electronics in the house. My cell phone is just not syncing up and it's supposed to do that automatically.

I really don't have anything new or exciting to say. Work is busy. It's a busy time of the year for us. One good thing was that I met Angela of Food and Yarn. She's found a new source of Icelandic fleece! I love running into Knitters at work!

A Wet and Dreary Day!



The Weather Guys weren't kidding when they said it was going to rain all weekend. What you can't see is the rain coming down by the buckets! Nice weather if you're a duck. It's nasty out there today. It's good for the plants, though.

My plan for today is to make a big pot of chicken soup, bake some bread, and try to finish the top of my cardigan. And start the sleeves.

My (crazy) husband's plan is go hit golf balls. He's trying to convince our son to join him. Heh!

a bit of fibre therapy...

Let's just say, so far, this year has been a very strange year as far as work goes and leave it like that.

Last weekend I went through some of my fibre buckets and found a bag of the Cotswold/silk blend from last year's Fibrefest. I started spinning it and it's really wonderful to spin a beautiful fibre that's so well prepared. Last summer, I had spun up a small sample of this fibre. I found it needed a lot of twist and the single was very stiff and wirey. I wasn't sure I liked it. But after plying, the resulting yarn was much softer and knits up very nicely. I love silk blends in my wool. Silk gives the fabric a nice shine but really hard to photograph.

I'm hoping it will rain all Sunday so I can feel justified in spinning all day long.

This is a Fuzzy Dozen from Fuzzy Mabel. I love it! You buy 12 skiens and they send you 13. Free wool. It's all good. Not sure what this will be yet...just yarn therapy for the moment. I usually have my packages deliverd to me at work. This saves me from having to make a special trip to the post office. In the middle of a bad day, a package of yarn arrives. How cool is that? There's more than enough for a sweater of some sort, eventually.

Our pre-spring weather here has been strange - warm one day and snow the next. The plants don't seem to be affected by temperature fluctuations and continued to do what they do best.

Alive & kicking!

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Or buried beneath mounds of fibre in my workroom. It's just an ordinary mundane thing like work. Lately, it's been taking up way too much of my time. There is an end in sight and all is good...at least, it's getting manageable.

Fibre-wise, I've started a Feel-Good sweater. Quick easy mindless knitting. Sometimes you need something like that.

Tomatoes & Barenaked Ladies

Tumbler Cherry tomatoes are the best tomatoes in the world. They are so easy to grow. They can be grown from hanging baskets. The tomatoes are huge, ranging from 1&1/2" to 2" in diameters. There is only a small amount of seeds in each package but every seed usually germinates. We plant about 12 pots each year and end up with way too many tomatoes.

Another great thing about these tomatoes is that they germinate quickly. The seeds were planted 2 weeks ago and now they're 2" tall, starting their secondary leaves. It's not too early to start them indoors. They should be ready to planted outside in early May.

Not much to see yet but this little one is a Zebra Tomato planted a week ago. I came across someone selling Zebra tomatoes at the Farmer's Market last year. She suggested saving the seeds for this year. I saved 12 seeds and wasn't sure if they would germinate. So far, there are 3 little seedlings popping up.

Barenaked Ladies

Great concert! Worth all the stress of getting there! When we bought the tickets last year, I thought the date looked familiar. It turned out it was the same night as another major event at work. Saturday was busy...ran into work, did what I needed to do, and out of there by 5pm. Quick dinner at Calypso on Robson (it was ok - my lamb was good but hubby's wasn't and the beer was flat.) and then on to the show!

The Barenaked Ladies really put on a great show. A good time was had by all. What was really cool was that there were tables set up by the various causes the band supports. You gotta admire these guys...great musicians and environmentally conscientious too.